Gem
Two letters—from grandmother to granddaughter and vice versa—frame this otherwise wordless story of a toad named Gem. Over a spread of a New England cottage in the midst of a snowstorm, a letter from “Gram” to her granddaughter Hope explains the book’s genesis: the girl’s discovery of a toad the previous spring (“I wanted to tell the story of Gem’s spring journey—all the way to my garden”). At the end, a thank-you note from Hope reveals her as a thoughtful, strong-spirited child (“Toads are not pets,” she writes, explaining why she let Gem go. “They want to be free, like everything does”). Hobbie’s (Everything but the Horse) watercolor and pen-and-ink closeups are done with care that recalls Beatrix Potter’s. Some are filled in with generous backgrounds of flowers and greenery, while others show Gem alone on the white page, leaping, courting, and sitting among his offspring. The view of Gem on the last page, reveling in the garden’s moonlight, will convince readers that Gem is better off in the wild. Hobbie clearly delights in painting the arrival of spring, and Gem is its living embodiment. Up to age 3. (Apr.)
Imaginative and sweet-natured, Dyckman’s picture-book debut centers on the relationship between a boy and a robot, whose mutual generosity embodies the very best that friendship has to offer. Scruffy haired Boy and red, bullet-shaped Bot hit it off immediately after they meet in the forest. But when a rock accidentally turns off Bot’s power switch, Boy jumps into caregiver mode, taking Bot home, feeding him applesauce, reading him a story, and tucking him in for the night. And when Bot is inadvertently reactivated and finds Boy asleep, he reciprocates the only way he knows how, giving Boy oil, reading him an instruction manual, and bringing him a spare battery. Yaccarino’s (All the Way to America) brightly colored gouache illustrations and chunky characterizations are filled with affection and create a warm and cheery environment from first page to last. Dyckman’s pared-down prose gives the role-reversal story just enough drama, humor, and robot-inflected dialogue (“Boy! You-are-fixed!” cheers Bot when Boy wakes up) to keep children entertained for many re-readings. Ages 1–4. Agent: Scott Treimel, Scott Treimel NY. Illustrator’s agent: Rebecca Sherman, Writers House. (Apr.)
Bella is in a contrarian mood, to put it charitably. It starts when she wakes up to find her little brother, Bob, “crawling around my room and licking my jewelry,” and it’s downhill from there. Nothing goes right for Bella, and she’s more than willing to play her misery forward: after her cookie breaks during a play-date lunch, Bella insists that Bob and her friend Sasha “can’t be princesses!” But by bedtime, the exhausted narrator apologizes for her behavior. “We all have those days sometimes,” says her mother sagely. Patterson keeps her artwork simple—her line drawings have a pared-down feel, and most of the scenes share the same straight-on perspective. But by giving Bella the same disheveled mop of brown hair, glaring eyes, and gaping black hole for a mouth on virtually every page, and coupling these elements with a heedless, furious physicality, Patterson conveys a rage that readers should find appalling and thrilling at the same time. One is reminded of the words of Addison DeWitt in All About Eve: “You’re maudlin and full of self-pity. You’re magnificent!” Ages 3–5. (Apr.)
Yawns can be contagious, but sneezes? They sure are in this strangely sedate offering from Mandel (Jackhammer Sam) and Smith (Stalling), in which “a sleepy Sunday at the City Zoo” is disrupted by a snow leopard’s sneeze, with other animals following suit. Mandel has fun with the over-the-top sneeze sounds the animals make—the elephant’s “RRRrrr-eeeEEE-ahh-PHOOOO!!!” takes down a tree and flattens a fence, and the hippo’s “Kah-bah-RUMppphhhHHHH!!!” causes a mud volcano. Yet for all these outsize consequences, the brunt of the prose is overly descriptive and flat (“The Zookeeper knew he had to act. Act fast. Flamingos were floating. Foxes were fishing. The Polar Bear hung on to his iceberg”), and the quick-fix ending is unsatisfying. Smith’s pen, ink, and watercolor cartoons feature wide-eyed animals, perplexed zoo visitors, and plenty of geyserlike explosions, but never really create a true sense of chaos. The book ends as sleepily as it begins, with the animals snoozing (a gag that regular zoo-goers will appreciate), and even the promise of a second round of silliness isn’t enough to rescue this outing. Ages 3–6. (Mar.)
