These Things Are True

When I looked out my front window this morning, I knew I would see the row of snow-capped mountain peaks reaching toward the sky like eager fingers.  I knew flashes of white, black and iridescent blue would signal the gathering of the resident magpies roosting in their favorite pine tree.  I knew chickadees would be flitting from bush to bush and tree to tree.  When I looked through my back window I knew I would see piles of needless and cones on my deck and yard dropped from the Ponderosa pines.  I knew the tiny lights on Xena's tree would be twinkling in the early morning light.

What I did not know was a new bird with a song so sweet it sounded like a symphony would pass through my yard.  I did not know I would gasp in surprise at the row of lilac bushes now wearing green in their boughs as if some garden fairy had waved a wand last night.  That's the gift each day brings to us; the known and the unknown.

How fortunate it is for those who learn at an earlier rather than a later age of the true beauty to be found in being open to all the little and big things offered to us within the moments of our lives.  The Knowing Book (Boyd Mills Press, an imprint of Highlights, February 23, 2016) written by Rebecca Kai Dotlich with illustrations by Matthew Cordell depicts the potential for discovery right outside our own doorways.  It's a path worth following.

Before you forget...
...look up.

Regardless of the weather the sky is there...always.  When you begin your day, there is more than one direction you can take.  The whisper of a song or of a tear will never steer you wrong.

Let every single one of your senses, seeing, hearing, tasting, touching and smelling, should operate at their full potential.  What do they tell you?  Is your intuition sending a message?  Listen.  Learn.  Stop and think some more.

Be prepared but if you should stray from the familiar, be ready to embrace the unexplored.  You are smarter than you believe yourself to be.  You will do the right thing at the right time.  Give yourself the pause needed to dream of all you can be, should be and want to be.

Let the child in your heart go free by seeking the simple and embracing the bliss it can bring.  As the day draws to a close and the route you chose guides you home, surround yourself with the night noises.  Remember.  Remember to end as you started.


Each time I've read this book the passages divided by page turns have encouraged me to stop.  Rebecca Kai Dotlich has spun a narrative, a guide, which wraps around you like a melody as you read.  Her poetic words find the heartbeat of our individual universes within the greater whole inviting us to embrace each rhythm.  Here is a sample passage.

Don't be too busy to slosh in a puddle
or fly a kite,
or too important to pick up the lost coin
or the common shell.
These small things are coveted by giants.


I want to stand on the grassy hill, the roof of the rabbit's home, at night.  I want to feel the breeze that is blowing the scarf.  I want to sense the vastness of the sky as I lift my head joining this child in star gazing.  Matthew Cordell extends the image over the spine of the matching dust jacket and book case to the left given us a vision of a huge patchwork landscape of hills, trees and paths. (Be sure to run your hands over the title text on the dust jacket.)  The opening endpapers depict the early morning light of a sky patched with clouds.  The star-studded night returns on the closing endpapers.  Beneath the text on the title page the rabbit stands outside looking at that morning sky from a hilltop, smiling, waiting and watching.

The exuberance running through the author's words is masterfully presented in each illustration.  Cordell's signature loose lines and tiny details explicitly mirror every mood of the rabbit and the bird companion throughout the day.  To begin a fading crescent moon hangs in the sky.  When the rabbit leaves home the interior room includes pictures on the wall of family members and the little bird, and delicate dishes and bottles on a table, vessels for rabbit things like carrots.

When the rabbit and bird rest on a hill to search for magic, sit in a tree to imagine, seek a pathway or pretend when looking at cloud formations, Cordell's pictures bring us into each wonderful scene.  Many of his illustrations span two pages or if they are separate smaller pictures his design has elements from one become part of another.  For most of the visuals the perspective is similar but when rabbit blows the horn we are close to him, the words direct us to this intimacy.

One of my favorite of several illustrations is the first one featured on a single page.  The morning appears in faint shades of green and pink glowing within the clouds, the moon growing pale in the dawn.  On a small hilltop stands the rabbit.  His/her back is to us, scarf billowing out mostly on the right.  The rabbit's arms are away from his/her body's sides, lifting upward to greet the day.  You can almost hear a voice saying "Here I am world.  What are we going to do today?"


The Knowing Book written by Rebecca Kai Dotlich with illustrations by Matthew Cordell is a book for all ages.  It literally radiates with warmth reaching out to readers, offering them comfort so they can experience everything found in each day.  It is an ode in words and pictures to life.

