David Ezra Stein Blog Tour: Day 8

Knock. knock. Who's there? Interrupting chicken. Interrup— bok! bok! Interrupting Chicken, the picture book!

Welcome "bok!" to this fun 9-day tour to promote Stein's comical new book, inspired by the classic interrupting animal joke.

Some of you know this joke as the interrupting cow joke, but alas, cows don't have poofed-up combs or fuss about going to bed  -- all qualities that make the chicken in this book so charming.

Stein, who won the 2008 Ezra Jack Keats New Author Award for his picture book Leaves about a little bear who tries to reattach fallen leaves to a tree, is also the author-illustrator of Pouch!, The Nice Book and Cowboy Ned & Andy.

I hope you enjoy my review, then check out my chat with Stein and click links to other great blogs on the tour.

Interrupting Chicken

Written & illustrated by David Ezra Stein

Candlewick Press, 2010

$16.99, ages 4-8, 40 pages

A pert little chicken cuts into her papa's bedtime stories, then gets a taste for how it feels to be interrupted while reading aloud in this adorable picture book.

The little red chicken doesn't mean to be a bother, but whenever Papa gets to a part where something really bad is about to happen, the little red chicken can't help herself and clucks out warnings to characters.

Jumping onto the pages of Papa's fairy tale book, she first warns Hansel and Gretel not to go into the witch's candy house and later yells in Little Red Riding's face, "Don't talk to strangers!" just as the big bad wolf is about to lure her off the path.

Each time she interrupts, the story screeches to a halt and the little red chicken flashes Papa a big, sweet smile and promises if he'd just read one more little story, she'd definitely be good.

My Chat with David Ezra Stein

Jenny. Many of us at one time or another blurt things out while someone else is speaking, which can be annoying but also the source of a lot of humor -- the Interrupting Cow knock knock joke, for example, never seems to get old. What drew you to this subject and why did you know it would be funny not only to children but adults?

David. I come from a family where folks get really excited about ideas and sometimes all want to express themselves at once. So that experience is definitely in the book. :)

The real seed of this book was, I'd heard the interrupting chicken joke and thought it was funny, and I wondered, "Who is this chicken anyway? Why does it interrupt?" There was a character there waiting to be discovered.

I'm glad I heard it with a chicken first, not a cow, because chickens are funnier than cows. Moos are funny sounding, but the word cow is not that funny. The word chicken is instant comedy in and of itself!

I knew the book would be funny to a wide audience because parents can relate to the dad's growing frustration with Chicken's interruptions, and kids can relate to the exuberance of the chicken, who knows how she should be acting, but can't help herself. She loves stories too much! And she can't stand idly by while the characters in the bedtime stories get into a jam.

Jenny. I love the way the combs on the little red chicken and her papa look like bouffant hair-dos and the waffles resemble handlebar moustaches. What is it about poultry that cracks you up and is any animal as funny as a chicken? If so, which one and why does it make you laugh?

David. The chicken is the king (or queen) of comedy. (See #1 above.) The clucking, the feathers, the way they cock their heads… I would be ruining it by delving too deeply into the "why". They just are!

The Humblebee Hunter

By Deborah Hopkinson, pictures by Jen Corace

Disney-Hyperion Books, 2010

$16.99, ages 4-8, 32 pages

Any child who's ever hunkered down to watch a worm crawl or mixed water with mud and grass to see what she'd get will think Henrietta Darwin's childhood was idyllic after reading this fictionalized account.

Growing up the daughter of one of the most inquisitive naturalists ever to live, the father of natural selection Charles Darwin, "Etty," as her family called her, loved to be with her father as he examined the natural world.

Etty and her siblings often gathered around his feet to hear stories about the mischief he'd get into as a child -- like when he tried to catch three beetles and made the mistake of putting one in his mouth since his hands were full.

But more than anything, Etty adored his stories of observation and imagined traveling with him to the Galapagos Islands, feeling the bony shell of a giant tortoise or giggling at the courtship of the blue-footed booby, in which the male seabird puffs himself up and stamps his turquoise feet like a silly clown.

