Book Aunt

Six Cool Picture Books

2012-01-28T19:56:00.000-08:00

I'll admit it: I'm a picture book snob. I go down to my not-so-independent nearby bookstore and look through all the new picture books, turning up my nose at a lot of them because the stories and artwork are too bland or too cutesy. But sometimes I come across treasures. And sometimes I discover treasures elsewhere, most often when they are recommended by other children's book bloggers. So for those of you who told me about these books, thank you!

The Boy Who Cried Ninja, written and illustrated by Alex Latimer

Ever get tired of that Aesop's fable, "The Boy Who Cried Wolf"? Silly boy, cranky villagers, right? Well, get a load of South African Alex Latimer's new-fangled take on the tale, with its clean, retro-mod illustrations. When Tim tells his parents the truth about the trouble going on around his house, they don't believe him. A ninja stole the last piece of cake, an astronaut took his dad's hammer, a giant squid—yeah, right. Frustrated, Tim decides to lie, but that doesn't work out too well, either. Finally he comes up with a plan for setting things straight. I will refrain from telling you how virtue is finally rewarded, but you really should get ahold of this subversive, tongue-in-cheek book.

The Camping Trip that Changed America by Barb Rosenstock, illustrated by Mordecai Gerstein

President Theodore Roosevelt was an outdoorsman, everyone knows that. But did you know he once went camping with John Muir in Yosemite? Why? Because Muir was a famous naturalist, and Roosevelt wanted to know more about America's wilderness. At stake was the potential creation of national parks and forests. The two men traveled by horseback and were caught in a spring snowstorm, but they had a wonderful time, and President Roosevelt worked very hard afterwards to preserve the nation's natural treasures. One word of caution: though notes about the trip were available, they did not include sufficient dialogue, and the author did invent fireside conversations between the two men. I think she's done a marvelous job of writing this important, little-known story; just be sure your students or children understand the ways in which it is, as Rosenstock says in her very helpful author's note, "based in truth." Old hand Mordecai Gerstein illustrates the account with his loose and appealing watercolor style.

Just a Second, written and illustrated by Steve Jenkins

Not since Hazel Hutchins and Kady MacDonald Denton's A Second Is a Hiccup has somebody made such a beautiful book about time. Only, where Hutchins and Denton used analogies from the world of humans, Jenkins not unexpectedly uses the world of animals. So just what can animals do in one second?

A vulture in flight flaps its wings once. A pygmy shrew's heart beats 14 times. A bat makes 200 high-pitched calls. A rattlesnake shakes its tail in warning 60 times. A hummingbird beats its wings 50 times. A bumblebee beats its wings 200 times. A midge, a kind of gnat, beats its wings 1,000 times. A woodpecker hammers a tree with its beak 20 times.

And that's just the first page! Using his signature bright backdrops and collage animals, Jenkins gives us more "one second" examples before going on to talk about what animals—and plants and planets—do in one minute, one hour, one day, one week, one month, and one year. He throws in an extra spread called "Very Quick" for things that happen in even less than a second. I once looked all over the place for information about the speed at which a frog zaps and swallows an insect (and had trouble finding that fact); here Jenkins tells us that the Shasta salamander "can snap up an insect in 1/100 of a second." The author/illustrator also gives us "Very Long," including "an ocean quahog, a clam, [that] lived to be 405 years old...." and he throws in a history of the universe (on one page!), Earth's human population growth from 1750 to a projected 2050, plus an extra chart about plant and animal life spans. Pretty stuff, and pretty fascinating!

The Princess and the Pig by Jonathan Emmett, illustrated by Poly Bernatene

Have you heard about this one? Princess and pig, switched at birth. Call it class warfare if you like, but I call it funny. The way the court treats the pig princess, the reluctance of the human girl to switch back—all a hoot. You will no doubt get a kick out of the way the king and queen justify having a pig for a daughter: "'A bad fairy has done this,' [the king] explained. 'The fairy wasn't invited to the princess's christening, so she's turned the baby into a piglet to get her revenge. It's the sort of thing that happens all the time in books.'" (He holds a copy of Sleeping Beauty in his hands as he says this, natch.) Then again, the farmer's wife gives a similar explanation when a baby girl appears in the back of her husband's cart. It is only years later that the farmer and his wife finally figure out what really happened... The book is made all the more terrific by Bernatene's strong acrylic illustrations, which are a touch cartoonish, but still dimensional enough to give proper heft to this clever piggy tale.

Precious Little by Julie Hunt and Sue Moss, illustrated by Gaye Chapman

I'll be frank: I think this book is mostly for grown-ups. But an artistic, thoughtful child will like looking at the pictures. (Probably for 8 and up.) The story takes us to the circus, where the real stars are the highly decorative illustrations and even the way the words are often turned sideways like contortionists. The plot is slim—a rather uncoordinated young circus-hand named Precious Little wants to fly with the acrobats, the Light Fantastics, but can't seem to get the hang of it. Eventually two kindly clowns help her to fulfill her dream, though readers may feel at that point that Precious is simply dreaming, or that the story has turned into some kind of allegory or fantasy. Don't worry too much about it. Just check out the slightly new agey and very lovely artwork. (Bonus: gold glitter on the cover!)

What Animals Really Like, written and illustrated by Fiona Robinson

Back in November, I reviewed "Picture Books to Look Forward To," and one of my favorites was Bingham and Zelinsky's Z Is for Moose, due out in February. What Animals Really Like has a similar premise, and I like it just as much. Where Z Is for Moose has a zebra directing animals (and other items) in an alphabet book, What Animals Really Like gives us an even more high-strung beaver directing a new song. Each group of animals stands on a stage in concert dress and sings about what their species likes to do. We start off with the following lines:

We are lions, and we like to prowl.
We are wolves, and we like to howl.
We are pigeons, and we like to coo.
We are cows, and we like to...

Page turn, and the cows chorus, "dig," whipping out a bunch of shovels and hardhats.

"Dig?" the baffled beaver director asks, and pretty soon he has a full-scale rebellion on his hands, or rather paws. The warthogs like to blow enormous bubbles and the shrimp like to ski—when the beaver doubts them, they show off photos from their trip to Switzerland. ("Say, you had great weather," remarks a kangaroo, who likes playing Ping-Pong.)

Robinson paces her running joke about being true to yourself with panache, adding small twists and turns along the way. Watch in particular how the animals go from standing stiffly, looking bored, to cavorting enthusiastically as they share their passions. This is a thoroughly excellent concert program, highlighted by straight man and director Mr. Herbert Timberteeth's various states of dismay. Robinson's distinctive style gives What Animals Really Like a fresh look, in pleasing contrast to the many more traditional-looking picture books out there.

Hans, the Blog Tour

2012-01-24T06:06:00.000-08:00

Yep, I'm doing a blog tour for my new picture book, Hans My Hedgehog, pub date right this very day, January 24th. (Woo-hoo!)

I am very pleased that Hans has garnered four great reviews, two of them starred (Kirkus and Publisher's Weekly). In addition, it was featured in a New York Times Book Review, along with two other prickly books.

Thanks very much to all my kind bloggy hosts. I will list the tour schedule for you here, adding the specific links as they come in. That way, you can learn more about the retelling of Grimms' fairy tales in general and my work in particular than you ever thought possible, all in about a week!

Monday, 1/23—Interview by Sybil Nelson at The Enchanted Inkpot

Tuesday, 1/24—Review and interview by Heidi Grange at Geo Librarian

Wednesday, 1/25—Review and giveaway by Linda Gerber at her cool YA author's blog; review by Jennifer Wharton at Jean Little Library

Thursday, 1/26—Interview by Jennifer Wharton at Jean Little Library

Friday, 1/27—Review by Anamaria Anderson at Books Together Blog

Monday, 1/30—Interview by Miranda Paul at her author's blog

Tuesday, 1/31—Author Anastasia Suen at Booktalking

Thanks also to Charlotte's Library for her post about Google Analytics and hedgehogs, including Hans. Check out the darling baby hedgehog photos!

Here's an intriguing tidbit about urchins and hedgehogs at Children's Literature Network, Snipp Snapp Snute by Lise Lunge-Larsen. She likes the look of Hans.

This post at VoVatia is from last August, but it has some excellent additional "Hans My Hedgehog" art and insights, not to mention a very nice comment from Amy about my then-upcoming book. (Link through if only to see Maurice Sendak's version of Hans.)

A note on Hans's size, which the VoVatia post questions: One of my editors did point out that Hans had to be small enough to ride a rooster, but large enough to dance with a princess. My response was that the story was originally told orally, without illustrations. I'm guessing the size issue slipped right past most of those long-ago listeners! (Except for some smart-aleck kid. There's always one in every village.) I also said, with rather callous accuracy, that the illustrator was going to have to use perspective and other art tricks to make Hans's size work in the book. And he did!

Note: Back to our regular programming this Saturday with picture book reviews.

ALA Book Awards

2012-01-24T05:34:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was huge, HUGE! That is, in the world of children's books. I will give a shout-out to Twitter here: it's the fastest way to find out the winners of the ALA book awards, hands-down!

Now, I'll draw a rather snowy veil over the busyness of last night and list some of the winners here this morning. For more honor awards and a few I had trouble finding, please visit the ALA book and m edia awards page.

If you were expecting Gary D. Schmidt's Okay for Now to win the Newbery, think again! Jack Gantos won with Dead End in Norvalt. Honors went to Inside Out and Back Again by Thanha Lai and Breaking Stalin's Nose by Eugene Yelchin.

The Caldecott Award winner is A Ball for Daisy by Chris Raschka, though I was pleased to see my personal favorite get an Honor: Me...Jane by Patrick McDonnell. Other Honor books are Blackout by John Rocco and Grandpa Green by Lane Smith. Lovely books, all!

The Geisel (Dr. Seuss) Award for easy readers goes to Tales for Very Picky Eaters by Josh Schneider, with Honors to Mo Willems' I Broke My Trunk, Jon Klassen's I Want My Hat Back, and Paul Meisel's See Me Run.

The Sibert Award for nonfiction is awarded to Balloons over Broadway: The True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy's Parade by Melissa Sweet. I really want to read that one! The Honor list includes Black & White: The Confrontation between Reverend Fred L. Shuttlesworth and Eugene "Bull" Connor by Larry Dane Brimner, Drawing from Memory by Allen Say, Witches! The Absolutely True Tale of Disaster in Salem by Rosalyn Schauzerand, and The Elephant Scientist, written by Caitlin O'Connell and Donna M. Jackson with photos by O'Connell and Timothy Rodwelland.

The Schneider Family Award, given to outstanding books about kids with disabilities, goes to Close to Famous by Joan Bauer (reviewed here last spring) and Wonderstruck: A Novel in Words and Pictures by Brian Selznick in the Middle School category. The Teen winner is The Running Dream by Wendelin Van Draanen.

The Pura Belpré Award for excellent fiction featuring Latinos is given separately to authors and illustrators. The author winner this year is Guadalupe Garcia McCall for her book Under the Mesquite. The illustrator winner is Duncan Tonatiuh for Diego Rivera: His World and Ours.

The Coretta Scott King Award author award winner is Kadir Nelson for Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans. The illustrator award winner is Shane W. Evans for Underground: Finding the Light to Freedom.

For teen fiction, our Printz award winner is Where Things Come Back by John Corey Whaley, with Honors awarded to Daniel Handler's Why We Broke Up, Christine Hinwood's The Returning, Craig Silvey's Jasper Jones, and Maggie Stiefvater's The Scorpio Races. A good year for YA titles!

I was disappointed that Franny Billingsley's Chime didn't win an award, but fantasy is often a long shot at the ALA's. The only one I see here at a glance is The Scorpio Races.

The good news is that we have so many wonderful new books to read!

Queen's Thief Week at Chachic's Book Nook

2012-01-22T10:01:00.000-08:00

One of the most intelligent, dimensional, and rewarding MG/YA fantasy series out there today is Megan Whalen Turner's Queen's Thief books: thus far The Thief (a Newbery Honor winnter), The Queen of Attolia, The King of Attolia, and A Conspiracy of Kings. Thanks to Chachic of Chachic's Book Nook, you can read all about it during Queen's Thief Week, jump starting yesterday but officially posting January 22-28.

Her first guest post is by noted fantasy author Sher wood Smith, whose Crown Duel and other books are also favorites of mine. Though there are a few spoilers, Sherwood manages to keep them to a minimum as she gives a brilliant analysis of the four books.

Today's guest post is by Checkers from Sounis. I'll translate that: Checkers is one of the moderators at the series fan blog. Her gift to you is a really great list of SFF books recommended by Sounis participants over the past few years. (I can't even begin to describe how smart this bunch of Queen's Thief fans are!)

For those of you who haven't tried the books, they tend to read like historical fiction with just a touch of fantasy. Well, the world-building certainly qualifies them as fantasy; Turner has created a group of kingdoms centered around a sort of Byzantine Greece, complete with gods who make themselves known occasionally, to the chagrin of people like her main character. The author's greatest gifts are elaborate plots, rich characterization, and a subtle sense of humor. Follow Gen (Eugenides) from prisons to palaces in this complex, challenging, and utterly satisfying series.

Of course, the fun over at CBN will continue for another six days. Thank you, Chachic!

Update: Guest posts by Melina Marchetta, Sarah Rees Brennan, and even Megan Whalen Turner herself! Not to mention posts from uber-fans Holly and Angie, who are also bloggers of note. Don't miss the comments, which include dialogue between Marchetta and Turner about being tourists in Rome, among other cool conversations.

Retellings Beautiful and Beastly

2012-01-21T14:32:00.000-08:00

Classifying Fairy Tales

On Tuesday my new picture book retelling of a Grimms' fairy tale, Hans My Hedgehog, is coming out, so I thought I'd tell you a little about its history and a lot about the retelling of a more famous story, "Beauty and the Beast." What is the history of a particular fairy tale, and how did it come to take its current shape?

Folklorists actually classify the stories into types, which make sense when you realize how many variations of the same basic plot can be found in different countries. Stories have traveled the world with traders and immigrants for centuries. For example, you can find Cinderella variations set in China, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, and the American South, among other regions and lands. The most well-known approach to classifying folk and fairy tales is the Aarne-Thompson system, first published by Finnish folklorist Antti Aarne in 1910 and revised more than once by American Stith Thompson.

For example, under Animal Tales, Wild Animals, we have 99 story types, including notable offerings like "Biting the foot" (#7) and "Calling the three tree names" (#9). Some story types are found in more than one country, such as "Search for the lost husband" (#425A), listed under Supernatural or Enchanted Relatives, Husband, and found in Romanian, Scottish, Italian, Spanish, Norwegian, Greek, and Mexican variations.

"Hans My Hedgehog" also falls under Supernatural or Enchanted Relatives, Husband (#441), "In enchanted skin." According to noted folklorist Jack Zipes, the Grimms mostly used a version recounted to them orally by a woman named Dorothea Viehmann, who was married to a tailor and lived in a village near Kassel in Germany. There are other German versions, however, such as "The Wild Boar" and "The Bristly Child." (Zipes, The Great Fairy Tale Tradition, Norton 2001.)

From Apuleius to Cocteau

"Beauty and the Beast" has a more complex history. Did you know it was based on Roman (and therefore, quite possibly Greek) mythology? Now it has an AT classification of #425C (also Supernatural or Enchanted Relatives, Husband), but it first comes to our attention as a story told in a book called The Golden Ass by Roman writer Apuleius (second century AD). The couple in the story are Cupid (Eros) and Psyche. You can get a picture book retelling of Cupid and Psyche by M. Charlotte Craft, illustrated by Kinuko Y. Craft. (Though you may dislike the theme of "curious girls get in big trouble.")

The story of Cupid and Psyche was reinvented in France by La Fontaine, by Coneille and Molière as a play/ballet, and in at least five variations by Madame D'Aulnoy in the late 1600s. At the time, fairy tale retellings were very fashionable among wealthy Parisians. In fact, Madame D'Aulnoy coined the name "fairy tales" with the publication of one of her books, "Les Contes de Fées" (1697).

Next to adapt the tale was Madame Gabreille de Villaneuve, whose version set the standard for the plot as we recognize it. Three more French adapters tried their hand at the story: Madame Leprince de Beumont, Countess de Genlis—who reinvented it as a play called Beauty and the Monster (1785), and Jean-François Marmontel—who made it the libretto of an opera scored by André Modeste Grétry (1788). (Sources: Zipes again, plus Wiki.) Is this all starting to blur together for you? Suffice it to say, the story was told and retold in literary versions in France for about a century, and this was all back when Walt Disney's twice-great-grandfather was still a twinkle in his thrice-great-grandfather's eye.

What's lost here, of course, is the storyteller who told the tale to listeners around the fire before Roman writer Apuleius came along. Though I suspect Madame D'Aulnoy's tale, "The Ram," was at least partly responsible for transforming a hunky Greek god into a misshapen beast.

Keep in mind, then, that when we talk about purity of sources, we are looking at two long series of transformations—one taking place in the oral storytelling tradition (making its way across continents) and the other taking place in the literary fairy tale tradition, exemplified by collectors/adapters such as the Brothers Grimm, Madame D'Aulnoy, Norwegians Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe, and another famous French reteller, Charles Perrault.

My favorite variant of "Beauty and the Beast" is actually the Norwegian story retold by Asbjørnsen and Moe, "East of the Sun and West of the Moon." As another folklorist, Maria Tatar, explains, "'Unlike the French 'Beauty and the Beast,' this tale includes a coda in which the daughter has to undertake a journey, outwit a rival, and demonstrate her domestic worthiness" (Tatar, The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales, Norton 2002). The quest in "East of the Sun, West of the Moon" gives us a more active and determined heroine, even if it does end up with her having a shirt-washing contest with a troll princess. (There's magic and blood involved, which helps.)

Jumping to the 20th and 21st centuries, we find the famous French film version by Jean Cocteau (1946). And of course, a number of picture book and MG/YA retellings.

Beauty and the Beast

MERCER MAYER is best known for his book, There's a Nightmare in My Closet, his Little Critter stories, and his illustrations for John D. Fitzgerald's Great Brain Books, but he also illustrated fairy tales, including this one. Mayer does interesting, contemporary things with perspective, cinematically thrusting characters' faces into the foreground in certain spreads. The work is ornate and intense, full of twisted trees and the suffering of a lion-like Beast. The storytelling is detailed and appealing. A classic retelling of the tale, especially as compared to some of the more docile later versions.

British author-artist JAMES MAYHEW illustrated a retelling by PHILLIPA PEARCE. Mayhew's soft-edged style emphasizes the mystery and enchantment of the tale. Like Mayer's, his Beast is leonine, only with a lot more mane. The final spread is especially nice. Pearce's retelling is clear enough to work as a read-aloud for relatively young children.

Yes, it's a JAN BRETT book without decorative borders! This retelling (by the illustrator) is more mannered than some of the others, with nice touches like all of the servants being animals. In a move away from the lion approach, Brett's Beast is a boar, which makes him extra beastly. A single piece of silhouette art about three-fourths of the way in works well. And take a look at those gowns and hairstyles! I found it interesting that the story is told in summary until the merchant steals the rose, when we start getting some dialogue. The retelling is competent, though the illustrations are better.

ANGELA BARRETT is one of my favorite illustrators. Her Beauty and the Beast is retold by Brit Max Eilenberg at some length, entrancingly. The artwork is often small, serving as a backdrop to the text, but when the larger pieces come they tend to be striking. Barrett makes her Beast a narrow, black, cat-like creature with a touch of demon and a sweeping brush of tail. Be sure to look at some of the details of the strange home the artist envisions for the Beast. (See illustration above.)

Well-known middle grade fantasy writer LAWRENCE YEP teamed up with illustrator KAM MAK to give us a Chinese version of the story, The Dragon Prince. The beast here is an enchanted dragon prince and, in a motif that turns up in other folktales, one of the heroine's malicious sisters manages to take her place for a time. Yep is a very good storyteller, of course.

There is also a small edition of the Beauty and the Beast story retold by SAMANTHA EASTON and illustrated by RUTH SANDERSON. (Sanderson is known for painting from live models, ordinary people.) I'm not crazy about the trim size and the retelling isn't particularly amazing, but some of the paintings are quite nice. Sanderson goes with the lion look for her Beast.

BARRY MOSER teams up with Nancy Willard (who won the Newbery in 1982 for her poetry collection, A Visit to William Blake's Inn) to create a novella-length Beauty and the Beast. Moser's stark pen-and-ink pieces give a darker feel to the story than it would otherwise have. Some of them resemble portraits—the Beast reminds me of Mr. Hyde and is the scariest in this entire bunch of books. Naturally, Willard's retelling is masterful.

Recognized paper artist ROBERT SABUDA has done "A Pop-up Book of the Classic Tale," an intricate rendering with a stained glass look.

As for MG/YA versions, Newbery medalist Robin McKinley has retold the story twice, once in Beauty and again in Rose Daughter. Alex Flinn sets the tale in a modern city with her book, Beastly (recently made into a movie), while Donna Jo Napoli chooses a Persian—and then French—setting for Beast, a mature retelling recommended for older teens.

East of the Sun, West of the Moon

MERCER MAYER illustrated the Norwegian version of this story, as well, with his wife Marianna doing the retelling. The paintings, one per spread, are rich and show a Russian/Eastern European influence. Some have a slightly static feel, more decorative than active, but others have more drama, and all combine beautifully to do the story justice. Mayer's troll princess is priceless, and his wife's retelling is clear and compelling. I was surprised to note that Mayer deliberately went with part of "The Frog Prince" in the early pages of the story rather than using the more traditional Norwegian bear as an alarming bridegroom.

P.J. LYNCH has done some beautiful illustrations for classics such as A Christmas Carol and The Gift of the Magi and for fairy tales such as The Snow Queen and The Steadfast Tin Soldier. (His artwork for Amy Hest's When Jessie Came Across the Sea is also lovely.) Note that the retelling is straight from Asbjørnsen and Moe, or at least, from the 1859 translation by Sir George Webb Dasent. It's a more detailed rendition than we might expect to see today, but it's very well done. There's a rather pensive feel to Lynch's heroine, and his North Wind practically storms off the page. I also like the striking use of the polar bear and an illustration that shows the lassie alone in a dark wood. As for the troll princess, she actually gives Mayer's troll a run for her money. Watch for the shirt-washing scene, where the spread is positively overflowing with hideous trolls.

BARRY MOSER worked with Nancy Willard again on this story, or rather play. The little-known script in book form is 61 pages long and could, of course, be acted out by a school class. Some of the dialogue is written in rhyme. It's a quirky but well-crafted version of the tale.

GISELLE POTTER illustrated a Greek variation of "East of the Sun, West of the Moon" that I've mentioned on Book Aunt in the past, Mr. Semolina-Semolinus. The retellers are Anthony L. Manna and Christodoula Mitakidou. After a unique start which completely bypasses the beast section—replacing it with a princess named Areti who cooks up her own boyfriend out of semolina, sugar, and almonds—we get the last section of the Norwegian story, more or less. Areti goes on an arduous quest to save her beloved from the selfish queen who has stolen him. This clever, slyly funny and rollicking tale makes a few words go a long way.

LAUREL LONG and JACQUELINE K. OGBURN tell the story with a twist, too, in The Lady and the Lion, illustrated by Long. (See also their previous collaboration, a gorgeous tale called The Magic Nesting Doll.) Lush, Middle Eastern-inspired paintings complement a story in which an evil enchantress kidnaps the lion after he is turned back to a man. The lady rescues her prince in a rather truncated version of the quest and confrontation from the Asbjørnsen and Moe version. You'll find that Ogburn's retelling is more spare than some of the others in this pleasing take on the Beauty and the Beast story. (See illustration above.)

