Children's Books Reviews: Week of 9/4/2006

by Staff -- Publishers Weekly, 9/4/2006

Picture Books

Teague's (Dear Mrs. LaRue) vibrant, cheekily heroic paintings and Isaacs's (Swamp Angel) fluid, folksy storytelling offer a twist to The Story of Little Black Sambo. Here the setting is a New England back when families rode horse-drawn wagons to town, and the star is a girl named Toby, all dressed up in new clothes worthy of a song ("I've got a sky-blue coat with purple lining/ A sun-yellow sweater with green leaves twining..."). But fate intervenes in an appropriately tall-tale manner. Teague depicts her being bucked off the wagon and sailing off the upper-right-hand corner of one spread, and airborne in the next ("past soaring eagles and feathery clouds"). Toby lands in the middle of the forest, threatened by five fearsome animals in turn ("Young, but ripe enough to eat!" chortles a bear. "Crunchy fingers! Crunchy feet!"). Plucky Toby, like the original hero, strikes a series of deals: in exchange for not inflicting harm, each animal gets one piece of her new clothing. A wolf struts away with the coat, a bear buys the argument that her two mittens would look fabulous on its ears. Instead of butter, the envious animals chase each other round a maple tree until they melt into maple syrup—to douse the title meal ("the grandest feast, West or East!"). Whether or not children have encountered the original tale, they'll quickly become immersed in these evocative landscapes, and deem Toby a brave heroine. Ages 3-5. (Oct.)

Chowder, an English bulldog, baffles everybody with his precocious behavior. He uses the toilet and the computer, and while regular dogs chew bones, he excavates a dinosaur skeleton. His doting owners, Madge and Bernie Wubbington, tote him in a baby backpack; they "liked to think of him as quirky, but most people thought he was just plain weird." One day, lonesome Chowder spies a billboard for a megamart's new petting zoo: "All the neighborhood dogs had said Chowder belonged in a zoo, and he wondered if they were right." In bizarre events involving the supermarket and a kickball game, Chowder befriends the Critter Corral's captive pony, cow, sheep and others. With mixed results, Brown (Flight of the Dodo) invests food shopping and zoo life with excitement. He composes smooth, meticulous paintings, and softens his sculpted pencil edges with a faint acrylic fuzz. Chowder's owners are disco-era throwbacks; their dorkiness helps account for Chowder's uniqueness, although the nerd jokes and the retro palette might be lost on younger readers. Brown pictures Chowder with melancholy jowls and sad, squeezed eyes; the most sympathetic pictures show his beady eyes widening and a drippy tongue lolling happily from his bulldozer-scoop underbite. Bulldog lovers may find Chowder endearing, but despite his offbeat pursuits, he remains elusive, and the convoluted, upbeat outcome feels like wishful thinking. Ages 3-6. (Sept.)

Like a child who finds the plain cardboard box far more interesting than what came packaged inside it, so an elephant and his frog friend imagine various answers to the opening spread's query, "What can I do with a box?"Much of Hillenbrand's (What a Treasure!) simple text serves as essentially one long response: "I can make a bug box... or a pizza box... or a toy box," etc. The playful protagonists experience a eureka moment when they hit upon "book box" ("Great idea!" declares the pachyderm). The balance of the tale demonstrates that the book box is truly a "treasure box," allowing the buddies all sorts of reading adventures and pleasures. Originally crafted as the kickoff for a summer reading program at the author's local library, this title conveys a subtle yet infectious reading-is-terrific vibe that offers universal appeal any time of year. Set against plentiful white space, the mixed-media compositions in a fiesta-bright palette with black outline pop from the pages, and delicately colored lines act as page borders to provide an arresting combination of texture and simplicity. Ages 2-5. (Aug.)

