Children's Book Reviews

A bored royal turned overzealous cosmetician provides the spark for the husband-and-wife Buehners' (Snowmen at Night) quirky fable about empathy and gratitude. Fed up with nothing to do, Queen Sophie heeds her exasperated jester's advice to learn something. Soon she's whipping through a beauty school correspondence course and ordering her sheep-farming subjects (and their sheep) into service for her cutting and curling practice. Not everyone appreciates a command beauty treatment, however, a responseSophie learns to contend with, in style. Sporting shiny manicures and a rainbow of gravity-defying coiffures, Mark Buehner's bug-eyed characters bring home the sheer silliness of Sophie's dilemma. The hilarious hairdos on the humans and, especially, on the sheep, make up for the thin spots in the text. Ages 3–5. (Sept.)

Gliori's (No Matter What) heedless, self-centered dragons think they can treat the earth like a doormat: they overconsume and overpopulate, and they “chop down the forests/ which melts both the Poles/ and punctures the atmosphere/ full of big holes.” And as if that's not enough to turn readers green (in a good way, of course), Gliori pulls out the big visual guns: why, that's Santa himself, standing in the puddle that was once his home—and all the waterlogged presents are floating away! Gliori's impressive gifts are finely showcased: her flair for detailed, dramatic landscapes, her ability to create characters that are cute but still emotionally authentic, her conversational writing style that scores points without sounding preachy. It all adds up to a work that's both sobering and encouraging: showing chastened dragons joyfully reconciled with civil society, she writes, “There's enough to go round if we all share.” To the rapidly proliferating genre of environmentally conscious kids' books, this is a noteworthy addition. Ages 3–6. (Oct.)

Hillenbrand's (Counting Crocodiles) expressive artwork shines in this well-structured story about a baby dragon that grows restless while waiting for his mother to return from an overnight trip. More puppy than dragon, more endearing than fearsome, Baby Dragon waits semipatiently for hours (“He drew a picture in the dirt. He counted his claws. He took a nap”) but as day turns to night, he accepts a shifty-looking crocodile's offer to take him upriver to find her. Ehrlich's (When I Was Your Age) plot climax is free of fear: when Baby Dragon realizes he's in danger, he bravely jumps to a convenient floating log while the villain doesn't even notice. The author emphasizes instead her protagonist's pint-size determination: he puts “one foot in front of the other, one foot in front of the other, one foot in front of the other” until he returns to the meeting spot designated by his mother. Hillenbrand uses a variety of media, then tweaks it all digitally to achieve layered, batiklike effects—despite the dense patterning, his compositions are light and harmonious. Winning. Ages 4–8. (Aug.)

New Yorker contributor McCall makes his picture book debut with a tongue-in-cheek vision of the future. Marveltown is a utopian city of inventors, where drivers zip through tubular car washes at 80 mph and children “sky-ski” behind prop planes. “We kids learned that faster was always better,” says the narrator. “And bigger was better, too.” The nifty illustrations, with their superprecise brush strokes and streamlined shapes, suggest a mid–20th-century architect's rendering of millennial space needles, cantilevers and suspension bridges. In the long-distance views, people appear an inch tall and the sci-fi landscape takes precedence. About half the book is devoted to marvelous or mischievous inventions (sample: “Eli's bedroom hologram was diabolical: Dad saw spick-and-span perfection, when the reality was a place you wouldn't want to live in”), which McCall paints in a meticulous, deadpan style reminiscent of William Joyce's Dinosaur Bob. Then he concocts a rickety plot where the adults' robots go haywire, B-movie style, and the children defeat the robots with their own devices. If short on story, this is long on innovation—a good choice for readers with a healthy visual imagination. Ages 5–8. (Oct.)

Like Demi's The Boy Who Painted Dragons, this lavishly illustrated story tells of a child who is helped in his/her art by divine beings, but this time the template is overworked. Once again, fold-out pages add drama to the art, the rich colors are breathtaking and the creatures are gilded and ornate. Even the plot is similar—in this case it is Queen Phoenix and her friends who take pity on Feng Huang and not only help her learn to draw better but inculcate a Wonder Woman list of qualities: wisdom, clear sight, equality, generosity and right judgment. Demi tries to define each power by demonstrating its opposite. For example, the Phoenix of Right Judgment tells Feng Huang, “To have Right Judgment you must pass through the fire of Jealousy!” First, the child artist produces a drawing of two girls standing back to back, their very topknots a study in hauteur; her next picture shows the same pair in an affectionate embrace. Demi's artwork is as exquisite as ever, and her phoenixes, incorporating red silk brocades, look especially magical. The predictable story and its faux Asian wisdom, however, are shopworn. Ages 7–10. (Sept.)

