{"id":5605,"date":"2010-11-02T08:52:42","date_gmt":"2010-11-02T13:52:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/?p=5605"},"modified":"2010-11-02T08:52:42","modified_gmt":"2010-11-02T13:52:42","slug":"bang","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/2010\/20101102-5605.htm","title":{"rendered":"BANG!"},"content":{"rendered":"

It had been sitting on my nightstand for quite some time. I knew I’d have to read it eventually. It should be good, I told myself. It’s a Caldecott Honor book, a children’s book, an innocent story.<\/p>\n

But my mind wasn’t innocent as I glanced at my nightstand to see the spine staring at me: “BANG THE GREY LADY AND THE STRAWBERRY SNATCHER”. <\/p>\n

Now, I don’t think<\/i> I have a dirty mind–but I’m not entirely clueless about the slang of the day–so “Bang the grey lady” was just a bit much for my mind to take.<\/p>\n

I’d look at it and start laughing–and then sternly reprimand myself for doing so. “Get a grip, Rebekah. That’s the lady’s name. She can’t help it that her last name means something naughty nowadays. Stop laughing.”<\/p>\n

I read Molly Bang’s other picture books: One Fall Day<\/i>, Ten, Nine, Eight<\/i>, The Paper Crane<\/i>, When Molly Gets Angry–Really, Really Angry…<\/i>, In My Heart<\/i>, and My Light<\/i> I liked them. I liked the colorful illustrations–some painted or drawn, others photographs of three dimensional murals. I liked the way Bang used language. I liked the gentle, everyday yet not quite everyday nature of her stories. I liked them.<\/p>\n

So I opened Bang the gray lady<\/i>— <\/p>\n

Except that’s not the title. So “Bang” and “The Grey Lady” run together on the spine. That doesn’t mean they’re both the title. <\/p>\n

I opened The Grey Lady and the Strawberry Snatcher<\/i>, still chuckling over the spine and berating myself for my sophomoric sense that just WOULDN’T give up.<\/p>\n

And I absolutely hated it.<\/p>\n

How did this thing win a Caldecott?<\/p>\n

It’s a wordless book about a bright blue Strawberry Snatcher who wears a Red and Green cape and a purple hat. He chases after the gray lady, trying to snatch her strawberries. The problem is, the Gray Lady (since she IS gray) keeps disappearing into the dusk.<\/p>\n

Then the Strawberry Snatcher is diverted by a bramble of raspberries. The Grey Lady returns home to her family and enjoys the strawberries with them. The end.<\/p>\n

I wasn’t impressed. Not with the story, not with the illustrations, not with the way “BANG” ran together with “The Grey Lady” on the spine. This is a book I’m not picking up again.<\/p>\n

\"Reading<\/a>For more comments on children’s books, see the rest of my Reading My Library posts<\/a> or check out Carrie’s blog Reading My Library<\/a>, which chronicles her and her children’s trip through the children’s section of their local library.<\/p>\n


<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It had been sitting on my nightstand for quite some time. I knew I’d have to read it eventually. It should be good, I told myself. It’s a Caldecott Honor book, a children’s book, an innocent story. But my mind wasn’t innocent as I glanced at my nightstand to see the spine staring at me: … Read more BANG!<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[19],"tags":[774,869,1102],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5605"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5605\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}