Like most industries the children's book field is controlled more and more by economics. In this fear-driven environment the "sure-to-sell" books rule and the reigning books usually have some kind of gimmick, they're lumped together as interactive books. The genre sounds great, books that provoke response in children, but unfortunately it's sometimes more a marketing term than a real reflection of the book. Interaction can mean anything from a doll packaged with a book to a book that has holographic images. Here then are some new releases chosen because they shine, not glitter.
I must admit that I was skeptical about the marriage of Duplo blocks and books, but Jack and the Beanstalk and Goldilocks and the Three Bears (each $11.95 from Little Brown; ages 2-5) were a surprising delight. Both books unfold to tell these familiar tales in simple language and on each page, there's opportunity for toddlers to help build the story with easy Duplo construction. When Jack comes to a bridge, for example, it is the toddler who builds the block bridge Jack needs to cross. These books give the youngest children a sense of accomplishment and a feeling of really being part of the story.
Sandra Jenkins' Flip-Flap (Dorling Kindersley, $14.95; ages 2-6) is a concept book where children can lift flaps, turn wheels, and open surprise doors to learn about colors, numbers, shapes, opposites, sizes and more. What's best is that the colorful photographs are thoughtfully arranged around the inviting text which asks questions to provide true interaction.
The Sensational Samburger by David Pelham (Dutton, $12.99; ages 4 and up) is the fourth in the continuing adventures of siblings, Sam and Samantha. This burger-shaped book finds the two children sleuthing to discover who is responsible for Samantha's stolen lunches. They unite to trap the culprit, building a disgusting burger filled with insects and snails and other items that pop up to delight young readers. The rhythm, rhyme and elements of surprise all go together to make this book quite tasty!
Ian Dicks and David Hawcock help children travel back in time with a four foot long, fact-filled pop-up mummy in Unwrap the Mummy! (Random House, $20.00; ages 5 and up). The book has an innovative design in more than one way. Not only does a odd-looking mummy pop-out to greet readers, but children are encouraged to learn about mummies from all over the world as well as pyramids, anatomy, and more. The writing and illustrative style are playful, humorous, and enticing.
Artistic souls will be pleased by two pop-ups. For book lovers there's Nancy Willard's Gutenberg's Gift (HBJ, $20.00; ages five and up) in which the author unites historical fact, with flights of fancy and poetry and explanations of how the printing press works. For budding architects, there's Michael Bender's Waiting for Filippo: The Life of Renaissance Architect Filippo Brunelleschi (Chronicle, $19.95; ages 7 and up) which tells of the man, his times, his buildings, as well as describing architectural elements and even gives directions for trying perspective drawing.
Older children can discover myth with Kondeatis and Maitland's Pandora's Box: A 3-Dimensional Celebration of Greek Mythology (Little Brown, $35.00; ages 8 and up) This box is designed to give a flavor for early Greek times, heroes and real people. In addition to three dimensional models of the Trojan horse and a Greek theater, there are also games to play and masks to assemble.
Last month I had an argument with a New York children's book editor. I was in the midst of reviewing "interactive" books, (that's reviewer's politically correct for gimmick books) and had stopped counting at my twelfth doll and book combination and long before had lost track of how many ways books pop-up, flip-flop, or rattle-play.
He reminded me of the Pooh dolls we'd hugged ragged in our childhoods. I remembered right away cuddling my patched piglet who'd sat on the lamp and crying over Kanga (and her removable Roo in the pouch) who'd fallen out a car window and was lost forever. "That was different," I told him, "they were quality and there wasn't so much quantity."
In recent years children's books held steady in failing economical times. Now they are fighting for survival in children's marketing wars with CDs, videos, and toys. And it looks as if they've given up the good fight of standing on their own merit and have reduced themselves to similar tactics. The quality that for so many years dominated the children's book industry has felt the touch of packagers and the ownership of movie magnates who continually prove glitz sells.
