Children's Book Reviews: Week of 5/5/2008

Sergio the penguin isn't afraid of all water—just “the very deep kind.” But with the help of floaties, a snorkel, a life preserver, he discovers that taking the plunge isn't so bad after all. A penguin with a fear of swimming is both a comic and a useful premise—plenty of similarly haunted readers will want to laugh at Rodriguez's (Float Like a Butterfly) sympathetic presentation, and his illustrations guarantee that they'll be able to share the fun, too. Rendered in a minimalist, three-color palette (aqua, midnight blue and orange), these mostly full-spread images each pack a poster-like punch (Rodriguez is an acclaimed poster designer as well as a former Time art director). He finds occasions for jokes (on the walls of Sergio's bedroom hang framed portraits of other black-and-white creatures: cow, Dalmatian, panda, zebra, soccer player), creates dynamic vignettes and makes even Sergio's back look expressive. One of those rare books that doesn't sacrifice child appeal in its embrace of up-to-the-minute visual techniques. Ages 3–6. (May)

Internationally known pop artist Nara paints some fiendishly ironic images, but there's chiefly whimsy in his picture book debut, the story of a chance friendship between a manga-style girl and a huge, lonely puppy. (An airplane flying past the puppy's legs along with the curve of the Earth beneath his paws suggest his size. The girl, whose doll-like facial features make her expression of grim determination all the funnier, bumps into one of the puppy's paws, and then climbs up his leg, leaving a trail of little comic-book puffs of effort. When she finally confronts a monstrous set of puppy eyes, her crabby expression softens. In concluding spreads Nara pushes on into wordless, heavily worked paintings, adding scumbling, pastels and stencils. Playful and surreal, free of earnest messages, these final images will remain in the reader's memory. Ages 3–up. (May)

Peters weaves a sweet if slight story around the eponymous theater-district annual benefit she founded with Mary Tyler Moore (who makes an uncredited cameo as “a tall lady with a pretty smile”) to promote adoption of shelter animals. Douglas is an abandoned and brokenhearted terrier living in a Manhattan park, his sad-sack scruffiness underscored by Murphy's (ABC Doctor) roughhewn, mixed-media collage work. One day, he depends on the kindness of the right stranger: a luxuriantly coiffed lady who looks a lot like Peters. One short taxi ride to Shubert Alley later, the dog is rewarded with a new owner (a girl patron of Broadway Barks) and a new name (Kramer). The CD features two tracks by Peters: a somewhat wan narration of the book, and a silky, piano-bar rendition of an original lullaby sung to Kramer. Peters pulls more than a few heartstrings in portraying Douglas/Kramer's yearning for a home, and Murphy peppers her illustrations with some ingenious touches (the Manhattan skyline is partially constructed from old tape measures). Ultimately, however, the appeal of this story rests chiefly on the good intentions of its creators.. Ages 4–8. (June)

The title character of this predictable story seems destined for a life on the sidelines—if one of his neighbors doesn't accidentally step on him first. After all, “he's no bigger than a dinosaur's toe,” as his father puts it. But when the rest of the dinosaur herd gets trapped in the mud, the undersize hero enlists the help of another lonely outsider—a huge blue “long neck” he has glimpsed in the distance—and saves the day. The prolific author/artist's scenes showing the exchanges between the enormous and the tiny dinosaurs have an R.O. Blechman–like poignancy, and the mud incident stirs up some sense of urgency. But for the most part, the story is on autopilot as it moves toward the familiar wrap-up (“you may be the size of a bug, but you're as brave as a dinosaur one hundred times your size”). The prehistoric landscape is perfunctory, while the reptilian cast is blandly genial and generic. Ages 4–8. (May)

Set in the indeterminate Far East of long ago so often favored by Caldecott Medalist Young, this story about a rich man and an artist lends itself to various levels of interpretation. Children may see the book as a lesson about how practice makes perfect; adults may see it as a confrontation between commerce and art. The rich man pays an artist to paint a picture of his beloved horse; after years of waiting, he is furious when the artist paints the picture in little more than “twenty heartbeats.” When he sees the thousands of drawings of his horse in the artist's studio, however, he understands why the artist has struggled so long. Like a folktale, Haseley's (A Story for Bear) text unfolds economically, but it is Young's virtuoso illustrations that breathe life into the book—the combination of elegant brushstrokes and collage designs are masterly. At its best, the story, however imperfectly, attempts to explain just how an artist transforms his vision into art; through Young's artwork, readers, like the rich man, will understand how remarkable that vision can be. Ages 5–9. (May)

