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From The Beginning: Dr. Seuss – The King’s Stilts (Book #3)

November 16, 2016 by krisis

drseuss-brand-hero-01[Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug][/Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug]It’s the third installment of my “From The Beginning” read of Dr. Seuss’s entire bibliography. Last week I covered his second book, The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins.

After that lengthy comedy of errors (sans the comedy), Dr. Seuss returned with another lengthy prose tale of royalty with The King’s Stilts. I despaired of reading this one with EV after her lack of interest in 500 Hats, and put it off for weeks. Finally, during one of her naps, I decided I’d simply read it myself for the review to spare her the boredom.

Since then, I estimate I have read this book another 40 times, at least – an entire waking day’s worth of reading.

I think I can safely say that neither of us are bored by it.

The King’s Stilt’s (1939) – Dr. Seuss Amazon Logo

 

the-kings-stilts-dr-seussCK Says: 4.5 stars – Must read!

Reading Time: 20-30 minutes

Gender Diversity: All named characters are male; housewives are mentioned and shown, but can’t keep their minds on their housework. However, the main character, Eric, is easily gender-flipped.

Ethnic Diversity: None

Challenging Language: commenced, furnace, pomp, dignity, impudent, feeble, measles, hobnail boots

Themes to Discuss: monarchy, “business hours” and busyness, work/life balance, predators and prey, conservation, conflicting instructions / when not to obey, lying and the importance of telling the truth, importance of communication

This prose story presents a fanciful story of a kingdom in peril due to one grinch-like goon who hates to see his king have fun. With a young protagonist, a thoroughly evil villain, and a threat that’s all-to-real in our world of global warming, this early Seuss book really holds up for modern readers!

That’s especially true for parents engaged in demanding jobs, since the central theme of the king’s stupor is that someone has taken away his work/life balance.

Right from the start, The King’s Stilts has more of Dr. Seuss’s characteristic whimsy than 500 Hats. King Birtram spends his days occupied with rather whimsical busywork that makes him the most industrious of all kings, although it’s hard to understand how he can have so many important decrees to sign each day!

Things get only more fanciful from there, with the king presiding over the changing of the guard of furious and clever Patrol Cats who hunt the dastardly Nizzards that threaten to plunge his kingdom below sea level by nibbling away the roots of Dike Trees. He then spends the day inspected as many Dike Trees as he can before five o’clock, when he races back home to grab his favorite pair of stilts.

the-kings-stilts-interior-06We also get the perfect antagonist to a cheerful and dutiful king in the shape of the officious Lord Droon. Droon is an early Grinch prototype, a nobleman with nothing noble about him who proclaims, “Laughing spoils the shape of the face.” Lest you think he’s championing an ahead-of-its-time anti-wrinkle platform, he continues, “The lines at the corners of the mouth should go down.”

Lord Droon conspires to not only do away with the stilts (via the actions of the unwilling young Page Eric), but to convince the king it was his own subjects who stole the source of his fun so they would no longer suffer under the rule of an undignified king.

This leads to a terrific adventure for Eric, who is brave and capable in his mission to cheer up the kingdom and save the king. His efforts lead to an epic confrontation between King Birtram and the Patrol Cats versus the assembled Nizzards and the elemental force of the ocean! This single page is at once so epic and hilarious that I cannot help but giggle the entire time I’m looking at it. It’s truly one of Seuss’s best.

Beyond being an enjoyable read, what I loved most about The King’s Stilts is the careful balance of two key themes – duty versus play and conservation taking intent and action.

Despite being written in 1938, King’s Stilts serves as a perfect allegory for the importance of work/life balance and having passion for both. At the start we see a king who is the busiest of all kings. While you might argue that some of that business is busyness for the sake of busyness, there’s no arguing how committed the king is to his duties. However, that commitment can only occur if the king gets in some quality stilts-time wandering his kingdom. A lack of stilts sends him into a depression, even though he has the same amount of free time and the same important kingly duties. He has lost half of his passion, and without it the other half seems lacking.

the-kings-stilts-interior-14(Also, don’t lose sight of the fact that this is a king who sees his position as a duty rather than an excuse for laziness or petulance. Sure, his work is as whimsical as his play, but it’s refreshing to read a children’s book about a committed member of the royalty.)

