Children's Book Reviews

It's a beautiful spring day, inspiring the denizens of farm, field and forest to offer up their full-throated version of the title greeting. “The Cow said, 'Moo,' ” proclaims the text opposite a mild-mannered, sloe-eyed cow, her hide glowing with marker-like striations of peach, pink and brown. Like the other nine animals featured, the cow is portrayed in a stylized setting that's positively Edenic, filled with a rainbow of flowers, turquoise water and plump, leafy trees. Lobel (Alison's Zinnia) doesn't seem to be aiming for a realistic approximation of the sun's transit—in fact, the sky backdrop for the horse portrait (“Neigh”) is an improbable but utterly fetching pink (all the better to set off the gray of the horse's coat). The sun remains a radiant orange ball in an upper corner of each image until the final pages, when it exits dramatically to make room for the moon (here Lobel cues a handsomely dappled owl). The luxuriantly hued, playfully textured portraits will rivet preschoolers and invite them to make animal sounds of their own; the minimal text, set in big, friendly type, may also encourage some simple word recognition. It's a familiar, basic idea, but Lobel makes it as fresh as a morning in May. Ages up to 3. (Apr.)

With some reluctance, a blond, blue-eyed boy graduates from his small but secure crib. McGhee (A Very Brave Witch) catches every fluctuation of the child narrator's voice as he wavers between confidence and hesitation. “I'm a big boy now. You know what that means,” the boy announces, turning away from a proffered bottle and diaper. His stuffed animal, Baby Kitty, mirrors his no-thanks gesture, and the two flex their muscles to prove they're tough. On the other hand, the hero reflects, “Not every big boy wants to sleep in a big bed.” Nearby, the bed's eye-like pillows glare, and its blanket drapes in a menacing frown. The boy and Baby Kitty take matters in hand, tossing familiar objects onto the mattress (“How is it over there, Big Pillow?”) before making the leap. This sympathetic text has a big potential for preciousness, but MacDonald (Another Perfect Day) tamps it down with witty allusions to retro comics. Artful voice bubbles guide readers across the pages, while MacDonald's golds, chocolates and saturated blues suggest lithographed Sunday funnies. MacDonald's nostalgic imagery emphasizes the childhood rite of passage, demonstrating that a small move can be an act of bravado. Ages 2-6. (Mar.)

The Schuberts (Where's My Monkey?) return to the animal world, this time focusing on the bonds between parent and child that cut across all species. Taking advantage of the large trim size, full-bleed watercolors and even small panels brim with details that construct an irresistible if imaginary animal kingdom: among many exchanges on the opening spread, a baby elephant befriends the bear cubs reclining in their mother's lap; baby crocodiles perched atop their mother's toothy jaws check out a mother lioness while monkeys play overhead and owls observe the scene, in broad daylight. Diversity, however, is exactly the Schuberts' point: all kinds of animals have babies, “just like people.” From there the husband-and-wife team survey a wide range of parenting styles (“Mother sea horse... doesn't do much after she has laid her eggs in Father's pouch”) and explore differences in life-cycle stages (“Kangaroo and platypus babies are not much bigger than a bean!”). But always they return to the key idea: like those at the top of the food chain, animals have unique families that do everything possible to protect and care for their little ones. The prose is warm and soothing, but the art, packed with quasirealistic, playful animals, will have readers fully alert and poring over the pages. Ages 2-6. (Feb.)

As fans of Sanderson's painterly fairy tale retellings might expect, her Mother Goose collection is an invitation to an old-fashioned world of enchantment. Her oil paintings teem with Victorian elves and fairies as well as human beings; they present gardens full of wild flowers, pumpkin houses, mice in waistcoats, tables set for tea, and a plump muffin man, and each time the human details merge attractively with the imaginary scenery. Sanderson includes almost all of the most familiar Mother Goose rhymes and adds some less well-known verses as well. The images are generally idyllic, but Sanderson sometimes includes unexpected action. King Cole in his ermine-trimmed robe and short puffy breeches blows bubbles from a pipe as three pink pigs in livery fiddle beside him. For the brief “Ride a Cock Horse,” Sanderson conjures an elaborate double-page spread of a girl with a hobby horse who stands shyly with her mother behind a twisted, ancient tree. They watch as a parade of winged elves and fairies in flower hats accompany a Guinevere-like lady, seated on a white horse. Luminous and elegant. Ages 3-6. (Mar.)

