A Mirror to Nature: Poems About Reflection combines the stunning photography of Jason Stemple with simple, accessible poems by Jane Yolen. Focused on nature and water, the photographs are visual poetry in themselves and lend themselves readily to discussion with children about reflections, water, nature and animals.

Yolen's poetry reflects (pun intended) the images in the photographs, in tones varying from somber and thoughtful to light and humorous. I've enjoyed showing the photographs to Z, reading her the poems, and watching her discover which part is the animal and which part is the reflection. I didn't realize before reading this book that Z wasn't really literate in reflections and she surprised me when she pointed out what she thought were two animals in a photo of a solitary animal and its reflection. I explained to her the reflection and she was thrilled to find the reflections in the other photos.

A Mirror to Nature is available on Amazon.com for about $14. - Jeremiah

There's not much that can pull me out of a funk faster than some good ole Dixieland Jazz. The first time I saw a Dixieland jazz band, I was about 12 years old and The Preservation Hall Jazz Band had come to play a performance in my town. I still remember them playing "When the Saints Go Marchin' In" and playing and marching their way off the stage and through the audience until there was a huge Dixie style conga line marching and dancing and singing with the band. I've since seen Dixieland in New Orleans, San Francisco, Prague and Budapest (where I encountered one of the world's best Dixieland bands, Hot Jazz Band). So it was with more than a little anticipation that I put on a couple of Dixieland CDs for Z and I to listen to lately.

We started out with Dixieland Jazz for Children by Johnette Downing and Jimmy LaRocca's Original Dixieland Jazz Band. You can buy it on CD or for just $9 in MP3 format - Amazon's MP3 page for the album has samples of every song.

Z's favorite song on this CD by far is the first one, "Dixieland Jazz' - "Dixieland Jazz, Dixieland Jazz the best jazz in the land..." - the song then goes on to introduce all the different instruments in the standard Dixieland Jazz band. Other favorite songs from the album include "Throw Me Something Mister" - all about getting some beads and doubloons from a float in a Mardi Gras parade (I can't wait to take Z to a proper Mardi Gras parade), "I've Got Happy Feet" - which for some reason reminds me of that famous New Orleans con where the con bets the mark that he can tell you where you got your shoes. (The answer plays on the New Orleans' substitution of "you've" with "you," and it's whatever street you're standing on - if you're on Decatur, for example, it's "you got your shoes on Decatur right now.") But the song is really about dancing your way through New Orleans.

Then we turned on Putumayo Kids' New Orleans Playground. This is a compilation of songs from different jazz musicians which we first reviewed here and of course, Z's favorite song was Hack Bartholomew's "When the Saints Go Marchin' In." You also really can't beat a Dr. John rendition of "Row Row Your Boat" or Buckwheat Zydeco's "Skip to My Blues." You can hear short song clips from this album on Amazon as well.

The only video I could find to represent either of these CDs is an awesome video of one of my favorite Dixieland artists, Ingrid Lucia, singing "Do They Play Jazz in Heaven?" with Irvin Mayfield. It isn't on either of these CDs (why not offer some samples on YouTube, folks?) but it's a great video and if you aren't familiar with Dixieland, it'll give you a taste of what's in store on these CDs. It's a great style of music young children can easily relate to and that gets them moving. Best of all, it's just as much fun for the parents, who can enjoy the musicianship, drive, and mood-lifting melodies as well as the genre's varied subject matter.



Both are great CDs, and highly recommended for your little toe-tapper! - Jennifer

Turning conventions on their heads has always been the convention of some comic artists, and in the past decade or so this has led to something of a mini-Renaissance in kidlit, with comics designed for younger and younger audiences making big inroads among readers, with huge support from librarians and educators looking for new ways to encourage kids to read. We saw this happening a lot in the last decade-plus with series like Bone (which Scholastic picked up and ran with in 1995) and more recent successes like Owly, and Kids Can Press and others have been making a big push to publish serious, story-driven comics for middle-grade readers.

So Toon Books can be forgiven for claiming to be the "first high-quality comics for kids ages four and up" (what about Regis Faller's brilliant runaway Polo series, with four books published and two more planned for later this year?). I'm probably so willing to forgive them that because they are investing so passionately in what is clearly a particular view on comic culture than a simple commitment to low-vocabulary sequential art. Toon Books are funny, downright silly, with pratfalls and punchlines and billboard-size over-reactive expressions - many of these books feel they could have been serialized in 1940s newspapers, if preschoolers ran the world. They also corral a huge variety of talents into their publishing house, produce really gorgeous and well-made books, and are taking the promotion of comics for kids very seriously.

We were fortunate enough to sample a few of their titles, and picked Silly Lilly and the Four Seasons, Luke on the Loose, and Jack and the Box.

Looking at their current and planned titles, it's probably even unfair for me to make the generalizations I have above. They are taking work from a variety of great comic artists and each brings their own style and sensibility to the project. Some, like Luke on the Loose, feel very contemporary - in its drawing style, use of perspective and depiction of the landscape, and in the way it deploys its humor (while Luke tugs at his kiddy leash, dads speak in hushed "blah blah blah"s); others, like Jack and the Box, are heavily strip-oriented, with every one or two spreads leading to an overstated punchline.


Z enjoyed all three of the titles we sampled, and our take on this series is that you probably can't go wholly wrong with any Toon Book on offer; I see a few more I'd really like to buy, like Mo and Jo: Fighting Together Forever (in which two superpowered siblings fight), and Little Mouse Gets Ready, which showcases' artist Jeff Smith's graceful yet hyper-cute style.


And for what it's worth, Z finds Silly Lilly to be hi-larious.