Poetry Friday: Teens Heart Poetry

By night, I'm a children's book writer and kidlit blogger, but by day, I teach kids in K-12 who are homebound with medical conditions (e.g., cancer). This gives me a unique little window into how kids think. So let me tell you about a couple of my students. I recently worked with a 17-year-old boy I'll call Alex who was the rocker type, with skinny black jeans and tee-shirt, purple sneakers, and long dark hair covering everything but his nose. As we studied U.S. History, I did a lesson with him on the blues, tying it to the works of Langston Hughes.

This kid wanted to borrow the book of Hughes's poems that we read from during class. (We weren't studying English, unfortunately.) A few months later, when he was about to return to his regular school, Alex asked me, "Can you recommend some more poetry books? I really like poetry."

Then there was a girl I'll call Misha. She was in a group home, having been in juvie and a psych ward already by the age of 14. Misha let me know she was tough. The only books she would agree to read were the Goosebumps series, which I felt were a little young for her. But as we studied English, I quickly discovered that Misha wrote poetry. Here was a door into this girl's world!

I suspect there are a lot of secret poetry buffs among teens, although they may not bring it up in the group setting of a full class. So, moving past the younger standbys of Shel Silverstein and Jack Prelutsky, what kind of poems do you give a 16-year-old? Sure, there are famous published poets whose work I happily share with students, e.g., Maya Angelou for Misha. But the secret weapon here is actually well-written poems by other teens. When I gave Misha one of Betsy Franco's poetry anthologies, she was thrilled. I recommended Franco's anthologies to Alex, as well, along with the work of other, more well-known poets.

Betsy Franco has put together four collections of poems written by teens. I haven't read Night Is Gone, Day Is Still Coming: Stories and Poems by American Indian Teens and Young Adults, but I will present the other three in brief below. I should note that one strength of these collections is their inclusion of young writers of many races and ethnicities.


Things I Have to Tell You: Poems and Writing by Teenage Girls

Illustrated by black and white photos of real (non-glamorized!) girls, featuring poems and short essays. Here are a few samples:

Let's see if the high school can offer me an English class that will make me sweat. Then I'll be willing to rethink my criticism. Otherwise, I'll be back to my usual hobby of picking through the trash in hopes of finding the Holy Grail.
—from "A Girl Snapping, or My Application for Advanced Placement English," by Marijeta Bozovic, age 16

All I wanted was a cup of coffee
but when I asked for
"a tall single, please"
the guy at the coffee stand
thought I was asking for him.
—from "Tall Single ISO Coffee," by Anonymous, age 16

my friend and i
got caught in a storm
with tears for rain,
and shouts for thunder,
lightning fists
lashing out.
—from "Clouds Rolling In," by Melissa Leigh Davis, age 14


You Hear Me? Poems and Writing by Teenage Boys

I wish this book had black-and-white interior photos, too, but I think it's an even stronger collection than Things I Have to Tell You. Here are some examples:

May I ask you something?
Why are you following me?
Every time I turn around
You are there telling me
something to wish for:
his blue Mercedes
his caramel girlfriend...
—from "Envy" by Kyle L. White, age 17

He shaved his head to release his imagination.
—from "He Shaved His Head," by Rene Ruiz, age 13

The trombones slap me in the face with their high-life beats, and the piano's glamorous tunes tap me on my shoulder and whisper in my ear. As I look down into the Juke-Joint from my bedroom floor, rotted house, rotted life, plain rotten seems forgotten as the music plays and the beats go down to the rhythm of my heart's pound. There's a Harlem Renaissance in my head, there's a Harlem Renaissance in my head.
—from "There's a Harlem Renaissance in My Head," by Maurice E. Duhon, Jr., age 17


Falling Hard: 100 Love Poems by Teenagers

As the flap copy puts it, "The writers are straight, gay, lesbian, bi, or transgender; they live next door or across an ocean; they are innocent or experienced. Poetic explorations range from new love to stale love, from obsession to ennui, from ecstasy to heartbreak, and every nuance in between."

I do remember your mouth,
how it curled up on the right in Puck-like pleasure
because you knew exactly what I was thinking
(I never was a very good actress).
—from "Making Love to Shakespeare," by Ellie Moore, age 16

She's my motorcycle
She's my cigarette
When the night's this quiet I think I can hear her thinking
—from "New Friend in Mexico," by Nick Ross-Rhudy, age 17

In the presence of people
Packed in boxes,
Each wanting to be
Held.
—by Thomas Andrade, age 17


Aside from the obvious (poetry's great!), I believe teens like poetry because of its immediacy and the intensity of its emotional content. A poem may also seem less intimidating, yet more intimate, than a full-length prose novel. After all, there's a reason novels-in-verse are increasing in popularity among Young Adult readers.

Two other books of poems along these lines are Paint Me Like I Am, teen poems from WritersCorps, and a collection edited by Naomi Shihab Nye, Time You Let Me In: 25 Poets Under 25. (The poems in the latter are great, but sound more like college writers, which they probably are.)

Note for Worried Parents: Betsy Franco's poetry collections contain mature themes, such as drug use, cutting, and sexuality. Some poems also contain profanity, including the f-word. In general, best for older and more sophisticated teens.


POETRY FRIDAY

Please submit your links in the comments, and I'll start listing them Friday morning. I do have comment moderation, but never fear, I'll get your links! (I will be gone in the middle of the day at a funeral, but will continue to add to this post as soon as I get back.)

--First off, Amy LV of The Poem Farm shares #14 in her series of poems about poems, a mask poem called "Love Me Real."

--Next, Charles Gigna sees "Sidewalks" as magic carpets at the Father Goose blog.

--Kelly R. Fineman gives us an original poem, "Letter to Mum" at Writing and Ruminating.

--Julie Larios offers up "an original left hand/right hand poem" (and a challenge to post your own) at The Drift Record.

--Mary Lee from A Year of Reading explains that in order to share a poem about laryngitis, she had to invent a new poetry form, the Twitter Search Poem.

--The Stenhouse Blog weighs in with Kenn Nesbitt's school-themed poem, "Perfect."

--Toby Speed reminisces about summer with a poem called "Day Lilies, Night Lilies, Night-Light Lilies" at her blog, The Writer's Armchair.

--Tabatha Yeatts experiments with book spine poems at The Opposite of Indifference.

--Laura Salas offers us "We," a selection from Lee Bennett Hopkins's memoir in poems, Been to Yesterdays. She is also the host of a weekly photo-poetry challenge, 15 Words or Less. (I often participate in this particular event.) Here's this week's post.

--Triple threat Diana Mayr has a post about "bandit signs" poetry at Random Noodling, Walt Whitman's "Did You Ask Dulcet Rhymes from Me?" at Kurious Kitty's Kurio Kabinet, and a Walt Whitman quote at Kurious K's Kwotes.

--Jeannine Atkins discusses the balance between giving readers information and letting readers guess when writing poetry.

--Hooray for B.J. Lee, who just had a poem published yesterday at A Handful of Stones!
--Carmela Martino gives us an original poem by April Halprin Wayland saluting summer at the Teaching Authors blog. She also reminds us that Naomi Shihab Nye has published a book of poems by younger writers called Salting the Ocean. (I do own that one, Carmela; it's wonderful!)

--Jama Rattigan shares Barbara Crooker's poem, "Patty's Charcoal Drive-in," over at Alphabet Soup. Jama's posts always make me hungry!

--At There Is No Such Thing as a God-forsaken Town, Ruth offers up "The Patience of Ordinary Things," a poem by Pat Schneider.

--In a very nice coincidence, Elaine Magliaro of Wild Rose Reader reviews a book of school poems by Betsy Franco, Messing Around on the Monkey Bars and Other Poems for Two Voices. She then goes on to list several other books of school poems, providing links to those previous reviews, including Stampede by Poetry Friday participant Laura Salas (see above). But wait; there's more! Over at Blue Rose Girls, Elaine shares some beautiful vacation photos plus Marilyn Kallet's poem, "Fireflies."

--Kerry Aradhya of Picture Books and Pirouettes reviews a rhyming picture book, Miss Tutu's Star by Leslea Newman, with illustrations by Carey Armstrong-Ellis.

--At Little Kid Lit, Erin Oakes is "admiring Allan Ahlberg," especially his poetry collection, Please Mrs Butler.

--Janet Squires of All About the Books spotlights The Fastest Game on Two Feet and Other Poems about How Sports Began, written by Alice Low and illustrated by John O'Brien.

