Picture Book Review - Golden Domes and Silver Lanterns by Hena Khan

I bring books home from the library pretty much every day, and it's become part of our nightly ritual for Sprout to dig into my work bag looking for new stuff to read. A few weeks back he was doing just that and came across tonight's pick, Golden Domes and Silver Lanterns: A Muslim Book of Colors by Hena Khan. Well, it's not at all an exaggeration to say that he was completely mesmerized. He immediately wanted to stop and read the book -- like, right away, even though I was in the middle of dinner and all the weeknight craziness. And, with a cover like this, who could blame him? I did the same thing when it showed up on my hold shelf!

Golden Domes and Silver Lanterns follows one small girl as she identifies color in the world around her. It's a lovely way to honor Islamic culture and introduce it to readers who may not already be familiar with some of the various aspects and symbols. The colors become focal points for the girl to talk about the things she sees and how they relate to traditions and people she loves. So blue is her mother's hijab; brown are the dates she eats for Ramadan; red is her father's prayer rug. A final spread pulls all the colors together, and provides a glossary for all the terms used in the text - a thoughtful addition.

I'd be remiss if I didn't talk about the illustrations here, because as terrific as Hena Khan's text is, the illustrations are even more spectacular. I've seen plenty of informative books ruined by flat, lifeless images. Such is not the case here - Mehrdokht Amini pulls out all the stops for pictures that are not only vibrant and enticing, but also full of texture and shade. Some of the images seem to come right off the page at the reader, so you can practically feel the embossing on the Quran or the engraving on the dome of the mosque. It is so lovely, really -- I can't in any way do it justice, you just need to get your hands on a copy pronto. Trust me.

If you're looking to add a little depth to your story time, check out Golden Domes and Silver Lanterns. You'll not only get a glorious visual experience, you'll also get a concept book that goes far beyond the norm - one no reader is likely to forget!

Golden Domes and Silver Lanterns by Hena Khan, published by Chronicle Books
Ages 2-5
Source: Library
First line: "Red is the rug Dad kneels on to pray, facing toward Mecca, five times a day."
Highly recommended

30 Days of Picture Books - Red Sings from Treetops by Joyce Sidman

It's Day 9 of Picture Book Month. Today we're thinking about the senses. Picture books are an incredible way to teach kids about the different ways we interact with various stimuli in our environment. Seems a bit strange, though, right? How in the world can we exercise the five senses through picture books? 

It's true that unless you have a touch-and-feel, scratch-and-sniff book you're not going to have those senses engaged while you're reading. But, I would argue, using picture books as a vehicle for experiences with elements in the real world is a powerful means to not only emphasize senses like smell and touch, but also to find ways to yet again connect literacy with life. You can do this through a series of planned activities (like all those awe-inspiring Pinterest moms do), or very simply through thinking and talking about the books you read. Choose books that emphasize certain characteristics, then as you're out running errands or playing on the playground, look for elements that were represented in your storytime choice.

Today's choice is an amazing one for connecting all five senses via the written word. Joyce Sidman's Red Sings from Treetops: A Year in Colors might seem like it's all about visual stimuli, but one read-through will show you how Sidman engages all our senses through her beautiful poetry. Like this snippet, from the section about fall: "Red splashes fall trees, seeps into every vein of every five-fingered leaf. / Red swells on branches bent low. / Red: crisp, juicy, crunch!" Reading this, we can not only see the scene Sidman describes, but we can feel it, hear it, taste it. And if you want to bring this alive with your little one, follow up this reading by a trip to the apple orchard. As you pluck a juicy piece of fruit off the tree, remind your kiddo that red tastes "crisp, juicy, crunch!". Then you can talk about how red sounds, how it smells, how it feels. Suddenly colors are more than just colors, they are phenomena that engage all the senses.

I'd be remiss if I didn't talk about Pamela Zagarenski's whimsical illustrations that accompany Sidman's poems. Each segment of the book features a season, and Zagarenski adapts her mixed-media paintings to bring the color described to vivid life. She conjures up a summer breeze on the dock for yellow ("Yellow melts everything it touches. . . smells like butter, tastes like salt."). She gives us winter green in frosty evergreens ("Green darkens, shrinks, stiffens into needles."). And in spring, as colors burst forth everywhere, she shows us white highlights ("White can be quiet, too: delicate petals filled with light smell white."). Simply gorgeous imagery, words and pictures alike.

If you want reading to be the more than just a bedtime ritual, help your little one make connections with what you read and what they hear, smell, taste and touch. When we do this, we're building readers whose imagination takes them far beyond the printed words on the page, into pictures of their own devising. And who knows where that influence will stop?

Red Sings from Treetops by Joyce Sidman, published by Houghton Mifflin Books for Children

Picture Book Review - Black All Around by Patricia Hubbell

Sprout recently started a new preschool, and among other things that they did his first few weeks was color mixing. These brave souls actually took it on themselves to present a bunch of preschoolers with paint colors and allow them to try mixing different shades to see what the result was. Wow, did this ever make a BIG impression on Sprout. Though he's heard a few books about the topic (most notably The Color Kittens by Margaret Wise Brown and White Rabbit's Color Book by Alan Baker), he's never seemed too interested. But give the child a bunch of colors to mix himself and the boy was talking about it nonstop.

Lesson for mommy: more hands-on art stuff at home, in spite of the mess.

