Children's Book Reviews: 11/9/2009

A baby polar bear finds refuge underneath the warm body and four legs of his mother, Mama Polar: “He didn’t feel the icy wind there. And he could hear the beating of his mother’s heart.” Playing in the snow before a big storm, Baby Polar tastes snowflakes, makes a Snow Goose, and skates across the ice before realizing he’s lost. Balouch’s (The Ghost Catcher) digitally created polar bears and their surroundings are shown in flat, collage-like compositions. The polar bear bodies, the hail of driving snow, the swirl of gale winds and Mama Polar’s visible pink and red heart are crisply outlined, and their interactions generate drama, as the massive Mama Polar looms over her tiny offspring or, when he is lost, spiraling winds and snow assail him. Murphy’s (Ahwoooooooo!) skillful pacing creates just enough suspense before Baby Polar is safe again. Mama Polar’s reassuring, offhand manner provides an additional smile of relief: “Yes, I’m Mama Polar. But who are you? Are you a little snowball that has rolled into me?” Despite the Arctic chill, it’s a cozy vision of family. Ages 3–5. (Nov.)

Two small, stoic fishermen sail around the world on an ice floe, having various nautical adventures with minimal fuss and arriving home in time for bed. In each spread, understated four-word couplets by Crowley (Ugh! A Bug!) accompany Day’s (Duel!: Burr and Hamilton’s Deadly War of Words) loose pencil-and-watercolor paintings. The pair’s trip begins when a fishing line gets snagged on an orca and they’re towed dragged into the ocean at top speed (“Salty brine/ Floating free/ Tangled line/ Out to sea”). Later, a flock of puffins chasing fish creates a giant wake; Nanook and Pryce’s pet husky frightens potential predators away (“Round and round/ Warning barks/ Fearless hound/ Scaredy sharks”); and a detour into the tropics necessitates suntan lotion as well as sunglasses for the husky. Through it all, Nanook and Pryce sit across from each other unperturbed, their expressionless faces barely visible from within the puffy hoods of their oversize parkas. It’s a great running joke, and Crowley’s verse and Day’s tongue-in-cheek spreads are as well-paired as Nanook and Pryce. Ages 3–8. (Nov.)

With distinctive childlike artwork and language that telegraph a range of strong childhood emotions, from glee to hurt to contentedness, Horácek (Silly Suzy Goose) envisions a boy’s adventures with an imaginary elephant. Both the story and the mixed-media illustrations focus on the essentials, but each picture is splashed large on the white pages. The elephant’s hide is made of wild scribbles (to an appropriately leathery effect) and even the boy’s bed features a striking blue and white stripe design. After the boy blames each of his mistakes on the elephant, he is surprised to find his grandparents willing to play along (to an extent): “And was it your elephant who knocked over the orange juice?” his grandmother asks. The boy’s indulgent grandparents are portrayed as quaintly old-fashioned—the grandmother has her gray hair in a bun and wears a polka-dot housedress. But even when they are gently reprimanding the boy for messing up the flower bed or eating the cupcakes, their faces beam with love, and the tone of the book is sweetly reassuring. Ages 3–up. (Nov.)

Larson and Nethery, who collaborated on Two Bobbies, team up with Dennis to tell the moving story of the Marine major’s friendship with a wild dog he befriended at a border fort in Iraq. Dennis named the dog Nubs because his “ears had been cut off to make him a dog of war” (a statement never explained). Though Nubs futilely attempts to follow Dennis when he departs the fort, the two grow closer on subsequent visits, until the dog (now wounded) treks 70 miles through the snow to find Dennis. When the major is ordered to “get rid of the dog, or else,” he raises money to have Nubs transported to his San Diego hometown, where human and dog eventually reunite. Some spreads feel cluttered with narrative passages, e-mail sidebars, and multiple images; the photographs, gleaned from several sources, are of varying quality and resolution (understandable given the circumstances under which most were taken). But these do not diminish the emotional impact of the saga, which should appeal to fans of Owen and Mzee and other stories of animals that triumph against the odds. Ages 3–up. (Nov.)

In this solid addition to Anholt’s Artists series, Paul Cézanne invites his son to visit him in the countryside. Arriving by train, the boy finds his father on a mountainside, “making a wild painting.” He leads his son to the summit, remarking, “It’s a long way, but if we follow the path, we won’t get lost.” When villagers deride the artist’s work, he tells the boy, “The world doesn’t understand me and I don’t understand the world.” But a stranger appreciates Cézanne’s paintings and brings them to Paris, where they sell quickly. Steeped in metaphor (mountain and apple themes recur), Anholt’s dialogue-driven narrative successfully reveals the painter’s eccentricities and his bond with his son. The book’s layered illustrations include reproductions of Cézanne’s paintings incorporated into Anholt’s watercolors, many of which feature the Provence landscapes so prominent in the painter’s work. Anholt gives several nods to Cézanne masterpieces, as when father and son sit on a ledge overlooking the panorama depicted in Mont Sainte-Victoire and two men in a cafe mimic the subjects of The Card Players. Ages 4–7. (Nov.)