Mr. Peek and the Misunderstanding at the Zoo

Written and illustrated by Kevin Waldron

Templar Books, 2010

$15.99, ages 4-8, 48 pages

When Mr. Peek, the zookeeper, wakes up to find he can barely button his jacket, the zoo animals overhear him grousing about his bulging belly and think he's chiding them in this funny story about the folly of jumping to assumptions.

Setting off a chain of misunderstandings that only a mischievous boy can sort out, Mr. Peek begins his day thinking his green jacket, the one that makes him feel important, is much too snug and assumes it's because he's grown fat overnight.

Though only one button pops off when he puts the jacket on, Mr. Peek is baffled by the weight gain and grumbles about it as he goes about his job feeding and caring for the animals, each time getting more and more worked up.

At first Mr. Peek chides himself for being too plump, then his sour disposition gets the better of him, and he sees all sorts of bad things coming his way. Soon he's paranoid his bosses will see his expanding waistline and say he's too old to do his job.

All the while the animals think Mr. Peek is talking to them and they're becoming very glum. Mr. Peek, of course, is so busy wallowing in self-pity that he has no idea that his remarks are being misconstrued.

By the time Mr. Peek is in front of the monkeys, he's muttering to himself that he's a pariah. "Everyone's out to get you!" he declares, unaware that all of the monkeys behind him are bugging out their eyes with worry that they're no longer liked.

But what is Mr. Peek's son Jimmy doing giggling behind a tree in the monkey playpen and why is his jacket dragging on the ground?

What makes this book so fun is how absent-mindedly Mr. Peek goes about his day. He's oblivious not only to how irrational he's being (to think he can outgrow a jacket overnight), but to how harmful his words of self-reproach are to the animals and himself.

The instant I saw this book, with its nostalgic illustrations, I was transported back to my favorite Golden Books by Alice and Martin Provensen and Aurelius Battaglia, illustrators whose simple, uncluttered style, flat blocks of color and brilliant silhouettes enveloped me in innocence.

Whimsical and witty, Waldron's debut is a clever twist on the idiom, "much ado about nothing." By book's end, readers get one more big giggle and leave with a lasting lesson not to leap to conclusions.

The Heart and the Bottle

Written and illustrated by Oliver Jeffers

Philomel Books, 2010

$17.99, ages 4 and up, 32 pages

When the one person who understands her most passes away, a girl closes her heart up in a bottle so it can't be hurt anymore, only to realize years later that life is too empty without it.

As you read Jeffers's amazing story, you feel the girl's heart filling with joy, then draining with sadness and finally finding solace as she navigates through the pain of loss to find a way to start over.

Achingly beautiful and a must for any child or adult confronting grief, the story opens with the girl at the happiest she can be, devouring every magical thing about life, and sharing her excitement with an aging man who we assume is her grandpa.

The man with the cane is always available to her, watching patiently as she marvels at a flower in the woods and listening as she explodes with thoughts of swimming with a whale or wonders aloud whether a boat could slide off the earth into the universe.

On one page, the man sits in his big armchair, fielding the questions that seem to burst out of her, and on another, he lays beside her under a canopy of stars, pointing to the big dipper as the girl imagines a shooting star is a flaming bee streaking across the sky.

At times, no words pass between them. They just are -- the man in a row boat and the girl floating nearby on her back in the water, taking in the wonders around them.

Then one day, the girl draws a picture of the whale she longs to swim with and races over to the big chair to share it with the man, but the chair is empty.

There is a permanence to the emptiness and she knows the man has passed away.

The girl sits motionless, staring at the chair as the sky outside fades to night and only a stream of moonlight fills the room. The picture lays forgotten on the floor behind her.

Unsure of how to go on, the girl withdraws within herself, closing her heart up in a bottle to keep it safe.

Though her heart is never far from her (the bottle hangs around her neck), it is far enough that she doesn't have to feel anything and for awhile this seems to work for her.

But in truth the girl has lost more than she realizes.

Now grown, she no longer notices the stars or the sea, or much of anything except the bottle, which has grown heavy and awkward around her neck. Yet she accepts the burden because she thinks her heart is safe.

Then one day the woman happens along a little girl on the beach building a castle out of sand. The little girl wonders aloud if an elephant could swim in the sea and suddenly it occurs to the woman what she must do.

