B-123; SS-1

Lala Watkins

This book is a landmark one, not so much for its content, but for its origins and presentation. Hello, Sun! marks the only the second major format shift for Beginner Books. The first was in the 1980s when the books became smaller (in both page count and size) and started including licensed properties such as Arthur, Smurfs, and Sesame Street. This newest shift is even more dramatic. 

The difference is evident immediately. The cover of Hello, Sun! not only features a sharp use of spot gloss, it also has a new logo accompanying the classic Beginner Books Cat, a curly red line drawn by a crayon, with the words "Seuss Studios" above it. The logo appears again on the back cover along with the following desription: "Fun, easy-to-read stories inspired by sketches from the one-and-only Dr. Seuss."

I was initially worried about this, as I haven't been a fan of the constant mining of Ted Geisel's unfinished works to create new books. But the first and final pages alleviated my concerns. The inside front cover says more about Seuss Studios and gives a short history lesson that feels very familiar: "Dr. Seuss wrote many Beginner Books. He also mentored other other authors who wrote an illustrated their own Beginner Books. He was known for choosing people at the beginning of their publishing careers or from different creative fields."

I say this sounds familiar becuase this is one of the main conclusions of my research in I Can Read It All By Myself: The Beginner Books Story. Ted Geisel, Helen Geisel, and Phyllis Cerf had a knack for finding people working in other fields to make Beginner Books, largely becuase they didn't have preconcieved notions of what a children's book should be.

The info page goes on to explain that Seuss Studios creators will be allowed to look at the archive of Ted's sketches and choose one or many as inspirations for their own story.  It refers the reader to the inside back cover, where you'll find an author's statement as well as the actual sketches they chose. In this specific case, I was happy to see that author/illustrator Lala Watkins choose to do a nonliteral interpretation of the sketches she chose; in fact one would be hard pressed to connect the Seuss artwork to the final product. 

Before I discuss the book, I'd like to point out one more element that felt familiar. The book includes a page with a biography and photo of Watkins (she's a Florida native, a graphic designer, and happens to be Black). This, in conjunction with the inclusion of the story behind the creation of the book, felt again like the influence of I Can Read It By Myself. Am I being egotisitcal to draw such a conclusion?  Maybe, but I know for a fact the current editorial team at Beginner Books has read it!

Anyway, on to the book itself, which is about Norbit the worm and his friends (a butterfly, a ladybug, a frog, a teddy bear, a turtle, a caterpillar, and a duckling) playing outside on a sunny day. There's no plot and no escalation, but there is a punchline at the end (when the sun goes down, Norbit says, "Hello, Moon! Let's play!"). The text is written in short sentences that don't rhyme (thankfully) and onomatopoeia, which gives it more of the feel of a Bright and Early Book. The illustrations are colorful and fuzzy, a sort of digitial (I'm assuming) approximation of a child's crayon drawings.

All in all, I think this is a good start to a new direction for Beginner Books, and I'm excited to see where it leads.

B-124; SS-2

Sarah Hwang

The second Seuss Studios outing comes from a book cover in search of a book. Among Ted's sketches was a cover mock-up with the title Gertrude Gish on a Dish on a Fish. But there was no accompanying story among the papers. Author/illustrator Sarah Hwang siezed the opportunity to create it herself.

That story is one that, fittingly, brings to mind a handful of other Beginner Books. Gertrude Gish, of course, shares the Cat in the Hat's proclivity for stacking items precariously. Much like the creature in Robert Lopshire's Put Me In The Zoo, Gertrude is looking for (and finds) a useful application for her unique talent. And in its structure, Gertrude Gish on a Dish on a Fish is a cousin to Ted and Roy McKie's Ten Apples Up On Top, in which three friends try to outstack each other, causing chaos in the process. 

So even if the rhythm of Hwang's rhymes is a bit clunky, and the vocabulary includes a few too many difficult-to-decode words, she makes up for it by capturing the spirit and feel of the original Beginner Books. She even introduces some wrinkles, indulging into the usual logical insanity, but putting it toward a journey of self-discovery rather than a punchline. She also gives us a first: three two-page spreads that require the reader to turn the book 90 degrees.

I also like how she kept Ted's design for Gertrude mostly intact, from the bright red curly hair to the candy cane leggings, while still making the character her own. Hwang's deceptively simple style brings to my mind that of Ludwig Bemelmens, he of Madeline fame.

This is Hwang's fifth book, and her third as author. She illustrated Nom Nom Nom and The Smallest Bird for other authors. And she wrote and drew Toasty (2021) and Bunny Hop (2024); both characters make an appearance as large balloons in a parade scene.

Overall, this book is more evidence that the Suess Studios idea is a winner.