Marvelous Cornelius: Hurricane Katrina and the Spirit of New Orleans by Phil Bildner

Marvelous Cornelius: Hurricane Katrina and the Spirit of New Orleans by Phil Bildner, illustrated by John Parra

Chronicle Books

Rating: 4 stars

Cornelius Washington is not a typical subject for nonfiction picture books. He was a garbage man in the French Quarter in New Orleans before and when Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005. He once was written about in the Times-Picayune and described as "a wizard of trash cans."

Cornelius did his job as a garbageman, usually thought of as nasty but necessary, with flair. He seemed to have fun with it, but also take it very seriously. The people in the Quarter knew him and waved as Cornelius danced with lids, threw trash bags into formation, and kept the streets "sparkling."

When Hurricane Katrina hit, Cornelius was devastated to see the city he loved so devastated. Water flooded the city; the city was "a gumbo of mush and mud." New Orleans was destroyed. Cornelius was overwhelmed with the amount of work to do--there was so much to clean up and rebuild. Cornelius, like many others, dried his eyes and got to work. The same people who waved to him weeks and months and years before pitched in to help--the people of New Orleans all helped. And others from far away came to help, too.

(He leaves out the looting and lawlessness--probably a good idea for this age group.)

The story ends the way all picture books do: happily. The city is rebuilt to its former glory in a couple dozen pages. Even though Cornelius Washington passed away soon after Katrina, Bildner writes that he symbolizes the spirit of New Orleans--the determination, flair, and friendliness that will always be a part of the city.

Without getting too stuck in the murkiness of history, I think Bildner does a great job of shining the spotlight on a person who doesn't normally show up in picture books. The quotation at the beginning of the book by Martin Luther King, Jr., sets the scene well:

Even if it's called your lot to be a street sweeper, go out and sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, sweep streets like Handel and Beethoven composed music, sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will have to phase and say, "Here lived a great street sweeper who swept his job well."

Whatever you are, do it well. And Cornelius seems to have done this.

I think it's important to note that Phil Bildner admits to taking some liberty with the true story of Cornelius. He first becomes interested in Cornelius because he sounded like a legend, like a myth, like a story from the American folk tradition. He admits to exaggerating the facts he has about Cornelius in order to carry on the spirit of his story. I hope Cornelius' surviving family supports the book.

Rain! by Linda Ashman

Rain! by Linda Ashman, illustrated by Christian Robinson

Rating: 5 stars

At first glance, you might think, "See?  Picture books are so easy to write."  This is a simple book--a simple idea, written with sparse words; a picture book written with, well, pictures.

It's raining.  And from a tall apartment, two characters get ready for a little walk to a little bakery.  One is a young boy, happily dressed in a hoppy frog outfit, a smile on his face, boots made for splashing in puddles on his feet.  Frog-Boy is celebrating the rain, and his excitement is contagious.  Every person with whom he interacts soon has a smile on his face.

The other character is a grumpy old man whose furrowed brow dives down deeper at the sign of the blasted rain.  "Nasty galoshes.  Blasted overcoat. Dang puddle." he complains.  His grumpiness is contagious.  Every person with whom Old Grumps interacts sobers up and gets serious.

The first page says it all...

The two meet at the Rain or Shine Cafe.  Frog-Boy bumps into Old Grumps, who spits down at him, "Watch out!"  He alone is immune to the cuteness of the boy.  But then Old Grumps forgets his hat, so the Frog-Boy runs after him.  He puts on Old Grumps' hat and mimics him.  Old Grumps realizes right then and there what he looks like.  So he takes the Frog-Boy's hat, squeezes it on his big bald head, smiles, and says, "Ribbit!"

Cheerfulness wins the day!  Hooray!

Linda Ashman was wise to write such a simple, perfect little book about something we parents rant about all the time: attitude.  Have a good one, and not only will you be light and happy, but you'll have a good effect on those you touch during the day.

A simple, sweet book that my kids and I just love.

