Excellent Books

In the not too distant past, I’ve written or referred to book bannings and censorship, particularly in the USA, quite often. I stressed that it’s not about the quality of the books, but about access to books, hence the title “A Defense of Mediocre Books.” Despite the temptation to defend books by adding, “And it’s really good!” I think it’s essential to keep in mind that we defend access because censorship is wrong, not because the books are always good.

That issue has not gone away. (Even poor William Shakespeare, a poet and playwright of some promise, is under attack. I’m positive all the pseudo-intellectuals who were so outraged that a few universities attempted to find ways to teach something apart from the Immortal Bard, occasionally, will now be rallying to his defense once more… Or shouldn’t I hold my breath?) But I continue to feel a restless dissatisfaction with conversations about excellence in literature, especially, of course, in literature for children– and, even more particularly, in picture books.

Too many reviews, articles, and conversations focus on the content of the books, and much less on the level of skill in composition of all kinds.

Here’s an article which garnered a lot of attention not too long agoand the title could have been spouted by me in a far-too-honest dream: “Let the Kids Get Weird: The Adult Problem with Children’s Books.” If you know me personally, you’ve probably gotten messages from me along those lines. It might be “adults need to get over themselves,” but the sentiment is the same. I also agree with much of the article: Jon Klassen writes very much in the tradition of the Old Masters, one might say, of picture books, directly in the lineage of Ruth Krauss and Maurice Sendak, as the author points out. The transgressive streak has always been there, and Jon Klassen is not really doing something new in the act of writing darkness. What he is doing is bringing his own original freshness of voice and style to the process. Otilla in The Skull could, in fact, be a cousin to Ida from Outside Over There.

Now, here’s an interesting note. Outside Over There “only” got a Caldecott Honor; the Medal that year went to Jumanji by Chris Van Allsburg, and other Honors were Stephen Gammell for Where the Buffaloes Begin, the Provensens for A Visit to William Blake’s Inn, and Anita Lobel for On Market Street. Not a bad year. Now, despite all the press and eager discourse about the content of The Skull, and, simply, about the dark skulliness of the book– it didn’t get a Caldecott or Newbery, Medal or Honor, at all. I was stunned, because the book was so manifestly excellent.

The problem is that it’s extremely hard to nail down excellence, and, in a way, and particularly with awards, it’s a moving target. What are people judging by? Is there a checklist? How do you determine excellence? Is there such a thing? When you’re assessing picture books published in 2023, you’re not comparing them to Outside Over There, but to each other. Or are you? I’m not on any awards committees and often as I howl that “the Caldecott committee should have called me for my opinion!” I really hope never to be on one of those committees, but I do know how I assess excellence, and I want to offer it as food for thought, and because I’m incurably analytical and know a thing or two about reading, both books and art.

I don’t compare books, as such, to each other, not by way of saying that a book has to be as good as Exhibit A to be Worthy of X Award. I didn’t read like that as a grad student and I don’t now. What I did then and did now is look at what a given work does on its own, and whether it’s fulfilling its own goals. In the case of a picture book, that takes the additional nuance of reading the art as well as the text, and seeing how they speak together.

Now. First thing: is excellence even a thing you can talk about? I absolutely know that it’s a touchy subject. And for good reason. There’s plenty of people who use the very idea of classic literature, for example, as a way to run down reading anything else or enjoying books at all– as though enjoying books is somehow wrong! That thing I wrote about adults thinking being happy is a bad thing? There are people who do that to books, and, obviously, that’s a shitty thing to do to literature. It’s an even worse thing to do to me, because the reaction makes it hard to talk about quality.

The reaction? Well, there’s a big movement among readers right now to be more open and accessible and I love that. One thing I hear a lot is that “a book might not be to your taste but someone else might love it, and that doesn’t mean it’s not good.” I agree completely! Everyone should enjoy the books they enjoy and there’s no such thing as a guilty pleasure there. Put the romance novels front and centre. I recommend Jasmine Guillory’s By the Book as a particularly fun and deliciously romantic read. But I think the topic of who enjoys what is different from assessing skill and excellence.