Jeffers's book pulls you in, but never overwhelms you with sadness; it leaves you feeling that you too can get through the worst and continue on.

His art style, so spare and gentle, tempers the sorrow that unfolds, while the symbolism in the book resonates -- the empty chair in a darkening room, the bottle that protects the girl's heart from being hurt anymore.

Jeffers seems to want us to know from the very start that this is a book for everyone, describing the girl as being "much like any other" on the first page.

A good companion to Michael Rosen and Quentin Blake's Sad Book, The Heart and the Bottle is for anyone who has felt the loss of someone dear and anyone who has yet to feel grief but may need help one day finding her way back.

Don't miss the book trailer below of Jeffers talking about his artwork, previous books and the origins of The Heart and the Bottle, which will be featured in the independent film This Beautiful Fantastic, scheduled to begin filming this year.

Other wonderful books by Jeffers include The Way Back Home, The Incredible Book Eating Boy and Lost and Found.

Wendel's Workshop

Written and illustrated by Chris Riddell

Katherine Tegen Books, 2010

$16.99, ages 4-8, 32 pages

Wendel the inventor gets so distracted making devices that he doesn't think about all of the stuff he throws away in this clever book about reusing what you have even if it's less than perfect.

When one of Wendel's inventions has a glitch, the eccentric mouse scoots it to the back of his workshop or dumps it through a chute, jettisoning it to the scrap yard outside. And for a time, the rubbish is easy to ignore.

But one day, the mountains of scrap metal begin to close in on Wendel and he can no longer avoid all of the springs, levers and bolts piling up in his workshop. So Wendell sets to work building a robot to deal with the mess for him.

As with many first tries, his robot, Clunk, isn't quite right. The thing is, he's a goof. Instead of folding clothes, he knots them. Rather than stacking teacups in the cupboard, he tosses them in a sock drawer. And when he washes floors he scrubs with the wrong end of the mop.

So, of course, Wendel reverts to what he's always done. He gets rid of his failed invention, tossing the ungainly Clunk through the rubbish chute. Poor Clunk. He is after all a well-meaning galoot.

Being an inventor, the wheels in Wendel's head continue to spin and right away he sets off to contrive a bigger, better robot. This one doesn't have Clunk's goofy grin and looks like an imperial metal mouse. His ears are made of satellite dishes, his eyes glow red and Wendell names him "Wendelbot."

But Wendelbot works a little too perfectly. He crushes Wendel's dirty teacups into a neat pile of powder, flattens the laundry basket and suddenly he's chasing down Wendel and dropping him from his tail into the chute. (To be fair, Wendel is looking a little disheveled -- his hair is tousled and his overalls droop.)

Wendel lands at the tip-top of the scrap heap outside, dazed by his predicament, but soon he's roused by the sound of Clunk climbing around in the junk pile. Grabbing Clunk's skinny metal leg, Wendel hugs him will all of his might.

As the sounds of Wendelbot bashing about grow louder, Wendel turns to Clunk to help him stop the giant robo mouse. But what use could all of this rubble in the yard be to Wendel?

Riddell's illustrations are always so energetic and imaginative that even before you open his books, you know you're in for a treat. And this one is no exception. It's quirky, lively and fun, and on top of that it teaches two great lessons:

Whenever possible, find new uses for things you ordinarily throw away, and keep plugging away at whatever you like to do, even if it doesn't quite work at first and needs adjustments along the way.

I loved that Riddell chose a mouse for the part of Wendel, given that mice are such inquisitive busy-bodies and that he poked fun at the stereotype of inventors as dogged recluses that insist their contraptions will make life easier.

And as always, I was taken in by Riddell's whimsical illustrations -- I can't think of a better artist to contrive robots. I loved that my 6-year-old son carried this book around with him all day, drawing his own version of mechanical guys with plunger legs and articulated steel fingers.

As a side note, if you ever have a chance to go to a Riddell book signing, bring your kids. He's a generous illustrator and will often draw quick pen sketches of his characters for kids to take home. All three of our boys have framed their's and are bursting to draw like their buddy Chris.

