Brief And Spectacular!

Whenever I’m asked if I have a favorite picture book, I stammer because there are so many. Then I draw a blank because there are so many. Then I hem and haw because it depends on so many things. I have favorites for group sharing, for sharing with one or two, funny favorites and favorites that always take my breath away. I love stories that communicate something familiar in a fresh way and stories that enlarge my understanding of the world in a few, oh-so-carefully-selected words, and images.

So, with a nod to the wonderful PBS interview series, Brief But Spectacular, and a wink to the authors and illustrators who create worlds with minimal text and illustrations that amplify those very few words, this is my Brief And Spectacular take on simple stories with big impact. 

My Dad Is a Tree

Agee, Jon.   2023

Madeleine has a novel idea for staying outside all day. On a beautiful spring morning, as her dad rakes the leaves, she stands in the yard, eyes closed, arms outstretched, and announces she’s pretending to be a tree. “C’mon, Dad, let’s be trees,” she implores him. He’s willing, but just for a minute. Soon an owlet lands on his shoulder, a robin starts making a nest in his hair, and a couple of chickadees chirp on his arm. “You’re a very good tree!” Madeleine tells him, admiringly. When a spider and butterfly settle in under his arm and on his nose, he frowns and complains ever so slightly that they tickle and itch. Trees don’t tickle and itch, Madeleine reminds him. What about darkness, pouring rain, and a wayward kite? Trees probably don’t mind them either, but what about Dad? There is a sweet silliness to the collage-y illustrations that Agee complements with brushstrokes that could tell the story all by themselves.

Most of the Better Natural Things in the World

Eggers, Dave.   Illus. by Angel Chang.   2019

A white tiger totes a yellow chair with a pink rope on a journey through the world’s wild and natural places. Why? We wonder as we wander with tiger. One word on each double page spread tells us where tiger is but not where tiger is going. Features like gorge, gulch, archipelago, and taiga beg to be read aloud. Just wait till you get to vista and see the view! First-time picture book illustrator, Chang, uses mixed media on paper to produce these spectacular images. An appended glossary gives brief descriptions of the features & where in the world they may be found.

Round Trip

Jonas, Ann.  1983

It is no exaggeration to say I was gobsmacked by this picture book when it appeared 40 years ago. As I look at it again with an eye to its economy of text and illustration, I still am. It is literally two books in one. Ann Jonas trained as a graphic designer, and it really shows here. Black and white silhouettes imagine a daylong excursion from home to the city and back again. We begin early. The sun is rising, the neighborhood is quiet, and the town is empty. We pass a farm, count the cars on a train, and finally reach the bright lights of the city. We ride the subway, enjoy a movie, climb to the top of the tallest building, and look down. We watched as the sun set. Time to turn around. Turn around? But we’ve just finished the book—or so it seems–until we turn the whole thing upside down and make our way back home again. It is a Round Trip, after all.  

Yo! Yes?

Raschka, Chris.   1993

Thirty-four words on 32 pages is all it takes for author-illustrator, Raschka, to introduce us to two kids–one Black, one White; one confident, the other shy; one lonely, the other keen to connect—and ignite a friendship between them. Watercolor and charcoal pencil drawings filled with contrasting body language and expression, present the pair on opposite sides of the spread, slowly coming toward the center, as they size each other up. When the two take the leap becoming friends always requires, our hearts leap, too. Bold, hand lettered text and punctuation fairly shout in agreement! YOW! 

A Perfect Day

Smith, Lane.  2017

It was a perfect spring day in Bert’s backyard for Cat, Dog, Chickadee, and Squirrel. Cat basked under the warm sun amidst daffodils in Bert’s flower bed. Dog sat in the wading pool Bert filled with cool water. Chickadee’s bird feeder was topped off with birdseed, thanks to Bert. And Squirrel clutched the corncob Bert dropped near the birdfeeder. Yes, it was a perfect day for all…until Bear appears on the scene. Bear takes over everything—from Squirrel’s corncob, Chickadee’s birdfeeder, Dog’s cool bath, and Cat’s flower bed, to the narrative, Smith’s lively mixed media illustrations, and the perspective of the entire enterprise. Turns out it was really Bear’s perfect day.

