WRB—Children’s Literature Supplement, Dec. 2024

“the most troublesome beavers”

Beavers that fly? Mysterious pizza? A rubber-ball-obsessed king ? All of these topics (and possibly a few more) found their way into this December CLS, and once you’ve made it through all 1,695 Christmas parties, 2,473 holiday concerts, and 3,210 repetitions of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” you’ll have some delightful books for your well-deserved leisure hours.

Beavers in the sky

Thanks to her mom, Sarah recently learned about Idaho’s mid-century beaver issues, and even tracked down an old newsreel highlighting the problem and its solution. She was delighted to discover that someone wrote a picture book on the topic. Over in the Wall Street Journal, Priscilla M. Jensen reviews Kristen Tracy’s new book, When Beavers Flew (illustrated by Luisa Uribe, July):

McCall, Idaho, had a big problem in the late 1940s: More people were moving into the area, but beaver activity was flooding their newly planted orchards and farmland. Luckily, a local fish-and-game warden named Elmo Heter was unusually imaginative and practical. In When Beavers Flew, Kristen Tracy describes Heter’s solution: “to relocate the most troublesome” beavers to the backcountry more than 80 miles away.

This fascinating historical tidbit is perfect as a picture book tale, and showcases the cleverness and creativity brought to a difficult ecological situation.

Sampling the sampler

Tomie dePaola is very dear to Sarah (and many others the world over). As one of his bios—from Sarah’s edition of Jingle, the Christmas Clown (1992)—says, “Tomie isn’t kidding when he says that Christmas is his favorite time of the year. Every Christmas he decorates four Christmas trees with 10,000 lights and invites over 200 people to his Christmas party. (Once he even had a Christmas party in August!)”

This love of Christmas is evident in the numerous books dePaola authored or illustrated which involve the season. Sarah recently rediscovered one of these when planning activities for a class she teaches: Hark! A Christmas Sampler (1991) by Jane Yolen, illustrated by dePaola. Though she’s seen it on her mom’s bookshelf for years, she’d never paged through it carefully. Now, she discovered what riches lay between those covers—from carols and short stories to histories to legends to even a little play.

Imitating the artists

It’s been a joy for Sarah to use Mother of Divine Grace’s Second Grade Art book in her co-op class this semester. Since her eager students have worked through almost the entire book already, she’s been plotting and planning for next semester. Thanks to her mother, a woman of abundant resources, Sarah was introduced to Storybook Art (2003), by MaryAnn F. Kohl and Jean Potter. This clever book both introduces users to new authors and illustrators, or helps them interact with their favorites in different ways. Each chapter is focused on a different medium, ranging from painting to cut/collage, and various children’s books using those art forms are presented in those chapters. It includes activities for the children so they can learn the illustrators’ processes and dig deeper into the tales being depicted. As the introduction says, “Storybook Art allows children to become more aware of book illustration by experiencing hands-on art techniques as part of easy art projects. Children are thereby encouraged to read—and re-read—their favorite books with new awareness and enjoyment.” Remarkable!

Picture perfect

Still on the art theme, perhaps you’ve already seen Alice and Martin Provensen’s art but didn’t know the lovely story of these two giants in children’s literature illustration. The duo was active in the mid-1900s, collaborating on many titles and even won a Caldecott Award for A Visit to William Blake’s Inn (1982) (Nancy Willard, the author, won a Newbery for the work). Sarah’s personal favorite of theirs is The Glorious Flight (1983) about the feats of aviator Louis Blériot, and this book also took home the 1984 Caldecott.

What the kids are reading