Children's Books

A pig named Pete leads a perfectly predictable and sensible existence until Pickles, the runaway circus elephant, turns it upside-down. Pickles possesses the joie de vivre of Auntie Mame (and the extensive wardrobe to carry it off with élan). She takes Pete swan-diving off Niagara Falls and sledding down the Matterhorn: that both of these activities unfold in places that are a far cry from the actual locales doesn't make them any less exciting to the increasingly game Pete. Breathed (Mars Needs Moms!) writes in that giddy blend of skepticism and romanticism that have made his Pulitzer Prize–winning Bloom County comic strip a must-read—he creates not just a series of funny/tender vignettes but an emotional rollercoaster of a story, complete with a gripping life-or-death climax. Yet it's the digital artwork that's the real grabber. With nods to Hokusai and Hopper, Magritte and film noir, Breathed achieves a dreamy intensity, a sculptural heft that makes these images his most evocative and expansive to date. Ages 3–5. (Oct.)

Making her debut with this publication of her M.F.A. thesis project, Nyeu tells the wordless story of two children who cultivate an enormous beanstalk-like plant, which in turn sprouts the titular bear, all in one night. With help from Wonder Bear's magical blue hat, the children are treated to a series of fantastic spectacles and adventures, culminating in a ride through the sky on the back of a royal dolphin in the company of other sea creatures. Elaborate patterning, a fondness for curvilinear motifs (gusts of wind, swirls in the ocean) and a saturated palette dominated by lapis and other gem tones give Nyeu's silk-screened compositions a sumptuous, Art Nouveau-meets-psychedelic feel. But her main characters lack the personality to drive a compelling narrative arc; in general, these pictures are like individual showcases for different visual challenges (how to re-create transparent surfaces, how to suggest clouds and sky, etc.). Nyeu's art makes a strong impression; it just doesn't tell much of a story. Ages 3–5. (Sept.)

Jenkins (Toys Go Out) and Boiger (While Mama Had a Quick Little Chat) offer a way to assuage worried children in this smart and sympathetic book. First to be described as “a little bit scary” is “the boy with thick eyebrows [who] rides his skateboard on the sidewalk and cranks the radio so loud, my dad yells out the window for him to turn it down.” Boiger endows him with a Mohawk and studded leather boots; the bottom of his skateboard has a skull on it. Turn the page, however, and the narrator envisions an entirely different scenario: “I bet when he wakes up in the morning, he kisses his cat on the head and scratches her neck until she purrs.” The redheaded heroine sits atop a dresser in this imaginary bedroom, which houses the would-be miscreant's scary regalia along with a pair of slippers just like the narrator's own. Continuing her rogues' gallery, the girl ends by imagining how her own family members might appear scary to others. Funny and wise. Ages 3–6. (Sept.)

Introduced in Traction Man Is Here! Grey's much-lauded superhero is back, and his firm, square jaw shows no signs of weakening. But something's gone terribly wrong: after a dramatic climb to the top of Mt. Compost Heap, Traction Man's faithful pet, Scrubbing Brush, has disappeared (Mom and Dad—how could you?). Rescuing Scrubbing Brush will take everything Traction Man's got—as well as the help of the annoying robot Turbodog, a trio of naked fashion dolls and a big bottle of household cleaner called Germo. Grey's prose, a clever mélange of overwrought and ironic, is a joy to read aloud (“Traction Man squirts the Bin-Things with Germo and they hiss and wither”). But her real gift is in transforming an ordinary household into both thrilling stage and supporting cast (who knew an old mascara wand could be so emotive?). To create a fantasy world is one thing, but to trigger a gestalt shift in the way kids look at their own environments is quite another. A keeper. Ages 4–8. (Sept.)

Dystychiphobia, phagophobia, good old acrophobia: everybody's afraid of something—although it does seem that Gravett's (Orange Pear Apple Bear) winsome mouse protagonist has cornered the market on anxieties. Wittily assuming the format of a scrapbook or diary that is filled in by Little Mouse, this book exhorts, “You too can overcome your fears through the use of art!” A virtually encyclopedic list of fears follows, each on its own page, with plenty of space allotted for Little Mouse's response. Gravett augments these expansive collaged spreads with interactive goodies (a flap, a gatefold, a tip-in of an entire map). For example, when Little Mouse scrawls, “I don't like being alone, or in the dark,” readers will learn from glancing at the upper-right corner that this feeling is called “Isolophobia (Fear of solitude).” The opposite page is pitch-black, and Little Mouse eyes it nervously. Other moments are more purely amusing: “aichmophobia” (the fear of knives) ushers in references to “Three Blind Mice.” Whether or not they choose to face their own fears, kids will feel that a chord has been struck—and they'll savor spicing up their budding vocabularies. Ages 4–8. (Sept.)