Ice by Sarah Beth Durst, East by Edith Patou, and Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow by Jessica Day George are three notable MG/YA versions of "East of the Sun, West of the Moon."

And So...

Traditionally, the story of Beauty and the Beast has been used to teach girls to be self-sacrificing or to stifle their curiosity. The Romans and then the French certainly seemed to appreciate those lessons. In our day, we emphasize Beauty's loyalty to and patience with an unappealing, unhappy young man. The meta-lesson has been said to be about the so-called gentle sex taming the rougher one, but ultimately, I think we as a culture love the story for reasons of simple human kindness. And don't forget Beauty's courage!

As for Hans My Hedgehog, he's a close cousin to Beauty's Beast, only his story includes more peasant humor and class conflict. (The original shows a king tricking Hans because he can't read.) What kind of girl would marry a young man who is half hedgehog? An honorable one. And the princess's integrity pays off when the spell on her prickly husband is broken.

All of us feel like beasts sometimes, and all of us hope to be loved for our hearts, for the truth of who we are. Perhaps any time two people form a match, the answer for men and women alike is to look for beauty within the beast.

Update: Two more books have come up in the comments. Thanks to Rebecca Donnelly for reminding me of a Barefoot Books version of "East of the Sun, West of the Moon" (with two other tales mixed in) called The Princess and the White Bear King, retold by Tanya Robin Batt and illustrated by Nicoletta Cecolli. And Megan tells us about East of the Sun & West of the Moon, retold and illustrated by László Gál, which she says is very colorful and dreamy.

A Review of Snow in Summer by Jane Yolen

2012-01-14T21:14:00.000-08:00

We begin with a description of an old photograph showing a little girl named Snow in Summer on the day of her mother's funeral. Her father is oblivious to the existence of his seven-year-old daughter, devoured by his grief. Only Cousin Nancy is aware of Summer and her needs. She holds the little girl by the hand, offering comfort.

Jane Yolen's retelling of the Snow White story is eerie and immediate. The Appalachian setting adds both simplicity and strangeness as we watch the child's life changed, first by her mother's death and her father's withdrawal and later by the menacing incursion of the woman who marries her father.

Snow in Summer is almost a horror story when it comes to the wicked stepmother. Although the child named Summer suffers when her father ignores her, at least she has Cousin Nancy, who continues to care for her, stopping by the house each day to get her ready for school and cook her meals.

Most of the chapters in Yolen's story are told by Snow in Summer herself, but some are memories recounted by Cousin Nancy and even Stepmama. When Snow (as Stepmama names her) watches her father snared in a graveyard by the woman from up the mountain, there is clearly dark magic involved. In Stepmama's first memory chapter, we learn that the woman was trained by a great conjurer. We also find out that Stepmama can increase her personal magic by taking someone else's years. She plans to get Snow's father's property for herself and sell it to the railroad company, something he has always refused to do. Then she will use her magic to steal seven years from Snow. (She also toys with the idea of making Snow her apprentice.) But she claims she won't make Snow and her father suffer—too much. As she tells herself, "After all, I'm not a wicked woman."

The creepy little details are actually more striking than the things Stepmama tells us in her chapters. The way she has one green eye and one blue eye. The way she must have Snow's permission to enter the house, like a vampire. The terrible spell she casts on Snow's father. The glass bottles of potions.

"They could make you very sick, Snow," she cautioned, clinking a long red fingernail against the glass of the darkest bottle. Something almost seemed to stir in the depths, something with hands and feet and closed eyes. Something like a dead baby.

That's even before Stepmama takes Snow to the church with the snake handlers. And before Snow learns that there are worse things than snakes.

This well-crafted story gradually builds in dread. (Though the seven dwarfs—well, six plus a brother off at college—provide a bit of comic relief.) The intense, atmospheric storytelling breathes new life into a tale we all think we know. Yolen's best character is Stepmama, who makes the Disney villains look insipid by comparison. You may be a little disappointed when the story is over and things get better for Snow. No more dread. Sigh—The End.

Here's a Reading Rocket interview with Jane Yolen from March 2010 and her website.

Note for Worried Parents: Amazon lists this book for ages 10 and up. There are references to Snow in Summer getting her period, and you get the feeling she's going to be raped at one point, though it turns out she's (only!) going to be murdered instead. The emotional content and some child abuse make me want to say this is a fairly mature read, but then, it probably depends on the kid.

A Review of Winterling by Sarah Prineas

2012-01-14T21:00:00.000-08:00

Grand-Jane is always trying to keep Fer in the house, to keep her hidden from a nameless something that apparently lurks outside. But Fer can't bear to be inside. The outdoors calls to her, and she runs from the house often, incurring Grand-Jane's wrath.

One day Fer comes across a strange scene in the woods by a mysterious pool: three wolves tormenting a dog. Fer picks up a stick and helps the dog, only to have him turn into a boy. When Fer brings the boy home so Grand-Jane can patch him up with her herbs, Grand-Jane is furious. But she finally relents and tells Fer the truth: Fer is from another world, or at least, her mother is. Grand-Jane is pretty sure her son and his otherworldly wife are dead. She has tried all these years to protect Fer from whatever enemy took her son from her.

Fer is not only fascinated, but she is also determined to visit that other world and find out what happened to her parents. (She knows she shouldn't trust the dog-boy, Puck, but she kind of does.)

This is the last of the scene with Puck and the wolves:

Fer held her ground and gripped her branch tightly. "Go away!" she shouted, and with her free hand felt in her jacket pocket for her bag of spelled herbs. She pulled it out and kept it clutched in her hand. One wolf lunged toward her and Fer stepped up to meet it, bashing her club across its muzzle. Fer swung the branch back and caught another wolf in the ribs, then jabbed the jagged end of the branch into the face of the third wolf. Still holding the spell-bag, she shouted, "Go away!" again, then a third time, and the wolves flinched back as if her words had more power than the club she swung, watching her from the corners of their eyes, fading back into the shadows.

What Fer doesn't realize is that she has already opened a gate between the two worlds with her rescue efforts, and trouble will follow. Soon enough she travels to the other side and meets its so-called queen. The Lady casts a spell on Fer, a glamor that makes Fer want to help her. But Fer keeps seeing through the spell. As she travels with the Lady's retinue, Fer begins to befriend the Lady's followers and uncover her secrets. There's a reason the Lady's followers are wilding and spring won't come. Fer's heritage gives her the strength to defeat the Lady—if only she can figure out who to trust.

Some of the story is told from the point of view of the puck, Rook. Especially while Fer is under the wicked queen's glamor, this allows us to see what the Lady is really up to and to root for Rook and his fellow slaves to be free. It also makes us even more worried about Fer, who is basically in her enemy's grasp. The Lady is trying to figure out how best to use the girl, whether to simply manipulate her or to strip her of her power altogether.

Meanwhile, Fer keeps saving Rook's life. It's almost a running joke how often she does it. His oath to the Lady, for mysterious reasons of his own, keeps him in the enemy camp, but readers will wonder whether Rook will manage to help Fer just the same.

I like Prineas's use of Irish legends in this book. For example, the Lady is also called the Mór, which is clearly another name for the Morrigan, the goddess of battle, strife, and fertility. In Winterling, the Lady marks her followers with crow's feathers, and the Morrigan is associated with crows. In fact, the crow is one of her forms. The shape-shifting Phouka/Puck is another figure from Irish legend, though he may make you think of Shakespeare.

The plot of Winterling doesn't twist and turn much, and the cast of characters is perhaps too limited: we're basically talking Grand-Jane, Fer, the Lady, Rook, and a bunch of miserable minions. I can't say Winterling is an amazing read, but it is a pretty good one. If you have an avid middle grade fantasy fan in the house, put this book on your list.

Take a look at the book trailer or visit the author's website. And here's an interview with Sarah Prineas at The Enchanted Inkpot.

A Review of Ravenwood by Andrew Peters

2012-01-14T20:38:00.000-08:00

In Ravenwood, Andrew Peters gives us a world in the treetops. Either these are really gigantic trees, or people have shrunken. I'm pretty sure it's the former, despite the presence of creatures like monster ravens and worms.

The Dendrans' religion has to do with the goddess Diana, though it has been largely overtaken by a newer, more militant belief system represented by a group of Dendrans known as the Holly Woodsmen. (Peters gets a little carried away with tree puns. For example, Buddy Holly's name is used here, and the word "holly" acts both as "holy" and as a reference to hell.) Here's a glimpse of the leafy world of Arborium:

He ignored the fast-food stall, shoehorned into a dark alcove of the trunk, and wearily trudged on down the steps toward the lower levels. This way took him past the inner doors and windows of apartments hollowed out into the heartwood: prime property for the rich, but far out of reach of a plumber's income. The steps continued, winding down and down the central trunk, and the crowds eventually began to thin as he descended to the lower levels. Finally, a poorly patched-up gate swung open, revealing his local branch line. He stepped out into a land of shadows. The twilight had problems reaching this far. Night came earlier for the poor.

Our hero, Ark, short for Arkorius Malikum, has the inglorious job of apprentice plumber. This means he has a lot of interactions with poop, known herein as "squit." Ark is on a plumbing job when he has a run-in with an old enemy from his school days, Petronio, who is studying to be a surgeon, though he seems more interested in being an assassin. Unfortunately, while Ark is working on the pipes he overhears the boy's father, Counselor Grasp, talking with an enemy spy from Maw about his treasonous plot against the king. Moments later, Ark is fleeing along the branches of his treetop town with Grasp's two favorite minions right behind him, intent on his death.

Ark tricks the guards and gets home, but his life as he knows it is over. He must hide from Counselor Grasp and his men, leaving his job and his family behind. He wants to warn the king, but how? Ark enlists the help of a burly co-worker named Mucum and sets out to save the kingdom of Arborium from the would-be invaders. Along the way, he meets a group of low-dwelling Dendrans called the Rootshooters and discovers the true nature of his own heritage.

But the author doesn't just follow Ark's quest; he also gives us the journey of Ark's opposite number, Petronio. Grasp's son is quickly sucked into the treacherous plots of the spy from Maw, a woman named Fenestra. She represents a country across the sea that has no trees at all and covets the wealth of the Dendrans' wood. Fortunately, the trees have their own defenses. Unfortunately, Fenestra has plenty of evil plans up her sleeve.

Boy readers in particular will probably enjoy the frequent fights and chase scenes, not to mention the even more frequent close encounters with squit.

I have mixed feelings about Ravenwood. On the one hand, Peters does an amazing job of world-building in his book, which you'll swear is fantasy in the first half and suspect is dystopian science fiction in the second half. But I didn't fall completely in love with the characters. I also had a little trouble with things like the dialect used by the Rootshooters, some of the creatures randomly thrown into the mix, and a section of the book that positively blurs by, leaving Ark with semi-superpowers afterwards for somewhat unclear reasons.

I also noticed that two of the four villains appeared to get away in the end. (Despite talk of their probable death, their escape is remarkably parallel to one of Ark's many narrow escapes earlier in the book.) So—we are clearly gearing up for a sequel.

Yep, I'm quibbling. There are a lot of fun things going on in this book, not the least of which is the use of Ark's baby sister's hair-raising scream as a secret weapon. I'm hoping the next book flows more smoothly and that I find myself warming up to Ark and his buddies just a little more.

Here is Andrew Peters reading a selection from the book. You can visit the website he shares with his wife to find out more about Ravenwood.

A Review of The Cabinet of Earths by Anne Nesbet

2012-01-14T17:09:00.000-08:00

This story begins with a prologue, and a Gallic-sounding one at that.

It was his own grandmother who fed Henri-Pierre to the Cabinet of Earths, long ago when he was only four. Don't misunderstand! It happened like this....

When Grandmother asks Henri-Pierre what is kept in the bottles, he laughingly guesses things like lemonade. But she corrects him, whispering in his ear: "In our bottles we keep Time."

So Henri-Pierre knew what Time must look like: black grains of earth, straining like something hungry against the bottle glass.

"It wants to get out," he said once, and his grandmother moved him another pace away from the Cabinet (which he must never, never touch).

Nesbet uses the prologue to lay out the terrible nature of the Cabinet, not to mention the terrible nature of those in the family who abuse the magic's privileges. Years pass, and then Chapter One begins—with the coming of a girl from California named Maya Davidson.

Maya is utterly unimpressed about being in Paris. She's too busy missing her friends back in California. Then she meets a boy named Valko who shows her how to be a kid from somewhere else.

"Still, I'll never fit in," she said (but already more cheerful about it).

"Very possible," said Valko. "Likely, even. But you don't have to fit in to be okay. Believe me! I am the not-fitting-in world expert. I have not fit in in maybe five different countries so far. I am homelandless.... But it's no big deal, not really....."

The other people Maya meets are much stranger from upbeat Valko. There's a too-beautiful man with purple eyes who takes an odd interest in Maya and her obnoxiously charming little brother James. There's Cousin Louise, who is so nondescript she is practically invisible. And there's a very old man named Henri-Pierre, who has a marvelous, dangerous, and seductive cabinet.

At first it's just little things, like the way the salamander on the door knocker of The Society of Philosophical Chemistry seems to turn its head to look at Maya. Then she learns that she and James are somehow related to both old Henri-Pierre and the man with the purple eyes, who apparently arranged to bring them to France. But why? Maya also learns about a group of children who have gone missing over the years and tries to find out what has become of them.

The author plays with the idea of heritage and with the jarring meeting of magic and science as Maya finds out more of the secrets of the Cabinet. Along the way, Maya learns that her worries about school and not fitting in are far less important than saving herself and her brother from those who want to use the two children for their own ends. The fantasy plot includes a nice riff on the wonderful awfulness of family in our lives, along with our human tendencies towards both selfishness and selflessness.

Nesbet clearly sets things up for a second book—something to look forward to. In the meantime, you can bask in her Paris, which manages to be moody and evocative, tinged with the dark longings represented by the Cabinet of Earths.

You can check out this interview with the author at The Enchanted Inkpot, or take a look at her website here.

Oh, the Thrill!

2012-01-07T08:27:00.000-08:00

Just so you know, the #1 thrill moment when you're an author is when your author copies arrive from the publisher and you open the box, then turn those pages for the first time. I had a great week: both of my sets of author's copies came at once! That would be Hans My Hedgehog, due out 1/24, and Water Sings Blue, due out mid-March.

I took some photos so you can get a feel for what it's like. (Pride, joy, bliss, disbelief...)

First I'll show you the box of Hans books, above right.

Here's one of the spreads, with Hans up in a tree playing his fiddle. That's King #1 down at the bottom, yelling.

I really like the spot art.

The ocean poems came Fed Ex. I think my favorite spread is the jellyfish.

But the title page is also really pretty.

So yes, I've been semi-delirious the last couple of days. (I won't show you a photo of that.)

Oh, and the #2 thrill? When a kid likes your book and tells you so, or sends you an illustrated fan letter. Then again, maybe I should call it a tie!

Good Stuff

2012-01-07T06:08:00.000-08:00

Kidlitosphere—and maybe even the whole Blogosphere—is really hopping! Here are a few fun things you might want to take a look at...

—The Cybils finalists have been posted! Children's books (and apps) from 2011 in nearly a dozen categories have been selected by teams of dedicated Kidlitosphere judges. (My only complaint so far: What happened to Franny Billingsley's Chime?) These annotated lists make a fantastic resource for finding books you may have missed last year.

—Betsy Bird has posted "Announcing the 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing: Children's Books 2011" at the NY Public Library blog. Another excellent reference.

—Yonmei of Feminist SF—The Blog! has some things to say about the Mary Sue trope. She is riffing on a great post from Adventures of Comic Book Girl. (A "Mary Sue" is a female main character in SFF who is considered too powerful, too attractive, too etc.)

—The 2011 Comment Challenge began yesterday! I still say you should sign up. Your goal? To post 5 comments a day for 21 days, with check-ins on Thursdays. Here's the sign-up at MotherReader. Lee Wind of I'm Here. I'm Queer. What the Hell Do I Read? is the co-host.

—As for how the Newbery/Caldecott race is shaping up, Travis Jonker of 100 Scope Notes has a cool analysis.

—Or check out Jonathan Hunt's starry survey at SLJ's Heavy Medal blog.

Update: Chachic is hosting a Queen's Thief Week at her blog, Chachic's Book Nook, the week of January 22. I am a huge fan of Megan Whalen Turner's series and pretty much think everyone else should be, too. So if you haven't already read the books, this is a good chance to jump in. (The series consists of The Thief, The Queen of Attolia, The King of Attolia, and A Conspiracy of Kings. So far.) Read more about the event at Chachic's site!

Thanks, Adriana!

2012-01-03T16:14:00.001-08:00

Gotta love an avid teen reader, especially when she starts a book blog. That would be Adriana of She's Got Books on Her Mind, who stopped by to give me the Versatile Blogger Award.

What's more, Adriana is another fan (pretty much) of the delightfully devious and unique Flavia de Luce. Here's her review of The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley.

So thank you, Adriana!

Here are the rules:

Thank and link to the blogger who bestowed the award.

Share seven random facts about yourself (see below).

Spread the love by passing the award to five other bloggers--and be sure to let them know.

7 random facts about me:

—When revising my shark poem for Water Sings Blue, I spent hours trying to replace just one word. I believe I tried 40+ words. (The winner? "Rumor.")
—I have a green thumb when it comes to houseplants. I already have 16 plants in my new place, and 4 more at work.
—My grandfather fought in both WWI and WWII.
—Deer frequent my backyard, eating crab apples.
—Having recently moved from CA to UT, I now own 3 winter coats (heavy, medium, and light), 4 scarves, 2 pairs of boots, and 2 pairs of gloves.
—I played the oboe when I was a teenager, even making my own reeds.
—I used to live in Argentina. I'm still pretty fluent in Spanish.

As for cool bloggers, I will pick a few favorites from my lengthy blog roll to receive the Versatile Blogger Award in their turn.

Ms. Yingling Reads (Pragmatic, succinct middle school teacher who really gets kids)
Random Musings of a Bibliophile (Bright, articulate homeschooling mother and book collector)
Jean Little Library (Wisconsin librarian extraordinaire)
My Juicy Little Universe (Poet, educator, philosopher)
The Cath in the Hat (Writer, editor, Cybils judge)

A Review of The Magic Cake Shop by Meika Hashimoto

2011-12-31T11:40:00.000-08:00

Emma is a terrible disappointment to her parents, who are what you would get if you crossed Roald Dahl with People magazine. Take a look at how the story begins:

Mr. and Mrs. Burblee were very beautiful. Mrs. Burblee had a delicate chin, dainty earlobes, and a charming smile. Mr. Burblee had a rugged chin, manly earlobes, and a winning smile.

When Mrs. Burblee went for a walk, many a man tripped over his feet in a rush to say hello. If Mrs. Burblee said hello back, the goggle-eyed man usually fell off the sidewalk, sometimes into oncoming traffic.

Mrs. Burblee took this as a compliment.

When Mr. Burblee took a ride on his motorcycle, he liked to grin at the lady drivers at stoplights. They usually fainted. In the past year, Mr. Burblee had been responsible for eighty-two traffic jams.

He liked to keep count.

In between causing traffic accidents, the Burblees spend their time "powdering, perfuming, and polishing." They also sit around and talk about how beautiful they are. Oh, and write odes to Mrs. Burblee's feet.

What they don't talk about is their daughter Emma, who is neither polished nor beautiful. They put her on a diet and everything, but the child is grubby. Also interested in starving children in far-off countries and other topics that have no appeal whatsoever for the Burblees. She even wants to learn to bake fattening desserts! After she embarrasses them at a dinner party supposedly held in honor of her tenth birthday, they send her off to live with her awful Uncle Simon.

Simon has a Roald Dahl pedigree, as well. (Think The Magic Finger.) He loves to hunt and kill small animals. He loves to make Emma's life miserable, too. She has to cook and clean for him. Cooking usually means making "backyard stew," composed of squirrels and songbirds Simon has slaughtered. Except—Emma discovers a wonderful cake shop when her uncle sends her out to get huge amounts of pastries (for him, not her).

To Emma's delight, magical baker Mr. Crackle takes her under his wing. Other people in the town of Nummington also reach out to her with kindness, and Emma begins to feel cared for for the first time. She is beginning to be truly happy when an evil stranger shows up at Uncle Simon's house. He has plans that will make a lot of money, but he intends to use Mr. Crackle for his unpleasant schemes. To protect Mr. Crackle, Emma interferes with their plans, only to watch them come up with a new and more horrible plan that will involve the gifted baker, anyway.

Not that these two villains are a match for Emma and Mr. Crackle—but before they win the day, things will get rather poisonous.

Hashimoto has a clean and upbeat style as she tells a delicious little story of villains and magical pastry making for younger readers. I think 7- to 9-year-olds would be the best audience for this one. Note that bits and pieces of her plot require some extra suspension of disbelief, but who cares? All I know is I want a magic cake shop in my town!

A Review of Pie by Sarah Weeks

2011-12-31T11:36:00.000-08:00

Alice's aunt Polly is the Pie Queen of Ipswitch, and when she dies, everyone in Ipswitch is upset. Not only was Polly such a nice person that she gave her pies away rather than selling them, but people were really hooked on her pies. Pie even amped up the town's economy. After all, Polly was a 13-time winner of the national pie contest, the Blueberry. (Someone else entered her pies.) And her shop, Pie, had become a real tourist attraction.

Alice is especially sad because she was very close to her aunt. To her surprise, her aunt leaves her a legacy, her grouchy cat, Lardo. And she has left her award-winning pie crust recipe to Lardo!

Now half the town is baking pies, trying to win the Blueberry. Including Alice's mother, who has envied Polly for years and resented the fact that Polly didn't use her gifts to make a lot of money.

Alice's father doesn't bake; he sneezes. He's allergic to cats.

Alice is not interested in making pies. Her own talent is for songwriting. And now she is trying to get along with Lardo, not the world's sweetest feline. When Lardo disappears from her room, Alice worries that he has been catnapped.

Also, what is magazine reporter Sylvia DeSoto really up to? Let alone Mayor Needleman's wife, or Alice's principal, Miss Gurke?

With a town full of secrets and failed pie crust, Alice and Aunt Polly's shop assistant Charlie set out to play Nancy Drew and one of the Hardy Boys, respectively. Sure, Charlie is good at fixing Alice's uncooperative bicycle chain, but he makes a pretty good friend, too.

Alice is inclined to be self doubting, worrying about all the things she's said and done wrong. It will be clear to readers that what Polly most wanted to leave her niece was not a pie crust recipe; it was simple, everyday happiness.

But happiness seemed as far from Alice's reach as the disappearing pies in her dream. She lay in bed wondering if things would ever change, and that's when she remembered something her aunt Polly had once told her.

"Things do not change; we do."

"Did you make that up?" Alice had asked.

"No, a man named Henry David Thoreau said it. Do you understand what it means?"

"I'm not sure."

"If you want things to be different, you have to start by changing yourself."

Of course, Alice, being a self-doubter, takes this memory the wrong way and decides she should change everything about herself. Stuff like her singing, her imagination, and her hunches. Readers will be quick to realize that Alice's new goal is not a wise one. Sure enough, a few pages and a peach pie later, Alice gets it right. Other characters also grow and change, replacing old perspectives with new ones.

