Posted on by TracyC

The Purple Coat

PurpleCoat

The Purple Coat by Amy Hest, 1986.

Every year in the fall, Gabrielle and her mother travel to the city to visit her grandfather’s tailor shop. While her mother shops at other stores, Gabby and her grandfather have lunch together (Gabby always eats the same kind of sandwich), and her grandfather makes her a new coat. Gabby always gets the same kind of coat, and it’s always navy blue.

PurpleCoatTailorShop

However, this year, Gabby wants something different. She wants a purple coat! She also wants it in a different style than her other coats, and she wants it to have a hood. At first, her mother and grandfather can’t believe that she really wants something so different from what she usually gets, and they point out that navy coats are classic, but Gabby is insistent.

PurpleCoatRequest

Gabby worries that her mother won’t let her get the coat that she really wants, but her grandfather remembers that when her mother was little, she once wanted something really unusual herself: a tangerine-colored dress. Sometimes, people do want to do different things, just to have a change and try something new. He also thinks of a way to give Gabby what she wants while allowing her to go back to her classic navy when she feels like it. Gabby’s new coat is reversible!

This is a Reading Rainbow book.  It is currently available online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC

Miss Nelson is Back

NelsonBack

Miss Nelson is Back by Harry Allard and James Marshall, 1982.

Miss Nelson, a teacher, tells her class that she will have to be away for awhile, having her tonsils removed, so someone else will be teaching their class.  At first, the kids think that they’ll be able to get away with a lot while Miss Nelson is away, but an older kid warns them that their substitute will probably turn out to be Viola Swamp, the meanest substitute ever.

NelsonBackWarning

The kids are nervous until they find out that Mr. Blandsworth, the school principal, will be their substitute himself.  The worst thing about Mr. Blandsworth is that he’s boring, and he tends to treat them like they’re little kids.  They put up with it for awhile, but then, they realize that they can get rid of Mr. Blandsworth by convincing him that Miss Nelson has come back to school.

NelsonBackPrincipal

They put together their own Miss Nelson costume, with some of the kids sitting on each other’s shoulder’s to appear taller in the outfit.  It’s cheesy, but it convinces the principal.  But, the kids take it even farther than that.  Now that there’s no substitute teacher, they can do whatever they want!  Their “Miss Nelson” takes the class on an impromptu field trip to the movies and the ice cream parlor, and no one stops them because they’re with their “teacher.”

NelsonBackFieldTrip

Unfortunately, they make the mistake of walking past Miss Nelson’s house, and she discovers what they’ve been doing.

NelsonBackReveal

Miss Nelson arranges for Miss Viola Swamp to come and teach the class a real lesson.

NelsonBackSwamp

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

My Reaction

I actually like this book even better than the first book in the series because I think that the kids’ Miss Nelson costume is hilarious! Mr. Blandsworth is completely clueless about the kids’ deception, just as he never figures out what the real truth is about “Viola Swamp.”

As usual for the series, the story never explicitly states that Miss Nelson and Viola Swamp are the same person, but it’s heavily implied in the text (such as Viola Swamp’s scratchy voice from Miss Nelson having her tonsils out) and shown in clues in the pictures. Miss Nelson uses “Viola Swamp” as her alter ego whenever she needs to give her students some tough love, but that’s just a joke that Miss Nelson shares with the readers.

Posted on by TracyC · 1 Comment

Ira Sleeps Over

IraSleepsOver

Ira Sleeps Over by Bernard Waber, 1972.

Ira, a young boy, is happy when his friend, Reggie, who lives next door, invites him to sleep over at his house. Then, his sister asks him if he’s going to take his teddy bear with him. At first, Ira says no, but his sister points out that he’s never slept without it.

Ira starts to worry about whether he should take the teddy bear with him or not. He worries that Reggie might laugh at him for having a teddy bear. His parents say that he won’t and that Ira should go ahead and take the bear with him. However, his sister says that Reggie probably will laugh.

