Children's Book Reviews: 9/28/2009

Budding Baby Warhols can fix their gaze on this oversize board book of 12 eye-stimulating patterns, credited to well-known artists. Each picture features chunky black-and-white shapes to catch a child’s attention. Some pop pieces, like Takashi Murakami’s deliriously happy-faced flower, resemble conventional child fare. Others are unorthodox but promising choices: Kazimir Malevich’s modernist Black Cross is an enormous plus sign, and Julian Opie’s stylized human portraits have smiley-face dot eyes and serious mouths. A few pages offer familiar subjects: a duck silhouette, a pear or a carrot, while the intersecting ovals of Josef Albers’s Together could suggest a family or a nest, and Keith Haring’s iconic Radiant Baby—a crawling figure emanating exclamation-point lines—graces the cover. Little ones unmoved by figurative work can linger on abstract compositions like conceptual artist Damien Hirst’s grid of grayscale dots or ’60s op artist Bridget Riley’s aggressive zigzags. The images repeat on three folded “friezes,” tucked into the back of the book, ready for installation in art connoisseurs’ play spaces or bedrooms. The high-contrast art should prove mesmerizing; no batteries required. Up to age 3. (Sept.)

In this straightforward story that touches on colors, cooperation and imagination, Braun (I Love My Mommy) introduces Meeow, a black cat with wide eyes and a red scarf, and his friends: Baa, Woof, Quack and Moo (like Meeow, the animals are named for the sounds they make). Simple, declarative sentences and gentle inquiries (“Meeow looks in his yellow bag. What have you found, Meeow?”) add to a cheerful mood. The animals, which resemble pliable plastic toys with their chunky shapes and friendly expressions, place different colored chairs in a row and gather other items (a bell, a whistle) in the midst of their creative play. Once everything is in place, the animals’ goal is revealed: “Ding-ding! Choo-choo! Meeow has made his very own train.” In the final scene, the train becomes real, releasing a plume of white smoke as the friends ride across a blue background. Readers should be tickled by the guessing-game aspect of the story, and Braun offers ample opportunities for the discussion of colors, shapes, animals and objects. Also available: Meeow and the Big Box. Ages 2–4. (Sept.)

Little Blue, a girl with blue hair and a blue-and-white china-pattern dress, surprises Will when he meets her in the forest. He’s dressed like a British schoolchild, but Little Blue is different, not quite human—and she’s lost. Will and Little Blue set out to find her home. As she wistfully describes its features (“My home has a blue river twinkling under willows. I miss my river”) they appear in rough blue crayon in the air behind her. From the outset, Chapman (Kaito’s Cloth) makes it evident that their search is a voyage of the imagination; Will shrinks to Little Blue’s size as they balance on mushrooms and climb the delicate branches of blossoming trees. When they return to the cottage where Will lives with his grandmother, Little Blue is revealed to be the girl on the missing piece of a treasured china plate broken “at a picnic long ago,” and the details from Little Blue’s descriptions adorn the plate in all their glory. Chapman’s intricate, dew-dappled flowers recall turn-of-the-century illustration; it’s an invitation to indulge in a flight back to another time. Ages 3–5. (Sept.)

How do you escape a wolf, a tiger and a crocodile when you’re alone in a forest at night? Wide-eyed Felix retreats into a hollow tree; a stairway leads into the house of a friendly rabbit. They’re instantly candid and forthright with each other: “So now what are you going to do?” asks the rabbit. “I want to go home,” Felix replies, “but I am afraid to go back outside.” The rabbit gives Felix a cape and climbs on his shoulders wearing a scary mask. “Walk straight ahead and growl like a lion,” he directs. The frightening animals, vanquished, actually shrink, appearing almost babylike as they hide behind trees. De Monfreid’s (I’d Really Like to Eat a Child) pen and ink hatching produces a dense darkness, making the domestic cheer of the rabbit’s warmly lit kitchen all the sweeter. Her insight into the fears and desires of children make for a tale that contains the winning elements of storytelling: suspense, surprise, secret passages, dressing up and hot chocolate. It’s about solving problems and conquering fears, but also just a monstrously good time. Ages 3–5. (Sept.)

