Dads Read Too

JER: “Richard Scarry’s Best Word Book Ever” -  I remember being really fascinated and intrigued by Richard Scarry books as a kid.   They weren’t really cute, like most children’s books were.   They had a grittiness to them, in a working-class-hero sort of way.   When I found this book in a used book shop in California, I couldn’t pass on it, even if it meant exposing my kids to the perplexing world of Richard Scarry.  Thanks to @booksfromwhenwewerekids for the idea

JER: “Ocean Meets Sky” by the Fan Brothers (Terry Fan and Eric Fan) represents to me the persistence of memory, the mystical, and our connection to our ancestors.   I love the name of the book and the magical point where "Ocean Meets Sky".  It took me back to an Optics course I took in College.  I remember being blown away by mirages.  In a "mirage", the light coming from the sky or from an object gets refracted, i.e. bent, in the different layers of air over hot surfaces, e.g. long stretches of roads or desert, where air rapidly cools with elevation which changes the air's refractive power making the air act as a prism.  The Encyclopedia Britannica explains it like this:  Mirage , in optics, the deceptive appearance of a distant object or objects caused by the bending of light rays ( refraction) in layers of air of varying density.   Under certain conditions, such as over a stretch of pavement or desert...

JER: “ Yellow Kayak ” by author Nina Laden and illustrator Melissa Castrillon feels like an homage to Japanese Art with waves and lines that remind me of the “ Great Wave Off Kanagawa ”  and short poetic stanzas that remind me of Haikus.