IraSleepsOverWorry

Ira tries to talk to Reggie and sound him out on the idea of teddy bears to see if Reggie will laugh, but Reggie ignores Ira’s questions. Reggie is excited about all the things that he and Ira can do at the sleepover and eagerly explains his plans. It all sounds like fun, but Ira gets nervous when Reggie mentions ghost stories.

IraSleepsOverReggie

Ira continues to debate about whether or not he should take his bear with him. Before going over to Reggie’s house, he decides to leave his teddy bear at home.

The two boys have a lot of fun playing together at the sleepover. At bedtime, Reggie starts to tell a ghost story, and both of the boys are a little spooked. That’s when Ira discovers that Reggie has a teddy bear of his own.

IraSleepsOverTeddy

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

My Reaction

This is a nice story about how the things that we worry other people will find ridiculous or embarrassing are often more common and less embarrassing than we think. At first, Ira worries (because of what his sister said) that Reggie will think that his teddy bear, named Tah Tah, is silly and childish, but after discovering that Reggie has a teddy bear named Foo Foo, Ira realizes that Reggie will understand how he feels about his bear and decides to run home and get it.  Reggie probably dodged Ira’s earlier questions about teddy bears because he was similarly worried about what Ira would think of his bear.  Sometimes, when people really open up to each other and talk honestly about the way they feel, they learn that other people have shared their feelings and experiences more than they might have thought.

Posted on by TracyC

Mirette on the High Wire

Mirette

Mirette on the High Wire by Emily Arnold McCully, 1992.

About 100 years ago (the book says, so it’s around the 1890s), a young girl named Mirette and her widowed mother run a boardinghouse in Paris. Most of the people who live there are actors and performers of various kinds.

MiretteBoardinghouse

One day, a strange, quiet man named Bellini comes to stay at the boardinghouse. Most of the time, Bellini prefers to keep to himself, but then Mirette catches him walking on the rope they are using for clothesline in the courtyard of the house. It turns out that Bellini is a tightrope walker. Mirette begs him to teach her how to do it, but he refuses.

MIretteRequest

Not to be daunted, Mirette begins experimenting with tightrope walking herself. After repeated falls, Mirette eventually learns to balance on the rope. When she shows Bellini that she can walk the length of the rope, he is impressed with her perseverance and teaches her more things to develop her skills. However, he becomes very upset when she boasts that she will never fall again.

MirettePractice

Mirette learns that Bellini was a world-famous tightrope walker until a friend of his was killed in a fall, and he lost his nerve. She talks to Bellini about it, and he says that he doesn’t know how to get over being afraid. Seeing Mirette’s disappointment and worry, however, gives Bellini the courage to try once again.

MiretteBellini

After talking with a performing agent staying at the boardinghouse, Bellini arranges a performance where he will walk a tightrope over a Paris street. When Mirette sees him hesitating at the beginning of the performance, she joins him on the wire, bolstering his courage and realizing her own dreams of becoming a real tightrope walker.

MiretteBelliniTightrope

There are other books in a series about Mirette and Bellini, where they perform tightrope acts and have adventures around the world, but I think that the first book is really the best.  The pictures are beautiful, done in an impressionistic style.

This book is a Caldecott Award winner.  It is currently available online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC

The True Tale of Johnny Appleseed

JohnnyAppleseed

The True Tale of Johnny Appleseed by Margaret Hodges, 1997.

This American folktale was based on the life of a real person, John Chapman.

Johnny Appleseed was born as Johnny Chapman in 1774. His family lived in Massachusetts. There were plenty of apple trees there, and Johnny loved them. When he was grown, he started traveling west with the idea of spreading apple trees.

He carried very little with him, and some people said that he wore the pot that he used to cook his meals on his head as he walked. Everywhere he went, he planted apple seeds.

