Perfect Picture Book Friday
Normal Norman (Sterling Children’s Books, 2016) by Tara Lazar and illustrated by S.britt is a funny book.
A young Junior Scientist is going to narrate a book for the first time. Her assignment is to define the word Normal. She drafts an orangutan named Norman to be her example of Normal. But things don’t work out as she has planned.
On her website about page, Tara says,
“Who’s Tara?
Street magic performer. Hog-calling champion. Award-winning ice sculptor. These are all things Tara Lazar has never been. Instead, she writes quirky, humorous picture books featuring magical places that everyone will want to visit.”
And, of course, you’ll want to check out her other picture books and more stuff here.
She’s also the founder of Picture Book Idea Month which this year became Storystorm.
I love the landing page of S.britt’s website–it looks like a board game. From there you can read about him, see images from the books he’s done, check out art he’s done for magazines and newspapers, and . . . Oh, just go look yourself–it’ll be fun.
Category: PB
picture books
Mother Bruce
Perfect Picture Book Friday*
Mother Bruce (Disney Hyperion, 2015) by Ryan T. Higgins expresses humor from the get go with the title (Goose crossed out and Bruce written above it).
On the first page we discover, “Bruce was a bear who lived all by himself. He was a grump.” And his expression shows that. That are a lot of things he doesn’t like. But he does like cooking eggs into “fancy recipes that he found on the internet.” When he finds a recipe for “hard-boiled goose eggs drizzles with honey-salmon sauce,” Bruce gets the ingredients, and starts to cook, Bruce becomes “the victim of mistaken identity.”
I love the humor in this book with Bruce as the unlikely mother of this group of goslings. Whom he can’t get rid of!
Mother Bruce has won these awards: 2016 E.B. White Read Aloud Award, 2016 Ezra Jack Keats New Illustrator Honor, and a 2016 Kirkus Best Book.
A new Bruce book came out last October called Hotel Bruce. This is the third book by Ryan and sounds fun too. Read about it here.
You can see Ryan’s sense of humor on his about page where he says:
“Ryan T. Higgins is an author/illustrator residing in Southern Maine. He lives with his three dogs, three cats, two geckos, one tortoise, one son, one daughter, and one wife. As a child, he lived on a diet of cartoons, cheese sandwiches, and climbing trees. At the age of four he decided to become a cartoonist and he’s been making his own cartoons ever since.”
*I’ve joined with Susannah Leonard Hill on celebrating picture books on Fridays.
Let Me Finish!
Perfect Picture Book Friday
Let Me Finish! (Disney-Hyperion, 2016) by Minh Lê and illustrated by Isabel Roxas is a delightful book. Haven’t we all felt “Let me finish!” something we’re doing? And especially when we are engrossed in a good book. And who wants to hear spoilers? But that’s what the other characters in this book are doing to the poor boy in this story. At least it shows how many others like reading.
This book makes me laugh each time I read it. Words and illustrations are a great match up, making a better whole than either would alone.
This is Minh Lê’s debut picture book. He also writes about picture books on his blog, Bottom Shelf Books, and as a member of the children’s literature consortium The Niblings on Facebook. Read more about him here.
Isabel Roxas has illustrated five other books. Her bio on twitter makes me laugh: “Picture book Illustrator, designer and magic-bean buyer.” No wonder she could do the humor in this book. Read more about her on her website and you can see some ceramics as well.
Snoring Beauty
Snoring Beauty (Harper, 2014) by Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen and illustrated by Jane Manning is a fairy tale retelling done right. And it’s even in rhyme.
The main character is Mouse who is “dreaming of his dearie” on the night before his wedding day. As his eyes are closing, he’s kept awake by Sleeping Beauty’s terrible snoring. He knows “someday a prince will come to break this spell,” but meanwhile how will he get his sleep? When Mouse rises to close the shutters he sees a prince and thinks he’ll get to “sleep within the hour!” Of course, it’s not that easy when the prince hears the snoring.
I loved the humor both in text and illustrations. The rhyme isn’t always exact as there’s some near rhyme, but it doesn’t stop my enjoyment.
Author Sudpita Bardhan-Quallen talks about how her writing journey in her bio. She’s written many humorous picture books and nonfiction as well.
Illustrator Jane Manning has worked for a number of publishers including HarperCollins, Scholastic, and Houghton Mifflin.
What I find interesting is that there’s another picture book of the same title:
Bruce Hale‘s Snoring Beauty about a princess turned into a dragon. It came out in 2008 from HMH Books for Young Readers and is illustrated by Howard Fine. The book description makes it sound hilarious. And that cover illustration of the dragon is great.
Another interesting fact is that Howard Fine has illustrated another of Sudipta’s books: Hampire!.
A Hungry Lion or A Dwindling Assortment of Animals
A Hungry Lion or A Dwindling Assortment of Animals( Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2016) written and illustrated by Lucy Ruth Cummins is a hilarious laugh-out-loud picture book. I love that it has twists and more twists. It’s fun to read aloud. It’s fun to go back and look at the pictures and check out what you read, in case you missed something the first time. It’s subversive. It makes me smile each time I think about it. I’ve been sharing it with others ever since I read it.
Author/illustrator Lucy Ruth Cummins is also an art director at Simon and Schuster and a very nice and intelligent lady. At her website I learned she also illustrates the covers of Stuart Gibbs books. Never knew. A Hungry Lion is her second picture book and came out in March.