Wuthering Heights: A Weather Primer by Jennifer Adams

Wuthering Heights: A Weather Primer by Jennifer Adams, illustrated by Alison Oliver

Rating: 5 stars

Of the six board books I've borrowed from a librarian-friend in this clever BabyLit series, this one is my favorite.  As "fashionable ways to introduce your toddler to the world of classic literature," the board books are actually books on colors, counting, opposites, animals…and like this Wuthering Heights board book, weather.

The illustrations all have the same backdrop of Mr. Heathcliff's castle-like home, Wuthering Heights, and the same gnarled tree and same climb-up-me hill.  Yet each one, of course, is used to show that specific type of weather, so the sky above is either bright or stormy, full of clouds or lightning bolts.  The individuals in the picture are either basking in or hiding from what's happening above them.

And I think it's so neat.  With each type of weather, there is a sentence from the book that describes that type of weather. Not only does this provide a more sophisticated text than toddlers are used to these days, it gives us parents a nice change of pace with classic, poetic, descriptive sentences from another era, and often from our own bookshelf.  For example:

"The first feathery flakes of a snow shower."

BREEZY "The weather was sweet and warm."
SUNNY  "The place was filled with sunshine."
CLOUDY "Bright white clouds flitting rapidly above."
STILL "The mild glory of a rising moon."

I was talking about these books with someone recently and I said that I thought one drawback to them was that they seemed easy to buy for little girls, but…not so little boys.  I have Anna Karenina: A Fashions Primer in mind, mostly…  Then I looked up what other books are available and now I'm currently sitting on my hands trying not to order them to have them:

Sherlock Holmes: A Sounds Primer
Dracula: A Counting Primer
Jabberwocky: A Nonsense Primer
The Jungle Book: An Animals Primer
Huckleberry Finn: A Camping Primer

As you read these books to your little ones, it's a nice reminder that there are more things to read than board books--but that's where this love of reading all starts: board books.

Big Snow by Jonathan Bean

Big Snow by Jonathan Bean

Rating: 4 stars

Last week when I should have been zipping to my yoga class, I stopped at the library to pick up this book.  It was recently released, and I was on a long hold list, so I was pretty excited to see that it was en route to our local library earlier than I expected (yup, you read that right: nerdy me checks the status of holds to see when exactly I'll be getting my hands on certain books I'm nerdily excited about).  So after the kids were tucked in bed and before my yoga class, I ran into the library to check this out.

We are huge, huge fans of Jonathan Bean--especially of Building Our House.  I follow his blog so I'd heard a lot of chatter from him and kidslit critics about Big Snow.  My hopes were high!

And he did not disappoint.

Small flakes fell softly, white and fine.

Young David (my guess is he's about 4) lives in what seems to be one of the many small towns off of the Pennsylvania Turnpike.  You laugh, but drive along there and look out, and you'll see the same image as what's in Bean's book--a modest, nondescript town at the foot of rolling hills that sure looks like a solid, safe place to slowly wonder, dream, and grow up.

He is really, really excited about the fact that it's going to snow today, yet he impatiently wants the snow to have fallen five minutes ago while simultaneously wanting information about why the snow isn't falling, if it'll be big snow, and how much snow big snow will entail.  I have another such question-asker in my house, so...I admire David's mother's patience in answering her son and providing distractions for him.

Yet he's so snow obsessed that the flour he's adding to the cookies makes him think of snow.  The suds in the tub he's cleaning make him think of snow.  The white sheets on the bed make him think of snow.

He tried to shovel away the drifts,
but the snow just fell heavier.

In a bit of literary unrealistic-ness (at least in my naps-ain't-cool house), David manages to gulp down his impatience and excitement and take a nap.

His dream combines his reality of helping his mom clean the house and his hope of big snow: there's a blizzard-like big snow inside their house, and David helps shovel it out while his mom tries to vacuum it up (love that image!).  Then his father's stomping feet coming home from work early wake him, and his father invites David to check out the big snow for himself.

The small family of three dresses for the big snow and goes to explore it, together.  Simple stuff--that's what the rich fabric of life consists of.  Little moments, thoughtful conversation, modest explorations, quiet hand-holding.  Once again Jonathan Bean gives us a tiny, rich slice of the good stuff of life.

