I Love Lane

I'm on a Lane Smith kick right now. Okay so perhaps it's gone a little beyond a kick since I've been scouring libraries all over the city for his books. For those of you with children, or like me a child at heart, you simply can't beat his books. Lane represents everything I would ever want to be as a children's writer and illustrator. He's inventive, funny, and often downright silly. His books make me laugh out loud and his illustration work is always unbelievably good.

Just One More Book has been doing the Rock Stars of Reading tour, a video documentary of their East Coast tour of authors. They visit some of the biggest names in children's books and post the interviews and visits on their website. Jane Yolen, Jarrett Krosoczka, Lane Smith, Jon Scieszka, Diane de Groat.... The second, third, and fourth were all about Lane. Now I've always been a huge fan of his books but getting to see those interviews and rough sketches just made him all the more interesting.

So for those of you who've never read a Lane Smith or have children who love books, here are a couple that you really should look into.

John, Paul, George, and Ben is the hilarious story of the founding fathers in childhood. Lane takes some liberties with the stories but goes on to separate the fact from fiction at the end of the book. The little stories about Thomas Jefferson and George Washington makes me laugh out loud every time I read them. I simply can't get tired of that book. From Paul Revere's midnight ride to George Washington's chopping down the cherry tree, Lane mixes just the right amount of folktale with just the right amount of funny. The illustrations are fun and he includes some American History facts at the end to make it educational.


The Happy Hocky Family is a selection of little stories which are simply wonderful. Each member of the family gets a chance to speak and tell a simple, often one page, story. The stories are often funny with just a touch of satire mixed in. The illustrations are very old school and in that very inventive. The book, from the outside, looks like it was created in the 50s rather than 1996. Visually interesting with fun little stories.

But Lane is best known for his collaborations with Jon Scieszka. I vividly remember the first time I picked up The True Story of the Three Little Pigs. I had never read anything quite like it. It was satirical and dark and allegory. The illustrations were wild, collage and paint, and literally all over the place. There was a tough of chaos to the book that startled me. And it was the first time that I started to think about children's books as art. And I was instantly in love with it. This was new and inventive. It was, at least for me, revolutionary.


I would think the same thing when I read The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales. These books, particularly at the time, were unlike anything else that was out there. The illustrations were darker than most picture books I had read. There is a touch of the sinister in those two. The text is literally all over the page. The stories are not linear, jumping from character to character. Most of the time we read fairytales because they are the same. There is a comfort in hearing the same story over and over. These books turned all of that on its head. Suddenly what was once sameness and conformity and comfort, was chaos and difference and uniqueness. And also wonder.

Lane was also conceptual designer for James and the Giant Peach, the film. He had done the illustrations for one the prints and had been asked to work on the movie. One of my favorite films mostly for the visual look of it. He was also involved in How the Grinch Stole Christmas film but I won't fault him too much for that. I love Lane's work because he seems to enjoy pushing boundaries and reinventing his style. Each of his titles looks totally different. I love that willingness to experiment and try. I'm very excited to hear that he has two new books coming out this year, one that he's written and one that he's illustrator on. I guarentee I'll be lined up at the bookstore to pick them up. So far I haven't been disappointed.

New Books!

So one of the gifts I was given for Christmas were some gift cards to Barnes and Noble. What a perfect gift! I can always buy more books. So last night, my sister-in-law, my brother, my dad, and Jeff and I went out to Barnes and Noble to knit. I'm working on an ear warmer for a friend of mine and almost finished it last night. My sister-in-law is working on an awesome felted bag. It looks fantastic. The boys (all of them) were working on scarves. We had a really good time and Jeff learned some new knitting stitches from my sister-in-law. But before we left I went upstairs to pick out some books. I've been focusing for a while on children's books so that is what I picked up. All three are books that I've wanted to pick up for along time. They are all favorites, all Caldecott winners, and all very different.

The first and perhaps the newest is Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale by Mo Willems. This sweet story of a stuffed animal and a laundromat was an instant classic. Perhaps it is because the story is timeless. All kids can identify with the emotions in this story. But what drew me to the book were the illustrations. Willems uses sepiaed photographs as his background and successfully weaves his cartoon like characters into those settings. The images, rather than jarring, are simply enchanting. But this a sweet warm story that anyone will love.

The next book was The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales by Jon Scieszka and illustrated by Lane Smith. If Knuffle Bunny was sweet, this is the exact opposite. The book is inventive and hilarious but with a touch of maniacal. The stories are fairy tales turned on their heads. The little red hen just complains all the way through the book, even extending to the front pages and back of the book. Jack, who is our narrator, continues to elude the giant throughout the book. And of course there is the Stinky Cheese Man, (a takeoff on the gingerbread man) who no one wants to chase. Scieszka's writing is inspired and downright hilarious. Lane Smith's illustrations are silly and fun and a little mischievous. This may be one of my favorite books of all.

The last book I picked up was Tuesday by David Wiesner. Wiesner has made a name for himself with wordless picture books and this is definitely my favorite. Tuesday is about the strange going-ons of a mid-summer tuesday night. A night just like any other, except for the frogs. In this delightful story, frogs rise up on their lily pads and fly around the city at night, causing havoc wherever they go. The illustration are beautiful with more than a little touch of silly. The premise is odd but seems more magical than anything. Cute story.

So three new books for me to add to my ever expanding children's book collections. One of these days I will need to add another bookcase up there to contain my growing collection. Until then I'm not about to stop buying them. Or reading them.