by Sam Juliano
Construction on Rockefeller Center in midtown Manhattan commenced in 1931, with the finishing touches applied in 1939. Workers unwittingly inaugurating a tradition in that first year when they decorated a 20 foot balsam fir with all kinds of items including cranberries, paper garlands, tin cans and foil gum wrappers. Two years later a 50 foot tree was installed as a holiday beacon for workers and Big Apple tourists, and the tradition was officially launched. Each year the center’s head gardener heads up an investigative mission to find a most ideal specimen of the object famously described Upon whose bosom snow has lain/Who intimately lives with rain. Crews are annually dispatched during the fall to search for super size evergreens from states as far away as Vermont and Ohio, though the history reveals that New Jersey, New York and Connecticut have provided by far the most since the practice was instituted. The largest tree ever showcased was a 100 footer from Killingworth, Connecticut, chosen for the 1999 yuletide season. No tree higher would qualify because of city street width specifications around the complex. Last year’s tree at 30,000 pounds and 56 feet wide was a record breaker in both departments. The Mayor of New York City traditionally lights it at a ceremony now televised by NBC.
A newly released picture book by Matt Tavaras, Red & Lulu is a glorious celebration of one of America’s most cherished institutions, and by way of concept, design and beauty, not to mention an irresistible dramatic hook, it appears destined for an indefinite tenure on the holiday shelves in bookstores. Tavares is a veteran picture book maker who has produced some of the most distinguished biographies of baseball legends like Ted Williams, Pedro Martinez, Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron. His output though has been diverse, and with Red & Lulu he has crafted his masterpiece, a book as aesthetically beautiful as it is dramatically touching. It is not remotely a long shot to conclude that this striking and colorfully vivid work is surely one of the most beautiful from any country, and that Caldecott Medal discussion is assured. Red & Lulu is also that rarest of books, one as artful as it is popular and as thematically soulful as it is artistically captivating.
The drama begins in a snowy location many miles from the urban center where it will ultimately conclude. After spiffy red yuletide end papers, readers are treated to a snowy scene featuring a house and evergreen, the latter identified as the home of two cardinals. A family member is filling a bird feeder for the tree’s residents in a first silvery hued glimpse of Taveras’ ravishing watercolor and gouache. The title page is a double page spread featuring the snow-covered town where the house is located, and where the evergreen is the resident Mt. Everest. The story begins with a pair of half-page panels and another a full canvas depicting seasonal bliss during the spring, summer and fall when kids play baseball, get cool courtesy of a small pool and sprinkler, and play in a pile of colorful leaves a parent is gathering up with a rake. For the two cardinals as Taveras glowingly confirms it defeated the very notion of transience:
Their nests were always safe in its branches. Its shade kept them cool on hot summer days. And its evergreen needles kept them cozy when autumn winds howled. It was the perfect place to live, all year long.
In the winter these sanguine and contented tenants appreciate their home more than ever, as this was the time they were treated to carolers singing about their fortress, which was lit up with colorful lights. The author notes that the birds sometimes “sang along.” As exquisitely painted by Tavares this is a winter scene we all dream for, and one that evokes Pulitzer-Prize winning American poet Mary Oliver’s line In winter all the singing is in the tops of the trees. After an intrusive vignette of a squirrel taking advantage of the bird feeder, the readers see what the breakfast seeking Red does not. Two long trucks, one a flatbed have pulled up to the front of the house. The family members greet one of the workers, who has his hands razed up to signify the astounding size of the tree. It is cut and maneuvered by cables to its side on the flatbed. One illustration reveals that Lulu is inside, a fact that is soon enough confirmed when Red returns clasping a berry branch to find the beloved longtime home now cut down and tied to the commercial vehicle. Lulu’s song emerges, as Red frantically urges his companion not to move in fear of permanent dislocation. The panel of the kids jumping from the tree stump is bittersweet, though readers young and old will feel and understand the sadness lies in the upheaval for two airborne creatures thought to possess unlimited potential to find another home.
