Children's Book Reviews: Week of 12/10/07

As light and sweet as cotton candy, this saga of a pig in love will win over kids and grownups alike. Van Lieshout’s loosely drawn pen and ink illustrations, mostly on stark white pages, wring Oscar-winning expressions from the slenderest curves and squiggles. The minimalist text begins before the title page, when Bloom’s faithful friend urges her to join him playing in a puddle. The insouciant pig declines, declaring, in type of varying size, that she feels like “dancing and singing… and stretching out under the flowers.” In a beguiling version of love at first sight, Bloom spies a butterfly, the only blue object seen in a book that features pink font, pink pigs and pink flowers. “A flying flower!” she gasps, and then bats her eyes at it. After fluttering nearby and wresting a profession of love from Bloom, the butterfly departs, leaving a heartbroken heroine. Van Lieshout’s deft use of line comes through in Bloom’s distressed dismay, a cross between toddler meltdown and Juliet, which is happily cut short by the attentions of Bloom’s faithful swine swain. This paper-over-board book’s stylish design and small square format designate it as a natural for Valentine’s Day. All ages. (Jan.)

Farmer Gray’s homestead is as colorless as his name—even the sky and grass are gray. So, while he’s away for the day, Blue Goose, Red Hen, Yellow Chick and White Duck get some paint and undertake a barnyard makeover. First they cover a few things in their signature colors—and what they redecorate can be surprising: “White Duck painted the fence white. And Yellow Chick painted all the flowers yellow.” Next the animals mix the different colors (e.g., yellow and blue make green for the grass.) With a little teamwork, they’re even able to paint the sun yellow (this image requires a vertical format so readers can fully savor the effort involved). Tafuri’s (The Busy Little Squirrel) animal cast is creative, confident and diligent—there are no pratfalls into paint cans, no falling off of ladders. But the veteran author is more visually playful here than usual: the scenes have the bold, graphic punch of murals. As always, her generously sized animals and pithy text extend a warm welcome to readers, and make this celebration of color ideal for sharing either one-on-one or with a group. Ages 1-4. (Jan.)

To the other animals in the barnyard, the most remarkable thing about the eponymous heroine—“the littlest little” chick—is her diminutiveness. “ 'My, you’re so tiny!’ bleat[s] the nanny goat tall.” But there’s a lot more to Wee Little Chick than her size. She [despite the “he” on the flap copy] can climb the highest of all her siblings, she has the loudest peep, and despite her “tiny little legs” she runs “the fastest of them all!” Butler (A Mama for Owen), working in his signature cuddly representational style, communicates that there’s something special about his protagonist without anthropomorphizing her (aside from a glimmer of smile): those bold black eyes convey that this chick has the poultry version of fire in the belly. Even more intriguingly, neither the illustrator nor Thompson (the Little Quack series) turns this story into a typical narrative arc of condescension, envy, angst, struggle and triumph. Wee Little Chick is amazing from the start, and everyone seems most impressed by her achievements. This brisk, straightforward approach to a self-esteem message should resonate even with children who have no concerns about their place on the height charts—or in the pecking order. Ages 2-6. (Jan.)

A bustling farmer’s market serves as the backdrop for 13 familiar nursery rhymes, united here by a visual story line. First met as he takes leave of his wife and child in their homey kitchen, to the accompaniment of “This little piggy went to market,” a pig ambles through a quaint small town, past Little Tommy Tucker (who also plays the fiddle, the case open to receive coins from passersby), Little Jack Horner (a mouse who has patronized the nearby pie stand), and so forth. Fitzgerald (Dr. Kiss Says Yes) embeds a wealth of detail: a calendar in the pigs’ house indicates that it’s August, timing matched by the produce shown for sale; Curds & Whey is the name of the cheese stand where a spider frightens a tiny mouse. The illustrations have the softness of pastels; the costumed, rounded animal characters’ skins look like velveteen, as if the cast were toys. Reinforced by the small, hand-size format, the effect is of a safe haven, a cozy and nostalgic corner scaled to young children. Ages 3-5. (Jan.)

