A Picture is Worth...

One of my favorite children's authors is David Wiesner. I like his books because they have few, if any, words in them at all. Yeah, I know that seems ironic from me as you're reading this blog. I tend to get a little wordy on here, my figurative diary. I wonder, sometimes, if it seems strange to you when I behave in just the opposite manner, in person, most of the time? Hmm.

Anyway, if you have a moment, you should stop by the children's section of the library sometime and check out Tuesday. I love the idea of frog shenanigans. (Once, when I was little and my mother was getting a perm at the hairdresser, I wrote a full story about a little frog who sat down beside a man on a park bench. They kept silent company for quite some time. The man enjoyed his newspaper, minding his own business, and the little frog sat there... beside him on the bench. Upon folding the newspaper in preparation to stand up and go on about his day, the man glanced over to see the frog once more. I liked to imagine the man's reaction as he realized that frog had now turned its head to look back at him and was in the midst of delivering a wide, toothy smile. Yes, the frog had teeth. Now, I'm not sure if I ever really finished that story, but I do remember the facial expressions of the other customers in that hair salon. It was obvious that they were slightly disturbed by the kid who would write on her pad of paper and then laugh hysterically every few seconds. In my defense, perms take a long time, and when you're an only child you have to create much of your own entertainment. (Sidenote: I also remember that story contained a clown who rode around on a bike in that same park and threw pies in people's faces for no real reason at all. The recipients of the pie throwing would get extremely irritated and chase the clown, screaming at him in anger. Inevitably, though, he'd just ride away really fast and go find another person to assault. I see now that it was kind of a weird story, in hindsight, but ahh... it was so funny. I'm laughing even now... tears. I am a stupid little kid once more.)

Anyway, Wiesner's Tuesday is about a flying frog phenomenon on, what appears to be, an ordinary weeknight in the suburbs. Chaos ensues and all without any real narration by the author - just really great illustrations. I became a fan on page two.

As an exercise, I'll show you a sequence of photos taken by my grandpa when my grandma recently attempted to feed Emma her baby food. Now, you are probably armed with a little bit of background knowledge about Emma's eating habits if you've read previous entries. And if you haven't... well, I still think that you'll understand this Wiesner style, wordless story. Here we go.