Children's Book Reviews: Week of 5/12/2008

As preschoolers will undoubtedly note with glee, the title of this book should be “Such a Silly Mommy!” After all, it's Mommy who can't manage to go on an outing without bringing home an animal instead of her offspring. Whatever the destination, the refrain is always the same: “But there was a hitch.../ my baby got switched,” and clueless Mommy ends up with, say, a chimpanzee, while Baby takes up residence in the monkey house. Baby is always retrieved with the turn of a page, but the spreads give readers plenty of opportunity to savor his briefly unsupervised cavorting in a comic, exotic setting. Exuberant, hand-lettered text practically demands audience participation on the animal noises (“oo... oo... ee... ee...” for the chimps). Paired with this husband-and-wife team, Shepherd (Fiona Loves the Night) illustrates in the Nadine Bernard Westcott vein; she revels in buoyantly hued silliness and goofy visual asides. A firm hand, however, guides these compositions, most evidently in Shepherd's use of thick, textured fields of color, and readers won't get overwhelmed. Ages up to 4. (May)

Using only a few graceful words per page to illuminate the dark, this bedtime gem shines its light clearly on things that matter—a home filled with books, art, music and ever-present love. Krommes's (The Lamp, the Ice, and a Boat Called Fish) astonishing illustrations are so closely intertwined with the meticulous text that neither can be isolated without a loss of meaning. The book begins, intriguingly, “Here is the key to the house./ In the house burns a light./ In that light rests a bed./ On that bed waits a book.” That book takes the child reader up into the skies and back home again, to sleep (“dark in the song, song in the bird, / bird in the book, book on the bed”). Krommes's black-and-white scratchboard illustrations are as delicate and elegant as snowflakes, and she uses a single color, a marigold, to bring warmth to both home and stars. This volume's artful simplicity, homely wisdom and quiet tone demonstrate the interconnected beauty and order of the world in a way that both children and adults will treasure. Ages 3–6. (May)

Ehlert (Wag a Tail) finds freshreason to marvel at creatures great and small in this vibrant, oversize book, longer than her previous titles. Portraits of various animals, from caterpillar to elephant, each pair with a short rhyme about what makes the beast or bird distinct (“Penguins know/ from birth/ their wings won't fly/ from Earth”; “A newt looks cute/ in its polka-dot suit”). Her arresting signature cut-paper collages strike a playful balance between boldness of color and simplicity of shape. The result is a series of fluid compositions as the artist uses pinking shears and hole punches to add texture to triangles, semicircles, hearts and the like, and then cleverly combines and layers them to convey depth, movement and humor. She remains a master at creating spreads that are chock-full of things to see, but never crowded or too busy in their design. Ages 3–7. (May)

Tracing the growth of Manhattan from a time “before maps or words were used” to the present day, debut author/artist Vila employs many lenses—geography, sociology, politics, ethnography. Likewise, her radiantly dramatic mural-like paintings present a wide range of visual styles and approaches: she offers readers both fisheye and a bird's-eye views of the island, and varies her vantage point from romantic idealism (a “peaceable kingdom”–like scene of pre-people Manhattan) to reportorial (the influx of immigrants) to surreal (a celebration of the city's traffic snarls) to metaphoric (the world's ongoing love affair with the Big Apple). But while her paintings are lavish, it takes her only one pithy sentence on each spread to convey both a specific moment and a sense of history and human ambitions: “Boats and boats packed with people, traditions, languages and new ideas clogged the shores.” A formidable new talent. Ages 6–8. (May)

Beginning with a direct address—“What would you do if someone told you.../ your voice doesn't matter/ because you are a girl?”—Stone (Amelia Earhart) fires up readers with a portrait of the 19th-century feminist Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Four-year-old Elizabeth takes umbrage when a visitor sees her baby sister and clucks, “What a pity it is she's a girl!” Later Elizabeth reads Greek and jumps horses, like contemporary boys, and continues to bristle at injustice. Readers will follow this strong-minded heroine into her adult years, her work as an abolitionist, and her historic role as an activist and visionary. While not a detailed biography or an overview of the women's suffrage movement, this inviting story nevertheless offers a good jumping-off point. The sometimes informational tone is animated and energized by Gibbon's (Players in Pigtails) plentiful vignettes and paintings, rendered in a vibrant folk-art style. Ages 6–10. (May)

