The Daddy Mountain

Rating:
Summary: No sense
Review: I agree with mom from NoCal. This book is not written for children. My 7 year old, who reads on a 3rd grade level struggled with the line "I have to be careful and go not too fast." I'm a graduate writing student and I had to read it a few times for it to make sense. There should be a comma or "not too fast" should have been made its own sentence (yeah, yeah I know it's a fragment, but at least it would make it more understandable.) I think Mr. Feiffer or one of his colleagues at Southampton College wrote the first review. The illustrations are not interesting enough to keep the attention of my 3 year old and the story bores my 7 year old. Oh well, just another book to sell on Amazon.

Rating:
Summary: The hills are alive...
Review: Normally, I don't fall for messily illustrated books. I'm far more likely to pick up a book by Chris Van Allsburg or David Weisner than I am a William Steig or even a Jules Feiffer. Still, there was something about, "The Daddy Mountain" that called to me. The first time I saw it it looked...different. Like it had something to say to me. So it was with great surprise that I found myself picking it up, flipping through it, reading it intently, and falling head over heels in love with it. "The Daddy Mountain" will probably not garner that many awards. After one hundred years it will probably lay forgotten in ancient dusty attics across America. But as long as we're in the here and now, I encourage you each and every one to seek out this marvelous picture book and take a gander at it for yourselves. It's really quite impressive.

Our heroine is not very big but her ambitions are huge. She is, personally, going to scale the Daddy Mountain. On the first page we have her eyeing the mountain in question. The Daddy Mountain is greyed out, allowing us to concentrate entirely on the girl and her progress. As she begins the climb she offers us useful tidbits of information on how one goes about climbing daddy mountains in general. Everything from "Fruit juice gives me energy to climb" to "Remember, the Daddy Mountain must wear a shirt. Because if you grab hold of his skin, he'll get mad" are offered to the reader. The climb is treacherous, and there's more than one fall to the bottom. Fortunately, by the penultimate pull-out page the little girl sits perched on her father's head, high high above the ground. Gleefully she tries to get her mother's attention as her daddy says reassuringly, "No problem. She's fine". Her mom, needless to say, is less than thrilled.

I've heard odd criticisms of this book. Some people have claimed that the final shot of the mother gasping in what could either be terror or anger (along with the girl's words, "I think she's going to faint") is promoting bad stereotypes. Certainly, the mom is clasping her hands over her eyes. True that. But to say that this promotes the idea that mothers are weak individuals who can't take it when their daughters do exciting this is a bit naïve. I prefer to interpret the image as a mother's headache at her daughter's inclination towards foolhardy father-climbing and (more importantly) helpless anger at a pop who encourages it. Regardless, it's a funny last picture and no more offensive than any other parents-worried-for-the-safety-of-their-children books out there today.

And I love the art. Who knew? Feiffer may be a little unclear when it comes to individual toes on characters, but the pictures in this book are pitch perfect. You really sympathize with the heroine as she reaches painfully for the Daddy Mountain's belt. I loved how the Daddy Mountain himself was greyed out and more a geographical construction than a man (until the last pull-out shot, that is). Where the girl is drawn with colored markers and pens, the Daddy Mountain is all pencil drawings. It's a surprisingly effective technique.

All in all, this is one of my favorite 2004 picture books ever. It doesn't have anything particularly deep or meaningful to say. It doesn't blow you away with its wisdom or artistic techniques. It's simply a very funny, wry, remarkable little book. Though I've just recommended it out the wazoo, I say to you the following: I can't recommend it enough. Give it a taste.


Rating:
Summary: Strange. Not written for children.
Review: This book reads strangely the whole way through, and the weird bold font matches. The text does not seem like what a child would say. Two mentions of the mommy or daddy getting "mad" are unnecessary. Last page has mommy about to faint because girl on daddy's shoulders--hello?? Has this author ever had children?