Posted on by TracyC

Clifford the Big Red Dog

Clifford

Clifford the Big Red Dog by Norman Bridwell, 1963.

Emily Elizabeth introduces readers to her big, red dog, Clifford. Clifford isn’t just big; he’s humongous.

Like other kids, Emily Elizabeth likes to play with her dog, but playing even the usual games of fetch have unpredictable results because of Clifford’s size. When they play hide-and-seek, there aren’t many places where Clifford can hide, and even then, he’s not too difficult to find.

He also requires a lot of food and special accommodations because of his size. His baths aren’t like those of normal-sized dogs.

Clifford’s doggy bag habits, like chasing cars, can be even more unpredictable. Other dogs might chase cars, but Clifford has a real chance of actually catching them.

However, there are good sides to having a big dog. For one thing, bullies never bother Emily Emily Elizabeth.

Emily Elizabeth loves Clifford and wouldn’t trade him for any other dog.

The book is available to borrow for free online through Internet Archive. The edition that I have is the older edition of the book, but there is also a newer edition with full color pictures.

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I Can Fly

I Can Fly by Ruth Krauss, 1950.

This is a cute Little Golden Book about a little girl playing.

As she plays, she compares herself to various animals. When she’s on her swing, she feels like she’s flying like a bird, and when she swims, she feels like a fish.

The story is told in rhyme, and in the back of the book, there is actually music so you can sing the rhyme as a song.

There are different printings of this book, some with different illustrations. The different versions also have different words, and it looks like the newer one includes both a boy and a girl and doesn’t have the music for the song. One of the newer versions is available to borrow for free online through Internet Archive.

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Will It Be Okay?

Will It Be Okay? by Crescent Dragonwagon, 1977, 2022.

I like to tie my book reviews into current events when I can, and I first wrote this review around the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. It just seemed like the right time for this one. It’s a picture book, and, when I first wrote the review, my local libraries were closed because of the pandemic, so I couldn’t go find a copy to get pictures. However, the book is available to read online through Internet Archive, which is where I first encountered it.

The version on Internet Archive is the older printing of the book, with its original pictures. Since then, the book has been reprinted with a set of new pictures. The pictures that appear here are from the new version. The older version of the book showed a blonde girl with a blonde mother, and the new version has a mother and daughter with black hair. Between the two, I prefer the newer illustrations, but readers can decide for themselves. I was surprised, but some of the text of the story was also changed between the versions of the book.

A young girl keep asking her mother about various types of problems that she might encounter, everything from storms to bee stings to forgetting her lines in the school play, and asking her what she would do if each of these things happen.

The mother gives her calm, reassuring answers. Some of them are based on common sense, like if their cabbages don’t come up, they’ll go get some tomato plants and plant tomatoes, and then their cabbages will likely come up anyway.

All of the answers have a poetic quality and answer the girl’s emotions, not taking all of the situations exactly literally, but capturing the feeling that the girl would need to have to get through life’s fears and uncertainties. When the girl asks what if no one likes her dancing, her mother describes how she can dance alone until she meets a new friend, who will dance with her and then come to her house to draw pictures and drink cocoa. I take this to mean what if people don’t like the girl instead of just her dancing, and her mother’s response to mean that she just needs to keep living her life, and she will meet people who will like her.

The last question that the girl poses to her mother is “But what if you die?” This is probably the fear that the girl has more than any of the other fears that she’s mentioned, but the mother still has a calm reply.

The mother tells her daughter that if she dies, her love will stay with her and she’ll have so much that she’ll have to give love away to other people. Her daughter will make new friends and dance with them and she’ll even come to love things like bees and thunderstorms and the other things that have frightened her. The girl will love other people in her life, and they’ll love her, too. Everything will be okay.

My Reaction

Life has many uncertainties, and bad things can happen, but there are other things that can make life better so that, in the end, we will be okay, in spite of the bad and scary things that come along. It’s not easy to believe that in the middle of scary situations, when you don’t know how it’s all going to work out, but I appreciate the sentiment. It’s always possible for things to improve. Bad things might happen, but we can handle them. It’s important to believe that we can handle situations and approach them with confidence.

