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| From
the November/December 2007 issue of The Horn Book Magazine Recommended
Reissues
Since when have we needed so many choices? What is the fine line between offering something for everyone and annoying the heck out of our customers? I find myself asking this more and more as we’re inundated with old books in new formats. Does there really need to be a board book version of Stellaluna? Will the graphic novel versions of Artemis Fowl and Stormbreaker and the Baby-sitters Club novels extend the already huge audiences for those titles? How about the pop-up versions of We’re Going on a Bear Hunt and I Will Never Not Ever Eat a Tomato? Years ago, this reworking of established titles was referred to as “mining the backlist.” Now I’ve heard it described cynically by a children’s book publisher as “squeezing more juice from the orange.” Whatever you call it, the doctoring has filtered down to books for the very young. This season brings us board book versions of a number of familiar titles, welcome in some cases, baffling in others. I’m most pleased about Houghton Mifflin’s board book versions of Olivier Dunrea’s captivating stories about a group of inquisitive goslings: Gossie; Gossie & Gertie (both 2002); Ollie; and Ollie the Stomper (both 2003). All four books were originally published as small jacketed hardcovers, and from the moment I saw them I knew they would make perfect board books. Dunrea is precisely attuned to the toddler world, and his goslings have the same concerns: making friends, losing beloved objects, wanting someone else’s beloved objects. The goslings march across the clean white pages in their bright blue and red boots, having tiny adventures and learning about the world as they go. Anne Rockwell is also completely comfortable in the world of very small children. Over the years she has brought us books about seasons, vehicles, occupations, holidays, and numerous other topics of great interest to toddlers. One of my favorites has always been The Toolbox (1971), written with her husband Harlow and originally published by Macmillan. Now Walker & Company has published it in a board book edition, and it adapts beautifully to that format. The text is simplicity itself: “In my cellar there is a toolbox. It is dark brown where hands have touched it. It has a saw and a hammer and nails and a drill that goes around and around and makes holes in wood.” Each page has a picture of one tool placed against a cream background for easy identification, and the whole book is a budding carpenter’s dream. Photographer Tana Hoban broke new ground with her board books Black on White and White on Black (l993), published by Greenwillow. They had no text, just clear silhouettes of objects familiar to babies: a bib, a fork and spoon, a bottle, etc. In Black on White, the objects were black, the background white, with the pattern reversed in White on Black. Now Greenwillow has produced an accordion-folded board book called Black & White, using images from the two earlier books. One side is black on white, the other white on black, and the format is ideal for setting up in a crib or playpen for a baby to gaze at. We enter murkier territory with Harcourt’s board book version of Marla Frazee’s Hush, Little Baby (1999). Granted, it’s a lullaby, and as such intended for babies, but the original picture book is forty pages long, and the detailed pictures seem designed for older, more observant children. Frazee’s pioneer characters are wonderfully expressive, from the squalling, not-to-be-comforted baby to the increasingly exhausted parents and the exasperated older sister. Although I can understand the decision to make this a board book, I much prefer the larger picture book, in which the detailed illustrations are easier to enjoy. There’s no excuse, however, for Houghton’s decision to produce a board book version of Virginia Lee Burton’s Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel (1939). Whose idea was it to take one of the most beloved children’s books of all time, butcher the text, and leave out a number of the pictures? Poor Mike and Mary Anne. They’re no longer given credit for cutting through the mountains to clear the way for the railroads, or smoothing the ground for airport runways. The crucial plot element that they work faster and better when they have an audience is barely mentioned. And that most dastardly of villains, Selectman Henry B. Swap, never smiles “in a rather mean way” as he plots to back out of paying Mike and Mary Anne