Amy the Mom

Our favorite children's books

Today's post idea brought to you by the lovely Alice Bradley whose blog, Finslippy, is an example of everything that is right with the world.

    Obviously, my kids are way past the picture book phase.  Annelise is already past the Twilight series and laughing at David Sedaris.  Alex has read everything written by Jonathan Tropper, and Mario...well I'm influencing his reading choices, he recently enjoyed Tuesdays With Morrie. 

Whenever someone I know has a baby, I like to give them a children's book or two as a present.  Books really are the gifts that keep on giving.  A well crafted tome will be read over and over, first when the parent reads it to a child, again as the child begins to exercise his own reading skills. 

 
Alex's very favorite book, the one he could recite word for word by the time he was two, was The Escape of Marvin the Ape by Mark and Caralyn Buehner.  The Buehners authored several books, and what makes their creations even more special is the hidden animals in each color plate.  Half the fun of "Marvin" is finding all the creatures hidden in the illustrations.  The zippy dialogue that expands little minds was my favorite part.  Alex loved one line in particular and walked around the house quoting it, "The sea spray was exhilarating."  Look for other titles from the Buehners both individually and together. 

 
Any and every one of Mercer Mayer's "Little Critter" books.  Look for Little Critter's friends mouse, grasshopper and spider, in the illustrations.  Alex also loved the PC game when he was a little older.

 
 

Any book by Janell Cannon .  As much as I loved Verdi and Stellaluna, I almost dreaded reading them at night.  They're a little longer than most children's books and when the twins were babies, I could barely stay awake to finish the story.  I think Mario's love of mangoes started after I brought some home when the children wanted to eat Stellaluna's favorite fruit. 

 
In the Night Kitchen by the incomparable Maurice Sendak.  If the wear and tear on a book is any indication of how well loved it is, then this one must have been the kids' favorite, because it was wrecked by the time the twins entered kindergarten. 

 
Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel was one of the first books I ever read, and I couldn't wait to share it with my children.  First published in 1939, it's certainly a little dated mechanically, but Virginia Lee Burton's message is timeless.  At 44 pages, this is another tough one to finish at bedtime for parents struggling to stay awake. 

 

Michael Crichton

I was crushed to hear of Michael Crichton's passing today.  I had no idea he had been stricken with cancer, and then read-with no surprise-that his illness was kept private.  He was a man of extraordinary good sense and class, and his books and essays reflected that.

I've read just about every book Crichton had written, and was a huge fan.  I was sucked in by The Andromeda Strain when I was in eighth grade, unable to put the book down for the two days it took me to read it.  I stuck it in textbooks and read it with stealth during class.  Because she was a nurse, my mother nudged me towards his Five Patients next, followed by A Case of Need. 

 

I was fascinated at how many lives this man led, he had seemingly packed six extraordinary lifetimes into one.  In his book Travels, Crichton gives us an autobiographical glimpse into that life which included Harvard Medical School and ultimate disillusionment with the practice of medicine, his extreme travel pursuits, and his career as a moviemaker.

When I was nine months pregnant with Alex, I went to see Jurassic Parkwith my husband and inlaws.  I went into labor the next morning and gave birth the following day.  I loved that movie, even though it wasn't a very close adaptation of the novel.  It brought together one of my favorite directors and best loved writers and resulted in one of my most cherished films.  In spite of it's blockbuster success and magnificent special effects, it's the story that captures me and the pitch perfect wonder on the actors' faces when they first encounter the dinosaurs that puts a lump in my throat.  It's a wonderful cautionary tale about the arrogance of human intrusion into nature. 

That scene exemplifies everything that I love about movies.

Michael Crichton's website is experiencing understandably high traffic this evening, but I would urge you to become familiar with some of his essays, a medium that I think best suited his writing style.  One of my favorite of his essays is an almost twenty year old selection originally published in Redbook magazine.  I find it a fitting  and timeless message, especially poignant given our current economic climate.  The website restricts republishing without permission, so I encourage you to hit refresh until you can access the busy webpage.  The essay is Happiness, and it originally appeared in Redbook in 1991. 

Historic Photos of St. Paul, a book review

Growing up, my least favorite subject in school was always history.  I could chalk it up to a series of teachers who I found dry at the very least, tyrannical at worst.  But I'm sure more than anything, it was the arrogance of youth that cultivated a distaste for high school history.  I couldn't imagine what relevance laissez-faire had to my life, and there were too many names and dates to try and store in a brain that was overloaded with the minutiae of a teenage existence.

The older I get, the more I pick biographies over the most current fiction releases at the bookstore and the library.  Steve and I are engrossed by The History Channel and The National Geographic Channel when we're in front of the television.  In my forties, I finally understand how important and relevant history is to my everyday existence. 

Recently, I was contacted by a publisher who asked me if I would be so kind as to mention a book for them.   They were generous enough to send me a copy of Historic Photos of St. Paul, by Steve Trimble, for my efforts.  The coffee table book arrived as promised, filled with 200 black and white images documenting the history of our capitol city.  I've pored over it for hours, and have shared it with older friends and relatives who walked the streets of St. Paul decades before I landed in Minnesota.

When I moved to the Twin Cities ten years ago, I had a picture in my mind of two downtown areas on either side of the Mississippi River a stones throw away from each other.  In reality, the two downtowns are ten miles apart and are as different as night and day.  Minneapolis is Neiman Marcus, five star dining and trendy nightclubs.  St. Paul is the independent shops of Grand Avenue,  Mickey's Diner, and a sidewalk that rolls up each evening.  St. Paul is a true blue collar town, and the side of the city I've always identified with the most.  I'm out of my league on the west side of town, but in St. Paul I'm among friends.

