Well, dear readers, I am afraid I will be away for a little while.  Oh, don’t you worry: I’m not leaving you bereft, but I’m the one who’s going to be off on a journey.  You see, Passover is coming up (I know, I really meant to review some Passover stories– check out this book if you’re still looking for a good one), and I’m going to visit my family in Israel for the holiday.  What that means is that I’ve got something a little different going on here for the next week and a bit.  Starting tomorrow, I’m going to have posts going up every weekday about music-themed books.

Why music? you ask, baffled by this new sign of eccentricity in your Authoress.  Well, I have a few reasons: a) Because I wanted to and this is my blog, so, well, I’m doing what I want; b) Because I have a lot of books about music, in one fashion or another, and I thought it would be fun to group them together and see what happened; c) Because I see a lot of similarities between a journey and a piece of music, and it seemed thematically appropriate.  I love the thematically appropriate, don’t you?

So, starting tomorrow, I’ll be introducing our theme (spoiler alert: the theme is “music in children’s books,” sorry for spoiling the surprise), and you’ll have eight days of variations on that theme.  Some of these variations will be pretty close to the original theme (books about the orchestra, symphonic music, instruments) and some will be a little farther (fiction books about compositions and composers) and some will seem way out there (I’m going to keep some surprises in my back pocket, so just wait and see).  But everything will come back to music in some fashion or other.

I have another little reason for doing this.  My Changeling is a big fan of music these days.  She loves listening and dancing and hearing stories about it.  She loves watching orchestras on YouTube, for crying out loud.  There’s a reason I have so many books connected to music– even more than I have bird-related books!  And it’s fun for me to delve into all the different aspects I just listed and think them through as the Changeling’s mother and voice actress.  What works so well for reading about the orchestra?  What works in the story of a composition?  Why?  What attracts her?  These are some of the questions we’re going to be thinking about for the next week and a half, so, while I’m off exploring my own theme and variations, I hope you enjoy these.

Pray for me: I’m not the world’s best traveller, she said making use of litotes to excellent effect.  I am, myself, praying that the theme won’t be sunstroke with variations of headaches, nausea, and a side-theme of social anxiety.  Fortunately, I’ll be with family, and I’m sure all will be well.  As for you, dear my blog, I’ll check back in here to make sure that everything’s running smoothly and posting as it ought to be, but do let me know if you’re in need, for we all know that the best laid plans of Blog an’ Authoress gang aft agley.

And now sit back, relax, and put on, oh, might I suggest you start with some Beethoven?  Why, no, that’s not a hint of any kind… but check back tomorrow to see where our musical adventure will begin.  (Vienna, 1808, Theater an der Wien.  Work from there to find out more.)

À la prochaine!

This book popped into my life yesterday.  I was at The Harvard Book Store in a state of severe frustration.  The world was not going my way– oh, please don’t worry, it will all be fine, I was simply in a mood where I wanted the world to be more interesting, you know.  I wanted September’s Green Wind to come along already.  So I did what I always did: I went to the bookstore.  But I was still whiny: I’d read everything, I wanted something new… I was completely insufferable, even to myself.  Then I turned around.  And Leo popped up.  “Oh, hello,” I said, a little surprised.  “I’m happy to meet you,” he said politely, offering me mint tea.  I accepted, a little dazed, my frustrated mood completely vanished.  “Excuse me,” I said, “but I didn’t see you a moment ago.  Where did you come from?”  Leo hesitated.  “Are you afraid of ghosts?” he asked, tentatively.  I smiled, “I’d love to meet a ghost, but I never have!”  Leo smiled back at me, then vanished.  I was left with this book in my hands: Leo: A Ghost Story, by Mac Barnett, pictures by Christian Robinson.

As I said, Leo came home with us yesterday.  We have already read him through several times together, the Changeling and I.  Some books just grab you like that, and this one has.  I’ll tell you why I think that is: a) It makes you feel special; b) It makes you feel seen; c) It understands you when you don’t feel seen.  I hear you grumbling: I’m telling you fairy tales and abstruse philosophy, you’re muttering, when you want to know what’s going on here.  Very well: let’s have a look at the story.