One trend in the interactive marketplace is repackaging proven books with a doll. This year Stella Luna (HBJ, $14.95) comes boxed with a plush toy bat modeled after the heroine. And there are dolls for Amazing Grace (Dial, $19.95 )and even the heroine of Faith Ringgold's award-winning Tar Beach (Crown, $19.95). Often the books in these packages are small or paperback, dwarfed by a doll which is placed center stage in the cellophane package and is neither particularly well-made or noteworthy.
Popular books are also being reformatted. This year Don and Audrey Wood's The Napping House Wakes Up (HBJ, $17.95) pop-up style while Alexandra Day's hero Carl Pops Up (Little Simon, $14.95) and classic characters enter Peter Rabbit Spectacular: A Giant Pop up & Play Book (Viking, $18.99) while packagers take us for a ride with Madeline: A Pop-up Carousel (Viking, $10.99).
There are other repackaging gimmicks. James Marshall, an award-winning children's book writer and illustrator who died two years ago, may now be rolling in his grave because of the rattle lodged in the center of his poetry book for babies, Hey Diddle Diddle (FSG, $5.95). North-South books tries to dazzle parents into preparing children to demand their glittery books with The Rainbow Fish Mobile (North-South Books, $9.95).
Not only are well-selling titles being recycled, there are a host of new marketing marvels like Rob Chaplin's Alien Alphabet: A Mix and Match Book (Chronicle, $11.95; ages 4-7) featuring Arachnid Alice, Zippered Ziggy and other aliens who are split in half and in this confused arrangement propose to prompt alphabet learning.
One book that saddened me was Colin Thompson's Ruby (Knopf, $16.00; ages 7 and up). Thompson, an extraordinary illustrator and good story teller, writes a new book about a beautiful scarlet car that takes a tiny elfin family away from their home and into worlds they've never imagined. As if the story and pictures can't sell, buried in the story are hidden clues that could lead readers to winning an actual antique car with a contest entry form affixed to the back flap.
Not all interactive books are trash. There are some that skillfully use the medium, translating it into an art form. They do so with thoughtfulness in design, and aesthetic, matching the vehicle with the book's meaning. So in this of the seasons' frenzied marketing when doll-book sets scream from shelves and you can barely think as your children rush to the books that flip-flop, rattle-bang and zip-zap, be cautious. Look below the surface for the art. Look for books that leave children a place to participate in the reading and a character or idea that intrigues them and allows them to escape their own self-involvement. Here are a few books to get you in the spirit.
Even books for the youngest children need thought to make them work. Sue Tarsky's Kiss the Boo-Boo (Viking, $8.99; ages 1-4) put me off at first because the cover looks gimmicky. A cartoonish toddler has hand outstretched to reveal a bright, velcroed, bandage-shaped, ducky-decorated, piece of cloth. Don't judge this book by its cover, the insides hold a series of spills and tumbles that are typical for young children and each time a different body part is extended for the child reader-participant to "Kiss the boo-boo...and make it better."
There are many things going developmentally right in this small board book. The scenes and actions are familiar, there's a comforting refrain that children can extract, repeat, and later apply to their own mishaps. There's a vehicle (the band aid) for them to use to heal a hurting child outside (but not far)from their own experiences. This is a book that can be a tremendous comfort for parents, giving them a way to comfort children caught in theatrics by distracting them and lifting them out of their own dramas.
David Pelham is one author who uses the interactive medium very successfully with his two squabbling siblings.They're back for round three in his third book, Sam's Snack (Dutton, $9.99; ages 4 and up). Pelham's two characters, Sam and Samantha are now at the beach and Sam's off to a sea cruise while Samantha's left on shore. "I'm sick,' she sighs from just the notion/Of all that bobbing on the ocean./If I can't sail around the bay,/I'll have some fun another way." And so Samantha packs a "special" snack for her brother. She stuffs squid into a thermos, ices a cookie's inside with beach tar, and finally finds her brother's left behind a similar sea treat in her sandwich!
There's genius in Pelham's alignment. First of all he packs the whole book into a lunch box and then is sure to maintain the beach themes in all Samantha's special ingredients. There is art also in Pelham's unfailing rhyme, the variety of pop-up design, the authenticity of sibling battling, and the way that he combines all three. He also has a sense of the developmental needs of his audience. He writes a rollicking verse that's sure to readers and support them with rhythms to aid their early reading efforts.
