Diving Toward The Right Choice

When you've lived in a state like Michigan filled with lakes and rivers your entire life, learning to swim is a necessity.  For some swimming on the water is much easier than it is for others.  Those who struggle with this might find swimming under water more enjoyable.  It's an entirely different experience.

Using a mask, snorkel and fins you can explore between the surface and the depths.  If you make the choice to forego the snorkel, it's as if you are actually one of the many inhabitants of this world.  Your lungs will consistently remind you to seek the surface and breathe.  The Boy And The Whale (Roaring Brook Press, November 21, 2017) written and illustrated by Mordicai Gerstein is about a child of the sea faced with a difficult decision.

Every day, I loved to watch the sun rise out of the sea.  

No matter how many sunrises you've seen, no two are rarely alike. A boy greeting the sea and sun one morning is greatly surprised at what he sees.  A large something is drifting on the surface of the water.  His father quickly decides it's a whale.

Nearing the giant animal in their boat, both the boy and his father are distressed but for different reasons.  The whale is tangled in a net.  Papa wants to save their fishing net, a means for them to make a living and survive.  His son wants to save the whale, if it's alive.

As father and son dive into the water and swim around the whale, the boy recalls nearly drowning when he was caught in a net.  Their net is ruined.  Just when the boy can't hold his breath another second the whale blinks its eye open.

As they head back to shore, Papa has his mind on one thing, finding another net.  Once there he leaves his son, advising him to not attempt saving the nearly dead animal.  Remembering how he felt snared in the woven ropes, the boy makes the only choice he can.  He heads back out to the whale.

It's an enormous task for one small boy, a boy who has to breathe.  He works with his small knife, cutting and diving and cutting and diving.  How much time has passed?  Is time standing still?  Finally standing in his boat,  the silent sea stretches before the boy.  An immense being leaps from the water and plunges down again, over and over, pure bliss filling the boy, the sea, the air and the day.


Told in the first person by the boy, Mordicai Gerstein weaves together a simple but beautiful blend of thoughts and conversations.  The sincerity of the boy's musings, the word choices Gerstein makes, takes readers immediately into the story.  It begins with the first sentence.  Even though we can't watch the sun rise out of the sea, if the clouds are gone we see a sunrise regardless of where we are. We may never know a life like this boy's life but we are connected to his heart.  Here is a passage.

The whale's eye was as big as my head.
It seemed to see me.
And then it blinked!
And I had to . . .


When you open the dust jacket you are treated to an entire image extending from the left page edge to the right page edge. (I am working with an F & G.) The size of the whale compared to that of the boy and his boat is astounding.  In viewing this illustration you get a sincere sense of the extent of the whale's problem and the job facing the boy.

On the title page just a sliver of pink is tinting the horizon as smoky clouds frame the upper right and left of the scene.  Mountains spike up and down beneath the clouds on the left.  The sea spreads across the remainder of the page reflecting the retreating darkness.  Gentle waves wash upon the sandy shore and against the family's boat.

A page turn reveals the verso and first page and a spectacular sunrise on the sea.  The boy stands on the shore noticing the large thing in the water caught in a ray of the sun.  Mordicai Gerstein shifts his picture sizes, two together as if in a photograph album, single pages, double pages and two pictures on a single page.  He even has two vertical visuals inviting the turning of the book.

His paintings are loosely framed in wide strokes of yellow, green and a wash of sea blue colors.  Other pictures extend page edge to page edge.  Through the facial expressions of the characters and the placement of elements in his artwork, the emotions found in this story leave the page and envelope us.

One of my many favorite illustrations is a close-up of the boy, Abelardo, working with his knife to cut away the net.  He is right next to the whale whose single eye is losing all signs of life.  The look on Abelardo's face as he holds the net in one hand and the knife in the other hand is of grim determination.  It's as if he knows he has to repay the saving of his life with the saving of this whale's life.


A part of the original list at The Horn Book, Calling Caldecott, The Boy And The Whale written and illustrated by Mordicai Gerstein reminds us of the mastery of this author illustrator.  In this tale we are reminded of the fragility of life but also the value in taking care of each other.  The final conversation of Papa and Abelardo will resonate with readers long after the book is finished and it will prompt them to read it multiple times.  I highly recommend this title for your professional and personal collections.  I think it would pair nicely with Trapped! A Whale's Rescue by Robert Burleigh with illustrations by Wendell Minor.

To discover more about Mordicai Gerstein and his other work, please follow the link attached to his name to access his website.  At the publisher's website you can view some of the stunning interior pages. In a November 4, 2016 chat with Roger Sutton at The Horn Book, Mordicai Gerstein talks about his current book release but you also gain insight into his entire process for each book and his life dedicated to making picture books.  I hope you enjoy this video below.  It uses this title frequently.

