William SteigCritiques

**Found in the 20th Century Children's Book Treasury**

This is so heartbreaking and heartwarming and lovely.

This is a charming book about winter, family, and responsibility.
To hear a see a read-aloud by Al Gore, click the link here:
https://storylineonline.net/books/brave-irene/

I wonder what Steig fans at the time this was published thought. One of the volumes contained in this compilation is "Small Fry," a group of classic The New Yorker cartoons, which it's fun to see, but the rest are, frankly, boring abstract drawings. Give this book a hard pass.½

A classic story of gratitude.

1970 Caldecott Medal winner; lovely art and great story

This is a bizarre story with a wonderful moment in it:

"Sometimes the world looked so beautiful he felt satisfied just being a tiny part of it, even embedded in wood."

Independent Reading Level: PreK-1
Awards: Publishers Weekly Best Children's Books of the Year.
New York Times Book Review Best Illustrated Books of the Year.
Horn Book Magazine Fanfare List.
NYT Best Illustrated BOTY.
Booklist Editors' Choice.
Publishers Weekly Best Books of the Year.

On a rainy day, Sylvester finds a magic pebble that can make wishes come true. But when a lion frightens him on his way home, Sylvester makes a wish that brings unexpected results.
How Sylvester is eventually reunited with his loving family and restored to his true self makes a story that is beautifully tender and filled with magic.

Brave Irene is Irene Bobbin, the dressmaker's daughter. Her mother, Mrs. Bobbin, isn't feeling so well and can't possibly deliver the beautiful ball gown she's made for the duchess to wear that very evening. So plucky Irene volunteers to get the gown to the palace on time, in spite of the fierce snowstorm that's brewing-- quite an errand for a little girl.

But where there's a will, there's a way, as Irene proves in the danger-fraught adventure that follows. She must defy the wiles of the wicked wind, her most formidable opponent, and overcome many obstacles before she completes her mission.

2023 - 1970’s Immersion Reading Challenge

Abel’s Island by William Steig (1976) 119 pages.

READING LEVEL 5.9 AR POINTS 3.0
(Ages 8-12 years, Grades 3-7)

3.5 stars rounded up - A cute little mouse survival story. Abel gets swept away from his love, Amanda, and gets stranded on a little island. As he is from wealth and had never worked before in his life, living a plush life of comfort, so he had some hard lessons to learn, living alone on the island. After numerous attempts, trying different ways to get across the little stream and failing, he realizes he will be there for a while. But, he never gives up and eventually, one year later, he musters up some courage and crosses the stream. He then faces other dangers before finally returning home to his love…at 89 Bank Street, Mossville.

I think it could have been more of an adventure story that boys would enjoy more if Abel wasn’t so fixated on his love, Amanda.

- Available to read FREE at Internet Archive:

https://archive.org/search.php?query=Abel’s island

There's a donkey and a dragon, a guarded princess, but the movie was a lot better and spared me the doggerel.½

A gentle, contemplative retelling of Robinson Caruso with a mouse protagonist. Swept away by wind and flood from a happy outing with his wife, Able has to fend for himself when he cannot escape an island in a river and keep himself safe from an owl and the winter.

A girl is trying to deliver a gift through the snow.

Sylvester finds himself a magic pebble, imagine the excitement. It quickly lands him in trouble, and it takes the love of his family to get him out of it. Sylvester and the Magic Pebble is a Caldecott Award winner. The pictures and story are simple but sweet. They teach us to be content with what we have. That is what Sylvester, and his parents learn. It is a bit of a cautionary tale to be careful what you wish for. The book won not only the Caldecott Medal in 1970 but also was a finalist for the National Book Award and received a Lewis Carroll Shelf Award. It was made into an animated movie in 1993.

Pass on this if your family prefers to avoid magic.

This book is a good one for exploring pride, disobedience, natural (or perhaps unnatural) consequences, sibling relationships, caring for others and good/bad decisions.

Mx asked for this multiple times in a row. Its about a dentist.

Genre
Realistic fiction
Theme
Handling bad moods
Subject
Bad days
Caring
Familial love
Family recreation
Family relationships
Fathers and sons
Games
Indoor games
Kindness
Loyalty
P (The letter)
Parent and child
Pizza
Play
Pretending
Rainy days

fair

I AM CRYING TEARS OF JOY, PAIN, AND HILARITY. Best kid's book ever. It reads like a giant shitpost and I LOVE IT.

A wonderful story about family ties with Steig's delightful artwork.

