Tuesday Storytime: Creativity Day

Chase's Calendar of Events is a dangerous tool, y'all.  Some day in January is "creativity day" so off we go!

The Dot

Peter H. Reynolds

ISBN: 0763619612

School-girl doesn't think she is artistic until she's encouraged, then passes the gift along.

Vashti can't draw, but at her teacher's gentle urging, she smacks an angry dot down on a page during art class. Her teacher has her sign it, and then the next day the page is framed and hanging behind the teacher's desk. Now Vashti's on her mettle; she can make a better dot than that! So she does, and learns about different artistic principles (my colleague and I discussed how every book about colors or painting feels incontrovertibly bound to have a section on blending primary colors to make secondary colors) and even art styles.  At the end, during a school art exhibit featuring her extensive works, she encounters another young boy who "can't draw." Vashti gets him to produce a signed squiggle, and the cycle begins again. A great storytime choice, but I do wish the book (or the pictures inside the book) were larger.

Duck! Rabbit! (boardbook)

Amy Krouse Rosenthal, illustrated by Tom Lichtenheld

ISBN (boardbook format): 9781452137339

Hinged on the "duck/rabbit" optical illusion, and a set of offscreen narrators.

CUTEST BOOK EVAR!  I love the arguments for the duck and rabbit, and the various pages where essentially the same picture is repeated over and over and over again with different backgrounds or verbal contexts forcing it to change what it is.  Totally went over the little kids' heads, but the adults were hooked.  A funny "twist" ending made them all crack up, and prompted a question about brachiosaurus.  Superb choice.  Nice and short and funny.  

The Adventures of Beekle, the Unimaginary Friend

Dan Santat

ISBN: 9780316199988

An imaginary friend gets sick of waiting to be imagined, so he sets off to find a friend.

This is the first book that has been one I would not choose myself.  See my initial impressions here if you like (I was unimpressed for various reasons) but I'll talk about it from a storytime perspective here.  Firstly, I initially thought it was too long, and I still think that.  If I had been using it, I would have placed this one first, and used The Dot as my last story. There was a lot of squirming and a lot of kids wandering off. That's something you pick up with experience tho - no way to really teach that juggle between stretching attention spans and keeping interest in the majority. That aside, the kids seemed to like the illustrations and the language was smooth and flowing. I don't know how much they understood the story, but there was a section in the middle that really dragged - the voyage and the initial foray into the city was just SLOW and ponderous. Lots of lost attention during that bit. Overall, not a bad storytime use, discounting the reservations I have about content that are mentioned in my own review.

New Arrivals: Juv Nonfiction: Ashley Bryan's Puppets, Ashley Bryan & Rich Entel

Ashley Bryan's Puppets
Ashley Bryan, photographs by Rich Entel
ISBN: 9781442487284
Poems and close-up photographs of "found-object" puppets and dolls.

As an adult, and someone who is overly invested in the re-use portion of steampunk creative philosophy, and someone who really enjoys puppetry and strange objects of art and play, this is a really interesting book.

As a child, I would have been freaked right out.  These puppets are some creepy creatures.  Many of them are made with old bones or shells or antlers or strangely twisted organic shapes of driftwood, with strange eyes (often pupil-less) and oddly distorted features.  They all have names and stories (which are also often odd), and come in groups organized by some underlying theme or through-line that I'm not able to discern.

I spent a good while poring over the creatures, and I really do like them.  They remind me strongly of the creatures built to inhabit the world of the Dark Crystal and Labyrinth movies, or of del Toro's strange imaginations.  For some, that might be a warning, for others, an invitation.

I don't know that I'd keep it from a kid if they were interested, but I think I would be prepared to deal with nightmares afterwards.

Very odd, very peculiar.

Nonfiction, Microhistories: How We Got to Now, Steven Johnson

Related to a PBS special, this book is oddly flat, especially considering the interesting innovations and conceptual foundations it deals with.  It took me several weeks to finish, which is rare for me - I kept putting it down and procrastinating getting back to it.

How We Got to Now: Six Innovations that Made the Modern World
Steven Johnson
ISBN: 9781594632969
Finished November 24, 2014

Our six innovations are:
Glass
Cold
Sound
Clean
Time
and
Light

The idea is that while individual "gee whiz" inventions like lights or phonographs or detergent are really great and all, what really matters to society and the development of culture and technological advances are the underlying relations between scientific concepts, and that the area of the "near possible" - the stuff that is just close enough to current technology and social mores to imagine - drives the great majority of the underlying stuff we all take for granted as part of a modern world.

Interesting idea, but somehow the execution of it just fell a bit flat for me.  I don't know if it was because it's tied-in to a television series, and the passion and energy went towards the visuals and the presentation there, but it just didn't click with me.

Still, really nifty information, and that concept of the "near possible" is a newly named one for me, and one I'm going to keep in mind.

Tuesday Storytime: Creativity and Hard Work

This storytime was inspired way back in spring of this year when I was looking through STEM-related books for our Summer Reading Program.  I found this in late spring, and reviewed it in June, and I finally got to use it today.

The Most Magnificent Thing

Ashley Spires

ISBN: 9781554537044

A girl inventor and her pug battle through the struggle to get your inventions to 'just go right' in a series of comic-book vignettes of cartoon-outlined figures and minimalist spaces.

This book is a really excellent representation of so many important things, it's hard to know where to start.  

