Sunday, December 23, 2018

picture book recs (round 6)

Happy 3 years of intentionally reading picture books, to me!

Wanna guess how many kids' books I've read during that time?

(Answer is at the bottom of this post.)

***

I noted last blogpost that people keep sharing with me links to lists of multicultural picture books and similar, which I appreciate the thought behind (it is Known that I am reading lots of picture books to select ones to buy for the nibling), but at this point I have heard of (if not read) most all the books that show up on those lists, so I was so pleased to come across Minh Lê‏'s "Best Picture Books of 2017" where I had heard of almost none of the books AND at-a-glance it appeared to be a diverse author pool. I had gotten through 7 of the 19 categories in the last roundup. I have now gotten through an additional 3. [My intention is to power through the remainder by the end of 2018. Yes, I know that's a lot of books for this Winter Break; the floor of my bedroom is very aware.] A couple I really liked:

  • The Book of Mistakes written & illustrated by Corinna Luyken [one of the Best on Creativity]
  • Claymates written by Dev Petty & illustrated by Lauren Eldridge [one of the Best on Creativity]
I also came across Taylor Pittman's "17 LGBTQ-Friendly Books To Read To Your Kid In Honor Of Pride" -- which actually had a lot of books I hadn't read, including books I hadn't even heard of. New-to-me books I particularly appreciated: I also finally read Juneteenth picturebooks -- none of which I loved, but I would recommend reading some to your kids since especially amongst us non-Black Americans, this piece of our history is often unknown.
  • Juneteenth written by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson and Drew Nelson & illustrated by Mark Schroder is a solid, child-appropriate, overview of Juneteenth.
In the lesser-known-African-American-history vein, I also liked The nibling is growing up in Florida, so I also read a lot of picturebooks about life in the water (drawing heavily on a "sea the oceans" GoodReads shelf I'd come across, though most of the ones I liked best came from Horn Book recs), including mermaids. Apparently I only liked 1 enough to actively rec it? I had been feeling like I'd read basically all the cool progressive board books and was gonna have to transition out of board books into gifting M other stuff -- and then Betsy Bird did a Top 100 Board Books Poll. My favorites (of the ones I didn't nominate myself):
  • Baby 123 written & illustrated by Deborah Donenfield [N.B. this one is unfortunately out of print -- though I got some good copies from thriftbooks on eBay]
  • Edible Colors written & illustrated by Jennifer Vogel Bass
  • I'm a Librarian (A Tinyville Town Book) written & illustrated by Brian Biggs -- it's a gay male librarian, okay; I am fond
  • My Friends written & illustrated by Taro Gomi
I was also already interested in checking out more of the Lil' Libros series (a Spanish-English board book series drawing on Mexican culture for its contents in both subject matter and illustration style). I didn't actually love them as much as I was hoping to, but I did like: After someone I follow RTed a thread about a culturally clueless Kirkus review of Where's the Potty on This Ark?, I checked out Kar-Ben's catalog. My favorites of the ones I read: Not really on purpose, I ended up reading a bunch of books on emotions/difficult issues:
  • I'm Sad written by Michael Ian Black & illustrated by Debbie Ridpath Ohi [second tier?] [With the caveat that I'm uncomfortable with the author's "redemption is hard to find" stance on the occasion of Louis CK's "comeback," and I'm not convinced how much he's learned from the pushback he got.]
  • Something Happened in Our Town: A Child's Story about Racial Injustice written by Marianne Celano, Marietta Collins, and Ann Hazzard & illustrated by Jennifer Zivoin [second tier?]
  • Allie All Along written & illustrated by Sarah Lynne Reul -- on anger
Other recs: ***

The answer to how many kids' books I've read in 3 years?

730 -- I think.

I discovered the GoodReads export library function, but it left a LOT of the Date Read cells blank (I have no idea what that glitch is), which made cutting the data to just the date range I wanted more challenging. It puts all your shelves for a given book in a single cell, but that was easily solved by running a COUNTIF.

=COUNTIF(Q2:Q985,"*picturebooks*")

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Saturday, June 23, 2018

picture books (round 5) mostly Native/Indigenous/Aboriginal

Nibling turned 2 today!

***

People keep sharing with me links to lists of multicultural picture books and similar, which I appreciate the thought behind (it is Known that I am reading lots of picture books to select ones to buy for the nibling), but at this point I have heard of (if not read) most all the books that show up on those lists.

So I was so pleased to come across Minh Lê‏'s "Best Picture Books of 2017" where I had heard of almost none of the books AND at-a-glance it appeared to be a diverse author pool. I also liked that its categories were ones I wouldn't necessarily have thought of -- most touching, most charming, best surprise, best family, best adventure, best history, funniest, most clever, best on creativity, best concept, best (auto)biography, most beautiful, best nature/outdoors, best read aloud, most exuberant/fun, most powerful, best friendship/kindness, best design, best bedtime.

