Cherished Creatures

Within a heartbeat they can tell you.  Not only do they have an answer but they want to know what yours is.  No matter how many books the library may have or resources you provide, it's simply never enough.  Truthfully over the years I have learned more than I ever knew I wanted to know about a large variety of animals because of students' quests to discover everything about their favorite animal, domestic and wild.

The extent of their interest is not limited to facts either; each having an uncanny ability in their individual style to recreate their animal visually.  How exciting for all of us that Eric Carle and thirteen other illustrators decide to share their choices.  What's Your Favorite Animal? (Henry Holt and Company, January 2014) not only answers the question but entertains with text and pictures by each.

I have always liked all animals.  

So begins the story Eric Carle tells of his cat who liked to chase and fetch a string bean until she decided it was better off tucked away from view.  A ladder would definitely be needed to see eye to eye with Tom Lichtenheld's animal friend after a trip to Africa or the zoo.  You will be hard pressed not to gasp and utter yikes after seeing the smile on Mo Willems' crawling critter's face.

A Christmas tradition with a happy ending, especially for the main course, is a tale with timeless appeal as revealed by Peter Sis.  Giving us a whole new perspective on one of nature's slowest movers, Chris Raschka reminds us patience has great rewards.  Nick Bruel's Bad Kitty is up to his typical tricks.  Could it be because of a favorite animal choice?

Let's see now.  Who could possibly like a high-jumping bunny, these-pillows-are-my-spot dog, or a boastful elephant?  It might be Rosemary Wells, Lane Smith, Jon Klassen, Susan Jeffers, or Peter McCarty?  Or perhaps one of them has voiced their love of a duck (without a hat) or a herd of wild white horses?

A memory of cows coming to life at night, a kinship felt with penguins and a colorful connection to leopards fill the pages by Lucy Cousins, Steven Kellogg and Erin Stead. (No, I did not put them in order.) Just when you think you might suffer from happiness overload due to the wonderful words and colorful pictures on these pages, the final two host childhood pictures of each artist with a short biographical sketch.  Who could ask for anything more?


An amusing incident, a whimsical poem, a message of hope, personal reflections from now and then, and tales full of hilarity reach out, pulling readers into the realms of these fourteen individuals who, fortunately for us, populate the children's literature community.  All the wit and wonder we love about their work is condensed into these two page spreads; how they choose to speak about their favorite animal is a direct reflection of them as authors and illustrators.  You will find yourself alternating between a slow smile, a giggle, a guffaw, a sigh, and nod of understanding more than once. These fourteen people say much with few words.


Eric Carle's notable cut-paper collage decorates the front dust jacket with a list of the contributors and their animals on the back.  Upon removing the jacket readers see all fourteen creatures spread across both sides of the cover with the artists' signatures next to their work.  The pristine white background makes all the elements pop off the pages.  Sunny golden opening and closing endpapers brushed in paint announce the total joy to be found in this book.

Even without their name as part of the text or a signature within the illustration, each visual clearly identifies the creator; vividly displaying their unique styles and mediums.  The deft paper cuts for a cat's fur, the fluffy cloud cleverly becoming a beehive hairdo for the ruby-lipped giraffe, the loose swirls of orange, amber and blue making a home for a snail, small delicate lines and softened brush strokes bringing the essence of penguins to the page or cow paintings papering a wall as a boy dreams one into life, not only feature an animal but the considerable talents each illustrator brings to this book and everything they do.  Every single one is a masterpiece.


This variety in selected animals, narratives and illustrators is exactly what makes What's Your Favorite Animal? by Eric Carle and Friends a true treasure that everyone should read and own.  It's like holding an art gallery in your hands.  The end flap states:

All royalties from this book will be donated to The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art which was founded by Eric and Barbara Carl in 2002.  

Links to each of the contributors' websites (when possible) have been placed in their names above.  Follow this link to the publisher's website for a peek inside this title.  Enjoy the videos collected by some of the artists.  If you have other videos you would like me to include feel free to leave a link in the comments below. 

Worth The Wait

Our world runs on its own clock; picking and choosing what it will do when.  Over the years we humans have devised various calendars to plot the future and methods of determining the passage of time but when it comes right down to it, we are at the mercy of a rhythm beyond our control.  Debut author Julie Fogliano's tranquil telling of rebirth, And Then It's Spring (A Neal Porter Book, Roaring Book Press, February 14, 2012), illustrated by 2011 Caldecott Award Medal winning illustrator, Erin E. Stead, is a tribute to the rewards of patience.

First you have brown,
all around you have brown

The snow may be gone but  a bespectacled boy, his dog, pet turtle and an onlooking rabbit see no sign of new life as a few birds hang on dried-up cattails nearby.  As the days get warmer he and his companions haul pots, seeds, seed markers and garden tools in a red wagon to a plot of ground beyond the plowed fields surrounding his home.  Rain is needed and it comes, but there is still so much brown.

As a week passes the foursome watches, waits and plants some more.  As with  anyone who waits, the more time passes, hopefulness is replaced by worry.  But worry can be replaced too, by a stillness, a quiet necessary to feel the beat of the heart, the heart of the world around us. 

Week after week of expectant observation leads to activities in preparation for the arrival, the arrival of a new season.  When one least expects the anticipated event, it can pleasantly surprise.  The right combination makes all the difference.  The all around is no longer brown but green.

Julie Fogliano's beautiful ode to a boy's trust in the fruits of his endeavors is told using peaceful prose with a hint of fancy.  Initially her narrative goes from brown to seeds to a wish for rain; a single word choice reflective of her command of language used throughout.  Her passage about the bears depicts the musings of a boy whose imagination is stretching for an answer; their lack of reading skills might be an explanation.  Even without the accompanying illustration the image conjured by her words at this point, as well as others, is a delightful daydream.

Using woodblock printing techniques and pencil pictures  Erin E. Stead colors in a world where readers will long to linger.  At each reading new details will reveal themselves; the turtle wearing a red ski cap as does the boy, as the weeks progress the smoke from the house's chimney decreases until it disappears, the dog's hole (a resting place for his bone) holds a marker picturing a bone or the rabbit standing on a smaller clay pot to peer into a larger version.   Readers are endeared to the boy and his companions by the delicate depiction of each. 

The book's jacket and cover foreshadow the events found in the story as do the endpapers' colors; front endpapers are a smoky blue-green and the back endpapers are a brighter, darker hue of the same color.  Earthy blues, browns, greens, some blue and those red highlights ( the boy's home, the umbrella, the winter clothing) are softly outlined.   Clouds in the background accentuate the characters, their activities and the landscape while unifying. 

The winsome words penned by Julie Fogliano for And Then It's Spring even without the pictures are lovely, a mind melody.  The illustrations painstakingly created by Erin E. Stead need no words telling a story, And Then It's Spring happens on their own.  Together the result is in a word...stunning.  To view interior images please visit the publisher's website.