Picture Book Monday: Deer Dancer, The Good Brown Earth, and Snowmen at Night

[osprey_archer]

I've been helping my mother mend picture books at the library on Monday afternoons. Each week, I think, "I should post about this book!" And then each week, by Wednesday, I've forgotten all about it.

Well, no more! Now I shall post about my favorite picture books on Monday.

This was prompted because today we mended an absolute bonanza of books, including one of Russell Hoban's Frances books, a series I adored as a child. Frances and her goofy little songs and her enormous picnic lunches (all stories are improved by lovingly described picnic lunches) - good times.

Of the new books (or rather new to me books; they generally don't get to mending till they're somewhat aged), today's highlight was Deer Dancer, a spare and lovely book with lush forest illustrations, about a young ballet dancer who likes to practice in the forest...and one day, dances with a deer. The illustrations do a wonderful job capturing motion, and the girl's practice outfit includes a pair of little stick antlers in her hair, which I loved.

I also very much enjoyed Kathy Henderson's And the Good Brown Earth, about a young boy (maybe three or four?) and his grandmother making a garden together. Joe and Gram's relationship is sweet (Gram's happy just to let the kid play around in the garden), and the book includes rich full-page illustrations of the garden in each season of the year. I wanted to spend more time looking at them, but of course there were other books to be taped and glued and generally loved back into health.

Like Snowmen at Night, which is about, well, snowmen getting up to escapades at night. They have snowball fights! They slide around ice ponds! They drink cold hot chocolate! Which is basically chocolate milk at that point, isn't it? I always feel bad for snowmen and their inability to enjoy hot drinks. But this is me talking; the book does not dwell on the existential angst of snow people forever deprived of proper hot chocolate. They're too busy sledding down hills instead.

Comments

[alby-mangroves.livejournal.com]

Now I'm nostalgic for all my childhood books. We brought a literal crate of books over when we emigrated to Australia in the 80s and I guess I'm lucky that that's what my parents thought was valuable enough to pack and ship. We probably brought more books than anything else. I have a lot of them now, having slowly siphoned them from Dad's house over the course of a few years. I should read them again...

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Your parents clearly had their priorities straight.

And I think that any time is a good time for a picture book reread/nostalgia trip.

[alby-mangroves.livejournal.com]

It's true. I still read and speak my native language and I'm the only one of my siblings who can do so, so it's practically taken for granted that I'll inherit the remaining books too. I should read them before I get too rusty! I certainly don't get to exercise it much anymore.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

A good way to practice!

What's your native language, if you don't mind my asking?

[alby-mangroves.livejournal.com]

No, I don't mind at all. I'm Polish :)

[poeticknowledge.livejournal.com]

What a lovely, exciting idea! :) I like this series! :D

I feel especially drawn to Deer Dancer. :) ♥

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I thought you might like Deer Dancer! I hope you have the chance to read it sometime.

I probably won't have so many interesting books to post about every week, but it was such a bonanza this week I figured now was a good time to start. And I guess if there's a week where I don't find anything new and interesting, I could post about one of my old favorite picture books.

[poeticknowledge.livejournal.com]

Maybe McKay's Used Books has a copy I could browse through. They have A LOT of picture books so I will have to check and see the next time I'm there! :)

"I probably won't have so many interesting books to post about every week, but it was such a bonanza this week I figured now was a good time to start. And I guess if there's a week where I don't find anything new and interesting, I could post about one of my old favorite picture books."

That works! :D It will be exciting all the same to be introduced to new picture books each week! <3 I feel like I am rediscovering my childhood! :)

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Oh I love-love-love the deer dancing one. That would have been a childhood dream come true. The illustrations are beautiful. I like the treatment of light in Snowmen at Night too.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Yes! I thought of you when I was reading it. It's perfectly on the line between ordinary life and magic.

[evelyn-b.livejournal.com]

What a great way to spend the afternoon!

Our used bookstore has become sadly depleted of picture books lately -- lots of people buy them, no one seems to donate them, so we have hardly any left. I'm thinking of just buying a bunch out of my pocket to replenish the stock. So I'm glad you'll be posting about the picture books you've been fixing!

I don't think I've ever read the Frances books, though I would definitely have enjoyed the picnic-lunch focus as a child.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Yay picture books! It's been years since I've read them, so it's kind of nice to have this opportunity to become reacquainted with them.

Also the Frances books are the beeeeeeeeest and I was so happy to have the chance to resuscitate one today. There is a book devoted to Frances's picky eating habits! And another where she and her little sister go on a picnic with enough food to feed about ten people, but they eat it all because they're badgers and I guess they can do that sort of them.

[buhfly.livejournal.com]

How do you mend the books? I've always wondered.

Um, I'm that girl again? That keeps commenting at you lately and I'm kind of stalking you but not in a creepy way (hopefully).

This is just to let you know I followed you. My LJ is empty (I abandoned it and only decided lately to fix it up and come back), so feel free to not follow back! I just find your posts interesting. :)

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Glue for loose hinges, tape for torn pages, bricks to try to square up books that have gotten sway-backed. It's a pretty low-tech operation.

No worries! There's more likely to be Reciprocity stuff over on my tumblr (same username, more or less; ospreyarcher) but feel free to follow here too if you enjoy the book nattering.

[buhfly.livejournal.com]

Ah, I had wondered if there was library magic.

I did follow you there, too, but I love books, so. :)

[poeticknowledge.livejournal.com]

I've wondered about how book mending is done too ever since you mentioned volunteering at the library. Interesting! :)

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I imagine that at a big library with lots of rare books, it gets much more complicated. But we're just trying to coax a few more check-outs out of these books.