So I kicked off my 2018 picture book reading with that (as if I didn't already have ~150 picture books on my to-read list...). And then got sidetracked by other things and slowly made my way through 7 of Lê‏'s 19(!) categories. I didn't actually love a lot of them, but here are some I did:

I also learned about Inhabit Media -- an Inuit-owned publishing company -- and proceeded to interlibrary loan most every picturebook I could get my hands on. [Note: I am shifting from using the term "folklore" to "traditional stories" after reading this post on American Indians in Children's Literature (AICL).]

  • The Raven and the Loon written by Rachel Qitsualik-Tinsley and Sean Qitsualik-Tinsley & illustrated by Kim Smith [traditional story]
  • Ava and the Little Folk retold by Neil Christopher and Alan Neal & illustrated by Jonathan Wright [traditional story]
  • Lesson for the Wolf written by Rachel Qitsualik-Tinsley and Sean Qitsualik-Tinsley & illustrated by Alan Cook [traditional story]
  • The Walrus Who Escaped written by Rachel Qitsualik-Tinsley and Sean Qitsualik-Tinsley & illustrated by Anthony Brennan [traditional story]
  • Ukaliq and Kalla Go Fishing written by Nadia Mike & illustrated by Amanda Sandland [anthropomorphic animal story]
  • Hurry Up, Ilua! written & illustrated by Nora Helen Hicks [anthropomorphic animal story] mostly for the illustrations
  • Leah's Mustache Party written by Nadia Mike & illustrated by Charlene Chua
And I went through the American Indian Youth Literature Award for Best Picture Book winners and honorees.
  • I am Dreaming of... Animals of the Native Northwest written by Melaney Gleeson-Lyall & illustrated by Mervin Windsor, Maynard Johnny Jr., Eric Parnell, Ernest Swanson, Ben Houstie, Paul Windsor, Allan Weir, Terry Starr, Nicole LaRock, Simone Diamond, and Francis Horne Sr. [2018 Honor Book] [board book] I love these illustrations!
  • Little You written by Richard Van Camp & illustrated by Julie Flett [2016 Best Picture Book] [author is Tłı̨chǫ, illustrator is Cree-Metis] [board book] brb, buying copies of this for every baby
  • Caribou Song written by Tomson Highway & illustrated by John Rombough [2014 Best Picture Book] [Cree; author is full-blooded Cree and illustrator is Chipewayan Dene] for the illustrations

And I ended up checking out more recommendations of books by and about Native/Indigenous/Aboriginal peoples. (Some sidebar reading on terminology: "Natives of the Hawaiian Islands are not Indigenous People, They’re Aboriginal" & "A Note on Terminology: Inuit, Métis, First Nations, and Aboriginal" -- the latter is Canadian and is adapted from the Report on the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples.)

I started doing some searching for Aboriginal Australian picturebooks, and I found a 2013 blogpost "Top Ten Indigenous-authored Children’s Books," but plugging the titles into WorldCat I found that most of them were only in Australian library systems :( (Though it was interesting seeing which non-AUS/NZ libaries had some of them -- Singapore, Japan, Canada, a few places in the US.) I wonder what other quality kidlit I'm missing out on due to its not being published much outside its country of origin (not to mention, of course, the stuff that isn't translated into English #MonolingualProblems), which I'm again reminded of when I come across stuff like Betsy Bird's "Board Books 2018: What We’ve Got Here Is an Oddly Strong Year."

In doing searches to purchase copies of books that weren't in my regional library networks, I learned that there are more Native publishing companies/bookstores than I had realized/expected -- the ones I have come across in my specific searches are below, but I know this isn't even a complete list:

When my copy of Shanyaak'utlaax: Salmon Boy (the 2018 American Indian Library Association's Youth Literature Award Best Picture Book) arrived in the mail (I ordered a copy because none of my regional library networks had a copy), I showed it to my housemate and she said, "Are you still going through books for your [nibling]?" I said, "Yes. The kid isn't even 2 years old yet, there are many years to go!" I have such a backlog of books I've "shelved," and I keep coming across more (like Betsy Bird's Caldecott and Newbery predictions, which while rarely accurate, contained almost entirely books I hadn't previously encountered).

February is Black History Month, and March is Women's History Month, so there were some kids' books that came up on recommendation lists relevant to that (plus books I saw at the Peabody Essex Museum gift shop). I didn't love any of them, but some fairly good ones are:

There was also The Conscious Kid Library's "13 Recommended #OwnVoices Reads for Ramadan." I read most of the ones I hadn't read already, and of those new-to-me ones, these were my favorites:

Plus, of course, picturebooks I just happened to come across:

***

In total I've read ~176 kids' books this six-month period.

