In this 2008 interview, Mo Willems, the famous children’s book author and illustrator, speaks about creating characters (like Pigeon in The Pigeon Wants a Puppy, which I reviewed here), which ones he likes best and about Wilbur the Naked Mole Rat. This video was uploaded on YouTube by user mowillems2008. Enjoy!

Ruby Sings the Blues

Written and illustrated by Niki Daly

Published by Bloomsbury USA Children’s Books (April 3, 2007)

Reading level: Ages 4-8 (32 pages)

“Loudmouth”, “Boombox” and “Sound-blaster” are the nicknames given to Ruby by her neighbors and teacher. She is the owner of a loud voice and no matter how many times her parents ask her to tone it down, she quite simply seems incapable of doing so. Her teacher, Miss Nightingale even pretends the three buttons on Ruby’s shirts are on, off and volume switches to control her voice - yet Ruby can’t keep it down. When her friends refuse to play with her because their ears hurt, Ruby returns home, silent and dejected.

Enter the musicians who live in the basement of the apartment where Ruby lives. Zelda and Bernard teach her how to “use her volume control so that she could sing, sharp, zooming notes like the sounds of the city… and gentle, breathy notes like a cool evening breeze.” With practice, Ruby turns the tables, gaining praise from everyone who previously dreaded her high volume. Once in a while though, the author says, Ruby still hollers down the street, “just to check her volume control is still working.”

Ruby and the adults are drawn with comic exaggeration. Niki Daly’s artwork has won a British Arts Council Award, a Parents’ Choice Award, an IBBY Honours Award and one of his books has been selected by the New York Times Book Review as a Best Illustrated Children’s Books.

You can find this book at the Poughkeepsie Public Library, on Powell’s Books or on Amazon.

Silent Music: A Story of Baghdad

Written and illustrated by James Rumford

Published by Roaring Book Press (March 18, 2008)

Reading level: Ages 4-8 (32 pages)

My friend, Bernadette, picked this up from the library today and after taking one look at the cover, which features an Iraqi boy holding a football and calligraphy pens, I knew I had to read it. James Rumford has studied more than a dozen languages and worked as a Peace Corps member in Afghanistan. He’s also interested in fine bookmaking and owns his own letter press. These facts are evidenced by the care with which he writes and illustrates this little gem of a book. He mentions being inspired by images posted on the Internet by photographers and American service personnel in Iraq. The illustrations are done in pencil and charcoal and then enhanced using a computer.

The story is about a boy named Ali, who like children his age, likes playing soccer, listening to loud music and dancing. However, his favorite hobby is practicing calligraphy. He loves the way the ink flows as he writes, his pen “stopping and starting, gliding and sweeping, leaping, dancing to the silent music” in his head. He compares the grace of Arabic calligraphy to that of a soccer player in slow motion and says how certain words (like his little sister’s name, Yasmin) are easier to write than others (his grandfather’s name, Mustafa). Like his author, Ali is “always writing and doodling - on the margins of newspapers and magazines, old envelopes and faded receipts - everywhere, even on the fogged windows in winter time or on the mirror in the bathroom.”

His mother affectionately calls him ‘Yakut’, after “the most famous calligrapher in the world”, who, like lives eight hundred years ago. When in 2003, the Multi-National Force - Iraq launches an attack, Ali follows an old story of Yakut and writes all night and “the many nights of bombing that followed” to fill his room with calligraphy and his mind with peace. My favorite picture in the book is of Ali and his cat snuggled under a blanket, lying on their stomachs as he practices writing.

The story ends ambiguously but poignantly, as Ali says that “one war has become another” while he still writes - finding it easy to write “war” in Arabic (“harb”) and finding resistance as he makes the “difficult waves and slanted staff of salam - peace”. He wonders how much he will have to practice writing “salam” before it flows freely from his pen.

This book might be the best I’ve reviewed so far. As a social science major, whose parents were children during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War, I’m immovably opposed to war. Perhaps it’s because my family traces its roots back to Afghanistan and Iran, perhaps it’s that as a kid, I had learned how to read and write Arabic - but this book touched me deeply. I’m troubled by the impact a seven-year war has on children - not only on their present day-to-day lives but also on how they turn out to be as human beings years later. I’m sure I’m not the only person to feel this way and the majority of my American friends have similar fears.

If this book can make a child realize the inanity of war and that kids everywhere around the world are more alike than our politicians would like us to believe - Rumford has done his job. The rest is up to you - the voters who elect the leaders who make such life-changing decisions. Please check out a copy from the Poughkeepsie Public Library or buy this rare book from Powell’s Books or Amazon.  

This interview of John Updike was aired on Book TV, and uploaded by C-SPAN on YouTube. It’s not specifically about his work as a children’s author. Nonetheless, it offers a glimpse into the life of John Updike, who is considered to be one of the greatest American authors of modern times. He talks about his famous character, Rabbit, his family, his religious views and contributing to The New Yorker, among other things.