fast, cheap or good

You've probably heard somebody say something along the lines of, "fast, cheap or good - pick two."  If you haven't, you need to watch more bonus features on DVDs.  Set designers are always being told that.  It really makes them hop.  Anyways, the point I'm trying to make in a very roundabout way is that, from what I've found, picture books operate on the same kind of system.  But instead of fast, good and cheap you have:

• Drop dead gorgeous pictures.  You want to frame every page.
• A good story, truly well written.  Won't make the reading adult's brain shrivel into a raisin.
• A book kids won't loose interest in.

How many times, honestly, can you say you've found all three in one book?  I have never - never - got a kid to sit all the way through Horton Hears a Who.   How many books have truly gorgeous illustrations?  So beautiful that they are almost universally admired?

One of my absolute favorite books right now, Just Being Audrey, has perfect illustrations. They are perfect!  Julia Denos even got the little bump in you could see in Hepburn's jawline when she got older. I'm going to do a post about those perfecty perfect pictures on here some time. But you know what?  I have a hard time believing that any kid could sit through a reading of it. The story just isn't that great.  I can't see it becoming the family favorite for bedtime if I have my own kids someday.  Heck, I don't remember reading it to myself the first few times I looked it through. The book feels like it was made for adults - I bought it at Anthropologie - and while I tell myself out loud that that's okay, an inside part of me mutters that it isn't. A book written for and marketed to children shouldn't be really only good for grown-up Audrey freaks.

I wandered around the kids' section at Barnes and Noble a couple of weeks ago, picking up every picture book that caught my fancy.  I don't know much about trends in picture book styles, but that back wall seemed very short on good stories.  They all wandered. Very episodic. The character's mom loves them, even though they're a pill.  They play with their toys.  They dance around the house.  They get into trouble.  Things like that.  Olivia is episodic to me - and even in such a fantastic book, it still bothers me just a bit.  In the considerably less interesting and attractive books I perused, the wandering was... well, insufferable. Nothing really happened.  In my mind, a story has a beginning, middle and end.  It does not doddle through every room of the house.

(Also, almost without exception, the stories at B&N were concerned with everyday things.  I don't mind that, but when I was little I wanted some 'igh adventure in my stories!  I didn't want to read about kids getting into trouble for having a messy room.  I had to deal with that in real life!)

I am also sorry to say that there were a lot of ugly new picture books at Barnes and Noble as well.  I know it's probably wicked hard to be an illustrator, but so many of the books seem like they're going to look outdated in five years.  Or look outdated even now. Olivia, Eloise, Winne-the-Pooh and Madeline have all done their various amounts of aging gracefully - so it proves that it can be done.  You might have to be a genius to do it, but it's clearly possible.

So.  That was a lot of paragraphs to explain why The Story of Ferdinand is the best picture book on earth.  Because it is the best.  

53/365 Make Way For Ducklings by Robert McCloskey

I'd honestly forgotten how WONDERFUL this book is.  Ridiculous, right?  How could I forget the PERFECT illustrations and completely charming story?  How could I forget about it's wonderfulness when we saw the public park this very summer? While we ate our sandwiches a group of ducklings swam over to squeak at us.  It was delightful.  These statues:

Were being sat on by small children.  The only thing that wasn't 100 percent perfect - and, in a way, it made it better really - was that the swan boat guy (they pedal them like a bike!) was texting while he was driving around the pond, and he bashed into things.  But, like I said, it almost made it all better.

CONCLUSION:  I will never be an illustrator.  This book makes me too ashamed of my scratchings.

25/365 And the Pursuit of Happiness by Maira Kalman

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I LOVE MAIRA KALMAN.
I love her.  Her pictures make my day better, and make me dress better. She makes me want to get out and do something.  Visit a museum, take lessons, travel, enjoy the neighborhood.  I LOVE her books.  
Her curiosity is... I don't know... delightful!  I think she's so great because she doesn't present herself as some lofty intellectual who is just too well-read and well-educated for you - she writes like a human being.  A smart human being, but still definitely human.  She can still be inspired by things.  Admire people.   She seems humble, I guess.
I hate reading books - popular books of literary criticism in particular - where the author won't come out and tell you that they like something.  I like gushing!  I like hearing that people like the authors I like! Like, a lot!  (Mom, that's why I thought The Magician's Book was so great.  Now you know.)  Blah blah, books about books are supposed to be dry and precise - but literature seems such an imprecise art to me!  I will never agree that this or that novel is the best on earth - never.  Because, at root, the person asserting that Moby Dick is the best ever is still at least a teensy bit biased because they liked it.  Now, if  I said that Moby Dick is the best novel ever you could believe it because I hated Moby Dick.