for their work digging the cellar for the new town hall. He makes only a brief appearance, and his eventual redemption is missing altogether. Where is the unbearable tension as the day wears on and the sun moves inexorably across the sky? What about the drama as Mike and Mary Anne cut each corner of the cellar hole? And why is the heroism of the little boy who rallies the townspeople to cheer on the man and his machine not celebrated? There is no reason to sigh in satisfaction when Mike and Mary Anne triumph in the end, because we haven’t been given the chance to worry that they might actually fail. My strongest objection to this rather hefty board book is that people who purchase this version will never know what they’re missing, and won’t bother to read the original. And that would be a crying shame. Formats aren’t the only things that get changed when new editions of books appear. There’s also a tendency to change illustrators, particularly on long-out-of-print titles. This can be an iffy proposition, because if a book was popular enough to warrant bringing it back into print, it very likely has fans who feel strongly about the sanctity of the original art. For example, Never Tease a Weasel by Jean Conder Soule, published by Parents’ Magazine Press in 1964 and illustrated by Denman Hampson, has a legion of devoted admirers. Now Random House has republished it, with illustrations by New Yorker cartoonist George Booth in his trademark sketchy pen-and-ink style. The Hampson illustrations are quite dated, but an Internet check will reveal some absolutely outraged fans who consider the new edition a travesty. I think Booth has done a fine job capturing the inspired lunacy of the text (“You could make a riding habit / For a rabbit if you choose; / Or make a turkey perky / With a pair of high-heeled shoes”) with its admonitory refrain “but never tease a weasel” — but I do sympathize with the sense of betrayal engendered by tampering with childhood memories. In the case of less familiar titles by well-known authors, the choice to reillustrate is not quite as fraught with danger. This season HarperCollins is offering new editions of two long-out-of-print titles whose lavish new illustrations will probably not cause too much hand-wringing among purists. Charlotte Zolotow’s A Father Like That (1971) has undergone the more dramatic facelift of the two. In this sweetly melancholy book, a small boy states matter-of-factly, “I wish I had a father. But my father went away before I was born.” He describes to his mother what he imagines his father would be like if he were around: bringing books when the boy is sick, knowing all his friends by name, not making him wear his hated green shirt, always being on the boy’s side (“even if sometimes he had to say it was really my fault”). His mother listens patiently and then says, “I like the kind of father you’re talking about. And in case he never comes, just remember when you grow up, you can be a father like that yourself!” The original edition was a small, square book, with two-color ink and wash illustrations by Ben Shecter, showing a middle-class suburban family with an aproned, stay-at-home mother and spreads depicting barbecues and Little League games. The new edition is a full-color, full-size picture book with vibrant paintings by LeUyen Pham of an African American family in a decidedly urban setting. It’s a tribute to the universality of Zolotow’s words that both visual interpretations convey the same longing and hope. Ruth Krauss’s The Growing Story (1947) has a timeless text as well. A very little boy sees everything around him growing during the summer but can’t see any change in himself. Although his mother reassures him that he’s getting bigger, it’s only at the end of the summer when they get out his winter clothes from the previous year that he realizes that he has indeed grown. It’s the simplest of stories, but one with which every child can identify. The original four-color illustrations by Phyllis Rowand have a certain retro charm, but they pale next to the glorious full-color watercolors by Helen Oxenbury that grace the new edition. There’s nobody who can draw children more expressively, and her exuberant little boy fairly bursts off the pages — as well as out of his clothes — as he somersaults across the final spread shouting, “I’m growing, too!” Other well-established authors are represented this season as well. Hardly a publishing season goes by without some new permutation of a Margaret Wise Brown title, and this one is no exception. In 