Picture Book Month Day 22

 

Any list of favourite picture books just HAS to contain a book by master storyteller Margaret Mahy. I love and own so many of her books. I always included her picture books into my library program and I often recommended her middle grade novels to teachers and readers.  A couple of years ago I read one of Margaret's middle grade novels - The Dark Blue 100 ride bus Ticket. This is such an inventive story and one that has lingered with me.  It is sadly out of print but it would be a fabulous class read-aloud title for a middle primary level group.

Margaret Mahy wrote over 120 books and hundreds of short stories and poems. I talked about some of her stories here.  I cannot pick just one favourite picture book so I am going to suggest three:

Jam

The Man whose Mother was a Pirate

See the whole book here on a video reading

Kirkus Star review: Wickedly pointed; thoroughly amusing.

Why do I love to read these? They each have:

• Delicious use of words
• Inventive character names
• Off beat stories with a touch of magic and gentle humour
• Perfect illustrations - done by a range of famous illustrators
• Stories you can read over and over again

Thinking about illustrators - here are the famous names you will find when you look for picture books by New Zealand author Margaret Mahy. Helen Craig, Steven Kellogg, Margaret Chamberlain, Jonathan Allen, Polly Dunbar, Jenny Williams, Gavin Bishop, Sarah Garland, Wendy Smith.

Check out these Kirkus reviews of other books by Margaret Mahy:

The Man from the land of Fandango "The late Mahy's New Zealand syntax and humor are on fine display here, and young readers will wish that the Fandango man would appear more than once in 500 years. Wonderfully exuberant and completely delightful."

Down the Back of the Chair  "Dunbar’s delightfully loose illustrations in watercolor and cut paper provide a satisfying complement to Mahy’s poem, with whimsical creatures, juicy colors and lots of motion to match the kinetic energy of the text."

The Great White Man-eating Shark  "Mahy tells this "Cautionary Tale" in a quietly comic, deceptively simple style inspired by her usual marvelous dry wit."

I am up to day 22 and I am not in danger of running of out picture books to share here for Picture Book Month.  Take a look at this post from early in 2019 where I list some older and out of print treasures from my former school library.  

Margaret Mahy - some treasures

For many many years I have included the books of New Zealand author Margaret Mahy in my library program. This is for two reasons – one her terrific story telling and two the rich vocabulary she uses.

We started this term by reading Jam. Our copy is very small but using our scanner we have been able to project the lovely illustrations by Helen Craig so the children can appreciate the little humorous touches such has the father washing the dishes and then “he pegged them out to dry”. Or when the father refers to his three children, who are named Clement Castle, Clarissa Castle and Carlo Castle, as “the three little castles more like cottages really”. This also makes it possible to compare the Castle family before eating all the jam with the end of the story when a whole year of jam eating has passed.

Mahy is a master of the story twist. In jam it comes right at the end when the plums are ripe again and thus the cycle will continue with more disastrous results. In The Boy who was followed home there are two twists. As more and more hippos follow Robert home growing from one to four to nine to twenty seven and finally forty-three his father must find a solution. The answer is to find a witch. How do you find a witch? You use the telephone book of course. And when do witches arrive? At midnight of course, right on the broomstick hour and down the chimney. Mahy shows lovely restraint when she leaves the illustrations to show the final twist, simply stating Robert was pleased, very pleased indeed.

In The Boy who was Followed home there are words like reproachful, skulked and delighted

My favourite Mahy title where the vocabulary really shines is The Man whose mother was a pirate. Her description of the sea is magical. In The Pumpkin Man and the crafty Creeper there are words like sprawling, midsummer, humble, burrowed, dismayed, gratitude, obligingly and treacherous. There are so many fabulous books by this talented author look for them in your library you will not be disappointed.