Children's Books: Publishers Weekly Children's Books Reviews 6/19/2006

by Staff -- Publishers Weekly, 6/19/2006

Picture Books

What do you get when a bunch of farm animals decide to enter a talent contest to win... a trampoline? Sounds like the latest joke at the watercooler, but it's just Cronin and Lewin (of Click, Clack, Moo fame) at it again, with an off-the-wall tale poised to deliver giggles galore. Here they reprise their bovine beauties crooning à la Sinatra. But they are not the only contestants of the barnyard persuasion: the pigs practice an interpretive dance and Duck belts out his rendition of "Born to Be Wild" in performances sure to amuse young and adult readers alike. While children will enjoy the pure silliness of singing animals alone, older readers will appreciate Cronin's tongue-in-cheek asides, such as the footnote about the trampoline being "slightly used," along with a legal disclaimer. Lewin's expansive brush strokes pay further tribute to this tall tale of animals that sing and dance behind closed barn doors. By story's end, the animals have returned to their regular routines, except for the extra "boing" in their song—whose source comes clear in Lewin's closing image of the animals enjoying the well-earned prize. Fans will hope for many more farmyard adventures from this dynamic duo. Ages 3-7. (Aug.)

Hollywoodscreenwriter/director/producer Farrelly (There's Something About Mary) makes his children's book debut with this not-so-subtle pro-environment fable, adapted from an earlier adult novel (The Comedy Writer). When the pollution of their natural habitat reaches the saturation point, a pod of humpback whales in California's Santa Monica Bay begins a slow, sad swim to shore, where they plan to beach themselves in protest. Only young Abigale stays cheery on this trek—until she realizes just what beaching oneself means. Her enlightenment drives her to quickly convince her fellow humpbacks to find an alternative tack that will teach the landlubbing litterbugs a lesson. Her finned friends have fun-to-say names like Fred Doofish the Red Bluefish. But Farrelly drives the moral hard: Abigale must remove a castoff TV set from the back of pal Clem the Clam, for instance, and Blackie the Goldfish has "more oil on me than a can of sardines." Rama, a feature film animator, debuts here with the kind of wildly expressive, smoothly shaped characters that could be distant cousins of Nemo or SpongeBob SquarePants. The artist's vibrant underwater palette and quirky scenery will instantly grab readers' attention, while the proliferation of water pollution will likely spark discussion. The author is donating half his proceeds to Heal the Bay, a conservation charity. Ages 3-6. (June)

Combining an udderly ridiculous scenario and real bovine factoids, Becker (All I Need to Know I Learned from My Cat) churns out a comic adventure inspired by a true incident. Farm boy Manny can never take a real vacation—not with 500 dairy cows to tend. Or can he? Armed with let's-go enthusiasm and the help of head cow Bossy, Manny loads up his herd for a bus tour to Niagara Falls. The cows have a sing-along, Flossie gets bus-sick, and Buttercup enjoins "Are we there yet?" as accompanying fact boxes provide details on how cows constantly spit up the cud they chew. The hilarious hoofers overwhelm a rest stop and don slickers for a view of the Falls before going on a gonzo shopping spree in the attraction's Official Gift Shop. Luckily, Bossy and Buttercup find an ingenious way to help Manny settle the damages. Becker's ink-and-watercolor illustrations, peppered with funny asides and thought bubbles, exude a zany, comic-book energy. The true and outlandish bits of the story will likely keep young readers laughing while they ponder cow behavior. As an interesting source note, a flap-copy item spotlights how a cow named Bossy Simms crossed the Falls to Goat Island in 1860. Ages 4-8. (June)

