Random House – Shannon Ozirny

Every Day by David Levithan

You wanna know what makes a quality young adult romance? One that really sticks out from the pack and just kicks you right in the nuts of your heart?

INCONVENIENCE.

That’s right. There is no romance more exciting to read than one that centres around really inconvenient love. Figuring out how to love someone when you both have cancer? Inconvenient. Deciding whether or not you should return to consciousness post-auto accident for your boyfriend? Super inconvenient. Trying to love someone you thought was a girl but then turned out to be a boy? Definitely not on the list of the top ten most convenient things.

Of course, those three scenarios refer to some of my recent favorite lurve-themed YA books: John Green’s The Fault In Our Stars, Gayle Forman’s If I Stay and Brian Katcher’s Almost Perfect. They are brilliant in different ways (and of course deal with many other themes beyond love), but all feature characters who must really, seriously give ‘er to earn what their heart desires. I think this theme of inconvenient love is so powerful that it can even carry a the book in the absence of really terrible writing (see: Twilight).

But what does all this talk of inconvenience have to do with David Levithan’s new book, Every Day? It is officially one of the most inconvenient cases of love I have ever had the pleasure of reading. The book’s main character, simply called A, wakes up in the body of a different person every day. The body might belong to a male or female, a straight, gay or bisexual person, a person of any race – the only consistency is that all the bodies belong to sixteen-year-old people. This is all going along fine until A meets Rhiannon. A falls in love with Rhiannon. And then things get SUPER INCONVENIENT. Because how can you love someone when you have a different body every day? How the heck can that possibly work?

It’s a conundrum and a half, and that is why Every Day is so addictive. As readers, we want to find out how someone in such an impossibly difficult, inconvenient situation could make it work. Because if some genderless being with no body can make it work in love, then certainly we all have a shot, right?

This novel is not only exceptional in its premise, but in the brilliant points it subtly makes about the fluidity and elusive nature of gender. Is this the first YA romance featuring a protagonist with no assigned gender? I think so. And that is a really big deal. When this book inevitably becomes a Hollywood blockbuster, I just hope that A remains genderless, and we don’t discover at the end that the character’s “true” form is actually Taylor Lautner. Or Selena Gomez. Or the dog from The Artist.

And, like every David Levithan book, Every Day is dripping with descriptions of emotions and feelings that are normally impossible to put into words. I swear that there is something on every page of his books that I want to have printed on a t-shirt so I can run out into the street and shout “This is exactly how I feel! Don’t you ever feel like this too!?”

If the human heart had a spokesperson, if would be David Levithan.

No offense, Maya Angelou.

How Liar & Spy Relates to One of My Darkest Secrets

I want to begin this review by making a confession:

I own an Insight From the Dalai Lama calendar. You ever wonder who buys those for 75% at the bookstore? It was me. I admit it.

It is one of those page-a-day rip-off style ones with a new quote for each day. Except for the weekends – there is only one quote/page for Saturday and Sunday. I guess the Dalai Lama needs some time off too.

What does this have to do with Rebecca Stead’s new book? Two things.

First, I was incredibly eager to see if Liar & Spy was going to live up to the Rebecca Stead of When You Reach Me. Like everyone else on the planet, I fell deeply in love with that book and Stead’s writing style. To me, Stead is the Dalai Lama of children’s books. Her prose are at once deep and moving but always optimistic and full of love. She writes with such economy and clarity. If Stead’s words had a body, I think they would look like the Dalai Lama: smiley, comfy and a just a little bit kooky (have you heard the Dalai Lama laugh? It’s a bit kooky. But enjoyable so).

I worried that this mix of loveliness and faith that permeated When You Reach Me was a bit of a fluke, and Stead was going to come out next with a dystopian adventure set in Norse mythology or something. Or that her next book would just be WYRM 1.0. But Liar & Spy isn’t WYRM 1.0. It’s just as good. It might even be better.

The second reason I bring up my Dalai Lama calendar is because I believe owning one is highly embarrassing. Isn’t it just one step away from owning a Chicken Soup For the Soul book? I mean, really. And I don’t just own the calendar, people. I save some of the quotes and put them on my fridge. I take them down before I have company, much like a murderer would hide the arms and legs of her latest victim before having a friend over for sushi and Mad Men.

I bring this up because it relates to one of the themes I found particularly intriguing about Liar & Spy, which is the theme of lying to oneself. I can’t get into detail without blowing the lid off Stead’s now-signature surprise awesome endings, but both main characters – Georges and Safer – have trouble coming to grips with aspects of themselves. That’s really all the plot synopsis you need. This “coming to grips” theme usually makes up the whole plot of a middle grade book: kid can’t come to grips with the fact she has an absentee parent, kid can’t come to grips with the fact he is partly some sort of magical beast or wizard or whatever, kid can’t come to grips with the fact he is a horn growing out his butt. You get the idea. But the brilliance of Liar & Spy is that figuring out our protagonists’ weaknesses compromises the book’s big climax/revelation – it’s not the whole dang show. And that is cool.

Others have done much better Lia & Spy reviews wherein they don’t divulge personal oddities and/or affection for the Dalai Lama. Travis Jonker has a great one over at 100 Scope Notes and Betsy Bird included it in her recent post on 2013 Newbery predictions (my money is on her money that it is going to be a Random House vs. Random House kinda year).

To end this post, I think we should all enjoy this moment of the Dalai Lama not understanding a joke about pizza.

A reference question on picturebooks about art

A patron emailed me looking for books to use in a class she is teaching called “Books and Art” for four and five year olds. Amazing! She was looking for picturebooks to use as read-alouds to inspire the chidlers’ projects – specfically books about creating art or using colour.

