Keep Looking

Nearly forty years ago I found myself exploring the Jordan River (Michigan) when canoeing with friends.  This vantage point, being in the valley and on the water, was breathtaking.  To fully experience the vastness of this 18,000 acre block of state-owned forest land a drive down one of the nearby county roads, cruising up hills and down again and winding around corners, provides you with stunning vistas.  On a clear day with the sun at the right height the hues of red, gold and orange in autumn are stunning.  In the winter months all the bare branches look like a border of black lace between the ground and sky.  As the days get warmer and longer hints of green begin appearing until, seemingly overnight a variety of shades spreads throughout the trees like delicate filigree.

Fairly early I learned not to wish my life away but the waiting between seasons, knowing the beauty each one brings, is never easy.  In Carin Berger's latest title, Finding Spring (Greenwillow Books, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, January 27, 2015) a cub can't wait to experience this change.  Curiosity leads him on a merry chase.

The forest was growing cold.
Mama said that soon it would be time to sleep,
but all Maurice could think about was his first spring. 

He makes a melody of the word, singing as they follow the path through the woods. Maurice wants spring more than he wants to sleep. Mama softly speaks to him before she drifts into slumber.

Wrapped in his red scarf Maurice ventures outside to find spring.  All his forest friends are busy getting ready for winter.  Squirrel, rabbit, deer and robin each advise him to wait as they bury, dash, eat or fly.  Fueled by the eagerness of his age he keeps on walking but he begins to sense something unfamiliar.

This newness must be spring. First one than another of those frosty flowers, no two alike, touch Maurice before quickly disappearing.  Racing after them through the woods and over an ice-covered stream to stand on the Great Hill, he is very nearly speechless at the spectacle before him.  He breaks into song.

Taking off his scarf he tucks some spring inside. Returning to their cozy den, he sleeps contentedly next to Mama.  Maybe because he got a late start, Maurice is the last to wake up.  His collected proof has vanished.  With maternal wisdom, Mama asks the right question.


With her words Carin Berger brings readers into a story soothing but sprightly in tone.  She blends a world coming to rest with a little bear ready for adventure.  Eloquent descriptions of place and Maurice's experiences make us feel as though we are there with him.  Here are two sample passages.

"I am looking for spring,"
Maurice told Squirrel.
"That might take a while,"
Squirrel chittered,
turning to bury
a large acorn.

The woods 
smelled musky,
and there was 
something new
and tangy
in the air.


The rolling hills dotted with flowers extend flap edge to flap edge on the dust jacket (working from an F & G). Carin Berger portrays the flowers spinning in the air above Maurice's head to replicate his observations of winter.  On the left (back) of the jacket on the creamy background we read

Spring is all a little bear
named Maurice
can think about.
Where is it?
What is it?
When will it arrive?


On the opening and closing endpapers Berger uses old-looking dark tan lined paper with the lines running vertically.  A single path of tiny seeds blowing in the wind twirls from edge to edge along the upper half.  (On the verso at the back we see from where the seeds come.) Maurice is running along past a patch of grass and flowers placed under the text on the title page.

Using cut-paper collages made

using ephemera, such as catalogues, old books, receipts, letters, and ticket stubs

Carin Berger fashions a world of gentle, playful wonder using a full color palette leaning toward more natural colors.  Fine lines, exquisite detail and marvelous points of view invite readers to look at each illustration carefully.  Image sizes span across two pages or several smaller visuals may be grouped together to match the rhythm of the text.  The articles of clothing worn by the forest animals add to the overall whimsy.  Matte-finished paper lends itself beautifully to the overall softness of the narrative.

One of my favorite pictures of many is a single page.  We are looking down at Maurice as he stands between two trees.  Berger has cut out dainty branches in circular shapes.  A single small snowflake is touching the tip of Maurice's nose.  The text arcs around the top of the bottom tree.  This announces a shift in the story line.

With every reading of Finding Spring written and illustrated by Carin Berger the story becomes more endearing.  It reminds us we might find something special and beautiful when looking for something else.  It reminds us to enjoy every single day of the present while anticipating the future.  Everything about the illustrations, the texture, the blend of light and shadow, colors, intricate elements and layout, is remarkable.

To discover more about Carin Berger and her work please visit her website by following the link attached to her name.  Julie Danielson, author and blogger at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast, features her in an interview at Kirkus.  Artwork will follow on her blog this week.  She also talked with Carin Berger last year at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast about this title.  There are several illustrations about the process in making the art for this book. UPDATE:  HarperCollins Childrens blog posted this activity for making shadow boxes to go with this title.

