Books on libraries ... libraries in books

What’s common to a picture book located in Colombia, an Eoin Colfer book and a book of poems? Lucid, easy-flowing narration, outstanding artwork and the sheer joy of reading? Of course – and what else? Do read on  …

The first of the three books is a non-fiction picture book based on the extraordinary deeds of a Colombian philanthropist bibliophile; the second is a work of fiction, a chapter book that uses irreverent humour to introduce children to the library and vice-versa; the third is a book of carefully selected poems for children that unpack the idea of a library as a place of unexpected delights. The books are a visual treat too with the work of remarkable illustrators like Jeanette Winter, Tony Ross and Jill Manning.

Biblioburro: A true story from Colombia. Jeanette Winter. Beach Lane, 2010. 28 pages. Picture Book.

This is a charming tale of a man called Luis Soriano who sets up a travelling library on the backs of two donkeys (burros). Luis, a schoolteacher, loves reading and buying books, except that soon enough, his house runs out of space. He decides to travel with his books to remote hamlets in Colombia, where he gathers the children to tell them stories and encourages them to borrow books from his Biblioburro. The books cast a spell over everyone, be it child or bandit. (Does that intrigue you? Get a copy of the book and read to know more!)

While the text is simple and flowing, I could not take my eyes off the artwork. It spills right across the page into glorious doublespreads, and uses the most vivid colours to capture the beauty of the Amazon rain forest with its diverse plant and animal life. The butterflies that flit across every page are characters in themselves. The illustrator’s name is not mentioned clearly, but the fine print says the illustrations are copyrighted by Jeanette Winter. Winter is well-known for her attractively illustrated and narrated picture books, many of which tell true tales of uncommon heroism.

This is a book that I would love to gift to children both for the inspiring narrative and the eye-catching illustrations.

The Legend of Spud Murphy. Eoin Colfer. Illustrated by Tony Ross. Puffin, 2004. 90 pages. Chapter Book.

Having associated Eoin Colfer with the Artemis Fowler series, I was rather surprised to come across this book. It’s a funny book about libraries and librarians and having taken baby steps into the world of library evangelism, I decided that I must read this. This book is part of a series involving the many adventures of Will Woodman, and has won the Charlotte Award (2006) and the Flicker Tale Children’s Book Award (2006).

Ms Murphy, the librarian is called Spud by the kids who fear her believing she shoots at library defaulters with a spud gun. One summer, Bill, the nine-year-old narrator is marched off to the public library three times a week for two hours at a time along with his ten-year-old brother Marty as their mother finds bringing up five children to be an exhausting task. Like most parents all over the world, Will’s parents see the library primarily as an educative place.

At the library, Will and Marty are issued pink cards and restricted to the children’s section where they sulk, pretending to read. However, one day, something catches Bill’s eye: “It was the first sentence of the story … I decided to read a bit more. I wouldn’t read the whole book, no way. But maybe just another couple of sentences.” It’s a magical moment and soon enough, Bill and Marty begin to love reading and have “the time of their lives”. The humour too never ceases with their several run-ins with the legendary Spud Murphy.

I loved the way the writer transforms the library from its perceived fearful avatar to a place that holds excitement and adventure, without sounding preachy. The illustrations by Tony Ross enhance the quirky appeal of the book. Ross appears to be a fan of the more famous Quentin Blake, on whose work he models his own art.

  Jumping off library shelves. Edited by Lee Bennett Hopkins. Illustrated by Jane Manning. Wordsong, 2015. 32 pages. Book of poems.

This delightful anthology brings two of my childhood favourites together – poems and tomes. A book of poems that celebrate the library, not as a staid old building filled with books, or a ‘temple of learning’ but as a world of experiences that could be as varied as getting your first library card which is “More powerful than/ the smartest phone/ more powerful than/ a TV remote, more powerful than/ a hundred apps” (Cynthia Cotton); the pleasure of snuggling up with a book as “Page by page/ line by line/ word by word/ I make books mine” (Jane Yolen); talking with the empathetic librarian – “you/ read/ my/ heart” (Joan Bransfield Graham); or just sitting beside a bookshelf when “Morning pours spoons of sun/ through tall windows”  and you “live in story” (Rebecca Kai Dotlich).

These short poems can be read aloud and enjoyed by children who are naturally drawn to verse. They applaud every aspect of the library, and especially the librarian who dons various hats as a storyteller, a book-finder and a door-opener to magical worlds where “books become pillows/ stories come calling” (Amy Ludwig Vanderwater).  Of special interest is Hopkins’ poem dedicated to a great librarian Augusta Baker. It’s titled “The Storyteller” and Hopkins writes, “As she speaks/ words/ leap from pages --/ … I walk/ down a/ yellow brick road./ Worlds of paper/ disappear --/ only/ Miss Augusta/ and I/ are here/ in a room/ filled with magic/ story/ rhyme. I believe in/ happily ever after”.

Jill Manning’s charming gouache and pencil illustrations further enhance the magic created by the words and picture the library as both a warm and enticing refuge and an exciting place to be in. I would certainly recommend this book to children for it captures in the simplest of verse the magic of reading that I experienced as a child. One particular poem by Nikki Grimes stood out for me and I wished I had written it myself:

My library comes into view

Almost there!

I sprint the last few yards,

charge up the stone steps, breathless,

and push through the double doors,

smiling at the sweet kingdom of story

inviting me in

to rest, to explore –

to dream.

