Children's Book Reviews: Week of 4/20/2009

As in previous works (Brooklyn Bridge; Skyscraper), Curlee illuminates a single subject—this time trains—with stunning, clean-lined illustrations and informative narration. He opens with a romantic reminiscence about the mighty engines that rumbled through his North Carolina hometown. “We listened to the rhythmic clickety-clack of their steel wheels against the rails and the plaintive echoes of their whistles dying away as the trains sped through the night.” Launching into a chronological account of the evolution of the “iron horse,” subsequent pages highlight major developments in (mostly American) railroad history, from the first steam engines to run on rails to the high-speed trains of Europe and Asia. Flatly styled and employing limited color palettes, several of Curlee's acrylic paintings will impress and awe readers with ground-up perspectives of trains set against broad expanses of sky or mountain ranges and sometimes put into historical context with people in the foreground. The author leaves readers to ponder whether modern trains, more efficient than their predecessors, may offer “a highway into the future” for a nation “built by the railroads.” All ages. (May)

With pitch-perfect rhymes that trip merrily along each page and airy, clever watercolors, this companion to Berry and Nakata's Duck Skates and Duck Dunks is infectious. Five ducks bravely go camping in their “small backyard,” setting up duck tents, going fishing (“The pole goes zoom. The fish leaps high./ 'We lost the big one!' five ducks cry”) and toasting marshmallows (“Outside crispy, inside sticky,/ Chewy, gooey, finger-licky”). The climax comes when the ducks are frightened into their tents after hearing a “whoo-whoo-whoooooo” after night falls. Dressed in overalls and straw hats, Nakata's ducks—with their thumbprint-shaped bodies and stick feet—are remarkably expressive. In a standout nocturnal spread, only the ducks' beaks and eyes, clearly registering worried anticipation, are visible against their midnight blue tents, as they “can't help but hear/ Sounds of the nighttime, loud and clear.” In the reassuring denouement, a page turn away, the ducks pile into a tent together—just right for keeping nighttime noises at bay. Readers will be left with a taste for some outdoor adventures of their own. Ages 3–5. (May)

Uh oh. Rotten Ralph is in bigger trouble than ever. After a rough night of “being rotten with his alley cat friends,” he gets some bad news from the vet: he's used up eight of his lives and, per the nine lives chart, “Next Stop: Cat Heaven (Good Cats Only!)” At his owner Sarah's request, a forlorn Ralph recaps (in thought bubbles) how he lost his eight lives, providing a quick tour of his previous eight picture-book misadventures, a reminder of just how uproarious—and timeless—these stories are. Sarah announces that Ralph's rotten days are behind him, vowing to protect her pet: he ends up in a baby buggy, wearing a bonnet. Kids won't expect this to last, and it doesn't. Leaping out the window, he engages in some typical shenanigans (“He ran into the aquarium and grabbed two electric eels. That shocked him back into action”) but, luckily for fans (and his owner), he returns, last life intact. Gantos and Rubel remain in perfect comic sync, as wryly understated text and dynamic art deliver Ralph at his rotten best. Ages 3–7. (May)

In this outing, fans will discover a mellower side to the can-do canine that debuted in The Adventures of Polo. French artist Faller creates another inventive, wordless story revealed in panel art, although more modest in scope than its predecessors. (And in literal size, too, with a smaller trim size and less than half the length.) On his small island, Polo, a cafe au lait–hued pup, lives a quiet life, watering tidy rows of tomato plants and dining alone on the fish he catches. That is, until Lily, a spunky rabbit who cruises around on a cloud, plops into his tree house bedroom. (Aficionados may recall her cameo in Polo: The Runaway Book.) Faller's jewel-toned panels are wry and expressive: flapping ears and a lifted eyebrow convey Polo's huffy response to a playful squirt of the garden hose. While still quirky––Polo answers Lily's call on a telephone ringing in a left-behind suitcase––this title shifts from the surreal slapstick of its predecessors to the gently offbeat unfolding of a friendship. Published simultaneously with Polo and the Magic Flute. Ages 4–8. (May)

A boy discovers a fallen moon in this melancholy, small-format book. After the moon disappears from the sky, factories begin to mass-produce “truckloads of smiling moons,” which are used in all sorts of ways: in one spread, a blue-haired girl waters her moon, a boy spins two on his fingers and a dog wraps his mouth around another. But while the boy and the “real” moon become constant companions, the others are eventually discarded (“People don't seem to love their moons anymore”). Liao's spreads alternately convey cheerfulness, loneliness and desperation, and they are filled with haunting imagery (giant animals, such as a lumbering blue owl peering from an alley, make regular appearances, and the incessantly smiling manufactured moons are unsettling). In the end, the boy, having helped the moon remember itself and its origins, rides it through stormy clouds and into a starry sky, and “from then on the boy's dreams are always filled with moonlight.” A congruent message doesn't fully materialize, but readers should be entranced by Liao's (The Blue Stone) fanciful, surreal illustrations. Ages 4–8. (Apr.)

