I have always been a fan of Shel Silverstein’s work. But then I found this book which blows all the rest away. It maintains the same tone and style as his better known books for children, but he so amazingly switches from hug o’ war to pure evil. He uses illustrations and happy little poems to encourage “children” to start fires so shiny red fire trucks come to visit, take candy from strangers, and steal money from their parents and mail it to him. Trust me, it’s funny. The intentionally crude drawings with lots of handwritten text kind of remind me of David Shrigley, but with about 82% less inane bizarreness. You can visit Uncle Shelby here.

This book poses the question, “who needs donuts when you’ve got love?“ This is what caught my eye, although I always remember it as ”who needs love when you have donuts.“ Turns out it is more of a statement than a question, a discovery made through an INSANELY illustrated journey, involving a ridiculous number of patterns, textures, donuts, people, signs, inside jokes and pigeons with the heads of other animals. Almost to the point where it was frustrating because I just wanted to notice and absorb everything all at once and not miss anything. I’m kind of impatient like that.

I found this interview with the author where he explains what first sparked this love/donut connection, and points out which people in the book are drawings of people in his life. It turns out it is loosely (very loosely) based on a true story, my favorite kind of story. You can check out all the details here.

This book is a compilation of children’s poems by Carl Sandburg, who died in 1967. I know nothing about him except that when he wrote books for children, he gave them really strange titles. And these are some really strange poems. I also like this book because it was illustrated in several different styles all at once by Istvan Banyai, adding to the strange goodness. For all you graphic design elitists, the text is designed in the style of “concrete poetry” (the lines of type about clouds are shaped like clouds! Genius!). While I found this concrete poetry stuff the source of endless boring posters that no one would admit were boring back in art school, it works here because it is a book for children and they get a kick out of that stuff. And in some cases typographic fanciness takes on forms that has nothing to do with the content, thereby further confusing the children and adding to the fun! You can join the fun here.

I was super excited to attend a book reading to get this book signed. It was so worth it, since after an auditorium full of children and I listened to a nice story, Mr. Smith even drew a happy little drawing just for me. He often illustrates books written by other authors (probably most notably The True Story of the Three Little Pigs with Jon Scieszka) but this book is one of several that he also wrote. When my high school self discovered this book around 1997 (it was first published in 1993) something about the vintage style illustrations, the craft paper look of the paper, and that hard-to-explain dry, weird, McSweeney’s-like humor all made perfect sense in a life-altering way. So ahead of its time.

I should buy this book in bulk since I tend to give it away as a gift so often. You can buy it here.

Julia said, “Jess, you should write about children’s books since you work at the toy company.” Hmmm. A quick review of my library revealed that many of my favorites were in fact children’s books. But not the regular kind, the kind that are apt to scar children for life. Hooray for children’s books!

Somewhere in between Queer Eye and his current show, How To Look Good Naked, Carson Kressley wrote this charming little book. It is a retelling of the ugly duckling story crossed with a little bit of rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, with really cute drawings of ponies. Teaching impressionable children about tolerance and acceptance (kind of like the lessons he teaches the ladies on his show), with the addition of the most important lesson of all, that true success comes only with a cross-category licensing program. I love the line quality and the way they toned the whole page so that Trumpet, the star pony stands out as bright white. You can buy it here.