Children's Book Reviews: Week of 2/23/2009

What's a superhero without a sidekick? Lulu, star of last year's Ladybug Girl, meets her friend Sam at the playground, but before they can join forces, they must first agree on what to play—a sequence handled with understanding and humor. At one point, Lulu hits on the idea of using the seesaw: “She runs over and sits down on one side of the seesaw and waits. And waits. Sam just stands there, not getting on.” Ultimately, intrigued by Lulu's suggestion of a game involving superpowers, Sam becomes Bumblebee Boy, with his striped shirt and a stick for a stinger. Together they battle the Mean Robot (tire swing) that threatens to “crush the playground” (“Ladybug Girl grabs on, and jumps on top of its head! Bumblebee Boy stings it with his stinger again and again”) and attract some new heroes, too. Soman's pen-and-ink characters are remarkably emotive—this is a story that delights in children's enthusiastic imaginations. Also noteworthy is the team's pacing: there's no dead air, and all the action plays naturally. A favorite series in the making. Ages 3–5. (Mar.)

Hector is a dwarfish wizard with a head like a potato and a Dracula cape. But years of quiet misanthropy (in their shuttered house, Hector and his black cat Poison spend their days “watching TV and munching cookies”) come to a halt when a noisy neighbor moves in next door, sprucing up her home and singing as she plays the piano. Hector and Poison cook up an “evil cake” to get rid of her: “When it baked, the cake thundered and rumbled and gave off a foul odor,” writes Levert (The Princess Who Had Almost Everything), who has even more fun as Poison takes a bite and grows leathery wings and starts to breathe fire. But Hector's plan falls to a power greater than his. Lafrance (the Exploring the Elements series) paints Hector's neighbor, Isobel, as a woman of a certain age with a figure like a well-padded clothespin doll. Towering over Hector, she is so full of love that roses sprout spontaneously all around her. Young readers will be too tickled by Hector's scheming, Poison's antics and the goings-on in Isobel's household to object to the mushy ending. Ages 4–up. (Feb.)

Newcomer Fowler recasts this fairy tale as a girl-power story. Karen revels in the red shoes her mother gave her (without the moral judgment of Andersen's version), foils the queen's attempts to take them and goes into business as a shoemaker. Her creations come, Fowler points out, a bit flat-footedly, “from Karen's own imagination, creativity, and hard work.” Debut illustrator Yoo, by contrast, steps lightly. Printed in subdued black on cream-colored stock, her pen-and-ink drawings convey a real sense of movement, with sweeping tresses, draping skirts, swirls of flower petals and menacing vines and branches. Bold angles and graceful use of white space add to the sophisticated air. In Fowler's text, clunky asides and elements from traditional fairy tales (“The queen proclaimed that if in three days Karen did not turn over the red shoes, the executioner would have to cut off her feet to remove them”) detract somewhat, but the message about spirit and initiative comes through clearly. Visually stunning, this will be an excellent fit for readers fascinated by glamour. Ages 4–up. (Feb.)

Crocodile brothers Ernst and Sol return in their third adventure (following Ernst and The Puddle Pail), set against a painterly landscape of lively animals and sumptuous colors. Ernst loves to ride the “honey-colored dog” on the carousel in the park, but when the carousel closes for winter, he spots the dog's tail on the ground among the blowing leaves (“The tail just lay there, like a big wooden question mark”). The carousel keeper, a soulful elephant, advises Ernst to take the tail home and return it once the weather is warm. But when Ernst's creativity gets the better of him, he decorates the tail, fashioning it into a bird with exotic plumage. The pivotal moment arrives when Ernst must confess to the carousel keeper how he has altered the dog's tail. The vibrant, organic art—mixed media collage with watercolors and pastels—sets the stage for a tender, animate space. Every object, from the tail-turned-bird to a paintbrush resting in a cup of water, emanates warmth and individuality, capturing the (sometimes overwhelming) sensory environment of the imaginative child. Ages 4–8. (Mar.)

In this counting/calendar book dedicated to dogs' distant cousins, debut picture book author Cohn along with Detwiler (The First Teddy Bear) concentrate on personality and ambience, reserving facts and insights for a closing instructional guide. Cohn makes use of rhyming couplets, with a structured, repeating form that emphasizes the progressing months and increasing numbers. In February, two wolves enjoy a snowy frolic “deep in the woods where the harsh winds blow”; May brings the birth of five “fuzzy pups, funny pups” who “sniff and stare”; and September finds a pack of nine putting their natural camouflage to use among the brilliant foliage (and giving readers an opportunity to pick them out). Detwiler invokes just the right amount of romanticism: her wolves tussle in the purple rays of a frigid sunrise and dance, silhouetted, in the falling shadows of twilight—but they're always unmistakably wild. Readers should be captivated by the animals' resilient joie de vivre as well as by their habitats' seasonal glories. The educational guide offers wolf facts, activities and details about their life cycle. Ages 4–8. (Feb.)