Charlie Hudson, a laborer in pre-WWI Britain, sent his best racing pigeon off to Rome to compete against a thousand other birds. The other birds perished in a storm; Hudson's alone returned to his home in Derby, bringing Hudson fame and his city pride (“When I set them free,/ it's just like part of me/ gets lifted up on shining wings”). Sudbury previously wrote a ballad about Hudson and his birds; here, first-timer Saefkow fashions dense pencil drawings to accompany Sudbury's text. Saefkow pays as much attention to the city scenery as he does to the characters and birds, giving every cobblestone, brick and shingle the kind of visual richness that charms young readers. Gray skies and grimy bricks convey the dullness of Hudson's life, making his triumph all the more poignant. While the verse has some powerful moments—“And when you live round here,” Hudson says, “the ground can seem awful near”—the lack of context may leave readers confused about what the race actually entailed, as well as the fact that the story has its basis in reality. Ages 8–up. (May)

Pairing lyrical poems and crisp photography to great effect, this collection is a gem. Each poem contains Yolen's response to a series of photographs that portray living things reflected in water. Stemple's photographs startle the reader with the extraordinary beauty of the ordinary things, and Yolen's poems are laced with humor (sometimes wry, sometimes overt) and with environmental undercurrents. Beside a portrait of blue wood storks, she offers, “How to double your population?/ Stand in water smooth as glass./ This is not mere speculation; Check the wood storks by the grass.” In “Jaws x 2 x 80,” an alligator's jaws are seen twice, “One pair/ is real,/ and one/ a reflection./ But I'll never/ give either/ a closer/ inspection.” The book's design—poem across from photograph, with bands of solid color along opposing edges—mimics the photographs' inherent symmetry, while leaving room for brief information about nature. The images and words resonate—readers will find themselves responding to Yolen's introductory invitation to “linger over these photos, contemplate the poems, see if together or separately they make you think again, make you reflect.” Ages 10–12. (Apr.)

Without even trying, Mudshark is a very cool 12-year-old (he acquired his nickname after wowing his peers with lightning-speed reflexes during a game of Death Ball (“a kind of soccer mixed with football and wrestling and rugby and mudfighting”). He is mentally quick as well: his powers of observation and photographic memory enable him to tell kids where to find misplaced possessions. But when the school librarian acquires an apparently psychic parrot, Mudshark's role is threatened. This, he reluctantly admits, “rattled his cool,” and he is determined to discover the whereabouts of the missing blackboard erasers before the parrot does, a feat that entails crafty and comical maneuverings. Additional diversions (chapters open with dispatches from the principal, offering updates on a loose gerbil and an escalating crisis in the faculty restroom) keep this compact story quick and light. Yet three-time Newbery Honor author Paulsen (Hatchet) delves deeper, shaping Mudshark as a credible and compassionate protagonist, despite his improbable abilities and the even more improbable situations that arise at his off-kilter school. Which makes this clever novel all the cooler. Ages 8–12. (May)

With help from screenwriter Hach (who wrote the screenplay for the 2003 film adaptation of Freaky Friday), Rodgers reprises her 1972 novel with this unexceptional follow-up that features teacher and student in the switcheroo roles. Hadley, 13, excels at academics but feels “like the lame consolation prize of the family” compared to her athletic, gorgeous sister, Tatum. Ms. Pitt, who is so devoted to her students she has neglected her own life, has taught both sisters. During a class discussion of To Kill a Mockingbird, she innocently compares Hadley to Tatum, causing teacher and student to simultaneously quote Harper Lee's text about not really understanding a person until you “climb into his skin and walk around in it.” Lights flicker and voilá: Hadley, in Ms. Pitt's body, has instant access to the teacher's lounge, while Ms. Pitt must handle romantic attention from the boy Hadley's been crushing on. A few slapstick scenes occur before the predictable ending in which Hadley realizes that she has talents, Tatum has flaws and Ms. Pitt needs to get out more. Amiable but nothing new. Ages 9–12. (May)