In a fresh variation on the theme of marching to the beat of a different drummer, Helakoski (Big Chickens Fly the Coop, see Notes, below) presents Woolbur, a lamb with unique ideas. A series of linguistically similar episodes takes children through the process of how a sheep’s wool is shorn, carded, spun, dyed and woven to make cloth—and at each step Woolbur demurs. “I don’t want to shear [or card or spin] my wool,” he says, and after his parents give him a reason they think he can’t refute, he repeats the line, “I know... isn’t it great?” Debut artist Harper’s quirky illustrations picture Maa and Paa pulling their wool (instead of their hair) every night as Woolbur’s Grandpaa advises them to relax. By story’s end all the other lambs copy Woolbur—carding their own wool and experimenting with color—until his dumbfounded parents fret that they won’t be able to find their distinctive son. Grandpaa says, “Don’t worry,” and the reader sees Woolbur inventing knitting. Harper meets the challenge of conceiving new ways to illustrate the patterned repetitions of the story, even if his characters are sometimes static, while Helakoski capitalizes on Woolbur’s enthusiasm despite the predictable outcomes of the similar scenes. Children will relish Woolbur’s ability to pull the wool over his parents’ objections. Ages 3-6. (Jan.)

When Ruby retrieves her ball from an eccentric neighbor’s yard, she meets the blustery Miss Wysterious, who barks such expletives as “Jumping jelly beans!” and “Blazing butterscotch!” With Mary Poppins snappishness, the mysterious Wysterious hands Ruby some jelly beans and instructs her to plant them, over the course of some weeks dishing out gardening advice: “Buttons must be picked early, unless you need them the size of frying pans! And remember, with shoes always plant a pair.” In fact, a tree in the woman’s yard drips with buttons, another with all-left shoes, etc. Even more fantastical than the plot, Fisher’s (Ellsworth’s Extraordinary Electric Ears) mixed-media art belongs to the love-it-or-hate-it genus. Flat, cut-paper images—of the cartooned characters, highly patterned foliage, trees and more, all rendered in different styles—stand up within intricately composed sets, amid three-dimensional candies, miniature gardening tools and other props. The complexity of each assemblage commands admiration. However, not everything emerges successfully from this mélange: background images blur, sometimes almost past recognition. The alternate universe Ruby discovers is hazily developed also. To Ruby’s surprised delight, peppermints and gumdrops blossom forth. What can readers take away? Gather ye peppermint rosebuds? Blossom wherever you’re planted? Or, as Miss Wysterious says, “If you’re in doubt, nothing will sprout”–in other words, believe and magical things will happen, a nebulous and familiar message that gets a literal interpretation here. Ages 4-8. (Jan.)

Rosy Levine and her cat, Moishe, are protesting the long Chicago winter by refusing to get up. So Mama tells a story from her own girlhood back in Minsk, where Rosy’s grandmother, Beatrice, chased away the winter by cooking a delicious batch of blintzes (a recipe can be found on the final page). Working in the colors and motifs of Russian folk art, Berry (The Impudent Rooster) conjures a frosty but idyllic Old Country. The family’s robust faces suggest those of matryoshka (nesting dolls), the cottage is tidy and quaint, Rosy’s grandfather has a dashing Dr. Zhivago look going, and Beatrice is almost soignée in her patterned babushka and elaborate shawl. “Soon they sizzled so,” says Manushkin’s (Latkes and Applesauce) Mama of the blintzes, “I saw the ice on our windows melt.” The blintzes’ spring-evoking powers aren’t confined just to the household: in Berry’s whimsically imagined outside world, animals bask in radiant warmth, sunflowers burst forth from the earth, and music literally fills the air. Why, then, does this pretty, goodhearted book not achieve emotional traction? Perhaps it’s because this clearly Jewish family feels denatured by the match-up with Russian folk styles. Except for their last name (and the cat’s) and the occasional Yiddish inflections in Mama’s speech (“Winters today—what are they? A few little puffs and they’re done”) the characters could belong to any or no tradition. The illustrations concentrate on making the kitchen a magical place, but they skip the seasoning. Ages 5-up. (Jan.)