Cloud Tea Monkeys

By Mal Peet and Elspeth Graham, Illustrated by Juan Wijngaard

Candlewick, 2010

$15.99, ages 4-8, 56 pages

When a farmer forbids Tashi from taking her sick mother's place in the tea fields, a troop of monkeys brings the peasant girl the most exquisite tea in the land in this breathtaking Chinese fable about extending the hand of kindness.

Every morning before sunrise a barefoot Tashi tags along with her mother, aunt and a woman friend as they carry baskets larger than Tashi down the hill to the tea plantation and labor under the watch of a critical Overseer.

Tashi, who is only slightly taller than her mother's waist, is too young to pick tea and amuses herself while they work under the shade of a tree, sharing fruit from her lunch bag with a family of monkeys that has been chased from the plantation by the Overseer.

One day, Tashi's mother becomes too ill to go to work and Tashi tries to fill in for her picking tea leaves so she can pay a doctor to make her well, but the Overseer berates her for trying and kicks over her basket.

Then Tashi's aunt, too fearful of losing her job, turns her back on Tashi.

Feeling alone and helpless, Tashi runs crying to the tree, as the monkeys circle around her, coming closer than they ever have before.

With no one else to turn to, she shares what has happened with the monkeys. But her sorrow only grows when a few of the adult monkeys grab her empty basket and run away with it up the mountains.

Too upset to cry out, Tashi curls up with the youngest monkeys and falls asleep, only to be awakened by a loud chatter. The adult monkeys have returned with her basket filled to the top with sprigs of the most magical mist-washed tea.

Thinking she might have another chance with the Overseer, Tashi drags the basket back to the farm, only to stop in her tracks when she sees the Empress's Royal Tea Tester, who has come to the plantation in search of the finest teas.

When the tea tester tastes Tashi's tea, he's amazed that such a small girl could pick such exquisite "cloud" tea -- the tea can only be found in high, dangerous parts of the mountains -- and makes her an offer she can't refuse.

Peet and Graham set up the story so beautifully that you come away from this gentle tale feeling as though you've walked in Tashi's shoes, while Wijngaard's artwork is stunning.

He envelops you in subtle changes in light, especially as the sun rises, and paints the facial expressions of characters so vividly that you feel as though you can see into their character.

Making Sense of the Gods: Five Fun Myth Books

Young Zeus

By G. Brian Karas

Scholastic Press, 2010

$17.99, ages 4-18, 48 pages

Encyclopedia Mythologica:
Gods & Heroes

By Matthew Reinhart and Robert Sabuda

Candlewick Press, 2010

$29.99, ages 9-12, 12 pages

Mythical gods may not rank up there with wizards and vampires as your child's favorite characters -- and not surprisingly. With so many duking it out for control over the universe, it's enough to make your child's head spin.

But when you think about how often myths pop up in children's books -- from Chris Van Allsburg's The Wreck of the Zephyr to Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson and the Olympians series -- it's hard not to want to nudge your child to learn the basics.

Just knowing a little about the gods, heroes and beasts of Greek, Roman and Nordic mythology can enrich your child's reading experience -- and ideally, give them insight into some of the books they already love to read.

The challenge, of course, is finding mythology books that are interesting enough to draw readers away from their usual selections and brush up on who's who.

Fortunately there are some really great books that bring levity, clarity and a lot fun to the subject.

One of my new favorites is Karas's Young Zeus -- a perfect picture book to introduce young readers to the Greek gods' family tree. Karas retells the story of the chief deity in such a playful way its seems more like a fairy tale than an ancient legend.

The book opens with the queen of heaven Rhea whisking her baby son Zeus out of harm's way to the island of Crete. Fearing that Zeus's sinister father, the Titan Cronus, will eat Zeus if he discovers his son is still alive, Rhea asks an enchanted she-goat Amaltheia to keep Zeus hidden until he's grown.

Though Zeus is happy playing in the golden sun with all of the beasts and birds of Crete, he misses playing with other gods, and asks "Ammy" (Amaltheia) why he's all alone. Like all Greek mythology, it's complicated, but Ammy manages to give Zeus a good run-through of the quarrels that led to his dilemma.

First, of course, was the marital discord between his grandparents the sky god Uranus and earth god Gaia -- Uranus loved twelve of his children, the Titans, but was so ashamed of the six who were monsters that he locked them away in the underworld against his wife's wishes.

