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Margaret Wise Brown: Don't Frighten the Lion, Little Scarecrow Boy, Where Have You Been?
Title: Don't Frighten the Lion
Author: Margaret Wise Brown
Illustrator: H.A. Rey
Published: HarperTrophy, 1993 (1942)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 35
Total Page Count: 507,700
Text Number: 1823
Read Because: reading Margaret Wise Brown, borrowed from Open Library
Review: Dogs aren't allowed at the zoo, so this one dresses up as a little girl to get inside. A deeply silly premise, but the list of zoo animals with evocative, scent-heavy descriptions is very MWB. Cute, and I love the panel of the dog and owner mirroring each other's body language; but not particularly memorable.
Title: The Little Scarecrow Boy
Author: Margaret Wise Brown
Illustrator: David Diaz
Published: Scholastic, 1999 (1998)
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 45
Total Page Count: 507,745
Text Number: 1824
Read Because: reading Margaret Wise Brown, borrowed from Open Library
Review: I don't know that there could be a version of a walking, talking scarecrow making frightful faces which isn't a little creepy and, indeed, this is pretty creepy. Creepy-cute, or just unsettling? I didn't like it (especially the straw-stuffing functioning as teeth no thanks), but it's vibrant, and certainly not boring, and copying the faces would probably be fun for a kid.
The ending (the protagonist isn't censured for sneaking out to use his fierce faces in the field) intrigues me. It should be refreshing, but there's commentary here about the scarecrow child being raised into the family business, taking the initiative to prove his usefulness, and therefore earning his place while still young which ... is probably bigger than my quick review of a picture book allows, but feels gently dated, a product of MWB's era and a relic by the time this was published in 1998.
Title: Where Have You Been?
Author: Margaret Wise Brown
Illustrator: Barbara Cooney (1952), Leo and Diane Dillon (2004)
Published: Hastings House, 1952; HarperCollins, 2004
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 30, 30
Total Page Count: 507,805
Text Number: 1825-6
Read Because: reading Margaret Wise Brown, borrowed from Open Library
Review: There are two versions of this. The Cooney illustrations are black, white, and red, with a lot of tonal variation between the spreads, some cute, some wondrous (the deer!), some rendered piecemeal, some full tableaux with backgrounds. Set against that is MWB's simplistic text: a list of things, a call and response, with minimal narrative movement. It's probably best for very young readers. Likeable (really, that deer illustration's beautiful) but not hugely memorable.
The Dillon is very different. The art is doing a lot of heavy lifting, here: the owl asking each animal where they've been provides an overarching narrative, and each panel is a full-color, wildly creative inset narrative, ex. the toad up the road has been going on a roadtrip with a few fairies. It's a fascinating reinterpretation, vibrant and quirky and probably excessive; I wonder, paired with the very simple text, there's no ideal readership. But do I like it? Oh, yes.
Scribbling demographics information for these illustrators, I 1) learned that H.A. Rey was the guy who co-wrote Curious George with his wife Margret Rey, and both of them were German Jews who fled Paris in 1940 ("on bicycles, carrying the Curious George manuscript with them.") so add that to the reading Jewish authors section of the TBR and 2) read the Wikipedia page for Leo and Diane Dillon, which is a fun activity to do if you want to cry! Diane's description of their collaboration + Leo's obit are both extremely moving.
Author: Margaret Wise Brown
Illustrator: H.A. Rey
Published: HarperTrophy, 1993 (1942)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 35
Total Page Count: 507,700
Text Number: 1823
Read Because: reading Margaret Wise Brown, borrowed from Open Library
Review: Dogs aren't allowed at the zoo, so this one dresses up as a little girl to get inside. A deeply silly premise, but the list of zoo animals with evocative, scent-heavy descriptions is very MWB. Cute, and I love the panel of the dog and owner mirroring each other's body language; but not particularly memorable.
Title: The Little Scarecrow Boy
Author: Margaret Wise Brown
Illustrator: David Diaz
Published: Scholastic, 1999 (1998)
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 45
Total Page Count: 507,745
Text Number: 1824
Read Because: reading Margaret Wise Brown, borrowed from Open Library
Review: I don't know that there could be a version of a walking, talking scarecrow making frightful faces which isn't a little creepy and, indeed, this is pretty creepy. Creepy-cute, or just unsettling? I didn't like it (especially the straw-stuffing functioning as teeth no thanks), but it's vibrant, and certainly not boring, and copying the faces would probably be fun for a kid.
The ending (the protagonist isn't censured for sneaking out to use his fierce faces in the field) intrigues me. It should be refreshing, but there's commentary here about the scarecrow child being raised into the family business, taking the initiative to prove his usefulness, and therefore earning his place while still young which ... is probably bigger than my quick review of a picture book allows, but feels gently dated, a product of MWB's era and a relic by the time this was published in 1998.
Title: Where Have You Been?
Author: Margaret Wise Brown
Illustrator: Barbara Cooney (1952), Leo and Diane Dillon (2004)
Published: Hastings House, 1952; HarperCollins, 2004
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 30, 30
Total Page Count: 507,805
Text Number: 1825-6
Read Because: reading Margaret Wise Brown, borrowed from Open Library
Review: There are two versions of this. The Cooney illustrations are black, white, and red, with a lot of tonal variation between the spreads, some cute, some wondrous (the deer!), some rendered piecemeal, some full tableaux with backgrounds. Set against that is MWB's simplistic text: a list of things, a call and response, with minimal narrative movement. It's probably best for very young readers. Likeable (really, that deer illustration's beautiful) but not hugely memorable.
The Dillon is very different. The art is doing a lot of heavy lifting, here: the owl asking each animal where they've been provides an overarching narrative, and each panel is a full-color, wildly creative inset narrative, ex. the toad up the road has been going on a roadtrip with a few fairies. It's a fascinating reinterpretation, vibrant and quirky and probably excessive; I wonder, paired with the very simple text, there's no ideal readership. But do I like it? Oh, yes.
Scribbling demographics information for these illustrators, I 1) learned that H.A. Rey was the guy who co-wrote Curious George with his wife Margret Rey, and both of them were German Jews who fled Paris in 1940 ("on bicycles, carrying the Curious George manuscript with them.") so add that to the reading Jewish authors section of the TBR and 2) read the Wikipedia page for Leo and Diane Dillon, which is a fun activity to do if you want to cry! Diane's description of their collaboration + Leo's obit are both extremely moving.