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10 picture books set in paris + PICTURE BOOK GIVEAWAY
I’ve been dreaming about visiting Paris someday, so I thought we could all dream together with some picture books set in the City of Light, each with its own special flair.
Come see!
Tricky Vic: The Impossibly True Story of The Man Who Sold The Eiffel Tower by Greg Pizzoli.
Just out this spring, Tricky Vic is a non-fiction book like no other. Instead of profiling an inspirational hero, this one tells the story of a con artist. And it’s very entertaining! And while not set entirely in Paris, the main episode referred to in the title takes place there—Vic’s attempt to sell the Eiffel Tower to someone in order to tear it down. Twice. (I’m giving away a copy if you scroll down. Woo hoo!)
Madame Martine by Sarah S. Brannen.
I’ll just go ahead and tell you I love this book. It’s about a woman who is used to her routine but is inspired to change because of a stray dog. And the payoff is pretty wonderful. Sunset at the top of the Eiffel Tower wonderful. (I’m giving away a copy of this gem as well!)
Come With Me to Paris by Gloria Fowler, illustrated by Min Heo.
A rhyming romp through the sights of the city. So graphic, colorful, and charming!
A Walk in Paris by Salvatore Rubbino.
This one shows the landmarks of Paris as well, but with a girl’s grandfather as guide. So sweet.
Paris Chien by Jackie Clark Mancuso.
Hudson the expat dog narrates this charmer as he makes his way in Paris for the first time. And there’s a follow-up book just out in which Hudson travels to Provence!
This is Paris by M. Sasek.
A perfect historical portrait of Paris in the 60s. (See my post on This Is Hong Kong in the series too.)
An Armadillo in Paris by Julie Kraulis.
This one reads as travel diary, penned by an armadillo! It also sees the sights, but at its heart is a mystery about The Iron Lady’s identity.
The Secret Circus by Johanna Wright.
Mice have a turn this time, traveling via tiny hot air balloon to a secret show, tucked away in Paris. Charming, magical, still, and satisfying.
A Lion in Paris by Beatrice Alemagna.
This is one you get for the mixed media artwork, which is wow! And more to distinguish it? The book is oriented vertically, giving us a fresh perspective.
Ooh-lala, Max in Love by Maira Kalman.
Because, Maira Kalman, right? And a second dog in Paris book. And it is so so so sophisticated and loads of fun.
Enter below for a chance to win a copy of Tricky Vic & Madame Martine! Two very different Eiffel Tower-centric picture books set in Paris to one lucky winner!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
the baseball player and the walrus + ben loory interview
The Baseball Player and the Walrus by Ben Loory, illustrated by the hugely talented, Alex Latimer (2015).
This is an unusual picture book and not just in the usual ways. It’s more of a modern-day fable. And the tone and voice are all their own. It feels almost like a story that actually happened.
(click image(s) to enlarge)
There’s a ballplayer. And something’s missing from his life. And he finds it in a walrus at the zoo. That walrus becomes his companion, and he cares for the walrus in all the ways one cares for a walrus. And he becomes his friend.
And when hard times hit, the ballplayer still makes it his goal to be reunited with the walrus.
It seems to me he may have once cared about baseball the way he cares about the walrus. Or maybe he never did. Either way, at this point in his life, he’s looking for something more than baseball and this walrus is it. I find it interesting that he ends up sharing baseball with the walrus in the end though, a pure kind of baseball where they play catch and hit homeruns together, just the two of them in the backyard.
In reading reviews on Goodreads, it’s clear people connect to this book. They see the walrus as their passion, the thing they wish they could do but they can’t because they have this other job playing baseball. Or something like that. I think it was pretty brilliant to choose a baseball player since that seems on the surface like a dream passion kind of thing and taking care of a walrus more like a semi-regular gig. But that’s Ben Loory for you!
Big thanks to Penguin Young Readers for images!
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Ben Loory has been on my radar for a few years and I was delighted to see he’d made a foray into picture books.
You may have read his collection, Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day. Or you may want to now. You may also have heard one of his stories read on This American Life. Or you could listen now.
And he was kind enough to answer a couple of questions for This Picture Book Life!
TPBL: How did the idea to write a picture book come about and was the story THE BASEBALL PLAYER AND THE WALRUS initially written for children or adults?
Ben Loory: I never write stories for anyone in particular; I just take the first line that comes to mind and follow the story to the end— then when it’s done, I try to find a way to publish it. The idea of doing one as a picture book came from my friend, the writer Cecil Castellucci, who mentioned it at the book launch for my collection Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day. The Baseball and the Walrus story seemed like a likely candidate, so my agent went out with that, and three years later, here we are!
TPBL: Did anything change about your writing in knowing it would be illustrated? Did you learn anything from writing an illustrated story?