Safe to say, pet owners should think twice before sharing Berry's (Duck Skates) rhyming suspense story, which cheerily bounces to its foretold conclusion. This tale's "contrary cat" has better things to do when Witch hosts a party. As gnomes and skeletons arrive, " 'Cat,' said Witch, 'fetch me a chair!'/ But Cat was busy, eyeing Bat./ 'Cat?' said Witch./ 'Purr?' said Cat./ 'Chair!' said Witch./ 'Grrrrr,' said Cat./ And that was the end of that." This pattern repeats, with the wicked Cat stalking guests and an in-house Rat, rather than bringing a cup to serve punch or sweeping up afterward. In his picture book debut, LaMarca depicts the haunted rumpus in pen-and-ink illustrations that emit the weird and wild energy of a Betty Boop cartoon. Witch shakes her fist and jumps up and down in vexation with Cat, and readers begin to dread her wrath. Ultimately she needs a toad for a potion, and with no real toad available, she makes a substitution in the recipe. Berry's pseudo-Victorian title and LaMarca's memorable illustrations allude to Edward Gorey (who himself was inclined to skewer "Gashlycrumb Tinies" in his lampoons of children's books), but the only mystery is how the predatory, ill-mannered cat will meet its end. Although presented as a lightly frightful comic, this still places a low value on animal life. Dan Yaccarino's Birthday Fish offers better advice on appreciating pets' natural idiosyncrasies. Ages 3-7. (Aug.)

In Durant's (Always and Forever) entertaining cautionary tale starring a picky eater, Benny's mother warns, "If you don't watch out, you'll turn into a burger one day." Sure enough, Benny does. In a comical Gingerbread Boy sequence, Benny ends up being chased up hill and down by a pack of hungry dogs, a herd of cows ("Don't you know what burgers are made of?" they moo) and even a gaggle of rowdy boys. When he finally finds refuge with the Bigga Burgers Restaurant manager, it's his mother who saves him from being exploited—"That's no burger, that's my son!" Newcomer Matsuoka provides half the book's fun with her playful colored pencil, acrylics and cut-paper illustrations. Roly-poly Benny and his brown and yellow striped shirt slowly morph into a round mustard slathered burger with spindly legs. He desperately shouts, "I'm not a burger, I'm a boy!" to everyone he meets, but it's not until he starts eating his veggies that his plump bun-faced body returns back to normal. Benny's mother predicts that if he doesn't eat something besides veggies he'll turn into one, and Matsuoka pictures his orange pants elongating and his spikey hair turning green as a hungry rabbit hovers nearby. Durant's text is suitably fast-paced and efficient without a hint of didacticism, and Matsuoka's cheery illustrations brim with comical details in a book with its eat-right message served lightly on the side. Ages 4-7. (Oct.)

The library's no place for a real live lion. But what if it was a book-loving beast that followed all the library rules, enforced by head librarian Miss Merriweather? Well, that's a different story—the fun, fantastical tale in Knudsen's entertaining picture book. Library patrons and staff are perplexed and a bit frightened when a lion arrives in the local library, checking out the collection, napping in the children's corner and making himself at home for story hour. But Miss Merriweather doesn't see any reason to expel this mane attraction if he abides by her rules (e.g., "No running!"; "If you cannot be quiet, you will have to leave [the library]"). Soon the furry fellow befriends nearly everyone in the place, and even becomes Miss Merriweather's helpful assistant. One day, Miss Merriweather is in trouble. Lassie-like, the lion gets her some help, and then banishes himself from the place for breaking the rules (he unquietly roars in order to get the attention of one of the librarian's colleagues). Happily, this heroic literary lion doesn't stay away for long. Knudsen's gentle tale of a revered yet welcoming community destination will ring true for many readers. Hawkes's (Weslandia) evocative, soft-hued acrylic-and-pencil illustrations have a timeless feel, depicting a cozy book-filled haven that any story fan would love to visit, rules and all. Ages 4-7. (Sept.)

