Trouble Gum by Matthew Cordell - review

Trouble Gum by Matthew Cordell
Here is a book. A book with gum. A book with two brothers. A book with two brothers stuck inside on a rainy day who aren't usually allowed gum because - oh my god gum! Gum on the furniture! In the carpet! Gum in the hair! Swallowed gum! Gum on the wee little faces! NO GUM!

My colleague La Mirabile (also the mother of boys) is sitting next to me cackling over this book. Seriously, she's laughing so hard I'm worried she's going to swallow her own gum.

Matthew Cordell illustrated one of my favorite picture books about brothers, Righty & Lefty. Maybe he has sons. Maybe he has brothers. But he sure as heck knows how funny it is when a little boy jumps off the couch and into a pile of cushions and momentarily stuns himself.

Dragonbreath by Ursula Vernon - review

Dragonbreath by Ursula Vernon
It's possible that my opinion of this book has been influenced by the appearance in my bed this morning (at, possibly, 7am, I don't know, I didn't have my glasses on yet), of a seven-year-old who wasn't interested in it when I suggested it to him yesterday at the library, but who had apparently woken up, read the whole book, and now needed to synopsize it for me, read the funniest passages out loud, and tell me that he needs the next book in the series RIGHT NOW. He could barely get the words out for laughing.

After we kicked him out (my saintly husband: "Let Mommy sleep, ok? Go read something else."), I fell back to sleep and dreamed about pudgy animated dragon pirates. Ursula Vernon, get your agent on the phone with Noggin. Danny Dragonbreath is good animated.

So. Danny Dragonbreath is the only semi-mythological creature in a school full of non-mythic reptiles and amphibians. He gets a little picked-on for this, but his is an upbeat, enthusiastic semi-mythological 5th-grade spirit, and he doesn't let that bully Big Eddy the Komodo dragon get him down. His best friend Wendell is (predictably) a more cautious, intellectual type, and in the way of mismatched best friend pairs everywhere, Danny has to cajole Wendell into assisting him in his pursuit of unorthodox solutions to common problems.

In this instance, the problem is a research paper on the ocean, a subject that Danny knows nothing about. Danny's solution? A visit to Cousin Edward the sea serpent, who takes the gung-ho Danny and freaked-out Wendell on an undersea tour. They explore a coral reef, a sunken ship, and a deep-sea trench. Along the way, sneaky Ursula Vernon finagles interesting facts about sea creatures and ocean phenomena into the adventure.

But it's the snarkalicious writing that will keep my seven-year-old, and other kids who appreciate funny (I'm thinking it might appeal to Diary of a Wimpy Kid devotees, if I can get them past the dragon thing) coming back for more. In a sidebar, Vernon writes, "A school of potato salad can skeletonize a cow in under two weeks, assuming that the cow doesn't get bored and move."

Our library system has Dragonbreath filed as a graphic novel, but it's not. It's one of those hybrids, something like The Invention of Hugo Cabret, with pages of panels carrying the action in some places and pages of text doing the bulk of the work. There could be more graphic passages, I have to say. Ursula Vernon's drawing style is extremely nice - full-on grownup quality work, with a strong line quality and bold shading that highlights each panel's central idea. Think Owly.

Such high contrast sometimes makes a comic look ominous and bleak (Dark Knight Returns, Grendel), but in this case, the choice of grass green as a highlight color keeps that from happening, and it's a technique that is particularly appropriate and effective in the undersea scenes. The vertical panels that show the sinuous Edward diving or rising to the surface are unusually lovely. Page layouts are varied and interesting, but still quite simple and easy to follow.

In sum: . I've been looking for a Babymouse for boys for a long time, and I think Dragonbreath is it - snappy, giggleworthy text and strong, coherent graphic passages telling a fun, friendly, exciting story with just the right balance of realism and fantasy. I'm with Mao - we're waiting for Dragonbreath: Attack of the Ninja Frogs with bated breath!

