And Now for Something Totally Different

Today was library day.  My usual routine goes something like this.  We march into the library and I herd my brood straight to the library’s bookstore, The Booknook.  After settling the continual dispute of which of my 3 children will sit in the only 2 kiddie chairs there, I rummage through the children’s section while keeping a watchful eye on my two-year old who often seems compelled to smack the vertical blinds that are stacked next to the kiddie table.  I rejoice in my finds, soon cringe to discover that I don’t have enough change to pay for all of them, and settle for our favorites.

Then we visit the new acquisitions area, where I keep a watchful eye on my 2-year old, who now seems compelled to pull out the nearby DVDs and open them to finger the shiny disks inside and my other two who quickly grow impatient standing in front of a shelf with only a few books.  

From there it’s onward to the main children’s book area (where my oldest 2 are already heading), where I can relax my watch, to some degree, as the kids are all eager to run to the toys at the far corner of the room.  It’s here that my day today differed from my other visits. 

You see, on most days, I pull books out from the picture book stacks mostly at random.  I guess I grab whatever catches my eye.  Foremost, the illustrations have to be pleasing, the story can’t be too scary, nor can the illustrations.  I flip through the book to get the general feel of the story.  Sometimes I look for more books by an author or illustrator I’ve recently read and enjoyed.  But today was different.

Today I had a list.  And I’ve never before had a children’s books list.

On that list were 8 authors and titles that I’ve recently read about online.  I could spend all night, every night, just reading Jules’ amazing blog, Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast.  It’s such a wonderful site full of reviews, interviews, and whole spreads from the interior of children’s picture books.  You can even click on many book illustrations to enlarge.  Yum!  

What surprised me today was to realize that many of those books, the ones on my list, were ones that I had previously overlooked.  Glanced at, picked up — flipped through even — and then put back on the shelf.  Well today I was going to check them out anyway and read them.  All these books on my list were given stupendous praise, won awards — one even got a Caldecott.  I rejoined my random picking out books that looked nice after I finished searching for those titles.  

I located five of the books on my list.  And did I enjoy them once we arrived home, put the little one to nap, and devoured them properly, one after another?  Well..they were all acceptable reading material.  That sounds like I’m really dissing them.  I’m not.  By acceptable,  I mean they were pleasant to read aloud with the kids and they all had pleasant illustrations.  One was even the best retelling of Rumpelstiltskin I’ve probably ever read.  But do you know that feeling you get when someone praises something to the skies and then you try it out yourself?  Like, yeah, it’s good, but am I missing something?  Maybe if I hadn’t been expecting a masterpiece, I could have been less critical.  In any event, for better or worse, my favorite books that we brought home today were not the ones on my list!