The Wonderment

Favorite Picture Books 2011

I read picture books as voraciously as I read other kinds of literature for one simple reason: I wouldn't want to miss out on some of the best storytelling and art work being offered today.

As with my text-heavy fiction of yesterday, lots of these books were published in other years. Many of them will be available through your library systems; all of them are good for giving and receiving and sharing with friends of all ages. Every one of them carries important spiritual messages (hey, I am a minister, don't be so surprised that I like books with heart-centered wisdom), even the alphabet book.

When possible, I link to author websites or other community websites. You're able to choose your own bookseller.

Tomorrow's Theological Thursday, so I'll share my round-up of theological titles.

Melanie Watt (2008) Scaredy Squirrel. Hurry, hurry, hurry to share the most important parable I read this year. Feeling squirrely? Hey, meet yourself right here in the yearning to control our fears and learning to meet adventure with joy.

 

David Ezra Stein (2010) Interrupting Chicken. Hilarious! I’d tell you more, but some chicken will interrupt me.

 

Vanda Micheaux Nelson & R. Gregory Christie (2009) Bad News For Outlaws: The Remarkable Life of Bass Reeves, Deputy U.S. Marshall. Bass Reeves is bigger than life, and yet a real-life hero, little known or told about in American history. That Reeves was illiterate, a former slave, and one of a small number of African Americans in a territory ripe with racial discrimination only makes his story more compelling, as he became one of the most trusted bearers of law and order in his day.

 

Keith Baker (2011) LMNOPeas. Yes, it is an alphabet book, but these peas have attitude. Seriously. Working peas and dancing peas and peas that please, baby, please, know how fabulous they are. You will too, if you pick it up and read.

 

Eric Kimmel (2011) Joseph and the Sabbath Fish. What does hospitality and generosity have to do with the Sabbath? Kimmel gives us a tale of two neighbors and what it means to truly keep the Sabbath with steadfast love.

 

Juan Felipe Herrera (2000) The Upside Down Boy/ El niño de cabeza. What is it like to go to school and not belong? How might one child come back to feeling right side up? This is a beautifully told story, with fabulous poetry and artwork, and an amazing teacher.

 

Jeanette Winter (2008) Wangari’s Trees of Peace. Wangari Maathai died earlier this year, which is when I turned to this picture book to recall her fierce and compassionate spirit. Unlike many picture books, this one addresses violence directly, imprisonment for our beliefs and actions, and the good work of communities coming together to create hope, healing, and merciful justice.

 

James Rumford (2008) Silent Music. I’ve read several introductions to the art and poetry of Islamic calligraphy, but none of them hold a candle to this simple and elegant picture book of a boy during the bombing of Baghdad, who retreats into the art of praying with a pen.

 

Karen Lynn Williams, Khadra Muhammad (2007) Four Feet, Two Sandals. Two refugee girls scramble in the midst of a clothing distribution and come up with one sandal each. What will they do? This is a story of learning how to be friends through generous imagination, after dislocation and loss.

Favorite Fiction 2011

This is the season of lists - best ofs, worst ofs, and all that hoo-ha. At the request of some regular readers, I'll be posting selections from what I read this year. I like mysteries and adore mystery series, so it doesn't take a sleuth to realize my personal list is heavily weighted this year in that direction. I also like heart-felt imaginative tales and they make up the rest of the list.

They're not all newly publishly, but that just makes them easier to find at the library and less expensive from booksellers, if you're considering giving books as gifts.

You'll notice titles in my top fiction choices that some would like to relegate to young adult lists. I believe well-told stories appeal across the ages. I'll post my favorite picture books tomorrow, text heavy tales for older readers today.

Wherever possible, I've linked not to a bookseller, but to the author's website. I figure you can decide on your favorite bookseller.

Patrick Ness. (2011) A Monster Calls. A story of legacy from Siobhan Dowd, Ness draws the reader into a tale of terror and loss that is also a story of healing and great love. Keep the hankies close as a monster invades a young boy’s dreams and demands the truth.