First, the inventor is a girl, who invents with no help or input from other people, or even parental figures. 

Second, the process of invention is clear and un-idealized, from initial concept to drawing to the sometimes drawn-out process of trial-and-error building.  

Thirdly, the book hits on the importance of motivation, persistence, self-soothing, re-evaluating, and finding different approaches, all without being preachy or dragging the story along.  

Fourthly, each of the "wrong" things is shown being "right" for some other use, getting into re-use and repurposing.  

Finally, the constant conflict between the ideal concept in your head, and the physical manifestation of it in the world (which is always worse, because of natural laws and applicable skill-levels, and is never really understood by anyone else, because they can't see inside your head) is explained so very well for a younger set.

LOVE.

Beautiful Oops

Barney Saltzberg

ISBN: 9780761157281

Board-Book with flaps, "tears" "folds" "spills" and other imperfections and damage, used creatively to become artistic expressions.

I really hesitated to use this book for a few reasons.  First, it's a board-book, so about 6" square - a bit on the small side for group use.  Second, it's got all sorts of flip-out, fold-down, turn-over, open-up, stretch-out fiddly bits on each page, which are awesome, but difficult for me to manipulate and still focus on the presentation of the book.  Third, well, here's where things get philosophical.  The concept of the book is that "oops" moments like spilled paint or torn paper or folded corners or food stains aren't necessarily bad things, and can be used as a springboard for creativity.  Which is a great lesson - for things that are your own (ie, not library books, as this is), and if you weren't wanting to preserve the state of the original thing as it's own work of artistic creation (ie, like a finished picture book, as this is).  So, I was really hesitant, but I loved the concept, and decided to just go with it, and I'm glad I did, because the kids and parents really loved it.  I'm still a little iffy over having maybe presented a subtle argument that damaging library materials is really ok because it can be "fixed" with creativity, but I'll just hope for the best.  

(This is ending up as a very list-heavy posting today.)

The Dot

Peter H. Reynolds
ISBN: 0763619612

Scribbly-drawn black and white characters with loose sloppy colors marking emotionally important concepts or moments.

An older book, but still very good.  Vashti (excellent name for our protagonist, and again a girl creator) does NOT draw, and when her teacher insists, she stabs the paper with her marker, creating a violent (but very small) dot.  The teacher insists she sign it, and the next day, it's hanging in an ornate frame behind the teacher's desk.  Inspired (or more appropriately, challenged) Vashti embarks on an artistic journey of dottyifying.  Colorful dots, big dots, little dots, negative-space dots (amazing description in kid-language for that endeavor), great big enormous dots.  At the art showcase, her works are admired by a younger boy who also "can't draw" but she encourages him to create one small work, and then on the very last page, to "sign it."  Really deep thoughts about the perceived "professional" status of artists, about the difficulty of trying something new, about being personally challenged, about legitimacy, and all wrapped up in a lovely picture book that event the toddlers enjoy.  Excellent work all around.

Next week is Thanksgiving!

Motivational Biography: The Art of Asking, by Amanda Palmer

The Art of Asking
Amanda Palmer
ISBN: 9781455581085
Read November 10, 2014

Basically everything I want to say about this book was said better and faster by Cory Doctorow in his article/review/philosophical musings hosted by The New Statesman, published November 11, 2014.  Because I like to link to people rather than organizations as much as possible, you're headed over to his blog, where there's a short snippet and a click-through to the article itself.

Short version for click-averse or in the wilds of the future where links are broken and chaos reigns:

This is a really great biography of Amanda, and an even greater manifesto to artists and really to people in general to just accept that the majority of people are good and helpful, and to quit feeling like it's an imposition to ask people for help or to contribute.  Most people WANT to help, and it's incumbent on us to learn how to ask without being greedy or pompous, but also without needlessly presenting as a terribly guilty shame-faced imposition.  Just bloody ask already.

The impetus for the book came from a duo of TED talks focused on the same subject, and here in the book she attempts to find the reasons why it's so hard for her (and for others) to just ask people for help.  It's a great social commentary, and a really necessary one for the "business" of the arts right now, as everything is in flux and funding is becoming less and less corporate and businesslike and impersonal.

The book left me excited for the future, and hopeful about humanity, and a little bummed at myself that I don't feel at all brave enough to follow her advice.  I hope when/if the time comes, I can summon the courage to Ask.

Storytime Potentials: The Invisible Boy, Trudy Ludwig; The Most Magnificent Thing, Ashley Spires

The Invisible Boy
Trudy Ludwig, illustrated by Patrice Barton
ISBN: 9781582464503
Read June 18
Watercolor washes and peculiar animated faces make the one grey "invisible" boy stand out.

I want to like the illustrations in this book, but Barton gives her children, especially the invisible boy, nearly black lips, stretched out in their caricatured heads, and it just gives me the willies.  Other than that, the art is sensitive and painterly, with care taken in physical expressions and posture.  The storyline is equally sensitive, showing an "invisible" boy who is simply overlooked by his classmates, until a new kid comes in and upsets the status quo.



The Most Magnificent Thing
Ashley Spires
ISBN: 9781554537044
Read June 18
A girl inventor and her pug battle through the struggle to get your inventions to "just go right."

This is the perfect book for anyone who has ever tried to create anything ever.  I am serious.  It absolutely nails the frustration of having a perfect vision in your head, and trying so hard to make it real, and failing miserably and continually until you finally get it almost (but never exactly) right.

So perfect.