This is a fairly slim book, a cheerful, unintimidating story of adventure and friendship—and pie.

A Review of Bliss by Kathryn Littlewood

2011-12-31T11:31:00.000-08:00

The Bliss family owns a magic bake shop in a small town. Not only are their baked goods extra yummy, but they can also act as magical solutions to problems. For example, Mrs. Bliss makes a special recipe to save a small boy who is in a coma after having been struck by lightning.

Bliss is written in the third person, but it is told almost entirely from the point of view of Rose, the Blisses' responsible, too-ordinary, too-plain, and slightly anxious 12-year-old daughter. She's the one entrusted with the whisk-shaped silver key to the magical vault when her parents are called out of town.

Littlewood has fun with her cast of characters. Rose's siblings include 15-year-old athlete and heartbreaker Ty, who's so full of himself and so adored by others that he hardly ever has to do a lick of work; 9-year-old Sage, who's a clown; and 3-year-old Leigh, who mostly makes messes. Rose is the only one in the family with dark hair, and she feels practically invisible—especially around her crush, Devin Stetson. We also get Chip, the laconic, tattooed muscleman who works in the bakery, and an elderly babysitter who smells weird and yells with a Scottish accent.

But the real star of this show is "Aunt" Lily, who shows up about five minutes after Rose's parents leave. It is so obvious that she has come to steal the Bliss family's magic cookbook that you may find yourself, as I did, telling Rose not to be a sucker for pages on end.

However. Lily is a bit more complicated than that. Yes, she's nefarious, and she has put some kind of spell on the kids so they won't tell their parents she is there when the elder Blisses call home.

But in addition to scheming, Lily is actually a lot of fun. In addition to being sneaky, she makes people feel good about themselves. She is charming with a capital C!

Rose and Ty run into trouble when they copy out some recipes from The Cookery Booke and experiment with them, hoping to show off to Lily without letting her into that vault.

A love potion and a truth potion cause all kinds of craziness in town, as does a backwards spell intended to reverse the previous spells.

Littlewood's humor shines brightest when she crosses over into parody, most notably when a dozen or so girls Ty has plied with both the love potion and the truth potion show up at the bakery looking for him. Until now, no one has done a Mean Girl quite like this one.

Out the backdoor, six rabid girls had pressed their flushed faces to the glass. More girls bounced on the trampoline, trying to get a look into the kitchen over the heads of the others. A girl stood on each of the swings—even the baby swing—and one brave girl had climbed on top of the rusty barbecue grate, ignoring the bits of burned hamburger stuck to the grill. Their eyes were bulging out of their heads, big as Ping-Pong balls.

This was scary stuff.

... Then a singular voice rose from the back of the crowd. "If he doesn't come out now, I will rip someone's face off!" One girl, taller and stronger than all the others, was hurtling toward the front of the crowd, throwing shorter girls to the ground as she passed them. That girl was Ashley Knob.

Her long hair had been curled into fancy ringlets so shiny and so blond that you had to squint to look at them directly. Her lip gloss shimmered like an expensive watch. Slung over one shoulder was a bag from which a frightened Chihuahua looked out, clearly wishing he were somewhere else. A ring of space opened up around her. Even in the depths of a spell, the girls of Calamity Falls always knew to make way for Ashley Knob.

Ashley screamed, banging on the window with her fists. "I will set all the furniture from my daddy's store on fire and throw it through this window!"

And that's just one of the results of Rose and Ty's baking!

Little by little, Lily hones in on the coveted cookbook, not to mention the magic ingredients kept in the secret cellar. One of the funniest things in the book is how Lily skewers the way Rose's parents use their magic, pointing out that their side of the family "[has] done nothing with [The Cookery Booke] but squander its power by running popular local businesses in small, eccentric towns." Most kids will miss the fact that Littlewood is sending up fantasy tropes, but older fantasy readers will no doubt enjoy the author's satirical moments.

The book gives us a couple of twists and turns before the Bliss parents come home, as well as a cliffhanger ending that sets readers up for a sequel. I am not a fan of such endings, but Bliss is nevertheless a clever, fun read for the middle grade crowd.

Note: I received an ARC of this book from HarperCollins. It will be coming out on February 14.

What Are You Rereading?

2011-12-29T08:37:00.000-08:00

I've heard from fellow readers (e.g., at Sounis!) that they find the Christmas holidays are a good time to curl up with books they're already read and want to re-experience. A cup of hot chocolate doesn't hurt!

This week I reread A Wrinkle in Time because I'm going to be writing a poem about it for the February blog tour celebrating its new reprinting. I also reread a few books by Sherwood Smith: Court Duel, The Trouble with Kings, and Wren's War. Next I'll reread the other two books in the Wren trilogy, no doubt.

I find myself wondering what makes me want to read certain books over again. It's easy to say that they're the best ones, but I've read some marvelous books I have no intention of ever rereading. Books I reread are certainly well written, but I think they have a "comfort food" quality, as well. The sort of story you can sink into as if it were a big, soft armchair (to switch metaphors from food to furniture).

What about you? Are you a rereader, especially during the winter break? What have you been rereading? Let us know in the comments!

A Review of Mr. Willowby's Christmas Tree by Robert Barry

2011-12-24T17:54:00.000-08:00

If you will scan the shelves of your local bookstore in December for great Christmas picture books, I think you will find that the pickings are pretty slim. Other than The Polar Express, a couple of nice versions of the nativity story, and maybe a Night Before Christmas, the books aren't amazing or even particularly fun. For that we must go back in time... in this case to 1963, when the delightful Mr. Willowby's Christmas Tree first came out. The book was reprinted in 2000 and is currently available, thank heavens.

This is a cumulative tale, all based on the rather unlikely repeated coincidence of a Christmas tree that's just a little too big for its designated space having the top chopped off and tossed—only to provide a tree for someone else. It's literally a tall tale (then a shorter tale, an even shorter tale, etc.)!

We begin following the tree when it is cut down on the page before the title page, hauled down from a mountaintop on the title page, and driven past a bear and a couple of rabbits on the publisher's info page to land on page one with the following text:

Mr. Willowby's Christmas tree
Came by special delivery.
Full and fresh and glistening green—
The biggest tree he had ever seen.

Mr. Willowby, with his large white mustache, dances around as the tree is put up, he's so excited. Then he notices that the tree doesn't quite fit.

Baxter, the butler, was called on in haste
To chop off the top, though it seemed quite a waste.

Baxter proceeds to take the top of the tree to Miss Adelaide, who is Mr. Willowby's upstairs maid. She sets up a table-top tree, but the top of the tree bends against her gable room ceiling. When she clips it off and throws it out, it is picked up, trimmed, and passed along repeatedly, making its way to one more human and three festive animal households before ending up with a tiny mouse family who lives in Mr. Willowby's house not too far from the original Christmas tree.

What makes this book so appealing? It's not the rhymed text, which ranges from adequate to slightly less so. No, it's the outrageous trail of adopters and choppers, along with the wonderful artwork. Each new tree acquisition is greeted with enthusiasm by an intriguing new set of characters. I especially like Barnaby Bear and his family, perhaps in part because they are given extra page time. (Barry must have liked them, too!)

Mama Bear is clearly in charge of this household. When Barnaby suggests slicing the tree off at the bottom because it won't fit on the mantel, "...Mama Bear just shook her head/And sliced the treetop off instead." Barnaby looks a tiny bit dismayed and Baby Bear seems surprised as Mama wields a large and shining knife with sturdy confidence. These subtleties of character are played out differently in each of the homes we visit so quickly. The best illustrators have a knack for capturing personality, and Robert Barry is no exception.

Each new incarnation of the Christmas tree is its own little story, like a miniature chapter in a longer book than this one. We don't get to hang around to see all of the different approaches to tree decorating, but in the Bears' home, it's "bells and honey rings,/Some berries, and tinsel, and popcorn on strings." At the very end, we learn that the Mouse family puts a star made of cheese on top of their tiny tree.

This is a goodhearted, ever so slightly tongue-in-cheek Christmas story, and young readers will thoroughly enjoy finding out where the increasingly small Christmas tree ends up next. It's almost as if the tree were a character, making its way from house to house like a slowly melting snowman. There's a message in here somewhere, but it's not entirely obvious. More than anything, Mr. Willowby's Christmas Tree captures the joy of families gathering to celebrate the season.

Poetry Friday: Water Magic

2011-12-15T17:45:00.000-08:00

I'm counting down till my first poetry collection, Water Sings Blue, comes out. Once more, I'll share with you a few poems that didn't make the cut. These poems were left behind because we decided to stick to real ocean life. Of course, being primarily a fantasy writer, I composed some magic-tinged ocean poems along the way...

The Siren

The siren’s singing opera,
the siren’s singing rap,
the siren’s singing country songs,
and jazz and blues and tap.

The siren’s singing loudly,
so plug your ears and frown,
‘cause whatever she sings, the siren
deeply wants to see you drown.

Ghost Ship

Ghost ship, where are you going?
Bearing cargo from ancient lands,
jewels and spices, perfumes and tigers,
silks and contraband.

Ghost ship, where are you going?
Navigating your way by stars
that climb the heavens strangely,
with different names than ours.

Ghost ship, where are you going?
You’re sailing west and north,
but the only way to deliver your goods
is to land at the ghost of a port.

Sea Witch

The sea witch’s hairs are tentacles,
the sea witch’s arms are eels.
The sea witch stirs up tsunamis,
spinning the oceans like wheels.

The sea witch’s teeth are clamshells
and her eyes are wave-worn glass.
Beware the sea witch’s lair of bone,
for she will not let you pass.

Art: "Siren" by John Waterhouse and "The Little Mermaid" by Harry Clarke, also "Ghost Ship" by an unknown photographer.

And now, let's hear it for Poetry Friday! I'll be posting your poetry links early in the morning and again at noon and in the early evening, MST. (Can you tell I have to work?)

—Heidi Mordhorst leads off with talk of her family's Christmas tree plus a lovely Christmas picture book featuring the words of an e.e. cummings poem: Little Tree. Deborah Kogan Ray is the illustrator.

—Wordsmith Steven Withrow of Crackles of Speech joins us with his lovely poem "The Buck."

—Robyn Hood Black brings us an interview with the most excellent David L. Harrison and a preview of his new e-book collection of poems, Goose Lake.

—Over at Poetry at Play, Charles Ghigna ("Father Goose") shares poems about poetry; I can't decide which one I like best!

—And at Teaching Authors, the talented April Halprin Wayland has a poem called "First Books," along with a literacy fundraiser for FirstBook.org that you can help by commenting about the first book you remember reading.

—Myra Garces-Bacsal of Gathering Books invites you to join a reading challenge; she goes on to share a poem by Joel M. Toledo, "Persona," that is beautifully illustrated by a collage photo of Myra's daughter.

—At The Drift Record, Julie Larios shares the very fun Index poem she wrote for a Poetry Stretch at The Miss Rumphius Effect: "Index to the History of the Hiccup." Try to read it without getting the hiccups!

—Tabatha Yeatts of The Opposite of Indifference posts two intriguing poems by Marilyn L. Taylor, "The Geniuses Among Us" and "Aunt Eudora on Having Outlived All of Her Friends."

—Mary Lee of A Year of Reading uses Howard Nemerov's "To David, About His Education" to launch a thoughtful conversation about education. Can cookie making be as important as literature? I agree with Mary!

—Welcome Jeff Barger of NC Teacher Stuff, who reviews a poetry collection by Mordicai Gerstein, Dear Hot Dog. You may know Gerstein simply for his illustrations, but take a look at his poems!

—At A Teaching Life, Tara posts "two extraordinary poems about the ordinary" by George Bilgere: "The Table" and "Corned Beef and Cabbage." With a shout-out to Garrison Keillor, even.

—And speaking of shout-outs, over at Carol's Corner, we've got a reminder of the power of books that spotlights a collection of poems edited by Lee Bennett Hopkins, I Am the Book. The poem Carol shares is Naomi Shihab Nye's "Who's Rich?"

—Librarian Andi Sibley talks about the Edublog awards at A Wrung Sponge. Julie Greller's post, "34 Websites for Teaching Poetry," led her to Magnetic Poetry for Kids. Great stuff!

—Where else but at Jama Rattigan's delectable Alphabet Soup site would you find a celebration of Jane Austen's birthday that includes one of the author's poems, "Oh! Mr. Best You're Very Bad," and a family bread pudding recipe?

—Did you know that the author of A Wrinkle in Time wrote poetry? Ruth of There Is No Such Thing as a God-forsaken Town shares a Madeleine L'Engle Christmas poem, "First Coming."

—Welcome to the prolific Diane Mayr, who shares a Ginger Andrews poem about the mulleygrubs at Random Noodlings, her own "A Letter Obsession" at Kids of the Homefront Army, Kay Ryan's "Every Painting by Chagall" at Kurious Kitty's Kurio Kabinet, and a quote from Ryan at Kurious K's Kwotes.

—Poet Laura Salas honors the season with "Ring Out, Wild Bells" and invites us to visit this week's 15 Words or Less poems, too.

—At A Poem a Day from the George Hail Library, Maria Horvath spotlights the poet Alice Meynell and shares her sonnet, "Renouncement."

—Susan at Chicken Spaghetti is experimenting with dictionary found poems and invites us to join in! Her "Rhymes with Fascinating" and "Rhymes with Fascinating II" are terrific models.

—TeacherDance's Linda is missing summer, as expressed in her poem, "Pantry Stores."

—Kenn Nesbitt's poem, "December 26," ends with the perfect twist. Thanks to Debbie Diller for sharing it!

—The folks over at The Stenhouse Blog share a teaching tip from Anne Marie Corgill's book: how to create a class poetry anthology.

—Today at Joyce Ray's Musings we have a timely topic, a tribute to Russell Hoban and his poetry. Did you know that the creator of Bread and Jam for Frances passed away this week?

—Karen Edmiston of The Blog with the Shockingly Clever Title offers us a sublime poem from Thomas Merton, "Advent."

Okay, folks, I have to go to work. Any additional comments will be linked during my lunch hour. But just look at all the great stuff we've got so far!

—Today at The Poem Farm, Amy Ludwig VanDerwater posts a thoughtful poem for two voices, "Finding Answers."

—Elaine Magliaro of Wild Rose Reader shares nearly a dozen of her marvelous Christmas poems. Thanks, Elaine!

—Over at The Write Sisters, Barbara Turner gives us a poem about cats and curiosity by Alastair Reid.

—Liz Scanlon posts about running and the poem "Marathon" by E. Ethelbert Miller at her blog, Liz in Ink.

—David Elzey joins us with some seasonal haiku and other thoughts on once again failing to send out holiday cards.

—Welcome to Poetry Friday, Jim Hill! Today he offers us a poem about the awkwardness of adolescence, "Sometimes."

—Lorie Ann Grover has posted "My Soul Lights," a haiku about love, over at On Point: Writing Through Life.

—Miss Erin chimes in with an original poem called "Alone, and Happy." What a nice thought! Not everyone knows how to do that.

—In a fitting conclusion to our December day of poems, Janet Squires of All about the Books reminds us of a marvelous collection that talks about winter and its various celebrations: Winter Lights: A Season in Poems and Quilts by Anna Grossnickle Hines.

Merry Everything! And thanks for participating!

Website News

2011-12-13T20:04:00.000-08:00

My author's website is nothing if not sprawling, and it has just grown again: I've put up pages for my upcoming picture book, Hans My Hedgehog, and for my upcoming poetry collection, Water Sings Blue. Thanks to my website designer, Barb Aeschliman of Jaleroro Web Designs, for all her hard work!

Check out the Hans book page and a page of hedgehog facts, plus the Water Sings Blue book page (with the title poem) and a seashell gallery (from my own collection).

I'm especially happy because Hans My Hedgehog has garnered two starred reviews in the past few weeks, one from Kirkus and one from Publisher's Weekly. Of course, a lot of the credit goes to illustrator John Nickle, whose artwork is just amazing!

Happy sigh...

Note: I am also exploring the wonders of Twitter, if you'd like to check it out. My username is KateCoombs13.

YA Holiday Extravaganza

2011-12-10T17:52:00.000-08:00

Okay, none of these are Christmas books (except maybe Bradley's)! But you might want to buy a couple as Christmas gifts.

I Am Half-Sick of Shadows by Alan Bradley

In short: If Sherlock Holmes were an 11-year-old girl and a mad scientist to boot, he would be drawn into the mystery of a murdered actress, too.

I know, these books are being sold to the adult mystery market. But The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag, A Red Herring without Mustard, and Bradley's latest are some of my current favorites and do star a child. Flavia de Luce is at once poignant in her loneliness and hilarious in her ruthlessness. She lives in a crumbling British manor house with her depressed, stamp-collecting father and her often-cruel older sisters. (The year is 1950/1951.) Is it any wonder Flavia falls in love with chemistry, particularly poisons? In this fourth book, a film crew comes to make a movie, but a blizzard and a murder turn the film shoot into a mystery for Flavia to solve.

Why do I include the Flavia de Luce mysteries in a YA roundup? Because, as any YA editor worth her salt will tell you, Young Adult fiction is all about voice—and Flavia's voice is marvelous. My favorite passages are about her interactions with a war-damaged family retainer named Dogger (who seems to be the only person keeping an eye on this crazy kid):

"As you know, Miss Flavia, my memory is not what it once was."

"Never mind, Dogger," I said, patting his hand. "Neither is mine. Why, just yesterday I had a thimbleful of arsenic in my hand, and I put it down somewhere. I can't for the life of me think what I could have done with it."

"I found it in the butter dish," Dogger said. "I took the liberty of setting it out for the mice in the coach house."

"Butter and all?" I asked.

"Butter and all."

"But not the dish."

"But not the dish," Dogger said.

Why aren't there more people like Dogger in the world?

And who else but Flavia would try to prove the existence of Father Christmas scientifically by laying a trap for him? Who else would set off rockets on the roof while solving a crime, for that matter? No wonder the local police inspector is both aghast and fascinated by this child.

I mean, I almost don't care what the mystery is: I just want to see more of Flavia!

Liar's Moon by Elizabeth Bunce

In short: A young thief tries to clear her aristocratic friend from charges of murder and discovers a morass of intrigue while war threatens.

This sequel to Starcrossed finds Digger back in the city, where she is arrested and thrown in a cell with her friend Lord Durrel Decath, who once saved her life. It turns out Durrel has been accused of murdering his wife. Once released, Digger investigates out of a mixture of loyalty, compassion, and curiosity. The investigation moves rather slowly, but then, clues don't drop out of the sky in real life, do they? Digger eventually uncovers troubles having to do with the smuggling of Sarists (illegal magic makers), even as she tries to decide for herself whether Durrel is guilty or innocent. The book ends with a really great twist.

Liar's Moon is a little akin to Tamora Pierce's Mastiff (see below) in that it features a dogged young investigator trying to get at the truth. Digger is tough, impatient, and thoroughly likable. While I sometimes feel that events move Digger in this book more than Digger moves events, she does find herself in the middle of some very big actions on the part of major players. And no matter what, Digger keeps working away at the mystery of the murder Durrel has been accused of committing.

The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson

In short: Everyone believes Jack the Ripper has returned to London in the present day, and only Rory seems to see him as he stalks his victims.

Rory moves to London to attend a boarding school when her parents get a sabbatical abroad. She is in the midst of adapting to roommates and major British exams when she notices a strange man on the street—and learns that someone is replicating Jack the Ripper's murders one by one, each on the date of the original murders. But the someone doesn't appear to be human. Has the ghost of Jack the Ripper returned?

I got this book because I really like Maureen Johnson's writing, though I'm not big on Jack the Ripper as a topic. Johnson certainly knows her way around a story. Our girl Rory turns out to be a special kind of ghost whisperer. She isn't the only one, either.

There are a lot of books like this series start out there right now, but Johnson happens to be a better writer than most. In her hands, a tattered genre takes on a fresh feel. I look forward to Book 2 in the Shades of London series.

Possess by Gretchen McNeil

In short: Bridget can banish demons, not a life skill she was really hoping for. She joins a team of exorcists, but starts to suspect she is being used.

I was a little hesitant to read this book, I have to say. On the one hand, it's by a cool fellow author from the Enchanted Inkpot blog, Gretchen McNeil. On the other hand, I'm one of those people who never did and never will watch The Exorcist. Ya know?

Fortunately, this book is more of a paranormal suspense book than a horror story (though there are a few horror elements). I like how main character Bridget Liu is not happy about her ability and the subsequent pressure from Catholic priests to exercise it for the good of the community. This seems more normal to me than all those books where the teen is either blasé or thrilled about having supernatural powers.

And of course, Bridget trusts all the wrong people, or distrusts the right people. I think most readers will be way ahead of her on that one, but it's still fun to watch her figure things out. Bridget is a piece of work, and her tough 'tude makes for a more interesting story. Subplots with her males buddies and her mom's potential boyfriends add to the ups and downs of Bridget's life. I want to see more of this girl!

Five Flavors of Dumb by Antony John

In short: A defiant deaf girl becomes the manager of a high school band named Dumb and learns through trial and error what music is really about.

Five Flavors of Dumb is now out in paperback, having debuted in November of 2010 and won the 2011 Schneider Family Teen Book award. That's the award given for the best book of the year about a young person with a disability.

Both at home and at school, Piper must deal with people who are uncomfortable about her deafness. On the home front, her parents have raided the college fund her grandparents left her to pay for an operation to make Piper's baby sister hearing rather than deaf. This sends all kinds of painful messages to Piper, whose father seems especially uncomfortable with her deafness.

At school, Piper stumbles into being the manager of a band named Dumb and makes them an outrageous promise she feels compelled to keep. Even with the help of an aging rocker and her guitar-blessed little brother, she struggles to make things work. It doesn't help that she has a crush on the lead singer, or that he has a crush on what appears to be a stereotypical rich mean girl. But nobody is quite what they seem in this immediate and well-told story. John brings the pieces of his tale together beautifully. You'll want to listen to all your favorite music before, after, and during Five Flavors of Dumb.

Mastiff by Tamora Pierce

In short: Beka Cooper's back, called on to find the king's child after he is kidnapped in an absolute bloodbath tainted by dark magic.

I've been waiting breathlessly for this one! I liked Pierce's Alanna and Kel series (Song of the Lioness and Protector of the Small). I also enjoyed the Immortals series. I'll admit that I wasn't too crazy about the Circle of Magic books. However, I really like the Beka Cooper books, which combine police procedural with magic. Beka is a member of the Provost's Guards, a tough and dedicated group of cops in the fantasy land of Tortall. (Think late Middle Ages, only with magic.)

When the young prince is kidnapped, Beka and her partner Tunstall set out in hot—or rather, methodical—pursuit. They are accompanied by Beka's scent hound, Achoo; her occasional companion Pounce, a powerful being in the shape of a cat; a mage named Master Farmer who is less of a bumpkin than he seems; and Sabine, the lady knight who is Tunstall's lover. The people they are after leave ugly spells behind to stop the "dogs." The kidnapping is, of course, highly political.

Beka herself is persistent, honorable, and courageous. She also has a few tricks up her sleeve. My favorite is that she can talk to whirlwinds and to the spirits of the dead who sometimes hover for a brief time within the bodies of pigeons.

We also get a growing attraction between Beka and the exasperating Master Farmer. Plus some great twists and turns in the plot. After all, very few writers can make a story and its characters seem as real and intriguingly complex as Pierce can. I recommend you get the first two books and read all three in order. Immerse yourself in Beka's world!