While all the three books romanticize the library to an extent, Colfer and Winter also touch upon the transformative power of reading. I think these books will help young readers to see the library with new eyes and put their tech toys away and surrender to the lure of “pages where genius weaves/ letters into magic” (Dotlich).

Oliver Jeffers and his marvellous books

I encountered Oliver Jeffers’ books recently when I was in Goa a fortnight ago for a Library educators’ course. It was love at first sight – the moment I started reading his books, I knew that this was what I had always wanted picture books to be – a meaningful coming together of words and images to create  a tale that floods your senses, and stimulates your grey cells – all at once.

Jeffers has produced several pictures books, both singly and in collaboration. One that I have particularly liked, is The Heart and the Bottle. It’s about a little girl who loved exploring and discovering and learning new things, until she experiences a terrible loss. Not prepared to deal with it, she locks away her heart in a bottle. What happens next? Does she ever take it out again? As you read on to find out, you learn about the devastating effects of grief, about recovery, healing and happiness. That’s the Jeffers magic for you.

Another of his books that moved me is a book about books, about the magic of stories. Jeffers wrote A Child of Books in collaboration with Sam Winston. The narration begins with a little girl (I am a child of books, I come from a world of stories, And upon my imagination, I float) who sets sail on a sea of words …

And arrives at the house of a little boy and invites him to join her on her journey into the power of imagination. It’s a highly intertextual book and refers to almost forty famous works of literature. The reader thus simultaneously goes on her own journey, as she spots the references and revisits those stories. 

A Child of Books is a homage to all the amazing children’s classics that have been a part of the authors’ growing up years (and mine!). Since Jeffers and Winston both feel that reading is a visceral and sensual experience, the text from the classics form a part of this book. For instance, when the girl sets sail, the sea is made up of words taken from famous sea-faring stories.

Winston with his exceptionally fine typographic art and Jeffers with his hauntingly lyrical illustrations have created a modern children’s classic in this book. 

The Story of Babar

In today’s post, I am going to take up a really old picture book, one that continues to sell in large numbers, The Story of Babar by Jean de Brunhoff (1931). First published in French, and later introduced into the English language by A.A. Milne, it has proved to be one of the world’s longest-selling and extremely popular picture books. It features an orphaned baby elephant who escapes to the city (Paris) and is raised by a rich old lady. Babar wears a green suit, eats with a fork and knife, is literate and plays the piano. One day, he returns to the forest, and is crowned King of the elephants. 

Jean de Brunhoff trained as a painter and his illustrations for the book are detailed, beautiful and comic as well. Maurice Sendak observed that Brunhoff’s “freshness of vision ….. forever changed the face of the illustrated book”. Brunhoff created a series of seven books about Babar before a tragically early death at the age of 37. Years later, his son Laurent continued the series.

However, the book has also run into a lot of controversies and there have been several demands to ban it. It has been called an allegory for French colonialism. The naked Babar is ‘civilised’, ‘clothed’, ‘acculturated’ and made into ‘a proper gentleman’. When he returns to the forest, he is offered the crown for, as the council of elephants tells him, he has “lived among men and learned much”. Thus, the ways of the metropolis or the colonizing power are considered to be superior to the ways and wisdom of the native.

  The illustrations which have been praised for their aesthetic value, have also faced a lot of flak from postcolonial critics. The pictures associate the city with order, harmony and peace, whereas the forest and its denizens are correlated with shame (naked, unclothed inhabitants), disorder (the old elephant king dies on eating a poisonous mushroom), violence (Babar’s mother is shot dead there, and later the rhinoceros and the elephants go to war against each other). Since children spend a lot of time looking at the illustrations, critics worry about the ideas children are likely to take away from picture books such as The Story of Babar.

           

 I shall leave you with these questions: Do children’s books have a lasting impact on young readers? Do we need to ban such books when they also give great joy to children? 

Make Way for Ducklings!

A couple of years ago, I was in Boston and taking a walk in the Boston Public Garden while I came across an interesting sculpture. It featured America’s most famous mallard family, with Mrs. Mallard leading the way and her eight little ducklings following.

The sculpture is inspired by a popular children’s book Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey who wrote the story and illustrated it. The story is about a couple of ducks who look for a suitable place to raise their family, and later, the mother duck takes her family of eight across Boston to meet their father, and they have various adventures en route (Like Shakespeare often did, McCloskey is said to have drawn inspiration for the story from a newspaper report he read). First published in 1941, and awarded the Caldecott medal in 1942, this beautifully illustrated book is still in print.

 It’s a remarkable book for several reasons.

In terms of plot and characterization, the narrative presents a strong and independent mother figure who is also caring and concerned. During the II World War, many young children in America were growing up without a father, and the book assured them that it was alright to have a mother in charge, and gave them hope that they would one day be reunited with their fathers.

In terms of the illustrations, they present the reader with an amazing view of Boston from the perspective of a duck – a duck-eyed view of the city (or a very little child’s). It offers an interesting way of getting a child to learn about her surroundings, about perspective, about traffic issues and road safety, and about a host of other things. An interesting anecdote about McCloskey tells us that after spending several days watching ducks in park ponds and learning about them at the Museum of Natural History and making hundreds of sketches, he finally brought home a family of ducks, filled up his bathtub and housed them there. That is how his drawings look so lifelike and evoke such an air of authenticity.

This book is a must-read for children everywhere to get them to reflect on their city’s landmarks, think about habitats, and ponder over the symbiotic relationship between humans and animals.