Updated: Aug 24, 2021
Milo is a "shook-up soda" of excitement, worry, confusion and love. "To keep himself from bursting" during a long subway ride with his sister, he imagines the lives of the people around him. The boy in the suit and bright white sneakers? Milo imagines him arriving home to a castle with a butler. But when he ends up getting off at the same stop as Milo--and going to the exact same place—Milo realizes that you can't really know anyone just by looking at them.
Max's Boat Pick: MILO IMAGINES THE WORLD
Written by Matt de la Peña and illustrated by Christian Robinson
Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers (February 2, 2021)
What inspired you to write MILO IMAGINES THE WORLD? MDLP: "Christian and I were on tour for our second book, CARMELA FULL OF WISHES, and during a bit of downtime at a coffee shop we talked about what kind of story we were interested in trying next. We knew it would involve public transportation in some form. And I knew I wanted to explore the lazy nature of stereotypes. And near the end of our conversation, Christian mentioned that he was interested in exploring his experience growing up with an incarcerated mother. I took this conversation back to Brooklyn with me and decided to set the book on the NYC subway. From there it was a long process of discovery. In the end I realized Milo had to be brave enough to revise his assumptions about the people he watches on his trip to visit his mother. Behind every face, he realizes, there's an entire story he doesn't have access to."
In your Newbery acceptance speech in 2016, you said, "What if I can write a story that offers that tough, hoodied kid in the back of the auditorium a secret place to feel?” Besides your own books, of course, are there other picture books you admire for doing this? "Whenever I'm working on a new story, I think about little-kid me. I grew up in a working-class community, under the umbrella of machismo, without access to books. This is a challenging equation. And I know so many kids today are growing up with this exact same set of circumstances. I write for all young people, but I especially write for THESE young people. Because I know how instrumental good stories can be in their development. As a parent, I seek out stories that meet working-class kids where they live. Two of my all-time favorites are: EACH KINDNESS by Jacqueline Woodson and E.B. Lewis (I'm in awe of this picture book) and MY PAPI HAS A MOTORCYCLE by Isabel Quintero and Zeke Peña (beautiful)."
The rhythm of your words is something else. Are there any picture books you especially admire for their poetry or the beauty of their words? "I feel like picture book writers have two equally important jobs. First you have to get the story right. Then you have to get the MUSIC right. But you can't go too far either. When the text is trying too hard, the whole thing can come tumbling down. There are so many poets out there writing great picture book texts these days. I love the following books for their poetry in particular: ALL THE WORLD by Liz Garton Scanlon and Marla Frazee (the language is gorgeous), A DIFFERENT POND by Bao Phi (stunning) and Thi Bui, and, of course, GOODNIGHT MOON by Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd ('Goodnight stars / Goodnight air / Goodnight noises everywhere.') I love when a text is a little bit strange or existential. I think we're all aiming at the genius of that 'Goodnight noises everywhere.' That is poetry that exists in the universe of the child."
Do you remember what you loved reading to your daughter at age three? At age five? "When she was three she was obsessed with THE ADVENTURES OF BEEKLE by Dan Santat. When she was five she was obsessed with SAFFRON ICE CREAM by Rashin Kheiriyeh. Thankfully, I loved them both, too."
Updated: Aug 24, 2021
Nico was new, and nervous about going to school. Everyone knew what to do and where to go, but Nico felt a little lost. So, he did what he loved to do: He befriended the birds.
Max's Boat Pick: Bird Boy
Written by Matthew Burgess and illustrated by Shahrzad Maydani
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers (July 20, 2021)
What inspired you to write Bird Boy? MB: "I was inspired by one of Shahrzad Maydani’s sketches of a boy feeding the birds. I was captivated by the image and the first draft of the story arrived like a wonderful surprise. First it emerged as a poem, and then I went back to explore the conflict, the narrative arc, the page turns. This is the first picture book manuscript I’ve written in direct response to the artist’s image. Shaz's irresistible character was the spark."
