Picture Books!

                              

November is Picture Book Month

I kicked off Picture Book Month on October 27 at the New York Public Library with fellow teachers (including my TNS colleague Dara Corn) from the Academy For Teachers for a seminar with author/illustrator Jon Agee.  Jon is not only a talented author/illustrator in his own right, but he was a student and friend of the stars of the medium Maurice Sendak, William Steig, and Tomi Ungerer, and really knows how to deconstruct a picture book.  So we delved into three picture books by this heavyweight tripartite.

At this seminar I was fortunate to be able to be in a small group with Natalia Ortega-Brown, fellow picture book enthusiast, who maintains her own blog, Bookie on the Shelf.  I presented to the group my work on using Steig's nonfiction picture book When Everybody Wore a Hat, as a springboard to studying immigration or even a "then and now" study.

I have vowed to read one picture book a day for the month of November and share with as many children as possible, and plan to post them here.

Is The Book with No Pictures a picture book?  Yes, I would argue, because the text itself has the importance of an image.  Words are big, small, black and in colors, and hence have a visual role in advancing the story and humor.  Normally I am skeptical of "celebrity books" but this one gets my approval. It is guaranteed to make kids giggle uncontrollably, since you (the reader) have vowed to say every word the book says, even if you don't want to.

Patrick McDonnell's A Perfectly Messed-Up Story is another meta- (book about books) picture book.  Coexisting on the printed pages are his characteristic bouncy cartoony illustrations, ornate letter "O" to begin "Once Upon a Time," speech balloons (that literally look like balloons) with casual lettering, and faux dirty fingerprints, overlaid with photo printed, glossy globs of peanut butter and jelly stains that may fool the unsuspecting kindergardener.  I was happy to find an alternative to the beloved (by children) and well-worn but didactic Mr. Wiggles Book that I often turn to to teach book care.  In the end, I have decided that I will not not share this book with little kids because it's really about "embracing life's messes" (per the blurb), not avoiding them, which is the message that I want to deliver when taking care of books.