Supernaturally by Kiersten White

In short: In this sequel to Paranormalcy, Evie has a normal life at last—and she's bored. Soon she's sucked into helping the International Paranormal Containment Agency again.

It's hard to write a second book, especially when the first book is full of action and suspense. Where do you go next? What we get is Evie sneaking out to work for the IPCA again without 'fessing up to boyfriend Lend, who is off at college and can't keep an eye on her the way he did before. Evie worries a lot about something she's realized about Lend, but doesn't tell him what she knows. Meanwhile, her missions for the IPCA throw her together with a strange, puckish boy named Jack. He is supposedly a fellow agent, but readers will guess within moments of meeting him that he has his own agenda.

Evie does encounter creepy-cool fairy Reth again and even travels to the fairy world. She also tries to figure out who is sabotaging the IPCA's work. Oh, and she reluctantly applies to college.

So now we're up to three guys more-or-less vying for Evie's attention: Lend, Reth, and Jack. Sort of. Reth's still got that fairy stalker thing going, Lend is gone for much of the book, and the author's characterization of Jack simply screams "untrustworthy."

I will say that White does a good job of re-imagining a couple of key characters, sending the series in a slightly new direction. This book doesn't flow as well as the first one, and Evie whines a bit too much, but it's not bad. I figure, hang in there; Book 3 is sure to pick up steam!

Virals and Seizure by Kathy Reichs

In short: Temperance Brennan's niece Tory and her three buddies acquire super senses while solving the mystery of some rogue science in the islands off Charleston. Book 2 is about pirate treasure.

I talked about the Virals books in my recent post about crossover writers, or adult authors writing books for teens. I'm a fan of the TV show, Bones, as well, so I thought I'd give the books a try.

Reichs is an accomplished storyteller, and both books are fun to read. In Virals, Tory and her three guy friends infiltrate the island lab where their parents work to rescue a half-wolf pup that has disappeared from the woods. The puppy is sick, but parvo isn't communicable to humans, so it's okay, Tory reasons. Only, the pup isn't sick with an ordinary virus...

Redheaded Tory is the queen bee here, at least in her little group of science geeks. There's moody possible-love-interest Ben; technical guru Shelton, who's African American, thank you; and chunky Hi (Hiram), who's Jewish. Tory also deals with jealous, rich mean girls at school and a hunky rich guy who sometimes pays attention to her. And then there's her father's girlfriend, who wants to turn tomboy Tory into a Southern debutante.

Tory and her team investigate the growing mystery on Loggerhead Island. They discover a corpse and get shot at, but ultimately lack the evidence to convince their parents that something is really wrong. Oh, and there are monkeys. Don't forget the monkeys!

The second book finds Tory and Co. with enhanced abilities. As they deal with the unnerving changes, they also search for pirate Anne Bonny's treasure, hoping to save the research facility where their parents work. The first book is pretty good, but Seizures is better paced and hangs together better than Virals, which suffers from a mild case of scene-setting.

This budding series reminds me of those old books about the Three Investigators, only dialed up several notches. Tory would be Jupiter Jones, with the three boys as sidekicks. Keep in mind that first and foremost, Reichs' new stories for younger readers are adventures. They are definitely an entertaining read.

All These Things I've Done by Gabrielle Zevin

In short: Anya is the daughter of a dead crime boss in a future New York City in which caffeine and chocolate are illegal. Did she really try to kill somebody with poisoned chocolate?

Think Prohibition. For that matter, think the drug wars. Zevin postulates that whatever is illegal will be bought and sold by crime families. In her future New York City (2083), that would be chocolate. Coffee and chocolate. Anya deals with her life as best she can: she goes to school, avoiding her idiot ex; tries to keep her brain-damaged older brother out of trouble; looks after her little sister; cares for her grandmother, who is slowly dying; and tries to keep a lid on her awful cousin. Then someone uses her family's chocolate stash to poison said idiot ex, framing Anya for the crime. Anya is thrown into a juvenile facility, where she is treated very badly. When she gets out, she must deal with the fallout from a recent development—a new boyfriend who's the assistant DA's son. (For some reason, his father isn't very happy about that.) Furthermore, Anya gets in a fight with her best friend, and she still has to figure out who really poisoned Gabe.

I like Anya a lot. Here she talks about dressing up for a party. Note that many things are scarce in her day.

I went to my bedroom to find something to wear other than my old bathrobe. Nana once told me that, in her day, the way we dressed was called vintage. New clothing production had all but ceased a decade ago, and a sartorial concoction like Scarlet's required a lot of effort and planning. Unlike my best friend, I hadn't put any thought into my outfit for that evening. I threw on an old dress of my mother's—red jersey, short and swingy but with a modest neckline. It had a hole in the armpit but I wasn't planning on doing a lot of hand-raising anyway.

The pieces of the story may seem familiar, but Zevin makes them new, and not just because of her dystopian world building. Zevin has a knack for putting the reader inside the soap opera that is Anya's life without being too over the top. These days, you'll find dystopian books all over the place, many of them much harsher. But All These Things I've Done is the one I suggest you track down and read.

Note for Worried Parents: Virals and Seizure are okay for older MG readers. (Amazon lists them for 12 and up.) The rest feel more mature—they are books for teens, of course. Mastiff and Liar's Moon both allude briefly to sex. Then there's All These Things I've Done, which has a character refusing to sleep with her boyfriend because, she tells him, she's too young, she doesn't love him, and she wants to wait till marriage because she's Catholic. Possess and Mastiff have some strong violence. Possess is about demonic possession and exorcism.

A Very Blustery Week

2011-12-04T09:19:00.000-08:00

Well, we had a huge windstorm on Thursday and lost power for two days. When I went to work, I counted 66 semis parked along a ten-mile stretch of highway, 8 of them knocked over on their sides by the wind. And that was just the northbound side. At our house, there was this bizarre intermittent shrieking sound that we finally figured out was like running your wet finger around the rim of a wineglass, only it was super loud. The wind was running its fingers over our kitchen windows!

A great many large pine trees fell in my neighborhood, though fewer hit houses than you might expect. Finally we got our power back and yesterday everyone got out their chainsaws to clean up. My two brothers played lumberjack to get the tree off our backyard deck. We were told to stack all the pine branches along the curbs.

Aaand this morning we learned that there's another windstorm coming tonight, which might turn all those stacked-up branches into projectiles! So they canceled church and everyone in the neighborhood is going to try to get the branches to the dump. (There are big piles of pine branches and logs in front of a fourth to a third of the houses, depending which street you're on.)

I had no Internet this morning, but it's back on now. Still, with a nod to Winnie the Pooh's very blustery day, I think I'll wait and post book reviews next weekend! (I have some pine boughs to help load on my brother's pick-up.)

Note: The blustery day piece was actually a cartoon short from Disney, compiled from three different episodes in the Winnie-the-Pooh books. It was later incorporated into a longer film.

Update: I should have shared the poem I wrote about the windstorm. Here you go:

Wind

Wind shakes the house
by the shoulders, sobbing.
I do not know
what you want, Wind.
I cannot help you.

--Kate Coombs, 2011

Christmas Books Revisited

2011-11-29T18:21:00.001-08:00

In case you didn't see it, a couple of years ago I spotlighted some wonderful Christmas books. Here's the link for your holiday enjoyment!

Still, I feel I was remiss in not listing one of my very favorites in that post: Star Mother's Youngest Child by Louise Moeri, illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman. It's a small book, and it's written a little like a folktale. One Christmas Eve, a cranky old woman who lives alone in the woods rocks in her rocker, complaining to the universe and her dog, Uproar, that just once she'd like a proper Christmas. "Is that too much to ask?"

Meanwhile, up in the heavens, Star Mother's youngest child is fussing and fretting. It seems he would like to go down to earth and experience Christmas, just once.

You'd think this match made in heaven would play out predictably, but it doesn't, not really. When the little star shows up on the Old Woman's doorstep, he isn't at all pretty.

The Ugly Child stood blinking and shuffling on the doorstep. He seemed as nonplussed upon seeing the Old Woman as she was upon seeing him.

"Did you want to see me?"

"Not very bad," admitted the Ugly Child.

"Well?" shouted the Old Woman again. "What is it you want? We'll both freeze to death with the door open while you stand there tongue-tied."

"I was looking," said the Ugly Child at last, "for Christmas."

With a howl the Old Woman threw up her hands. "Mercy! Mercy!" she cried. "To be wakened on a freezing day like this by a vagabond whose wits have evidently frozen too! Looking for Christmas! I'll be bound—and where did you expect to find Christmas? Here?"

The Ugly Child peered past the Old Woman into the poor little hut. He carefully took in the shabby furniture, the bare table, the sparse stores of food and clothing. "Well," he muttered, "here is where I am."

Even as the two slowly come together to celebrate Christmas, the Star Child doesn't become any prettier and the Old Woman doesn't become any sweeter. Somehow, that makes their quiet triumph all the better.

Look for this odd, wonderful little book as you celebrate the season.

(My second favorite is Rumer Godden's The Story of Holly and Ivy, illustrated by Barbara Cooney. Well, it's a tie with Julie Vivas's The Nativity!)

Picture Books to Look Forward To

2011-11-26T10:47:00.000-08:00

Spring isn't as big a book season as fall in the publishing world, but that doesn't mean we won't see some wonderful new offerings after Christmas. Once you finish making your holiday wish list of books, start making a list for January and February!

Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett, illustrated by Jon Klassen (January 17, 2012)

In case you didn't catch on by reading Billy Twitters and His Blue Whale Problem, Oh No!: Or How My Science Project Destroyed the World, or any of the Brixton Brothers books, which are spoofs of the Hardy Boys mysteries, Extra Yarn should remind you that Mac Barnett is a very creative guy. Weird, in fact, but in a good way!

This playful story of a girl who finds "a box filled with yarn of every color" manages to be both pragmatic and magical. After Anabelle has knit herself a sweater, she has some extra yarn. "So she knit a sweater for Mars [her dog], too. But there was still extra yarn." When a neighbor mocks her sweater, she tells him he's jealous. And she's right—so she makes him and his dog sweaters, too. But there is still extra yarn.

As the cumulative tale progresses, Anabelle fills a dreary winter village with sweaters. She makes sweaters for people, sweaters for pets, even sweaters for things like houses. Then people start coming from all over the world to see Annabelle and her village—including a dastardly villain, an archduke who wants that box of yarn. Even here, the story doesn't turn out quite how you expect it will.

But there is always extra yarn.

Jon Klassen is getting a lot of buzz for his book, I Want My Hat Back, but I'm all infatuated with his illustrations for Barnett's book. About the only color in these pictures, other than a touch of pink on human cheeks and noses, is found in the lovely, cable-stitched sweaters Anabelle makes. These are tinted in textured rows of green and rose and orange and yellow to marvelous effect. I predict awards for this odd, gently humorous, and uplifting picture book, which is almost, but not quite, a fable.

Praise Song for the Day by Elizabeth Alexander, illustrated by David Diaz (February 21, 2012)

Elizabeth Alexander wrote this poem in honor of the 2009 Presidential Inauguration and read it at that event. Not everyone was in love with the poem at the time, but then, it hadn't been illustrated by David Diaz. Now that it has, poem and artwork feed off each other beautifully. For example, the first page reads:

Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each other's eyes or not, about to speak or speaking.

The color-drenched spread shows people and their dogs passing one another in a rich mosaic, eyes sometimes meeting, sometimes not. Diaz's breathtaking artwork supports the grand vagueness of Alexander's lines, bringing them into focus in just the right way.

When Alexander speaks of "the dead who brought us here,/who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges," Diaz gives us lines of men building railroad tracks. When she speaks of those who "picked the cotton and the lettuce, built/brick by brick the glittering edifices," we see men and women picking cotton, with a glittering city in the background. I'm especially fond of the page about music, done mostly in blues: "Someone is trying to make music somewhere/with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum,/with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice." (Note that Alexander's original line breaks are preserved.)

There are those who complained that Alexander's poem was too prosaic when it was recited at the inauguration, but I feel she was channeling Walt Whitman, trying to portray millions of people and 233 years-plus of history in one fell swoop. Not an easy task, but one made easier here by the addition of Diaz's distinctive and glorious artwork.

Children may not understand all of this poet's language, but I think they will understand the joy of Alexander's intent, not to mention the beauty of her phrasing.

Z Is for Moose by Kelly Bingham, illustrated by Paul O. Zelinsky (February 28, 2012)

Hahahahaha! (That's basically my review.)

Fine, I'll explain. This book is a spoof of a traditional alphabet book. An uptight zebra is managing the project, cuing all kinds of ABC characters to take their places on various pages. In fact, on the spread with the copyright information, you can see them lining up: Apple, Ball, Cat, Duck, Elephant, Fox, Glove, Hat, Ice cream, Jam, Kangaroo, Moose—

Wait a minute! M doesn't come after K! (The moose is actually holding Lollipop in one hoof and Needle in another.)

Turns out Moose can't wait for his page. Like the small child you'll read this book to, he keeps popping up and wanting to know if it's his turn now. Well, A, B, and C go smoothly enough, but when you get to the D page, you will see "D is for Moose," with an outraged duck barely visible in the background. Zebra cries out (in two voice bubbles): "Moose? No. Moose does not start with D. You are on the wrong page."

Across the spread, we see moose rambling into "E is for Elephant," saying, "Oh, sorry." And the irate elephant exclaims, "Look out!" Meanwhile, the duck hides behind one of Elephant's legs, peeking out.

The artwork here is a surprise because Zelinsky is known for his detailed, old master-looking fairy tale illustrations for books like Caldecott winner Rapunzel. This art is cartoonish, but it certainly suits its topic.

You may think Z Is for Moose's premise is a one-note joke, but as Moose wreaks havoc through the rest of the alphabet, you will find yourself laughing—even before you get to a couple of great plot twists. It should not be lost on you that the alphabet objects are completely predictable, making it even more gratifying to have Moose around to shake things up.

What an amazing, funny, perfect book!

Penny and Her Song by Kevin Henkes (February 28, 2012)

Kevin, Kevin, Kevin. You have spoiled me with your hilarious Lilly and your absurd Sheila Rae. Now I come across Penny, and I find myself confused by the lack of major humor.

To you readers out there: This book is sweeter and less funny than many of Henkes' previous books. You will just have to let go of Lilly and discover Penny!

She's a little mouse, yes, but Penny is a musician, not a purse carrier. Here's how we begin: "Penny came home for school with a song. 'Listen, Mama,' said Penny. 'It's my very own song.'" Whereupon Penny tries to share her song with her mother. But Mama stops her, saying, "You will wake up the babies." Penny tries her father. He, too, warns her about waking up the babies, little twin siblings.

Frustrated, Penny sings to herself in the mirror and to her glass animals, but it isn't enough. Next she sings at the dinner table, but her parents make her wait again. Finally it is time for Penny's song, and her whole family listens. She even teaches them the song.

Penny and Her Song is set up as an early chapter book. It only has two chapters, but will still make young readers feel like older readers. The reading level is about first grade.

If Penny resembles Lilly in any way, it is for her child-appropriate lack of patience. Just as Lilly wanted to show off her purse right now, Penny wants to sing her song right now. But Penny—and you—will just have to wait.

Penny and Her Song may not be what you expect, but it's a tender little story just the same. I especially love its emphasis on the joy of singing, both alone and as a family. I grew up in a family that sang together, and I can tell you: that's a real gift to a child.

I'm Fast! by Kate and Jim McMullan (January 3, 2012)

It started with I'm Mighty! and hit its stride with I Stink! Dirty, Bad, and Big are the other three books, leading us to #6, I'm Fast! These are all titles with strong appeal to little boys, of course. I am also reminded a bit of Jim Barton and Tom Lichtenheld's Shark vs. Train with this newest outing, mostly because it's all about a contest.

The competitors are a big blue train and a small red sports car. Our story begins as the car issues a challenge and the train responds:

Vrrrrrrrrrrrrrum!

What's that, Red?
You wanna have a RACE?
Vrrrrrrrrrrr-rum!
First one to Chicago wins?
You're on!
Lemme load my FREIGHT.

I really like the next spread, which shows the different kinds of train cars and what they carry in question and answer format, e.g., "Gas? Tank car!"

Be ready to make some excellent sound effects when you read this one to a small child. For example, the page where this pair sets off reads: "THROTTLE UP! Ready? Set? ROLL! Chooka chooka chooka chooka VVRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMM." (Yep, I counted the letters!) And some of the words are printed in red or orange or purple, making the whole thing easier to follow and even more fun.

The journey through tunnels and over snowy mountains is terrific, and the two characters run into different challenges along the way. Who will win?

Vvrrrrrrooooooommm! Chooka chooka chooka! Read and find out in this fast book for a high-powered little lap reader.

Freedom Song by Sally M. Walker, illustrated by Sean Qualls (January 3, 2012)

When I saw the full title of this book—Freedom Song: The Story of Henry "Box" Brown—I was surprised. After all, didn't Ellen Levine corner that market with her book, Henry's Freedom Box: A True Story from the Underground Railroad? Illustrated by the brilliant Kadir Nelson, no less? The book even won a Caldecott Honor award!

Then I read Freedom Song and realized that Walker really does have a fresh take on the story, as does Sean Qualls. Trust me, there's room for both of these books on your shelf.

First of all, Freedom Song is written in a poetic style. Here's the first page:

When Henry Brown came into this world, his family sang. Mama blew kisses on his soft, brown belly. Papa named him Henry, held him high to the sky. Sisters and brothers tickled his toes.

Henry grows up singing, despite being a slave. He sings a workday song, a gather-up song, and, at night when no one is listening, a freedom song. "Its freedom-land, family, stay-all-together words soothed Henry's greatest fear: the fear that Master would sell him."

For a time Henry is happy, especially once he's grown and falls in love with Nancy. They soon marry and have children together. Henry is busy singing cradle songs and telling stories to his little ones. "Family songs hushed Henry's freedom song. And Henry's heart was full."

Then the unthinkable happens. Henry's wife and children are sold away from him.

For weeks, silence filled Henry's house. Poor Henry. "No songs left in his heart," said a neighbor, shaking her head. But she was wrong. Henry did still have a song. His freedom song. And its think, plan, take-yourself-to-freedom-land words were getting stronger every day.

Now Henry comes up with the amazing plan of shipping himself to freedom in a box, and the story carries on to its conclusion. Does Henry ever manage to find his wife and children? In an afterword, we learn that he probably does not. But the story is inspiring for all that. It ends with a song of praise and thanks from Henry, who is now free.

Sally Walker's use of the song motif might seem overdone, but it is not; instead it carries the story along with power. The songs feel especially important in light of the history of hope embodied by slave songs and spirituals. I also like the way the author conveys how awful it would be to have your family suddenly taken from you for no reason. Family love permeates this book.

The portion of the story dedicated to Henry's escape is presented in sufficient, visceral detail that young readers will be able to imagine how frightening his journey was and how Henry's courage carried him through. It was horribly uncomfortable for a full-grown man to be in a small box for so long, risking suffocation and discovery at any moment.

Sean Qualls's artwork, like the writing, is stylized, apparently done in collage or mixed media. Blues, browns, and grays give weight to the soberness of Henry's life circumstances and to the threat of getting caught as he works to attain his freedom.

This is a powerful, beautiful book, a second and equally valuable testament to the hope and courage of Henry Brown and others like him.

Note: My thanks to HarperCollins for sending me ARCs. (I have selected the most outstanding ones to share with you!)

Happy Thanksgiving!

2011-11-24T11:56:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving wishes from the critters on my bookshelf... ('Cause that's just the kind of mood I'm in!) Good books, family, turkey—what more could I ask on this breezy fall afternoon?

Mother Goose in Flight

2011-11-19T19:39:00.000-08:00

At least two new Mother Goose books hit the market this year, both of them bringing a fresh take on what you might have thought was a worn-out corner of children's book real estate. The Green Mother Goose: Saving the World One Rhyme at a Time by David Davis and Jan Peck, with illustrations by Carin Berger, goes environmental on the good old goose's tail feathers, while Nursery Rhyme Comics is a compilation illustrated by "50 Celebrated Cartoonists."

The Green Mother Goose by David Davis and Jan Peck, illustrations by Carin Berger

The Green Mother Goose authors replace every well-known rhyme in their anthology with an environmentally oriented version. Here are a few examples.

We read of Old Mother Hubbard:

She markets today
With cloth shopping bags,
And when she gets home
Her dog is all wags!

Little Jack Horner has lost his interest in plums:

Little Jack Horner
Changed bulbs in the corner,
Replacing the old incandescents.
Now the lamps on the sills
Cut his mama's high bills,
'Cause the lights are
all compact fluorescent.

Meet Mary, now two different girls:

Mary, Mary quite contrary,
Refused to garden green.
Her toxic sprays, a choking haze,
Spreading dangers, hurtful and mean.

Organic Mary, not contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With ladybug smiles and compost piles,
And pretty herbs all in a row.

The collage illustrations are as fresh as organic vegetables, remarkably well suited to this collection of poems. Visit Berger's website for a look at more of her work.

As you can see from the examples, the rhymes are a little uneven. And if you are not up for didacticism, don't bother. The book, which came out in time for Earth Day 2011, is laden with overt messages about environmentalism. If you're an elementary school teacher or parent trying to teach your kids how to save the planet, you might want to add The Green Mother Goose to your repertoire. If, however, you're a big fan of the originals and don't want your nursery rhymes diluted with such a tightly focused message, you might want to give this book a pass.

Nursery Rhyme Comics, illustrated by 50 artists, with an introduction by Leonard S. Marcus

Like The Chronicles of Harris Burdick, which I reviewed last week, this collection strikes me as being just as much for adults as for children, if not more so.

It's a great premise, actually—sign up a posse of renowned comic book illustrators to reinterpret the Mother Goose rhymes. Throw in an intro by children's literature expert Leonard Marcus while you're at it, and you've got a veritable collectors' item.

And you do, truly. But is it a book for what we consider today to be the primary audience for these rhymes, 3- to 5-year-olds? Perhaps not. The small panels and sometimes less-than-cute characterizations would seem to give this book more appeal for the 6-to-8 crowd, frankly. Oh, and for a whole bunch of adults. Yeah, I suspect it's mostly for them!

That said, this is a very cool book. One advantage of getting these illustrators on board, most of them outsiders when it comes to children's literature, is that they bring a fresh eye to material that may be have been overdone by insiders. Not that their takes on the rhymes all work from where I'm standing. But it's a lot of fun to see what the newcomers have done with these iconic rhymes.

For example, when Patrick McDonnell's "donkey, old and gray," begins to "blow [his] horn," he whips out a saxophone, startling a sleeping bird on a branch. Stephanie Yue's "Hickory, Dickory, Dock" mouse turns out to be a medieval-looking critter who runs clear up a clock tower to strike the clock himself. He then descends by using his red kerchief as a parachute. James Sturm's nimble Jack follows the new trend for breaking the fourth wall, addressing his audience angrily in response to the rhyme's apparent directive, "Jack jump over the candlestick.": "What?! You must think I'm pretty stupid! Why don't you jump over a candlestick! Like I would do such a thing." He goes off, muttering, "You're crazy! Putting ideas like that in a kid's head. I'm going home." Then there's a nice twist at the end.

