New Downer Avenue Kids' Section!

This selection of superb children’s titles, make up the breadth of my holiday kids recommendation list. They vary from hardcover picture books to intermediate, contemporary and classic. Mostly what they have in common is an indelible charm defined by quaint, universal narrative and extraordinary illustrations tailored to the specific texts. In this age of toddler marketing strategies, DVD parenting and extremely aggressive brand promotions, these books are standouts as prime examples of what should be at the center of story-telling for children- BOOKS.

The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo is shelved in the intermediate section of the children’s area, but is really very appropriate for children and adults of all ages. It tells the story of the porcelain rabbit, Edward Tulane. He begins a very vain little toy and ends up separated from his owner, proceeds on a very Homeric journey from a boxcar to the bottom of the ocean into a seaside village and eventually a home, generations later.

Toys Go Out: Being the Adventures of a Knowledgeable Stingray, a Toughy Little Buffalo, and Someone Called Plastic, is also intermediate reading, but all-ages appropriate. The chapters are interconnected but tell separate stories about the adventures these charming little toys have when humans leave the house. One story is called “The Terrifying Bigness of the Washing Machine”- it’s awesome. This was also published in 2006 and was written by Emily Jenkins.

Pennies In a Jar by Dori Chaconas (Author) and Ted Lewin (Illustrator) tells the story of a young boy who promises to be brave when his father goes off to fight in World War II. The child lives in a world of air raid sirens and general wartime conditions. He, of course, meets a new friend who shows him that there are things to do for his father, even though he is so far away. Overall, this is great historical fiction for little people. Lewin provides great Rockwellian illustrations, very innocent. Chaconas is also a local Wisconsin author!

Crossing by Phillip Booth and When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer are also in this same classic narrative vein. An old-time steam engine rumbles past in Booth’s 1957 poem “Crossing” from his debut collection Letters from a Distant Land. The nostalgic illustrations by Bagram Ibatoulline (also, illustrator for Edward Tulane) invoke a longing for the simple act of waiting at the railroad crossing, the rattling boxcars.

Walt Whitman lends his poetry to When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer. Booklist offers a great synopsis: “Long's story-in-images makes a fine introduction for very young children. His interpretation of Whitman's eight-line rebuke of stuffy pragmatism tells a familiar story: A little boy obsessed with outer space has been dragged to an astronomy lecture. Unable to make sense of the speaker's pontifications, the fidgety youngster takes his toy rocket ship outside, where he marvels at the "perfect silence of the stars, casting a decisive vote for creative speculation over chilly analysis." I love this book so much, how rare to find a perfect adaptation of Whitman to add to a child’s important budding library.

The young boy in Wilfred Gordon Mcdonald Partridge spends his days in the retirement home next to his house. The relationships he forms with these wonderfully patient and wise elders are so darling. He is drawn on a skateboard mostly, weaving around the chairs. Wilfred’s favorite is Miss Nancy Alison Delacourt Cooper, who also has four names. Upon learning that she is losing her memory, Wilfred makes it his goal to give Miss Nancy enough of his own memories to take the place of what she has lost.

Finally, what I am most excited about this holiday season is the 10th-anniversary edition of Patricia Polacco's The Keeping Quilt, Polacco’s family story about a quilt made from an immigrant Jewish family's clothing from their Russian homeland. The story is very cyclical, chronicling the cross generational journey and multiple functions of this “keeping quilt.” The only color used is in the babushka and dress of Great-Gramma Anna, which become part of a brightly hued quilt. I love to quilt and recognize the importance of preserving one’s heritage through shared heirlooms. This book is beautiful.

Pillars of Oprah's Earth

So, earlier this week Oprah's latest book club selection hit bookstores and the homes of ABC viewers via the large e-tailer-which-shall-not-be-named. Her selection? The multi-million copy selling The Pillars of the Earth by hugely popular writer Ken Follett.

In the New York Times Book Review for this same week, there was this boastful anecdote from Follett regarding a conversation he had with one of his friends, novelist and playwright Hanif Kureishi:

"We were talking about what the readers like," Follett says. "He said, 'I never think about the readers.' I told him, 'That's why you are a great writer, and that's why I am a rich writer.' "

Speaking of a rich Ken Follett, within a year of the original publication of Pillars, Follett signed with Dell Publishing for a $12.3 million two-book deal. All of his books have been bestsellers and several have been made into movies, and just announced in Publishers Weekly is a new $50 million deal for an epic trilogy by Mr. Follett.

Ken Follett is not undeserved of his reputation nor is it a bad thing for his book to be introduced to a cadre of new readers. My beef is not with Ken Follett or his skill in writing suspenseful tomes of historical fictition.

My beef here is with Oprah Winfrey and her book club. Clearly, based solely on the numbers of books he sells, the money he makes, or his own admission of writing for money, Ken Follett does not need any help in gaining readers. I also do not have a problem with writers hitting the gold coin jackpot, I just wish more of them could be making those big bucks.

Why not use the famed Oprah power of thrusting new books into readers hands that are by writers who have yet to find their fame anywhere beyond small literary circles of fandom? She has done so a handful of times and I do wish she would do it every time. Imagine what could be done for reading and emerging writers if Oprah championed these floating gems and diamonds in the rough.

Independent booksellers across the nation have catapulted books to bestseller-dom simply by the fine old art of handselling. Recent examples: Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen, Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. Ms. Winfrey can even be thanked for featuring Ms. Gilbert on her show and assisting indie booksellers in thrusting this writer into newfound and well-deserved fame. Seeing what booksellers and Oprah can do for readers and writers, why not expand that power to the book club itself? We can even offer Ms. Winfrey a list of suggestions - should she need them.

reference sites:
Ken Follett is Latest Oprah Winfrey Pick, AP
Follett Cashes In On 'Century', PW
Homepage for Ken Follett

The Terror - Dan Simmons

If you've written a complex, period-accurate adventure set in the arctic, you'd probably have a read for 'hardcore' fans only. Add to that the fact that the book is over seven hundred pages long, spans years in the telling, and follows a half dozen major characters, and you've got an intractable manuscript fit only for the diehards, right? Wrong! I'd read Simmons before, but would hardly call myself a completist. In some cases the sheer volume of his work was enough to make my eyes dart elsewhere on the bookshelf. I am now ready to admit what a mistake avoiding this fantastic author was. If he went on for another seven hundred pages I'd devour those too.

Set among the crews of two ships trying to force a northwest passage through arctic ice, The Terror drags you in with tantalizing whispers of what could go wrong. It's not enough having to navigate through tons of ice in experimental ships loaded with sailors of all stripes. It's not enough that the expedition's leader is jovially unaware at least and criminally incompetent at worst. It's not enough that all of the great arctic explorers back home called it lunacy to make the attempt. No, those warning signs should have been enough, but a combination of greed, ego and desperation have conspired to throw these considerations aside. There is however, one consideration no one thought to explore. This is where the whispers of what could go wrong turn to screams. This place is uncharted for a reason owing less to nature and more to evil. There was no accounting for the possibility that at the top of the world existed a force alien to 'civilization', malevolent in intent, and more than a match for anything human minds and hands could bring to bear against it.

If the only people to pick up this book are the author's sizable (but not nearly big enough) contingent of fans, that would be the real terror. This book is essential to any reader who loves action, adventure, iconic characters pulled from the mythic tradition and the feeling on the back of their neck as the hair raises.