More More More, Said the Baby FROM OUR EDITORS
Williams uses vibrant colors and hand-painted rainbow letters to tell story-poems about three children: Little Guy, Little Pumpkin, and Little Bird. In each story, the child is chased and caught by a loving parent or grandparent, and readers can practically hear the squeals of delight as the children clamor for "more, more, more!" Many grownups have played similar games of love with their children, and the whole book feels like one giant hug.
ANNOTATION
Three babies are caught up in the air and given loving attention by a father, grandmother, and mother.
FROM THE PUBLISHER
Here areLittle Guy,Little Pumpkin, and Little Bird.
Their grownupslove then.So will you.
About the AuthorVera B. Williams lives in New York City.
From the Author:
"Throughout my childhood I was encouraged to make pictures, tell stories, act, and dance—all of this at a heaven in our New York City neighborhood called the Bronx House.
"Saturdays I painted with a crusading art director, Florence Cane. In her book The Growth of the Child Through Art, I appear under the name Linda. I was sixteen when the book appeared and embarrassed by it. But at age nine I had been totally proud when a painting of mine was exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art and I was later shown in the Movietone News explaining to Eleanor Roosevelt its Yiddish title, "Yentas."
"In 1945 I went to Black Mountain College in North Carolina, a unique educational community. I graduated in 1949 in graphic art, which I studied with Josef Albers. Along the way I planted corn, made butter, worked on the printing press, and helped to build the house in which I lived with Paul Williams, a fellow student I married there.
"I wanted that connection of art and community to continue. And it did at the Gate Hill Cooperative, a community we built with other Black Mountain people, a poet, musicians, and potters. I lived and worked there from 1953-1970 (after which I moved to Canada). My children (Sarah, Jenny, Merce) grew up there. For them, we branched out into a school, part of the Surnmerhill movement. The gingerbread houses that led to my first book for Greenwillow I first made in sticky variety at our school.I have always liked to teach and have taught art, cooking, writing, nature study, for nursery age on.
"At forty-six, no longer married, living in a houseboat on the bay at Vancouver, British Columbia, I did my first book. But before that could happen, the fates decreed a stint of cooking and running a bakery at a small school in the Ontario countryside. My love affair with Canada included also a 500-mile trip on the Yukon River. Many of those adventures I put in Three Days on a River in a Red Canoe.
"I also write and draw for adults-short stories, leaflets, and posters. As a lover of children, I try to do what I can to help save their earth from nuclear disaster. This pursuit, too, has added its excitement to my biography, including, in 1981, a month's stay in the federal penitentiary in Alderson, West Virginia (an outcome of a women's peaceful blockade of the Pentagon). Perhaps this experience will some day appear in one of my books. So far I've found children's books a wonderfully accommodating medium where any of my various activities might pop up."
FROM THE CRITICS
Children's Literature - Dr. Judy Rowen
Gouache paintings illustrate the love between three children, Little Guy, Little Pumpkin and Little Bird, and the adults in their lives. Little Guy's daddy catches him up to swing him around and kiss his tummy - which makes him cry "more, more, more." Little Pumpkin's grandma loves his toes, and Little Bird's mama loves her sleepy little eyes. A visual celebration of family ties. Caldecott Honor Book.
School Library Journal
The spontaneity and delight of play is captured perfectly in this trio of multigenerational, multiracial ``love stories'' about three pairs of babies and their grown-ups. Told in a natural, colloquial tone, the simple, engaging text is finely honed with a rhythm that is musical. The style is as buoyant and infectious as the actions described: ``Little Guy's daddy has to run like anything just to catch that baby up.'' Williams carries the same basic framework and language through each story, generating the repetition that is so satisfying to very young listeners, while the stories and characters maintain their own distinctions. Just as she celebrates universality within the text, Williams presents diversity with characteristic flair within her illustrations. Little Guy and his father are white, Little Pumpkin is African-American and her grandmother is white, and Little Bird and her mother are both Asian-American. Natural and unforced, Williams' choices are an accurate reflection of American society, but are noteworthy in their representation in books for this age group. Uncluttered, yet filled with movement, the splashy, vibrant paintings in gouache feature vigorous portraits and large, clearly defined objects set against a textured expanse of sweeping brushstrokes. The text appears in rainbow-hued letters within the illustrations, adding to the appealing design. Although it is a fine vehicle for toddler storytimes, the real strength of this book lies in the intimacy achieved when it is shared one-on-one between babies and adults or older siblings. A joyous expression of verbal and physical affection, these are truly love stories for our times. More, more, more . . . --Starr LaTronica, North Berkeley Lib . , CA
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