Farmer Sam owns 10 sheep. At bedtime, he needs to make sure they are all safe, but the counting of sheep works its famous magic: " 'One... two... three... four...'/ That's as far as/ he got before he/ started to snore." Sam's sleepiness does not amuse the ewes, who lean against a long pillow, to either side of the snoozing shepherd. " 'He always does that!'/ 'It's not that hard to count sheep!'/ 'Is there something about us that puts him to sleep?' " they ask one another. Meanwhile, in vertical panels along the page margins, a snickering wolf prepares to drop in. When the wolf knocks on the door, wearing a woolly costume, Sam rousts himself and assumes it's one of his herd. His desperate flock must find a way to keep him awake until he sees they're all accounted for, and a gatefold shows them staging a brisk one-to-10 performance. Kelly (I Hate Everyone) works from a sturdy premise, but her rhyme's meter often misses a beat. Ayto (The Witch's Children) nicely develops the suspense, cutting from the lethargic farmer to the anxious sheep to the grinning wolf. His visual sequences, goggle-eyed sheep caricatures and saturated watercolor palette of charcoal gray, turquoise and fuchsia on snowy white (even a Mondrian canvas on Sam's wall) strongly recall Satoshi Kitamura's graphics and humor. Despite some derivative elements and bumpy rhymes, this book generates excitement with the tried-and-true sheep vs. wolf formula. Ages 4-8. (Sept.)

Prepared in collaged papers with acrylic and printed backgrounds, Wilson's (Storytime: First Tales for Sharing) creatively stylized folk art gives this retelling of an ancient legend a distinctive look. The meandering narrative opens as the Jade Emperor, the King of Heaven, announces he will start a calendar and name each year after a different animal. To determine the order of the animal years, he invites all creatures to participate in a race across a wide river: the calendar's first year will be named after the winner. Intimidated by the "strong and swift" river, Rat and Cat climb onto the back of the strong Ox; other animals mount a "wobbling" raft or brave the water on their own. Clever if shifty Rat pushes the napping Cat into the water (explaining why they are "to this very day,... the worst of enemies"), jumps off Ox's back when they reach land and dashes to the finish line first. Though Jade Emperor congratulates all the animals for using their "own special skills" to cross the river, the text doesn't effectively demonstrate what these talents are. Youngsters will likely most enjoy the final spread, which lists the years that fall under each respective animal, and the characteristics of people born under that sign. There are some snippets of humor here (crossing the finish line last, Pig explains, "I needed to stop for a snack"), but what stands out is Wilson's spirited mixed-media artwork. Ages 4-8. (Sept.)

For Lucy, a young visitor from south of the border, the Ohio home of her aunt and uncle is a very exotic place. Her Uncle John greets her with the strange-sounding "How'r you?" and the Midwestern landscape has "no banana groves in sight. No flamingos, no lagoons." What's more, everyone except Lucy speaks English—even Sparky the dog. Chapra (Amelia's Show-and-Tell Fiesta) makes excellent use of the bilingual text, underscoring the contrast between Lucy's discomfort and growing ease with her new surroundings (the English text appears at the top of each page, the Spanish at the bottom), while Escrivá's (¡Pío Peep!: Traditional Spanish Nursery Rhymes) subtly stylized, mural-like full-page and spot illustrations exude empathy for Lucy in her struggles. Their heroine finally reaches her breaking point (a tearful exit from the family table) but the soothing tones of the prose, and the gentle contours and textures of the drawings assure readers that all will be well. Sure enough, Lucy realizes that Sparky is muy simpático—a moment Escrivá wryly conveys with Sparky gamely allowing Lucy to ride on his back—and this new friendship inspires her to ask her cousin Robby to teach her English. By book's end, Lucy has become a confident doggie wrangler, and readers—whether they are budding bi-linguists or no—will declare this story muy bueno. Ages 4-7. (Aug.)

