Outstanding Picture Book – Pete & Pickles

/ still a dreamer

Pete & Pickles, written by Berkeley Breathed, is one of the most touching picture book stories I know. It is the tale of a very proper pig, Pete, and a very free-spirited elephant, Pickles. The story is about friendship, forgiveness, healing, joy, and accepting the differences in others. But believe me, even this does not do justice to this wonderful book.

Pete, mourning the death of his pig wife, Paprika, finds himself, in the middle of a stormy night, with an escaped circus elephant hiding in his home. Pickles has made a muddy mess from the rainstorm. Pete cannot accept his overly tidy life being sullied. When the nasty circus clown comes to collect the terrified elephant, who had begged Pete for help, he just points in disdain.  Yet she smiles at him as she’s led away.  As Pete disinfects his home, he finds Pickles has left him a gift, and he gets to thinking. He reroutes his daily stroll into town to find Pickles.

A rescue ensues, and a friendship grows between the very unlikely pair. One of my favorite illustrations is that of Pete coming out in his pajamas to find Pickles doing Tai Chi in dawn’s glowing light.  May I say, the illustrations are infused with the richest of color with all the little quirky touches you’d expect from Opus’ creator. On some pages there are also simple 2-color, pen and ink spot illustrations. The whole thing is just brilliant, and I am deeply touched each time I re-read this story.

But here’s what most reviews never mention … Breathed is tuned in to the horrific abuse suffered by elephants in the circus, and reveals it both subtly and on a level that children can relate to without being overwhelmed. When the evil looking clown stands in the entryway shadows to get Pickles, there is a glint on the metal bullhook in his hand. When Pete goes into Pickles’ tent, he finds her chained with heavy padlocks. She is not chained in the way circus elephants really are – chained standing in place 23 hours a day – but in a way which will engender empathy from a child to see so lovable an animal be both shackled and frightened in a picture book way.  Adults unaware of the plight of circus elephants will probably never notice these touches, but for those of us who are, we can be grateful that someone has spoken for them in a children’s book.

Berkeley Breathed went up in my estimation X10 for not only writing a fabulous story in Pete & Pickles, but for opening the door to a child’s compassion for his or her fellow creatures. This is truly a must-have if you are a lover of children’s books – a parent, a writer, lover of fabulous illustrations, fan of Berkeley Breathed – or a lover of animals.

p.s. And a big thank you to one of my fellow PB writers, Paola, who so insightfully gave this to me as a gift.
p.p.s. Should you wish to know more about the abuse of circus elephants, you can check out a video showing the gratuitous violence inflicted by sadistic handlers in just one Ringling Brothers pre-show incident. This is not for children.

Eat, Pray, Love – Elizabeth Gilbert

/ still a dreamer

Are the words #1 New York Times Bestseller a draw for you? For me, generally not, though I find and read some by chance every now and then. And sometimes one comes to me through a friend, as did Eat, Pray, Love. Because we are kindred spirits and she thought I might enjoy it, I began to read.

Eat, Pray, Love is the story of one woman’s journey to find balance in her life, to become whole. It is a spiritual journey with many revelations along the way, as she travels, spending 4 months each, in Italy, India and Bali. With everything a woman in her thirties is supposed to be grateful to have – a husband, a great career, and the house in the country – Elizabeth Gilbert is utterly miserable. She makes the year long journey after a painful marriage and an even more painful divorce, followed by a profound depression.

One of the things that is so striking about the story told through her travels is that Gilbert had the courage to embark on this journey at all. I find the book to have its shortcomings, but as I finished it, I found myself impressed with the bravery it took for one woman, on her own, to pick up and travel to 3 foreign countries. She spoke none of their native languages, although yes, English is commonly spoken in all these places. In fact, she went to Italy in part to learn Italian. What she learned – in the Eat chapters – was to enjoy and appreciate … food, beauty, life, and she began to recover, putting on weight and feeling a greater balance.

In the Pray chapters, she is at an ashram in India, working through more of her issues and finding her religion, her God, the spirituality that resonates with Elizabeth Gilbert. She learns to truly pray. And while I found this section too long at times, it was still easy to get lost in India, as in Italy, in cultural experiences so totally different from our own and so rich in their own right.

And then Love. Bali was engrossing. One of Gilbert’s strengths as a journalist is describing so many aspects of the culture where she is living, and I found the Balinese to be fascinating. Here, Gilbert continues to heal and grow, and at long last find what she thought she might likely be without the rest of her life after her marital experience – love. And sex. It is interesting to watch how this plays out, and how, only in a book promo at the end, we find how it all truly ends.