Similar to Charles M. Schulz's Happiness Is a Warm Puppy, this sentimental crowd-pleaser defines hope through examples, pairing these with luxuriant photographs that highlight children and places from all over the world. “Hope/ is holding tight/ to your mother's hand” accompanies a picture of a mother and child walking on a beautiful Alabama beach. “Hope is a heart/ that is open to the world around you” features a string of Sri Lankan children in school uniforms holding hands. In an afterword, Thompson (the Little Quack books) talks about the inspiring experiences captured in five of the photographs; all other photographs go unexplained. Sometimes neither text nor art successfully translates the abstract concept of hope. To exemplify “Hope is remembering that you are not alone,” the text abruptly adds a didactic digression (“Many others feel/ just the way you do./ Many others care”) while the accompanying photograph pictures two boys, backs to the camera, staring at the water from a craggy shore. Even so, the text maintains a consistent emotional appeal and the photos a National Geographic–style gorgeousness; a portion of the sales benefits Volunteers of America. Ages 4–8. (Sept.)

“High above the city, no one heard the soft thud of feathers against glass,” begins Graham (“Let's Get a Pup!” Said Kate). And no one notices the wounded pigeon that falls to the sidewalk—until Will comes along. In this sparsely worded story, Will and his parents nurse the pigeon to health and then release him back into the sky. Graham breaks his watercolor-and-ink cartoons into full-bleed spreads and large and small comics-like panels, enabling him to dwell on each moment of tender loving care and to preach patience: the “x”s entered on a wall calendar and a series of drawings depicting the phases of the moon show readers that the pigeon's recovery takes a good month. The solemnity and earnestness with which the family goes about the task may exasperate some grown-ups; it's a pigeon, after all. But many readers will savor the way Will's parents unquestioningly rally around him, and appreciate the opportunity to imagine themselves as selfless healers. Ages 5–up. (Aug.)

Legendary White House reporter Thomas and editorial cartoonist Bok are sadly off their game in their first picture book, an egregious fantasy narrated by a fictional First Son. Tired of being overprotected by bumbling Secret Service agents, Sam takes advice from his pet rat—a brainy refugee from a NASA project who draws an escape plan in the “secret war room” (a White House kitchen). While the rat distracts guests at an official dinner, Sam easily slips his entourage and climbs over the fence, finally free to enjoy a tourist's D.C. Sam's voice warbles distractingly, from disingenuous (“[My cat] is almost as important as Mom [the President]. When he walks into a room, everyone stands”) to precious (“We curled up on a nice man's lap to sleep” accompanies a picture of Sam, cat and rat at the Lincoln Memorial). The illustrations also misfire. Gags aim low, such as a spread of the White House exterior labeling a window “Lincoln's Bedroom” with an arrow pointing to nearby shrubs, “Lincoln's Bathroom?” Editorial asides peppering many spreads are either shamelessly corny or over kids' heads. Ages 6–8. (Aug.)

Gulliver, an affable but snobbish Lhasa apso, lives at a fashionable Manhattan address, enjoys opera and looks forward to yearly trips to Paris where he reconnects with Chloe, a Maltese with “eyes as black as raisins,” while “his” professor enjoys a nightly tête-à-tête with the beautiful Madeline de Crecy, who is allergic to long-haired dogs. When Madeline accepts the professor's marriage proposal, Gulliver is dispatched to live at the doorman's “tasteless, overcrowded,” no-frills apartment in Queens, with kids who treat “Gully” like an indestructible plaything. Gulliver, believing he's been kidnapped, cunningly retraces his steps, first to Manhattan, then to Paris. The real journey takes place in his heart, where he comes to understand that although “loyalty is the hallmark of a well-bred dog,” his has been misplaced. Seidler (Mean Margaret) transfers human foibles to his animal characters in well-modulated comic prose, while Cole (Good Enough to Eat) creates expressive canines in fluid line drawings. A spirited animal fantasy for the chapter book set. All ages. (Sept.)

White recrosses autobiographical territory first covered in Sweet Creek Holler, this time through the perspective of her oldest sister, sixth-grade Audrey, who narrates. The family is eking out a hand-to-mouth existence in a coal mining camp; Daddy spends his meager pay on liquor instead of food; Mommy is stoic but often emotionally absent, mourning the death in infancy, four years earlier, of the family's fifth daughter. Longing for a better life, Audrey has recently overcome scarlet fever, which has left her painfully thin and vulnerable to taunts. She has honest disdain for her bothersome sisters—the three little pigs, she calls them—and total admiration for her teacher. Gritty details and hill-country vernacular skillfully evoke a sad, hardscrabble life. The story is stronger in delineating character and setting than it is in narrative development, and its most lasting appeal may lie in the insights it provides into White's other books. Ages 10–up. (Sept.)

One of the great mysteries, the secret of Mona Lisa's smile, is captivatingly addressed in this fictional history of the woman who posed for Leonardo da Vinci's famous painting. Readers will immediately warm up to Elisabetta, who is down-to-earth and hardworking despite being a member of the nobility. First met when she is just shy of 13, she is shepherded through Florence by her family friend Leonardo, who recognizes her potential: “Mysteries promise in those limpid eyes,” he tells her, “as though you're watching and waiting. As though nothing will really surprise you. It's unsettling.” Yearning for Giuliano de' Medici, youngest son of the most powerful and influential Florentine family, she reluctantly agrees to marry another man when political upheaval tears her and Giuliano apart; years later, fleetingly reunited, Giuliano commissions Leonardo to paint her portrait. Napoli (Stones in Water) conjures the atmosphere of Renaissance Florence as Elisabetta, a country girl, is introduced to art, culture and conspicuous wealth during her trips to town. The historical detail and the romantic tragedy and redemption will prompt a closer inspection of Leonardo's masterpiece. Ages 12–up. (Oct.)

