Christmas Books

Between the lines: Christmas stories can't come soon enough for some

PUBLISHED : Monday, 02 December, 2013, 9:17pm

UPDATED : Monday, 02 December, 2013, 9:18pm

Annie Holife@scmp.com

Our Christmas tree has already been delivered and decorated. While many bemoan shopping malls for starting the festive season earlier each year, I like hearing holiday tunes and seeing Nativity scenes and Santa displays for as long as possible.

Here is a selection of Christmas stories for children. We got a head start in our home, and have been reading some of them since Thanksgiving, along with singing Christmas carols since Halloween.

Raymond Briggs' The Snowman is a classic tale about a snowman that comes to life and visits the home of the boy who created him. It is an easy book to "read" because it is wordless. Briggs tenderly conveys the emotions of the characters through his poignant illustrations and an ending that is open for interpretation.

Children who are knowledgeable about their nursery tales will be captivated by The Jolly Postman by Janet and Allan Ahlberg. The postman delivers a variety of mail to well-known characters.

The picture book contains pages designed to look like stamped, addressed envelopes, with a bound-in pocket at the back, each containing a detachable piece of mail inside.

For the Three Bears, the postman delivers an apology letter from Goldilocks, in a little girl's handwriting complete with spelling mistakes. For Cinderella, there is a cover letter from her publisher about the first draft of her biography. The letter is typed like a business letter, and there is a mini-book telling the story of Cinderella.

The Ahlbergs' The Jolly Christmas Postman continues the interactive fun with holiday letters and gifts for a new coterie of nursery tale characters, including "Mr H. Dumpty".

Oscar-winner Emma Thompson tried her hand at writing a new story based on her beloved Beatrix Potter character Peter Rabbit, and her resulting TheFurther Tale of Peter Rabbit became a bestseller.

She has followed up with the newly published The Christmas Tale of Peter Rabbit. The story is inspired by a real turkey named William whom Thompson met on Beatrix Potter's farm in Britain's Lake District. The book includes a CD with a recording of the story read by Thompson.

Christmas Stories is a collection of four original stories by Michael Morpurgo, one of Britain's best-loved writers. Each of the master storyteller's tales is accompanied by illustrations by a renowned illustrator.

Morpurgo has written more than 100 stories for children and young adults. They are usually set in the mid-20th century, with children who grow up around animals and rural scenery.

This old-fashioned setting allows him to explore timeless values, which he executes superbly in Christmas Stories. The writing is simple and direct, but the messages contained in these stories are enchanting and philosophical.

Charles Dickens' 1843 novella A Christmas Carol can be enjoyed year after year. A popular edition is the final volume in the Charles Dickens collection at the Everyman's Library, which has classic illustrations by Arthur Rackham. This charming volume contains four other Victorian Christmas tales from Dickens, and makes a beautiful keepsake.

Another well-loved edition of A Christmas Carol is the one with some richly emotional illustrations by contemporary artist P.J. Lynch.

Lynch is best known for his award-winning illustrations of another festive best-seller, The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey by Susan Wojciechowski.

Annie Ho is the board chairwoman of Bring Me a Book Hong Kong, a non-profit organisation dedicated to improving children's literacy by reading aloud to them bringmeabook.org.hk

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as An early start to festive stories

Andy Warhol by Mike Venezia - Hong Kong Museum of Art Exhibition

Warhol exhibition a lesson in materialism

Tuesday, 19 March, 2013

Annie Holife@scmp.com

My original plan was to write about taking my children and their friends to see the Andy Warhol exhibition at the Hong Kong Museum of Art. But this was foiled as I could not organise an outing until the Easter break, which would be just a few days before it closes at the end of the month.

I attended a private guided tour and will highlight parts of the exhibition that I think are noteworthy for children.

Presented chronologically, which is easy for children to understand, the exhibition begins with photos of a young Warhol, who was often confined to his bed with bouts of a nervous system illness. During these times, he would draw, listen to the radio and collect photos of movie stars such as the autographed photo of Shirley Temple addressed to Andrew Warhola (the artist's birth name) that is exhibited.

"Warhol created a series of paintings for children using vintage children's toys."

The first gallery contains Warhol's early works as a successful commercial illustrator in the 1950s. He was very close to his mother, and even involved her in the art he created by asking her to write text in her feminine calligraphy directly onto his paintings. Visitors can look for grammatical errors in some of the text because Warhol's mother, an immigrant from what is now Slovakia, was not a native English speaker.

Warhol's work was informed by his fascination with celebrity and materialism. He was unafraid to copy and replicate everyday American consumer goods, and present them as works of art. Even in his early commercial work, we see the theme of repetition.

