Picture Book Tuesday: James Stevenson

STARTED & FINISHED:

Stevenson, James. (1977). Could be worse! New York: Greenwillow/William Morrow.

[This is the one that started it all. This one is in my personal collection - it's one that we got from the Weekly Reader program when we were kids, where they sent a new book to you every week. How cool it was to get a new one each week! I wonder if the still do it? At any rate, in this one, 2 kids are tired of their Grandfather always saying, "Could be worse!", so one morning he tells them about the extraordinary adventure that he had over the night - being trampled in the desert by a strange beast, falling to the bottom of the ocean and getting caught in the claw of a giant lobster, catching a ride across the ocean on a piece of toast, and flying back to bed on a giant paper airplane. The kids' reaction to their Grandfather's tale? "Could be worse!" For me, this is a treasured, super-favorite!]




Stevenson, James. (1982). We can't sleep. Greenwillow/William Morrow: New York.

[Louie and Mary Ann can't sleep, so Grandpa spins an imaginative yarn about one night where HE couldn't sleep so he went swimming with sharks in the ocean, tossed a walrus on a ferocious polar bear, avoided a dragon, and got stuck in a hurricane. In the end, it's mission accomplished as Grandpa's tale lulls the kids to sleep. Not quite as good as Could Be Worse, but it's still fun. Stevenson's wonderful ink and watercolor illustrations are, as usual, SO great.]




Stevenson, James. (1991). Brrr! New York: Greenwillow/William Morrow.

[In this one, Mary Ann and Louie exclaim that they are freezing, so Grandpa tells them of the fantastical snowy adventures that he had with he brother during the winter of 1908. Sneezes froze! The town was BURIED in snow! The boys couldn't find their house so they had to walk up to chimneys (it REALLY snowed) and ask if it was their home! Houses were covered in ice, so Grandpa's brother had to walk around and shatter the ice by crying out loud! Again, not as great as the first - these other two are just kind of extraordinary stories without a plot framework, unlike the first - but a great accompaniment.]

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