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It's that time of year, the time I turn around and start sifting through the year behind with my best-of fine tooth comb in an exercise of meta-meta-curation. Having a well-documented soft spot for children's books, I've decided to begin with my favorite 2011 treats for young readers, ranging from the classic to the quirky to the impossibly charming. Enjoy -- you might find it hard not to feel like you want to be a kid again.
1. THE FAIRY TALES OF THE BROTHERS GRIMM
The fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm, part of UNESCO's Memory of the World Register for the preservation of cultural documents, have been delighting and terrifying children since 1812, transfixing generations of parents, psychologists, and academics. The Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm is an astounding new volume from Taschen editor Noel Daniel bringing together the best illustrations from 130 years of The Brothers Grimm with 27 of the most beloved Grimm stories, including Cinderella, Snow White, The Little Red Riding Hood, and Sleeping Beauty, amidst artwork by some of the most celebrated illustrators from Germany, Britain, Sweden, Austria, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, and the United States working between the 1820s and 1950s.
The new translation is based on the final 1857 edition of the tales, and stunning silhouettes from original publications from the 1870s and 1920s grace the tome's pages, alongside brand new silhouettes created bespoke for this remarkable new volume.
An introduction by Daniel explores the Grimms' enduring legacy, from the DNA of fairy-tale scholarship to the shadow play and shape-shifting at the heart of the stories, and a preface to each tale frames it in its historical and sociocultural context.
The Grimms' were a vital engine for a whole new caliber of artistic activity.... Suddenly, artists across the Western world could make a living illustrating books, and they found a solid foundation for new work in the heroes and princesses, talking animals, dwarfs, and witches of fairy tales. The tales were an important part of each technological advancement along the way, and the best of this visual iconography still influences artist, art directors, filmmakers, and animators today.... Even as our modes of reading continue to change with new technologies, taking a measure of the interactivity of text and image in past treasures helps us understand the changing landscape of reading in the future.
And in case you were wondering why Taschen, purveyors of high-end and often risque art and design books, are doing a children's book, they've got a thoughtful answer:
Taschen recently celebrated its 30th anniversary. We have many readers who have come of age with us and are now have their own families. These readers are interested in beautifully produced children's books that take seriously a child's exposure to stories and images with depth and historical meaning. We wanted The Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm to embody our mission to create meaningful books that are timeless yet original, modern but classic.
Full review, with more images, here.
2. I LIKE CATS
Earlier this year, we featured The Night Life of Trees -- an incredible handmade book based on Indian mythology, crafted by a commune of artists, designers, and writers in South Indian independent publisher Tara Books' fair-trade workshop in Chennai. Among Tara's many other treats is the exceptonal I Like Cats -- part lovely children's picture book, part priceless showcase of work by some of the best-known tribal and folk artists from various Indian traditions. Each rich, textured page is screen-printed by hand and features a different cat. (In the vein of this week's inadvertent running theme of cats -- as a piece of Edison's marketing genius, a key to the future of computing, and now an ambassador of Indian artisanal culture.)
The simple but clever verse of author Anushka Ravishankar are part Dr. Seuss, part Blexbolex, part wholly different kind of playful poetry.
As if the book itself wasn't enough of a jewel, it comes with a frameable screenprint.
Like other Tara Books gems, I Like Cats comes in several limited-edition runs of 2000 copies, each hand-numbered on the back and featuring a different artwork on the front cover.
Original review here.
3. STUCK
Who doesn't love Oliver Jeffers, illustrator extraordinaire and maker of favorite children's books? This season, he's back with another treat: Stuck, an absurdly funny "tale of trying to solve a problem by throwing things at it."
And as with all of Jeffers' books, buried in his childlike illustrations and light-hearted storytelling is a deeper metaphor for the blessings and curses of the human condition.
In this lovely trailer, Jeffers reads the book himself:
Via Swiss Miss.
