Liars and Saints

  The NYT is celebrating 50 years of Sandra Boynton in print. I'd like to nominate one Boynton title as the greatest--it's "The Belly Button Book." In this tale, a group of hippos celebrate their belly buttons. We always like to get balloons... And I know why. Do you? It's because we like to think balloons Have belly buttons, too. Boynton then moves the action to "Belly Button Beach": Where hippos like to stand around In bathing suits too little-- Because we hope you will admire  The button in our middle. But life's pleasures are fleeting, and Boynton has a brutal conclusion, surprising and inevitable. We love to show our belly b's-- We show them off with pride. But not in chilly wintertime-- When belly buttons hide. No, not in chilly wintertime-- When belly buttons hide. A mic-drop kind of performance. Not a word is wasted.

  When Sandra Boynton brings her “A” game, all parts of the text are undeniable. An example: “The Belly Button Book.” The title already deserves a Pulitzer. A Boynton one-two punch means that the opening lines will *match* the greatness of the title: This tiny hippopotamus has something *small* to say. And if you listen now, he’ll say it right away. (BEE-BO!) You may not know what BEE-BO means, or maybe you’ve forgotten. It’s just the tiny hippo way of saying BELLY BUTTON. Harold Bloom speaks of the “anxiety of influence”: Virgil rewrites Homer, John Milton rewrites Virgil, and so on. I like to think that Sandra Boynton—with her hippos—is choosing to rewrite James Marshall. Famously, Marshall showed his hippos in bathing suits. And Sandra Boynton sends her own hippos to “Belly Button Beach.” We hippos love our belly b’s….. They’re round, and cute, and funny…. And there’s a place we take them to…. When summer days are sunny…..  Finally, Boynton “lands the plane” ...

 Among all Boynton books, "But Not the Armadillo" is especially moving to me. The opening is a kind of a boast: Behold the armadillo, with his armadillo nose; That nose can take him anywhere. He follows where it goes. From here, Boynton proves that the word "nose" really is a fine vehicle; it rhymes with other interesting words. Now for armadillo jumps on armadillo toes! Again he strolls along the road, and meets someone he knows. While still intrigued by the five senses, Boynton makes a subtle shift: From far away, a song delights his armadillo ears. He walks and walks and walks and walks--and finds the song he hears. Many writers spend a fair amount of the day walking; this is what it means to be a "flaneur." Part of me thinks that the unhurried, observant armadillo is a kind of autobiographical sketch; Boynton is teaching us about herself. (I have no evidence for this.) In my house, we read this strange, surprising book at least once per day.

  Sandra Boynton has written several stone-cold classics; high on the list is "Happy Hippo, Angry Duck." The title "owns" the reader. How could you not open the front cover? Then, the first lines are simple, direct, and engaging: Hello, Little Person! How ARE you today? Is your mood quite terrific-- Or only okay? Boynton's imagination now climbs to the stratosphere; she has invented a gallery of animals with strong feelings. We accept that these animals exist, because Boynton says that they exist. "Perhaps, like a pig, you are sweetly amused. Perhaps, like a cow, you're completely confused." "Are you happy like a hippo? Are you angry like a duck? Are you sad like a chicken? Can you sadly say,  cluck, cluck ?" Having exposed children to several emotions, Boynton ends with hard-earned wisdom: I hope you are happy-- But if you are not-- You have friends who will help you. We like you a lot. And a difficult mood is not here to stay-- Everyone...

 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...

  I've been lucky to acquire some good books in recent days. Here are three: *"Blood and Ink." Named by the Times one of the true-crime standouts of 2022, this is the story of a pastor and a choir member who had a blatant affair in the Roaring Twenties. They were found murdered, outdoors, in their Jersey town. The one thing I look for, in any book, is great characters. This one has a "man of God" leaving sexy notes for his girlfriend in certain dusty hymnals. A bereaved spouse becomes hooked on "the spiritual world," and he looks for his wife's ghost at a seance. A reporter invents emotional scenes to try to force one suspect to (accidentally) confess. A widow with secrets gets a makeover; she thinks journalists will be kinder to her if her style evolves, and she becomes "Insta-ready." The more things change, the more they stay the same. Wonderful book. *"Dickens and Prince." This is Nick Hornby observing that Dickens and Prince...

 Sandra Boynton attended the Yale School of Drama, but she found that the work was not easy to balance with the project of starting a family. So she dropped out; eventually, she began writing silly board books. (She did return to Yale, to give a talk to students: "The Curious Misuse of a Yale Education.") Boynton has conquered America; she is the subject of a scholarly piece by Pulitzer finalist Ann Patchett, and she has earned a shout-out in "Law and Order: SVU." (Noah Benson's favorite book is "Barnyard Dance.") Readers tip their hats: "My son never would have loved books without Sandra Boynton," "I'm so excited to learn there is a sequel to ...But Not the Hippopotamus! ") Boynton's work is joyful, and it's grounded in truth. You sense that these stories just bubble up out of the writer. A sequel might not have been a given, for "Moo, Baa, La La La." But when you imagine the cow on Halloween, how can you not ...

  I tend to have mixed feelings about the NYT Best Books list; there are always omissions that startle me. This year, "Raising Raffi" absolutely deserves to be included; "What's So Funny," by Sipress, also needs a spot.  I thought Anthony Horowitz published not one, but two, terrific 2022 novels--"With a Mind to Kill" and "The Twist of a Knife"--and these were among the most entertaining books I bought this year. Finally, I loved "Magic to Do," a thorough history of the creation of "Pippin." It's really about the battle between Bob Fosse and Stephen Schwartz--and about how this battle seemed to *help* the show that Schwartz had drafted. The book corrects Ryan Murphy's sloppy portrait of Fosse, and it has juicy anecdotes about Ann Reinking, Betty Buckley, and Patina Miller. If you love Broadway, how could you resist? My favorite book right now is actually not a new one; it's the picture book "Boo, Baa, La L...

 A toddler bath inspires you to begin speaking a language you hadn't realized you're fluent in: "Is this an eety beety piggie? All cleans! We is all cleans today!!!" You dry the kid, and if the kid is anything like mine, he throws himself out onto the back porch, wearing only a diaper. You chase him with additional clothing--and nothing on his face suggests he is aware that he's deviating from "standard procedure." He remains clean for one to two minutes. Then: the feet are encased in mud, and the hands are coated in peanut butter. Retreat; you're defeated. Address the dirty bathwater, the tossed-off towel, the puddles on the floor..... We're reading: *"The Knight and the Dragon." (Tomie dePaola) *"Pajama Time." (Boynton) *"Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus." Good day!

 In my house, we're all a bit obsessed with Sandra Boynton. Boynton was a grad student in drama--first at Berkeley, then at Yale. She began to do greeting cards on the side. One was for Christmas -- featuring "Dependent Claus," an anxious Santa who really relies on one reindeer for emotional support. (My source is Boynton's friend, Ann Patchett, the literary powerhouse: https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/sandra-boynton-is-changing-some-of-her-beloved-childrens-books-but-why-mess-with-perfection/2019/06/27/9447026e-9457-11e9-b58a-a6a9afaa0e3e_story.html .....) Boynton has written many, many bestsellers; in this house, we have the board books "Barnyard Dance," "Hippos Go Berserk," "What's Wrong, Little Pookie?" "Spooky Pookie," and "The Going to Bed Book." ("Barnyard Dance" is the favorite book of Olivia Benson's son, on "Law and Order: SVU.") I love "The Going to Bed Book...