Children's Books

From the opening lines (“Sun sizzled. Hair frizzled”), Spinelli (Summerhouse Time) jauntily establishes the theme for this tale of one sweltering week in the town of Lumberville, long before the advent of air conditioners. Beginning on a blistering Monday, the day-by-day chronicle reveals how residents cope. Abigail Blue and her brother Ralphie open a lemonade stand, but two days later “forgot about the lemonade and just sold ice.” Lottie Mims takes four cold showers one day and on the next “wore her bathing suit to clean house.” Caldecott Honor artist Lewin’s (Click, Clack, Moo) amusing assemblage of brush, ink and watercolor images portray the resourceful ways the townsfolk try to beat the heat. On Saturday night, “everyone—whether in a bed or on a rooftop or on a fire escape or in a tent or near the river—everyone... had the exact same dream.” A spread depicting that dream rounds up playful portraits of the smiling citizens frolicking in the rain. A power outage may be the closest modern readers come to a similar experience, but they (and nostalgic parents) should nonetheless appreciate this good-natured tribute to summer at its hottest. Ages 3-7. (July)

Brimming with cheekiness, Church (One Smart Goose) tells the story of Digby, a new sheepdog who is definitely not being treated like top dog by his woolly charges. The six sheep on the farm “had different ideas,” Church writes. “They didn’t like being told where to go or what to do.” (The sheep are comically shown filling up a two-page spread, staring at the reader with beady eyes and furrowed brows.) Digby resorts to an escalating series of tactics, attempting to herd them with a bulldozer, tank and finally a helicopter, but “the sheep simply looked up and laughed.” There’s a wry, cinematic eye behind the bright collage and acrylic drawings, and the cartoonish characterizations make the fierce battle of wills between Digby and the sheep even funnier. Digby does finally take charge, thanks to a tactic suggested by some of the other farmyard denizens who tell him, “We have lived on this farm for a long time.... And we’ve learned there is a way to get what we want!” (More effective than heavy machinery is the use of one polite little word, Digby learns.) Never didactic or preachy, Church uses a deft sense of humor that should make this simple lesson in manners all the more palatable to her target audience. Ages 4-7. (July)

Feeling blue, and stumped as to what might cheer her up, a girl (called “Sweet Pea” by her mother) poses the question “What makes you happy?” to a fanciful array of characters. In his authorial debut, illustrator Menchin (Bounce) cheerily portrays the youngster and respondents in ink and watercolor spreads against pastel backdrops. Sweet Pea’s own dog, dressed in a shower cap and carrying a rubber ducky, replies “Taking a bath!,” while a rabbit likes to run on a hamster wheel (who knew?) and a woman with a nest of squiggly red hair indulges in adorning it with myriad bows and clips. A droll sense of humor is evident as well: an elderly man perches next to a tree stump, stating that he enjoys “counting,” while a dapper gentleman on a park bench demonstrates his love of “stripes” with a comically clashing outfit—and a striped tabby on a leash. Sweet Pea (who herself begins to smile about halfway through her informal survey) gradually realizes that many things make her happy and, in a rebus-like spread, she catalogues more than 20 things that do just that, including “bake cookies with faces,” “stick finger puppets on my toes,” “slurp spaghetti” and “swim at night.” This will likely inspire youngsters who are in a funk to seek joy in the unexpected as well as in the perfectly ordinary. Ages 4-8. (July)

