Words I Never Thought I Would Hear

"I think this book might be better than Harry Potter," said my nine year old daughter last night of Blue Balliet's Chasing Vermeer. Gobsmacked I was!

Old School Week Spirals On

Did you Spirograph as a kid? That little construction right there, turning a noun into a verb, is pretty new school, so maybe I shouldn't have used it during Old School Week here, but actually, it's more about classic old books and products, not about writing in a retro style, so I'll repeat. Did you Spirograph as a kid? I did. I loved putting the little circle inside the big circle, sticking a ballpoint pen in the middle and making hippy dippy trancey spiral designs. As it turns out, all of those designs have definite mathematical formulas, but I never bothered with that aspect of the activity. I just liked decorating my notebooks, folders, and any piece of scrap paper I could find. The version I had back in the 1970s was put out by Hasbro and could keep me entertained for hours. A few years ago, my daughter received the "Hypotrochoid Art Set" pictured above as a birthday gift and fell in love with it. I hunted it down on the Internet (definitely not how my original set was purchased back in the day) and bought several to give as gifts at birthday parties. Patina Stores sells it for $7.95. By the way, Patina Stores has lots of other fun and sometimes retro gift items for the tweens and teenagers you occasionally shop for. Klutz books has The Spiral Draw Book which includes spiral wheels and pens but apparently it is not as easy to use and is more expensive than the Hypotrochoid Art Set. Therefore, I've only given you the link to Patina Stores. Have fun!

The Clever Stick

One afternoon this week, I read John Lechner's new book, The Clever Stick, to my kids while they ate lunch, my daughter reread it herself, and then I read it to everybody again. It's a short book and I don't provide especially large lunches. According to my daughter, "It's short and sweet, but it has a point." Get it? A point? It's about a stick. Hyuk. Hyuk. The Clever Stick tells of a stick that is quite clever; it appreciates beauty, enjoys poetry, and solves math problems. There was just one problem in that the stick can't speak and its cleverness goes unnoticed. This was the point which inspired the most discussion from my kids. Is it important that other people recognize your talents? Passionate opinions were expressed. Fortunately for the stick, he learns to draw in the sand, and the world, or at least the plants and animals where he lives, appreciates what he can do with his "voice." The whimsy of this quiet fable appealed to my ten year old son and he and his six year old brother agree that this is "the kind of book they read in school." I believe the "they" means teachers and librarians. I agree with them and think it would be a nice addition to a kindergarten and first grade classroom library.

The Artistic Spirit Is Willing But The Flesh Is Another Story

I had the best of intentions at the outset of summer vacation. The kids and I were going to get ourselves some culture. We were going to drink in art museums and classical music, maybe even some historical sights. Well, we have gone swimming frequently and eaten a lot of ice cream. Does that count as culture? Luckily, I found two great books at our library that don't quite serve as a substitute for a trip to an art museum but have engaged all three of my kids. Katy Friedland and Marla K. Shoemaker's A is for Art Museum is terrific. It is, as the title suggests, an alphabet book, and it presents dozens of pieces from the Philadelphia Museum of Art. A question is posed of each piece as well, helping readers/viewers/art appreciators think about the art. For example Modigliani's Portrait of a Polish Woman faces a page that reads, "N is for neck. Here is a lady with a very long neck. Can you stretch your neck like this?" Van Gogh's Sunflowers is used for the letter S. "S is for sunflowers. Vincent van Gogh loved to paint sunflowers. Can you see where he signed his name?" In addition to the question given for each piece in the book, the authors give suggestions to enhance the readers' next museum visit. If we can organize ourselves to go this summer, I've got some great ideas to try with the kids.

My other fun art book discovery is the Touch the Art series of board books featuring famous works of art. We especially loved Pop Warhol's Top. My six year old son Ethan learned about Keith Haring in art class during the school year and made an exuberant picture inspired by his work so it is not surprising that he enjoyed the Keith Haring pages in this book. It makes 20th century art approachable with fuzzy pages and pop up book type action as well as a bit of background information on each piece. Other titles in the Touch the Art series are Brush Mona Lisa's Hair and Make Van Gogh's Bed.