Caldecott Honor artist Sweet (A River of Words: The Life of William Carlos Williams) effectively uses animal parent and child pairs to lighten the hopeful yet somber message of Yarrow’s (Puff, the Magic Dragon) folk song, which he first performed with the trio Peter, Paul and Mary. Watercolor and mixed-media art reveals members of each animal family tenderly gazing into each others’ eyes in placid woodland settings shown in cool earth tones punctuated by shocks of brilliant color: scarlet berries, magenta lily pads, crimson toadstools. Together, the animals eventually approach a house in which a father lovingly tucks his son into bed. The boy’s bright yellow room exudes comfort, and even when storm clouds threaten, there’s no real menace in any of Sweet’s depictions of nature; yet in concert with Yarrow’s verse, the overall effect is somewhat haunting. A CD tucked into the back cover features Yarrow and his daughter Bethany singing “Day Is Done” (plus two traditional songs, “I Know Where I’m Going” and “Dona Dona Dona,” with new words and music by the author). Ages 3–7. (Oct.)

Whimsy drives both the text and airy watercolor art of Kitamura’s (The Young Inferno) story of a girl with a creative and colorful imagination. Millie finds a fabulous feathered chapeau in an elegant shop, but has no money. When the accommodating clerk brings out an invisible hat that fits her perfectly, she reaches into her purse and gives him “all she had in it.” Prompted by items she spies while walking, Millie imagines her hat to be a peacock, a stack of bakery cakes and a bouquet of flowers, among other things. Her imagination then turns outward and she notices that passersby are also wearing hats that slyly reflect their professions, passions and inner lives (a putting green for a businessman, a seal balancing a ball for a woman burdened with a pile of parcels, a pair of angry dinosaurs for two arguing boys). Sheer joyfulness leads Millie (and her hat) to sing on her way home, causing a riot of rainbows and animals to trail from her head. A cheerful tribute to a determined and optimistic imagination. Ages 4–8. (Sept.)

At first, three-year-old Emmy gets away with peccadilloes like spilling orange juice on her dad’s trousers and using her older sister’s art materials (“Mom told her she should share with me./ After all... I’m only three”), pinning the blame on her siblings. But when her shenanigans spiral out of control (an early morning ice cream feast, setting loose her brother’s pet lizard, causing the bathtub to overflow), her family wises up. “Mom pointed to the stairs and said,/ 'That’s it, young lady!/ GO TO BED!’ ” British illustrator Parkins (Dick King-Smith’s Sophie books) works in cartoon-style ink and wash, using vignettes to focus on Emmy’s yowls of indignation and insouciant smiles and having fun with Emmy’s more elaborate misdeeds. Newcomer Krasnesky writes tightly disciplined verse that never flags, sprinkled with parenthetical asides and modern phrases (“ 'That’s SO not true, Mom,’ Suzie said”). Mischievous Emmy is a little too manipulative and self-serving to sympathize with completely—but that doesn’t make her any less authentic a character. This is a fast-moving crowd-pleaser made for reading aloud. Ages 4–8. (Sept.)

This writing team of two Super Bowl–winning quarterbacks and their former star quarterback father should score with young fans, despite some heavy-handed clichés and syrupy dialogue. As the young Manning family prepares to visit two sets of grandparents, mother Olivia announces to her three football-playing sons (oldest brother Cooper is practicing with his brothers), “This weekend is going to be filled with family and football.” Madsen’s (The Adventures of Thor the Thunder God) digitally created art is most successful in delivering dynamic images of the clan, ably conveying the siblings’ abundant energy, and painterly outdoor scenes of autumn foliage; vehicles and buildings are awkwardly stiff and geometric by comparison. The story itself is fairly empty—it’s mainly a vehicle to introduce plays like the quarterback sneak and buttonhook (which are diagrammed on the endpapers) and platitudes like “As long as you look out for each other, you will always be on a winning team.” But readers should pick up some new moves and game ideas for both on and off the field. Ages 4–8. (Sept.)

In the world imagined by this debuting team, everyone is a person of a single color—specifically, red, yellow or blue—except the eponymous and literally named heroine, the offspring of a mixed marriage (mom is red and dad is blue). Violet, anticipating the first day of school, is nervous about making friends and fitting in. And while her fears are partially founded when students are surprised to discover the color of her parents, Stehlik’s message remains upbeat. “People come in a whole rainbow of beautiful colors,” Violet’s mother tells her.... “Just be yourself. People should like you for who you are, not what color you are.” Readers, especially girls, may find more to love in Jovanovic’s digital drawings. Although the setting is clearly the lower grades of elementary school, long-limbed Violet and her peers look like middle schoolers, and the hand-drawn feel of the pictures brings to mind the anime-influenced journal marginalia of an intensely emotional adolescent. If the message is less than subtle, it should still be a comfort to readers, particularly those of mixed heritage, who struggle with belonging. Ages 5–8. (Sept.)

