by Sam Juliano
Side by side with your loved one/You’ll find enchanted here/The night will weave its magic spell/When the one you love is near. -“Bella Notte”, Lady and the Tramp
The dictionary definition of a “bucket list” asserts a written enumeration of all the goals you want to achieve, dreams you want to fulfill and life experiences you desire to fulfill before you die. For many it might mean enjoying a meal at a world-class restaurant, attending a concert of a venerated performer or traveling to a foreign country. For some it might mean publishing a novel or a meeting a famous person. Some may work hard to secure a promotion at firm they’ve spent a lifetime serving. The possibilities are infinite. In the wrenching and extraordinarily beautiful picture book Stay: A Girl, a Dog, a Bucket List, sisters Kate and M. Sarah Klise have explored this premise with the kind of intimate camaraderie that has long defined the special friendship between humans and their canines. The artists make it clear in their gentle story of domestic alliance that the most enduring episodes in life are the most seemingly innocuous and the ones most often taken for granted. Dog owners have long known the dreadful, indeed unbearable aspects of growing to love an animal with a twelve to fifteen year lifespan. Such a lamentably brief tenure does lend itself to bucket list scrutiny, however, and the author-illustrator have handled the narrative’s inevitability with grace and the indomitable power of love.
In a bit of a reversal of the opening of Charlotte’s Web, when the young farm girl Fern is given the pig runt to raise, Stay features a younger-but-beyond-puppy stage sheep dog named Ellie who sits up behind a screen door as Mom brings her new daughter Astrid home from the hospital. Ellie was Astrid’s very first friend, her personal bodyguard, the pillow of choice and an ideal hiding place. Because they lived, slept and ate together they bonded, even though they were opposite genders. As time wore on Astrid eclipsed her loyal companion in height, though the dog seemed to sense that he was aging. It is often asserted that for every human years in age, a dog spends seven or eight, hence a five year-old dog is roughly thirty-five in human terms. When Astrid was six, Eli was well past middle age. They enjoyed a bucket of popcorn in the park, while imagining they were eating spaghetti and meatballs. Astrid first introduces the bucket list proposal when she asks Eli if he has ever been down a sliding pond and that “You really should before you get too old.” Astrid writes up a list on a popcorn bucket of all the things Eli should do before he gets “too old.” Eli soon finds out that riding with Astrid on a bicycle is a more rewarding experience than sitting in a car. Sleeping under the stars until rain intrudes, lying under the quilt covers on Astrid’s bed and receiving a bubble bath can never be topped until girl and dog enjoy spaghetti and meatballs at a restaurant on a Saturday night. But aging is an inescapable progression and Eli’s fur fades from gray to white and his eyesight weakens. As is the case with virtually all the larger species the strength to walk any duration isn’t there anymore and the canine is homebound. In the case of Eli, betrothed only to Astrin during his short but mostly fulfilling life, the real quality time is when they are in each other’s company.
Kate Klise’s endearing prose is fabulously complemented by M. Sarah’s sublime pastel acrylic oil illustrations which alternate between half page tapestries and vignettes. The cover, based in attractive Carolina blue, features the spaghetti and meatball scene at the restaurant and one can’t help but hear the romantic strains of “Bella Notte” from Walt Disney’s Lady and the Tramp, in the animated classic most famous scene when Lady and a stray mongrel named Tramp enjoy a candlelit Italian dinner. The birthday cake tableau, depicting Astrid preparing to blow out the candles on the cake, while Eli is sprawled out fast asleep is a veritable pink bonanza: the icing on the cake, wrapping paper on the presents and some of the balloons sport the color known for compassion, caring and love, themes that dominate Stay. While Astrin is only attuned to the physical changes that come with getting older, Klise the author depicts this especially cerebral canine as one cognizant of the aging process, in a chart monitoring the growth spurt that has reversed Eli’s height advantage.
After Astrin’s revelation that Eli has slowed up as they walk down a path alongside colorful flower bed, dotted with forget-me-nots, they visit the park and purchase a bucket of popcorn. A dog retrieved a green ball, a baby runs across a picnic towel, as other engage in various man and dog bonding. A living room wall is a picture gallery of family photos, nearly of which display Astrid and Eli and even Eli alone. This cherished sheep dog is shown as a member of the family, and the lovely captures on a dark background are wonderfully etched. The Lassie movie billboard page and the one before it when Astrid checks out books about dogs at the local library and handsome and suffused with a real sense of urgency. Only the most disengaged could fail to break out in smiles when a perched Ely looks up at the movie marquee, as Astrin inquires at the ticket booth. Eli’s bubble bath is followed up with one of Eli gazing into a mirror after he is brushed down by Astrid. After the delightful spaghetti dinner spread a lovely autumn tapestry is framed by two trees dressed in red and orange autumn garb. Then back to the living room and the dark wall that as always amplifies the acrylic pastels. The resplendent horizon-at-dusk canvas that beautifully concludes this tale of indestructible friendship recalls the finale of the Caldecott Medal winning Officer Buckle and Gloria by Peggy Rathman, when our two sometimes agitated protagonists realize their friendship is the most important thing in the world. Sarah Kleise’s evocative art is meant to project the permanence of life’s fleeting experiences and throughout the book there is a kind of cross reference to doing things previously negotiated, like the matter of wanting to eat popcorn while enjoying spaghetti and meatballs and vice versa. And it is abundantly clear that long after Eli has left the scene Astrin will hold the memories of the companion of her formative years lucidly and with the deepest affection. Alas, there was no way this could “stay” the course, but the life-defining times are ensconced forever. It is anticipated the Caldecott committee, while being moved by this quietly powerful collaboration from the Klise sisters, will be ravished by M. Sarah’s standalone acrylic treasures in Stay: A Girl, a Dog, a Bucket List that must surely rank among 2017’s most notable illustrative achievements. “Bella Notte” from this point on will have added significance.
Note: This is the second entry in the 2017 Caldecott Medal Contender series. The annual venture does not purport to predict what the committee will choose, rather it attempts to gauge what the writer feels should be in the running. In most instances the books that are featured in the series have been touted as contenders in various online round-ups, but for the ones that are not, the inclusions are a humble plea to the committee for consideration. It is anticipated the series will include in the neighborhood of around 30 titles; the order which they are being presented in is arbitrary, as every book in this series is a contender. Some of my top favorites of the lot will be done near the end. The awards will be announced in mid-February, hence the reviews will continue until around the end of January or through the first week of February.