His reputation spread, and although people thought that traveling around just to plant apple seeds sounded crazy, they sometimes let him stay with them on his travels. Even Native Americans seemed to like him because he was friendly and helpful and interested in learning their languages. His legacy continued long after his death with trees that were enjoyed by generations of families across the Midwest.

There is a section in the back of the book that explains more about the history behind Johnny Appleseed’s story, including the end of the Revolutionary War and the beginning of westward migration in America. One of the things they mention is the effect that the War of 1812 had on relations between pioneers and Native Americans. Because pioneers were already pushing into the territory of Native Americans in the area that later became Ohio, the tribes there sided with the British in the war, hoping to push out the invading pioneers. After the war was over, though, the pioneers continued to come west, and when they did, they retaliated against the tribes that had been on the side of the British. The pioneers could be brutal, and part of the reason that Native Americans liked Johnny Appleseed was that he was different. He wasn’t trying to hurt anyone or take land for himself; he just wanted to plant trees. After he planted trees, he would build fences around them to keep animals from eating them while they were growing.

John Chapman’s life was unconventional.  He never married, and he acted as a Christian missionary in his travels as well as a planter.  Although he could be regarded as something of an oddball in the itinerant way he lived his life, he became a legend.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC

Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox

PaulBunyan

Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox by Jan Gleiter and Kathleen Thompson, 1985.

This story is based on an American folktale that was used to promote the logging industry. The book doesn’t explain the background to the story, but in a very literal sense, it is a “tall tale.”  The book is part of a series about legendary figures from history and myth.

Paul Bunyan is a giant of a man, and he was a giant since he was a baby, even though his parents were both of normal human size (no explanation given). Because he was never small enough to fit in his parents’ house, they made a large boat for him to sleep in as a cradle, rocking him to sleep on a river. Needless to say, having a giant baby complicates everything and can pose a real risk to everyone. His parents had to teach him early about what he could and couldn’t do so that he would avoid hurting people.

PaulBunyanBaby

However, Paul discovered early that he was skilled with an ax, and because of his great size and strength, he realizes that he is good at cutting down trees. Because this was the frontier days in America, good loggers were in demand because trees were plentiful and wood was needed to build houses and railroads. (Paul Bunyan would not be such a hero for cutting down whole forests today.)

However, a giant of a man can also be lonely when there’s no one around his own size. Paul finds a companion in a giant blue ox. (Yep, that’s part of the traditional story.) He found the ox partly buried in a blizzard. After he dug it out, he named it Babe, and the two of them became lifelong friends.

PaulBunyanBabe

Part of the story is that the Mississippi River and all the lakes in Minnesota were caused by Babe accidentally spilling water that he was carrying on his back. Paul also supposedly dug the Grand Canyon by accident by dragging his ax behind him when he walked to California.

PaulBunyanBabeSpill

Paul also meets a man named Hals Halvorsen who is almost his size. After trees get cut down, Paul and Hals pound the stumps into the ground with their fists to finish clearing the land. Then, they try planting some corn to see how good the land is for farming, but the corn stalk grows up so high that Hals nearly starves to death while climbing it to try to find the top of it.

PaulBunyanHals

The part of the story I liked the best as a kid was when they made gigantic pancakes for Paul Bunyan and Babe, greasing their giant griddle by basically skating across its surface with grease strapped to their feet.

PaulBunyanPancakes

I can’t say that this was one of my favorite folktales as a kid, and my feelings as an adult about deforestation don’t make me feel good about it now. Still, it is an interesting piece of Americana and a little nostalgic.  As a side note, Paul Bunyan was used as a mascot for a pancake restaurant in an episode of Disney’s Phineas and Ferb (which has also been done in real life).  In that episode, Norm, a giant robot, accidentally gets the head of the Babe statue outside the restaurant stuck on his head, causing Phineas and Ferb to think that they are being chased by a Minotaur.  Now that I think about it, this joke’s use of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox makes me smile more than the original version of the story.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC

Pocahontas

Pocahontas

Pocahontas by Jan Gleiter and Kathleen Thompson, 1985.