Part of the problem with the conversation spurred by the book bans (and pseudo-intellectuals who see High Literature as a means to a cultural end rather than as a glory to be enjoyed) is that they deter dialogue and make critical reading a bad thing. I try to keep criticism back no matter what, and to make it constructive when I am critical, but if a book is challenged my immediate reaction is to defend access to it, and, by extension, support the book, even if I think it needed another few rounds of editing or I simply didn’t like it much. It’s frustrating! I want to have hard and complicated conversations! And I do think we need them.

I actually want to be able to critique books as well as review them positively, if I’m speaking honestly. Critiques are thrilling, enjoyable. I love reading Roxane Gay’s and James Baldwin’s! They have an unerring eye for quality and I learn from their analyses. Wouldn’t it be great to be able to do that? But that does mean expressing a sense of what quality, excellence, and skill entail. And, yes, I do think that excellence is on some ways separate from taste. I think it’s hard to pin down, but I think it’s worth the effort. In many ways, I think the question goes back to my reference above to whether a work is fulfilling its own goals: is this book its own best book?

Here are some things I do and some questions I ask when editing a manuscript or when reading a finished picture book. I watch my first reaction. Do I want to read it again? Why does the book matter? What does it do? What does it want to be when it grows up? Who are you, book? Take off the dust jacket. Who are you, narrator? Does the art tell the same story as the text? Do they add to each other? Who are you characters? Look at the font. What are the colours doing? Are they saturated, monochrome, dusty, old, new? Read aloud, preferably once to a group and once with a kid on knees. Do I want to do that? Is it exciting? Am I persuading myself to? Did I hunt kids down just to read to them? What’s my instinct? Am I surprised? Does being surprised surprise me? Who was the audience for that book? Do I think the author nailed reaching the audience? What do the kids think? Watch page turns! And on and on.

Friends. Readers. Picture books are not easy!

I’m going to say something awful, given that I know how overworked editors are, given that readers want books faster and want more books and that it already takes so long to get a book from manuscript stage to shelves: I have seen way too many books in the past 5 years that have badly needed more time and attention at the writing stage. And, yes, authors, I know that’s hard for you, too. Most often, when I think that, and then I feel guilty (“They wrote the book they wanted to, though!” “Fine, but it didn’t land, and better it be helped to land, no?”) and then I drill into that (“What would have helped?”) my answer is one of those questions in that paragraph up there: “Who was the audience for that book?” and then I know “I do not think the author nailed reaching their audience. Drat!” (Why “drat?” Because I want to like books, that’s why. I am looking to enjoy them, and I’m sad when I can’t.)

That’s not a new problem and it’s not an easy one. We all know I love A Child of Books. I loved it so much from the time it came out that when the Changeling played putting me to bed when she was very little, she would pull it out to read to me as my bedtime story. I have, since then, used it in classes for kids about writing their own picture books, mostly because I wanted more chances to read it. And, that book? The one I love? I don’t think it’s got an easy answer on “who’s the audience?” Kids frequently don’t love it as much as I do, and those who do are often a bit older. My Changeling likes it better now than when she was 5 years old “tucking me in.” Then, she was reading it to me for me. Now, if I see her looking at it, it’s because she thinks it’s a lovely book. I still love it better than she does.

Now, Outside Over There is absolutely weird and terrifies many adults I know. It’s patently obvious that it’s wholly unsuitable for children; for crying out loud, the mother ignores her crying baby, leaving the baby to the older child, who clearly doesn’t want the responsibility, and is inattentive, letting the goblins come in through the window and steal the baby away. It also might just be my 3-year-old Spriggan’s favourite book by Sendak. The art is so exquisite I gave a copy to a museum curator of my acquaintance in Paris as my example of the best of American art he may not know. He was stunned and delighted and I was horrifically smug to have found something he didn’t know. (I’ve heard many flaws attributed to me, but I think my smugness might be my worst character flaw.) Now, I may think it’s the world’s most perfect book, but I have to say it’s not a great book for reading to a group of kids. I would select something like Have You Ever Seen a Flower? by Shawn Harris, a fine example of a book that surprised me to pieces, instead, if I had a crowd of littles to read to. You want to whisper terrifyingly in the ear of a toddler when reading Outside Over There. Oh, I love that book. I love reading it aloud. I love Ida. I love the goblins. There is absolutely no way that book should work for kids– and it does.

