Book 1: Excuse Me!
This book came to us through a box of hand me down clothes from the neighbors across the street. A short rhyming book about using the words excuse me. Cute enough pictures. Back matter "quizzes" the child about when to say the words excuse me. Nothing earth shattering, but worth keeping for revisiting manners with Kid 1 and introducing them to Kid 2 when she's old enough.
Book 2: Mouse Match by Ed Young
This book was acquired from the library after it was withdrawn. Ed Young is a Chinese-born American author and illustrator. Mouse Match is a Chinese folk tale. The pictures are a striking collage. The story itself is your standard folk tale affair. The book itself is really cool. It's set as an accordion style. So if you had the space, you could open the whole thing up and it follows like a giant tapestry. Flip the accordion over and you can see the tale written in Chinese characters. (I'm unsure if there are different characters for Mandarin or Cantonese.) Kid 1 is definitely old enough for this tale so we'll keep it on the shelves in her room for rotation.
Book 3: Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney
A childhood book that ended up at my house. It's an easy-going story about a little girl who wants to travel to far away places, live by the sea, and make the world more beautiful. She manages all those things. The pictures are gorgeous and I love that this is a girl in the late 19th, early 20th century who travels. That being said, the portions to deal with far away lands feel very white Imperialistic. I'm not sure the names used for the people's who live there are PC anymore. I know we have other books that serve the same purpose that don't have those issues, so this one will make it's way to a donate pile.
Book 4: The Fool and the Phoenix: A Tale of Old Japan by Deborah Nourse Lattimore
A withdrawn library book. A quasi-folktale that tells of a mute bird catcher who finds a phoenix and fights a bandit. The story is interesting and the pictures are gorgeous. However, I later found out the author took inspiration of the phoenix legends and wrote her own tale. She's a scholar but she's not Japanese. Keeping the book for the pictures at the moment, but if I find I need more space for new stuff, this one will likely go.
Book 5: The Hidden Folk by Lise Lunge-Larsen
Withdrawn library book. This is a collection of Faery stories from Northern Europe. There's stories about water horses, fairies, sprites, dwarves, and selkies. The introduction talks about them as though they are real. Each creature is introduced and then we get a story or two. The author mentions at the end that the stories were basically told to her in passing as fact when she was a kid, so she had to take her time to make stories from them. Kid 1 is definitely the right age for this book at this time, so we'll be keeping it.