Stories about stick fighting and sneaking out to dance halls while at university go a long way to help readers connect with the story of activist Mandela, a former president of South Africa. Born Rolihlahla, which means, interestingly, “troublemaker,” he was given the name Nelson at a mission school (“At that time, the English ruled our country, so our teacher thought we should all have English names”). As the conflict escalates into violence, events such as the Sharpeville Massacre and Mandela’s 27-year imprisonment in a cell “so tiny that when I lay down on my sleeping mat, my feet and hands could touch opposite walls” are handled deftly. Bouma’s color and sepia illustrations of Mandela are spot on, but chalky black outlines and shading sometimes obscure rather than define, and some compositions have the stiff feel of a newspaper photograph. An abridgment of his 1995 autobiography, the book ends with Mandela’s election in 1994, leaving the impact of his victory unexplored. A solid if not revolutionary resource about apartheid and Mandela’s role in its dissolution. Ages 6–up. (Sept.)

Based on actual events, Polacco’s (In Our Mothers’ House) story is at once horrifying and heartening. It centers on the Crosswhite family, slaves who flee their Kentucky plantation after witnessing the merciless whipping of January, a slave caught while attempting escape. Led to believe that January died from his wounds, Sadie Crosswhite is heartbroken when she inadvertently leaves behind the wooden sparrow he carved for her. Writing in credible dialect, Polacco conveys the family’s fear and fortitude as they follow the North Star, “trackin’ through cornfields, climbin’ up bluffs, rollin’ through muck and mud.” They take refuge in Marshall, Mich., a sanctuary on the Underground Railroad, where they remain until slave chasers track them down. After a confrontation in which the town rallies behind them, the Crosswhites steal away for Canada, accompanied by January, who has shown up unexpectedly. Like Polacco’s prose, her dynamic and sometimes brutal pictures, rendered in pencils and markers, hold nothing back—be it the Crosswhites’ anguish and terror while under pursuit or their affection for each other and those who harbor them. An illuminating and trenchant account. Ages 8–up. (Oct.)

A parent returning as a stranger after WWII could be a difficult situation, but in Newbery Medalist Lowry’s first picture book, drawn from her childhood, the reunion brings warmth and trust. Out on a fall hunting trip with her father, Lizzie is quiet with apprehension (“Daddy. Daddy. Saying it feels new”). Yet he respects her wishes, even when they’re quirky. When she longs for a plaid hunting shirt many sizes too big, he endorses her choice: “You know, Lizzie... You will never ever outgrow this shirt.” He orders three pieces of cherry pie (her favorite food) for breakfast. She’s worried about the idea of hunting; he gives her the crow call—“I’m pretty sure you can handle it”—and the crows gather like magic. To her relief, her father never fires his gun. Ibatoulline (The Scarecrow’s Dance) fittingly dedicates his artwork to Andrew Wyeth. The Pennsylvania countryside, in shades of gold and fawn, undulates behind Lizzie and her father, the quiet colors echoing the intimacy they share. It’s a loving representation of a relationship between parent and child, and an elegy to a less ironic era, while fully relevant for today’s military families. Ages 9–12. (Oct.)

As adept at writing fantasy as she is creating slice-of-life novels, Newbery Medalist Creech (Walk Two Moons) again works her magic, offering an offbeat tale set in a small village in the Swiss Alps. The narrator is an endearingly flawed angel, who has trouble with “peoples’ ” language (“I am supposed to be having all the words in all the languages, but I am not”) as well as uncertainty about his (or her) mission (“Do the other angels know what they are doing? Am I the only confused one?”). When discovered by an energetic and imaginative child named Zola, the angel finally finds something more meaningful to do than “floating and swishing” around the village (“Know and fix? How does Zola know these things?” thinks the angel). Working together, the two create small miracles, instilling compassion in villagers, bringing lonely people together and finding refuge for a group of orphan children hiding in the mountains. Uplifting and full of vibrant characters, this book shows that angels come in all shapes and sizes and can sometimes even be human. Ages 8–12. (Sept.)

Imagine a humorous middle-grade novel by a less self-absorbed Woody Allen to get an idea of this intelligent and witty children’s debut. Daneshvari assembles a precocious cast of 12- and 13-year-olds with outsize fears, including Madeleine, whose obsessive fear of insects keeps her drenched in bug repellant; Theo, “the most dramatic, hysterical, and neurotic boy in the borough of Manhattan”; brazen Lulu, with crippling claustrophobia; and hydrophobic Garrison. Desperate families entrust these kids to Mrs. Wellington, the snarky “deranged beauty queen” of a headmistress at the secretive and fairly terrifying School of Fear (“Perhaps when the summer is finished you’ll write a letter to the board of camps to complain,” Mrs. Wellington tells the children when they learn they are the sole campers. “And please do not let the board’s hypothetical status deter you”). What ensues is tautly paced, spine-tingling and quite funny, as the children overcome their fears and learn to work as a team. The ending proves as clever as the premise and shows that while everyone is afraid of something, tremendous achievements can be won by facing fear head-on. Final art not seen by PW. Ages 8–12. (Sept.)