--Then at Liz in Ink, Liz Garton Scanlon gives us Pablo Neruda's poem, "Poet's Obligation."

--Karen Edmisten (The Blog with the Shockingly Clever Title) shares her love of Billy Collins and her dog with a Collins poem, "Dharma."

--Danika Brubaker of TeachingBooks talks up Ashley Bryan's ABC of African American Poetry, even providing an audio clip.

--Chicken Spaghetti's Susan T. tells us about Natasha Tretheway's book of poems and memories, Beyond Katrina: A Meditation on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

--Ms. Mac of Check It Out posts Naomi Shihab Nye's poem, "Boy and Egg," in memory of a former student who died unexpectedly at a young age two weeks ago.

--Heidi Mordhorst presents Mary Ruefle's school-themed poem, "The Hand," at My Juicy Little Universe.

A Review of Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

For those of us immersed in the world of children's books, yesterday was a big day: the third and final book in Suzanne Collins's Hunger Games trilogy came out. I bought my copy on the way home from work, then walked into the house and began to read, skipping dinner to finish. I went to bed thinking about Mockingjay, I woke up thinking about it. So no, I won't wait till my regularly scheduled weekend slot to review this book. (Note my lack of spoilers below, which was hard to pull off!)

Just about any other writer, having established the wealthy, hedonistic Capitol led by evil President Snow in oppressing the twelve outlying districts, and having delivered Katniss into the hands of the rebels, would have then presented the rebels' heroic fight against the Capitol forces most heroically, with Katniss as their mascot. And that's—sort of what happens. But this is Suzanne Collins. I am now in awe of Suzanne Collins. Because she immediately proceeds to have the rebel forces, led by Alma Coin, the hardnosed president of supposedly nonexistent District 13, use Katniss in much the same way President Snow used her.

Twice in the last book and once in this book that I can recall, another character comments that Katniss doesn't know the effect she has on people. This may seem a bit too pointed. Furthermore, anyone reading Katniss's account of these events can see her flaws so clearly that they might have trouble understanding the effect Katniss has on others. So just what is that effect?

Mockingjay confirms that Katniss is a folk hero in spite of the efforts of leaders like Snow and now Coin to mold her into a Folk Hero. That's because Katniss believes in things like justice and kindness, values instilled in her by her parents (even her troubled mother, a healer) and by her own struggles to survive equitably in a tough world. Katniss tries to do the right thing no matter how hard it is, driven by her own moral compass even as others work to manipulate her into serving their ends.

Collins never takes the easy road. Katniss has been damaged, and will be damaged again. She suffers from post-traumatic stress syndrome and various physical ailments, more of them as the book goes on. The rebels' work to patch her back together becomes increasingly ironic and symbolic as Katniss, blown about by a detonation of agendas and deliberate attempts by President Snow to destroy her both psychologically and physically, becomes still more stubborn about what truly matters from moment to moment.

The plot twists in Mockingjay are jaw-dropping and satisfying. I'll admit I made the mistake of thinking as I bought the book, Hmm, this one looks smaller. How much can this writer accomplish, and is she going to give her story short shrift? Is she worn out?

The answer is a resounding NO.

Suzanne Collins masterfully offers up both an action-packed, suspenseful dystopian adventure and a symbolic, theme-packed commentary on age-old and contemporary social issues. Most notably, she questions the ethics of war and of our new media's determination to transform dimensional individuals into flat, packaged types for the sake of money and power. This author refuses to glamorize heroism, war, power, or celebrity.

She also refuses to glamorize romance. In Mockingjay, Collins addresses what it means to love someone, bringing up the idea that people change—does that make love more, or less likely? Is loving someone selfish, unselfish, or both? And, paradoxically, does loving someone mean saving them, or killing them? Suzanne Collins is not one for simple answers. Katniss plays out the complexity of human interactions in this book; even her terrible relationship with President Snow takes on unexpected meaning.

All of this comes to us in the form of one increasingly tortured girl's desire to make a good world for the little cluster of people she cares about, a goal that appears more and more unlikely as Mockingjay progresses. Along the way, not all of Katniss's choices may seem wise, but each of them will strike readers as true.

Few authors have used symbols so well in contemporary YA literature: take a look at what Collins does with those mockingjays, or with white roses, and how she turns the idea of a girl "catching fire" thematically and more literally in a contrived entertainment context on its head. Perhaps most notably, watch how the war becomes a new version of the Hunger Games.

Reviewers have commented that Catching Fire managed to be a better book than The Hunger Games, and now Suzanne Collins pulls off the impossible: Mockingjay takes it a step higher, ending this trilogy powerfully, thought provokingly, achingly well.

Thank you, Ms. Collins.

Note for Worried Parents: All three books are for teens. They include violence, death, much suffering, war, betrayal, torture, and mild references to sex. However, this material is handled gracefully, if painfully, and the Hunger Games books end up being downright inspiring.

In Case You Missed It...

I've found some very fun stuff in the Blogosphere lately, so I'll give you the links in case you didn't catch it yourself.

--First up is the entertaining YA Fantasy Showdown, created by the talented team of Heather Zundel, Beth Revis, Charlotte Taylor, Danyelle Leafty, Chelsea Swiggett, and Lois Moss. Click on participating character names to read scenarios about how the various battles might play out. Final match-up? That would be the wizard Howl (from Diana Wynne Jones's Howl's Moving Castle and sequels) vs. Eugenides (from Megan Whalen Turner's The Thief and sequels). Go Gen! Oh, and Go Howl! Many of us would like to see a tie for that one.

--Betsy Bird of Fuse #8 tells us about her blogger husband's intriguing analysis of heroes in film; Betsy then applies the categories he's created to children's books. I read all of Matt Bird's posts and learned a lot!

--Adele of Persnickety Snark is an Australian teacher currently living in Japan. She polled blog readers to ascertain the Top 100 YA Books of 2010. This is the final list, but you can scroll down to individual posts about each book, counting up to #1, Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games.

--Author Malinda Lo posted a beautiful showcase of Fall 2010 Fantasy Cover Trends (in YA) over at Enchanted Inkpot; take a look.

Note: Art shown above is borrowed from the YA Fantasy Showdown site.

Update: Gen (Eugenides) won the YA Fantasy Showdown. Hooray for Gen, and for Megan Whalen Turner's wonderful books! If you haven't read them, you've been missing out. In order, they are The Thief, The Queen of Attolia, The King of Attolia, and A Conspiracy of Kings. Also, read Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones, another terrific book.

Me and Will, We're Like This!

I hope you're imagining my index and middle fingers held up together, slightly crossed, to accompany the header. So the point is, I'm going on vacation! Yes, I might even see a few of the Book Nieces and Nephews. But what I will for sure be doing is going to a Shakespeare festival in Southern Utah. (With my mom, who is a history and literature buff, also delightful company.) I've always wanted to go, but never got around to it. Now, we're talking six plays in three days! Plus various other travels.

Therefore, I will not be posting next weekend.... But never fear, I'll be back the following week, just in time to host Poetry Friday on August 27. Perhaps I should post a Shakespearean sonnet or two!

Note: If you want the real skinny on the bard, try Bill Bryson's book, Shakespeare: The World as Stage. Bryson debunks all kinds of rumors and myths surrounding the great playwright as he shares what really is known. The answer? Not much! For instance, not one of those portraits of Will you see here, there, and everywhere has been truly authenticated. Bryson's book is surprisingly slim (see "not much" above). He also has a thoroughly likable, readable style.

Update: I have to say, the bard still rocks! Kudos also to the Shakespearean Festival in Cedar City for putting on such stunningly good productions of Macbeth, Much Ado about Nothing, and Merchant of Venice (along with other, non-Shakespeare plays). Merchant of Venice in particular was so, so moving, between Shylock's performance and the way the production addressed anti-Semitism. Wow!

In the Dollhouse: Doll Books Old and New

When you think of doll books, you probably think of Ann M. Martin and Laura Godwin's The Doll People and sequels. Or perhaps you go back in time to the 1930 Newbery medalist, Rachel Field's classic Hitty: Her First Hundred Years. Or to the 1947 winner, Carolyn Sherwin Bailey's Miss Hickory. Then there's a famous picture book, William's Doll, by Charlotte Zolotow, illustrated by William Pene Du Bois.

But before we talk about a couple of recent doll books, I really think we should consider the grandmaster (high maven?) of doll books, and that would be Rumer Godden. (Yes, Demi Moore named a daughter after her.)

