MotherReader

Hey, I warned you that my blog could suddenly go dark if the beach beckoned — oh, and it beckon it did. I’m not a big fan of traveling on holiday weekends, but it was the only totally clear time we had to get to Virginia Beach and see my niece. For the first time in years I went to the fireworks show at the oceanfront. It was amazing. I highly recommend seeing fireworks shot over the ocean. It is to die for. (Those were my hoity-toity italics.)

I can’t imagine why, but the spaces closest to the sea weren’t crowded, and we had a completely unobstructed view of the fireworks reflected in the ocean as the waves lapped up ten feet away. Well, unobstructed except for the one random drunk guy who staggered down into the water, stared at the show for three minutes, and then wandered off into the night. Otherwise it was sensory perfection adding fireworks to the cool ocean breeze and the smell and sound of the sea. The taste of pink lemonade did all right, but next time I’m bringing Kit-Kats.

Today I’m back, but due at work in an hour. Nothing like cutting it close. I’ve checked my email, checked eBay (“Prada handbags” is my new favorite search — curse you, Sex and the City movie), and checked my stats — and hold on! I’ve wondered before what might get picked up first by folks outside the kidlitosphere — Bloggers Against Celebrity Authors (BACA) or the Weird-Ass Picture Book Awards (WAPB). Apparently, the winner is... the Weird-Ass Picture Book Awards, which were picked up by Metafilter. How about that? I’m touched — and honored.

I only have some concern that readers there may not have surmised that my awards can be a compliment — and I would comment as such, but new membership costs five dollars. I don’t know. Give my five dollars to make sure my awards are well understood more than halfway through the day of the posting or donate to Obama’s campaign by the end of July, and possibly win tickets to the see Barack accept the party nomination? Decisions, decisions.

Ah, who am I kidding? We all know I’m going to spend the five bucks on two chalupas and a Diet Pepsi at Taco Bell.

All of today’s selections have a little Weird-Ass Picture Book (WAPB) going on, Not that being a WAPB is a bad thing necessarily, but it does mean a bit... different.

Ginger Bear, by Mini Grey
A little boy makes a gingerbread bear, but doesn’t get a chance to eat her. So in the middle of the night, Ginger Bear wakes up and makes a whole bunch of decorated gingerbread friends and they have a gingerbread circus. But OH NO, a dog comes and eats and smashes all the friends in a gingerbready grisly scene. Ginger Bear decides to escape this place and be the star of the pastry shop display where she’ll never be eaten. It’s a totally bizarre story when you really think about it. Maybe even a WAPB for the story line.

Do Unto Otters: A Book About Manners, by Laurie Keller
The illustration style is not my favorite (bordering on WAPB), but I’d put that aside to say how much I liked this book. It is definitely a teaching book — in this case about manners — but it does so with so much humor that it’s fun for everyone. When a family of otters move in next to a rabbit, he’s all thrown off. “I don’t know anything about otters. What if we don’t get along?” But his friend has a old saying that helps: “Do Unto Otters as you would have otters do unto you.” As he explains it, “It simply means to treat otters the same way you’d like otters to treat you.” Of course, this includes being friendly, polite, honest, considerate, kind, cooperative, fair, and sharing. (Half of these are in the Girl Scout law, btw.) Each concept gets a funny example in the illustrations. Fun book for preschoolers and a bit above.

All Aboard! A Traveling Alphabet, by Bill Mayer
A WAPB illustration contender for 2008, bold and modern with the letters of the alphabet “hidden” in each picture. Some are easy to spot, some a little bit harder. The text and pictures relate to travel, transportation, and generally getting around. Sometimes it’s a bit of a stretch — E for Elephant? — but the visuals are always... um, interesting. Not my style, and I’m not sure how kid-friendly it is. I’ll be curious to hear other reactions to this book.

Wow. There’s an excitement in the air in anticipation of the Weird-Ass Picture Books Awards for 2008. Well, I can feel it and I’m all a-tingle. No, hold it. That’s my cell phone.

It’s important to note that the designation of “weird-ass” is not necessarily a bad thing. Some books in their very strangeness reach new heights of art and storytelling. I’d like to think that this year’s winners have given us something to think about — or at the very least, made us go, “Hmmmm.” Here are the winners.

The WAPB Award for Cover Art goes to:

New Socks, by Bob Shea
In the words of Fuse#8, “This may well be the very first hipster picture book I’ve encountered, published in the last five years.” In my words, “How funky is your chicken?”