Throughout the school year, budding actress June “Junebug” Cantrell feels like a fish out of water. Summers, however, are different. Working as a stagehand at the Blue Moon Playhouse, a theater run by her actor/director father, Junebug usually basks in the company of grownups “who think I'm this funny, precocious, mature-for-my-age kid.” Unfortunately, the Blue Moon becomes less a refuge than a source of trauma the summer Junebug turns 13. Her father goes “totally gaga” over a pretty, young actress; her mother moves out; and Junebug is upstaged by intern Trace, whose odd behavior and soft stutter get on her nerves. Alternating Junebug's fantasies (“Here's how I see it: As a famous Broadway actress, there are so many demands on my time”) with her more mundane reality (“Here's how it is: Office Duty”), Henson (Making the Run) creates a funny, bittersweet story filled with colorful personalities and plenty of backstage detail and drama. Readers will empathize with Junebug as she yearns for a place at center stage and for a happy ending for her broken family. Ages 10–14. (Apr.)

Family life comes to an abrupt halt for 14-year-old Cora after the death of her older brother, Nate, in a car accident. Dreading her entrance to high school seven months after the event (“If he had still been alive, I might have had a fighting chance at being able to distance myself from him.... Now I'll be the girl whose brother died”) and with her parents lost to their numbing grief, Cora finds sustenance in her passion for maps and mapmaking. A new friend, the encouragement of an art teacher and growing interest in her brother's best friend, Damian, who was in the car when he was killed, all slowly revive her emotional life and self-confidence. Sandell creates a satisfying tension by juxtaposing Cora's grief and anger at her parents with her developing attraction to Damian and her growing sense of possibility about her own future. Sandell's two previous novels were written in verse and, despite occasional emotional editorializing, her fluid phrasing and choice of metaphors give her prose a quiet poetic ambience. Ages 12–up. (Apr.)

In Quigley's first book, the heroine is an “overshare artist”: Becca cannot keep her thoughts to herself. Living in Pine Prairie, Minn., where “everyone sticks their cold, sniffling noses in each other's business,” Becca finds herself the catalyst of many dramas, especially after she creates a blog, Too Much Information, where under the name Bella, she records her (thinly veiled) fantasy version of her high school life (“Bella's greatest worry is that if she doesn't confess her deepest desires and choicest bits of gossip, she may explode, leaving her parents to clean up the gory mess”). Predictably, Becca's blog doesn't stay secret for long, causing additional turmoil among her friends and enemies alike. While Becca's personality can be over-the-top and some characters feel stereotypical (when her friend Jai comes out to her, Becca thinks, “the kick-ass wardrobe, the faux hawk, the love of show tunes, and the advanced baking skills all point the boy away from the path of heterosexuality”), readers seeking breezy but believable teenage drama will find it in spades. Ages 12–up. (Apr.)

Seven months after killing her parents in a car accident, 16-year-old Willow Randall has moved in with her married older brother's family in New York City, where she grapples with her overwhelming emotions, as well as her brother's silent anguish, by cutting herself with razors. When Guy, a fellow student, learns Willow's secret, they develop a tentative intimacy. The stark clarity of the present tense, third-person narration echoes the numbing effect that Willow achieves through cutting—“Of course any sharp edge could do in a pinch, and Willow has used them all: nail scissors, a steak knife, a man's razor.... But Willow is a purist.” Despite explicit descriptions of Willow's wounds, the narrative steers clear of moralization—cutting is characterized as part of Willow's fractured sense of self, rather than part of a larger epidemic. Though Guy mainly serves as a means for Willow to rediscover human connection, and is never as fully realized as she is, his need to understand the girl whose favorite book is Tristes Tropiques but who carries razors in her backpack, is authentically tender. A credible depiction of a grieving girl's struggle toward self-forgiveness. Ages 14–up. (Apr.)

At first glance, parents may not be thrilled to see these books—with their references to “tig ol' bitties” and “spanky” hankies—in the hands of their teenage sons. They should be.

