Mister Dog

By Margaret Wise Brown

Illustrated by Garth Williams

Copyright 1952

This is a strange little book.  I am a fan of Margaret Wise Brown’s books and am striving to collect all of her published picture books.  There really isn’t much of a story to this one.  Mister Dog, whose name is Crispin’s Crispian, belongs to himself.  He lives all by himself in a cozy little house and does whatever he pleases.  One day, when out for a walk, Mister Dog comes upon a little boy who also belongs to himself.  He invites the homeless little boy to live with him. 

“Crispin’s Crispian’s was a conservative.   He liked everything at the right time – dinner at dinner time, lunch at lunchtime, breakfast in time for breakfast, and sunrise at sunrise, and sunset at sunset.”  

Fortunately, it seems the little boy is fine with the routine.  The two walk back to Mister Dog’s cozy house, make some soup, go to bed, and seemingly live happily ever after.  

I just finished reading a biography on Margaret Wise Brown called In the Great Green Room by Amy Gary.  Reading about her life shed some light on the meaning behind this book.  It was written soon after the death of Brown’s lover.  Their relationship hadn’t been a healthy one, with Brown being manipulated and belittled much of the time. It seems after her lover’s death Brown finally realized that she could belong to herself.  No longer was she controlled by someone else.  If this book mirrors her feelings at the time, she apparently realized that she could, like Mister Dog, invite someone into her life, yet still belong to herself and maintain her own identity.  

Baby Makes Four

Stanley and Janice Berenstain

Copyright 1956

Stan and Jan Berenstain are best known for writing and illustrating the Berenstain Bears books.  Brother and Sister Bear faced all the normal joys and sorrows of siblings and Mama and Papa Bear did their best to encourage and guide.  In real life, the Berenstains had two sons, Mike and Leo.  I can tell by reading their picture books that they were writing from experience.  What I didn’t know is that Stan and Jan also wrote a couple of parenting books.  

This one here, Baby Makes Four, was written after four- year -old Leo had his world disrupted by new baby Mike.  The Berenstain family approached this experience like all others, with practicality and humor.  The advice to not take life with young children too seriously is so useful if parents want to maintain sanity!  

“How in the name of all that’s reasonable can you give the baby attention it must have without Big Brother getting increasingly fed up with the whole idea of having a baby brother…It’s simply a matter of tearing yourself in half and plowing ahead in two different directions.”

Arranging for the older child to be immersed in a project when you know the baby will be needing attention is great advice.  If that doesn’t work, as the illustration below depicts, “You’ll find that Baby makes a very nice bookrest.”

 

Adding a brand new baby to a family is a huge adjustment for each and every member.  My thoughts are with Theo and Baby Marilyn this week as they begin their relationship – and here’s hoping their parents can find the humor along the way!

Never Tease a Weasel

By Jean Conder Soule

Illustrated by Denman Hampson

Copyright 1964

Just last week I was browsing through the vintage section at a local used book store.  When I came across this picture book, the memories instantly flooded in.  I haven’t seen this book in probably 40 years, yet I smiled at the memory of it.

Never tease a weasel – surely good advice!  This is a be kind to animals lesson that is so much fun with its humor and rhymes that you don’t even realize there is a moral inside.

First the author gives examples of good deeds – 

                You can knit a kitten mittens

                And perhaps that cat would purr.

                You could fit a fox with socks

                That exactly matched his fur.

These good deeds are then always followed with the admonition –

                But never tease a weasel;

                This is very good advice.

                A weasel will not like it

                And teasing isn’t nice.

The drawings are wonderful with the slightly confused looks on the faces of the animals that are on the receiving end of so-called kindnesses.  But the point isn’t to actually encourage children to “give a mule a pool and some jaunty swimming trunks.”  Instead, it is to confirm that it is much more fun to be friends with animals (and other people) than it is to tease them!

Seven Little Postmen

By Margaret Wise Brown and Edith Thacher Hurd

Pictures by Tibor Gergely

Copyright 1952

I purchased this book recently because it is a vintage Little Golden Book I had never seen before and the story and illustrations are endearing.  I didn’t realize until after I bought it that the author is Margaret Wise Brown who wrote a few of my favorite children’s books.  In Seven Little Postmen, a little boy writes a letter to his Grandma.  The story follows that letter from the boy’s house, passing through many busy hands, all the way to his Grandma’s house, many miles away.

While the methods of delivering messages have changed so much since this book was written, the postal service is still relevant to our lives.  While reading a book to a child can teach them so much about their world, real experiences enforce the lessons learned.  That’s why I decided to set up a Post Office Center in our library.  Children can remove pre-written post cards from the big mailbox and deliver them to the slots of their favorite book characters.  Not pictured here are the two mail carrier costumes. They were created after a child, searching for the appropriate costume, donned the police jacket instead and claimed that he was a police postman.  

The best part of this Center is that children can then (usually with adult help) write post cards to the characters, stamp them, and drop them in the mailbox.  When they return to the library, they will find an answer, written by that character.  The walls around the Post Office are now filled with the letters and responses.  Some children ask if Curious George or Pete the Cat can come over to their homes to play.  “I’d love to play with you.  We would have so much fun” is the answer. Other letters say simply, “I love you”.  The response for that always includes an “I love you too”.  Some are more pointed.  A child asked Llama Llama where his Grandma is.  The answer:  She is on vacation in Florida.

The children are enjoying the little Post Office Center, and so are those of us who help Curious George and Pete the Cat write their responses!

The Little Island

By Margaret Wise Brown

Illustrated by Leonard Weisgard

Copyright 1946

Winner of Caldecott Medal in 1947

 Like many of Margaret Wise Brown’s books, The Little Island has a pleasant, peaceful cadence.  It is the story of a small island and its flora and fauna going through the changes of the seasons.  It departs from being just a naturalist’s tale when a small kitten comes to the island for a picnic.

The kitten remarks on the small size of the little land, “This little Island is as little as big is Big”.  The island disagrees and answers back.  With the help of the fish, the kitten learns that all land is one land under the sea. The kitten also learns that faith is “to believe what I tell you about what you don’t know”

He has learned the secret that deep down just as the little island is part of all land – we are all connected to each other.

Nights and days came and passed

And summer and winter

and the sun and the wind

and the rain.

And it was good to be a little Island.

A part of the world

and a world of its own

all surrounded by the bright blue sea.