Terrible Times Tables

A Modern Multiplication Primer

Cameron + Company
(pub. 8.6.2019) 
80 pages

A True Tale with
A Cherry On Top   

A uthor:  Michelle Markel

 and illustrator: 
                  Merrilee Liddiard
 
C haracters: School Children & The Times Tables

O verview: 

     "Inspired by a Victorian math primer, Terrible Times Tables is a modern take on learning one’s multiplication tables, from numbers 2 to 10, featuring elementary school themes of homeroom, field trips, cafeteria food, holidays, and recitals. Featuring a reluctant narrator and a few unwitting critters, learning math has never been so much fun or amusing.

T antalizing taste: 
     
      "LUNCHTIME

      5 x 1 is 5
      A roach - and it's alive. 
              [illus. of girl carrying lunch tray with big bug]

      5 x 2 is 10
      Mystery meat again.

      5 x 3 is 15
      My nose has grown a bean. 
               [illus of boy with bean stuck in nose]

      5 x 4 is 20
      Don't worry kids, there's plenty.
               [illus of lunch lady]

      5 x 5 is 25
      Never look her in the eye."
      

And something more: Terrible Times Tables falls outside of my usual focus on picture book biographies. But I couldn't resist the fun, humor and creativity of this book (plus the publisher, the wonderful Cameron + Company, also published the picture book I wrote, Boats on the Bay). I asked the author to share something autobiographical about writing this book. Michelle Markel kindly shared her inspiration and the connection to her research for a biography of Randolph Caldecott:

"True confession: I’m not a huge fan of math, so books about it rarely capture my attention. However, several years ago, while researching 19th century children’s literature for a bio of Randolph Caldecott, I came across a Victorian blockbuster called  Marmaduke Multiply’s Merry Method of Making Minor Mathematicians. It consisted of illustrated couplets for each “multiplication fact” - all random, sometimes grim or snarky,  i.e. “6 x 8 is 48/Dear Aunt, your dress is out of date.”).  I loved the mixture of art, poetry, math, and occasional gloominess.  Lights started flashing!  I wanted to use those ingredients for my own version of Marmaduke.  I hope kids have as much fun reading Terrible Times Tables as I had writing it!"

Out of This World

The Surreal Art
of Leonora Carrington

Balzer + Bray
(Harper Collins Publishers)
(pub. 1.22.2019) 
40 pages

A True Tale with
A Cherry On Top   

A uthor: Michelle Markel
 and illustrator: Amanda Hall  
 
C haracter: Leonora Carrington

O verview from the jacket flap: 
     "Ever since she was a little girl, Leonora Carrington loved to draw on walls, in books, on paper - and she loved the fantastic tales her grandmother told that took her to worlds that shimmered beyond this one, where legends became real.
     Leonora's parents wanted her to become a proper English lady, but there was only one thing she wanted, even if it was unsuitable: to become an artist. In London, she discovered a group of artists called surrealists, who were stunning the world with their mysterious creations. This was the kind of art she had to make. This was the kind of person she had to be.
     From life in Paris creating art alongside Max Ernst to Mexico, where she met Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, Leonora's life became intertwined with the powerful events and people that shaped the twentieth century..."
    

T antalizing taste: 

      "She learned to dive into her imagination, to summon memories and secret wishes ...
    She painted a plush chair in her childhood home. A little version of her took a seat. Out flowed her hair like a wild mane. Up went her rocking horse to the ceiling. A hyena tiptoed toward her hand.
     Leonora and the other female surrealists were thrilled to be making art from a woman's point of view. They had no interest in painting women who looked like pretty decorations as men had done for centuries. Leonora was just beginning to unleash her artistic powers when a terrible thing happened.
     In 1940, Germany invaded Western Europe..."