BL: I wrote the story before I knew it would be illustrated, so no. I did take out a line where the baseball player was sued for breach of contract; apparently kids aren’t interested in legal disputes?? Otherwise, it remained as originally written. The main thing I learned from the whole experience is that Alex Latimer is a genius. My stories are a strange mix of goofiness and existential loneliness and his illustrations brought that out perfectly.
TPBL: What were your favorite picture books as a child?
BL: Sylvester and the Magic Pebble (the best book ever written), Robin and the Pirates, and The Great Alphabet Race (which I still dream about to this day). Also I was (and am) heavily into the George & Martha books, and, of course, Richard Scarry.
TPBL: Baseball fan? Walrus fan?
BL: I was a huge Mets fan when I was growing up, until they traded Ray Knight after winning the World Series in 1986. The same World Series in which he was named the MVP. Still can’t believe they did that. Unconscionable. As for walruses—they’re the best! Except maybe for chameleons (who get to wear the little mittens).
the blue whale by jenni desmond
The Blue Whale by Jenni Desmond (out May 27, 2015!)
This is one of those nonfiction books whose facts somehow make me cry. It’s partly the set up in the author’s note that blue whales are few in number due to human activity, from hunting to pollution. But it’s not just that. It’s the way this material is handled—from how the text is constructed to the dreamy illustrations.
(click image(s) to enlarge)
Part of Jenni Desmond‘s originality is how the story appears in the story of the picture book. The boy in the book is reading the very book we’re reading.
But there’s more! He enters the book. There he is, in a dinghy next to a mighty blue whale, staring down in wonder. Because this book is immersive. Immersive in the azure world of the blue whale.
The boy with the red crown is excited about this book he’s reading, excited about blue whales, excited about animals and habitats.
“Every blue whale has unique markings, similar to our fingerprints. Scientists use these, along with the shape of the dorsal fin, to identify individual whales.”
Together with the boy, we learn that baby calves are born 20 feet long and drink nearly 50 gallons of their mother’s milk every day. That whales have a lot of wax in their ear canals. That a single one of their breaths could inflate 2,000 balloons.
Along with the boy, we feel the world open up. It gets bigger and the blue whale gets smaller. Closer. More precious to us.
“A blue whale’s tongue weighs three tons, and its mouth is so big that 50 people can stand inside it. Fortunately, blue whales don’t eat people.”
And that’s how this book works. It brings the boy character inside it, it brings us inside it and conversely it brings the blue whale into our world, right outside our window and in our kitchen.
It’s the perfect kind of nonfiction book that educates while it enchants. It makes us care.
Thanks to Enchanted Lion Books for images!
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Jenni Desmond was kind enough to answer a couple of questions about her process of making the book!
This Picture Book Life:What prompted you to write a book about this particular animal?
Jenni Desmond: I didn’t choose a blue whale on purpose, it chose me, by just falling out of my head onto the page one day. Then, the more I drew this beautiful mammal the more I fell in love with it. There is still so much we don’t know about blue whales. I just found them endlessly fascinating and beautiful, and kept wanting to know more. When I showed the rough sketches to my wonderful editor, Claudia, at Enchanted Lion Books, she understood my vision for the book and tirelessly helped me to sculpt it into something much more complex and interesting.
TPBL: You include the book itself in the text and illustrations. How did the idea to do that come about?
JD: I wanted the reader to be aware of the fictional element of the story versus the factual. By having the young boy holding and reading the book, I felt that it would mean that there was a clear divide between the two. The facts could stay as facts, and the reader knew that the inclusion of the boy in the images, when he was interacting with the whale, was purely a result of the boy’s vivid imagination.
TPBL: Boy with red graph paper crown. Go!
JD: I think sometimes non-fiction can feel quite dense and difficult, so I hope that by including the boy, the reader can have a little bit of respite to digest the information while they watch the boy having fun, hopefully even seeing themselves in the boy. I‘m not sure why he’s wearing a crown. Why not. Maybe he’s the king of the book. Maybe he likes dressing up. Maybe it’s just a nice shape and gives a splash of colour to the page. Maybe it’s all of these things.
Thank you, Jenni, both for the interview and for this outstanding book!
picture book wordplay: you are (not) small & look!
Why am I pairing these two (excellent) picture books? They both have language concepts that really shine while not outshining their spirit and heart! Both are excellent examples of a successful contemporary picture book—spare, clever, funny, AND touching. All that in so few words!
LOOK! has only two words! Two words! & You Are (Not) Small has spare language and plays with two words in the little mix: BIG and SMALL.
In small packages, both books accomplish a lot. Come see!
You are (Not) Small by Anna Kang, illustrated by Christopher Weyant.