Irrational fear propels the silly undersea antics of best pals Lobster and Shark in this paper-over-board offbeat volume—an intriguing stylistic cross between picture-book and graphic-novel. Shark confides to Lobster one day that he's scared—of tigers. "I've heard of them! They walk on their teeth, they glow in the dark, and they eat you up!" confirms Lobster. In their zeal to protect themselves from the stripey menace, the friends construct a fortress, an act that attracts attention and help from a cuttlefish and a cadre of spiky crabs, who supply 700 rocks and a piano. The crew decides that a monster is the only sure-fire security solution and they fetch a huge, ugly sleeping one from deep below. When said monster awakes, tiger phobia suddenly becomes low on the list of worries, as evidenced by the sea creatures scattering willy-nilly, and the remnants of the black-and-white piano keys. Creating a fun sense of deep-water exploration, husband-and-wife team Schwarz and Stewart (The Adventures of a Nose) serve up a clever, vertically oriented format here. The hand-lettered speech bubbles and comics-like panels that alternate with full-page and full-spread illustrations, flooded with Stewart's ink-lined and digitally colored zany characters add to the appealing visual zing. Kids will savor knowing more than the undersea heroes, and appreciate the tale's triumphant message. Ages 3-6. (June)

The classic tale of boyhood spunk and upward mobility gets a solid retelling here. Smith's brisk, matter-of-fact narrative allows the story's inherent momentum, magic and music—including the familiar refrain of "Fee-fi-fo-fum!"—to shine through. Spanish artist Salán's crisp ink lines and sunny, neatly applied watercolor wash display a comic-strip sense of composition and character (especially Jack's openhearted face, dots for eyes, and pointy pug nose). Interestingly, Salán chooses not to illustrate the story's most dramatic moment, when Jack commands his mother to "Bring me the axe!" and chops down the beanstalk while the giant descends. Instead, a final chase among the clouds gives way to a scene of a now elegantly dressed Jack and his mother calmly gazing down from the clifftop, where the only reminder of the giant's demise is "a single red boot nestled in a treetop far below." That may actually be a plus for younger audiences who find the giant's rage too scary. All ages. (May)

Brisson (Mama Loves Me from Away) sensitively explores the effects of an elementary teacher's unexpected death and the inspirational legacy she leaves her young students. Stevie, a boy in Miss Perry's room, narrates his recollections of the fun-loving teacher who "smiled until her eyes disappeared." On his first day, she told him, "It is my fondest wish that you join me for lunch today, Stevie." He soon discovers that she "had a new fondest wish every day." Softly hued pen-and-ink and gouache illustrations depict the cheerful, youthful instructor having fun with her students as they prepare to plant daffodils around the flagpole or serenade the principal ("It is my fondest wish that we buzz down to her office and sing her the birthday song," Miss Perry says). In a scene that could serve as a model for similar situations, Brisson depicts the thoughtful way the principal and guidance counselor break the news to the students when a car accident suddenly ends Miss Perry's life. The students share their memories of her, and also imagine what Miss Perry's fondest wish would be now ("For us to not be too sad"). Jorisch's (Suki's Kimono) artwork keeps the poignant tale from becoming maudlin. Sunny colors and realistic situations touched with whimsy maintains an upbeat tone (e.g., a spread depicting the children's reminiscences features playful vignettes of bees and flowers with smiling faces). Brisson's tenderhearted tale offers a welcome opening for discussion of a difficult subject. Ages 4-up. (May)

Milgrim's (Time to Get Up, Time to Go) ingenious, giggle-inducing paper-over-board spoof of the classic kid's song stars a farm boy named MacDonald who plays mad scientist, complete with lab coat. With the help of a homemade transmogrifier, he turns a horse and pig into a "A Hig! Ee-i-ee-i-o./ With an Oink-Neigh here,/ And an Oink-Neigh there,/ Here an Oink, there a Neigh,/ Everywhere an Oink-Neigh." He pictures a horse with a pig's head and curlicue tail, and barnyard critters agape (a sheep even stands on its hind legs). Next up are a deese (donkey-goose), shicken (sheep-chicken) and muck (mouse-duck). While it's clear that none of these amalgamated animals minds too much—Milgrim depicts them skateboarding, swimming and even playing polo with their creator—turnabout is fair play, and Young MacDonald soon finds himself transformed into a "bog" (boy-dog, portrayed as a human with a dog's head and tail). The author's crisp, naïf-editorial renderings and airbrushed colors match the playful simplicity of the text and theme, and the spreads bubble with a giddy glee that never wears out its welcome. Luckily, all ends happily: Young MacDonald has everyone correctly reassembled just in time to enjoy a pizza dinner. Ages 5-up. (May)