Soothing Slumber

If we trust our instincts, follow a hunch, the results are frequently surprising in the best possible way.  It's almost as if some unseen hand is guiding our way.  Untold treasures await us.

Twenty years ago, Amy Gary, editor of the Margaret Wise Brown Estate, on a whim asked Brown's sister, Roberta Rauch, if she knew of any unpublished works.  Can you imagine hearing an affirmative reply? Stacked in a trunk kept in the attic of the barn on her Vermont farm were pages and pages of poems, stories and musical scores.  Last week some of those gems were released into the world, collected in a title, Goodnight Songs: Illustrated by Twelve Award-Winning Picture Book Artists (Sterling Children's Books, March 4, 2014).  The words of Margaret Wise Brown have been visualized by Jonathan Bean, Carin Berger, Sophie Blackall, Linda Bleck, Renata Liwska, Christopher Silas Neal, Zachariah OHora, Eric Puybaret, Sean Qualls, Isabel Roxas, Melissa Sweet and Dan Yaccarino.

Appealing to the inherent musical nature of children these twelve lyrical poems cast a gossamer net pulsing with a gentle cadence around all who read them.  They encourage dreams of playful fantasy uninterrupted by nothing until the morning dawns.  Any cares of the daytime will float away as evening falls through the text and pictures.  Margaret Wise Brown's simple repetitive phrases float and dance off the pages.

Readers find themselves traveling by balloon in the company of a bear, baboon, monkey, troll and mole.  They are lulled to sleep by a very particular melody or in following the nighttime rituals of a goat, or a rabbit and a bear.  I'll wager most readers are unaware of the man in the moon's youth.

Safety on the seas is found in the arms of another.  They learn of those who see what others do not.  Roads travel vertically through an abandoned town constructed entirely of wood.  One by one a donkey, a monkey, a sheep, a pig, birds, a black cat and a child are asked to close their eyes.

What do you see when you close your eyes?  What do you hear in the night?  What might a mouse ask for in a prayer?  Blissful peace is assured.

Two pages are dedicated to each song; illustrations extending edge to edge on heavy matte finished paper.  While the color of the font may vary the same is used in all the text.  The text is tucked within each picture, noticeable but not a distraction.  Tiny white stars seen on the dust jacket and matching book case pattern the opening and closing endpapers.

Renata Liwska captures the soft slumbering characters of The Noon Balloon nestled in fluffy clouds suspended in a pale blue sky.  Intricate lines, exquisite architectural details and a boat riding the waves beneath a full moon ease a child into dreamland drawn by Sophie Blackall in Mambian Melody.  Goats with teddy bears and stuffed toy rabbits and drinking from large pink tea cups populate mountains and hills where skunks carry lanterns and hedgehogs huddle in Goat on the Mountain visualized by Linda Bleck.

Sleep like a Rabbit illustrated by Isabel Roxas pictures a pig-tailed girl in a red dress sleeping near a bear and a rabbit adrift in a sea of stars.  This is also the jacket and case illustration.  Unique, painted, collage-like clouds and stars float around a mustached man in the moon as his younger self runs across his surface when Sean Qualls pictures When the Man in the Moon Was a Little Boy. As if surrounded in a wispy fog Song to Estyn, illustrated by Eric Puybaret, shows a man in a long golden all-weather coat, captain's hat on his head holding a child in a sailor suit on board a ship.

Melissa Sweet's signature style, of pastel collage with splashes of red, pieces together The Secret Song.  White block-like houses, one on top of the other, are strung together by a ribbon road of red among green tulips on a midnight blue background by Christoper Silas Neal for Wooden Town.  An orange, blue, black and white palette feature creatures looking upon and living in a town as a child gazes out his window in Little Donkey Close Your Eyes portrayed by Zachariah OHora.

Blue and white striped curtains billow around the stage set with green birds, blue clouds and rows of cut-out houses in Carin Berger's interpretation of When I Close My Eyes. Bold, bright orange-yellow, orange, green, purple and shades of dark blue mesh perfectly to create the quiet found in Sounds in the Night pictured by Dan Yaccarino.  It's a windy, winter night, leaves and snow swirling about under a full moon as a child sleeps beneath a large leaf and a mouse stands in the doorway of his cozy home in The Mouse's Prayer depicted by Jonathan Bean.

Stunning pictures lift the words of Margaret Wise Brown toward dreamland in Goodnight Songs: Illustrated by Twelve Award-Winning Picture Book Artists.  As if the text and visuals are not enough to hold readers spellbound, a CD with the words set to music by Tom Proutt and Emily Gary is included.  I have listened to it twice as of this writing.  It is truly lovely.  You could not ask for a better book for closing out your day or bringing a small measure of calm into an afternoon.

