Web Exclusive Children's Book Reviews: 11/11/2009
-- Publishers Weekly, 11/11/2009 12:30:00 PM
John Denver’s For Baby (For Bobbie)
Adapted and illus. by Janeen Mason. Dawn, $19.95 (36p) ISBN 978-1-58469-120-4
As noted in the afterword for this fifth entry in the John Denver and Kids series, For Baby (For Bobbie), the first song the singer ever recorded, has been interpreted both as a love song and a lullaby. Mason (World’s Greatest Explorer) uses the lyrics to celebrate the family ties of all species, and their interconnectedness to the natural world. Detached from Denver’s familiar voice, the lyrics come off a touch self-righteously touchy-feely: “I’ll walk in the rain by your side,/ I’ll cling to the warmth of your hand./ I’ll do anything to keep your satisfied,/ I’ll love you more than anybody can.” Mason fares a little better; although several paintings smack of greeting-card sentimentality, there are a few striking, poster-like images that make the most of her vivid palette and sculptural style (a Hawaiian mother and daughter dance at sunset before a sea streaked with pink, purple, and orange, as humpback whales leap from the water). A score for the song as well as background information on some of the animals seen in the book round out the package, which also includes an audio CD. All ages. (Sept.)
Boker Tov! Good Morning!
Joe Black, illus. by Rick Brown. Kar-Ben, $16.95 (24p) ISBN 978-0-7613-3950-2; $8.95 paper ISBN 978-0-7613-3951-9
The Hebrew phrase for “Good Morning” is the inspiration for a sweet-natured tribute to the joys of experiencing creation anew each day (“Good morning, light shining in./ So much to do we can’t wait to begin”). Brown’s cheery paintings, which chronicle a boy’s morning at home and school, are distinguished by exuberant colors and have just enough naïf charm to be endearing without cloying. The text (“We thank God for the food we eat/ For the earth beneath our feet.../ For the morning sunshine bright,/ That fills our hearts with joy and light./ Boker tov!”) is actually lyrics to a song on an accompanying CD, from rabbi and singer/songwriter Black’s 1998 album, “Everybody’s Got a Little Music.” While the overly familiar words don’t exactly bounce off the page, they feel far livelier when interpreted by Black’s genial, folksy vocals. A suitably buoyant way to begin the day. Ages 1–4. (Sept.)
The Delicious Bug
Janet Perlman. Kids Can, $16.95 (32p) ISBN 978-1-55337-996-6
Willy and Wally, usually the politest of chameleon friends, lock horns—well, tongues—over a “bumblebug” they’ve both caught. As their eyes bulge and their tongues latch onto the bug, tempers flare: “Just back off, Shlobberface!” “Why don’t you back off, dragonlipsh!” Ample sound effects animate the pages, as do vertical panels that run along the main spreads. Only the threat of becoming lunch for two crocodiles forces Willy and Wally to reconcile. It’s a comic reminder that warring parties often end up looking foolish—and hurting innocent bystanders, too. A concluding sequence shows Willy and Wally making amends for the damage their fight has caused (“A thousand pardons,” Willy apologizes to a “beaky bird,” whose nest was a casualty). Perlman (The Penguin and the Pea), whose animated film is the source for this book, is more interested in drawing comedic action than she is in zoology, and the cast of cartoon characters is a combination of actual species (tomato frogs, lemurs) and invented ones (beaky birds, bumblebugs). Still, it’s a helpful and lively lesson in cooperation and friendship. Ages 3–7. (Sept.)
Achoo! Good Manners Can Be Contagious!
Mij Kelly, illus. by Mary McQuillan. Barron’s, $14.99 (32p) ISBN 978-0-7641-6969-4
The characters from Have You Seen My Potty? return in this follow-up about manners. After Suzy Sue sneezes without covering her mouth, several farm animals decide to intervene: “ ‘It’s true,’ said the cow. ‘She is horribly rude,/ but that doesn’t mean she can’t be improved./ If we teach her the rules, I’m sure we can save her/ from a life of bad manners and ghastly behavior.’ ” Using various animals as examples, the cow offers some rules: “don’t be disgusting” (the animals clean up a “grotty” dog), “don’t eat like a pig,” and “do not fight” (in which a game of tug-of-war between cats is halted). But when the maligned and insulted animals express their unhappiness, it’s the cow who learns a lesson, as Suzy Sue reminds him about the golden rule (“ ‘If you’re kind,’ said Suzy Sue,/ ‘people sometimes learn from you’ ”). McQuillan’s cartoon art offers a playfully exaggerated cast, but the rhythm of the somewhat preachy verse occasionally stumbles, as Kelly concludes that while good manners are important, one shouldn’t be haughty about them. Ages 4–7. (Sept.)