The hardest, scariest thing to accept is when people die. Death is permanent. When someone has died or is facing death, it’s hard to believe that it could ever be okay because you can’t undo death. The mother in the story doesn’t try to deny that she could die at some point, but what she says is that her daughter will go on with her life and that she will always have her love. It’s what she leaves behind and what her daughter will continue to do after she is gone that will make things okay. The mother doesn’t want her daughter to focus on the sad and scary parts but to look forward with hope and confidence. As long as we can continue to move forward and love one another, things will be okay.

The last picture in the original version of the book is of the mother and daughter in the bathtub together, but they’re largely concealed by bubbles in the bath. Personally, I prefer the newer version of the book, which has the mother and daughter dancing in the leaves together under the trees.

Some of the situations in the book were changed between the old version and the new version of the book. In the old version of the book, the girl worries about what to do if she meets a big dog or if snakes come in the middle of the night, and neither of those were included in the new version of the book. Some answers in the old book are as improbable as the problems that the girl poses, like suggesting that the girl play a flute to charm snakes if snakes come. Both versions of the book have the scene where the girl worries that someone might hate her and her mother says that a frog will tell her that she’s lovable.

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Song and Dance Man

Song and Dance Man by Karen Ackerman, illustrated by Stephen Gammell, 1988.

A grandfather likes to tell his grandchildren stories about when he was a young man and he was a vaudeville performer, a “song and dance man.” Back before the invention of television, live vaudeville performances were a major form of public entertainment in the United States during the late 19th century and early 20th century. A typical vaudeville performance in the United States was like a variety show with short skits, music, singing, dancing, comedy routines, juggling, magic acts, ventriloquists, and various other stunts, acrobatics, and miscellaneous acts.

When his grandchildren come to visit, he likes to take them up to the attic, where his old costume pieces and tap shoes are stored, and he gives them a private performance of his old vaudeville act.

He sings songs, plays the banjo, tells jokes, and also does small magic tricks for the children, like pulling coins out of their hair.

The grandfather loves performing for his grandchildren, and they love seeing him perform. The children can tell that he misses the “good old days” when he was a performer, although he says that he wouldn’t trade the time he has with his grandchildren for his life in the past.

In a way, the fact that the children’s grandfather was a former vaudeville performer dates this story. In the early 21st century, children’s grandparents are mostly people who were born in the mid-20th century, probably between the 1940s and 1970s, depending on the age of the grandchildren and how old the grandparents were when they were born. By the mid-20th century, vaudeville had already gone out of fashion, declining in popularity during the late 1920s and early 1930s, around the time when sound movies were first being produced, although some earlier vaudeville performances actually included short silent films among the other skits and acts. The book talks about television ending vaudeville’s popularity, but it was really movie theaters that were the main competition for vaudeville. Some movies produced during the 1930s and into the mid-20th century carried on some of the vaudeville traditions, like certain types of comedy and song and dance routines, as former vaudeville performers, including Fred Astaire and Bob Hope, transitioned into movie performers. Vaudeville elements show up frequently in Shirley Temple movies, and the Road series of movies with Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, and Dorothy Lamour also features many call-backs to vaudeville variety acts, which is part of the reason why they’re so episodic, light on over-arching plot, and punctuated with song and dance routines. The people who were adults when vaudeville was still big would have been the parents or grandparents of modern, early 21st century grandparents. I first saw this book when I was a child, and my grandparents would have been among those old enough to remember vaudeville. The book was published in the late 1980s, a little over 30 years ago. The children in this book would be from my generation, about the age I was when this book was new, not the current 21st century generation of children. Even so, it is a fun glimpse at the past and can be a good opportunity to introduce children to the idea of changing tastes in entertainment and occupations that used to exist but either don’t exist now or have taken different forms in modern times. Modern grandparents could still use this book to talk about family history and memories of the past.

This book is a Caldecott Medal winner. The book is available to borrow for free online through Internet Archive.

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Grandfather’s Journey

Grandfather’s Journey by Allen Say, 1993.

A man describes how his grandfather traveled by ship from his home in Japan to the United States. The time period isn’t specified, but from the context of the story, the grandfather’s original journey would have taken place either at the end of the 19th century or at the beginning of the 20th century.

