Caldecott Medal Contender: Number One Sam

by Sam Juliano

Number One Sam’s racing car exponent’s entire life centers around sporting triumphs.  This theme of competition and winning at all costs is explored in this irresistible picture book by Greg Pizzoli, one that re-emphasizes a time-worn adage on sportsmanship and the insignificance of competitive prowess, when it goes up against life’s far more vital concerns.  Pizzoli, who last year treated kids and picture book aficionados to the Geisel award-winning The Watermelon Seed – a vibrantly colored work about a watermelon-loving crocodile who becomes distraught after swallowing a seed, believing it will grow inside of him – has again offered up a real charmer that holds up repeatedly to classroom employment.

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Caldecott Medal Contender: Sam & Dave Dig A Hole

by Sam Juliano

What often seems to get lost in the shuffle is that the two initially intrepid protagonists of Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen’s exceedingly popular Sam & Dave Dig A Hole are a model duo of ineptitude.  Like a good stage mystery where the audience knows more than the interacting characters, readers get the advantage of seeing what Sam and Dave continue to barely avoid, even while their wily dog is on to what its masters, farcically missed by earthy inches.  Diamonds are above, below and to the side of them.  When they get really close to shoveling into them dead-on, they take  a snack break and dubiously change directions, while their ever-astute pooch easily enough senses what they continue to avoid.  As the folly of their The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Shoot Straight-style exploits become more pronounced Klassen gives visual enhancement by making the diamonds bigger and bigger.  In one instance when their treasure is just about staring them in the face (three-quarters of a double page spread is occupied by a colossal sized jewel) they re-direct their focus, while the canine friend looks squarely at the find, no doubt thinking “How stupid can you guys be?”  Eventually these dirty faced prospectors’ arduous excavation forces them to take a rest that soon enough leads to deep sleep.

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Caldecott Medal Contender: Queen Victoria’s Bathing Machine

by Sam Juliano

Queen Victoria’s reign of 63 years and 7 months is the longest in British history.  The era that bears her name is remembered for Pax Brittanica, a time of peace, prosperity and confidence.  The time was noted for industrial advancements and for the great literature that was written during the peak years of her power.  Victoria is too-often regarded as a stodgy monarch with stiff upper lip and humorless personality.  Yet Gloria Whelan and Nancy Carpenter takes a much lighter approach to how the queen maintained a far more disarming lifestyle away from the eyes of the public.  In free-wheeling, whimsical verse Whelan sets up the mise en scene straight away:

Queen Victoria looked out to sea/It was blue, it was cool, it was nice as could be/The day was so hot; the sun so bright/Her petticoats itched and her corset was tight/She whispered a wish, it was only a whim/”How grand it would be to go for a swim.”

To accentuate the joyful, even irreverent demeanor of the queen’s fun-loving kids, who are undaunted by the stately behavior expected of the royals, Carpenter visualizes a state of domestic anarchy.   Hence, the ink and watercolor art that is captured digitally always keeps a special eye for the humorous possibilities of each tapestry.  After the Queen conveys her fancy her lady-in-waiting collapses, stating unabashedly: “It would be a disgrace to see more of the queen than her hands and her face.”  The queen backs off, realizing that she’d have to wear all her petticoats, dresses and shoes if she were to to swim in the ocean, and that wouldn’t be very practical.  Prince Albert (one recalls all the self-annointed geniuses in James Thurber’s Caldecott Medal winning Many Moons) decides to search for a way to allow Her Majesty to indulge in her aquatic passions “while keeping the populace from glimpsing your knees.”  He enters the royal library, a real hotbed of familial interaction (one of Carpenter’s most delightful spreads shows Victoria in a pink dress fanning herself on a couch while one son plays chess with an attendant, another sits on a twirling globes, while a boy makes faces behind a telescope negotiated by his sister and another daughter engages with a sling shot.  A younger child is busy with a quilt pen and a parchment on the floor.  Albert suggests a devise that hurls heavy rocks in the air, but Victoria is afraid she might be the victim of target practice.  Then a sudden revelation:

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Caldecott Medal Contender: Little Melba and Her Big Trombone

 

by Sam Juliano

The fact that Melba Doretta Liston was the first woman trombonist to hone her craft with the big bands in the 1940’s and beyond would in itself make a picture book on the subject an inherently inspiring chapter in musical history.  Starting up on the trombone at age seven qualifies Liston as a child prodigy, and her ascendance to the top level of her anointed profession sends out the message to young aspirants that when there is a will there is a way.  Little Melba and Her Big Trombone parallels the social indignities hoisted upon the African-American community that were examined exhaustively in Powell and Christian Robinson’s picture book on Josephine Baker (“whites only”)  Much like the protagonist of that spirited real-life story, Liston was born with her special propensity from an young age in music infested Kansas City.  The year she entered the world was 1926, this this swinging mid-America city was a hotbed for jazz, and the main fix for programmers.  From her earliest remembrances Melba was attuned to the sounds of blues, jazz and gospel (author Katheryn Russell-Brown sizes this up in more specific terms as “the plink of a guitar, the hummmm of a bass, the thrum-thrum of a drum, the ping-pang of a piano, the tremble of a sweet horn) and during the run of those formidable years notes and rhythms occupy her during the day and at night, when her sleeping hours were curtailed.  The old-fashioned box radio in the family room was another source for musical satiation, and the course-voiced piano virtuoso Fats Waller was a favorite.  Her player piano skills coaxed domestic dance session in her home.  Then, at age seven, she convinced her mom to buy her a trombone at a traveling music store, though the very idea of a little girl playing such a long and unwieldy instrument brought on laughter.  Melba, though, was an only child, and she granted her request.