To learn more about Rebecca Kai Dotlich and Matthew Cordell please visit their websites by following the links attached to their names.  This link will take you to Matthew Cordell's blog. As part of several blog posts during the release of the title please check out the interviews at Geo Librarian, and  The Little Crooked Cottage.  Educator Paul Hankins highlights this title in a blog post at These 4 Corners about the process of remixing an F & G.  Educator Michele Knott showcases this book on her blog Mrs. Knott's Book Nook offering mentor text suggestions.  Matthew Cordell was a guest at author, reviewer and blogger Julie Danielson's Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast on December 15, 2015.

The Middle

On the first day when you begin working with a new group of students in a storytelling class, panic is heavy in the air.  Most of them, if not all, believe they have to learn a story word for word. Relief floods the room when they are informed this is not the case.  First there is reading, lots of reading to find a tale which speaks to them personally.  Stories choose you.

Then each selected piece is taken down to the bare bones.  You look for the skeleton, the beginning, the middle and the end. What you add makes it your telling of the story.  With this process comes the realization of the difference between memorization and learning by heart.  One Day The End: Short, Very Short, Shorter-than-Ever Stories (Boyds Mills Press, an imprint of Highlights, October 6, 2015) written by Rebecca Kai Dotlich with illustrations by Fred Koehler explores the creation of story.  Everyone has tales to tell.

For every STORY there is a BEGINNING and an END, but what happens IN BETWEEN makes ALL the DIFFERENCE.

Our young protagonist has nine beginnings and nine endings.  Each is marvelously realistic and ordinary.  To get from the identical One day to the final The End are a series of events filled with the delightful details of a day well-spent.

To school, at school and home again are made better with a delish treat.  A squirrel's teasing leads to a disaster averted by keen detective work.  Hours of hide-and-seek, a craft-fest mess and an adventure equal welcome rest, heartfelt hugs and a new feathered friend.

A mission impossible becomes possible.  Trampling away troubles triumphs.  Rub-dub-a-dub a duo in the tub makes for total merriment.  This little girl has a dream and it comes true story by story.


Leaving home and returning, losing and finding, making and giving, and wanting and doing, leave openings for a myriad of opportunities.  Rebecca Kai Dotlich with her simple sentences and carefully chosen words gives us a glimpse into the beauty of telling our stories.  She shows us how we need to tap into our experiences like her character does.


Upon opening the dust jacket and matching book case readers are greeted by a bold golden yellow background filled with the large block letters ONE DAY on the front and THE END to the left on the back.  The other portions of the title are written in smaller script.  The little girl uses the letters as if they are parts of a jungle gym.  On the front she and her dog are raised and glossy.  Her happiness is contagious.  The beginning endpapers are in a soft orange and the closing endpapers are covered in a light brown.

The illustrations, rendered digitally by Fred Koehler, start to extend and enhance the narrative on the title page.  The young girl, nibbling on a cookie, is looking at the reader from the open doorway of her home.  As she takes a variety of detours on her way to school, chasing after her cat with her dog chasing after a squirrel, her escapades begin in earnest.

The ingenuity of Koehler's technique incorporating the text within the images is brilliant.  Tiny items, individual elements and smaller images form a larger whole depicting this child, her brother, cat and dog in constant motion.  The color palette on a matte-finished paper adds to the spirit of the story line.  Everything...yes everything...flows perfectly.

One of my favorite two illustrations is for the text

One day...
I LOST MY DOG.
I found HIM! 
The end 

On the first two pages the little girl is sitting in a swing reading a book as her dog, nearby, is eyeing a squirrel.  A blue ball with yellow stars forms the "O" in One day.  Then the dog plays with the ball and swims in a kiddie pool.  The squirrel leads him on a race right out of the yard.  The pooch does have to dig a hole to continue pursuit.  With a page turn the girl follows the pawprints which form found.  Guess who's curled up and sound asleep inside the circle of the "d" in found?


One Day The End: Short, Very Short, Shorter-than-Ever Stories written by Rebecca Kai Dotlich with illustrations by Fred Koehler is a fantastic tribute to creativity.  It demonstrates how highlighting the little (and not so little) everyday things in our lives can be great fun for others.  There is something for every age in this book.  One day I read this book.  I read it over and over.  You should too. The End.

To find further information about Rebecca Kai Dotlich and Fred Koehler please follow the links attached to their names to access their websites.  Rebecca Kai Dotlich was interviewed on The Picturebooking Podcast, Episode 028.   Fred Koehler was featured in an article in The Ledger.  John Schumacher, Scholastic's Ambassador for School Libraries, included this title as one of his best books of 2015 as early as May at Watch. Connect. Read.

