Children's Book Reviews: Week of 7/21/2008

McDonnell (The Gift of Nothing) continues a winning run of books about friendship starring the clown-nosed cat Mooch. Abandoning dialogue and experimenting with ink-wash sketches, McDonnell introduces a bird whose flock has flown south without him. Scene after scene delivers an emotional wallop as the bird realizes with a shock that his friends have departed (petite drops of sweat leap off his head), collapses in tears (the words “weep weep weep” appear above him), then gazes in amazement at Mooch’s extended paw, a wordless offer to take him to his friends. This small-format book is as neatly paced as a Chaplin movie, with the same tugging at the heartstrings and silent humor. Ages 3–6. (Sept.)

Lloyd (Mr. Pusskins) gets in touch with her inner Richard Scarry for a book that’s busy-as-a-bee chipper. Doctor Meow, a female kitty, is chief of staff at Kiss-It-Better Hospital—and talk about a health-care crisis: “There are temperatures to take, heartbeats to listen to, baby bunnies to feed, and look at Monkey—what’s he got stuck on his head this time?” Despite all the demands, the animals clearly know they’re in good hands with Doctor Meow and her trusty ambulance driver, Woof (whose vehicle gives readers a chance to chime in with “Wee-ooo, wee-ooo”). In fact, the good doctor is even able to heal the social fabric after Tom Cat falls out of a tree (the titular emergency) in pursuit of Mr. Bird. The big, slightly retro pop-off-the-page cartooning makes the book ideal for sharing with a group; the pictures welcome readers with open arms, but pack a surprising dramatic punch, too. The happy prognosis: more titles set in Lloyd’s Whoops-a-Daisy World are in the works. Ages 3–6. (Sept.)

Beloved Bear gets another emotional workout, this time a frightening episode in the dark and stormy woods. While Bear is on the trail of a snack, things quickly turn windy, wet and, as Bear gets lost, downright spooky. He cries and trembles, curling up amid the gnarled roots of a huge tree until his ever-faithful band of woodland friends—who have carefully formed a proper search party—come to his aid. Via rhyming text and the repeated refrain “And the bear feels scared,” Wilson and Chapman (Bear Snores On; Bear Feels Sick) once again tap into the psychology of preschoolers, exploringa common childhood emotion. Chapman’s acrylics capture the motion of the blowing winds, while Bear’s ultra-expressive eyes and lumbering hulk demonstrate his vulnerability; readers will immediately connect to his experience. Meanwhile, in the cozy fire-lit lair, preparations for Bear’s rescue—replete with lantern and string to tie the searchers to one another—evoke warm feelings about teamwork and support. Ages 3–7. (Aug.)

Piggybacking onto the original Madeline books by his grandfather, Marciano sends the “twelve little girls in two straight lines” to Rome, where his red-haired heroine chases a thief and saves a house full of cats. Like its models, this add-on is filled with both yellow and full-color pages, absurd plot twists and a Bemelmans-style visual guide of places to visit. Regrettably, as in his Madeline Says Merci, Marciano’s didactic theme reduces the spirited Madeline to a smug counterfeit. When the thief Catarina explains that she steals only to feed Rome’s starving stray cats, Madeline self-righteously says, “While I applaud your charity,/ Let me say this with clarity:/ STEALING IS WRONG—no matter the cause.” Awkward syntax and forced rhymes abound (“Madeline said, 'My, what a nice kitten.’/ Her dog was of a different opinion”), and at their best the illustrations are no more than serviceable imitations of Bemelmans’s style. The joy and brio of the original books go missing. Ages 3–up. (Sept.)

Adding to the slate of presidential-election titles, Feiffer’s (Henry the Dog with No Tail) spirited picture book introduces a fresh-faced candidate, plucky Luke Pennybaker. Fed up with the blatant unfairness at home (no TV time, even after he’s done his chores), Luke and his running mate, Lily the dog, represent the Birthday Party, espousing a platform of messy rooms all around as well as cake, ice cream and pets for everyone. When their message (“Be fair!”) catches on, Luke and Lily find themselves in the White House (painted orange at Luke’s request)—which may not be ideal after all. Goode’s (Baby Face) airy, pale-hued watercolors cleverly set the context. Seemingly realistic, the illustrations are blithely anachronistic, mixing black-and-white TVs, sputtering jalopies, a 1940s police uniform and knee-length boys’ trousers—a faux-historical setting just right for a tale framed as “the story of how Luke Pennybaker became the youngest boy ever to run for president.” The line between fantasy and real-world politics stays clear, leaving readers free to enjoy the fun. Ages 4–8. (Aug.)