Clouds by Marion Dane Bauer

Clouds by Marion Dane Bauer, illustrated by John Wallace

Rating: 4 stars

My young Mr. Question (that's Ben, nearly 5) loves to ask about clouds.  This simple, straightforward Ready-to-Read book is definitely made for Ben.  He can almost read the whole book himself!  Not that that means I can prop my feet up on my table and let him answer his own questions from now on...  I hope he always comes to me with questions.

But questions of the cloud variety?  I'll let nonfiction children's book author-guru Marion Dane Bauer handle it.  She explains the three most common types of clouds--cirrus, stratus, cumulus--and defines them in graspable terms.  Then she tells young readers how clouds help us: they shade us from the sun and wrap the Earth at night to keep us warm.  (Last night when we were reading this book I asked Kiefer if he wanted a cloud blanket to keep him warm.  Everyone, including myself, got a kick out of that.  He said no.)

Everyday science, that's what this book teaches.  I love it.

(A while ago we checked out and read together Tomie De Paola's The Cloud Book, a wordy, informative book about the ten most common forms of clouds.  De Paola includes information on how to predict weather with clouds and also myths about clouds.  We'll have to take another look at it because the kids weren't ready for it then (whenever "then" was), but Lorelei especially might be ready for it now.)

Parents and teachers should know about Marion Dane Bauer!  I have reviewed her Grand Canyon book, just one in a series of Wonders of America Ready-to-Read books.  She has four weather books and two natural disaster books in the Ready-to-Read category, and also five "my first biographies."  (We have Benjamin Franklin on our shelf at home--so Ben can learn about Ben.)   For all (children's) nonfiction stuff, click here.  Or you can go to her website and click around yourself.

Katy and the Big Snow by Virgina Lee Burton

Katy and the Big Snow by Virgina Lee Burton

Rating: 5 valuable stars

Lorelei's preschool just had their annual book fair.  The only reason I didn't spend my husband's entire paycheck there: Grammy was in town, so I made her spend her entire paycheck there.  Thoughtful, don't you think? 

We actually didn't spend that much money, but generous Grammy did let each child pick out a book--though I think my twin nieces got to choose two each...got to say something about that favoritism thing...unless it goes in my kids' direction...  Anyway, I'll write about Lorelei's choice, but this was Ben's choice--heavily assisted by me.  While I don't read through books from the library first, I always want to make sure we're buying good ones.  I don't want to waste Grammy's money!  I don't think you can go wrong with Virginia Lee Burton, a classic writer that you probably associate with her most famous book, Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, a great book that has been in Ben's bed for the past two weeks.  I had never seen this book before and really liked what I read when I skimmed it.

Grammy wonderfully planted the book on Ben's car seat for the drive home and we read it later that night together.  It is wonderful in that classic, old-school values sort of way.  Ben was hooked from the first line: "Katy was a beautiful red crawler tractor."  I loved the next line: "She was very big and very strong and she could do a lot of things."  How wise of Burton to make a big, powerful tractor female--makes both little girls and boys curious about her.  Lorelei and Ben listened carefully to the story after the first few lines, curious to hear how Katy would use her strength.  Burton explains how Katy did a lot of different jobs throughout the year; "the harder and tougher the job the better she liked it." 

When winter came, Katy was so big and strong that she stayed put when there was only a light dusting on the ground.  But one day that dusting turned into a huge blizzard, and Katy was the only plow who could cut through the snow.  Everyone and everything in the town came to a stand still, unable to do their regular duties.  Then Katy came to the rescue, slowly but surely plowing everyone out, enabling the police to protect the city, the Postmaster to get the mail through, the Telephone Company to repair downed lines.  By the end of the day she was tired but still she chugged on until the roads were all clear.  Then and only then did Katy stop and rest.

What a great story about taking on a challenge, finishing what you start (see the sweet Ella Takes the Cake for another one), working hard, and helping those in need.  Those are such valuable lessons that Burton manages to pack in a classic book with sweet drawings.  This is a wonderful holiday book; I can't say how grateful I am to have it on our shelf.  I'm going to order up all of Virginia Lee Burton's other books from the library right now...any favorites I should read first when they come home with us for a visit?