4. THE PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH
The Phantom Tollbooth isn't merely one of the most celebrated children's books of all time, it's also one of those rare children's books with timeless philosophy for grown-ups, its map of The Kingdom of Wisdom a profound metaphor for curiosity and the human condition. This month marks the 50th anniversary of the beloved classic and there's hardly a better celebration than The Phantom Tollbooth 50th Anniversary Edition -- a magnificent volume featuring brief essays from renowned authors, educators, and artists -- including Philip Pullman, Suzanne Collins, Jeanne Birdsall, and Mo Willems -- alongside the complete original text and illustrations of the book and the now-legendary 35th anniversary essay by Where The Wild Things Are author Maurice Sendak.
Packaged in the classic original art, stamped and debossed on the case with a transparent acetate jacket, the book is an absolute treasure to touch and to hold, exuding in a tactile way the intangible magic that fueled a half-century of heart-warming enchantment.
Here's a lovely short documentary about the book's masterminds, author Norton Juster and illustrator Jules Feiffer, reminiscing about the unusual spark of their collaboration and the original creative process behind the work:
Juster's new picture book, Neville, is also out this year and absolutely delightful.
5. PEOPLE
From French illustrator Blexbolex -- whose poetic meditation on time, impermanence, and the seasons you might recall -- comes People, a continued exploration of the world that builds on Seasons. Each charmingly matte and papery double-page spread features a full-bleed illustrated vignette that captures the human condition in its diversity, richness, and paradoxes. From mothers and fathers to dancers and warriors to hypnotists and genies, Blexbolex's signature softly textured, pastel-colored, minimalist illustrations are paired in a way that gives you pause and, over the course of the book, reveals his subtle yet thought-provoking visual moral commentary on the relationships between the characters depicted in each pairing.
People, available in English for the first time, is part Mark Laita's Created Equal, part Guess Who?: The Many Faces of Noma Bar, part something entirely new and entirely delightful, certain to make you smile, make you think, and make you wish you were a snake charmer.
Original review, with trailer, here.
Images: Enchanted Lion Books.6. EVERY THING ON IT
Shel Silverstein is one of the most beloved children's authors and illustrators of our time, his masterpiece, The Giving Tree, is one of those rare gems of children's literature with timeless philosophy for grown-ups.
Every Thing On It is a lovely new book of 137 never-before-seen poems and drawings, only the second posthumous anthology published since Silverstein's passing in 1999. (We originally featured it the day it launched, alongside a rare 1973 animated adaptation of The Giving Tree narrated by Silverstein himself.)
A spider lives inside my head
Who weaves a strange and wondrous web
Of silken threads and silver strings
To catch all sorts of flying things,
Like crumbs of thought and bits of smiles
And specks of dried-up tears,
And dust of dreams that catch and cling
For years and years and years....
7. THE MAGIC OF REALITY
Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins -- who in 1976 famously coined the term "meme" in his seminal, must-read book The Selfish Gene -- is nowadays best-known as the world's most celebrated atheist. This week, Dawkins brings us his first sort-of-children's book, The Magic of Reality: How We Know What's Really True -- a scientific primer for the world, its magic, and its origin, an antidote to the creationism mythology teaching young readers how to replace myth with science, and a fine addition to our favorite soft-of-children's nonfiction.
With beautiful illustrations by graphic artist Dave McKean, Dawkins' volume is as accessible as it is illuminating, covering a remarkable spectrum of subjects and natural phenomena -- from who the very first person was to how earthquakes work to what dark matter is -- in a way that infuses reality with the kind of fascination and whimsy we're used to finding in myth and folklore. Each chapter begins with a famous myth from one of the world's religions or folklore traditions, which Dawkins proceeds to myth-bust by examining the actual scientific processes and phenomena that these stories try to explain.
Here's an introduction from Dawkins himself:
BBC has a great short segment, in which Dawkins explores the relationship between comfort and truth, and explains why evolution is the most magical, spellbinding story of all, more poetic than any fable or fairy tale:
When you think about it, here we are, we started off on this planet -- this fragment of dust spinning around the sun -- and in four billion years we gradually changed from bacteria into us. That is a spellbinding story. --Richard Dawkins
The book comes with a companion immersive iPad app.
