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A few slighter books, but that may be because some reviews are easier to write than others, so I'm procrastinating the books I better cared about. Except When the Wind Blew. I care about that one a good deal.
Title: Four Fur Feet
Author: Margaret Wise Brown
Illustrator: Remy Charlip
Published: Hopscotch Books, 1990 (1961)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 30
Total Page Count: 507,520
Text Number: 1818
Read Because: reading Margaret Wise Brown, borrowed from Open Library
Review: What a weird one! A creature with four fur feet wanders the world; with only those four feet in frame, the creature is kept a mystery and the bulk of the page is the world. Pleasantly cluttered, dense, stylized line art is flooded with flat plains of color. It's an invitation to exploration: what's the creature? where else can it go? look at all the things in the world! Presumably good for children; didn't do much for me, but I'm cool not being the intended audience and appreciate the combination of repetition and increasing scale.
Title: The Wonderful House
Author: Margaret Wise Brown
Illustrator: J.P. Miller
Published: Golden Books, 1950 (50 pages), 1960 (30 pages)
Rating: 3.5 of 5
Page Count: 50, 30
Total Page Count: 507,600
Text Number: 1819-20
Read Because: reading Margaret Wise Brown, borrowed from Open Library
Review: Who lives in this this barn, in this doghouse, who lives in that strange house flying in on wings? The escalation here, from a prosaic, very children's-book-ish list into a more sustained and decidedly quirky narrative, is charming. The dense, vivid art grew on me alongside the narrative, but I wish the final spread were more robust; being airborne means the background is pretty plain, which lacks the oomph of some previous panels when oomph is dearly needed.
Fascinating that the two editions are the same artist/art. Common sense and peering at publishing dates indicate that the longer version is the original: 50 pages versus the 30-page revised edition. The 50-page has many panels missing in the other; the art is arranged and cropped slightly differently in each. Of the the two, I tentatively prefer the 30-page; normally I prefer longer versions of MWB, but here the escalating scale here has more punch in a shorter book. But I like the 50-page as an extended cut.
Title: When the Wind Blew
Author: Margaret Wise Brown
Illustrator: Geoffrey Hayes
Published: Harper & Row, 1977 (1937, with a different illustrator)
Rating: 4.5 of 5
Page Count: 30
Total Page Count: 507,630
Text Number: 1821
Read Because: reading Margaret Wise Brown, borrowed from Open Library
Review: As always, books about cats don't age well; I'll never not be grumpy about outdoor cats. But I still love this. It's very cat-true: the clowder has its daily routine, orbiting around their person; they're very tactile (I love the pg 17 herding cats illustration); and the ending, "The old lady looked around; and there, curled by the side of her face, purring just as hard as he could, was her little blue grey kitten. Just as good as a fur-covered hot water bottle." - the cutest thing, but not too cutesy, not out of true for a cat and their person in need. This isn't the lost gem of picture books, it's barely for children, with its old lady and cats and toothache - but it's definitely for me.
Title: Wait Till the Moon is Full
Author: Margaret Wise Brown
Illustrator: Garth Williams
Published: The Trumpet Club, 1988 (1948)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 35
Total Page Count: 507,665
Text Number: 1822
Read Because: reading Margaret Wise Brown, borrowed from Open Library
Review: A young racoon pesters his mother: when can I go out at night? Nevermind the cover; Williams's illustrations are black and white, accented with burnt umber. This is one part the coziest possible illustrations of anthropomorphized animals doing domestic tasks, and one part a gentle but atmospheric embrace of the night, filled with nocturnal activities, changing with the light of the moon, secretive but not scary. "If you want to go out in the woods and see ... what color is the night" - it's a fine balance and not quite struck for me, the adult reader who always wants a picture book to be 10% weirder or creepier than it is, but it intrigues me.
Title: Four Fur Feet
Author: Margaret Wise Brown
Illustrator: Remy Charlip
Published: Hopscotch Books, 1990 (1961)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 30
Total Page Count: 507,520
Text Number: 1818
Read Because: reading Margaret Wise Brown, borrowed from Open Library
Review: What a weird one! A creature with four fur feet wanders the world; with only those four feet in frame, the creature is kept a mystery and the bulk of the page is the world. Pleasantly cluttered, dense, stylized line art is flooded with flat plains of color. It's an invitation to exploration: what's the creature? where else can it go? look at all the things in the world! Presumably good for children; didn't do much for me, but I'm cool not being the intended audience and appreciate the combination of repetition and increasing scale.
Title: The Wonderful House
Author: Margaret Wise Brown
Illustrator: J.P. Miller
Published: Golden Books, 1950 (50 pages), 1960 (30 pages)
Rating: 3.5 of 5
Page Count: 50, 30
Total Page Count: 507,600
Text Number: 1819-20
Read Because: reading Margaret Wise Brown, borrowed from Open Library
Review: Who lives in this this barn, in this doghouse, who lives in that strange house flying in on wings? The escalation here, from a prosaic, very children's-book-ish list into a more sustained and decidedly quirky narrative, is charming. The dense, vivid art grew on me alongside the narrative, but I wish the final spread were more robust; being airborne means the background is pretty plain, which lacks the oomph of some previous panels when oomph is dearly needed.
Fascinating that the two editions are the same artist/art. Common sense and peering at publishing dates indicate that the longer version is the original: 50 pages versus the 30-page revised edition. The 50-page has many panels missing in the other; the art is arranged and cropped slightly differently in each. Of the the two, I tentatively prefer the 30-page; normally I prefer longer versions of MWB, but here the escalating scale here has more punch in a shorter book. But I like the 50-page as an extended cut.
Title: When the Wind Blew
Author: Margaret Wise Brown
Illustrator: Geoffrey Hayes
Published: Harper & Row, 1977 (1937, with a different illustrator)
Rating: 4.5 of 5
Page Count: 30
Total Page Count: 507,630
Text Number: 1821
Read Because: reading Margaret Wise Brown, borrowed from Open Library
Review: As always, books about cats don't age well; I'll never not be grumpy about outdoor cats. But I still love this. It's very cat-true: the clowder has its daily routine, orbiting around their person; they're very tactile (I love the pg 17 herding cats illustration); and the ending, "The old lady looked around; and there, curled by the side of her face, purring just as hard as he could, was her little blue grey kitten. Just as good as a fur-covered hot water bottle." - the cutest thing, but not too cutesy, not out of true for a cat and their person in need. This isn't the lost gem of picture books, it's barely for children, with its old lady and cats and toothache - but it's definitely for me.
Title: Wait Till the Moon is Full
Author: Margaret Wise Brown
Illustrator: Garth Williams
Published: The Trumpet Club, 1988 (1948)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 35
Total Page Count: 507,665
Text Number: 1822
Read Because: reading Margaret Wise Brown, borrowed from Open Library
Review: A young racoon pesters his mother: when can I go out at night? Nevermind the cover; Williams's illustrations are black and white, accented with burnt umber. This is one part the coziest possible illustrations of anthropomorphized animals doing domestic tasks, and one part a gentle but atmospheric embrace of the night, filled with nocturnal activities, changing with the light of the moon, secretive but not scary. "If you want to go out in the woods and see ... what color is the night" - it's a fine balance and not quite struck for me, the adult reader who always wants a picture book to be 10% weirder or creepier than it is, but it intrigues me.
