Shh! We Have a Plan or the fragility of bad ideas

#40days40books entry 22

Shh! We Have a Plan is Chris Haughton's cautionary tale about the dangers of bad ideas and over-reaching.

Four un-named characters wearing hats spy a bird and while one of them is interested in greeting the flying creature, the others urge silence, saying that they "have a plan" to catch it. The plans fall apart, of course, each one more ludicrously than the last.

The littlest one never varies in kindness, kindness and stillness which are repaid handsomely by the birds during the course of the story. The hunters, though, they do not fare quite so well, never learning the power of kindness and friendship.

The images are bright and minimal, and carry the story along with ease and interest.

Storytime is the place where I get to make all the goofy mouth noises. This book is an enormous amount of fun to read because there are not so many words to read upside down and backwards (think of me when you next read Dr. Seuss). Also because as a reader, you get to make your voice loud and soft, tense and kind, hopeful and defeated. It's so fun and the kids never don't love it.

The humor in it is the kind of thing that seems to translate well for children. The people who are laughable are, indeed, doing something that is wrong, and that we know is wrong. We know it because an alternative has been presented - one that is kind and quiet and likely to work. All of the plans the taller three characters have involve trapping the bird. Kids are thrilled when they end up falling out of trees, over each other and into water. They gasp at the crowd of birds that surrounds the littlest one whose only attempts have been at gentle friendship.

We can only hope that the three taller characters learn from their friend that saying hello and offering a bite to eat is a much better way to interact with the world than trying always to catch a thing. Simple community building with a good dose of actually funny humor.

#40days40books list

One Fish Two Fish by Dr. Suess

#40days40books entry 14

One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish was published in 1960 and continues to delight and confound to this day. Nothing happens. There is no plot. Which is part of what makes this classic what it is - utter absurdity in motion. It is also an extraordinary boost to the imagination. Who even thinks of this stuff? Dr. Suess, that's who.

Upside down and backwards. Whew.

I read this book one Saturday downtown sometime in 2013, and it blew my mind. Not because of the content or the rhyming (or the tongue-twisters that didn't twist my tongue off). At one point I looked up and there were 7 children, all under the age of 4 sitting quietly. Quietly! Listening. That had never happened before. I'd never had that big of a crowd for Storytime that didn't have a guest author, and I'd never seen the children sit so still during an entire book. And it is not a short book. The power of Suess, I guess.

Back in May of 2016, we hosted a group of kids from a local school at the store for a morning of Storytime and activities. I read If I Rad the Zoo to them. I ... did not read the book beforehand and there's a line in it that caught me entirely off guard. You know those moments around the dinner table when you've just said The Wrong Thing and everyone gets really quiet? The line is "I'll hunt in the mountains of Zomba-ma-Tant/ with helpers who all wear their eyes in a slant" and ... well, I think you see. It's awkward. You flinch. That happened. We all got real, real quiet. And then I took a deep breath and kept going, with one eye on the sentence ahead for the rest of the book.

Some few days later a customer came upstairs with a used copy of Geisel's WWII political art, and noted the anti-Japanese racism in his work of the time.

Great.

All our faves are problematic. That's how humans work. Also, all our faves are recorded on the internet because that is how contemporary civilization works. The internet is searchable. I searched.

"dr suess japanese"

And discovered that Horton Hears a Who was written by Dr. Suess as recognition of, and attempts at atonement for, his anti-Japanese racism and sentiment during the war. See also: Can We Forgive Dr. Suess

I mean, look, there are always other authors to read. Ezra Jack Keats, as it turns out, is even more amazing than we all thought.

And I will find others. Because you don't stop doing that work. Clearly. Dr. Suess is still helping me open my mind and find more in the world.

#40days40books list

5) Press Here

Children love hearing the same book over and over and overandoverandoverandover makeitstopandover again. One of the big challenges of Storytime is to find books to share with families that will not inspire parents (who are of my people (those who can use the potty on their own) - adults) to tear out their hair (gnash their teeth, claw their own hands, facepalm so hard it leaves marks, etc.). It was a joy to share this book with our crowd. It is surprising in its approach to how readers interact with the pages, and the end of book calls for clapping - lots of it!

Children have these incredible responses every time you turn the page to see what the tapping, tipping, shaking, blowing and clapping have wrought. They are utterly engaged - even the uber cynical 5 year olds are wide-eyed and standing by the end. It is a book that requires understanding of simple colors, numbers, sides and actions to enjoy thoroughly, but does so in a way that isn't overtly educational (Mercer Meyer & Lucy Cousins, I'm looking at you). 

This is one that I read every chance I get. Again. Again. Again! AGAIN!

The Original, The One That Still Gets Me

When this book found its way into my hands, I was a giddy, squealing very old child for several minutes. And then I put the book in the hands of an equally delight-able co-worker who was also instantly engaged, and so on, and so on, and so on.

Storytime was a mystery to me for the first few months I did it. It wasn't until about Easter of 2012 that I finally felt a kind of rhythm in it: in the routine of choosing books, setting up the chairs, getting activities ready, my co-worker who became my co-heart every Saturday morning and I going through the steps of the morning together - all of that took time to get right and this book really helped it along. Because it is so surprising, and at the same time its genius is readily identifiable. 

This is a book for people who want books to do things that they can see as well as feel. Thinking and talking through what worked about Press Here gave me a way to think and talk about what worked in Storytime and with those questions and answers, I was much better able to build something in that very special place that for a time was extraordinary.

Thanks, Herve.

Childhood thoughts May 23rd

Kids books can really be kind of dark. Like unexpectedly bleak when you are not a kid. Grown-ups forget that childhood stories are terrifying, I think. But then they write stories that are terrifying for children to read during childhood and then the children grow up into adults and some of them make children who read books meant for childhood and suddenly remember that the landscape of year 6 is a mine field of facts and truths and change and unpredictability and Things That Are Important that are not a teddy bear, or pizza or the smell of grass on a summer's day.

Odd things happen to grown-ups. They are strange. Unkind. Thoughtless. Vengeful. They tell bad jokes and laugh at them with nothing like delight or glee. Their stories are a litany of the same variation on the same set of themes with the same lead characters and the same untimely deaths. They call the stories funny even when there is nothing to laugh at.

I read to a group of 8 year olds today. 8 year olds are a hard and unforgiving audience. I read to them the first few chapters of Hamster Princess by Ursula Vernon. It is about what happens to a hamster princess named Harriet when she learns that she is cursed to prick her paw on a hamster wheel on her 12th birthday and fall into a deep sleep from which she will be awakened by the kiss of a prince. Spoiler: she decides that since she has to be alive for the curse to work, she is invincible, so goes off on her riding quail Mumfrey and slays and hacks and fights and jumps to heart's content. I mean, for a little while. Until it's time for the curse to take effect and all.

The 8 year olds cared not. I could feel them not caring.

The next thing I read to them was the first couple of chapters of Ollie's Odyssey by William Joyce. The first thing that happens is that a child is born with a hole in his heart and his parents are almost drowning in fear. They cope in different ways. The mother of the child makes a toy and the toy (Ollie of the title) becomes aware. Somewhere in the hospital hallways, as the newborn child clutched the ear of the funny little toy, something happened to the toy and then something changed in the room where I read and those children paid attention.

They cared. I felt them caring. Not about the baby with the hole in his heart. About Ollie. Ollie, whose future I fear will hold loneliness, fear, courage and a stick.