From Mystery To Marvelous

Shortly after 12:30 this morning Xena and I stepped outside for our final stroll before bedtime.  Unlike during the day when breezes are steady, not a leaf stirred.  Temperatures and humidity had dropped bringing clarity to the air.  A half-moon was framed in the sky by birch tree branches now black.  The few stars not affected by the light of the moon were as bright as ripe berries waiting to be plucked.  The rest of the neighborhood was quiet.  We were two lone observers.

During such unexpected moments as these it's easy to believe you are someplace entirely different than you are during the morning, afternoon and early evening.  The Night World (Little, Brown and Company, June 16, 2015) written and illustrated by Mordicai Gerstein follows a cat and her boy on an excursion.  Nothing is the same.

"Good night, Sylvie."

A cat sits on her boy's bedspread gazing out the window as stars begin to appear in the sky. The yard is still filled with light from the setting sun.  Sometime later the boy is awakened from a sound sleep by a questioning call from his cat.  The boy does not know the hour but the cat cries to go outside.

She leads them both through the darkened house; the rest of the family, even the dog and parrot, eyes closed, are at rest.   As they make their way downstairs the boy looks in wonder around the rooms.  It looks so strange at night.

Urging him to hurry, the two go into the yard.  Everything is cloaked in shadows.  The boy guesses at the identity of the shapes he sees.  Anticipation fills the boy's senses.

Nocturnal creatures begin to cautiously make their way toward the cat and her boy.  They whisper words brimming with expectation.  Something is coming.

First one bird, then another and then an entire chorus announce an arrival.  Sylvia asks her boy to look.  And then he sees it.  His animal companions slip away.  Through its radiance a new world comes into focus.


I imagine the first sentence will be spoken in a whisper.  With those words Mordicai Gerstein lifts a blanket called hush over us all.  As it settles easily around us we feel the gentle warmth and curious awe the world of night brings.  Using a blend of first person narrative with conversation, Gerstein involves us intimately with the story.  We are tiptoeing right along with Sylvie and her boy.  Here is another sample passage.

That shadow is a deer.
Is this one a rabbit?
A porcupine looks up and
whispers, "It's almost here."


Rendered in acrylics, pen and ink and colored pencil on Strathmore gray Artagain paper the softly-textured illustrations are a sensory joy.  The inky black fabric on the front and the back of the dust jacket extend to the flaps where outlines of the boy, Sylvie and a bird are highlighted.  We want to stand with the cat and boy at the window peering into the star-studded night.  On the back, to the left, some of the animals, an owl, a bear, a porcupine, a rabbit, a skunk and a deer, are placed on the outside of the window frame.  They too are watching the sky.

For the book case Mordicai Gerstein places Sylvie and her boy outside surrounded by a swirl of stars.  It's like they are standing in the Milky Way.  They are looking up into the night.  The opening and closing endpapers are filled with the dark and stars.  With the first page turn the boy speaks the first sentence.  There is still enough light outside and inside to see color.  For the verso and title page, the boy is deep asleep.  It is now completely dark.

Before Sylvie and the boy leave the house the illustrations are framed with about two inches of a gray shade regardless if they are single or double-page images.  Gerstein shapes them geometrically, usually narrower at one end of the rectangle.  The first two-page visual, edge to edge, is when they are in the yard together.

It is followed by nine more stunning portrayals of night gradually easing into the light of a glorious new day.  The eyes on each living being convey the peaceful quiet of every moment and their mood.  Gerstein's lines flow masterfully from one element to the next.

All of these illustrations are superb.  One of my favorite ones is when the animals gather around the boy and Sylvie.  They are all looking intently in the same direction, waiting.  (I can already see readers and listeners pointing to each one and naming them.)  Stars dazzle through the trees.  The house sits in the background, all the windows dark.


The Night World written and illustrated by Mordicai Gerstein is breathtaking in its recognition of a night wrapped in beauty, of the nocturnal creatures and the simple gratitude of greeting a sunrise.  Moving slowing from the absence of color to the glow of a full spectrum we appreciate the gift Sylvie has given to her boy.  Please share this book as often as you can.  I know you will be asked to read it more than once.  In an author's note at the end, Gerstein speaks about what prompted the creation of this book.


Mordicai Gerstein has been interviewed at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast, Massachusetts School Library Association, and Barefoot Books, Living Barefoot Blog.  For the pronunciation of his name please visit TeachingBooks.net.  UPDATE:  There is loads of artwork at Julie Danielson's Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast on July 12, 2015.

