Dig It: Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel Celebrates 75 Years

Caldecott-winning author-illustrator Virginia Lee Burton’s (1909–-1968) sons, Aris and Mike, knew that their mother’s story Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel was a winner, even before it was published back in 1939. Burton famously used her own children as a test audience for her books. As an often-told Burton anecdote goes, the author read one of her earliest story attempts, a gem called “Jonnifer Lint,” which starred a piece of lint, to her boys and instantly knew it was a miss when the kids kept yawning. That was definitely not the case when Burton read the children a tale about hardworking Mike Mulligan and his steam shovel, Mary Anne. That story was received in a much more “read-it-again and tell-me-more way,” says Mary Wilcox, v-p and editor-in-chief at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books for Young Readers.. The title has continued to chug along at good steam and ranks number six on the publisher’s list of all-time bestselling picture books.

When considering how to honor the book’s latest milestone, Wilcox consulted with the Burton estate. “I’ve been working with the Burton estate for nine years now,” she says. “Together we’re committed to making sure that as many children read her books today as did when they first were published. We have a big overall commitment to Ginny’s [as she was known to family and friends] backlist.”

The new edition features a jacket printed on metallic stock in the readily recognizable Mike Mulligan red and includes a bonus audiobook download of Tony-winning actor Matthew Broderick reading the story. An endnote about how Burton created her books is another special add-on.

Though the anniversary volume may potentially catch the eye of new fans, Wilcox believes there are certain enduring qualities that have earned this book praise as a classic over the past 75 years. “It’s a rich story and there is a cadence and rhythm to Ginny’s text that enchants the ear,” she says. “There is also a richness to her illustrations. There is so much energy on the page for the child.” And, as Burton might have guessed from her early in-house focus group, “children’s books about construction and construction vehicles have eternal appeal,” Wilcox says.

Next up in Burton’s backlist is an oversized board book edition of Katy and the Big Snow (Nov.) showcasing the titular helpful snowplow. “It’s our job to make sure that Ginny’s books are in the most current format and that we can get them in front of the most children that can enjoy them,” Wilcox notes.

Number the Stars Turns 25

Number the Stars, Lois Lowry’s Newbery-winning novel about the perilous escape of a Jewish family from Denmark during the Nazi occupation in 1943, celebrates its 25th anniversary this month. To mark the occasion, Lowry took the stage at New York City’s Symphony Space on October 19 with actor Sean Astin and author/moderator Lauren Oliver for a discussion and reading from the book. Astin, who is best known for his roles in The Goonies and The Lord of the Rings movies has purchased the rights to the novel along with his wife, and they are adapting it for film.

The book’s anniversary is part of what Margaret Raymo, senior executive editor at HMH Books for Young Readers, calls the “Lowry palooza,” a massive marketing and publicity campaign over the past several months supporting the August release of the feature film adaptation of Lowry’s other Newbery winner, The Giver (1994). “This is part of promoting her as a whole,” says Raymo. The publisher is recognizing Number the Stars’s milestone with a 25th-anniversary edition of the book. The refreshed volume, though devoid of “a ton of bells and whistles,” has been redesigned and given a new cover so that it “looks of a piece with the books in the Giver quartet,” according to Raymo. “We added a new introduction in which Lois looks back on the book,” she notes.

Raymo offers several reasons she believes Number the Stars endures. “It tells a story most people don’t know about – the collective heroism of the Danish Resistance who saved almost the entire Jewish population of its country,” she says. “It’s a story about the Holocaust that ends positively, one that shows the heroism of ordinary people in the darkest of times. It also shows that a child can make a real difference by making a difficult choice, confronting danger, being brave, and saving lives.” And, she adds, “Lois’s prose, which is as always clear and compelling.”

25 Years of Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed

“Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed” is often one of the first rhymes that very young children master. The case was no different for Eileen Christelow’s child. “When my daughter was in preschool, she came home with that rhyme and she just loved it,” she says. “I was doing stories and drawings and was trying to become an author-illustrator at the time, and I did a few pictures of monkeys but put them aside. By the time my daughter was in high school I was casting about for something to do and I pulled those pictures out.”

Such was the inspiration for Christelow’s version of Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed, first published in 1989. An “deluxe” anniversary edition of the book is out this month and includes original music and lyrics for the song, a drawing activity, and a free audiobook download. “The cover has gone through a lot over the years,” Christelow says, noting that changes were made for previous anniversaries. “Seven or eight years ago,” Christelow adds, the books underwent a “monkey facelift” that continues to hold steady.

Christelow recalls her earliest renderings of the critters. “The monkeys looked very different then. They were more realistic,” she says. “These guys are more anthropomorphic, kid-like monkeys.” Though she knew her daughter loved the playful monkey rhymes as a child, she wasn’t entirely sure how it had held up. “I took the dummy of the first book to a school visit in Massachusetts, and I read it to some kindergartners,” she says. “They already knew the rhyme, so they could ‘read’ the book, reciting the rhyme along with my pictures even though they didn’t really have that skill yet. That was emblematic of what happened with this book – kids really embraced it as something familiar. You never know when you put a book out there how it’s going to be received.”

Five Little Monkeys sold well, according to the author, “but it took a few years for it to really take off,” she recalls. “By the time we did the second one, Five Little Monkeys Sitting in a Tree, we became aware that kids really liked these.” The monkey family of books currently includes nine picture book adventures. “Kids care so much about those characters,” says Christelow. “They relate to what those monkeys are up to.” She believes the stories endure because “the monkeys are not mean and nasty. Their intentions are good, but they go astray.”

Though students at her school visits offer plenty of suggestions all the time, Christelow has not yet settled on an idea for a new Five Little Monkeys outing. In the meantime, she is celebrating the original book’s birthday with a national tour this fall that has stopped at the Flying Pig in Shelburne, Vt. and next includes visits to Anderson’s Bookshop in Naperville, Ill. on November 1 as well as Kids Ink in Indianapolis on November 3, before wrapping up at 57th Street Books in Chicago on November 12.