To some, Rumer Godden is best known as the author of Black Narcissus, a novel that became a 1947 film starring Deborah Kerr. But to those of us in the world of children's literature, British writer Godden is famous for her doll stories.

In Godden's novel-length book, The Doll's House, Martin and Godwin's "Meanest Doll in the World" gets some serious competition from an arrogant doll named Marchpane, who disrupts life in a cheery little doll family. As some Amazon reviewers have pointed out rather uneasily, there's a doll death in the book as a result of Marchpane's machinations. There's sacrifice, too, along with heroism and a nice little plot twist involving the queen of England's taste in dolls. The book is well written, but has enough malice and tragedy in it that it might trouble the very youngest doll fanciers.

My favorite doll titles from Godden are Miss Happiness and Miss Flower and a nice collection of four of her shorter doll stories called Four Dolls. Ms. Godden was raised on a tea plantation in India as the child of a British colonialist, but she makes a real effort to introduce young readers to other cultures respectfully. For the most part, her story about two Japanese dolls sent to a little girl missing her previous home in India hits the mark even in 2010.

Main character Nona may remind you briefly of Mary Lennox from A Secret Garden, but Nona is more weepy and shy where Mary had an inner tough streak. (Here the tough streak comes in the form of Belinda, the youngest of Nona's three cousins.) Nona desperately misses India; she is also afraid to try anything new. When the cousins' great-aunt sends the girls a pair of Japanese dolls, however, Nona begins to come out of her shell, eliciting the help of a bookshop owner and her woodworking older cousin, Tom, to build a replica of a traditional Japanese home for the two dolls. Meanwhile Belinda, who is uninterested in the dolls, sulks, jealous of the attention Nona and her project are getting. After a selfish act on Belinda's part (skillfully and drolly described by Godden), things eventually sort themselves out. You'll find that the author provides information about Japanese festivals and customs in a note at the end of the book. She even includes detailed directions for the complex project of building your own Japanese dollhouse.

As in other doll stories by Godden, Miss Happiness and Miss Flower gives us a lonely child comforted by her interaction with dolls, and the dolls themselves have thoughts and opinions, accessible to the reader rather than the young doll owner. But the point of intersection between child and doll is wishes, which is a very nice conceit, to say the least.

"The Story of Holly and Ivy" is one of my favorite Christmas stories of all time, markedly old-fashioned and sentimental, yet saved from bathos by Godden's matter-of-fact style and her understanding of how kids talk and think. The story is available in picture book form, as well, illustrated by Barbara Cooney, and here is my review in a post titled "Christmas Books Old and New" from November 2009.

"The Fairy Doll" tells about an awkward little girl badly in need of a fairy godmother. As the youngest child, Elizabeth is considered inept by her older siblings—she breaks things, forgets ordinary tasks like brushing her teeth, and can't learn to ride her new bike. Then Great-Grandmother comes to visit at Christmastime, and when Fairy Doll falls (flies) down from the top of the Christmas tree, Great-Grandmother appoints clumsy Elizabeth as the doll's new guardian. Elizabeth discovers that she is an expert on what fairy dolls need: she builds the doll a beautiful little home in a shoebox and takes her everywhere she goes. With the help of a bell-like Ting that seems to come from Fairy Doll, Elizabeth begins to find confidence and lose her awkwardness, which readers will suspect was largely a result of living down to people's expectations and feeling flustered all the time. (One thing Godden really gets right here is just how hard older siblings can be on a younger child!)

In the story of "Candy Floss," a little doll is part of an odd family consisting of a young man named Jack who works a coconut shy at carnivals and fairs, a dog named Cocoa, and a toy horse named Nuts. Candy Floss is Jack's luck, sitting on the horse atop a sort of music box and turning to the sound of the song it plays. And Jack treats Candy Floss like part of the family: "Sometimes they ate hot dogs from the hot-dog stall; Cocoa had one to herself but Candy Floss had the tip end of Jack's." Though it may seem odd to grown-up readers that Jack plays make-believe with Nuts and Candy Floss, young readers probably won't notice. What they will notice is young Clementina Davenport, a Veruca Salt type who shows up at the fair with her father. When Candy Floss catches Clementina's eye and Jack won't sell the doll, the girl steals her. But Candy Floss isn't happy and manages to let Clementina know in her doll-like way. Between the doll's hints and the child's conscience, Candy Floss is eventually reunited with her carnival family. This story has a rather typical message about stealing, but Godden pulls it off. The details of Candy Floss's unusual life and how much she likes it are especially appealing.

Godden is something of a feminist, perhaps surprising in someone born in 1907. Her stories may seem sweet, but there's a realistic note of stubbornness and individuality in both her child and her doll characters. "Impunity Jane" is also about a child who steals a doll, but it has a different outcome. We first meet the little doll named Jane when she is bought by an old woman for her granddaughter back in the days of gas lamps and carriages. The story begins: "Once there was a little doll who belonged in a pocket. That was what she thought. Everyone else thought she belonged in a dolls' house. They put her in one but, as you will see, she ended up in a pocket." The grandmother tells her granddaughter that Jane is a tough little thing, having "impunity." The doll decides that this will be her name: "'Imp-imp-impunity,' she sang."

On the way home from the shop, Jane sees horses: "'Oh, I wish I were a little horse!' cried Impunity Jane." Then she hears bells and wants to be a bell, sees a shuttlecock flying up and wants to be one of those, too. "In the barracks a soldier was blowing a bugle; it sounded so brave and exciting that it seemed to ring right through her. 'A bugle, a horse, a bell, a shuttlecock—oh, I want to be everything!' cried Impunity Jane."

Imagine Jane's disappointment when she is stuck into a dollhouse instead and passes fifty years being played with every so often by a series of prim little girls. Then Ellen's cousin Gideon comes to tea, and Impunity Jane wishes herself into being stolen from the dollhouse. She has a series of exhilarating adventures with Gideon and later his friends, graduating from doll to "model" (read: action figure) when the boys tease Gideon about her. Then Impunity Jane and Gideon have a crisis of conscience, only Gideon is ultimately able to keep the little doll. Aside from the rather dated references to the behavior of the boys (including, sad to say, their aversion to telling lies), this story about a tomboy doll is just wonderful.

As I hope you can tell by a few of the details and excerpts I've shared, Godden has a keen eye for depicting very real children and child substitutes in the form of dolls. She might also teach your child what TV these days mostly does not—that things found in the garden or made from household items can make for more creative play than store bought everything.

Which brings us to today's dollhouse stories. (The most famous of these are actually the Toy Story movies, which, like Godden's work, remind us that creative play is still the best kind.)

In a picture book by British folk artist Jane Ray called The Dollhouse Fairy, a real fairy comes to live in a little girl's dollhouse for a while because she has torn her wing and needs to convalesce. The dollhouse was built by Rosy's dad, who helps her make furniture for the dollhouse very Saturday morning—or he used to. Now he's in the hospital, and Rosy is really worried about him. She is happy to be able to focus on taking care of Thistle while he's gone.

Thistle isn't as sweet as you might imagine:

Rosy ran outside and picked raspberries and rose petals and all sorts of things to make a perfect fairy breakfast. She also filled a dollhouse cup with rainwater and took everything back to Thistle. But it wasn't Thistle's idea of a perfect breakfast.
"Have you got any potato chips?" she asked.

Thistle ends up being messy, too. She basically trashes the dollhouse. But Rosy doesn't care. I especially like the spread that shows Rosy jumping on the bed while Thistle zooms around the room: Rosy is "[helping] her practice flying again."

When Rosy's dad returns from the hospital, she wants him to meet Thistle, but the fairy is gone. His gentle response, along with other bits in the text, might make readers wonder whether the whole thing was a game of make-believe Rosy came up with to comfort herself, up to and including the parallel between a convalescing father and convalescing Thistle. But the illustrations say otherwise, and I, for one, am sticking with the illustrations! They're really the best part of the book, anyway. (Though I do like the idea that a dad would have such a strong relationship with his daughter. Despite the changes in our society, you don't always see that depicted this specifically in a picture book.)

Our last book comes from the rather surprising team of author Francesca Lia Block and illustrator Barbara McClintock. Block is best known for her Young Adult books, which are edgy and surreal, stylized to the point of romanticism. McClintock is known for her intricate, old-fashioned line art in picture books such as her own Adele and Simon. Here Block writes a dollhouse story for middle grades, with artwork by McClintock.