Much of the artwork is stunning. "If All the Seas Were One Sea" has tended to be illustrated rather insipidly in past compilations, but here we get a color-drenched cartoon hemisphere bearing a gigantic lumberjack who wields his axe to fell the world's biggest tree. (The axe and the stars alike have voice bubbles blithely announcing, "Twinkle!" or "Sparkle!")

As you might expect from the comic book crowd, most of these illustrators take full advantage of the storytelling possibilities the rhymes present. Eleanor Davis gives us the tale of "The Queen of Tarts" on a spread with 12 panels that are tied together by their placement in the framework of a large castle and its grounds. Richard Thompson's "There Was an Old Woman Tossed Up in a Basket" adds a young assistant and a device called an Old Lady Launcher. (I'll bet Acme holds the patent.)

This collection is marvelous; just don't expect it to appeal to the very youngest lap readers. For them, we should take a look at some standout versions over the years.

No, wait—first let's visit the Opies. In case you don't know, Iona and Peter Opie were a husband-and-wife team of British folklorists who studied nursery rhymes and other children's literature. (Peter has passed away, but I believe Iona is still alive, though retired.) Their compilations are considered to be scholarly; some are kid friendly, too. The Opie Book of Nursery Rhymes, illustrated by Pauline Baynes (who also illustrated the Narnia series), seems to be designed for 7- to 9-year-olds, perhaps as a classroom read-aloud, but Tail Feathers from Mother Goose: The Opie Rhyme Book is another story, with its gorgeously fun artwork by a number of well-known (mostly British) illustrators. They include Shirley Hughes, Jan Ormerod, Chris Riddell, Colin McNaughton, Angela Barrett, John Birmingham, Marc Brown, Errol Le Cain, Helen Oxenbury, and Quentin Blake, among others. The book is perfect for lap readers and has the intriguing advantage of deliberately focusing on less familiar rhymes. (It was published as a fundraiser for the Opies' large collection of early children's literature, which was donated to Oxford University's Bodleian Library.) See Maurice Sendak's cover illustration, shown above right.

If you're interested in the history of nursery rhymes, try The Annotated Mother Goose, with notes by William S. Baring-Gould and Ceil Baring-Gould. Baring-Gould is best known as a Sherlock Holmes scholar, but he and his wife published this Mother Goose volume together, and it's just fascinating. (I first ran across it at my grandmother's house. Later I tracked down a copy for myself.) For instance, did you know that Edward Lear attributed his limerick career to a nursery rhyme that's a limerick?

There was an old woman of Norwich,
Who lived upon nothing but porridge;
Parading the town,
She turned cloak into gown,
The thrifty old woman of Norwich.

Then there's the April Fool's tradition. The annotators tell us that it used to be people only played jokes until noon on April Fool's Day. Those who tried it in the afternoon could be told:

April-fool time's past and gone,
You're the fool, and I am none.

You may have heard that some of the rhymes have political meanings, but it turns out "Humpty Dumpty" is not one of them. Instead it is a riddle that may be thousands of years old.

The book divides the rhymes into groups like "Lullabies and Game Songs," "Charms, Auguries, and Nature Lore," and my favorite, ""Some That Came Later That Might Have Come Before." The volume includes many rhymes you probably haven't heard—here's one of the charms, intended to help a bewitched cow give up its milk:

Cushy cow, bonny, let down thy milk,
And I will give thee a gown of silk;
A gown of silk and a silver tee,
If thou wilt let down thy milk to me.

But what about Mother Goose for toddlers, you may ask? Of course, you have a lot of options. The Real Mother Goose, with illustrations by Blanche Fisher Wright, was first published by Rand McNally in 1916 and has been in print ever since. It's currently available as a Dover edition. (I just discovered I acquired it in its 75th printing, in 1983!) The old-fashioned illustrations seem to fit these traditional rhymes, and there's the comfort factor, as well, since many of us grew up with this edition.

My own favorite version resulted from the happy pairing of the highly esteemed Iona Opie and the greatly esteemed Rosemary Wells, who together created My Very First Mother Goose and Here Comes Mother Goose. The books feature Wells' signature bunnies and kitties and the rhymes are set in a nice big font. The artwork itself is large and simple, yet active and engaging. In short, these are the perfect books for toddlers and kindergartners. I am especially fond of the use of pure, simple colors and textured elements.

By the way, you may have heard that a Boston woman named Elizabeth (or Mary) Goose was the origin of the Mother Goose figure, but the tradition actually goes back farther than that, and into different countries. According to the great Iona Opie, this story is simply that—another story associated with the rhymes.

A few other Mother Goose editions are worth mentioning: Mary Engelbreit's, which I find stiff and decorative, though the strong colors are a plus; Gyo Fujikawa's, which is delightful, sweet without being saccharine; Richard Scarry's Best Mother Goose Ever, which has the best "Jack Be Nimble" ever, among other great renditions; and Favorite Nursery Rhymes from Mother Goose, illustrated by Scott Gustafson, which has a classic feel, lovely and placid.

An actual classic would be Kate Greenaway's 1881 edition. Yep, it's still in print. See art above right (presumably Miss Muffet).

Or look for the Jesse Willcox Smith edition from 1914, which is available to this day, as well. Her illustrations sometimes cross the line from sweet to saccharine, but they're very pretty nonetheless.

Jumping back to the present, I will just mention two additional variations on the Mother Goose tradition. In 2009, boy book expert and children's book author Jon Scieszka came out with Truckery Rhymes, in which the characters in the Mother Goose tradition all become trucks and cars. This book is associated with the Trucktown series, illustrated by David Shannon, Loren Long, and David Gordon. See my review here. Suffice it to say, little boys will probably get a kick out of this one. (I remember back in the days when my younger brother was one or two—he used to pound my dad's shoulder when we were out driving, pointing at every truck or car in sight and shrieking "Beece! Beece!" Which meant "bus," of course.)

Of course, in the case of any parody variation, it's a good idea to read the original rhymes with your children or students first. Then they'll be in on the joke.

One interesting recent offering is Mother Goose: Numbers on the Loose by Leo and Diane Dillon. This famed husband-and-wife pair of artists anthologized nursery rhymes with numbers in them, illustrating them beautifully, as always.

Then there are the books I want to get my hands on: Salley Mavor's fabric relief variation, Pocketful of Posies; Kady MacDonald Denton's A Child's Treasury of Nursery Rhymes (Have you seen her illustrations for Bonny Becker's A Visitor for Bear?); and Sylvia Long's Mother Goose (Her illustrations for Dianna Hutts Aston's books An Egg Is Quiet, A Seed Is Sleepy, and A Butterfly Is Patient are really something.).

But if you can only get one Mother Goose book for an actual child who's three or four, stick with My Very First Mother Goose by Iona Opie and Rosemary Wells or Richard Scarry's Best Mother Goose Ever. The facial expressions of the characters alone are worth the price of admission!

Note: I requested a copy of Nursery Rhyme Comics from the Amazon Vine program.

Update: I found James Marshall's Mother Goose at the library today, as well as a third (smaller) Opie-Wells collection of more obscure rhymes, Mother Goose's Little Treasures.

A Thousand Words

2011-11-12T08:08:00.000-08:00

Thank you, Brian Selznick. Well, actually, I'm sure I can't ascribe the relatively recent ascendancy of graphic novels and other books with important visual elements entirely to him, or rather to his award-winning, about-to-be-a-movie The Invention of Hugo Cabret, but it sure as Dante's Inferno didn't hurt. Shaun Tan helped, too, I'm sure of it. Oh, and Marvel Comics. Don't forget them. Plus Marjane Satrapi and Shannon, Dean, and Nathan Hale. Not to mention Jarrett J. "I Can't Spell His Name without Looking but at Least I Can Spell Scieszka" Krosoczka. At any rate, we're seeing some really wonderful graphic novels and variations thereof.

The Last Dragon by Jane Yolen, illustrated by Rebecca Guay

One that has been received with less fanfare than I would like is The Last Dragon. Apparently Jane Yolen had a great time creating Foiled (2010) because she's back with another GN, though it has a very different style. Foiled was low fantasy, but The Last Dragon is good old, glorious high fantasy, complete with village blacksmiths and herbalists and that titular dragon. The book has been published for the adult fantasy market, by the way, but it has definite YA appeal—and nothing in particular to worry parents of teens, if you don't count the baby who gets eaten by a dragon (offstage).

Despite the book's traditional trappings and its lush look, created by Rebecca Guay, it is not your great-grandmother's fairy tale. Oh, it reads like a fairy tale, but Yolen throws in some semi-scathing ideas about what makes a hero, or how a real hero might be made: from encouragement, foolhardiness, and kite strings.

Our story begins in a far-off land, on the island known as Meddlesome, where, unbeknownst to humans, the very last dragon's egg has stirred and begun to hatch. Meanwhile, a village herbalist is raising three daughters—practical, dour Rosemary; beautiful, empty-headed Sage; and talented, disobedient Tansy, who is a trial to her mother.

When Tansy and her father discover a plant called fireweed or flamewort, they dismiss the legends that say it only grows when dragons are around. Then Tansy's father disappears, and Tansy wonders if the legends might be true. At last the dragon is sighted; it has quickly developed a taste for humans and their beasts. The villagers gather rather hopelessly to plan their defense. One strategy is to send some of the village boys by boat to the mainland to fetch back a hero.

Naturally, the boys find all sorts of liars and thieves. At last they find a man who looks like a hero, but it's up to Tansy to shape this con artist into the real thing. And there is still the dragon to be defeated, one way or another.

Yolen's text is well paced and well written, as always. Guay's artwork flows beautifully around the words, burnished in dull golds and greens with touches of red throughout, so that the whole thing appears to have been painted on parchment.

Here's an excerpt from early in the story:

The isles ran red and dark with dragon blood till all of them were gone.

Or so the humans believed.

Two hundred years later:

At sunset the low tide scrapes the beach, pulling cold fingers through the sand and rock.

One great mother tree, older than the long-ago dragons, feels her roots loosening. Slowly, like a mountain, she falls with a crash into the water, giving up her adopted child, the egg she has cradled for so long.

This book is more for the fantasy lover than for the comic book crowd, though hero Lancot is deliberately drawn in ironic imitation of all those chesty superheroes. Overall, The Last Dragon is rendered as if it were a retelling of a lost fairy tale. The first few pages evoke medieval manuscripts, in fact. It's a beautiful book, and it's going on the shelf with my growing collection of excellent graphic novels.

Anya's Ghost by Vera Brosgol

This YA graphic novel is garnering starred reviews right and left, and no wonder. Anya's Ghost is a perfect rendering of what it means to be an outsider, or at least, to feel like one, which is more to the point. The book also has fascinating things to say about crushes and being true to oneself.

Anya is a Russian immigrant who's trying very hard not to come across like one. Having arrived in the U.S. in kindergarten, she has dropped her accent and learned to blend in. She tries very hard to avoid a more recent Russian immigrant, Dima, hoping she won't be lumped in with him.

After an embarrassing incident at school, Anya flees into a little wooded area and falls into a deep hole. At the bottom, she isn't just frightened by her predicament; she discovers a skeleton and meets the ghost of another girl who fell down the hole and was never found.

It will give you an idea of Brosgol's humor to learn that when Anya's shouting brings a teenage boy to the top of her prison and she yells, "HEY, GET HELP! GET SOMEBODY! I'M HURT!" he calls down, "Are you a hot chick? You kind of sound like a hot chick." Anya makes a priceless face and then replies, "Incredibly hot. You cannot even begin to imagine."

Thanks to a little bone that has somehow gotten in her backpack, Anya's ghost follows her home. At first the ghost seems sweet, telling Anya her sad tale of a soldier boyfriend lost in the war, a vicious attack on her family, and that fateful fall down the hole. Emily begins to help Anya with her tests in school and with getting the attention of Anya's crush, a basketball player. She even pushes Anya to get invited to a party where Sean will be and helps her pick out an outfit. A really slutty outfit.

Huh? Is this simply a matter of bad taste? Well, no. Let's just say that Emily is not quite the person she said she was, and it may not be easy to get rid of her. Watch out, Anya—you've been haunted!

I don't know which I like more, the ghost plot or the way the rest of Anya's life is portrayed, from her mother studying for the citizen test to her quarrel with best friend Siobhan and her fears about being fat. No, wait, I love Brosgol's depiction of the horrors of high school gym class!

Anya's Ghost is a fresh and perfectly aimed story about teenage fears. I'm sure someone could have a field day with the symbolism of the ghost as the dark side of any girl, let alone Anya, but you don't need to go all "literary analysis" to enjoy this terrific graphic novel. Just relish the storytelling. And make sure there aren't any finger bones in your backpack.

Note for Worried Parents: There is quite a bit of smoking in this book, also a teen party and a boy who obviously uses girls sexually. Everything is handled tastefully, however, with a positive message about not caving to peer pressure or trying to please a boy.

The Chronicles of Harris Burdick by Chris Van Allsburg and a bunch of illustrious writers

As Lemony Snicket explains in his introduction, for many years, teachers have used The Mysteries of Harris Burdick by Chris Van Allsburg as a set of great story starters. The book is a collection of marvelous illustrations, each with a cryptic sentence or two that just begs for more.

Here, in this new volume, is the more. That is, some bright soul got the idea of having a group of well-respected authors write short stories to go with the mysterious illustrations. The writers are, in order of appearance in the book, Lemony Snicket (introduction), Tabitha King (Stephen's wife), Jon Scieszka (told you I could spell it), Sherman Alexie, Gregory Maguire, Cory Doctorow, Jules Feiffer, Linda Sue Park, Walter Dean Myers, Lois Lowry, Kate DiCamillo, M.T. Anderson, Louis Sachar, Chris Van Allsburg himself, and Stephen King.

The phrase "a veritable who's who" comes to mind.

Now, it's been my experience that short story collections tend to contain 1-2 great stories, 4-5 good stories, and several that don't cut it. The Chronicles of Harris Burdick beats this trend to some extent. There aren't any truly rotten stories in the book. However, there are certainly some standouts. The other thing I noticed is that at least half the stories seemed better suited to an adult audience than to kids. Here is a brief commentary on each one:

"Archie Smith, Boy Wonder" by Tabitha King—It may take a few pages for the reader to realize that the narrator is a special needs child, perhaps a boy with Down's Syndrome. This is a lyrical story about baseball, the moon, and imagination, but its beauty may not be appreciated by children as much as it will be by adults.

"Under the Rug" by Jon Scieszka—The mastermind behind the Guys Read project gives us a humorous horror story with unapologetically gruesome boy appeal. It's about a boy, his grandma, and a lump beneath the rug. Also about the way kids clean house, which is to say, not very diligently. Fun suspense with a twist. (See guy wielding chair, below left.)

"A Strange Day in July" by Sherman Alexie—The brother and sister twins in this story aren't at all nice. In fact, as the author points out often, they are strange. But these budding sociopaths, the terrors of the community, may just get their own when they invent another sister. I wouldn't share this tale with anyone under the age of 10, but it is creepy-cool.

"Missing in Venice" by Gregory Maguire—Magical realism blossoms into fantasy in this satisfying story of a boy adrift in Venice, at the mercy of his money-hungry stepmother and her scorpion of a lawyer now that Linus's father has died. When Linus meets the Queen of Gingerbread and steals something from her, everything changes.

"Another Place, Another Time" by Cory Doctorow—An old-fashioned story about a boy whose father goes to sea. It is also about the physics of space and especially time. The science dialogue feels a little dry, but the discovery of the old handcar, which Gilbert and his friends christen Kalamazoo, adds wonder and adventure to the narrative.

"Uninvited Guests" by Jules Feiffer—I wasn't in love with this story of a children's book illustrator whose creations come to life after his wife leaves him and his house catches on fire. What starts out as Alice in Wonderland ends up being about death, with a very adult sensibility.

"The Harp" by Linda Sue Park—I found the message in this one distracting, but maybe kids won't notice. A girl and her sister are trapped in the woods by a wizard who wants to teach them to stop bickering. One of them is turned into a frog, and she has to learn to play the harp. Of course, she can only do this with her sister's help. The other plot strand tells of a very angry boy who has lost his mother.

"Mr. Linden's Library" by Walter Dean Myers—The author does a nice, slow build here. Carol Jenkins visits an old man who lets her borrow his books, but what she really wants to get her hands on is the strange book he is reading. This story may be too quiet for some kids, but I liked it. I was especially pleased by the way Myers wrapped up the story, yet kept the spell of suspense going, just as Van Allsburg's mysterious illustrations do. (See sleeping girl with book, below right.)

"The Seven Chairs" by Lois Lowry—Another one that may read a little older, but a well-told tale for all that. We learn of a group of baby girls who float in their cribs in the year 1928. Only one of them keeps it up, honing her craft over the years. But the most interesting thing about Mary Katherine ("MK") Maguire is that she discovers seven chairs which have the ability to join her in floating. It's odd and fun to follow her as she finds each one. Years later, MK visits a Gothic cathedral. Is there a reason she studied French?

"The Third-Floor Bedroom" by Kate DiCamillo—Again, I feel like this story is for adults or at least for more sophisticated readers. However, it really got me; it's one of my favorites in the collection. We read a series of letters from a girl called Pearlie to her soldier brother. Pearlie is a passionate, angry child who has lost both her parents and feels abandoned by her brother. She stares out the attic window and looks at the birds on the wallpaper, wishing they could fly away. Wishing she could fly away. And then she gets sick. I suppose I wouldn't go so far as to call Pearlie an unreliable narrator, but her shifting perspective sweeps us along in a wonderfully well-crafted way.

"Just Desert" by M.T. Anderson—No, that's not a typo. It's a play on words from Van Allsburg. Anderson's story is thoroughly engrossing and takes a twist I really didn't see coming. But then, we are talking about one of the most creative minds in children's fiction! The ending is pleasingly chilling.

"Captain Tory" by Louis Sachar—A subtly well made and touching story. Captain Tory visits the doughnut shop down by the wharf every morning for a cinnamon doughnut and a cup of coffee. Captain Tory is a ghost. Then one morning he visits the hardware store instead, which pleases Paul. One of the best in the collection, in my opinion.

"Oscar and Alphonse" by Chris Van Allsburg—This one has been anthologized previously. Oscar and Alphonse are caterpillars who spell out words, but only for Alice. Meanwhile, her older brothers and her father are trying to solve a great physics problem, the Farkas Conjecture. Parts of this story may be over young readers' heads, but they'll like the way Alice and her caterpillars are wiser than the grown-ups. The ending hangs rather, but that's what you would expect from the guy who made all those mysterious Harris Burdick illustrations in the first place. (See photo of Allsburg, below left.)

"The House on Maple Street" by Stephen King—I was never a big horror fan, so I didn't get into King's books. Then I read On Writing and was very impressed. So I wasn't surprised by how real this story felt, how odd and enthralling it was. Four children discover something strange about their house in between worrying about their mother's migraines and their stepfather's cold heart. Then oldest boy Trent comes up with a plan to make everything better.

I should mention that The Chronicles of Harris Burdick is beautifully designed, heavy and luxurious. Each story is introduced by a sort of monogrammed HB followed by a smooth book plate version of the illustration. The designer capitalizes on those great brown tones from the original. It's one of the prettier books you'll see this year.

Teacher/Writer Stuff

I have a new day job writing teacher's guides for elementary history books, so I've got curriculum on the brain... Then again, maybe this is more of a writer thing. But it occurs to me that besides using the Harris Burdick pieces as writing prompts with the words, you could get rid of the bits of text and come up with your own. The following are mine, but see if you can write some, too. Or try this with your class!

Warning: Also, don't let your students read the stories in Chronicles if you want to use the Mysteries as writing prompts. Share the new pro stories only after letting kids come up with their own, or they may get derailed.

"Archie Smith, Boy Wonder"—When they were big enough, his dreams escaped.

"Under the Rug"—I tried aiming for the little table, but I couldn't see anything, and the man kept yelling horribly.

"A Strange Day in July"—"They said no fireworks," I reminded her. "That's alright," Lindsey told me, "Watch."

"Missing in Venice"—Grandma couldn't get a building permit.

"Another Place, Another Time"—Henry blew on the sails, and the handcar began to move.

"Uninvited Guests"—Someone had taken the sign down, but I remembered what it said.

"The Harp"—Last time it was a clarinet made from a giant's toe-bone.

"Mr. Linden's Library"—So that's where the briars came from. She kept her eyes shut.

"The Seven Chairs"—Sister Ascenza Ignatius was allowed to float on Tuesdays. This was a Friday.

"The Third-Floor Bedroom"—The first snowflake wandered down from the sky, not to be mistaken for the last bird, which still hadn't arrived.

"Just Desert"—It isn't easy carving a carriage.

"Captain Tory"—"If I call the ship," he asked, "will you tell them Gasche lost the key?"

"Oscar and Alphonse"—When I opened my hand, the magic beans had turned into caterpillars.

"The House on Maple Street"—It was the best Christmas, and the last.

You see? The mysteries continue to call to us. Used the right way, a piece of art can paint words in the air. We may be a little worried about the state of the picture book these days, but never fear: there are people in the world of books who are doing new and wonderful things with pictures.

A Review of If You Give a Dog a Donut by Laura Numeroff

2011-11-05T06:56:00.000-07:00

Numeroff and Bond are back with their eighth "If You Give" book, not counting related books with the same characters. Every time Numeroff publishes one of these babies, the question is asked: Has she exhausted this format? This—in essence—franchise?

The answer is, no. Why not? Because Numeroff doesn't repeat herself. She doesn't need to repeat herself. The dog in this book (who, we are told, first made a cameo appearance in If You Give a Pig a Pancake) asks for things, like the mouse, moose, pig, and cat before him, but his requests are unpredictable. Random, even.

This should remind you of something: that's how little kids are. "Oh, look! A butterfly! Oh, wait, there's a school bus! And a piece of paper! And a grandma! And..." You see? This dog's meandering requests and momentary interests are not only delightful because they are surprising, but because they are an accurate representation of the flittering thoughts of small children. One more example: When I was teaching first grade some years ago, I remember leading two straight lines toward our classroom from the playground, only to have a child cry, "Look! A ladybug!" And suddenly 20 little bodies were clustered around her, trying to see this amazing sight.

So yes, Numeroff's new book works. I found some of the choices particularly appealing—when throwing an apple reminds the dog of baseball, he wants to play. And later, when he gets wet in the birdbath and is dried off with the boy's bandanna, he leaps to the idea of using the bandanna to play pirates.

In fact, this offering is perhaps the most clearly oriented toward boys of the entire series. Though girls can and do participate in all of the activities listed, they seem to have a certain amount of boy appeal.

Felicia Bond's artwork continues to charm, as well. Her dog makes you want to rush out and buy a puppy, or maybe give birth to a child, one of the two. Her sprinkle donut might make you hungry, and her kite is especially lovely, apparently made out of the color comic section of the newspaper. As always, Bond's style consists of simple lines with white backdrops. Visually, it should be easy for any toddler or kindergartner to follow.

I'll admit I was a bit cynical when I saw this one, but Numeroff and Bond have done it again: If You Give a Dog a Donut can stand in its own right as a book with strong kid appeal plus a dash of humor for moms and dads.

Note: HarperCollins sent me an ARC of this book.

Book Update and Awesome Man

2011-11-05T05:22:00.000-07:00

I have some fun news about my own books, not to mention a review of Michael Chabon's picture book, which turns out to be related.

First, I'll just remind you that my retelling of the Grimms' tale, Hans-My-Hedgehog, will be out on January 24 and is already up on Amazon. John Nickle is the very talented illustrator. At the moment, my website designer Barb Aeschliman and I are busy working on a hedgehog page (much like my frog and squirrel pages).

