Issue link: http://winter.relevantize.com/i/523563
/ . / B O O K S ➻ F R I E N D O F D $ A $ L $ S $ George Saunders con't I also love Millions of Cats, by Wanda Gag (Ages 4-8), for its eerie-funny Eastern European illustrations. I always men- tally group this book with the equally Euro-Weird Caps for Sale, by Esphyr Slobodkina (Ages 4-8). After the latter, you will never see monkeys the same way again. Well, unless the way you see monkeys now as wily acquisitive thieves and plunderers who should all be put in jail forever, no bananas. I love all Dr Seuss, especially The Sneetches (Ages 4-7) and the contained masterpiece, best if read in a quasi-Bela-Lugosi voice, "What Was I Scared Of," which contains these classic lines: "I said, 'I do not fear those pants With nobody in- side them.' I said, and said, and said those words. I said them. But I lied them." I also love Seuss's Sleep Book (Ages 4-7) which I believe con- tains the immortal line: "And that's why I'm bothering telling you this," which comes in very handy as a sort of eYciency- mantra in graduate creative writing workshops, as in: Let's not forget to always ask, "Why are we bothering telling us this?" I'd also recommend, The Leg- end of Sleepy Hollow (on Rab- bit Ears books, with audio tape featuring scary-as-heck music, great moody illustrations by Robert Van Nutt, and a master- ful reading by Glenn Close) if you want to terrify your kids so much that they will never leave home or go outside in autumn and will totally forevermore avoid the Catskills. And pump- kins. And Glenn Close. Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices, by Paul Fleischman, illustrated by Eric Beddows (Ages 7-12). This is very cool: the poems here are presented in two columns. You take one part, the kid takes the other, and you do this sort of fugue-reading together. This, I promise, will bond you. Be- cause even if done correctly, it's sort of embarrassing. Your kid will see what you would have sounded like if you'd gone Total Thespian. But also, the two of you will occasionally blunder into moments of real beauty, and look at each other like: Whoa. And then go: MOM! (or DAD!) Come hear this! When I was a kid, my grand- mother had a bunch of those Little Golden Books around and these left a real impression on me. Whenever I rediscover one, it sets oZ this synethesia- like explosion of memories of Chicago in the early 1960s (Brillcream + lilacs + warm tube TV, etc etc). I especially remember I Can Fly, and The Poky Little Puppy and Mister Dog: The Dog Who Belonged to Himself (Ages 2-4). There's something about the design and colors of these things that you just don't see anymore – each one its own little unlikely beautiful universe. I think that from these I learned that art does not have to be strictly rep- resentational to be deeply and lovingly about the world. Dear Mili, by Wilhelm Grimm, illustrated by Maurice Sendak (Ages 4-8), is a sad and deep little book about love and loss and time—a book that is not afraid to go toward dark, nearly intolerable truths. I think one thing I look for in a kids' book is an avoidance of a too-pervasive all-is-well out- look, mainly because it tends to be anti-literary. I mean, a happy ending is all well and good, but many of the books I've recommended here go at it in a more complicated way, and don't flinch at ambiguity, assuming, correctly, that kids can not only tolerate complex- ity and ambiguity, but crave them, because in their hearts they know the world is big and scary, and crave sound counsel. Well, that and farting cats who wear suspenders. And finally, in that spirit (the spirit of sound counsel, not the spirit of a suspender-wearing farting cat—or, as they call them in Germany, "Farten- Katz")—Once There Was a Tree, by Natalia Romanova, illustrated (again) by Gennday Spirin (Ages 4-7). A weirdly Zen eco-tale that doesn't rush I mean a happy ending is all well and good, but many of the books I've recommended here go at it in a more complex way, and don't flinch at ambiguity, assuming, correctly, that kids can not only tolerate complexity and ambiguity but crave them, because in their hearts they know the world is big and scary, and crave sound counsel. to any conclusion. And the illustrations make me want to move to Russia. In the nine- teenth century. Let me close by saying, from the perspective of someone with two grown and wonder- ful kids, that your instincts as parents are correct: a minute spent reading to your kids now will repay itself a million-fold later, not only because they love you for reading to them, but also because, years later, when they're miles away, those quiet evenings, when you were tucked in with them, every- thing quiet but the sound of the page-turns, will, seem to you, I promise, sacred. 12