Du Iz Tak?

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Toen ik gisteren aan vrienden ‘Kek iz tak?’ van Carson Ellis liet zien en ook een stukje voorlas, besefte ik nog eens hoe geweldig ik het zou vinden als ik kinderen had. ‘Kek iz tak?’ is zo’n prentenboek waarmee je op een fantastische manier kunt spelen (of nee: moet spelen). Bij dit prentenboek ben je verplicht stemmetjes te doen. Here’s a bright, refined fantasy world to be lost in, and one that has its dark, seasonal drama to boot. Good for kids who like to imagine miniature worlds.

There are loads of language and reading comprehension benefits for kids here. Even though you have no idea what they're saying its a simple matter to use the context clues to work things out and the gibberish is super fun to say ("gladenboot" being my personal favorite). But there's also a real sort of innocent joy to the whole thing. Ellis's illustrations are just shy of being surrealistically frightening. The bugs have very human features and limbs but there's just enough softness and clever use of charming sort of turn of the century clothes that keep things from getting downright nightmarish. The colors are wonderful to, a little muted and very earthy. There are also loads of lovely, tiny details that you only catch if you read it several times which my sons' took great pride in pointing out when they discovered them. A bold retro color palette and lots of white space allow a big beautiful story plenty of room to breathe. I will seriously have so much fun with this book. I can already picture myself using this in some of my classrooms. It's written completely in an invented language, but we can more or less infer the meaning of the dialogue. "More or less" still leaves lots of room for imagination and interpretation. "Du iz tak?" might mean "What is this?" or maaaybe it means "Are you yummy?" Who's to say it can't be either? In that sense it lets us as the readers become the narrators. There are lots of opportunities to embed thematic learning experiences (seasons, plants, insects) but, if nothing else, it's lots of fun! Complement the impossibly wonderful Du Iz Tak? with the Japanese pop-up masterpiece Little Tree— a very different meditation on the cycle of life based on a similar sylvan metaphor — then revisit Ellis’s Home, one of the greatest children’s books of 2015. Most children in the audience are familiar with the book, have a favourite character and know some of the lingo. But even for the novice like me the creative text is understandable and the piece a predominantly visual feast.

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Ellis’ precise and detailed illustrations of bespectacled bugs and an elaborate fort utterly beguile…It would be easy to make such a story clever for the sake of being clever, but instead Ellis has created one of the smartest, most original and most endearing picture books of this year. Du iz tak? It’s a keeper is what it is. EDIT: Carson Ellis tweeted @ me (which made my morning) and let me know that this one is actually “kids.” So I missed 1 out of 19. Not bad. Viewers follow the unfurling of an exotic woodland plant through the actions and invented language of beautifully coiffed and clothed insects. THIS BOOK. Du Iz Tak? is up there as one of my surprise favourites of the year. I became familiar with Carson Ellis' gorgeous illustrative work after reading her picture book Home, and poring over her illustrations for The Mysterious Benedict Society and The Wildwood Chronicles. Du Iz Tak? is an entire world- and another level- of wow. Written entirely in imagined insect-speak- beginning with the seemingly innocuous 'Du iz tak?', readers are taken on a fantastical, thrilling and wondrous journey with beautiful, elegant insects. From their discovery of a tiny shoot which then grows and grows through the seasons, the insects adapt and impress with every change- or danger- thrust upon them. With Ellis' stunning illustrations as the readers' guide, much of the delight of Du Iz Tak? resides with deciphering the language of the insects...and even more delight rests in coming to some revelations about their language!

But then, nature once again asserts her central dictum of impermanence and constant change: The flower begins to wilt. Yes, within reason. I don't think that all kids are ready to deal with whatever subject matter we want to lob at them obviously. My five-year-old is wild for horror. He loves scary stuff so I read him scary stories (I love horror too). But I won't read him Otto in the Tomi Ungerer anthology I just bought because it's about the Holocaust and we're Jewish and he's five. I don't think it's time for that conversation yet. For some other five-year-old and his mom it wouldn't be time for horror yet either. We're all different and we're entitled to set our own boundaries and make our own judgement calls. So it's probably too simple to say that kids "get it" and we should be exposing them to more difficult stuff. But, yes, I do think in general we tend to shelter them more than they want or need when it comes to books. I also think that in general we expect books for kids to have some kind of moral takeaway, some lesson to learn and I think that's a bummer. Books are art and when we make them for children they should reflect what makes literature and visual art wonderful to us, as adults. Of course some books should teach lessons. But some shouldn't. The handwritten type in your books add to their style. Though not strictly calligraphic, the source is evident with your distinctive art. How did you come to that choice and do you anticipate always using your own hand-drawn type? As the bugs resume repair and construction, the bud blossoms into invigorating beauty. Drawn to the small miracle of the flower, other tiny forest creatures join the joyful labor — the ants interrupt their own industry, the slug slides over in wide-eyed wonder, the bees and the butterflies hover in admiration, and even the elder’s wife emerges from the tree trunk, huffing a pipe as she marvels at the new blossom.

Honestly, Carson Ellis' absolutely delightful Du Iz Tak? (What is That?) is for me not only a perfect picture book both illustratively and textually, but is also a book which I dearly wish I could rate with more than the five star maximum allowed by Goodreads (as in my opinion, Du Iz Tak? is a ten star offering, a glowingly amazing and evocative homage to life, to the seasons, to imagination and fun, and to have a text, to have a narrative that presents an invented language, well, for linguistically inclined and interested me, that was and is truly the appreciated icing on an already most delightful and delicious cake).