Shapes That Roll
Karen Nagel, illus. by Steve Wilson. Blue Apple (Chronicle, dist.), $14.99 (40p) ISBN 978-1-934706-81-7
Nagel’s (Two Crazy Pigs) verse celebrates a variety of shapes to the accompaniment of Wilson’s (Lines that Wiggle) crisp, colorful spreads. A circle, a square, and a triangle—each with arms, legs, and pleasant smiles—introduce the properties of simple shapes. In an early spread, the school bus–yellow circle rolls a circle (“Shapes that roll”), the lime-green square pushes futilely against a larger square (“Shapes that can’t”), and the candy-pink triangle waves cheerfully near another triangle (“Shapes with sides that angle and slant”). But rather than just delineating shapes’ geometric attributes, Nagel’s goal appears to be getting kids to see shapes everywhere (“The whole wide world is made of shapes”) and helping them consider what they might connote in different applications—a triangle could be part of a seesaw, a pine tree, or the tip of an iceberg. A thick layer of spot varnish applied over the starring shapes on each page intensifies the already bright colors, giving each shape the glossy sheen of tiddlywinks. It’s as close to a play set as a book can be without moving parts, and little eyes and little fingers will be charmed. Ages 4–8. (Sept.)
Future Knight
Tony Davis, illus. by Gregory Rogers. Delacorte, $12.99 (160p) ISBN 978-0-385-73800-2
This uneven novel from Australia launches the Roland Wright series starring a nearly-10-year-old boy living in the Middle Ages. Roland dreams of becoming a knight, but his father is a blacksmith and only “the children of the rich and noble become knights.” Then the king, protected by armor Roland’s father made, survives a battle and announces he will take one of the blacksmith’s two sons into his household to be trained for knighthood. When the smith sets his offspring to a string of tests to determine which of them will win this prized position, Roland seeks the advice of his favorite knight, who tells him that honor, loyalty, and chivalry are every bit as important as knowing how “to bash and crash and stab and slice and dice and pound.” Despite a foregone conclusion and some gross-out humor (Roland resists the temptation to hit an annoying friend “over the head so hard that her brain shot out her earholes like lengths of gray rope”), kids will appreciate the ample silliness and pick up a few details about the era in the process. Ages 6–10. (Sept.)
Looking for Marco Polo
Alan Armstrong, illus. by Tim Jessell. Random, $16.99 (304p) ISBN 978-0-375-83321-2
Newbery Honor author Armstrong (Whittington) weaves the story of Marco Polo into an entertaining contemporary tale. Eleven-year-old Mark’s father, a passionate anthropologist, leaves for a six-month research trip to study Mongol herders in the Gobi Desert. When his father disappears, Mark and his mother travel to Venice in the hopes of finding him through the agency he works for. There, Mark suffers an asthma attack and spends time with Doctor Hornaday, an acquaintance of his father’s, and his mastiff, Boss, both of whom are Marco Polo scholars and great storytellers (“Stories and strangenesses are like falling feathers—they pass and are gone forever unless you catch them as they go,” remarks Hornaday). Like Mark, readers should quickly be drawn into Marco Polo’s colorful life and his travels, a story purportedly passed down through generations of people and animals (“Dogs have history just like people,” Boss tells Jack. “We know. We remember”). Mark’s authentic and emotional letters to his father and Jessell’s detailed pencil drawings enhance this rich recreation of the late 13th century. Ages 8–12. (Sept.)
One Red Apple
Harriet Ziefert, illus. by Karla Gudeon. Blue Apple (Chronicle, dist.), $16.99 (36p) ISBN 978-1-934706-67-1
“Pick a red apple from a tree” is the first of several simple directives that comprise this picture book about the life cycle of an apple, from the creators of Hanukkah Haiku. After a girl delights in a crisp, red apple, birds surround two apple cores (“Leave an apple core for the birds to eat”). Next, dozens of seeds swirl through the air in spiral currents (“Watch tiny apple seeds scatter in the wind”), above a pastoral scene of rolling hills, patchwork fields, and a barn. A sapling sprouts and becomes a tree whose dramatic growth is revealed with a lift of a half-page flap. Soon the fruit is ready for picking and the cycle completes. Ziefert’s spare, straightforward text is ably accompanied by Gudeon’s folk art, which is dominated by strong reds, greens, and browns, and often framed by borders that play off the various scenes (a floral border matches the bounty of a farm stand). The subtle joys of nature and its growing cycles will be appreciated by children far younger than those suggested by the publisher. Ages 8–up. (Sept.)
