Children's Book Reviews: 8/3/2009

Rex, who parodied Goodnight Moon with the creepy Goodnight Goon, pokes monstrous fun at another Margaret Wise Brown/Clement Hurd collaboration, The Runaway Bunny. Instead of the cozy call-and-response of Brown's rabbits, Rex crafts an amusing, mock-threatening exchange between a green-faced mummy and her son, who is threatening to run away. “ 'If you run away,' said Mother Mummy, 'I will get you! For you are my rotten little mummy!' ” Though their conversation is neither cute nor fuzzy, the images reveal mutual affection. When the child mummy says he “will become a gargoyle and hide on a freezing mountaintop,” his mother responds that she “will turn into a dragon and breathe fire on you to keep you warm!” A double spread, modeled on Hurd's wordless paintings, shows the dragon heating the grinning gargoyle, who says, “That's a little hot!” Only when the little mummy threatens to become a soccer and piano–playing “little boy” rabbit (he and his family are shown in a familiar green room with a red carpet) does his mother express horror. Rex fondly and cleverly imitates the original, echoing its tenderness even as he mocks it. Ages 3–5. (Aug.)

As long as story time does not have to be synonymous with quiet time, Thomas's (Rhyming Dust Bunnies) latest goof makes a great pick (the first page of this book enjoins readers, “Hey, you! Yes, I'm talking to you! STAND UP!”). In fact, the book's cheerleading narration, bold cartoons and fluorescent backdrops actually deliver an even more kinetic reading experience than the title implies. Before readers are requested to make a scary face, they're asked by the improbable instigator, a chubby and enthusiastic ladybug, to rid themselves of an imaginary tiny bug by wiggling, blowing and doing the chicken dance (“Whoops! The tiny tickly bug flew into your mouth? Blow it out! Come on, blow harder!”). It's only when a giant hungry frog comes along that... well, by that juncture, plot has fully taken a backseat to getting jiggy. Ages 3–5. (Aug.)

The hero of this light, rhythmic science/music primer, an itinerant eight-legged musician (who is not a spider, the back matter explains, but rather a harvestman, from the order Opiliones), really does have a right to sing the blues: “His daddy was a wanderer/ and his momma was, too./ He hatched from an egg/ his momma laid in a crack/ just before she got squashed/ in the back of a shack.” First-time author Ornstein's rhymesestablish a hip vibe, with just enough winks to the audience to add humor without undercutting the message (“Come dance as The Daddy gives his drums a beat./ He has eight long legs but he ain't got feet”). Unfortunately, Kopelke's acrylic and pencil images are far from funky, which the book's glossary defines as “having the soulful feeling of early blues.” Her Daddy Longlegs looks like a mud ball with a limited expressive range, while her settings feel empty and under-imagined. It's the visual equivalent of clapping on one and three. Ages 4–7. (Aug.)

Graber's (Jacob and the Polar Bears) quiet story centers on an 11-year-old “dreamer” who deeply misses the time “before drought and war engulfed his homeland.” Muktar and his family had roamed Somalia as nomads, their “worldly possessions strapped to mighty camels”; Muktar's father had repeatedly told his son, “Camels first. Always camels first. Camels are treasure.” When a traveling librarian delivers books to the orphanage where Muktar now lives, he asks the boy to guard his three camels. Muktar notices that one has a gash in its foot, and he gently treats the wound with paste from a gnarled root that his father had given him; the librarian offers to take Muktar with him to care for his camels. A brief author's note about recent Somalia history gives the story a real-world context (the Kenya National Library Service deploys teams of camels each month to deliver books to schools and orphanages). First-time picture book illustrator Mack contributes muted, atmospheric oil paintings of a hazy African landscape and, depicted in grayscale, Muktar's treasured memories of a life before war. Ages 4–8. (Aug.)

When young Leon volunteers to take part in a magician's disappearing act, he is transported to a glittering limbo where all magical props—cards, coins, rabbits, a magician's assistant or an audience member like himself—wait before being summoned back with another wave of a hand or wand. Baker-Smith's moody, gold-filigreed digital pictures, which will remind many readers of the movie Coraline, conjure up the excitement of surrendering to suspended disbelief (die cuts and a gatefold add extra pizzazz to the spreads, although the story isn't significantly helped by their presence). Unfortunately, McAllister's writing does not take the story beyond its promising premise, and Leon's time in “the Place Between” is over almost before it starts. Additionally, the typography, which is set in tidy rectangles and modeled on theatrical posters, while stylistically consistent with the feel of the book, is a jumble of fonts and capitalizations. For readers, the magic is in the artwork. Ages 5–8. (Aug.)