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Caldecott Medal Contender: Quest

by Sam Juliano

Aaron Becker was a frontrunner for last year’s Caldecott Medal, and ended up with one of the three honors that were awarded.  His wordless picture book Journey became an instant classic upon release and its success and exceeding artistry inspired Becker to commence with a trilogy, of which the ravishing Quest is the second chapter.  In picture book land, the wild anticipation for parts two and three size up as the equivalent of how cinematic Tolkien admirers waited on The Two Towers and The Return of the King, after the exquisite The Fellowship of the Ring.   To be sure, there is always something especially novel about the first installment of anything.  Some are obstinate in the way they assess the a multi-part work, always seeing the first as the establishing aesthetic.  Yet, most discerning film fans will cite  the final installment as the most all-encompassing and majestic, the one that will  ultimately be remembered over the long haul.  Children’s literature fans are a bit more skeptical, though in another sense they are overprotective of an adored book that set the bar high.  Still, Becker moved forward undaunted and his Quest is every bit as superlative as its predecessor.  Kirkus was right on the money when they opined:  “This book proves to be more exciting than its predecessor, emphasizing adventure over evocative metaphor.”  Becker certainly does broaden his canvass and deepens the conflicts while diversifying his exotic scope.  It is like comparing Jules Verne’s The Mysterious Island with his Around the World in Eighty Days.  Bigger is not always better, but the same could be said of the reverse proposal.  Had a work of Quest’s artistic stature been released first, I do believe it would have wowed the committee and various award givers as resoundingly as Journey did.  But I am getting ahead – Quest is in the Caldecott hunt, and has been named by a number of critics and book lovers as one of their supreme favorites of 2014.  I’d venture to predict that the third part of the trilogy will also impress many.

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Caldecott Medal Contender: Bad Apple’s Perfect Day

by Sam Juliano

After some wicked witch-possessed trees regale Dorothy and her new friend in The Wizard of Oz for picking apples off them, the Scarecrow initiates a sobering conversation:

Scarecrow: Come along Dorothy.  You don’t want any of those apples.

Tree: Are you hinting that my apples aren’t what they ought to be?

Scarecrow:  Oh no.  Its just that she doesn’t like little green worms.

Alas, that unflattering perception isn’t shared by an ironically named mackintosh apple who first rolled onto the stage in 2012 in a book titled Bad Apple: A Tale of Friendship.  His stay was so welcomed by all varieties of America’s favorite fruit and masses of the fisherman’s favorite bait -not to mention adoring young school children- that its creator, Edward Hemingway -the youngest grandson of you-know-who- opted for an encore.

Technically, Bad Apple’s Perfect Day is considered a sequel, but in effect, like the Caldecott Medal winning Madeline’s Rescue it involves new adventures with some of the same players.  Like its predecessor it is lively, vibrant, funny and imbued with a great deal of positive energy.  The bold and imaginative oil on canvas art offers up some sublime set pieces, with a ravishing use of red, green and yellow, and brings in a plethora of compositional diversity.  Friendship in film, literature and theater has often yield some of the most seemingly incompatible unions, but it would hard to imagine any more dysfunctional that that of an apple and a worm, since intrusion by one into the other has always signifying irreversible spoiling. While apple-loving children, who have been indoctrinated by their parents to the tune of “An apple a day keeps the doctor away,” may have always had warm feelings for the red and green fruit, they are not normally receptive to worm infiltration.  In any case, this fruit, so integral to the story arcs of William Tell and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, is an American institution, and is a natural fit to receive life giving properties.  Hemingway has done just that in his two irresistible picture books.

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Caldecott Medal Contender: Tiny Rabbit’s Big Wish

by Sam Juliano

When you wish upon a star, makes no difference who you are…

It is human nature for one to wish what they are not.  Kids always think in terms of big.  Many want to be taller, some want to be much stronger, others want to be anything other than what they are.  The most famous wisher of all started his life as a wooden puppet, and his hankering was to become a real boy.  The funny thing about wishing though is that if it were possible to actually happen it would eventually leave this advocate for change none the happier for forfeiting the very special and unique qualities before the transformation.  The life cycle is always the same.  Kids want to become adults, and are all to willing to bypass the formidable years to achieve equality with parents, relatives or some others they idolize.  Young ones try to emulate the behavior and mannerisms of adults, and fantasize of being different, usually in the most extreme manifestation.  Invariably, when they do get older they regret that their childhood wasn’t longer nor better appreciated.  It is a lesson they learn too late, but as kids would never understand this concept.  Wishing is usually harmless, but the consequences of avarice has been well noted in the literature.  A royal flounder repays a kind fisherman for letting him off the hook, but repeatedly granting his wife a series of wishes.  Prodded by her greed, he wishes (and gets) a cottage, castle, servants, and queen of the realm, but when his wife asks to be God, they are returned to their poor shanty.  In W. W. Jacobs’ The Monkey’s Paw a bid for a lot of money leads to unspeakable tragedy and a macabre conclusion.

