A Closer Look
By Mary McCarthy
Greenwillow, 40 pp., ages 1-5, $16.99
Mary and the Mouse, the Mouse and Mary
Written by Beverly Donofrio
Illustrated by Barbara McClintock
Schwartz & Wade, 32 pp., ages 3-7, $16.99
How Many
By Ron Van Der Meer
Robin Corey, 12 pp., ages 5 and up, $24.99
Artist to Artist: 23 Major Illustrators Talk to Children About Their Art
Philomel, 114 pp., all ages, $30
Mary McCarthy's "A Closer Look" issues an affectionate challenge for children to "look closer" and look yet again. It's a philosophical picture-book idea: vision is more than a matter of sight. It requires patience and perspective. So a big black circle on a red field might be any number of things - and as McCarthy pulls farther and farther back, she invites guessing games. (The black dot belongs to a ladybug.) The same goes for a flower and a hummingbird. But my favorite images are those McCarthy saves for last, when we reel back far enough to see bug, flower, and bird, and farther still to view the summer garden of which they are all a part.
She accomplishes this in paper collages that are bright, bold, child-friendly, and child-engaging. The youngest naturalists will naturally love this. We hear a lot about "teachable moments." "A Closer Look" provides a teachable template for a world that deserves our close attention.
They don't come more adorable than "Mary and the Mouse, the Mouse and Mary," a multigenerational picture book about little girls and their mice. And - vice versa. "Mary lived in a big house with a very little mouse. The Mouse lived in a little house inside a very big house, with Mary."
Mary's been warned against mice: "They have fleas and germs, and sometimes they'll bite." And the mouse has been warned about Marys: "Stay away from people. They're sneaky and mean and sometimes they'll lure you into traps." Nonetheless, Mary and the mouse work up enough courage to drop their cutlery accidentally on purpose and wave across parallel universes. And when Mary grows up to live in her own house, Mary's daughter and the mouse's daughter are braver still . . .
There's a neat mirror-imaging of human worlds and mouse worlds. Its details are exquisite and exquisitely old-fashioned. (Mary is clearly a child of the Dick-Sally-and-Jane era.) Mary's house has a grandfather clock. The mouse's house has a grandfather's watch. Mary gets older, hipper, and goes off to Brown; the mouse sports a set of love beads and goes to Gouda. They wear identical red Birkenstocks. Children will adore these tiny similarities, and they'll easily keep pace with the gentle humor of the book. Author Beverly Donofrio, who wrote "Riding in Cars With Boys," and illustrator Barbara McClintock, winner of four
both done their job brilliantly. This sweetly refreshing book is
a contemporary picture-book classic.
"How Many," an astonishing, interactive pop-up book of shapes by Ron Van Der Meer, is billed as "spectacular paper sculptures," and vibrantly lives up to its promise. The first pop-up spread unfolds to a many-colored structure of dozens of various-size triangles. Children are encouraged to count the hollow and the solid triangles (answers only found online, alas), but I could gaze at the pastel paper structure and be completely happy. The next spread (circles) is like a pop-up circle party; squares has the feel of an Alice-in-Wonderland house; stars is a paper fireworks display; and the final spread, consisting of long lines, slanted lines, colored lines, and curving lines, rises up like the Verrazano Bridge. Yes, children will love this book - if the adults will let them get anywhere near it. I'm hoarding this one for myself.
I cannot imagine a finer or more useful book for young artists than "Artist to Artist: 23 Major Illustrators Talk to Children About Their Art." There is no talking down to here. The artists share their personal backgrounds, challenges, aesthetics, hopes, techniques. Among the illustrious: Eric Carle (whose Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, in Amherst, this book benefits), Barry Moser, Jerry Pinkney, Alice Provensen. Each artist provides a self-portrait. There are samples of early and present work, finished and in progress; images of the studios in which they labor (all have large bright windows); images of the artists as younger folks; and their thoughts on art. Robert Ingpen writes, "You can choose to be an artist and fly away with your creativity, or to be an illustrator and surround yourself with craft. You cannot do both." Jane Dyer: "I try to make paintings that will invite children into make-believe worlds of their own. I even try to keep the studio itself looking like a make-believe world." Maurice Sendak advises, "You must never illustrate exactly what is written. You must find a space in the text so that the pictures can do the work." Rosemary Wells sums it up: "The most important thing in the world is to love what you do." Read cover to cover (I could not put it down), the book becomes a lively, generous debate about illustrative art, not to mention a guide to some of the best artists in the field. I hope for more "Artist to Artist" books, each as fine as this.
Liz Rosenberg is the author of more than 20 books for young readers. She teaches English and creative writing at Binghamton University and reviews young people's books here each month.
