3 Wishes for Pugman by Sebastian Meschenmoser

I've been waiting to write about this book in the same way I used to anticipate my birthday as a child: with a giant bubble of joy that quietly sits in the stomach somewhere nudging the heart once in a while, knowing something truly wonderful is out there,  does not happen very often, but is entirely real.

3 Wishes for Pugman  by the children's-book-writer-illustrator-love-of-my-life S. Meschenmoser is about a depressive dog who lives in a large dog house with a living room and a kitchen and a hallway and art on the walls and other comforts of a nice home. One morning he wakes up at a time of day when one might seriously consider pulling the blankets back over one's head and trying to sleep straight into the next day, but instead he gets up, pulls on his bathrobe, and slowly walks into the kitchen to discover that he is out out of cereal, and coffee, and it's pouring rain outside, and the newspaper is soaked through, and at this point you can probably imagine how he is feeling, especially since he is obviously a PUG and we all know how challenging it is to be one of those in the first place. As Pugman is sitting on the floor contemplating his miserable life, a fairy suddenly appears and offers him three wishes. Whether he takes her up on her offer and what the wishes are if he does, you will really have to find out by reading the book, and I will instead offer my opinions as to why this book is awesome.

First of all, as I had mentioned in my other post where a book by this author was reviewed,  there is simply no better artist illustrating children's books at this point in time. Pugman surpasses the level of artistic brilliance set by Learning to Fly; the pencil strokes are looser, more playful, more spontaneous, and convey a new level of mastery.  There is also such a world of love for each little pencil stroke and hint of color, and so much kindness in every image that at least for me the book must be read in intervals of a few days because I go into sensory overload from both the visual information and the intense kindness of the narrative and it takes a while to process it all.

Second, similar to Learning to Fly, 3 Wishes for Pugman is a children's book that mercifully does not have any child characters or naive animal characters that children's books are apparently compelled to contain nowadays. Pugman is clearly an adult, with an adult life and adult problems and I think that very fact makes it incredibly valuable for children to read this book - it says that grown up life can be hard and unpredictable too, and does so in a respectful, gentle way. Additionally, when the fairy shows up, she is portrayed in such a vulgar, obscene and invasive way, that the hearts of those of us who hate all the tasteless, Disneyfied, dumbed down, soulless crap that the world of childhood has been infested by, our hearts rejoice and feel validated in a whole new way whether that was the author's intention or not. The super bright colors and the grotesque objects that are paraded by the fairy in an attempt to seduce Pugman into making wishes are in such strong contrast to the depressive, but subtle and tasteful images of the first half of the book that they are hard to look at. I think that by employing a drastic change in the style of the pictures halfway through the book, Meschenmoser makes the strongest commentary on the horrifying reality of children's literature (and, I would argue other forms of child entertainment) to date. Not even Sendak could say it like that, however scathing and sarcastic his remarks were in the last fifteen years or so. However, commentary aside, Meschenmoser seems to possess a Miyazakian quality not to divide his characters into the good and the bad, but to see the wonder, the magic, and potential in every situation, and to make the best of things, which is exactly what Pugman does with his wishes (and, I would say, Meschenmoser with his books).

Before I sign off, as a little bonus, I would like to mention that 3 Wishes for Pugman has a spectacular sequel, that I only have in German, called Mopsmanns Magische Wunderwolle, (or La laine magique de Molosse in French, in which it is also apperently available, though not in English yet, as far as I can tell. Just as, if not even more wonderful than the first one, I recommend getting this in whatever language, the pictures tell the story better than any words ever will.

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How I Learned Geography by Uri Shulevitz

  Uri Shulevitz is a hard person for me to write about  because he has written and/or illustrated a very large number of books about which I have drastically different opinions, but I'll just focus on this one. I think this is by far the best book Shulevitz has written.

How I Learned Geography is an autobiographical story from the time when Shulevitz was a little boy. His home in Warsaw was bombed during the war, and his family escaped to Kazakhstan where they survived. While in Kazakhstan they had very little money for food, and one day his father went off to the market to buy bread, and instead spent all the food money on an enormous map of the world. The family went to bed hungry, listening to the neighbors eat their bread, but the next day, the map went up on the wall, and little Uri discovered the magic and the salvation offered by this new object. He started to "travel" all over the world in his imagination, making up poems from all the strange names on the map, drawing parts of the map on precious bits of paper that came his way, and in many ways using this object as a means of surviving starvation, loneliness and uncertainty.

The first big reason I love this book is because I love maps most of all. I don't know if I would have had the strength to buy a map instead of food if I was in the father's place, but I certainly would hope so. There is something so profoundly familiar in this act, I feel like the characters in the book are a part of my family.

The second reason I love this book is because it deals with WWII and indirectly with the Holocaust (Shulevitz is Jewish, of course) in a very subtle, personal and honest way, without using those two events to blow up one's self-importantce, in way that most books, movies, poems and art works by people not connected to the events do. This is why I generally refuse to have anything to do with them, and find the activity of using the Holocaust to promote one's art or writing truly appalling, a cheap and indecent way to get extra points without making the work good in it's own right. This book is one of the few exceptions to this phenomenon that I have seen, and I very much respect Shulevitz for talking about his experiences in the way that he does, as someone who actually experienced it, not someone who merely observed and was "affected".

Third, both the text and the pictures are superb. In my opinion Shulevitz has often unsuccessfully tried to be poetic with his texts which made his stories boring and meaningless, and it is definitely not the case with this story. Probably because he is actually describing real events, the plot is strong and well structured, and he is very successful at using a few words to convey a lot of meaning. The illustrations are also some of his strongest. Maybe because he is going back to the place of his childhood imagination, and also visually recalling childhood memories, the pictures are exciting, emotional, diverse, dynamic, colorful and engaging.

My last and most favorite part of this book is the very last page, the one that comes after the story is over. On that page there is an autobiographical note describing the actual events on which the story is based, a photograph of a map Shulevitz drew as a child on the back a letter, a comic he drew as a teenager when after the war the family lived in Paris, and, a photo of Shilevitz as a little boy. I especially appreciate the photo of the author as a child, as that puts the book into an elect group of examples of children's literature that touches on the idea that adults and children do not necessary need to exist in two different and separate worlds. The other two books that are quite dear to me,  include the Little Prince with its dedication to Leon Werth (friend of the author) when he was a little boy, and Korczak's King Matt the First, with a photo of Korczak  as a boy on the first page.

This is a special and important book for grown-ups that used to be children, and for children who plan to become good grown-ups.