The palpable, tricky difference is that at some level both Outside Over There and Have You Ever Seen a Flower? know their child audience, are suited to it, in a way that A Child of Books doesn’t recognize a specific audience. This doesn’t mean that I like A Child of Books one little bit less, but I often feel dissatisfied reading it aloud. I’ve read it to kids often and enjoyed it and so did they. But it never generated the closeness that I’ve gotten with other books. My memory is of my daughter being nice to me, the sweetheart! Not of an arm around a snuggly child, our minds thrilling together on the page, each seeing and hearing in our own way, at the same time, sympathetically.

Is recognizing an audience the key difference that makes a book less excellent? No. It’s just an example of a way that a book can be really good and beloved but somehow miss a certain mark on one point. And I also think it’s symptomatic of something else. Because here’s another thing I haven’t mentioned yet. Truthfulness.

If a book fails to tell a full truth to the audience, that will be discernible. That’s something I’ve talked about before, too. It’s absolutely key. You will sense the absence, swept aside. Silence is not absence and is not untruth: On the Trapline employs silence deliberately, a knife in the heart. Absence, elision, is often untruth.

Let’s go back to Outside Over There because I think it’s a hard book for adults to accept, and it’s indisputably excellent, and no one likes to hear that combination. Also it’s not exactly politically loaded at the moment, but still adults find it hard, which is perfect for the purpose of what I want to do: I want to poke you. I want you to squirm when you think about books that avoid the hard things that Outside Over There does and does so well. You can’t deny the excellence and you can’t avoid the hardness.

Now, this book tells the absolute truth. And kids know it. The book I’ve had adult friends tell me they would like to reread sometime “but maybe not at night or I’ll never sleep” is one of my Spriggan’s favourite bedtime stoies. Things my Spriggan has told me in reading this book: “The baby is crying! The baby wants Mama. Mama, pick up the baby! Do they miss Papa? Oh no, the baby is reaching for Mama, poor baby is reaching for Ida…” He gets it, is the point. The one really hard bit he hasn’t yet latched onto is that maybe Ida is looking out the window and “never watched” because she’s angry and abandoned herself. Forced into a role, forced to be “such a good big sister,” almost a mother in her own right, that’s not easy for a kid– and not fair to the baby, either.

My Spriggan also admires the art– the flowers and the dog and he loves seeing Mozart at the end. He loves the language. One of his current phrases he loves to roll around his tongue is “nasty goblin’s bride.” The art, language, and work as a whole is all out there, outside over there, and perfectly beautiful, honed to the highest degree of lyricism. Have you noticed, when reading it, that it’s a poem? Try scanning this. It’s possible, you will see, and a little challenging. (Poetic note: it alters throughout the book, note particularly Papa’s inset song, but you can sense an underlying form which is, I firmly believe, deliberately fractured in order to steer clear of regularity.)

When Papa was away at sea,
and Mama in the arbor,
Ida played her wonder horn
to rock the baby still–
but never watched.

No, it doesn’t scan as a perfect ballad measure, but it scans. The art dances around German Romanticism, too, while the sense of neglect, of an appearance of familial intimacy that’s internally vulnerable, takes on an extra cadence of meaning coming from a creator whose family was murdered by the Nazis. The Nazis, of course, claimed that tradition of German Romanticism as their heritage– while denying it to the Jews who were instrumental in creating that artistic tradition, and then murdering them. Taken together, this merging of forms and fractures could be chaotic, a mess. But the book doesn’t feel chaotic. Its harmonious with a turbulent heart. It is searingly honest.

