Birds, Deserts, Space Insects and a Navajo Grandfather

Mardi Gras weekend in New Orleans this year was enlivened by the Louisiana writers’ luncheon honoring one Theodor S. Geisel of San Diego. Dr. Seuss, of course. Cat in the Hat was in attendance. Lunch was served in the New Orleans Museum of Art, as the good doctor’s retrospective show opened in the last of seven museums. The exhibition had begun at the San Diego Museum of Art on May 17, 1986, to run through April 10 in New Orleans. A splendid show and a reminder that artists must break the rules and then abide by their own, and that both museums and children’s books dare never be stuffy and overserious.

When the exhibition was new two years ago, and Dr. Seuss himself was a mere 82, Random House published the cloth catalogue, “Dr. Seuss From Then to Now” ($12.95). It’s introduced by Steven L. Brezzo, director of the San Diego Museum, who speaks for the young generation whom Dr. Seuss most influenced:

“For baby boomers, he was the poet laureate. Into a world of Crayola crayons, construction-paper pilgrims, and asphalt playgrounds, Dr. Seuss introduced an adventure of rhyme and image with the power to alleviate our boredom, challenge our imaginations, and even shape our young lives.”

Dr. Seuss’ show closes as the fine Tate Gallery Beatrix Potter retrospective crosses from London to the Morgan Library in New York (May 12-Aug. 21). This pair of Titans has changed the face of children’s books and childhood. And as with all innovators, they couldn’t have calculated their impact.

They’ve raised the profile of children’s illustrated books to the museum level. More to the point, they’ve sharpened our eyes as we look for those books to lure the very young into lifetimes of thoughtful, joyous page-turning.

Shirley Climo’s King of the Birds, illustrated by Ruth Heller, follows more closely in the Potter tradition. Here in gorgeously colored pages, a sort of Noah’s-Ark-for-Birds unfolds. As the squabbling birds of early times look for a king, they undertake an all-too-familiar political process. Finally, they decide that the bird who flies highest is the natural leader. The ostrich is so winded that it never flies again. It would be unfair to reveal who becomes King of the Birds, though it’s an excellent choice. In this collaboration of Climo and Heller, Californians both, the ideal mesh of words and images is all but achieved. When the birds take wing across a double-page spread, the soul soars.

In Diane Siebert’s Mojave, illustrated by Wendell Minor, the southwest desert itself speaks, and in rhymed couplets that sound occasionally like Joyce Kilmer:

I dream of spring, when I can wear

The blossoms of the prickly pear,

Along with flowers, wild and bright,

And butterflies in joyful flight.

Minor’s illustrations tread Georgia O’Keefe territory, with a nod to Andrew Wyeth. But his muted tones to catch the nuances of open country are drab. The poetry isn’t the sort we even need to encourage, and the graphics may not grab children dazzled by brighter colors in their own lives.

More vivid in every sense is Knots on a Counting Rope by Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault, illustrated by Ted Rand. Here the water color illustrations of desert living glow in Navajo-Hopi ceremonial hues, in firelight, and in beads of turquoise. The illustrations are worth the price, and the text is stronger still. An Indian boy, blind from birth, participates in his grandfather’s telling of the boy’s life. With each telling, Grandfather knots a rope to leave behind when the boy is left to remember the story alone. The poetry here is in the dialogue between generations, for this is a book about the oral tradition, the link best forged by families. Nor is this a study of an alien culture. When the boy begs for certainties, his grandfather replies:

I promise you nothing, Boy.

I love you.

That is better than a promise.

This is a book for readers young and old who might not know that.

Seuss himself once addressed the problem of unwanted guests, in “Marvin K. Mooney, Will You Please Go Now!” In Company’s Coming by Arthur Yorinks, illustrated by David Small, the problem recurs. Even the cartoony, wittily detailed illustrations owe something to Seuss. The uninvited in this case are a couple of friendly little insectlike extra-terrestrials:

“ ‘Greetings,’ they spoke in English.

“ ‘We come in peace. Do you have a bathroom?’ ”

Unfortunately, the story descends from here instead of rising. The two ETs drop in on the tract-house life style of Shirley and Moe in Bellmore, bearing a gift. This calls out the full-alert arsenal of an apparently trigger-happy American defense establishment. The ET’s live but the story doesn’t. Comic books do this better and at a fraction of the price.

It’s tempting to say that children’s books take too few chances, that Seuss and Potter are literally two in a million. But then children are the true traditionalists, and grown-ups willing to pay big money for thin books tend toward the traditional themselves. To comfort both groups are Ida and the Wool Smugglers by Sue Ann Alderson, pictures by Ann Blades, and Goldilocks and the Three Bears, retold by Armand Eisen and illustrated by Lynn Bywaters Ferris.

Both books err on the side of the pretty. In “Ida and the Wool Smugglers,” Ann Blades’ misty pastels evoke the western Canadian setting and assure readers in the first glance that Ida is going to be in no real trouble with the smugglers. Lynn Bywaters Ferris’ illustrations are suitable for framing. In fact, they’re already matted with decorative surrounds, and they glow like Swiss Christmas cards. The three bears are definitely the sort who would invite you to stay for breakfast, without a thought of breakfasting on you.

KING OF THE BIRDS by Shirley Climo (Harper & Row: $12.95) MOJAVE by Diane Siebert (Thomas Y. Crowell: $13.95) KNOTS ON A COUNTING ROPE by Bill Martin Jr. and John Archanbault (Henry Holt: $12.95) COMPANY’S COMING by Arthur Yorinks (Crown Publishers: $11.95) IDA AND THE WOOL SMUGGLERS by Sue Ann Alderson (Margaret K. McElderry Books: $12.95) GOLDILOCKS AND THE THREE BEARS retold by Armand Eisen (Alfred A. Knopf: $9.59)