The story about the life of the young Native American woman known as Pocahontas (“Pocahontas” was really a nickname, which the book mentions, although it doesn’t say that her original name was Matoaka) has been told many times in many forms, but this particular book is somewhat sentimental for me because it was the first one I ever read about her when I was a kid. It’s part of a series about famous and legendary figures in history and myth. Pocahontas was a real, historical person, but aspects of her life have taken on the characteristics of legend (as well as providing material for a Disney movie, although the Disney movie takes liberties with the real life of Matoaka/Pocahontas and the movie was not based on this particular rendition of her story).

When this particular book begins, Pocahontas is a grown, married woman going by the name of Lady Rebecca Rolfe. While living in England, she reflects back on her life and youth, remembering when she first met Europeans.

PocahontasEngland

When she was ten years old, she heard her father, Powhatan (who was the chief of their tribe) and other men talking about the white men. Although Pocahontas hears that the white people had betrayed her people’s trust and even killed some of them, she is curious to get a look at them.

PocahontasSettlerChildren

She ends up meeting with a group of boys from Jamestown and playing with them. She begins making friends with people in Jamestown and visiting them from time to time. A man named John Smith becomes curious about the girl and her people and gets Pocahontas to teach him some of her language.  (The book is more accurate than the Disney version here, showing that there is a significant age difference between Pocahontas and John Smith, with Pocahontas being a child at their first meeting.)

PocahontasJohnSmith

Then, one day, there is a feast in Pocahontas’s village, and some of the men of the tribe bring a white man who was caught trespassing in their territory. Pocahontas recognizes the white man as John Smith and, upon realizing that he is about to be executed, intervenes to save his life. (This is one of the most famous parts of the story of Pocahontas’s life, although the exact circumstances surrounding the real-life incident are a little confusing and may have actually been part of a more complex ritual that John Smith didn’t fully understand at the time, not an actual attempt at execution, if the event actually happened at all. This book offers a simplified version of the incident, supposing that John Smith’s life was in real danger, as he described it in his account of what happened.)

PocahontasExecutionAttempt

In the end, the settlers at Jamestown kidnap Pocahontas in the hope that Powhatan would end hostilities with them, using her as a bargaining chip.  (The book says that her father wasn’t too worried because he knew that the settlers were her friends and would treat her well, but I find this part of the book pretty worrying myself, reading it as an adult.  I’m pretty sure that is not how a parent would react to a missing child in real life.  I guess that the book is trying to keep the tone light for children, but it just sounds weird.) Pocahontas remains among the settlers, living according to their lifestyle and taking the name Rebecca. Eventually, she meets a man named John Rolfe and marries him. The two of them have a son together. With her new family, she travels to England and tries to help the people there to understand her people.  (The book says this in a very optimistic way, calling her visit a “success”, although in real life, this visit was largely a propaganda move on the part of the Virginia Company of London. On the other hand, she was, evidently, very well-received in England, if something of a social curiosity.)

PocahontasWedding

The story in the book ends here, with her still in England, thinking back on her life and her reasons for being there. Part of me wishes that it had explained a little more about Pocahontas’s earlier life and some other facts behind her story. Sadly, part of the reason why they might have been reluctant to tell the rest of the story to children was that the real Pocahontas didn’t live very long after the point where the story ends.  As she was preparing to return to Virginia from England, she became very ill and died.  Her exact age at the time of her death is unknown, but she was probably about 21 years old.  Her son, Thomas Rolfe, was very young at the time she died, but they do still have living descendants today.

