This husband-and-wife team has produced a treasure trove of picture books.
W e have a Latin phrase that often gets used in my house: Repetitio mater studiorum. “Repetition is the mother of learning.” It’s a fairly true phrase, especially when you’re memorizing poetry or math facts. But this phrase can also strike you as you reread Goodnight Moon for the 683rd time. Children have a wonderful capacity for repetition — in fact, G. K. Chesterton compared a child’s love of repetition to the joy God may take in making the sun rise each morning. But it can be both amusing and frustrating for the adult on the receiving end. I was reminded of this phenomenon recently when I was spending time with family and college friends. My sister’s son is too young to care much about books, but he does sometimes enjoy snuggling up with Don and Audrey Woods’s The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear. My sister brought this book along on our trip, and our friends’ children quickly became enamored of it, begging for it again and again. No other book was brought out the entire weekend, but I’m deeply ashamed to say I still don’t have it memorized.
This gem of a book was popular in my childhood home and uses lots of fascinating techniques to hold the reader’s attention. The art, of course, is bold and engaging, and it keeps our focus on the story’s main characters: the mouse, the strawberry, and the bear. Of the three, we only ever see two — the bear never makes an appearance, but his presence is felt throughout the tale, and he seems to be lurking in the background.
The plot centers on a cheerful little mouse who is determined to pick and consume a red ripe strawberry growing just outside his front door. While he goes about his business, the story’s reader conducts a dialogue with him (though the mouse responds only with facial expressions and gestures), asking him rather pointed questions and insinuating that a strawberry-obsessed, big, hungry bear is waiting not far away and will steal said strawberry. The book is silly and charming and makes a perfect read-aloud, giving children an opportunity to cheer on the mouse as he races to find ways of guarding his treasure from the impending appearance of the bear.
Audrey Wood honed her storytelling and artistic skills through years of fascinating life experiences. She and Don met when Don was at Berkeley, and they married six months later. In a foretaste of what was to come, Audrey read George MacDonald’s At the Back of the North Wind to Don on their honeymoon. It was after the birth of their son, Bruce, though, that Audrey began publishing stories. Don did the illustrations for her first book, Moonflute, and this began an artistic partnership between the two — a partnership that produced some highly memorable books.
The absurdity of King Bidgood’s in the Bathtub. The hilarity of The Napping House. The drama of Heckedy Peg. The imagination of Quick as a Cricket. All these tales come alive through the words and images of the Woods. Audrey has worked with some other well-known artists over the years, producing books such as A Cowboy Christmas: The Miracle at Lone Pine Ridge (illustrated by Robert Florczak), Sweet Dream Pie (illustrated by Mark Teague), The Bunyans (illustrated by David Shannon), and When the Root Children Wake Up (illustrated by Ned Bittinger). She’s also showcased her own artistic skill in books such as Silly Sally and Rude Giants. The latter is renowned in my home, and we often quote passages to each other. The phrase “Beatrix the butter maid and Gerda the cow” rolls off the tongue so beautifully.
Dear as Rude Giants is to me, though, there’s one other Wood book I prefer to all the others, mainly for its quirky concept: Piggies. This 1991 book was illustrated by Don Wood and written by both husband and wife. Bright and playful, the story focuses our attention on a pair of hands and envisions a cute little pig associated with each digit. The amount of sheer whimsy in this book, and the fabulous facial expressions of the piggies, makes this a tale for all ages.
Next time you’re at the library, you might just want to pop down to the “W” section in picture books. Who knows? You might find King Bidgood bathing, Beatrix and Gerda teaching, or some little piggie having a blast. And even better: You’ll find yourself reading about them again and again.