This book is so spectacular I am giving away a copy.  Good luck to you all.

To Show, To Share

When we see, taste, touch, smell, hear or do something for the first time, it leaves a lasting impression in our memories.  Everything about this will never be exactly the same again.  If what we've experienced is out of the ordinary, it is only natural to want to share it with others.  We have a desire to recreate this event; to capture it, to preserve it.

I freely admit to not taking this a step further; wondering about the first time anyone sees, tastes, touches, smells, hears, or does what I have.  In his newest title, The First Drawing (Little, Brown and Company) Mordicai Gerstein does wonder.  From a clue, an imprint left in a cave, Mordicai Gerstein makes a story.

Imagine...
you were born before the invention of drawing,
more than thirty thousand years ago.

A young boy lives in a cave with a host of relatives.  One of his greatest joys is spending hours watching all the animals living around his home.  By his side in these daily adventures is a wolf, Shadow.

This boy sees what others do not.  They see clouds or stones but he sees shapes of creatures.  At night when he should be sleeping, as the flames from the fire flicker on the walls, he sees even more animals moving along the rough rock.

He is given a nickname because of his abilities.  It's not meant as unkindness but only a statement of the others' understood truth.  One day as the boy is working with his father, a chance meeting alters the course of everyone's lives.

He, alone except for Shadow, has a very close encounter with a Woolly Mammoth.  As the seconds tick by, his mind is recording every sensory perception.  Later as he tries to explain it to his father, his father sighs the sigh of a long-suffering adult and shakes his head in puzzlement.

Sleep eludes the boy that night.  His memories are conjuring up a living, breathing likeness of the very Woolly Mammoth he saw earlier.  Unable to contain his excitement he awakens all the others in the cave.  As surely as if it is standing before them, he can see it on the wall.  All the others, his parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins, cannot.

Impulsively, needing them to see what he does, the boy grabs a stick from the fire.  From the darkened end, lines form a shape.  A frightened shout causes him to stop.  This has to be magic!


It is with the introduction, three simple but intriguing sentences,  Mordicai Gerstein says, "Come readers, turn the page and follow me."  Each statement, or group of statements, on the following pages employs an economy of words but the point of view gives those phrases emotion.  Within the text, Gerstein adds dialogue to bring familiarity to the telling.  We readers become the boy's shadow. A favorite passage of mine is during his meeting with the Woolly Mammoth.

It sniffs you with its trunk,
then stands perfectly still.
So do you.

You're afraid to move.
It's like a fur-covered mountain
with eyes that look into yours. ...


Through his artwork Caldecott Medalist, Mordicai Gerstein has the ability to take us wherever he desires.  Unfolding, spreading open the matching jacket and cover, we see the title over a boy drawing on a cave wall by the light of a fire as a wolf rests watching.  On the back the same wall with the same drawing is featured with a noticeable exception.  A present day boy is looking at the picture, pencils in hand, a roll of paper under his arm.  His faithful hound walking before him points his nose at the footprint of a child and the paw print of a wolf.  The words above them read,

Can you imagine who made the world's first drawing?

This image is repeated inside on the first page followed, with a turn of page, by another of the boy and his dog looking at an elephant in a zoo within the verso on the left-hand side.  Under the text on the title page, on the right, the boy is hanging up his paper.  On the next two pages as the present-day boy stares at the paper, Gerstein shifts us to thirty thousand years in the past to tell his story showing the boy from the past with Shadow looking up at a cloud formation.

In a series of illustrative portrayals rendered in acrylics, pen and ink, and colored pencil, single pages filled with spirit, smaller images grouped on a page brimming with movement and emotion, and dramatic two-page spreads, Mordicai Gerstein makes us believe, in a flicker of spontaneous inspiration, a first happened.  His color palette of mostly brown and blue hues with his intricately drawn lines takes us effortlessly into the past.  One of my favorite illustrations is of the boy sleeping next to Shadow in the cave.  As he dreams of running among the animals whose shapes he sees in everyday things, they appear on the cave wall glowing in the firelight.


As surely as magic must have surrounded people when they looked upon the first painting on a cave wall, readers will feel it too as they read The First Drawing by Mordicai Gerstein.  Not only is this a marvelous tribute to the act of drawing, but it causes us to wonder about other firsts.  Don't miss this beautiful book!

In an author's note on the final page, Mordicai Gerstein speaks about the inspiration for his telling of this story.  Follow this link to an interview at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast.  