Neither snow, nor snow, nor more snow, nor hella snow shall keep the dressmaker's daughter from delivering a commissioned gown. It's a slow slog for Irene and me both.

I thoroughly enjoyed this story. It is done in such a masterful way that even though it is a bit long, it sails by. Pearl is a young pig still in school. On a bight sunny day, she takes a picnic and finds a bone that once fell out of a witch’s basket. This amazing bone could talk. It was very helpful in scaring away the robbers that attacked with knives and guns. But the Fox was smart. He saw the bone and how amazing it was. He wanted it for himself and Pearl for dinner. Literally! A pignapping happens, but the bone still saves the day. This book is heavily banned. The reasons range from witchcraft and the occult to violence and kidnapping. I get why parents complain, this book is a bit more macabre wrapped in pretty paper than stories are now. But the story is lovely. It’s a folk tale that could be told again and again and again and kids would be on the edge of their seat every single time.½

When Spinky’s family hurts his feelings, he heads outside to sulk. His sister, Willamina, and his brother, Hitch, try to apologize, but Spinky is too busy sulking to care.

Despite all of the family’s efforts to get Spinky to end his outdoor sulk-fest, Spinky remains stubbornly disappointed in his family.

What will happen? Will Spinky continue to sulk or will he forgive his family?

=========

Young readers will be able to see both sides of the matter in this interesting tale. Yes, children’s feelings can be hurt, and, yes, they even sulk. But by showing Spinky’s reluctance to forgive his family, even after they’ve made multiple attempts to apologize, the young reader will recognize the need for everyone to have understanding . . . and to be forgiving.

Colorful pictures accompany the text and truly capture the essence of a sulking child and provide adults with an opportunity to discuss family relationships, feelings, and acceptable behavior with the young reader.

Recommended.

Dr. De Soto is an animal dentist. Not only does he work on animals, but he is one himself! De Soto is a mouse that works on all manner of animals (that wouldn't eat a mouse) that are also all manner of sizes. He has special chairs for the larger types and a regular chair for those closer to his own size. The doctor's wife assists him with his practice who, very often has to rig up some elaborate pulleys for her husband to reach into his patient's mouths. Dr. De Soto is very popular with his patients because of his delicate touch and almost painless work. One day, a tearful fox showed up outside the office, clearly in immense pain. This caused Dr. De Soto and his wife a crisis of conscience. Do they treat the poor fox and risk being dinner? Or do they turn him away to remain miserable? Well, of course De Soto decides to help the poor animal. The doctor discovered a rotten tooth in the fox's mouth that needed extracting and he would need to replace the tooth the next day. The night before they were to see the fox to place the new tooth, the two mice lay awake worrying that as soon as they were done, they would be Fox's lunch. They hatched a plan that would convince the fox that he would be rid of toothaches forever if they could paint a preparation on his teeth after his tooth was replaced. Well, the fox thought that sounded pretty good, indeed. He would get the treatment and then treat himself to a nice lunch. What he didn't realize, however was that this preparation would glue is jaw shut for a day or so. The fox was, indeed, outfoxed!

4.5 ⭐️ rounded up!
We bought this book after it was recommended by one of the speakers from The Colson Center. He warned that due to its exposure of the logical fallacies of evolution, it would probably be next in the cancellation line after the recent Dr. Seuss debacle. While it’s not an overtly Christian book, the logic is sound and definitely points to creative design being the more logical explanation.

The basic storyline is that Yellow and Pink are little wooden dolls who wake up lying on some newspaper in the sun with no idea who they are or how they got there. As they explore the questions surrounding their existence, Yellow postulates more and more coincidental circumstances that seem increasingly preposterous. Pink questions the unlikelihood of Yellow’s theories and points instead to the idea of a Creator. Yellow refuses to accept Pink’s idea. Then a man shows up, determines their paint is dry, and carries them back towards his home. The book ends here, but even my four year-old made the connection that the man was the creator of Yellow and Pink.

Again, it’s not an overtly Christian book at all, but I don’t just read Christian books to my kids (Dr. Seuss being a prime example). God is never mentioned, and the creative design idea isn’t fully discussed. We gave it 4.5 stars because the ending, although logically obvious to even very young children, did not explicitly explain the man’s role in regards to Yellow and Pink. This book did, however, present me with a wonderful opportunity to discuss the concept of creative design with my kids (ages 6 & 4) in a way that was simple enough for them to understand.

I definitely recommend this book to parents, teachers, etc!