P.S.  I might extra-like this book because of my name.  I just wanted to point that out before one of you guys did.

Thunder-Boomer by Shutta Crum

Thunder-Boomer by Shutta Crum, illustrated by Carol Thompson

Rating: 3.5 stars

A few days ago an early fall storm passed over our house.  It was a classic: skies got dark in the early afternoon, thunder clapping like crazy, lightning zig-zagging across the sky.  The kids and I decided to go out on our covered porch and watch the storm happen.  We played around for about 15 minutes of the opening of the storm; Lorelei jumped and cheered every time it thundered, and Ben looked around him curiously, with a little alarm.  After it started pouring, we tried to drink some of the rain on our tongues from the top step and held out our hands to catch the raindrops.  We were channeling my husband, at work, who likes to do this exact thing when he's home during a storm.

Contrast that to three months ago, when Lorelei was shuddering in fear at thunder, and I'm pretty impressed at the growth.  Or knowledge?  Or maturity?  I'm not sure what, but three months ago, during the summer storms that come through our area, she was not so bold in the face of Mother Nature.  After one storm that worsened right during dinner, I had to drag her to the tiny spot on our first floor where she couldn't see out the windows.  She settled down to eat, but only after a few minutes of truly fearful crying. 

We started reading books about storms, including this most recent one.  Thunder-Boomer isn't my favorite storm book (I don't have one yet) and it doesn't even show the kids being particularly bold and excited by the storm.  In fact, they all run for cover as soon as the storm hits; the family huddles together and worries, especially when the rain turns to hail.  But, as Lorelei learned over the summer, the storm didn't last long, and the world was fresh and bright and misty afterward.  In the book, they find a tiny kitten that barely made it through the storm.  He's a gift from the storm, they say, and of course they name him "Thunder-Boomer."

I'm glad that Lorelei didn't want a cat after the last storm--she was content just to watch the rain fall and the trees of our woods swirl and whirl above.  Storms are pretty awesome things, and I love that Lorelei and Ben aren't afraid of getting a fairly close-up view of that.  I'm also glad that Lorelei is definitely learning from books--it's such a great habit, and I'm thrilled to help her start

The Storm Book by Charlotte Zolotow

The Storm Book by Charlotte Zolotow

Rating: 2.5 stars

Despite the fact that she would sleep soundly through the craziest of crazy thunderstorms during her first few years, Lorelei is now becoming a little afraid of storms.  I understand why--big claps of thunder still make me jump!  And when the lights go out, and there's no white noise whatsoever, the claps seem even louder.  And the lightning that much closer.

Therefore, I've been looking for a book that will explain storms to her.  We're huge Berenstein Bear readers (we've read them all--a zillion times each--and I could probably write a thesis on them...that's scary) so I appreciated The Berenstain Bears Count Their Blessings and the short description about what causes thunder and lightning within the story.

But when I came across The Storm Book, I got my hopes up.  Lorelei knew we had checked it out from the library, so during the last crazy storm, she said, "Hey!  Let's read The Storm Book!"  Man, I couldn't ask her to play along with my provide-me-content-for-my-blog game better if I requested it.

So we did.

But the format of the book is so NOT for children of this age that it's hard to get through it with a preschooler in your lap or in front of you.  The words are on one page, and the picture, spanning two complete pages, follows that page with the text.  So the child needs to sit through a long paragraph or two until they get something to look at.  And then you can look at the picture, which is very interesting and pretty.

It might be a good book to have on your shelf for a little later, or if you're a teacher you could easily photocopy the pages with text and read them while you hold up the image...  It is a pretty good book to use for an introduction to a lesson on storms.  But this seems like a lot of work for a parent, and for a just-ok book.  It's not bad, but...we won't be checking it out again for awhile.

Has anyone out there read any other books on storms?  I'm curious...it's easy to find books on monkeys and farm animals and trucks and princesses, but weather doesn't seem to be a popular subject!