Bruce Handy

Bruce Handy revisits the classics of every American childhood, from fairy tales to The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and explores the back stories of their creators, using context and biography to understand how some of the most creative authors and illustrators of their times created their often deeply personal masterpieces. Along the way, Handy learns what The Cat in the Hat says about anarchy and absentee parenting, which themes are shared by The Runaway...

"Starting from the happiness of waking up into a brand-new day, the picture book goes on to explore the kinds of relationships and contrasts that play out between our feelings and experiences every single day. Whether it's the nervousness of a beginning paired with the happiness of a middle; the indignity of a cut against the happiness of a scab; the boredom of nothing to do contrasted with the happiness of nothing to do; or the divide of mine against...

"A child busy reading in a treehouse spots a family who seems to have just arrived on Earth for a picnic. The youngest member of the alien family holds a mind-bendingly strange object. Could it be a book from outer space?"--