Review of the Day: Jump for Joy by Karen Gray Ruelle, ill. Hadley Hooper

Jump for Joy
By Karen Gray Ruelle
Illustrated by Hadley Hooper
Astra Books for Young Readers
$18.99
ISBN: 9781662602023
Ages 4-7
On shelves now

Imagine that I walk around all the time with a faux group of students in my head. As I read through books for kids every day, I find myself coming up with rules about children’s literature. Rules that, if I’m going to be honest, were probably already thought up by someone else long before me. Still, once in a while I sit down and write these thoughts down for my faux students. I tell them stuff, like that a truly great picture book must do three things very well: It must have great art, which matches the writing (if there is any), and it must have great writing (unless it is wordless), and most important of all it must make you feel something. Now there are plenty of fun picture books out there that accomplish two out of these three things, and they’re great! But a book that manages to include all three together at once? That’s a rarity. That’s a once-in-a-blue-moon type of situation. That is, in fact, what you get with the Karen Gray Ruelle/Hadley Hooper picture book, Jump for Joy.

There is Joy. She’s a kid who wants a dog. And she firmly believes that, “She’d know her dog when she saw him.” Then there’s Jump. He’s in the same boat and also firmly believes that, “He’d know his kid when he saw her.” Until that happens, however, both Jump and Joy try constructing companions out of natural elements. Firs they both try growing things, like tulips or ferns. When those wilt and fall apart they try seashells and sand. Next it’s sticks and mud, and after that, snow. Though their homemade companions melt away, time after time, there’s a happy ending in this pair’s future, and a definite jump for joy on the horizon.

Karen Gray Ruelle’s been in this game a long time. In fact, when I was looking at this book I just kept chanting her name over and over in my head. I KNEW her name. So why couldn’t I mentally conjure up any of her books? It wasn’t until I traveled over to her website that all became clear. Of COURSE I know her name by heart! She wrote the board books, The Book of Breakfasts, The Book of Baths, and The Book of Bedtimes, all of which I read ad nauseum to my kids when they were so very small. On top of that, back when I was still working for New York Public Library, she was the voice behind the magnificent The Grand Mosque of Paris. Right! Karen Gray Ruelle! Here, she brings to life something I like to say all the time about picture books. It doesn’t matter if your idea has been done a million times before. Picture books about kids wanting dogs and/or dogs wanting kids? You can’t throw a dart in a children’s library without hitting one of these (note: please do not throw darts in children’s rooms). But if you’ve an author with the right voice and the right timing, you can write about anything and make it feel new. Jump for Joy travels some familiar territory but it does it in a way I’ve never seen before.

Part of the success of the book comes in mirroring. Ruelle uses the format of the picture book to mirror Joy and Jump’s discoveries and attempts together across the book’s gutter. For example, in one sequence it reads on Joy’s page, “In the summer, Joy made a dog out of seashells. She called him Shelby. But the waves washed him away, bit by bit.” On the opposite page it reads, “Jump made a kid out of sand. He called her Sandy. But the waves washed her away, bit by bit.” Utilizing gentle repetition like this without it feeling samey can be tricky, and Ruelle manages to keep it up for most of the book. She also manages to stick the landing. Not only does she finally get to say that Jump jumped for Joy, but also that Joy jumped for joy, it finishes with just about the perfect line: “And neither of them wilted or melted or scattered or spattered or washed away.” Your voice naturally moves down in register as you get to the end of that sentence. That’s a fine example of an author guiding you on how to read their book.

The showy element of Jump for Joy that catches your interest immediately is the mix of art styles. From the publication page we know that, “The art for the characters was creating using brush and ink. Their black and white world is made from found textures and images from the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, collaged together to create something new.” This type of mixed media has been done many times before in entertainment for adults (Monty Python’s animated sequences come immediately to mind) but I can’t think of many examples when it’s happened in a children’s book. There was a book for kids by Donald Barthleme called The Slightly Irregular Fire Engine or The Hithering Thithering Djinn, but for all that it was a picture book, it was a pretty clear-cut example of an adult author having no idea how to write for kids. This art is different. It isn’t there to impress, but to set up a very clear cut contrast. Normally in books for kids, reality will be depicted in black and white and a child’s imagination or fantasy world will be all in color. Here it’s completely the opposite. The dogs and kids that Jump and Joy make are colorless ephemera that melt, blow away, get washed away with the tides, etc. It’s no coincidence that when the two find one another at the end, gone are the pure white pages. Instead the world explodes in color, Hooper cleverly coloring in the flower etchings, mixing the imaginary and the real together. It’s exceedingly smart work.

“Brush and ink” is how Hooper describes what Jump and Joy are made of. Both are wonderful strokes of paint that exude so much joy. Jump, for his part, has a very early Snoopy quality about him. The first time you see him, he’s standing, looking at some kid and dog-shaped clouds, standing on his hind feet with his front paws clasped solemnly behind his back. He walks along in that manner on the next page, a serene expression on his face, holding a ball, and if ever an illustrator should teach a masterclass on getting your child audience to fall in love with a character instantly, Hooper should. Then there are the details. For a book that exists primarily against white backgrounds, it’s amazing how much fun gets packed in. For example, a clever reader would do well to keep their eye on a certain red ball that appears periodically throughout the book. Keep your eye on the ball, kids.

I’ve been very good this whole review and I haven’t ONCE said that “I don’t instantly like dog books because I’m not really a dog person”, which is sort of my standard line with these sorts of things. I think I should probably retire that caveat anyway, since more and more often we see such a blessed array of magnificent books on every possible subject for kids. This is just one of the latest. It’s a great read aloud to a large group of children and a sweet one-on-one lapsit. It’s perfect for kids who want dogs, kids who don’t want dogs, and kids who are dog neutral. It’s beautiful to the eye, ingenious in both its writing and the accompanying art, and it hits you hard in the heart when you finish. Best of all, Ruelle and Hooper are working in perfect tandem together. Hooper picks up what Ruelle lays down. The end result is maybe the best book either of them have ever worked on before. The dog book that none of us knew we needed, has arrived.

On shelves now.

Source: Final copy sent from publisher for review.

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