His passion for repetition was so mechanical that he dubbed his art studio The Factory. The exhibition includes a replica of a silver-walled room in which we may wander around and see photos of Warhol and his collaborators at work. This part of the gallery also includes the Silver Clouds art installation in which silver cloud-shaped balloons float freely about a glass-walled room, ready for visitors to play in. The second gallery shows works from the last two decades of Warhol's life. It was during this time that socialites and celebrities commissioned him to recreate their image with his signature pops of colour on the eyelids or lips.

Again, Warhol showed a willingness to share art experiences by collaborating on paintings with younger artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat. The only outrightly subversive works on exhibition are the abstract Rorschach-like images that he and his friends created by urinating on chemicals to produce various chemical reactions. Even so, I think children will enjoy learning about the oxidation process.

The final part of the gallery showcases Warhol's Time Capsule and Children's Gallery art projects. In the first, Warhol would place correspondence, magazines and souvenirs from his travels into a cardboard box, and when that box became full, he would seal it up, date or title it and start on the next box. At the exhibition are mementos from his visit to Hong Kong, including notes written in the '70s on Mandarin Oriental stationery and postcards of the then Hong Kong skyline.

Warhol created a series of paintings for children using vintage children's toys. The Children's Gallery is exhibited in the same way that it was originally showcased in 1983, with the paintings hung low so that they are at eye-level with the young audience for whom they are intended.

For further reading on this iconic artist, I recommend Mike Venezia's Andy Warhol from his "Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists" series of titles. This picture book is sensitive to its school-aged readers by providing an interesting and comprehensive introduction to Warhol and his art while omitting some of the more controversial aspects of his life.

"Andy Warhol: 15 Minutes Eternal" exhibition runs from 10am to 8pm daily, to Mar 31

Annie Ho is board chairwoman of Bring Me A Book Hong Kong, a non-profit organisation dedicated to improving children's literacy by reading aloud to them bringmeabook.org.hk

Books for Budding Artists - David Wiesner, Peter Reynolds, Louise Yates, Bruce Degen

Artistic books for children with inspiring messages

Sunday, 16 December, 2012, 12:00am

Annie Hofamilypost@scmp.com

My daughter has been taking weekly art classes for more than a year. In the beginning, her favourite thing about going there was that those who arrived early could watch cartoons in the waiting room until class started. Then she entered painting competitions and started to win the occasional prize, and her interest in drawing was piqued by her growing confidence and her gushing parents.

Neither my husband nor I are artistically inclined. We appreciate art but cannot create it. And so, to give my daughter a further boost in her artistic endeavours, I read her books about budding artists' first encounters with art and what constitutes art.

Art & Max is the latest offering from the brilliant visual storyteller David Wiesner. Arthur is a great painter and Max is a keen beginner who thinks that he, too, can paint. Max's enthusiasm stems from his lack of awareness of his own shortcomings, and therein lies the humour. When Max is at a loss for what to paint, the great Art suggests that he be Max's subject. He generously offers, "Well … you could paint me." Max complies by spraying paint all over Art. The adventure begins and the story gets crazier and crazier.

The banter between these two unlikely friends reminds me of Robert De Niro and Ben Stiller in the film Meet the Parents, where the prospective son-in-law believes himself to be a decent fellow, until he comes under the disapproving eye of the prospective father-in-law.

While I am blown away by the gorgeously illustrated lizards in Art & Max, my daughter is more enthralled by the two art books of Peter H. Reynolds, The Dot and Ish.

The Dot is the story of a reluctant art student whose teacher patiently nurtures her interest in art while helping to change her perception of what art is. For example, when the student hasn't produced anything by the end of class, the teacher looks at the blank paper and offers, "Ah! A polar bear in a snow storm."

The story is well told and the pencil drawing style of Reynolds is simple and direct. I also love the fact that the student's name is Vashti, a distinctly ethnic name.

In Ish, Ramon is a boy who loves to draw. One day his older brother looks over his shoulder at one of his new creations and laughs, "What is that?" After that, Ramon starts and then crumples many sheets of paper because he no longer feels that any of his drawings look "right". Later, he stops drawing altogether.

Ramon's passion for drawing is rekindled after his younger sister takes all his crumpled drawings and shows him how the vase he was supposed to draw looks "vase-ish" and the tree he was trying to draw looked "tree-ish". With this new viewpoint, Ramon realises he loves making his special "ish" drawings.

Both of Reynolds' stories see the child artist change his or her perspective of what constitutes art, although one starts with a little girl reluctant to even try, and the other starts with a little boy who draws everything all the time. The message in these stories is inspiring.