The flatbed merges on to a highway and then a suspension bridge which may well be the George Washington, connecting northern New Jersey with Manhattan. Red initially keeps apace, but the truck eventually pulls away and he is left perched in the top of a tall building in an urban jungle he has never beheld in his lifetime. His tenacious search leads him to the main branch of the New York Public Library, where he gently perches on the red ribbon of a wreath positioned around the institution’s emblematic stone lion. Finding food isn’t an easy task as he learns when trying to compete with pigeons for crumbs or how to negotiate the ocean of lights and pedestrians in Times Square which is seen as a kaleidoscope of shapes and sizes, with words seemingly scribbled to emphasize that specific details are not what count, but the overall impressions. For Red these impressions are becoming blurred during a heaving snowfall, as he glides past the observation deck of the Empire State Building in one of Tavares’s most dazzling tapestries, one wholly cinematic. Red descends lower to a yuletide overhang, observing a crowded intersection at West 49th Street. A familiar chorus of O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree drives the intrepid cardinal toward the source of the all-too-familiar sound. Tavares visualizes him as a big red majestic force of nature, who will somehow negotiate his needle-in-a-haystack mission.
Then Taveras the illustrator takes the proverbial gloves off, treating his patient if long captivated readers with a series of tapestries that rate as among the most exquisite in any picture book released in 2017. Red flies in to behold the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree, not knowing the true identity of this stunning phantasmagorical mass. The angels with their trumpets and the choir under the tree complete this arresting yuletide tableau, followed by the closeup panel of the chirping Red flying over the choir abreast of the lowest branches of the tree. The illustrative response to He flew right for their favorite branch is four color incandescence in the three panels that precede the big reunion scene. And then, and then, my favorite double page spread in the book, the real show stopper, the march of the wooden soldiers in Babes in Toyland or the song “Try to Remember” from The Fantasticks. The joyous rapprochement of the book’s uprooted protagonists is a flaky celebration announced by the trumpet-blowing winged seraphs opposite the illustrator’s ravishing lightbulb display in close-up. Its a canvas that would entice even jolly old St. Nick to proclaim, “Ho ho ho, Merry Christmas!”
The tree is next seen in daylight as an endless stream of visitors, some skating on the center’s rink head over to see the tree, some no doubt with the kind of awestruck curiosity as those who visited Mr. Zuckerman’s farm. The difference of course is the sheer scope of the numbers. Red and Lulu were proud their home was being appreciated by so many, but after the holiday season concludes the flatbed again plays host to its removal. Tavares again works his painterly magic on the seasonal depictions of Central Park, where Red and Lulu have decided to set up camp, having rightly determined there are many trees to settle in and a horde of friends to spend time with. A park fountain is the vassal of their initiation into this glorious nature habitat. Yet these two inveterate songbirds return every year to snuggle on a snowy branch to listen and to offer aural accompaniment to the chorus of O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree, Thy leaves are so unchanging. Tavares gives the landmark Christmas evergreen two final views in all its yuletide splendor and offers a historical afterward on the tradition’s conception and accelerating popularity with the public. of special note for ardent environmentalists is that after the holiday season the tree is donated to Habitat for Humanity, “a charitable organization that uses lumber from the tree to build homes for families in need.” Tavares also confirms that the story has a truthful advent as two cardinals were frequent visitors in his own backyard. Re-birth is the subject of the final springtime tableau when a new tree has been planted, inviting other birds and allowing the cycle to repeat itself.
The red end papers, and especially the stunning inside cover design featuring the two songbirds frolicking in the snow on front and back are part of an exquisite picture book package, one that plants Red & Lulu firmly in the aesthetic company of past Christmas Caldecott Medal winners like The Polar Express, Nine Days to Christmas and Babushka and the Three Kings. This is a rapturous book sure to find a permanent place in the holiday literature, one destined to ravish future generations. That in thought, word and deed it should be a major player in the Caldecott discussion puts the finishing touches on this remarkable picture book success story. Two irrepressible cardinals have won a place in our hearts for all-time.
