Tuesday Storytime: Winter Mamas

I cheated slightly with these, as they are all set in winter, but the focus is on the relationship between the mother and child. 

Mama, Do You Love Me?

Barbara M. Joosse, illustrated by Barbara Lavallee

ISBN: 0590459848

A lovely stylized book focusing on a traditional Inuit mother and child, with the child wondering whether Mother would still love her under different circumstances, ranging from accidents to michief to ever-more-outlandish propositions of transformations into scary animals. Very sweet, illustratively fantastic.

On Mother's Lap

Ann Herbert Scott, illustrated by Glo Coalson

ISBN: 0395589207

Another Northern Native American (unfortunately unidentified in the text, but widely considered to also be Inuit) mother and child story. Michael is ready for a nice afternoon on the rocking chair with Mother, but he wants to include all of his toys and blanket and pet.... and really there's just no room for the little sibling at all. Mother gently intervenes and reminds the boy that there's always room for everyone.

Big Snow

Jonathan Bean

ISBN: 9780374306960

David and his mom are getting ready for a big snow, and for overnight guests. Well, MOM is getting ready, and David is helping sporadically before getting perpetually distracted by the onset of snowy weather. An interesting naptime dream makes for some late-story drama, and the conclusion is a bit abrupt.

Tuesday Storytime: Snowy Landscapes

We've doubled down on the wintry weather - after a delightful and decently warm Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend, we woke up this morning to 19 degrees!  Brrrr!


Snow
Cynthia Rylant, illustrated by Lauren Stringer
ISBN: 9780152053031
Stringer's beautiful gentle paintings make this sweet lyrical ode to snow nearly transcendent.

Rylant takes us through sweet vignettes of modern children and their (diverse) families as they encounter different types of snow.  The end of the book plunges swiftly into poetic stillness, which was aaaaalmost too much for the crop of littles today, but we managed it.  Despite the down-tempo ending, the entire book is heartwarming and beautiful and evocative.


Red Sled
Patricia Thomas, illustrated by Chris L. Demarest
ISBN: 9781590785591
Demarest's chunky lively scenes and bright happy expressions really carry the minimalist poetry.

Thomas uses the form of a chiasmus (a sort of mirrored, repetitive, poem - most likely used to aid memorization of epics) to present the tale of a father and son going on a night-time sledding run.  The text is therefore very short (even the words used are crisp and simple), so Demarest creates illustrations with punch and movement to carry the momentum of the story through the page turns.  The pairing is suprisingly powerful, making this an excellent middle book - short and punchy and fun.

 

Big Snow
Jonathan Bean
ISBN: 9780374306960
David is very excited about the incoming snow-storm, and "helps" his mother around the house.

I enjoy the realism of the energetic kid "helping" mother by starting various chores and getting distracted and running off halfway through (leaving mom to pick up the mess, of course) but I think that the inclusion of the dream sequence involving a snowstorm mess in the house makes for an intense and not quite congruent interlude especially since it comes so close before the comparatively anticlimactic and unmemorable actual ending.  Despite that, it's a cute read, and a great snow day story.

Tuesday Storytime: Let it Snow! (and commentary on religious/holiday storytimes)

So I used Blizzard a bit sooner than I had originally planned.

Christmas-time storytimes are a little difficult, to be totally honest.  I live in the Bible Belt of the USA, and Christmas is a cultural institution.  In many ways, it is a secular holiday - Santa Claus, Elf on the Shelf, and "presents under the tree" for all sorts of families.  However, around here, it is also a very VERY Christian holiday.  For many people, Jesus is the reason for the season, so focusing on Santa won't cut it.  

On the other hand, I have a feeling that there are a lot of people around here who are silent about their affiliations; Jewish, Muslim, atheist... and to have a public institution (a library, no less) featuring a specific religious holiday is unfair to the population as a whole - unless I also have the wherewithal to provide storytimes on Ramadan, Hanukkah, Solstice, and humanism (to be clear, I think most of my storytimes are humanistic) in order to balance the scales - and I can't do those because I don't have the necessary materials to do so.

Many libraries deal with the problem by simply not having storytimes around the winter holiday break - reasons given are that lots of staffers are on vacation, it's a dead time of year with patrons being out of town or hosting relatives - but I am here consistently, and I like to have the option available for people who need something to remain consistent and scheduled through the seasonal frenzy.  

So what do I do?  So far, I've ignored it completely.  I tend to do a "winter" theme - this year it's snow-storms.  I do feel a little sad that I can't read "The Night Before Christmas" to a group of adorable children, or that I can't show any of the beautifully-illustrated Nativity books to my families.  But I just can't bring myself to do it.  As a private person, I'll read those stories and love them, regardless of my personal beliefs, because I can appreciate the beauty in them as something separate.  If a patron requests Christmas books, I'll find them the best ones I can, and enjoy the recommendation process.  But with storytime, I have a whole group as a captive and un-knowing audience - they don't know what I'm going to read beforehand, and they really can't leave in the middle of things.  Because I can't know my patrons' relationships with religion, because they're stuck with my readings, I feel I need to stay scrupulously secular.

Thankfully, there are reams of excellent books to choose from, including the three I read today!

Started with Blizzard, reviewed yesterday.

Cat and Mouse in the Snow

Tomek Bogacki

ISBN: 0374311927

Series title, textural painted "furry" sibling cats and sibling mice play in the snow.

I use this pretty consistently every winter, because it's short and sweet and has lots of movement and flow in the narration.  The illustrations are grey and brown and white and could be dreary, but always manage to have enough energy and dynamic focus to keep from being bland.  A cat and mouse head out to play one morning in their meadow, but find a snow-covered landscape.  They search for the green meadow, but fall down a snow-mound and are covered in snow, whereupon their siblings (mice and cats) emerge and are frightened by the two "monsters" until they also fall down the snow-mound, are equally covered in snow, and proceed to play together all evening.  Sweet, no drama, no bad behavior from anyone.

Big Snow

Jonathan Bean (Building Our House)

ISBN: 9780374306960

A boy pesters his mom about an incoming snowstorm through the day.  Sketchy, color-blocky.

I love the opening and closing spreads of the neighborhood, comparing them before the snow (please note the sad sled being pulled in dead grass) and after the snow makes everything soft and indistinct.

I also love the mom, who is unfailingly kind to her distracted child even when his "help" with the chores simply makes her own work harder.  

I also love that the story managed to get some freaky snowstorm-inside-the-house imaginary scenes in there as a dream sequence - very Jumanji-like, but having it framed as a dream means the story itself remains very true to life.  

Good pacing, good character movement and posture, and a fun story as much about anticipation as it is about snowy days.