In an age when we're still struggling to convince the powers that be of the value of public science and some public schools still perpetuate the mythology of creationism, Dawkins delivers a sober yet wildly absorbing and magical dose of reality in The Magic of Reality -- one that brings to mind Jonah Lehrer's reformulation of the famous Picasso quote: "Every child is a natural scientist. The problem is how to remain a scientist once we grow up."
8. THE BIG POSTER BOOK OF HINDU DEITIES
In 2006, Pixar animator Sanjay Patel self-published The Little Book of Hindu Deities -- an impossibly charming illustrated almanac of gods and goddesses, which we revisited earlier this year and it quickly became one of the most popular books on Brain Pickings in 2011. (How's that for a pick to follow Dawkins?) In August, he followed up with The Big Poster Book of Hindu Deities -- not so much a "book" per se as a stunning large-format portfolio of 12 removable full-color posters, each bringing a revered ancient deity into the modern Technicolor world in Sanjay's signature anime-inspired vibrant graphic style. Equal parts playful, iconic, and irreverently subversive, the prints are less about reinforcing religious ideology -- OK, they're actually not about that at all -- than they are about exploring cultural storytelling and tradition from a fresh, unusual angel meant to delight and inspire.
Images: Sanjay Patel.
9. GOODNIGHT IPAD
Last month, the Web watched with equal parts amazement, amusement, and sheer horror as a one-year-old thought a magazine was an iPad. And just last week, while attending the Futures of Entertainment 5 summit for my MIT fellowship, I was unsurprised to learn that a presenter's toddler cousin walked up to a TV screen and tried to "swipe" it like a giant iPad. So I find myself delighted by the release of Goodnight iPad -- "a parody for the next generation" by Ann Droyd (get it?), winking at the long-gone quiet era of the Goodnight Moon classic and "adapting" it for the age of LCD Wi-Fi HD TVs and Facebook.
Whether Goodnight iPad will go the viral way of its conceptual ilk (hey there, Go the F**k to Sleep) and become a hipster darling is yet to be seen, but one thing is certain: At the heart of this irreverent nursery rhyme, still made very much of paper, is a playful reminder for all of us eternal kids that when the moon goes up, it's not an entirely terrible idea for the power to go down.
10. HOW THE WORLD WORKS
Christoph Niemann, whose I LEGO N.Y. topped our favorite children's books last year, is back this year with another gem: That's How! -- an absolutely lovely invitation to explore the inner workings of the world visually, though the pursuit of what we hold as our highest ideal for navigating life: Reckless, indiscriminate curiosity.
Playful, quirky, and irreverent, the book is a cover-to-cover treat for parents, kids, and eternal children of all ages, tickling our fancy as we imagine a whimsical alternate reality behind our worn mundanity.
Originally reviewed here.
11. WHY WE HAVE DAY AND NIGHT
It's no secret I'm a big fan of Edward Gorey, mid-century illustrator of the macabre, whose work influenced generations of creators, from Nine Inch Nails to Tim Burton. Eleven years after his death, Gorey still manages to charm us with his signature style of darkly delightful illustrations with Why We Have Day and Night. In three dozen beautifully minimalist black-and-white illustrations, with plenty of design-nerd-friendly negative space, Gorey and collaborator Peter F. Neumeyer illuminate young readers on the mystery of why we have darkness and light.
Gorey used this lovely envelope, part of his fascinating illustrated correspondence with Neumeyer, as the basis for the book:
The envelope, alongside 37 others, 75 typewriter-transcribed letters, and more than 60 postcards and illustrations exchanged between the two collaborators-turned-close-friends between September 1968 and October 1969, can be found in Floating Worlds: The Letters of Edward Gorey and Peter F. Neumeyer -- not only the second most popular book amongst Brain Pickings readers this year, but also one of my personal all-time favorite tomes.
Images: Pomegranate ©The Edward Gorey Charitable Trust.
One of the most wonderful things about great children's books is how timeless they are -- why not catch up on last year's best?
This post also appears on Brain Pickings, an Atlantic partner site.
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