Quirky, Weird and Wonderful:

These are books that I have discovered over the years and want to celebrate.
Some are out of print, some are new, but most of them have fallen through the cracks for some reason
or another and are not on the general must read lists of books for children.
This does not mean I do not love award winners and best sellers,
but I have a soft spot for the unappreciated and misunderstood.
Please understand that my taste is eclectic, slightly warped and a bit dark.
I like books that make me laugh, books that make me cry, and books that make me think.

I welcome suggestions. Enjoy!

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Mrs. Biddlebox by Linda Smith, Illustrated by Marla Frazee


Mrs. Biddlebox is struggling... struggling to stay positive and struggling to get noticed. First published by HarperCollins with a wild and abstract- primarily black and white- cover showing Mrs. Biddlebox wrestling with a bad day, the book quickly went out of print, even though it won some awards. Reissued by Harcourt a few years later with a new, blue, more traditional cover and a subtitle, Mrs. Biddlebox is still not well known. Which is too bad.

The story is relatively simple - a woman wakes up on the wrong side of the bed and makes a great effort to become positive. The rhyme is great with some wonderfully quirky images that reflect a different take on being positive. "She rolled the sky like carpeting." Mrs. Biddlebox is determined to wack that bad day and the energy is great. Linda Smith wrote the text while battling cancer and died before it was published. Though it is not a depressing book, it does have an emotional intensity that is unusual in picture books.

But the illustrations make this story! I'm not always a fan of Marla Frazee. I often find her work overly done and self-conscious, but I love these illustrations. They are loose and humourous and detailed and abstract all at the same time. I don't know if she was inspired by Smith's metaphors or just wanted to loosen up, but I'd love to see her do more in this style. For those who feel that the concepts and illustrations are too abstract for children, please give it a try. I've read this to many classes of all ages and immediately gotten multiple stories of how to "beat the blues".
Don't underestimate children!

  • Mrs. Biddlebox , Her bad day and what she did about it.
  • Harcourt Children's Books (October 1, 2007)
  • ISBN-10: 0152063498
  • ISBN-13: 978-0152063498

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