This final chapter of the trilogy begun in The Sea of Trolls gathers steam slowly, but has the same enchanting quirkiness of its predecessors. Jack, the apprentice bard, is now 14 and living with Thorgil, the surly shield maiden, and their mentor, the Bard, in his native village after the scarring experiences of their previous adventure. When a draugr, the undead spirit of a wronged mermaid, is roused by the village priest’s mystical bell, her need for justice sends Jack and his friends beyond Saxon lands to Notland, the kingdom of the fin folk, as they seek a way to lay the draugr to rest. Farmer’s prose flows easily and the nuggets of action are as lively and unexpected as ever. But Jack is confronting a knottier lesson than before: the mystery of how joy and sorrow intertwine. While the meditative pace this story’s complexity calls for replaces the narrative drive of the earlier books, it brings other pleasures and creates a satisfying close for the series—if indeed this is the end. Ages 10–14. (Oct.)

DeFelice’s compact, suspenseful novel features 12-year-old Owen McGuire during his first lonely summer in the Finger Lakes region of New York, where he and his father have just moved. He spends his days exploring the woods and deeply missing his mother, who died a year and a half earlier in a car accident, and with whom he shared a passionate belief in the possibilities of extraterrestrial life. So when he comes upon a strange girl named Cam with glittery green eyes, he is ready to believe her story of being an alien whose spaceship accidentally left without her. Swearing him to secrecy, Cam enlists his help in building a signal to direct her parents’ spaceship to her location, and tries to persuade him to leave with her. Well-drawn secondary characters create a threatening backdrop to the developing mystery, while Owen’s poignant relationship with his work-driven father elicits sympathy. The tension builds on several fronts to a gripping climax and satisfying conclusion. Owen’s likable voice, the plot’s quick pace and the science fiction overtones make this a winner. Ages 10–up. (Sept.)

Gothic and wonderfully creepy, Golds’s (Clair-de-Lune) atmospheric story delights, offering meditations on the nature and power of love. Lonely Heloise wants only to be loved, but lives as if jailed in the house of her stern and sometimes cruel godmother. One day Heloise uncovers a beautiful doll, Maria, hidden under the floorboards of her room, and it is love at first sight. Heloise hides Maria from her godmother, whose personal Ten Commandments include forbidding play, “pretty clothes” and the possession of a doll, not to mention never uttering the word love (“We are all of us evil. And to love something evil is wicked,” she professes). Once Maria is discovered, Heloise finds out the horrible truth about the museum that adjoins her godmother’s cottage and is thrust down a strange and magical path that reveals how sheltered she has been (“Most people, she now knew, had heard music. Most people had seen pictures”). Readers will wonder throughout: who is Heloise really—or better, what is she? Aside from an occasional tendency toward sentimental prose, Golds’s novel is pure fun, filled with mystery and nearly impossible to put down. Ages 11–up. (Sept.)

Princess Raisa, heir to the Queendom of the Fells, chafes against the forced royal marriage in her future. Trying to support his family with odd jobs, Han can’t decide what life he wants from among the three he’s juggling—and past mistakes made when he was a gang leader keep surfacing to haunt him. Additionally, Han finds himself the unwitting owner of an ancient talisman taken from the land’s most powerful wizards, while Raisa faces the political maneuverings of those supposedly bound to serve her family. In elegant prose, Chima (the Heir series) constructs a complex but comprehensible world, where wizards and clans coexist in an uneasy and restrictive arrangement, brokered after the destructive actions of the Demon King, 1,000 years earlier. With full-blooded, endearing heroes, a well-developed supporting cast and a detail-rich setting, Chima explores the lives of two young adults, one at the top of the world and the other at the bottom, struggling to find their place and protect those they love. An auspicious start to the planned Seven Realms trilogy. Ages 12–up. (Oct.)

What begins as a formulaic novel about Penny, a 13-year-old girl who’s uprooted from Manhattan to the podunk town of Hog’s Hollow (population 5,134) after her parents’ separation, quietly evolves into an endearing and poignant story about standing up to adversity and finding peace in what is, rather than holding out for what could be. Penny’s friendship with Tally, an outspoken free spirit and proud founder of the cheeky RPS Society (as in rock, paper, scissors), boosts Penny’s confidence (she’s being picked on by the popular clique at school) and teaches her that getting used to new surroundings takes effort—as well as a propped-up sense of humor. Penny’s burgeoning bond with Marcus, a cute boy with a troubled past and a shared propensity for working through problems while stargazing during moonlit walks on the beach, lends a touch of romance while remaining refreshingly true to age—Hepler (coauthor of Jars of Glass, among others) favors linked pinky fingers over sloppy kisses. And the trio’s various relationships with fill-in adults (Penny’s grandmother, Tally’s aunt) as confidantes is a welcome ingredient that makes for layered teen reading. Ages 12–up. (Sept.)