In her first chapter book, English (Francie) perceptively explores the undercurrent of insecurity and rivalry that threaten two African-American girls’ friendship. When Antonia moves into the neighborhood and tries to boss two best friends around, Deja elects to start a drill club and pointedly not invite the new girl. But when Nikki messes up at drill club tryouts, she anticipates rejection and hooks up with Antonia, who proposes an exclusionary club of their own. The plot is secondary to the authentically rendered backdrops of sidewalk games, the third-grade classroom and Saturday morning TV-watching. Better still are the author’s careful tabs on the daily fluctuations in the girls’ emotional lives: “She hadn’t meant to say that.... And since she can’t put the words back into her mouth, she’s glad she’s in front of her house because then she gets to stomp up her stairs and slam the door behind her.” More probing than many chapter books, this title delivers the satisfaction of a full-length novel. Final art not seen by PW. Ages 6-10. (Dec.)

As she did in Feathers with the poetry of Emily Dickinson, Woodson here invokes the music of the late rapper Tupac Shakur, whose songs address the inequalities confronting many African-Americans. In 1994, the anonymous narrator is 11, and Tupac has been shot. Everyone in her safe Queens neighborhood is listening to his music and talking about him, even though the world he sings about seems remote to her. Meanwhile D, a foster child, meets the narrator and her best friend, Neeka, while roaming around the city by herself (“She’s like from another planet. The Planet of the Free,” Neeka later remarks). They become close, calling themselves Three the Hard Way, and Tupac’s music becomes a soundtrack for the two years they spend together. Early on, when Tupac sings, ''Brenda’s Got a Baby,’’ about a girl putting her baby in a trash can, D explains, ''He sings about the things that I’m living,’’ and Neeka and the narrator become aware of all the ''stuff we ain’t gonna know [about D],’’ who never does tell them where she lives or who her mother is. The story ends in 1996 with Tupac’s untimely death and the reappearance of D’s mother, who takes D with her, out of roaming range. Woodson delicately unfolds issues about race and less obvious forms of oppression as the narrator becomes aware of them; occasionally, the plot feels manipulated toward that purpose. Even so, the subtlety and depth with which the author conveys the girls’ relationships lend this novel exceptional vividness and staying power. Ages 12-up. (Jan.)

Adding to a category overrun with poor-little-rich-girl plotlines, Headley (Nothing But the Truth [and a few white lies]) crafts a tale that will stand out in the crowd by offering a good dose of girl power and an intriguing family backstory. Fifteen-year-old Syrah Cheng, daughter of a billionaire mobile phone magnate, has blown out her knee after a snowboarding accident and can no longer hit the slopes. She still feels shattered by the realization that her would-be boyfriend was only after her father’s money, and is too afraid to reciprocate her best friend’s overtures toward another kind of relationship (“Why chance turning Age into a here-today-gone-tomorrow boyfriend?”). Add to that two absentee parents and a pair of adult half-siblings who hate her guts, and Syrah, the narrator, is sinking into a full-on pity party, finding respite only in her manga journal. But even when Syrah complains, the tone stays tart, conveying a tough-girl personality that leaves room for vulnerability. As the novel shifts from Syrah’s self-pity to her self-critique, its scope grows more interesting, especially when Syrah learns more about her family. The outsize scale of the family fortune and prestige, combined with the gratifying empowerment theme, will attract (and hold) Meg Cabot fans. Ages 12-up. (Jan.)