Jarrett (The Best Picnic Ever) adapts a finger rhyme (albeit one better known in her native Britain) and pairs it with floating illustrations to explore a caterpillar's transformation into a butterfly. Her heroine, Arabella Miller, brings home a small caterpillar, feeds it and builds it a home, and watches it change. The author/artist's lighthearted treatment involves bouncy, well-constructed verse that imparts plenty of information: “CRACK!/ His skin split all along his back./ And underneath it, big and baggy,/ was a new one, soft and saggy.” Jarrett's full, round shapes and curved lines loosely recall Matisse; tissue paper cutouts and a bold springtime palette cinch the artistic reference. Unmentioned in the text, a pet dog helps Arabella gather leaves and waits by her side as she tends to her caterpillar. A final spread examines the life cycle of a butterfly; clear prose accompanies playful illustrations based on an insect in the swallowtail family and the Queen Anne's lace plant it prefers. Striking a balance between artistic feeling and scientific information, this handsome, oversize volume is particularly well suited for the preschool set. Ages 3-7. (Feb.)

Through a series of tests—deliberate and not—a chick becomes almost totally convinced that his mother's affections are unshakable. Then, provoked by her son's almost manic cheeping, his mother momentarily loses it, and Little Chick is himself shaken. The mother hen repairs the breach with some unconditional reassurance (“Sometimes you make me mad, and sometimes you make me sad, but no matter what you say or do, I will always love you”) and with that surefire parenting trick, the funny face. Working in warm, translucent watercolors and velvety black outlines, Fearnley (previously paired with Willis for Never Too Little to Love) gives her characters an endearing depth of expression and personality. The hen's beady eyes beam with pride and bemusement at her spunky, downy offspring, and when the chick loses a race, his mother comforts him with a pat of her wing and a look that is fully empathetic even as it conveys “this too shall pass.” These highly individuated scenes of barnyard domesticity considerably buoy an otherwise predictable tribute to the constancy of mother love, while the large-scale watercolors on outsize pages let readers appreciate every nuance. Ages 3-up. (Mar.)

A funny thing happened on the way to the gene pool, as far as O'Connor's (Sally and the Some-Thing) narrator is concerned: he got an Uncle Bernie who bears a striking resemblance to a yeti. Said uncle is so big that it takes an entire gatefold to capture his huge body, and so hairy that it takes seven comic strip–style frames to survey all his hirsuteness. As an illustrator, O'Connor is better at evoking the precocious narrator and his hipster family than he is at capturing Uncle Bernie; the big galoot looks more creepy/derelict than endearingly odd. Yet O'Connor is definitely on to something: most kids have at least one relative they deem weird (the narrator ultimately discovers that he has at least two). And even children whose bloodlines are disappointingly normal will enjoy coasting along with the breezy storytelling, which combines the slapstick of a funny graphic novel with the heartwarming irreverence of a Disney Channel original movie (the group-hug moral: “There are a lot of people in the world and all of them have something a little different about them too”). Visual jokes in the backgrounds—a framed photo of the family posed near a “Welcome to Roswell” sign; a notebook labeled “Crop Circles”—will keep older readers amused as well. Ages 4-8. (Apr.)

