Owls, Rocks, Kings and a Tardy Boy

Here in North Carolina, we’d had a rare and extravagant snowfall. Schools had been closed six days, and my children, ages 4 and 6, jaded by a week of winter wonderland, had finally parked their sleds and come indoors. Now the closed-in weather of boredom was beginning to set in. We’d even tired of hot chocolate! Then, like a sleigh full of toys, an express mail truck rolled up to deliver the first of nine sparkling new picture books.

“What’s a book review?” my children asked me. “It’s sort of a contest,” I said, “and we’re the judges.” They grinned the happiest, most indiscriminate grins you ever saw and plucked a fresh contender from the growing pile.

We read each book three or four times. We argued and discussed our preferences like a committee. Some of us cried if somebody didn’t agree with our favorites.

My children reveled in every book they saw. If it were left to them, all nine books would be reviewed here. But I tended to be more choosy. I don’t expect any less from a book written for children than from a book written for adults. And maybe I expect a bit more. Children’s books are obligated to make us feel that we’ve invested our reading time wisely, that we’re better off as human beings living in a complex, muddled world for having submitted ourselves to the order and guidance of their art.

Owl Moon by Jane Yolen, illustrated by John Schoenherr, is just such a book. The sensibilities of author and artist harmonize to create a story that captures the essence of childhood’s dreamy hope and comfort.

In “Owl Moon,” we follow a little girl and her father into the woods of their farm on a ritualistic hunt for the great horned owl:

“It was late one winter night,

long past my bedtime,

when Pa and I went owling.

There was no wind.

The trees stood still as giant

statues.

And the moon was so bright

the sky seemed to shine.

Somewhere behind us

a train whistle blew,

long and low,

like a sad, sad song.”

Theirs is a journey of anticipation and restraint, of respect for silence and tolerance of cold. Companionship is what keeps them warm and brave. When you go owling, the child notes, “you have to be quiet and make your own heat.” And you might not ever see an owl. The discovery the little girl makes in “Owl Moon” is a discovery for all seasons of life: that quest illuminates the mind and heart as much as finding.

Yolen’s poetic text is often incantatory, such as when the narrator finally confronts the great horned owl: “For one minute, three minutes, maybe even a hundred minutes, we stared at one another.” Throughout the book such observations convey a child’s canny logic and sense of wonder.

Schoenherr’s sweeping watercolors perfectly complement the narrative’s respect for the majesty and surprise of nature. His brilliant depiction of moonlight and shadow keep us guessing when and where and if the owl will appear. What a wonderful, timeless book this is--and my children agree. Their favorite part was the owl’s shivery call, and this book inspires you, if you’re reading aloud, to hoot with spooky grandeur.

The Magic School Bus, Inside the Earth, written by Joanna Cole, illustrated by Bruce Degen, is part of a series designed to take boring subjects and invigorate them with comic-book wackiness. This entry happens to be a rollicking study of geology. Rock collecting will never be the same once a kid comes under the tutelage of Ms. Frizzle and joins her class on its magical mystery bus tour to the center of the Earth. The school kids in this book are real kids--full of mouthy complaint, curiosity, and wisecracks about Ms. Frizzle, who dresses like Bette Midler probably would if she taught school. Our favorite Ms. Frizzle outfit was the dress printed with giant toothbrushes and molars, accompanied by matching shoes, of course, the toes of which grin toothily.

“The Magic School Bus” is chock-full of Earth science information, but a seductively jocular tone prevails. “What’s your favorite rock?” one kid asks another as their bus descends to a level of igneous rock. “Rock-and-Roll,” the friend quips, plugged into her Walkman.

A book that attempts to be both hip and instructive is a novelty in today’s picture-book market. With education having to compete with the rowdy stimuli of television and music, collaborators Cole and Degen have created a book that does comic and visual back-flips in order to appeal to a young and often restless audience. And they succeed.

In The Riddle, a Catalan folk tale retold by Adele Vernon and illustrated by Robert Rayevsky and Vladimir Radunsky, we meet a charcoal maker who describes his impoverished life to a king in the form of a riddle. The king, outwitted and charmed, presents the riddle to his court and offers a reward to the first courtier who can solve it. One sly fellow steals away from the castle and offers the charcoal maker a bag of gold if he will reveal the answer. But the charcoal maker has struck a bargain with the king not to divulge the riddle’s solution until he has looked upon the king’s face one hundred more times. What the charcoal maker decides to do and why he decides to do it is the surprising climax of this tale.

The text throughout is witty and eloquent, and the illustrations by Rayevsky and Radunsky are richly medieval. The artists dote upon the color red, which enlivens every page and suggests a lighthearted mood conducive to the triumph of honesty.

Fans of the prolific John Burningham will want to rush right out and buy John Patrick Norman McHennessy--The Boy Who Was Always Late. You know precisely what the book’s about just by glancing at the dust jacket, which features a glowering hulk of a teacher, dressed in cap and gown, reprimanding a drenched-looking, pint-size schoolboy. Every day, “on the road to learn,” John Patrick Norman McHennessy meets with some zany mishap that makes him late to school but that his teacher, Sir, refuses to believe. By the end of the tale, there’s a wicked reversal of imaginative magic that will leave your small ones laughing.

Burningham’s marvelous, scratchy mixed-media drawings, his joyous use of color, prove his virtuosity once again. He is indisputably one of the finest children’s book illustrators around.

Keiko Narahashi’s I Have a Friend is a beautiful, evocative book about a small child’s taking delight in his shadow. We follow the child and his shadow-friend to the beach, the park, all around the neighborhood--places where the child marvels at his shadow’s mutability. The text is graceful and fresh, especially in its explanation of what happens to the shadow at night. Narahashi’s lush watercolors are both full of whimsy and moody elegance. My 4-year-old sat spellbound by this book whose simplicity belies its resonance.

Last, but not least, there’s Joyful Noise, Poems for Two Voices by Paul Fleischmann, illustrated by Eric Beddows. This poetic and informative guide to insects presents their swarming, swerving, blinking world in two columns of verse to be read aloud simultaneously. The playful cacophony speaks to all ages. I especially enjoyed the poem about book lice who gobble everything from “Roget’s Thesaurus” to Mickey Spillane.

Eric Beddow’s spirited pencil drawings detail the wriggling and soaring that informs the lives of these loquacious creatures. The book is a wonderful introduction to the notion that poetry can be dramatic and participatory. And you thought an ant farm was fun!

Well, our snow finally melted, and my children returned to school, carrying these new books to share with friends. I can’t think of a better endorsement.

OWL MOON by Jane Yolen, illustrated by John Schoenherr (Philomel: $13.95) THE MAGIC SCHOOL BUS Inside the Earth by Joanna Cole, illustrated by Bruce Degen (Scholastic: $13.95; 48 pp. (Ages 5-8) THE RIDDLE retold by Adele Vernon, illustrated by Robert Rayevsky and Vladimir Radunsky (Dodd Mead: $12.95 (Ages 5-9) JOHN PATRICK NORMAN McHENNESSY The Boy Who Was Always Late written and illustrated by John Burningham (Crown Books: $12.95) I HAVE A FRIEND written and illustrated by Keiko Narahashi (Margaret K. McElderry Books: $12.95) JOYFUL NOISE Poems for Two Voices by Paul Fleischman, illustrated by Eric Beddows (Harper & Row: $11.95 (All Ages)