Picturebooks

Thanks to the new addition to the household I’m finally able to indulge in one of my great pleasures - children’s books. At the recent Canberra Lifeline Bookfair I spent hours (not kidding) scouring through the stacks of picture books looking for goodies. I certainly found some old favourites, and even discovered some new ones. It inspired me to share with you some of the books and authors I‘ve been reading recently.

The Berenstain Bears and The Spooky Old Tree

‘Three little Bears. One with a light. One with a stick. One with a rope’

I loved this book when I was little. Jan and Stan Berenstain wrote what has become an empire of children’s books. Often their Bears series is moralistic, and I’ve seen many that I wouldn’t be interested in. This one though, is a real charmer, as is the similar (but not quite as good) Bears in the Night. The story is simple: as the bears climb through the spooky old tree they gradually lose their belongings and gain the shivers. The language has a lovely rhythm and rhyming scheme, and is repetitive without being annoying. This makes it perfect both to read to young children, and for older children starting to read to themselves.

Judith Kerr

An old favourite who is still publishing - the delightful One Night At The Zoo was released in 2009. Kerr is best known for her first book The Tiger Who Came To Tea; it’s a great book - there is something slightly anarchic about this unexpected guest who proceeds to eat all the family’s food. It’s funny, appealing to a child’s sense of naughtiness. The Mog series are also deserving of a prime spot on the book shelf. Originally from Germany (yes, she also wrote When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit) she thought learning to read in English was very hard so she puts a lot of work into making the book accessible for early readers. It’s easy to focus on entertaining children with a book, but encouraging children’s confidence to read for themselves is so important. It’s lovely to have books that do both.

Emily Gravett

Emily Gravett is more of a newcomer, and if you thought the aforementioned Tiger was wicked, wait until you see what can happen in her books. She is most well known for The Odd Egg, in which a duck is teased by the other birds for not having an egg. When he finds an egg of his own he is delighted but then it hatches with unexpected - and for the other birds unfortunate - results. It’s fantastic. One of her newest offerings is a version of the three little pigs, in which she actually makes you feel sorry for the wolf. Gravett illustrates her own stories, and plot is often conveyed in the pictures. This makes them great for less confident readers as they can still get the punch lines purely from the illustration.

Last but certainly not least

Helen Nicoll and Jan Pieńkowski

The Meg books, about a witch, her cat (another Mog) and her friend Owl, were first published in the 70s. The stories are simple and the bright block-colour pictures are real eye catchers. Meg is an unsuccessful witch: none of her spells ever work, and sometimes they have disastrous, but funny, results. The books are short, but exuberant. There are about fifteen in this series, most of which I have never read, but I love the ones I remember. The author Helen Nicoll passed away recently, so we won’t see any new ones, but I think these books will remain popular for years to come.

It is one thing to pick the best new books, or old favourites, to read with your children. But more important is to just read to them, with whatever you choose. Who has ever met a child who doesn’t love a story? I’m sure I’ll get sick of reading the same book over and over, but it is such a precious gift to give your child. I could always do what my father did when he got sick of reading Harry By The Sea - turn it into a (much shorter than the book) song.

The Invention of Hugo Cabret, by Brian Selznick

Earlier this year a colleague of mine told me about a film she had seen, called Hugo. “It’s about a boy at a train station in Paris, and his fox”. “Oh”, I said rather unenthusiastically. A week later I went and saw the film with a friend, immediately realising my mistake when a clock appeared prominently in the film’s opening sequence. Despite, or perhaps because of, the lack of anthropomorphic foxes I was imagining, I loved the film and have now read the book that Martin Scorcese’s film was based on: The invention of Hugo Cabret, by Brian Selznick.

For those unfamiliar with either the book or film, Hugo is the orphan child of a clockmaker. He has been living with his uncle at the Gare Montparnasse; his uncle’s job is to make sure the train station’s clocks run accurately, and Hugo becomes his assistant. For the last few months his uncle has been missing, and Hugo has continued with his job, terrified of being found out and sent to an orphanage. In his spare time he works on the automaton his father was fixing when he died. This automaton is a mechanical humanoid, who holds a pen; Hugo becomes convinced if he can make the automaton work, he will receive a message from his father. But to find parts he is reduced to stealing from the toy shop at the station, which brings him to the attention of Georges, who owns the shop, and his adopted daughter Isabelle.

The book is full of black and white drawings, intermixed with prose, with both telling the story. All are printed on black bordered pages; it makes for a beautiful book. Often the pictures are used for scenes with action in them: a walk through Paris at night, Hugo at work with cogs winding, and a memorable chase through the station, showing both the dodging through crowds, and a close up of the fear in Hugo’s eyes. The book however, makes rather lofty claims about this being an ‘entirely new reading experience’. While it combines elements of novel, comic and picture book, I don’t think it is so original to be ‘entirely new’. All of the pictures are full page, and often not that detailed. Unlike reading a comic where you often have to pay attention to small pictures to follow the plot, Hugo can be read quite rapidly. At times it is a bit irritating (namely propping this book up in bed) to have to turn page after page quite so quickly.

The book is split into two parts: the first tells of Hugo and his automaton, and the second of Georges, who is revealed to be the filmmaker Georges Méliès and creator of the automaton. The mystery behind the automaton leads Hugo and Isabelle into the mystery of Georges’s identity and why he has kept it secret. I do wonder how many children reading the book will be able to appreciate the despair of a once great, and famous man, who believes the world has forgotten him. Perhaps it is therefore appropriate that Selznick focuses largely on Hugo, but it is also a shame as I thought the book lacked the emotional punch Méliès’s story could have provided. The story the book tells is actually quite similar to Méliès’s life; he really did spend time working as a toy salesman at the Gare Montparnasse before his achievements in film were recognised.

This book isn’t nearly as original as its publishers claim it to be; it sticks with all the clichés of children’s literature - orphans, mysterious artefacts, grumpy adults hiding a heart of gold. It lacks the humour that Martin Scorcese wisely introduced into the film by fleshing out minor characters. Nevertheless The Invention of Hugo Cabret is a charming book, one that I’m sure will be enjoyed by children (and adults) for years to come.