Triangle

Author, Mac Barnett and illustrator, Jon Klassen's two previous collaborations,  Extra Yarn and Sam & Dave Dig A Hole won Caldecott Honors. They have teamed up again to create Triangle, the first book in a planned trilogy. 

Triangle lives in a house shaped like a triangle, with a triangle shaped door. He wants to play a trick on his friend, Square. On his way to Square's house he passes triangular shaped hills, then hills "that weren't triangles anymore" and finally to square shaped hills. Because he knows Square is afraid of snakes, Triangle says "HISS" sounding like a snake at his friend's door. Square is frightened. Triangle keeps hissing but soon he is laughing too hard to hiss anymore. Square recognizes the laugh and chases Triangle past the square hills , the undefined shape hills and the triangle shaped hills to Triangle's house where he gets stuck in the triangle shaped door. He is blocking the light and guess what? Triangle is afraid of the dark. Square says he planned his revenge, does the reader believe him?

John Klassen's artwork is known for his use of earth-toned palettes. In this book, he introduces a pale blueish green that he uses both alone and in overlays of earth tones to create darker toned greens. The font is large, well spaced and easy to read. There is plenty of white space and few words on each page. Kids who read at a mid-year first grade level or higher can read this book with little help.

The Sonoma County Library has ten copies. 

How This Book Was Made

I once had the opportunity to ask Mac Barnett at a book fair about how authors and illustrators worked together (or maybe didn't) on a book. I don't remember all the details of what he said. I thought I might find it in this book, How This Book Was Made.

The author gets an idea, then he writes his first draft which isn't as good as he hoped, so he rewrites it, in this case 20 more times until he thinks it is perfect. Then it goes to his editor who who thinks it is perfect, too as long as the author makes a bunch of changes. The manuscript goes back and forth until both the author and editor are satisfied. Then the editor sends the manuscript to an illustrator, Adam Rex. Since Adam is busy (or not) it takes a long time to get the pictures to the editor. but finally the book is ready to print in Malaysia. A pile of books so huge is printed that it can be seen from space. How do the books get back to the United States? By slow boat, of course; made even slower by an attack from a pirate ship. Lucky for us pirates don't read and aren't interested in the boat's treasure. When it gets to the harbor, the books are loaded onto a truck which delivers them to a bookstore (or Library) waiting for one final step in the book making process: a reader.

The Sonoma County Library has five copies. This book was published on Sept 6, 2016 and as of yet has not been assigned an AR level.

But that didn't answer my question about how authors and illustrators work together, so I looked at a book they worked on published in 2012, Chloe and the Lion about who is more important in making a picture book the author or the illustrated?

In Mac's story, Chloe gets lost in the woods and meets a lion, but Adam thinks a dragon is cooler. Mac begs to disagree and tells Adam to draw whatever he writes. Mac and Adam are played by claymation representations of themselves. Their conversation occurs in its own space or over Adam's drawings.Eventually the argument ends with Mac firing Adam. Just then, Hank walks out of the woods carrying  brushes and a palette and is hired on the spot to illustrate the book. Hank's lion swallows Adam whole.

Mac suggests that Hank make the lion scarier, Hank says if you want scary, why didn't you make the lion a dragon? This leads to Hank being fired. Mac decides to draw the pictures himself, but that doezn't work so well either. He wants to quit, but Chloe talks him into asking Adam to do the drawings again. This leads to a phone conversation between Mac and Adam who is trapped in the lion's belly. In order to do the drawings he need to get out. Chloe asks a woodcutter, a crone and a knight for help, but they were no help. What finally worked was a redrawn (by Mac) cartoonish lion who was so embarrassed by his not so fierce new body that he agreed to cough up Adam. Everyone is happy but Chloe, what kind of thanks does a girl get for saving the day?

So do you think that's how authors and illustrator's work together? This video and this one from Reading Rockets may get us a little closer to the answer.

There is a short  You Tube video about the making of this book that is pretty funny. The Sonoma County Library has two copies. The AR is 2.7.