And something more: At the back of the book, Amanda Hall explains in her Illustrator's Note: "... the specific challenge for me was to convey the spirit, themes, and sensibility she explored in her creative output without attempting to re-create literally any of her actual imagery.  Since working on Out of this World, I have also become familiar with aspects of her extraordinary life story and her determination to forge her own creative and personal authenticity.  That was all the more remarkable in the context of such historical and global turbulence."

Balderdash!

John Newbery and
the Boisterous
Birth of Children's Books

Chronicle Books

(pub. 4.4.2017)
44 pages

A True Tale with
A Cherry On Top   

A uthor: Michelle Markel

      and illustrator: 
      Nancy Carpenter

C haracter:John Newbery

O verview from the jacket flap: 

     "Welcome! This book's for you. Every page, every picture, and every word was designed for your pleasure.
       Lucky, lucky reader.
       Be glad it's not 1726.
       Back then, children had to read preachy poems and fables, religious texts that made them fear that death was near, and manuals that told them where to stand, how to sit, not to laugh, and scores of other rules.
      Because the future champion of children's books was just a lad."

T antalizing taste: 
      

     "His name was John Newbery. The boy lived on a farm but fancied reading more that forking hay, so upon coming of age, he set off to work for a printer.
      John got a kick out of type sticks and type stands and chases and quoins.  He came to love galleys and presses and the smell of fresh ink.
     As soon as he was able, John became a publisher himself...
     John wanted his first book for children to be irresistible. There'd be letters from Jack the Giant Killer.
     There'd be pictures of pitch and hussel, hoop and hide, blindman's buff, and other children's games. Plus ABC's, proverbs, and other classic material, and for extra punch - a message too for mums and dads."

 

and something more: The back matter of BALDERDASH explains that "Newbery's books for children were approximately 4 inches by 3 inches ... which made them easily portable in pockets [and that size, of course, reminds me of Beatrix Potter's wonderful books]. He published more than one hundred books for children over his lifetime, and sold thousands of copies, establishing both the value and popularity of books written, illustrated, designed, and printed especially for the perspective and enthusiasms of children." Thank goodness for John Newbery's contribution to children's literature!

The Fantastic Jungles of Henri Rousseau

This post is part of Nonfiction Monday
hosted today by Wrapped in Foil

and joins It's Monday!
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at Teacher Mentor Texts

Eerdmans Books
for Young Readers

(pub. 6.11.2012) 34 pages 

A True Tale with A Cherry On Top

A uthor: Michelle Markel

     and Illustrator:  Amanda Hall

C haracter: Henri Rousseau

O verview from the jacket flap: 

      "Henri Rousseau loved nature, and basked in the beauty of the sunshine and the towering trees of Paris. He wanted to capture all of this, so he taught himself to paint. And then he worked until the jungles and animals and distant lands in his head came alive on the space of his canvases.
      Rousseau endured many harsh critics to create his brilliant paintings. Michelle Markel's vivid text and Amanda Hall's vibrant illustrations together artfully introduce young readers to this beloved painter."
        

T antalizing taste: 

"Henri Rousseau wants to be an artist. 
Not a single person has ever told him he is talented. 
He's a toll collector. 
He' s forty years old.

      

But he buys some canvas, paint, and brushes, 

and starts painting anyway.

Why? Because he loves nature. Because

when he strolls through the parks of Paris,

it's like the flowers open their hearts,

the trees spread their arms, and the sun

is a blushing ruby, all for him."

                       

and something more: I didn't realize that Henri Rousseau began painting at age forty without formal training, and that his art was ridiculed year after year. Michelle Markel's Author's Note in The Fantastic Jungles of Henri Rousseau explains that he "gradually developed a following. Avant-garde artists and writers such as Picasso, Delaunay, Jarry, and Apollinaire admired his innocence and charm."
          And, although he is best known for his jungle paintings, he could never afford to leave Paris. Instead, he travelled in his mind. As he said to a journalist, "I don't know if you're like me ... but when I go into the glass houses and I see the strange plants of exotic lands, it seems to me that I enter into a dream. I feel that I'm somebody else completely."  The power of imagination!