From The Deep

Individuals who are avid fishermen and fisherwomen for sport or livelihood all have an one-that-got-away tale.  They remember the exact date and time of day.  They can tell you if the water was like glass, rippling, choppy or rocky with waves.  They remember if the air felt cool or hot on their faces, or if they could smell smoke from burning campfires, rain on the way or salt, lots of salt.  If birds were calling, they can still hear that sound.  If the sky was awash in the colors of sunrise or sunset, crystal blue or gray with clouds, they can see it in every detail.  These people can bring you back into those experienced moments.

The voice of a fictional character Ishmael, a crew member aboard the ship, Pequod, led by Captain Ahab, in the book Moby-Dick by Herman Melville revolves around the pursuit of a huge white whale that cannot be caught and killed.  This is an epic one-that-got-away story of adventure.  Mighty Moby (Little, Brown And Company, August 1, 2017) presented to readers by author Barbara DaCosta and illustrator Ed Young is inspired by this classic piece of American literature.

"Three long years we've been at sea,
Homeward bound we want to be,
A-sailing, sailing, a-sailing-oh..."

Though home is where these whalers want to be, their captain seeks revenge.  He will not stop until they sight the monstrous whale.  The words ring out

"There she blows!"

The captain shouts out in determination at his enemy.  He urges his men to get in the boats.  They must rid the ocean of this menace.  They row quickly and quietly to position themselves near the beast.

A harpoon flies through the air.  Will the captain strike a deadly blow?  The harpoon holds with the whale dragging the boat, leaping up and then, down...down...down.  The men in the other boats wait in fear.

A mountain of water erupts as the gigantic whale rises from the deep.  WAIT!  The story has to continue!  Perhaps it will progress or start over again with a slight shift in the plot.  Nevertheless another captain has spoken and a crew member responds in agreement and with respect.


Taking actual words from Moby-Dick with the exception of one (We are challenged to guess that one word.), Barbara DaCosta wrote this text employing several writing techniques found in the original classic.  The phrases in italics at the beginning and end of the story can be sung like sea chanteys or ballads.  This gives the excursion, the mission of vengeance, authenticity.

Using a blend of dialogue and narrative the sentences string together elevating the tension.  We feel the whalers' worry, the captain's anger and the whale's determination to thwart its predator again.  This is a marvelous prelude to the surprising twist at the end.  Here is a sample passage.

"Shh! There he is," the captain whispered.
"Row quiet...
Row fast...
Hold steady now---"


You can feel your pulse quicken when you look at the unfolded dust jacket.  The color palette of black and hues of red continues to the edges of the flaps.  The print is in red.  The outrage of the whale is evident as it climbs to the surface of the ocean.  To the left, on the back, an outline of a ship in trouble is almost glowing among the flaming color.  The book case is awash in the same shades.  On the front the perspective of the whale is closer with the ship superimposed on the back portion near the tail.

The opening and closing endpapers in tones of cream and tan looks like swirls of water.  In the upper right-hand corner the ship hangs, almost in balance.  Stretching across the verso and title pages the body of the whale provides a background for the text.  With a page turn we see a black canvas with three sailors dancing and singing the three opening lines.

Ed Young's cut-paper collage is stunning.  Each image spans two pages.  When the whale is sighted and the peg-legged captain shouts out his warning, you can actually feel the movement of the ship on the waves.  With ease and great skill Ed Young moves from a close point-of-view of the whalers getting in the boats with harpoons and ropes to a majestic scene of the whale on the expanse of sea with moonlight glittering on the water.  The small boats and men are moving in close to it.

One of my favorite of several illustrations is when the whale dives into the ocean with the harpoon, rope and the captain trailing behind.  It is one of six vertical pictures.  In the upper left-hand corner the small captain (in comparison to the whale) is clinging to the rope.  Amid a blend of greens and blacks, water and kelp, the whale dives.  All we see is the enormous red tail and lower portion of the body.

With each page turn of this book, the art and words will have you either reading silently in awe or gasping aloud in appreciation.  The superb pacing employed by Barbara DaCosta and Ed Young in Mighty Moby is astounding making the conclusion simply the best.  I encourage you to get a copy for your professional bookshelves and one for your personal collections, too.