First of all, let's just acknowledge what a pretty book this is. House of Dolls has an unusually small trim size, 5-1/2 by 7 inches, obviously meant to imply the miniature scale of dolls and their houses. Luxurious line art winds through the books in spots and as full-page spreads, sometimes wrapping around the text. The decorative arts feel to McClintock's illustrative voice turns out to be perfectly suited to a book about dolls.

Block's story is a bit less successful, though it has its moments. After we meet three dolls—Wildflower, Rockstar, and Miss Selene—we meet their owner:

The house belonged to Madison Blackberry, a tall-for-her-age, sour-faced girl who secretly wished, more than anything, that she could live in the dollhouse with the dolls. They seemed so warm and cozy, and they nestled so closely together among the black-and-rose needlepoint pillows on the green velvet chaise lounge in the parlor, as if they never wished to be apart.
This was very different from life in the cool, all-white-and-gray penthouse apartment where Madison Blackberry lived with her mother, father, and little brother, Dallas George.

At first Madison just ignores the dolls, and they don't mind a bit. For one thing, Wildflower has a boyfriend named Guy, an African-American GI Joe type. And Rockstar has a gentleman friend, too, a "devastatingly handsome stuffed bear" named B. Friend. Selene is gracious, but has a secret sorrow, an empty cradle.

Madison's anger, jealousy, and boredom grow, and she begins to take her frustrations out on her dolls. She sends first Guy and then B. Friend off to war, even giving the latter injuries. Upset that her grandmother has made beautiful clothes for the dolls but not for her, she next takes away all of her dolls' clothes. The dolls wander their dollhouse, naked and heartbroken. Finally they appeal for help by leaving a tiny note for the grandmother when she comes to visit: Dress. Grandmother leaves some more paper out, and the dolls leave her miniscule sketches of clothes in turn.

Grandmother, who used to play with Wildflower as a child, is imaginative, but she's falling short when it comes to seeing how unhappy her granddaughter is. Wildflower turns out to be wiser than her former owner. She wishes and wishes, not for a direct end to her own troubles, but that Grandmother will reach out to angry Madison. Fortunately, Grandmother responds. As the book ends, Guy and B. Friend come home. Selene's secret sorrow is ended in joy, as is Madison's. "The war," we are told, "is over."

Writing this, I'm not sure why House of Dolls doesn't work better. It certainly has a unique premise, a child being jealous of her own dolls. I suppose the book's message-y nature overcomes the storytelling in spots. Francesca Lia Block is working in a short form here. She creates some amazing characters, but doesn't get the time to develop them, so has to inform her readers about the heartaches and themes rather a lot (see excerpt above for an example). A nice story, but not a riveting one.

I think you'll find that both Jane Ray and Francesca Lia Block were influenced by Rumer Godden's work. Do I know this for sure? Nope. But there are touches in both books that I suspect are homages to Godden. For example, the things Rosy does to make a comfortable home for Thistle remind me of what Elizabeth does for Fairy Doll, and Madison Blackberry could easily be a Clementina Davenport or Nona's jealous cousin Belinda. Then there's the fact that Madison's dolls use wishes to make things right—very Godden.

Take a look at Ray's and Block's books if you like, but if you haven't read Godden's doll stories, you've been missing out. Her legacy continues even in a day when kids don't always play with dolls (and action figures) the way they used to. Godden uses her doll tales to capture the worries and longings—and joys—of childhood with humor and exactness. Like other classics, her stories might just stay in your mind and your heart forever. Kind of the way you still remember (and maybe even keep) a beloved doll from when you were little. I remember mine: her name was Cherry because my mom had sewed her a dress made of white fabric with cherries on it.

See also a review of House of Dolls at Charlotte's Library.

Additional Suggestions from the Comments:
--The Dollhouse Murders by Betty Wren Wright (B.C)
--The Dollhouse Caper by Jean S. O'Connell (Brimful Curiosities)
--Midnight in the Dollhouse by Marjorie Stover (Madeleine)

A Review of The Shadow by Donna Diamond

I've been watching with interest the rise of the paranormal in YA and its trickle down into middle grade fiction and picture books. Yes, the Twilight effect, like its predecessor the Hogwarts effect, is a powerful thing!

But so far, most of the creepy supernatural stuff has hit intermediate books rather than picture books. The horror picture books we've seen are mostly funny, though Bobbi Katz and Adam McCauley's The Monsterologist: A Memoir in Rhyme and Ryan Heshka's ABC Spookshow and just-published Welcome to Monster Town might be a tad darker, if only because of the illustrations.

None of them have been as scary, or as subtle, as The Shadow, a new picture book from illustrator and fine artist Donna Diamond.

I'll give you the product description first so you can see how the publisher is presenting the book:

A young girl confronts her fears in an eerie, wordless picture book featuring stunning, hyper-realistic illustrations. It’s an ordinary afternoon. A child comes home, heads upstairs, and sprawls on the floor to do some drawing under the watchful eyes of a pair of favorite dolls. But there’s another character in this wordless story: the shadow, unnoticed at first, then slowly creeping into her field of view. It’s a terrifying sight. Will the girl cower, or will she take on this shadow and tell it who’s boss? And where will the shadow go from there? With mesmerizing intensity, this dreamlike story tells an unflinching tale about recognizing and staring down one’s fears—if only for a time.

And this is from Donna Diamond's website: "The Shadow is a suite of seventeen paintings that tell a story. The pictorial narrative creates a psychological drama about fear, how it grows in the dark, and takes on a life of its own."

In these beautiful paintings of a girl going upstairs and playing in her room, you will probably notice the child's shadow before she does. It doesn't match. It is a Halloween shadow with two spaces for eyes. (Look closely at the shadow to the girl's left in the cover image above.) At first it just follows the girl, like an ordinary shadow. But up in her room, it looms over her threateningly.

Finally the girl, who appears to be about seven years old, sees the shadow and responds. After her initial shock, she gets tough and subdues the shadow, which is rather heartening. She even drives it away—or does she? As she goes to sleep, we discover that the shadow has secreted itself in a traditional shadowy spot, where it continues to lurk.

The Shadow is a really gorgeous book, and it's like nothing else out there. My only question is, who is it for? Although I can see having a conversation with a child about the shadow as a symbol for fear, I'm thinking kids aren't much for symbolism till they're a bit older than the target audience, perhaps even in middle school.

Much as I appreciate the way the child defeats the shadow, Diamond goes with a horror-movie ending—the shadow, like Freddie Krueger or Jason, is still there, waiting for another chance at our young hero.

Sorry to say, I can see this book giving first graders nightmares. The very realism of the paintings makes this book's terrors more believable than those illustrated in more cartoon-like or stylized picture books.

I will add that the fact that The Shadow is wordless completely suits the story, but again skews the audience a bit younger than might be sensible. (Interestingly, while Candlewick lists the book for ages 5-8, Amazon lists it for 9-12.)

My recommendation would be, if your 6- to 8-year-old blithely watches horror movies and reads the Goosebumps series with gusto, look for this book. If your kid is the sensitive type, maybe not.

But you might enjoy taking a look. Donna Diamond's The Shadow is unique—and chillingly lovely.

Note: Check out the website Kinderscares for more scary books for young readers, including some picture books.

P.S. Aha! I've thought of another sincerely scary picture book: poet Eve Merriam's Halloween ABC or (retitled) Spooky ABC, illustrated by Lane Smith. Beautiful poems, but truly creep-worthy. The book is often recommended for older kids and has even been banned on occasion. (Let's all shiver in unison!)

A Review of Zombiekins by Kevin Bolger

It had to happen. First there was the vampire wave, then the werewolf wave, and then the zombie wave. (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, anyone?) I valiantly resisted the onslaught of rotting flesh and eyeballs drooping like little dead Slinkies when it hit the YA market harder than a metric ton of brain goop, but I could no longer resist when it struck middle grade fiction—I had to take an anti-nausea pill and read a few of the new books.

Starting with Zombiekins, written by the man best known for his dashing knight, Sir Fartsalot of Sir Fartsalot Hunts the Booger fame. For those of you who worry about finding books for reluctant boy readers, look no further!

Here are the first few paragraphs of Bolger's new book:

The little town of Dementedyville was a tidy, uneventful town. The sort of place where home owners took care never to let their well-tended lawns become overrun by unsightly weeds or children, and birds sang in all the trees—but only between the hours of nine and five, as per the town's bylaws.
But even in Dementedyville there was one house that stood out from all the others....