Tracing the Statue of Liberty's path to completion, Rappaport (Nobody Gonna to Turn Me 'Round) lets those responsible for its creation tell the story of the project that spanned 20 years and two continents. Based on primary sources, their often lyrical, present-tense musings surge with the emotions behind the American symbol. “I listen to the people talk as they watch/ her skin being riveted onto her skeleton./ She inspires them. She inspires me,” structural engineer Gustave Eiffel declares. Jumping from one historical figure to the next (for example, from Eiffel to poet Emma Lazarus) is both energizing and discomfiting, as readers must settle into a new voice with each spread. Tavares's (Iron Hans) realistic illustrations are at their best in the sweeping, angled perspectives of the construction and easily justify the book's large trim size. The full-bleed spreads culminate in a vertical gatefold of the copper icon sans weathered patina, instantly whisking readers to the triumphant moment of Liberty's unveiling in 1886. Ages 5–9. (May)

For best friends Chris and Win, nothing could be more gratifying than a two-month-long cross-country bike trip following high school graduation. But when Win suddenly disappears somewhere in Montana, and Chris, the narrator, returns home alone to Virginia with only a hunch where his friend might be, Chris's once-firm grasp on reality slowly begins to weaken—especially when Win's overprotective, blowhard father launches an FBI investigation to track down his son. This debut novel transcends the run-of-the-mill alienated-teens-on-a-road-trip plot. While the boys meet interesting people and discover fascinating and gorgeously lonesome parts of the country, they also evolve in ways neither thought possible. Endowing both boys with a heavy dose of idealism, responsibility and self-preservation, Bradbury makes their growth feel genuine and even profound. Chris and readers are equally in the dark about Win's disappearance, making the mystery that much more exciting. Ages 12–up. (May)

On the surface, Scott's (A Non-Blonde Cheerleader in Love, also due this month) novel sounds familiar: smart good-girl KJ is too decent to brush off the socially inept or “unsavory guys” who glom onto her, even though they make it hard for KJ's crush, basketball star Cameron Richardson, to notice her. But when she takes up the job of stage manager for the school's production of Grease, popular Tama, playing the lead role of Sandy, gives KJ some strategic advice: tell the losers to get lost, and go for the guy she wants—and Tama even offers to talk up KJ to her buddy Cameron. Scott shores up this obvious plot in several ways. First, she frames the novel in five “acts,” lightly inviting readers to measure her characters against the good/bad stereotypes poked at in Grease. More substantially, she gives KJ an alcoholic father, supplying an insightful foundation for KJ's personality and grounding her story realistically. The result: a genuinely moving heroine and a far stronger story than the cliché-ridden cover art would suggest. Ages 12–up. (May)

Evangeline and her musician dad used to be close—but that was before he had an affair, and before she and her mom moved out. Cleaning, Evangeline finds her mother's stash of romance novels and begins dreaming of a “crimson kiss.” Between the lure of the crimson kiss and a self-help book urging readers to live their fantasies, Evangeline, formerly a straight-A high school junior, starts kissing crushes and even strangers. She also starts to get a reputation. Van Draanen's (Flipped) plotting is straightforward, but the pacing is near perfect: readers realize, just when Evangeline does, that it is not a kiss she is after but actually “more the passion of it... to really, really care.” The author also draws a solid parallel between Evangeline's inability to forgive her father and her best friend's unwillingness to forgive Evangeline after she kisses her friend's secret crush. Readers may not get all of Evangeline's references to old rock 'n' roll bands, but they will understand how the music connects her with her dad, and why she eventually wants to make her own sound. In the end, the playful title and premise are matched by tender and convincing storytelling. Ages 12–up. (May)

Maggie Wishnick is not happy about starting a new school her senior year, especially ritzy Berkeley Prep on Manhattan's Upper East Side—that is, until the most exclusive clique asks Maggie to join their secret society. Zindel (Girl of the Moment) has an uncanny ability to get inside her protagonist's head. Maggie's internal dialogue is wonderfully observant of everything and everyone around her—save herself and those she truly cares about. The girls' conversations have the ring of authenticity, as if Zindel eavesdrops on high school girl-speak even as she writes. However, the secret society, the Revelers, functions only as a slightly edgy frame for packaging clique-lit gossip; moreover, Zindel uses it to recycle a pivotal story line from the movie Mean Girls. Maggie has pain lurking in her family life, but her tendency to avoid it—while natural to some extent—lasts too long. Readers will rightly suspect that Maggie's character is of greater depth than that of her new friends, but the revelation of her moral fiber comes across as too little, too late. Ages 12–up. (May)