Duck! Rabbit!

I have tried on my shopping list/teacher note/scrap paper book above to recreate for you some of the doodlings of my youth. Back when I was in elementary and middle school, all of my textbooks had to be covered. There were no Book Socks then. We used brown paper shopping bags- the perfect canvas for doodles and scribblings. If only Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Tom Lichtenfeld's fun and clever Duck! Rabbit! had been around in my youth, you can bet your Sharpie markers my notebooks and grocery bag sheathed textbooks would have been covered in duck/rabbit doodles. Apparently, the is it a duck or is it a rabbit visual puzzle has been around for years, but it's new to me and my family. This delightful picture book presents two disembodied voices, one on the left side and one on the right, arguing whether the animal in the center is a duck or a rabbit. It begs to be read aloud to a group. It also tempts readers to draw their own duck/rabbits. This book is a big hit with my kids and their friends who have come by the house and picked it up off our book bench. Some of these kids say it's a duck, others say it's a rabbit, and all agree that the bar code turned into a zebra on the back cover is an excellent final note! How cute would this one be stuffed in an Easter basket?!

A Hybrid Post by a Hybrid Blogger

I don't know about you, but I think of The Book Bench as a hybrid blog. I don't just say that in hopes that Leonardo DiCaprio will accidentally land here via Google. No, I see this hobby of mine as a cross between a mommy blog and a book blog. If you are looking for other (better?) mommy blogs, you certainly don't need my help. You can't take a step on the Internet without tripping over a few. Although, I'd be happy to tell you some of my favorites if you ask. However, if you are looking for some good book blogs, more specifically blogs about books for children and young adults, may I recommend you visit KidLitosphere Central, the brand new and nicely organized site for The Society of Bloggers in Children's and Young Adult Literature. It's a great resource. If, on the other hand (wait, maybe we're up to a third hand), you just come to The Book Bench to enjoy my dry wit, keen observations, and the stained carpet in my profile picture, well, um, sorry.

The title of this post touts it as a hybrid post, so let me switch gears here and talk about shopping. I had to go to the mall yesterday in my role as third grade class mom. My assignment was to purchase some items at The Limited Too for a PTA fundraiser. Are you familiar with The Limited Too? They sell thirty dollar less than beautiful tshirts to preteen girls. My grandmother would have looked at the price tags and said, "Jesse James used a gun." Because it's highway robbery or at least mall way robbery! Anyway, after I completed that errand, I wandered over to Old Navy where I belong. And, oh my gosh, they had Charley Harper board books on sale for 25%off!

I love Charley Harper's quirky, midcentury feel illustrations. Don't you just love that cardinal above? I once read that Harper compared his bird artistry to Audobon's by saying Audobon counted every feather on every wing of a bird whereas he just counted the wings. Last year Old Navy began selling some baby and toddler clothing with Harper's illustrations on them as well as an ABC board book and a 1,2,3 board book. While Christmas shopping back in December, my youngest son and I sat down on the store floor and read them both. We easily agreed that the minnows in the number book were our favorite. Lo and behold, they are marked down, and since I have several friends expecting babies, I stocked up on a few.

I Said I Wouldn't Do This Again!

I'm about to do something I vowed never to do again. No, I'm not perming my hair or drinking a tequila shot. Believe me, neither is pretty. I'm going to write a post about bear books. After black bears had gone through my garbage cans one too many times, I declared The Book Bench a no-bear zone on November 10, but we've been enjoying two bear books that I feel I must share. The first is Kevin Henke's Old Bear. My son Ethan and I have read this half a dozen times in the past few weeks. Old Bear goes into hibernation and dreams that he is a cub again. It is a lovely book about age and seasons and the colors and sights we associate with the seasons. It's the perfect lapsit book.

