Gloria Houston, Chris Van Allsburg and Jeanette Winter craft picture books for all ages Parenthood Ideas

Gloria Houston, Chris Van Allsburg and Jeanette Winter craft picture books for all ages

July 23, 2011 – 2:07 am

Gloria Houston, Chris Van Allsburg and Jeanette Winter craft picture books for all ages

Some picture books are too wonderful to confine to childhood. Here are five new ones with special appeal for readers regardless of age.

Miss Dorothy and Her Bookmobile

Gloria Houston & Susan Condie Lamb

When my good friend Phyllis Harper retired recently, I gave her this book to honor her many years as a librarian. I knew that Phyllis would bond immediately with Miss Dorothy, who hoped to wind up working in a “fine brick library” just like the one in her Massachusetts hometown. Instead, she spent her life in the Blue Ridge Mountains, happily running a clunky green bookmobile. Finely written prose accompanied by warm pencil-and-watercolor paintings perfectly capture the spirit of an inspirational woman who touched the lives of the author, her family and friends. My new favorite book. Grade: A-

Passing the Music Down

Sarah Sullivan & Barry Root

An old man, stooped by years in Appalachian mines, plays his fiddle at a folk festival. A young boy from Indiana listens raptly. “Will you teach me all your tunes,” the boy asks. The two collaborate harmoniously for years, until the boy is grown into a man and becomes the fiddler. Then he too meets a boy who wants to learn to play, “passing the music down.” Lilting text and melodic watercolors offer a glimpse into a uniquely American music. Based on the true story of 9-year-old Jake Krack and Melvin Wine, who was 86 when they met in 1995. Grade: A-

Queen of the Falls

Chris Van Allsburg

“Short, plump, and fussy” Annie Edson Taylor operated a charm school in Bay City, Mich. When the school failed, she was 62, widowed and fearful of what would become of her. To secure her future, she devised an ambitious scheme: to become the first person to plummet over Niagara Falls in a barrel. She actually did go over the falls successfully in 1901, but fame and fortune eluded her. Dark, surreal pencil drawings resemble vintage photos as they provide Van Allsburg’s trademark, breathtaking perspective. His first nonfiction work continues his penchant for suspense and peril. Grade: A-

The Watcher

Jeanette Winter

Winter writes another stellar biography with a detailed look at the life and work of Valerie Jane Goodall. Minimal text effectively captures Goodall’s passion for animals, especially her beloved chimpanzees, and her devotion to Africa. Children are invited to become “watchers” of the world when Goodall travels “month after month, year after year asking for help to save the chimps and the forests” of Tanzania. The folk-style art is beautifully rendered in acrylic paint and pen. The dramatic cover depicts chimps hanging upside down in the lenses of Goodall’s binoculars as Goodall gazes straight at the viewer. Grade: A-

Meadowlands

Thomas F. Yezerski

This visual stunner looks at the environmental history of 20,000 acres of wetlands in New Jersey, where Yezerski spent 12 years living and studying on the edge of the Meadowlands, an estuary where the Hackensack River reaches Newark Bay. He was preceded by the Lenni Lenape, who were displaced by Europeans, whose descendents eventually degraded the ecosystem into a wasteland. But in recent decades, the Meadowlands has made slow and steady progress towards recovery, thanks to the work of activists, governmental regulations and ordinary people. Science writing at its finest. Grade: A-

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