Leo is a ghost who lives in a house in a quiet sort of way.  Not everyone can see him– although you can.  One day, a family moves in and he’s excited for the company.  They, however, don’t see him, although they do see a floating tea-tray with mint tea and honey toast zooming towards them.  They make it clear that they don’t appreciate having a haunted house, so Leo leaves.  (I hope you feel sorry for Leo: I feel awful for him whenever I read that bit.)  He goes to the city he used to know, only it’s changed.  He roams along the noisy streets, unseen by anyone, until one day a little girl named Jane looks right at him and they become friends.  She thinks he’s an imaginary friend, and it’s clear that she can see him (as we can) because she’s ready to see things, unlike the unimaginative family which took over Leo’s home.  (I love that.)  Leo, still sore at being unseen and disliked, lets her think that until the night Leo saves Jane’s house from a robber and she realizes he must be something more.  Leo confesses, worried she’ll be scared of him, that he’s a ghost: “Jane, I told you a lie.  I am a ghost.  I said I was your imaginary friend, but I’m not.  I am just your real friend.”  Jane says that’s even better, and they go to the kitchen to have mint tea and honey toast.

It’s a real hefty story for a picture book, isn’t it?  I could imagine it amplified, filled out, and padded to become a slim novel– Roald Dahl-level, but with actually likable characters.  And yet Mac Barnett demonstrates yet again (we’ve met him before, you may remember: Extra Yarn) that he can pack a hell of a lot of story into a really slim space.  It’s so good as a picture book you don’t even find yourself wanting the novel version.  (Well, not much, anyway… oh, who am I kidding?  Mac Barnett, want to try your hand at writing a novel version of this book?)  More than that, he again demonstrates, as with Annabelle, that he can pack a hell of a lot of character into few words.  You saw that little dialogue with Leo I wrote above?  Well, how often do you feel that you’ve gotten to know a character from a picture book so well in just a few readings that you could imagine a full conversation with him?  I read a fair number of picture books these days, and the number of really fleshed-out characters I meet are slim indeed.  This isn’t to say anything against the more limited characters (often they’re wonderfully slim and flat, doing other work instead), but getting a rich plot and full characters is a pleasure.

One of the best parts for me is watching my Changeling relate to a full story and full characters.  “I want to read Leo!  Please will you read me Leo before we leave the house?” is what I heard right after breakfast this morning.  I asked her to bring me the book and she trotted up with it: “Tell me about the girl!  I like her.  Her name is Jane.”  This is what I hear over and over again.  I asked her why she liked Jane, and she paused and said, “Jane is so nice!  She’s a very nice girl.  She’s my friend.”  Remember, please, that my daughter isn’t yet three, so full character analyses aren’t what I would call her strong suit.  What’s clear, though, is that she’s really picked up on Leo’s loneliness, and Jane’s kindness in accepting him for who he is.  Jane means friendship, and the Changeling responds to that.  I think, although I can’t be sure, that the Changeling also responds to Jane’s imagination: there’s a glow in my daughter’s face as we read about Jane’s games (the Knights of the Round Table and hunting a dragon) which makes me think that she does get the imaginative brilliance in Jane’s character.

But I’m not fulfilling my role quite yet.  I’ve let a key aspect of the book stay invisible: forgive me.  You can, I hope, see the richness of the text, the richness of the characters.  But you can’t yet see the richness of the art, or how the art and text work together.  Mea culpa.  Dear readers, I’ve told you about Mac Barnett before and his skills probably don’t surprise you.  But Christian Robinson!  His work was new to me, and now I have to go find everything he’s ever done, and I’m thrilled.  His wit and sympathy come through perfectly in these acrylic and construction paper cutout illustrations.  They’re a perfect match for the text.  The illustrations are all in shades of blue, really drawing out (forgive me) the themes of imagination, invisibility, visibility, and the fading boundaries between them.  All are blue, but Christian Robinson uses clever tricks to delineate the distinctions between what and who is seen and what and who is unseen.  Leo is in outlines whereas other characters are solid colours.  Leo can sometimes interact with what is solid, but others may not see or feel him.  The illustrations reflect that cleverly as he sometimes appears, and sometimes doesn’t, pulling the reader’s eye around the page to find the little outlined figure.  “Oh, where’s Leo?” is a frequent exclamation from my daughter as we read.

Altogether, I think this is one of the most attractive, interesting, and clever new books I’ve read this year, and I don’t say that lightly– you know well, my dear reader, how many excellent books I see.  But this one came to me at the right time, just when it was wanted, and in the best way (thank you, Leo!), and I’m happy to read it as often as my daughter wants me to, and that’s quite a lot.  I think I’ll be keeping Leo visible on my shelves.  Don’t worry, little ghost, you’ll never go unseen around here.