When a carefree, nature-loving wolf named Rufus is sent to boarding school boot camp to learn the ways of the big and the bad, the results are expectedly comical. Hoping to toughen up their young free spirit, Rufus’s parents send him to the Big Bad Wolf Academy. Much of the humor is found in Sneed’s (The Boy Who Was Raised by Librarians) whimsical watercolors of Rufus’s days there. At the huffing and puffing range, he lazily blows dandelion seeds instead of blowing over wooden cut-outs of the Three Little Pigs in their houses, labeled respectively as “Breezy,” “Gusty” and “Gale!” Study questions include “Which is easier to wear—a nightgown or pajamas?”; in an especially hilarious spread, the wolves line up in their best grandmotherly disguises, adorned with matronly wigs, bedclothes and fuzzy slippers. Readers familiar with wolf fables will best appreciate the story’s comedy, but all will cheer when Rufus’s innate Canis lupus traits save the day. While the shaggy-headed wolf may appear to be a bored slacker in class—in one scene he has a pencil up his nose—the reason for his seemingly impertinent behavior rests in misunderstandings and mismatched priorities. Krensky’s (Too Many Leprechauns) message seems to be that results are best when “wolves” are allowed to be themselves. Ages 4-8. (June)

The scrawny, supercilious feline from Bad Kitty is back and—quel surprise!—has no interest in playing with guileless, gangly Puppy, who appeared at the end of that title and takes center stage here. “Poor Puppy,” Bruel writes. “Poor, poor Puppy. Poor, poor, poor, poor, poor Puppy!” The book then becomes a counting/alphabet book to demonstrate that Puppy isn’t really poor—in fact he has many playthings at his disposal: “1 Airplane, 2 Balls, 3 Cars” and so on. But Puppy still wants to play with Kitty, and as he falls asleep, the book takes another trip through the alphabet—and through the world—as Puppy dreams of 26 fun activities and locales he’d like to share with his “best friend” Kitty: “Apple Bobbing in Antarctica, Baseball in Brazil, Checkers in Canada,” etc. Unfortunately, Bruel’s usually sharp sense of humor is not as evident in this sequel. The alphabet-driven catalogues of Bad Kitty were funny because they pushed the boundaries of probability when it came to Kitty’s sociopathic tendencies, her favorite foods and her equally hyperbolic acts of redemption. But despite Bruel’s colorful visual treatment of the physical activity here, the vignettes often feel inert. Even the wittiest moments—such as Puppy and Kitty playing Patty-cake in Peru—may generate fewer laughs than Kitty’s previous comedic nefariousness. Bad Kitty fans will want to take note of a new “cat-nipped” edition of that title (with a pair of large bite marks, courtesy of Kitty), due out the same month. Ages 4-up. (Aug.)

Townsend’s children’s debut shows a mischievous sense of humor but an unpolished storytelling style. With school picture day approaching, Billy Tartle needs a haircut. “All my school pictures are soooo boring,” Billy complains, as he watches his favorite cartoon, “Supermonkey.” Inspired by Supermonkey’s coiffure, Billy draws a stick figure with a spiky Mohawk and tells Barber Ken how to style his black hair (“It should have five points.... oh, and it must be pink”). Unfortunately, Billy’s mother puts the kibosh on his plan, and Billy is disappointed in the adult-pleasing results. He gets even by grabbing all of the “gooey, juicy, sticky fun pops” in Barber Ken’s jar, giving a lollipop to each of his classmates on picture day. Readers learn why in the end: the colorful candies coat kids’ teeth with bright dye. “It was Billy Tartle’s best picture day ever!” Townsend conveys Billy’s stubborn and sly personality, but his pen-and-ink comics suggest notebook doodles, improved with sharp rectangular layouts and intense digitized color. Billy has a wavering, wide smile and a toddler’s clumsy gestures, and the picture-day plot doesn’t quite sustain the book. Still, readers with a rascally bent will likely get a kick out of Billy’s overactive imagination and puckish behavior. Ages 5-8. (July)