Lee-Tai's debut book traces one girl's gradual adaptation to painful circumstances in an internment camp for American citizens of Japanese ancestry during WWII. Mari, the young daughter of a pair of artists, has moved (just over a year ago) from her beloved California home to Topaz, a camp in the Utah desert. As the book opens, she and her mother plant sunflower seeds. Her parents sign her up for classes in the art school they've started, but Mari is too depressed to draw. Her parents are unfailingly kind and understanding. "That happens to me sometimes, too," her father says when Mari tells him about her artist's block. "But I don't give up," he adds. Sure enough, Mari discovers she can keep memory alive by drawing it—and she can grow sunflowers in Utah's sandy soil, too. Hoshino's ink-and-watercolor spreads both provide historical information and convey the story's emotional weight—and do both with grace. In one evocative painting, Mari and her mother wait in line for the latrine while, ahead of them, a pregnant woman puts her hands on her round stomach with a thoughtful expression; "What is to become of my child?" readers can imagine her thinking. One caveat: the inclusion of a Japanese translation on each page widens the book's audience to include Japanese students of English, but also crowds the pages visually. Readers will enjoy watching Mari grow in strength and confidence. Ages 6-up. (July)

Fiction

In this funny early reader, a dimwitted bear named Waltur learns—the hard way—what is really meant by three age-old idioms, each highlighted in its own story. (The stories are further broken down into four easy-to-digest chunks.) Waltur's wise and patient roommate Matilda introduces each adage, then watches as Waltur's subsequent clueless behavior drives home the meaning of the moral. In the first tale, Waltur is eager to buy a pet pig at the fair. "Do not buy a pig in a poke," says Matilda, explaining that a poke is a bag. "You should not buy what you cannot see." But when a wily fox proffers a pig in a box, Waltur figures he's home free. The pig, however, turns out to be imperious and usurps Waltur's place in front of the TV. The second tale's exegesis on "Don't count your chickens before they are hatched" finds Waltur hatching a money-making scheme by raising chickens from eggs but finds himself stuck with a passel of ducklings. The final story teaches the meaning of "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink." Despite Waltur's missteps, things do work out for him, sending an upbeat message to youngsters that at times one only learns by trial and error. Gregorich's (Beep, Beep!) prose tickles nascent readers while building their confidence (Waltur to the horse: "I can make you drink water." Horse to Waltur: "I think not"). Sorra's (King o' the Cats) chipper spot watercolors add just the right touch of comic visual stimuli. An afterword offers a brief history on each idiom. Ages 7-10. (July)

Two 21st-century British children visiting a science lab disappear into thin air and turn up in the English countryside in 1763, where they are befriended by the title character, a reformed thief. The "anti-gravity machine" that inexplicably facilitates Kate and Peter's time travel is immediately stolen by a villainous character known as the "Tar Man," and a rather leisurely chase to retrieve it ensues. The narrative alternates between Gideon and the kids' 18th-century journey to London, which features numerous scrapes with murderous footpads and highwaymen, and present-day events involving much parental hand-wringing, a police investigation and a media frenzy. Debut author Buckley-Archer brings the England of King George III to life with ample (and often gruesome) period detail. (Served a slab of Stilton at a chop house, Peter notices "half a dozen weevils which shared the plate.") The characters, however, seem curiously flat. Kate is defined by her glossy red hair and, constrained by her period garb and convention, never gets to do much; Peter is even less distinct. The author constructs their relationship as antagonistic (they have only just met when the story opens), making for lots of petty bickering of the kind heard on a long car ride with squabbling siblings. Readers may find Gideon, having lost nine of 10 family members to scarlet fever, a sympathetic figure, but he is somewhat idealized. After a rather lengthy run-up, this first volume in a planned trilogy ends in a dramatic cliff-hanger. Ages 10-up. (July)

