Why Children's Books Matter

This weekend, while in New York, I went to the New York Public Library exhibit The ABC Of It: Why Children's Books Matter.

The exhibit is free of charge and runs from June 21st, 2013 thru March 23rd, 2014.

If you love children's books, you'll love this exhibit of over 250 literary artifacts.

From Harry Potter to Charlotte's Web, from Good Night Moon to The Phantom Tollbooth, children's books are an amazing romp between fantasy and reality.

Once you've experienced the exhibit, you will leave with your own answer to Why Children's Books Matter. 

Spoiler Alert… it has everything to do with a shared understanding of what growing up is all about.

Raising a Ruckus

Children's books have often served as lightning rods for controversy, with topics considered taboo - death, race, and sex chief among them - and notions of child-appropriateness triggering sharp debate and vigorous efforts to limit or bar access to certain books. While acts of censorship are often driven by overt political or cultural agendas, other, more ambiguous cases blur the line between blatant suppression and well-intentioned editorial - or parental - judgement.

In the United States, censorship has typically been instigated by self-appointed gatekeepers, not centralized governmental authorities. Cold War-era authors Garth Williams, Madeline L'Engle, Maurice Sendak, and Judy Bloom saw their popular books routinely challenged, primarily by fundamentalist religious groups. Nearly a century before, Mark Twain had divined an upside to such pious literary witch-hunts. When informed that the Concord, Massachusetts, public library had "expelled" Huckleberry Finn from its shelves, deeming it "trash", Twain crowed to his publisher, "That will sell 25,000 copies for us sure."

Divergent

The movie trailer is out… and, yes, it's awesome.

Release date: March 21, 2014

There's still time to read the book!

festive

In the UK there's a department store chain called John Lewis. They make wonderful holiday advertisements. This year's production is a story told through a combination of stop motion animation and standard animation.

Take a look...


John Lewis - The Bear & The Hare from Blink on Vimeo.



Even more amazing is a look into the making of The Bear and The Hare…


John Lewis 'The Bear & The Hare' - The Making Of from Blink on Vimeo.


In addition, check out the BBC's attempt to interpret the meaning of this story. My personal favorite is interpretation number three… it's all about emotional connection.

Auggie's favorite holiday...

Happy Halloween

"I wish every day could be Halloween. We could all wear masks all the time. Then we could walk around and get to know each other before we got to see what we looked like under the masks." - August Pullman, Wonder

find our place

About two or three years ago I read Katherine Applegate's book, Home Of The Brave, and loved it. The other day, I saw that it had come out in paperback. I loved the new cover, so I picked up a copy to read again.

Upon reading this book a second time, I may have loved it even more.  The story is written in verse, which I love, and it works beautifully.

 We begin our slow, strange herding down the

edge of the highway,

followed by a police car.

The red, white and blue lights

remind me of the American flag.

I feel like the President.

 

Kek is a Sudanese boy who saw his father and brother killed in Africa. He finds himself as a refugee in Minnesota where he is sent to live with his aunt and wait for word on the fate of his mother.

This story would be a wonderful read-aloud and provides a great opportunity for discussion.

Be sure not to miss the Author's Note at the end of the book.

Somewhere, sometime, as your glorious and complicated life unfolds, you are going to find yourself putting dishes in a washing machine.

I'm speaking metaphorically, of course. You won't make the same mistakes Kek makes in Home of the Brave, because your mistakes will be uniquely and wonderfully your own.

But you will make them, I promise you. Lots of them. Someday, you will find yourself adrift in a place where you feel you don't belong, with people who don't understand who you are. You'll feel alone and lost. And you'll be absolutely certain that you will never, ever belong to the world again.

You don't have to be a refugee to feel lost. It happens because we are human, and because life has a way of changing the rules when we're not looking. But if you're lucky, someone will reach out a hand when you're most alone and say, "I've been lost, too. Let me help you find your way home."

Fiction, it's been said, makes immigrants of us all. But it's just as true that fiction helps us find our place in the world. 

love

whenever you learn something new, the whole world becomes that much richer

The Phantom Tollbooth: Beyond Expectations - Official Documentary Trailer from freckless productions on Vimeo.


"The Phantom Tollbooth at 50: Beyond Expectations” is a documentary that playfully explores the creation, creators, lasting impact and enduring relevance of one of the most universally beloved children’s books of our time. Through interviews, animation and archival materials, the documentary traces the friendship between author Norton Juster and Pulitzer Prize-winning artist Jules Feiffer, and the wit and wisdom of the novel over half a century. (Tollbooth celebrated it's 50th anniversary in 2011)

My favorite quote from Tollbooth:

“You may not see it now," said the Princess of Pure Reason, looking knowingly at Milo's puzzled face, "but whatever we learn has a purpose and whatever we do affects everything and everyone else, if even in the tiniest way. Why, when a housefly flaps his wings, a breeze goes round the world; when a speck of dust falls to the ground, the entire planet weighs a little more; and when you stamp your foot, the earth moves slightly off its course. Whenever you laugh, gladness spreads like the ripples in the pond; and whenever you're sad, no one anywhere can be really happy. And it's much the same thing with knowledge, for whenever you learn something new, the whole world becomes that much richer.”