Liars and Saints

  I'm pretty sure Tomi Ungerer was a socialist, and I doubt he had warm feelings about private property -- and you can spot this subtext in his masterpiece, "The Three Robbers." This book has marauders traipsing through a village at night; they use a blunderbuss and a "pepper-blower" to amass riches. But, eventually, they stumble on a little girl, Tiffany. The girl is incapable of seeing evil -- and her love inspires the robbers to behave in a gentle way. When Tiffany spots the robbers' gold, she does *not* suggest that restorative justice is in order. Instead, like Robin Hood, she says, "Wealth is useless if you don't spend it." And the robbers then use the money to construct an orphanage; happy children grow up on the new property, and the sun shines on all the kids, always, in perpetuum. A first-rate Ungerer book has: total conviction, an absence of preachiness, and dazzling art. Kids notice, because it's impossible not to notice. I thin...

  It's the end of the week, and I'll leave you with a great picture book. In "Emile," a little old captain, Captain Samofar, is walking along the ocean floor. A shark prepares to attack. Watching from afar, Emile the octopus chooses to make a move. He tosses a rock in the shark's mouth, and he saves Captain Samofar. Thus, a friendship begins. Emile (having been "sponsored") adapts to his new life on the land; he amuses humans by twisting his tentacles to resemble an elephant, a sleigh, a car. He drinks from eight "toast-glasses," all at once. He plays Debussy and accompanies himself, and accompanies himself, and accompanies himself, with each of his "arms."  This is essentially "Crictor" and "Rufus" by another name; a stranger in a strange land tries to "get to know the territory." I think that nothing beats these images.

 People think of Tomi Ungerer as the Michelangelo of picture books; the images are strange, and they make your eyes pop, and no one else could invent them. Also, Ungerer's narrative ideas are sublime and weird; they are not earthbound. In a matter-of-fact way, Ungerer announces that a bat has stumbled in on a late-night drive-in movie. ("I have to see color! I have to see the daytime world!") Other writers could work for decades, and they'd never have anything like that idea. A final thing I love about Ungerer is that he doesn't moralize, and he doesn't underline in an unnecessary way. He doesn't talk down to kids. Determined to make his own path, a bat begins to experiment with paint, and he sketches green and purple designs on his little body. We don't need an aside about the wonder of being different. We don't need the narrator to observe that a slightly goofy moment is slightly goofy. The story just unfolds; less is more. This might seem easy, ...

  Tomi Ungerer enjoyed "the extraordinary journey," and here are two examples: (1) Rufus, a little bat, stumbles on a technicolor drive-in movie, and decides to will himself to give up his own nocturnal ways. (2) The Man in the Moon grabs the tail of a comet so that he may travel to Earth. Maybe the strangest journey Ungerer invented came about in the late nineties. Ungerer was reflecting on his childhood, a brutal period during World War II, when he would sometimes sleep on piles of coal. How do you describe WWII to kids? You use the perspective of a talking teddy bear. The book contains one of my favorite opening lines: "I knew I was old when I found myself in the window of an antique shop." From there, Otto the bear flashes backward. He recalls his early years in the possession of a German boy; all lives are upended when the Nazis seize power. The boy is sent to a concentration camp; his friend takes Otto, but must abandon Otto during a bombing (Dresden?) ..... A...

  One of Tomi Ungerer's main preoccupations was the moon; that strange rock has a big role in "Fog Island" (2013), and, in Ungerer's final book, that rock is the spot where everyone lands once the polluted Earth explodes. Much earlier in his career, in the sixties, Ungerer imagined a "Moon Man" who grabs the tail of a comet and comes to visit humankind.  People with pitchforks surround the fallen comet; a fireman arrives; an ice-cream vendor parks his truck near the swarming spectators. Experts toss the Moon Man in jail, so that he might undergo some examinations. But MM's body shrinks with the waning of the actual moon; and, in his fractional garb, he is able to slither through the bars of his prison-window. Eventually, MM discovers a scientist who has built a rocket to send to the moon; the scientist *would* use the rocket, but he has grown too rotund to fit into the capsule. MM solves this problem (when he matches the slender half-moon). MM takes the ...