Highly ambitious, Cornish's fantasy debut boasts a glossary/appendix alone that is more than 100 pages long—and it makes for nearly as fascinating reading as the story itself. Rossamünd Bookchild ("a boy with a girl's name"), is an orphan living at Madam Opera's Estimable Marine Society for Foundling Boys and Girls, where instructors groom the orphans to serve in the Boschenberg Navy and other agencies. One day a stranger with odd eyes arrives ("What should have been white was blood red, and his irises were the palest, most piercing blue.... a leer!") and hires Rossamünd as a "lamplighter" for the Emperor. (The boy identifies a leer as a tracker of men and monsters; the glossary offers further chilling details.) En route to his new job, he is misled into boarding a doomed boat, and winds up alone in a world where humans and monsters wage constant war. When a human kills a monster, he gets a "monster-blood tattoo," made from the beast's blood and bearing its likeness. Rossamünd's action-packed road story serves chiefly to build and populate Cornish's remarkable new world, the Half-Continent. Its roots were planted in a series of illustrated notebooks the author began while attending art school. His drawings endow both humans and monsters with personality, and detailed maps plus a 16-month calendar year add to readers' sense that this milieu has existed for centuries. From the pre-industrial English feel to the sprawling setting and backstory, this book feels every bit as substantial as its heft implies. Ages 10-up. (May)

Nicholson (the Wind on Fire trilogy) begins his massive tale, the launch title of the Noble Warriors series, with a creation myth of sorts, introducing an abandoned baby that is adopted by a warrior and becomes "one god with the many names: the Wise Father, the Loving Mother, the Lost Child, the Quiet Watcher, the All and Only." In time, a fortress called the Nom is built to shelter the child, his protectors are known as the Noble Warriors or Nomana. As the empire of Radiance decides to wage war against Nom's homeland of Anacrea, three different people are drawn to Nom to join the fight: 16-year-old Seeker, who follows his brother into the ranks; Morning Star, who follows her mother; and the Wildman ("They called him the Wildman because he had been known to kill those who did not delight him, and it did not delight him to be unloved"). The soldiers of Radiance emerge as ruthlessly single-minded: when one of their scientists invents a way to turn blood into an explosive (its trigger: any shallow cut), an eery parallel to today's suicide bombers begins to unfold. As with his previous trilogy, screenwriter Nicholson (Gladiator) shows his skill at constructing a fantasy realm, lacing his narrative with customs and norms that give the land of Anacrea a palpable feel. His Noble Warriors and their moral code are particularly intriguing, and the book concludes with a terrific set-up for volume two. Ages 12-up. (May)

The summer before her senior year, Mina's web of lies begins to unravel. She has led her mother to believe that she is president of the honor society and headed for Harvard, yet she can barely maintain her average grades. Fellow Korean-American classmate Jonathon Kim, her mother's idea of perfection, has been helping Mina in her deception. After a single sexual encounter with Jonathon, Mina realizes she is paying a high price for her charade. When Mexican teen Ysrael comes to work at their dry-cleaning store, Mina immediately feels drawn to him. Finally Mina has found someone with whom she can be completely honest. Ysrael encourages Mina to leave El Cajon and all of her mother's expectations to start a new life with him in San Francisco. When Mina's mother fires Ysrael for something Mina has done, she must choose between her own desires and the responsibility she feels to her family. The drama unfolds in chapters that alternate between the points of view of Mina and her hearing-impaired younger sister, Suna. Mina's first-person voice convincingly describes the impact of the secrets she guards, while the use of a third-person perspective in Suna's chapters underscores the distance their mother keeps from her handicapped daughter. Several secondary themes detract from the main thread of Mina's story, yet Na (A Step from Heaven) delivers a powerful novel about the pressures of parental expectations and how secrets can tear a family apart. Ages 12-up. (June)

