Different Points of View? Let's Work it Out

You may have noticed that not everyone sees things the same way. Once again, picture books come to the rescue. Whether you are teaching children about point of view in literature and composition, or trying to understand fellow citizens, these books show the dilemma.

They All Saw a Cat by Brendan Wenzel has been touted as a Caldecott Medal contender this year. The artwork shows a cat pacing its territory, and how a child, fox, fish, mouse, bee, bird, and other creatures see it. At the end, the cat sees itself in the water's reflection. None of the images is quite like the other. (Remember, if this book wins the Caldecott or Caldecott Honor, you heard it here first or second, or one hundredth....The ALA Youth Media Awards will be given tomorrow morning, with the announcements livestreamed here.)

UPDATE 1/23/17: This book is a Caldecott Honor Awardee!!

Here's Emily Arrow's song based on this book:

Friend Linda recently reminded me of this award-winning older title, Duck! Rabbit!, that also shows how people can look at something and see it so differently. Look at the cover. The drawing is a well-known optical illusion. What do you see? A duck or a rabbit? Therein lies the tale, written by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and illustrated by Tom Lichtenheld.

I'll leave you with this classic from the Beatles:

Waiting--'tis the Season

Kevin Henkes has won a Caldecott Medal before, and many children's lit folks thinks he is on target again with this title.

Let's face it, no matter what our age, we spend time waiting--and complaining about waiting. One source says we spend 6 months of our lives waiting in line!  If a website is too slow to load--a matter of a few seconds--it's bye, bye website. We hate waiting for anything.

By David Shankbone (David Shankbone) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

In my faith tradition, we are at the end of the period of waiting known as Advent. This kind of waiting is more like wild anticipation for Christmas, the birth of Jesus. Of course, those without faith traditions may also feel this anticipation as they wait for Santa to bring gifts from the North Pole. 

This kind of waiting is much more active than the waiting in line kind. Have you noticed the frenzy as we get closer to December 24 and 25? We remember friends and relatives with cards and gifts, though this may be the only time all year that we are in contact. Still, we appreciate them. We wait to hear from them, too. We flour our kitchens in a flurry of cookie baking, making specialties enjoyed usually once a year. And every year  we wonder if we'll get it all done on time--while we wait for Christmas to come.

As a child did you hate waiting for time to open presents? It's excruciating to wait for grown-ups to visit, and eat, and drink coffee, and clear the table, and do dishes until it's finally time to open gifts!

Which brings me back to this deceptively simple picture book.  Five toys on a windowsill watch and wait, each for something different. The toys are happy to get what they waited for, which happens at irregular intervals. And in the meantime, time goes by, and the toys wait.

I could read in some "live in the moment" advice here. Be happy while you wait. Joyfully anticipate what will happen next. Watch what's going on, and delight in the little things. Or maybe it's just a book about toys waiting on a windowsill.

Christmas is upon us and a new year is around the corner. What do you joyfully anticipate? What are you waiting for? 

I'll leave you with this for Merry Christmas, peace on earth, and goodwill to ALL, today and in the year ahead:

Good Morning!

(photo "Winter Sunrise in Wicklow 2" by Matt & Kim Rudge, http://www.fotopedia.com/items/flickr-94228511)

I'm not by nature an early morning person, though I have gotten better at it through the years when forced into the situation. A couple of books show a good approach to mornings for those of us non-morning people--or even those who are.

S.D. Nelson's latest book, Greet the Dawn, published this year by the SD Historical Society Press, is already winning awards, and I predict it will earn more in the coming year.

(photo copyright 2012 Jane Healy)

I was fortunate to attend his session at the SD Festival of the Book in Sioux Falls this fall. Primarily an artist, Nelson has illustrated many picture books, and has authored and illustrated others. He uses a variety of techniques to achieve his art's end result, including crinkling Saran wrap into wet acrylic wash to achieve a batik-like look.

He lives in Flagstaff, AZ, and is a member of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, giving him his Lakota world view. He was raised on the Standing Rock Reservation in South Dakota. A common theme in his work is the connectedness of all things and the human connection with animals as equals.

His art "injects the contemporary world into the ancient world." Illustrations in Greet the Dawn are a visual delight--almost an "I Spy" game of traditional symbols and modern life images. See samples here.

He told us that the traditional spiral symbol is a shape that brings balance. For him, the petroglyph-like handprints symbolize the contact a person has to a place. The circle of life shows "there's room for everybody in the world today."

Hear him tell it himself in this 1 minute interview:

Despite the title, the picture book takes readers through an entire day, showing that if we greet the dawn with a smile, we will be in harmony until we go to sleep at night.

Another favorite "wake up early" book is The Way to Start a Day by Byrd Baylor, illustrated by Peter Parnall. This book won a Caldecott Honor in 1979. In the text, Baylor shows readers that people around the world have special ways of starting the day. As in Nelson's book, most cultures greet the dawn by appreciating the natural world and its rhythms.

Here's a snippet:


Baylor encourages us to make our own morning songs to welcome the sun. And if we think about the miracle of the universe and our place in it, the songs won't be moans about getting out of bed!

Good morning! How do you start your day?

The Lion, Indiana, and the Mouse

You have probably heard by now that The Lion & the Mouse by Jerry Pinkney won the Caldecott Medal, an annual award honoring the best illustration in an American children's picture book. We love the cover and think the Lion bears a strong resemblance to our golden retriever, Indiana. (Imagine him with a mane.) Indiana certainly considers himself king of the household, just as the Lion is the king of the jungle and forest!

Pinkney, a highly regarded artist and illustrator, won the Caldecott Honor five times as well as many other awards, but this one caps his long career. Read an interview here.

The dyslexic Pinkney applied, studied, and perfected his drawing craft, compensating for his reading and writing difficulty. He specializes in creative retellings of folktales or fables.

In the case of his Caldecott winner, he retells Aesop's old fable of the lion & the mouse using only pictures of the African savannah and spelling out animal sounds. He brings the tale to life in a new way, allowing every reader to put his or her own nuance into the story. Themes beyond Aesop's moral emerge, with the animals' expressions evoking emotions from fear to empathy to relief to humor. Every spread is a visual feast.

Congratulations, Jerry Pinkney! Thanks for creating a book for all ages of readers and all ages of time.