On the Phone with My Niece

I was reassuring her that yes, I would be there by Monday.

Her: You're going to play with me?
Me: Yes.
H: And read to me?
M: Yes.
H: In the middle of the night?
M: . . . uh, probably not.

Golden Books

I discovered the Golden Books dress via Boing Boing. I love it. I wish there were a ready-to-wear version that I could buy in a local store.

Golden Books have been around for 69 years now.



The ones I remember best are the ones at my maternal grandparent's house. Most originally belonged to my uncle and my oldest cousin. (I don't think any belonged to my mother and aunts, but I could be wrong. Their legacy is the Nancy Drews.) The my sister, myself, and our two contemporaneous cousins. Currently they entertain my baby cousins. (Okay, not so baby anymore. The six-year-old now reads by herself.) When my niece and nephew visit, we read the books to them.



Golden Books are something my family has shared for generations. Even the oldest ones are still entertaining to a child. So yeah, I would proudly wear their covers while out and about. But I wouldn't recycle our shared copies to make the dress.

"Waiting On" Wednesday: Crafty Classics

This meme was started by Jill of Breaking the Spine.

I first heard about this news at the awesome Angieville. Jillian Tamaki revealed on Monday that she had been commissioned to do three covers for Penguin Threads Deluxe Classics.

I am a huge fan of Penguin Classics. The scholarship is always top-notch and the prices are affordable. The various deluxe classics lines are gorgeous. I've not made it a secret that I am not a fan of trade paperbacks. I don't like the trim size as much and feel like the uptick in price is not always accompanied by an uptick in quality. But Penguin has been putting gorgeous covers, French flaps, and other fancy things on their deluxe classics editions to make them worth the price.



EMMA by Jane Austen will be released October 25.  This will be Penguin's first standalone edition of the matchmaking classic.  (Is the multicolored hair not gorgeous?)



THE SECRET GARDEN by Frances Hodgson Burnett will be available the same day. 2011 is THE SECRET GARDEN's centennial. I am definitely buying these two, as I don't own a copy of either but love both.



Anna Sewell's BLACK BEAUTY will also be released on October 25, with a new introduction by Jane Smiley. I've never read BLACK BEAUTY, but I may buy it to complete the set.

And do click on the link to Tamaki's site! The designs wrap around, so you'll want to see the backcovers and flaps.

Review: Lost and Found

By Shaun Tan
Available now from Arthur A. Levine (Scholastic)
Review copy
Lost and Found: Three by Shaun Tan is a beautiful book. Tan's paintings vary in style, but all of them are full of interesting details. (Okay, not all of them are even paintings. There are collages, for instance.) I've noticed different things in the images everytime I've opened the book. The images stand well on their own, without the accompaniment of text.

The first story in this omnibus is "The Red Tree." This one has the most experimental art; sometimes the style changes between pages. "The Red Tree" gets quite dark, which could make it unappealing to younger children. There aren't many words, but the typography interacts with the pictures in interesting ways. The words are mostly unimportant to "The Red Tree." It's less of a story than a progression through the tone of a story, with misery gripping ever tighter then eventually giving way to hope. "The Red Tree" was my least favorite of the three, but only because the other two are such strong stories.

"Without sense or reason," Shaun Tan (2001)

Next is "The Lost Thing."  I loved the scrapbook style layout of this story. The narrator collects bottle caps and it seems like a fitting layout to express his personality. I also loved the bits of type included in the borders that sometimes show up in the middle of the page. This story would be good to read to a younger child before bed or for an older child (first grade or so) to read by his or herself. While it is far more conventional than "The Red Tree," it still has a distinctive style. This one was definitely my favorite, both for the humor and the sweetness. (Note: Shaun Tan just one an Oscar for the animated version of "The Lost Thing.")



The final story, "The Rabbits," was written by John Marsden (author of the Tommorrow series). This one is definitely for elementary aged children. It's an allegory of the British colonization of Australia from the point of view of the Aborigines. It's well-told and worth discussing with older children, but toddlers are more likely to be upset by the unhappy ending. Picture book does not necessarily mean children's book. The stylized profile of the rabbits did make for some incredible paintings, and Tan makes excellent use of negative space.

I think LOST AND FOUND is a good choice for families. The adults will enjoy the story and art as much as the kids. In fact, some adults will enjoy it even without the kids.

In My Mailbox: Something New

I bought a bunch of books this week and don't want to track them all down. So instead of listing everything, I'm just going to list the book I'm most excited about.



LOST AND FOUND: Three by Shaun Tan

I received this omnibus through the Amazon Vine program. I'm extra excited about this one since I'm going to North Dakota the first week of April. I'll be able to read it to my niece!

I'll post my review here on Monday.

In other news, I'm extending this contest another week. There were so many entries in the Google form and so few in this one, using the old comment section. Clearly ya'll prefer Google forms. I'll keep that in mind.