Something to watch again and again

Last night we the parents watched Some Kind of Wonderful. Rather, I bawled my eyes out and subjected Wynn to watching yet another wonder from the 80's.

Critterness is developing his own obsessive consumption of art. He subjects me to many readings a day of Dr. Seuss's ABC. Thanks to my mil, we read the copy Wynn had as a child. It is a wonderful book.  And if you watch the video, read in Patios, it is amazingly refreshing. You will never be able to read it without the accent. Ever again. Which is great, because when you read it three times a day, accents make it funner. 

No, Maisy, noooooo!!!!

Lucas's favorite book right now is ¿Dónde se esconde Maisy? (We got the translation.. I know, we're lazy and horrible.) He lifts all the flaps and he gets super excited when he hears "toc toc" lifts the flap and (spoiler alert) "es Maisy!". 

We took ¿Dónde vive Maisy? out of the library, which we haven't read as much yet but I'm sure will be equally engrossing.

We read along, looking for Maisy, lifting flaps and finding that "No! Aquí no está Maisy". Every time it's "no she doesn't live here" or "no, she's not hiding here". I take issue with that. As as mother who is trying to impress the notion of "no" on her young'un I try not to overuse the word, to use it with precision and intent, not too often and not too sternly, hoping, with time, it will come to elicit specific behavior (other than mischievous smiles). I take offense that Maisy uses it willy-nilly. So we end up improvising and not reading the overused "no". Lucas gets a translated, edited Maisy- far from the original work. 

Beautiful. Sad.

Shaun Tan's The Red Tree is amazingly beautiful and painfully sad. It is sad in a deep, lonely, adolescent way that I can still relate to, because I remember being misunderstood and blue.

Tan is an award winning artist and author, which leaves me in complete awe that one person can write so poignantly and create such interesting, powerful pictures.

This book is probably not targeted to my eight month old little monster (it says Grade 3 and up, but they have no idea how advanced Lucas is). Wynn prefers not to read it to him because he thinks it's too sad. Lucas likes the pictures - they have an intense depth of color that is very attractive. And I like to read it with him, in the hope that when he reaches his own adolescence I will remember that sometimes "the world is a deaf machine," but if you give it a little time, there might just be "right in front of you/ bright and vivid" something good.

Reading the classics

The critter's relationship to books has changed drastically in the last month or so. Although he still enjoys a good book to suck on, he has moved on from pulling them off the shelves to sitting down for a good read.

His all-time favorite (right now) is Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you See?. I do funny voices for the animals, my sisters read it more sing-song-y, and Wynn reads it in sing-song-y funny voices: Lucas accepts all interpretations. He sits on the reader's lap, listening and looking at the book, glancing up at you every once in a while. The purple cat always makes Critter McG smile up at me - it's my favorite too.

The child of two comp lit students, Lucas has clear opinions on books. Right now, he thinks The Very Hungry Caterpillar is a hyped up cult classic with no real poetic value. Wynn still remembers what the caterpillar ate each day of the week, so we will give Lucas some time and try again. After all, some books really do require the reader to have a certain life experience to fully grasp and enjoy the work. I found that to be true of Don Quijote, for example.

Little lamb had a garden

Mandana Sadat is an Iranian illustrator and writer. Her book The Garden of Babai has been published in Spanish, Italian and French editions, all of them with the text in Persian on the opposite page (unfortunately, it has not yet been published in English).

This book tells the story of Babaï, a lonely little lamb who decides to grow a garden, inviting all sorts of wildlife to his plot of land. This finally becomes the drawing of a beautiful tapestry.

The Babaï book is not a board book, so it has now graduated to the taller shelves, out of reach of Lucas's hands (and sucking). At around four months, before he was so dexterous with his chubby little fingers, we used to read it a lot. He loved it because the book is comprised of one plain page with only text on it, but upon turning it, the next is full of color and drawings. The pictures are in very rich earthy tones, with deep burgundy reds and clean lines, which really caught Lucas's attention. He would get very excited when we turned to the page and he saw the animals, in colors so intense they seem to have texture.

Madana Sadat has written and illustrated Mi León, edited in Spanish and the original French versions. She has also illustrated Jorge Elías's Winter Afternoon, which can be found in a bilingual English/Spanish edition.

Beyond Maisy

Brilliant children's book writer and illustrator Lucy Cousins, of Maisy fame, created Hooray for Fish!. Lucas and I are having a lot of fun with this book. The illustrations follow the classic Maisy lines and colors, which are always so luminous and happy. Little Fish introduces us to all his fishy friends.

This book reads like a lively little poem, and the fish almost beg you to call on them in funny voices. I have an image of Lucy Cousins surrounded in her studio with a hundred drawings of fish, bright and funny, choosing her favorites, inviting them to the book. Lucas enjoys the colors and the rythm as I read. Later, while I struggle with his twisting shenanigans on the changing table I find myself recalling "curly whirly, twisty twirtly". We smile.