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Caldecott Medal Contender: The Hug Machine

by Sam Juliano

There is a serious strain of juvenile obsessive-compulsive disorder being played out in Scott Campbell’s irresistibly effervescent The Hug Machine, but it is not one likely to fan the flames of dysfunction, especially the kind that could adversely affect the recipients.  No, this kind of behavior has its heart in the right place, and the consequences are benign.  The theme is human intimacy, that even extends to inanimate objects, one that extols the virtues of wearing your heart on your sleeve, and publicly displaying what many keep to themselves.   The first time I actually saw The Hug Machine was back in early October.  A bunch of copies were stacked in the main window display at Manhattan’s Books of Wonder, the ultimate showcase of children’s literature and picture books.  The creative exhibit included some set pieces from the book, in what is really a natural for this kind of promotion.  This kind of extreme behavior makes for a visually alluring presentation.  Wanting to purchase two other books that day -I did- I figured I would wait until the following week to return for The Hug Machine.  Bad move.  By then they were sold out.  A desperate stop a few blocks away to the Strand saved the day, and initiated my special attraction to this fabulous pink lemonade picture book.  Campbell, who collaborated with Kelly DiPucchio on Zombie in Love and its sequel, was the sole creator of this one-note Valentine’s Day picture book that never once diverts from its central purpose.

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Caldecott Medal Contender: The Baby Tree

by Sam Juliano

The past year in picture books has yielded some of the most daring and  mature themes yet explored in this generally restrictive terrain.  The first openly transgender picture book I Am Jazz by Jessica Herthel and Jazz Jennings takes a pointed look at the confusion of a boy who possesses the mind-set of a girl, and the lovely Canadian work Morris Micklewhite and the Tangerine Dress by Christine Baldacchino and Isabelle Malenfant explores the courage it takes to be creative and different, in this case a boy wearing a dress.  Then there is a book titled Outlaw Pete by Bruce Springsteen and Frank Caruso, that is so godawful in concept and theme, that its creators are now trying to say its target audience are adults.  Right.  A book about an infant who robs banks in his diapers.  In any case, the boldest book of any in 2014 was written and illustrated by one of children’s literature’s most renowned artists, Sophie Blackall.  A strong contender in last year’s Caldecott race for the sublime illustrations she crafted for The Mighty Lalouche by Matthew Olsham,  the artist’s Chinese ink and pastel watercolors bring a sumptuous life to a theme that must be delicately broached to win the seal of approval from the teachers and parents who would oversee this book’s reception at home and in the classroom.  Blackall’s virtuoso use of colors in finely bordered vignettes are a perfect fit for the aesthetically pleasing arches paper used for this book.  The austerity of The Baby Tree’s subject is negotiated with visual disarmament that accentuates the boundless joy of familial addition, rather than a more muted conscription of how to deal with the birds and the bees.  No author or illustrator to date has brought such effervescence to this sobering subject, nor has so effectively sidestepped the implications of the reproductive process.

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Caldecott Medal Contender: As An Oak Tree Grows

by Sam Juliano

“I am as constant as the northern star”       -William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

There is a deep elegiac undercurrent running through G. Brian Karas’ As An Oak Tree Grows, a quietly affecting story of a towering canopy that lives for better than two-hundred years.  In the tradition of Virginia Lee Burton’s beloved Caldecott Medal winning The Little House, there is a human aspect to the seemingly symbolic specter that bears witness to the many changes that are wrought on what begins as a clearing in the woods, progressing to a small town and then to a populated hamlet near a river.  Much like Burton’s book, everything and anything changes around the centerpiece, while technological advancements and population increases alter the landscape, with nothing but the tree achieving any measure of permanence.  What never changes is the appreciation for the giant oak by generations who find different ways to make this indomitable presence an integral part of their lives.

It all begins when the young son of early New World settlers plants an acorn in the ground in early spring.  Later in the year and oak tree sprouts and begin the annual ritual of shedding leaves in the fall and growing new ones in the spring.  By 1800 the boy has grown up and moved on, leaving farmers to develop the land, though the oak tree was left alone to expand.  Though branches break during winter it lives on, as the area around it continues to broaden from 1825-1850.  A few decades later the area suffers from a mini-drought that forces the oak tree’s roots to expand, searching for life-sustaining water, as the symptoms include wilted leaves.  

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