As a young man, the future grandfather travels all over the United States, seeing the sights and meeting all kinds of interesting people. It’s a bit of an adjustment for him, wearing Western style clothing and getting used to life in a new country, but he enjoys the adventure of it. He decides to settle in California, the part of the United States that he likes the best. He briefly returns to Japan to persuade his girlfriend to marry him and return to the United States with him.

The grandfather and his wife have a daughter in the United States, and they enjoy living there, but as the daughter grows older, the grandfather realizes that he misses Japan and wants to return home. He and his wife move back to Japan with their daughter.

The daughter has to learn to adjust to life in Japan after having lived all of her life so far in America. The family moves to the city because life there is more what their daughter was accustomed to than life in the countryside, where they were originally from.

Later, the daughter grows up, gets married, and has a son, who is the author of the book. The grandson describes being young during World War II and the devastation in Japan during the war. (This is part of what dates the earlier part of the story.)

Toward the end of his life, the grandfather finds himself growing nostalgic about his time as a young man in the United States and wishes that he could return to California one more time. Unfortunately, the grandfather dies before making the trip. Instead, his grandson goes to the United States to see the places that his grandfather told him about.

Like his grandfather, the grandson stays in the United States for a time and has a daughter of his own. He comes to understand how his grandfather felt, missing Japan when he is in the United States and missing the United States when he is in Japan. The world is vast and full of fascinating places to explore, but there is always something to miss and feel nostalgic about, no matter where you are. The grandson continues to travel back and forth between the United States and Japan, enjoying both of them.

The book is a Caldecott Medal winner. It is available to borrow for free online through Internet Archive.

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Patrick

Patrick: Patron Saint of Ireland by Tomie dePaola, 1992.

This picture book is about the life and legends of St. Patrick, who is the patron saint of Ireland and the reason for St. Patrick’s Day, which is mainly celebrated in modern times by wearing the color green, and often, a shamrock or shamrock symbol. Some places also hold parades and other special celebrations.

The historical St. Patrick was born in Britain during the time when it was ruled by the Roman Empire. When he was young, he was abducted and sold into slavery in Ireland.

In Ireland, Patrick was forced to work as a shepherd for the man who bought him. Roman Britain was Christian, but Ireland was still pagan at this time. Patrick found it a strange and lonely place, and he prayed that he would be able to go back home.

Later, Patrick got his chance to return home aboard a ship that was carrying hunting hounds to be sold in France. Patrick tried to buy passage on the board, but the captain was reluctant to take him at first because he thought that Patrick was probably an escaping slave, and he didn’t want to get in trouble for taking him. However, the dogs on ship kept howling when Patrick was sent off, and the captain noticed that when Patrick was on the ship, the dogs were quiet, so he changed his mind.

When they reached France, the area where they landed was deserted because there had been a war. The men and dogs were hungry and couldn’t find anyone to help them. The captain said to Patrick that if his God was so powerful, why didn’t he pray and get God to help them? Patrick did, confident that God would help, and a herd of pigs appeared, providing them with food.

Patrick eventually returned home to Britain and rejoined his family, but he had dreams about Ireland in which a man called Victoricus appeared with letters from the Irish people, asking Patrick to return. Patrick felt that he was called to bring knowledge of God and Christianity to Ireland. He decided to become a missionary.

Patrick studied and worked his way up to become a bishop, and when he returned to Ireland, he brought others with him to help in his work. Upon his return to Ireland, he became friends with an Irish chieftain named Dichu, who also became a Christian. He gave Patrick a barn, which Patrick turned into the first church in Ireland.

Patrick and his followers suffered opposition in Ireland. At one point, a king tried to kill Patrick and ended up killing his chariot driver and friend, Odran, instead. In spite of that, Patrick persevered.

Patrick died on March 17, 461. After his death, he was declared a saint, the patron saint of Ireland, and the date of his death became his saint’s day. Many legends grew up around him, and the book explains the most popular stories.

Among the most popular stories about St. Patrick are that he drove all of the snakes out of Ireland, frightening them away by beating on a drum. Another story says that he used the shamrock to explain the concept of the Holy Trinity, which is why the shamrock is an important symbol of Ireland and St. Patrick’s Day.

