Children's Book Reviews: Week of 8/6/2007

Broach (Shakespeare's Secret) and Caldecott Medalist Small's (So You Want to Be President?) deadpan delivery of a delectably over-the-top premise makes this tall-format picture book a virtually guaranteed crowd-pleaser. At the bakery with his mother, the freckle-faced narrator spies an odd sign above the doughnut case: “Buy a Dozen Get a Dinosaur.” They make the purchase, expecting a toy, but the bakery lady trots out a triceratops. When the boy's flummoxed mother cries, “How are we supposed to get that home?” the proprietor responds with a sardonic smile, “Oh, don't worry, he'll follow you. They always do.” After his doctor's appointment, the boy asks for a sticker, but the nurse announces that there are no stickers today, “just dinosaurs,” and the receptionist presents him with a stegosaurus. His mother prudently refuses to stop at the shoe store, movie theater and diner, but the boy picks up a pterosaur at the barber shop and uses a doughnut to lure home a hadrosaur (“It wasn't my fault” he disingenuously tells readers). Beleaguered by prehistoric pets, Mom comes up with a brilliant solution. Small fuels his watercolor-and-ink art with just the right dose of hyperbole, comically relaying the boy's elation and the mother's distress at the expanding menagerie. This well-balanced romp packs an outsize helping of humor. Ages 3-7. (Sept.)

As determined and beguiling as those click-clacking cows that type, Steffensmeier's bovine heroine may be even funnier. Like any self-respecting toddler who likes to say BOO, Millie lies in wait for the mailman every day, for the pure, unadulterated pleasure of scaring him. While the text is both lively and concise, most of the book's considerable charm emanates from the droll visual humor. The barnyard teems with curious chickens and amusing details, unrelated to the story thread, which children will love to search out. A bird in swimming shorts dives from a bird house into a tractor shovel filled with water (and a tiny life saver). The no-nonsense female farmer peruses elegant fashion in Farmer Vogue magazine. A miniature elephant drinks beneath a water pump. But chief among the visual bounties are Millie's hiding places. She lolls in the mud with the pigs or wears a flowerpot on her head as she lurks behind the potting shed plants. Only her tail and horns peek over the edge of an outside bathtub, and then, wearing swimming goggles, she bursts from the tub, startling the mailman with her loud MOO. Here's one import (from Germany) that loses nothing in translation. Ages 4-7. (Aug.)

Westerners may see a man in the moon, but Japanese tradition holds that the contoured surface depicts a rabbit making rice cakes. In fact, there's even a Japanese full moon celebration, complete with moon songs. When the eponymous rabbit narrator of Nishimura's (I Am Dodo) story finds out about these Japanese folkways from his pen pal Pyonko, he promptly decides that the moon is the place to be, and tries to figure out how to get there. He takes a comically grueling job at a local salad bar that requires him to wear a carrot costume (“I'd have to work 20 million more days—54,794 years—to pay for my moon tour,” he calculates after a particularly bad day. “I quit the job”) and practices holding his breath in preparation for the moon's airless atmosphere. Just when he's willing to finally admit that he'll never walk in Neil Armstrong's footsteps, an eccentric old man who claims to be Mayor of the Moon tells him, “You don't need a rocket or spaceship. All you have to do is look up at the moon and imagine yourself there.” Done and done: “That night, I visited the moon,” Bunny Lune says in the blissful final spread. The text is undistinguished; it feels overlong, and the final message is pat. However, Nishimura's softly hued ink and watercolor drawings demonstrate a sharp sense of humor, and turn Bunny Lune into a winning figure—a cotton-tailed Don Quixote. Ages 4-7. (Aug.)

Two-time winners of the Caldecott Medal, the Dillons (The People Could Fly) here take readers to what might be termed the king of all jam sessions. The venue: an imaginary Saturday night concert featuring seven of the genre's greats, from Thelonius Monk to John Coltrane. Rhythmic text acts as an introduction to the legendary musicians (“Repeat on the beat/ when Max Roach keeps the heat/ on his drums, rhythm thrums,/ makes you jump in your seat”). Making use of a period setting (women in the African-American audience sport '40s and '50s hats, men wear suits and ties), the authors also touch on the meaning of jazz for listeners who often faced discrimination in larger society (“Fills my soul—makes me whole—/ jazz is mine! I belong”). The sophisticated illustrations of the star-filled stage recall Harlem Renaissance paintings. At the same time, geometric motifs that swirl from instruments to represent the music and the two-tone block shading in the close-up portraits suggest a pop/abstract art feel. Smoky hues dominate, with a different background color for each double spread and musician. Brief biographies of the seven featured artists serve as endnotes, while a bonus CD briefly explores jazz instruments and features an original song that shares the book's title. Ages 4-8. (Sept.)