Today I Will Fly! by Mo Willems - review

Today I Will Fly! by Mo Willems
It is obviously completely superfluous for me to review this book. I have lauded the Elephant & Piggie series frequently on this blog. I have personally handed Elephant & Piggie books to dozens of parents, some of whom have actually sought me out later to tell me that little Susie didn't think she was "a reader" until Gerald and Piggie showed her that she was. Heck once I even hired a skywriter to fly over a teaching convention and spell out "GERALD & PIGGIE TAUGHT ME TO READ!!"

But today, my six year old son sat down and read this book to me, cover to cover, sounding out the words. I didn't know he knew how to read. When I told him that, he said, "Neither did I!" We are so proud, and so is he. When I asked him what he wanted to read next, he instantly responded, "Percy Jackson and the Olympians".

In all fairness, I did hear him sort of struggle through Time to Pee! last night with his dad, but I was half-asleep and literally thought I had dreamt it.

What do you hear in your dreams? If it's not a six-year-old reading Mo Willems, you're doing it wrong.

Highway to Hell, a novel by Rosemary Clement-Moore - review

I am woefully behind in my YA reviewing. I have been reading YA books all summer - in part because I like YA books, partly because I got so many YA ARCs at BookExpo, and of course, partly because I like to be able to recommend books to teenagers.

But I haven't been able to bring myself to review them. Sure, Lament: The Faerie Queen's Deception by Maggie Steifwhatever was fine, with romance and uncertainty and music and telekinesis, and the similar but less romance-y Troll Bridge: A Rock'n' Roll Fairy Tale I would recommend without hesitation.

The forthcoming Sphinx's Princess, in which Esther Friesner imagines the pre-royal life of Nefertiti (King Tut's wife) the same way she did Helen of Troy's in Nobody's Princess, was perfectly serviceable clean teen historical romance fiction. The Goldsmith's Daughter, about an Aztec teen who crosses gender lines to protect her family, was terrific - right up until she fell in love with a conquistador. Hey, doesn't everybody love a good-Nazi love story?

I read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and I have independent confirmation that YES it is a good choice for young adult readers. Wondergirl, my favorite middle schooler, read it over the summer at my suggestion, then rented the movie and laughed all the way through it. Hee hee hee!

But WHYYY have I not reviewed all these things? What is the MATTER with me? Have I lost my joy in reading and nowadays I am just plowing through these novels for the sake of getting them done? WOE!




Cough. That was probably a little more melodramatic than the situation warrants. Anyway. I am, by contrast, supernaturally excited about this book, the most recent in the Maggie Quinn, Girl vs. Evil series. I am a newcomer to Maggie, her friend D&D Lisa the evil genius, her paladin of a boyfriend, and the trouble - EEEVIL trouble - that seems to dog their footsteps. I picked up the book because I liked the coolio Craig Phillips cover, and because on it, Maggie wears aviator sunglasses while motoring along in her Jeep with no doors.

And now I've just finished it and I'm happy, I'm happy happy happy. Maggie and Lisa are geeky plus good-looking, but in a believable, Kristen-Bell-in-Fanboys kind of way. Their banter is witty but not so witty that it sounds fake. They call each other "moron" with regularity. They are aware that together, they make up Bart Simpson's sisters, and if you point it out, they will roll their eyes so hard they'll almost knock themselves over.

Maggie is psychic and Lisa is a witch, and BF Justin has the looks, the good manners, and the physical competence of a Riley Finn without all the whining. Seriously, I'll never forgive Whedon for what he did to that character. Make him evil, kill him off, but emasculating him like that was just mean.

The plot is TIGHT. There's enough going on that the author could be forgiven for letting a detail or two go unexplained, but she does not. Furthermore, answers are not hurled into the text at the end in any old "Have this droid's memory wiped" manner. They are woven in, sometimes not even overtly. My new pal Rosemary Clement-Moore doesn't seem to think it's necessary for a character to say, "Oh so that's why the demon absorbed that shotgun blast without injury." If it's not a major plot point, she'll let you make that connection yourself, which, I have to say, is extremely generous. If I'd written anything half so clever, you can bet I would be showing off all my tied-off ends like a Boy Scout who just earned his Knots merit badge.

