Children's book roundup: 'Extraordinary Jane,' 'Say Hello Like This!' and 'The Noisy Paint Box'

Extraordinary Jane by Hannah E. Harrison, Dial, $16.99, ages 3-5

Jane lives in a world where elephants paint, tigers leap through flaming hoops and monkeys play the trumpet. Her mother, a diminutive white fluffball of a dog, dances on horseback, and her father and brothers perform feats of strength and derring-do. But Jane? Well, let's just say she hasn't found her special talent yet.

Her trapeze act is a nonstarter, her painting is a dud, her ball-balancing skills leave a lot to be desired. But Jane cheerfully cuddles, cleans, helps and hangs out, and her everyday achievements begin to add up.

Maybe the world doesn't need another picture book about the virtues of just being yourself, but it does need Jane, a plucky pup with just the right mixture of scruffiness and fluffiness. Our heroine perfectly embodies the heartbreak of falling short of the standards set by your siblings or peers, and the richly colored illustrations combine vintage storybook appeal with modern edge. Look once and you'll see a darling little scamp cavorting in a candy-colored circus world. Look again and you'll see the havoc one tiny misfit can create. The scene where Jane sends bigger, badder animals to the emergency room is a riot, as are the very vivid facial expressions throughout the book., The central insight — that tricks don't make the dog — will resonate with animal-lovers young and old.

Say Hello Like This! by Mary Murphy, Candlewick, $12.99, ages 2-5

When my younger son was a toddler, I used to station him on the steps of the bookstore and let him say "hello" to every person who passed. No one seemed to mind, and he was having the time of his life.

"Say Hello Like This!" brings back the joy, with dancing chickens, chortling donkeys and frogs that hop high off their lily pads with long-flippered feet.

Kids and adults alike will enjoy the witty but toddler-appropriate text, the bright but sophisticated palette and the engaging format. You meet an animal ("A frog hello is jumpy and croaky") and then turn a sturdy half-page to see the action: "Like this! Croakety croak." The hellos are fun, funny and true to each animal's nature, and the brightly colored creatures outlined in emphatic black are fresh and full of gentle surprises. Enjoy the way rare specimens (purple cats, powder-blue geese) mingle freely with conventionally colored cows, chicks and dogs.

Observant youngsters will note the donkeys' teeth and the dogs' drool, tricksters will appreciate those party-hearty dancing hens and the antenna-tapping bugs, and everyone will have fun with a text that's a pleasure to read and repeat.

The Noisy Paint Box by Barb Rosenstock, Knopf, $17.99, ages 5-9

As a boy, the abstract artist Vasily "Vasya" Kandinsky heard a hissing sound when he mixed paint, one of many signs that he may have had synesthesia, a condition in which colors can be experienced as sounds and sounds as colors. In this glorious reimagining of his early life, the sound-color connection shakes up little Vasya's staid 19th century childhood, bringing him joy and adventure: "Vasya painted the sound of the colors. He spun a bright lemon circle onto the canvas. It clinked like the highest notes on the keyboard. He brushed a powerful navy rectangle that vibrated deeply like the lowest cello strings."

Adults, naturally, don't understand, and Vasya goes to art classes and learns to draw like everyone else. He grows up and studies to be a lawyer. But the colors (and their "sounds") don't leave him and he stumbles forward as an artist until finally he discovers his destiny.

A great choice for kids wrestling with being "different," "The Noisy Paint Box" offers spellbinding illustrations by Harry Potter illustrator Mary Grandpre, full of dreamy blue shadows and freewheeling swirls of yellow and red. The text by Barb Rosenstock is a blissful blend of poetry, wit and spot-on storytelling. Rosenstock lets Kandinsky be Kandinsky, and yet at the same time lives inside his tale and makes it her own.

Nara Schoenberg is a Tribune lifestyles reporter.

Copyright © 2018, Chicago Tribune
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