All this made me wonder about how Adam Rex worked with Christian Robinson when he wrote School's First Day of School. 

2015 Caldecott Awards

This morning the 2015 Caldecott Medal was given to  The Adventures of Beekle, The Unimaginary Friend  written and illustrated by Dan Santat.

The Honors went to Nana in the City written and illustrated by Lauren Castillo

and The Noisy Paint Box: The Colors and Sounds of Kandinsky’s Abstract Art illustrated by Mary GrandPre and written by Barb Rosenstock:

and Sam and Dave Dig A Hole illustrated by Jon Klassen and written by Mac Barnett:

and Viva Frida written and illustrated by Yuyi Morales:

and The Right Word: Roget and His Thesaurus Illustrated by Mellisa Sweet and written by Jen Bryant:

and finally, This One Summer illustrated by Jillian Tamaki and written by Mariko Tamaki.

There are three biographies among the Honor books plus a graphic novel aimed at tens. Very interesting to say the least!

Time Magazine’s 100 Best Children’s Books of All Time

The list includes books we have reviewed here: Extra Yarn, Journey, The Day The Crayons Quit, The Snowy Day and Press Here. Where the Wild Things Are, The Cat in The Hat and Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Bad Day and Madeline are also included. Since this is a list of picture books it is a puzzle as to why Out Of My Mind, a very worthy book, was on this list.

Picture Book Gift Ideas

2014 saw several  new picture books aimed at kids 4-7 years old by some honored picture book authors. The author and illustrator of a 2013 Caldecott Honor book, Extra Yarn, Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen have teamed up again on Sam & Dave Dig A Hole. A simple story about two boys digging a hole to look for something spectacular.   Some kids back in the olden days amused themselves during long summer days by digging holes either to bury or look for treasure or for the more ambitious, to dig their way to the other side of the world. While the story is told pretty straight, Jon Klassen’s illustrations are humorous. We can see what Sam and Dave cannot. Just as they are getting close to finding something, they change course. Fortunately, their dogs does dig his way to a spectacular find. The boys eventually fall down the hole and come out the other side. They decide that is a pretty spectacular way to spend the day.  The AR is 1.9.

Mac Barnett came out with another book this year  illustrated by Jen Corace. Telephone is a play on that  another amusement from the olden days. One person whispers something to another, that person whispers what he heard to the next person and the last person who hears it repeats the message aloud. More often than not, it bears little relationship to the original. The whole story takes place on a telephone wire, the characters are birds. Peter’s mother tells a cardinal carrying a baseball bat  “Tell Peter: Fly home for dinner”. The cardinal tells a flyboy, “Tell Peter: Hit pop flies and homers”. Flyboy passes his version to the next bird on the wire and so on. Each bird adds a twist to the message until finally a very drenched bird relays a message that combines parts of all the versions to a wise looking owl who happens to be sitting near Peter on the wire. The owl thinks about what he just heard and says to Peter, “Your Mom says fly home for dinner”.

 

Tom Lichtenheld, illustrator of Exclamation Mark, has teamed up with Richard T Morris on This Is A Moose.

An unseen director is making a wildlife movie about a moose. Take one: the star of the movie wants to be an astronaut.  This will not do. The director yells, “Cut!” and says matter of factually that a moose cannot be an astronaut. Take two is interrupted by the star’s grandmother (yeah grandmas!). She wanted to be a La Crosse goalie and don’t tell her a moose can’t be one or you have a fight on your hands. Take three is interrupted by a  Regal Giraffe who always wanted to be a doctor. The director dismisses the giraffe because this is a woodland movie not a safari movie. At this point Grandma and Regal Giraffe take matters into their own hands and launch Moose into space. The director goes into a tirade about how that cannot happen because this is a movie about a moose doing moose things. Nonetheless the Moose is in outer space. Finally, we see the director, who happens to be a duck, yelling, “will somebody please find me an animal that acts like it’s supposed to!!”  We see the director pausing to  think and coming to the realization that if a duck can be a director then a moose can be an astronaut . The new movie is “This is an Astronaut” on location on the moon.