Overall, I’d say that this is one of those stories that becomes more interesting when you’re older and realize the full depth of it.  This picture book is a very simplified version of the story, meant for kids, but when I was young, it did inspire me to learn more about Pocahontas.  There any many missing details of Matoaka/Pocahontas/Rebecca Rolfe’s life because of the limited records of it, but what is known is fascinating.  It’s sad because she died so young, but that the story of her life lived on in so many imaginations after her death is profound.  Different people, both when she was alive and after her death, tried to use her for their own purposes, but her legend still continues, out-living them all.  I’ve never seen the Disney Pocahontas movies, and I don’t really want to.  I already know how the story ends.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC · 1 Comment

The Stinky Cheese Man

StinkyCheeseMan

The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales by Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith, 1992.

StinkyCheeseManDuckThis book is a spoof on a number of classic fairy tales. As it explains in the introduction, the short stories included in the book are more Fairly Stupid Tales than Fairy Tales, giving the example of Goldilocks and the Three Elephants: A girl smells peanut porridge and wants to enter the elephants’ house to eat some and try out their furniture, but elephant furniture is too big for her to climb up on, so she just leaves, The End. That incredibly short story isn’t found anywhere else in the book, but it’s a good example of what the other stories are like.

Even the set up of the book is a joke, with the Little Red Hen showing up to demand help with her wheat only for Jack the Narrator to tell her that it’s too soon because they haven’t even had the title page yet. The title page has the words “Title Page” larger than the title itself, and the dedication is upside down because who would actually read it anyway? Then, Chicken Licken thinks that the sky is falling and that everyone should run and tell the President, but it turns out that what’s falling is actually the Table of Contents, which squashes everyone before Foxy Loxy can eat them.

Then, the rest of the stories begin:

StinkyCheeseManMattressesChicken Licken – As described above

The Princess and the Bowling Ball – parody of the Princess and the Pea – Starts off like the original story with the prince’s parents testing princesses to see if they can feel a pea through a whole bunch of mattresses, but none of them ever do, so the prince takes matters into his own hands to rig the test in favor of the girl he really wants to marry.

The Really Ugly Duckling – parody of The Ugly Duckling – When the really ugly duckling grows up, he’s basically just an ugly duck. The End.

The Other Frog Prince – parody of The Frog Prince – The frog isn’t really a prince. He just said that because he wanted a kiss.

Little Red Running Shorts – parody of Little Red Riding Hood – Jack the Narrator accidentally spoils the story by revealing too much in his introduction to it, so the characters feel like there’s no need to act it out, and the Little Red Hen fills up the extra space, demanding to know why they haven’t gotten to her story yet.

Jack’s Bean Problem – parody of Jack and the Beanstalk – Jack the Narrator starts to tell his own story about defeating the Giant, but the Giant protests because he doesn’t like always being tricked and takes control and reads a story that he “wrote” himself, cut out of pieces of other random stories from different books. When the Giant threatens to eat Jack if he can’t tell a better story, Jack tells a story that constantly repeats until it transitions into the next one.

Cinderumpelstiltskin – parody of Cinderella and Rumpelstiltskin – Starts out like the usual Cinderella story, but Rumpelstiltskin shows up and offers to teach her how to spin straw into gold. Cinderella doesn’t see how that can possibly help her since he doesn’t have a gown for her to wear to the ball, so she ends up without either a gown or any gold.

The Tortoise and the Hair – parody of The Tortoise and the Hare – A rabbit tells the tortoise that he’s so slow that he can grow hair faster than the tortoise can run. By the end of the story, the tortoise is still running, and the rabbit is still growing hair.

The Stinky Cheese Man – parody of The Gingerbread Man – An old couple make a “child” for themselves out of stinky cheese. When he takes on a life of his own and run away, they don’t bother to chase him because they can’t stand the smell. Nobody else wants to chase him, either.

StinkyCheeseManCinderSo, why isn’t there a Little Red Hen story listed? At the end of the book, she shows up to complain about how she had to do everything herself to make the bread and nobody even saved space for her story (because Jack had to sneak away from the Giant after he fell asleep). The Giant wakes up and decides to make a chicken sandwich with the bread.