 I have a friend who shares my love of picture books, and we sometimes talk about the gap between the competent and the inspired. Tomi Ungerer is Exhibit A among "The Inspired"; he was anointed, by Maurice Sendak, as a "spectacular graphic genius," and his Three Robbers, his Rufus, his Crictor .....all haunt many readers to this day. In "Snail, Where Are You?" Ungerer has a simple idea. He finds the coil of a snail shell in many surprising spots, among natural and man-made things. He, Ungerer, asks the reader to locate the snail in several images. This would simply be cute, but then there are also the special touches. The title--"WHERE ARE YOU?"--emerges as a song from a large tuba, which is itself "a snail." (A tuba coils like a snail.) The snails announce themselves in witty ways. One is the little curl in a foamy crest: "I'm riding the waves." One is the endpoint of a silly jester's cap: "I'm tops." St...

 A great hero in kids' books is the titular hat, in Tomi Ungerer's "The Hat." This magical hat lands on the head of a sad man, down on his luck. The hat can't waste time on sadness. It begins performing tricks. It scoops up a falling cactus, thus sparing a wealthy duke under a high-rise window.  The hat rescues a purple puffbird, who has escaped from the zoo. The hat then blocks up a certain chimney, so that brigands are smoked out of a safe house. Without resting, the hat fills itself with water and puts out a small fire that has threatened to engulf a baby carriage. Our avatar, Badoglio, rewarded all over town for the feats of his hat, now hopes to find a lady love. His hat spots a wild horse, briefly blinds the horse, and allows Badoglio to rescue a carriage-passenger, a contessa. Love blossoms. The hat moves on to other adventures, possibly in Venice? The End. Leave it to Ungerer to get you rooting for the magic hat. I love the pacing, the cast of characters, ...

The world recently celebrated International Children's Book Day--and, in honor of that, I'm spotlighting three books we love in this house: *"Rufus." I've discussed this one. A bat stumbles on a drive-in technicolor movie, and realizes that he has been missing out on the colors of the rainbow. What follows is a strange, dramatic, unpredictable journey, as Rufus sets out to forge his own path. *"Penny and Her Song." It's been said--in the NY Times, for example--that Kevin Henkes is a genius. For evidence, look no further than this book. It's about the rhythms of family life; it's a chance for Henkes to notice little details that no one else would ever notice or record. (I'm very fond of the "better/wetter" rhyme, and the moment when Penny tries to entertain herself in the mirror. Penny, c'est moi.) *"Goldilocks." The only time James Marshall won a Caldecott Honor--four years before his death. You can sense his spiri...

 Tomi Ungerer's final book--"Nonstop"--shows us a post-apocalyptic world. Everyone has fled Earth for the moon. Everyone, but Vasco--our lonely hero. Vasco is in continuous danger of being annihilated. He has a crafty shadow who often points in the right direction. For example, the shadow pushes Vasco around a corner--just before the entire scene explodes. ("JUST IN TIME!")  Vasco wanders through barren landscapes; one patch of graffiti says, "DON'T HOPE: COPE." For a while, Vasco seeks shelter on a boat (it's called "NOAH")--but eventually the boat loses its battle against "shredding reefs." Tomi Ungerer, the writer and artist, lived through traumatic events in World War II (and wrote about those events, unforgettably, in "Otto," a war tale about a teddy bear). "Nonstop" seems to be about war, and about climate change; it's about adapting to shifting realities. Don't hope. Cope. Of course, it...

  Adelaide's parents were surprised when they found that their daughter had wings....   "Adelaide" is a standard Tomi Ungerer tale without a moral.   A kangaroo is born with wings. She--Adelaide--feels compelled to experience the world. She befriends a pilot; when she tires of flying, she just rests on top of the plane. She sees a maharajah; she enjoys touring parts of India on the back of an elephant. Having tired of travel, Adelaide settles in Paris. She performs--briefly--as a chorus girl, but meets a zoo-exhibit, "Leon," and decides to start a family. Leon wins a divorce from the zoo and begins his new (enchanted!) life with Adelaide. If you have to read a story several times, then you want memorable details. "Adelaide" has the kangaroo distracted by a tiny dog during a press conference, the maharajah gesturing grandly with one arm, the peaceful elephant, the soaring plane in white space. It has the streets of Paris, and it has the spectacle of a ...