Elephants never forget—but that doesn't mean they can't change. Ravishankar, who lives in India, writes lively verse about a young elephant who finds a new home with a herd of water buffalo (“With a buffalo calf/ He tumbled and wallowed./ The buffalo led/ And the elephant followed”). Her story is full of good read-aloud noises (“Toooot! Toooot! Toooot!/ The elephants called./ Belloow! Belloooow!/ The buffaloes bawled”) and moves with assurance toward a refreshing conclusion. Pieper (previously paired with Ravishankar for Alphabets Are Amazing Animals) produces digital woodcuts that recall the work of Mary Azarian or Christopher Wormell, eschewing cuteness in favor of strength and clarity. A two-color scheme—black and periwinkle on cream-colored paper—and bold, simple spreads focus attention on the ponderous forms of the elephant and buffalo. Varied compositions as well as printed letters that grow and shrink and dance across the pages match the dexterity of the text with a visual sprightliness. Ages 4-8. (Mar.)

The titular professor is both a bear and a creature of habit: every Monday he takes his pet goldfish, Beluga, and bicycles down to the lake for a swim. But the routine is upset when a cranky otter, fishing with a pole, decides that a swimming bear will interfere with his catch. He convinces the professor that the lake is inhabited by a bottom-dwelling monster with “three heads and five eyes. And a huge mouth with sharp teeth. It can swallow a bear in one bite!” Beluga is undeterred, but the thoroughly spooked Professor Bumble waits on shore until Beluga, still in her aquarium, sinks from sight, and he feels obliged to rescue her, with the use of a goofy pool float. Napp gets lots of comic mileage from the contrast between the calm outdoor setting and his characters' hyperexpressive slapstick antics. But the text, translated from the original German, doesn't create much of a sense of personality or set off the story arc. Ages 4-8. (Mar.)

Kids who like math will readily overlook the contrived storytelling for this book's clear introduction to an underserved topic: probability. On the day of the last soccer match of the season, Ethan awakens to discover that a talking cat, fittingly named Odds, has attached itself to his head and won't get off until the boy wins a probability game. “ 'Don't put on your socks yet,' ordered Odds.... 'You'll win if you can pull out 2 matching socks without looking.' ” Einhorn's (Paradox in Oz) cut-to-the-chase style will have math enthusiasts rapidly engaging their skills to keep up with the fast-paced albeit strained dialogue. The supercilious Odds refuses to give an inch and seemingly delights in the boy's initial missteps (“Ta-dah!... You lose,” he quips, more than once). Despite Odds's disdainful style, Ethan eventually wins a game and goes on to figure his soccer goal–making odds. Gustavson (The Last Day of School) helps explain the subject with occasional vignettes (for example, an illustration of possible marble color combinations clarifies Ethan's chances of pulling two white marbles during one of the cat's challenges) but otherwise his paintings seem forced. Ages 7-10. (Feb.)

Launching a new series, this zany adventure takes as its premise that it is the journal of an eight-year-old boy who has stopped aging; it has washed up on a riverbank in England and been found by the publishers. Supplemented by often funny b&w sketches, the account begins as the narrator, who claims to be at least 400 years old, sets off on a homemade raft. Forget about Huck Finn—Charlie Small gets thrown from his raft, only to land on the back of a crocodile, and then to tumble with it over a waterfall into a dark jungle. Encounters with mechanical rhinos, hyenas and snakes follow before Charlie reaches the titular gorilla city, where he is first held captive and later proclaimed chief. Boys of a certain sensibility will cotton to the humor: offered the hairy hand of a gorilla in marriage, Charlie protests, “I'm much too young to get married! Especially to someone with armpit hair as long as my leg!” The caper ends as Charlie touches down on an island inhabited by “terrible bloodthirsty renegade pirates”—all women, leading right into The Perfumed Pirates of Perfidy, due the same month. Ages 8-12. (Feb.)