The WAPB Award for Illustration goes to:

Bow Wow Bugs a Bug, by Mark Newgarden and Megan Montague Cash
This wordless book starts off pretty normal, with a dog tracking a bug. Things get stranger as two dogs with two bugs meet and greet as dogs usually do, to put it gently. Then it gets stranger and stranger and stranger. Lots of fun, but totally weird.


The WAPB Award for Story goes to:

Five Little Gefiltes, by Dave Horowitz
Taking the format of Five Little Ducks, Horowitz uses gefiltes instead to positively wacky effect, using lots of Yiddish colloquialisms. I’m not sure this book will play in Peoria, but it will have fans in Brooklyn. Oy vey!


And the 2008 Award for Best Weird-Ass Picture Book goes to:

Cowboy and Octopus, by Jon Scieszka, illustrated by Lane Smith
To address the intrinsic weirdness of this book, you need go no further than the title Cowboy and Octopus. This surreal pairing of friends leads to a truly strange book in story and illustrations, making it a masterpiece even in the world of WAPB. Bravo!

Congratulations to all our winners.

While The Alphabet from A to Y With Bonus Letter Z! written by Steve Martin and illustrated by Roz Chast, was nominated and considered, ultimately it was rejected by the committee (uh, me) as being an adult book in children’s picture book clothing, and therefore ineligible for the award. Plus it sucked.

The Boy With Two Belly Buttons, by Stephen Dubner, illustrated by Christoph Niemann, was also considered for storyline, but as it turns out the book is just bad, not weird. What luck, though, that it can be viewed in its entirety at Amazon. If I’d had to leave my computer to assess the book, I’d have been ticked off.

Thanks for being part of the 2008 WAPBAs. Start looking for contenders for next year. I’ve already seen two possible nominees and it’s barely March, so it could be a stellar year for the strange. Let’s say, for the wonderfully strange.

Count on Chris Gall to give me a WAPB Award contender for 2008. Two years ago his Dear Fish knocked my socks off with its intrinsic weirdness. There’s Nothing to Do on Mars is also strange, but because it is a whole other planet, it’s supposed to be strange. So actually, that makes Gall the perfect person to write and illustrate this book.

A boy and his family move to Mars, and he’s bored. There’s nothing to do and nobody to do it with, except his space dog, Polaris. They can’t go swimming because of the whole no-water thing, and the Martians might be cool, but they stink because they can’t shower because of the whole no-water thing. And sure, you can build a fort out of huge rocks because of Mars’s low gravity, but that gets so blah after a short time. What to do, what to do? Maybe explore a volcano-like formation, the consequences of which will change the whole planet? Yeah, that sounds good.

It’s a clever book, funny, and speaks to any kid who’s complained that there’s nothing to do. The (good) weirdness that Gall brings to his work reaches its full potential in this book.

I am reminded that I didn’t announce the WAPB Awards for 2007. Let’s aim for Monday on that, shall we? Groovy.

Oh, and submissions for the Carnival of Children’s Literature are due today. The February theme — in honor of Leap Year — is Leap Into a Book!

I’m waiting for the Oscar nominations to come in. They’re being announced as I type, and should hopefully be available on the Oscars site by the time I’m done with my post. Actually, it’s purely by chance that I’m on the computer during the announcements. I wasn’t waiting for them, especially since I haven’t seen any of the films that are being mentioned as possible winners.

But it is an interesting coincidence, because I was planning to talk about the Academy Awards today. Specifically, how the movie studios tend to release their best Oscar contenders at the end of the year so they’ll be fresh on people’s minds. I don’t think the same thing happens with children’s books. For books it would seems like a better approach to have an earlier print date to allow buzz to build up. Of course, that’s not always what happens. Take the case of last year’s Newbery winner, The Higher Power of Lucky, which was released at the end of 2006. While the Scrotum Kerfuffle got attention, the other early disappointment surrounding the winner was that nobody had heard of the book. If some title is going to come out of nowhere and take the prize, than there’s no fun in playing along in a year-long home game of “Guess the Newbery.” (Now available in a collectible tin from Mattel!)

Today I return to my own favorite children’s book prize, long dormant but never entirely forgotten. Better yet, we have the whole year to play along and submit our favorites. I’ve already found a strong contender here in the month of January, and I couldn’t be more excited to reintroduce the...