With a lack of attention from the king, we see his idyllic kingdom sharply decline in a series of cause and effect events. We go from uninspired cats to rising floodwaters and a scared populace who also cannot maintain their productivity. By placing the fate of the Dike Trees in the middle of this chain of events, Dr. Seuss emphasizes that our environment is not the first or last thing we must consider, but part of a spectrum of needs that keeps us happy and healthy. It’s a theme he’d return to more pointedly and with more whimsy, but it’s particularly effective here.

Also, Droon is one of Seuss’s better villains. He’s so over-the-top that he’d do some moustache-twirling if it wasn’t shamefully gleeful and smile-making. It makes Droon more readable (and laughable) when he gets ridiculous bits of business like being unable to hide the stilts under his cloak.

the-kings-stilts-interior-25Despite nearly matching the length of 500 Hats, the prose in Stilts passes much more quickly while reading. Perhaps that’s down to the larger and more fanciful illustrations. Seuss repeats the spot-color red from 500 Hats, but here the color is used more liberally as a highlight. It’s the color of the stilts, but also of the Nizzards’ frilly necks and the Patrol Cats’ badges. Almost every major theme of the book gets a dash of red.

While it doesn’t exactly end with a moral, this story closes with everyone getting their due in a way that 500 Hats lacked, which adds to the satisfaction of the silly, high-stakes story.

(Plus, you can introduce your children to the “kid on stilts in an overcoat” trope!)

Dr. Seuss’s next book was the not-really-for-children The Seven Lady Godivas, which has not been printed for decades! Thus, I’ll be back next Wednesday with the Dr. Seuss’s fourth book for children (and, his first true franchise), Horton Hatches the Egg!

Filed Under: books, Year 17 Tagged With: children's books, Dr. Seuss, From The Beginning

Children’s Book Review: The Incredible Book Eating Boy & A Child of Books by Oliver Jeffers

November 12, 2016 by krisis

[Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug][/Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug]At this point I think we can fairly say that EV devours books.

As a kid who only knows the TV as something she gets to enjoy once a week, her version of on-demand entertainment is demanding E or I to sit on the couch with her for two hours or more each day reading books. We have to have several dozen books in the rotation at any given time lest she latch on to one too strongly and drive us completely out of our minds.

EV loves reading so much that she now appreciates reading books about reading. Two of her favorites of late are The Incredible Book Eating Boy (yes, really, no hyphen) and A Child of Books, both by Oliver Jeffers.

One is a favorite snack, while the other is just empty calories.

The Incredible Book Eating Boy & A Child of Books by Oliver Jeffers

01_oliver_jeffersThe Incredible Book Eating Boy: CK Says: 4.5 stars – Read it Amazon Logo

Read Time: 5-8 minutes
Gender Diversity:
 Male protagonist, all speaking characters male, female background characters
Ethnic Diversity: all white
Challenging Vocab (to read or to define): atlases, monumental, ejecting, digest, embarrassing
Themes To Discuss: importance of reading, moderation, overeating, intellect, working hard vs. easy solutions, libraries (& library fines)

A Child of Books: CK Says:  – Skip it Amazon Logo

Read Time: <5 minutes
Gender Diversity:
 Female protagonist leading a male protagonist
Ethnic Diversity: colorless (and could reasonably be non-white based on features)
Challenging Vocab (to read or to define): imagination, make-believe, invention
Themes To Discuss: power of imagination

Oliver Jeffers cares about the power of stories. Not just their ability to occupy and transport us, but their ability to sustain us and help us weave the reality with which we surround ourselves. In his books, words and even letters have magical, tangible powers.

the-incredible-book-eating-boy-oliver-jeffersThe Incredible Book Eating Boy is a literal take on how books can nurture us. In it, young Henry (who bears a passing resemblance to Doug of NickToons fame) is reading a book while licking a popsicle and gets his hands crossed, leading him to munch on a tome. It’s not half-bad, and he discovers that in addition to filling his stomach with sustenance they also instantly fill his brain with knowledge.

Books aren’t too much more expensive than groceries, so Henry’s dad doesn’t mind his new habit at first. Henry delights in every genre of book, but he likes red ones the best. It’s only when his ambition to become the smartest person in the world leads him to get overfull of books and his speech turns to nonsense that they get concerned. Plus, they’re faced with a tremendous library bill! Henry has to wean himself back onto broccoli, but he’ll always enjoy a much of a hardcover from time to time – as evidenced by the die-cut bite-marks on the back of the book!