I want to know if I’m alone in this, so tell me if this scenario resonates with you:

You’re a parent who speaks another language, and your child is younger than, say, two or three.  You’re talking with someone, and they chuckle and say, “Oh, are you, like, talking in Welsh to your kid all the time?   Wouldn’t it be awesome if your kid grew up talking in Welsh?”  (Or French.  Or Chinese.)

I have a feeling some of you are shuddering and nodding along (please tell me I’m not alone), and maybe others are thinking something along the lines of “Wait, you know Welsh?”  To which I say, “Why do people always italicize Welsh?”

The thing is, it’s not just Welsh.  I’m an academic, so I know a number of languages and I get people who, whether because they think it’s funny or because they’re really dead serious, inquire quite minutely into just how much I do in terms of introducing the Changeling to French, Hebrew, and, through my husband, Chinese.  Reminder: she’s a toddler.

I would like to note with great pride that, thus far, I have refrained from saying anything remotely rude to anyone, even when they proceed to give me advice about how singing songs with my toddler is pedagogically inadequate for conveying the finer points of syntax.  To be honest, my restraint in that case wasn’t due to self-control: I was just too stunned to think of anything to say apart from, “Oh?”  I didn’t even have the brain capacity to say, “Why the [expletive deleted–ed.] do you think this is remotely your business?  Also, your pedagogy seems somewhat flawed, not to say it’s complete bull [expletive deleted– ed.]” Ah, how we are haunted by life’s missed opportunities!  [Editor’s note: I would like to apologize for the author’s terrible behaviour.  I won’t let it happen again.]

Well, after nearly three years of being questioned, I’m finally thinking through an answer, and here’s my explanation.  I love languages madly, passionately, and deeply.  I have a particularly intimate relationship with French, which is as much a part of me as English.  I love how it sounds, I love the literature that’s accessible to you once you know it.  I love how closely it’s intertwined with English, like cousins: each their own world, yet visiting back and forth.  If you know about French and English, you know about families: their loves, their quarrels, their fights, their reconciliations.  Obviously I want to share this love with my daughter the way I want to share my love of music and of animals and of books and of needlework– and it would be super nice if she took to it.  If not, well, we can still talk about cats.

So, yes, we sing songs and read books in French, because I love them and she loves them, too.  If she doesn’t want to read or sing something at a given time, I shrug and put it down.  Maybe she will another day.  If she does– yay, awesome, I love that!  That’s my approach, really, and I find it much easier to resolve than how to respond to being questioned about said approach.  And, perhaps most importantly, no one else gets a say in any of this (unless you know some really good books or music we might enjoy).  Especially because I think the more interesting question is this:  Have you discovered anything new and interesting through re-experiencing a language you know at an adult level with the Changeling at her own level?

What an excellent question!  Why, yes, I have.  I’ve discovered that The Very Hungry Caterpillar works gloriously in Welsh, but only OK in French.  Interesting, right?  I’ve learned a number of new songs which my daughter and I both love.  And I’ve found some really lovely books.  You see, when I learned French it was through New Brunswick’s early French immersion, and I learned it at school.  I’m sure we did some story books, but I don’t remember much apart from worksheets and conversation.  By doing things just at home, for the fun of it, I’m finding all kinds of beautiful books, including some I recently bought at Schoenhof’s: the Bébé Balthazar books by Marie-Hélène Place, illustrated by Caroline Fontaine-Riquier.  If you don’t have a good French bookstore near you, it may be harder for you to find these, although I do link to the French publisher, if you don’t mind paying shipping from France.

 

These books are simple, simple, simple, and perfect in their simplicity.  They are at precisely the right level for my daughter: French being a foreign language, she can’t quite handle anything with too much of a story, but these are about at the level of Pat the Bunny, which is a bit too simple for her in English.  But what we love about these isn’t just the text; we love the books as a whole.  The layout, the text, the printing, the illustrations, the concept– the books as physical objects are, there’s no other word for it, charming.

I’m sorry that the only images I could find for you are somewhat blurry, but take a look at the covers up above and think about what you see at a glance.  There’s the gingham background, like a classic child’s shirt or dress.  There’s the beautiful script for the title.  And there’s the little illustration set in an oval: the little bébé Balthazar in his rabbit outfit hugging the big, fluffy grey cat, or walking in the water.  Pépin, his teddy, is the little fellow in red you see leaning up against the cat’s hind legs.  The covers encapsulate almost everything to love about these books.

