Review: Sylvester and the Magic Pebble

For our last review for Banned Books Week 2010 we have:

At Amazon.com
At Amazon.ca

Title: Sylvester and the Magic Pebble
Author/Illustrator: William Steig
Publisher: Atheneum
Year: 1970, re-released in 2010
ISBN: 978-1442416673
Format: Hardcover, also available in Paperback
Pages: 42
Age Range: Preschooler, Early Reader
Kid Love Factor: Boo is too young, so negligible
Adult Sanity Factor: 3.5/5

Sylvester and the Magic Pebble is the story of Sylvester Duncan, a donkey and only child.  Sylvester likes to collect pebbles, and he finds a doozy one day; a magic stone that grants wishes to the person (animal?) holding it.  Sylvester dreams of how he and his parents can use the pebble as he returns home, but he runs into a lion.  In a moment of panic, Sylvester wishes he was a rock so the lion won't eat him.  Fortunately this works, and the confused lion saunters away.  Unfortunately rocks can't hold pebbles and Sylvester is stuck.  Sylvester is apparently not the brightest pebble on the beach.  It's a very sad year for Sylvester, his frantic parents, and the animal townspeople who help in the search. But have no fear. It all works out in the end.


To his great surprise the rain stopped.  It didn't stop gradually as rains usually do.  It CEASED.  The drops vanished on the way down, the clouds disappeared, everything was dry, and the sun was shining as if the rain had never existed.

William Steig doesn't write like most modern picture book authors.  There are a lot more words to Sylvester's tale than are usual, and many of them are fantastic vocabulary stretchers--extraordinary, remarkable, ceased, perplexed, billion, sassafras, exclamations...

Unlike another picture book on challenged book lists, Sylvester literally being a jackass isn't why this book was banned.  Steig only ever calls Sylvester a donkey.  What Steig did do, however, is draw the town's police officer as pigs.  They aren't the only pigs in town, and apart from being unable to locate Sylvester (and really, he's become a rock. Can you blame them?) they're presented as sympathetic rather than incompetent.  I'm guessing Steig drew them as pigs as a visual joke for parents rather than as political commentary, but whatever the reason, some have become offended enough to challenge and ban the book.


Boo wasn't interested in the book at all.  In fact, he slammed it shut on me twice.  It was only by pretending to be reading it to Daddy that I managed to get all the way through it while he was in the room.  Please don't take this as a slight against Sylvester.  Boo does this often when books have too many words on a page for him.  Normally I'd just take the book back to the library and make a note to try it again circa 2012, however we're reviewing this one now because we haven't yet made it to the top of the hold list for any of our other banned picture book options.


Sylvester and the Magic Pebble is a story about something we see regularly on the news: a missing child.  We see the devastation of his parents and Sylvester's loneliness, but it's presented in a relatively soothing manner.  We know Sylvester is safe, if unhappy, and that everything works out in the end.  While Sylvester's misfortune isn't going to recur in the real world, it's a good opportunity to discuss the consequences of rash actions.


Autism Spectrum Bonus: Note: Since this story isn't one Boo and I have really shared, this section is pretty hypothetical from my perspective.  A nice conversation on personal preferences, hopes, fears, and dreams for the future might arise from talking about what each of you would wish for if you found a magic pebble.  The fact that Sylvester has a (special) interest in rocks might make the character appealing to budding geologists.  As I mentioned above, Sylvester acts hastily without thinking things through and both he and his parents suffer the consequences, which may be a good discussion point for overly impetuous kids.  There are plenty of emotional moments to discuss, from Sylvester's amazement at the pebble, his panic at the lion, his parents' worry and eventual resigned depression, and everyone's pure joy at the end.


Bottom Line:
Sylvester isn't an ordinary picture book.  It has big words, real emotional trauma, visually teases the police, covers an entire year, and focuses many of its pages on adult characters.  It is, however, an excellent book, which I hope Boo comes to appreciate.

Links:

Sylvester and the Magic Pebble on Amazon.ca

Sylvester and the Magic Pebble on Amazon.com

Review: Mommy, Mama, and Me

Here's our second installment celebrating Banned Books Week:

Find on Amazon.com
Find on Amazon.ca

Title: Mommy, Mama, and Me

Author: Lesléa Newman (website)

Illustrator: Carol Thompson

Publisher: Tricycle Press
Year: 2009
ISBN: 978-1582462639
Format: Board Book
Pages: 18
Age Range: Baby, Toddler, Preschooler
Kid Love Factor: 2.5/5
Adult Sanity Factor: 3/5

Mommy, Mama, and Me alternates telling what Mommy and Mama do for their young toddler over the course of a day.  They play and cuddle and cook and snack and read and bathe and (hopefully for the moms' sake) eventually sleep.  The toddler is delightfully androgynous, making it easy for any little girl or boy to step into his or her day.


Mommy picks me up, up, up
Mama pours juice in my cup.


Mommy, Mama and Me has of course qualified for review during banned books week due to its portrayal of a presumably lesbian couple.  The entire focus of both women is the child, and they're only rarely on the same page together, but the trio is clearly a family, and the love the women both have for their baby is clear.


I think it's important for every child to be able to find decent books about people like them and their families.  I know when Boo's a bit older I'll be doing my best to find books with accurately and positively portrayed autistic characters.  I also think it's important to expose Boo to books about people who are different from us; the more familiar something is, the less likely it is to be something to fear or disparage.

All that being said, while the rhyming text is cute, the pictures well done, and the message important, this would get pretty monotonous 15 times in a row, so I can't make myself give it a higher Adult Sanity Factor.


