{"id":17518,"date":"2015-11-20T08:00:59","date_gmt":"2015-11-20T13:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=17518"},"modified":"2015-11-20T08:00:59","modified_gmt":"2015-11-20T13:00:59","slug":"that-mo-willems-at-it-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=17518","title":{"rendered":"That Mo Willems, At It Again"},"content":{"rendered":"

A while ago, I wrote about<\/a> my favorite, lesser-known\u00a0Mo Willems picture book, Hooray for Amanda and Her Alligator<\/em>! which is just perfection, and now I cannot help myself from writing about yet another pitch-perfect Willems book \u2014\u00a0this one done with irresistible art\u00a0by Tony DiTerlizzi \u2014\u00a0The Story of Diva and Flea<\/a><\/em>.
\n\"\"A very small dog, Diva, and a very large cat, Flea, live nearly opposite Parisian lives. Diva stays in her protected courtyard, while free-spirited Flea wanders,\u00a0with no home or predictable meals\u00a0to call his own,\u00a0but with an adventurous spirit and many stories to share. One day, Flea spies Diva in her courtyard and is immediately taken with the tiny dog. He pokes his head through the gate \u2014 and thus begins a great friendship.\u00a0Because of this\u00a0meeting, their lives comically\u00a0overturn as each bravely experiences the strange world of the other.
\n
\nI’ll share a tidbit with you.\u00a0Early on,\u00a0after Flea has told Diva one of his many exciting stories (this one about “‘The Store Where the Man Roasts Whole Chickens and Could Learn a Thing or Two About Sharing’), Flea says,<\/p>\n

“Well, time for me to go.”<\/p>\n

“Where will you go when you go?” asked Diva curiously.<\/p>\n

“Where won’t<\/em> I go when I go where I go!” replied Flea proudly.<\/p>\n

“How am I supposed to know where you won’t<\/em> go when you go, when I don’t know where you do<\/em> go when you go?” asked Diva.<\/p>\n

By now, their little-dog and big-cat brains were very confused.<\/p>\n

Unsure of what to do next, Diva thought of\u00a0yelling “FEET!” and running away, but there were no feet anywhere to be seen. So, Diva just stood there.<\/p>\n

“You should join me one\u00a0day!” Flea said suddenly. “You could be a\u00a0fl\u00e2neur<\/em> like me.”<\/p>\n

“What is a fl\u00e2neur<\/em>?” asked Diva, worried that it might be a type of mouse catcher.<\/p>\n

Flea explained that a\u00a0fl\u00e2neur<\/em> is someone (or somecat, or maybe even somedog) who wanders the streets and bridges and alleys of the city just to see what there is to see….<\/p>\n

It’s an utterly charming tour de force, illustrated throughout with\u00a0DiTerlizzi’s expressive, humorous, fine-lined ink drawings. This book is so warm-hearted and clever! Like\u00a0Emily Jenkins and Paul O. Zelinsky’s endearing\u00a0Toys Go Out, <\/em>it is a<\/em>\u00a0little gem, a small modern classic that will never go out of date.
\nFrankly, it’s a little annoying how easy Mo W.\u00a0makes it look to create timeless, funny, lovable, endlessly child-appealing books using language that\u00a0seems so simple but is brimming with\u00a0life and verve and big big heart. (He and Cynthia Rylant. And\u00a0Kate DiCamillo.) “Annoying” here meaning: so, so wonderful.
\nReaders, what are your picks for modern classics?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A love letter to Paris, adventure, and home from Willems and DiTerlizzi.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17518\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}