Naturally, they do have something of a story.  In Bébé Balthazar Caresse le chat, Balthazar goes from animal to animal hugging, or kissing, or otherwise interacting with it, and the book is something of a touch-and-feel book.  You can feel the soft fur of the cat, the feathers of a duckling, and the prickles of a hedgehog.  In Bébé Balthazar Je t’aime, Balthazar goes for a walk in his garden and tells everything why he loves it: “Je t’aime fleur qui sent si bon.”  He loves the flower which smells so good, the water which runs over his feet, the ladybird which trusts him enough to let him hold it, and, in the very end, he loves Pépin, who has all the best qualities of everything he meets in his garden.  (Awww!)

In other words, the text is completely sweet: it has no disruptions, no cracks or ruptures to tease out.  It doesn’t teach you any huge lessons about the world.  These books are simply sweet and charming, and sometimes that’s all you need.  Sometimes you don’t need pedagogical complexity or deep lessons, sometimes you just want to enjoy curling up with your daughter and a gingham-patterned book with lovely, soft watercolour illustrations and whisper, “Je t’aime,” over and over again.  “Je t’aime, ma fille!”  I love you, Changeling!  And we both love reading these books together, and that, in the end, is the only part which truly matters, much more than pedagogy, and, I remind myself, much more than worrying about what anyone else thinks of our pedagogical methods.

Let’s all curl up and read a book, shall we?

When I made my recent trip to The Children’s Book Shop to get that kick to my inspiration, I found myself stimulated and refreshed by a wonderful chat about various aspects of the book industry, which is my way of adultifying what really happened which was a sort of love-fest for Chronicle Books: “Oh my God, yes!  It’s amazing how original they are!–” “Original, exactly!  Both in the content and in the physical–”  “Oh, absolutely, I don’t think anyone has a better understanding of the physical book than Chronicle Books!”  And so on.

Please understand that declaring my undying love for Chronicle Books is in no way an insult to the many, many other wonderful children’s book publishers out there.  Remember how I called myself la Coquette des Livres?  Precisely.  (I’m looking at you, Candlewick and Charlesbridge, right around the corner from me, and always wonderful!)  But that’s the nice thing about children’s books: they do so very, very much that there’s always room for more, somehow.  Whether it’s a clever nonfiction introduction to the doughnut (damn, tell me that book’s out there somewhere, I want it!) or a whimsical poem about a cat’s trip around the world, there’s room for a new book.  Chronicle’s particular skill, I think, is in finding and bringing to life the slightly off-beat, the quirky, the mischievous.  That being said, they’re also responsible for the dreamily lovely Swan and A Child’s Garden of Verses, as well as  Vincent’s Colors, but let’s just say that shows the breadth of what they’re capable of accomplishing.

In this case, however, I’m sharing the off-beat, quirky, and mischievous side of Chronicle Books with you: Who Done It? by Olivier Tallec.

In this case, the genius of Chronicle Books was to look outside of the United States.  Originally published as Quiquoiqui? by Actes Sud in France , Chronicle Books translated this to English.  (And, look, it seems that there are more of them in the series!  And, yes, of course I want them, and want the original French editions, too.)  Let me tell you this: I wish I knew who done it the translation, because it’s wonderful.  I know from experience how hard it is to do a really smooth, flowing translation, and this one is simple, idiomatic, and suits the illustrations well.  My congratulations to whoever was responsible!

After all that gushing and background, I hear you grumbling, “But tell us about the book!”  Patience, grasshopper, patience.  I needed a moment to relieve my overburdened heart, and also wanted to prepare you for just how cute this book is.  First of all, there’s the format: long and thin, the spine is at the top of the book (I think you can see from the picture above).  This immediately captured the Changeling’s attention and she was absolutely enthralled by figuring out a new way to open a book.  I love this for a few reasons: a) it prepares the kid for something new from the first physical touch; b) it’s an excellent format for surprises.  The way it opens, each time you turn a page the whole previous page is covered, making the new page appear like a magic trick: “Hey, presto!  Here’s the new page!”