Add this heady mix of history and enchantment to the season's list of astonishingly accomplished first novels: in Rutkoski's multilayered version of late–16th-century Bohemia, magicians coexist with peasants and courtiers, a tribe of gypsies use specially endowed “ghost” fingers, and the fate of Europe hangs on the schemes of an evil prince. As the novel opens, a metalworker with extraordinary gifts has returned from Prince Rodolfo's palace in Prague, having finished his commission to build a magical clock—but the prince has gouged out his eyes, so that he can never duplicate the clock or, worse, better it. Even more disturbingly, the prince wears the eyes himself. Vowing to recover her father's eyes, 12-year-old Petra sneaks off to Prague, with little more than the company of Astrophil, an erudite tin spider who can communicate with her. Proving herself a worthy relative of, say, Philip Pullman's quick-thinking, fearless heroines, Petra navigates her way past sorceress countesses, English spy magicians, dangerous gypsies and through bewitched palace halls until Rodolfo, wearing the ill-gotten eyes, catches sight of her. Infusions of folklore (and Rutkoski's embellishments of them) don't slow the fast plot but more deeply entrance readers. Ages 10–up. (Aug.)

When 16-year-old Sahara, the one-time Dixie Queen in her small West Texas town, discovers that she is pregnant, she feels like the “one and only/ lonely resident/ of Planet Pregnancy” and fleetingly considers adoption and abortion, but basically can't bring herself to face facts. In her sixth month, she realizes, “It's kind of late/ in the pregnancy,” and decides to have the baby, although she still doesn't tell anyone yet. Her lack of maturity will hit readers hard: she invents a date-rape story to tell her mother, complains about her looks and, even at the end of the book, when she falls in love with her newborn, seems ill prepared for what's ahead. Although High (The Girl on the High-Diving Horse) works in contemporary references, e.g., to the safe haven law allowing new parents to surrender infants safely, she mostly sticks to well-trod territory. The choice of a verse format, while attention-getting, results in some awkward passages. Rhyme schemes, for example, sometimes dictate content, as when her orthodontist notices her weight gain: “Must be that new pizza/ place: Carini./ Better watch out,/ or you won't fit into/ a bikini!” Ages 13–up. (Oct.)

Just as he is leaving his mother's house to spend Christmas with his dad, 16-year-old Nick receives a surprise visit from his ex-girlfriend, Sasha: she's pregnant. Still hurt from their recent breakup, Nick has no idea how to respond. Debut novelist Martin displays uncanny insight, replacing the issue-driven engine common to most pregnant-teen stories with an emotionally complex and disarmingly frank coming-of-age tale. As narrator, Nick reviews his relationships, and confronts his drives and how he controls them—and how his friends and his father control, or fail to control, theirs. Martin is especially good at writing about sex: Nick is believably awkward, Sasha more mature (especially as viewed by Nick), and it takes the couple more than one try to get it right (“You'd think sex would make you feel less innocent. It didn't work that way for me,” Nick ruminates. “I felt new”). In describing Nick's struggle to do the right thing by Sasha, the author defines each feeling, coloring in Nick's momentary failures as well as the full pain of his realization, as Sasha recuperates from an abortion: “We're at the very end.... All I have to do is walk out the door.” Ages 14–up. (Sept.)

Maddie Crane has always lived in Hawthorne, where a family name means everything and membership in a cruel, all-girl secret society, the Sisters of Misery, is required for social success. When Cordelia and Rebecca LeClaire, Maddie's cousin and newly widowed aunt, move back to Hawthorne, Cordelia's beauty, bohemian style and interest in fortune-telling draw negative attention from the preppy Sisters of Misery, especially their leader. On Halloween Night they subject Cordelia to a brutal hazing on Misery Island (from which the society gets their name)—and by the next morning she has vanished. Wracked with guilt about throwing her cousin to the Sisters, Maddie becomes obsessed with finding Cordelia. While the viciousness of the Sisters of Misery can, at points, seem extreme, the mystery of Cordelia's disappearance is compelling. Hall maintains suspense until the very end. This story's dark, sinister edge, coupled with the clever use of runes to frame each chapter, will satisfy those fascinated by witchcraft and premonitions. Setting up a sequel, Hall will leave readers eager to know what happens next in her standout addition to a popular YA genre. Ages 12–up. (Aug.)