UPDATE:  February 22, 2016 Rebecca Kai Dotlich is interviewed by author Dianne White at ReaderKidz.

Under The Spell

What compels people to read fairy tales?  What brings us back to them again and again?  What makes us search out new variations?

 In response to a question Albert Einstein stated If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales.  If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.  C. S. Lewis thought sometimes fairy stories say best what needs to be said. One of my favorite phrases, attributed to G. K. Chesterton, though is Fairy tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us dragons can be beaten.

No matter the age of the reader or listener, fairy tales fulfill a need deep within for the connection provided by storytelling with beginnings in the oral tradition.  They provide potent possibilities for digging deeper into the personalities of the characters, changing point of view, and expanding or altering the narrative itself.  Authors Jane Yolen and Rebecca Kai Dotlich explore these ideas in Grumbles from the Forest: Fairy-Tale Voices with a Twist (WordSong, an imprint of Highlights, March 1, 2013) with artwork by Matt Mahurin.

Once
Once, oh once, there was, was not,
A girl, princess, mermaid, widow, witch, queen, wife,
A boy, king, soldier, wizard, troll, giant,
Magic
      Life. ...

With those compelling words Jane Yolen casts a net of magic over readers bringing them into a collection of poetry.  Fifteen fairy tales, two poems for each, one written by Yolen, the other by Dotlich.

A disgruntled fairy bemoans a single kiss as a voice demands the princess to snap out of it and take control, even as they are snacking on sweet treats, Gretel and Hansel know fear and false bravado, and with love strong for the Beast and the boy, musings made in the future wonder about the joys of parenthood.  Would the Gingerbread Boy have left knowing how heartbroken his makers would be?  Not surprisingly, glass slippers are not all they're cracked up to be.

Frazzled by his position the pea speaks out after years of silence.  It's a good thing sticks and stones break bones and not names because the Princess is not kind to the Frog.  It's about time Goldilocks writes an apology letter but she still is clueless about the real homeowners. On the closing page, the net still surrounding us, we read in part, Rebecca Kai Dotlich's advice, her wish,

Happily Ever After
Imagine them all
after the plotting, after the ball,
after the spelling, hopping, sweeping,
grumping, grousing, mopping, sleeping,
from small glass shoe to nuisance pea, 
so ever after, all happily be--- ...



Jane Yolen and Rebecca Kai Dotlich using words like pixie dust weave spells over readers stretching our thinking about what we believe we know about these fifteen fairy tales.  A poetic variety, free verse, couplets, cinquain, and haiku, brings us into the rhythm of the realm with and without rhyme.  As individual as the writers themselves, the poems still maintain the essence of each story plus a little more.


A golden doorway beckons readers through the darkened forest, as hints of tales told are tucked among the trees or scattered along the path on the jacket and cover; a frightened Frog Prince thrown and flying is pictured on the back.  Paintings by Matt Mahurin each covering a full two pages add dimension to the poems with shifting shades, light, then dark, then back again to light, mirroring the mood of all.  Altering perspective adds an extra effect to the illustrations; a wintry landscape with roses blooming, Beast embracing Beauty, the side of a face, mouth gaping, Gingerbread Boy balanced precariously on the teeth or the Woodsman's axe prying open the huge wolf's jaws as Red Riding Hood reaches in for her Grandmother.

Details further define the views of the voices; a broken bed, the two pieces on opposite pages of Sleeping Beauty's tale, the sly, grotesque features on the Witch's face as she stirs the pot in contrast to the innocent wholesomeness of Hansel and Gretel as they reach for the candies and one of the Bear's lifting a sleeping mask from Goldilocks face revealing an open eye.  The layout, placement of the poems, does not distract, being framed by the visuals inviting, always inviting, the reader.  One of my favorites is for Rumpelstiltskin.  A darkened background highlights his cunning face and upper body as straw from his outstretched left hand arcs over his head changing to gold coins piling into his right hand.  Directly above his head and the arc is a sleeping infant.


Grumbles from the Forest: Fairy-Tale Voices with a Twist written by Jane Yolen and Rebecca Kai Dotlich with illustrations by Matt Mahurin not only opens new doors into familiar stories but challenges readers to always look beyond the known. As an introduction to fairy tales or a reminder of the opportunities they present, this collection of poems is a welcome chorus.  Having read these over and over, silently and aloud, their magic is of the kind that lingers.

Between the last set of poems and concluding poem, two pages list the fifteen fairy tales adding a few sentences about their origin and basic storyline along with several websites with more information.  As part of the title verso which poems written by each author are designated. Please follow the links to the websites for the authors and illustrator embedded in their names above.