Hail To The Chief

Try to picture stepping away from your life for four whole days; unplugging from all the technology and fast-paced demands of your day to day existence.  Let's take this a step further; those days will be spent in a wilderness area without the normal comforts of home and hearth.  In The Camping Trip That Changed America:  Theodore Roosevelt, John Muir and our National Parks (Dial Books, January 19, 2012) written by Barb Rosenstock and illustrated by Mordicai Gerstein appreciation develops for two visionaries who did that, so today we can too.

Teedie and Johnnie didn't have much in common---but they shared a love of the outdoors.  They both loved a good story, too.  And that was enough to change America.

Using names affectionately given to them by their families Rosenstock introduces readers to Theodore Roosevelt and John Muir.  Theodore Roosevelt was the 26th president of the United States living in Washington, D.C. at the White House with his family, having grown up as a member of one of the wealthiest, well-established families in New York City.  John Muir, a world-renowned environmentalist with a deep love for the Yosemite wilderness in California, living in a farmhouse near that area grew up as the son of immigrant farmers in the Midwest. Observations during his many solitary travels appear in volumes illustrated with his drawings.

In March of 1903 the President picked up one of Muir's books to relax and read in the evening.  Muir's plea to preserve the wilderness at the book's end caught the attention of Roosevelt.  It prompted him to pen a letter to the naturalist asking that they go camping in Yosemite. 

Ever the politician Roosevelt's train moved toward its western destination making stops in cities and towns along the way until it reached Raymond, California on May 15, 1903.  He made several other stops to speak before crowds with Muir before the two rode off on horseback together.

"I feel like a runaway schoolboy!" Teedie laughed as his horse galloped along.

Over the course of the next several days the two explored the vast untouched areas of the giant sequoias in Mariposa Grove camping near the Grizzly Giant, rode up to Glacier Point, Muir explaining to his companion how glaciers cut through the rock to form the valley spread before them, awoke with five inches of new snow covering them and the mountaintop, and traveled down through the Yosemite Valley viewing its rock formations such as the Half Dome and El Capitan.  Impressed with Muir and what he had seen President Roosevelt returned to Washington, D. C. determined to preserve all for all time.  Creating additional national forests and parks and wildlife sanctuaries, Roosevelt

 saved more wild land than any president in history.

Interestingly enough the two were never together again but continued to correspond with personal letters until Muir's death.  Rosenstock concludes with the naming of the final resting place of both beneath the trees in areas they loved so well.

Barb Rosenstock unfolds the story of this historic meeting as if we are gathered about a campfire in the woods of Yosemite, she explaining how these two prominent men, each experts in their own arenas, came together united by their love of our natural world.  In an author's note she begins with defining quotes from each followed by what is true and the conversations between the two which she believes might have taken place.  Source notes are included.

Mordicai Gerstein, winner of the 2004 Caldecott Medal for his book, The Man Who Walked Between the Towers, recreates this segment in American history with paintings in a style that is all his own; lively animated vignettes of an event with a far-reaching, timeless impact.  Capturing the unending exuberance of Roosevelt and the passionate guardianship of Muir readers can enjoy the exhilaration of the days they spent together camping.  On the first page portraits of both as well as a scene from Yosemite are framed in red, white and blue banners signifying the importance to America of not only this meeting but of how both men's lives enriched our national heritage.

The illustration on the cover is repeated within the narrative to accompany Roosevelt's quote noted above; a single two page spread that captures the soul of this story.  This is followed by another two page spread; readers turning the book to view a vertical scene of the giant sequoias, the two horseback riders tiny at the base of the trees.  Having been to see these trees myself, Gerstein completely conveys their majesty.

During their evenings camping out in the open the imagined conversations around a crackling, campfire are illustrated with an intimacy; a camaraderie evident in the facial expressions, hand gestures, and play of shadows.  What they may have said are shown as smoke clouds coming from the fire above their heads, small pictures illustrating their words.  The final evening they are together is a powerful image, the two sitting face to face deep in discussion united by their common goal of protecting our flora and fauna from progress gone unchecked.

Author Barb Rosenstock and illustrator Mordicai Gerstein illuminate a portion of our history in The Camping Trip That Changed America:  Theodore Roosevelt, John Muir, and our National Parks informing and captivating readers.

I've lost count of the number of times I've read this title so far but I continue to marvel at the gifts displayed by authors and illustrators such as Rosenstock and Gerstein that breathe life into the past making it accessible and real, not just dry words on the printed page of a history textbook, for any age.  I, personally, have pursued further research based upon this title marveling at the accomplishments of these two men.  And is that not what we want our students to do?  While the driving idea behind this title is the camping trip you have to wonder if the two would have ever even met if Roosevelt had not read Muir's book; the power of the printed word.  On this Presidents' Day 2012, I thank these two gifted artists.  I love this book.