MMGM: BFG

Today's Marvelous Middle Grade Monday pick:

BFG, by Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake

BFG

Written by Roald Dahl
Illustrated by Quentin Blake
Jonathan Cape, Penguin Random House, 1982
Ages 4-12, Lexile 720L
224 pp, 38000 words


Themes:
Fantasy, Friendships, Assumptions


Opening:
Sophie couldn't sleep.
A brilliant moonbeam was slanting through the gap in the curtains. It was shining right on to her pillow.
The other children in the dormitory had been asleep for hours.
Sophie closed her eyes and lay quite still. She tried very hard to doze off.
It was no good. The moon beam was like a silver blade slicing through the room on to her face.
The house was absolutely silent. No voices came up from downstairs. There were no footsteps on the floor above either.
The window behind the curtain was wide open, but nobody was walking on the pavement outside. No cars went by on the street. Not the tiniest sound could be heard anywhere. Sophie had never known such a silence.
Perhaps, Sophie told herself, this was what they called the witching hour.

Thoughts:
It may be sacrilegious, but I am not as big a Roald Dahl fan as perhaps I should be. I fell in love with James and the Giant Peach in sixth grade. Honestly, it was decades before I found out it was an excerpt. By the time I read the novel, I had already imagined my own story around the incident and couldn't reconcile the two. I didn't grow up with Gene Wilder's Willy Wonka so that particular book had no pull on me. To me, Danny and his father were the worst kind of heroes.

But BFG was the book which opened the magical door. Suddenly I could hear the music in Dahl's words and gulp in the delightful silliness page after page. The text is so lyrically perfect. The humor, both subtle and absolute. The characters are the kind you want to cuddle and keep in your pocket.

So if you haven't read this book, find a copy and blow off work for the afternoon.
If you 've read it before, dust off your favorite edition and read it again.
Either way, it's whoopsy whiffling.


Bonus: 
1. Scholastic posted a sweet little interview with the author on writing, and Viva Veltoro did a fabulous interview with Dahl's daughter, Lucy, specifically about the BFG. Stephanie of Mommy Musings gives her take on the group interview.

2.  Lucy's opinion of the movie and mine seem to sync. You can read my book-to-movie comparison on the Summer Drive-In feature from last Friday.

3. For other gentle giants, try Betsy Gould Hearne's South Star series, Ted Hughes's The Iron Man (AKA The Iron Giant), The Twin Giants, by Dick King-Smith, or The Giant Smugglers, by Matt Solomon and Chris Pauls.

South Star,
by Betsy Gould Hearne
Cover by Trina Schart Hyman

The Giant Smugglers,
by Matt Solomon and Chris Pauls
Cover by Matt Griffin

Twin Giants,
by Dick King-Smith
Cover by Mini Grey

The Iron Man,
By Ted Hughes
Cover by Andrew Davidson

4. Below are some links to explore other Dahl-ing reviews by fellow MMGM participants.

BFG
Brooke on Somewhere in the Middle
Mike from Middle Grade Mafioso
Jenni Enzor
Michelle Mason

Matilda
Cait of The Hopeful Heroine
Michael on Middle Grade Mafioso


5. Roald Dahl was a master of wordplay. The OED added six new words to the dictionary last year in his honor. Increase your own vocabulary with the Dahl Dictionary at Wonderful Dahl. Or buy your own Oxford Roald Dahl Dictionary from Oxford University Press.

Check out all the recommended titles for Marvelous Middle Grade Monday for July 3, 2017 available on Shannon Messenger's Ramblings of a Wannabe Scribe.

Feel free to leave your MG recommendations in the comments. Thanks!

MMGM: Trina Schart Hyman Covers

Due to technical difficulties, Shannon Messenger will not be posting Marvelous Middle Grade Monday today. In lieu of a middle grade book review, I thought I'd highlight some of the MG I've been reading (or rather re-reading) lately.

It has often been said, "don't judge a book by its cover," but of course we always do. In fact, it is a designer's job to make a cover that sells the book. When I toured Penguin-Putnam a while back, we discussed at length the changes that sometimes happen because a member of the marketing team is unhappy with the cover (someone who often hasn't read the book, by the way.) Please don't misunderstand. I am grateful for those marketing teams. They live to drive sales of our books and their job is on the line if they aren't successful. They play their part in keeping the publisher in business. If publishers go out of business, writers, readers, and illustrators suffer. That said, here are some books whose covers did their job.


