Infinite Possibilities: Not a Box by Antoinette Portis

What parent, stuck with the tough job of assembling and setting up a birthday or Christmas gift, hasn't been bemused at the sight of a young child playing with the box the thing came in for hours, while the manufactured "toy" sits untouched in lonely plastic isolation?

Antoinette Portis' Not a Box, winner of the Theodore Seuss Geisel Honor Medal (for books for early readers), takes this familiar scene and turns it into a simple work of art. Wrapped in a symbolically plain brown paper cover, this little book takes only 64 words to explain how, in the imagination of a child, a box is not just a box, but whatever the human mind can conceive.

Portis uses a simple black flat line drawing of a little rabbit sitting in a black line rectangle against a textured white page, while on the facing verso page, done in brown, the supposed adult "voice-over" asks the question

"Why are you sitting in a box?"

"It's not a box."

the little rabbit replies matter-of-factly.

And indeed, in that moment, it is not. It's a bright red race car speeding away, shown on a bright yellow page as an overlay over the black rectangle. Following pages offer similarly clueless remarks from the "off camera" adult: "Why are you squirting a box?" and "Why are you wearing a box," as the opposite page shows the little rabbit as a fireman hosing down a flaming red burning building or inside an imposing red robot constructed around the original rectangle. The answer remains the same: "It's not a box." Finally the slightly exasperated voice asks, "Well, what is it then!"

"It's my not-a-box."

A simple brown cardboard box, as we see, can be the howdah on an elephant's back, the crow's nest of a pirate ship, the gondola of a hot-air balloon, or a rocket ship to the moon, depending upon our fancy, and this little book does an amazing job of exploiting this weighty theme in a few lines and in even fewer words. Design is the key to this book, with the adult's questions on a ho-hum brown page, the little rabbit and his plain-Jane box always on a white page, and his glorious imaginings presented against a vibrant yellow or red backdrop.

Not a Box, is a great book for any preschooler. Just be sure to have a plain brown box to go with it and see what comes from putting the two together!

Square Deal! What To Do With A Box by Jane Yolen

A BOX! A BOX
IS A WONDER
INDEED.THE ONLY
SUCH MAGIC
THAT YOU'LL
EVER NEED.

A plain, brown cardboard box is a tabula rasa, a blank slate upon which the child's mind can draw anything that can be imagined.

It can be turned upside down to become a tea party table. It can be a reading nook, a private window seat to snuggle with a book. A box can be a library, a door to open with its magic key.

Or that box can take you away, far away from your usual day.

YOU CAN DRIVE IN THAT BOX ALL AROUND A DIRT TRACK.

YOU CAN SAIL IN THAT BOX OFF TO PARIS AND BACK.

Kids can decorate those boxes with crayons or paints, turning them into a a backdrop for a play or an forest exploration adventure. A box can be whatever you see, whatever you make of it.

Maybe a box isn't the only incentive to fire up the imagination, but even babies can see the fun involved in crawling inside and playing hide-and-seek long before they ever hear of that game. Noted author of the best-selling The Bear Books, begun with Bear Snores On (The Bear Books), Jane Yolen's newest rhyming book,  What To Do With a Box (Creative Education, 2016), is impelled along by her genial anapestic pentameter verse, and illustrator Chris Sheban provides multiple inventive uses of cardboard media to add to the fun, introducing just a few of the ways a box can be used as an all-purpose toy. In their starred review, Kirkus adds, "Intuitive, inspired executions of art and verse perfectly capture the unending fun of time spent inside a box."

Absolutely pair this one with Antoinette Portis' brilliant Not a Box. (see my review here)

Back to School: Kindergarten Diary (by Me, Annalina) by Antoinette Portis

SEPTEMBER 1: THE DAY BEFORE THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL.

I don't want to go to Kindergarten. I only like preschool.

I don't want to go to Big School with big kids.

What if they're mean?

There are a lot of "what ifs" about going to Big School. What if the teacher is scary? What if nobody shares? What if I cry? What if....

Annalina hasn't even thought of one "what if?" What if her name is too long to write over and over on those lined practice sheets? But our brand-new scholar figures that one out all by herself:

ANNALINA TAKES TOO MANY LINES.

I AM GOING TO CHANGE MY NAME TO ANNA AND SAVE LINA FOR WHEN I AM BIGGER.

And Anna takes it one day at a time, mastering those school kid skills day by day. She and David M. figure out how to take turns on the monkey bars, and by the end of the month Anna is the "second-best monkey in the universe!" Anna and Zoe become recess friends, even though Zoe loves socks and Anna still hates them, wearing her cowboy boots resolutely every day. She has stage fright when she stands in front of the class for Show-And-Tell, but she warms to the task so quickly that her teacher has to call time with a perky "Thank you, Anna. Now let someone else have a turn." Anna's journal covers the events of the first month, including losing her fear of the big kids when first graders visit the Kindergarten playground and turn out to be just slightly bigger kids who know how to share, too.

