Librarian Preview: Chronicle Books (Fall 2014)

This is it! We’ve officially begun!  Here is, without a doubt, the very first Librarian Preview of the Fall 2014 season.  I’m so thrilled to be presenting it in its full unaltered glory.  Chronicle Books, that plucky little Californian publisher, has really made a name for itself in the past few years.  And now, with their very first (can you believe it?!) Caldecott Honor, it seems like their star is on the rise.  All the more reason to see what wares they’re hocking.  After all, if Candlewick rules the Beautiful Picture Book World of the East Coast, Chronicle rules the West.

But before we begin, let’s look at a little book they have coming out of their adult division:

Goodnight, Darth Vader by Jeffrey Brown

How do androids go to sleep?  How do wookies?  Ewoks?  Whatever the heck Admiral Ackbar is?  It was bound to occur. With the phenomenal success of Darth Vader and Son (to say nothing of Vader’s Little Princess) it didn’t take long for a play on the old Goodnight Moon trope.  Jeffrey Brown, for the record, is to be commended.  Can anyone else truly say they have two Star Wars related book series out with two different publishers for the trade book set?  Nay.  I’m just sad the adult book division of my library lays claim to these.  I would have bought this one anyway as juv.

Mix It Up by Herve Tullet

Awwwwwwwww, yeah!!  It’s exactly what you think it is.  The one.  The only.  The SEQUEL TO PRESS HERE!!!!!!!!  Could such a thing be possible?  Could such a thing even work?  It could if said sequel were to go the logical next step.  This book?  It’s all about mixing colors together.  You can kind of tell from the cover that inside it’s huge fun.  Kids can squish pages together to make new colors.  They can tip the pages so that the colors run together into new hues.  It’s the same feel as Press Here but with amazing educational applications.  My kid is really into color mixing right now but all we have for her is Mouse Paint by Ellen Walsh, Blue Goose by Nancy Tafuri, and The Color Kittens by Margaret Wise Brown.  Time to shake things up a little (literally).

The Bear’s Sea Escape by Benjamin Chaud

Remember The Bear’s Song, which was released last year?  It was sort of Where’s Waldo with very French bears.  Well the whole story built to an ending wherein the bear and his cub decide to hibernate after discovering the bee hives on the top of the Paris Opera House.  In the sequel, the Paris Opera House’s roof turns out not to be the most ideal place to sleep.  The bears move into a department store but next thing you know the baby has been mistaken for a toy and the papa has to follow him once more.  The energy in these books makes me feel as though I’d like to see them animated into little French shorts for the enjoyment of the masses.  Wouldn’t that be awesome?  It could happen.

Telephone by Mac Barnett, illustrated by Jen Corace

A Mac Barnett book at Chronicle?  Well, considering the fact that his girlfriend works there, it just makes good sense.  Mac’s back, baby, and this time he’s been paired with none other than the woman behind the art in those wildly successful Amy Krouse Rosenthal books Little Pea, Little Hoot, and Little Oink.  This is actually a pretty strong year for Ms. Corace.  Her other book I Hatched by Jill Esbaum only goes to show that she is in a SERIOUS bird phase right now.  Barnett’s book is fine and feathered and a play on the old telephone game.  It’s not the first book to go this route (the lovely Pass It On by Marylyn Sadler did it a couple years ago) but Barnett’s has a different tone and, quite frankly, a different gag at the end.  I also like how each bird hears a message that pertains to his or her own interests.  Just consider this whole enterprise a metaphor for hearing what you want to hear.

Planes Go by Steve Light

And SPEAKING of illustrators who are having good years, can we talk a bit about Steve Light?  Because here we have a guy producing crazy beautiful books with Candlewick like Have You Seen My Dragon? on the one hand, and then turning around to continue his incredibly popular “Go” series.  If you haven’t seen Trains Go, Trucks Go, or Diggers Go then you don’t know your board books.  The man specializes in readaloud board books, for crying out loud.  And nobody does it better.  When I saw that the next one was a plane book I had to ask if boats were next.  Ask and thou shalt receive.  Boats are on the roster for 2015.

