[CALIBK12] Richie's Picks: OUR WHITE HOUSE: LOOKING IN, LOOKING OUT

[BudNotBuddy at aol.com]

Richie's Picks: OUR WHITE HOUSE: LOOKING IN,  LOOKING OUT created by 108 
renowned authors and illustrators, Candlewick Press,  September 2008, 242p., ISBN: 
978-0-7636-2067-7
 
"Our house is a very, very, very fine house." -- Graham Nash  (who was born 
in Britain and became an American citizen in 1978)
 
"This house...I was thinking of it as we walked down this  hall, and I was 
comparing it to some of the great houses of the world that I've  been in.  This 
isn't the biggest house.  Many, and most, in even  smaller countries, are much 
bigger.  This isn't the finest house.   Many in Europe, particularly, and in 
China, Asia, have paintings of great, great  value, things that we just don't 
have here, and probably will never have until  we are one thousand years old 
or older.
"But this is the best house.  It's the best house because  it has something 
far more important than numbers of people who serve, far more  important than 
numbers of rooms or how big it is, far more important than  numbers of 
magnificent pieces of art.
"This house has a great heart, and that heart comes from those  who serve."
-- Richard Nixon, in his final remarks to the White House  staff, August 9, 
1974
 
OUR WHITE HOUSE is a rollicking literary and  visual excursion through the 
history and mythology, the hijinks and  tragedies, and the family moments that 
have accrued over the  course of two centuries of presidential life at 1600 
Pennsylvania  Avenue.  The National Children's Book and Literary Alliance  has 
brought together the work of 108 well-known, children's  book authors and 
illustrators.  In addition to all of the stories  and pictures, editors have 
interspersed some fascinating bits of primary source  and historical material.
 
This is a collection of uber talent.  Taking a look  through the contributors 
list, I found sixteen authors who have been  recognized by Newbery award 
committees, a dozen who have been recognized by  Caldecott award committees, five 
National Book Award winners, and others who  have won the Jane Addams, the 
Golden Kite, the CSK, and the Pulitzer  Prize.  
 
Now, some might wonder whether all of that  award-winner talk means that this 
is a book akin to high fiber and low  calories: it's good for you but not 
particularly tasty.  But that's  wrong!  Above all, I had a great old time  
reading OUR WHITE HOUSE, and discovered some really neat stuff.
 
We learn from such yarns as Richard Peck's "The White  House Cow," that up 
through the middle of the nineteenth century, there were  relatively innocent 
times when one saw absolutely no iron  fences, no walls, or security checkpoints 
around the president's house; no armed  dudes with shades and earpieces to be 
found anywhere.  Instead, there  were family cows and kitchen gardens and 
casual, neighborly visits.  
 
>From Elizabeth Cody Kimmel's tale, "An Unusual Guest,"  we learn that Lewis 
and Clark sent back a prairie dog to Jefferson  that briefly lived at what 
would (in Teddy Roosevelt's time) come to be  known officially as the White House.
 
In just a few pages ("Sneaking into Adams Field"), Michael  Winerip has 
converted me into a major fan of John Quincy Adams.  I now  want to read more about 
the OTHER president whose father  had previously been president.
 
In a thousand words taken from the 1865 memoir of James  Madison's former 
slave Paul Jennings, my belief in that the  old tale of Dolly Madison being 
responsible for saving the famous portrait  of George Washington has been seriously 
undermined.   Those organizing the book did something very interesting here: 
They  situated the Jennings' memoir excerpt right next to Don Brown's 
recounting and  illustration of the Dolly Madison story.  Thus, we are handed a  
stellar lesson in information literacy and a great opportunity for  debate.
 
And the illustrators!  How cool is it to have the most  recent winner of the 
Caldecott Medal joining back up with the author of THE  DINOSAURS OF 
WATERHOUSE HAWKINS to show the story of Thomas Jefferson's  spreading crates of mammoth 
bones (thanks, again, to Lewis and Clark)  out on the White House floor?  
There is a great graphic novel-style  look at Herbert Hoover by Matt Phelan, a 
two-plus-page spread of presidents  and their pets by Steven Kellogg, and -- one 
of my absolute favorites -- the six  page "Backstairs at the White House: a 
More or Less On-The-Spot Sketch Journal"  by David Small.
 
"...There is something fitting about the house of our  country's leaders 
being inhabited by the spirit of Abraham Lincoln, a man who  governed during a 
time of such anguish.  If the White House were not  haunted by the memory of its 
past trials, that would be true cause for  worry.  As for Harry Truman, who 
was roused from his sleep by Lincoln's  anxious knocking and pacing, he was 
asked whether he himself would ever return  as a presidential specter.  He said he 
wouldn't: 'No man in his right mind  would want to come here of his own 
accord.'"  
-- "The House Haunts" by M. T. Anderson
 
>From the little-known early-American history to be  found in Walter Dean 
Myers' piece "Slaves Helped Build the White House!,"  to the amusing recollections 
from the era in which I grew up -- LBJ's  daughter Lynda's "My Room," OUR 
WHITE HOUSE: LOOKING IN, LOOKING OUT is  a lively collection of fact, story, and 
illustration that one can  be page through and read like a magazine, or dive 
into and enjoy cover  to cover.  
 
 
Richie  Partington, MLIS
Richie's Picks http://richiespicks.com
Moderator,  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/middle_school_lit/
BudNotBuddy at aol.com
http://www.myspace.com/richiespicks






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