Baby Einstein grads seeking their first coffee-table book might savor this abecedary, which pays homage to abstract expressionism and pop art. Johnson (Alphabet City) creates a multimedia artwork for each letter and describes it with a lengthy alliterative caption. Letter C’s “Camouflage” consists of “countless colorful candies” in a “clear circular container.” In H’s “Hoopla,” an installation of silvery-blue hula hoops hangs from an industrial ceiling, while M’s “Meditation on the Memory of a Princess” references fairy tales with eight stacked magenta mattresses and a “mini mauve marble.” Connoisseurs will detect allusions to Rauschenberg, Lichtenstein and Motherwell; details of the pieces sometimes become microscopic on the pages, but a dust-jacket photo of Johnson in his studio confirms this project’s impressive scope. Unfortunately, salient associations can be lost in transition to page with the reduction of scale. Crisp white backgrounds reinforce the book’s resemblance to an exhibition catalogue, as does a disconcertingly lofty foreword where Johnson explains, “I took ordinary objects and made them unfamiliar, removing functionality in order to reveal their potential metaphorical associations.” The apparatus may not enhance the ABC game, but opens the book to an adult audience. Ages 5–9. (Sept.)

Fans and new readers alike will greedily devour McKinley’s latest, a high fantasy as perfectly shaped and eloquently told as Beauty and The Hero and the Crown. Humble beekeeper Mirasol has been chosen to take on the key ceremonial role of Chalice, the woman charged with maintaining the province’s well-being by communicating with the (sentient) land. She is keenly aware of the suffering brought on by the misrule of its former Master: “[The province] Willowlands was restless, hurt and unhappy... delirious as a child with a bad fever.” Hope flickers when the former Master’s brother returns and assumes the role; but because he is now an Elemental priest of Fire, he may not be able to perform the duties. Mirasol and the new Master are drawn to each other, even though she suspects their union is prohibited, and their smoldering attraction—plus the gorgeously evoked magic and the escalating threat that Willowlands will be usurped—gives this tale its sizzle. In the best McKinley fashion, the fantasy realm is evoked in thorough and telling detail, with the energy of the narrative lending excitement to descriptions of even the most stylized rituals. A lavish and lasting treat. Ages 12–up. (Sept.)

Rees’s (Witch Child) evocative writing will once again sweep readers back in time to meet another of her iron-willed protagonists, Sovay, who is fashioned after the heroine of a traditional British ballad. Raised in the English countryside during the French Revolution, 17-year-old Sovay embarks on a mission to find her missing father and brother, who’ve been condemned for supporting the Revolution. Her search takes her to dangerous corners of London and Paris, where she plays the roles of highway robber, spy and socialite to gather clues and outwit a treacherous villain who desires to overthrow Britain’s throne. History buffs will relish detailed descriptions of period dress, inventions and architecture sprinkled throughout the novel, but may be most intrigued by the author’s insight into France’s shift of power after the storming of the Bastille. Capturing the romantic, dramatic flavor of late-18th-century prose (“However much she fought against it, a sense of menace, vague, but all-pervading, began to seep into her soul”) without compromising the complexity of her characters, the author creates a suspenseful tale of political intrigue and class struggle. Ages 12–up. (Sept.)

Fresh and funny, this debut novel introduces a 15-year-old Catholic schoolgirl who experiences typical adolescent angst but has her own way of dealing with it: Antonia regularly petitions the saints. Longing for her first kiss, she settles on St. Augustine as an intercessor (“Hark back to your wayward youth,” she urges him in her Saint Diary), but when her prayer gets her more aggressive action than she bargained for, Antonia decides to fill the gap in hagiography and proposes herself as the patron saint of the first kiss. Her e-mails to the Vatican (inhabited here by a pope open to the notion of women priests, gay marriage, etc.) add flair to a coming-of-age novel already vivid for its warm portrayal of urban Italian-American family life. “My daughter looks like a puttana! What have I done to deserve this?” shrieks Antonia’s widowed mother when she catches Antonia rolling up the waist of her school uniform (Antonia’s list of the “Top Five Ways Italians Express Love” begins with “by being totally honest with each other, i.e., fighting”). While getting at serious issues, Freitas (author of Killing the Imposter God and a frequent contributor to PW) wins readers over with a beautifully sustained light touch. Ages 12–up. (Aug.)

Sinister yet seductive, this brooding thriller bears all the Brooks (Lucas) hallmarks, chiefly the British author’s painful awareness of teenage alienation, made urgent by violent events; and a marked taste for ambiguity. Five teens precede a trip to a carnival with a visit to their long-abandoned hideout; as the narrator, Pete, explains, all five used to be friends, now they see one another as “people you used to know.” The next morning, one of them is missing—Raymond, a borderline type who believes his black rabbit can talk to him—as is a local girl turned wild-child celebrity, seen taunting Raymond the previous evening. As the police hunt for the starlet, Pete alone worries about Raymond and begins trying to track him. Brooks calibrates the relationships among these characters with such subtlety that readers get swept up even by the MacGuffins, and it’s in the characters’ hidden histories that Pete finds his clues. A running motif about the relationship between close observation and intuition might encourage readers to pay unusually strict attention; it will equip them for the semi-open ending. Ages 12–up. (July)