Then there's that louse Cronos, who was asked by his mother Gaia to dethrone Uranus and free his six monster siblings, but instead left them in the underworld to suffer. He was so power-hungry that he eventually gobbled up all of his children (except Zeus of course) for fear they might overthrow him.

Little did Cronos know, however, that when he began to eat his kids, his wife Rhea wrapped a rock up in a blanket to look like Zeus, and stole Zeus away to safety, which brings Ammy to the end of her story -- and the beginning of Zeus's legendary fight for justice.

On the next pages, Zeus embarks on a quest to free his siblings, the other Olympians, from his father's stomach and together with the help of his uncles in the underworld, defeat Cronos and his other sons, the wicked Titans.

Karas brings humor and magic to this tale, depicting scenes as I child might imagine them. There's mother Rhea sweeping down like a storm cloud with baby Zeus, then a young Zeus, nearly as tall as the tree he's sitting by, moping with his head in his hands because he doesn't have any gods to play with.

Another splendid new release is Reinhart and Sabuda's Encyclopedia Mythologica: Gods & Heroes, an overview of ancient myths with intricate pop-ups no child can resist.

On one page Thor, the Nordic sky god, pops out at readers with a magical hammer over his head while on another an Aztec serpent flies toward them with its jaws open. (Just be sure to open and close each spread slowly. Some pop-ups have to be guided closed to prevent elements from overlapping and ripping.)

Watch a book trailer of the pop-up below!

You also can't go wrong with the 2007 Mythology and the 2009 followup The Mythology Handbook: An Introduction to the Greek Myths, both part of Candlewick's "Ology" series.

Mythology, the scrapbook of fictional nineteenth century scholar Lady Hestia Evans, includes fun pull-out parts and flaps, and curiosities. including a card game featuring the 12 Olympians. The Mythology Handbook, a workbook of lessons for Hestia's two children, includes mazes, a word search using Greek letters, stickers, fact files and maps.

Another wonderful book is Eric A. Kimmel and Pep Montserrat's The McElderry Book of Greek Myths, a 2008 release from Margaret K. McElderry. Perfect for bedside reading, the anthology brings to life 12 myths (among them Pandora's Box and the story of Pygmalion) with richly colored images that meander around the text.

The Purple Kangaroo

by Michael Ian Black, illustrated by Peter Brown

Simon & Schuster, 2010

$16.99, ages 4-8, 32 pages

In this goofy fun book by Comedy Central comedian Black, a monkey claims to be a mind-reader and tricks readers into thinking exactly what he wants them to.

When readers first meet the monkey, he appears be running a lemonade stand. But then he starts talking about reading their minds and it's clear he isn't selling drinks.

What this long-tailed wiseacre is "selling" is a joke, but first he's got to set it up and give readers a good mental image, in this case one so vivid that it will seem like their own.

The monkey, a slick fellow with a perma press smile, opens his routine using the element of surprise.

Hidden behind the lemonade stand, he calls out, "Hey Kid!… I can read minds. It's true. In fact, I can read YOUR mind."

Then he pops up from behind the stand, and slides a "Mind Reader" sign over the one reading "Lemonade" on the stand.

(Clearly this is a bit the monkey's done before.)

Next, he asks readers to think of something "so spectacular that nobody has ever thought of it in the entire history of thinking about things."

He plugs his ears and asks readers to say their thought out loud, assuring them that he can't hear anything they say.

After all, "I'm just a picture in a book."

Next, readers witness the monkey's "unusual, incredible, amazing, and slightly alarming magical powers" (his eyes spiral), as he makes a wild guess at what they're thinking.

"You were thinking about a purple kangaroo!" he exclaims.

Of course that wasn't what readers were thinking about and the monkey, like any smooth-talker, has already thought of what to say before readers can reply.

Pretending he needs to jar their memory of the kangaroo, the monkey launches into a succession of absurd details about the kangaroo.

You remember, he says emphatically,...

The monkey who was looking for his chinchilla friend Senor Ernesto de Pantalones while roller skating and juggling five fragrant bananas?

The one who blew an enormous bubble of rainbow gum out of his nose and was showered with gold coins for his feat?

