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Children's Books: An Indoor Cat With Barnyard Manners

Teaching children self-control has never been cuter.

'In the city of Mainz in Germany, around the year 1450, there appeared a mysterious thing. It was made of rags and bones, soot and seeds. It wore a dark brown coat and was filled with gold. It took lead and tin, strong oak, and a mountain to make it. What was it?"

So begins James Rumford's quietly stunning picture-book account of the first volumes created by the movable-type printing press in "From the Good Mountain: How Gutenberg Changed the World" (Roaring Brook, 34 pages, $16.99). The author begins by deconstructing, in riddle form, the materials that Johannes Gutenberg used: the honey-like flax oil mixed with burned pitch and soot that made ink; the goatskins scraped and soaked and dyed with walnut husks that made leather covers; the metal scraps melted and molded to form tiny Gothic printing types; the wood carved to create a machine "as strong as a giant." He then takes children age 5 to 12 through the revolutionary process that Gutenberg employed to turn these materials into pages "glistening with words."

Mr. Rumford's illustrations are exquisite, rich in color, and adorned with gilt vines and tiny human figures that might almost have escaped from a medieval illuminated manuscript, and he depicts the famous printer as clean-shaven, in the style of businessmen of his era, rather than as the bearded sage of 16th-century portraiture. In an epilogue that ostensibly greets with excitement the advent of e-books, the author betrays poignancy with his illustration. Behind the optimistic text, we see the decorative hand-drawn golden curlicues of Gutenberg's time disappearing into a spreading tide of bland blue computer circuitry. It seems a bleak end.

The shape and feel of a printed book still matters, thank goodness, and there is something illimitably satisfying about the snug, matte editions produced for The New York Review Children's Collection. The latest, "Wolf Story" (82 pages, $14.95), recapitulates the elegant design first created by its illustrator, graphic artist Warren Chappell (1904-91). What sings, though, is the lively dialogue in the story by William McCleery (1911-2000) as a 5-year-old boy inveigles his weary father to contrive yet another bedtime story involving a ferocious wolf. The man tries to avoid this, suggesting other animals and peaceable attributes, but only a fierce wolf will do.

"All right," the father says, "a terribly fierce wolf with red eyes and teeth as long and sharp as butcher knives."

"Mmmmmmm," says the boy, resting his cheek on his pillow.

"I suppose you like that about the butcher knives."

"I love it," says the boy. "Go on."

What follows is a collaborative tale improvised over the course of days, in which Waldo the wolf kidnaps Rainbow the hen and meets trouble in the form of Rainbow's owners, the wisecracking Tractorwheel family. First published in 1947, "Wolf Story" is a romp and a laugh and a nostalgic joy to read aloud.

A Gaëtan Dorémus illustration from 'Bear Despair.' ENLARGE
A Gaëtan Dorémus illustration from 'Bear Despair.' Gaëtan Dorémus

There are no words to describe a great bear's heartbreak when a fox swipes his stuffed teddy in "Bear Despair" (Enchanted Lion, 32 pages, $14.95), a captivating pictures-only book for all ages by French illustrator Gaëtan Dorémus. Wordless illustrated books necessarily exact an extra measure of concentration from those who "read" them—there are no sentences, after all, to explain the images—and this one repays the effort in surprising and gratifying ways.

We see the weeping bear chasing the snickering thief into a forest and his grief turning to rage as the fox gleefully flings the teddy far into the distance. The bear promptly gobbles up the fox (we see the animal in his tummy, howling perplexedly) and sprints toward the stuffed toy. A laughing lion grabs the teddy first, so the bear eats him, too. Soon the unhappy bear is dashing around with a virtual menagerie in his innards, but when he comes to the ocean he can only roar helplessly at the distant tentacles of the octopus dandling his beloved toy out of reach. Eventually, the bear and his teddy reunite, and the bear divests himself of his live contents—who sprint off no worse for their ordeal.

A Nancy Tilman illustration from 'Tumford's Rude Noises.' ENLARGE
A Nancy Tilman illustration from 'Tumford's Rude Noises.' Nancy Tilman

A certain type of children's book relies approvingly for laughs on lavatory humor and the comedy of bodily functions. So "Tumford's Rude Noises" (Feiwel & Friends, 32 pages, $16.99) by Nancy Tilman comes as a charming corrective. As readers of "Tumford the Terrible" (2011) will know, our hero is a stout little cat with the manners of an impish toddler. Here we see him learn a lesson in self-control and discretion after a morning spent slurping and burping—and worse. Ms. Tilman's colorful paintings have the interesting quality of seeming to be both in and out of focus—a paw may be fuzzy while a whisker is ice-bright—and bring warmth even to the scenes where Tumford suffers rebuke. "As everyone knows, loud sounds and rude noise / are not always welcome from small girls and boys," we read. "They may get attention. It's true, yes they may. / But it won't be felt in a very nice way." Quite so.

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