Books We Owe to "Book Crush"

Below are a few books we recently brought home from the library thanks to the recommendations in Nancy Pearl's Book Crush, which I reviewed yesterday.

• Arnold Lobel's wonderful Frog and Toad books, plus the Mouse series (Mouse Tales, Mouse Soup, etc.): I read these when I was young and the reading level is perfect for Z right now, who loves a good story and likes plenty of illustrations.
• The Mouse and the Motorcycle: I can't wait to get into Beverly Cleary books with Z. As an only child, one of the greatest things about the Ramona books may be lost on her - the trials and tribulations of sibling rivalry - but a mouse on a toy motorcycle, and the lust for capital-A action that drives Ralph to danger, is something she can already understand. We are currently reading this book and just finished Chapter 5; to adapt this middle-grade fiction I just skim a bit of Clearly's most descriptive text, summarizing and moving on to more active scenes, and I have omitted the fact that Ralph's father and uncle both met with grisly ends (aspirin and incinerator, respectively). But when it comes to vocabulary, I explain most unfamiliar words rather than subbing them out.
  
• Leo Lionni's Swimmy: Okay, not one we've checked out yet, but we will next trip.
  
• Bedtime for Frances by Russell Hoban: Man, I loved these books as a kid for some reason. As soon as we get around to reading it, I hope to find out why. Surely it's in part because of the soft and friendly illustrations by Garth Williams, who illustrated many of Margaret Wise Brown's unsinkable and bizarre works, like Z's current favorite.
  
• Paul O. Zelinsky's Swamp Angel and Rumpelstiltskin: I've been meaning to check out Zelinsky's work since I saw it so poorly animated as an Arnie the Doughnut B-side. The former has gorgeous paintings and every page background is decoratively painted to look like wood. But the text is too long for a toddler and it's a bit violent for her current level anyway. Zelinsky's Rumpelstiltskin did not blow me away as Pearl's recommendation led me to expect. I have already been telling Z the Grimm version with some fatherly editing for my three-year-old audience (Rumpelstiltskin pines for the protagonist's puppy, not her first-born child), and this book's paintings leave me a bit cold. I wish Zelinsky, who made so much of his spin on American Primative folk painting in Swamp Angel, had taken his style a bit further back into medieval forms, as the distance shots are so tantalizing (see the one above right), and his Renaissance stylings look more like unconvincing pre-Raphaelites. None of which interests Z a whit, but I don't think the retelling will much, either. The one thing I really do like about it is the way he visualizes spinning straw into gold, which has always struck in my craw when reading the story in other editions.
  

We're passing on Book Crush to my teenage cousin, who is in town for a few weeks and planning to hit the library today. It's the least I can do, considering that she got me hooked on the Death Note manga serial last night. I'll report back on her impression of the book's recommendations for teen readers, probably on my other blog, Think in Pictures, as teen fiction is waaaay off topic for ZRecs.