Posts tagged as:

books for big kids

Life, death, and French

February 2, 2011

A month seems long enough to be silent, a strange month turning on the multifarious spokes of the wheel of life. Death, coming to people we think too young to die—we, with our secret hopes of long, fulfilling lives, of seeing our grandchildren and great-grandchildren be born. And birth, which can come earlier than it [...]

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Father Christmas; Raymond Briggs (1973)

December 16, 2010

Oh, I love Raymond Brigg’s Father Christmas—a nice counterpoint to ‘Twas the night before… My kind of grumbling, irascible, oft-tippling, animal-loving, snow-hating, gourmand bachelor Santa Claus. In brightly colorful, detailed drawings and a few choice words Briggs takes us through Father Christmas’s long day and night leading up to Christmas, and sees him through his [...]

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The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey; Susan Wojciechowski, illustrated by P. J. Lynch (1995)

December 7, 2010

This one makes me cry every year. “The village children called him Mr. Gloomy. But, in fact, his name was Toomey, Mr. Jonathan Toomey,” it begins. Jonathan Toomey is a woodcarver, maybe the best in the valley, but all his skill can’t mend a heart broken by the loss of a beloved wife and baby. [...]

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Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins; story by Eric A. Kimmel, pictures by Trina Schart Hyman (1989)

December 3, 2010

On the third night of Hannukah I propose my favorite Hannukah tale, Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins. When Hershel of Ostropol’s steps lead him, on the first night of Hannukah, to a small snowy village, he is sure he will be greeted by crisp latkes and the gleam of candles burning in menorahs in a [...]

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Hurry, Hurry, Mary Dear; Bodecker & Blegvad (1975/1998)

October 18, 2010

There’s a sweet story inside the front cover of Hurry, Hurry, Mary Dear, by children’s book illustrator and author N. M. Bodecker, illustrated by Erik Blegvad. Blegvad tells of his friendship with Bodecker, whom he met at the Copenhagen Art School in 1941 and later shared a studio with in Westport, CT. Bodecker wrote the [...]

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Betsy-Tacy; Maud Hart Lovelace (1940)

July 10, 2010

Betsy-Tacy is the first volume in the series of seven books by Maud Hart Lovelace chronicling the childhood and early adulthood of Besty Ray, born just before the turn of the 20th century, growing up in a small but burgeoning town in Minnesota called, in the books, Deep Valley. In addition to Lovelace’s seven books [...]

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The right sort of books

May 30, 2010

The narrator—I will tell you, but you must let your children figure it out for themselves, that the “I” and Oswald are one and the same—of the second book about the Bastable Children explains:
It was very rough on Dora having her foot bad, but we took it in turns to stay in with her, and [...]

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