Lena Lindt and her older sister, Dora, have always been close, like “right and left hands laced tight together.” They and their parents accept that Dora is the moody but fun one, “a storm on the horizon, [Lena] the needle that always pointed to steady,” a formula that works until Dora is overcome by severe depression in her junior year of high school. Schumacher's (The Book of One Hundred Truths) characterizations are humane yet shaded: to combat the effect of Dora's illness, Mr. and Mrs. Lindt send the outwardly coping Lena to a therapist but treat Dora's eventual hospitalization like a shameful secret. Lena, meanwhile, feels an us-against-the-parents bond with her sister, who uses their intimacy to pressure Lena to keep secrets that may be endangering her recovery. The title refers to the drugs prescribed for Dora; at least one comes with a “black box” warning, meaning that the person taking it is at increased risk for suicide and needs to be watched closely—traditionally, Lena's job in the family. An expert use of metaphor, combined with sympathetic insight into the impact of depression on families, turns a painful subject into a standout novel. Ages 12–up. (Sept.)

The popular author of Princess Academy teams with her husband and illustrator Hale (no relation) for a muscular retelling of the famously long-haired heroine's story, set in a fairy-tale version of the Wild West. The Hales' Rapunzel, the narrator, lives like royalty with witchy Mother Gothel, but defies orders, scaling villa walls to see what's outside—a shocking wasteland of earth-scarring mines and smoke-billowing towers. She recognizes a mine worker from a recurrent dream: it's her birth mother, from whom she was taken as punishment for her father's theft from Mother G.'s garden. Their brief reunion sets the plot in motion. Mother G. banishes Rapunzel to a forest treehouse, checking annually for repentance, which never comes. Rapunzel uses her brick-red braids first to escape, then like Indiana Jones with his whip, to knock out the villains whom she and her new sidekick, Jack (of Beanstalk fame), encounter as they navigate hostile territory to free Rapunzel's mom from peril. Illustrator Hale's detailed, candy-colored artwork demands close viewing, as it carries the action—Rapunzel's many scrapes are nearly wordless. With its can-do heroine, witty dialogue and romantic ending, this graphic novel has something for nearly everybody. Ages 10–up. (Sept.)

Katharine Vaughn Powers, a Democratic senator from Massachusetts with a sterling New England pedigree, is so morally strong that during her (successful) presidential campaign, her 15-year-old daughter, Meg, quietly wonders if she isn't too good to be true. “Your mother is absolutely, totally, almost sickeningly honest,” her father reassures her. She's also beautiful, chic, witty, brilliant and, on top of it, a believable character. White pulls off this not inconsiderable feat by viewing her through Meg's critical eyes, letting Meg weigh her mother's ambition against her unspoken wishes for a more attentive mother. The author leaves it to readers to observe how closely Meg resembles the woman she ironically thinks of as the Leader of the Free World; Meg herself is too busy making cynical jokes at her own expense, learning White House protocol and keeping her equally intelligent younger brothers in line. Ages 12–up. (Aug.)

Meg, now a junior at an elite D.C. private school, has more or less adjusted to the constant scrutiny of being First Daughter and dealing with the Secret Service when a would-be assassin seriously injures her mother. White seems to understand the workings of the White House as well as any Beltway insider, and she imagines Meg's complicated responses with psychological insight and grim humor—think Cynthia Voigt crossed with Meg Cabot. Here is Meg, finding a photo of herself in a news magazine, taken as she sits alone in a hospital corridor, face buried in her hands: “The First Daughter in a moment of private grief, the caption said. And it was private. It didn't seem right that they could publish that.... The kind of picture that was going to show up in Year-in-Review issues.” Nothing is easy or glib: the dramas, Meg's and the entire family's, are explored slowly, sometimes elliptically, invariably rivetingly. Ages 12–up. (Aug.)

As her senior year winds to a close, Meg is having a perfectly ordinary day at school (as ordinary as it gets with two Secret Service agents tailing her) that ends with a violent abduction arranged by terrorists. Held captive and brutalized, then left chained in an abandoned mine shaft, Meg escapes by resorting to barely conceivable heroics. Her ordeal seems to have only begun, however, as she now faces the aftermath: a grueling physical recovery that will never be complete; emotional damage from her mother's absolute refusal to deal with her kidnappers; her pervasive sense of endangerment. With this entry White proves herself a master of action and adventure fiction; readers will want to plunge immediately into the next volume, Long May She Reign, to check in on Meg's progress. And there's good news, too—White plans a fifth Meg Powers novel, although she warns that it might not be told from Meg's point of view. Ages 12–up. (Aug.)