Some of my favorite book have themes of flight — The Twenty-One Balloons by William Pene du Bois; Tuesday by David Wiesner; and Peter Pan. Maybe it’s because my zodiac’s an air sign, or maybe i just like the carefree, leisurely feeling that flying themes generate.
This month’s picture book roundup covers books dealing with flight, clouds, and other above-ground subject matter: The Flying Locomotive by William Pene du Bois; The Little Cloud by Eric Carle; Night of the Gargoyles by Eve Bunting, illustrated by David Wiesner; Sadako by Eleanor Coerr, illustrated by Ed Young; and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz commemorative pop-up by L. Frank Baum, engineered by Robert Sabuda.
I was puttering around at the bargain bins of at one of the branches of my favorite used bookstore when I pulled out The Flying Locomotive.I was incredulous, because I didn’t know William Pene du Bois had a picture book of that title (it’s one of his lesser-known works) and his books are generally out of print, save for The Twenty-One Balloons. And it was only P10 (US$0.20)– a 1949 (4th edition) discard from the Granada Junior High School Library.
Du Bois is a French-American writer who was the founding editor of the Paris Review. The Flying Locomotive, one of du Bois’ earliest works (1941), is a picture book featuring Toto No. 2, a cheese train who thinks he is the greatest locomotive in the world. Toto is indignant when he learns he has to share a shed with a cow named Madame Suzie, but they soon become friends.
Toto #2’s greatest wish is to become a Swiss Flyer, and one night he is visited by his fairy godmother (a golden locomotive!) and grants him the ability to fly (literally!), and Toto #2 and Madame Suzie go off on a great adventure that seals their friendship forever.
This was a short and sweet story, and I love du Bois’ whimsical writing (and he had a bunch of picture books out by age 25!). His lavish descriptions and beautiful lithographic colour plate illustrations show a lot of detail, showing a great deal of imagination for a writer/illustrator from the 40’s.
Madame Suzie and Toto #2
Toto #2 becomes a flyer
The Little Cloud is a board book by Eric Carle, a children’s book author-illustrator most famous for the well-loved picture book The Very Hungry Caterpillar and over 70 other picture books that have sold over 88 million copies around the world.
In The Little Cloud, a little cloud ventures out into the world, transforming itself into various shapes, like a sheep, an airplane, a shark, two trees, a rabbit, a hat, and a clown, before finally joining the bigger clouds to make rain.
Aside from providing a simple introduction to a science lesson such as the water cycle, the sparsely worded story is great for early readers — its familiar words are easy to read, and can encourage the little ones to create their own stories out of the pictures, too.
The vivid blue background and the finger-painted look of the clouds is also eye-catching, and can inspire the little ones to create their own cloud-shape artworks, or to go out and identify cloud formations in the sky.
Little Cloud goes out into the world
flying over rooftops
Night of the Gargoyles, another book for my David Wiesner (three-time Caldecott Medal winner!) collection, defines a gargoyle as “a waterspout in the form of a grotesque human or animal figure projecting from the roof or eaves of a building.”
This book shows us the secret life of gargoyles: what they do when night falls. They leap from rooftops and hang out with other gargoyle friends, splashing around in fountains, comparing notes on everyday experiences (the weather, the birds, passersby), and scaring the wits out of night watchmen. They while away the night in mischievous fun until dawn comes and they fly back to their posts.
The book is dark but humorous, probably not the best choice for a bedtime story for very young kids, but a good choice for older kids exploring less kiddie-style books, with just the right amount of spookiness to send chills down the spine, but not nightmare-inducing. Bunting’s story is short, poetic, and humorous, and it’s matched perfectly by the grotesque but gleeful gargoyles in Wiesner’s cheeky black, white and gray illustrations.
A couple of favorite spreads:
those darn birds!
On a more somber note, Sadako is a picture book featuring Sadako Sasaki, a victim of the nuclear fallout from the Hiroshima bombing in 1945. I was drawn to this book because I studied in a school that observed an annual commemoration of the Hiroshima and Nagazaki bombings. Each August, we would fold up peace cranes to hang around the classrooms, create No to Nukes campaigns protesting the use of nuclear warfare, and later on, in high school, create information pamphlets, position papers and extemporaneous speeches on the ill-effects of nuclear warfare.
When Sadako was diagnosed with leukemia, Sadako started folding paper cranes. There is a legend that folding a thousand paper cranes would grant one wish; in Sadako’s case, she wished she would live. According to the book, Sadako folded over 600 paper cranes before she died, and friends and family completed the rest to make a full thousand, although according to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial (also known as the Genbaku Dome), she folded well over a thousand cranes (1,344?) before succumbing to leukemia.
Regardless of the number, Sadako’s paper cranes have become the harbinger of hope for world peace, and every year, over 9 metric tonnes of paper cranes are delivered to Hiroshima annually.
The writing isn’t particularly exceptional, and the illustrations lean more towards the abstract, but I like this book for what it represents — a tangible reminder of the atrocities of the past. The book is sad and yet hopeful at the same time, bringing awareness to the younger generations, and offering a plea at the same time: “This is our cry, this is our prayer: Peace in the world.”
Sadako’s final moments
The Hiroshima Peace Memorial
The last book in this roundup is The Wonderful Wizard of Oz commemorative pop-up, which I’m including because Robert Sabuda decked it out with a lot of flying tricks. Since we’re all familiar with the story, I’ll skip ahead to the eye candy:
an awesome bargain bin find!
the cyclone
the Munchkin house
Emerald City – with goggles!
The Wizard’s balloon
It’s an important addition to my small (but growing) pop-up collection– my second Sabuda! — and it was a mint steal at P270 (under $6)!
***
The Flying Locomotive, hardcover, 4/5 stars
The Little Cloud, board book 3/5 stars;
The Night of the Gargoyles, hardcover with dust jacket, 4/5 stars;
Sadako, paperback, 3/5 stars;
and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz commemorative pop-up by, 5/5 stars
Books 9-13 of 2010
[amazonify]::omakase::300:250[/amazonify]
I don’t think I’ve ever heard of The Little Cloud before, but I love Eric Carle. The illustrations in The Night of the Gargoyles and The Wizard of Oz are fabulous! Great selections.
Thank you Ash! :) — that was quick, I just posted this entry! :D