The team behind My Subway Ride offers another infectiously rhythmic and invitingly hip love letter to a distinctly New York experience. The book actually takes readers on two wild journeys simultaneously. One is a literal (who cares what the meter says?) taxicab trip all around the Big Apple, "From Washington Heights to Brooklyn Heights./ Climb on in and see the sights./ Moma! Soho! Noho! Dumbo!/ All around our New York town!" The other journey is more figurative, as the book initiates readers into the ways of savvy New Yorkers. They'll learn how to spot a taxi (yellow), the importance of being persistent (if a cab turns out to be off duty, "don't despair," because there are more than 12,000 in the city) and, of course, how to get one to pick you up: "Raise your arm and point your finger./ Belt it out like an opera singer:/ Hail taxi! Hey taxi!/ Ho Taxi! Yo Taxi! Whoa taxi!" Once again, Alko is totally in the groove with her co-authors; her multi-media pictures exude a vibe that's both streetwise and celebratory. To convey the city as a non-stop visual feast, she plays with framings, perspective and even gravity (one taxi drives up the side of the Empire State Building). Best of all, her portraits of New Yorkers capture the population's collective best: edgy, blithely multicultural and bighearted as all get-out. Ages 4-8. (Aug.)

French artist Perret makes her American debut with this droll exposé, narrated by a boy who befriends a down-in-the-mouth Big Bad Wolf. Their conversations unfold over several chapters, in comics sequences, with four minimalist images to a page. Initially, the boy finds a morose, shadowy canine sitting against his house. "I'm not a dog. Leave me alone," says the glum silhouette, identifying himself as the storybook wolf. "Nobody believes in me anymore. I don't scare anyone." The boy, fittingly, invites the wolf to live in his bedroom closet and re-learn scary behavior. This unusual roommate subsists on cookies and gets insulted when the boy brings him canned food; he stuffily insists on being called Bernard, whereas the boy prefers to call him Zorro. The wolf grows more cheerful, and toothier, each time he manages to frighten his benefactor, and eventually returns to his bogeyman role. "I had to hand it to him. His hard work had really paid off," the pleased boy says. Perret draws the boy in a delicate blue line, and his words appear in a fine-grain typeface. She pictures the wolf as an inky scrawl with a prominent snout and a skinny gangster's slouch; he shifts his shape from rangy to menacing, and his speech comes out in bold, cartoonish type suited to his imaginary status. The exchanges between the energetic boy and wry wolf recall Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes, and Perret's lively line drawings and dialogue animate the buddy relationship. Ages 4-up. (Aug.)

Lawrence (Ghost Boy) creates a poignant family drama that will pull the heartstrings of anyone who has looked up to an older sibling or has fallen in love with a dog. The story opens in the summer of 1964 in rural Hog's Hollow and focuses on young Danny River, who longs for a dog but isn't allowed to have one. The other members of Danny's family have dreams of their own. His mother wants to write a novel. His older brother Beau wants to become an astronaut. His father, convinced that the Vietnam conflict is going to escalate into nuclear war, obsessively digs a fallout shelter in their front yard. Soon tragedy strikes: Beau falls into the dugout and dies. Danny will not be consoled until he becomes convinced that a bedraggled stray dog that arrives at the Rivers' door is his brother brought back to life. Readers will empathize with the young hero as he unsuccessfully tries to persuade his parents and others that what he believes about the dog is true. The book's sharply delineated characters and dramatic tension (much of it emanating from the villainous Creepy and Dopey Colvig) will keep pages turning, and the love among family members will be strongly felt. If some events (as when Danny meets Gus Grissom and rides in the famous astronaut's plane) appear a bit strained, they pave the way for a gratifying conclusion. Ages 8-12. (Oct.)

