Month: January 2011

Wassily Kandinsky (Russian, 1866-1944). Color Study, Squares with Concentric Rings (Farbstudien, Quadrate mit konzentrischen Ringen), 1913.  Watercolor, gouache and black chalk on paper.  Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau München

My wife bought some cool fabric to make bumper pads for our forthcoming baby’s crib; it reminds me a lot of this painting by Kandinsky.  And this isn’t anywhere close to my favorite work by Kandinsky, so you’ll likely be seeing a lot more of his stuff here at the Froz-T-Freez Gallery in the future.

I’ve never written a picture book before, but I always thought I would try it one day. Well, it turns out that one day will come very soon, and for 28 days in a row, starting February 1. I recently happened upon the Picture Book Marathon, and after a five second perusal of the site I rashly signed up to give it a go. The Picture Book Marathon appears to have been started by two people of my own home town of Salt Lake City, which I think is special. The idea is that participants will write the text of one picture book every day for the month of February. The project is clearly inspired by NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), but thankfully they’ve ditched a lot of the anal retentiveness of that competition (the obsessive word counts, the emphasis on “finishing,” the need to actually work on the same story every day, all that silly stuff). Novelists may need that sort of thing, but we picture book authors and illustrators are a much more fun, laid back kind of crowd.

I’ve tried NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) a couple of times, and each time I have prematurely ended it 1.5 to 2 weeks later in a maelstrom of stress, guilt and failure. But for some reason this new idea of writing 26 picture books in a month holds no such negative power over me. Maybe this is because I have no great expectations for myself in writing a good picture book. Maybe it’s because I don’t even have a very clear idea of what constitutes a good picture book. Maybe it’s because I will be free to write about whatever I want, and my commitment to a certain story or idea need only last for one day, or even for one hour. Whatever the reason, it sounds like just a whole bunch of fun without a lot of pressure.

I guarantee you right now there will be at least one book about a robot, maybe more. And a talking rock. And an okapi. Definitely an okapi. Yeah, I know you’ve probably never heard of it. I think the okapi has more indie cred than any other ungulate, but it’s going to blow up in the mainstream really soon and one of my picture books will be the cause. Then I’ll write another book about the okapi being a corporate sell-out.

Wish me luck?

One of my musical pastimes of 2011 shall be an exhaustive exploration of my tape collection. At New Year’s time I dug all of them out of my parents’ basement, and I’m so excited.

It’s been a long time since I’ve heard Fresh Aire V. Too Long.

Book Review

Three siblings: Otto, Lucia, and Max; the story is told by one of them, but the teller has been sworn not to reveal him or herself by the other siblings.  They live with their dad in a small town in England where they were long ago labeled the weird kids of the town, but only because their mother mysteriously vanished and/or died before they were old enough to really remember her, and the super-tall and oldest brother Otto never speaks and always wears a scarf.  The nasty theory is that he strangled his own mother with the scarf in a rage of madness, and their father covered it up to protect his son.

With The Kneebone Boy, American author Ellen Potter lets loose her anglophilia and successfully hijacks the magic of the long and storied history of British children’s literature, from Lewis Carroll and C.S. Lewis to Roald Dahl and J. K. Rowling, that she clearly loves so much; except there is no magic in The Kneebone Boy.  Our unidentified narrator makes this ever so clear from the outset, lest we end up disappointed.

Oddities?  Does the rumored existence of a boy born with bat ears and fur all over his body and locked in the top chamber of a crumbling old castle sound normal to you?

Mysteries? If a missing mom and a furry boy locked in a castle aren’t enough mysteries for you, then you are a tougher reader than me.

Adventures? Would getting in a fight with a tattooed thug while stranded in the streets of London parentless count?  How about exploring the treacherous secret passageways of the aforementioned crumbling castle, perched on a cliff overlooking the sea?

With all that, who needs magic?

Told by one of the cleverest narrative voices I’ve read in a long time and abounding with the weirdness, mystery, and plot twists of the children’s books I grew up loving, this is the first book I’ve read in a while that made me genuinely excited about children’s literature written primarily for children.  For that, and even though and maybe actually partly because of the fact that this book probably won’t win any awards, it was my favorite book of 2010.

The Kneebone Boy
Written by Ellen Potter
Feiwel & Friends
288 p.
ISBN: 9780312377724
Release Date: September 14, 2010