At the start of Rodda's (the Deltora Quest series) proficient, old-fashioned fantasy, Leo's great-aunt Bethany has bequeathed him the Langlander family treasure: a music box with minutely painted details of a realm populated, as Leo discovers, by fairytale and nursery rhyme characters. Specific rules govern the music box, as all Bethany's relatives know, and dependable Leo plans to obey them strictly. But when his much-loathed cousin Mimi arrives for an extended stay, she seizes the first opportunity to break them. Suddenly figures on the box seem to have moved from their spots—and could it be that its butterflies now fly in Leo's room? Before long the children have summoned a sorceress, who lures them into Rondo by returning there with Mimi's dog in tow. This novel offers many elements characteristic of classic children's fantasy: an alternate world, a magical object that bridges worlds, two unsupervised child protagonists on a quest, tension about the protagonists' ability to get home again. Rodda's embellishments—the children find Langlander relatives in Rondo and discover that in Rondo their family history serves as fairytale—add some texture as well as originality. Ages 9-12. (Feb.)

Lupica's (Travel Team) formula for success seems to be this: take a kid with big athletic talent and even bigger heart, mix in some conflict at home, add a lot of play-by-play action and end with a nail-biter game where the underdog prevails. Even so, Lupica does not fail to entertain. His latest protagonist, Hutch, is a gifted 14-year-old baseball player, devoted to his sport and even more to his team. His recent demotion from shortstop to second base, however, strains his relationship with his cocky, showstopper replacement, Darryl. Hutch also simmers with bottled-up resentment toward his former-baseball-star dad, yet he desperately seeks his father's approval, illustrating once again that what makes Lupica so good is that he not only knows sports, but he also understands how kids think. Hutch's raw passion for baseball—“the feeling that you wouldn't want to be anyplace else in the world”—and his integrity, not to mention Lupica's swift pacing, will have even reluctant readers following eagerly, hoping that Hutch pulls off another victory. Ages 10-up. (Mar.)

Fifteen-year-old Libby Fawcett prefers using her password-protected blog to keeping a journal—it feels safer, more private. And 10th grade gives her lots of material: her big crush on Seth Jacobs; her mortifying accidents in chemistry, where she sets her hair on fire because she's daydreaming about Seth; the humiliations dished out by mean girl Angel Rivera. At home, Libby learns that her mother has been dating someone for months, and is horrified to discover that the gentleman is Angel's father. In the meantime, Seth asks Libby to tutor him in chemistry (she gets one of her best friends to tutor her first, natch), and he starts confiding in Libby. As Libby, blogging all the while, misreads the clear signs of his interest in her, the stage is set for obvious catastrophe: Angel and her dad come to Libby's house for dinner, Libby leaves her computer open, and sneaky Angel posts Libby's blog all over school, with easily foreseeable results. But there's promise in the characterizations: Libby genuinely empathizes with other people, even Angel, and debut novelist Norris lets her do so without compromising her credibility. Creating a believable narrator who's this nice takes talent, more than the tired plot alone would suggest. Ages 10-up. (Feb.)

Three teens complete an English assignment detailing their “most excellent year” in this big, warmhearted tale about musical theater, political organizing, baseball, friendship and love. Tony Conigliaro Keller (named like everyone in his family for a Boston Red Sox player) and Augie Hwong have been self-declared brothers since age six, when T.C.'s mother died. Entering high school, everyone but Augie knows that Augie is gay, which finally dawns on him when he falls for another student. Meanwhile, T.C. develops an intense crush on the novel's third essayist, Alé Perez, daughter of a Mexican diplomat now teaching at Harvard. While T.C. and his father share a baseball obsession, Augie and Alé get close when both are cast in Kiss Me, Kate. The essay segments are spliced with diary entries (T.C.'s are addressed to his mother, Alé's to Jacqueline Kennedy); e-mails from and between parents, teachers and Alé's former Secret Service agent; reprints of Augie's mother's hilariously excoriating theater reviews; transcripts of IM sessions. The characters are a little too good to be true, and there's a distracting and improbable subplot about a deaf motherless child obsessed with Mary Poppins. The protagonists sometimes sound more like 40-year-olds than teens; however, the results are unexpectedly positive, opening up the audience to adults as well as the target reader. Ages 12-up. (Mar.)