Boo is not overly interested in Mommy, Mama, and Me.  He's outgrown most board books of this simplicity, though he was happy enough to sit through it a couple of times, especially if I emphasized the page where Mama and the toddler go down a slide.   I think it would have been more of a hit about six to twelve months ago for its absolute content.  For the more controversial aspect, I'm not sure he understood that the two ladies were both mothers to the child.  For one, we're still working on the whole Mommy is a girl and Daddy and Boo are boys concept, so I'm not sure he gets that a man and a woman make up the average set of parents.  For two, we still use Mommy (what my husband and I call me) and Mama (what Boo calls me) interchangeably, so I'm also not sure he really gets that the book is portraying two separate women.  Many toddlers will be able to start having conversations about different family types before they lose interest in the other content of this book; sadly, Boo is not one of them.


If reading about a family with two dads is of more interest to you, Newman and Thompson also collaborated on Daddy, Papa, and Me.   While we haven't read that one, I imagine its quite similar, though the child looks like he or she may be slightly older.


Autism Spectrum Bonus:  Mommy, Mama, and Me goes through a lot of average every day activities like having a nap and playing in the park, so if your child craves reading about the familiar (while learning about something that may not be familiar), this is a good choice.  As I said above, the love both women have for the child and the child has for each woman is very clear and may help with discussions on expressing affection.  It's also a good starting point for reassuring kids that it's okay to be different and that different doesn't mean bad.

Bottom Line:
Mommy's glad a need is filled,
Mama knows Boo's not as thrilled.

Links:

Mommy, Mama, and Me at Amazon.ca

Mommy, Mama, and Me at Amazon.com

Review: In the Night Kitchen

For those of you who don't know, this is Banned Books Week a campaign of the American Library Association.  Celebrating banned books is encouraged every September as kids head back to schools and are presumably introduced to books their parents may or may not appreciate.

The Canadian Library Association, while not mounting a campaign per se, also keeps a list of all book challenges.  You can find the Canadian list for 2009 here: Challenges to Canadian Library Resources and Policies.  If you're from somewhere other than Canada or the US, there's a good chance your own library association keeps a list of books challenged in your country.  Go have a look; you're sure to find a book or two on it that will appeal.

In honour of Banned Books Week, I'll be reviewing three picture books which have been challenged repeatedly.  Here's the first:

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Find at Amazon.ca

Title: In the Night Kitchen
Author/Illustrator: Maurice Sendak
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Year: 1970
ISBN: 978-0064434362
Format: Paperback, also available in hardcover
Pages: 40
Age Range: Toddler, Preschooler, Early Reader
Kid Love Factor: 4/5
Adult Sanity Factor: 4.5/5

In the Night Kitchen is of course a classic. Mickey, a child of about two or three, is awoken by noises in the night and falls out of his clothes and into a giant bowl of batter the Night Kitchen.  There are three bakers who apparently mistake Mickey for milk and mix him into the bowl and place it in the oven.  Luckily, Mickey escapes the oven, tells off the bakers, and turns some bread dough into an airplane, which he flies to the top of a giant bottle of milk.  Mickey swims in the milk and then pours some down for the bakers to make their cake.  Mickey then crows like a rooster and slides down the milk bottle and back into bed.

And he grabbed the cup as he flew up
And up
And up
And over the top of the Milky Way in the Night Kitchen.

Whew.  I wish I had more awesome dreams like that.  You know the ones: they enchanted you when you were a child and still do to a certain extent, though now you wonder what exactly it was you ate/drank/smoked yesterday to cause them.

The rhythm of the text is fantastic, but it's really the illustrations that carry the day here.  To me, the three bakers look like they're the identical triplet cousins of Oliver Hardy, although apparently Selmek may have been referring to the Holocaust with their small black mustaches and their baking of Mickey.  In any case, Mickey's irritation, frustration, wonder, and mischief all come through brilliantly.  The backgrounds are amazing, resembling the depression or wartime era Manhattan skyline made completely out of kitchen products and utensils.  The detail is astounding with Hosmer's Free Running Sugar, Kneitel's Fandango, Woody's Kosher Salt, and whatever Ta-Ka-Kake is supposed to be.  On second thought, I'm fairly sure I don't want to know...

The illustrations are also the reason the book has made challenged and banned book lists for years.  See, Sendak had the audacity to keep little naked Mickey anatomically correct.  It's not detailed, but Mickey definitely has a penis and testicles.  I'm not entirely sure what the problem of a naked three-year-old is, given that half the real ones on the planet would run around naked every day if given the choice, but apparently it's highly offensive in a children's book.

Sigh.

Boo loves the rhythm and rhyme of the text and the sing-song way in which we read it. He's been fascinated with the pictures from well before he was speaking, and he continues to love pointing out the stars and moon and milk et al.

And that's why, thanks to Mickey
We have cake every morning.

For a hint of irony on the whole book banning thing, I must admit to verbally editing the end of the book when we read it to say "we have milk every morning", but only because I don't want to start an argument with my literal little man on why pancakes aren't going to happen every day.

Autism Spectrum Bonus: In the Night Kitchen is almost a comic book in the way it relies on the pictures to tell the story which might appeal to more visual learners, while the rhythm and rhyme of the text might encourage vocalizations, especially during the bakers' two chants and the rooster crow at the end.  The incredibly detailed backgrounds give you plenty of opportunity to encourage pointing and interaction with Where's Waldo type questions like "Can you find an egg-beater?  What about a tomato?" And for those just  learning to name body parts, especially little boys, there aren't too many other picture books that allow you to practice "bum" and "penis" identification.

Bottom Line:
Boo takes the book to the reading nook
And climbs into Sam's lap for The Night Kitchen.

Links:

In the Night Kitchen at Amazon.ca

In the Night Kitchen at Amazon.com

Banned Books Week 2010