The Quiltmakers Gift, Jeff Brumbeau, illustrated by Gail de Marcken

The Quiltmakers Gift is a story of generosity. A quiltmaker makes beautiful quilts to give to the poor and won’t sell them for any price. The King wants one of her quilts. He is selfish and demands that all the townspeople give him gifts, including the quiltmaker. She says the only way she will give him a quilt is if he gives his treasures away to the needy. Eventually, the King comes around and begins to give some of his many possessions away. He quickly realizes that giving is so much better than receiving. The book is full of wonderful illustrations that really make the story come alive. For all the quiltmakers out there, there are now two companion books with quilt patterns to make. This book is wonderful to read but even more wonderful to look at. (Karen Myrick)

About the Author & Illustrator: Jeff Brumbeau lives in Chicago. His first children’s book, The Man-In-The-Moon in Love, whimsically explores the power of friendship and the value of creative problem solving. Gail de Marcken loves playing with fabrics as well as watercolors. Her creative illustrations really make the book, and make a quiltmaker (such as the author of this review) want to start sewing!

Brighty of the Grand Canyon, Marguerite Henry

I continue to dip into my 11-year-old daughter’s collection of library books, enjoying this opportunity to enjoy the young adult fiction titles I missed out on when I was her age. The moral clarity of good against evil in these books is refreshing at a time of the hip and cynical popular culture my children are growing up within. Many know Henry as author of Misty of Chincoteague; a little research, however, will show that she’s the author of dozens of books. Brighty is based on a true story of a very special burro who befriended many visitors of the Grand Canyon, including Theodore Roosevelt. A prospector finds him running wild and through his special friendship with the burro, Bright Angel, nicknamed “Brighty” becomes his companion, carrying his pick and pan and water. When not helping the prospector, he runs wild, carving out trails used by many over the years. In this fictional account of Brighty, the burro plays the star role as the good prospector is killed by an outlaw prospector, and Brighty encounters new challenges amidst the hardships of Canyon terrain and weather. The old time wisdom of an Uncle Jim, who is a canyon man, a killer of mountain lions and favorite guide of Roosevelt’s ensures that Brighty is taken care of—allowed to be a free spirit but tended to as needed when he is hurt. This would make a wonderful read aloud for early elementary ages too and is especially a pleasure to read for anyone who has spent time in the Grand Canyon. (Denise Pendleton)

About the Author: Marguerite Henry, who was born in 1902 and died in 1997, was the author of 59 books for children about animals, but mostly horses. She said in a Washington Post interview in 1997, “It is exciting to me that no matter how much machinery replaces the horse, the work it can do is still measured in horsepower ... even in the new age. And although a riding horse often weighs half a ton and a big drafter a full ton, either can be led about by a piece of string if he has been wisely trained. This to me is a constant source of wonder and challenge.”

The Minders of Make-Believe: Idealists, Entrepreneurs, and the Shaping of American Children’s Literature, Leonard S. Marcus

My job at the MHC occasionally involves seeking permission to reprint or read aloud from part of a children’s book for Born to Read or the Humanities on Demand children’s recordings [please link this! http://mainehumanities.org/podcasts#childrens]. In the process, I often find myself tunneling through division after division of a multinational corporation as I trace the imprint of the book—usually something deceptively simple and child-friendly like Handprint—back to its parent company. How did the children’s book industry become controlled by these behemoths, and what influence do they have over what our kids are reading?

That’s just one of the questions addressed in Minders of Make-Believe, the new history of the field by one of its best-known scholars. You needn’t work with children’s books, or even read them regularly, to find this history worth your while. Marcus draws from an amazing arsenal of anecdotes about luminaries like editor Ursula Nordstrom and librarian Anne Carroll Moore (the Maine native recently profiled in the New Yorker article “The Lion and the Mouse”). In addition to personalities, Minders of Make-Believe covers trends, from the nascent juvenile departments of major book publishers in the 1860s to the rise of Little Golden Books in the 1950s to the dominance of the Harry Potter series in the early part of this decade. (Brita Zitin)

About the Author: Leonard Marcus is a writer, critic, and historian of children’s books and also a contributing editor of Parenting Magazine. His most recent children’s book is Oscar: The Big Adventure of a Little Sock Monkey. His books about children’s books and their authors include Margaret Wise Brown: Awakened by the Moon; Dear Genius: The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom; Ways of Telling; and The Wand in the Word: Conversations with Writers of Fantasy. Marcus is widely known as a speaker to parent groups, as well as children, from the under-five crowd to teens. He is married to illustrator Amy Schwartz.

Here If You Need Me: A True Story, Kate Braestrup

Here If You Need Me is a poignant, thoughtful and humorous account of one of the first chaplains of the Maine Warden Service. Kate Braestrup, widowed mother of four, decided to pursue a degree in divinity when her husband, a state trooper, died in an automobile accident while on duty. Her husband had toyed with the idea of becoming a Unitarian Universalist minister, and Braestrup continued on this path after his passing. In telling this story, Braestrup explores the meaning of religion, her questions and ideas about the divine. She also interweaves her unique and powerful relationship with her family, the wardens with whom she works, and the families whom she aids in times of tragedy and emotional upheaval. A talented writer, Braestrup tells these stories with self-effacing humor and a finely-tuned sense of self, which allows the reader to follow her remarkable story. (Martina Duncan)

About the Author: Kate Braestrup has published one other novel, Onion, along with Here if You Need Me. A graduate of the Bangor Theological Seminary, she is a community minister at the First Universalist Church in Rockland.

The Debt to Pleasure, John Lanchester

Something is amiss in the life of Tarquin Winot as he travels throughout the French countryside, sometimes in disguise. During his travels, he reminisces about childhood experiences and, more often than not, dishes that he makes, eats, remembers, and dreams of. His narration is charmingly wordy, though this is not a long book, and pungent not simply with the sensations he conveys through his marvelous food descriptions but also a sharp sense of humor—and something else. Something, though it is not clear at first, is not quite right. The Debt to Pleasure has a narrative sensibility similar to that of Nabokov’s Humbert Humbert, complete with a shocking secret. This secret is one of the chief delights of this book: a very simple theme that is the motivation behind all of Winot’s actions. Some of those actions are not particularly nice, but they are always imaginative. (Diane Magras)

About the Author: John Lanchester’s experiences growing up likely contributed to the narrative style of The Debt to Pleasure, his first novel, and his experience as a newspaper restaurant critic probably helped with some of the food descriptions. Lanchester was born in Hamburg and lived many of his childhood years in the Far East, though he received his education in England. Readers of the London Review of Books will recognize his name (being one of their editors, his articles are regularly featured). He also writes a weekly column for the British paper The Daily Telegraph. Published in 1996, The Debt to Pleasure has received many honors: the Whitbread First Novel Award, the Betty Trask Prize, the Hawthornden Prize, and the American Julia Child Award for “literary food writing.” Lanchester is also author of Mr. Phillips, Fragrant Harbor, and Family Romance, a memoir published in 2007.