The WAPBAs are given to the books that make you go “Huhhh?” Awards are given for story, illustration, and cover art. The highest award goes to the picture book achieving outstanding weirdness in both illustration and text. The 2007 WAPBA went to The Fuchsia Is Now, by J. Otto Seibold, for its strange story and artwork. The interesting use of condoms as hats was clearly a deciding factor in this book’s selection. Dear Fish, by Chris Gall, won for both illustration and cover art. For storyline, My Father the Dog, by Elizabeth Bluemle, took the prize. (Don’t try to verify any of these awards, as I just made them up right now.)

But before we can start playing the “Guess the WAPBA” for 2009, we’ve got to award the prizes for 2008. So now it’s time to nominate 2007 titles for the WAPBA awards of 2008, to be announced whenever I get around to it. Please nominate your favorite WAPBs for this prestigious prize.

NOTE: If you plan to mention WAPBA on your own blog — and I hope you do — be advised that the phrase “Weird-Ass” brings some interesting searches to your blog. Just a little warning.

(That Oscar website is taking some time to go up, so here is the Associated Press article, which also features some commentary. Like I guessed, I’ve seen none — none — of the nominees. I’ve got to get out more.)

It may have come completely out of left field that I put Pecorino Plays Ball, by Alan Madison, on my Top Picks of 2006 (So Far) list, given that I have never mentioned it on my blog. It will further surprise you when you learn that it earns a spot as a Weird-Ass Picture Book based on one aspect of the book. But it is one aspect of the book that is very weird, and yet reviewers don’t seem to have noted it in this or in the first book, Pecorino’s First Concert. Like episodes of Jeopardy, I will note this oddity in the form of a question.

What is the deal with the pointy breasts?

I’m fine with the strange style used throughout this book, whereby the characters have round googly eyes and very large noses. Okay, as an artistic choice. I think the filled-in pencil drawing style is pretty cool, and I’m totally on board with the occasional mixed-media additions of cotton ball clouds and yarn pieces in the grass. Keeps it interesting. But the cone-shaped breasts à la Madonna’s Blonde Ambition tour? Whew. Weird-Ass to the max, man.

But in spite of — or maybe even because of — these strange illustrations, this book makes my top list. The illustrations are funky and very cool. They complement and convey the humor of the text throughout. My favorite picture is when Pecorino tucks in his too-big T-shirt of “MALONE’S: We Sell Boxes,” and he is left with a T-shirt that says “ALONE” (his arms cover the “M” and the “S”). The idea is funny and the picture is even funnier.

Back to the story. Pecorino’s mom signs him up for Little League, even though Pecorino doesn’t seem to know what it is. He is so out of his element — he can’t catch a baseball or hit a baseball — but in the end it all works out for him. This is one of the few picture books that could be read to a class up to fifth grade, and it would still work. It’s a funny, clever book that will win over a wide range of kids. It’s also that rare “boy” book that has a cross-over appeal. All this allows me to forgive the pointy breasts, even if I can’t understand them.

The Fuchsia Is Now, by J. Otto Seibold, leads off MotherReader’s new feature, “Weird-Ass Picture Book of the Month.” J. Otto Seibold is no stranger to odd picture books. In fact, he may be called a reigning king. But this particular book hits a new high in both story and illustrations, and thus earns itself the honored title of Weird-Ass Picture Book of the Month.

Fuchsia is a little fuchsia girl who makes a wish on her birthday cake for her wish to come true. Which begs the question of how much wish can a Fuchsia wish if a Fuchsia could wish... anyway. She opens her present and finds a hat that makes her head look like a baby bottle or a... umm, condom. Then she decides to put a flower on her hat to make it look fancy and poof! A fairy pops out! The fairy poofs her some strange new friends, some with condom caps as well. It’s a new trend. They all play until nighttime and Fuchsia learns that she can bring them all back again by saying, “THE FUCHSIA IS NOW.”

J. Otto Seibold’s work with the bullet hole eyes has never appealed to me. And it doesn’t now either. But I think the story is weird and plotless as well. The book reads like a surreal Dick and Jane — very stilted, but with an occasional strange turn of phrase.

Most interesting to me is that Target used this book in promoting its Ready Set Read program. How did the marketing department make that happen? “The kids will love this stuff because it’s Hello Kitty meets The Powerpuff Girls meets Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends. So we’ll get the preschoolers, the elementary crowd, and the pot-smoking teens to boot!” And that’s how J. Otto Seibold began designing Target’s newspaper inserts for the program. And oh boy, go to the website for a odd introduction that competes with the 1970s Sesame Street vignettes. Speaking of smoking a little somethin’...