Understanding the jokes in the book requires a knowledge of the stories they’re spoofing, so this isn’t a book for very young children. Any kid who reads this should already know the classic fairy tales and be old enough to appreciate the humorous twists. I think kids feel clever when they realize that they can recognize the references in the stories and know where and how the parodies are different from the originals. Some of the humor has to do with the abrupt endings, simplifying issues that are more drawn-out in the original stories.  I remember liking this book when I was in elementary school!

The art style is very distinctive, with a number of cutout elements with different textures. It’s fascinating to see the way that the pictures were put together.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC · 1 Comment

The Paper Bag Princess

PaperBagPrincess

The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch, 1980.

Princess Elizabeth is a stylish young princess, engaged to the handsome Prince Ronald. But, one day, a dragon attacks her castle, incinerating all of Elizabeth’s fine clothes and carrying Ronald off to its lair.

Donning the only thing she can find to wear, an old paper bag, Princess Elizabeth tracks the dragon down to rescue Ronald.

In this unconventional fairy tale story, Princess Elizabeth must defeat the dragon in a duel of wits in order to rescue her prince, but in a humorous twist ending, Ronald is somewhat less than grateful for her help because Princess Elizabeth is no longer stylish in her old paper bag.

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

PaperBagPrincessRonaldRescued

My Reaction

Books like these can be a good antidote to people who are tired of prissier princess stories with flamboyant gowns and a wedding (or at least kissing) at the end. The story is deliberately humorous and correct in pointing out that people who worry more about the clothes you’re wearing than the things you do for them are not worth bothering with.  Prince Ronald is shallow. He has the look of a prince but not much substance, caring more about appearances than about what his princess went through for his sake.

Posted on by TracyC

Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People’s Ears

Mosquitoes

Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People’s Ears retold by Verna Aardema, pictures by Leo and Diane Dillon, 1975.

The story comes from a West African folktale, and all the characters are animals.

In the beginning, a grumpy iguana gets tired of hearing a mosquito telling tall tales. He sticks a couple of sticks in his ears so that he won’t have to listen anymore, and this decision leads to a series of unfortunate events that leads to the accidental death of a baby owl.

MosquitoesIguana

It starts with a snake trying to talk to the iguana, who does not hear him. The snake, thinking that perhaps the iguana is angry with him, goes to hide from him in a rabbit hole, startling the rabbit out. The chain reaction of events continues, with different animals startling each other, until a frightened monkey crashes through a tree branch, which breaks, killing the baby owl.

MosquitoesMonkeyTree

The Mother Owl is so distraught at the death of her baby that she doesn’t wake the sun so that dawn can come, as she usually does. When the other animals realize that dawn isn’t coming, King Lion calls a meeting to determine the reason why. Together, they trace the events backward to the iguana. The iguana is not at the meeting because he still has sticks in his ears and hasn’t heard a thing about it.

MosquitoesMeetingMonkey

When the other animals track down the iguana and take the sticks out of his ears, they demand to know why he wouldn’t talk to the snake. When he tells them that he had sticks in his ears because he couldn’t stand listening to the mosquito’s stories anymore, the mosquito ends up taking the blame for everything. The Mother Owl is satisfied with the explanation and hoots to wake up the sun, although the mosquito escapes punishment by hiding. So, ever since, the mosquito whispers in people’s ears to find out if everyone is still angry.

MosquitoesMeetingIguana

The art style in the book is a little unusual. When I looked at the pictures the first time, I thought of them as looking stenciled. However, there is a note in the beginning of the book, near the copyright information, that says that the pictures are a combination of watercolors and india ink. The artists used an airbrush and pastels, and they created the “cut-out effect” with frisket masks and pieces cut out of vellum.

This book is a Caldecott Award winner. It is currently available online through Internet Archive.