Lester and Munster (Hooway for Wodney Wat) do it again, striking a winning combination of witty wordplay and hilarious images. Ewetopia, a sheep who is “not comfortable in her own wool,” dons an array of outrageous outfits in a futile attempt to impress her peers. When she receives an invitation to the Woolyones' Costume Ball, she determines to outshine everyone. Not until she tries on 57 costumes does she—in a “Ewereka!” moment—find the perfect one: a wolf's suit. At the ball, her disguise draws ample attention, yet not of the desirable sort (“Bad taste,” “Faulty judgment,” bleat the other attendees). Then all eyes shift to a handsome stranger entering the ballroom, whom readers will recognize as a wolf in sheep's clothing, his tail, feet, paws and snout comically protruding from his wooly costume. In a pleasingly absurd twist, he mistakes Ewetopia for his mother and suggests that they grab “a couple of fat woolyones” and go home to eat, which puzzles her (“What kind of a creep would dine on a sheep?”). Eventually Ewetopia wises up, of course, and slyly manages to drive the wolf from the ball and save her wooly comrades (their names are Ewecalyptus, Ewetensil and Heyewe). Extremely amewesing. Ages 4-8. (Sept.)

Cate makes an impressive debut with this (mostly) black-and-white picture book. The Amazing Ray is a magician, and Bunny, his assistant, patiently allows himself be pulled out of Ray's satin top hat several times a day in a “spray of glittering stars.” (A domestic tableau early in the book shows Bunny nibbling gold paper into the proper shape.) When an accident separates Ray and Bunny one afternoon, Bunny spends a forlorn couple of hours hopping around the city before he finds a trail of gold stars and is joyously reunited with Ray. They miss the last train home—but, writes Cate, “two old friends never mind walking home together,” and Ray, in his black magician's cape, holds Bunny close. Cate performs a little magic trick of her own, holding the audience's attention while using no color but the occasional bit of yellow. An animator, she creates spreads, spots and storyboard-style panels that contain a wealth of detail and feeling (Ray's attic apartment, with its souvenir posters and crowded refrigerator door, is especially endearing). Another good feat is the conjuring up of Ray and Bunny, two instantly likable characters. Readers will demand an encore. Ages 4-8. (Aug.)

Inspired by a Woody Guthrie song, Caldecott Medalist Taback (Joseph Had a Little Overcoat) crafts a terrific and touching book. Someone special in the life of his narrator, an urban girl, is far away (the person and his/her relationship remain unspecified). So she concocts a plan to “send myself your way” courtesy of the U.S. Mail. “I'm going to jump inside a nice big box,” she declares, “I don't care what you say/ I'll write your address on the front/ I miss you every day./ Please take me to the post office/ They will sort me on my way/ I'll jump into a mailbag/ I miss you every day.” Having successfully arrived at her destination (with $1.18 postage due), the girl promises that all she'll need is a bath, supper, some candy, and a bedtime cuddle with a good book to know that “everything will be O.K.” The naïve exuberance characteristic of Taback's art is very much in evidence here, from the colored, hand-lettered text to the puckish scale. But while the girls's braids, hands and pink-and-green sneakers poke through the girl-as-package, Taback has dialed back considerably his customary goofy visual asides. In doing so, he enables audiences to focus their attention on the girl's yearning and determination, and he assures them that their constancy still counts in a highly mobile world. In a savvy design element, an envelope affixed to the title spread holds an card insert—a perfect pocket for a gift card, too. Ages 6-up. (Sept.)