Two pages at the book's conclusion include thumbnails of the illustrations along with comments about or by the illustrators.  A note from the musicians and credits are inserted on the closing endpapers.  An introduction by Amy Gary begins this title.

I hope you enjoy these videos.  I was made aware of some of them through tweets by the illustrators.



Goodnight Songs: Chris Neal, contributing illustrator from Sterling Publishing on Vimeo.



Goodnight Songs: Sean Qualls, contributing illustrator from Sterling Publishing on Vimeo.



Goodnight Songs: Sophie Blackall, contributing illustrator from Sterling Publishing on Vimeo.



Goodnight Songs: Carin Berger, contributing illustrator from Sterling Publishing on Vimeo.



Goodnight Songs: Isabel Roxas, contributing illustrator from Sterling Publishing on Vimeo.


Goodnight Songs: DanYacarino, contributing illustrator from Sterling Publishing on Vimeo.



Goodnight Songs: Amy Gary, editor of Goodnight Songs by Margaret Wise Brown from Sterling Publishing on Vimeo.

Familiar But Not So Familiar...

I can hear it as if it was yesterday; William Shatner's voice booming out from the television screen.

Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.

By definition space is the final frontier.

an outer limit in a field of endeavor, especially one in which the opportunities for research and development have not been exploited (Dictionary.com)

In my way of thinking there is yet another unexplored realm whose boundaries will be out of reach for many, many years; the mysterious realm of the human imagination.

A perfect example of the every-changing landscape of creativity is poetry; to be specific the poetry of  Jack Prelutsky, Poetry Foundation's Poet Laureate from 2006 to 2008. In his 2013 title, Stardines Swim High Across The Sky and other poems (Greenwillow Books) he has recently returned from parts unknown with a collection of creatures.  His narrative about these unusual beings are cleverly illustrated by Carin Berger.

STARDINES swim high across the sky,
And brightly shine as they glide by.
In giant schools, their brilliant lights
Illuminate the darkest nights. ...

Of the twenty-four specimens accompanying Mr. Prelutsky on his return we are informed of only a portion.  A contents section lists sixteen odd names whose characteristics, habits and activities are disclosed in a collection of poems.  It appears each is an unlikely combination of two words, creating beings of the utmost quirkiness.

Within the pages of this book we find not only the result of matching stars and sardines but of bluffs with buffaloes, chores with cormorants, fountains with mountains lions and plans with pandas.  It is not unusual to read about the joyous Jollyfish, the annoying Magpipes, the brilliant Braindeer or the picky Panteater.  Who knew about the peculiar feline shedding tears all day every day?


Using two different patterns, variations on rhyming schemes, Jack Prelutsky introduces, educates and entertains.  For each poem the features of the two individually are blended and enhanced, through what can only be described as sumptuous vocabulary, to give us a very distinct picture.  When read aloud they roll off your tongue with a toe-tapping beat.


According to the verso, the miniature dioramas in this book are assemblages created using a combination of cut paper, found ephemera, vintage engravings (which were scanned, manipulated in Photoshop, and then printed out), beeswax, wire, thread, and wood.  Once each piece was made, it was then photographed digitally to prepare the full-color art.  Carin Berger begins with elements from the book to piece together the front and back jacket.  When the jacket is removed the cover is a replica of a wooden shadow box, smooth with beautiful grains, labels carefully positioned to hold the title, author and illustrator text.

The opening and closing endpapers use various types of graph or composition paper as a background for items used to make each diorama; scissors, tweezers, exacto knife, tiny paint brush, rivets, pins, tacks, glue and labels.  The two page spreads for each creature is like going through a natural history museum; no detail is left to chance.  All have a phonetic spelling of the name strategically placed on one of the pages.  Many of the animals have identifying labels as part of the design more than once.

Each picture playfully matches with equal inventiveness the corresponding poem.  For the Fountain Lion Berger pictures the lion standing in water an elaborate fountain atop its head, water cascading down.  For that added sense of fun she has one paw extended holding a pail to catch the water.  Words like intricate, artistic, painstaking come to mind when viewing each.


Stardines Swim High Across The Sky and other poems written by Jack Prelutsky with illustrations by Carin Berger is an impressive collaboration.  A collection of poems featuring creatures from an ever-changing final frontier such as these will intrigue listeners, invite fabrication and inspection and delight for their sheer absurdity.  For a peek at more of the book head to the publisher site linked here. Carin Berger was interviewed at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast several years ago but the discussion remains relevant. (link here)  Links to the author and illustrator official websites are embedded in their names above.