Picture Book Roundup – Bookmarked!

David Macaulay roundup

I thought I’d break this blogging fast with a nice roundup, featuring books by the prolific, award-winning author-illustrator David Macaulay!

I discovered David Macaulay back in college, when my illustration teacher showed us the Caldecott-winning Cathedral (which I read along with Pillars of the Earth), and I filed him away in my mental book wishlist. Years later, I lucked out on Black and White and Cathedral while trawling through bargain bins, and I’ve been fascinated by his work ever since.

Lately I’ve been really lucky, as Flipper friend (and hatter extraordinaire) Marie got me a couple David Macaulay books for our annual FFP Kris Kringle, and I’ve scored some more titles during my frequent bookstore raids, so I’ve got a little collection going. On top of the two titles already in my collection, I’ve now got: the storybooks Baaa, Shortcut, and Angelo, and the architecture books Mill, Pyramid, Unbuilding, and Mosque.

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More Maurice Sendak

I’ve been a Maurice Sendak fan ever since the book Where the Wild Things Are was read to us in grade school, and for years now, I’ve been trying to complete my Maurice Sendak collection.

I’m a little bit closer to that goal this year, as I’ve lucked out on a bunch of Maurice Sendak books in the past months: Alligators All Around: An Alphabet; The Moon Jumpers; The Miami Giant; I Saw Esau: A Schoolchild’s Pocket Book; and finally, Making Mischief: A Maurice Sendak Appreciation, books #56-61 for 2011.

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Animal Antics (Picture Book Roundup)

I realize I haven’t done any picture book roundups this year, so here’s the first. I have to do these posts more frequently now, as about 60% of the books I acquire are picture books. My logic (whacked, I know, but it makes perfect sense to me) behind this is that because they’re picture books with not much text, I’m technically not adding to my astronomic TBR. Of course that kind of reasoning rebounds on me because at the rate I’m acquiring them, they take up a lot of space. I do like creating these kinds of problems for myself!

Anyway, in an attempt to get these books moving from my holding area (downstairs — to be read, to be weeded out, to be covered, etc) to my library shelves (upstairs) here’s today’s picture book roundup, mainly animal books. I’m very picky with animal stories, but the clever ones are usually in picture books, so I don’t mind getting a whole bunch of them.

Included in this roundup are Too Many Cooks; Sagwa the Siamese Cat; The Owl and the Pussycat; Stellaluna; The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes; Mind your Manners BB Wolf; Dooby Dooby Moo; and Click, Clack, Quackity Quack, books #25-32 for 2011.

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Jose Aruego Roundup

When I was in third grade, our class was sent to the audio-visual room for a storytelling session of the picture book Juan and the Asuangs. The story was frightfully fascinating — a young boy named Juan outsmarts several asuangs, which are Philippine mythical creatures, often of the blood-sucking variety. I have not seen that book in about fifteen years, but I still remember one particular spread: Juan defeats the manananggal (a female asuang who is usually in human form until sunset, when she sprouts leathery wings, tears her torso away from her lower half, and hunts for her next bloody meal) by grinding up some bawang (garlic) and siling labuyo (small chili peppers) and pouring the paste into the cavity of the creature’s lower half.

To this day, that story still stands out in my memory, but there’s another reason why: our class met Jose Aruego right then and there!

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Christmas Reading

It’s almost Christmas!

Before I get even busier in the next couple of days, here’s this year’s roundup of Christmas reading: The Night Before Christmas, The Nightmare Before Christmas, The Steadfast Tin Soldier, The Twelve Days of Christmas, and A Christmas Carol, books #171-175 for 2010.

And to all my readers, a very merry Christmas!!!

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