Note: This is the seventeenth entry in the 2017 Caldecott Medal Contender series. The annual venture does not purport to predict what the committee will choose, rather it attempts to gauge what the writer feels should be in the running. In most instances the books that are featured in the series have been touted as contenders in various online round-ups, but for the ones that are not, the inclusions are a humble plea to the committee for consideration. It is anticipated the series will include in the neighborhood of around 30 titles; the order which they are being presented in is arbitrary, as every book in this series is a contender. Some of my top favorites of the lot will be done near the end. The awards will be announced in mid-February, hence the reviews will continue until around the end of January or through the first week of February.
Sam, I’m speechless after reading your latest review. I see on Amazon they are offering it at an incredible price. Ordering mine today, and may get a second copy as a gift.
I just went over to Amazon Ricky! Incredible indeed! All are urged to grab a copy! Thank you!
I am so excited for Matt, he has worked hard for this beautiful winner of a book!
Thanks so much Jamie! I’ve been appraised of that conviction and join you in professing excitement for this remarkable work!
This looks really exceptional. Truly excellent holiday books are relatively rare. Nice to hear this may join the circle. Fantastic review Sam!
Absolutely James! Definitely one destined for a long tenure on the holiday shelves! Thanks so much!
Sam, your well-written and exciting illustrative choice today makes a special impact inasmuch as I’m occupied with the film, Wendy and Lucy, and its tale of letting down a true heart! Here the reunion is joyous in accordance with the season of going the extra mile.
The graphics of Manhattan are as delicious as the City’s window dressings!
The graphics of Manhattan are as delicious as the City’s window dressings!
Oh yes indeed Jim! Insightfully asserted! I love the thematic connection to WENDY AND LUCY, which is my favorite film from that director! Yes we have a joyful reunion, befitting a soon-to-be perennial Chistmas tale. Thanks so much my friend!
So great that we have another holiday classic to enjoy over and over again! Superb review Sam! Seems to be the regular order of business for this year’s series.
Thanks so much Peter! Yes another holiday classic has joined the ranks, and its quite a beauty!
Sam — I love how you wove that line from Mary Oliver’s poem into your review of this exquisite holiday book! And I so appreciate how author-illustrator Matt Tavares wraps up this incredible work with re-birth—the cycle of life.
Thanks so very much Laurie! I do love Oliver’s line, and thought it was so connected to this story. And yes, the ending is perfection. As always I am deeply appreciative for your peerless enthusiasm and sponsorship!
I heard part of a conversation in the teachers room last week. One was saying she purchased this book for her niece at some unheard of low price of like $6.00 from Amazon. I can see why you posted that beautiful winter illustration twice. It is a beauty like the entire book.
John, I actually do remember the price being that low!!! I paid a bit more for mine, but wow, that is practically unprecedented! This has turned out to be a best seller, which I am not surprised about! Thank you.
I LOVE this book! The illustrations are truly stunning. I think it is certainly worthy of being considered for the Caldecott Medal.
Thank you so much Elaine! I enthusiastically concur it is worthy of strong consideration, as the art is truly extraordinary. You are so kind as the author of another Caldecott worthy book, THINGS THAT I DO with illustrations by the fabulous Catia Chien. 🙂
I find it hard to believe this won’t be honored by the Caldecott committee.
I hear ya Jennifer. Thanks for stopping by and Happy Holidays!
Gorgeous book! Yes I don’t think there is any doubt it will be a holiday classic for good. Right now there are holds on the book in the system, with maybe only two copies available. Such an enchanting review Sam.
Celeste, I am thinking in those exact same terms! And yes, this book is not easy to come by in the systems. I know a few who couldn’t wait and moved to purchase their own! Thank you and Happy Holidays!