Take note, young readers: The season is fast approaching when books go from penance to pleasure.
“I have so many fond memories of hanging out at the local library in the summer and coming home with an armful of books,” children’s author Barbara Herkert said. “Without the pressure of school work, kids have an opportunity to read for fun.”
Take note, parents of young readers: Facilitating that fun now falls to you.
“As a parent, I know how easy it is to fall into the trap of turning on a tablet or TV when boredom strikes,” children’s author Peter McCleery said. “One way to avoid that is to give children more choices. I suggest leaving books on every surface in every room. Tables, shelves, piled on the floor, wherever.
“Even leave books in the car,” McCleery added. “Especially ones that are good for quick reads on the go, like picture books, comic books and graphic novels, or nonfiction like the Guinness Book of World Records.” That way, he said, there’s always an instant answer to complaints of boredom — and kids get habituated to finding true pleasure in an ancient technology that somehow offers the whole world without glowing screens, satellite signals or experience points.
If You Go
What: Picture Book Parade.
Featuring: Readings, arts and crafts with children’s book authors and illustrators Kate Berube, Barbara Herkert, Corinna Luyken, Peter McCleery and Gretchen McLellan.
When: June 3, 2 p.m.
Where: Vintage Books, 6613 E. Mill Plain Blvd.
On the web: www.vintage-books.com/
Reading can be a delicious withdrawal from the world, McCleery noted, but it can also be interactive and family-focused. “Look beyond just the bedtime story ritual,” he said. “Maybe have a designated family reading time when everyone grabs a book and hangs out in the same room reading. Or maybe try shaking things up and have the kids do a storytime for the parents.”
McCleery and Herkert are among five children’s book authors and illustrators who will visit Vintage Books on June 3 in what’s being called a Picture Book Parade; the others are Gretchen McLellan (of Camas), Kate Berube and Corinna Luyken. Kids will enjoy live readings as well as doing arts and crafts alongside their favorite authors and artists; parents will appreciate some Q&A with those guests, and can collect autographs while stocking up on books for summer.
Herkert, who lives on the Oregon Coast, aims to inspire elementary readers with true tales of amazing lives. Two of her biographies, both published in 2015, are about trailblazing women: “Sewing Stories: Harriet Powers’ Journey from Slave to Artist” and “Mary Cassatt: Extraordinary Impressionist Painter.”
Another Herkert biography, due out in October, is called “A Boy, a Mouse, and a Spider: The Story of E.B. White.” White was a sickly little boy who grew up to become one of the most beloved and influential authors of the 20th century for readers of all ages, thanks to his children’s classics “Charlotte’s Web” and “Stuart Little” and his seminal writing manual “The Elements of Style.”
“To escape with a great picture-book biography about someone to admire, whether it’s an astronaut, an artist or an athlete, opens up opportunities for conversation and fosters dreams,” Herkert said.
Portlander McCleery, on the other hand, wants to delight you with a classic summertime fantasy. His first book publication is the tale of two bored boys, easygoing Joss and worried Bob, who decide to go sailing and wind up shipwrecked on a tropical island. “Bob and Joss Get Lost” includes lots of laughs for kids (like our heroes’ enjoyment of the word “scuttlebutt,” which they figure must be the sort of thing you raise high while sailing) as well as enough substance to keep adults from growing tired of repeated readings. It even includes actual longitudes and latitudes on each page so you can follow Bob and Joss’ journey on your GPS.
Oops = opportunity
You can’t miss the big inky splotches on the spacious opening pages of “The Book of Mistakes,” by Olympia author and artist Corinna Luyken. The book is a child’s sketchbook, and we readers are treated to a colorful glimpse of trial-and-error creativity as blobs and blunders are transformed via brainstorms and breakthroughs.
A flawed doodle of a girl with asymmetrical eyes gets a quick fix: fancy eyeglasses. Failed attempts at animals become perfect rocks. A girl with overlong legs is all wrong until she’s attached to a climbing tree that’s just her size; a girl whose little legs accidentally don’t reach the ground gets anchored via the insertion of rollerskates into the gap.
An artwork of ever-expanding imagination and complexity is born — and it’s all driven by oopses viewed as opportunities. “The Book of Mistakes” proves that every mistake really is an opening.
We see a similar dynamic at work in “My Little Half Moon,” illustrated by Portlander Kate Berube and written by Douglas Todd Jennerich. Berube’s deep, moody blues are a sweet backdrop for one child’s nighttime worries that a half-moon in the sky must feel lonely and incomplete.
That’s a mistake, of course — and it leads to a beautiful friendship.