The one who then used the money to hire a rhino to fly him in a paisley blimp into the stratosphere so he could search for his friend?

The one who found his friend waving a flag on the moon?

Well, he adds with a fit of laughter, you're thinking about it now!

A goof at heart, Black uses the craft of joke-telling, adds in a bit of absurdity and creates a book too silly to resist.

Black co-stars with Michael Showalter in Comedy Central's "Michael & Michael Have Issues."

Don't miss the hilarious video below of Black reading his book!

Kiss Kiss

Written and illustrated by Selma Mandine, translated by Michelle Williams

Golden Books/Random House, 2009

$9.99, ages 4-8, 32 pages

Ordinarily you wouldn't expect a hardback book to look snuggly, especially one that doesn't have touch-and-feel panels. But Kiss Kiss sure makes you want to nestle up inside of it.

In Kiss Kiss, French author-illustrator Mandine turns the familiar premise, what kisses feel like, into something fresh and irresistible.

Each picture evokes a softness beyond what you'd expect from a book page and leaves you wishing you could feel everything you see.

The Golden Book opens with a rosy-nosed boy in a yellow hooded sleeper asking his pudgy stuffed bear if he knows what a kiss is like.

Then with every page the little boy describes each kiss that he knows.

First it's Mommy's super soft kiss. As Mommy and the boy embrace, his hood becomes a wig of the softest wool and you see heart-shaped clouds float away, carrying the bear and the boy's toy chick blissfully with them.

Daddy's kiss isn't so soft with all of those prickly whiskers on his chin, but it doesn't hurt. It tickles.

As Daddy and the boy giggle in each other's arms, his hood resembles the outside of a cactus, while in the distance his toy alligator sits upright like a saguaro, with the chick perched on its head.

In the next pages, you see Grandpa's kiss turn into strands of cotton candy as his beard envelops the boy in sweet softness, and watch Grandma blowing noisy kisses that transform the boy into a pink musical note.

There is the kiss the boy can see, the chocolate one from little brother Christopher, who forgets to wipe his mouth; the one that makes him blush, from a girl with a polka dot red hoodie; and the sloppy one from his dog that sprays heart-shaped droplets all over his face.

Remembering how much he is loved, the boy beams with happiness, but does Bear really understand what makes a kiss?

Bear, whose stitches are loose from so much cuddling with the boy, isn't so sure he does, but tries to make one anyway.

On the last pages readers find Bear puckering up to them and a sentence for them to finish: "A kiss for …"

Mandine's illustrations are soft and dreamy like those of Italian illustrator Nicoletta Ceccoli (Oscar and the Mooncats, The Girl in the Castle Inside the Museum), and have a sweet silliness that will endear children immediately.

I can't think of a sweeter story to read tonight after my child pulls up his covers.

Rose's Garden

By Peter H. Reynolds

Candlewick Press, 2009

$15.99, all ages, 40 pages

Standing astride a giant floating teapot, a girl named Rose sails the world gathering seeds for a city garden in this uplifting tribute to the late Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy.

The girl, with her long jacket trailing behind and her head held high, echoes the spirit of the Kennedy matriarch -- her steely determination, exuberance and desire to increase the well-being of others -- as she pulls together a community to grow a garden.

The garden is both a metaphor for faith and symbolic of a mile-long ribbon of parks and public spaces in Boston inspired by Kennedy's life, the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway, which officially opened in 2008, 13 years after her death at age 104.

In Reynolds' story, Rose is steadfast and sure, and drifts from place to place until her teapot, an ornate vessel the length of a large rowboat, is brimming with seeds of all kinds and she wanders into the port of a bustling city to look for a site for her garden.

From his lighthouse window, the harbormaster suggests Rose float upriver to where it's lovely, but Rose wants to search the city first.

There she finds a forgotten stretch of earth between two walls of buildings -- a barren plot similar to areas transformed into the Kennedy greenway -- and decides this is the place that needs her seeds the most.

But the garden doesn't come easily for Rose. As she's working the soil, a flock of birds swoops down on the teapot and the birds eat most of the seeds.

(The greenway too was slowed by obstacles, many related to the rerouting of Boston's overpass, the Central Artery. Room for parks became available as the artery was moved underground.)

