Favorite Children’s Books

You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barrett.

One of the dreadful things about being a parent is having to put up with inane children’s books.

I wish I could say that authors and publishers…

I’m serious, Martha.

I thought you were going to say diapers, sleepless nights, but inane children’s books?

No, that’s all for the care and love of my child.

Diapers, that’s just part of making sure that he’s healthy and whole, right?

Okay.

But the thing is, authors and publishers, I think that they mean well,

But if they really meant well, then some of these books should never have made it to the shelves.

Seriously.

They should have never made it out of their brainstorming meeting.

They’re terrible.

They’re really terrible.

But, but, but, but, there’s good news.

The good news goes by the names of Kate Banks and George Hallensleben.

Let me spell that last name for you.

H-A-L-L-E-N-S-L-E-B-E-N.

Nice German name.

Kate Banks and George Hallensleben.

This is a duo.

She writes and he illustrates that makes great books.

And so I want to recommend these great books so you can skip some of the inane stuff that I’ve had to read to my son.

We have two of their books in my house.

One of them is called Baboon.

And as you know, my son is fixated on baboons.

And the other one is called The Night Worker.

And we checked that one out of the library.

Whereas other books are kind of heavy-handed with their teaching or they fall back on the tropes.

There are tropes in children’s literature.

Did you know that?

I am not familiar with many tropes.

Like firefighters rescuing kittens out of trees.

Oh, sure. Yeah, right.

It’s like every other book I have for my son has a firefighter rescuing a kitten out of a tree.

Well, these books don’t do that.

Even my son picks up the sensitivity of these books.

They’re beautiful.

Oh, really?

The firefighters rescue the cats and then they adopt them?

There are no firefighters in these books.

Okay, they don’t adopt the cats.

In Baboon, a mother baboon teaches her baby that the world is a place full of variety,

That it is both fast and slow, safe and dangerous, bright and dark, and so forth.

In the other one, called The Night Worker,

A little boy named Alex finally gets to make a trip to his father’s overnight job at a building site

Where his father’s a construction worker,

And he gets to see the big machines

And maybe operate them a little bit

And just see what his father’s job is about.

And so these two plots may not sound altogether

That interesting to you,

And the writing is prose and it’s not rhyme,

But it all is so just perfect.

It lends itself to a measured cadence

In which things are said kind of as hints

Rather than the usual children’s book

Upside the head learn this word kind of imperatives

That you get.

Do you know what I’m talking about?

That way they just seem to think that kids are dense.

But they really are subtle creatures who are susceptible to even the slightest influences.

And I think that Kate Banks, when she’s written this stuff, has given George Hallensleben room to illustrate it so that my son spends time looking at these.

I think they’re watercolors.

It might be tempera paintings.

But they’re not very precise.

They’re not cartoony.

They’re a little figurative and non-literal, these pictures, without being too strange.

And he enjoys looking at these pictures and hearing these words and hearing me talk about these books.

The illustrations are thick and dark and moody.

And they’re great.

I would almost call them the opposite of sing-songy.

If the pictures were words, then they would be whatever sing-songy is it.

Anyway.

So they’re sort of like not so much primary colors but more subtle.

And it sounds like he’s probably going to be responding to your delight in those books as well.

Certainly.

There’s something to be said for a father not going to his son, saying to his son, as I’ve said a million times, son, put the book back.

I don’t want to read that again.

These books I don’t have that problem with.

They are, again, Baboon and Nightworker, and they’re written by Kate Banks and illustrated by George Hallensleben.

George is actually spelled without the E on the end.

And you can find a whole bunch of other books by them as well.

It’s good stuff that I highly recommend.

That’s all.

Well, that’s a really strong recommendation.

We’ll put links to those on our website.

And in the meantime, if you have a question for us about books and words and language and grammar, slang, any of those things, give us a call.

The number is 1-877-929-9673.

That’s 1-877-W-A-Y-W-O-R-D.

Or you can send an email to our email box.

That address is words@waywordradio.org.