Fall Leaves Fall

Hall, Zoe. Fall Leaves Fall. New York: Scholastic Press, 2000.

I have to start with Shari Halpern’s illustrations. According to the front matter, Halpern “used painted and found papers to create collage illustrations for this book.” The result is a bright, exciting world that looks 3-D. Some of the textures appear so real that I want to touch them to make sure they’re just paper. And the fall leaves, shown separately with their own distinct shapes and shades of orange, yellow, red, or brown, are pleasant to look at. My favorite page features an art project created by the two brothers in the story: a strip of butcher paper displaying six different types of leaves labeled neatly in crayon.

The text, in simple language and lively, short sentences for teeny attention spans, is a first-person narrative telling how the main character and his brother enjoy the fall season together. In the process of witnessing the pure pleasure the boys derive from autumn, readers learn about the signs of the season, some indoor and outdoor activities, fall colors, and six different kinds of leaves. The last page describes in four illustrated steps “[h]ow leaves grow throughout the year.” For brilliant, crisp illustrations and minimal text that entertains and educates, Fall Leaves Fall gets an A.

The Magic Formula

Just because a book has an intended audience of children or teenagers doesn't mean that it's any less of an accomplishment than a book for an adult. I've made several attempts to write for children--it's much harder than it looks. If only I could produce even one short work of art for kids. That people can write entire novels or sustained works of nonfiction is grounds for admiration. Well-written novels, especially, astound me with characters so life-like that I am compelled to read on to find out what happens to them. Then when the book is over, I miss them and keep thinking that there is more to read when there isn't. The ability to create a book that readers are sorry to finish is a rare gift.

No, I'm not talking about a fantasy tale for kids when I say "magic formula." I'm talking about elements in children's fiction that are guaranteed to win the rapt attention of young children. And some authors are shrewd enough to not only perceive the existence of these elements, but to put them all together in one story.

Long ago I heard someone describing the kinds of stories children like. I remember only one item from that list: children love stories of other children making it on their own, fending for themselves. Did the expert ever get that right. At the time I heard that, my mind flicked to a book I read when I was about eight, one that my friends had read first and that I could hardly wait to get my hands on. It was about a little boy who had put together some robots out of this and that. One night, a terrible storm brought a flood, and lightening struck those robots, bringing them to life. These amusing mechanical people helped the protaganist live on his own after he escaped the flood.

But the really riveting story, the one that I read over and over when I was maybe six and seven, was one about five children who get on the wrong plane and end up traveling with a couple of bad guys who land on a deserted island. Enid Blyton wrote it, I think. The kids manage to hide from the sinister men most of the time. They find a cave behind a waterfall and set up camp. With tins of food and other finds, they make do very well.

The other day at one of my book-buying frenzies at the swap meet, I came upon a familiar book that brilliantly combined the elements of adventure, survival, and another great love of preteen girls: babies. I had given Baby Island many careful readings about twenty-four years ago, and the book I bought recently for twenty cents is probably the same edition I had then. As a little girl, I was passionate about babies, and Baby Island spoke to my heart. When the author described protagonist Mary as being "never so happy as when she had borrowed a baby to cuddle or care for" I knew exactly what she was talking about.

The author, by the way, is Carol Ryrie Brink--remember Caddie Woodlawn? Or Hans or the Silver Skates? Brink is good. I just finished rereading Baby Island and enjoyed it again. Copyrighted in 1937, it deserves to be one of Brink's minor children's classics, shadowed, of course, by her major one, Caddie Woodlawn. The story-telling is decent, the characters are real and humorous tone sustained. And then you have those ingenious plot elements--adventure and infants.

I coveted the protagonists' predicament when I was a little girl. Mary and her younger sister Jean rescue four babies from a sinking ship and end up on a desert island. They survive on tins of food they find in the lifeboat and also coconuts, bananas, breadfruit, clams. They make dishes out of coconut shells and seashells and a tent out of bamboo and tarp. They deal with a baby teething, a tot wandering off, a stranger on their island, and a terrible storm.

