New Arrival: Nonfiction Picture Book: The Secret Subway, Shana Corey & Red Nose Studio

The Secret Subway
Shana Corey, illustrations and figurines and concepts by Red Nose Studio
ISBN: 9780375870712
Stop-motion puppets and silhouettes and still-life scenes make this look like a movie storybook.

Alfred Ely Beach invented the first subway in New York, but unfortunately he ran afoul of the mafia (Boss Tweed himself) and of the government (didn't grease enough palms, most likely) and his project was literally buried.  If you love weird history and underdogs, and don't mind a fairly sad ending, check this out for the beautiful puppets/sculptures and the intricate backgrounds with a faint steampunk vibe and plenty of character.  If they're angling to make a movie, they've got a fan here already - I think it would be beautiful, but Corey's words do a fine job of carrying the story while the illustrations spark the imagination.

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!

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.

Andrew Henry's Meadow, Doris Burn

Andrew Henry's Meadow
Doris Burn
ISBN: 9780399256080
Read Feb 24, 2014

Another "classic" that I somehow never heard of.  I know I read a lot as a child, but I'm beginning to think that I just read the same few approved Christian books over and over and over again.  That and Childcraft and Disney storybooks.

This book is also a bit of an interesting case - apparently the original has much more intricate illustrations (which is frankly hard to believe given the ones seen in this edition) that were altered/zoomed in for the re-print.  Regardless, they are still nifty, and have lots of nice pen-and-ink scratchy illustrated details for readers to pore over.

Andrew Henry is an inventor, and he's also a middle child - his older sisters don't really want to associate with him, and his little brothers are too little to really be interested in his inventions.  So he runs away and creates a house for himself in a nearby meadow.  What's really interesting is that like flies to a honeypot, a collection of neighbor kids begin arriving in the same meadow - girls and boys alike - united in their need to have a place of their own to engage with their hobbies and interests.  Andrew Henry accomodates them all with a series of incredibly awesome personalized houses, and they live happily in their meadow for 4 days until their frantic families search them out and return them back home.

For Andrew Henry, his family gives him part of the basement for his workshop, and become much more invested in paying attention to him and his inventions.

(I would love to see a full-length children's novel or film written out that combines this and the picture book Roxaboxen, and Weslandia.  It would be epic.  Parents would freak, and kids everywhere would be so happy.

This book was recommended by The Read-Aloud Handbook