Bartography

By Lita Judge
40 pages
Hyperion Books for Children
July 2007

That the story behind Judge’s picture book doesn’t outshine her text or illustrations is really saying something, because backstories don’t get much more moving than the one here. One Thousand Tracings is based on the childhood experiences of Judge’s mother, whose parents — Wisconsin ornithologists — led a post-WWII effort to help total strangers in Europe keep body and soul together as the continent rebuilt.

The story’s unforced drama unfolds in two-page chapters over a two-year period, from the return of the narrator’s soldier-father in 1946 to the return to normalcy on both sides of the Atlantic at the end of 1948. Judge’s demonstration of American kindness and humanity in post-war Europe is not a new theme in historical picture books — Mercedes and the Chocolate Pilot and Boxes for Katje have covered similar ground — but she makes her mother’s story intensely personal through the art. The book’s title refers to the flood of paper tracings of shoeless feet received by the narrator’s family, and actual tracings received by Judge’s mother and grandparents are reproduced throughout, along with photos and letters sent across the ocean by those in need.

The author’s note is unusually satisfying, but the thoughtful and thorough web site Judge has put together for the book is really something else. Readers will come away with an even greater sense of what went into, in the words of the book’s subtitle, “Healing the Wounds of World War II.”

By Don Brown
128 pages
Roaring Brook
August 2007

I’m going to start looking forward to author-illustrator Brown’s novels as much as I do his biographical picture books. I say this having just finished his second historical fiction effort in as many years, which immediately drew me in with its tale of teenage hobos riding the rails during the Great Depression.

As did The Notorious Izzy Fink, Brown’s story starts fast and ends almost as quickly, inviting readers who may not be opposed to lengthy, intricate tales but sure don’t mind a short, punchy one. And like Brown’s first novel, this one examines the casually caustic racism of a bygone era. But while the discrimination cuts deeper this time around, it’s just one flavor of hard times faced by westward-bound Collie, and it accentuates rather than weighs down his rollicking adventures and hair’s-breadth scrapes in this absorbing tale.

By Stephen Buchmann and Diana Cohn and illustrated by Paul Mirocha
40 pages
Cinco Puntos Press
April 2007

Even if there wasn’t a magical, nonfiction-based tale at the heart of The Bee Tree, this title would be worth seeking out just on the strength of the eight pages of photo- and illustration-packed notes from the book’s creators. One fact from those notes stands out and gives some idea of the wonders to be found in The Bee Tree’s main text and illustrations: “Over 750 species of trees can be found in just twenty-five acres … of Malaysian rainforest.”

In the pages preceding those notes, readers are plunged into that rainforest for the contemporary story of Nizam, a boy following his grandfather for the first time up a 120-foot wooden ladder for his clan’s annual honey hunt. It’s a moonless night, by the way. And there are lots and lots of big, angry bees. And fire, cleverly wielded. Equal parts adventure, botany, and folklore, The Bee Tree offers a captivating look both at an unfamiliar culture and a familiar sweetener that may become a bit harder to take for granted.

by William Low
40 pages
Henry Holt
April 2007

Nostalgic without being sentimental, William Low’s straightforward text and striking paintings pay tribute to a long-gone Manhattan landmark, boldly conceived a century ago and unceremoniously torn down 53 years after it opened. Before the mid-1960s construction of the functional transit hub that Low passes through each week stood what he presents as a work of art, “a magical spiderweb of metal and glass,” and the reader first becoming aware of old Penn Station through this book is in for a rich experience.

It’s easy to imagine an author-illustrator framing the building’s story through the eyes of a retirement-age commuter, looking back on the freshly built Penn Station of his boyhood as its nondescript successor takes its place. But Low refreshingly keeps the focus on the building itself, the reasons for its construction and demolition alike, the life that coursed through it in the meantime, and the lessons learned from the way this “monument to rail travel” was discarded in pieces into New Jersey’s Meadowlands. Low’s book serves as a monument to that monument, and neither will be easily forgotten.

by Gretchen Woelfle
102 pages
Calkins Creek
May 2007

If you know one thing about Jeannette Rankin beyond the fact that she was the first woman elected to Congress, it’s probably that she was the only member of Congress to vote against the U.S.’s entry into both world wars. The biggest news to me, upon reading Gretchen Woelfle’s lively new biography, was that Montana’s Rankin was in fact the first woman elected to a democratic lawmaking body anywhere in the world.

Or maybe it was that her two big votes against war occurred in the only two terms she served, more than two decades apart.

