Picture Book Monday: 999 Tadpoles, Angelina Ballerina, & Paul Meets Bernadette
Picture books, picture books! The most thought-provoking one I read today was Ken Kimura's 999 Tadpoles, not so much for the content, but because it was originally published in Japanese and translated into English later. It seems to me that picture books are uniquely suited to be translated from language to language - the pictures, after all, are doing at least half the work - and yet this is the first translated picture book that I've seen come through mending. It seems too bad.
On the nostalgia front, I fixed a Mr. Putter book today. The Mr. Putter books are a series about an elderly man and his excellent cat, Tabby, who get dragged (more or less willingly) into adventure by Mr. Putter's equally elderly but clearly young at heart neighbor, Mrs. Teaberry. I read a few books in this series when I was in first grade - as my mother tells the story, she came to a parent-teacher conference armed with a couple of books I was reading at home to suggest that perhaps I had moved beyond the cat-mat-sat stuff, and Mrs. Smith's eyebrows rose at my morbid book choices. The Titanic? The discovery of King Tut's tomb, with the attendant mummy's curse? The Mr. Putter books were much more Mrs. Smith's speed.
I also finally got the opportunity to read Angelina Ballerina, which is one of those books I've heard about for years but never read. And I loved it! More for the illustration than the story, which was pretty straightforward; it has these wonderful, detailed illustrations, like Jan Brett or the Brambly Hedge books, with lots of little details (shelves full of preserves and pretty china, a room full of ballet paraphrenalia), the kind of thing I loved to pour over as a child.
On the opposite end of the illustration front - minimalist instead of miniaturist, if you will - I loved, loved, loved Paul Meets Bernadette, which is about a fish (Paul) who makes friends with the other fish introduced to his fish bowl (Bernadette) when she imaginatively transforms the things outside their bowl: a milk carton becomes a building, a pair of fried eggs become the sun and moon. The illustrations are simple and gorgeous, the paint so thick that you can see the brush strokes. Lovely.
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In Nano updates, I have 15,360 words right now, and I'm hoping to hit 17,000 as of tonight. I have today and tomorrow off work, and I want to get a lot of writing done so I have a bit of cushion on my word count before I head off on my trip this Friday.
On the nostalgia front, I fixed a Mr. Putter book today. The Mr. Putter books are a series about an elderly man and his excellent cat, Tabby, who get dragged (more or less willingly) into adventure by Mr. Putter's equally elderly but clearly young at heart neighbor, Mrs. Teaberry. I read a few books in this series when I was in first grade - as my mother tells the story, she came to a parent-teacher conference armed with a couple of books I was reading at home to suggest that perhaps I had moved beyond the cat-mat-sat stuff, and Mrs. Smith's eyebrows rose at my morbid book choices. The Titanic? The discovery of King Tut's tomb, with the attendant mummy's curse? The Mr. Putter books were much more Mrs. Smith's speed.
I also finally got the opportunity to read Angelina Ballerina, which is one of those books I've heard about for years but never read. And I loved it! More for the illustration than the story, which was pretty straightforward; it has these wonderful, detailed illustrations, like Jan Brett or the Brambly Hedge books, with lots of little details (shelves full of preserves and pretty china, a room full of ballet paraphrenalia), the kind of thing I loved to pour over as a child.
On the opposite end of the illustration front - minimalist instead of miniaturist, if you will - I loved, loved, loved Paul Meets Bernadette, which is about a fish (Paul) who makes friends with the other fish introduced to his fish bowl (Bernadette) when she imaginatively transforms the things outside their bowl: a milk carton becomes a building, a pair of fried eggs become the sun and moon. The illustrations are simple and gorgeous, the paint so thick that you can see the brush strokes. Lovely.
***
In Nano updates, I have 15,360 words right now, and I'm hoping to hit 17,000 as of tonight. I have today and tomorrow off work, and I want to get a lot of writing done so I have a bit of cushion on my word count before I head off on my trip this Friday.