A Well-Timed Enchantment, 1982
by Vivian Vande Velde,
Cover by Trina Schart Hyman

My first Vivian Vande Velde book was A Hidden Magic, and it remains a favorite. So when I found A Well-Timed Enchantment at a book warehouse around 1988, it was a must-have. The only thing I remembered about it? I wasn't crazy about the ending. On rereading, I noted the dedication:

To Elizabeth (even if you don't like the ending)

That didn't bode well. The story follows Deanna as she vacations with her mother in the French countryside. It isn't long before Deanna and a neighborhood cat end up enchanted by fairies back in medieval France on a desperate quest.  The humor borders on the ridiculous. Horn Book calls it "slapstick." But what bothered me this second time through (and thirty years later) was the helpless heroine. Deanna takes charge of her situation, but she spends a lot of time getting interrupted, shoved around, and thwarted...not very heroic.

It's okay for the main character to lose control of the situation, especially in a comedy where the frustrating results can be hilarious. Unfortunately, as a reader I mostly just felt annoyed that Deanna didn't walk away from these buffoons and get on with her quest. In Lemony Snicket's The Series of Unfortunate Events, the Baudelaires are surrounded by idiots, but they persevere in stoic resignation. In Lloyd Alexander's The Cat Who Wished to Be A Man, Lionel is so naïve, and nearly everyone else so ridiculous, that he blunders through his adventure accidentally setting things right. The whole thing is comic genius. But in Well-Timed Enchantment, I just felt frustrated instead. It's still worth reading, but I'm not sure if I'll be taking Robertson Davies's advice on this one.

Cover photo of my Ex libris copy of
Seven Spells to Farewell, 1982
by Betty Baker
Cover illustration by Trina Schart Hyman

Seven Spells to Farewell, by Betty Baker was one of the first books I bought on eBay in the early 90s, I think. How delightful when I realized I could search for those titles that were impossible to find, and actually get my hands on them! The story follows scullery maid Dru who dreams of attending the sorcerer's academy in faraway Farewell. She joins a travelling caravan which includes a talking raven and a mathematical pig. I remembered loving this book and on rereading last month, fell in love all over again. The novel does have some problems. The plot tends to run too smoothly, for one. That is not to say the characters' quest is without incident, but each time the troupe comes up against an obstacle, they take the steps necessary to solve it...and generally do. The main character in this book is more modern: not a helpless damsel battered by uncontrollable circumstances, but a doer determined to shape her fate. The dialogue was a bit bland, but the world-building was pleasant and the characters endearing. An enjoyable bit of magical realism, if you can find it.

Wishes, Kisses, and Pigs,
by Betsy Gould Hearne
Cover by Trina Schart Hyman

You can see my MMGM review of  Betsy Gould Hearne's Wishes, Kisses, and Pigs on the post from February 6, 2017. If anything, I liked this one better the second time around. I originally picked up a copy through my son's Scholastic Book flyer in 2001. He was too young for it then, but I relived the joy of opening a book club brochure and discovering treasure. I read it in one big gul, as I recall, and felt some disappointment. I can't imagine why. I found this little hundred-or-so pages delightfully quirky. A bit like Brave, now that I think about it.






See the pattern emerging here?

Trina Schart Hyman

If you've followed this blog for any length of time, you know that I am addicted to the art of Trina Schart Hyman. I own dozens of her books and am not above buying a book I've never heard of because Trina illustrated the cover. When she passed away in 2004, I took the loss personally. Her art has that effect on people. Though there will never be more of her art, she left us a rich legacy that I've spent almost forty years plumbing. Each of these titles comes from my collection.

I hope you have fun discovering her work, letting these and other book covers entice you to places unknown.

MMGM: A Child's Christmas in Wales

Today's Marvelous Middle Grade Monday pick


A Child's Christmas in Wales, by Dylan Thomas,
Illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman

A Child's Christmas in Wales

Written by Dylan Thomas
Cover art by Trina Schart Hyman

Holiday House, 1985
Ages 8 and up
48 pages, 3000 words


Themes:
Humor, Christmas, Memoir


Opening:
One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound except the distant speaking voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve of whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six.


Thoughts:
Dylan Thomas rambles elegantly about the Christmases of his childhood, somewhere around 1924. His book is full of anecdotes about the eccentric uncles ("There are always uncles at Christmas. The same uncles.") and aunts and their holiday habits. But mostly this book is a reminiscence about a world long-gone. Not just nostalgic candy cigarettes and erector sets, but also enormously exaggerated snowfalls and childhood pranks expertly seen through the eyes of a boy and the lens of an old man.