Next we see the neighbors storming the creaky old home of Mrs. Imavitch with pitchforks and torches—to attend her yard sale.

At the sale our boy Stanley buys an odd stuffed animal called Zombiekins. Mrs. Imavitch is so pleased by his choice that she gives him a bunch of taffy with a twinkle in her eye and reminds him to read the new toy's instruction manual.

But our author knows boys: when he gets home, Stanley instantly discards the box and the instructions. His little sister takes an uneasy interest in Zombiekins, who is invited to attend a tea party with stuffed animals like Whimsy the Pfoo. "Hugs are cuddle-wonderful...Have a huggsy-wuggsy day," Whimsy says. You just know he's going down, along with Bolger's Barney and Elmo clones.

Sure enough, when the moon rises that night, we hear the awful sound of a zombie stuffed animal walking through the playroom, dragging his bad leg: "Stump!—scri-i-i-i-i-itch... Stump!—scri-i-i-i-i-itch..."

Stanley's dog, who appears to be smarter than Stanley, tries to warn the kid, but he doesn't listen. Naturally!

Of course, the fun's only beginning, because the next day Stanley takes Zombiekins to school and his teacher, Mr. Baldengrumpy, puts on a movie about the moon. Pretty soon Zombiekins is stalking through the school, turning sixth graders and kindergartners alike into zombies. Chaos—and hilarity—reign. Plus a bunch of delightful satire about school and bullies and such. For example, when Stanley's best friend Miranda tells a teacher the kids are zombies, we get this:

"Now, Miranda," Mrs. Plumdotty replied, "you know it's not nice to call the other children names."
"No, you don't understand," Stanley hurried to explain. "She means they're flesh-eating monsters who want to guzzle our livers and gobble our limbs!"
"Stanley, dear, don't be such a tattletale," chided Mrs. Plumdotty.

As you can see, Stanley and Miranda are running around the school trying to find Zombiekins and stop the zombie kids, or at least not get bitten by them.

Zombiekins is a funny and satisfying read, nicely illustrated by Aaron Blecha in a clean, cartoonish style. The Zombiekins character alone is a visual and visceral triumph. Watch out for Book 2!

(You can visit the Zombiekins website here.)

Note for Worried Parents: This is pretty goofy stuff, despite the horror elements. I wouldn't worry too much. Any kid who might be bothered by all this probably wouldn't touch the book in the first place. Now, I'm not implying you should leave out girl readers—I think they'll like Zombiekins, too. They might make faces, but then they'll laugh. A lot.

Kids in grades three through six are probably the best audience for this one.

Bonus: I've yet to read Sir Fartsalot, but I did watch this very funny cartoon short, also by Bolger and Blecha, Sir Fartsalot vs. the Dragon. Check it out for some fartastic humor!

A Review of The Zombie Chasers by John Kloepfer

Our story begins with Zack being tormented by the girls at his older sister's sleepover. (His parents are out on the town.) Zoe and her friends, including beautiful, vain Madison, tie him to a chair and put make-up on him. To make things worse, they videotape him and send the footage out to his friends by Internet. Next Madison eats Zack's carefully saved slice of birthday cake—though she is shocked to discover it's non-vegan.

Aaaand, then the zombies attack. Suddenly the neighbors, other kids, and the girls at the sleepover are turning into zombies. Zack and Madison may despise each other, but they quickly team up to escape being bitten. A more unlikely Bogart and Hepburn you'll never find.

Here's what it's like to have your neighborhood full of zombies:

Madison fished out another VitalVegan from her handbag and sidled up next to Zack. She took a casual sip, then looked out at the shambling swarm of blood-thirsty fiends. The zombies tottered randomly in every direction. Their arms were outstretched, disjointed limbs dangling out of their sockets, some slashed to shreds with bloody gashes.
Madison let out a choked yelp, dropping the plastic bottle out the window. It seemed to pause in midair before the plastic clinked noisily off the wooden slats of the ladder.
The zombies turned in unison, craning their necks toward the house.
Madison sucked in air, preparing to let out a full-fledged scream. But Zack cupped his hand over her mouth, and instead, she just sputtered into his palm. He shot her a sideways glance and wiped his hand on the side of his pants. Gross.
And then she screamed anyway.

The third member of this little tribe ends up being Rice, Zack's best friend. Madison delights in talking down to both of the boys, but the three of them make a surprisingly good team. Madison may be in love with herself, but she's not stupid. And Zack and Rice are smart in just the way you would expect from a couple of sixth grade boys who've watched a lot of TV—canny and determined to survive. Although Zack's not too sure about Rice's theory that ginkgo biloba is to zombies as garlic is to vampires.

Did I mention that they've made their escape in Zack's parents' Volvo, which Madison manages to drive? After a showdown in a supermarket, they go back to Zack's house to retrieve Madison's little purse dog and Zack's sister, a zombie whom they keep hitting over the head to keep her from biting them. One hockey mask, a leash, and a doggie car divider later (for Zoe, not the dog), they are on the road, heading for the nearest military base, which is where the radio announcer has instructed survivors to gather.

Ah, could the opening of those new BurgerDog fast food restaurants all over the country have anything to do with this national zombie epidemic? And conversely, might Madison's super-healthy lifestyle give her an advantage?

I should mention that the crew picks up another eighth grader named Greg, whom the boys know as a bully and Madison knows as a hottie. Zack looks all the better next to Greg, who is pretty much a lunkhead. But Madison doesn't necessarily catch that.

I have to say, if Kloepfer had simply given us Zack and Rice, this book wouldn't have been nearly as good. But the combination of these two boys with haughty Madison is a hoot, especially when you consider how well the three of them manage.

Illustrator Steve Wolfhard has a great time with his material, drawing zombies and dropping body parts with enthusiasm and panache. Don't forget to take off the book jacket and look at the fabulous map printed on the book cover itself.

I've decided the appeal of zombie stories is that it gives us an instant playground in theater of the absurd: hey, there goes your mom and the cranky neighbor next door, shambling around groaning and falling apart, literally. "Moooowaaaaaahhaaarrgh! It was the unmistakable zombie battle cry." Is that the skateboarder who lives up the street, skateboard in one hand and dead bunny in the other?

Kloepner does an incredible job of pacing this book, of writing realistically funny dialogue for Zack and Co., and of coming up with clever action scenes using zombie mayhem and the creative responses of our young carload of heroes. A very fun new series!

Note for Worried Parents: This is for a little older crowd than Zombiekins, pretty much fifth through eighth graders. The gruesomeness is more gruesome, and there are jokes about middle school crushes. On the other hand, I can think of some fourth graders who would like it... Perhaps I should say instead that Zombiekins is for a little younger crowd than this one.

Also: Your kids might like seeing the Zombie Chasers website, where they can join to participate in games relating to the book.

Diana Wynne Jones Week

It's Diana Wynne Jones Week over at Jenny's Books, and while I won't be posting a new review because I'm wrapping up summer school and my head feels like it's going to fall off any second now, I will refer you to my previous posts about the inimitable Ms. Jones: "The Queen of Children's Fantasy" and a recent review of Enchanted Glass, her newest book.

My own favorites are probably Dogsbody, Charmed Life, The Lives of Christopher Chant, Archer's Goon, Howl's Moving Castle, and Cart and Cwidder, but really, I like just about everything she's ever written. Oh, I highly recommend her Tough Guide to Fantasyland to anyone who reads or writes fantasy! Thanks to her entry on "Stew," I always make sure my own characters' meals aren't repetitive and boring.

It is with great sadness that those of us in the children's book community learned that Diana is fighting cancer. She is in our thoughts and prayers.

Visit Jenny's Books to link to reviews of Diana Wynne Jones favorites from the blog community this week and to read Jenny's "keynote addresses."

A Review of I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett

Okay, I'll try to write a real review instead of just jumping up and down screeching, "I got an ARC of the new Terry Pratchett book!" Or rather, now that I've done that and breathed into a paper bag and all, I think I can be mature enough to share some actual thoughts with you. (Warning: Largely thematic spoilers ahead!)

I do hope you've already read the first three books about young witch Tiffany Aching: The Wee Free Men, A Hat Full of Sky, and Wintersmith. You'll enjoy this one a lot more if you have. For one thing, you'll already be familiar with Tiffany's sidekicks, the Nac Mac Feegle, those miniscule blue guys in kilts who are endlessly spoiling for a fight, preferably combined with a drink. Of course, they're determined to look after Tiffany while they're at it.