The Incredible Book Eating Boy is my favorite kind of whimsical book for kids. It’s silly without being about breaking rules or lying – the fantasy of its silliness is perfectly clear. Despite being relatively sparse on words, it tells a rich, involving story via its illustrations. There’s enough there to significantly embellish the story, if you have a little one that allows you to go off-script. [Read more…] about Children’s Book Review: The Incredible Book Eating Boy & A Child of Books by Oliver Jeffers

Filed Under: books Tagged With: children's books, Oliver Jeffers

From The Beginning: Dr. Seuss – The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins (Book #2)

November 9, 2016 by krisis

drseuss-brand-hero-01[Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug][/Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug]It’s the second installment of my “From The Beginning” read of Dr. Seuss’s entire bibliography. Last week I covered his first book, And To Think I Saw It On Mulberry Street.

Dr. Seuss’s second children’s book was The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins. This happened to the be the first one we acquired from the library for our reading.

Let’s just say, EV was a bit averse to Dr. Seuss for a few weeks after this one…

open-book-icon-16370

The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins (1938) – Dr. Seuss Amazon Logo

the-500-hats-of-bartholomew-cubbins-cover

CK Says:  – Skip It

Gender Diversity: Every named character is male, as likely are all who are depicted. “Lords and ladies” are mentioned.

Ethnic Diversity: None

Challenging Language: anxious, curbstones, trumpeters, impudence, jangling, triangular, plumes, parapet, yeoman, executioner,

Themes to Discuss: distribution of wealth, monarchy, agrarian society, manners/ettiquette, leaping to judgement, scientific process, bratty/entitled behavior, executions

Reading Time: 25-35 minutes

The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins is an allegory without a moral … with a touch of shocking violence! It’s a long slog of a read for even the most attentive toddler, making it a Dr. Seuss book you can most definitely skip.

500 Hats is written in prose rather than meter. In fact, it’s more a novella than a picture book at its length of over 3,500 words! Each page contains multiple paragraphs of copy and while the language is cleverly written it includes none of Seuss’s typical word play.

The story is of a poor, young peasant of the Kingdom of Didd named Bartholomew, who had a single treasured hat handed down to him from his father’s father. It wasn’t a fancy hat – in fact, it was quite plain save for the single feather stuck upon it that always pointed straight up in the air – presumably due to being so caked with generations of grime.

Bartholomew is on the way to sell cranberries from his family bog at the market when his walk is interrupted by the King Derwin’s royal procession through town. The King is mightily offended to see that Bartholomew had not whipped off his hat in an act of respect and supplication, and stops to command him to remove itthe-500-hats-of-bartholomew-cubbins-interior-pg10 … except, he did take off his hat, only to find an identical one beneath it!

Thus begins the central hijinks of this tale. You know how they say funny things happen in threes? Well, we see Bartholomew try to take off his hat a lot more than three times – though sometimes he’ll go through several at once to save us from watching it happen 500 times. This is part of what’s so wearying about this book that causes EV to quickly lose interest in it. The same thing happens again and again, and while different people get progressively more angry about it (sometimes in mildly amusing sub-groupings of threes), there’s really not much entertainment to be derived.

That’s especially the case when it comes to the young Grand Duke Wilfred, who is like the mean-spirited Draco Malfoy to Bartholomew’s Ron. Wilfred is rather violent – his first attempt at hat-removing comes in the form of target practice with a bow and arrow, and later involves throwing Bartholomew off of the highest tower! He’s also a bit of a brat, yelling “it’s not fair” and throwing several tantrums.

(EV isn’t much for rough play, but if you do read this to your kids you might need to keep an eye on their subsequent target practice and Marie Antionette-themed pretend play.)

the-500-hats-of-bartholomew-cubbins-interior-pg22While it doesn’t make for a very enjoyable read, 500 Hats is distinct from the grounded Mulberry Street and it introduces a pair ongoing Seussian themes – fantastical kingdoms and impossible physics. A few of the supporting characters are memorable in that silly Seuss way, such as a friendly, hesitant executioner and matter-of-fact advisor Sir Alaric, who would be played for many laughs in a screen adaptation.

All of the illustrations are black and white save for the the hats, which are a bold red. Not even the king’s regalia merits a dash of color. This emphasizes how increasingly covetous he is of the otherwise plain hat, but also sends the subtle message that any common thing can be the most-important thing to you – not only things that are valuable.