Louise Yates' Dog Loves Drawing is a companion to Dog Loves Books. Dog Loves Drawing follows the development of book-lover turned bookshop owner Dog's interest in drawing. The illustrations become increasingly complex and complement the story well.

I Gotta Draw is a new book by Bruce Degen, an illustrator best known for hisJamberry storybook full of rhymes that flow so easily from the lips.

In I Gotta Draw, Charlie is described as "the pup with the pencil, the mutt with the marker, the dog with the drawing pad, the chap with the chalk!" He loves to draw but trouble looms when his strict teacher discovers that Charlie has doodled all over his homework.

Parents and children alike will be able to relate to the story's interplay between creating free-flowing art at home and producing neatly written homework at school.

Annie Ho is board chairwoman of Bring Me A Book Hong Kong, a non-profit organisation devoted to improving children's literacy through reading aloud to them and providing easy access to the best children's books for underserved communities across Hong Kong.bringmeabook.org.hk

Picasso Exhibition at Heritage Museum in Sha Tin, Hong Kong - When Pigasso Met Mootisse

Master's strokes prove too abstract for preschoolers
BETWEEN THE LINES Annie Ho (familypost@scmp.com) Jun 10, 2012
My four year-old daughter refers to Pablo Picasso as "Pigasso". It's not a problem with her enunciation because even I say Pigasso when I'm speaking to her. That's because her first exposure to the great artist came from a children's storybook, When Pigasso Met Mootisse, by Nina Laden. Laden illustrates the characters and their environment in the styles of Picasso and Matisse. Pigasso's friends have misshapen eyes and the apple tree in his yard has flat geometric facets. Mootisse's friends have bright red monochromatic bodies and his garden has rows of paper cut-outs of leaves. In this storybook, Pigasso the pig and Mootisse the bull are famous painters who want to escape the demands of their growing fame, so they move to neighbouring houses in the countryside. They become friends but have a disagreement that "escalates into a monumental modern art mess". In the end, they realise the importance of their friendship when they accidentally create a masterpiece artwork together. The real life story of Picasso and Matisse's lifelong friendship is told at the end of the book in language aimed at young children. For primary school children, Laurence Anholt's Picasso and the Girl with the Ponytailis another well-written and well-illustrated story about a little girl who was Picasso's neighbour. She overcame her shyness when she posed for him, and grew up to become an artist herself. This book is one of a series by Anholt. Each title showcases reproductions of an artist's work woven into a true story of that artist and a child in his life. When Pigasso Met Mootisse was a wonderful way to introduce my daughter to Picasso before our visit to Sha Tin's Hong Kong Heritage Museum to view his work. I surmised, correctly, that the exhibition would not attract the attention of a pre-schooler, especially one who is enthralled by the wide variety of illustrations in quality children's picture books. In any event, it was an outing for myself as much as for my daughter. In the eyes of an adult, a painting that evokes emotions, positive or negative, through its interpretive quality is a good painting. In the eyes of a child, a painting that evokes positive emotions through straightforward depiction is a good painting. Picasso once said: "I paint objects as I think them, not as I see them." So when viewing a painting from his Cubist period, my daughter could not grasp why an "auntie" would be drawn with triangular eyes and a nose at her temples. Perhaps the reason my daughter was less enthused by the exhibition than I was is that children have an undeveloped "theory of mind". Theory of mind is the ability to understand that others have beliefs, desires and intentions that are different from one's own. The ability to appreciate abstract or conceptual art requires theory of mind. I enjoyed the Picasso exhibition because I was able to see so many paintings and sculptures beyond his trademark Cubist style. There were Van Gogh-influenced portraits and still-life paintings, and proportional rotund nudes in a neo-classical style. The one painting that captivated my daughter was a colour-dotted work in the style of Georges Seurat's pointillism. It seemed that every parent and child who visited the exhibition that day paused to study and discuss that painting. This technique of painting involves small dots of colour applied in patterns to form an image. It was fascinating for the children to have a close-up view of the coin-sized dots that filled the large canvas, then step back into the middle of the gallery to take in the whole image. For my daughter, the highlight of the visit was playing at high speed and high volume in the museum's Children's Discovery Gallery. My younger daughter also joined in the fun and games. The Picasso exhibition will be at the Hong Kong Heritage Museum until July 22. Annie Ho is a board governor of Bring Me A Book Hong Kong bringmeabook.org.hk a non-profit organisation devoted to improving children's literacy through reading aloud to them and providing easy access to the best children's books for underserved communities across Hong Kong.