Tiffany is now officially the witch of the chalk country, and she thinks she understands what that means. She takes her work very seriously, so much so that she sometimes misses certain cues. Because people don't always react the way you think they should, and it doesn't help that there's an evil semi-supernatural entity going around playing on people's fear of witches.

So yeah, trouble is brewing, and things only get worse when the baron dies. Tiffany travels to the great, dirty city of Ankh Morpork to find the baron's heir, Roland, with whom Tiffany once had something resembling a romance. The Nac Mac Feegle come along and create havoc, which is just what they're supposed to do. Tiffany and crew also run into some of Pratchett's best Ankh Morpork characters from his other Discworld books. One of them even finds himself bonding with those little blue men!

While in the city, Tiffany compares notes with the proprietor of a famous shop that sells witch supplies as well as with an even more mysterious mentor before she sets off for home, having delivered her message to the baron's son. But everyone is acting funny, and Tiffany winds up in Roland's dungeon with the goats. Of course, she doesn't stay there for long—she meddles with the best of them, and soon she is hunting the creature that's spreading the hatred of witches. The older witches offer to help her, but Tiffany turns them down. She knows she needs to prove herself.

Compared to Pratchett's other books, this one has a bit of a slow start, but then, Pratchett's worst is still head and shoulders above most writers' best. Although the man is known for his humor, I'm in awe of his ability to create characters that matter, and to talk about the human condition by telling amazing stories.

One way of looking at all four books is as an account of Tiffany's coming-of-age. But we sometimes see simple stories along those lines, and Tiffany's is complicated. For instance, I Shall Wear Midnight has thought-provoking things to say about romance, even though at first glance, this may seem like a minor theme.

Tiffany clearly had a relationship with Roland for a while, and everyone knows it. What's more, they comment on it. A lot. Which gets on Tiffany's nerves, although at first we're not sure why. Even Roland's fiancé knows it, and in fact, her jealousy leads her to cause major difficulties for Tiffany without realizing the full impact of what she's done. (Note the irony of the things Roland thinks he's avoiding with Tiffany compared to what he doesn't understand about his own fiancé. Brilliant!)

Tiffany has no illusions that it would have worked out with Roland, and yet—she feels left out. She wonders if she'll be alone forever. Though she never actually says so, I get the feeling she's wondering if she'll wind up like her formidable mentor, Granny Weatherwax. Does being a great witch mean you have to be alone your entire life?

From a young reader's standpoint, Tiffany brings up a valuable question, which is, "I'm not like the others. Will anyone ever understand and care about me in a normal way, when I'm not normal?" We can easily see why Tiffany feels different, but then, don't most of us feel that way at least some of the time? Certainly the kind of bright, creative kids who are probably reading these books might share Tiffany's worries.

It may seem facile that Pratchett provides an answer to this question in the form of a quirky young guardsman named Preston (who would really rather be a doctor), but then, for a girl like Tiffany, meeting the right kind of person necessarily feels like a surprising whim and a kindness on the part of the universe.

Even so, Tiffany is alone, and always will be. All of us are, even when we're with the people we love and who love us. So Pratchett's answer to Tiffany's question is both yes, and no.

Mind you, Tiffany Aching is never a damsel in distress. She helps herself (ever-so-literally), and her efforts pay off. She also catches on to the fact that there's more to being a good witch than hard work, admirable though that may be. You have to pay attention to people, to what each of them wants and needs and feels. When you do, you might be knocked sideways at times, but you will be far more capable of helping those you want to help. People like Tiffany and Granny Weatherwax make a difference, although it isn't easy. But as Pratchett points out, it doesn't have to be. It simply has to matter.

Note for Worried Parents: This is a book for teens and has some mature themes, e.g., domestic violence, attempted suicide, and references to a couple's upcoming honeymoon night (the bride wants information!).

FYI: I requested an ARC of this book from HarperCollins. I Shall Wear Midnight will be available on September 28, 2010.

A Review of Paranormalcy by Kiersten White

What's interesting about this book is the juxtaposition of a heavy-duty paranormal scenario with a relatively upbeat teen protagonist. Having escaped the foster care system at the age of ten, Evie thinks being raised by the International Paranormal Containment Agency is pretty cool. After all, director Raquel is kind of like a mom, and mermaid computer expert Lish makes a nice best friend, even if she is older. Evie does watch a TV series about high school kids on her computer and wish she could go to a normal school, but then, she's too busy going on missions for the agency to have time for that.

Evie has a unique ability. She can recognize any supernatural entity, no matter how well their nature might be disguised. The agency sends her out with fairy guides to locate rogue paranormals, who can then be "contained." It never occurs to Evie that this might be a harsh approach, or that she herself might be considered something other than human. About her only problem is a male fairy named Reth, her high-handed sort of ex-boyfriend. He believes he has a right to her, and he also has ominous plans for Evie that he's too arrogant to share. Although Evie has the equivalent of a restraining order against him, she's beginning to get the feeling the IPCA doesn't have nearly as much control over the fairies as they seem to think.

Then a teenage shapeshifter is captured sneaking around inside the IPCA compound, and Evie is fascinated by him. Someone her own age, finally! Okay, so maybe he puts on a different face every time she does her own sneaking so she can visit him in his cell, but Evie can see past all of that to his true form. Little by little, she comes to trust Lend, despite Raquel's harried and unsuccessful efforts to keep her away from him.

Only something terrible is happening, and it seems to be connected to Evie somehow. Paranormals are being killed, consumed by a fiery entity that has taken an interest in Evie. But why? When the center comes under attack, Evie escapes with Lend, trying to find answers from a whole different segment of the paranormal world.

Now, I have to admit, it's getting hard to tell some of these paranormal suspense love triangle books apart. Then again, if you adore this subgenre, you have a wealth of choices right now!

So how does Paranormalcy distinguish itself? The book's strength is definitely Evie and her narrative voice. She's a pretty hopeful kid for someone in her situation. Sure, we get her doubts and pouts, but she's also kind of funny, and she makes the best of everything that comes her way. You might find yourself cheering for her relationship with Lend, but more than that, you'll be cheering for Evie herself as her odd life gets even odder.

Of course, for those of you who prefer the fairy bad boy to the shapeshifting boy next door, there's always Reth.

I will mention that some plot points are a bit uneven; e.g., the opportunity for Evie to attend prom like a normal girl really feels shoehorned in. But I like White's style, and I'm looking forward to seeing what she does with the next book in this series.

(Visit Kiersten White's blog to read a very fun post that will give you a taste of her voice. In "You Can't Kill the Undead: Or, Paranormal Romance Isn't Going Anywhere," the author "perform[s] literary analysis on an entire genre.")

Note for Worried Parents: This book for teens has some violence, including murders. It shows a little kissing with a nice boy and pressure from an ex-boyfriend who seems emotionally abusive.

FYI: I requested an ARC of this book from HarperCollins. Paranormalcy will be published on September 21, 2010.

A Review of The Kneebone Boy by Ellen Potter

Let me just start by saying I get such a kick out of Potter's style. Here's how her new book begins:

There were three of them. Otto was the oldest, and the oddest. Then there was Lucia, who wished something interesting would happen. Last of all was Max, who always thought he knew better. They lived in a small town in England called Little Tunks. There is no Big Tunks. One Tunks was more than enough for everyone. It was the most uninteresting town imaginable, except for the fact that the Such Fun Chewing Gum factory was on its west end, so that the air almost always smelled of peppermint. When the wind blew just right you could think you had been sucked down a tube of toothpaste.

I was the one voted to tell this story because I read the most novels, so I know how a story should be told. Plus I'm very observant and have a nice way of putting things; that's what my teacher Mr. Dupuis told me. I can't tell you which Hardscrabble I am—Otto, Lucia, or Max—because I've sworn on pain of torture not to. They said it's because the story belongs to all three of us, and I suppose they're right, but it seems unfair since I'm doing all the work. No one can stop you from guessing though.

My instinct is to tell you that this book feels like Coraline meets The Penderwicks, a fair assessment in a lot of ways. Maybe with a little Lemony Snicket thrown in for good measure. The Kneebone Boy is dark and wry and clever and convoluted—which is pretty much what these three kids are like.