Bootman (Fish for the Grand Lady) triumphs with this gorgeously moody, thoroughly cinematic retelling of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, ingeniously set during the Harlem Renaissance and starring a mysterious musician from the Caribbean (who, it should be noted, has more than a passing resemblance to Laurence Fishburne). The oil paintings conjure up a gritty, workaday world where magic has taken hold: the vermin do cannonballs into bathtubs, and straphangers at the 125½ Street subway platform are suddenly transformed into feverish Lindy Hoppers when the stranger begins to play his steel pan (“He held the sticks in the air, closed his eyes, and began playing the sweetest melody anyone had ever heard”). With text that beautifully embellishes the pictures, and a far happier and more politically relevant ending than the original (after Harlem’s white mayor reneges on his promise to pay the musician for driving out the rats, he’s seen fox-trotting out of town, never to be seen again), this book has all the makings of a spellbinder. Ages 5–9. (Nov.)

Tony Award–winning actor Mitchell’s fittingly dramatic introduction ushers readers into the world of Broadway, inviting them to “be ignited by the incredible collaborative magic that gives life and light to the theater.” The theme of collaboration recurs throughout this alphabetical roundup of theatrical terms—A is for actor, O is for orchestra, U is for understudy—which spotlights the many roles that play a part in mounting a stage production. Other entries (improvisation, lights, rehearsal) address techniques or mechanics of the theater. Quotations from celebrated actors, producers, and other figures from the theater world (among them Nathan Lane, Billy Crudup, and Idina Menzel) add sparkle and insight to these busy pages, but there are also humdrum bits (“Every member of the audience needs a ticket in order to enter the theater and see the show”). Kreloff’s neon illustrations incorporate a range of display type and cartoon styles, and evoke the dazzle and buzz of Broadway. A CD featuring Mitchell singing an adaptation of “I Was Here” is included. Ages 8–up. (Nov.)

The mischievous title character in McCoy’s wacky debut is a pirate obsessed with bacon; he’s also the imaginary friend—or, to use the proper term, “abstract companion”—of 14-year-old Ted Merritt. When Ted, fed up with Goonda’s shenanigans, agrees to take experimental medicine to rid himself of his visions, he gets caught up in a war among the abstract companions. The skeletal bird Persephone has taken over the kingdom of the companions, and her plans include world domination and marriage to the very unwilling Goonda. Only Ted and a handful of rebels can help fight against Persephone’s oppressive new regime. McCoy provides heaps of surreal humor, from wildly original companions with bizarre quirks to Ted’s own family, particularly his loud-mouthed and inappropriate grandmother, who shouts things like, “CAPE COD NEEDS TO GET RID OF ALL THIS SAND!” The trope of imaginary friends who actually exist is well-worn, but McCoy breathes new life into it with his charming writing style and characters. There are a few missteps (notably an underestimation of children’s ability to use their imaginations), but the book remains satisfying. Ages 10–up. (Nov.)

Compestine (Revolution Is Not a Dinner Party) pens a gruesome but delightful grouping of eight stories about so-called hungry ghosts—“the spirits of people who often died hungry, prematurely, and unjustly”—who return to seek vengeance. In one tale, Jiang plays up the fact that his modern inn is haunted (centuries earlier, the previous owner was murdered after being caught filling his dumplings with human flesh—à la Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd), but things don’t end well for the ghost-seeking tourists who visit. In another, Chou is sentenced to death for accidentally killing his boss during a fight (“Chou raised his arm to block her blow. As he told everyone later, he had forgotten about the cleaver in his hand”), but when his organs are harvested, they turn the patients who receive them into murderers themselves. Compestine includes historical context for the stories and a number of recipes (though some readers may find they lack an appetite). The stories are laced with beautiful (as well as lurid) images and chilling illustrations of the ghosts and their victims. Like the ghosts themselves, Compestine’s memorable stories should prove difficult to shake. Ages 12–up. (Nov.)