The book is available to borrow for free online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC

Charlie the Tramp

Charlie the Tramp by Russell Hoban, illustrated by Lillian Hoban, 1966.

Disclosure: I am using a newer edition of the book, published by Plough Publishing House.  Plough sent a copy to me for review purposes, but the opinions in the review are my own.

One day, when Charlie Beaver’s grandfather comes to visit, his grandfather asks him what he wants to be when he grows up. The grandfather assumes that he knows the answer to the question because everyone in the family is a beaver, and beavers naturally do beaver work. (Beaver is apparently both species and profession in books where beavers talk and wear clothes.) However, Charlie stuns his family when he declares that he wants to be a tramp.

Few families would be happy to hear a child say that he wants to be a tramp. Charlie’s grandfather says that he’s never heard a child want to be tramp, and his mother says that she doesn’t think he means it. However, Charlie thinks that being a tramp would be good because he wouldn’t have to learn how to chop trees or build dams or other routine jobs. Charlie thinks that tramps have a lot of fun and just work now and then at little jobs when they need something to eat. Charlie thinks that the little jobs would be much more fun than the ones his father really wants him to do. Charlie’s grandfather says that kids these days just don’t want to work hard.

However, Charlie’s parents decide that if he wants to be a tramp, they’ll let him try it out. Charlie makes himself a little bundle with some food, and his parents let him sleep outside, telling him to come back for breakfast. Both the father and grandfather quietly admit that they both wanted to be a tramp when they were his age, so it’s not just kids these days.

Charlie has some fun, roaming the countryside, sleeping under the stars, and enjoying his freedom. In the morning, he comes home and does some chores to earn his breakfast, lunch, and dinner. In between, he goes out to roam the countryside again.

Charlie begins to notice that something keeps waking him up in the night, an odd sound that he can’t identify at first. Eventually, he realizes that it’s the sound of a nearby stream. For some reason, the trickling sound of the stream seems nice but makes him feel restless. It inspires him to swim in the stream and begin building his own dam, working through the night.

When Charlie sleeps through breakfast, his family comes looking for him and admires the good job that Charlie did on his dam and the pond that he has created. When they ask him about why he was making a dam when he was trying to be a tramp, Charlie says that he likes doing both and can do either sometimes. His family is satisfied that Charlie is a good worker, and his grandfather says, “That’s how it is nowadays. You never know when a tramp will turn out to be a beaver.”

It isn’t that Charlie expects to go through life without doing work because he insisted on working to earn his meals even when he was being a tramp. It was more that Charlie wanted the freedom to decide when he wanted to work and what kind of work he was going to do. However, he is a beaver and has a beaver’s instincts. In the end, he sees the appeal of doing a beaver’s work, building dams, enjoying it because he made the dam himself in the way he wanted to make it. I think it shows that when a person has the knowledge and ability to do something and the interest in doing it, they will eventually use their skills, perhaps in surprising ways. I remember reading some advice to writers that said that people write because “they can’t not do it,” and that’s true of many aspirations in life. Sometimes, when people know what they really want to do with their lives, they can’t resist doing it, and sometimes, people realize what their aspirations are when they find something that they can’t resist doing. Charlie is a beaver because it’s a part of who he is, and he can’t not do it. As he grows up, he will continue growing into that role, just as human children eventually grow up to be the people they are going to be.

This book is available to borrow for free online through Internet Archive, but it’s also back in print and available for purchase through Plough. If you borrow the book and like it, consider buying a copy of your own!

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Goodnight Moon

Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown, pictures by Clement Hurd, 1947.

This is a classic children’s bedtime book and has been for generations!

It all starts with a green room that has a red balloon.  The book describes everything in the room in rhyme.  There are kittens and mittens and a picture of bears in chairs.  It’s a cozy, peaceful room.

Then, the book says “goodnight” to everything in the room (and some things outside, like the moon), one thing at a time.

It’s just a cute, gentle book that is perfect to read to children who are going to bed. Reading it slowly can be very soothing.  The book never says it, but the “people” in the story are rabbits.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

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The Little Engine That Could

The Little Engine That Could by Watty Piper, 1930.