Sebastian Montero, 18, is the go-to guy when there's trouble. On the first day Dorfman's (Burning City) story takes place, Sebastian sets up a date for a lonely friend, delivers another to and from her appointment at an abortion clinic and talks a jumper down from a rooftop. His major project is reuniting best friend Jeremy with his long-lost father, Dromio, who abandoned him years earlier. Sebastian, also fatherless, has called in favors to track down and assemble a dossier on Dromio, a Robin Hood–style do-gooder (like Sebastian?) who runs a restaurant where anybody can eat for 25 cents, but most people vastly overpay in order to distinguish themselves from those who can't. In a cockamamy scheme, the two buddies switch identities before meeting Dromio, just in case he turns out to be a cad. If all this sound a tad implausible, it is. Like his main character, Dorfman's narrative has too much going on. Everybody speaks in clever repartée (at one point, Sebastian asks, "Is there anyone in this town who can't quote Ambrose Bierce?" and the answer is, apparently, no). Still, there's a hipster cadence to Sebastian's present-tense narration, and a window into the adulterated world of grown-ups that might appeal to teen voyeurs willing to ignore the abundance of coincidences that fuels the plot. Ages 12-up. (May)

Together, Barkley (Money, Love, for adults) and Hepler compose a tender, quirky romance starring two teens from unconventional backgrounds. Eliot is living at a combination fat farm/Christian campsite run by his born-again, entrepreneur father ("Get Thin with Christ!" is the camp's theme) when Calliope ("Cal") arrives in town with her jewelry-peddling mother to work at a nearby Medieval "faire." When the two teens cross paths in a bookstore, they are instantly attracted to each other (Cal feels like "a hive of bees has just erupted in my head" when she first meets Eliot, while Eliot is left breathless by Cal's beauty). But it seems inevitable that their romance—which blossoms rather abruptly—will be short-lived or ill-fated. Eliot's father disapproves of the relationship and Cal's mother is getting the itch to move on to another town. However, due to the quiet intervention by two caring adults, Eliot's discontent mother and a kindly restaurant owner who has befriended Cal, Eliot and Cal might just find a way to be together. If the authors' depiction of teen infatuation is somewhat idealized here, the intensity of their emotions comes across as authentic. Readers who wish that Romeo and Juliet had a happier ending will find much gratification in this more uplifting story. Ages 12-up. (May)

Sixteen-year-old star Theodora Twist needs to improve her well-deserved bad girl reputation, so she agrees to return "to her hometown for one month to live in the house she grew up in." Her life—and those of the family members who live in the house now, including former friend Emily—will be filmed for a reality show called Theodora Twist: Just a Regular Teen! Senate (See Jane Date, for adults) sets up a tantalizing premise, and the plot is equally entertaining, if predictable: Emily gets a taste of fame (even participating in a photo shoot in New York City), learning along the way that looks are not everything. Meanwhile Theodora—suddenly dumped by her twin musician boyfriends—finds a healthy relationship of her own. The story unfolds through Theodora and Emily's alternating perspectives, incorporating press releases, e-mails and news items. Readers may be troubled by some of the book's grittier material. To land her first role at 13, Theodora is coerced into performing oral sex on a producer. Later she reveals to Emily that sex helps her deal with her troubles, including the death of her father ("When I am fooling around or having sex, I feel amazing. I forget about everything. It's like magic"). These heavier moments seem out of step with the overall lighthearted tone. Even so, this is a fast-paced read, and goodhearted at its core—just like Theodora. Ages 14-up. (May)