From: Ginny Moore Kruse <gmkruse>
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2000 12:18:47 -0600

I'm sure there are a few people in the CCBC-Net community who have seen "Joseph..." and are willing to share some of the humorous visual
"asides" in the award winning edition of "Joseph Had a Little Overcoat." If so, please do, because there are many, beginning with the references to Fiddler on the Roof, Tevye, etc. One of the wonderful aspects of Taback's singular vision for "Joseph..." is that it can be so completely enjoyed by very young children, and yet it provides delightful visual discoveries for kids of all ages right up through adulthood, not to mention the cultural dimensions of
"Joseph..." about which I offer the same invitation.

The new edition of "A Child's Calendar" also offers continuing discoveries through all age ranges. Personally I've experienced a series of responses to this book, beginning with being almost hostile to the news that a new edition had been published. I've long admired the images created by Nancy Ekholm Burkert for the Knopf edition


published in 1965 and reprinted in 1989 by Knopf with the only change being a new book jacket: much less harmonious but much more child?ntered book jacket art - also by Burkert. In the first edition, Burkert's images accompany each of Updike's twelve poems, and they reflect upon some aspect of each month. Seeing the Burkert edition of "A Child's Calendar" offers interesting insights into book production in 1965, just as we gain a different "historical" insight when seeing the first edition of "Joseph..."

It didn't long for me to admire the new edition illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman or to appreciate how pleased John Updike must have been to be invited to tweak some of his twelve poems written more than 30 years ago. With all apologies to Updike and to Holiday House, I've come to understand the new "A Child's Calendar" as being a wordless picture story accompanied by poems, rather than the other way around. I'll try to explain. Look only at Hyman's full page artwork. Notice how it's possible for a young child to develop her/his own story about this family, especially about the youngest child. As pages are turned and as the months progress, young children become better and better acquainted with family members, especially with that child.

Older children who look only at the full page illustrations can also figure out many things about this family and add what they imagine to Hyman decided to show. Older children will also begin to realize that the smaller illustrative panel on each page spread is more reflective, less active than the full page. That panel links the people in the wordless story to Updike's poems, also more reflective and more open to more mature readers and thinkers. To me, the wordless story is the core of this engaging book, it's the place to begin.

There are many paths to discovery in "A Child's Calendar." For example, the family. The family Hyman pictures might be considered unconventional by some. (The children I mentioned last week, the ones who are not worried about Sophie, never mentioned that the family is unconventional, because to them this is "another family," one not seeming unconventional at all.) But for the sake of putting a CCBC-Net discussion of family composition to complete rest right now, let's agree that many will consider them to be unconventional because this family is interracial, intergenerational, and interfaith, to mention only three of the possible reasons. This family is seen responding in quite conventional and traditional ways to nature's annual cycle. They feed seasonal birds, plant flowers, enjoy a summer picnic and a trip to the beach, go trick-or-treating, have a Christmas tree - and they also have a menorah & Star of David. They bring the outside in during cold weather, and they enjoy what can be done outside in all seasons.


They have pets; one can see smaller visual stories about pets. The family communicates with others by creating handmade Valentine greetings and writing thank you notes. The wider world is part of their home environment, because there are international objects in their home. Hyman dares to suggest that families seeming to be unusual can be very traditional. I'm not suggesting that this is an idea to raise with young children, but it's one of the elements explicit in the artwork. Hyman has proudly stated that this is her own family, which will - I hope - put to rest anyone's notion that in creating these fine illustrations the artist had an "issue" to develop at the expense of her artistry.

Much more can be discovered within Hyman's illustrations, but it's more fun to discover them than to have someone else point them out. I'll end with an anecdote from the CCBC's own Caldecott discussion last December. One of the participants that evening teaches four-year-olds in a nursery school. Helen observed with affection and warm humor that the child who abandons his swimming trunks on the July page "was time-out material since January." She caught a sense of his energy early on. And so will young children.

Good for you, if you're one of the readers who prefers to begin with Updike's poems, and why not? Once you know the book, it's possible to read one poems aloud each month at home or school. We each complete each book, we each read a different book. It just happens that my copy of "A Child's Calendar" is a wordless picture book, one children will not grow too old to enjoy. And as they grow, they will be introduced in the best possible way to one of America's most distinguished writers of poetry (and criticism, short fiction and novels) in a book illustrated by one of America's most distinguished artists of books for children. What a treasure.

I have much more to say this book and also about the other four books in our Caldecott discussion, but I'll spare you... What do you think?

Ginny Moore Kruse (gmkruse at ccbc.education.wisc.edu) Cooperative Children's Book Center (www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/) A Library of the School of Education, University of Wisconsin Madison
Received on Mon 24 Jan 2000 12:18:47 PM CST