Lit Du Nord: Minnesota Books and Authors

By Nick Healy

A good time in picture books

Some new children’s picture books worth your time include Nicole Helget’s “Be Good, Peanut Butter,” and Lauren Stringer’s “The Dark was Done.

As publishers released their fall lists in recent months, a strong crop of new picture books by Minnesota authors hit the shelves.

Some of the standouts show how amazingly flexible the form is and demonstrate how talented people can create memorable experiences for kids while dealing with subjects that are sometimes serious and heavy and other times not. The nonfiction picture book “Where We Come From” is a collaborative effort by four of the more interesting writers in Minnesota today. The co-authors include novelist and memoirist Diane Wilson, poet and children’s author Sun Yung Shin, novelist and essayist Shannon Gibney, and longtime children’s favorite John Coy.

Their story begins with this: “We come from stardust.” From there, the authors weave together stories from the history of their families and communities.

Those stories connect to faraway places — Ireland, Scotland, Korea, the west coast of Africa — and to places nearby, including lands of the Dakota people in what is now Minnesota. Those stories also describe hardships people have endured and the hopefulness that sustained them.

“Where We Come From” and its interwoven tales might seem like a challenging concept for kids to grasp. But it works. Somehow it works. And kids will leave the story with a clearer notion of how everyone they meet and everyone they know is part of a longer story and comes from somewhere of worth.

Southern Minnesota’s own Nicole Helget also has a new picture book, “Be Good, Peanut Butter.” In this story, which is fun and funny and likely to be reread at bedtime in many homes, Peanut Butter is a dog. He’s a good dog. Mostly.

Peanut Butter is the sort of dog who likes — or needs, really — the company of his people. He does not know what to do with himself when Big Kid, Middle Kid and Little Kid go off to school and their mom heads to work. His only company is a sleeping cat who might as well not be there.

At first, Peanut Butter occupies himself with the available recreations — tearing up a pillow, chewing on a tennis shoe. He grows lonely and bored until finally he finds a way out into the great wide world and escapes for a daylong adventure.

In “Be Good, Peanut Butter,” Helget shows a nice touch with humor and a good sense for what interests and entertains younger kids. It’s no stretch to imagine that some (or many) schoolchildren get lost in thought while wondering what their pets do all day. Helget’s story is like a daydream that fills in that blank.

In “The Dark Was Done,” written and illustrated by Lauren Stringer, the darkness that frightens many children is treated as a character — the Dark. The story begins with the Dark’s frustration at being chased away by table lamps, night lights, flashlights and more.

“Everyone was afraid of the Dark,” Stringer writes. “Everyone wished the Dark would leave.”

And that’s what happens. The Dark goes away. Suddenly the world is bright with sunshine all the time. Basements, closets and the spaces under beds are filled by light.

All is well, briefly. Soon the children in this new bright world recognize what they are missing. Gone is the song of crickets. Gone are the bright stars shining in the

night sky.

When order is restored and the Dark comes again at night and returns to closed-off spaces, the children recognize there is not so much to fear.

Another thoughtful and thoughtprovoking new picture book is “You Are Life” by Bao Phi. A well-known and admired poet before he became a children’s author, Phi burst onto the kid-lit scene in 2017 with “A Different Pond,” a picture book that collected stellar reviews, found thousands of fans and was named a Caldecott Honor book.

“You Are Life,” his fourth children’s book, was released by Mankato-based Capstone in the fall, and this time around, Phi’s text has the rhythm and intensity of a poem.

In his author’s note at the back of the book, he explains that while anti-Asian racism and violence were nothing new, the surge of vile words and acts directed toward Asian Americans during the pandemic weighed on him and occupied his thoughts.

Out of that time and trouble came a poem, and that poem became this picture book, illustrated wonderfully by Hannah Li. “You are not a virus. You are a seed,” Phi explains early on. “When you were born, you saved me.”

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Nick Healy is an author and freelance writer in Mankato.

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