The eponymous heroes of this early reader are two genial, googly-eyed earthworms who are also best friends. In five short chapters, Wiggle and Waggle (the latter, distinguished by a pair of glasses) learn that singing makes a job go faster; a difficult task—moving a big rock out of a tunnel—is made easier when individuals work together; and a rainy day needn’t be a spoiler if you have an upbeat outlook. Arnold’s (Super Swimmers) writing has an easygoing cadence and just the right amount of repetition (“They dug long tunnels, short tunnels, fat tunnels, and thin tunnels”), although her wrap-ups for each story can be fairly anticlimactic (after a day of singing and digging tunnels, Waggle muses, “We are a good team.... Let’s dig again tomorrow”). Peterson (No Time to Nap!) is all-around terrific, tightly cropping her environments to keep the action focused on her characters and conveying a sense of contrasting scale (an unharvested carrot dwarfs the two worms). As for the two leads themselves, they’re spunky, comically gangly and just vulnerable enough to be adorable. For youngsters smitten by this duo, a list of facts about worms and how they contribute to a healthy garden concludes this cheery collection. Ages 5-8. (July)

On a seemingly normal suburban cul-de-sac, one house is definitely out of character—the looming tower that’s home to the title character. Dressed in a green robe and peaked hat decorated with stars and moons, “He’s tall and thin with wrinkled skin,” writes Prelutsky, “a tangled beard hangs from his chin.” (The verse originally appeared in the 1976 collection Nightmares: Poems to Trouble Your Sleep.) As he “ponders in his wicked way/ what evil deed he’ll do this day,” the wizard decides to gives his powers a workout on a hapless frog. The poor amphibian is transformed into a flea, a pair of mice, a cockatoo, a piece of chalk and silver bell before being returned to his original shape. Mightily pleased with himself, the wizard gazes down upon the children playing in the street below and debates his next move: “He may pluck someone off the spot/ and turn him into... who knows what?” The poem isn’t one of Prelutsky’s most memorable works, but it is pretext enough for an impressive picture book by Dorman. The illustrator’s digital artwork has all the burnished lushness and radiance of oil paintings. Whether immersing readers in the delicious gloominess of the wizard’s workroom or zooming in for a close-up of the enchanter’s knobby fingers and menacing nails, Dorman proves his mettle as a marvelous visual storyteller. Ages 5-10. (July)

Picture book and cookbook author Compestine (The Real Story of Stone Soup) turns to 1972 China as the setting for her first YA novel. Eight-year-old Ling, the spunky daughter of two doctors, lives in Wuhan, China; dreamy and idealistic, she often describes her world in metaphor (about her neighbor, Ling notes, “Mrs. Wong was fragrant and warm like a red peony, which always welcomed visitors”). But the lives of Ling and her family are disrupted when Comrade Li, an officer of the Communist Party, moves into their apartment. Difficulties mount as friends and neighbors disappear, Ling’s father is arrested and she endures vicious tormenting at school because of her “bourgeois” background (“At times I wished my family was poor and my parents worked on a vegetable farm... so I could have friends. But if my parents worked on a farm, who would treat their patients?”). Although her father has been jailed, her family starved and their books burned, Ling fights to keep her long hair, a symbol of dignity and individualism to her, though her classmates see it as emblematic of Ling’s “privilege.” Ling survives on wit, hope and courage until the death of Chairman Mao, after which she and her mother have a joyful reunion with Ling’s father. Readers should remain rapt by Compestine’s storytelling throughout this gripping account of life during China’s Cultural Revolution. Ages 10-up. (Aug.)

Batter up! National Book Award finalist Wiles (Each Little Bird That Sings) delivers the third book set in her fictional Aurora County—a more boy-friendly read than its predecessors, with plenty of talk about baseball and what constitutes a stalwart team. Twelve-year-old House Jackson, the Aurora County All-Stars captain and star pitcher, has slogged through the preceding year with an out-of-commission elbow. Instead of playing baseball, he’s spent most of his time indoors, reading the classics to an old recluse, Mr. Norwood Rhinehart Beauregard Boyd. But when Mr. Boyd dies, House is reminded of his itch to play. Unfortunately, the All-Stars’ only game of the year is scheduled for the same day as Aurora County’s 200th anniversary pageant, an event directed by pesky 14-year-old Frances Shotz, the girl who broke House’s elbow. After a series of minor mishaps, betrayals and bouts of miscommunication, House and Frances work out a hilarious compromise that all readers can root for. In the spirit of Ernest Thayer’s poem, “Casey at the Bat,” the energy during the game mounts, and sports fans will be on the edge of their seats to see which team triumphs. Quotations from Walt Whitman’s poetry, baseball players and Aurora County news dispatches pepper the story and add color; Love, Ruby Lavender fans will enjoy Ruby’s fortuitous cameo. A home run for Wiles. Ages 10-up. (Aug.)

