Today we're working on Seb and the Sun, by the talented Jami Gigot (Mae and the Moon, 2015).
Here's a little teaser of Seb and his friend Walrus sharing a honey sandwich with the crust cut off!
Coming early 2018!
Today we're working on Seb and the Sun, by the talented Jami Gigot (Mae and the Moon, 2015).
Here's a little teaser of Seb and his friend Walrus sharing a honey sandwich with the crust cut off!
Coming early 2018!
Many thanks to Mrs. Ferraris from Reading 32 Pages for this beautiful synopsis and review of Graduation Day!
Brief summary: First scene. There is a student dressed in a graduation gown and mortar looking out of a school window smiling. The wordless story continues with the setting through a bird’s view of a city block all in gray with a school yard in the center. Closer look. There are cracks all over the school building and concrete grounds. Next is a large graduation day banner. Then we see where the plot begins. The student is a victim of a group of children jeering at her, and one shoots a sunflower seed through a straw hitting her in the neck. She picks up the seed. They all go to the graduation ceremony, hear the speech, and throw their hats in the air. Kids are happy and go home with family members.
She walks alone down the school’s gray halls to her locker one last time where there is a jar full of sunflower seeds revealing to the reader just what type of life this young lady endured. She takes the jar and goes about the empty school grounds planting sunflower seeds in the cracks creating a beautiful bright yellow space.
Comments: Wow. So many words and emotions for a story without words. Not the usual happiness on someone’s graduation day. This is a story of a person who has been bullied many times made evident of all the sunflower seeds collected in her locker’s jar. She was able to take that hate and meanness and loneliness to create the only bright color in the book…a sunflower garden. This is a resonating story without words that is not a preachy bullying message of “do not bully; it’s wrong.” This is about a victim who, despite it all, is able to create hope and beauty where there must have been a lot of heartache. The symbolism of the sunflowers can be understood by even younger readers.
Sometimes, and somehow, we miss really great mentions of our books on the internet!
We recently found this great blog post from the Dayton Metro Library where Monday Is Wash Day was chosen as a Honor book for their Mock Caldecott meeting in December.
We are honored!
Many thanks to Kirkus Reviews for their review of Mr. Tanner:
One of Chapin’s songs is brought to life in this book about facing criticism.
In a Midwestern town populated by a variety of anthropomorphic animal characters, Mr. Tanner is a baritone bear who joyfully sings in his dry-cleaning shop. His friends and customers encourage him to use his musical gifts professionally. Even though “music was his life, it was not his livelihood,” he lets himself be persuaded to go to New York to perform at Town Hall. He gives it his all onstage but comes away with poor reviews from music critics. Crushed, he goes home, never to sing publicly again. Langdo’s soft-edged watercolor illustrations, many in album-cover–shaped squares, capture the arc of Mr. Tanner’s unfulfilled dreams. The book opens with a bird’s-eye view of a small town and ends with the bear framed by his shop windows, singing to himself. A line of clothes is cleverly hung from a musical staff that winds its way from Dayton to New York. Aside from a few changes, the rhyming text of the book is the same as the original song. A facsimile of the typed lyrics with Chapin’s handwritten corrections is included. Like “Cat’s in the Cradle,” the late singer/songwriter’s best-known work, this story about good intentions going awry has a melancholy air.
There’s inspiration in the refrain: “He didn’t know how well he sang. It just made him whole.”
We are big fans of Gene Luen Yang here at Ripple Grove Press. In January, The Library of Congress, Children’s Book Council, and Every Child A Reader appointed him the fifth National Ambassador of Young People’s Literature
His platform:
1. Read a book about a character who doesn’t look like you or live like you.
2. Read a book about a topic you don’t know much about.
3. Read a book in a format that you don’t normally read for fun. This might be a chapter book, a graphic novel, a book in verse, a picture book, or a hybrid book.
If you really want to go for the gold star, read a book that fits all three criteria!
When you finish, take a photo of you and the book (or just the book if you’re shy) and post it on Twitter or Instagram with the hashtag #ReadingWithoutWalls. You’ll inspire others to do the same!
Many thanks to Publishers Weekly for their review of Mr. Tanner:
The late singer-songwriter Chapin’s 1976 song “Mr. Tanner” gets a picture-book adaptation that softens some of the song’s melancholy, though not much. Inspired by real-life events, it tells of Mr. Tanner, a “cleaner from a town in the Midwest,” who loves to sing but recognizes that although “music was his life, it was not his livelihood.” After friends urge him to “use his gift instead of cleaning coats,” Mr. Tanner hops a plane to New York City and performs at Town Hall, but the reviews are not kind. Langdo (There’s a Cat in Our Class!) portrays Mr. Tanner as a well-dressed brown bear, and his sensitive watercolors draw out the joy Mr. Tanner gets from singing, his shock over the bad review, and its effect on him: after returning home, “he smiled and just said nothing, and he never sang again.” Although closing images of Mr. Tanner singing to himself at his shop temper this outcome somewhat, it’s a somber reminder of the way criticism can get inside an artist’s head.
We just received this lovely endorsement from Allan Pepper,co-owner of the legendary music venue The Bottom Line in New York City:
Harry Chapin's songs are little novellas that provide new insights with every repetition. Bryan Langdo has turned "Mr. Tanner", one of Harry's landmark songs, into a beautiful illustrated book. His unique illustrations have captured the heart and soul of Chapin's moving ode to living a complete life in a very simple buttextured way.
"Mr. Tanner" is a great way to introduce your child to one of the great storytellers of the 20th century. While you're at it, at gift time, don't forget those parents and grandparents who came of age listening to Harry's wonderful little stories the first time around.