Why not break the law and bring in some tourists? Conjuring fictionalized inhabitants of crumbling Dayton, Tenn., home of the infamous Scopes “monkey trial,” Bryant (The Trial) lets her characters speak directly, in well-honed verse that illuminates a broad range of perspectives. Overheard near a drugstore soda fountain, scheming business owners and a publicity-chasing superintendent get permission from a popular teacher, J.T. Scopes, to arrest him for violating the Butler Act, which bans the teaching of evolution. Adventure-seeking kids, skeptical journalists, erudite scientists, curious townsfolk and one shrill evangelical all have their say on the ensuing battle between silver-tongued prosecutor William Jennings Bryan and sharp-witted defense lawyer Clarence Darrow. Bryant obviously sympathizes with Darrow and the Darwinists, but she doesn't heavily stack the deck: the eloquent insights she attributes to her characters are evenly distributed. Nor does she go out of her way to emphasize the timeliness of the topic. The colorful facts she retrieves, the personal story lines and the deft rhythm of the narrative are more than enough invitation to readers to ponder the issues she raises. Ages 12-up. (Feb.)

Harmel is a reporter for People magazine—and it shows. In her first novel for teens, she displays her knowledge of pop culture by salting her writing with references to everything from Kelly Clarkson to bling. For readers who crave that sort of thing, her book won't disappoint. Its main character, a 16-year-old pop diva appropriately named Star, has it all—a great body, tons of money, fame and two Grammys to prove it. Never mind that her “relationship” with the equally famous bad-boy Jesse Bishop is staged by their publicists, or that her controlling stage mother has been lying for years about her absentee father. But when a reporter tells Star that her father's in Florida, and looking for her, she travels in disguise to find him. What follows is semientertaining yet predictable. Star experiences what it's like to feel “normal” and how it feels to be with a boy who likes her for herself, not her fame. As Star learns about life beyond the glitz and glamour, Hannah Montana fans will be nodding in recognition. Ages 12-up. (Feb.)

Three deservedly popular YA authors take turns narrating this exuberant novel, which centers on a road trip. After working all summer in their small Florida town at the Waffle House (they call it the Awful Waffle), three girls strike out for the weekend, with Miami their intended destination. The three-way collaboration pushes the authors into directions they might not have chosen individually—Lockhart's (The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks) narrator, Vicks, is less aloof than the author's usual protagonist, and more congenial; she's less elite (she wants to be a cook) but she's just as self-assured and intelligent. Mlynowski's narrator, Mel, the diffident middle child in an affluent Canadian family, faces the same insecurities as the main character in the Bras & Broomsticks books, but she approaches them in a reflective manner. Myracle (TTYL) tries on heavy issues: Bible-thumping Jesse can't cope with her mom's recent diagnosis of cancer. Whip-smart dialogue and a fast-moving, picaresque plot that zooms from lump-in-the-throat moments to all-out giddiness will keep readers going, and it's a testimony to how real these girls seem that the final chapters are profoundly satisfying rather than tidy. Ages 14-up. (May)

This series debut alternates between the perspectives of African-American twin sisters, the overachieving Sydney and (per Sydney's description) “superficial, self-centered, scandalous drama queen” Lauren. The trappings of clique lit are all here: the twins wear designer clothes, attend “the premier, predominantly African-American private institution of learning in the Atlanta area” and are glued to an anonymous blog tracking all the school's gossip. The plot deepens when Sydney starts secretly spending time with the twins' father, recently released from jail, and when Lauren starts dating a cute boy from a bad neighborhood; it gets even fuller—if harder to believe—when the sisters realize their rich stepfather may not actually be a car dealer (Lauren's boyfriend, Jermaine, tells them that “he been running things in the hood Godfather-style for years”). Beyond some outrageous plotting, Millner (The Sistahs' Rules) and Miller (The Angry Black Woman's Guide to Life) offer challenges unique to their African-American characters (Sydney wishes her boyfriend would get off his “all-natural-beauty” soapbox so she could press her hair, while Jermaine tells Lauren he wears expensive sneakers to keep safe on his rough block). These insights earn the authors credibility with their audience, although the glamorous outfits and events—and the mystery surrounding the girls' stepfather—are probably what will keep readers burning through the pages. Ages 14-up. (Apr.)