In an ideal world, I would have taken five days to answer this and sent her an annotated list of 100 books. Then I would have gone home to read a new book by James Mashall In reality, I had about 20 minutes and I went home to eat some Pilsbury Easter cookies I got for 35% off. I thought it might be fun to share what I came up with.

Keep in mind that I was limited by what is in my library’s collection (we’re not super teensy, but we’re not huge either. We serve about 33,000 people and are the only library in town). Because I was short on time, I relied on my own knowledge but discovered 2 or 3 of the titles while browsing – yay for serendipity! I also wanted to include some Canadian titles because I’m pretty gung-ho about promoting Canadian books. I know I’m probably missing a buncha titles, so please feel free to leave more suggestions in the Comments.

Also, sorry that the books aren’t in any kind of order. They were originally organized according to what was in and what was on loan at my library. I also don’t have the authors and illustrators listed (where applicable) because we catalogue our picturebooks by author. The annotations are the same ones I included in my response to the patron.

Picturebooks With an Art Theme for Reading Aloud to 4/5 Year Olds

The Incredible Painting of Felix Clousseau – John Agee
A classic story about an artist who paints animals..that come to life!

I Ain’t Gonna Paint No More – Karen Beaumont
An artistic take on the song “It Ain’t Gonna Rain No More.” A boy who gets in trouble for painting on the walls takes matters into his own hands and paints his whole body!

White is For Blueberry – George Shannon
A concept book that explores the not-so-obvious colours of familiar things – the black centre of a poppy, the green top of a turnip, and the purple hue of shadows on the snow.

I’m the Best Artist in the Ocean – Kevin Sherry
A big, bright, hilarious story about a giant squid who loves to paint.

My Many Colored Days – Dr. Seuss
A very sensitive offering from Seuss about the connotations of different colours.

The Party – Barbara Reid
While not about art, this book is noteworthy because the illustrations are done entirely in plasticine. Reid is internationally known for her work with plasticine and has many, many stellar books.

The Dot – Peter H. Reynolds
Vashti hates making art but learns that even a random dot of ink can bring inspiration.

Draw Me a Star – Eric Carle
This is essentially a creation story about an artist who draws the world – starting with a single star. There are directions at the end showing children how to draw the stars in the book.

Augustine – Melanie Watt
Augustine is a penguin who idolizes famous artists. When she moves to a new school, her art helps her overcome her shyness.

The Imaginary Garden – Andrew Larsen. Illustrations by Irene Luxbacher
This book actually includes painting lessons within the story. After a young girl’s grandfather has to leave his beautiful home garden to relocate to an apartment, the pair find an artistic solution by painting a garden on a giant canvas. The text might be a little long for a read-aloud for 4s and 5s, but it is really worth checking out.

Art and Max – David Wiesner
A perfect story for beginning artists with stunning, semi-surreal artwork about two reptilian friends.

Harold and the Purple Crayon – Crockett Johnson
A classic. Harold steps into his own drawings and has all sorts of adventures.

Dog’s Colourful Day – Emma Dodd
A simple, engaging story about a white dog who gets into a rainbow of messes after his daily walk. Any of Emma Dodd’s books are fantastic for this age group.

The Black Book of Colors – Menena Cottin
A completely one-of-a-kind book done all in black. Different colours are described with words and with textured pages. It gives very young children a sense of what it would be like to see the world without sight and to essentially “feel” different colours.

I got a very lovely thank-you email from the patron after she received the list saying how inspired she is now. Can’t ask for anything more! (plus, 4/14 Canadian books ain’t bad!)

Little Bear Without Sendak?(!)

Bear to tha Little! — Looky-loo! That's my very own pristine copy of an early edition of Little Bear. If you ever come over, I may let you touch it. Please bring white gloves and a deep sense of reverence.

I thought my inaugural post should be something dear to my heart, and well, easy readers basically line my aorta. I wrote a really long paper on the birth of easy readers (i.e. – my MA thesis) because I love ’em, I think they need to get more cred, and they came about in the mid-1950s. The mid-1950s was the most swingin’ time in American children’s book publishing with the best gossip: powerful librarians talking to dolls, editor rivalries, unknown authors and illustrators getting to just flounce up to the editor’s office. Amazing.

One of the most interesting little gems I have come across is this New Hampshire Public Radio interview with Else Holmelund Minarik. And Holy Mother of Pearl, there is one heck of an interesting tidbit in there.

At the 4:00 mark, Minarik said that she, GET THIS, took the Little Bear manuscript to Random House before she ever took it to HarperCollins (then Harper and Brothers)! And Random House passed, saying “If you can write about children, we’d be interested.”

Now, why is this so interesting? Just imagine if Random House had accepted the Little Bear manuscript. That would have meant no Sendak-drawn Little Bear (he was Ursula Nordstrom’s property and there’s no way the Random House peeps would have sought him out). Can you imagine Little Bear without Sendak? Can you imagine Sendak’s career without Little Bear? (I mean, he was already rockin’ it with Ruth Krauss and others, but that lil’ ursine munchkin is an important part of his almighty portfolio)

I truly believe that the whole easy reader genre could have gone down an entirely different path if it weren’t for the Sendak/Minarik partnership. With no word list, and that dear, quaint, comfy Victorian-inspired art, Little Bear set the bar for both I Can Read and other publishers.

Any Grade 6 researcher could find the Minarik interview as it is linked to her Wikipedia page. But I’ve never seen it discussed anywhere, which is surprising, considering how different things could have been if Little Bear had been a Beginner Book. I mean, really.

Ah, 1950s children’s publishing gossip. Is there anything better in the world? No.