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Charlotte Zolotow books
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From: Martha Parravano <MPARRAVANO>
Date: Tue, 08 Jul 1997 11:34:58 -0600
I know I am late to speak on this topic, but I was foiled by the Internet when I tried to send a posting in June.
One of my older daughter's favorite picture books is Over and Over
(text by CZ, pix by Garth Williams), which is about a little girl's awakening to the passing and marking of time, as she and her family celebrate holidays and seasons through the year. The text is lovely, with a nice use of modulated repetition ("The little girl loved (Christmas, Valentine's day, HAlloween, summer vacation) but she half-remembered something else. ' What comes next?'") and plenty of specific details ("there was a big basket full of shiny green paper grass and a big chocolate Easter egg with white icing on it. And there were some little fuzzy yellow chicks and one little bunny who played music when she wound him"). The closing lines, in which the little girl blows out her birthday candles and wishes for it all to happen again--"And of course, over and over, year after year, it did"--are as poignant to the adult reader as they are promising and satisfying to the child listener. The illustrations are soft, child?ntered, and almost always in an oval or round shape (to show the cyclical nature of life?).
It was first published in 1957, so the experiences of the child in the book do not parallel exactly the experiences of my daughter (who goes to preschool all day and does *not* get to go to a beach house for the whole summer). But the differences are superficial. For my daughter in 1997 the book is a mirror that truthfully reflects her life and the way she thinks of time (in answer to her question "When is Halloween coming?" I don't say in four months; I say after we go to the ocean to see your cousins, after you start kindergarten, after my birthday, after the leaves start to change colors"). I also appreciate Over and Over as a culturally specific book--one that adds richness to our sometimes comparatively bland "dominant" culture.
Received on Tue 08 Jul 1997 12:34:58 PM CDT
Date: Tue, 08 Jul 1997 11:34:58 -0600
I know I am late to speak on this topic, but I was foiled by the Internet when I tried to send a posting in June.
One of my older daughter's favorite picture books is Over and Over
(text by CZ, pix by Garth Williams), which is about a little girl's awakening to the passing and marking of time, as she and her family celebrate holidays and seasons through the year. The text is lovely, with a nice use of modulated repetition ("The little girl loved (Christmas, Valentine's day, HAlloween, summer vacation) but she half-remembered something else. ' What comes next?'") and plenty of specific details ("there was a big basket full of shiny green paper grass and a big chocolate Easter egg with white icing on it. And there were some little fuzzy yellow chicks and one little bunny who played music when she wound him"). The closing lines, in which the little girl blows out her birthday candles and wishes for it all to happen again--"And of course, over and over, year after year, it did"--are as poignant to the adult reader as they are promising and satisfying to the child listener. The illustrations are soft, child?ntered, and almost always in an oval or round shape (to show the cyclical nature of life?).
It was first published in 1957, so the experiences of the child in the book do not parallel exactly the experiences of my daughter (who goes to preschool all day and does *not* get to go to a beach house for the whole summer). But the differences are superficial. For my daughter in 1997 the book is a mirror that truthfully reflects her life and the way she thinks of time (in answer to her question "When is Halloween coming?" I don't say in four months; I say after we go to the ocean to see your cousins, after you start kindergarten, after my birthday, after the leaves start to change colors"). I also appreciate Over and Over as a culturally specific book--one that adds richness to our sometimes comparatively bland "dominant" culture.
Received on Tue 08 Jul 1997 12:34:58 PM CDT