Rose is startled, but she sees how full and happy the birds seem and realizes all is not lost. So she slips into the teapot to gather the few seeds that are left, determined to make the most of what she has.

Parents may be reminded of Kennedy's famous quote about her own resilience after tragedy, including the assassinations of sons, President John Kennedy and Senator Robert Kennedy:

"Birds sing after a storm; why shouldn't people feel as free to delight in whatever sunlight remains to them?"

Just like moving on in real-life, however, the seeds don't take quickly to the cityscape. Seasons pass without signs of life in the garden, with each season exacting its severity on the land.

Yet Rose doesn't give up and soon word of her faith spreads through the city.

Children from all over the city go to the empty plot to meet Rose and deliver her flowers they've made from paper. Like the seeds she's tried to spread, they share stories of their journeys to the city and together, become a community.

In a similar way, the greenway reunited the neighborhoods of Boston, connecting four park areas from the North End to Chinatown. Each park now celebrates the neighborhood it passes through and the city's history as a whole.

At the sight of all of the paper flowers arranged in the soil, Rose's heart brims. An entire city has pulled together. Then she wades through the sea of blossoms and a miracle unfolds.

She hears a bee and follows the buzzing to a real red rose bursting out of the paper garden, the first of many flowers sprouting to life.

At his mother's funeral in 1995, the late Sen. Edward Kennedy spoke of an inner strength that radiated from his mother's life, and thanks to Reynolds' tender tribute, we feel it once more.

Reynolds, a New York Times best-selling illustrator, is also author of So Few of Me, The North Star, The Dot and Ish.

To watch a "Telefable" version of the story, go to www.rosekennedygreenway.org/programs/telefable.

The Christmas Magic

Written by Lauren Thompson and illustrated by Jon J. Muth

Scholastic Press, 2009

$16.99, ages 4-8, 40 pages

In the days leading up to Christmas, children love to imagine what Santa is doing.

To them, he's as mysterious as he is nice. They sit on his lap at the mall, but rarely get to ask what it's like to be the jolliest man on earth.

In this spellbinding collaboration, Thompson (author of the award-winning Polar Bear Night) and Muth (author-illustrator of the Caldecott Honor book Zen Shorts) give Santa's fans a rare glimpse into the hours leading up to Christmas.

As we expect, the friendly old man in the red suit has much to do at the North Pole, however Santa isn't racing around his workshop, looking harried. He's calm and reflective, soaking in every magical moment before he comes to town.

In a little yellow house with a red door, far removed from the bustle of cities, we find Santa standing in front of a picture window with a wondrous look in his eyes as a tingling sensation moves through his whiskers.

He has bunny slippers on his feet and a comfy apron over his wide tummy, and he's pausing to gaze out the window at his reindeer and watch the setting sun turn the undersides of clouds an orange-pink.

It's time to slip on his floppy red hat with a giant star at the tip, step outside with his littlest reindeer, a smiley fellow that follows him like a puppy, and call to the older reindeer to prepare for flight.

"Come along home now," he says through a blow horn. "The magic will be here soon."

In the barn Santa brushes burs off the shaggy coats of his reindeer and feeds them berries and parsnips from his hand, before swinging open a giant door to reveal his big red sleigh.

After polishing the sleigh's metal sides, he buffs the bells on the harness until they jingle, then goes to house, where he oils his boots, darns his socks, combs his beard and gives his mustache one last trim as a kitten watches from his shoulder.

Now it's time to climb the stairs to the attic where all of the toys are kept. Santa runs his fingertips over every entry in his big book of names and smiles. He knows exactly which toy each child dreams of most.

Soon his sack is bulging and he climbs to the top of the bag and cinches it closed.

Outside in the night, the stars twinkle brighter than ever and the moon reflects on the bark of trees. Santa stands on his sleigh, his body slack as if humbled by a greater power, and looks upward to the sky for a sign.

All at once, his whiskers tingle and the night begins to thrum with magic. Santa takes his seat and with a shake of his reins, the reindeer dash off with the sleigh as fluffy snowflakes swirl around in the dark sky.

Everyone knows how rushed the days can be leading up to Christmas. Here's a magical book that will put the brakes on all the stress and help children revel in the wonder of it all.