There is a small creature and a big creature. But neither creature believes herself to be respectively small or big. There is evidence given. Arguments break out. Until…other creatures arrive to put everybody’s perspective in perspective.
(click image(s) to enlarge)
The conclusion is that nobody is small or big. Everybody is small AND big. Which is pretty profound, no?
But most of all, for me, the magic I want to point out today is the words. Those two words, amidst the others, are omnipresent, played-around-with opposites. Small. Big. Kang’s experimentation with those words (and Weyant’s visual play) is what makes this one sing for big readers and small ones.
Look! by Jeff Mack.
This book plays with two words too. The only two words in its pages! LOOK and OUT.
There are two characters, too. A boy and a gorilla. For me, the gorilla is the one that anchors the book, the one we care about and feel for. (I cared so much I almost cried.)
Ostensibly, this is a book about how reading is better than watching TV. But it’s also about friendship and kindness and giving others attention. (And then, it’s a bedtime book too. You’ll see.)
But that masterful language makes it. The gorilla says, LOOK. He wants the boy to look, to see his tricks, to spend time with him. But every time the boy looks, there’s a mishap and the gorilla’s pleas and ploys fail. So the boy says, OUT. As in, go. Leave me alone, with my TV show.
In the end though, don’t worry, gorilla and boy come together, united by something novel to look at together—a book. And that’s when the boy changes and the conclusion is sweet, sweet, sweet.
But I used all those words to tell you about it when the book is only two words and a few pictures. That’s the amazing thing about picture books.
Thanks to Penguin Young Readers for Look! images!
Any other picture books that play with words like this?
17 picture books featuring grandparents
Here are some of my favorite picture books that feature Nana or Grandad and the special relationship kids can have with them.
Last Stop on Market Street, words by Matt De La Peña, pictures by Christian Robinson. I love the lines next to CJ’s grandmother’s mouth that, in Robinson’s signature style, are all we need to know she’s Nana. And that last stop is so worth it! This book explores many things, including seeing unexpected beauty and the power of generosity.
Infinity and Me written by Kate Gosford, illustrations by Gabi Swiatkowska. Uma ponders her red shoes and the concept of infinity, and it’s her grandma’s love that helps it all make sense.
Joone by Emily Kate Moon. A portrait of a spunky girl who happens to live with her grandfather makes for a sweet read.
Now One Foot, Now the Other by Tomie dePaola. This one is sure to make you cry and highlights the way childhood mirrors growing old. So tender.
Grandama’s Gloves by Cecil Castellucci, illustrated by Julia Denos. Another touching picture book about grandparents! This one deals with the loss of a grandmother, but the theme is how she’ll always be present in memory, in growing things.
Grandfather’s Journey by Allen Say. This is one of my all time favorite books. A grandson telling the story of his grandfather torn between two places.
Zayde Comes to Live by Sheri Sinykin, illustrated by Kristina Swarner. This is another book dealing with loss. A girl’s grandfather comes to live with her family in his final days. It’s very explicit about death and questions of an afterlife and comes to beautiful conclusions about life.
Grammy Lamby and the Secret Handshake by Kate Klise and M. Sarah Klise. This picture book is about a grandson who comes around to his grandmother (lamb-mother). It’s funny and teary and true.
Abuelo by Arthur Dorros, illustrated by Raúl Colōn. This one shows how instrumental a grandparent can be, how much he has to teach, how wide his reach.
A Walk in Paris by Salvatore Rubinno. This is basically a sweet, fun guidebook to the city, with Grandpa leading the way.
My Abuelita by Tony Johnston, illustrated by Yuyi Morales. A grandson admires and wants to emulate his Abuelita and her vocation as storyteller.
Maia and What Matters by Tine Mortier and Kaatje Vermeire. Not only does this book look gorgeous, it tells a gorgeous story of a bond between Maia and her grandmother, before and after her grandma’s health begins to fail.
The Frank Show by David Mackintosh. A lighter look at the subject of grandparents and, again, a grandson who needs some time to come around to how cool retro Grandpa Frank truly is. (But we as readers know right away.)
Nana in the City by Lauren Castillo. This grandma is super cool. I mean, look at her. Plus, she teaches her grandson how to be brave.
The Hello, Goodbye Window by Norton Juster and Chris Raschka. Here we have a pair! Nana and Poppy are always looking through that window, which is so reassuring and sweet.
The Grandad Tree by Trish Cookie, illustrated by Sharon Wilson. Another book that explores how we remember grandparents, this time through an apple tree that serves as symbol.
Grandpa Green by Lane Smith. A book about the Edward Scissorhands of (great) grandparents. And it gives a child a glimpse into the enigmatic, unknown life of older family members.
Did I miss any other great (or grand) ones? Do share!
