Dad Diary

 Sometimes, Sandra Boynton rejects narrative. She writes a kind of lyric poem.

One example is "Opposites," which takes maybe thirty seconds to read. Each time I read it, I see a new detail. The text is a rhyming poem: "Big and small, short and tall. High and low, fast and slow. Heavy and light, day and night. In and out, whisper and shout. Right and wrong; weak, strong. Hot and cold, young and old. Wet and dry; hello, goodbye."

One treat is the pictures: "wrong" is a pig wearing a rotary phone on his head. "Out" is a turtle standing on top of his own shell; he wants to see a friend (and the friend happens to be a turtle *in* a shell, wearing a shell). For "day," the horizon line is part of a shallow window seat; at "night," that same line becomes the edge of a bed.

Additionally, Boynton plays with font. The "slow" font makes use of a vast expanse of white space. The "heavy" font is, itself, heavy; the thick letters seem to sink under their own weight.

Boynton makes me think of Maurice Sendak's remarks on James Marshall: "He never won the Caldecott, because his work was too much fun." Boynton has never won a Caldecott. I'm hijacking the process--and correcting this situation--via this blog--here and now.