Seuss sets the tone early for the physical and metaphorical distance between King Derwin and the Cubbins family, narrating the stretch of increasingly meager houses that stretched from one to the other. The view makes Derwin feel might and Bartholomew feel small.

That theme of haves and have-nots is heavy for a little kid, but its still effective if you modernize it to be about looking from the highest skyscraper down to the smaller, flatter ranchers that might lie farther out from the center of a city. From that perspective, kids might appreciate that the view is truly the same no matter which side of it you occupy.

the-500-hats-of-bartholomew-cubbins-interior-pg25Early in the caper, young Cubbins thinks to himself, “I really haven’t done anything wrong. It would be cowardly to be afraid.” This is a good message, but it’s not reinforced very well by the story, where no one seems willing to listen to our protagonist and the threats do become rather scary.

The moral is merely that things “happened to happen” and no one learns a thing! The king gets a fancy hat, Bartholomew gets rich for no reason, and Grand Duke Wilfred presumably slinks off to sulk somewhere.

Without many laughs or a good moral, and with the undertow of execution, I can’t recommend The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins for anything but an academic reading.

I’ll be back next Wednesday with the Dr. Seuss’s third book for children, The King’s Stilts!

Filed Under: books Tagged With: children's books, Dr. Seuss, From The Beginning

Children’s Book Review: The Journey Trilogy by Aaron Becker

November 5, 2016 by krisis

[Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug][/Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug]The first time I encountered a wordless picture book for children was Journey at my mother’s house nearly a year ago. Long before we had ventured to the library she was already cycling through books for EV every time she visited.

journey-aaron-becker-interior-01I gave it a cursory page through and didn’t quite get it. EV didn’t seem to love it, either. I took away that EV wasn’t excited about wordless picture books.

Over the summer, E bought EV a wordless book called Pool. I was skeptical of it at first, recalling EV’s disinterest in Journey. Then, I watched something magic begin to happen. E kept making up the story of Pool, and EV began to interact with the story. Sometimes she interjected to add something from a prior telling, others she inserted her own details.

I took a turn reading it to her, and I noticed different facets of it than E, so my telling was a shade different. If I asked nicely enough and didn’t make a big deal about it, EV would even “read” Pool to me.

Pool was one of our most-read books during the summer. When E was listing off books from her want-list for our request list for the library and mentioned Journey, my ears pricked up.

I wondered – how would EV like the book now that she was older and more engaged in the shared creation of a story? Would Journey include both enough narrative and enough ambiguity to make for as interesting a read as Pool?

What a difference a few months made!

The Journey Trilogy: Journey, Quest, and Return by Aaron Becker Amazon Logo

journey-aaron-becker

CK Says: 4.5 stars – Try them!

Gender Diversity: Female protagonist; most other characters are male, although background characters are sometimes agender.

Ethnic Diversity: None, unfortunately

Challenging Language: None!

Themes to Discuss: imagination, fantasy, canals, cooperation

Reading Time: Depends on the reader! Between 4-15 minutes each, for us.

The Journey Trilogy by Aaron Becker is a beautiful, brilliant, fantastical trio of wordless adventure books by with a capable little girl hero, each with plenty of room for interpretation and expansion in the retelling. Becker proves himself an ingenious storyteller with an eye for detail and a knack for tantalizing ambiguity.

Journey is the story of a young girl who uses a piece of red chalk to travel to a fantastic world by drawing a door on her bedroom walk. In that world, she learns that the chalk can draw anything out of thin air.

After sailing through a town built on a series of canals, she encounters a group of soldiers flying in zeppelins are trying to catch a vivid purple bird. The girl tries to save the bird, but she’s captured herself, and the two work together so she can get free. The bird leads her to a door just like her own, except it’s the same color as the bird! On the other side, she is back in the real world down the street from her house, where she meets a boy with purple chalk.

journey-aaron-becker-interiorI could add so many more details to that plot summary, but none of them are verifiably true and that’s the best part of Journey. The story told by the series of gorgeous illustrations is never proscriptive, but it includes many hints to act as hooks for your imagination. The colorful chalk creations pop off the watercolor backgrounds.