At the same time, it’s passionate in its representation of personality and of relationships, incisive through the eyes to the heart, while remaining dispassionate in judgment. Is Mama a bad mother for neglecting her children, or is it valid to be immobilized by churning feelings? Sendak doesn’t say. Is Ida bad for not watching, or good and brave for rescuing? Sendak doesn’t say. What is Ida’s serious mistake and why is she foolish? I don’t know, Sendak doesn’t say. I think something different every time I read it.

The book is, in every sense, emotionally truthful. There isn’t a single false note in the internal lives of the characters, even when it’s uncomfortable. Which it often is. I have only the haziest idea of what the book is “about,” and I don’t give a flying fuck about that because it doesn’t matter. What matters is that it’s beautiful and true.

Very well. Pay attention to your audience, write truthfully, carefully, and make exquisite art. Easy-peasy and off you go! Does every book have to be that intense, though?

No. I believe that Sandra Boynton’s absurd board books are excellent. Take Moo, Baa, La La La, for example. The pigs are dancing and singing with incredible joy. Page turn: a voice (whose voice?) shouts them to conformity. They look bored, annoyed. I have never, ever made that turn without a hint of an internal twinge of regret. Page turn: Rhinoceroses? How are we going from the farm to– rhinoceroses? The overall arc, the presentation, is standard. Placid. The trim and the format are cheerful, but the adult earnestness is the equivalent of Jon Klassen’s deadpan turtles. The absurdity rolls right out there into a toddler’s lap, bringing sheer joy, and just a twinge of pathos over the bored pigs who would really rather be allowed to dance.

Or what about Gyo Fujikawa’s Let’s Play!, where the arc is not a plot, but a day of play? That’s another book I’ve been asked to read a thousand times. Within it, you catch, whether by the art or the text or an interplay of both together, dozens of moments of palpable truth. I can only imagine Gyo Fujikawa’s sharp and sympathetic eyes and ears capturing scenes around her and putting them down with an honesty that grabs the child reader; both of my children have been fascinated, always, by the little bare feet and tiny interactions on the page. The scene that always caught me is this:

I’m fascinated by the picture and the child walking away– does she not like the portrait, not want to be pictured, want a turn? Who is saying, “Would you like to paint a picture?” and to whom? My imagination leaps to a daycare teacher trying to figure out why the girl is walking away. What’s wrong, sweetie? But my Spriggan giggled and pointed to something I had completely missed in focusing on the conflict: the kid under the easel, reaching into the jar of paint. “The baby is eating paint!” he chuckled. “Baby has bare feet!” Is the little one eating paint or just smearing it around? I don’t know. My toddler has, I’m certain, observed other toddlers eating paint, or trying to. Either way, it’s a vividly real picture, with words and art and inner landscapes, of so many aspects of childhood. It’s an impressive achievement.

I have a bit of a wish list in terms of the future of excellent picture books: ditch attempts at iambic metres unless you’re a poet, know what you’re doing, and have a reason; give me absurdity; plot doesn’t matter; if someone can tell me what the book is “about,” I don’t want to read it; and give me all of your hardest, ugliest, most uncomfortable feelings.

Of course, this is me. This is my wish. These are my thoughts on excellence. I am not, and I never have, thought there is one true way. In fact, I know that after I post this, I’ll have second thoughts about points I made within this piece. I could and will argue with myself. But one thing I know I won’t compromise on is this: kids deserve the very, very best in literature, and there are books that are of the very highest quality. I want to see more books like that, and I want them for the kids of today and tomorrow. I want good books for bad children, as Ursula Nordstrom so wickedly, so beautifully said! And I’d love to see people talk more about what that looks like.

I want to end with Otilla, as I began. She could be a cousin to Ida, I said. What did she run away from? I don’t know, but I think she tumbled backwards out the window, turned around, and ran. And then, in the dark, she picked herself up, and walked into courage, ending up in the light. Which is just what Ida did.