There are times I believe that Fuse#8 and I were separated at birth, and only 10 years and some 300 miles render that theory unlikely. I trust her reviews completely. We tend to like the same things, hate the same things, and have crushes on the same cute, married, children’s book authors/illustrators. We’re simpatico.

I have one, teeny, tiny complaint about Fuse#8, and it isn’t even her fault (not really). She gets the books faster. I know that often they are the prepublished editions, but I suspect that sometimes they are just the regular books that her public library is getting sooner than mine. And since we gravitate toward the same types of books, she reviews them first. Waaaay first.

So long before me, in fact, that you have probably even forgotten that she reviewed them at all. Today, I add my two cents and as I link to Amazon, notice the reviews on the bottom of the pages. The very long, thorough reviews of each book. A little Bird told me that those reviews are worth a second look.

Ruby Lu, Empress of Everything, by Lenore Look, finally made its way to my library, fortunately in time for summer reading. I like Ruby Lu. She’s like the Chinese-American Judy Moody — and so says Megan McDonald, author of the Judy Moody books.

When her cousin Flying Duck comes to the United States from China, Ruby Lu is happy. She loves having her family from China, and Flying Duck has many useful tricks and skills. Among those skills is lip-reading, because Flying Duck is deaf. And in the perfect way kids interpret such things is this line from the book: “Having a cousin from China who was deaf was as good as having a cousin who had a third eye in the middle of her forehead.” At first everything is great, but the strain of having extra people around begins to show. There are arguments. There are bathroom conflicts. There are 911 calls. Ruby becomes her Smile Buddy at school, helping her adjust to the new school. Unfortunately, she helps her a little too much, by doing her cousin’s schoolwork, and ignoring her own. Both of them have to go to summer school. But there is still time for swimming lessons, dead mice, and lots of adventures. The book contains a glossary of important words and pictures of some of the sign language. An enjoyable read for the early elementary kids.

Rosy Cole’s Memoir Explosion, by Sheila Greenwald, was a surprise in that I thought it was a early chapter book at first. The book was all right, but I wasn’t sure who it was for. It seems written for 3rd/4th graders, but Rosy is 11 and she has a crush on a boy — and has for two years... actually, now that is sounding more realistic than I thought. She needs to write about someone for class, but she can’t decide who. Then she has the brilliant idea of writing her own story. She goes through the outline for writing her own story, which shows that she needs “Talent, Tears, Turning Points; Romantic Relationships; Confronting Demons; Overcoming Obstacles; Family Feuds; Rising Above Failures; A Never-Before-Told-Secret; Reader Sympathy.” (Before the book is over, we will go through all of these steps with Rosy.) As she tries to convince her friends to write their memoirs, she ends up taking their stories and turning them into a book they would rather not read — especially as it isn’t so much true. Rosy writes the story of how she loses all her friends as way of atonement, and is forgiven.

A Horn for Louis, by Eric A. Kimmel, is a nice read, even if it makes me wonder how much is true. It is the story of Louis Armstrong as a young poor boy who played a tin horn for the junk man, so people would come out with their junk. He played so well on a cheap tin horn that everyone noticed. A gambler even throws Louis a dollar coin for his playing. But when his tin horn breaks, what is Louis going to do? The junk man’s kid finds Louis a real trumpet in the store, but of course there isn’t any money for it. My favorite part of this book was the relationship of Louis to the Jewish family running the junkyard. The integration of a black kid into their family dinners was something most white families wouldn’t do. Some of the Jewish traditions and words are noted, but not overly much.

I knew that I liked Ian Whybrow, but I couldn’t remember why. Especially after reading The Unvisibles. This book is British. Very, very British. Hard to understand some of the expressions kind of British. Frankly, I just found it too much work. The basic story is that a boy, Oliver, finds an old magazine with instructions on becoming invisible. But the magazine is taken by a man who is cheating his father, and Oliver needs to find that magazine to get back to normal. He employs the help of Nicky, a boy who is invisible in his own way, in that he stays under the radar and draws no attention to himself. Oliver uses his invisibility to pull tricks on the teachers who don’t much like him. It is supposed to come off funny, but I sympathized with the teachers who didn’t seem to like him because Oliver was a troublemaker to begin with. However, given all the Britishness of this book, maybe I just didn’t understand. Now, I had thought that Fuse#8 had raved unequivocally about this book, but when I went back to her review, I realized that she also thought the book was very British — she just handled it better. Oh, and it was Ian Whybrow’s Little Wolf’s Book of Badness that I liked so much, I remember now.