Among the fall's best pop-up books are two for adults as well as kids—in fact, some grown-ups might not want to let kids get their mitts anywhere near these ingeniously engineered beauties.

From the lenticular cover to the jazzy use of a red, white and black color scheme, this hand-size French alphabet book is as stylish as a pop-up can be. Letters here not only pop up, they move and transform. As the reader turns the page, the curves of the letter B slide out from a column thinly striped in red: they appear as narrowly spaced concentric arcs, creating an almost hypnotic effect. C flips over to become the curve of D; G goes from upright to prone—but then tricks the eye again; and on and on. Many letters are three-dimensional (i.e., the legs of H are hollow paper rectangles), and gain extra glamour from high-contrast backgrounds (white on black; red or black on white). A-plus for drama and innovation. All ages. (Oct.)

More child-friendly than last year's 600 Black Spots, the new addition to the series that began with One Red Dot is just as much an overture to exploring art. A yellow square hides in plain sight in or within the paper engineering on each spread; sometimes, the creation of the yellow square is entirely up to the reader. On the first spread, for example, that square exists only when the reader peers through a die-cut while holding the book at the correct angle—in other words, perspective is everything. Captions are variously enigmatic (“The fog of art/ and a yellow square,” for an elaborate windows–like construction topped in vellum) or childlike (“The cow jumped over the moon/ and a yellow square,” for an abstract paper sculpture). As before, Carter confines himself to primary colors, black and white; even with this palette, he alludes to a number of artists, among them Agam, whose name he spells out in a tribute piece; Christo, in a trio of wrapped structures; Miro; and Calder, via a trapeze with rotating flaps that stand in for performers. Not all the spreads are equally impressive, but the best are dazzlers. Ages 3–up. (Sept.)

Here's a great concept, handsomely executed. Take a song known to virtually every preschooler, “The Wheels on the Bus,” and update it with a vehicle much more widely adored by this group, a train, then soup it up with lavish but resilient paper engineering. Involving plenty of repetition, McNamara's lyrics are easy to learn, so kids can “read” this to themselves if they wish, and extra-sturdy paper stock should make their explorations safe. The pop-ups, mostly stationary, are multidimensional renderings of Egielski's cheery cartoons: a pop-up train (with a separate row of pop-up passengers inside) rests aboard a track drawn on one spread; in front of the track, several rows of people pop up, and a porter wheels a three-dimensional trolley. A pop-up city includes a trestle bridge, and on one spread readers can look through windows to see the engineer. Whoo whoo! Ages 2–5. (Sept.)

Sammy (readers can determine this character's gender) is taking the train to visit Pop-Pop and Grammy Sue when his (her?) suitcase saves the day, time after time. The lid of the suitcase flips open on most spreads to reveal a variety of survival essentials, from a pop-up array of pizzas and the fixings for “chocolate-cherry-marshmallow-popcorn-potato-chip pie” to the tools to fix the train when the (pop-up) engine gets busted. Gatefolds, background pop-ups. moving parts and tiny three-dimensional details give readers plenty to look at, while the neon palette intensifies the high-energy impact. Ages 3–8. (Sept.)

Initiating the Encyclopedia Mythologica series, Reinhart and Sabuda preserve the complex format of the Encyclopedia Prehistorica series: a dramatic pop-up towers over each spread, surrounded by flaps and corner gatefolds that open up more surprises. The subject matter ranges from Pegasus to Perrault, Titania and satyrs to Serbian lore on approaching an enchanted bird (it involves no bathing for 40 days and carrying eggs in the armpits). As inventive as Reinhart and Sabuda's admirers expect, the paper engineering consistently enhances the text: it's frequently integral, not merely an added novelty. In a section on changelings, for example, a pull of a flap switches a baby into an imp. Note that the emphasis on global legends as well as a palette heavy on blues, purples and reds widen the audience way past the girly-girl set. FYI: Sabuda watchers can expect his Peter Pan from Simon & Schuster in November. Ages 5–up. (Aug.)