Bonjour, Camille by Felipe Cano, illustrated by Laia Aguilar

Meet the Spanish Eloise.  That’s the only way I can accurately describe what it is that you’re seeing here.  Written by a Spaniard and illustrated by a Spaniard, the book is a gentle series of absurdities, each and every one logical to the petite young heroine.  Decked out in a top hat, black striped shirt, and black tutu (tell me that isn’t one of the more iconic visions I could conjure up), Camille is what Amelie might have been like as a child.  I’m seeing definite Urban Outfitters potential here.  In fact, it might even make a good graduation book, what with its wacky go-against-the-grain advice and all.

Flora and the Penguin by Molly Idle

And here it is!  The answer to your prayers.  Prayers you may not even have known you had.  As a sequel to the 2014 Caldecott Honor Book Flora and the Flamingo, Idle’s latest follows up its long and lanky avian from Book #1 with a cheery, squat, dumpling of a little fellow.  And like its predecessor, there are flaps to lift that advance the plot and show off the pair’s dance moves.  It would pair beautifully well with Kristi Valiant’s fellow dancing penguin book Penguin Cha-Cha, come to think of it.  Interestingly, this book is not the only sequel to a 2014 Caldecott Honor out this year.  Also keep an eye peeled for Aaron Becker’s Quest (the sequel to Journey) later in the fall.  Oh, and word on the street has it that the next Flora book might involve a peacock.  Squee!

In This Book by Fani Marceau, illustrated by Joelle Jolivet

Librarians get a lot of requests for “concept books”. Trouble is, folks never just come out and call them that.  They as for opposite books or color books or shape books, and that’s fine.  It’s when their requests get a bit more esoteric that you’re in trouble.  Imagine sitting at your reference desk one day and a well meaning soul comes up to you and asks for “books that deal with the concept of in and out”.  Don’t laugh, it’s happened and it’s a devil of a request to meet.  Now, at least, we’ve something we can hand over.  The fabulous French team of Marceau and Jolivet have paired together to create a truly beautiful variety of “in”s.  Now when I saw that illustrator Jolivet was involved I got a tad bit nervous.  Jolivet is best associated, to my mind, with these gorgeous but enormous picture books like Zoo-ology and Almost Everything.  They’re gorgeous but they don’t fit on my shelves.  In This Book, by contrast, will come in at a sweet 9 1/2″ X 11″.  In (ha ha) teresting.

Flashlight by Lizi Boyd

I wracked my brain and came up with nothing.  Maybe you’ll fare better.  Can you think of a single solitary book in which a kid walks around with a flashlight seeing the cool things that come out at night?  Boyd was the person behind that lovely little Inside Outside last year (a book that garnered no less than four starred reviews).  I liked it a lot but always felt that it suffered from its color scheme.  The color brown may get the literary credit, but certain types of people avoid it like the plague.  Flashlight suffers no such problem as it follows a boy outside at night with a helpful flashlight aiding him.  Eventually the nighttime creatures want to get a look at him too, so they point the flashlight back in his direction in their curiosity.  Cute concept.  Never seen it done before.

The Memory of an Elephant by Sophie Strady, illustrated by Jean-Francois Martin

This one may be a bit special.  Nothing wrong with special books.  They keep things interesting and amuse the children of hipsters nationwide.  But you have to keep an open mind sometimes when you read them.  In this tale, a well dressed elephant writes an encyclopedia inspired by his daily life.  The book will, on occasion, show an encyclopedic spread from his book while also explaining what those items are.  For his part, I haven’t seen a pachyderm this dapper since Babar (spats and all).  The clothes on the animals are extraordinary and the modern furniture quite a riot.  Seriously, you have everything from the butterfly stool to the tulip table in the backgrounds here.  It is not, I should note, by any means the first children’s book to take on well-designed furniture (Goldilocks and the Three Bears: A Tale Moderne comes immediately to mind) but it may be the most attractive to the eye.