By the end of September, Anna's diary is filled with the small triumphs of Kindergarten. Her last entry tells it all:

SEPTEMBER 30: Too busy to write anymore!

P. S.: We are Room 2K and we are fine!

Antoinette Portis' latest, Kindergarten Diary (Harper, 2010) uses an authentic child's voice to describe the all-important transition to "Big School." Portis, the award-winning author of the amazingly creative Not a Box and the best-selling sequel Not a Stick, here offers a poignant and engaging entry into the first-day-of-Kindergarten genre.

Do It Yourself: Meeow and the Big Box by Sebastian Brown

Meeow is a black cat.

Hello, Meeow.

Meeow likes the color red.

Meeow has some red paint.

Meeow paints the brown box red.

Tension builds as we watch cute little Meeow, wearing his jaunty red scarf, as he paints a plain-jane brown cardboard box red, cuts out a square from one side with his green scissors ("Be careful, Meeow!"), and brings in a big green block, an orange chair, and a two-handled blue mug. What can Meeow be making?

In Sebastien Braun's charming little toddler book, the child is drawn into the project, wondering what will emerge from Meeow's imagination. Will it be a house? A train? A car? Well, it could become any one of these things, but the final product turns out to be Meeow's concept of a fire engine, and on the final page we see the fire engine as Meeow has seen it all along, complete with ladders, lights--and a loud siren.

Nee-naw! Nee-naw!

Clever Meeow!

Sebastien Braun, illustrator of Jane Yolen's latest, Dimity Duck, steps out with his second story about his creative cat character, Meeow and the Big Box. Braun tucks a lesson in colors into his newest book, a perfect toddler lap book which is sure to spark imaginative play among the very young.

Combine this one with Braun's earlier companion book Meeow and the Little Chairs. and especially Antoinette Portis' Theodore Seuss Geisel Honor Award-winning Not a Box, reviewed here.

Rollin' On: Red Wagon by Renata Liwska

LUCY HAD A BRAND-NEW LITTLE RED WAGON.SHE WANTED TO PLAY WITH IT.

SHE ASKED HER HER MOTHER.

"SURE, YOU CAN USE YOUR WAGON TO GO TO THE MARKET."

THAT SOUNDED LIKE A CHORE. LUCY DIDN'T WANT TO DO CHORES.

Trust a grownup to see a new toy, with all its possibilities glowing like an aura around it, as a means to carry out a daily job. But Lucy sets out dutifully, pulling her wagon with one hand, clutching the list. Along the way she meets some friends--Rabbit, Raccoon, Rabbit--who climb in for a ride up the hill, Then just as she's ready to have a carefree ride down, it starts to rain.

OH, BOTHER!

The red wagons careens a bit down the hill to the open-air market, and Lucy obediently loads it up with vegetables (oh, joy!) and trudges back toward home, the return trip uneventful except for a crash into a rock on the other side of the hill on the way back.

From Liwska's spare text, this dutiful milk run seems not to be much fun at all. But in the imagination of the red wagon's crew, it's a pirate voyage over raging seas, a railroad train, a rocket ship, a piece of heavy construction equipment, and a platform for a veggie-juggling trapeze flier to stack her produce for her.

After all those fantastic adventures, it's no wonder that when Mom sets her free to play, Lucy's little red wagon becomes a snug place to catch a well-deserved nap.

Renata Liwska is the noted illustrator of the best-selling The Quiet Book and Deborah Underwood's new sequel The Loud Book! has a clever exposition in her first solo effort, an interesting juxtaposition of matter-of-fact text and the vividly imagined adventures, the ability of an imaginative youngster to make a routine trudge into a fantastic voyage. For another recent tale of what the mind can make of the most mundane, see Antoinette Portis' Not a Box (See all Children's Basic Concepts Books)

Sometimes a wagon is just a wagon. And sometimes,thankfully, it's not!

Hold the Crown: Too Princessy! by Jean Reidy

It's a rainy day--and not the sort of rainy day that makes a girl want to go out and play in the puddles either.

I'M BORED!

Maybe just the right toy is hiding in that big cardboard box, one that will inspire some indoor fun. How's about some music? There's a drum and a toy piano....

TOO BANGY! TOO PLINKY!

The jumping jack is too jolly. The play clay is too gloppy and the robot is too blinkety. The clown is too over-the-big-top circusy. Even the costume is too princessy and her tiara is too crowny. Soon the too-something cast-offs are scattered all over the floor , and the big brown box sits empty.

It seems no plaything in the box pleases this persnickety girl.

But---wait! That box has possibilities. Can she fit inside? Could it be a rainy day castle?

Could it be....FUN?

Collaborators Jean Reidy and Genevieve Leloup join forces in their third picture book ode to adjectives, Too Princessy! (Bloomsbury, 2012). As in their earlier Too Purpley! and Too Pickley! Reidy's smart wordplay and Leloup's monochromatic and stylized illustrations spoof the picky among us with good humor and verve. Pair this one with Antoinette Portis' notable Not a Box for some fun with the power of the playful mind.