In a thought-provoking coming-of-age story, British writer Almond (Skellig; Clay) delves into the darkest realm of the human psyche as he expresses the conflicting urges of an adolescent. Liam is walking with a friend when a mysterious raven leads them to an abandoned baby. The boys are lauded for bringing the infant safely home, but Liam doesn’t feel heroic. While he has enormous tenderness for the infant (and a pair of foster children he meets), he is deeply affected by acts of violence: sordid videos sent to him by a classmate, visceral accounts of war, and a local art gallery’s display of disturbing images. His mother dismisses the pictures as “voyeuristic trash,” but his father thinks they may have value: “Maybe they’re showing us how horrible the world is.” Liam’s views vacillate and his morals are tested several times, but never as dramatically as during a final reckoning, when violence seems the only way to save a friend’s life. Almond tackles complex questions about humanity from multiple points of view; flashes of wisdom—sometimes painful, sometimes uplifting—arrive at unexpected moments. Ages 12–up. (Nov.)

In 1918, sharp-tongued and street-smart Hellie lives in New York City with her beloved older brother, Harry, and their crew of thieves “taking on life before life took them on.” At age 13, Hellie is an illiterate tomboy (only Harry knows she’s a girl), but she doesn’t consider herself “homeless or helpless. These streets were her home.” When Harry gets shot, he seizes the opportunity to give Hellie a chance at a better life (and get a fresh start of his own) and fakes his death. She follows his parting wish and leaves on the orphan train, which is sending abandoned children out west for adoption (in one priceless scene, Hellie belts out a bawdy song for an audience of prospective parents). Meanwhile, Harry begins dealing morphine to soldiers returning from WWI, but when he discovers that Hellie has been sold as an indentured servant in Oregon, he heads west after her. Platt’s (The Likes of Me) realistic dialogue and period details contribute greatly, and readers will be drawn in as Hellie’s willfulness proves a formidable asset against her many obstacles. Ages 12–up. (Nov.)

Two years after her mother dies in a car wreck, 16-year-old Kara Harper and her father move from America to Japan because of a love of the country and to start a new life. But death is all around them at Kara’s new school: a student named Akane was murdered there several months earlier, and as Kara befriends Akane’s sister, Sakura, other students begin dying under mysterious circumstances. Sakura is sure that Akane has risen from the grave to avenge herself, while Kara and their friend Miho guess that a demonic entity from Japanese legend is responsible. Randall fills the story, first in the Waking series, with details about Japanese culture and evocative descriptions (“Miyazu Bay reflected back the blue sky with a purity that made her breath catch.... leaving an American suburb behind for natural beauty such as this was like waking up in some magical kingdom”), while slowly building tension and winding the plot ever tighter, weaving together current threats and age-old mysteries. Regardless of readers’ level of familiarity with Japan, the horror-tinged story should fascinate and thrill. Ages 12–up. (Nov.)

Hans Christian Andersen Award–winner Mahy serves up a highly successful fantasy concerning Heriot Tarbas, a young man subject to fits and prophetic dreams, who believed that “something ravenous was feeding on him and tearing him into two.” Heriot is soon sent to the capitol to become the Magician of Hoad, serving the king by reading the minds of courtiers and diplomats and creating magical entertainments. He must also deal with the treachery of Carlyon, the Hero of Hoad (the king’s ceremonial co-ruler); the eccentricities of the king’s three sons, two of whom may be mad and one of whom is in love; and his own growing attachment to Cayley, a feisty gutter rat of uncertain parentage and gender. Mahy (Maddigan’s Fantasia) is a master at creating odd but compelling characters and Heriot makes a fine, somewhat fey protagonist. Although Hoad is a fairly generic medieval kingdom, Heriot’s magic owes as much to the logic of dreams and surrealism as it does to the traditions of Tolkien and genre fantasy. This is a lovely tale that should thoroughly please the author’s many readers. Ages 14–up. (Nov.)

This first novel about a boy who loves music can be heavy-handed, but it hits enough high notes to be a crowd-pleaser. Sammy is trying to keep his band, Tragedy of Wisdom, together, but with a bullying singer and a spacey bassist, it seems destined to end in disaster. Of course, Sammy’s got his own problems, from his grandfather’s deteriorating health to a good friend who is hoping to escalate their relationship. After a bad open mike night, Sammy is convinced he “can’t sing in front of other people.” The characters are a bit extreme, such as Joe, the band’s rage-ridden frontman from the projects who writes a song about the “sanity closet.” Readers will easily predict the trajectory of Sammy’s story, but even so, this angsty protagonist is an easy character to like, and readers will relate to his struggle with the fact that “[t]hings happened that you couldn’t control.” The use of music throughout, as well as descriptions of what it’s like to play and perform, add flourish to this coming-of-age story. Ages 14–up. (Nov.)