This is the sort of classic which I probably would  never have gotten around to reading but for the copy I received, where the words magically came to life through Trina Schart Hyman's illustrations. The text is lyrical enough for younger readers, but the meaning may escape them. Certainly many of the historical references will leave them wondering, particularly if they are unfamiliar with European culture. But, like Victor Hugo, Thomas groups his examples in great bundles so one is sure to catch the meaning through context. For example, when listing the marvelous Christmas confections, Thomas mentions, "Hardboiled, toffee, fudge and allsorts, crunches, cracknels, humbugs, glaciers, marzipan, and butterwelsh for the Welsh." My mouth waters at the crunchy-chewy-sticky goodness of a bowl full of Christmas sweets despite the fact I've only ever eaten marzipan.

Kids will certainly relate to the excitement of a snowball fight, the dreadful practicality of a new pair of mittens, the familiarity of skulking in a room full of tipsy relatives singing at the top of their voices. I enjoyed Child's Christmas as a kid and I pick up something new each time I read it. (This year I get the joke about the "Happy Families" game and I finally know the difference between jelly beans and jelly babies!) Try it as a read-aloud and pair it with reminiscences of your own. Kids are fascinated by stories of grown-ups as children, especially how things were so different yet so similar.


Bonus: 
1. If you enjoyed A Child's Christmas in Wales, you may like the audio version read by the author himself before he died. It's intriguing, but may be too hurried for young listeners.

Caedmon audio edition, 2002

2. If traditional illustration isn't your style, you can try these more recent versions.



1993 edition illustrated by Edward Ardizzone

2004 edition illustrated by Chris Raschka

 

3. I can't help myself. Trina Schart Hyman's work transports me. Here are more of her books which you might like to read.



A Christmas Carol
Reviewed for MMGM, December 2016

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
Reviewed May 2012

 

4. Start your own holiday tradition by making peppermint humbugs, for fans of Harry Potter as well as Dylan Thomas.



Peppermint humbug recipe courtesy Feast Magazine

5. Looking for candy cigarettes, jelly babies, space ships, rock candy, licorice pipes, and the like? You can find them all at Ballyhoo, old-fashioned ice cream parlor and candy shop, if you're ever in Pennsylvania.


Rob and Val, owners of Ballyhoo, Purveyors of fine ice cream and bubblegum cigars!

Have you reviewed a Marvelous Middle Grade Book along this theme? Please leave the link in the comments below. Thanks!

Check out all the Marvelous Middle Grade Monday recommendations for December 19, 2016.

MMGM started way back in 2010 by Shannon Messenger, author of Keeper of Lost Cities. Each week, participating bloggers review our favorite books for ages 8-12. Why not join us?

Last Chance Book Giveaway

Last chance to win a copy of either Calling on Dragons, by Patricia C. Wrede or The Fairy Tale Life of Hans Christian Andersen, by Eva Moore, illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman.



Calling on Dragons

Fairy Tale Life of
 Hans Christian Andersen

Tweet about the giveaway using #MGLit or comment on the contest post.

And stay tuned for tomorrow's middle grade book review of Raina Telgemeier's newest release, Ghosts.

Ghosts,by Raina Telgemeier

Join all the MMGM participants

MMGM: Dealing With Dragons

Welcome to my first review for

Marvelous Middle Grade Mondays.

MMGM started way back in 2010 by Shannon Messenger, author of Keeper of Lost Cities. Each week, participating bloggers review our favorite books for ages 8-12. Why not join us by blogging about your favorites?

If you're looking for my weekly bookish quote and bookplate, they've permanently moved to Wednesdays.


Today's Marvelous Middle Grade Monday pick

Dealing With Dragons,
Enchanted Forest Chronicles, book # 1,
First edition cover by Trina Schart Hyman

Dealing With Dragons


Written by Patricia C. Wrede
HMH Books for Young Readers,
originally Harcourt Childrens Books, 1990
Ages 10 and up
240 pages,51000 words


Themes:
Fantasy, Humor, Challenging Assumptions


Opening:
       Linderwall was a large kingdom, just east of the Mountains of Morning, where philosophers were highly respected and the number five was fashionable. The knights kept their armor brightly polished mainly for show —it had been centuries since a dragon had come east. There were the usual periodic problems with royal children and uninvited fairy godmothers, but they were always the sort of thing that could be cleared up by finding the proper prince or princess to marry the unfortunate child a few years later. All in all, Linderwall was a very prosperous and pleasant place.
       Cimorene hated it.


Thoughts:
In Dealing With Dragons, author Patricia Wrede  challenges the reader to look at traditional fairy tale tropes in a new light. Her book is fun, funny, and thought-provoking as it follows the adventures of Cimorene.