To discover more about both Barbara DaCosta and Ed Young and their other work please follow the links attached to their names to access their websites.  A website for this title can be found here.  It has information about the process, news and reviews, resources, FAQ section and contact information.  Author, reviewer and blogger Julie Danielson highlights this title at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast.  Ed Young visits All The Wonders, Episode 318 podcast with teacher librarian Matthew Winner.

It Is Sufficient

Each decade of our lives can be viewed as a milestone.  We set goals and have dreams.  Some of them are realized; others take more time to reach.  We come to understand the journey is often more important than arriving at a destination.

We weigh the value in having what we need as opposed to what we want.  If we are fortunate we learn earlier rather than later, those things we prize most usually don't have the largest monetary worth.  The Cat From Hunger Mountain (Philomel Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, November 15, 2016) written and illustrated by Caldecott Medal winner and two time Caldecott Honor winner Ed Young is a story where we shadow an individual who lacks for nothing except for a true vision of the world.

Once on Hunger Mountain, there lived a wealthy lord who had everything imaginable, yet never had enough.

His home was the highest of any on the mountain constructed by the best builders.  His clothing was unsurpassed in beauty and fabric. Skilled hunters brought him the finest meats which were prepared by the most talented culinary experts.

His greed was so excessive; he had no concept of the need to consume all his food when served.  The rice grown on Hunger Mountain was the finest in the land washed by the lord's servants in the Great River.  The workers could never work fast enough harvesting and washing the rice.

One year a drought struck.  All the crops perished without water.  The lord did not notice.  When the drought persisted a second year, the people left Hunger Mountain.  Even though everyone was gone, the lord stayed unwilling to leave his acquired wealth.

Eventually the lord was starving.  Over great distances he wandered in search of food.  Two similar travelers directed him to a special person in a special place.  Upon his arrival at the head of a line, the lord asked a question.  The answer left him stunned.


With simple, spare text the tale is told by the masterful Ed Young.  No word is wasted; each contributing and building toward a stunning revelation.  We are the listeners and he is the weaver of words.  Dialogue is built into the narrative to give us a more personal experience.  Here is a passage.

When Lord Cat's servants asked if their master had finished his meal, they were scolded.
"Are you blind?  Can't you see that the bowl is half-empty?  Take it away."


Exquisite paper collage invites readers to read this story when viewing the front of the dust jacket.  The silhouette of the cat, bowl lifted to the ladle, is a hint of events to come.  Over the spine to the left, on the back, a light cream paper is the background for torn paper water.

The book case replicates the ornate spine seen on the jacket.  A textured, silver gray paper is used for the canvas on the back and front.  On the right of the opened case, the cat image outline is embossed into the paper.

A golden brown, a darker shade of the tones on the dust jacket front, covers the opening and closing endpapers.  On the title page the jacket and case spine paper frames the text.  A quote is placed above a larger visual of the torn paper water opposite the verso page.

All of the interior illustrations span two pages in glorious depictions of the journey the Lord Cat takes toward a life lesson.  In the first one a small tree is placed in the Lord Cat's room.  Intricate lattice work fills a window.  His clothing here and in all the pictures is a lavish blend of texture and color.

The portrayal of his tailor as a peacock, builders as rats (mice), his hunters as falcons, pandas as his servants and the wise generous person as a turtle clearly place this tale as a fable.  The papers selected for each animal depict their physical characteristics as well as their roles in this story.  One facial expression in particular will take your breath away.

One of my favorite of many illustrations is of the Lord Cat directing a worker on the building of his pagoda.  You can see in the distance, far below, the outlines of the rice paddies on the left and for a portion of the page on the right.  The Lord Cat is reaching upward as he speaks to the rat (mouse) worker.  His paw and claw are highlighted against a full moon.  To the left the building rises, bundles of bamboo against the sides.

You can fully understand why The Cat From Hunger Mountain written and illustrated by Ed Young is selected as one of the ten titles on The New York Times Best Illustrated Children's Books of 2016.  The eloquent images provide stunning enhancement to the well-told story.  This book asks readers to read it over and over and over again noticing all the details.  This is one title you need to read.