A gentle reminder:  There’s always more to a picture book than the story. This gem begins with bright yellow endpapers signaling the warm tale to come. The dedication, In memory of Bert—Feeder of bird, Feeder of squirrel, confounds at first, but in retrospect, is a tender nod to a generous friend who provides the story’s human touch. The photograph of a black bear tipping over a bird feeder outside an old schoolhouse on the jacket’s back flap supplies the story’s inspiration. The schoolhouse happens to be where Smith writes and paints. Finally, I see that the book and its jacket were designed by Molly Leach, Smith’s wife, and frequent artistic collaborator. Details like these add context and fun to the story. They enhance our appreciation of the whole.

More

Springman, I.C.   Illus. by Brian Lies.  2012

Field mouse gets this romp rolling by offering magpie a shiny marble. Magpie is delighted to go from nothing to something in her empty nest. Quantitative concepts are the theme as magpie flies, spies, and collects a few, several, then more and more treasures. Lots of everything! Surely magpie has plenty now! But no…her compulsive collecting continues.

Enough! cries the field mouse, as the branch holding magpie’s nest gives way and everything collapses, burying the bird under a mound of miscellany. The little rodent rallies a posse to free magpie from the pile, and soon there is less and less, then not much at all on top of her. Could a piece of blue ribbon tied to the marble and a chess piece be Enough? Yes, enough. Field mouse hops on magpie’s back and off they fly, tails trailing behind them.  

Handmade paper makes the perfect backdrop for the super-realistic acrylic and colored pencil drawings. There’s plenty of fun here to share with a small group, but these illustrations beg to be eyeballed by one or two at a time. Can you see the Lego? It’s red! The Tinkertoy? What’s a Tinkertoy? The jacks? What are jacks? A penny? What’s a penny? Enjoy a stroll down Memory Lane with these toys and so much More.

BIRD BY BIRD

I first read Anne Lamott’s Bird By Bird, Some Instructions on Writing and Life almost 30 years ago. Her insights into writing have stayed with me. Like the idea of writing for writing’s sake. “Publication is not all that it is cracked up to be,” she warns. “But writing is.”

And the importance of finding the right people to critique with. (Thank you, BooksAroundTheTable “batties.”)

And “All good stories are out there waiting to be told in a fresh, wild way… what you have to offer is your own sensibility.“

But most of all, Lamott’s advice right there in the title reminds me to stick with the work, to keep it moving forward a little at a time. Bird by bird. That expression was coined when her brother, age ten, had struggled to create a report on birds. Their father sat down beside him, put an arm around his shoulder and said, “Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.”

So goes this post. Bird by bird.

It starts with the mystery of the bird nests. Walking up our driveway in mid-May, I found three nests carefully lined up across the road. Where did they come from? I could see no broken branches above. Besides, three nests falling from the same tree in a line? Really? I asked the few neighbors who know about my bird nest collection, but no one would own up to leaving three nests lined up on our driveway.

Two weeks later, our grandsons were here for a sleepover and we started playing with the Merlin app. You know, the phone app that listens and then identifies birds by their sonograms. Our eight-year old grandson took 13 different recordings – mostly two minutes long, but one the length of time it takes to put on his pajamas — then he tabulated and charted his findings.

I had no idea there are so many birds in our woods.

The following day we trekked up to Edison WA, in the verdant Skagit Valley to hear our friend Elizabeth Sandvig talk about Bird Song, her show at the i.e. gallery. Ah, the serendipity! The walls of the gallery were lined with her beautiful paintings of birds from across the decades. You can see them all here: https://www.ieedison.com/elizabeth-sandvig. Liz talked about various ways she graphically indicated sonograms of birds’ song: in various languages, with striking stabs of color, with a dot pattern, to name a few. (Two below to give you the idea, by permission.)

And she told a story about how she and her granddaughter had found an injured bird and played the bird’s song back to it after moving it to safety under some shrubbery. Later, it was gone. Hopefully renewed by rest and its song. Reminded me how sometimes we need friends to read our work back to us, to breathe life back into it.

If the Bird by Bird method of writing were a call, Liz’s gallery talk provided a response. She’s in her 80s now and told us she still likes to start each day by working on her art, moving it forward. Bird by bird.

More songs, this time from voices and strings – our ukulele band in 2015 with Liz front right and me in the middle back.

One last story.

On the solstice we finally noticed that a family of four barred owls had nested in a Douglas fir at the bottom of the driveway. The two babies perched on a branch next to the nest, just like in my favorite picture book, Owl Babies. Perhaps on that very day the owlets fledged because we haven’t seen them since. But an adult owl came by for dinner the other night. Hooted once so we’d notice him and flew on.

Bye, bird, bye.