As much coffee-table conversation piece as a collection for children, this oversize volume allocates each of 40 spreads to a different animal, portrayed in tepid verse by Forbes and in first-rate cartoons by Searle. Forbes, the president of ForbesLife magazine, leans on puns ”and then the hippo potty must!”), interest in appearance (“An uptown leopard named Lottie / All the guys consider a hottie”) and grisly demises (“A naughty lad, he took no care, and in the end did feed the bear— / an accident”). Most of the animals are adults, their concerns those of middle age: weight gain, stale marriages, professional advancement. The verse can scan poorly or seem tired (“Her neck is very, very tall / So tall she towers o'er us all” says Forbes of—what else?—a giraffe). Satirical cartoonist Searle (Searle's Cats) redeems the wacky menagerie. Punctuating pale watercolor wash with inky black lines and splotches, he draws Forbes's hippopotamus hurrying goggle-eyed and cross-legged with urgency to the nearest bathroom, and Lottie the leopard strutting like Cyd Charisse down a red carpet. The aforesaid “naughty lad,” pale and pimply, stands before the bear cage, incapable of interpreting the bear's menacing grin while a tiny, anxious mouse in the corner waves its paws in alarm. (In a child-friendly touch, the mouse lurks in each picture.) For die-hard Searle fans. Ages 6-up. (Sept.)

Polished raconteur King-Smith (Babe: The Gallant Pig) adds another cheerful animal caper to his repertoire, introducing a hairy Bactrian camel who is the sole member of his species in an English zoo. Hoping to find a pal, the lonely creature escapes from his paddock and roams around the zoo. But friends are nowhere to be found: the lions threaten to eat him, the chimps laugh at him and a parrot insults his appearance. Hezekiah then lumbers through the countryside, where he “wreaked a trail of havoc,” leaving behind broken gates, smashed fences and holes in hedges, thus enabling other animals to leave their pastures and amble where they like. When the camel expresses a desire “to find somewhere safe to go, somewhere with lots of space,” some Holstein cows point him in the direction of a safari park, located on the grounds of an earl's estate. That debonair fellow (who sports a bushy beard and mustache) is immediately enchanted by his visitor: “They looked into each other's eyes, and perhaps because each was so hairy, both felt that they were kindred spirits and had become—and would always continue to be—best friends.” King-Smith expertly juggles the comedic and the informational—readers may be surprised by how much they will learn about the species—and Bruel's (Poor Puppy) cartoon art enhances both the initial poignancy and the playfulness of this tale. Ages 7-10. (Aug.)

Successfully training his sights on a middle-grade audience, the acclaimed Nix (the Abhorsen trilogy) presents a quartet of wacky yarns set in fantasy-laced worlds and topped off with plenty of wordplay. In the first, Peter is on his way to return DVDs to the rental store when four rats dressed as pirates steal them. (“We be video pirates, and those there discs will fetch us a pretty sum.”) A crew of Navy rats escorts the boy down the sewer to “the Neverworld,” where he helps defeat the bread-wielding pirate Blackbread. The second caper stars a bored princess, daughter of a former “full-time warrior maiden” and a wizard, whose quest for adventure brings her inside a “magical clockwork monster” that she erroneously expects is planning to attack her kingdom. A third tale introduces a boy living in an orphanage who finally finds his parents after escaping adoption by pirates and the reach of a pair of “hideously squidgy, lumpy, slimy, sweaty, yellow-tentacled, bulbous-eyed aliens,” and the final story centers on one of 17 sisters who helps her town face a sea serpent that is damaging boats, capturing girls and turning them into “penguinmaids.” Biggs (the Shredderman series) renders even the most monstrous creatures as ludicrous rather than gruesome in his lighthearted cartoons, laid out here with wit and a good eye for visual rhythm. Ages 7-11. (Aug.)

Mazer's (What I Believe) engaging if somewhat familiar novel centers on a 10-year-old girl's mixed feelings for her older sister. Sprig and Dakota used to play and giggle together, “but when Dakota turned twelve in August? Boom, just like that, something fell out of the sky and hit her on the head, she also turned bossy and know-it-all.” Sprig's resentment intensifies when their father, an architect/engineer, leaves on a lengthy business trip that later extends (without so much as a quick flight home) to a month or two in Afghanistan. Dakota chides Sprig for crying when she misses their father, and when Sprig worries out loud about the dangers of Kabul, Dakota tells her she's being stupid. And why does Dakota get to talk to Dad first each time he calls home? Mazer weaves in subplots that are slightly too neat—Sprig visits an elderly neighbor (whose attention the sisters compete for) at just the right moment to save her from a stroke; a fight, also well-timed, with her best friend teaches Sprig the perils of jealousy—and she wraps up the conflicts rather tidily. But the author excels at depicting the complexity of preteens' emotions and relationships, especially sibling relationships; many readers will recognize their own feelings here. Ages 9-12. (Sept.)