Otto hasn't spoken in years; he communicates with an invented sign language that only his siblings understand. Otto always wears a black scarf that his missing mother left him and collects oddities such as a two-headed cornsnake. Lucia (pronounced the Italian way!) uses her imagination to get them in trouble, though the boys seem capable of finding trouble without her help. And Max knows so many things that he gets on people's nerves just a tiny bit even though he isn't actually a show-off. The author cheerily makes all three kids good-looking, but then, they are still social pariahs because they are just plain weird, plus there are some creepy rumors floating around about what happened to their mother.

As for their father, every so often he goes on trips to paint portraits of eccentric deposed royals, leaving his children with an awful woman who makes Max squeeze the oily cyst on her neck. But this time, they are going to stay with their aunt in London. Only—she isn't there. Instead of going back to Little Tunks, the three kids stay in the city. They soon have a scary run-in with a Londoner and decide to make their way to a seaside village in search of their great-aunt, who turns out to be a colorful young woman renting a folly that's a replica of Kneebone Castle for the summer. The folly is only accessible by aerial bicycle. (How else would you cross the moat?)

Which only begins to hint at the over-the-top details in this book, not to mention the shivery gothic mysteries. The biggest one is what happened to the kids' mother. Why did she leave, and where is she now?

The Kneebone Boy simply oozes atmosphere. I mean, look at the cover! Isn't it gorgeous? I was shocked to discover that the book is not a paranormal or a fantasy, after all, although some of the elements are pretty outrageous. Frankly, The Kneebone Boy seems to be crying out for some magical murk. Well, I suppose there is one little bit, but the author tosses it in and basically announces, "Here, I'll bet you want a ghost." Not quite what I had in mind!

As you can tell from the excerpt above, the Lemony Snicket part of the book is the way the "writer" often addresses the reader. You may find this fun, or you may find it derails the story in spots.

Then, after a good many twists and turns, a veritable funhouse experience, the ending feels a little anti-climactic because, well, All Is Explained. And this is the kind of book where you kind of wish it weren't.

And yet, and yet—Potter has created three marvelous characters, and her style alone is worth the ride. (This American author does British quirk better than most Brits, up to and including mocking Americans and their bizarre love of peanut butter and jelly.) Besides, you've gotta love the surreal little version of the real world she has concocted. Hmm. Maybe The Kneebone Boy is magical realism. Or something close to it. In any case, I hope the author writes another book about the unusual Hardscrabble siblings!

Note for Worried Parents: This book is middle grade fiction. There is a threat of violence in London that's kind of intense, a mention of boobies, and a serious plot thread involving the absent mother. The Kneebone Boy should be fine for most 9- to 12-year-olds.

FYI: I requested a copy of this book from the Amazon Vine program. The Kneebone Boy will be available on September 14, 2010.

Once Upon a Time: Classic Fairy Tale Retellings

Between Shrek and Gail Carson Levine's Ella Enchanted, fairy tale retellings might seem to be an invention of the turn of the millenium. But we can go clear back to the 1920s and 1940s for a quartet of early gems in the retelling corner of the children's fantasy treasury.

You've heard of Arthur Rackham, right? You may not have heard of Charles Seddon Evans, though. C.S. Evans wrote novel or rather novella-length versions of Cinderella in 1919 and Sleeping Beauty in 1920 to accompany Rackham's illustrations. Evans was actually an editor (and later Chairman and Managing Director) of the Heinemann publishing firm.

Evans's retellings might easily have fallen short of Rackham's masterful work, but they are surprisingly strong in their own right. The style is a little old-fashioned, but it's still a lot of fun. Here is an excerpt from Sleeping Beauty:

The first thing [the king] did was to summon all the magicians of his own and neighboring countries, promising a rich reward to the one who could show him a way to defeat the old fairy's malice. The magicians came in scores, some with long beards reaching to their feet, some without any beards at all, some with bald heads, and some with matted hair that looked as though it had not been combed for centuries. For days there were so many magicians about the palace that they were as common as cats, and it was impossible to enter any room without surprising one or the other of them, sitting in deep reflection and looking as wise as only a magician can look. But nothing came of their thinking, and one after the other they gave up the task and departed, having first asked for their traveling expenses.

The story of Sleeping Beauty needs a bit more padding than Cinderella does, so Evans is at his leisure to fill us in about things like the food on the menu at the christening feast. Alternatively droll and painterly, Evans gives us menu items such as "sardines from Sardinia" and "eagles carved of ice hovering over silver dishes filled with apricots." Evans has a knack for fleshing out this well-known story with just the right details, such as presenting the words of the proclamation banning spinning wheels from the kingdom.

All of this makes for a pleasant, leisurely retelling, more of a drawn-out version of the original rather than a true novelization. As for Rackham's illustrations, they are all done in silhouettes, which feels like a lost art form these days. Spreads showing the entire palace and various people in it are especially striking, as are a couple of rather terrifying illustrations of hapless princes trapped in the brambles and turning to skeletons.

We get a lot more description in Evans' Sleeping Beauty than is common in today's fast-paced work, but all of it is very pretty, and certain young readers will enjoy the detailed depiction of the palace—for example, when the hundred years have passed and the prince is making his way through the somnolent rooms. In such scenes, Evans captures Perrault's tone, then extends it.

Evans' Cinderella is arguably the better of the two books, perhaps because he has more plot to play with. Here is Cinderella's father describing the new stepsisters to his daughter, already sounding worried:

"One is called Charlotte," answered her father, and the other Euphronia."
"I like the name of Charlotte," said Ella miserably. "Are they big girls or little ones?"
"Well, you see," said her father, "correctly speaking, they are not girls at all. That is to say, child, they have—ahem—arrived at years of discretion. You must not expect them to play ball or anything like that, or run about the garden with you. They are—what shall we say?—a little sober in temperament; but excellent creatures, nonetheless—excellent creatures. You will get on very well together, I'm sure, with a little give and take on both sides."
"Just a minute, father," pleaded Ella. "Do tell me some more about my new sisters. I cannot understand all the big words you use. Do you mean that they are grown up?"
Her father nodded. "In point of fact, adult," he said, and his tone was so gloomy that Ella had to smile.

Together with Cinderella, we get to know the stepsisters all too well, adding weight to the injustice of her situation. Arthur Rackham's illustrations are again presented in black silhouettes, although he uses a little gray to add dimension to the grander scenes. Cinderella attends the ball for two nights running, allowing the story to build more suspensefully. It also makes the romance a bit more credible. Evans gives us an all-too-real concern from Cinderella herself after the second ball: "It is the Princess he loves... If he could see me now in these ragged clothes, or find me at my drudgery in the kitchen, would he recognize me? And even if he did know me again, would he be horrified to think that he had danced with a kitchen-maid?"

Fortunately, the prince is not so shallow as all that. "He felt sure that she must be in some trouble, otherwise she would not have run away from the ball so suddenly." He resolves to find her and help her. And he suspects she might have been the poorly dressed girl the guards saw running away.

One of my favorite parts of this book is that Rackham and Evans promenade the shoe-aspiring girls in batches. On one page, we are told, "First of all came the princesses," and we are shown two princesses in silhouette. The next page says, "and then the duchesses," with three duchesses shown below. "And then the countesses," six of them. "And so on to the plain gentlewomen," (ten women), "until it was the turn of the servants in the kitchen, but the slipper would not go on the foot of any of them" (twelve servant girls and a cat). That's in the palace, but of course we know the search will broaden its reach and lead us to "happily ever after."

The Rackham and Evans books are very nice, and I do recommend them; however, they have to step aside modestly when they see the next two books coming... Eleanor Farjeon's clever, whimsical, often-funny voice makes her Cinderella retelling, The Glass Slipper, and her Rumpelstiltskin retelling, The Silver Curlew, true classics.

Even if you think you've never heard of Eleanor Farjeon, you might know who she is—she wrote the poem "Morning Has Broken," which was set to music and performed by Cat Stevens. (She is also the author of a long and luxuriously fantastical story about jump ropes, elves, and sugar candy currently available in picture book format. Charlotte Voake is the illustrator of Farjeon's Elsie Piddock Skips in Her Sleep.)

It's worth noting that in their early editions, Farjeon's two retellings are illustrated by another famous artist, Ernest H. Shepard of Winnie-the-Pooh fame.

Now, cynical modern readers might find The Glass Slipper—which was originally a play in 1944—too adorable to bear, but anyone who likes slightly old-fashioned, kinda girly books like Frances Hodgson Burnett's A Little Princess and The Secret Garden or Noel Streatfeild's Ballet Shoes will be happy to discover this tale.