I really enjoyed the poetry of your words: "such as watching the insects crossing a crack in the blacktop like climbers over a mountain pass." I just loved that. So simple, yet so evocative. Are there any picture books you admire for their poetry or the beauty of their words? "William Steig's sentences are my favorite sentences. He writes with a poetry that feels high-spirited and effortless, profound yet totally unpretentious. Describing the friendship of mouse and whale in Amos and Boris, he writes: 'Boris admired the delicacy, the quivering daintiness, the light touch, the small voice, the gemlike radiance of the mouse. Amos admired the bulk, the grandeur, the power, the purpose, the rich voice, and the abounding friendliness of the whale.' Both mouse and whale appear so distinctly. Magic. Some of my favorite sentences are in Steig’s chapter book, Dominic, which follows the adventures of a dog but feels like a manual for being a person.
Recently I read Dave Eggers’s new picture book, We Became Jaguars, illustrated by Woodrow White. Eggers writes from the child's perspective in a way that feels both poetic and true. The boy-narrator has just met his grandmother for the second time in his life, and he is both enchanted and intimidated by her invitation to become jaguars. 'She laughed like great thunder and I laughed like lesser thunder and we jaguared on.' And later: 'So she ran nimbly and I ran nimbly and we bounced across like marbles on glass.' It's gorgeous."
Are there any other picture books that you love that explore the theme of being true to yourself? "Jane, the Fox and Me by Fanny Britt and Isabelle Arsenault is an amazing book for middle grade readers (and up) that explores this theme. It feels like a hybrid between picture book and graphic novel, and both words and images are astonishing. Mike Curato’s YA graphic novel, Flamer, is courageous and candid."
What do you think the best picture books do? "I admire the way Christian Robinson creates a poetic distance between word and image in You Matter. This space invites the reader to linger and wonder and come up with their own connections, which is something I think the best picture books do. In Du Iz Tak?, Carson Ellis invites the reader to become a co-creator of meaning while inventing a hilarious, ear-and-tongue-delighting language. “Unk scrivadelly gladdenboot!” I’m crazy about this book. I also love when a picture book is immersive and transporting, like Decur’s When You Look Up. This book surprises on so many levels."
What do you hope your picture books do? "I hope that my picture book biographies quicken a creative response in the reader. You know that feeling when you encounter an artist you love, in a museum or in a book, and you suddenly feel the impulse to make something in response—to write or draw or dance or run wildly outside? I love the idea that a book about an artist can spark the artist-inside-the-reader.
Though it is more of a “self-portrait of the artist,” I admire A World of Your Own by Laura Carlin for this reason. It is filled with invitations to dream, to draw, and to make things. If I had read this book as a kid, it would have propelled me directly to colored pencils and paper.
Another thing I hope my picture books do is to create a space—a temporary sanctuary for both ‘connection with another’ and for solitary dreaming. I love the sumptuous quietness in Akiko Miyakoshi’s The Way Home in the Night. It is a dreamy, vibrating world I am invited to inhabit—a magical and comforting trance. I recently read Me and Mama by Cozbi A. Cabrera, which explores the mother-child bond in a beautifully vivid and cozy way. I appreciate when a picture book engages all of your senses so that the rest of the world is temporarily held at bay. You are in it for the duration, and you emerge changed, enlivened, or ready for bed."
Updated: Aug 24, 2021
The alarm clock goes ring, ring. The car goes vroom, vroom. The elephant says peekaboo. And the crocodile says... WAHHHH! Experience the highs and lows of Little Crocodile's first day of preschool, all through sounds.
Max's Boat Pick: What Does Little Crocodile Say?
Written and illustrated by Eva Montanari
Publisher: Tundra Books (June 15, 2021)
What inspired you to write What Does Little Crocodile Say? EM: "I drew the first sketches for this book when my son started nursery school. It was a wonderful nursery school, with lots of space, books, material, and well-prepared, loving teachers. The idea for the book came to me spontaneously. I was thinking about the fascination that toddlers have for sounds and combined it with the daily experience of separation, which parents also struggle with in the first weeks and months of nursery school, but later on, too. I felt just like Big Crocodile, with tears building up in the corner of my eyes and ready to fall as soon as the door that separated our days would close. Yet I knew that the experience that my little crocodile was about to have, the first from which I would be excluded, was important and wonderful, full of new sounds to discover. So, I tried to imagine it myself and the result was What Does Little Crocodile Say?"