1959, Scott, Foresman published a collection of twenty-five of her poems, called Nibble Nibble: Poems for Children, with illustrations by Leonard Weisgard. HarperCollins has taken five of those poems, all at least mentioning rabbits, and reissued them as Nibble Nibble, with paintings by Wendell Minor. Minor’s hyper-realistic rabbits leap gracefully across the pages, and the soothing rhythm of Brown’s words provide the perfect way to wind down after a busy day. Happily, Knopf continues to bring back the works of Roger Duvoisin and Leo Lionni. Duvoisin’s Donkey-donkey, published in 1933, was the second book he wrote and illustrated. This cheerful picture book is the story of a “nice little donkey” who is unhappy with his long ears and tries to change his appearance to look more like his friends. Sticking his ears out sideways like a sheep, forward like a pig, and down like a dog all precipitate disasters until he listens to a sparrow who tells him to be himself. In Leo Lionni’s Nicolas, Where Have You Been? (1987), a young mouse also learns a lesson, this time one of tolerance. He and his fellow mice hate birds because they take all the best berries, but when an unfortunate accident lands Nicolas in a birds’ nest, where he is treated with great kindness, he learns that “one bad bird doesn’t make a flock” and is able to avert an attack the mice are planning against their avian enemies. Birds are also at the center of two Brian Wildsmith titles being reissued by Star Bright Books: The Owl and the Woodpecker (1971) and The Little Wood Duck (1972), both originally published by Oxford University Press. Wildsmith’s trademark brilliant colors and richly textured patterns are used to full effect in these oversize picture books. The Owl and the Woodpecker details the conflict between a night-loving owl and the woodpecker who takes up residence in his tree, hammering away all day as the owl tries to sleep. In The Little Wood Duck, the main character is born with one foot bigger than the other, and is ridiculed by the other animals because he can only swim in circles. But his star rises when his circular swimming makes a predatory fox so dizzy it has to crawl away in defeat. I’m pleased to see that The New York Review Children’s Collection is reissuing another spectacular book by Ingri and Edgar Parin d’Aulaire. D’Aulaires’ Book of Animals (originally published by Doubleday Doran in 1940 as Animals Everywhere) is an accordion-style book that folds out into an eight-foot-long panorama. On one side, color lithographs show animals from various climates, hot to cold; on the other side, the same animals are shown from behind in black-and-white lithographs. The front side has simple lines of text (“Far to the South live the animals that like very hot weather. There it is never cold and never winter, and the sun burns all through the year”), while the back side identifies the animals with one of their characteristics (“The Polar Bear growls. The Gull cries. The Whale blows, and he is the biggest of all the animals on land and in the sea”). It is definitely a book of its time: “The animals that like weather neither too hot nor too cold live where we live and where it is cool in winter and warm in summer.” No attempt is made to embrace the global village; “we” live in the temperate zone, and that’s that. Fortunately, the book is all about the animals, and they are splendid indeed. Reissues of novels were thin on the ground this
past season, but I was pleased with the few that did make an appearance.
I was excited to see Joan Aiken’s trilogy about Felix Brooke
back in new paperback editions from Harcourt. Set in the early nineteenth
century, Go Saddle the Sea (Doubleday, 1977), Bridle
the Wind (Delacorte, 1983), and The Teeth of the Gale
(HarperCollins, 1988) chronicle the story of a young half-Spanish,
half-English orphan who runs away from his Random House has published Tomorrow’s Magic by Pamela F. Service, combining her two post-apocalyptic novels Winter of Magic’s Return (1985) and Tomorrow’s Magic (1987), both originally from Atheneum. The setting is a barely recognizable Britain five hundred years after the Devastation, when a nuclear war nearly destroyed the planet. Two boarding-school students, Wellington and Heather, discover that their strange new classmate is really the wizard Merlin, and he needs their help to reawaken King Arthur and save the world from the forces of Morgan La Fay. Service has done a terrific job melding futuristic science fiction with ancient Arthurian legend. Slipping back in