Fletcher's (Marshfield Dreams) resonant novel vividly recreates its period setting, Long Island in 1973, and puts it to poetic use. Matt, the 14-year-old narrator, takes a job with Dan, a gruff yet kind clam digger, to earn money to buy a boat. On his first day, Matt witnesses the “One O'Clock Chop,” which occurs daily when a breeze suddenly moves across the bay, “roughening up the smooth surface.” Stirring up the seeming placidness of his existence, his beautiful, self-assured cousin Jazzy arrives from Hawaii to spend the summer with Matt and his mother (his father has moved away and remarried several years earlier). Though grappling with the fact of cousinhood, Matt gradually falls under Jazzy's spell. In one early, typically evocative scene, they listen to jazz and he hears the bass “like a big powerful heart, beating in the exact center of the music,” and then Jazzy puts her arms around Matt: “I felt her arms around me, which was the last thing I expected. I felt her fingers moving up and down the middle of my back, as if my spine was one of the strings on a stand-up bass....” As the title implies, Matt will have his heart broken; he will also find his way toward repairing it. Writing with his customary sensitivity and flair for language, Fletcher turns a coming-of-age story into a rich, affecting read. Ages 10-16. (Aug.)

In a taut, brilliantly controlled novel, Prose (After) dissects the unspoken dynamics that create bullies and their intended victims. Bart Rangely, the narrator, has begun eighth grade when his father dies in one of the Twin Towers on 9/11, and because his mother would have been at the same office except for Bart's illness that day, he achieves unwanted fame as the Miracle Boy. (Nobody knows that Bart's dad had left his mom for another woman.) The publicity lands Bart a full scholarship to prestigious nearby Bailywell Prep, known to the locals—with good reason—as Bullywell. The scenario Prose then unfolds is all the more chilling because it is not especially outrageous but, rather, recognizable. Bart's mentor, Tyro Bergen, “too handsome to pass for a regular kid,” steadily persecutes Bart, and although he eventually retaliates, Bart feels obligated to protect his mother's illusions about Bailywell. The headmaster accommodates the deep pockets of Tyro's parents, who fund Bart's scholarship and have their own reasons for confusing the manipulation of others with compassion and generosity. Few YA authors tackle issues of class so smoothly: the school, a microcosm of privilege, has no room for a middle-class kid unless he is cast as a lesson for the others, and the Bergens, Bart realizes, will always be allowed to write the lesson plan. The pace is quick, and the characters' motivations on target and revelatory. Connecting grief, rage and violence, Prose's insights are piercing and powerful. Ages 12-up. (Sept.)

Brande tackles fundamentalist thinking and the hot-button issue of evolution vs. intelligent design in her ambitious YA debut. Mena, an immediately likable narrator, spends the first week of high school dodging social and academic landmines. She's been banished from her fundamentalist church, where some members now face a lawsuit because of her, and her intimidating classmates/former church friends aren't about to let her forget it. The author's slow revelation of the back story will hook readers from the start: what could this nice girl possibly have done? “I did the right thing,” Mena tells herself on the opening day of school after her ex–best friend shoots her the “Look of Death.” “And someday the truth shall set me free. Just not, apparently, today.” When the narrative moves forward to introduce a dynamic new science teacher, Mena faces controversy once more. Luckily, a brainy (and cute) lab partner and his outspoken older sister help Mena find her footing. Brande stacks the decks against the creationists—their followers bully a kid they think might be gay; they turn on their children; they behave badly in general—but the fluid storytelling offers thought-provoking situations and ideas. Ages 12-up. (Aug.)

