‘The good ones last’

MALLARD, MALLARD, MOOSE WRITTEN AND ILLUSTRATED BY LORI DOODY RUNNING THE GOAT BOOKS & BROADSIDES $12.95 44 PAGES PB’S COMET WRITTEN BY MARNIE PARSONS ILLUSTRATIONS BY VESELINA TOMOVA RUNNING THE GOAT BOOKS & BROADSIDES $14.95 32 PAGES FOGO: MY FAVOURIT

Is there a broad (mis)perception that writing for children is easy? And that creating picture books must be simplest of all? I mean, you draw some pictures, or whatever, and toss a few words in, right? All the better if they rhyme. it’s not rocket science — or “War and Peace,” for that matter.

But in reality, children’s literature demands as much skill and finesse as any other, as well as having to hit a very special note and specific target.

There’s all kinds of how-tos on achieving this. (Interestingly, both J. R. R. Tolkien and Maurice Sendak have said they didn’t write specifically for children, they just wrote the stories they wanted to, and children happened to love them.) But the basic rules include: don’t follow trends; don’t talk down; and expect honest reaction. And don’t set out to write a classic. As C. S. Lewis said “The good ones last.”

Any top 10 list of those will cite Sendak’s “Where The Wild Things Are,” “Goodnight Moon” by Margaret Wise Brown, and “The Giving Tree” by Shel Silverstein. (To this canon may I add the timeless “Ten Apples Up On Top!” by Dr. Suess?) They link generations, suggesting that children who read become adults who read, and read to their children.

This trio of children’s picture books are for very young readers, so immediacy and enjoyment are a priority.

Mallard, Mallard, Moose

“Mallard, Mallard, Moose” is Lori Doody’s third such publication, again pairing her delicate stylized realism and solid palette with whimsical situations:

“One early morning, just as the sun rose over Signal Hill, a moose came to town.

“He wasn’t lost. He wasn’t looking for food. He was trying to find a home for two mallard ducks who were following him everywhere.

“The moose didn’t know why the ducks liked him; he definitely couldn’t be mistaken for their mother.”

Their journey moves across a backdrop of colourful row housing in familiar configurations like Georgetown, landmark structures like the Colonial Building, and streetfront stores (Silver Thaw Jewelry, Sheila’s Brush Hair Salon).

PB’S Comet

Veselina Tomova’s artwork, in “PB’S Comet,” is dreamily expressionist and even her application of colour has dynamic flow. Author Marnie Parsons, in her first children’s book, deftly chimes words and phrases such as “more serious sort” with “sometimes cavort,” and “comeuppance” and “sot,” in narrating how a lamb studies the heavens:

“PB made calculations, predications, and claims

Quite certain this knowledge would lead to her fame;

And charted and graphed and grappled with math –

Until she was sure she had found the path

That one day quite soon a new comet would follow … “

However, PB’S ambition is threatened by an old goat too sour to appreciate celestial whirligig:

“So he’d hide PB’S spyglass and munch on her maps

And jumble her numbers while poor PB napped.

But no matter the ills of the old goat’s devising,

PB maintained an extremely surprising

Insistence that soon her comet would come …”

Fogo: My Favourite Corner of the Earth

Dawn Baker has released several children’s books, all with a strong Newfoundland theme (“A Newfoundland Alphabet,” “The Puffin Patrol”). Unlike the above two, featuring animals, the main character here is a boy named Keith who “lived on the beautiful small island of Fogo … He and his friends spent much of their free time exploring all around it. Fogo, after all, was known as one of the four corners of the earth!” (Italicized terms are explained in the back pages, but I’m not sure the font change is best design choice.)

Then Keith sees a painter, on a summer residence on Fogo. “His mom had told him that artists don’t usually want to be bothered when they are working. And besides, Keith was shy.”

But soon enough they do meet, and artist Katherine invites him to paint with her. “She used bright blues and greens, so he did also. Where Katherine’s movements were fast and sure, Keith’s were slow and a little messy, but it didn’t matter.”

It culminates in Katherine’s exhibition, and Baker’s representational illustrations are particularly good here.

All three books include end notes or a glossary. Doody, for example, explains that bread is not really good food for ducks, and Parsons that PB was inspired by “English astronomer Edmund Halley, who briefly visited Toad’s Cove [now Tor’s Cove], an outport on Newfoundland’s Avalon Peninsula, in August of 1700 while on a journey of scientific discovery.”

And they seem like they’ll keep fresh through multiple readings, another necessity of books for little kids.

… Children’s literature demands as much skill and finesse as any other, as well as having to hit a very special note and specific target.