Two-time Coretta Scott King Award–winner Draper hits her middle-grade target in this cheerful yet reflective novel about feeling appreciated and finding one's place. “I'm pretty invisible around here,” complains fourth-grader Sassy, who is annoyed that her parents and older siblings insist on calling her “Little Sister,” and that she's always last in the family pecking order. Though she also grumbles about having to wear a drab uniform to school, Sassy does her best to look “distinctive and unique” by wearing glittery fingernail polish and shimmering lip gloss—and by toting her “Sassy Sack.” Made by her beloved Granny, this colorful bag holds everything from Life Savers to shoelaces, sunglasses to mittens. “Even I'm not sure what all's in there, but I know when I reach down into it, I always seem to find exactly what I need,” she says. A “Who Am I” class project and a situation in which Sassy's diminutive stature saves the day underscore Draper's clever and careful consideration of external and internal qualities. Filled with energy and opinion, Sassy more than lives up to her name. Ages 7–10. (Mar.)

Action-packed and full of reader-directed asides, Kress's sophomore novel follows in the footsteps of its predecessor, Alex and the Ironic Gentleman. Here, Kress introduces 11-year-old Timothy Freshwater, who, newly expelled from school, stumbles into an internship at his father's company (in a building nicknamed the “Tall and Imposing Tower of Doom”). There he meets Mr. Shen, ostensibly a mail clerk, but in actuality, an ancient Eastern dragon forced to take human form and act as a servant to whoever holds a golden key. Unwittingly and somewhat unwillingly, Timothy ends up helping Mr. Shen get to China—with a ninja, pirates and a fleet of black cabs in hot pursuit—so that he can return to his dragon form. (Among others, Timothy gets some help from Alex and the crew of the Ironic Gentleman.) Brief chapters keep the story moving, and Timothy's general surliness and sardonic observations, particularly in contrast with Mr. Shen's courteousness and Alex's daring, make for plenty of comic moments (Timothy's “last thought” before plunging into the ocean after being pushed from a plane is “Whatever”). A spirited follow-up. Ages 8–12. (Jan.)

Kelly, author of Lucy Rose: Here's the Thing About Me and its sequels, launches an appealing, boy-centric series starring Lucy Rose's friend, Adam Melon (dubbed Melonhead). The hyperkinetic nine-year-old's knack for finding trouble surfaces immediately, when his foot gets stuck in a tree and he must be rescued by firefighters (“My mom said my shoe is ruined. I told her, 'Not to me.' I nailed it to the wall over my bed so I will always have the memory”). Though Melonhead's subsequent conundrums are (slightly) less dramatic, they are no less engaging or energetic. Adam's goofy sense of humor and his comic interactions with his parents, teachers and best friend Sam (the two are amateur inventors) are just right for the target audience. “I love the feeling of having a pet in the house,” he says of the snake he's hiding from his parents. “Two pets, actually, even though as soon as Cobra has his next lunch, I'll be back to one.” The book has an excellent shot at winning over reluctant readers. Final art not seen by PW. Ages 9–12. (Mar.)

Runyon's (The Burn Journals; Maybe) stirring coming-of-age novel is set at the lakeside cottage where Luke and his parents spend two weeks every summer. Each of the four chapters presents a different stage of Luke's adolescence between the ages of 13 and 16, tracing his emotional, hormonal and physical changes and his broadening perception of his surroundings, particularly the neighbors. There is the eccentric Richardson family, fastidious about their yard and cottage; a newcomer minister who marks his territory with a floodlight and Confederate flag; and a mysterious girl whose father allegedly stole Luke's father's barbecue. (“Her eyes look like an Egyptian queen's eyes. They're huge and brown and I don't know why, but I want to stare into them for as long as I can,” Luke pines.) The detail-rich story offers the type of intensity that sneaks up on readers, not taking a firm hold until the end, when previous events take on new meaning. Despite the book's structure, the plot seems to move in a spiral, revisiting familiar landmarks that inevitably change over time and digging underneath the surface. Ages 14–up. (Mar.)

Garsee's (Before, After, and Somebody in Between) second novel hits the ground running and doesn't let up. Shawna Gallagher, a high school senior trying to live up to her domineering father's expectations, is awakened one night by a phone call: her estranged mother, who left Shawna and her father years earlier for a woman, Fran, has had a stroke. Following her mother's death, Shawna must confront her feelings about her mother and her own prejudices (she has particular issues with gay people, which are further complicated when her best friend comes out). Shawna's father, learning that one of Fran's sons is in fact his child by Shawna's mother, fights for (and gains) custody of the boy—finally spurring Shawna to defy him. The novel overflows with story lines and plot twists—Shawna's romance with her stepbrother (and her father's with her former babysitter), her ailing grandfather and the ridicule she faces in school. Nevertheless, Garsee presents a compelling portrait of a young woman growing up and coping with an overwhelming array of problems. Ages 14–up. (Mar.)