And just as final proof that I am two steps behind Fuse#8, here are the notes I wrote on a new picture book that came into my library. Notes that I made, but didn’t format into an entry, before someone beat me to it. See if you recognize the book.

The boy invites the fish to come visit him someday. He puts the note in a bottle, and throws it into the sea. The next day there is a fish in his bathtub and two creepy catfish eating the neighbor’s lawn. The neighbor Sally blows up some blowfish for balloons while jellyfish swoop in to make peanut butter sandwiches. A whale flys overhead like a hot-air balloon. Fish invade everywhere. Chris writes them another note telling them they should live at home. WAPB.

The book? Dear Fish, by Chris Gall. The acronym, WAPB? Weird-Ass Picture Book.

Just recently I wrote about books that make you go Awwwww. Who can resist those cuddly, wuddly, baby animals? And sometimes you see a book that makes you go Ohhhh. The illustrations in The Magical, Mystical, Marvelous Coat garner that reaction from me. They are just that breathtaking. Hey, I’ve even seen some wonderful books about bugs, bats, or guts that have made me go Ewwwwww!

But this might be the first time a book has made me go Holy crap.

Looking for something a little different in the creepy, freaky vein? Maybe a little Nightmare Before Christmas meets Coraline. Maybe you fear that your children’s nightmares are just too unimaginative and you want to add some drama.

Well, then, have I got the book for you.

Thirteen O’Clock is James Stimson’s first book, having worked before on film animation (including James and the Giant Peach). He has put together a story of a little girl in a normal house... except that the clock in the house counts to thirteen o’clock. Apparently, when your clock counts to thirteen, all the little weirdo frights and ghoulies come out to scare everybody. Unfortunately for them, the little girl is too giggly to be scared, so they all go outside to play.

Throughout the book, the text is awkward, the rhymes and rhythms inconsistent, which makes it hard to read. But it’s the pictures, man, the pictures, that take my Weird-Ass Picture Books designation to a whole new level.

I have a new contender for Weird-Ass Picture Book of the Year (I am so going to make that a new award for January). You can even find it yourself. Try searching “giant imaginary fish” in Google. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

Let me guess. You found the Eric Rohmann book Clara and Asha. I have to say, these days you really have to work hard to find a phrase that will not be represented on the Internet at least a thousand times. It is quite a sign of how quirky your book is when the main describing phrase has been used by no one. Kudos.

Clara is a little girl with a big imagination, big enough to accommodate one giant fish. When it is time for bed she opens her window and waits for Asha. The text is simple, and for pages and pages, actually nonexistent. The story is simple — Clara and Asha just play and fly together. The pictures are extraordinary. Weird-ass, that’s for sure, but extraordinary. You would think Clara’s black bullet-hole eyes might creep me out a bit, since that is one of my issues, but they are softened by the painting and mostly I tried not to think about it. Now, if the Caldecotts had just waited, they could have awarded Eric Rothmann for this book and avoided the whole My Friend Rabbit Incident of 2003.

Also, Sleeping Bobby came into our library yesterday, reminding me of one of my favorite weird-ass illustrators. How could I forget Giselle Potter? I respect that she is expressing her style of art, and I respect that many people like it. I happen not to be one of those people. I will continue to try to appreciate her art, but I can’t imagine a day when I will be a convert. This book is the latest of Will Osborne and Mary Pope Osborne’s series (what is with Mary Pope Osborne and series?) of picture books that take fairy tales and give them a female protagonist. I am with them in concept. After all, why not have a strong female as the main character? It works. But I think it works better in some tales than others. I liked Kate and the Beanstalk. But this book left me cold. Sleeping Beauty is one of the weaker fairy tales anyway, I mean, the prince (or in this case princess) happens to try to enter the castle when the curse ends, so the thorns part and allow entry. Wow, that was hard. My other problem with Giselle Potter for this story, is that beauty is integral to the story — a beautiful princess and handsome prince — but she does not make beautiful illustrations, per se.