You explore the first day of preschool jitters so well. Are there any other first day of school/preschool picture books you would recommend? "There are many books about the first day of school and among these many that I like for the most diverse reasons. I love the hilarious irreverence of Stephanie Blake's I Don’t Want to Go to School, the adorable classicism of Haruo Yamashita and Kazuo Iwamura's Seven Little Mice Go to School, and the sweetness of Marianne Dubuc's 1,2,3 Off to School!
Among the most recent books, I like School’s First Day of School, written by Adam Rex with powerful illustrations by Christian Robinson. Thanks to the shift in the point of view, it’s the school itself that tells us about its first day. And after the first there are the other days. They might be dense, difficult, exciting, controversial and always in relationship with others. Among the books that have the world of school as a background (or the irreducible difference between the needs of adults and of children), one of my favorites is La Buca by Emma Adbage which I think has not yet been translated in the States. When I read it for the first time, I made a sudden leap into the courtyard of my primary school and found myself reliving the same emotions of almost forty years earlier: a sense of injustice, wildness, and desire for freedom. And the power of literature."
Your book is so FUN to read aloud. Are there any other books you find perfect for reading aloud? "I love to read in silence. And I love to read aloud. I read aloud for my partner or we take turns, I listen to readings aloud, and I hope I can continue reading to my son and nephew even when they can read better than I can. Among the books that I find perfect for reading aloud, there are naturally some classics that play with sounds like We're Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury, and with repetitions like Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by the great Eric Carle and Bill Martin Jr., rhyming books like Green Eggs and Ham and all the books by Dr. Seuss, and those in which there are dialogues and it's possible to change the voice for each character such as the hilarious Cornabicorna by Pierre Bertrand and Magali Bonniol and Mon Balloon by Mario Ramos. Then there are books that are more contemplative, such as the splendid Du Iz Tak? by Carson Ellis that we have read and reread not only observing every slightest variation in the images, but also having fun interpreting the mysterious language of insects."
What books do you love reading together with your son? At age three? At age five? What would be on your list of best picture books for three-year-olds? For five-year-olds? "In my house we have always had a very anarchic relationship with the recommended age for reading. I have often proposed suitable books to my son that have gone almost unnoticed and read "unsuitable" books that have become a source of inspiration and wonder. Naturally proposing does not mean imposing but simply starting to read and see what effect it produces. Is he curious? If I close the book, does he ask me to continue or possibly reread? When my son was four, between one reading and another I also proposed Pippi Longstocking. After some time, when we got his folder of drawings from kindergarten, I found at least a dozen that represented Pippi with long, wiry legs, at the end of which there was a number. The number 100 was one of the first he learned to write, perhaps due to the need to find a pair of shoes large enough for one of his favorite characters.
At the age of three we passed from Toti Scialoya's imaginative poems in Tre chichi di Moka, Swimmy by Leo Lionni, I Bestiolini by Gek Tessaro to the complete series of Moomins by Tove Jansson.
Between the ages of four and five we started reading Astrid Lindgren's Lotta, illustrated by Beatrice Alemagna to Pippi Longstocking, Karlson on the Roof, Emil & the Great Escape, and The Children of Noisy Village.
The books by Hervé Tullet, in particular Press Here and Help! We Need a Title! or the various books with Harold and his purple crayon by Crockett Johnson, and all the books by Chris Haughton, in particular Shh! We Have a Plan, continue to be among the illustrated favorites.
So I wonder if books, when they are really good, don't say something different at every age for that sense of mystery we feel in the combination of known words with other enigmatic ones, for the wonder we feel even when grown-up, in front of images and their always new combinations with words."