The Crocodile Blues by Coleman Polhemus
and
The Three Robbers by Tomi Ungerer
For my 2nd post ever, 2 books that are A-MA-ZING. The first is one I read for the first time today, "The Crocodile Blues". First off, the use of color is incredible. It seems as though he uses
maybe 5 colors total- yellow, beige, white, blue and black, to fantastic effect. It has an old-timey noir feeling to it, like a Pink Panther cartoon, no dialogue (only the occasional well-placed sound-word), pages that fold out and up in brilliant ways that continue to tell the story AS THEY FOLD OUT. And on the last page I audibly sqeeaked just because I was so delighted.
It also reminded me of an old favorite, "The Three Robbers", if for no other reason than it did nighttime and sneakiness and mystery so damn well. Must be that dark blue. But it has
the sweetest narrative. Three robbers are raiding a carriage, per usual, but instead of treasure they find a little girl named Tiffany. They take her back to their lair where all their treasure is, and she asks them what they are going to do with it. They don't really have an answer, so they open an orphanage for little girls and boys like Tiffany. It kicks butt. According to the Wikipedia article, looks like Ungerer is "also a designer, toy collecter, and archivist of human absurdity" and is known for themes of the Vietnam war, eroticism (especially sadomasichsm), bigotry etc in his adult work. I promise to seek out his other childrens books!
BONUS GOODIES: It turns out theres a full-length cartoon of the three robbers (that appears czech-big shocker there- all my favorite animators keep turning out czech!) I don't know if this the intro to it but its damn cool:
also, here is the story in full, done by someone:
though I first saw it via the CHILDHOOD-DEFINING Children's Circle videos, which brought to life an incredible amount of classic childrens books. I recently found the intro on youtube and actually started tearing up. These had me singing the Really Rosie songs (written by Maurice Sendak and composed by Carole King!) as soon as I could speak.
I should do a segment on these videos sometime... in the meantime, take a look at these books!
THEY ARE AWESOME!
Love on a Bear Rug
Arla
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