Giselle Potter also illustrated of one of the strangest picture books of all time: Trudi and Pia, which was taken from Ursula Hegi’s (German) book Stones from the River. The original adult book, about a dwarf child growing up in wartime Germany, was very good, but I would never in a million years have said, “They should make a picture book out of this material.” Very, very strange. One could even say weird-ass.

As I process the new children’s books for my library, I look at a lot of picture books. Most of them are just shelf filler from the McDonald’s idea of publishing — if we produce a ton of picture books, then parents will buy ours rather then go to Wendy’s... I mean, read another publisher’s books. But as these books are not generally harmful to children, I just ignore them and continue my search for the true gems in the bunch.

Every once in a while, I will read a book that is strange. Just off in some way I can’t really describe. With uncanny accuracy, I will say to myself (or sometimes out loud, because I am one of those people), “This is a translation, isn’t it?” And lo and behold, it usually is from France, Russia, China, Germany (they make some weird-ass picture books)... somewhere other than here. Let me restate: It’s not that the books are bad. But they are noticeably different.

So when I read How to Be a Good Dog, I snooped further to see where this book came from, and I didn’t believe it. Gail Page lives in Brooksville, Maine. Really? Because she’s written and illustrated one weird-ass book. But in a good way.

It’s not the text that is strange, and that is usually what tips me off to books by “dem foreigners.” The text is pretty simple, and I used the book as a reading exercise for my seven-year-old. The story focuses on a dog that has trouble being good and is sent to live in the doghouse outside. The cat misses the dog, reads a book on dog training, and teaches the dog new tricks. The dog still messes up, but redeems himself in Mrs. Birdhead’s eyes with his newly learned doggie tricks — that look a little different from what a person might expect. So the story is fine. It’s the illustrations that are odd — again, in a good way. The cat in the the story stands up, washes dishes (why can’t I get my cats to do that?), and reads a book. The pet owner, Mrs. Birdhead, has a bird living in a nest on her head. Why? I don’t know. The dog in question also stands on his hind legs and sprawls in a chair like a person. I liked the book. I thought it was clever and funny. I just also thought it was German.

With Bebé Goes Shopping, I knew it wasn’t German. Y’know, because of the Spanish in the actual title. Plus I know and love Susan Middleton Elya. She has written some interesting picture books that incorporate Spanish words in the context of the story, and I come down in favor of that practice. I still believe in my heart of hearts, that reading these few Spanish words will suddenly make me adept at learning the language — something that three years of classes couldn’t do for me. Tall order. But even more important is that kids are exposed to the idea of other languages. It’s the very diversity of the books that appeal to me. This isn’t so much of an issue for me in the suburbs of D.C., where my children hear seven different languages when I just drag them to the neighborhood Safeway. But having come from a part of Virginia where being from New Jersey set me apart, I’m going to guess that there are lots of places in the country for whom Dora the Explorer is the only exposure they get to speakers of other languages. Not that I’m going to knock Dora, who is responsible for more toddlers saying “Cuidado” then could have ever been predicted.

Back to Bebé. I liked the text, but the illustrations were a little weird for me. Bright and cartoony with a fifties feel about them, they weren’t my thing. The characters have those black, bullet eyes like in Olive, the Other Reindeer, which I always find a little creepy. The artist in this book gave the eyes a pinprick of white to indicate reflection, which in turn indicates life. But sometimes the pinprick was so small that the eyes had a strange blank feeling. That said, I did like the book, but in a run-off, I would put my money on a previous book of Elya’s, Oh No, Gotta Go!, where the family driving in town on Sunday looks desperately for a bathroom for the little girl. G. Brian Karas illustrated that book, and he rarely creeps me out. With his pictures, I mean. Maybe personally he would, but let’s assume not.

And you would think that finding two picture books with odd pictures would be enough for one day, but no, I found a third on the very same day. Eileen Spinelli joins the club with her new book Do YOU Have a Hat? The short poems in this book talk about regular hats and famous-people hats. The inside covers list the famous people and what they did. The book is cute, fun and educational. It also sports some weird-ass pictures. When the characters are facing forward, they look fine, not my style, but fine. When they are turned in profile or semi-profile, creeeeeepppyyyy. In the interests of full disclosure, I will say that I have a very low creep-out threshold, but still.

When I write my picture book — oh, and I will — I’m going illustrate it with stick figures, clip art, and ummm, popsicle sticks. You want to see strange? Bring it on.