A little train is pulling a load of things for children over a mountain. The train is carrying toys of all kinds and also good, healthy food for the children.

Unfortunately, something goes wrong, and the engine pulling the train breaks down. The toys aboard the train know that the children over the mountain are waiting for them and that they will need the food on the train, too. Other train engines pass by, and the toys try to get them to help pull the train.

However, even though these other train engines are not currently pulling loads of their own, each of them has a reason why they cannot help to pull the train with toys and food for children. One engine is old and doesn’t think that he’s strong enough to pull even this small train. The bigger, stronger engines think of themselves as being too important to pull this small train because they handle more important things, like passenger cars or freight for adults, not children.

The toys are despairing, but then, a small blue engine comes along, and they ask her if she can help them. At first, the little engine isn’t sure that she can help because she is only a small engine and has never been over the mountain before, but the toys explain how important it is to get the toys and food to the children, so the Little Engine agrees to try.

As the Little Blue Engine pulls the toy train over the mountain, she gives herself positive self-talk, telling herself “I think I can-I think I can.” When she succeeds in her mission, everyone is happy, and she says, “I thought I could!”

This classic picture book is often used to show children the benefits of positive thinking and being willing to try. Instead of focusing on doubts about herself or reasons not to try, the Little Blue Engine makes the decision to try and tells herself that it’s possible for her to succeed. The Little Blue Engine doesn’t know if she can accomplish the mission (she “thinks” she can, although she doesn’t “know” if she can), but when she is willing to try, she discovers that she actually can. Even though she is small and seems less important than the bigger trains, she accomplishes more because she is willing to do what the bigger trains will not, taking part in something that is outside of her basic, required job. I also like how the book shows that it is sometimes the small, less prestigious tasks that make the biggest difference. Taking food and toys to children doesn’t seem important to the big trains, but it matters to the children and their families over the mountain.

However, this is not the first form of this story. The story of the little train engine that is able to go over the mountain because it thinks it can is actually based on an earlier form of the story that was originally part of a sermon from the early 1900s.

The book is available to borrow for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies). There are also different cartoon versions of the story.

Posted on by TracyC

Amazing Grace

Amazing Grace by Mary Hoffman, 1991.

Grace loves stories, both hearing them and acting them out. She is imaginative, and likes playing games of pretend and acting out adventures.

When Grace’s teacher tells the class that they are going to perform the play Peter Pan and will be holding auditions for parts in the play, Grace wants the title role of Peter Pan. A couple of the other kids think that it’s odd for her to want to be Peter Pan because she is both a girl and black, which is exactly the opposite of how they usually see the character.

However, Grace still wants to play Peter Pan. When she tells her mother and grandmother what the other kids said, they reassure her that she can get the part if she really wants it and puts her mind to it.

To prove to Grace that a young black girl can get starring roles, her grandmother takes her to see a ballet where the granddaughter of a friend of hers from Trinidad is playing the role of Juliet in Romeo and Juliet.

Seeing the performance cheers Grace up and gives her the confidence to audition for the part of Peter Pan. When her classmates see how good she is when she performs, they all agree that Grace should have the role of Peter Pan.

The message that young girls like Grace can do what they set their minds to, even if the roles they want in life aren’t quite traditional, is a good one. As I read the story, I was also thinking that the objection that Grace can’t be Peter Pan actually doesn’t make much sense if you know that Peter Pan, of all roles in plays, is one that is often played by a female. I remember that when I was a kid in elementary school, there was a girl who played the part of Peter Pan, and one of the teachers explained that women sometimes play Peter Pan, especially when the actors are all adults, because women have the higher-pitched voices that the part really needs. I would liked it if the teacher in the story also mentioned that. Also, acting is about capturing the spirit of the character in the story, thinking and feeling like they would think and feel and acting the way they would act. I would have liked it if they had mentioned that. Grace may not look quite the way people might picture Peter Pan, but if she can capture the character in her performance, she’s a good actor.

I liked the pictures in the book for their realism. In a couple of the pictures which show how Grace like to act out fantasies, she is shirtless, but she is very young and it isn’t possible to really see anything, so I don’t consider it inappropriate, but I thought that I would mention it.

This is a Reading Rainbow Book.