Children's book recommendations

Liza and I were running errands this morning and my attempt at rewarding her good behavior with a trip to the pet store went horribly, horribly wrong when the pet store was - horrors! - closed for remodeling. In an attempt to staunch the flow of tears and snot, we stopped by the Borders outlet store next door, where I promised her we could at least look at pictures of puppies, since the real ones were unavailable.

Thirty minutes of her banging tunelessly on a Little People xylophone book at least allowed me some time to browse through children's books that don't require a home equity line of credit to purchase. And I found two that I just love, love, love, and Liza does, too.


The first one is The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds. Basically, it's about a girl who tells her art teacher she's no good at art, and the teacher inspires her to create a different kind of art, and at the end the girl passes that on to another kid. The whole thing is really simple - a sentence or two per page, with watercolor illustrations throughout. But it's got a great message about how art doesn't have to be a realistic drawing or sculpture, and the illustrations are so nifty I want to frame them and hang them all over my studio. Really, use the online reader tool on Amazon and browse through them ... I just love how this book looks. Anyhow, this would be great for kids who are just getting started with art or for older kids who have been getting frustrated because they can't duplicate the art they see around them.

Same theme, same author, different book: Ish, by Peter H. Reynolds. This time, it's a boy whose brother laughs at his drawings because they don't look exactly like what he's trying to draw, and the boy wants to give up drawing, but his sister shows him that looking "Vase-ish" is fine, and it lets the boy explore a whole different style of art. Again, great for young artists or those who are frustrated perfectionists, because the "ish" paintings are really cool despite not being photographically realistic portrayals of the objects.

One thing that I like about both of these books is that the characters aren't rich white kids - the girl in The Dot is named Vashti, and the boy in Ish is Ramon. There's nothing particularly multicultural beyond the names and the less-than-albino skin color, but it's still nice to see in a kids' book.

I recognized this author's work from the book Someday, which he coauthored with Alison McGhee and which my mother-in-law gave us at Thanksgiving. It's a beautiful book in the same vein as The Giving Tree, in that it makes me bawl like a baby if I read it to the kid during certain days of the month. Mother has hopes for her little girl, who grows up and moves away and remembers her mother when she's an old woman ... blah blah blah sniff bawl. Liza loves it, and I do too, except for the bawling involved, so I was glad to find some new books by the same illustrator so I can enjoy his paintings without dripping on them.

Anyhoo, The Dot and Ish are available at Borders outlet stores for about $4 in hardback.