But what are the surprises?  Olivier Tallec has a lovely little cast of characters (les Quiquoi, in the French versions), and they’re getting up to mischief of all kinds.  Who Done It? is the question.  Who didn’t get enough sleep?  Who forgot a swimsuit?  Who ate all the jam?  To find out, you examine the illustrations.  Well, that little guy is playing the trumpet, this one is wearing a costume and gesturing wildly, and the little girl is holding a red balloon… but that bear is leaning on the sofa sleepily and the red fellow with the ears is falling asleep on his friend, so I guess they’re the ones who didn’t get enough sleep!  And, ahem, I think I see the one who forgot his swimsuit…   Oooh, that little dude up there is smeared with red!  I guess he ate the jam!

So, you see?  It’s a search-and-find game, a sort of puzzle, but with a difference.  Instead of finding “who stands out,” you read the text and watch for subtler clues to find who matches the description.  Instead of seeing who’s the only one wearing green shoes, you’re looking for hints about body language or behaviour.  My absolute favourite page, because I guess I’m about five years old?  (Apologies for the hasty phone photo– the book is hard to get flat on my own, but you should be able to see everything necessary.)

The little blush, the grin, the puddle?  This is picture-book storytelling at its best.  Even the Changeling, at two-and-a-half years old, could figure that out, just by examining the little figures: “Oh, he made a pee-pee on the floor!  It’s a yellow pee.  I made a yellow pee!”  (Leading to a moment of blessedly unwarranted panic because she didn’t have a diaper on at the time…)

But let’s turn to those illustrations for a moment.  Note the clever lines and details, certainly, but also the pencil work.  It reminds me of nothing so much as Le petit Nicolas, written by René Goscinny and illustrated by Jean-Jacques Sempé.  Do you know their work?  Here’s an illustration for you, just in case:

Dear God, how I loved those illustrations when I was growing up!  And let me tell you how thrilled I am to have a somewhat similar style to introduce to my daughter right here and now.  Let’s take a look.  Note the free, sketchy lines.  I’d say that Olivier Tallec’s work aims for a somewhat more polished look, definitely with greater use of colour, but look at the noses and ears, those little pert curves.  Look at the slightly shaggy hair.  There’s a type of vigour and humour even in the outlines which I adore.  They announce: “We’ve got a joke, just follow along!”  If you’re familiar with the Astérix comics, they have a similar energy, although of course the style of drawing is very different.  Like a comic, however, we have here a perfect blend of visual humour in the style and content of the drawings.

Let’s finish by running through the reading experience.  First, you’re holding the book open with your child, and you read the first question.  You have to read it with a straight face, because the question is asked very straightforwardly: it’s a serious question!  The giggles start as you turn from picture to picture and identify who’s sleepy.  Then a moment of suspense: what’s next?  Ah!  A new serious question!  And so it goes.  Each page is a surprise with a simple question which has to be taken seriously, and illustrations which refuse to be taken seriously.

This is sheer fun to read with a little child, probably of any age, but definitely with a toddler.  It’s quirky, it’s intelligent, it requires thought from both parent and child, and it’s always, always fun.  The hard part with this book was getting it out of my daughter’s hands long enough for me to write about it.  The fun part is having it to myself to giggle about for a bit.  The really hard part is that now I want to go to her daycare to read it with the kids.

Warning: book may cause uncontrollable giggles and an urge to locate children to read it with you.

Did you know that the Changeling loves birds?  I think I’ve given you a hint, or maybe two.  Well, the sky is still blue and water is still wet, and she still loves birds.  When I went on my trip to the bookstore earlier this week, the lovely people who run the store and I were chatting about my daughter, and I remarked that I really love how she can express her own taste, including this love of birds.  The owner, who may actually be a character from Cat Valente’s Fairyland, now I come to think of it, vanished in a puff of smoke.  When she reappeared, she was holding this book: Every Day Birds, by Amy Ludwig VanDerwater, cut paper illustrations by Dylan Metrano.  (Over here you can also find Dylan Metrano’s original art for sale.  I mention this only because my heart is breaking that I don’t have the $350 to get the framed chickadee for my daughter’s room.  Curses!)