For older children, science comes alive in John Cassidy's Earth Search: A Kids' Geography Museum in a Book (Klutz, $19.95; ages 6 and up). EarthSearch is broken down into five subjects areas: Man's Impact on the Land, Mapwork, Physical Geography, Cultural Geography, and The Global Village. Between the covers are twenty-one "exhibits" for interaction. Each section is jam-packed with information so visually effective that it can't help making an impact on children.
One page shows a pie-shaped graph with a spinner in the middle, the greater number of wedges represent countries where children are inadequately fed and the book suggests kids spin the wheel to "see where they get reborn". With this impressive presentation, kids can't help but understand how the crap shoot of life has created all children unequal in fortune.
Other "exhibits" are have a less emotional tone, but are just as effective. One clear page shows a topographical map. Instead of using it to show land forms, you're asked to match it to one of two pictures, Princess Di or Whoopi Goldberg. These two faces, so completely different in look, are astoundingly similar in terms of their "landscapes" .
Throughout the book, visual images and the writing of John Cassidy use drama to educate kids hardened by hours of television and CD games. Hundreds of facts, charts, photos, and games hide between EarthSearch's cover, proving once again that Klutz, my children's favorite publisher, can sell knowledge through diversion in a way that parents and teachers can approve.
I spend a good part of my reviewing time searching for books that leave room for children to think and wonder. Meanwhile, my own children are drawn to the books that play. Given this reality, parents are charged with an added responsibility. They must guard against the glitz, searching for interactive books that are using the medium to educate, amaze, or accent the story's meaning - not just sell.
Patricia and Frederick McKissack's Christmas in the Big House, Christmas in the Quarters (Scholastic, $15.95; ages 8 and up) is set at Christmas, 1859 on a Virginia plantation. The McKissack's follow the particulars of preparation, celebration and aftermath, weaving in stories, songs, and custom of both landowners and slaves. They present all elements with great specificity, wisely avoiding judgments and allowing readers to draw their own conclusions. The wealth of facts are balanced with the tender intimacies in both houses that bring about the book's emotional potency and the genuineness of all characters. Throughout the plantation, all fell the tension as time-honored customs are threatened by the war's imminence. Illustrations by John Thompson show the artist's meticulous research and his dedication to realistically portraying the richness of the lives and the emotions of the entire plantation.
Diana Conway's Northern Lights (Kar-Ben, $14.95, $5.95) takes place in Alaska during a severe storm. The plane, carrying Sara and her doctor father are grounded and the young girl sorrows that she won't be home for Hanukkah. Left with a Yupik Eskimo family while her father makes rounds, Sara finds that the smells of fried bread remind her of latkes and in the warm cozy house she shares holiday traditions with an Alaskan Sarah. The book does a marvelous job of expressing the differences of both cultures and uniting them through the universality of feelings.
It's a difficult and admirable feat to represent the seven abstract principles of Kwanzaa so that a young child can understand. Synthia Saint James manages to pull this off marvelously well in The Gifts of Kwanzaa (Whitman, $14.95; ages 4-9). Part of the success comes from the powerful bold colors that she chooses for her abstract-style illustrations. The rest of the success comes from her flowing style of telling, giving a story-like appeal to non-fiction. She wisely delivers her words from a child's vantage point, telling . She begins with things that are first apparent and important to a child such as the symbols and children's roles, and then describes the seven principals in a spirited simple child-centered way.
And yes, there is an artistic holiday interactive book worth mentioning. Robert Sabuda's The Christmas Alphabet (Orchard, $19.95; all ages) is a wonderful representation of the season's symbols, and of the magic and spirit of Christmas. Twenty-six softly colored squares open to reveal elegant pure white paper constructions that will surprise and delight readers. D's opening reveals a dove flying, two snowmen friends tip their hats behind F, while U shows the joy of a present that's unwrapped. Sabuda's skill and vision are sometimes breathtaking, sometimes amusing and always make one wonder, filling readers with an emotion that's sometimes difficult to find in December's daze.