Krensky (Hanukkah at Valley Forge) takes an episode from the War of 1812—two sisters outwit the mariners of a British warship by pretending that their fife and drum rendition of “Yankee Doodle” heralds an entire regiment—but his mannered retelling masks much of its drama. Conveying the background information (the purpose of lighthouses, the duties of lighthouse keepers, the story of the first raid on Scituate, etc.), the narration moves slowly, and then includes unnecessarily theatrical language (“Confound these Americans!”). Dialogue is taken from interviews the heroines gave, doing little to ease the stilted tone. Schuett's (America Is... ) glowing illustrations use light convincingly throughout, and she wisely shifts the girls from their real ages of 17 and 21 to the ages of the target audience. However, her portrayal of the mariners amplifies their villainy to almost ludicrous proportions. “The British mariners smiled grimly,” says the text, but the three sailors approaching the shore look like caricatures of Snidely Whiplash. Ages 6–up. (May)

Playground politics meets penis anxiety in this unlikely comedy. “Like all boys, Martin had a zizi, and this zizi didn't cause him any problems,” writes the French author. But the school bully singles out Martin's zizi: “With such a little zizi, you can't make babies!” Later he adds insult to injury by asserting, “With your little zizi, you can't pee very far at all!” Can Martin vanquish the bully, reassert his manhood and win the beautiful, popular Anais? Poulin, a Canadian illustrator, chronicles Martin's torment and triumph with cinematic perspectives and a Brueghel-esque feel for character and place; his burnished paintings convey both the gritty reality of school life and the fretful ruminations of the endearingly geeky hero. Wry but always empathic, Lenain brings a novelistic depth to a story that could easily have been little more than an adult's cheap joke—especially given that the pivotal event is a peeing contest. Whether or not little boys care so much about the size and procreative powers of their zizis is debatable, but for sheer storytelling talent, there's no doubt: Lenain and Poulin are definitely well endowed. Ages 6–up. (May)

Hunter (the Warriors series) kicks off a new series as three young bears, unknown to one another, each embark on a perilous journey. Two of the characters, Kallik, a polar bear, and Toklo, a grizzly, were born in the wild and lose their mothers to tragic events. To survive, they must draw on their underdeveloped instincts. Lusa, a black bear, has grown up in “the Bear Bowl,” a protected environment at a zoo, but to fulfill a promise (to Toklo's rescued mother, as it turns out) she leaves it and ventures into wilderness. The bears find help from other, more seasoned bears and are comforted by their belief in mythical bear spirits as they navigate the harsh realities of life in the wild. By the end, only Toklo and Lusa have met, and the purpose of the quest has not been fully revealed. Although this book does not seem as tightly written as the Warriors titles, readers will appreciate the bears' struggle to survive, along with Hunter's environmental theme. The suspenseful conclusion will build in an eager audience for the next installment. Ages 10–up. (June)

Wrought in the same whimsical style as Once Upon a Marigold, this sequel to the fractured fairy tale tells what happens after evil Queen Olympia's plot to murder her husband and his daughter Marigold fails. After the queen falls into a river and is presumed dead, she emerges in the village of Granolah suffering from amnesia. The new Olympia, who calls herself Angie, is quite a bit more pleasant than her former self. Unfortunately, her memory returns, and after returning to her kingdom (accompanied by two Granolahans), she soon goes back to her old tricks, scheming to get rid of the king and Marigold. Fans will revel in the author's hilarious warping of fairy-tale conventions and will adore the new characters: Lazy Susan, the disgruntled half-sister of Sleeping Beauty; Mr. Lucasa, master of culinary arts, fashion design and foreign languages; and Hannibal, the white elephant, who literally shakes up the kingdom's power structure. Ages 10–up. (May)

Just as well crafted as The New Policeman, this sequel catches up with its hero, J.J. Liddy, now married with four children, including one intractable 11-year-old whose mysterious destiny is intertwined with the mythic fairy kingdom of their native Ireland. Jenny regularly ditches school to talk to goats and ghosts, “a skill that had taken her some time to acquire,” roaming the rocky countryside barefoot because her “feet can't see where they're going when they have shoes on them.” Thompson weaves a line of dread about Jenny's future into a narrative that centers on the fate of a ghost she's befriended, that of a boy who's been guarding a beacon with an odd treasure beneath it, for thousands of years. Her re-imagining of Irish folklore playfully braids modern life with ancient magic, as she poses intelligent questions about the nature of man and stewardship of the environment. Though much of the story is told from the point of view of adults, it's two children, Jenny and a younger brother, who, in a beautifully executed denouement, see through the Irish mist to do the right thing. Ages 12–up. (June)