This engaging, bittersweet story follows biracial British teenager Leonora (“Leo”) Watts-Chan, who was orphaned when her parents were killed in a plane crash, and has fled the home of her maternal aunt and perverted uncle. Interspersed with Leo’s first-person narration are third-person accounts of Finlay, a teenage goth wannabe who first encounters Leo when she steals a bag of doughnuts; the musings of Leo’s uncle, hot on her trail; and newspaper articles and letters. Rescued from homelessness by Mary, a former psychiatric patient, Leo is determined to find the paternal grandparents she has never met. With the help of unlikely friends and a string of coincidences, Leo finds her father’s family and learns the value of friendship (“I kind of think of the friends as my family too, as they’ve all been so good to me”). The characters in Donaldson’s (The Gruffalo; Room on the Broom) YA debut are well drawn and their imperfections are authentic, particularly Mary’s battle with mental illness. Despite heavy themes, the story is neither bleak nor gritty. The fast pace and short chapters should appeal to readers, who will celebrate the hopeful ending. Ages 12–up. (Sept.)

Dowd’s final novel (the author died of cancer in 2007) is a compelling psychological portrait of a girl’s journey from denial to facing the facts that will let her move beyond her troubled past. Holly Hogan, 14, has been a ward of the state for most of her life. She is finally placed with foster parents Fiona and Ray, but is suspicious, unable to believe anyone would be interested in a “delinquent care-babe with a cracked up past.” Then she finds a blonde wig Fiona wore while recovering from chemotherapy, which transforms Holly’s looks—and confidence. At first opportunity, she dons the wig, renames herself “Solace” and hits the road, intent on reaching Ireland, where she thinks her mother fled nine years earlier. Considerable tension is derived from the precarious situations Holly puts herself in—hitching rides, leaving a nightclub with a stranger, hiding in the back of a wagon on a ferry—but the real tightrope she’s walking is along the slippery thread of memory. Readers will root for her to find her balance and arrive safely at the right destination. Ages 14–up. (Oct.)

“I don’t like remembering. Remembering makes me feel things. I don’t like feeling things,” writes Zach as a homework assignment from his therapist at the outset of this psychologically intense novel. Tracing 18-year-old Zach’s somewhat disjointed but utterly candid monologue during his stint at an institution, readers will feel his fear as he remembers the events leading to his hospitalization and meet his “monster,” the unnamed force that appears in his dreams. But breaking through the chaos of Zach’s internal worldare two remarkable individuals: his fatherly roommate, Rafael, and therapist, Adam, whose determination to make Zach whole again never falters. Zach’s progress advances in small steps, and there are plenty of setbacks. Fellow patients who have become his friends leave suddenly, and the sadness of other lost souls is nearly too much for Zach. However, the good that comes from his struggles far outweighs the dark moments. Offering insight into addiction, dysfunction and mental illness, particularly in the wake of traumatic events, Sáenz’s (He Forgot to Say Goodbye) artful rendition of the healing process will not soon be forgotten. Ages 14–up. (Sept.)

Seventeen-year-old Sylvie has recently lost both her father and her nascent career as a ballerina. Sent to visit family in Alabama during her newly remarried mother’s honeymoon, Sylvie grapples not only with dislocation and grief, but with hallucinations—in Central Park, in the airport and in her family’s antebellum mansion, Bluestone Hill—that she cannot control or explain. Her cousin Paula, an old-school steel magnolia, is no comfort, but Sylvie finds warmth in the competing attentions of theTom Sawyeresque Shawn Maddox and Rhys Griffith, a visitor from Wales with secrets of his own. As Sylvie learns more about Shawn, Rhys and the history of Bluestone Hill, she finds strength to understand her family’s past and her own unsettling but hopeful future. Sylvie’s voice is sharp and articulate, and Clement-Moore (the Maggie Quinn: Girl vs. Evil series) anchors the story in actual locations and history, offering au courant speculations about the nature of ghosts and magic. Her ear for both adolescent bitchery and sweetness remains sure, and her ability to write realistic, edgy dialogue without relying on obscenity or stereotype is a pleasure. Ages 14–up. (Sept.)