Cooper, known for his savvy picture books (Beach; A Good Night Walk) and his parenting memoir, Crawling, trains his sights on teens with this perceptive documentary account of an academic year at Walter Payton High, a magnet school in Chicago (a few references locate the year as 2005–2006). Focusing primarily on seniors, he intersperses scenes about Emily, the straight-A soccer captain “who walks through the halls as if she were knocking people out of the way”; Maya, the intense actor who has a “small-town affect” and “could play the role of The Good Student”; Daniel, the overachieving class president whose role model is Barack Obama; Anais, the dedicated ballet dancer; Diana, the swimmer with a brother in jail; Anthony, obsessed with an ex-girlfriend and permanently ensconced in the cafeteria; Aisha, the only Muslim on campus; and Zef, the failing, caffeine-addicted insomniac. The school milieu is sharply and wittily evoked in deadpan transcriptions of anonymous conversations and descriptions of ordinary events like a basketball game (after it ends, the freshman who misses a key shot “jogs over to the basket and jumps into the air... placing the imaginary ball into its rightful place”). Readers looking for a story, however, may be disappointed; the considerable strengths of the work come from Cooper's genius for observation and confident refusal to dramatize what he finds. Illustrated throughout with small sketches; final art not seen by PW. Ages 12-up. (Mar.)

Recalling 2007's Revolution Is Not a Dinner Party, a fictionalized autobiography by Ying Chang Compestine, this memoir also offers a highly personal look at China's Cultural Revolution. The author is four years old when Mao initiates the Great Leap Forward in 1958, and she describes the transformation of the family's shared, once lovely courtyard as the neighbors follow orders to erect a brick furnace and feed it all their metals in an attempt to produce iron and steel. Everyone, including the child narrator, willingly cooperates, but the instructions are flawed and everything is ruined. The episode prefigures what follows: diligence is repaid with destruction, obedience with chaos, loyalty with treachery. Li effectively builds the climate of fear that accompanies the rise of the Red Guard, while accounts of her headmaster's suicide and the pulping of her father's book collection give a harrowing, closeup view of the persecution. Sketches about her grandparents root the narrative within a broader context of Chinese traditions as well as her own family's values, establishing a basis for Li's later portrayal of the individuals around her who respond to oppression with hope and faith in knowledge and education. B&w family photos reinforce the intimate perspective. Ages 12-up. (Mar.)

A memoir written in the present tense, Sheff's first book graphically if self-indulgently recounts his addictions to various drugs, including meth and heroin, and his attempts at recovery as he reaches his early 20s. His narrative begins as he relapses, not for the first time, after 18 months of sobriety, taking readers down an exhausting spiral that includes a naïve attempt at dealing drugs; burglarizing his father's house; hooking up with a vulnerable ex-girlfriend and calling 911 after she overdoses; sleeping and shooting up in his car; and going back into detox. The cycle then repeats, in all its minute details. Flashbacks recall a privileged San Francisco childhood riven by divorce, youthful promise and subsequent degradation (prostitution, stealing from his young half-siblings). Nic's absorption in himself, often expressed as self-contempt, makes much of his account read like a therapeutic exercise, especially given its repetitious nature. While it's tempting to ask if Nic's journalist father's version of the same events, in Beautiful Boy (Nonfiction Reviews, Apr. 30, 2007), supplies the insights missing here, this book's unmediated, down-and-headed-for-disaster sensibility may, for some teen readers, produce the same transfixing quality as a highway accident. Ages 15-up. (Feb.)