The coauthor of the 10th-Grade Social Climbers series, Mechling brings a lively awareness of girl-on-girl dynamics to this light mystery. There’s also an extrasensory twist—the heroine, the haplessly named Claire Voyante, has visions, although she rarely knows what to make of them. On Claire’s 15th birthday, her grandmother—a showgirl who married well—presents her with an old necklace, saying, “When I wore [it], all my dreams started to come true.” Claire is so busy adjusting to her ultra-competitive new school, however, that neither the necklace nor the dreams she begins having make much impact on her. The story hinges on Claire’s friendship with Becca Shutterworth, a fabulously rich new classmate; Becca’s attractive older brother serves as Claire’s heartthrob, and his devious girlfriend helps carry out a nefarious scheme targeting the Shutterworth family. While the mystery element is too obvious and readers may grow impatient for Claire’s visions to affect the plot, the foundation is solid—the majority of Mechling’s main characters seem both cheerfully idiosyncratic and recognizable, well-observed denizens of the Manhattan setting who deliver plenty of entertainment. Ages 12–up. (July)

In five wonderfully chilling short stories, Noyes (Red Butterfly; Gothic!) pays homage to Edith Wharton’s ghost story “Kerfol,” about the wealthy Anne de Barrigan—terrorized by a husband who murders her dogs and then is himself murdered by their ghosts. The first entry retells the story from the point of view of the chambermaid Perrette; the following stories march forward chronologically from the original’s 17th-century setting but remain at the Kerfol chateau. In suspenseful prose that evolves from Perrette’s antique speech (“I kept close by [Milady], especially when the moon swelled and paw prints dotted the mud round the moat come morning”) to a contemporary perspective, Noyes follows four more unsuspecting and vulnerable victims as they enter Kerfol, now filthy with neglect, where their thoughts are overtaken by the voices and visions of those long dead. Ghost dogs appear from nowhere; the evil, twisted Yves de Cornault inspires terror from the grave; and the still beautiful spirit of Anne haunts the estate. Readers will be eager to know how next this house and its ghosts wreak havoc—and even death—on those unlucky enough to darken its doorstep. Ages 14–up. (Aug.)

You don’t have to be a genius to realize that babies are just lazy,” complains the peeved, thoroughly cosmopolitan young heroine at the start of Orlean’s first children’s book (after her well-received adult titles, The Orchid Thief and Saturday Night), expanded from a 1996 New Yorker “Shouts and Murmurs” piece. But as our girl walks through the heart of Manhattan on her way to school, readers will quickly realize that her argument is colored by a classic case of displacement: the baby who exemplifies all that’s wrong with babyhood is in fact her little brother. Clearly, no one cares that she’s lugging the world’s biggest backpack (a sublime visual joke) or that babies get to hang out “mostly naked” in Central Park (“all loafing around and looking as happy as clams”) while big kids like her are “hard at work taking tests, giving book reports, and figuring out tough math questions.” Karas (Muncha! Muncha! Muncha!) matches the wry text with deadpan cartoons of jaded babies ferried in limousines or beaming as they lounge in strollers, and his handsome palette of browns and golds (with a little photo-collage thrown in for punctuation) captures Manhattan in all its autumnal glory. Obviously, life isn’t so bad—but to the team’s great credit, the book ends neither with the narrator capitulating nor with a poignant reconciliation between siblings. One of the wittiest new-baby-in-the-family books of recent years. Ages 5–8. (Oct.)

In a land of seven kingdoms, people with special talents, called Gracelings, are identified by their eyes—Katsa’s are green and blue, one of each—although she’s eight before her specific Grace is identified as a talent for killing. (While in the court of her uncle, King Randa, she swiped at a man attempting to grope her and struck him dead.) By 18 she’s King Randa’s henchwoman, dispatched to knock heads and lop off appendages when subjects disobey, but she hates the job. As an antidote, she leads a secret council whose members work against corrupt power, and in this role, while rescuing a kidnapped royal, she meets the silver-and-gold–eyed Po, the Graced seventh son of the Lienid king. That these two are destined to be lovers is obvious, though beautiful, defiant Katsa convincingly claims no man will control her. Their exquisitely drawn romance (the sex is offstage) will slake the thirst of Twilight fans, but one measure of this novel’s achievements lies in its broad appeal. Tamora Pierce fans will embrace the take-charge heroine; there’s also enough political intrigue to recommend it to readers of Megan Whalen Turner’s Attolia trilogy. And while adult readers, too, will enjoy the author’s originality, the writing is perfectly pitched at teens struggling to put their own talents to good use. With this riveting debut, Cashore has set the bar exceedingly high. Ages 14–up. (Oct.)