Newbery Medalist Kadohata's (Kira-Kira) gifts for creating and containing drama and for careful definition of character prove as powerful as ever in this wise, tender and compelling novel. Although the 12-year-old narrator, Shelby, and her three sisters are as different as their respective fathers (whom they rarely see), they remain devoted to one another and to their stunningly beautiful Japanese-American mother, who uses her looks to collect men the same way she collects pieces of jewelry (and for much the same purpose). When their mother is critically injured—and disfigured—in a car crash, the girls are dispersed from their Chicago apartment to the care of the four fathers. At first Shelby's father, a Japanese-born gum manufacturer in rural Arkansas, reminds her of “one of those nearsighted Japanese men with cameras who moved in clusters throughout Chicago tourist attractions.” But when one of the fathers appears to be mistreating a sister and Shelby tries to plan a way for all four to reunite, she begins to appreciate her father's kindness and generosity, and to find beauty in unexpected places. Her growing insight into the difference between beauty and perfection accompanies steady revelations about families and love. Ages 12–up. (June)

The author of Madame Doubtfire turns to grittier, more political subject matter as she traces the circular route of revolution and its devastating effects on her protagonist. Growing up in a “sort-of Russia, in a sort-of 1930s, under a Stalin-type leader,” Yuri has been taught to keep a low profile and never question government policies, no matter how unjust they may seem. But one small error in judgment marks him as a traitor and his life is soon in danger. Fine narrates a harrowing account of his flight, capture, imprisonment and sentence to hard labor, offering example after example of intolerance and torture. Although the rise of movements against the government at first appear to offer Yuri hope, the novel's outcome underscores the notion that history repeats itself. Dark and thought-provoking. Ages 12–up. (May)

Johnson (13 Little Blue Envelopes) packs her latest with all the elements of a winning novel—a dramatic setting, offbeat characters, witty dialogue—but she leaves out the tension. Scarlett's family operates and lives in a rundown art deco hotel in Manhattan. It is nearly empty when strange, rich Amy checks in for the summer. Claiming to want to write a book about her life, she hires an ambivalent Scarlett as her assistant. But Scarlett's job changes when Amy decides instead to sponsor a production of Hamlet in which Scarlett's brother is acting. Soon Scarlett is clearing a rehearsal space, kissing her brother's co-star—and even helping Amy pull off an elaborate revenge scheme on a actress she thinks once wronged her. Between the play, the revenge, Scarlett's romance, the hotel and family messiness (Scarlett's sister's cancer treatments have drained the family's finances), the book lacks focus. Readers will also find some scenes hard to believe, such as the final face-off between Amy and her foe in which all is neatly resolved. Ages 12–up. (May)

This imaginative but uneven short story collection blends fantasy and reality in Block's (Weetzie Bat) characteristic style. A schizophrenic girl explains that her boyfriend is an alien and that she wants to have his “alien babies with big eyes,” while another girl—this one obsessed with an older tattoo artist—begins to find his pictures spontaneously appearing on her skin. These stories work best when readers can decide for themselves how literally to take the fantastical elements. In perhaps the best of the bunch, “Giant,” Rachel Sorrow, full of passion, wakes up to find that she has grown enormous, her heart “the size of a watermelon.” Block leaves the audience considerably less room in “Horses Are a Girl's Best Friend,” about horse-mad Berry (a friend of Rachel's), who falls in love with a centaur she meets in L.A.'s Griffith Park. However, the prose is lush as ever, and even when readers do not connect emotionally, they will appreciate the author's willingness to explore ideas. Ages 14–up. (June)

British author Hooper (The Remarkable Life and Times of Eliza Rose) bases this macabre novel on the chilling true story of Anne Green, a maidservant who in 1650 was hanged, thrown into a coffin... and “miraculously” revived just as the doctors at the medical school in Oxford were about to dissect her. From her purgatorial state inside the coffin, Anne recounts the details of her wretched life—her seduction by the lying grandson and heir of Sir Thomas Reade, at whose estate Anne works; her pregnancy and miscarriage; her trial for infanticide, where a guilty verdict is virtually assured by Sir Thomas's fury at her for naming his grandson as the father. Alternating chapters describe events as experienced by witnesses, particularly a shy, stuttering medical student for whom the sight of Anne's corpse-like body reawakens a traumatic memory of his own (gratuitously occasioning a melodramatic subplot). As Oxford doctors observe tiny signs of life but cannot hasten Anne's awakening, Sir Thomas demands that justice be served; meanwhile others interpret Anne's state as a message from God. All the dissection-room debating slows the pace, but it's hard to take the edge off this plot. Ages 14–up. (May)