The fertile partnership of Stewart and Riddell (The Edge Chronicles) has produced a fine canon of Monty Python-esque fantasy nonsense, but the silliness is taken to new heights in this charming comedy. Randalf the Wise, the only wizard in Muddle Earth, casts a spell to conjure a warrior hero and, not being a particularly gifted wizard, ends up summoning young Joe Jefferson and his dog. Along with his sarcastic budgie, Veronica, and cowardly troll, Norbert the Not-Very-Big, Randolph brings Joe to Muddle Earth’s ruler, the Horned Baron, who hires the boy to defeat the ogre Engelbert the Enormous. Engelbert is upset, because his beloved “snuggly-wuggly” has gone missing, and Joe’s gentle touch and quick thinking save the day. Unfortunately, the spell that Randalf needs to send Joe back home is in the hands of the evil Dr. Cuddles, a criminal mastermind who lives in an adorable little cottage in Giggle Glade. From there things become even sillier, with sentient silverware, a kidnapped queen no one wants to rescue and a vicious-looking dragon who turns out to be perfectly nice. Stewart’s plotting and dialogue are squarely in the anything-can-happen realm of Douglas Adams; Riddell’s pen-and-ink illustrations are perfectly suited to the tone of the book. This is a big, goofy, laugh-out-loud delight. Ages 10-up. (Aug.)

Taking both inspiration and naming convention from Ray Bradbury’s R Is for Rocket and S Is for Space, Gaiman’s first YA anthology is a fine collection of previously published short stories. Although Gaiman’s prose skill has improved markedly since the earliest stories included here, one constant is his stellar imagination, not to mention his knack for finding unexpected room for exploration in conventional story motifs. Jill Dumpty, sister of the late Humpty, hires a hard-boiled detective to look into her brother’s tragic fall; the 12 months of the year sit around in a circle, telling each other stories about the things they’ve seen; an elderly woman finds the Holy Grail in a flea market and takes it home because of how nice it will look on her mantelpiece. Collectors will be pleased to note the inclusion of several stories that were previously published in the now-hard-to-find collection Angels & Visitations. Also of note is fan favorite “How to Talk to Girls at Parties,” which has been nominated for a Hugo Award for 2007. Though Gaiman is still best known for his groundbreaking Sandman comic book epic, this volume is an excellent reminder of his considerable talent for short-form prose. Ages 10-up. (July)

Adult author and former Atlanta Falcon Green (American Outrage) delivers a satisfying YA debut, using his own NFL experience to bring readers behind the scenes. Twelve-year-old Troy White’s athletic ability and his preternatural talent for predicting football strategy are both going to waste (he’s stuck playing second-string on his team), until frustration with a vicious bully on his team pushes him to “borrow” an official NFL football from local Atlanta Falcons star linebacker Seth Halloway. As Troy languishes on his own football team and resents the father who abandoned him, he strives to alert the Falcons of his gift: “Sometimes a kid’s heart tells him to do something and he needs to listen, even if it means getting in trouble.” Acting as a mentor, Seth encourages Troy to come clean about his adventures (“The truth is more important than the trouble it brings”) and to forgive his father’s desertion (“All I know is, things happen. Unless you’re the one they’re happening to, you usually can’t understand it”). Seth ends up dating Troy’s mother and coaching Troy’s team, giving Troy the chance to shine not only on the sidelines, where his play-predicting ability helps bring the Falcons to victory, but on the field as well. “There was no rage fueling him now. It was something else, a blinding energy he never knew he had.” Non-sports fans will root for underdog Troy (“I want to do something. I want to be something. I thought this was my chance”) and enthusiasts will thrill to the firsthand knowledge Green brings to the novel. Ages 10-up. (July)