Second, I now have cover art for my collection of ocean poems, Water Sings Blue, which is also up on Amazon and has a pub date of March 14. Isn't it pretty? Meilo So is the illustrator, and her interior artwork just knocks my socks off. Interesting note: Meilo lives in the Shetland Isles. (I discovered this while trying to FedEx galleys when they wound up at my house instead of hers!)

Third, I have had a picture book manuscript waiting for an illustrator at Atheneum for quite a while now, and voilà! The Tooth Fairy Wars will be illustrated by Jake Parker. Check out his website. You can expect this book in late 2013 or early 2014.

Jake is known for his comic series, Missile Mouse, and for his work on animated films like Horton Hears a Who and Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. His most recent project is Michael Chabon's picture book, The Astonishing Secret of Awesome Man, which came out on September 6.

In case you haven't seen it, this book tracks the adventures of a superhero and his sidekick, Moskowitz the Awesome Dog. Here's how the story begins:

Hi! I'm a superhero. My name is Awesome Man.

I have a cape as red as a rocket, a mask as black as midnight, and a stylin' letter A on my chest.

I'm just basically awesome.

The superhero goes on to list some of his superpowers (shown in application in the illustrations) and to recount his adventures with villains such as mutant talking Jell-O from Beyond the Stars, Professor Von Evil, and the hero's arch nemesis, the Flaming Eyeball.

But our superhero has his down moments, and we see him returning to his Fortress of Awesome under the Arctic Ocean to try and get a grip.

Parker's comic style art suits this superhero story. He even uses dot backgrounds like old newsprint comics in some of the early spreads. I like the way his fortress, while under the sea and the eye of a passing whale, is a suburban home beneath a set of glass domes. Despite the smoothness of the rendering, Parker can show his square-jawed hero sulking as well as preening.

As for Chabon's text, it's a tad tongue-in-cheek—watch, for example, for a supervillain named Sister Sinister. The wording has a nice casual tone, as in this excerpt:

I fly west. I fly east. I fly eight times around the earth and all the way to the heart of the sun. (The Flaming Eyeball hangs out there sometimes.)

Chabon is, of course, best known for his adult fiction, e.g., Pulitzer Prize winner The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, but he has also written a YA (upper MG) novel, Summerland, which I quite liked.

I noticed that some Amazon customer reviewers were complaining that Chabon's new picture book doesn't have a stronger plot, but I think they're missing the point: this one is intended to be a profile of the superhero, not Die Hard 3. (If you want more plot in a picture book along these lines, try Barnett and Santat's Oh No! Or How My Science Project Destroyed the World.) I will say, the ending of The Astonishing Secret of Awesome Man isn't quite my cup of tea, but young readers will probably like it. For the kid who's a bit too young for Vordak the Incomprehensible, Chabon's new book may be just right.

Boo!

2011-10-31T05:00:00.001-07:00

Best scary book ever for kids? Forget Goosebumps, forget all those YA paranormal novels; I'm voting for Eve Merriam and Lane Smith's Spooky ABC, previously published as Halloween ABC. Here's a phantasmal sample, under G:

Ghost

More gruesome than any groan,
more dreadful than any moan,
most trembling, terrifying sight:
white silence in the dark of night.

I'll give you an art sample, too. If you can't guess what P stands for, it's Pet. Mwa-ha-ha-ha! These poems never fail to give me the shivers. There are scarier ones than "Ghost," believe me you. The cumulative effect is really something, especially alongside Smith's hauntingly off-kilter illustrations.

So, what's your favorite spooky children's book? Leave a comment and let us know.

Happy Halloween!

A Trio of Mice

2011-10-29T08:53:00.000-07:00

Earlier this year I wrote a post about two new mouse books, one by Lois Lowry and the other by Cynthia Voigt. I also listed a number of great mouse books already in print.

So. With Halloween right around the corner, just begging to be a blog post, I'm really more in the mood to talk about mice again. Why? Because the great Richard Peck has thrown his hat into the ring of the mouse boxing match. (I wanted to say "mouse circus," but I looked up the origin of "throw your hat into the ring" and discovered it's a boxing expression.) What I mean to say is, Peck has written a mouse book, too: Secrets at Sea.

I have two questions about all of this. One is, why did three of the best children's books writers of all time come out with mouse books this year? The other is, quite frankly, how do the three books compare?

I'll start by summarizing each book for you, with a lot more detail for Peck's story, since his wasn't around for my February post.

Lowry's Bless This Mouse features a tribe of church mice who live in a Catholic church called St. Bartholomew's. Their leader, Hildegarde, must keep her people safe. She must also fend off attempts by a sneaky rival to take her top spot. In order to maintain the status quo, Hildegarde enforces a strict policy of birth control in the mouse population. I know, it sounds like China's Communist oligarchy, but the book is actually light-hearted, the proverbial rollicking read. It turns out Hildegarde faces a bigger threat than Lucretia—the humans have learned of the mice and are planning to exterminate them. Hildegarde decides that the best way to protect her tribe is to evacuate to the outdoors till the danger has passed. Meanwhile, the human parishioners are gearing up for a ceremony in which children bring their pets to be blessed by Father Murphy, a tradition honoring St. Francis of Assissi. Hildegarde takes note of the fact that the church mice are not exactly invited to the blessing of the animals, adding another wrinkle to the story.

Voigt's Young Fredle is a sort of Jonathan Livingston Seagull character. (If you're too young to get that reference, here's the Wiki article.) He's a house mouse living on a farm, but he winds up outside quite by accident and doesn't know how to get back inside to his family. Fredle manages to stay alive, has all sorts of adventures, and becomes such a different person that he no longer fits in with his clan. He learns about snakes, raccoons, reliable and unreliable friends, and the stars. He's a bit of a philosopher, and his growing view of the world permeates the book.

In Richard Peck's Secrets at Sea, Helena and her three younger siblings—Louise, Lamont, and Beatrice—live with a nouveau riche family in turn-of-the-century New York. Our story begins when Louise bursts in with the news that the Cranston household is in an uproar, planning to go on some kind of journey because older daughter Olive "must be given Her Chance." The sisters hardly have time to parse this information before Lamont bursts in, missing his tail.

You get some idea of just how determined and brave Helena is when she makes Lamont take her to the scene of the crime to get that tail back. They make it out alive—barely. Then Helena sits right down and sews Lamont's tail back on.

The little mouse family realizes that the Cranstons intend to take a sea voyage in hopes of finding a fashionable husband for Olive, who appears to be in danger of becoming an old maid. (The teenage Cranston daughter Camilla is actually friends with Louise, which makes Helena nervous.) Following the counsel of her eccentric, oracular Aunt Fannie, Helena and her siblings accompany the Cranstons on their voyage. Once onboard ship, they discover a large number of mice crew and passengers whose behavior quietly mimics that of the human crew and passengers. Helena and her family also intervene in the lives of the Cranstons, who could certainly use the help.

Peck's wording, as always, is perfectly crafted, and his humor is sly and witty. Here are a couple of examples:

We are mice, and as Mother used to say, we are among the very First Families of the land. We were here before the squirrels. The squirrels came for the acorns. We sold them the acorns. (8)

From the rear Lamont looked ridiculous without his complete tail. He paused and put a finger to his chin, though he has no chin. He was stalling. (27)

"Why don't boys ever want to be themselves? Why do boys always want to be somebody else?" asked Louise, who wanted to be Camilla. (124)

As Aunt Fannie points out, Helena has her hands full with her siblings: Louise consorts with humans, Lamont takes wild, life-threatening risks, and Beatrice sneaks out to meet unsuitable mouse boys. Between them and the Cranstons, Helena can hardly keep it all straight. But she's quick on her four little feet, and this ocean voyage promises to be the making of both human and mouse families in unexpected ways.

Humor, action, plot twists, romance: Secrets of Sea has it all, just as you'd hope for when reading the latest from a dab hand like Richard Peck.

Now, let's consider the three books together.

Setting

Bless This Mouse—The church mouse premise and setting makes for some very fun jokes as well as a nice counterpoint between the human and mouse users of the building. Lowry has a good time with things like the mouse-eye view of the stories of the martyrs depicted in the stained glass.

Secrets at Sea—An ocean voyage evocative of the Titanic, only without the iceberg. Throwing mice into this supposedly elegant mix is clever and often funny.

Young Fredle—The farmhouse, barn, and outlying land become an entire universe for a small mouse. This setting is the most realistic of the three, especially the way Voigt uses it.

Anthropomorphizing

Bless This Mouse—Clothes are never mentioned in the text, but the mice are depicted on the book cover and in internal illustrations as wearing clothes, something the author would have had to approve. Hildegarde and her people all talk, and they are aware of human history and doings.

Secrets at Sea—It threw me a little when Helena explained that mice wear clothes in their own homes, but not when out where humans might see them. The mice in this book act like humans in a lot of ways, but must hide from humans and especially from cats.

Young Fredle—No clothing here. The mice in this book really do act like mice, but they do think, and they talk to each other and other animals.

Main Character

Bless This Mouse—Hildegarde is determined and often exasperated, but she has courage and leadership that go for miles, or at least for feet.

Secrets at Sea—Helena has a wonderful, strong voice and you'll be cheering for her every step of the way. She's not perfect: she's bossy and she thinks she's always right. But then, that's a pretty good take on a lot of oldest sisters (I say, speaking as one)! This book is the only one of the three written in first person, which quite suits the story.

Young Fredle—Fredle is a very rich character. It's so easy to put yourself in his place and/or worry about him as he learns about the greater world. Fredle is hopeful and yearning and kind and quite bright, even though he's lacking in all sorts of knowledge.

Suspense/Plot Twists

Bless This Mouse—The peril keeps this plot popping, as do Hildegarde's attempts to deal with everything that comes up. There are two plot twists that you may not see coming.

Secrets at Sea—Peck twists his plot like a pretzel, and the ongoing threat of discovery by humans makes this book a game of cat-and-mouse, sometimes literally.

Young Fredle—Like Fredle, you will never know quite what to expect, though there is some foreshadowing about dangers such as a snake in the barn.

Favorite Scenes

Bless This Mouse—The mousey interpretation of the church and its doings is amusing throughout (e.g., thoughts on the edibility of crayons), but I particularly liked the town meetings Hildegarde holds, filled with interruptions, colorful personalities, and political maneuvering.

Secrets at Sea—There's a lot to love here, but I was especially fond of a scene in which Helena and a little boy with a bed full of contraband sweets face down a mean nanny.

Young Fredle—One of the most intriguing sections of the book has to do with a group of rowdy raccoons who take Fredle prisoner. Their captain finds a fellow thinker in Fredle, but he's perfectly realistic about the likelihood of eating the mouse should other food options fail to present themselves.

Themes and Spirituality

Bless This Mouse—Lowry has interesting things to say about which animals humans value and which they don't. (I suspect the author is a vegetarian, but couldn't find confirmation of that.) Other themes are the importance of community and of focusing on what needs to be done rather than on status. Religion plays a key role in the book, but you will feel you are wrapped in a warm blanket of spirituality rather than being urged to follow any particular tradition.

Secrets at Sea—We are told more than once that mice must live in the moment because their lives are short and indeed, are often cut short. Helena tries to control her siblings and their fates, but she learns to let go in many ways. Another message is that you have to take risks, and just plain take action, to make your life better. On another note, the mouse perspective on human antics makes those interactions seem sillier than ever, for a nice slice of satire.

Young Fredle—This feels like a very philosophical coming-of-age story, but it manages not to preach. What matters most in life? Is surviving all there is to our existence? These are the kinds of questions Voigt raises in her book.

Illustrations

Bless This Mouse—Eric Rohmann is the illustrator. The jacket art shows a handful of very cute mice, with Hildegarde front and center. Interior illustrations, some full page, continue to highlight mouse personalities, focusing on body language and facial expressions. The artwork adds to the book.

Secrets at Sea—Illustrator Kelly Murphy's jacket art shows the four mouse siblings jauntily holding onto some sort of ship's tackle, with the sea in the background. These mice are a bit less cute than the ones in Bless This Mouse, but are still appealing. Interior illustrations do include some full-page spreads. The art is nice, but I didn't pay a lot of attention to it. Peck's words outgunned it at every (page) turn.

Young Fredle—Louise Yates is the illustrator. The cover art makes Fredle look a little too cartoony for my taste, with a touch of Quentin Blake to the style. But having him look up at the stars is nice, as well as thematically correct. He does appear a bit hapless, which also fits. The interior illustrations are sparse, mostly spot art. They actually distracted a little from my experience of the story when I noticed them.

Overall Success

Bless This Mouse—A very fun story. I wasn't sure the ending worked with everything that had come before, but maybe that's just me.

Secrets at Sea—Clever and outrageously entertaining.

Young Fredle—Deeply involving and moving. Fredle instantly leaps to the front of the pack when it comes to animal and even people stories about young people finding their place in the world.

Of course, now that I've done it, I'll admit it's entirely unnecessary to compare these books. I can happily recommend all three for your bookshelf. Unlike the Disney group, this Mouse club consists of exalted company indeed.

So why did three Newbery award-winning authors write mouse books at this stage of their careers? The obvious answer is, to have fun. To take it a little farther, however, I think once you pass a certain point in your life and work, you might just have room for real, I-know-exactly-who-I-am humility. And what could be more humble than a mouse? Through the little voice at the baseboards, these authors give us timeless truths, whether in Lois Lowry's comfortable church lady-running-a-committee persona, Peck's erudite tongue-in-cheek style, or Voigt's yearning, wondering tones.

Note: If you're feeling deprived on the spooky front, please visit my best Halloween post ever, "Enter Three Witches."

Picture Book Proclamation

2011-10-25T16:45:00.000-07:00

Be sure and read the Picture Book Proclamation, a project Betsy Bird tells us was spearheaded by the very creative Mac Barnett. He is joined by such luminaries as Jon Scieszka, Erin E. Stead, Adam Rex, and Sophie Blackall.

The group reminds us that the picture book is, at heart, a maverick form, and should not be allowed to stagnate, especially considering the loud talk about its impending demise.

This pleasingly off-the-wall manifesto insists that we celebrate creativity, concluding, "Every day we make new children—let us also make new children's books."

Note: Carson Ellis designed, lettered, and drew the proclamation. She is best known as the wife of Decemberist lead singer Colin Meloy and illustrator of his book, Wildwood.

Halloween Giveaway: Mythological Creatures Stamps

2011-10-23T15:12:00.000-07:00

A couple of years ago, I ordered a few sets of the British "Mythological Creatures" stamps, thinking they'd make a great Book Aunt giveaway. Besides their topic, they are linked to children's books because Neil Gaiman—a good stand-in for Jack Skellington, the Halloween King, in more than one way—wrote the text that describes each stamp on the lovely enclosure card. How cool is that? In fact, Gaiman teamed up again with his favorite illustrator, Dave McKean, who did the darkly beautiful artwork. Here is a sample of Gaiman's writing, from the description of giants:

The remaining giants sleep, lost in deep slow dreams, covered in earth and trees and wild grass. Some have clouds on their shoulders or long men carved on their sides. We see them from the windows of cars and tell each other that from some angles they look almost like people.

So here's how this works: leave a comment describing your favorite monster or mythological creature in 1-2 sentences. On October 31, I'll pick the best of the comments that actually do some describing, as opposed to simply naming a beast. You're welcome to throw in a metaphor or two! I have three of these stamp sets, so after selecting the best and second-best comments, I'll simply do a drawing for stamp set #3.

Meanwhile, I hope your costume plans are coming together, your leaves are turning orange or gold and falling in slow motion, your spiderwebs are trembling in the moonlight, and you have at least one jack-o-lantern on your porch, maybe even a tribe.

Note: As usual, this giveaway is open anyone on the planet. I'll be happy to pay the postage if you're a winner in Japan or New Zealand or Kenya! Wherever you're from, you should either leave your contact info in your comment, or just be sure to check back on November 1 to see if you won.

Update: Participants, see my note in the comments!

A Review of Circus Galacticus by Deva Fagan

2011-10-22T12:06:00.000-07:00

I hang out with Deva over at the Enchanted Inkpot, so I heard about her new SFF some time ago and have been looking forward to it ever since. After all, while the idea of an unhappy child running away with the circus goes back a long way, the idea of that circus being intergalactic is all new!

Orphan Trix lives in a boarding school aptly named Bleeker Academy where everyone looks down on her. Popular Della bullies Trix, but Trix is the one who gets in trouble with Headmistress Primwell, who is quick to remind her that she is a charity case and therefore should be grateful and cooperative. (Shades of Miss Minchin!) To punish Trix for Della's latest infraction, Headmistress Primwell refuses to let the girl go to the state gymnastics meet.

Meanwhile, the circus has come to town. Why is it that Trix can see more in the circus posters than anyone else? (I'll confess that I thought this book would have humans openly journeying through space, but instead, the people of earth are unaware that the circus travels across galaxies.)

There's something special about Trix, and not just because she is the keeper of a mysterious chunk of space rock.

Pretty soon a creepy alien is trying to get the rock away from Trix, and yes, she is running away to join the circus, which is led by the charismatic Ringmaster with the assistance of a cold-hearted computer entity, Miss Three.

You'll find a touch of Hogwarts in this section as Trix settles in with her roommate and tries to get along with various cliques in the circus. (Thanks to another fantasy trope, the spaceship/circus is a lot bigger inside than it looks.) Because Trix has no magical/super-scientific abilities such as telekinesis, she is assigned to work with the clowns. In this stage of the book, Della is replaced by a new mean girl called Sirra, while Headmistress Primwell is replaced by the hostile Miss Three.

Of course, joining the circus brings up new mysteries for Trix to solve, and the alien from the evil Mandate is still after her meteorite.

Fagan gives us a theme of self-worth ("Am I special or not?") as well as a grand conflict between an imperialist/authoritarian government and freedom-loving rebels.

I will mention that the Ringmaster has a nearly Edward Cullen-esque romantic appeal, but Fagan makes sure that Trix notices this here and there without getting too YA of a crush on the guy. The Ringmaster may also remind you of Pierrot because of his melancholy, solitary nature. Or you may find him more like Willy Wonka, or perhaps Dr. Who.

Trix herself is a likable main character, though often filled with self-doubt. Thrust into a great adventure, she embarks on her role of heroine with good sense, creativity, and determination.

The author's style is clean and reader friendly. Here's a sample:

Miss Three's simulacrum winks out, her taunting smile lingering in a ghost of photons. Nola starts packing up her tools, moving about as slow as molasses. She gives me an encouraging nod, but there's a worried crinkle between her eyes. I try to smile back. Then finally she snaps the toolbox closed. The door shuts behind her, and I'm alone with the Ringmaster.

I stand miserably, trembling all over from the aftereffects of the test and the fear of what he's about to say.

"So, would you prefer nachos or cakes?"

"What?"

"Ah, you're quite right. Why choose? We'll have both. Excellent!"

I stare at him, wondering if one of the aftereffects of my thrashing is hallucinations.

Oh yes, the book is written in present tense. I didn't find this distracting, however. Circus Galacticus is a fun new take on science fiction for the middle grade/tween reader, with action and suspense building alongside moments of comedy. It's also one of those books that leaves you eager to read the sequel.

Note for Worried Parents: There's a little peril here and a hint of romantic attraction. I think the book will be most appealing to the older end of middle grade, the 10- to 13-year-old crowd.

Also: I requested a copy of Circus Galacticus from Amazon Vine. It will be on shelves November 15.

Finally: Check out Deva's blog, where she talks about Circus Galacticus and shares the book trailer.

A Review of Tuesdays at the Castle by Jessica Day George

2011-10-22T11:50:00.000-07:00

The main character in this book is arguably Princess Celie, but the Castle itself runs a close second, often stealing the stage. This self-remodeling castle usually rearranges itself on Tuesdays, but has been known to surprise people on other days. If you are a visitor, you had better hope the Castle likes you. It will give you an ugly, cramped little guest room with few comforts if it does not.

Celie and her siblings see their parents off on a journey, but then King and Queen Glower disappear in an ambush and are presumed dead. Creepy Prince Khelsh comes to visit almost immediately. He offers to help, but is obviously intent on stealing the throne from Celie's teenage brother Rolf.

Other key characters include Celie's older sister Lilah, a helpful commoner named Pogue, and another visiting prince, Lulath, who seems to care for nothing but his fluffy little yappy dogs.

It's important to understand that the magical Castle has historically held the role of choosing the next monarch. The Castle has already selected Rolf as Crown Prince, but does it think young Rolf is ready to be king?

For that matter, can it be that some of the kingdom's ministers are scheming against Rolf?

What follows is a cat-and-mouse game as the royal children—especially Celie—spy on the "guests" and try to find out what really happened to the missing king and queen. But even with the Castle on her side, all does not go smoothly for our girl Celie. The action escalates nicely to a final showdown and resolution.

I really enjoyed seeing the various ways the Castle helped Celie and the ways it expressed its more-than-brick-and-mortar personality. The pranks Celie and her siblings play on their unwanted guests are another fun piece of the action.

Jessica Day George's work has a cheerful, imaginative middle grade feel, a nice change from so many darker, YA-influenced books. George is more of an Eva Ibbotson type than, say, a Neil Gaiman. I'll give you an excerpt so you can see what I mean:

She paused for just a moment in the hallway, but she heard Lilah say, "Oh, let her go, Rolf. She's determined to be difficult."

So Celie stomped off down the hall. She found some stairs, and climbed them, and then a hallway and more stairs and just kept going. She didn't have her atlas with her, and wasn't sure she'd ever seen this particular staircase, but she was trying too hard to hang on to her disagreeable mood and told herself she didn't care if she got lost.

Not that she thought she'd get lost. All of the royal children knew the Rules very well, and besides, it was fairly obvious that the Castle liked them. But Celie was trying to make an atlas of Castle Glower, the first ever, and normally carried colored pencils and paper with her to sketch anything she hadn't seen before. So far she had three hundred pages of maps, and could get to most of the major rooms (Winter and Summer Dining Halls, Chapel, Library, Throne Room) in record time as long as the Castle wasn't bored and looking to stretch.

The interplay between siblings, the invasion by nefarious "ambassadors," the treachery within the kingdom, and the ongoing question of just what the Castle will do next make this a light and delightful read for the fantasy crowd, especially those with a fondness for rambunctious princesses and magical architecture.

Note: I requested a copy of Tuesdays at the Castle from Amazon Vine. This book will be on shelves October 25.

Visit the author's website for more info about the book, as well as signings, etc.

A Review of Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick by Joe Schreiber

2011-10-22T06:41:00.000-07:00

This is one of those books I wanted to read mostly because of the title, also because it seemed to have that Cohn/Levithan flavor. While Au Revoir is certainly a clever read, it zooms by a little too fast and will most certainly make you think of a screenplay treatment (as another blogger pointed out—can't remember who!). Big surprise: I did a Google search and discovered that this book is already being made into a movie. Oh, and the author is another crossover from the adult side. He's been writing horror novels.

So. You are likely to feel like you are reading a movie novelization with this one, and you wouldn't be too far off. Check out the action flick premise—a teenage boy has had a dull Eastern European exchange student staying at his house for a few months. Unlike the girl in Better Off Dead, this one is not attractive. She lacks social skills, too, and Perry Stormaire has been razzed by his friends for having her around. Even so, he has persisted in being kind to her. Then, just when his band finally gets a gig, his parents make him take Gobija to prom instead.

