Librarian Preview: Chronicle Books (Fall/Winter 2009)

So Cathleen Brady, the Director of Children’s Marketing and Publicity was in town.  And in her possession was information regarding Chronicle’s upcoming season.  So alongside luminaries Lisa Von Drasek and Judy Freeman we high-tailed it over to a Korean restaurant, ate our fill, and took a gander at what she had in her possession.

I should note before I begin that with the exception of the soundbooks, some of the images seen here may not be final.  This is also why I don’t have pictures of everything I discuss.  Just FYI.

Right off the bat the Queen of Chronicle and ruler of all things viral (in the marketing sense, mind you) is Amy Krouse Rosenthal.  So right off the bat you have a Reese Witherspoon (really?) quote in the catalog about how "My son gobbles up the books by Amy Krouse Rosenthal."  Well I’ll be darned.  Certainly 2009 is turning into a good year for her.  On the one hand you have her Duck! Rabbit!.  On the other hand is Little Oink, the third in the triumvirate that began with Little Pea and Little Hoot.  Will there be more?  Personally, I doubt it.  Not that there aren’t other motifs to milk (a beaver that wants to brush its teeth, a porcupine that wants to brush its hair, etc.) but they’re releasing these three books as board books.  On top of that, the board books get a cut little boxed set where you can slip in a picture on the end and make it a bookend.  Aww.

Next up, an abecedarian delight.  Creature ABC by Andrew Zuckerman is an alphabet book that, according to the catalog, "features 120 pages of Andrew Zuckerman’s breathtaking wildlife photography."  For each letter animals are placed against a pure white background.  I appreciated that there were multiple shots of them from a variety of different angles too.  There may be some debate over the group shots Zuckerman creates at strategic times, but as photography-related alphabet books go, this may possibly be one of the best (sorry Pilobolus).

Who could have predicted that 3-D would see such a resurgence?  First you can’t see a movie these days without there being some kind of a 3-D equivalent.  Now the books are going the same route.  Only this isn’t your parent’s 3-D anymore.  No, when we were looking at Eye-Popping 3-D Pets by Barry and Betsy Rothstein, it was using a kind of technology called "phantograms".  This is apparently different from 3-D in that phantograms stand off of a page like a hologram.  So while this book has the usual kitties and puppies, there are also 3-D tarantulas to deal with.  I’m trying to remember if Chronicle’s 3-D World Atlas and Tour book (which came out last year) was also filled with phantograms or just regular old 3-D.  Can’t remember.

Bing is back.  The man behind the Caldecott Honor winning Casey at the Bat, the fascinating Little Black Sambo, and the recent Lincoln Shot by Barry Denenberg has gone all softy on us.  He’s done a straight up fairy tale, which is rather fascinating to me.  I mean, you don’t expect Bing to be so . . . so normal, really.  But normal he is, and Little Red Riding Hood is a full color book done in the man’ usual meticulous style.  Now the author of the book is said to be "The Brothers Grimm" so I can only assume that this is going to be one of those versions where Little Red and Granny get eaten up at some point.  The real question, then, is whether or not the hunter will straight out kill the wolf, or they’ll be completely accurate and fill the poor critter’s belly with stones.  I’m putting down $20 for stones.  Who’s with me?

Chronicle likes it the technology.  Fantagrams not enough for you?  Fine.  Well, they’ve got some Soundbooks for your audible pleasure as well.  It’s only a matter of time before they create a soundbook/fantagram book all in one.  Animals leap off the page… in stereo!  Well, during this preview we were in this noisy Korean restaurant, but we had to try one of these out.  They’re not kidding about the stereo either.  Three books are coming out that feature stereophonic (my outdated term, not theirs) capabilities; Stereobook: Dinosaurs, Stereobook: Vehicles (shown here), and Stereobook: Wild Animals.  You open the book and little speakers are connected to both the front and the back covers.  Then, when you press a button, the sound continues for about 30 seconds.  So essentially this is the picture book equivalent of The Very Quiet Cricket jacked up on steroids.

Am I the only librarian out there who didn’t know who Jim LaMarche was?  No, seriously, am I?  Because I guess I was familiar with his work (The Elves and the Shoemaker, Up, Rainbabies, etc.) and never put two-and-two together enough to realize those books were all done by the same bloke.  If some of you have been suffering from LaMarche withdrawal, I have good news.  The man who can somehow draw soft pastels without drowning his subjects in an ocean of twee is coming out with Lost and Found: Three Dog Stories.  Shoot.  Now I have to go and reread all his old stuff as well.

A show of hands (I keep asking you questions, don’t I?).  Who was in The Nutcracker ballet as a child.  Anyone?  Anyone?  I was.  And my parents had to see so many performances of it, as a result, that if you play the music for them now they have the loving parent equivalent of war flashbacks.  Ack!  It’s the sixteen-year-old Sugar Plum Fairy!  Run!  Run!

I mention all this because Ralph Covert and G. Riley Mills (along with illustrator Wilson Swain) have come up with a notion so strange that it just might work.  You take the story of the Nutcracker, but you tell it from the perspective… of Fritz.  Remember Fritz?  If your ballet company is working with a small cast then he’s the kid that will play Clara’s naughty Nutcracker-busting brother in the first act, and handsome de-magickified prince (ew.. her brother?) in the second.  Anyway in The Nutty Nutcracker Christmas, Fritz gets center stage.  Oddly, the story also seems to have been modernized.  Ralph Covert is more of a songwriter than an author, and he has also created the music for this book.  We’ll see if it becomes a standard.

Now here, of all the books on the list, is the one that I waaaaaaaant.  And it’s not just because the photographer Mark Cassino is from Kalamazoo, Michigan (though that certainly didn’t hurt matters any).  The book is called The Story of Snow: The Science of Winter’s Wonder, and it’s by Jon Nelson with Mr. Cassino’s photographs for spice.  You know the story of Snowflake Bentley?  How he figured out how to photograph snowflakes when no one else could?  Well now Mr. Cassino takes it one step further.  In this title we learn everything there is to know about snow, and the photographs of the individual flakes are nothing short of jaw-dropping.  Did I mention, me want? 

Mark Boutavant.  One of those guys that is probably going to be unavoidable in 10-15 years.  I say that because the fellow has been slow about appearing in American until now.  Sure, he’ll do a cover for Lulu Atlantis and the Search for True Blue Love, and the illustrations for Mary Ann Hoberman’s All Kinds of Families, but now this Parisian is coming out with TWO picture books with Chronicle this season, one in October and one in November.  In bright Urban Outfitter colors and gorgeous interior spreads, these are going to be noticeable on the old bookshelf.