While the message that “money doesn’t buy happiness” prevails throughout this rags-to-riches story, Colebank (Black Tuesday) expresses several other themes as she traces the escalating conflicts of a grounded teenager whose mother wins the lottery. At first, having enough money to finally get out of debt seems like an answer to a prayer for Reggie Shaw’s struggling family. But the spending doesn’t stop with paying off overdue bills. Reggie’s mother, a compulsive shopper and gambler, goes overboard, buying new clothes and furnishings (“I knew we had money, but it wasn’t like we were filthy rich,” Reggie laments). Adding to Reggie’s stress: she is being blackmailed by a self-centered cousin, her mother plans to remarry, and Reggie wonders whether she can trust a cute co-worker who wants to take her out on a date. Then there’s the matter of Reggie’s best friend, whom Reggie suspects is being abused. Problems arise as fast and furious as Mrs. Shaw’s shopping sprees, and readers may find themselves out of breath—and overwhelmed—long before the novel’s final, abrupt turn of events. Ages 14–up. (Nov.)

These books aim to wow.

Organic illustrations with an element of folk art complement the 3D format of this interpretation of the fairy tale. Text appears on foldout tabs designed to look like theater curtains, and each spread expands to show three levels of perspective, like intricately layered stage sets (through a group of trees in the immediate foreground, Snow White is seen wandering toward the dwarves’ home, while rolling hills and the departing woodsman can be seen in the distance). A gracefully designed vision that will draw readers in. Ages 3–up. (Nov.)

From the maker of My Little Red Toolbox, this dynamic book lets readers handle the care and maintenance of a fire truck. An unseen narrator takes 30 minutes each morning to make sure everything is in order, and kids can help by using a variety of movable, often removable, components. A green cardboard nozzle can be inserted into a diesel fuel tank; on another page, readers can partially unravel a yellow hose; a later spread features a driving wheel with a changeable gearshift as well as a handheld radio. The energetic, gadget-filled format provides a gratifying tactile experience. Ages 3–up. (Sept.)

In this princess tell-all, characters like Snow White, Thumbelina, and the Little Mermaid reveal their secrets in panels that can be read like miniature books, removable notes in envelopes (readers can also write their own), and fold-down flaps, which are smoothly incorporated into Delanssay’s lavish illustrations. While the disclosures are often whimsical, several disappoint (Scheherazade gets her allure and imagination from a magical bellybutton gemstone; Sleeping Beauty uses a sleeping spell “to receive even more hugs and kisses from her darling Prince”). Ages 4–7. (Nov.)

The earnest speaker in this fun story, based on the author’s song of the same title, pleads for a dog, promising that it “will never, ever make a mess” (via a pull tab, she sweeps his “mess” into a dustpan as she holds her nose). Other animals—a hippo, a pig—won’t do (turning a wheel helps the girl feed an endless bucket of slop to a tubby swine). On a final pop-up spread, she embraces a dog, surrounded by blooming, red hearts. Effective interactive elements and simple humor will charm. Ages 4–8. (Oct.)

This engaging novelty item consists of a paperback storybook and a 19-piece toy kit. Renny is having a terrible day: bullies pick on him, and for dinner his mum serves “grusseled sprouts.” As a way to deal, he builds “Robox,” a blocky, red robot with a voracious appetite who eats Renny’s troubles (and gets out of hand). Readers can also construct a Robox (it’ll stand over 16 inches tall). The packaging box becomes its torso, rectangular cardboard pieces form its limbs, and Robox’s head lifts, so readers can feed it (stickers can be stuck onto its see-through belly). This has potential to be a holiday hit. Ages 4–8. (Oct.)

This eclectic scrapbook-style book is allegedly compiled by “Flora Twinkletoes” to teach aspiring dancers (a smiling boy and a girl who resemble paper dolls, serve as her sample audience) about her experiences as a ballerina. Dance tips are provided—in one spread, male and female figures demonstrate each of the “Seven Key Movements”—and inventive narrative elements appear in the form of envelopes containing letters to and from Flora, as well as reviews of her performances, written by such characters as “Annabelle Critique.” The many details and whimsical interactive elements should delight ballet lovers. Ages 6–9. (Oct.)

This oversize book features “phantogram” images of 20 pets that include a variety of small mammals, birds, amphibians, and reptiles. With the naked eye, the images are blurry, but with the use of 3D glasses (two pairs are included), the pets appear to spring to life. A double-page spread uncovers the science behind 3D and phantograms, and there’s also information included about each animal (“Being omnivores, potbellied pigs eat everything: fruits, vegetables, grains, and meat”). But it’s the striking visual effect that will have the strongest appeal. Ages 7–14. (Oct.)