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Friday, March 30, 2018

[7 Last Words] "I thirst"

I was invited to participate in my church's Good Friday service this year and was assigned the Fifth Word -- "I thirst" (John 19:28). I don't know how I would have gone about picking one if it had been up to me, but I was pleased to get to reflect on the most human-embodied-experience word of the seven.

Below is the reflection I shared.

***

Fifth Word – "I Thirst" – John 19:28

Jesus thirsts.

Because Jesus is a human being in a human body.

A creature of flesh and bone, skin and muscles and fat and nerves, blood pumping, lungs breathing.

Human bodies come in a lot of variations -- some of us talk with our hands, some of us move through the world on wheels. Some of us can't process gluten or lactose. Each of our embodiments is unique, and few experiences are universal. But thirst is one of the few that probably is.

+

John is the one Gospel writer who includes this line, "I thirst."

John also opens Jesus' public ministry with the wedding at Cana -- another story unique to John's Gospel.

Lutheran pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber tells the story of the lectionary assigning the wedding at Cana story the Sunday after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. As you may recall, in this story Jesus is initially resistant to doing anything about the wine shortage at this party, telling Mother Mary, "my hour has not yet come."

Mary pushes ahead, and Bolz-Weber imagines her saying to Jesus, "I will not keep silent. I will obey you and I will tell others to obey you but I will not keep silent. People are thirsty."

And she imagines that near the end of John's Gospel, Jesus says, "I am thirsty. I am not watching this from a distant heaven. I too am thirsty."

+

Jesus thirsts with the people in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands who still don't have clean water six months after Hurricanes Maria and Irma.

+

Jesus thirsts with farm workers in California working 9-hour days in scorching heat, sometimes literally dying of dehydration.

42-year-old Audon Felix Garcia died in the summer of 2008 while working in Kern County, California, on a 112-degree day. His core body temperature was 108 degrees Fahrenheit when he died.

+

Have you ever cried so much that you felt thirsty, like you'd dehydrated yourself?

We don't know if Jesus wept while dying by state-sanctioned torture, but it seems likely.

Certainly the Jesus of John's Gospel wept a few chapters earlier, on the long walk toward Jerusalem, confronted with the weeping of another Mary and so many others after the death of Lazarus at Bethany.

+

Jesus thirsts with so many other prisoners of the state.

21-year-old Madison Jenson died of dehydration on December 1, 2016, four days after being put in jail in Duchesne County, Utah, her dehydration probably related to opiate withdrawal.

38-year-old Terrill Thomas died on April 24, 2016, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, after the water had been shut off to his cell for 7 days after he had flooded the toilet in a previous cell. #BlackLivesMatter

50-year-old Joyce Curnell was found dead in her Charleston County, South Carolina, jail cell on July 22, 2016, dead from dehydration the day after she was jailed. #BlackWomensLivesMatter

+

Jesus is given a sponge full of sour wine on a stick. Which may have been intended as an anaesthetic -- to dull the pain of the multiple nail wounds and the slow asphyxiation. But as mercies go, it was a small one amidst this public execution after a sham of a trial. Jesus thirsts with those who do not have access to quality water.

Jesus thirsts with the people of Flint, Michigan, and the 6 million other people across the 50 United States whose water has excessive levels of lead.

Jesus thirsts with the prisoners at MCI Norfolk here in Massachusetts and so many other prisons and jails who do not have uncontaminated water.

+

There are a lot of things we could do to alleviate the thirsts across our nation and around the world, and maybe we will after we leave this space.

But for now, we sit with the thirst.

The God who created us from the very stardust of the Big Bang, the God whose life breath sustains us. That same God shaped some of that same stardust, and with the Yes of a young woman named Mary, breathed Godself into embodiment, into a screaming crying baby who would grow into adulthood and be executed by some of those same stardust creatures. And that embodied God, who walked so many dusty, dirty roads; who ate so many meals with so many different people; that embodied God, that person Jesus, was human right up through the end.

And Jesus thirsts.

***

Works Consulted/Cited

News of the world links to the primary article I drew from, though I often Googled for additional details like exact date of death.

Nadia Bolz-Weber tells the wedding at Cana story in her 2013 book Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint.

The story of Lazarus is found in John 11, and the specific verse "Jesus wept" is John 11:35.

***

Full service audio recording is here (there are a few minutes of extra silence at the beginning and the end -- this is what happens when you ask someone who's also participating in the service to record it ;) ) My part begins around 32:42.

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