Wollman turns a potentially clichéd premise—two look-alike teens from dissimilar backgrounds trade places—into an entertaining and thoughtful novel. Laura has grown up helping her single mother clean houses, hating “having to stick her hands into other people’s lives” and feeling invisible to her wealthy employers. Willa, who has just flunked out of the posh boarding school from which all her relatives graduated, is constantly being criticized by her oh-so-proper parents for her weight, dress and attitude and feels as though she is “simply leading the wrong life.” When Laura and her mother are hired by Willa’s parents to look after their mansion while they’re away (sans daughter), the girls hatch a plan to switch lives. Studious Laura will pose as Willa at her new boarding school and Willa will live in the apartment Laura shares with her mother (who conveniently has taken an extended trip with her fiancé), assuming Laura’s house-cleaning responsibilities. Laura blossoms at private school, impressing a history teacher who urges her to apply to a prestigious college and falling in love with a boy whose parents are friends of Willa’s family. And in her new life, Willa finally gains confidence and discovers her true passion and skill as a car mechanic. Although the girls’ ruse is ultimately uncovered, all ends happily for both. Despite some unlikely twists of plot, Wollman creates credible characters who should endear themselves to readers. Ages 12-up. (June)

This debut novel about a 15-year-old runaway has some heartwarming moments and a sympathetic heroine, but the story line seems strained at times. Narrator Irena doesn’t know where she’ll end up when she decides to leave home—she’s just desperate to get away from her gator-wrestling father, who drove her mother away. Hitchhiking on the highway, Irena accepts the first ride offered and winds up at the end of the line in Key West. After wandering around, eating from garbage cans and sleeping in a public restroom, she lands a job as a chambermaid at a rundown motel called the Banyan Tree. She finds a new family in the kindly owners, siblings Carlotta and Antonio, but the motel’s dwindling funds have everyone worried, especially Lynette, the pregnant bookkeeper. As the threat of foreclosure looms, Irena brainstorms about how the motel could turn a bigger profit, but the ultimate solution is dependent more on coincidence and luck than inspiration. There are a few mysteries sprinkled throughout the plot (one involves a guest who is never seen and requests that his room never be touched); the story’s conclusion ties together all the loose threads a bit too neatly and seems rushed. Nonetheless, the book introduces a cast of likable characters with big hearts and compelling histories. Readers will find satisfaction in knowing that Irena finds a safe haven where she is accepted and cherished. Ages 12-up. (June)

Initially, this novel reads like a spoof on B-grade science fiction with the introduction of some very improbable events. First, there is a nuclear explosion in the ocean. Then, an unidentifiable “blob” washes onto a Cape Cod beach and two strangers with odd mannerisms and ways of speaking suddenly appear in town. Yet it soon becomes clear that Nelson (Paranoid Park) has something more profound in mind than tracking an alien invasion. After 17-year-old Emily and her sidekick Reese befriend the two strangers—who go by “Steve” and “Dave” and claim to be linguistic students—they experience some strange phenomena, such as being able to sense what animals are thinking and having euphoric dreams (“It was like I was floating on air and the sun was superclose to me.... and I somehow knew everything was okay and everyone loved everyone and the Earth was the best place in the entire galaxy”). After witnessing the duo’s remarkable healing powers, Emily suspects that there is something unearthly about them—suspicions that are confirmed when they reveal their true identities, histories and knowledge of the universe. Woven into the story are environmentalist themes and prophetic ideas that pack a punch and may inspire contemplation about the Earth’s uncertain future. Offering wittiness, suspense and ideologies borrowed from Eastern religions, Nelson reaches a new level of depth and creativity with this intriguing depiction of one very weird summer. Ages 13-up. (July)