This slender book-within-a-book, while witty, reads more like background for a novel than a full-fledged work in itself. Claire, who has just left for Yale, has penned little sister Andie a guidebook to the private high school where Claire reigned supreme and where Andie is poised to enter as a freshman. With her bestie Bess (who's about to enter a Catholic school), Andie—and readers—absorb Claire's words of wisdom, which have been set into the pages of an old field guide to “poisonous plants” and “venomous animals.” This wry touch closely resembles the use of zoology in Mean Girls, a movie quoted here along with other pop culture references. Kids familiar with those references will already know Walsh's (Not Like I'm Jealous or Anything) territory and players (goths, skaters, Muffys, Hiltons). Some of Claire's counsel might be shrewd but it's hard to implement (she tells her sister to be sick on the day of the ninth-grade class trip, since “nothing good comes of it”); much is obvious (while giving students distinct labels, she notes that “everyone... is insecure. Everyone. Insecure. Equally”). The narrative element, exploring the bond between the sisters, is too thin to compensate for the lack of a plot. Ages 12-up. (Aug.)

Departing from the science fiction premise of Elsewhere, Zevin cooks up an entertaining love story out of what her narrator calls “chance, gravity and a dash of head trauma.” As the novel opens, 16-year-old Naomi has fallen down a flight of stairs and lost all memory of the past four years. She doesn't remember her parents' divorce (not to mention her mother's remarriage, her half-sister and her father's recent engagement to a tango dancer). Her best friend, Will, with whom she co-edits the school yearbook, and Ace, her tennis-player boyfriend, seem like strangers. What Naomi does remember is James, the first person she saw after her accident. The image of the boy—who helped her to the hospital and stayed to make sure she was all right—lingers as she tries to sort out her past and her feelings. Well-defined characters and convincing narration camouflage the Lifetime-movie premise and the inevitability of every plot turn (no one will doubt which characters will become romantically involved and who will end up together). Naomi, adopted in infancy from a Russian orphanage, can summon up more than enough hidden emotional depths to counterweight the slicker aspects of the story; teens will identify with her vulnerability and her heightened feelings of alienation. And fans of psychological dramas won't want to put this book down. Ages 14-up. (Sept.)

The eloquent dying teen can seem a staple of the YA novel, but this British debut completely breaks the mold.Downham holds nothing back in her wrenching and exceptionally vibrant story about a 16-year-old girl with leukemia determined to do 10 things before her imminent death (have sex, commit a crime, fall in love); although her rage feels palpable, she has decided to spend her remaining time living instead of dying. The chronicling of Tessa's slow decline has the immediacy of an audio journal—painful, honest first-person descriptions almost trap the audience inside Tessa's head. She alternates erratically but realistically between emotions, and the effect is staggering. One scene, for example, begins with Tessa's younger brother burying a dead bird, the boy next door helping him in an effort to impress Tessa: at first Tessa is touched, then “There's earth on my head. I'm cold.... I try and focus on good things, but it's so hard to scramble out.” Although the internal monologues wield undeniable power, some of the most dramatic scenes in the book involve Tessa's friends and familyher father's efforts to remain strong despite grief; her boyfriend's love for her; her younger brother's inability to grasp the gravity of his sister's condition (after a fight he hisses, “I hope you die while I'm at school! And I hope it bloody hurts”). Downham's writing is shockingly straightforward, and she cushions nothing for readers. In laying out so bald a story she evokes an extraordinary range of emotions, exorcised in a fiercely cathartic ending. Ages 14-up. (Sept.)

Longtime best friends Naomi and Ely live in the same Greenwich Village apartment building with their mothers while attending New York University. But after Ely, who is gay, kisses Naomi's boyfriend and lies about it, she stops speaking to him, even creating rules for avoiding each other; she does not care so much about her boyfriend, but finally understands Ely “will never love me the way I love” him. Cohn and Levithan (Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist; see Reprints, below) once again create characters with attitude and fill their book with wordplay and witty conceits. But unlike Nick and Norah, Naomi and Ely come across as thoughtless and self-absorbed. Part of the problem may be that the authors rotate through the perspectives of numerous characters, including Ely's new boyfriend (Naomi's ex) and a fawning girl from Schenectady who seems to exist mainly to reinforce how cool Naomi is. These characters do not add much—with the exception of a vulnerable doorman who tries to connect with Naomi. Readers will laugh at the fun turns of phrase (Ely accuses Naomi of being “a drama queen before we were old enough to go to Dairy Queen” and appreciate the clever duplication of characters (there are two Robins and two Bruces) which plays into the book's ideas about soul mates, or lack thereof. Naomi's narration is peppered with tiny icons, which look trendy but can be hard for readers to decipher. These playful touches, however, may not be enough to hold the audience's interest until Naomi and Ely reach their own important conclusions about love. Ages 14-up. (Aug.)