You know, since I’m already talking about the illustrations and we have this beautiful cover right here, let’s jump right into talking about the illustrations.  You see, I had one concern in buying this book.  I adore the art, but it’s a different style than my daughter is used to for her birds.  I’ve talked before, for both A Bird Is a Bird and Feathers, about my love of precise, accurate, detailed illustrations of birds for these children’s books: ones which really show you what the bird looks like, and are in no way cartoonish or exaggerated.  Audubon for children, basically.  You can see from the cover that Dylan Metrano’s gorgeous cut paper art is accurate and detailed, but the style is very different from the paintings the Changeling and I love so much in her other bird books.  In fact, when the owner of the Children’s Book Shop handed this to me, I immediately blurted out, “Holy, it looks like a William Morris!”  I was thinking of images like this pattern, “The Strawberry Thief,” particularly in his stained glass (on the left, sorry I couldn’t easily find better images for you):

Obviously William Morris has more lush detail curling around his birds, but do you notice the markings on the wings and tails?  Around the eyes?  The slightly abstract, leaded look of those dark lines, almost as thought they were stained glass?  And yet, at the same time, they’re poised to move: I guess I’d call it an abstract realism.  Can you tell I have a major crush on William Morris?  (One day we’ll talk about my tendency to crush on historical figures, but today is not that day.)

Well, you get this vivid, bold, ever so slightly austere art for each bird (the chickadee is perhaps my favourite).  And my concerns that my daughter wouldn’t take to it, or wouldn’t recognize her favourite birds in these somewhat more abstract forms, were patently ridiculous.  Her reaction was positively gleeful: “Birds!  Oh, thank you so much!  Where’s the cardinal?  I found the cardinal, look!”  Nota Bene: Do not underestimate the Changeling.  This has been a Note To Self.  You may now go about your regularly scheduled blog.

All right, so we have our lively yet accurate illustrations.  What about the contents?  Well, part of the reason I started with the illustrations is because we go very much bird by bird in this book.  Unlike A Bird Is a Bird, which goes by categories (types of beaks, wings, eggs), and Feathers, which focuses on feather types, Every Day Birds progresses only according to common birds of North America, one at a time, each one accompanied by a lovely picture.  It’s an incredibly soothing read. We begin with a little verse:

Every day we watch for birds
weaving through our sky.

We  listen to their calls and song.
We like to see them fly.

And then we watch the birds course by, one at a time, still in verse:

Chickadee wears a wee black cap.
Jay is loud and bold.

Nuthatch perches upside-down.
Finch is clothed in gold.

This, again, is why I wanted you to think about the illustrations first.  When you think about these lines, you have to accompany it with one of those bold, strong pictures in your mind.  This isn’t just a chirpy (dear God, forgive me) rhyme; it’s a warm partnership with the illustrations.  They work hand-in-hand.  What you get, in the end, is a series of bird facts, charmingly tripping along in verse, each one accompanied by a really clear illustration of the fact.  After you’ve seen the picture and heard the words, you will never forget that nuthatch perches upside-down: there he is, clear in your mind.

So, maybe this doesn’t have quite the scientific accuracy of A Bird is a Bird‘s labelling of the males and females and so on, but it has extraordinary clarity about a few simple facts which children can easily learn to identify.  Look for the bright yellow of the goldfinch.  Listen for particularly loud blue jays.  Watch for the black cap of the chickadee.  The great blue heron goes fishing.  Nothing here is at all fantastical, and these are all good starting points for anyone interested in birds.  At age two, you don’t really need to be able to identify the finer points of the male vs. the female bufflehead, but you may be very interested in knowing that the oriole’s nest hangs from a tree.  And this is all told in that lovely, easy-going poem which makes it very easy (as I’ve found out) for children to remember the bird facts!

There’s one additional point about the book I’d like to make: something I didn’t expect my daughter to care about at all, but it turns out she gets highly affronted if I neglect to include it in a reading.  (I’m so sorry, Changeling, I won’t do it again.)  At the back of the book there’s a list of all the birds included in the book, each with a thumbnail of the picture and additional facts about the bird.  It’s great for a little further reading, but I wasn’t prepared for how much my daughter loves those pages.  She goes through and, effectively, tests herself: “This is the sparrow and the woodpecker and the blue bird and the…” On she goes, running down the list of thumbnails, trying to remember the name of each bird.  She’s in love.

For a perfect introduction– early, early introduction– to the birds you might see in eastern North America, I can’t see a better book than this one.  This would be a great book for right before A Bird Is a Bird, which is a great book for right before Feathers.  But they’re all great in any order, and my bookshop really, 100% pegged my daughter’s taste on this one.  It’s amazing.