Inspired by her childhood in a religious commune, Galante's swift-moving debut novel may hold a ripped-from-the-headlines fascination for readers. But those who take the bait will find more contrivance than substance in the tale of two teenage girls' very different attitudes about the cloistered life they have been born into. Secluded at the Mount Blessing compound under the rule of the manipulative Emmanuel, 14-year-old Agnes strives for sainthood. Her best friend, Honey, however, questions Emmanuel's tactics and authority, and secretly longs for a normal life with TV, fashionable clothes and fast food. An injury to Agnes's younger brother sets in motion a daring escape from Mount Blessing orchestrated by the siblings' grandmother, with Honey along for the ride. As relationships strain and new situations arise, no one is sure what move to make next. The girls' friendship and their respective expressions of doubt in their faith—and in the adults they love—seem mostly convincing, but heavy foreshadowing and too many neatly aligned coincidences detract from the story. Ages 12–up. (May)

Lee's (The Zoo) wordless two-color picture book will charm even readers who have never seen the postwar classics her work explicitly recalls. In it, a mostly solitary girl, conjured with a few broad charcoal strokes, encounters the ocean, all watery splashes and splatters of blue. Lee's spreads of the beach are drawn and painted in black, white and gray on matte pages; the waves are sloshed on with aqua. Dueling textures—dry charcoal, wet paint strokes—mirror the silent conversation between the girl and the waves. The girl, hanging back at first, grows bolder, taunts an enormous wave, disappears under a burst of salt water, emerges drenched, and discovers the gifts the wave leaves behind. Her stick-straight hair beguiles; her expressions morph from suspicion to resolve to joy. The ocean is alive, too, with its own range of feelings; tranquil ripples, flamenco-like explosions of spray, spatters of foam. The book's oblong shape gives Lee a dramatic expanse of beach to work with, almost like a stage; five seagulls form a Greek chorus, advancing and retreating together with the girl. A book whose rewards multiply with rereading. All ages. (June)

Several of the prolific artist's best-loved picture book characters come out for star turns.

Indomitable and clever Max once again outsmarts big sister Ruby in a reliably pleasing adventure. Yummy endpapers, overflowing with candy corn, peppermints and other vaguely recognizable sweets, foreshadow Max's triumph, while the efficient text eschews subtleties such as thoughts or transitions, and focuses on action. Wells wastes no words in telling her story: Ruby and her friend Louise set up a lemonade stand to raise money to complete their Fire Angel jewelry sets. Max tries to help, but is too little to do anything right. Dismissed by the girls, he sets up his own business, selling his Halloween candy. As usual, Grandma appears as the deus ex machina; she buys out his candy supply and takes him to the store with his profits to buy the ring the girls have set their sights on. The girls make their money, buy earrings instead and come home happy to drink Max and Grandma's lemonade. The swiftly moving story, enthusiastic characters and enticing candy are rendered in broad, colorful strokes that cannot fail to please the target audience. Ages 3–5. (May)

Having overcome the challenges of being the only sushi lover at the Hill Top School (in Yoko), the Japanese kindergartner faces a similar struggle when she is asked to write her name and produces it in beautiful Japanese calligraphy. Although the ever-sympathetic teacher, Mrs. Jenkins, praises Yoko's work, she can't change human nature (never mind that the cast is again rendered as well-dressed kittens, pups and so forth), and soon the class gossipmongers bruit it about that Yoko is “only scribbling” and won't be graduating to first grade. The plot essentially repeats that of Yoko: the mother lavishes love on her “little snow flower,” the teacher intervenes with mixed results, and only the overtures of a classmate who wants Yoko to teach him her “secret language” redeem Yoko's spirits. Even so, readers will be glad to see Yoko's return: her character seems to bring out Wells's fascination with pattern as well as color, and her compositions, mostly framed squares set on white ground, are particularly well balanced. English and Japanese captions accompany small insets in the upper corners of the spreads; it would be hard to learn calligraphy from them, but they afford Wells miniature canvases for Japanese-inspired backgrounds, and their scale will delight young readers. Ages 3–6. (July)