To learn more about Ed Young and his other work take a few minutes to visit his website by following the link attached to his name.  At the publisher's website you can view the title page.  Ed Young is The Society of Illustrators' recipient for the 2016 Lifetime Achievement Award (Contemporary).  Other works by and illustrated by Ed Young on this blog are The House Baba Built: An Artist's Childhood in China, Nighttime Ninja written by Barbara DaCosta, and A Strange Place To Call Home:  The World's Most Dangerous Habitats & The Animals That Call Them Home written by Marilyn Singer.

Enjoy seeing the book case courtesy of a tweet by John Schumacher, Scholastic's Ambassador of School Libraries and blogger at Watch. Connect. Read.

The Cat from Hunger Mountain's case: https://t.co/xXUq04wkx2

— John Schu (@MrSchuReads) November 17, 2016

Impressive Inhabitants

In thinking of the most unlikely places for any specie to live, only to discover something actually lives there, is cause for filing these notable nuggets of information in the amazing folder.  It makes you pause to ponder the instinct for survival, the ability to adapt in extreme conditions.  Then the questions start to come; the how, the why, the when.

With National Poetry Month fast approaching an enjoyable introduction to such unusual creatures with  unique features, would be through the reading of poems.  A Strange Place To Call Home:  The World's Most Dangerous Habitats & The Animals That Call Them Home (Chronicle Books, August 22, 2012) written by Marilyn Singer with illustrations by Ed Young is a collection of fourteen poems as singular as the animals they describe.  These poems give us eyes into worlds and animals we might otherwise never encounter.

Hear "penguins," think cold,
think riding on floes.
Who pictures them swimming
where it seldomly snows,
on the dry, dry coasts
of Chile or Peru,
with no ice to slide on,
no glaciers to view?

We travel to the western edge of South America, to the island of Japan, to assorted points within the United States, inside glaciers in the northern hemisphere, to underground caves in Texas and Mexico, to salt flats, deep under the sea, mountaintops, the intertidal zone, deserts, the mangroves, and pools of oil to discover the living quarters of these astonishing inhabitants. We are introduced to penguins who bury their eggs to avoid the heat, monkeys who stay warm by bathing in hot springs, toads who only come above ground when it rains, worms who live in tubes deep under the sea, blind fish and foxes who now prefer life in the city. Each poem focuses on the uncommon characteristics of animal and area dispelling what readers may have thought they knew about either.

Marilyn Singer has chosen to use a variety of poetic forms throughout, selecting a style which best serves to highlight each animal and its habitat.  Free verse, informal rhyme, triolet, haiku, sonnet, cinquain, villanelle and terza rima are matched to the blind cave fish, limpets, mudskippers, spadefoot toads, mountain goats, petroleum flies, flamingos and camels respectively.  Singer not only informs but guides readers to seek answers.


The mysterious, deep sea dark jacket and matching cover serve to draw readers to the selections as well as highlight an introductory poem on the back.  Bright sky blue opening and closing endpapers marbleized in white to give the appearance of splashing water, are in sharp contrast as are the environments visited in the poems.  Caldecott Medal winner Ed Young beautifully renders the title's illustrations in collage.

Each two-page spread is dedicated to a single animal with a color palette reflecting their home and their physical characteristics.  Young alternates perspective to give readers a more intimate relationship with each; much like a photographer does peering through the camera lens.  His use of different materials gives an authentic quality of texture to each visual; an appeal to the senses.  Of the fourteen my two favorites are those for the flamingos and the limpets; shades of coral, red and pink, long legs, graceful necks feeding in the salty land and the waves crashing among the rocks, lined spirals clinging like clustered hats.


A Strange Place To Call Home:  The World's Most Dangerous Habitats & The Animals That Call Them Home is a collection of poems written by Marilyn Singer with collage illustrations by Ed Young that is meant to be shared.  Surely they are to be read for enjoyment but each one invites further investigation.  I found myself frequently looking for more information after the reading of several.  There are endnotes for the animals at the back as well as a single page explaining poetic forms.

A Strange Place to Call Home by

In this video from Reading Rockets Marilyn Singer talks about poetry in general and writing poetry with students.  She includes some great ideas.