Nimmo (the Charlie Bone novels) launches the Magician Trilogy with this enchanting tale, first released in England in 1986. On his ninth birthday, Gwyn's delightfully eccentric grandmother gives him five gifts: a piece of seaweed, a tin whistle, a metal brooch, a small, broken horse and the yellow scarf that his older sister had been wearing the day she mysteriously disappeared four years earlier. His grandmother instructs him to "give them to the wind" to discover if he is a magician, like his ancestors. The boy first releases the brooch, hoping that the wind will bring him something "to fill the emptiness" that descended on his home when his sister vanished. The brooch turns into a glowing white spider, who weaves intricate webs. One of the webs contains the image of a girl who strongly resembles his sister—except she is "fragile and so silver-pale that she might have been made of gossamer." When the girl in the web temporarily materializes, she brings a peace to Gwyn's family that has long been missing. Nimmo demonstrates how unique gifts can set a child apart; Gwyn's magic causes a rift between him and his best friend and brings the class bully's wrath upon him. Swiftly paced and cleverly plotted, Nimmo's novel fluidly fuses fantasy, suspense and drama. Ages 8-12. (Sept.)

This promising first novel introduces memorable 11-year-old Cornelia S. Englehart, who lives in Greenwich Village with her "very famous concert pianist" mother, Lucille Englehart. Cornelia finds it difficult to make friends, as people often use her to get to her famous parent. She utilizes her "impressive dictionary collection" to learn long, confusing words in order to protect herself from people who pester her with "nugatory" questions about her mother. When the renowned elderly writer Virginia Somerset moves in next door, Cornelia discovers that they both "practice the art of parisology." They grow close over cups of mint tea, and Virginia's stories of her "audacious escapades" with her three sisters captivate Cornelia. Readers, however, may find these stories to be more of a distraction than an enhancement, partly because the stories of the Somerset sisters unfold from an adult perspective and partly because they detract from the main story line about the heroine's unfolding friendship with Virginia and Cornelia's problematic relationship with her mother. Still, the blossoming bond between Cornelia and Virginia is central to this tender story, and their passion for words is infectious. When Virginia suggests to Cornelia, "Did it ever occur to you that your mother speaks through music and not words?" her question opens up an opportunity for Cornelia to begin to heal her relationship with her mother. Blume is a writer to watch. Ages 8-12. (Aug.)

Narrated by straight-thinking Dez, Hicks's (Out of Order) poignant novel is indisputably real from the start. A self-proclaimed "neat-oholic," this 13-year-old sometimes wonders how she can be related to her poetry-spewing Duke professor father, her environmental scientist mother and younger brother, whom she deems the "three most un-neat people in the history of the world." The spanking clean house of her best friend, Jil, poses the perfect contrast; Jil's seemingly perfect parents have everything filed away and labeled—and their home holds a shiny grand piano. To Dez, the instrument embodies all that she holds sacred: "A piano is precise. Neat. Everything in its place. Every day." Though the narrator would give anything to own a piano and take lessons, Jil, who has both, could care less about it. Also rankling Dez is the fact that Jil is adopted, "which means she totally lucked into this awesome house and family." Yet emotional chaos invades Jil's carefully ordered life—and by extension Dez's—when the teen, unbeknownst to her adoptive parents, tracks down her birth mother. Dez begins to fear that she will lose her best friend. As Hicks describes how impulsive Jil and insightful Dez work through a discordant time, she shapes an honest story that contains resonant messages about identity, honesty, family and friendship. Ages 10-14. (Sept.)

Bell (The Goblin Wood) lays out the premise before her medieval tale begins: "This is the story of Prince Perryndon, who set out to slay the black dragon guided by the words of a prophecy." Chapter heads emulate stanzas from a bard's tale of a heroic quest. For five years, the 14-year-old prince has exhausted the castle's vast library hoping to discover how to slay a dragon, since one is laying waste to his father's Kingdom of Idris. Perryn finally spots what he has searched for, but the king is uninterested. Instead, the prince finds himself locked in his room. Seeking answers from the magical Mirror of Idris, Perryn learns that his own life is in danger: Cedric, his father's master of arms, is in alliance with the Norsemen, who are threatening Idris with the dragon's help. Cedric plans to kill the prince to prevent him from slaying the dragon. Suspense grows as Perryn searches for a true bard, a unicorn and the Sword of Samhain in order to defeat the dragon. (The Sword of Samhain turns out to have a sense of humor: "Hot fights and hotter women! A battle! After all these years. Let me at'em," it says. Readers will cheer for Perryn as he races to fulfill the prophecy in order to save the kingdom and prove to his father that he has what it takes to serve as a worthy successor. Ages 10-up. (Aug.)