The easiest example is the red chalk itself. The girl finds it on the floor of her room. Is it the first time she has encountered it? The natural urge is to say yes, as that fits with how stories like this one are usually told. However, she already owns a matching red scooter and red ball which she has been carrying around the house with her. Is it a coincidence that red is her favorite color, or had she created with the chalk before?

These points of interpretation abound in Journey, and they’re part of what makes it so fun in the retelling. Does the girl mean to steer her little red boat to the top of the highest canal? Is it she or the the bird who engineers the magic carpet that will fit through the bars of her cage? Where do she and the boy find the body of a bike that they draw wheels for at the end of the book?

That’s what makes Journey perfect for a small reader who can interact with you while you read. The details that EV noticed and questions she asked shaped out version of the story. Sometimes it’s a very plain, descriptive version that simply explains the action on each page. Others it unfurls in the telling like a florid fairy tale, full of little asides and descriptions of the girl’s inner monologue.

Journey would already be a surefire recommendation if it stood alone, but Aaron Becker extended the story into two additional books – Quest and Return – that are somehow even more captivating than Journey itself! [Read more…] about Children’s Book Review: The Journey Trilogy by Aaron Becker

Filed Under: books, Crushing On Tagged With: Aaron Becker, children's books, Journey, Quest, Return

From The Beginning: Dr. Seuss – And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street (Book 01)

November 2, 2016 by krisis

[Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug][/Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug]drseuss-brand-hero-01Welcome to my “From The Beginning” read of Dr. Seuss’s entire bibliography!

And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street was the second book released by the pseudonymous Dr. Seuss, and his first written explicitly for children.

(His first publication being his not-at-all sexual The Pocket Book of Boners, which was more of a joke book.)

open-book-icon-16370

And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street (1937) – Dr. Seuss Amazon Logo

Cand-to-think-that-i-saw-it-on-mulberry-street-coverK Says: 2.5 stars – Borrow It

Gender Diversity: None – every single character depicted is male; one woman is mentioned

Ethnic Diversity: “Rajah” riding an elephant, a Chinese man eating with chopsticks

Challenging Language: keen, outlandish, minnows, charioteer, Rajah, fleet (adj), Alderman, confetti

Themes to Discuss: Truth vs Exaggeration, racial stereotypes

Reading Time: 5-10 minutes

Young Marco has a problem. Every day he walks to and from school, and every day his father asks him to tell him what he’s seen, but after he relates his tale his father always replies, “Your eyesight’s much too keen.”

This is a theme I can sympathize with, as EV has a keen memory of fine details. She will sometimes comment weeks after an event on a particular phrase or the color of the buttons on a shirt.

Marco’s problem is a bit different. You see, if he only notices his own feet and a horse-drawn wagon, it doesn’t seem like enough to report on to his father. Thus, the wagon is now pulled by a yellow racing zebra whipped into a frenzy by a charioteer.

I was cautious of this book on my first read. We’ve now reached the age where EV is beginning to exaggerate intentionally and we’re teaching her what it means for something to be true. I want to encourage her imagination while emphasizing the value of truth. And To Think I Saw It On Mulberry Street does exactly that – it suggests that you ought to engage every aspect of your imagination to create a fanciful tale, but that in the telling its best to relate on the truth of the matter.

The illustrations are quite tame as Dr. Seuss goes. They mostly depict only the action of one animal and its cart down the street from a fixed perspective, even if the processing behind the animal grows to be quite elaborate.

and-to-think-that-i-saw-it-on-mulberry-street-interiorAlso, there aren’t many fantastical things – the people are quite people-like and the animals are all real. It took me a moment to realize a pair of giraffes were just giraffes because I was so intent on figuring out how they connected to some future fanciful beast.

As with many early Seuss books, there is a casual racism employed in casting different racist tropes into obvious roles. Here were have a Rajah riding an elephant and “a Chinese man who eats with sticks.” Neither of these are caricatures or especially mean-spirited, so with some guidance on the trope I’d say they are still appropriate for modern readers.

While this book wouldn’t top my list of Dr. Seuss acquisitions, I think it has a worthy message and not too much confusing language, plus a pleasing rhyming scheme. Any kid who has spent time watching passing cars or telling you about their day will be able to relate.

I’ll be back next Wednesday with the second Dr. Seuss book, The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins!

Filed Under: books Tagged With: children's books, Dr. Seuss, From The Beginning, stereotypes, tropes, truth

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