 It's hard to imagine a better--wiser, stranger--children's book than "Rufus." I'm not sure how I made it past thirty without having discovered this book. In "Rufus," a bat happens to find himself at a drive-in movie. He has never seen color before--after all, he is nocturnal--so the blues and reds and yellows on the screen are dazzling. Rufus tells himself he must see more. He stays awake past daylight. Enchanted by the world's hues, he finds a paintbrush and a pallet, and he adds color to his own "hooks," his stomach, his wings. (I think the stomach gets "a big green star.") This is great, but of course the intolerant world concludes that Rufus is a monster; someone tries to shoot Rufus out of the sky. A friendly entomologist rescues Rufus, and the two pursue moths together, and eventually Rufus returns to his nocturnal world (but he is forever enriched, forever changed). Obviously, people have seen this as an allegory for comin...

 Tomi Ungerer, "Crictor": Madame Bodot is a schoolteacher in France; her son is off studying reptiles in a jungle somewhere. As a gift, a box arrives for Mme. Bodot. It's a boa constrictor. Bodot cares for her snake and researches his needs. She calls him "Crictor." In exchange for good care, Crictor provides several services. For example, he teaches small boys how to tie knots. (He himself--contorted in many ways--serves as "the knot.") He becomes a jump rope for little girls. He becomes a pedagogical device; he can twist himself into an "S," for "Snake," an "N" for "Nothing," and so on. He can turn himself into a "7," for "Seven Little Dwarfs," or an "8," for "The Eight Arms of the Octopus." At this point, Ungerer needs to toss in a conflict. He has a burglar invade Bodot's flat. Crictor ensnares the burglar; the town celebrates with an honorary sculpture; a Parisian ...

I've alluded to Tomi Ungerer before, and I'm by no means the Ungerer authority, but here are a few things to know: *Tomi Ungerer was called, by Maurice Sendak, a "spectacular graphic genius." Ungerer's only true heir--according to Sendak--was James Marshall. *Ungerer wrote many, many picture books, and he did his own illustrations--and he is known for defying expectations. In "Otto," for example, you think you're getting a sweet story about a teddy bear, but in fact you're getting a tour of WWII, gun violence, and brutality on the streets. (This is a children's book!) ...."Fog Island" concerns a mysterious Fog Man who has direct access to the magma at the center of the Earth--and who uses this magma to heat water and make fog. "The Three Robbers" has menacing robbers terrifying the countryside with a "pepper-blower"--and a pepper-blower is not something that actually exists in the world. It's just something U...

Some parts of fatherhood are unexpected: *When you visit the doctor, the bumbling assistant attempts to measure the circumference of the baby's head. These measurements are always wrong. You hear little bits of Kafka: How could the baby's head be *smaller* than last time? No one ever explains the significance of the numbers, and the measuring process never gets easier. *Sometimes, your dog will growl at your baby. Your peacemaker husband will say, That growl means nothing. It's a *fake* growl . And how do you respond? Your dog will become silent. He will guard his secrets carefully. *You will become a major picture-book snob. If it's not by Tomi Ungerer, should we really even bother? *You will attend music class in intense heat. At some point, your baby will begin to drum on a foam block, in a half-interested way, and you will see flashes of future Carnegie Hall openings, there in your crazed mind's eye. *You'll develop a love for celebrity m...

At one time, Tomi Ungerer enjoyed great fame as a writer for children. Then, librarians somewhere discovered Ungerer had a past: In another life, he had done many erotic drawings (in addition to some incisive anti-war art). The soft-core porn was apparently troubling enough to move childcare specialists to remove Ungerer's work from bookshelves. And it's only recently that Ungerer has had a bit of a renaissance. (This is the kind of trivia you pick up when you're an elementary-school teacher.) "The Three Robbers," an Ungerer picture book, begins in an unusual spot. The titular robbers have a standard routine: They have a blunderbuss, an axe, and a pepper-sprayer, and they use these tools to terrorize wealthy villagers. (It's weird to have these people as protagonists in a children's book.) In the Ordinary World of the robbers, an axe is great for immobilizing a carriage, a pepper-sprayer ensures that the horses are temporarily blinded, and a blunderbuss ...