Pretty soon we've got what the book jacket copy bills as "Ferris Bueller Meets La Femme Nikita" because Gobi turns out to be, not only more hot than previously anticipated (Where are Clark Kent's glasses when you need them?), but also a woman with a mission. The kind that involves getaway cars (Perry's dad's Jag, to be precise) and flying bullets.

Perry handily plays the scared-but-decent schmuck in this scenario. He even gets to stop by for his band's performance. Meanwhile, the bullets just don't quit. Neither do Perry's gripes, shrieks, or attempts to escape. But one way or another, Gobi's going to get the job done. Leaving Perry to figure out just what she's up to, and why.

During the course of the evening, these two form an odd and somewhat romantic bond. Teens might get a kick out of the non-stop action and humor here, but actual readers may find themselves annoyed by the lack of multi-dimensional storytelling, not to mention by an overall sense of being commercially manipulated. That evokes an analogy, doesn't it? You, the reader, can be hapless Perry, while the marketing machine can be dark, driven Gobi. She basically holds him captive, as you can see in this passage:

She glanced at the lit office window twelve floors off the street, then back at me. "Here," she murmured, leaning over to wrap the plastic handcuffs from her bag around my wrists.

"Wait, what's this?"

She hooked the restraints through the Jaguar's steering wheel, cinching them to the skin.

"Ow, that's too tight!"

"Stay here."

"Like I could go anywhere!"

She reached into the bag and took out the gun I had seen earlier.

"Gobi, wait—"

She got out and sank into the shadows half a block off Pearl Street, a Lithuanian ninja. I jerked tentatively on the wrist restraints but that only made them tighter. She had left her bag sitting on the passenger seat, and I wondered what else she had in there—passports, more weapons, a bazooka?

Thematically speaking, we learn that Perry's dad has been really hard on him and kept him from developing his own identity. I'm not sure this works because the speed of the plot doesn't leave much room for it to be convincing. Gobi's mysterious backstory also suffers from the pell-mell pace of the book. Schreiber does manage to throw in a few plot twists, which I appreciated. The one truly great thing about Au Revoir is the chapter headers, each a supposed entrance exam essay question from a university. I think my favorite is "You've just written a 300-page autobiography. Send us page 217. (University of Pennsylvania)."

I won't say it wasn't fun reading this book, but I do feel a little cheap after the fact, as if my virgin strawberry margarita wound up having alcohol in it, maybe even a roofie.

Note for Worried Parents: There is a lot of violence in this one, as well as a couple of mature plot details having to do with sex. The book has a kind of comic book feel, however, so it's not as bad as it sounds. Still, we're definitely talking teens.

Also: I requested a copy of this book from Amazon Vine. Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick will be on shelves October 25.

You can watch the book trailer here.

Crossing Over: Adult Authors Writing MG/YA

2011-10-15T08:23:00.000-07:00

You've heard of Philippa Gregory, right? She's the British author of best-selling historical novels like The Other Boleyn Girl, which is already out as a movie. Now Gregory is joining what's starting to feel like a mad rush for authors of adult fiction to write Young Adult and sometimes even middle grade books.

First it was celebrity authors, now it's the crossover crowd. Those of us who've been writing for younger readers all along—well, it is for to sigh.

But onward. In an online article from USA Today, we read:

"Asked if she is 'genre-poaching,' Gregory says that 'the important thing—surely—is that young-adult readers should get the very best writing that might be available to them so that they extend their reading into adult life.'"

I am tempted to dissect that statement, but will limit myself to giving you a list of other authors who've already done the crossover dance, along with any insights I have about their relative success in making the switch. After which I will freely offer some advice, i.e., rules, for other adult authors who are feeling inclined to write MG/YA fiction.

Meet the Crossovers

KELLEY ARMSTRONG (YA)—Known among adult paranormal fans for her Otherworld series, she started her Darkest Powers YA books with The Summoning and has since finished that trilogy and moved on to a new group of books called Darkness Rising, beginning with Book 1: The Gathering.

How Good Is It?—With teens who have magical powers trying to evade an evil organization, Armstrong's work transitions easily to the YA format. Scroll down through my Scary YA Extravaganza for a review of The Aw akening (Darkest Powers, Book 2). I liked The Gathering even more.

Adult Overlap—If you've read the adult series, you'll see the connections and meet the occasional familiar character. But you can read these books without knowing anything about Armstrong's adult paranormal writing, so that's a plus.

DAVE BARRY and RIDLEY PEARSON (MG)—Dave Barry is famous for his nonfiction humor writing, which is truly funny stuff, while Ridley Pearson wrote adult thrillers in the 90s. When Pearson's daughter asked him how Peter Pan met Captain Hook, a series was born, beginning with Peter and the Starcatchers. (Pearson is also known for writing the Kingdom Keepers, a series unabashedly set at Disney World. I'll admit the in-your-face commercial aspect of those books has kept me away.)

How Good Is It?—I've only read the first book in the Starcatchers series and was not thrilled out of my gourd. Then again, I wasn't especially disappointed. From all accounts, i.e., reviews, these two are doing a pretty darned good job. They're now on Book Five, The Bridge to Never Land, which came out in August.

Adult Overlap—None.

CANDACE BUSHNELL (YA)—The Carrie Diaries and Summer and the City: A Carrie Diaries Novel, about a young Carrie Bradshaw. I'm sure you've heard of, if not watched, the TV series Sex in the City.

How Good Is It?—I haven't read these books, but the professional reviews for Book 1 are quite positive.

Adult Overlap—Tons! According to reviewers, Bushnell is very successful at writing a teen Carrie who is turning into the person you've seen in Bushnell's adult novels and in the television series.

HARLAN COBEN (YA)—This author is well known for his mystery/suspense novels, especially the ones featuring Myron Bolitar. His first book for teens stars Myron's nephew, Mickey.

How Good Is It?—Here's my recent review of She lt er. The sex trade plot premise is pretty harrowing, and overall you get a kind of Alex Rider feeling. It's not a bad adventure series start.

Adult Overlap—As mentioned above, the hero is the nephew of this author's well-known adult character. But Mickey dominates the book; he even distrusts and avoids Myron!

RICHARD PAUL EVANS—You will no doubt either be thrilled or dismayed to learn that this author of maudlin, popular books like The Christmas Box has just had a teen superpowers novel published by none other than Glenn Beck. No, really! I read somewhere that RPE wanted to write a less violent heroic sci-fi/fantasy. The result is Michael Vey: The Prisoner of Cell 25 wherein teens have electric powers and are pursued by an evil organization that wants to harness those powers for nefarious purposes. ('Twas ever thus.)

How Good Is It?—Evans and possibly Beck fans are giving this book a lot of love on Amazon. I personally haven't read it, but it sounds like another solid teen adventure. One reviewer did mention the ethical/moral dilemmas Michael faces, which makes me hope it isn't too messagey.

Adult Overlap—None, except perhaps for the feel-good factor that characterizes Evans' adult work. Of course, this may work just fine in a good vs. evil sci-fi story!

JASPER FFORDE (MG)—The author of The Eyre Affair and other Thursday Next literary fantasy novels turns his hand to middle grade fiction. The Last Dragonslayer is already out in the UK, so I expect it to hit the U.S. next year.

How Good Is It?—This book has gotten a number of glowing reviews in the UK, and the plot sounds like a lot of fun: In a contemporary-type world in which magic has been fading away, a girl named Jennifer Strange runs an employment agency for washed-up wizards. But now something big is happening, and Jennifer's right smack in the middle of it.

Adult Overlap—None, but I predict you'll enjoy Fforde's style as applied to a new genre.

JOHN GRISHAM (MG)—Two books so far, Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer and Theodore Boone: Abduction. (Trust me, Encyclopedia Brown is rolling over in his grave.)

How Good Is It?—Where do I begin? Perhaps with a quote from Leila Roy of Bookshelves of Doom, who remarked of Book 1, "As you've probably already predicted, I want to punch this book in the face." Here are her succinctly scathing reviews of the first and second books, along with my lightly damning review of Book 1 and two more reviews from Monica Edinger and Kim Werker, respectively. I'll just point out that Grisham breaks rules 1-3, 5-7, and most definitely rule 9 repeatedly. (See below.) Per Leila, he also throw in things I don't even touch on in my list, such as sexism, ethnic stereotyping, and trying to turn a supposedly contemporary town into some kind of lawyer-loving Mayberry. Too bad—I like the guy's adult fiction.

Adult Overlap—Technically none, except that Grisham never actually leaves the land of adults when writing these books. If only Theo were half as cool as 11-year-old Mark Sway from The Client!

KIM HARRISON (YA)—Known for her urban fantasy series about Rachel Morgan, she launched a young adult series with Once Dead, Twice Shy, about a girl named Madison Avery who dies, almost, and winds up caught between life and death, dealing with light and dark reapers, guardian angels, and more. There is the requisite teen love triangle, of course. The third book in the trilogy came out in May 2011.

How Good Is It?—Book 1 was a bit of a muddle as it tried to set things up, but Madison is a pretty appealing character. I haven't read the other two books; however, the pro reviewers gave Book 2 mixed marks and felt that Harrison really hit her stride with Book 3.

Adult Overlap—None. Harrison has built a different world from her adult fiction. It will remind you of a lot of the other YA paranormal out there, though.

SHARON LEE and STEVE MILLER (YA)—Fledgling, Saltation, and Ghost Ship take this husband-and-wife author duo's Liaden universe to the teen reader with heroine Theo Waitley, who is considered a "nexus of violence" at school but a potential spaceship pilot by her mysterious father and the powerful clan he left behind.

How Good Is It?—I'm a real fan of space opera and Theo Waitley is a very fun character. But if you haven't read the adult series, you might get lost at times.

Adult Overlap—Lee and Miller clearly continue the story they've been telling in their adult novels about Clan Korval with the Theo books, including scenes driven by adult characters. I like these YA novels very much, but then, I have read the adult series. The new books may be a little difficult unless your teen is an avid sci-fi fan and a fairly sophisticated reader.

KATHY REICHS—The creator of a series of adult novels about forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan and the related TV series Bones has come out with two books about Temperance's teenage niece, Tory: Virals and next week's Seizures.

How Good Is It?—I haven't read these, but the reviews are pretty positive. Reichs is a seasoned writer who, like Harlan Coben, brings a knowledge of pacing and thrills to her new teen books.

Adult Overlap—Prequels about the adult series' heroine as a teen.

DAVID WEBER—A Beautiful Friendship is a prequel to the author's adult novels about Honor Harrington; here we meet his heroine's ancestor, Stephanie, at ages 12 and 13. See my review.

How Good Is It?—Not bad, though he does wax pedantic and political in spots (as he does in his adult books, frankly!).

Adult Overlap—Prequel about an ancestor of the adult series' heroine.

PAUL WILSON—Another author who turns back the clock on the hero of his adult series, Repairman Jack, with Secret Circles and Secret Histories. Take a look at my review of Secret Circles.

How Good Is It?—The books read like an amped-up version of the Hardy Boys. Pretty good, but not great, especially as compared to the adult books. Wilson does deal with an intriguing moral dilemma in Book 2.

Adult Overlap—Prequels about the adult series' hero as a teen.

A Few Thoughts and Questions

Of these crossovers, how many are publisher initiated? Or market impelled?

Is the line between YA and adult fiction blurring to the point of disappearing? The audiences have certainly been mixing, but what about the books themselves? What continues to differentiate the two genres?

Compare also adult fiction about teens to YA books, which are always about teens... E.g., The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold vs. Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher.

Books about an adult series author's main character as a teen are a special bunch—they mostly seem to work, but do they have more appeal to people already reading the adult books than they do to the teens they supposedly target?

When adult authors start fresh, are the books more successful than when there's clear overlap?

And now...

Tips for Adult Authors Writing for Kids or Teens

Rule #1—Do NOT talk down to young readers.

Rule #2—Do NOT talk down to young readers.

Rule #3—Do NOT talk down to young readers.

Rule #2, for Real—Okay, I'll get a grip and give you a few more pointers. This may seem like the flip side of Rule #1, but please try to separate them: Do not blithely ramble into adult concerns or get all caught up in telling us about your adult characters because they're what you know and not-so-secretly like best.

Rule #3—Closely related to Rule #2 and even more important: The young main character should not only dominate, but drive the plot. Especially when it comes to solving the major plot problem. Though minor ones, too, of course. (Are you listening, John Grisham?)

Rule #4—Ease up on the setting descriptions. Lay it in, then move on. Kids don't want endless vistas; they'll feel like they've been dragged on one of those educational vacations in the family car by their parents: "Look at the beautiful scenery, my child!"/"Uh, right. How is this different from the beautiful scenery we saw five minutes ago?"

Rule #5—Watch out for anachronisms. No, today's kids really don't listen to the music or watch the TV shows that were popular when their parents were young.

Rule #6—Make sure you don't misrepresent children for their age group. One stunning John Grisham example was saying that 13-year-old boys have no interest in girls. You should be able to pinpoint the earlier "girls have cooties" stage, let alone know that middle school boys do have girlfriends, especially (for better or for worse) in the 21st century.

Rule #7—If you're writing any kind of action-adventure or sci-fi/fantasy, make the peril sufficiently perilous. And no matter what you're writing, challenge your main character! Children's or teen fiction does not equal tame. If this bothers you, keep in mind that kids know fiction is meant to provide experiences that are unlikely in real life. (The same reason adults read the Jason Bourne books or watch the movies.) Kids also watch a lot of TV, just like you. This should give you some inkling as to why characters in MG/YA books are able to sneak around and have some truly scary experiences without their parents noticing. For that matter, it's why the mothers in fairy tales are usually dead!

Rule #8—YA fiction can have sex and violence, but it is less likely to go into detail. (For examples of sex scenes that don't take pages and pages, see Melina Marchetta's Jellicoe Road or Simone Elkeles' Perfect Chemistry.)

Rule #9—PLEASE, PLEASE: Read extensively in the genre before you try it! For YA contemporary realism, start with Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher, Looking for Alaska by John Green, Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta, Monster by Walter Dean Myers, and Dash and Lily's Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan, also Sarah Dessen's novels (e.g., The Truth about Forever and Along for the Ride). For YA paranormal, you obviously need to read Stephenie Meyer's Twilight, but should also try Holly Black's Tithe, Maggie Steifvater's Shiver, Becca Fitzpatrick's Hush, Hush, and many more. For YA dystopian, read Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games, Uglies by Scott Westerfeld, Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve, and The Maze Runner by James Dashner. For YA fantasy, try Franny Billingsley's Chime, Cassandra Clare's City of Bones, Garth Nix's Sabriel, Erin Bow's Plain Kate, Terry Pratchett's Nation, Libba Bray's A Great and Terrible Beauty, and Tamora Pierce's Terrier, among others.

For MG, I hardly know where to begin. See my post about 110 years' worth of great middle grade fiction over in the right margin for starters. But my Top 5 if you're utterly clueless about MG novels would probably be Charlotte's Web by E.B. White, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl, Holes by Louis Sachar, Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli, and Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh. Okay, top 6: add When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead. But there are soooo many more! (Adult to YA is less of a jump, which is probably why more people do it.)

Rule #10—YA fiction is about the overwhelming feeling of being on the cusp; not a child anymore, but not quite an adult. There's joy and there's darkness, uncertainty tempered by boundless hope. Things hit hard when you're a teenager. You care with every ounce of your being about things grown-ups might scoff at—uncomprehending, boring fools that they are. Most important, you do NOT think of yourself as a child. And always: your friends are more real and dimensional than anyone else on the planet.

MG characters aren't quite as self-absorbed as teen characters, but they are also relatively uninterested in adult concerns. They want to be up and doing! So let them out the door and into the bright, awaiting world.

What most adult authors bring to the MG/YA world is professionalism and a solid knowledge of storytelling. As long as they don't condescend to their young audience and aren't completely driven by commercial motives, I think they have something to add to the genre. (Are you listening, Philippa Gregory?)

Note: I'm sure I've missed some authors, so feel free to add suggestions in the comments. I would just ask that you stick to post-2000 examples.

Additions from the Comments

—Amy of Amy's Library of Rock brings up James Patterson and Terry Pratchett, who strike me as representing the depths and heights of crossover work. I began reading Patterson's (or, as Amy implies, his ghostwriter's—looks like that would be Michael Ledwidge, who eventually gets credit as co-author) first Daniel X book and couldn't get through more than a couple of chapters because it was so blatantly created for commercial reasons following a market-driven template. If the later books improved, feel free to share! As for Terry Pratchett, I'd like to think that he honed his craft by writing the adult Discworld books before trying MG/YA fantasy in the form of The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, award winner Nation, and the wonderful Tiffany Aching books.

A Review of The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson

2011-10-08T16:55:00.000-07:00

Sit up and take notice. Rae Carson has done something new and amazing with her book, The Girl of Fire and Thorns.

First, I really like the premise: What if the Chosen One were kind of a schlub? An insecure, overweight second princess with a pretty serious eating disorder? And she's married off to a too-handsome young king who, while not unkind, has ulterior motives? Then there's the trip through the jungle, where they're attacked by the forest people. Elise shows her hidden steel in this encounter, mostly because she can't think what else to do besides get her maids out from under a burning carriage and try to stab the bandit who's about to kill the guy she just married.

What's nice is that none of this seems unrealistic. Elisa fumbles around, often getting things wrong and misreading people, then occasionally showing flashes of potential and good sense. It would seem her lessons and reading over the years haven't been entirely wasted.

World building? You got it. The setting is reminiscent of sixteenth- or seventeenth-century Spain and North Africa, but this is a place where every hundred years or so, one baby has the blessing—or curse—of being the bearer of the Godstone, a jewel-like object that is embedded in their young navels by a shaft of light. The Godstones appear to be magical, but mostly seem to set their bearers up as handy targets who only occasionally live to do anything deemed truly heroic. Or so it seems. Carson has interesting things to say about heroes in this book.

In addition, she creates an intriguing religion in which worshipers are ceremonially pricked by a rose held by the priest as part of church services. The implication is that blessings are only bought through pain. There's a vague feeling of Medieval Catholicism to the religion and, indeed, to Elisa's culture, but the author goes on to make this material into something fresh.

It's really a joy to accompany Elisa as she tries desperately, and on occasion petulantly, to figure out just who she's supposed to be, including the history of her predecessors. That's even before she gets kidnapped by a whole new faction.

And just when you think Elisa will be able to show her awesome superpowers—she doesn't. She can't. Which means she has to get out of more than one tight situation by just being gutsy and using her head, after which things often backfire in unexpected ways. Of course.

I will note that there is some political maneuvering here that reminds me a little of the goings-on in Megan Whalen Turner's Thief series as Elisa gets more involved in court life and in plans for handling a coming war.

Plus you get some crazy action-adventure involving spies, guerrilla warfare, and enemy sorcerers.

Elisa eventually loses weight, but it's not because she goes on a diet; it's just an outcome of the situation she's in. Thus, while her weight loss is admirable, it's not pushed on the reader in a preachy manner. Instead, it's presented as part of her overall struggle and character growth.

Consider this a coming-of-age story. Elisa becomes a better person and a leader mostly because events conspire to force her hand. Her development is no less satisfying because of its impetus, however. When things get tough, Elisa takes action, despite her self-doubt.

The author's writing is very well crafted. It has a slightly formal tone that seems entirely appropriate to its apparent time frame and Elisa's educated, though personable, voice. Take a look at this passage, when the carriages bringing Elisa to her new home are about to be attacked:

The jungle rages with noise. Screaming birds, chittering spider monkeys, and buzzing insects all battle for attention. The wind cannot penetrate the foliage to cool us as we travel, but we hear it, whooshing through the canopy above. It is, truly, the most deafening place I've ever been.

On the morning of day four, the jungle goes silent. It happens so suddenly, so profoundly, that I peer around the curtain, expecting to find that God has whisked us to another time and place. But the silk-cotton trees still loom above me, their dark buttresses impenetrable in the filtered light. The same palm fronds twist desperately around them, seeking sunlight.

Two carriages ahead, Lord Hector drops from the roof to the ground, sword in hand.

Our procession has been large and clamorous with its carriage wheels, snorting horses, and clanking armor. Yet the jungle never saw fit to honor us with silent fear. Beside me, Lady Aneaxi mutters in prayer.

You do get a few melodramatic moments in this book, including a bit of romance in spots, but the overall storytelling is just plain terrific. The characters are also rich, especially Elisa herself and her maids. The young king, Alejandro, is more complicated than one might expect—not Prince Charming, but still a person with problems of his own. Elisa is his second wife (the first one died), and she has some great interactions with her husband's young son as well as with his hangers-on.

You'll be glad to see that the princess who starts off handling every problem she encounters by stuffing her face with pastries winds up facing down an enemy invasion with considerable courage. Fortunately for anyone who finds this first book as marvelous as I did, Rae Carson is busy writing the rest of a planned trilogy about our girl Elisa and her Godstone.

Note for Worried Parents: There is a little talk about sex in this book, but it's pretty discreet. Elisa doesn't actually sleep with her new husband, partly because he has a mistress and this is a political marriage. The Girl of Fire and Thorns is a teen book, with some mature storytelling and themes, but it's not too rough. You will come across some violence as a result of warfare.

Also: Check out Rae Carson's website or watch this video in which the author rather charmingly introduces her new book.

Book Picks: If you like this book, try Princess Ben by Catherine Gilbert Murdock, The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley, and the Queen's Thief books by Megan Whalen Turner.

A Review of Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

2011-10-08T16:30:00.000-07:00

I liked Laini Taylor's Blackbringer and Silksinger, so I knew I was going to like this book. And... I did. But I will say, it has a yearning, angsty tone worthy of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight, especially after the romance kicks in. Be warned!

Karou is an art student in Prague, and her classmates love looking at her fanciful drawings, never dreaming that they are not fanciful at all. Even though Karou has a tiny student flat, she runs back to her childhood home whenever she is summoned by her foster father, who just happens to be a Wishmonger named Brimstone, a ram's-headed, reptile-eyed chimaera. Creepy creatures come to his shop to buy wishes. It's very hard to get in, and once they're inside, customers have to wear poisonous snakes around their necks to ensure good behavior. Three other chimaera work in the shop, where Brimstone collects the teeth of dead animals—and humans.

Karou grew up learning the different types of wishes: scuppies, shings, lucknows, gavriels, and bruxes. She turned her hair blue and gave herself certain tattoos with scuppies she earned making tooth runs all over the world for Brimstone. He thinks she wastes wishes on trivial things, e.g., when her cheating ex-boyfriend shows up in her art class as a model just to mess with her and she gives him a highly unpleasant little curse.

As for the eyes tattooed onto Karou's palms? Well, that's a different story, and it has to do with the reason Brimstone won't ever let her through a certain door deep inside his shop and maybe even with the wishbone that hangs around his neck.

Meanwhile, people are seeing seraphs: austere, angelic warriors who have begun to mark with charred handprints the myriad hidden doors leading to Brimstone's wish shop from all over the world. The seraphs and the chimaera are at war—have been for millenia—and the war is about to reach Karou.

There's some wonderful world building going on in the first half of the book. I was a little less sold on the star-crossed lovers' subplot that takes over during the second half. However, Taylor is a darn good storyteller no matter what she's doing, and Karou is a very fun main character. I also like her best friend, Zuzana, who is not initially privy to Karou's secrets but is a staunch, if pocket-sized, supporter throughout the book.

