Stone Soup, Jon J Muth

Each time I open Stone Soup, my son recites the first line with a gentle, low voice, mimicking the folktale voice I always use with this book: “Three monks, Hok, Lok, and Siew, travel along a mountain road.” The monks, each named for a Chinese deity, visit a village accustomed to war and famine and help a community of suspicious villagers open up to one another. This is a traditional European folktale where a soup that starts with a rock (or a nail or coin) ends up being, through the generosity of the community, a tasty dinner. Muth's version, which he illustrated with gentle and detailed watercolors, is particularly warm. He shows a selection of villagers, from the tea merchant and scholar to the seamstress and carpenter, working only for themselves and unwilling to even open their windows to the monks. A little girl wearing a yellow blouse (a color worn by Emperors) is the only person who will approach the three monks, who begin to help the villagers discover what it means to be happy by starting a soup in the middle of the deserted village center. She helps them find three perfect stones, then gives, on behalf of her mother, a giant pot. The sight of the steaming, enormous pot attracts the villagers, whose curiosity is stronger than their hostility. When each monk suggests something that has always made this kind of Stone Soup good, villagers one by one dart off to fetch it: salt and pepper, carrots, onions, mushrooms. The list goes on to include ginger root, bean curd, dumplings, and lily buds. This is a culturally rich book with much to discuss with children, and a refreshingly honest story of sharing. While Muth makes the point that a community drawing together helps to build happiness, it is hard not to notice that it is by the action of one brave little girl, acting alone, that this community sharing happens in the first place. Stone Soup is a favorite text in the Born to Read curriculum. (Diane Magras)

About the Author: Jon J Muth is the author and illustrator of many award-winning picture books, as well as comic books. He grew up drawing and painting and held his first exhibition at age 18. His studies of art in Japan, Austria, Germany, and England have influenced his illustrations. Muth began creating books for children seriously when he became a parent, and these have won him critical acclaim, including Zen Shorts, which was a Caldecott Honor Book and was on the New York Times bestseller list; his illustrations for Come On, Rain!, which won the Gold Medal from the Society of Illustrators in 1999; and his illustrations for Gershon’s Monster, which was an ALA Notable Children’s Book and won both the Sydney Taylor Award and a National Parenting Book Award. Stone Soup was also a National Parenting Book Award.

Everywhere Babies, Susan Meyers, Illustrated by Marla Frazee

Everywhere Babies is a wonderful children’s book that gently shares the idea of differences through rhythmical narrative and beautiful illustrations. In this book, babies’ lives are shown—they are short, they are tall, they climb, they crawl, they eat, play, talk...all the many things babies do and are! Young children love the colorful pictures that remind them of all that they do and the people that care for them. In addition, it is a wonderful tool with which to talk to young ones. This makes it particularly apt as one of the books in the Born to Read Volunteer Reader program. There are so many nuances to this book that every child can find something they identify with; it will quickly become a favorite. In fact, my 16-month-old is so entranced by the book she pulls it off the shelf EVERY night with the exclamation “Baby!” (Martina Duncan)

About the Author and Illustrator: Susan Meyers specializes in rhyming concept stories that describe the activities of her subjects, inspiring a delighted reaction from children and a pleasure for adults in reading aloud. Her other books include Kittens! Kittens! Kittens! and Puppies! Puppies! Puppies! Marla Frazee always dreamed of being a children’s book illustrator and worked in many illustrating and graphic design jobs before illustrating her first book, World Famous Muriel and the Magic Mystery in 1990. She has illustrated many volumes since. Frazee thinks carefully about characters as people, creating houses, food, and clothing for them in her mind, and this big-picture treatment is evident in all of her work.

Angels and Ages: A Short Book About Darwin, Lincoln, and Modern Life, Adam Gopnik

Why another bicentennial book about Lincoln and Darwin? The author himself says it best: “The proliferation of writing about both men, in the past decade especially, means that it may be hard for the amateur reader to pick through it all, and I hope to make the job easier. […] I want to help with the hard, embarrassing, but necessary question, which scholarship, strangely, can pose but can’t in its nature help much to resolve: what were they like?” (14-15).

I picked up this book in anticipation of the Lincoln Symposium on March 21, hoping for a crash-course refresher on the president, but I got much, much more. In a mere two hundred pages, Gopnik manages to distill the glut of biographical exegesis that surrounds these two figures into a plausible hypothesis about their lasting impact. I wouldn’t want to reveal it here, even if I could trust myself to paraphrase it, because I don’t want to discourage anyone from reading the book. You will learn from it even if you’re an expert on one or both men, you will understand it even if you’re a novice, and you won’t regret the time you spend on it. (Brita Zitin)

About the Author: Adam Gopnik is a regular contributor for The New Yorker whose books include Paris to the Moon, a collection of essays commissioned by The New Yorker about life in Paris; his essays on fatherhood Through the Children’s Gate; and the children’s book The King in the Window.

The Way We Live Now, Anthony Trollope

This is a particular apt old book to read these days, as all of its characters and subplots revolve around a shady financier. Augustus Melmotte’s reputation of fantastic wealth and business acumen reaches London before he does, and so on the eve of the first ball he hosts, everyone who is anyone attends, especially those who want a piece of his money. That includes Sir Felix Carbury, Baronet, son of Lady Carbury, who is what George Eliot would call a “lady novelist.” Sir Felix has squandered his family fortune through gambling and dissolute living and now seeks to use his good looks and title to win the affection and staggering fortune of Melmotte’s only child, Marie. Sub-plots abound. Sir Felix’s sister Henrietta Carbury, one of the few characters with a true moral sensibility, is pressured by her mother to marry her much older bachelor cousin, a country squire, for the security it will provide the family. Instead, she falls in love with his ward, Paul Montague, a young engineer. Montague has his own subplot when he involves Melmotte in a plan to create a railway between Utah and Mexico and eventually realizes that Melmotte’s railway only exists on paper. Montague’s subplot becomes even more intense when a previous romantic entanglement with an American woman with a questionable past comes to Henrietta’s knowledge. Meanwhile, Marie Melmotte has fallen in love with Sir Felix, but her father will not consent to their union due to Sir Felix’s poverty. Melmotte reaches high in his quest to conquer London, becoming a Member of Parliament and almost acquiring an aristocratic country estate. His excuse for his deceptions is always that it is “the way we live now,” and that mantra runs through the book with nearly all of the characters. (Diane Magras)

About the Authors: Anthony Trollope (1815 -1882) was a prolific English writer, popular during his time and well beyond. He wrote 47 novels, including two series, The Chronicles of Barsetshire and The Palliser Novels. Trollope was the son of a failed barrister, and his genteel background and poverty created a difficult childhood. His mother, Frances Trollope, was a writer herself who published travel pieces of the United States, among other things, and earned the family’s income. Trollope spent his early working years in the Post Office until his novels became successful enough for him to focus on them alone. In these works, he was an attentive social critic, often delving into politics and the world of the Anglican church. He is known for his fascinating social commentary and realistic, well-developed characters.