If Robert Ludlum ever wrote a book for young adults, it would probably be a lot like Whyman’s action-packed techno-thriller. Carl Hobbes, a 17-year-old British hacker, has penetrated the ultimate network: he’s hacked into Fort Knox. Although he hasn’t done it for profit (“I did it because I could.... It was the security measures I wanted to beat”), his ingenuity isn’t exactly appreciated. The U.S. government essentially kidnaps him, and, along with some of the most infamous mercenaries and terrorists in the worlds, transports him to a U.S. detainment camp in the Arctic Circle known as the Guantánamo Bay of the North” for questioning. Soon after arrival, Hobbes and other enemies of the state are subjected to brutal interrogations—but when one of the detainees successfully stages a violent uprising, Hobbes must decide which side he is on. Powered by a fast-paced narrative, the exploration of numerous timely themes—criminality on the digital frontier, the war on terrorism, the ethics of torture and prolonged detainment versus human rights—gives this eminently readable adventure a degree of depth. Ages 12-up. (Dec.)

Octavia and Rosie, best friends from an elite London school, meet up with their New York City counterparts, Sam and Salah, when their classes take a trip together down the Nile. Among the tombs and temples, romances blossom, but as if they were in “some sort of Shakespearean farce,” confusion quickly follows. Rosie, a gifted composer, and Egyptian-born Salah, one of the most eligible teenagers in Manhattan,” feel a definite connection, but beautiful boy-magnet Octavia swiftly claims him as her own. Readers will know that all will sort itself out by the end, or that the various misadventures will help the characters grow in important ways (outrageous Octavia will learn not to hide her family’s poverty, for example, and Salah will decide to “take fate into [his] own hands”). The author mixes in some ancient Egyptian history with images of contemporary life on the Nile; she also adds wacky characters, including a pair of nerdy teachers who keep getting in trouble with the police, at one point being charged for drug smuggling. The four protagonists take turns narrating, although not all of them fully engage readers’ interest. Attention-seeking Octavia, for example, who calls teachers “darling” and sneaks off the boat, comes across as more bratty than fun. Even so, there is enough romance—both personal and in the details about Egypt—to fuel this light diversion. Ages 12-up. (Dec.)

Set in a present-day England where Orwellian visions of invasive governmental surveillance are quickly becoming a reality, Marks’s (Missing in Tokyo) thriller spins out a promising plot but falls short of the mark. Paul Hendry, a 17-year-old runaway, doesn’t realize—nor particularly care—how closely Big Brother is watching him until he falls in, almost accidentally, with members of an extreme activist organization known as Omega Place. Their mission: not only to destroy as many closed-circuit TV cameras as possible but also to spread their manifesto about who, exactly, is benefiting from the rapid multiplication of CCTV cameras in public spaces (“There’s one camera for every 14 people in the UK! And you are being watched 24/7. almost wherever you go and whatever you are doing”). Disillusioned and lonely, Hendry sees Omega Place as a group where he can fit in and be a part of something that matters—but when members begin turning up dead, he realizes too late the dangers of vigilante activism. Unfortunately, two-dimensional characters, sporadic pacing and a lackluster ending may leave readers wishing that the concepts here had been more aggressively developed. Ages 12-up. (Dec.)

After Isabelle gets dumped yet again by her sleazy boyfriend, her two well-meaning friends invent a dream guy for her, hoping to cheer her up (and keep her from taking him back). Domineering, sharp-tongued Vivi overrides meek Lane’s objections and has Lane help create a MySpace page for “Brandon,” then gets her younger brother to pretend to be him while IM’ing Izzy; later Vivi bribes Jonathan, a boy from a neighboring school, to pose as Brandon and ask Isabelle to the prom. Readers can guess that this scheme does not turn out to be as “harmless” as Vivi envisions, especially when she herself falls for Jonathan. In fact, except for a few small twists toward the end, the book follows a predictable course, right down to the girls’ personal growth (Lane, for example, finally stands up to Vivi). This would be easier to swallow if Brian’s (Megan Meade’s Guide to the McGowan Boys) characterizations were more imaginative or her prose less standard-issue (“Her logic didn’t make her heart hurt any less, and it didn’t make the unshed tears recede from her eyes”). Ultimately, the inevitable chaos—and happy ending—may be all that keep readers turning pages. Ages 14-up. (Dec.)