The seraph, Akiva, is a little more difficult to like, but that's deliberate. Here's a glimpse of him:

Overhead, darkness massed where a shape blotted out the moon. Something was hurtling down at Karou on huge, impossible wings. Heat and wingbeats and the skirr of air parted by a blade. A blade. She leapt aside, felt steel bite her shoulder as she slammed into a carved door, splintering slats. She seized one, a jagged spear of wood, and spun to face her attacker.

He stood a mere body's length away, the point of his sword resting on the ground.

Oh, thought Karou, staring at him.

Oh.

Angel indeed.

He stood revealed. The blade of his long sword gleamed white from the incandescence of his wings—vast shimmering wings, their reach so great they swept the walls on either side of the alley, each feather like the wind-tugged lick of a candle flame.

You see? The girl can write! I love Taylor's luxurious style and her attention to detail. Of course, I'm also a sucker for a great metaphor. The author's sense of humor adds, as well. Take this bit: "'Oh, yes,' Karou muttered to herself later that night as she dragged three hundred pounds of illegal elephant ivory down the steps of the Paris Metro. 'This is just so much fun.'"

Or this little aside: "They ordered bowls of goulash, which they ate while discussing Kaz's stunt, their chemistry teacher's nose hair—which Zuzana asserted was braidable—and ideas for their semester projects."

Much as I loved Taylor's (and Karou's) version of Prague, this book is about something much bigger: the endless war between the self-righteous, militant seraphs and the beast-like chimaera, their former slaves. Karou is on the side of the underdogs, of course. (Well, in some cases, the chimaera literally look like dogs!) Daughter of Smoke and Bone is obviously a series launch, with an unabashedly cliffhanger ending.

Face it, Laini Taylor does fantasy/paranormal, not to mention broody romance, better than just about anybody out there right now. Maggie Steifvater, Becca Fitzpatrick, and Holly Black, et al., you have been challenged!

Note for Worried Parents: Daughter of Smoke and Bones is a book for teens, and it's fairly open about sex, even though that's not a major emphasis here. The p-word is used early on, for example, in the context of a lecture on why not to sleep with just any good-looking guy.

Also: Check out the official Daughter of Smoke and Bone trailer. Then there are two more trailers I like even more; I'm not sure who made them, but they're really good! Here are Part I and Part II. Finally, you can visit Laini Taylor's blog.

Book Picks: If you like this book, try Chime by Franny Billingsley, The Hollow Kingdom by Clare B. Dunkle, and Iron Thorn by Caitlin Kittredge, besides the authors mentioned above.

A Review of A Beautiful Friendship by David Weber

2011-10-08T16:01:00.000-07:00

If you are a fan of adult sci-fi, you may be familiar with David Weber's Honor Harrington series. I've read most of the books, and while they can get bogged down in lengthy descriptive, technological, or political passages, I really like Weber's space opera heroine. Now the author joins the ranks of adult writers crossing over into the hot YA market with a prequel novel about an ancestor of Honor Harrington named Stephanie.

Twelve-year-old Stephanie's parents have moved the family to a colony planet named Sphinx in the Star Kingdom of Manticore. An aspiring zoologist/botanist and forest ranger, Stephanie is excited until she is told that she cannot explore the forests around her new home without adult supervision. After all, the planet is home to some very dangerous species, most notably the hexapuma, an oversized puma-like predator. Stephanie's parents try to keep her occupied by giving her glider lessons, and her mother challenges her to solve a mystery: who or what has been stealing small amounts of celery from the colonists' experimental farms and greenhouses?

Then we hit Chapter Two and find out that Stephanie's isn't the only point of view in the book. Many of the chapters are presented from the perspective of Climbs Quickly, a member of the sentient species that will come to be known to humans as treecats—imagine a six-legged cross between a squirrel and a cat, with the forepaws more like a monkey's and therefore capable of using tools. For now, though, Climbs Quickly and his people are keeping out of sight of the "two-legs." Spying on them, even. So far, only their incredible attraction to celery puts them at risk for discovery.

What's really fun is that the treecats (who, like most tribal societies, call themselves the People) are trying to figure out if the two-legs can communicate with each other. The treecats communicate mind to mind, and their initial observations lead them to call the new species they are observing "mind blind."

After Stephanie sets about solving the mystery of the celery thieves, she and Climbs Quickly cross paths. Their meeting is all the more astonishing because Stephanie and Climbs Quickly form an unexpected psychic bond. The discovery of a new sentient species is big news, but Stephanie keeps it to herself for the time being. When the girl takes an ill-fated glider trip over the forest to hone in on Climbs Quickly's psychic location, she runs into trouble. Only the intervention of the secretive treecats can save her. But that would mean blowing their cover...

As the story evolves, some interesting ideas about what it means to be sentient are bandied about. In addition, we see how politics affects interactions with primitive tribes, let alone brand-new species. Stephanie becomes the treecats' champion, but just how well can a twelve-turned thirteen-year-old protect these beings from the various human threats that stalk them?

Stephanie finds a few allies and makes mistakes, but she is able to rescue her new friends, who have previously rescued her. Her bond with Climbs Quickly (or Lionheart, as she names him) doesn't overcome all of the language barriers between the two species, but it's a start.

Besides a broader environmental theme, A Beautiful Friendship addresses how advanced civilizations assess and affect less civilized groups. You'll probably smile, as I did, when you hear how one scientist tries to explain away the treecats' net-weaving activities on the basis of animal instinct. Climbs Quickly's people are hunter-gatherers, but they begin taking notes on what the humans are up to right away and apply some of what they have learned.

The author does wax pompous in spots, and the storytelling isn't always fast paced. But I thought that overall, the suspense built nicely. I especially liked seeing the difference between Stephanie's point of view and Climbs Quickly's viewpoint.

Young Stephanie, like her descendant, Honor, is a great character. She is smart, strong, stubborn, brave, and completely fallible. Our heroine's high-tech hang-gliding, along with her grace under pressure, add to the more adventurous parts of the plot.

I also appreciate the author's efforts to be properly scientific, e.g., by explaining how an alien species would be able to digest a human-grown plant. Another fun fact is the way the massive, terrifying hexapumas have a healthy respect for what an entire throng of angry treecats can do.

Fans of the adult Honor Harrington series will either love this book because it gives them a glimpse of the heroine's heritage (and because they get the celery reference right away) or hate it because it's written for a younger audience, but preteens and teens who like science fiction or even animal stories will probably enjoy A Beautiful Friendship.

Note for Worried Parents: There's some animal violence, shooting, and peril here. Even though the book is listed as YA, I think it's an appropriate read for the science-minded tween crowd, maybe 10- to 12-year-olds.

Also: You might want to stop by David Weber's website. It's rather complex!

Book Picks: If you like this book, try Starswarm by Jerry Pournelle, the Dragon and Thief books by Timothy Zahn, Fledgling and Saltation by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, Flight of the Outcast by Brad Strickland, and Citizen of the Galaxy by Robert A. Heinlein.

Update: Thanks to the anonymous commenter who pointed out that this book is not about a young Honor Harrington, but about an ancestor of hers named Stephanie. Corrections have been made accordingly.

A Review of Shelter by Harlan Coben

2011-10-01T18:52:00.001-07:00

Yet another writer for adults crosses over into the lucrative YA market, this one an Edgar-award winning mystery/thriller author who's been writing books about Myron Bolitar, our new MC's uncle. In fact, Mickey Bolitar was apparently introduced in Coben's latest adult novel, Live Wire, but here the focus is on him—and we're clearly talking series starter. Coben doesn't pull any punches: he starts off with a white slavery/sex trade plot in his very first book. No middle grade fiction for him!

Mickey watched his father die in a car accident, and now his grieving mom is in rehab. He's not crazy about his new school, either, at least until he meets an odd but lovely classmate who becomes his girlfriend. Then Ashley disappears, and Mickey is determined to find her.

Along the way, he'll run into some seriously scary characters, as well as "Bat Lady," an old woman who gives him some clues about his father's secret life, things Mickey never knew before. The trail of his father's secrets extends back to other people's stories, events from the World War II era.

Meanwhile, Ashley is linked to a strip club owned by some real thugs. Mickey gets in and out once without any real damage, but he won't be so lucky twice.

At school, Mickey finds more clues about what happened to Ashley; he also has run-ins with a bully and a pretty girl who knows more than she should. But my favorite characters are goofy Spooner and sour Ema. Spooner is a bit of a cliché, the over-talkative geek—still, he's rather appealing. Ema is sort of goth, a hostile fat girl who's bright and loyal and willing to break the rules for her friends. Though it seems obvious Ema could never be a romantic figure to Mickey, whether due to her weight or because she makes such a great friend, she is nevertheless a powerful character who really adds to the story. This is from the scene where Mickey meets Ema. He saves her from participating in an unpleasant school activity, but she's not exactly grateful:

"Is it mandatory?" I asked.

"Excuse me?"

"Is participating in this particular exercise mandatory?"

"Well, no, it's not manda—"

"Then I'm sitting out." I looked over at Ema/Emma. "Would you mind keeping me company?"

We walked away then. Behind me I could hear the world go silent. Then Ms. Owens blew a whistle, stopping the exercise and calling for lunch.

When we were a few more feet away, Ema/Emma said, "Wow."

"What?"

She looked me straight in the eye. "You saved the fat girl. I bet you're really proud of yourself."

Then she shook her head and walked away.

One amusing plot component is that Mickey doesn't trust Uncle Myron, though many readers will come to the book thinking Myron is a pretty great guy thanks to the author's adult series. Mickey sneaks around quite a bit trying to solve the mystery of Ashley and of his father's death, rarely turning to his uncle for help.

Neither Coben's prose nor his storytelling is extraordinary in this book, but it's not a bad series start. Shelter is a pretty solid adventure which should appeal to fans of Alex Rider and the like. Of course, while the Ashley story wraps up, the author leaves the door open for a sequel that will continue to pursue the mystery of Mickey's father.

There's definite reluctant reader appeal here, with an easy style, plenty of action and suspense, and a likable main character. I suspect Book 2 will take hold even more successfully. And I look forward to seeing more of Ema and Spooner!

Note for Worried Parents: This is a book for teens, with some peril and violence, as well as a mature plot about the sex trade—though it is handled fairly tastefully and the good guys win. Also: Take a look at Harlan Coben's website, where you can find a book trailer for Shelter.

A Review of The Pearl Wars by Nick James

2011-10-01T18:42:00.000-07:00

This debut novel enters the growing ranks of YA sci-fi with strong boy appeal; it's also another dystopian offering. In James's future U.S., most of the population is divided between a corrupt government on the Surface and a group of Skyship dwellers who are political dissidents. Both groups compete to capture the Pearls: small spheres that fall from space and contain vast quantities of energy that can be used to keep the machines of civilization running.

Of course, there's a third faction here, though it's not well organized—those who live between the ruins of post-apocalyptic cities outside the protected areas run by the government. The worst of these are called Fringers because they live in Fringe Town and are the equivalent of roving street gangs. But others eke out an existence in quietly pathetic little communities.

Jesse Fisher lives on a Skyship. He encounters ruthless Cassius Stevenson from the Surface agency when both are in pursuit of a fallen Pearl. As they clash, the boys nearly die; then, as the two of them dangle from the rooftop of an abandoned building, they feel a strange flash of energy flowing between them. Just what connection could two such different people possibly have?

Back in their respective realms, Jesse and Cassius discover that the adults they trust are keeping secrets from them. When they meet again, is it to kidnap, kill, or help each other? Each boy seeks for answers, but the politics of Skyship and Surface conspire to keep them from learning what they need to know.

James deliberately makes Cassius less likable than Jesse, who seems more like the main character. But the two subplots do intertwine, and you may feel a bit of sympathy for cold-hearted Cassius before all's said and done.

Jesse has friends on the Skyship, but it's hard for him to know who to trust. Why does Captain Alkine take an unusual interest in him? Then there's an older girl named Eva. She seems to keep an eye on him, but why? Is Skandar really that good of a friend? And what about Avery, a girl who might be attracted to Jesse?

Then Jesse starts having strange interactions with the falling Pearls. Who is he really?

As for Cassius, he begins to question the intentions of Madame, leader of the Surface government and the closest thing he has to a mother. Does she care about him at all? As his body reacts bizarrely in the aftermath of his meeting with Jesse, he becomes determined to find the Skyship boy and see if he can make things normal again.

But neither boy is exactly normal. Eventually both of them are on the run, running from each other and after each other, fleeing from larger forces as they head for the ruins of Seattle, where they believe they will find the truth.

Here's a sample of the action:

Just as the guy's about to crack my skull open, an explosion rattles the street.

All three Fringers release me and spin around. I crumple to the ground, face on fire.

Framed by their tense, ready-to-pounce bodies, I see the silhouette of Eva Rodriguez. A trail of sandy smoke winds up into the air beside her like a serpent. It came from a detonator, the spherical shell of which lies on the cracked pavement in front of her right foot.

She looks older than her fifteen years, and far more intimidating than me with her cropped hair and well-practiced battle scowl. A bulky burlap pouch hangs over her shoulder, barely containing a radiant green glow. Resting inside is the Pearl we were sent down to retrieve...

"I've got more where that came from." Her dark eyes lock onto each of them as she moves the barrel of the pistol from one to another. "Leave. Now."

You'll find more action than character development in The Pearl Wars, but Jesse is a nicely dimensional character, while Cassius is sufficiently dark and complex to create a good contrast to his Skyship counterpart.

Nick James's vision of the future is an intriguing one, and his storytelling is suspenseful and fast paced—obviously influenced by TV, movies, and comic books. Watch for some great plot twists as you give this first volume of his new Skyship Academy series a try!

Note for Worried Parents: Like many YA dystopian novels, this book has a grim, dreary world marked by violence and betrayal. There's a little boy-girl attraction, but not much more than you'd expect from a teenage boy protagonist.

Also: The jacket art is great, but I think it looks a bit steampunk, and this is not a steampunk book.

Don't know how long it will last, but here's Nick James explaining his blog tour contest, and then you can check out his his very cool website, where you'll find more info about the blog tour and Nick, his book, etc.

A Review of The Project by Brian Falkner

2011-10-01T18:31:00.001-07:00

This YA adventure/suspense book reads more like middle grade fiction a lot of the time; in fact, I was surprised when I realized that Luke and his buddy Tommy are in their mid-teens instead of middle school. But let's just agree that Luke and Tommy are pretty immature and move on...

Luke believes that the book assigned by his English teacher, Ms. Sheck, is the most boring book in the world, but he is wrong. Of course, he doesn't know that: when he argues with Mr. Kerr, the vice principal gives Luke and Tommy just a few days to prove what they say about James Fenimore Cooper's classic. He and Tommy have been caught bungling an elaborate prank on school property; now they will have to do some research to save themselves from being suspended.

Luke goes home and googles "the most boring book in the world." According to the online encyclopedia, that honor goes to a tome called Leonardo's River by a man named Darcy Benfer—an English inventor. It was so boring it even put its writer to sleep, and only one copy was ever printed. But a millionaire book collector named James Mullins would love to get his hands on it. He's willing to pay a lot of money for that single copy.

Luke forgets all about the book, caught up in the relative excitement of having to sandbag his town because the river is rising. But while he and Tommy are helping bring books upstairs from the university library's basement to the upper floors, Luke catches a glimpse of a book he is pretty sure is Benfer's sleep-inducing masterpiece. That night, he gets Tommy to sneak across the river with him and look for the book.

Only the river is flooded and the library is beginning to flood, too. Luke and Tommy manage to get by the security on the bridge, then discover they aren't the only ones looking for the book. Rather, they are the ones without guns.

The twosome makes it out, but Ms. Sheck disappears. And the menacing people from the library are soon on the trail of Luke and Tommy.

This suspenseful story heats up with a plot that involves Nazis and Leonardo da Vinci and even [spoiler!] time travel.

The whole thing is even more tricky because everyone thinks of Luke and Tommy as troublemakers, which means that no one takes them seriously when they try to get help from the authorities.

About the only thing they've got going for them is Luke's photographic memory. That and an unquenchable spirit of curiosity and adventure.

Here is an excerpt from the prologue:

This is not the most boring book in the world.

This is a book about the most boring book in the world, which is a different book altogether.

This book is really interesting and exciting, and parts of it are quite funny...

You might think that your history textbook is the most boring book in the world. But you are wrong. Or you might think that your auntie's book about dried flowers is the most boring book in the world, but that's like an action-packed adventure story compared to the real most boring book in the world.

The prose in this non-boring tale does its job handily, and Luke and Tommy are a cheerful, if slightly bumbling, duo.

Falkner, the Australian author of books like Tomorrow Code and Brain Jack, specializes in action/suspense stories. The Project is a light-hearted ride, despite the peril and the threat of world domination from the bad guys. It's salted with guy humor (at least one fart joke that I can recall) and stars a couple of goof-offs playing Hardy Boys. But it is a fun read, and your son might get a kick out of it.

Note for Worried Parents: Though this book is being marketed as YA and has teen protagonists, it reads like upper MG fiction. There is definitely peril, but little actual violence.

Visit Brian Falkner's website to learn more about The Project and other books.

Also: I like the Australian cover (gold) a lot more than the U.S. cover (red); what about you?

Ribbit, Ribbit: A Trio of Frog Books

2011-09-24T10:19:00.000-07:00

If you've ever visited my author's website, you will know that I am a real fan of frogs, which I like to think of as nature's clowns. (Frog princes are featured prominently in my book, The Runaway Princess!) Today let's take a look at three frog-themed picture books, two fiction and one nonfiction, two new and one old.

Too Many Frogs! by Ann and John Hassett

Not to be confused with Sandy Asher's book, which lacks the explanation mark in the title, this new picture book takes a look at what Nana Quimby does about a frog invasion in her basement. (The plot may remind you a tiny bit of that beginning reader classic, The King, the Mice and the Cheese, by Nancy and Eric Gurney, or better still, Helen Palmer and P.D. Eastman's A Fish Out of Water.)

Nana Quimby is baking a cake when she discovers that her basement has flooded. A helpful paper boy suggests she call a plumber. Soon the water is gone, but a frog appears in her kitchen. Ten frogs, in fact. "'Put the frogs in a goldfish bowl,' said a girl jumping up and down. So she did."

Twenty more frogs appear, and "a boy running fast" suggests she put the new frogs in cups of water.

"So she did."

You can see where this is going, right?

John Hassett's acrylic illustrations give us a marvelous Nana Quimby. For example, on one page we watch her white eyebrows rise in dismay as she stares down at the frog in the cup of water she's holding, with nineteen other frog-filled cups and mugs sitting around the kitchen. There's a parrot in a cage, and out the window we discover a cat chasing a mouse. Perhaps my favorite detail is that Nana, in a lavender polka-dotted dress and white apron, wears blue tennis shoes. Note also her hair, coifed in a goofy way that faintly resembles a chef's hat.

Thirty frogs, forty frogs, fifty frogs—the neighborhood children continue to make suggestions, but eventually Nana Quimby comes up with her own solution, and the reader comes full circle to the richly imagined smell of a freshly baked cake.

Kids will appreciate both Nana's burgeoning quandary and the way passing children give her possible solutions—they may even have their own suggestions.

Apparently this husband-and-wife team has done two previous books featuring Nana Quimby, along with a couple of other picture books.

If the other books are anything like this one, with its soberly escalating absurdity, I'm in!

Note: Visit the Hassetts' website to learn more about their books and Nana Quimby's frog conservation efforts.

999 Tadpoles by Ken Kimura, illustrated by Yasunari Murakami

This book was originally printed in 2003 in Japan, but just became available in English this year. And I'm glad it did.

Consider that age-old parental dilemma: it's all very well to have 999 darling tadpoles, but when your tadpoles turn into young frogs and outgrow their pond, what do you do?

Now the pond was too small for them.

"We can't move!" one called.

"We can't breathe!" called another.

"Don't push!" called a third.

"We have a situation here," said Father.

"We'll have to move," said Mother.

So follows a froggy exodus, including a scary/funny encounter with a snake and an even more wild-and-crazy encounter with a hawk.

To say the theme is "Safety in numbers" is not enough; a better way of putting it is "Family is there for you." The message is delivered in a wry, dry style that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Murakami's illustrations are simple, but her green-and-yellow frogs really pop on the stark white backgrounds. One of the funniest spreads shows Father Frog demonstrating to his children what a snake looks like. Parts of the artwork seem deliberately designed to look like a child's drawings—note the trees and the clouds, for example. Other components are slightly more sophisticated, such as the illustrator's adorable birds.

999 Tadpoles is a clever take on the quest story, made simple enough for the youngest readers, but with a subtle humor that will appeal to parents. And of course, children ages 4 to 7 will like the idea of growing bigger and moving out into a world filled with adventure.

Note: Want to see a whole bunch of frogs in one spot? Try this brief YouTube video.

Nic Bishop Frogs

If you haven't heard of Nic Bishop—well, I just can't imagine that, actually. This photographer has created numerous award-winning nonfiction books for children. Frogs came out in 2008, which means it should be readily available at your local library (assuming budget cuts haven't shut the place down).

Bishop combines marvelous photography with his clearly delineated factual text. Here's a sample:

A frog's life is all about eating.

Frogs eat almost anything that moves and can fit inside their mouths. Once, an African bullfrog ate seventeen young cobras, one after another.

Some frogs seek out their food. A toad hops around after dark, snapping up moths, beetles, and crickets. It may eat more than 5,000 insects during a single summer. Other frogs ambush their prey. A horned frog hides among leaves on the rain forest floor in South America. It stays absolutely still, day after day. When an animal comes by, the frog watches attentively, waiting until it moves closer. Then it seizes the prey with a loud snap of it hug mouth. The horned frog is not a fussy eater. It gulps down cockroaches, lizards, mice, and even other horned frogs.

The accompanying photo shows a horned frog with a mouse tail hanging out of its mouth. The caption reads: "It is easy to see why some people say that a frog is like a stomach with legs, eyes, and a very big mouth. This horned frog has just swallowed a mouse."

The next page begins: "Frogs are prey, too." And discusses frog camouflage, with two more terrific photos to illustrate the point.

I was pleased to come across the last spread, which shows Nic Bishop in a canoe on a pond and explains how he trained one particular frog to be comfortable with the camera so he could get a photo of it catching its prey, among other frog encounters like adopting some gliding frogs.

Remember the days when nonfiction books were in black and white and were mostly text? Well, I've said it before and I'll say it again—the past 20 years have seen a Renaissance or even a first birth in beautiful children's nonfiction. DK's Eyewitness books may have led the charge, but Nic Bishop is the reigning king of photo-illustrated nonfiction for children. (Okay, better give a nod to Seymour Simon! He can be prime minister.)

You really should visit Nic Bishop's fascinating website. Take a look at the awards his frog book has won, as well as a list of his other books. Find out more about how he does the research for his books, including traveling the world to take the photographs. And then there's his life story, briefly yet tantalizingly summarized here.

Turns out Nic Bishop grew up in Bangledesh, the Sudan, and New Guinea. He started taking photographs at age nine. At ages sixteen and seventeen, he traveled the highlands of New Guinea on foot or in a dugout canoe, taking pictures and interviewing villagers with his tape recorder. I'd love to see a book-length biography of this guy!

In the meantime, I can heartily and happily recommend his Frogs to you.

Note: Watch this Scholastic book trailer for Nic Bishop Spiders to see Bishop catching spiders in the woods and taking them home to his studio to photograph.