In a conversation about Eat, Pray, Love that I had with another woman, she felt that Gilbert was spoiled and self-indulgent … who could just drop their lives and travel the world for one year on a search for themselves? Who could afford such a luxury? Especially in our pressured economic times, it’s easy to see where that may come from, for how many of us could take such a journey? And yes, at moments, Gilbert did seem a bit self-indulgent. Does she seem to belabor points at times? At times, for me, yes. Ultimately, however, this should not detract from the wonderful adventure – one woman’s search to find herself , find balance and to recover from paralyzing pain – and the depths within herself Gilbert was willing to plumb to do this.

There are life-changing experiences throughout, wonderful people Gilbert meets and befriends, and a spiritual search … I think there’s good stuff here for lots of us.

The First Signs of Christmas

/ still a dreamer / 2 Comments

December begins and my house is seeing the first signs of Christmas. Take a look – see it?

Not my desktop – that Christmas mug over on the right. See? Yeah, that’s it.

Each year in my house as the Christmas season begins there are two small items that lead the way … my red Christmas mugs from Germany, (bought so many years ago when I lived in the city that I can’t even remember where I got them),  and my wonderful dollar store Christmas plates. They’re the first hints that soon the holiday placemats will sit under meals, festive touches will soon start appearing all over the house and that soon … there will be lights and pine  boughs gracing the front porch.

I think a little tradition is good nowadays. How about you? Do you have something special at your house that whispers about the magic of Christmas or the holidays?

Patricia Reilly Giff – Pictures of Hollis Woods and Lily’s Crossing

/ still a dreamer

Here are two books for middle grade readers by the same author, Patricia Reilly Giff, and both winners of the Newbery Honor Award. I think, in addition to their both being very strong pieces of work, they demonstrate how an author has grown in even a few years.

I first read Pictures of Hollis Woods a few months ago as part of a list I’d made to learn more about writing for middle grade by reading Newbery winners. This book is the strongest, most memorable, and deeply touching of any I have read to date. Hollis is an artistic 12 year old girl who was abandoned at birth, and who has been in several different foster homes ever since, ultimately running away from them all. In the present, she is placed with Josie, a retired art teacher and artist who is slowly losing her memory. Hollis develops a real fondness for Josie, and does her best to not let the foster system know that Josie is becoming incapable of caring for her.

Interspersed with chapters of the present, are chapters describing pictures that Hollis has drawn of a situation in the past, where a foster home wanted to adopt her … a home where she was truly happy. However, something terrible happened and she ran again. Giff has artfully balanced Hollis’ present day circumstances with the pictures she’s drawn telling the story of what happened in the home where she wanted to stay. The two juxtapose until they are woven together into the present. The two story lines become one, building to a great climax. I am amazed at how skillfully Giff has done this. I am deeply touched by Hollis’ character; she is so sympathetic, that it never matters a moment that she “is trouble” or can be flip or fresh. I only cared to see what had happened at that special home and how it would turn out. Talk about a book I couldn’t put down! What a wonderful story and group of characters, and what an inspiration, I would imagine, for Giff’s middle grade readers.

I just finished reading Lily’s Crossing, written 5 years earlier. It’s a very different story, and without the alternating of present with past. Again, the story takes place in Queens, (which, having lived in NYC for quite some time, I always enjoy), in 1944 at the time of the Normandy Invasion. Lily’s Crossing brings with it a much deeper glimpse into a period in time than Hollis Woods, and for that I thoroughly enjoyed it. However, and it may not be fair to compare, Lily’s character, while very likable, isn’t as deeply sympathetic for me as that of Hollis.

Lily is cared for by her father, Poppy, and Gram, his mother. Her mother passed away when she was much younger. When school is out they go to Gram’s house in the Rockaways, where Lily meets Albert, a refugee from Hungary. He has escaped the Nazis, but lost his parents and left behind a sister, from whom he was separated, in France. As Lily and Gram prepare to go to Rockaway, Poppy is called into the service and ships out to France to fight the war. Lily is a funny, somewhat flawed but appealing character, who happens to tell lies quite often, one to her new friend Albert that later endangers his life. But for me, the dramatic tension could have been so much stronger. Still, the characters were all well drawn, the 1944 backdrop always of interest, and the ending very satisfying.

What was missing? I think I was spoiled by the strength of Pictures of Hollis Woods! These stories were written 5 years apart, and really are both ones to read. But it also showed me the growth of an insightful author who clearly cares about her characters and their growth over the course of a novel. I like it when I really care about a character and what happens to her. Patricia Reilly Giff earned those Newbery awards for a very good reason.