But the magic formula isn't really a magic formula, after all. Sigh. I'll prove it. Just let those of us who are not fiction writers go to the keyboard every day for several months and pound out a story for kids with all the great ingredients applied with a liberal hand. Make it a story of survival, make the characters grow up in the end, throw in babies or robots or caves, airplanes, horses, or dolls come to life. I'll wager the results of our hard work wouldn't approach the quality of Brink's deceptively simple story of two girls, four babies, and their very own island.

This Writer Is . . . Motivated

It takes skill and hard work to write a good children's book. But what if you could illustrate it too? Millions of children across the country recognize certain authors' names because they've added book after memorable book to library and bookstore shelves. Their characters are funny, unusual, and endearing. Their stories are snappy and fresh. And most of them draw their own pictures.

Kevin Henkes saw his hopes fulfilled early, when he published his first book at nineteen. Now he’s a successful full-time writer and illustrator. And no wonder. The mouse characters who appear in many of his stories are charming. Each one is a distinct person who must overcome an obstacle or understand a situation under the observance of warm—but usually surprised—parents. Children and the adults who read to them will quickly fall for Chester, Lilly, Chrysanthemum, Wendell, and other individuals whose little worlds sometimes overlap.

Henkes, Kevin. Chester’s Way. New York: Greenwillow Books, 1988.

Chester and his best friend Wilson are fastidious mice. They know exactly what to expect from each other, because season after season, they do the same things. “Wilson wouldn’t ride his bike unless Chester wanted to, and they always used hand signals.” Chester even “duplicated his Christmas list every year and gave a copy to Wilson, because they always wanted the same things anyway.” Then Lilly, a rambunctious squirt-gun toting, disguise-wearing white mouse exploded onto the scene and Chester and Wilson realize that turning a twosome into a threesome can really spice things up.

Kevin Henkes provides detailed pictures created with watercolor and black pen for every line or so of text in this story. And one can delight in the details. There’s Chester and Wilson riding in tandem on their bikes sporting identical sunglasses. When Wilson’s parents are observing the pair, Chester and Wilson are sitting in a chair reading Advanced Croquet Tips. Later on, while Wilson cavorts in a wading pool, Chester sits in a lounge chair and reads Bike Safety. I counted about sixty pleasant pictures in this book. For its clever, simple details that children find irresistible, for its dozens of colorful illustrations of funny mice, and most of all because my preschool daughters quote from it, Chester’s Way gets an A.

Dim Sum for Everyone!

Lin, Grace. Dim Sum for Everyone! New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001.

The premise of Dim Sum for Everyone! is simple: a mother, father, and three little girls go to a Chinese restaurant and enjoy dim sum. They each choose a dish and “eat a little bit of everything.” In fact, “Everyone eats a little bit of everything.” What makes this book special is that you can sample and savor food names such as egg tarts, turnip cakes, sweet tofu, fried shrimp, and sweet pork buns. And the names of the little dishes are not limited to the one-line-per-page story. Pictures of dim sum foods with their names in English and Chinese float on two of the last pages. Labeled pictures of dim sum components—“Chinese kale,” “coconut milk,” “teapot,” “chopsticks”—drift on two of the front pages. At the end of the book, Lin gives a brief history of dim sum and describes some customs.

Grace Lin’s detailed illustrations are saturated in deep reds, yellows, and greens. The pleasant-faced family and women who offer the food on trolleys wear an array of brightly patterned clothing. Lin shows everything, right down to the jade necklace and earrings worn by a server and the baubles in a little girl’s pigtails. The diners at the round tables eat out of the small round dishes with their eyes closed, as if to show us that eating dim sum is one of those quiet pleasures best enjoyed in the company of close friends. For its ability to entice readers of all ages into trying out dim sum and for its deliciously detailed and vibrant pictures, Dim Sum for Everyone! gets an A.