Erin Morgenstern. (2011) The Night Circus. A duel by proxy grows into a wonderful world of imagination and love. How will redemption be wrested from what is set up to be a game of destruction? Read on and dance with this wondering.

Jasper Fforde (2009) Shades of Grey: the Road to High Saffron. I read this book in the first weeks of January and it is still with me – a tale with very, very long legs indeed. Fforde is a compelling writing, although there is a phenomenal amount of technical detail. Just keep on your wonderment spectacles and forge ahead, and before long you’ll be wrapped in the mystery and adventure.

Anthony Horowitz. (2011) House of Silk. Approved by the Conan Doyle Estate, Horowitz’s new Sherlock Holmes is full of Conan Doyle’s style. Yet Horowitz makes the characters and the story his own in wonderful ways, familiar to those of us who already love Horowitz’s Alex Ryder or Power of Five series or know his work from Midsomer Murders and Foyle’s War. Delicious for the Holmes and Watson enthusiast, a fine read even if you don’t know that literary duo.

Tom Franklin (2010) Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter. Franklin delivers a difficult novel, as any realistic novel involving racial issues, suspicion, and responsibility will be. Crooked Letter is a driving story of intrigue, investigation, and small-town life, a continuous page turner demanding attention in every detail and moment.

Jessica Day George (2009) Princess of the Midnight Ball. George retells Grimm’s tale of twelve dancing princesses, this time with a knitting hero to help wrest freedom from captivity to despair.

 Henning Mankell. Kurt Wallander Series. I happen to adore mysteries, particularly serial mysteries. Wallander enjoys a tremendous following and has even leapt to television screens in two different translations.

 Arne Dahl. (2009) Misterioso. Another wonderfully told suspense-filled mystery, this one woven with jazz and an assemblage of police officers learning how to be a team in the new Sweden.

 Louise Penny. Inspector Gamache series. I mentioned how much I enjoy mystery series and here’s another one, revolving around a picture book village and long-held resentments that need the work of a team of caring investigators to bring justice.

 Steve Hockensmith. (2007) Holmes on the Range. Fun, frothy deducifying for lovers of both westerns and mysteries, a quick romp filled with colorful language as two brothers find themselves on the trail of some killers. Set in the time to be contemporary with Holmes, racial language is painfully and truthfully present. Those who use it, though, will be proved scoundrels and scalliwags. Just be forewarned.

 Graham Moore (2010) The Sherlockian. Once along in this lovingly crafted historical novel playing around with the creator of one of the most beloved of literary figures, I didn't want to stop reading. Creating friendships and intrigues, Moore traverses back and forth between what is romantic and what is not (can the day of reason be romantic? can the age of the electric light? what of the era of electronic ether?), imagining mysteries intertwined with mysteries.

 

The Love That Changes Everything

A Feathered Parable

One day a heron settled down by the river. But this heron was not watching for frogs or fish as they usually do. This heron sat still in the way of herons, waiting.

 

A flock of ibises came wandering down the bank of the river, hunting bugs and snails and tasty slugs. When they saw the heron, they thought little of it, until they noticed the heron was not hunting frogs or fish, but just sitting there. “Heron!” they clamored together, because that is, after all the way of ibises, “Heron! What are you doing?”

 

“I’m waiting,” Heron replied.

 

“Well, yeah,” the ibises muttered, clacking their bills together, “that’s obvious. Why are you waiting? There are succulent frogs all around and tiny fish nibbling the reeds.”

 

“I’m waiting for love. I’ve heard tales of how it changes everything. I’ve flown all over the place seeking and not finding, so I thought that perhaps love is like a particularly tricky fish, and will only be caught if I wait.”

 

The ibises nodded all together, in the way of ibises. If Heron wanted to wait for love, that would be a long wait. The ibises knew there were bugs and grubs to hunt from the grasses. They clacked their bills and wished the weird Heron well and pursued the next morsel.