Princess Cimorene is practical, witty, and resourceful, anything but a typical princess. She feels constrained by the expectations of her society and frustrated by the machinations of others. As she fights against stereotypes, she forges a new path for herself, one of her own choosing, despite limiting circumstances. She is a strong character who dares the reader to examine her own beliefs and design her own destiny.

Wrede's humor is clever. She sprinkles the story with anachronistic references and peppers it with hilarious explanations for fairy tale behaviors. Today, the market is littered with twisted fairy tales, but few have the charm or freshness of Patricia's original style.


Bonus: 
 1. If you enjoyed Dealing With Dragons, don't miss the other books in the Enchanted Forest Chronicles. Or travel to an alternate history in Patricia's Thirteenth Child, a mix of magic on the American frontier.

2. You might also like A Hidden Magic, by Vivian Vande Velde, a similar tongue-in-cheek remix which features another cover by illustrator Trina Schart Hyman.



Thirteenth Child,
Frontier Magic book #1,
by Patricia Wrede

A Hidden Magic,
by Vivian Vande Velde

3. Plus, I'm giving away a used copy of Calling on Dragons or The Fairy Tale Life of Hans Christian Andersen, your choice. You can enter to win by tweeting a link to this post using the hashtag #MGLit. If you don't have a twitter account, you can leave a comment below.

Win a copy of Patricia's
Calling on Dragons
OR

This book by Eva Moore,
art by Trina Schart Hyman

A Winner will be drawn and notified September 19. Thanks for reading, and good luck.

4. Check out all the recommended titles for Marvelous Middle Grade Monday
for Monday, September 12, 2016 available on Shannon Messenger's blog. 

If you want to join MMGM, blog about a middle grade book you love on a Monday. You can post a straight review or contests, author interviews, etc. Then email Shannon Messenger at SWMessenger@hotmail.com

Put "MMGM" or "Marvelous Middle Grade Monday" in the subject line, include the title of the book you're featuring, and a link to your blog. Email your link by Sunday evening in order to be included in the list of links for the coming Monday.

For additional details, see Shannon's website.

Catalog

I have so many books, I've started using cats as bookends.

Excerpt from "Catalog" by Rosalie Moore


Cats sleep fat and walk thin.
Cats, when they sleep, slump;
When they wake, pull in—
And where the plump's been
There's skin.
Cats walk thin.

...

A cat condenses.
He pulls in his tail to go under bridges,
And himself to go under fences.
Cats fit
In any size box or kit;
And if a large pumpkin grew under one,
He could arch over it.


from Cat Poems, selected by Myra Cohn Livingston



Cat Poems,
by Myra Cohn Livingston and Trina Schart Hyman

 

Celebrate National Poetry Month!

https://www.poets.org/national-poetry-month/home

Children's Book Day

B is for Birthdays and Books*

The Snow Queen, by Hans Christian Andersen,
Illustrated by Edmund Dulac

Happy Birthday, 

Hans Christian Andersen!

The picture at right is from The Snow Queen and other tales available from Project Gutenberg.

By Eva Moore and Trina Schart Hyman

The committee has announced the Hans Christian Andersen Award winners for 2014: 

 Roger Mello, illustrator and Nahoko Uehashi, author. 

*Follow the link to the A to Z Challenge.

Children's Book Day
Sponsored by IBBY

PPBF: The Market Bowl

Today's Perfect Picture Book Friday pick

Jim Averbeck's The Market Bowl

The Market Bowl
Written and illustrated by Jim Averbeck
Charlesbridge, 2013
Fiction, grades 3-5,
Lexile 600L, word count 1034

Themes:
Folk Tale, Bravery, Magic, Cooking

Opening:
     Mama Cecile sang to Yoyo, teaching her to make bitterleaf stew.
     "Slice the bitterleaf thin as a whisper. Wash it in water, cleaning it well. Grind the egusi. Add a knuckle of njanga. Simmer some time for a fine stew to sell."
     "Mama, please," Yoyo said. "I can make my own stew. I am not a baby."


Synopsis:
Yoyo is not patient enough to learn Mama Cecile's song or to cook the bitterleaf stew just so. She is in a hurry to get the stew to market. When her overestimation of her talents lead to a loss of income, Yoyo must find Brother Coin and convince him to return the blessing to her family's market bowl. It will take all Yoyo's cunning, charm, and cooking know-how to outwit Brother Coin in this Cameroonian folk tale.


What I Love:
I love a story with food in it. Jim Averbeck weaves plenty of cultural details into this clever trickster tale. His quirky collage paintings add a homemade charm, just like his main character's homemade stew. And what foodie can resist the included recipe for Americanized bitterleaf stew?