A strong echo of The Incredibles runs through Berryhill's debut, set in a world where superheroes are taken for granted as a part of day-to-day affairs. Joshua Blevins has been starstruck by these heroes all his life. At age 9, he encounters Captain Fearless, who takes him under his wing and trains him for five years. But all appears for naught when Joshua's application to Burlington Academy for the Superhuman is turned down on the grounds that, "as a normal human, the Academy has nothing to offer you." Joshua and his mentor are not so easily deterred, and Captain Fearless fakes some documents to get Joshua accepted under the name Chance Fortune. Chance makes new friends quickly, young heroes-in-waiting like himself: the electrically charged Shocker, the elastic Private Justice and a psychic named Psy-chick. After a lengthy training sequence that references Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card with both a wink and a nod (one of Chance's classmates Space Cadet, or S.C., has a roommate named Orson), Chance learns that the school is connected to The Shadow Zone, "a dimensional prison reserved for supervillains too powerful or too diabolical to be jailed by conventional means." Readers weary of Potter-esque fantasy but hungry for another semihumorous/semiserious school setting, and lovers of superhero stories in general, will delight in this first volume in the Adventures of Chance Fortune series, ideally structured for many further adventures at Burlington. Ages 10-up. (Aug.)

Razo, this winning novel's endearing protagonist, first brought to life as a minor character in Hale's The Goose Girl, here gets his own story. Now a confidante of Queen Isi, Razo was originally a simple forest boy whose major skill is using a slingshot to hunt squirrels. Short in stature and low in confidence, he is asked to join a mission of peace between his own kingdom of Bayern, and the enemy kingdom of Tira. Razo is then selected to become a spy because of his unassuming nature and powers of observation. He soon discovers that traitors in the Tiran army are trying to re-ignite the war, literally, by leaving charred remains of bodies—an act they hope to pin on another envoy from Bayern—Razo's friend Enna (from Enna Burning). This mystery unfolds along with charming friendships among Razo and his comrades, who lovingly tease him when he is the last to realize he has fallen in love with Dasha, the striking orange-haired daughter of the Tiran ambassador to Bayern, and has grown in height as well as self-assurance. This novel will be a special treat for readers of Hale's other two companion books, but it also stands on its own as a unique and tender coming-of-age story. Ages 12-up. (Sept.)

Green follows his debut novel, Looking for Alaska, with this comic story about Colin Singleton, who at 17, considers himself a failure. "Formerly a prodigy. Formerly full of potential. Currently full of shit," he thinks, when, on graduation day, his girlfriend breaks up with him, the 19th girl named Katherine he has dated and been dumped by. (That number includes some third- and fourth-grade encounters, one of which lasted three minutes.) Colin's best friend, Hassan, an overweight underachiever, suggests a road trip to lift Colin out of his funk. A highway sign advertising the grave of the Austro-Hungarian archduke whose assassination sparked WWI leads them to Gutshot, Tenn., and Lindsey Lee Wells, whose mother, Hollis, is the town's largest employer—she owns a factory that makes tampon strings. Hollis offers the boys jobs recording oral histories of local residents, which they accept, though Colin's true preoccupation is a mathematical formula ("The Theorem of Underlying Katherine Predictability"), which will forecast the duration of all romantic relationships and enable him to make his mark on the world. It's not much of a plot, but Green's three companionable main characters make the most of it. Colin's epiphany—he can't predict the future but he can reinvent himself, maybe even date a girl not named Katherine—is pretty basic, but the intelligent humor that will make many readers eager to go along with him and Hassan for the ride. Ages 14-up. (Sept.)