Lowriders in Space by Cathy Camper, illustrated by Raul the Third

You have undoubtedly heard my cries of complaint when it comes to the sheer derth of Latino books for kids on our shelves.  And graphic novels?  Don’t even get me started.  Aside from the Luz books (Luz Sees the Light, etc.) they are few and far between.  All the more reason I’m excited by Lowriders in Space.  I mean, the title says it all.  It’s a GN that happens to include some science and Latino culture all in one fell swoop.  Not exactly the most common of critters.  Looking at the art I was immediately drawn to the fact that though it’s clearly done in a particular style, there is just the faintest hint of Astroboy about it.  I should also note that Raul the Third, the illustrator, will apparently be speaking at SLJ’s Day of Dialog this year.  Don’t miss him!

Rhyme Schemer by K.A. Holt

Yesterday I wrote up a Poetry Month post on different rhyme schemes and poetic forms that you might not have heard of.  While typing it up I was tempted to include some info about this here little middle grade verse novel.  The premise is that a bully, one without any real problems in his life to justify his bullying, uses poetry to bully other kids.  Then the tables are turned and the bullier becomes the bully-ee.  Curious?  So am I.  This one’s moving to the top of my To Be Read Shelf and fast.

The Categorical Universe of Candice Phee by Barry Jonsberg

Pity the Australian import in America.  Unless your name is “Shaun Tan” or “Markus Zusak” you’re unlikely to be particularly well known here in the States.  Even if your book happens to win the Children’s Peace Literature Award, the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award, and the Golden Inky Award, it may not be a household name here yet.  Naturally Barry Jonsberg’s book won those very things and now he is poised to take America by storm.  In this tale a girl on the autism spectrum sets out to make everyone in her life happy.  Along the way the book utilizes a trope that I enjoy very much.  Paired with a penpal in the States who has never written back to her, Candice merrily writes off letters in the course of the novel to them anyway.  I love that.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Cookbook and Cookie Cutters Kit  by Lara Starr

Okay. Admittedly this isn’t the kind of thing the libraries out there should be looking at.  I mean, it comes with its own cookie cutter.  Hard to top that.  But I just had to mention it, and not just because Lara Starr of Chronicle herself did the recipes.  I just like that something like this helped to inspire a book like this one.  That and the fact that I really want to eat that caterpillar’s head.  A lot.  Nom nom nom.

Creature Baby Animals and Creature Sounds by Andrew Zuckerman

Boy, remember when Creature ABC came out all those years ago?  I loved that book so much that I held onto it tightly in the event that I someday had kids of my own.  That was a wise move, but it’s taken a long time for my kid to be ready for that book.  Now two new board books seek to solve that very problem.  They’re eye-catching.  They’re beautiful.  Basically, they’re some of the best animal photography I’ve ever seen.  No mean feat.

The Ultimate Construction Site Book by Anne-Sophie Baumann, illustrated by Didier Balicevic

I view the coming of this book with a mixture of longing and fear.  Longing because when Baumann and Balicevic produced their previous book, The Ultimate Book of Vehicles, this past spring my daughter became enamored of its tabs and doors and other movable elements.  Yet to read the whole book cover to cover can take forever, so I sometimes have to put it judiciously in places where she won’t see it before bedtime.  Such is her all encompassing love.  To discover that the next book is nothing but construction . . . well that’s just a treat.

Nocturne by Traer Scott

I’m on a real photography kick these days.  And have you noticed that the number of children’s books featuring photographs has increased tenfold over the last few years?  Apparently a lot of this has to do with the fact that thanks to digital photography, costs are down.  Traer Scott was hitherto unknown to me before I saw this book, but now I’m a huge fan.  The concept is great too.  Scott photographs nocturnal animals against these deep rich backgrounds.  They just pop into the foreground.  It’s almost as if their portraits were being taken.  As if you needed another way to make some of these critters even more cute than they were before.

You’re Awesome Journal

This isn’t anything to do with children’s books.  I just needed somewhere to put a note to remind myself to buy this for a family member once it’s been published (not until September. . . arg!!).  So, note to self: Purchase this item (ISBN: 978-1-4521-3660-8) when the time is right.  Because, after all, it made me laugh out loud and few blank journals in this world do that.

A million thanks to the kind and gracious Lara Star for entertaining me.  Looks like a great line-up for the coming year.

Filed under: Librarian Previews