Or maybe it was that Rankin still had another three decades to go after that before she’d be done actively opposing war. (You’ll dig the photo of a 90-ish Rankin standing next to an 11-piece drum kit at a 1970 anti-Vietnam rally.)

I could go on.

Like the recent biography of Jane Addams, Rankin’s mentor and sister suffragette, this one offers a captivating portrait of a highly principled American putting those principles to good use for a good long time.

by Loree Griffin Burns
Houghton Mifflin
3/07

If I hadn’t been following Burns’ blog and her tales of her first appearances as an (almost) published author, I never would have guessed that Tracking Trash is a debut book. Her exploration of the ocean currents and the human-produced junk they carry (including, but not limited to, nurdles) is a timely, fascinating, exceptionally well-done work of nonfiction.

The scientists that Burns profiles come off as having some of the most interesting jobs on the planet, even though many of their findings are downright depressing. Just wait until you get to the part about the Eastern Garbage Patch, an unimaginably large and foul collection of flotsam and jetsam on the surface of the Pacific between Hawaii and California.

Burns’ writing is both sophisticated and accessible throughout, and Tracking Trash is that rare nonfiction book where there’s always a photo or a map or a diagram exactly where the reader needs them to be. Before this book, I’d never given much thought to trash in the ocean, but I sure am glad to know that scientists are tracking this stuff, and that Burns has been tracking them. Read it yourself, and you may be inclined to track something, too: one author’s very promising career.

by Brian Floca
Atheneum
3/07

I kept waiting for something to happen in this picture book, kept wondering why nothing was happening — and in so doing kept responding exactly the way I believe Floca wants his readers to.

Lightship is an exquisite, uncommonly distinctive book. The languid pacing of the poetic text nails the unhurriedness of the lives of the crew members as their ship “holds to one sure spot.” Floca just as effectively snaps the reader to attention when it’s time for the crew to do its thing: fire up the twin beacons and guide ships around fog-obscured hazards in areas where lighthouses aren’t practical.

Or rather, where they weren’t practical. Some readers captivated by Lightship – by the illustrations that ably capture both the softness of the ship’s cat and the intricacies of its machinery — will be disappointed to learn that the last such U.S. ship docked in 1983. But perhaps they’ll be heartened to know that Light Vessel 87 — the real ship depicted here — awaits them, a floating museum in New York City right across the East River from Floca’s studio.

by Dawn FitzGerald and illustrated by Catherine Stock
Charlesbridge
1/07

This true tale — sweetened with floral endpapers and invented dialogue — of how teenaged sculptor Vinnie Ream won the government commission to immortalize Abraham Lincoln in marble is a welcome addition to the canon of picture books about the 16th U.S. president.

Despite Lincoln sharing top billing in the title, Vinnie and Abraham is really the story of Ream, the first woman and youngest artist to win such an assignment from Congress. Ream and Lincoln share only a single spread together, a depiction of the 2 1/2 hours he spent with her each week posing for a bust.

The rest of FitzGerald’s frequently pointed telling covers the growth of Ream’s prodigious talents, the limited professional options open to young women during the Civil War era, Ream’s knack for creating opportunities for herself, and the technical details of how she went about creating the statue, right down to selecting the stone in an Italian quarry.

Stock’s lovely watercolors add to the warmth, intimacy, and inspiration of the text, with one particularly noteworthy added touch — repeated depictions the 1860s construction of the Capitol’s dome, beneath which lies the rotunda where Ream’s statue resides today.

by Susan L. Roth in association with Angelo Mafucci
Houghton Mifflin
1/07

The feel of a fable permeates Roth’s telling of how music came to be written down: There’s the unappreciated protagonist, the inflexible elders, the lonely journey, and the critical role played by a true friend. Guido d’Arezzo’s invention of musical notation occurred a thousand years ago, but Roth’s intimate dialogue (”‘I just can’t do it,’ he said.”) and the felt-board quality of the torn-paper illustrations make the ancient story seem to unfold right before the reader’s eyes.

Roth makes palpable Guido’s inspiration, determination, despair, and ultimate exuberance upon realizing his vision after many years of trial and error. She also sheds light on the aspect of musical notation that’s most familiar to most of us, thanks to The Sound of Music: how the titular “do re mi” came to be. A comparison of Guido d’Arezzo’s notation with the modern format, a glossary, author’s note, and bibliography return Do Re Mi from the realm of fable to pure fact and end it on just the right note.