Happy Birthday, Alice Babette

February 1, 2016
Having profiled several inventors in her Great Ideas series, Kulling opts for an imagined story drawn from Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas’s life in Paris. It’s Alice’s birthday, but Gertrude seems entirely unaware of it: “The pair ate breakfast in silence.” Alice’s day improves as she explores Paris on her own, riding a carousel, catching a puppet show, and even foiling a jewelry store robbery. Gertrude, meanwhile, is busy assembling a dinner of Alice’s favorite dishes, which goes terribly awry as the culinarily untalented writer keeps being distracted by the poem she’s working on. Leng’s (A Walk on the Shoreline) airy ink drawings bring just the right chic Parisian energy to this odd-couple story. As for Kulling, her drolly understated story often feels like one big wink to in-the-know readers: Gertrude is introduced as Alice’s “friend,” yet there they are dancing together on the back cover. And while Alice’s brownies are a hit at a thrown-together birthday party, Kulling omits the detail that cannabis was an ingredient in Toklas’s famous recipe. Ages 4–8. Author’s agency: Red Fox Literary. Illustrator’s agency: Shannon Associates.

March 15, 2016
When Alice Babette wakes up on her birthday, she's certain "it will be a day filled with surprises." Unfortunately, the first is that her best friend, Gertrude, with whom she lives, doesn't wish her a happy birthday. It improves from there, as Alice wanders through Paris, riding a merry-go-round and watching a puppet show in the Luxembourg Gardens. Meanwhile, readers see that Gertrude is not as hardhearted as she seemed: she spends the day marketing for and preparing a grand birthday dinner for her friend and composing a birthday poem. Alas, Alice is the cook in this family, and all of Gertrude's good intentions can't turn her into one, particularly when the muse beckons. Kulling's affectionate look at one fictional day in Alice B. Toklas and Gertrude Stein's life together is as rambling as her subjects' separate peregrinations. Stein's experimental writing is alluded to (only Alice "seem[s] to understand or appreciate her friend's work"); the story's focus is on the loving, complementary relationship between the two women--indeed, the pair feels like many a children's-literature duo: Mouse and Mole, Frog and Toad, and George and Martha come to mind. Leng's delicate watercolors depict two middle-aged white women in frumpy skirts, Gertrude stockier than Alice and with close-cropped hair. Her images of Paris, the women's old-fashioned kitchen, and their poodle, Basket, charm. A rose is a rose, and loving friendship is loving friendship, as this sweet celebration makes clear. (Picture book. 5-8)

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February 1, 2016

K-Gr 3-Alice B. Toklas and Gertrude Stein lived famously at 27 rue de Fleurus in Paris, entertaining and encouraging writers and artists from Ernest Hemingway to Pablo Picasso. Their loving partnership lasted nearly 40 years; while Stein (who was inept in the kitchen) wrote, Toklas cooked and kept home (and later penned a cookbook). In this fictionalized account of a birthday fete, Stein plans to surprise Toklas with a "special dinner" and celebratory poem. As Toklas spends the day strolling about the Luxembourg Gardens, stopping for a carousel ride and a puppet show, Stein shops for the groceries. Disaster ensues when, as the "pot lids tap-dance" on the stove, "the perfect line" for the poem pops into Stein's head, and off she races to write it down. But all's well that ends well: Toklas returns home, tidies up, and makes her renowned brownies; Stein's poem is written; her adventure in the kitchen becomes a story; and friends arrive for dinner, arms laden with food and gifts. Leng's watercolor art-full of fluid line, amusing detail, and movement-is framed by the white backgrounds it rests against. Interior and exterior scenes are comprised of spot-art groupings or span spreads. Pastels predominate, but there's always a splash of red-awnings, a rug, a pot-to draw the eye. VERDICT It's unlikely that the book's audience will have heard of this couple, but no matter; a birthday surprise upturned and righted is always cause for delight.-Daryl Grabarek, School Library Journal

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