Doreen Kronin and Betsy Lewin

Children's books are important. They are on the front lines of establishing the yen for books that hopefully continues later in life. Yet, until I started buying children's books for my cousins' kids, I didn't pick them up much except for morning reads at a New York City Public School.

The morning reads taught me that the charming cartoon Arthur reigned supreme in children's minds. On this I held common ground with the children: I found Arthur totally entertaining. If I was a house husband, I would set aside time for Arthur.

It is possible, though, to reach a child without the assistance of a children's program. It certainly happened for me. Where the Wild Things Are, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, and Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day were all satisfying on many levels: illustration, story arc, humor, fears, and imagination. They created kids-sized worlds that I could enter into again and again.

(Also, I was, and am still, a big eater, so "Cloudy" with its promises of literal manna from heaven was my Shangri-la).

An author/illustrator team working hard these days is Betsy Lewin and Doreen Cronin. They have several elements that come together, time and again in their books. If you're looking for a new book for a child, I suggest checking them out.

The illustration is watercolor, but the one detail they never neglect are the eyes: sympathetic, simple, cartoonish. And they're always looking at you from the page. Children should connect with as many faces as possible, whether in a book or in real life. The stories revolve around farm animals who can be petty, selfish, and sneaky. Sneakiness especially is child's play, it says, what can I get away with? I think these books play this to great effect. In some sense, the modern child needs to always ask what he can get away with because he needs to have that latitude of mind when he's older.

Just as important, Doreen and Betsy don't fall into traps that could discount their worth. They don't proselytize, which is very important to me. Though kids deal with kids issues, they have a sense of when adults are trying to sell them snake oil. (FYI, note to adults, all adult issues are snake oil to children). Doreen and Betsy don't truck in diversity, "democratic values," conservation, and family values. Since when did kids have problems with this stuff anyways?

To elaborate a bit, when I was six years old, I was sent to a day camp. I was one of three white children and all the other kids were black. I never, never thought about it until my mom asked me if I was okay going to camp and being different from those kids. To me, they were kids. To her, they were black kids. My mom is not racist, but she came from a segregated world. So, when I state that children's books don't need to deal with adults issues, I mean that children should be young enough not to have developed the dysfunctions that are propogated in an adult society.

In addition, their books are not abstract, which is something that can totally lose a child. See Spot. See Spot Run. This book was created out of declarative sentences describing concrete actions and has split more children and adults than any other. Adults think it's asinine, children find pleasure in it as if it were Song of Myself (and my dog). The point is, if the child is holding a book, the adult should be satisfied.

What kids books have you seen recently that you like? Which kids books seem to appease adults more than kids? (After all, the adult is buying it or checking it out of the library).