Anyway, this got us talking and thinking more about colors. One of the things Sprout mentioned frequently was that when you mix up a bunch of colors, you always got black. "Just black, Mama," was how he put it. Black's a color too, I told him, but he seemed unimpressed -- and kept telling me that his favorite color is orange. Of course I felt I needed to think of a way to convince him that black is a pretty awesome shade on its own.

Luckily, there's a book for that: namely, Patricia Hubbell's Black All Around. In this fun color story, a young girl begins looking at the world around her and noticing all the places she sees the color black. It's in animals - a horse, a cat, beetles, labradors. It's in music - piano keys and clarinets. It's in the environment - fertile dirt, tree trunks, the night sky. And it's in her family - "Daddy's arm, Momma's cheek." (Of course, that last example is arguably more brown, but it's a cultural construct.)

What she notices is that there are all kinds of shades of black, and all kinds of places to find the color. I love the sense of play that's brought to the topic. You'd think a book about the color black would have a mostly dark palette, but illustrator Don Tate (who we love from Ron's Big Mission and Summer Sun Risin') brings in gobs of spirited color. While the family plays with finger puppets (black birds, goats and bunnies), Tate sets the scene against a backdrop of light walls and colorful clothing choices. The effect is that the richness of the black objects really shines through, and little ones will see black in a whole new way. No way is it boring, black's got personality!

For kids who are just beginning to think about color, this is a good introduction to the topic. No, Hubbell never dives into the either-or skin color issue, and her purpose doesn't seem to be solely racially centered. Instead, this is more of a celebration of black, a way for young children to begin noticing the shades of black and to internalize a positive message. And in a world where villains wear black and phrases like "black sheep" or "blackmail" are common, it seems to me that turning the negative connotations around has tremendous value.

And after reading this one, you'll have a new appreciation for the way the color black enriches our world!

Black All Around by Patricia Hubbell, published by Lee & Low Books
Ages 2-6
Source: Library
Sample: "Look high, look low, look everywhere. . . . The wonderful color black is there! / Sleek and jazzy, warm and cozy. Beautiful black, black all around. . . "
Recommended

Wayback Wednesday - Harold and the Purple Crayon (1955)

The concept behind Crockett Johnson's iconic picture book Harold and the Purple Crayon is simple and yet amazingly original at the same time. Take a little boy, in the wind-down of the day into evening and bedtime, give him a very special crayon, and see what ensues. Oh, and make that aforementioned crayon purple, in a world that must undoubtedly be pretty monochromatic. Truthfully, it's not far from other classic titles that are based on flights of the character's imagination - Where the Wild Things Are, for example - but yet Johnson's book is wholly unique and his Harold not one bit derivative.

Crockett Johnson (his real name was David Johnson Leisk) was a cartoonist prior to lending his hand to children's books, first through illustrating and then through writing his own titles. You have to imagine that Purple Crayon was a bit of a breakthrough for an artist who was used to working in such closely circumscribed a format as the comic strip. Though his character "Barnaby" was much beloved and had a huge circulation, it is Harold who took flight and spawned a number of sequels. These include Harold's Fairy Tale, Harold at the North Pole, and A Picture for Harold's Room. Johnson also collaborated with his wife Ruth Krauss to produce a number of popular titles - their book The Carrot Seed is, like Purple Crayon, completely genius in its very simplicity.

Sprout went through a phase about a year ago when The Carrot Seed and Harold and the Purple Crayon were on near-constant rotation in the bedtime routine. At two years old, I think Carrot Seed was more within his realm of understanding, but he was clearly as drawn to Purple Crayon as I remember being as a kiddo. Then we kind of put them aside for a while, but lately he's taken much more interest in Harold's exploits. I think he's finally starting to get the basic premise, the magic inherent in Harold's crayon. "He made this, Mama!" he tells me, pointing at Harold's fine boat with its swelling purple sails.

Or maybe he's just interested in those nine kinds of pie.

At any rate, it makes my heart swell to see Sprout so taken with a book that was a childhood favorite of mine. I don't remember reading any of the Harold sequels, though they were undoubtedly still in print when I was a kid. Mostly I remember Harold's moon - that not-quite crescent that guides his night-time journeys - and his apple tree. (I had quite forgotten that he draws a "terribly frightening dragon" to guard the apples on the tree. The sight of that dragon makes Sprout shiver deliciously and say, "Oooh, he scary!").

What's the lesson behind Purple Crayon? Well, it's obviously a lot about imagination, and making your own special world, but let's not forget that Harold has a good deal of unflappability about him for a somewhat chubby youngster in a sleeper suit. Hungry? Make yourself something delicious to eat. Falling off a mountain? Just draw yourself a balloon and you'll be fine. Can't find your bedroom window? Keep drawing windows until you remember just about where yours ought to be. That's self-reliance, folks - Harold's taking charge and showing kids that there's a certain brilliance to working through your own problems if you can.

And when you're home at last, don't forget to make your own bed and draw up the covers.

Wayback Wednesday verdict? Nearly as perfect as kidlit can get.

Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson, published by HarperCollins
All ages
Source: personal collection
Sample: "The sandy beach reminded Harold of picnics. And the thought of picnics made him hungry. / So he laid out a nice simple picnic lunch. / There was nothing but pie. / But there were all nine kinds of pie that Harold liked best."
Highly recommended

Bonus - read more about Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss at The Crockett Johnson Homepage. And check out Philip Nel's biography of the duo, due out later this year!