PLUS. Maggie is petite and powerful, and sassy and cute. I'm a geek. But I didn't think of Buffy until page 270, when she tells a giant amalgamated demon who is doing a good job of intimidating her, "You are so full of crap." Of course, now I can't stop.

The book is, somewhat refreshingly, not without God. I am a little weary of the dances that many authors do in order to keep their teen demon-fighting free of any actual discussion of faith. As when Buffy runs into a high school classmate in the cemetery and he asks (about God), "does he exist, by the way? Is there word on that?" and Buffy answers, "Nothing solid."

In this book, Lisa, in particular, is quite concerned about going to Hell after having summoned a demon in a previous book. There are Catholic characters who participate in the Back Demon Back, saying prayers and swinging branding irons.

Our setting is the fictional Dulcina, TX, right down in the foot of Texas, near the Gulf of Mexico. Lucky for us, Clement-Moore knows her Texas. She writes the landscape - its smells and sky, its few features, the effect livestock has on it, and most of all its subtle rises and falls - really well, with unstrained, natural imagery. You get the feeling she's spent some time on a horse.

(I briefly became a little concerned that the "Moore" in "Clement-Moore" was as in Christopher Moore, which would make sense, kind of like when I found out Justine Larbalestier and Scott Westerfeld are married, but looks like not. Apparently, though, she and I are the same person, because she lists Television Without Pity and Go Fug Yourself as good wastes of time, and Susan Cooper and Meg Cabot - whose blog writing I thought of more than once while reading this book - as hero authors. Plus she liked Firefly. Awww.)

Funny and smart, exciting and hip, Highway to Hell was just the squirt of lime I needed to cut through my midsummer complacency.

The Dunderheads, by Paul Fleischman, illustrated by David Roberts - review

The Dunderheads, by Paul Fleischman, illustrated by David Roberts
Do you want to live in David Roberts's world? I want to live in David Roberts's world. In David Roberts's world, no trip to the thrift store does NOT yield a polyester caftan in a trippy geometric pattern. Or at least a pair of green Chucks. In David Roberts's world, every surface is there to be customized with gaffer's tape in lots of colors. In David Roberts's world, it is impossible to pass by a jacket with a circle zipper pull and not want to put it on. (The circle zipper pull being, of course, the sexiest item ever to appear in the notions aisle.) In David Roberts's world, even a lawn chair with yellow and gray webbing is the coolest webbed lawn chair I have ever seen. That part's actually a bit frustrating. I'm never going to find a lawn chair that looks that good.

But what makes Dunderheads the perfect storm of quirky greatness is that David Roberts's world has somehow overlaid and merged with Paul Fleischman's world. Paul Fleischman, whose previous world, Weslandia, was also a world I wanted to live in. Not least because it's just a darn clever name.

In Paul Fleischman's world, every child feels free to express his or her individuality in every way possible - through the acquisition and deployment of bizarrely abstruse knowledge; by discovering and practicing (and in some cases, inventing) an unique talent; or? by filing one's fingernails into handy tools. In Paul Fleischman's world, Pluck Conquers All.

The Dunderheads are a group of kids so labeled by their villainous teacher, a towering bully who despises children and loves things with pointy teeth and/or spikes. Miss Breakbone keeps an electric chair in her classroom and awards herself a gold star whenever she makes a child cry. In other words, she is a Miss Trunchbull in dire need of a Matilda to scare her off. But this is Paul Fleischman's world, remember?

What follows is not a Use of Underage Magic story - what follows is a classic American Kids Get Even tall tale. Didn't you hear those stories when you were growing up? The story about how those kids, a few years older than you, finally got back at Coach Wolf by putting a potato in his tailpipe? Or how Miss Park lost her eyebrows one time because somebody doctored her makeup? Those kids in those stories were HEROES. Like Paul Fleischman's heroes. Everyday, funny, underdog heroes.