Great read-a-loud book. The AR is 1.9.

Katherine Applegate, the winner of the 2013 Newbery Medal for The One And Only Ivan, has written a picture book about the real Ivan called Ivan: The Remarkable True Story of the Shopping Mall Gorilla. The book is beautifully illustrated by G. Brian Karas.

The story tells of Ivan’s birth in a tropical forest in Central Africa, his capture by poachers and his arrival in Tacoma, Washington. He was raised like a human child for three years until he became too big.  Then a cage in the shopping mall became his new home. He lived in that cage for 27 years without the company of another gorilla. Some people thought Ivan should have a better life. After letters, petitions and protests it was arranged to transfer Ivan to Zoo Atlanta. There he lived out his days in “a place with trees and grass and other gorillas”. The AR is 3.7.

Sonoma County Book Festival

Tomorrow, Saturday, September 21, is the annual Sonoma County Book Festival held this year at Santa Rosa Junior College, 1501 Mendocino Ave in the Bertolini Student Center, Quad and Library. The hours are 10 AM to 4PM. The admission is free and so is the parking. For more information and directions go here.

Mac Barnett is the author of 2012 Caldecott Honor Book  Extra Yarn.

2013 Caldecott Medal and Honor Awards

This morning, in Seattle, The American Library Association announced its 2013 youth media award winners. The 2013 Caldecott Medal winner for “the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children”  is This Is Not My Hat by Jon Klassen. Last year he won a Theodor Seuss Geisel Honor award for I Want My Hat Back.

This is Jon Klassen’s year because Extra Yarn, a book he illustrated was given a Caldecott Honor. The author is Mac Barnett.

  The other Caldecott Honor winners are Creepy Carrots written by Aaron Reynolds and illustrated by Peter Brown; Green by Laura Vaccaro Seeger;  One Cool Friend written by  Toni Buzzeo and illustrated by David Small and Sleep Like A Tiger by Mary Logue and illustrated by Pamela Zagarenski.

Extra Yarn is the only book reviewed on this blog. As I gather the medal and honor books, I’ll be posting reviews and checking the libraries for availability. Stay tuned.

Extra Yarn

What prompted me to pick up this book was the news that a friend who loves to knit was having her first grandchild. Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett and illustrated by Jon Klassen is about kindness and generosity, as well as about knitting and dare I say it on this cold morning, warmth.

Annabelle lives in a town where everything   is cold and white or covered in black soot. One day she discovers a box filled with colored yarn, so she decides to knit herself a sweater. When she is done, she has extra yarn, so she knits her dog a sweater. Her friend, Nate tells her they look ridiculous. She has extra yarn, so she knits Nate and his dog a sweater too. Her teacher, Mr. Norman, tells her her sweater is a distraction, so because she has extra yarn, she knits a sweater for everyone in class and Mr. Norman, too. Annabelle still has extra yarn, so she knits sweaters for everyone in town except for Mr. Crabtree, who can stand outside in shorts in the snow up to his knees. So she knits him a hat. Then, because she still has extra yarn, she knits sweaters for all the birds and woodland animals (if you read Jon Klassen’s I Want My Hat Back you may recognize some of the animals). Annabelle still had yarn left so she knitted sweaters for houses (boy, did this sound good this morning), pick up trucks and even trees. Annabelle and her box of endless yarn became famous and she became a tourist attraction. An archduke, from a far off country heard about the box that never ran out of yarn and decided he wanted it. He came to visit and offered Annabelle one million dollars, she declined. He offered her two million dollars, then ten million but she again said no. So the archduke hired three men to break into her house at night and steal the box. Back home, the archduke opens the box and it is empty. He throws the box out of the window and places his family curse on Annabelle “You will never be happy again”. But it turns out she was.

 The Sonoma County Library has several copies.