SO!  I'm sorry I'm so dithery and distracted.  I'm about to go for a swim and I just got home from work and I got a new dress this afternoon (I'm wearing it over my jeans right now) and the Kooks are playing in the background, so focus is a little on the short side this fine day.

CONCLUSION:  I need to check out Spinoza and De Tocqueville.  Spinoza because this is the second book of hers I've read that mentions him, and De Tocqueville because I read about him again today in the intro to The Crucible, and two times is too much of a coincidence.   I LOVE MAIRA I LOVE MAIRA.

16.2/365 Max Deluxe - Maira Kalman

Among many other things, I bought Max Deluxe (all the three Max books in one volume) at the library book sale, and read it in the car in the afternoon.  Which shows how much I enjoyed it, because reading in the car makes me sick.  I never throw up, but I turn greenish and moan, "ughh, is the air conditioner on?  I need to roll the window down..."

I've been a Maira Kalman fan for a while now, thanks to a chance encounter with The Elements of Style at B&N.  I bought The Principles of Uncertainty a few months ago, and I haven't felt even a tinge of regret - which is what usually happens when I buy books new. (I bought it - also at B&N - during a tornado warning, incidentally.  All the lights went out and the sirens were blaring and we all were herded into the back of the store where, supposedly, it was safer.  People sat underneath the CD racks.   It was hugely entertaining. Frankly, I thought flying CD cases would be much more dangerous than flying paperbacks.  When you look at it from an everything-around-you-is-going-to-be-a-projectile perspective, magazines and romance novels would probably be the safest bet.  Though I would not want to die beneath a pile of romance novels.  I called my mum to tell her what was going on and she said, "Well, at least you'll die surrounded by things you love.")

But! Back to Max!

The books aren't my usual thing, but I liked 'em.  They're worth buying just for the details.  It's the only book I've ever seen where even the publication information was messed with.

And I loved the pictures, which sort of goes without saying. 

The stories are sort of topsy-turvy and are certainly not Dick and Jane-ish, or like, "Bobby went to the grocery store with his Mother."  You know what I mean?  They're just all over the place.  When I read them aloud, I enjoyed them more.  It's sort of duh, Kelsey of me, but while I was reading it I forgot that a major element in a picture book is the way the words actually sound aloud.  Like poetry, you know?  Goodnight Moon is just a regular old book when you read it without at least saying the words in your head.  But aloud it's magical. 

CONCLUSION: I am so glad that I'm planning to become an illustrator if only because I now have a fantastic, unbreakable excuse for buying kid's books.  It's research. Choosing to study illustration was, like, the smartest thing I've ever done.  Oh frabjous day! 

15/365 The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf

Okay, I did not actually pull a "Squirrel Nutkin to the rescue" here.  I did read another book today, but I wanted to talk about this one.  So there.

Now boys and girls, today we're going to talk about the best picture book on earth.

Actually, we might not talk at all.  We might just look at these perfect pictures and weep.
Like I said, The Story of Ferdinand is the best picture book on earth.  Ever.  To infinity.  I will listen kindly to people who argue for Horton Hears a Who (even though they won't read it aloud to their kid because it takes too long), and I will just smile and pat them on the head.  Because those people are wrong.


This book is perfect.  The pictures are stunning and gorgeous and hilarious.  The story isn't episodic like a lot of picture books seem to be these days - it has a beginning, middle, and end.  For improving types, it has a message. It was written right before the outbreak of the Spanish Civil war, which I think it interesting.  It is short.  Kids can sit through it, adults can stomach it.  It is well-written, in a sparse kind of way.  The words and pictures are fitted together - and I do mean physically put together on the page - in a way that feels magical.  Look at that "O" in the top picture.  It's a bit tilted!  And it isn't a book that specifically messes with the words, the way others do.  It's just that one time.  The balance between empty expanses of white, and dense, detailed ink is just... just wonderful.

Boy, I'm getting sappy.

CONCLUSION: Well, it's probably pretty obvious, what I'm going to say.  YOU SHOULD READ FERDINAND.  If only because you, my dear imaginary reader, haven't seen some of the best pictures.  And because it is the best picture book on earth.