“All I think about is girls, and I don't do anything about it,” laments Carter at the beginning of this true-to-life, edgy and often hilarious debut novel. The first-person narrative nails the voice of an earnest—and hyper-active—teen starting freshman year with big aspirations and considerable anxiety. Carter's priority is finding a girlfriend, a mission he comically bungles at numerous junctures—“This isn't Queer Eye. Back off, you stalker!” he chastises himself after drowning a girl in compliments. In one telling scene, Carter attends his first high school party, confident that this will be the night he'll have sex, yet scales back his expectations dramatically as he tries to fight back tears when a senior steals his bike (“No, no, no crying! There's kissing to be done”). Carter's trials and triumphs in sports also come into play, as does his rapport with his caustic older sister and oafish friends. Crawford, an actor, stages an unexpected, affecting finale in which Carter finds confidence and fulfillment in an unlikely role: the lead in the spring musical. Teenage guys will totally get this. Ages 13–up. (Apr.)

Screenwriter Calame debuts as a novelist by perfectly channeling the adolescent male mindset. Matt, Cooper and Sean, swim teammates since third grade, hold the local record for the “largest collection of green fifth-place ribbons.” In addition to hanging out poolside, each summer they choose a project. This year, Coop, 15, announces their objective will be to see a girl naked. Since none even has a girlfriend, deviant hijinks ensue, including some (dressing in drag to sneak into the girls' bathroom) that strain credibility. Meanwhile, narrator Matt sets an even more unattainable goal—volunteering to swim the grueling 100-yard butterfly to impress the team's star backstroker, “smokin' hot” Kelly West. (Coop points out the flaw in Matt's plan: “I'm sure Kelly finds the sight of a scrawny, pasty white dude flopping around in the water like a spastic salmon very hot.”) The boys' pursuits make for a hilarious, if raunchy, what-I-did-last-summer narrative, supported by a cast of memorable adults, including a take-no-prisoners swim coach and Matt's grandfather, who is on a parallel romantic journey. This one will spread like athlete's foot in a locker room. Ages 14–up. (Apr.)

These fun, interactive books have an educational side, too.

The claim to fame for this oversize collection of animal portraits is that each animal is shown at “actual size.” The striking photographs, taken at Japanese zoos, provide a rare opportunity to see animal faces up close (for bigger animals, like the elephant, the pages fold out) from the tiger's pink tongue to an armadillo and hedgehog, shown in profile, as well as rolled up tight. Animal facts are provided in side panels that feature stick figures who engage readers (“Can you see that this zebra has... long hairs underneath her eyes?”) and cute cartoon versions of each creature. The stellar photographs, playful format and informative content create a highly appealing package. Ages 3–up. (Apr.)

In this addition to the Kaleidopops series, iridescent insect pop-ups (which change color thanks to lenticular panels) are accompanied by brief, descriptive classifications of each species: a red darter dragonfly, “use(s)... speed and powerful eyesight to catch insects in midair!” An enormous, green praying mantis takes up a full page as it peers back at the reader with its “compound eyes.” The vibrant and shiny images (a jeweled frog beetle native to Southeast Asia shifts from green to blue) emphasize the alien beauty of the various creepy crawlies, with less of a focus on insect anatomy. Wild Animals also available. Ages 5–up. (May)

This lively interactive guide, part of the Action Files series, delivers plenty of highly accessible shark-related information in tabbed chapters that cover anatomy (“A shark's body contains many of the same organs and body parts that a human body does”), shark life and conservation issues (“One problem is that people are scared of sharks”). Readers can access additional information at an affiliated Web site; special features that include shark species “stat” cards, a “3-D Shark Mask” (there aren't 3-D lenses, just a paper mask) and a nine-panel foldout poster will excite younger shark enthusiasts. Egypt is also available. Ages 6–up. (May)

This eclectic and informative book is shaped like the porthole of a submarine. After readers open the hatch, the ocean comes alive with full-color photographs: a surfer is dwarfed by an enormous wave, a seal peers up through a hole in ice; elsewhere, the “dazzling diversity” of coral reefs is featured and another section shows the effects of “Pollution and Climate Change” in a pie chart. Images from the book are featured on collector's cards housed in a pocket at the end, along with stickers and a poster of ocean life. The breadth of information and special features will appeal to intrepid readers. Ages 8–11. (Apr.)

Mythical creatures like the Minotaur, the kraken and the selkies are featured in this sturdy, encyclopedia-style book. There are plenty of unique components: a pull-tab box addresses how to tell if a unicorn is real or not (offering four “tests” to perform on the horn), and an impressive pop-up “Arabian Phoenix” spreads its red wings and opens its beak above a roaring fire. A poster of the beasts is also included. While the existence of these creatures may be in dispute, information tracing their origins (Ovid made reference to a possible werewolf) will give fantasy fans food for thought. Ages 8–up. (Apr.)