time, Front Street has reissued Rosemary Sutcliff’s The Shield Ring (Walck, 1956), another powerful novel by this master of historical fiction. Here she leaves the world of Roman Britain, where so many of her books are set, and tells the story of the last Vikings in Britain, being pushed back into the remote areas of the Lake District by the conquering Normans. The Vikings aren’t often viewed sympathetically in British history, but Sutcliff manages to make us care about their fierce determination to hold on to their last outpost. The story alternates between Frytha, a young Saxon girl taken in by the Norsemen when her parents were killed by Norman raiders, and Bjorn, an apprentice harper whose secret fear is that if captured he might reveal the whereabouts of the Norse stronghold. As always in Sutcliff’s work, the sense of place is vivid, the action fierce and brutal, and the historical record never compromised by any quest for a happy ending. However, happy endings abound in the delightful Land of Green Ginger by Noel Langley, first published by Arthur Barker in 1937 as The Tale of the Land of Green Ginger, and now republished by David R. Godine. Langley, among other things the screenwriter for The Wizard of Oz, created a cast of unforgettable characters swirling around in the frothiest of plots. Aladdin (yes, that Aladdin) is now the Emperor of China, and the story opens with the birth of his precocious son Abu Ali, who never stops talking from the moment he’s born. The cranky old Genie of the Lamp reveals that he is destined to rescue the magician who created the Land of Green Ginger, a floating garden, but then accidentally turned himself into a tortoise. Along the way, there’s the hand of a beautiful princess to be won, an incompetent genie to be returned to his bottle, and tail feathers from a magic phoenix to be acquired. There’s no point in trying to make sense of the plot — it just races along from one improbable situation to the next. But the characters are a real treat: the evil princes Rubdub Ben Thud and Tintac Ping Foo; the beautiful Silver Bud and her despotic father Sulkpot Ben Nagnag; the hapless genie Boomalakka Wee. The proceedings are enlivened by Edward Ardizzone’s witty pen-and-ink drawings, and the whole thing begs to be read aloud. Rediscovering lost treasures like The Land of Green Ginger never ceases to thrill me. Oh, how I wish publishers would spend more time searching out fresh fruit like this, rather than squeezing their reliable old oranges dry. Where’s the excitement in an orange rind? TITLES REVIEWED ABOVE Joan Aiken Bridle the Wind Joan Aiken Go Saddle the Sea Joan Aiken The Teeth of the Gale Margaret Wise Brown Nibble Nibble;
illus. by Wendell Minor Virginia Lee Burton Mike Mulligan and
His Steam Shovel; illus. by the author Ingri Parin d’Aulaire and Edgar Parin d’Aulaire
D’Aulaires’ Book of Animals; illus. by
the authors Olivier Dunrea Gossie; illus. by
the author Olivier Dunrea Gossie & Gertie;
illus. by the author Olivier Dunrea Ollie; illus. by
the author Olivier Dunrea Ollie the Stomper;
illus. by the author Roger Duvoisin Donkey-donkey; illus.
by the author Marla Frazee, illustrator Hush, Little
Baby: A Folk Song with Pictures Tana Hoban, illustrator Black & White Ruth Krauss The Growing Story; illus.
by Helen Oxenbury Noel Langley The Land of Green Ginger;
illus. by Edward Ardizzone Leo Lionni Nicolas, Where Have You Been?;
illus. by the author Anne Rockwell and Harlow Rockwell The
Toolbox; illus. by the authors Pamela F. Service Tomorrow’s Magic Jean Conder Soule Never Tease a Weasel;
illus. by George Booth Rosemary Sutcliff The Shield Ring Brian Wildsmith The Little Wood Duck;
illus. by the author Brian Wildsmith The Owl and the Woodpecker;
illus. by the author Charlotte Zolotow A Father Like That;
illus. by LeUyen Pham
From the November/December 2007 issue of The Horn Book Magazine |
ecently
a customer came into my bookstore asking for help in choosing a
baby gift. Among other things, she thought she might like a copy
of Goodnight Moon, and I found myself saying, “Would
you like it in hardcover or paperback? We also have a small board
book and a lap-size board book. Or you might want it in a boxed
set with The Runaway Bunny, or there’s a book and
doll set, or a book and rattle combo . . .”
As her eyes started to glaze over, it suddenly occurred to me that
I sounded just like a Starbucks barista. “Tall, grande, or
venti? Skim or whole? Regular, decaf, half-caf? Latte, cappuccino?
Foam or no foam?” 
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