Man, I am really babbling along here, aren't I? It's because I just keep paging through the book and finding more to love. I am pretty darn sure David Roberts has quoted a couple of his own characters from Iggy Peck, Architect and Dumpster Diver, but I can't be fussed to go get those books to check, because they're in the room where my sons are (supposedly) sleeping.

So, one day, Miss Breakbone goes too far. She confiscates an item that the smallest kid, a boy called Junkyard, who wears a rainbow on his sweater and a Quadrophenia patch on his jeans, had been planning to give to his mom for her birthday. She makes him cry. The kids embark upon a daring plan that will humiliate Miss Breakbone and restore Junkyard's pride, not to mention his property.



It's worth mentioning that Dunderheads is a long-form picture book, almost a graphic novel, really. My rising third grader read it to me and to his younger brother with no trouble (their faces shining - they love it when the bad guy gets his due). In the picture above, 5th grader Rabbit is reading it to rapt 3rd graders Legolas, Zee, & Mao, plus my 1st grade Zhou. Although not a chapter book, it falls into that short-long space that is so hard to keep populated when the second graders come around. Thanks, Mr. Fleischman!

It is also worth mentioning that while David Roberts is a master of stylized, expressive characters sporting fearless fashion choices ("from the sixties, seventies, AND eighties" as the classic rock station trumpets), there are many many illustration and design elements quoted from various sources and executed in different styles, all of which he does well. It gives his world a lot of depth. As Laurie Anderson said, "You know? I think we should put some mountains here. Otherwise, what are all the characters going to fall off of?"

And I'm out. Go find this one.

Always lots of heinies at the zoo, written by Ayun Halliday, illustrations by Dan Santat - review

Always lots of heinies at the zoo, written by Ayun Halliday, illustrations by Dan Santat
The author of the zine East Village Inky has written a picture book. That's it, my world just exploded.

I read Ayun Halliday's account of new motherhood, The Big Rumpus, when my older son was just a few months old. In that book, Ayun carted her daughter India around the East Village in a sling, wondering if her Dead Kennedys t-shirts were ever going to shrink back to normal after having worn them over her pregnant belly. Or something like that. As Ayun listlessly swiped at crusty wads of mushy peas on the kitchen floor and speculated over random puddles (apple juice? or pee?), I laughed the laugh of the unbelievably sleep-deprived. Good times.

Good times at the zoo, too, I'm happy to report. "No one tries to hide his heinie at the zoo." Like Chicken Cheeks (reviewed earlier), we get lots of fun heinie synonymy: tushy, glutes, can, and even caboose. Unlike Chicken Cheeks (reviewed earlier), we have an elephant with "junk in her supplemental trunk" - kind of steep slang for the K-3 set, and I think they're going to love it.

The vaguely Adam Rex-y, J.Otto Seibold-y illustrations are fine, not super-noteworthy (although, gotta say, GOOD MONKEYS), but composed very well. I love the portraits of Ayun and her husband Greg on the dedication page.

By the way, Ayun, if you're reading this: my colleague Dances with Chickens thinks this book would make a terrific little song. Maybe Greg can run something up.

1000 Times No by Tom Warburton - review

1000 Times No by Tom Warburton
I was on the desk in the children's department earlier tonight, and a lady had a baby and a little girl. When she got the call from her husband: "Come on home, dinner's almost ready," the baby started fussing and the little girl lost it. "NO!" she wailed. My kids are 20 months apart, and boy I remember that sinking feeling when you realize just how far it is to the exit, and how long your walk of shame will be, escorting not one but two shrieking bundles of raw nerves.