Born out of a question posed to Sís (Play, Mozart, Play!) by his children (“Are you a settler, Dad?”), the author pairs his remarkable artistry with journal entries, historical context and period photography to create a powerful account of his childhood in Cold War–era Prague. Dense, finely crosshatched black-and-white drawings of parades and red-flagged houses bear stark captions: “Public displays of loyalty—compulsory. Children are encouraged to report on their families and fellow students. Parents learn to keep their opinions to themselves.” Text along the bottom margin reveals young Sís’s own experience: “He didn’t question what he was being told. Then he found out there were things he wasn’t told.” The secret police, with tidy suits and pig faces, intrude into every drawing, watching and listening. As Sís grows to manhood, Eastern Europe discovers the Beatles, and the “Prague Spring of 1968” promises liberation and freedom. Instead, Soviet tanks roll in, returning the city to its previous restrictive climate. Sís rebels when possible, and in the book’s final spreads, depicts himself in a bicycle, born aloft by wings made from his artwork, flying toward America and freedom, as the Berlin Wall crumbles below. Although some of Sís’s other books have their source in his family’s history, this one gives the adage “write what you know” biting significance. Younger readers have not yet had a graphic memoir with the power of Maus or Persepolis to call their own, but they do now. Ages 8-up. (Aug.)

DK’s signature editorial aesthetic, combined with the searing testimony of Holocaust survivors collected by the USC Shoah Foundation Institute of Visual History and Education, makes for a sobering and visually compelling work of history. An extraordinary array of materials—Nazi propaganda, documentary photos, artwork, artifacts—are employed in the service of a broadly sweeping chronicle, beginning with Jewish exile from Jerusalem in 70 CE after Roman occupation and ending with modern-day Holocaust denial and the creation of memorials around the world. Each chapter includes a two-page spread entitled “Voices,” devoted largely to excerpts from 23 interviews in the Foundation’s video archives (an accompanying 40-minute DVD contains the actual interviews). One survivor recalls the horror of being herded onto dark, overcrowded trains en route to Auschwitz; another describes how her mother told her about “every book she ever read, every movie she’d ever seen” as they hid in a grave-like hole under a pigsty. Wood’s prose is economical and reportorial, and she clearly wants to reclaim the individuality and humanity of those devastated by this enormity (“In many ways, numbers, especially very large numbers, mean nothing to us. What matters is each and every human being who was murdered by the Nazis”) and she never resorts to lecturing readers on how they should feel. The book’s detailed charts and maps contain almost too much information at times, often demanding very close scrutiny to fully decipher. Overall, however, the visual sensitivity and expert pacing serves this vital subject very well. Ages 11-up. (July)

In this heartfelt, honest memoir, the author uses a graphic novel format to reveal her anguished, ongoing struggle with bulimia. Shivack’s story unfolds largely through rudimentary drawings with captions and speech balloons, many created on paper napkins while she was being treated for her eating disorder. Setting the scene, the author initially depicts her rather contentious relationship with her mother, a Holocaust survivor who “had very strong ideas about food,” insisting that her three daughters finish everything on their dinner plates even though she herself ate only once a day (“just enough to keep herself going, not a bite more”). Shivack notes that her eating disorder (which she depicts as a monster named “Ed”) started when she began swimming competitively in high school—her coach criticized those swimmers who needed to lose weight. Feeling a part of that category, Shivack launched a regimen of binging, purging and compulsive exercising. In a poignant drawing, she likens her daily routine as a teen to a perilous climb up a steep, jagged mountain. Her dizzying downward spiral is sobering indeed, as her bulimia takes over her life and she becomes suicidal. Yet Shivack ends on a hopeful note, vowing, as an adult, to continue on her road to recovery. Statistics about eating disorders are found throughout the book, which concludes with a list of resources. Though intensely personal and—perhaps of necessity—repetitious, this harrowing chronicle may well provide support and solace to teens facing a similar crisis. Ages 12-up. (July)