Recommended Books

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

And I’m Grant Barrett, and it’s time once again for our annual book recommendations.

Here are some books that we’ve been enjoying that we think you might want to add to your wish list.

Martha, do you have one in mind?

I do. I have a beautiful little paperback book by Polly M. Law.

It’s called The Word Project, Odd and Obscure Words Illustrated.

And Polly is an artist, and she has made the most delightful illustrations for all kinds of weird words, like kunkater. Do you know that one?

Something to do with a globe or something.

No, no. It’s a procrastinator.

Isn’t that great?

Or pig’s knee. There’s a wonderful illustration here for pig’s knee, which means a sweetheart or having very small eyes.

Pig’s knee is a term of endearment?

Yes, yes. Yes, pig’s knee.

Thank you, my little cat.

So it’s a beautiful little book full of obscure words and delightful illustrations for them.

Well, you know, in our house, we are readers.

We just put a second bookshelf in my son’s room.

Congratulations.

He’s four. He’s not quite reading yet. He has three words.

His name, zoo, and papa, which makes me very proud.

What happened to mama?

I don’t know. I think he gets the M’s and W’s confused, so he just doesn’t try.

Oh, he’s saying wawa.

Well, there are a couple books that we read recently that my wife and I felt were above and beyond what you ordinarily find in children’s literature.

And I wanted to recommend these to an audience that has children, say, an age of about three to seven.

My son’s right in the middle of that, and I think these would work.

The first one is The Three Pigs by David Wiesner, W-I-E-S-N-E-R.

This isn’t The Three Pigs as you know them.

This is a meta-narrative about The Three Pigs.

It starts with beautiful illustrations, The Three Pigs and The Stone House and The Wolf and all that.

But then they break out of their story.

I mean, literally break out of their story.

They leave the margins of the illustrations and go into other stories in other books.

Oh, cool.

They’re illustrated in other beautiful ways.

And the three pigs have these adventures with dragons and all other kinds of creatures and eventually come back to their own story.

My son loved this.

We had to read it many times.

My wife and I loved it because it was beautiful.

And it actually turned out to be a great way to explain movies and television shows and other books where there’s time travel or dream sequences or where there’s some kind of portal into another world like the Narnia books and the Narnia movies, right?

My son now gets it because of this book.

That you can leave kind of a one story.

He calls it behind the scenes.

You go behind the scenes.

And then another book that we want to share is even stranger, but it left such a long feeling with me.

It’s called Elephant Wish.

It’s written by Lou Berger, who, by the way, I believe is still the head writer for Sesame Street, and illustrated by Ana Juan.

Elephant Wish kind of avoids the usual tropes and plots of children’s books.

Instead, it tells this vivid, unique story of a young girl whose wish is granted, and she’s guided to a strange jungle where a 97-year-old woman who, when she was a girl, had the same adventure, kind of becomes her new friend and is someone who’s in on the secret.

And this old woman guides the young woman, the young girl, back to her own place and time.

As you notice, it’s another portal book, another transportation where somebody is brought from the real world into a world of imagination.

We loved the book because it was strange, because it’s beautifully written, it’s striking in its visuals.

But we also loved it for this one simple thing.

It connects generations.

We have this young girl who is guided by this old woman.

And it’s something that’s often missing from literature for children.

I was going to say, yeah.

So that’s The Elephant Wish, written by Lou Berger and illustrated by Anna Wan.

The other book was The Three Pigs, not as you know them, by David Wiesner.

And then your book?

The Word Project, Odd and Obscure Words, illustrated by Polly M. Law.

We’ll link to all three of these books on our website so that you can find out where you can buy them or find out a little bit more.

Send us your book recommendations to words@waywordradio.org.