In The Midnight Hour

In your imagination there are no limits.  You can be anyone, do anything, or go anywhere anytime for no reason whatsoever.  Under the cover of darkness the magic of the mind doubles its powers.

In many a story when the clock strikes twelve, what is impossible in the daylight hours can now be attempted with confidence.  It goes without saying, when one assumes an alternate identity, it is done with the knowledge that success is pretty much guaranteed.  First time picture book author, Barbara DaCosta, has written Nighttime Ninja (Little, Brown and Company) with illustrations by Caldecott Medal winner, Ed Young, inviting readers into possibilities.

The clock struck midnight...

Those four beginning words have the same lure as--Once upon a time...  Already your mind is wondering where, what or who will happen next.  A kind of tension, suspense, has been created.

A ninja, silent as a breath of air, is moving along a rope suspended from one building to another.  Climbing and leaping this native of the night makes a sure-footed landing. Moving into the house, a determination is made.  The family is sleeping.

Weaving along the hallway guided by the moon, listening, he pauses.  In his hands are the tools of his trade.  Then, without warning, the room is flooded with light.  It would seem that even the skills of a ninja are no match for those of a mother.


Having engaged readers from line one, Barbara DaCosta leads us into the story laden with anticipation.  Spare but descriptive text carries us from one moment to the next.  We are with the ninja on his mission, every step of the way.

When the surprise comes balance shifts from dark to light, uncertainty to disclosure with a knowing chuckle escaping easily.  DaCosta has composed a tale moving quietly but cleverly from ninja to boy in a heartbeat. The final dialogue between mother and child are typical then tender.  Who could ask for more?

Step by step he balanced and leapt.


Oh, to sit as still as stone, watching Ed Young work his wonders in his studio, would be a dream come true.  How he fashions his illustrations from cut paper, textured cloth, string and colored pencil, into the beauty we see in this book, is a marvelous mystery; I am in awe.  I could feel a big grin spread across my face when I discovered that the jacket and cover were different; the first eyes peering through the mask in bamboo, the other a close-up of the entire face vertically across the front and back.  A soft black background highlights small ninja figures in various positions moving along a rope on both the front and back endpapers.

After the first two pages with the introductory line, readers are treated to four wordless pages continuing the storyline, creating a bridge to the next narrative text.  Colors throughout are deep, dark and rich, radiating all that is night as well as the culture in which the story is set.  The moon plays a prominent place in several pictures; one in particular is stunning as the silhouette of the ninja crosses its face.

A deep purple widely frames nearly all the illustrations but small portions of the ninja's body extends into those frames adding to the feel of movement.  The paper and fabric choices add depth and texture causing the reader to want to reach out and touch many of the pages.  In fact, the bamboo stalks and leaves on the front cover are raised and rough to the touch.


The collaboration of debut author, Barbara DaCosta, with award-winning illustrator, Ed Young, places Nighttime Ninja on my list of favorite books of 2012.  I can easily see this as a family bedtime favorite or another wonderful addition to titles in an Ed Young author/illustrator study. Readers will be hooked on page one with text and pictures and will sigh when the cover is closed.  Don't be surprised to hear a whispered, "Read it again."


Enjoy these two book trailers.

Home Is Where The Heart Is

You've heard the buzz, read the interviews and reviews but when finally holding a much-awaited book in your hands for the first time, it's never the same---it's so much better.  Ed Young's The House Baba Built: An Artist's Childhood in China, released October 3, 2011, is an eloquent representation of his very unique and personal illustrative style.

My shelves at home hold these titles, The Rooster's Horns:  A Chinese Puppet Play to Make and Perform, I, Doko: The Tale of a Basket, Mouse Match, The Sons of the Dragon King, The Lost Horse:  A Book-and-Puppet Set, and Voices of the Heart all written and illustrated by Ed Young, winner of the Caldecott Medal for Lon Po Po, Caldecott Honor awards for The Emperor and the Kite and Seven Blind Mice.  His title Wabi Sabi was on the New York Times Best Illustrated Children's Book list in 2008. 