Bonus:

Collage pet portraits from Trudy K. Taylor's blog.

1. Here is a companion recipe for Guinea corn fufu from AfricanCooking.org
2. Cameroon is famous for its beautiful handicrafts. ChildrenInspireDesign offers some masks that can be adapted for a more traditional look.
3. Try this tutorial if the illustrations in this book have inspired you to create a collage of your own.
4. While you're at the library, why not pick up another Cameroonian tale, The Fortune-Tellers, by Lloyd Alexander and Trina Schart Hyman.

The Fortune-Tellers

Check out all the recommended titles for Perfect Picture Book Friday
for February 21, 2014, available on Susanna Leonard Hill's excellent blog.

Multicultural Children's Book Day

Celebrate January 27, 2014

Congratulations to Mia Wenjen and Valarie Budayr for their initiative to promote diversity in books. To celebrate cultural awareness, several participants in Perfect Picture Book Friday chose books with cultural themes or subplots. Follow the link to see my review of Mice and Beans.

Check back this Friday, my PPBF Pick will continue the theme with a review of  Laundry Day, by Maurie J. Manning

JumpIntoABook lists useful resources and culturally focused reading lists. They also have a giveaway scheduled for this week, so make that your next stop!

In addition, Here are some of my favorite cross-cultural reads from 2013. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

by Uma Krishnaswami

by Candace Fleming

by Gary D. Schmidt

by Thanhha Lai

And these picture books
Grandfather's Journey, by Allen Say
Unspoken, by Henry Cole
Uncle Jed's Barber Shop, by Margaree King Mitchell and James Ransome
The Sandwich Swap, by Queen Rania of Jordan Al Abdullah, Kelly DiPucchio, and Tricia Tusa
A Child's Calendar, by John Updike and Trina Schart Hyman
Bearskin, by Howard Pyle and Trina Schart Hyman
The Serpent Slayer and Other Stories of Strong Women, by Katrin Tchana and Trina Schart Hyman

Picture Book Influences: Old and New

Bright and Early Books, delivered right to my house

I loved to read as a child. My books were bought from book clubs and grocery stores. My library consisted of  Bright & Early Books, Berenstain Bears, and Little Golden Books. Nevertheless, some of the greatest illustrators of all time made their way into my consciousness. In my tween years, illustration drew me into the world of picture books, a fairy-land which I have never left.

For the remainder of Picture Book Month, I'd like to highlight illustrators who literally changed my life. 

First, a few of those early influences whose classic illustrations still move readers today. 

Next spotlighting some artists who I idolized as a youth. 

Lastly adding a few of their modern counterparts, illustrators whose work touches me in the same way as those early masters. 

I hope you rediscover some old favorites and uncover some new sources of inspiration.

The Berenstain Bears Books arrived at my house with some regularity through a book club in the early 70's. I loved the energy in the drawings and the clues that were often found before or after the action. These books taught me the importance of the page turn, the "space between."*

The Bears' Almanac sparked
my early love of non-fiction

I couldn't get enough of the clever hats in Old Hat, New Hat

A simple example of the illustration
giving a clue to what is to come, from Bears' Vacation.

* Thanks to Dianne de las Casas

Trina Schart Hyman, as Bookish Ambition regulars will know, was my inspiration, my hero, my ideal. From the early exposure through Cricket's Choice, to the award winners of the 80's, my admiration for her skill grew into obsession. I finally had the bright idea to write her a letter. I'm not sure how many hands it passed through until it got to her, but I do know that sometime after I'd given up hope, a card arrived from the artist herself, crystallizing my determination to be an illustrator when I grew up.

Trina Schart Hyman from Cricket Vol. 7 No. 6, 1980

By Barbara Rogasky,
mentioned pre-publication
 in the letter from Trina

Perhaps my favorite Hyman find

Interior art from A Hidden Magic,
by Vivian Vande Velde

Last but not least is Marla Frazee. My adult obsessions are more to do with the longing I feel, than the desire to imitate, but if I could be Marla, I would.
When I saw Clementine, I thought, "Who IS this charming illustrator?" When I read Rollercoaster, I smiled broadly. And when I purchased All the World,  I sighed in utter contentment. Here is an illustrator with the clues and secondary storylines of the Berenstains, the details and character draftsmanship of Trina Schart Hyman. It is the quality of her art, and the indefinable emotion it stirs in me, that I aspire to.

A great book series,
 by Sara Pennypacker

A sketch of the characters from Rollercoaster!

All the World, by Liz Garton Scanlon and Marla Frazee

Who influences you? Who informs your style of illustration? Who makes you want to sit and stare into the pages of a book?