Ella is so very sweet, the Princess of Nowhere... She talks to the objects in the kitchen, and they answer. Her stepmother finds out that Ella has a little picture of her mother and uses it to keep her under control. Ella's bed in the kitchen is a sort of cupboard, so the stepmother locks her into it when the girl defies her. Here's an early encounter with Cinderella, who is wishing she could sleep in:

"Cockadoodledoo!" crowed the Rooster.
"Cockadoodledoo!" mocked Ella. "Well, I won't! Everybody orders me about, but you shan't!" And down she lay with her fingers in her ears. That seemed to finish the Rooster, and he didn't crow again. But now all round the kitchen went the funny little stir that meant the day had begun and the Things weren't being attended to. The tall clock in the corner seemed to be ticking a little more impressively than before, and Ella couldn't shut it out:

Tick-tock!
Tick-tock!
The Grandfather Clock
Agrees with the Cock!

And as it began to strike seven:

Bing-Bong!
Bing-Bong!
It's exceedingly wrong
To stay in bed long!

Ella sat up again with a little sigh. "All right Grandpa. I know. You never let me off, do you?"
"I never let anybody off," ticked the Clock.

As the Things stop fussing and Ella begins her day, her father sneaks in the kitchen door from outside, hoping for a quiet moment with his daughter before his wife catches him there. But of course, she does.

Some of this may sound a bit twee, but I have to tell you, the story unfolds so delightfully that it works. One touch I like is that Farjeon incorporates a fairy tale trope by having Cinderella help an old woman in the snowy woods. In return, the hungry girl finds a magical meal. Later the woman turns out to be her fairy grandmother.

We also get some giddily colorful characters at court, such as the king's fool (AKA the Zany) and a tenderhearted herald. Of course, Farjeon creates her own version of the dreadful and silly stepsisters:

"I'm not going to be a wallflower." The Sisters pranced about, practicing curtsies. "Nobody's not going to ask me to dance, so there!"
"Nobody's going to neglect me," said Arethusa.
"Nobody's going to reject me," said Araminta.
"I'm going to be the most beautiful bloom in the whole of the room, so there!"
"Excepting for me! People will pass the remark, 'She's just like a hothouse rose'—so there!"
Minta tossed her head. "If I don't get lots of introductions, look out for ructions!"
"If I don't get first prize for airs and graces," said Thusa, "I'll smack their great big ugly faces. I'm not going to be a wallflower.""
"No more am I not going to be a wallflower!"
"So there!" The Sisters flopped on the floor in a heap, with not a curtsy left between them.
Ella came timidly to the door. "The bath is ready, madam."
"Dip, dip, dip!" said the Stepmother.
The Sisters gathered themselves up, piled Ella's arms with towels and soap and sponges and perfume and rubber ducks, and pushed past her to the bathroom, where she had to scrub their backs for them. They were much too lazy to do it for themselves.

If The Glass Slipper is delightful, The Silver Curlew is strange and marvelous. It has a more modern sensibility than the retelling of Cinderella, almost an edge. And yet, that's a subtlety not everyone will notice. The most obvious and appealing thing about this book is its humor.

Here Farjeon combines the story of Rumpelstiltskin with a nursery rhyme about the man in the moon. Only in her version, Rumpelstiltskin (or rather Tom Tit Tot) has become a little black imp, clearly kin to devils and demons, while the miller's daughter is pretty Doll Codling, the laziest girl in all the land—but also a girl with a real knack for motherhood, when she gets the chance.

More important is Doll's younger sister Poll, who is wiry and adventurous and clever. She's the real hero of our story.

The tale's comic centerpiece is Nollekens, King of Norfolk, an overgrown child and towering sulker who clashes less-than-majestically with his new sister-in-law and nearly spoils the whole thing when it comes to naming names. His temper is a running joke that eventually offers up a tidy tidbit of a message, though not in a pompous way.

And who is Charlee, the daydreamy fisherman who wanders up and down the beach, followed by a parade of puffins? When Poll saves a beautiful silver bird from the imps of the Witching-Wood, it is Charlee who helps her figure out how to care for the injured bird. The curlew is even the subject of one of the quarrels between Poll and the king:

"I'm not featherbrained!" cried Poll, stamping her foot at him.
"You are featherbrained!" cried Noll, stamping his foot at her. "And no wonder, sitting over that silly bird of yours, morning, noon, and night. I've a good mind to have it banished."
"Don't you touch my bird! Don't you touch my bird!" squealed Poll.
"I wouldn't touch your bird with a pair of filigree sugar-tongs," said Noll.
"You haven't got a pair of filigree sugar-tongs."
"I shall have some made," said Nollekens, "especially not to touch your bird with. Nursing a sick curlew all the year round!"
"It's getting better," Poll declared.

Other passages are quietly poetic:

[Poll] unclosed her eyes, which felt a little sticky from being so fast-shut. At first the moonlight made everything swimmy and she could only see a sliding silver movement over the grass that seemed to be the wind made visible. Then as her eyes cleared Poll caught and held her breath. What did she see? She saw the Silver Curlew floating above the flower-beds like a large moth. It rose a little, dipped, rose a little higher, and slid to earth again. Poll watched its movements anxiously. It stepped through the dewy grass as though it were stepping through seaweed, and stopped beside the fountain to wet its bill. Refreshed, it began to try its wings again.

Soon the deadline for Doll's guessing the spinning creature's name comes calling, the adventure escalates, and Poll must slip into the Witching-Wood, disguised as an imp, in order to save her baby nephew.

Besides the characters, the humor, and the poet's masterful use of language, Eleanor Farjeon's greatest accomplishment is to make something new out of an old story. She even manages to twine another tale through it using a nursery rhyme. There's an artistry and a grace to The Silver Curlew that transforms it into a gift of a story for any young fantasy reader, even 50+ years after its initial publication.

While you can enjoy all kinds of fairy tale retellings in the 2000's, don't forget the earliest of these books. Sometimes they're the best of the bunch.

A Review of Legacies by Mercedes Lackey and Rosemary Edghill

Yes, it's a bunch of magical kids at a boarding school—again! But this is no Harry Potter. It's a YA series start by a couple of powerhouse adult fantasy writers, so the tone is more Forks than Hogwarts.

Our story begins when Spirit White's entire family is killed in a car accident that might have had an evil magical component. Spirit is told that her parents left her in the guardianship of a mysterious school. And though the White family never had much, the school appears to be made of money. Unseen school administrators buy Spirit clothes and transport her by limo and private plane, till she finally arrives at Oakhurst, a school out in the middle of nowhere, AKA rural Montana.

The headmaster is no kindly Dumbledore; he introduces Spirit and her travel companion, a boy named Lachlan (Loch), to the reality of magic by turning them into mice and himself into an owl, then terrifying them, even slashing Spirit's arm with his talons. Later encounters will lead Spirit—and readers—to wonder if Doctor Ambrosius has some kind of Jekyll and Hyde thing going.

The eeriness continues as Spirit meets other students and instructors. In addition to Loch, she makes friends with a boy who has warrior magic named Burke, an illusionist named Muirin, and a water witch named Addie. But she gradually realizes that the administrators and teachers make a point of pitting students against each other, with an "only the strong survive" mentality. So, um, are the people running Oakhurst evil? (Note that this is a thoroughly YA take on the world—the grown-ups are out to get us!)

Of course, Spirit's paranoia seems justified when she and her friends find out that students are disappearing, and only at certain times of the year—say, at summer solstice or Halloween. Together, they try to solve the magical mystery, while keeping their investigation and even their friendships under the radar of the likes of Doctor Ambrosius.

Another mystery is Spirit's magic. When she and Loch are tested, he turns out to have the magical gifts of Kenning, Shadow Walking, and Pathfinding. Spirit seems to have no gifts, which anyone who's read a YA paranormal will correctly interpret to mean that at some point, she will end up having powerful magic.

The book drags in spots, e.g., when the authors go on and on describing the school and later when the kids seem slow to figure out exactly which mythological force is menacing students. Still, it's a pretty good read. There's a little romance, a lot of suspense, and a likable heroine. Legacies is the first book in the new Shadow Grail series, and fans of Kelly Armstrong and Stephenie Meyer will enjoy following the adventures of Spirit White and her friends.

Note for Worried Parents: Teens are snatched and killed by scary supernatural creatures. The deaths are left to the readers' imagination; however, the big climactic battle scene is pretty intense. A minor character smokes, and there's a mention of drugs.