An abandoned, broken-down bus—destination “Heaven”—unites a community and inspires Stella, the heroine of Graham’s (April and Esme: Tooth Fairies) uplifting story. “It could be... ours,” whispers Stella, a quiet girl “the color of moonlight” who sees only potential for the battered vehicle. Stella’s visionary attitude is contagious, and soon all the neighbors are helping clean and decorate the bus, making it into a lovely community hub, complete with table soccer, a fishbowl, and a library of books for everyone to enjoy. Even when city regulations threaten the bus, Stella finds a truly original way to save the day. Graham’s ink-and-watercolor scenes capture the small details (overgrown yards, vacant lots, old tires, and refrigerators) of a struggling urban neighborhood eager for a sign of hope. And he effortlessly depicts a slice of city life, in which people of various religions, races, ages, and occupations pull together as one. As Stella shifts from meek to bold, and the bus transforms into a rainbow of color and activity, Graham’s artwork grows brighter, too, highlighting the story’s transformative message. Ages 3–up. (Mar.)
The eponymous pen—both magical and stubborn—isn’t content to be the instrument of just any old human’s creativity. When a grownup possesses it, the pen will only write insults (instead of writing “The following story is all true,” for its first owner, the pen scribbles, “You have a BIG nose”) or unwanted advice (“Kiss her, banana head!” it instructs a police officer about to issue a citation to a smitten citizen). But when young Horace gets his mitts on the pen and begins drawing, it turns as docile as a kitty, allowing him to scribble as many drawings as his imagination can muster. The world of this book is more fleshed out and colorful than that of Dormer’s Socksquatch (2010), but it’s still goofily offbeat: rich people ride in enormous convertible limos, policemen dress like Gilbert and Sullivan characters, and topiary abounds. Dormer’s gift for understated whimsy shows no evidence of abating, and adult readers may even detect a little bit of William Steig in his amusement at (and affection for) the follies of humanity. Ages 4–8. (Apr.)
Prince Henrik yearns for a girl who likes hockey and camping, but his older brother, Hans, insists that only a “real” princess who’s “very beautiful and very sensitive” will do. Someone like Hans’s wife, Eva, who passed the pea-under-the-mattresses-test with flying colors, but whose sensitivity really amounts to being a self-important whiner. Will Henrik find true love with his own version of the test, which involves frozen peas and a sleeping bag? And will anyone be surprised that the winner is his old pal Pippa, who’s sporty but not posh and “has a lovely gap between her two front teeth”? This story has indie rom-com written all over it (think The Royal Tenenbaums). Whether children warm to the book’s laid-back vibe, Wilson’s reportorial prose and deGennaro’s hipster naïf sketches give this tale of unconventional princes and princesses an authenticity that not all stories in this mold possess. There are plenty of boys who would enjoy hanging out with gangly, always-game Pippa, and just as many girls who would be happy to emulate her. Ages 4–8. (Apr.)
A squirrel named Paprika adds some much needed spice to the titular hedgehog’s humdrum routine in this chipper friendship tale. After flamboyant Paprika moves into the tree next door, bright red poppies sprouting outside his door hurt C.R.’s eyes, zesty aromas make his nightly dinner of “celery root soup—no lemon” taste bland, and mariachi music rumbles his roof; it’s all too much for the quiet, persnickety hedgehog. He’s content to read his favorite book, Medical Cures from A to Z, by the fire and treat himself to “one small fig for dessert—but only on Tuesdays.” But Paprika’s neighborly behavior works its magic, and C.R. decides he’d rather be bothered by the commotion than be lonely. Muir (The Little Bitty Bakery) gets the rhythms of two opposite personalities just right, and sprinkles a piquant note of humor over the proceedings. Hector (The Gentleman Bug) also has fun with the contrasts, from C.R.’s cozy slippers and well-worn sweater to Paprika’s outrageously patterned frocks and piñata-festooned abode. Ages 4–8. Agent: Anna J. Webman, Curtis Brown. Illustrator’s agent: Rebecca Sherman, Writers House. (Mar.)
A tough-guy sheep known as Rambo the Ram, a cotton-candy machine, and Red Riding Hood’s grandmother all play their parts in a rambunctious story from the team behind The Great Dog Bottom Swap, about a wolf’s attempts to procure sheep’s clothing. The ample humor in Bently’s mellifluous yet entertaining rhymes runs the gamut from highbrow (the wolf’s name is Lou Pine) to lowbrow (he winds up in a “big pile of poo”). The verse is often slyly witty, as when the wolf dreams of the lamb dishes that await him: “...chops and mint sauce? Or even lamb stew? Or burgers? Moussaka? Or lamb vindaloo?” Matsuoka’s illustrations supply plenty of comedy, too, from the boxing gloves that Rambo wears to the water gun that a neighbor (“the best shot in town”) uses to blast Lou when he tries to steal her fluffy gown for a disguise. Lou is thwarted again and again, and even after he forces Red Riding Hood’s grandmother to knit him a sweater, she finds a way to get the last laugh. Lou Pine’s ineptitude gives Wile E. Coyote a run for his money. Ages 4–9. (Apr.)Publishing news from across the Web
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