Educational illustrated books get a bad rap. When readers get to a certain age they feel that books with too many pictures are babyish. The exceptions to those books are graphic novels, which are more mature in their eyes. Everest, The Remarkable Story of Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Nogay is an illustrated book in name only. In reality, the content, intelligence, details, information and length put this more in league with a graphic novel, albeit one that’s bigger in size than a standard comic book.
Which came first, the art or the poetry? You might find yourself asking that question after you look at You Are Home by Evan Turk. An Ode to the National Parks You Are Home is an over sized, illustrated book that will immerse ages four through nine into just under half of the national parks in the United States. For those keeping score at home, there are 58 national parks in the United States and his book shows you a glimpse into 27 of them.
The title to the post, With A Little Help From My Friends-the book, might seem odd; but it’s necessary to put it that way because the song has been turned into a children’s illustrated book. This is a children’s book that’s written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, or rather, it has the song’s lyrics as the written narrative for a story. I’m not going to go all ‘back in my day’ or ‘kids these days’ because half of the genius of The Beatles was the lyrics to the melodies that they created. It’s also undeniable that With A Little Help From My Friends is an amazingly catchy song. The illustrated book is slightly more forgettable and that’s ironically due to the song.
Sara Varon has created graphic novels packed with friendly, anthropomorphic robots or animals who make shoes, knit scarves and are otherwise the kind of neighbors that you want to have. Hold Hands is a picture book that skews younger than Varon’s other work, while featuring the same, cartoon realistic animals that you wish were your neighbors. This is the kind of feel-good, rhyming, illustrated book that ages three-six will love as a goodnight book.
Welcome to Morningtown is exactly where our seven year old is now. By that I do not mean that prefers the morning. It’s just the opposite as he’s not exactly captain chipper in the AM. However, Welcome to Morningtown is exactly where our seven year old is in regards to his reading level. The book is aimed at ages 4-8 who; depending on their age, want a lovely illustrated book that they can read by themselves, a good-night book by an adult or somewhere in-between.
If pre-K through early elementary school kids had coffee
tables then If I Was The Sunshine is one of those books that would be front and
center. “Oh, isn’t that book fabulous”, the clumsy kid from down the street
would say. “And those illustrations, the farm animals that were drawn by Loren
Long are absolutely dreamy. They’re solid, yet ethereal and remind me of a
place that I’ve never been to-but I sure want to go”, said the visiting art
critic from some big city on the coast. “The size of the book is great too.
It’s as big around as that dwarf white pumpkin we’re grew last year”, Sam the
farmer from Georgia commented.
In this imaginary world of coffee talk all of these small children would be correct. If I Was The Sunshine is a children’s illustrated book whose mere presence makes you take notice. Boom, all one has to do is look at the book and it grabs your attention. This is a large book at over a square foot large this book takes up a lot of real estate on your shelf. Its height rivals those tall, encyclopedia-style National Geographic books. The size grabs your attention, the art keeps you engaged and the soft, rhyming narration will mellow out crabby children at the end of the day.
A worry is not a physical thing. The moment you stop obsessing over said ‘worry’ it magically disappears into the background of life. It’s natural to have illustrated books about being worried because some miss and some hit. Ruby Finds a Worry is by Tom Percival and expertly brings his warmth, pacing, sublime story telling ability and art to a worthy book about a topic that we need to address…but not be worried about.
Turtles, hermit crabs, rabbits and hamsters are what I call, fringe pets. Granted they are domesticated animals, but they’re way down in the pecking order of pets. Either due to space or one of the parents putting the kibosh on getting a kitten, these are the pets that you’ll remember from your childhood. I was right there with you as I had rabbits and a crow. Yes, a crow. Truman, however, is a turtle and his human is Sarah. She’s about to start going to kindergarten this is story is about how Truman handles it.
Bravery, independence and being excited about new
experiences all happen on a two-way street. Sarah is somewhat of a solitary
kid. She’s not a two-legged, shell-less version of a turtle, but there are some
similarities. They’re both a little shy
and are both about to embark on a paradigm shift to their lifestyle.
Until now, it’s just been Sarah and Truman all day. She’d feed him seven green beans each day. He would lie on the floor while she colored and life was simple, slow and just the two of them. One day she gives him two extra beans, reminds him to be brave and closes the door. This of course, freaks out Truman out because her backpack, she’s dressed up more than usual and she was a tense (she’s never tense)-something is wrong.
This leads Truman to go on a mighty quest to investigate
what’s the problem with her today. Alas, Truman is in a glass container (as all
good turtles are) and sometimes just getting from the piece of lettuce to the
water can be challenging. What is a concerned turtle to do?
Be brave and explore things that you’re uncomfortable with, that’s the answer. That is just what Truman does. From a turtle’s perspective we see him explore, as much as he’s able to, on his rescue mission to see what’s become of Sarah.
Truman works on so many levels as a children’s illustrated
book. First up the art is immediately appealing. The vantage points that Truman
sees and the emotions that his little turtle face convey will hook young
readers. It hooked me and I’m far older than a young reader. The art is also
great for this book. Some pages are corner to corner with color and landscape.
Other pages are sparse and illustrate how big the room is relative to the
Truman. The one constant is that the colors in the book are the colors. The colors
are bright, with a slight retro hue that will remind older readers (me) of
comic strips in the Sunday newspaper. However, they have that timeless vibe
that will bring in elementary school readers.
Truman is a great, illustrated book with a timeless feel. It’s got lessons for anyone and will appeal to boys or girls aged 5 and up. Those in early through middle elementary will laugh at his adventures and those younger ones will relate to the new, scary experiences, like pre-K or kindergarten.
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