 

Heron waited.

 

A pair of coots swam by a few times, noticing Heron and not approaching, for Heron would usually shout in a particularly ugly way when they messed up Heron’s hunting. But then they noticed Heron didn’t seem to be hunting. They swam up to Heron and cackled as coots do. “Heron, what are you doing?”

 

“I’m waiting to catch the love that changes everything.”

 

“Oh.” The coots were confused, but then Heron was very confusing, being so different from the coots. “Why would you do that?”

 

“Because it is the love that changes everything,” Heron replied slowly, wondering if these coots were chasing away that love right now, just like their cackling and splashing for duckweed sometimes chased away frogs and fish.

 

“Ah.” The coots swam away. Heron was so strange.

 

Heron waited.

 

The Snail Kite was watching, too. Snail Kite had seen the ibises. Snail Kite had seen the coots .Snail Kite was watching Heron wait.  Finally, Snail Kite grabbed an apple snail and settled down on a branch near Heron.

 

“Heron, why are you waiting for the love that changes everything?” Snail Kite asked.

 

Heron was feeling rather cross now, and hungry, too. Everyone seemed to be coming by and eating and asking this stupid question. “Why aren’t you?” Heron snapped, croaking and clapping beak, annoyed.

 

Snail Kite finished the apple snail before replying. Apple snails were not to be wasted; each one had to be enjoyed and appreciated, even if that was what Snail Kite ate every day. Some days there were not many snails to be found. “Because that’s not how you find the love that changes everything, Heron.”

 

“Oh, you would know, would you?” Heron grumbled.

 

Snail Kite looked at Heron, very quietly, until Heron settled ruffled feathers back in place. “I do. How could the love that changes everything be caught and eaten like a delicious apple snail or a fine fat frog? How would that change anything? That is what we do now, each and every day.”

 

“I don’t believe you,” Heron retorted.

 

“Alright then,” Snail Kite sailed up on the warm air. And then Snail Kite did something very un-snail-kiteish. It snapped up a frog and laid it down, next to Heron. “But please eat something while you wait.” Which Heron did.

 

Heron waited a long time by the river for the love that changes everything. Every day Snail Kite would come by, bringing things that Herons needed to eat and Snail Kites couldn’t. It was very difficult for Snail Kite; Snail Kite was not suited to hunting things Heron ate. Snail Kite was suited to hunting apple snails. Snail Kite flew and spoke to the other birds along the river, asking the least heron and the cattle egret and the great egret and night herons to bring Heron things to eat since Heron would be sitting, not hunting, by the river.

 

One day, Night Heron brought over a frog almost the size of Night Heron and laid it down by Heron. Heron ate the frog quickly. “Why are you doing this, Night Heron?” Heron asked.

 

“Aren’t you seeking the love that changes everything?” Night Heron replied.

 

“Yes! Do you know where I can find it?” Heron eagerly answered.

 

“Heron, I bring you a frog as big as me every day, even though it is very difficult and quite out of my way.”

 

“Yes, you do. That’s very thoughtful of you.”

 

“You’re loved, Heron. You’re cared about. Snail Kite has flown up and down the river and encouraged us all to bring you food so you will be fed, to make sure you’re not alone. Each of us has shown up again and again. What is that?”

 

Heron thought. “Duty?”

 

“No one makes me come here, Heron.”

 

“What about pity?”

 

“I don’t feel sorry for you, Heron.”

 

“What would it be then, Night Heron.”

 

“Love. I come here and the others come here to be with you from love?”

 

“Oh.” At that moment, Heron felt something change, an opening in Heron’s heart, an understanding awaken.

 

“Where is love taking you today? What will you do with this love that changes everything today?”

 

“I don’t know, Heron. Shall we go and see?”

 

And that is what they did. When they could be a blessing, they were. When they could help, they did. When they could listen, they listened. When they could comfort, they comforted. They became bearers each and every day of the love that changes everything.