A native of Kenya, Naiyomah was in New York City on September 11, 2001. In Deedy's (Martina the Beautiful Cockroach) lyrical account, he returns to his homeland and tells the members of his Maasai tribe a story that had “burned a hole in his heart.” The narrative avoids specifics and refers to the events of 9/11 obliquely as the villagers listen to him with “growing disbelief”: “Buildings so tall they can touch the sky? Fires so hot they can melt iron? Smoke and dust so thick they can block out the sun?” Until they read Naiyomah's concluding note, children may not fully comprehend either his story or the villagers' subsequent actions: the tribe elders bless 14 cows, revered in Maasai culture, and symbolically offer them to the American people to help them heal. Featuring luminous images of the Maasai in vivid native dress and sweeping African landscapes, Gonzalez's pastel, colored pencil and airbrush paintings appear almost three-dimensional in their realism. A moving tale of compassion and generosity. Ages 6–10. (Aug.)

In the walled city of Agora, residents literally live or die based on their worth. Everything is traded, from goods and services to lives—even emotions can be bottled and sold—all bound in contracts (“Everyone makes their way by bartering something, for there is always someone who will trade”). Just shy of his 12th birthday, Mark is sold by his father to Dr. Theophilus, who is researching a widespread plague. After recovering from the shock of being sold (and from the plague), Mark becomes fast friends with Lily, servant to the powerful astrologer Count Stelli. But the children's lives diverge quickly: when the doctor is cast out of Count Stelli's tower, Mark and Lily contract with each other to switch masters. Meanwhile, the city's most powerful citizens have plans for them, and both find their beliefs and lives pitted against forces they barely understand—and against each other. Charity, greed, freedom, fate and political scheming are all woven through debut author Whitley's richly conceived world. Readers will be buoyed by every small triumph that cannot be recorded in an account book. Ages 11–14. (Sept.)

One needn't already know that “Qapla!” is Klingon for success or be a weekend LARPer to appreciate this mostly entertaining collection of 15 short stories from authors John Green, Scott Westerfeld, Lisa Yee and M.T. Anderson among others, as well as numerous illustrated interludes (final art not seen by PW). The offerings cover a range of nerdy terrain: tensions within geek communities (the coeditors' story about a Star Wars fan who hooks up with a Star Trek fan at a convention; Cynthia and Greg Leitich Smith's piece involving a divisive Buffy character); the gulf between online personalities and real-life interactions (“I Never” by Cassandra Clare; Kelly Link's cautionary tale about a 15-year-old girl waiting at a hotel for the 34-year-old she met online); and academic rivalries (Wendy Mass's “The Stars at the Finish Line” follows two intellectuals vying for the top spot at school; David Levithan inserts a closeted gay character into a national trivia competition in a quietly touching, layered story). Beyond the Stargate and MMORPG references, the stories often hit at the insecurities, camaraderie and passions at the heart of geekdom. Ages 12–up. (Aug.)

According to the author's note, “approximately one baby is abandoned to a trash can every day in the United States.” This “dumpster baby” phenomenon is the subject of Efaw's (Battle Dress) chilling sophomore novel. For optimal (if expected) shock effect, the perceived heartless mother, 15-year-old Devon Davenport, is a poster child overachiever—star goalie for the soccer team, exceptional student, well-liked by all. But when she becomes pregnant, her carefully chiseled world turns in on itself. Fueled by a mixture of intense denial about her predicament and disgust at her behavior, Devon tries to absolve herself of what happened “That Night” by pretending “IT” (how Devon refers to the baby throughout) never happened. The result—and the subsequent story of her arrest and prosecution—is harrowing, if melodramatic at times. The scenes between Devon, portrayed as a frozen and shattered victim of her own choices and background, and her lawyer, Dom (especially during the trial), are strong and resonate like the best courtroom dramas. It's an emotionally wrenching story that will keep readers' attention through its surprising conclusion. Ages 12–up. (Aug.)

Levithan (How They Met, and Other Stories) successfully takes on the task of writing a 9/11 novel that captures the heartbreak of the events of that day through the eyes of three teenagers. Claire, in school that morning, finds herself drawn to late-night walks downtown. Her classmate Peter, waiting outside Tower Records to purchase the new Dylan album, watches the towers fall. And college student Jasper, who had previously met and planned a date with Peter, spends the day collecting papers that have blown into Brooklyn from the World Trade Center (“Something as mundane as two sheets of paper from an office file could provide the final evidence of how vulnerable we are”). Over the next weeks and months, they slowly and tentatively connect with each other, engaging in a healing process parallel to the one New York City itself experiences. Levithan renders the three distinct voices of his characters convincingly, and if some stylistic gambits (notably a 12-page paragraph conveying Peter's post-9/11 uncertainty) miss, more often than not Levithan brings genuine emotion to his portrayal of three broken teenagers helping each other heal. Ages 12–up. (Aug.)

