30 Day Book Challenge: Day 21

Is this the home stretch yet?

Day 21: Favorite Picture Book

Gianna:

You know I want to say something deep here. I want to say some great book that molded me into a sort of moral lady person that you would all want to spend more than two or three minutes with, without regretting making eye contact with me, or answering your door, or waving me over, or God knows…that you didn’t run in the other direction.  Yeah, I wish I were about to announce that say, I don’t know, The Giving Tree was my favorite picture book as a child. But that’s not true. In fact, I didn’t even read that book until I worked at a bookstore about 15 years ago and honestly I found it boring and the relationship a little one-sided (I know,I know; some would say that book should have been a Bible of sorts and to them I say, “Hey you broke up with me and isn’t that enough?”) and is it even a picture book? Regardless, its not that book. I wish I could say it was a Winnie The Pooh book and I gathered some sort of philosophy from Winnie and Christopher Robin, or any – any Seuss books…. The Lorax, why couldn’t I fall in love with the book and not the TV movie?  Alas, that is not the case.  The book I really, truly could not get enough of was Put Me in the Zoo by Robert Lopshire. Here is the story, the heartwarming story, and I am familiar with it because I just started to re-read it to my little friend Eleanor before quickly putting it back on the shelf.  The leopard is desperately trying to get put in the zoo but the zoo rejects him. They say, “Why should you be in the zoo, what good are you?” Huh…"What good are you." Nice. Eventually, he realizes because he can change colors and juggle his spots he belongs in the circus and lives happily ever after. The circus. That is the picture book that I read over and over as a child. No Shel Silverstein for this little thinker!  Nope…a leopard who tries to get INTO the zoo but winds up happily in the circus. Perfect. [I think PETA holds the copyright on this classic.]

Liz

You will note that nowhere does this say "favorite children's picture book."  I don't have a lot of exposure to the kids' versions, other than what I've read/overheard at my breeder friends' homes as they read to their spawn.  I only heard the rumpus book (Maurice Sendak, you know the one) for the first time about a year ago.  I kind of like the pigeon books, but mostly because I like to chase pigeons.  Still, for my Day 21 selection I choose may i feel said he, poem by e.e.cummings, paintings by Marc Chagall.  "tiptop said he/don't stop said she/oh no said he/go slow said she..." It's a playful little poem about illicit love and some frisky groping, and the poem is paired with Marc Chagall artwork.  I love the Russians almost as much as I love the Canadians.  (They couldn't very well use Emily Carr paintings with this poem; trees and totems are phallic, I guess, but not whimsical enough for cumming's writing.  cumming....heh.  That's what she said...just beating Gianna to the punch here.)