Historic Photos of St. Paul is filled with the rich, candid snapshots that appear to have been salvaged from the basements and attics and cedar chests of the city's denizens.  Mr. Trimble keeps the captions sparse yet descriptive, allowing the photos and the reader's memory to tell the story.  I loved the pictures of my favorite haunts, especially the Como Conservatory.  The glass enclosed building is shown in a photo from 1930-almost eighty years ago-with young trees surrounding it, and no sign of the Japanese Garden just outside it's front door.  Still, there are crowds of people there, just as there are on any given weekend in the 21st century.  Another compelling image is one of workers at the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing company cranking out cellulose tape, known now as the ubiquitous Scotch Tape.  Almost one hundred years after the inception of the company, none of us can escape the influence of 3M in our everyday existence.

Even if you're not a Minnesotan, there's a voyeuristic pleasure in gazing over 130 years of history in a Midwestern city.  This book would make an ideal gift for history buffs and St. Paul natives.  It can be found in booksellers around the Cities, as well as in limited quantity on Amazon.  I was fascinated to learn that the author, Mr. Trimble, is the founder of the Minnesota Cookbook Archives.  A man after my own heart!           

Old friends

Shortly before my first marriage, I remember sitting around the kitchen table with my in-laws and future husband.  Somehow, the topic turned to books and my ex got in a little jab by mentioning my odd habit of REREADING favorite books.  My brother in law looked at me as if he was seeing me for the first time, "YOU do that too?" 

His wife responded, "I could never understand how anyone could read a book more than once.  What's the point?  You already know what's going to happen."  I should note-I adore my sister in law-she is an incredibly brilliant person, and an avid reader. 

"You like listening to your favorite song more than once, don't you?  Reading a book for me is like hearing music you love over and over." 

My brother in law looked grateful in the knowledge that he wasn't the only "freak" in the room.  I was completely surprised that everyone wasn't like me.  I knew my husband wasn't, he eschewed any written material other than Sports Illustrated.  He actually purchased a Tom Clancy thriller at the airport on the way to our honeymoon and one of the pictures I took on that trip was a shot of him on a beach chair reading.  In the photo, he has an ironic grin on his face and is pointing at the novel as if to say "I can't believe it either."   I don't mean this as an insult or slam to him, my current husband isn't much better-though he claims to love me even more because I'm such a bibliophile.   

We haven't broken the single digits in temperatures here for a week.  I hunkered down over the weekend and visited with some old friends who have kept me company over the years.  I'd like to introduce you to a few of my favorites...

Angela's Ashes Frank McCourt

A very deserving winner of the Pulitzer Prize.  During the darkest days of single motherhood, I read this book once a month.  It gave me a sense of perspective-no matter how bad my life seemed at that point, I wasn't dealing with the levels of poverty that the McCourts of Limerick barely survived.   I've come across a few people who claim to hate this book because it's so "depressing."  I have the absolute opposite reaction to that, I find it uplifting and inspirational.   

Parliament of Whores PJ O'Rourke

I don't care what your political affiliation is, this book is a satiric civics lesson that is a must read.  Neither party is safe from the author's acerbic wit.  I purchased this book upon it's original release because I had always enjoyed O'Rourke's Rolling Stone essays.  In particular, one about Oliver North had me laughing to the point of tears.  I remember reading this hardcover on a park bench in Pittsburgh, desperately trying to conceal my mirth and ultimately putting the book down when I laughed so hard a little pee came out.      

Mrs. Mike by Benedict and Nancy Freedman

My copy of this is a very old hardbound that smells exactly like the library where I hung out as a young girl.  It's that musty, pulpy smell that is instantly recognizable to dedicated readers.  The pages are a thick, yellowed stock.  My mom found this copy at a garage sale one summer and insisted I read it.  She did that a lot when I was young, which in retrospect seems so odd since she wasn't an avid reader like me.  The book is the story of Katherine Mary Flannigan, a sixteen year old woman from Boston sent to live with her uncle in Canada.  She falls in love almost immediately with Mike Flannigan, a handsome Mounted Policeman.  This isn't a literary masterpiece, and in all honesty I didn't realize it was so popular until an article about it showed up in Oprah's magazine last month.  I love this book because it was the first book that completely engrossed me.  I was ten when I first picked it up, and I was literally lost in the pages for the next two days.  It represents everything I love about reading.

McCarthy's Bar by Pete McCarthy

This book was given to me by a former boyfriend whose last name was... you guessed it, McCarthy.  He bought it for my birthday after asking a salesperson in an Irish themed store for a recommendation.  Bless him and that retailer, this is one of the funniest books I've read.  The author is (rather, was-sadly he succumbed to cancer in 2004) an English travel writer who decides to spend a summer in Ireland, just as he did in his youth.  One of his rules of travel is "Never pass a bar that has your name on it," hence the title.  That becomes the premise of the book which is full of McCarthy's droll observations about fellow tourists, who rarely come off looking anything but foolish.

Nothing to Do But Stay by Carrie Young

This brief little tome is a collection of essays by a writer whose parents were Norwegian immigrants.  Food is the most prominent topic in this book, and is described in mouthwatering detail.  The book chronicles the family's struggles through the depression and ultimate triumphs.  I love the fact that the author's mother set out to homestead her own piece of land in 1904-BY HERSELF-and it was ultimately her land that she and her husband built their home on, because it was the more desirable tract.

This is hardly a complete list.  My apologies for excluding Maya Angelou, Amy Tan, David Sedaris, Stephen King and Harper Lee among others.