Set in 19th-century New York, Zink's tense and haunting debut novel is narrated by 16-year-old Lia Milthorpe, left in the lurch by the recent death of her father under mysterious circumstances. Lia, who bears the mark of the Jorgumand (a snake devouring itself) on her wrist, soon learns that she and her twin sister, Alice, are fated to play crucial opposing roles in a mystical struggle that goes back to the dawn of time; unfortunately neither girl is temperamentally suited to the role she has been assigned. The author's language, formal and restrained, is appropriate for the setting and gives the chilly scenes between the sisters an especially gothic air (“We are not the kind of sisters who engage in nightly hair brushing or confided secrets”). While Zink relies on the well-used trope of the grand prophecy, the story is anything but clichéd, with flawed and fragmentary translations, misinterpretation and methodical but inspired deduction complicating and enriching the tale. The result is a captivating tragedy immersed in a world of spells, Samhain and twisting family allegiances that stands on its own while leaving room for sequels. Ages 12–up. (Aug.)

Stiefvater leaves the faeries of Lament and Ballad for a lyrical tale of alienated werewolves and first love. For years, Grace has been fascinated by the yellow-eyed wolf that saved her from its pack when she was a child. Sam, bitten by a wolf as a boy, is that wolf. Long obsessed with each other at a distance, they finally meet after a wolf hunt (inspired by the apparent death of a local teen) sends a wounded and temporarily human Sam into Grace's arms. Their young love is facilitated by Grace's hands-off parents (“Once upon a time, I would've leaped at the rare opportunity of curling up with Mom on the couch. But now, it sort of felt like too little, too late,” Grace muses), but threatened by two linked crises: the fact that Sam will soon lose the ability to become human and the instability of a new lycanthrope. Stiefvater skillfully increases the tension throughout; her take on werewolves is interesting and original while her characters are refreshingly willing to use their brains to deal with the challenges they face. Ages 13–up. (Aug.)

Cameron Smith, 16, is slumming through high school, overshadowed by a sister “pre-majoring in perfection,” while working (ineptly) at the Buddha Burger. Then something happens to make him the focus of his family's attention: he contracts mad cow disease. What takes place after he is hospitalized is either that a gorgeous angel persuades him to search for a cure that will also save the world, or that he has a vivid hallucination brought on by the disease. Either way, what readers have is an absurdist comedy in which Cameron, Gonzo (a neurotic dwarf) and Balder (a Norse god cursed to appear as a yard gnome) go on a quixotic road trip during which they learn about string theory, wormholes and true love en route to Disney World. Bray's surreal humor may surprise fans of her historical fantasies about Gemma Doyle, as she trains her satirical eye on modern education, American materialism and religious cults (the smoothie-drinking members of the Church of Everlasting Satisfaction and Snack 'N' Bowl). Offer this to fans of Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy seeking more inspired lunacy. Ages 14–up. (Sept.)

In this sibling duo's debut, an unusual urban fantasy, five 10-year-olds—overachieving Victoria, homeless writer Christian, twins Bicé and Belle, and fame-hungry poet Valentin—disappear from their homes and are adopted by the beautiful, mysterious Madame Vileroy. Their families forget them, and they emerge in New York City five years later as the rich Faust siblings, joining the exclusive Marlowe School midyear. Each of the teens has been given a unique power (stopping time, mind-reading, bewitching beauty), though not all of them know the real cost. The novel's pace can be languid, though it picks up once the school year starts and the Fausts learn about the nature of evil and who Vileroy really is. The writing is clever and stylish (“Bicé left a trail of moments like this, when people came away from her feeling better somehow—the kind of moments that were the very opposite of all those little evils that Madame Vileroy left in her wake”) and the dips in and out of reality almost conceal the characters' superficiality. It's an absorbing, imaginative read, with a tense climax. Ages 14–up. (Aug.)

First-time novelist Francis presents a tasty story that uses humor and a light touch to rise above typical teen vampire fare. Seventeen-year-old “good girl” AJ may be a closet blood-drinker, but that's the least of her problems. Her mom's remarriage has just turned her boyfriend into her stepbrother (“Momma's exact words to me were, 'Ariel Jane, if you so much as look at that boy with fangs in your eyes again, I'll bite you myself.' ”), her AP Lit teacher is already out to get her on the first day of school, and she might have accidentally turned her rebound guy into a vamp who is now threatening her family. On top of that, she's been accused of cheating on a quiz, and compromising photos have appeared on her Facebook page—someone has to be setting her up. But who? Francis keeps things moving, creating an absorbing and refreshing page-turner with a solid mythology, sympathetic heroine and appealing characters that readers will want to invite back to their own homes (well, almost). Ages 14–up. (Aug.)