Mike Curato's 'Little Elliot, Big City,' and More
The New York Times
November 7, 2014
We’ve all been there at some point. Feeling a little out of place, unnoticed. If we were lucky, perhaps we met someone who, though very different, complemented us. Maybe we met a Jim and, like Huck Finn, left our familiar though confining small town; maybe we were Maude seeking companionship in a boy named Harold; maybe we were Joe Buck, the midnight cowboy in a city that never sleeps, who befriended the lowliest of the low, Ratso Rizzo.
Four new picture books tell stories about friends who vanquish loneliness. In the warmly illustrated “Little Elliot, Big City,” a lap-dog-size elephant named Elliot finds difficulty negotiating a metropolis — in his case, a glamorous 1940s New York City. He has trouble turning door handles, which he can barely touch with his trunk, and reaching into his freezer for food, which he pushes out with a broomstick. He can’t catch a cab; one splashes him as it drives through a puddle. What Elliot really wants is a cupcake — but the attendant at the bakery doesn’t notice him. In fact, no one notices this tiny elephant, despite the fact that he is white with blue and pink polka dots (he’s a precursor, in a way, to Joe Buck, whose cowboy hat and shirt barely catch the attention of New Yorkers).
The author-illustrator Mike Curato, making his picture book debut, beautifully renders the images in rich earth tones that are soft and smooth, calling to mind “The Sweetest Fig,” by Chris Van Allsburg (whose newest book I’ll get to in a bit), which was set in Paris, also in a bygone era. In a two-page spread, hordes of men and women wearing hats and overcoats wait on a subway platform, everyone in shadows, with a pale Elliot on the bottom, protecting himself, “careful not to be stepped on.” Perhaps the most bittersweet moment in the book is an illustration of Elliot, defeated, walking against pedestrian traffic on a sidewalk. A smiling little blond girl turns to him, but he is not aware.
Returning from the bakery empty-handed, “Elliot was so sad that he barely noticed a thing,” Curato writes; yet the elephant nevertheless catches sight of something smaller than he is trying to climb up a garbage can — a white mouse, desperately searching for food. With his trunk, Elliot lifts him to the top of the garbage can, where his new friend nibbles on a slice of pizza. Soon the two are back at the bakery, with the mouse, riding on Elliot’s trunk, reaching to give the attendant a dollar bill.
Elliot finally gets his cupcake, “and something even better.” The final pages show a darkened building with the Manhattan Bridge in the background and, in one of the two yellow-lit windows, Elliot and the mouse sitting at the kitchen table sharing the cupcake.
Two other unlikely friends come together in “Hug Me,” by the Italian author Simona Ciraolo. She uses whimsical, jagged colored-pencil drawings to portray Felipe, a young cactus who just wants someone to wrap his arms around. But, coming from “an old and famous” family of cacti, he knows they’re the last people he can expect affection from. Ciraolo uses ample white space to set in relief the prickliness of the cactus family, and to signal the impending tragedy when Felipe meets someone he hopes will be his first friend — someone who “was bold, confident, . . . and he was trouble.” In short: a big yellow balloon.
You can imagine what happens. Ciraolo is playful in a very Italian way as she shows how Felipe’s mishap disgraces his relatives. Even the newspaper headline — written in red — declares his shame: “CACTUS ATTACK.”
Felipe moves away from his family, trying unsuccessfully to befriend squirrels and dogs and building his own house, fenced in from the world. When he hears weeping in the distance, Felipe knows what he needs to do: “Someone else was feeling lonely too.” He searches out the crying voice and comes upon a rock named Camilla. Who says a rock feels no pain? And here Felipe envelops the rock with his prickly arms. (Your child, as did mine, will immediately understand that the rock is the only thing that can’t be hurt by the spines.)
Some friends simply want to help others who they feel have been left out. In “A Good Home for Max,” Tabi, a mouse who wears a blue cap, takes care of a little store after hours. Every day a toy goes home with an owner — all except Max, a sweet dog with a sour face. Trying to make the frowning Max appealing to some child, Tabi dresses him up in festive attire — an inner tube in summer, a party hat in winter. Nothing works, and “Max is always by his side.” Finally Tabi dresses Max in a hat just like his own, though red. One evening, Max is gone. Tabi sneaks into a delivery truck that takes him through the little village, hoping to find him. When he returns to the shop, crestfallen, he looks out to see Max sitting in the window of the house across the street, smiling. Every night to come, we’re told, “when Tabi is done straightening the shop, he visits Max across the street.”
Some young readers may not understand the message at first, and will wonder why Tabi is going through all this trouble to get rid of his best friend, but parents will register the emotional push-pull of Tabi’s conflict. Junzo Terada, a Japanese artist known for his postcards and mobiles, uses rich patterns of cheerful colors for his wood-block-style illustrations, and his sophisticated artwork, as well, may be appreciated even more by parents than children.
As the two-time Caldecott Medal winner Chris Van Allsburg’s newest book suggests, some lonely creatures just need to strike out on their own. In “The Misadventures of Sweetie Pie,” the title character is a squirmy hamster, who is pawned off from one unsuitable child to another. Each time his cage passes into the hands of another owner, he catches a glimpse of fresh air, and of freedom.
While Van Allsburg’s pen-and-ink drawings don’t have the shadowing and dusky tones of some of his previous books, the story is itself a dark one. Using bright, pastel colors, he utilizes his familiar close croppings and dramatic angles to depict, say, a dog’s mouth latching on to the cage, or a girl with a downright evil look on her face who puts Sweetie Pie in a dress, then into a hamster ball, and then — devastatingly — forgets about him outside.
Yet it’s not the only time a child abandons him. In the final instance, a boy puts the cage down to play a game of catch, but leaves him there overnight in falling snow. When the boy uncovers the cage the next day, Sweetie Pie is gone. In a final spread, we see the boy in springtime, still upset, looking around for the lost hamster; but up above Sweetie Pie frolics in a tree hollow with squirrels who have befriended him. The last image is somewhat primordial, with Sweetie Pie standing at the tree hole looking down, almost as if from a “Planet of the Apes” movie.
Up until the ending, it’s all pretty disturbing; after all, conventional wisdom says, what fluffy animal doesn’t need a child to care for it? But then, sometimes misfits — and the neglected — rebel, escape and create their own, better, world.