Joe Rat
Mark Barratt. Eerdmans, $9 paper (320p) ISBN 978-0-8028-5356-1
Portraying a side of Victorian London as seedy as any chronicled by Dickens, debut author Barratt skillfully tells the story of two children and a madman who save each other from various sorts of living hell. Joe is an orphan and a “tosher,” who spends his days underground, sifting through the rat-infested sewers for “a rusted horseshoe, a tin kettle, and half a dozen fresh animal bones”—anything that might turn a penny for the mastermind known as “Mother,” who controls his crime-ridden, lower-class neighborhood. Bess, an impoverished country girl, has been brought to the city by her mother, who hopes to sell her into child prostitution. Together, they take refuge in the decaying home of “the Madman,” a tortured, purportedly supernatural figure. Barratt, a native Londoner, has a talent for historical detail, and is particularly adept at describing the brutal existence of sewer rats, touts, rat-catchers, and various lowlifes, while still providing a limited but suitably Victorian happy ending. Ages 11–up. (Sept.)
The Espressologist
Kristina Springer. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $16.99 (192p) ISBN 978-0-374-32228-1
Jane is coasting through her senior year, working as a barista with her best friend, Em. Her passion for coffee has transformed into what she calls “espressology,” her study of various coffee drinks and the type of person who orders them (“Medium Iced Vanilla Latte: Smart, sweet, and gentle. Sometimes soft-spoken but not a doormat. Loyal and trustworthy. A good friend. Decent looks and body”). As Jane begins to successfully match up customers and friends, her boss decides to spin her talent into a holiday promotion. Anxious about being put in the spotlight, Jane is also trying to duck mean girl Melissa, impress her crush Will (a frat boy more interested in the free coffee Jane gives him than in Jane), and figure out why she is weirded out by Em dating Cam, who Jane isn’t interested in yet can’t stop thinking about. The story’s multiple strands resolve in a satisfying if predictable manner. The amusing bits of espressology and Jane’s quirky and sympathetic voice give this cheerful, breezy romance a unique touch. Ages 12–up. (Sept.)
An Off Year
Claire Zulkey. Dutton, $17.99 (304p) ISBN 978-0-525-42159-7
Teens who get butterflies in their stomachs just thinking about starting college will relate to Cecily, who, upon her arrival at her Kenyon College dorm, decides campus life is not for her (“ ‘You know, actually, I think I’m just going to go back home with you,’ I told my dad, who was still trying to decipher the campus map”). What follows is her “off” year, a time she would rather spend watching TV than trading barbs with her boomerang-daughter older sister, and getting tossed into therapy by her professor father. In a candid first novel filled with funny-smart, true-to-life observations and dialogue between Cecily and her family members, Zulkey traces Cecily’s coming to terms with her fears as she watches old friends move forward and regrets being left behind. Rather than giving pat solutions or clear causes for the protagonist’s reluctance to begin a new life, the book remains focused on her maturing process. If her anxieties aren’t completely quelled by the story’s end, readers will sense that Cecily’s second attempt to leave the nest will go more smoothly. Ages 14–up. (Sept.)
Rage: A Love Story
Julie Anne Peters. Knopf, $16.99 (304p) ISBN 978-0-375-85209-1
Reliable Johanna secretly fantasizes about romantic interludes with wild girl Reeve, but it’s only when she agrees to tutor Robbie, Reeve’s autistic twin brother, that she actually begins to understand just how troubled her anger-prone crush’s life is. Johanna has her own set of problems (her parents are dead, and her relationship with her sister, Tessa, has been strained since Johanna came out), but she is still shocked when she reads Robbie’s essay detailing his and Reeve’s abusive childhood and by the violence she witnesses outside their shabby home. But as Johanna’s romance with Reeve intensifies, so does Reeve’s abuse (at a graduation party, she punches Johanna in the face). Reeve’s home life may seem extreme—especially an act of violence toward the book’s end—but readers will appreciate Peters’s (Luna) incisive handling of such ambitious material. Johanna is a well-crafted character, and readers will understand her motivations, even while wishing she would listen to Tessa, who tells her, “You want to be her savior. But the way she treats you, that isn’t love.” Ages 14–up. (Sept.)