Ethan loves Old Bear, so please don't get the wrong impression from the following photos. I'm warning you; they are a bit disturbing. Ethan purchased a Nerf gun last weekend with some birthday money. You would think he was buying his first home judging from the amount of time he spent considering this purchase. He wore a groove in the linoleum of the Toys R Us Nerf gun aisle examining all the options.

We brought it home and he shot every surface in the house. There were suction cup arrows affixed to doors, windows, ceilings, and eyeglasses. Kindly, his sister created several bull's eye targets for him from construction paper and markers. They were great for a few hours, but he eventually tired of them and went hunting for something new to shoot. It seems his hunt took him past the book bench where we keep library books. I assure you, this was not what I intended when I checked Old Bear out of the library! I think I need to return him to the (relative) safety of the children's section soon!

Another book bear avoided the Nerf gun. I think that is because while nice to look at, the illustration on the cover of Wonder Bear by Tao Nyeu is not as large as that of Old Bear, and therefore it's a more difficult target for my pint sized marksman. Wonder Bear was a birthday gift for Ethan. It is an exuberantly illustrated wordless picture book. According to the dust jacket, Tao Nyeu received her MFA in illustration from the School of Visual Arts in NYC and "Wonder Bear was her thesis project inspired by an odd-looking gummy bear with magical powers." When my boys were toddlers, I disliked reading their wordless books because they insisted that I say exactly the same thing for each page at each "reading." However, I couldn't always remember what I said the last time. They would really flip their toddler lids if I strayed from the script as it were. Now my little guy loves it when I make up something different with each telling, and the illustrations in Wonder Bear inspire some wacky storytelling.

Off the subject of bears, Stephen Colbert is at it again. Last night he mentioned Neil Gaiman's Newberry medal winning book The Graveyard Book on the Colbert Report. I'm beginning to think he was a children's librarian in a former life. Also from that episode, his reading of a Danielle Steel novel with Steve Martin is priceless. If you missed it, I imagine you'll be able to find it on YouTube soon.

Some Thoughts on Art Appreciation

On Friday, I took my children to visit the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. As soup was the feature of Foodie Friday, I couldn't resist taking the photo (no flash of course) you see here of them admiring Andy Warhol's cans of soup. My favorite moment in the museum was when they spotted a Jackson Pollack painting and shouted, "It's the painting from Olivia!" Of all the amusing things that happen in all of Ian Falconer's Olivia books, our favorite is when she recreates a Jackson Pollack painting on her wall at home. We all enjoyed the Van Gogh exhibit. How can you not feel good standing in front of that starry night? My daughter lectured us all about Van Gogh's application of paint and choice of subject. Clearly the art program at our local public school is excellent!What fascinated me was that all three kids seemed physically drawn to Jasper Johns' Map. It is an eye catching work, but I'm curious as to what exactly is so attractive about it to my children. Maybe it's that they recognize the subject matter, a map of the United States. Maybe it is the use of bright. primary colors. Who knows? Unbeknownst to them, I recently checked out Bob Raczka's gorgeous picture book The Art of Freedom: How Artists See America and had it in my car. Once home from Manhattan, we looked at the book. They were so excited to see Map on the cover and recognize it from our museum visit. I had gotten the book because of what it says about America in simple text, statements such as "America is sacrifice," "America is immigrants," "America is native peoples," and "America is a work in progress." Each statement is accompanied by a piece of artwork. That last definition, for example, faces Gilbert Stuart's famous unfinished portrait of George Washington. My original intention was to read the book and discuss it with my kids in light of the recent presidential election. It turned out to be a nice book to read after a trip to a museum as well. It is beautiful and would make a great gift for a child or a teacher of art or American history.

Speaking of gifts, my sister was a godsend that day, helping me entertain, feed, and herd three kids around the Big Apple! Thanks, Corinne!