Ed Young's father, Baba, educated in the United States at the University of Michigan as an engineer, feared for his family as war moved closer to Shanghai in the 1930s. The safest site to build a house was on the edge of town, property too expensive to purchase, adjacent to the fields by the embassies.  Baba bargained with the landowner promising to build a huge brick home with a swimming pool, gardens and courtyards which, if they could live there for twenty years, would become his.

While the walls in this three-story house, eventually becoming home to four families, are not talking, Ed Young is. (His words are told to author Libby Koponen.)  Born in 1931, Ed, his brothers and sisters, Ma and his father moved into the house Baba built four years later.

Readers are privy to the inside scoop, the sharpest memories pieced together, by Young; swimming in a pool, one of three in the entire city maintained by forming a swimming club with other families, endless hours of make believe, dancing, adults clustered around the short wave radio listening to the latest news, roller skating on the roof, movies with Johnny Weissmuller starring as Tarzan (oh, how I remember those, too, but seen on television come Saturday morning), weekend dinner parties with the Lings, distant cousins, and the inevitable interaction with his siblings, watching silk worms spin and grow and cricket fights. 

Ed recalls drawing in his textbooks more than studying them which lead to tutoring by his brother, Hardy.  When Baba read to his sister Fifi for her reading class, he loved those classic adventure stories so many still enjoyed today, Treasure Island, Robinson Crusoe, Robin Hood and The Three Musketeers.

The pool was not only a gathering place for swimming but the site of his favorite picnic and when it needed to be drained for lack of funds, full of fall leaves, it was a place to ride bikes and scooters. 

As the war invaded other cities, his Aunt, Uncle and two grown sons moved into an apartment that Baba built for them on the roof. One of the sons, Sonny, is a favorite of Ed's; remembered for his drawing skills and keen sense of humor. The children's bedrooms became another apartment for a German refugee family with a young daughter named Jean that Ed, his brothers and sisters treated like a younger sister.  When Ed's oldest sister, Mimi, becomes engaged a bridal suite is added to this house Baba built.

Before the war end celebration, the bombing was moving closer to the families in the Young home.  One recollection of Ed's is all gathering in the hallway, where Ma rang the dinner bell, to wait out a bomb threat entertained by Baba's stories.  It was the only place in the house without windows so they could still use lights.  We read:

I knew nothing could happen to us within those walls, in the house Baba built.

He goes on to to say in creating this book discovering Baba had built the house with double-tiered brick walls and eighteen-inch thick concrete slabs on the roof in order to make that very hallway bombproof. 

As we look at the book jacket around the cover we see a boy (Ed) and a dog peeking beneath a gate; moving to the back we readers are looking behind them as they peer under that gate.  The book covers, taken from pages in the book, are different than the jacket; the front cover is a picture of the house and the back cover is of Baba drafting the plans for the home, tools in his hands flocks of crows in the background. 

War was spreading to Shanghai, my father said, like the crows that came in summer and covered the sky with blackness.

Front endpapers in taupe and white are a street map and a sepia-toned portrait of a family gathering is on the back endpapers.  When illustrators take the time to have a jacket, covers and endpapers that are different, each with a specific visual, it's as if the story starts before the first page is turned; an invitation that cannot be ignored.

This homage to the heart, mind and foresight of his father, Baba, done in mixed media collage is a treasure trove of scrapbooked memories illuminating the passage of people within the walls of this house, good times had among the hard times of war.  Eight different pages fold out to expand the illustrations enhancing the memory; strengthening its importance.  It boggles the mind to imagine the amount of time needed to create this beautiful array of visuals using cut-out photographs and pictures, drawings, paintings, textured scraps of fabric, woven mats, papers, postcards, and holiday decorations filled with and surrounded by vivid, rich, dark colors placed lovingly on these pages with the masterful eye of a true artist.

The House Baba Built:  An Artist's Childhood in China by Ed Young is a memory book, a visual timeline, of people, events and day-to-day activities of a boyhood to be remembered; a story to be shared.


By following the link attached to the title at the beginning of this post Resources For More Information and an Educator's Guide can be found.

An  Interview with author and illustrator Ed Young at PaperTigers.org is well worth reading.  There is an outstanding video interview at the BBC News Magazine where the process used to illustrate this book is visualized.