So on their way out I asked the little girl if she'd like a brand new book to check out, if that would make leaving the library any easier. With the tears still on her face and her breath hitching, she accepted the book solemnly. (It's the pink hair, folks, I don't kid myself)

But when the mom saw the title, she cracked up. Me too, I have to say. Noah doesn't want to leave when mom (wearing very sassy boots, I note appreciatively) says it's time. On each page he communicates "NO!" in a different way - via text message and tin can telephone, in Mongolian, Zulu, Tagalog and Robot, through heiroglyphics and by means of a vigorous head-shake. Noah is accessorized or contextualized appropriately for each utterance, until, on one page, a thousand Noahs sit in the seats of a boisterous U.N., all voicing their disapproval.

Endpaper bonus: Noah a thousand times (not really), in all his different hats.

Internet bonus: spacedlaw pointed me to the book trailer on YouTube. Even cuter!

Mungo and the Spiders from Space by Timothy Knapman and Adam Stower - review

Mungo and the Spiders from Space by Timothy Knapman and Adam Stower
Well, looks like Your Neighborhood Librarian has a new artist boyfriend. Sigh. The beginning of a relationship is always so magical, n'est pas? My previous secret husbands of children's illustration have included Adam Rex, William Joyce, and Oliver Jeffers (who gets extra points for being Irish). Plus Antoinette Portis and Emily Gravett.* I have no gender hangups.

I read and enjoyed Two Left Feet when it came out, but I don't think I reviewed it. I remember liking the artist's strong but delicate line, old-timey fashion sense, and bangin' colors, all of which Mungo and the Spiders from Space has, times twenty. It has a steampunk vibe, very like Chris Riddell's work, but more energetic. My colleague TinkerCinderBelleAhontas finds it busy, but that's just because her son is still a baby and they like soft colors and one visual idea per page. Which is cool. But my sons, my boys who are 6 and 7? Jeez, my sons craaaave "busy". They want extra bonus cartoons, they want books within books. They want trompe-l'œil effects and they want marginalia and detail-alia and backgroundalia and illustrated endpapers and extra jokes on the back cover.

All of which, not coincidentally, Mungo and the Spiders from Space - has. Plus: a plot that keeps the reader hanging, slime, goop, a butt joke, and robots. Sigh. It's love, in point of fact.

Think I'll go gaze at the cover of The Shadow World for a little while.

*And David Roberts and Marla Frazee and David Shannon and Kadir Nelson and LeUyen Pham and a few others...

Tillie Lays An Egg by Terry Golson with photography by Ben Fink - review

Tillie Lays An Egg by Terry Golson with photography by Ben Fink
Chickens, like penguins, are always funny. When I had chickens, and, yes, I had chickens in my city backyard, I used to go out a couple times a day to just sit and watch them bumble around and giggle to myself. Chickens - well I don't think I'm going to offend them by saying this - chickens are... not bright. My chickens, for example, were dumb enough to get themselves eaten by anything with teeth, and at least one thing without teeth. I've sworn off keeping chickens because I can't endure the heartbreak of losing any more. Hawks, foxes, raccoons, a dog, and I think possibly a family of possums consumed a total of eleven chickens at my house.



So I dedicate my review of this darling book in loving memory of Micker-Micker and Mrs. Miller, timid Penguin, big beautiful Barge, rock star Lou, Lou Two, three pullets that the kindergarten had raised from chicks, and two bad-tempered Polish hens whose names I can't remember. The funny, fun, beautiful photographs in Tillie Lays an Egg made me heave a wistful sigh thinking of how wonderful it was for my kids to have a chance to observe the life cycle firsthand, to think about food and where it comes from, and how nice it was to pet those gorgeous girls.

As you can probably tell from my photos, taking pictures of chickens is not easy. Either they are curious about the camera, and you get freaky close-up pictures of beaks and eyes - not the most attractive aspect of a chicken - or they are terrified of the camera, and run like idiots as soon as they see it. So the photographs in Tillie Lays an Egg, which are well-lit, in focus, and STAGED, for goodness sake! are not only entertaining, but really impressive.

As is the concept as a whole. Tillie, a chicken who thinks outside the coop, prefers wandering in search of worms to waiting for her turn in a nesting box. Every day she explores a different corner of the farm, and every day she lays her egg in an unexpected place. Children and adults have been observed enjoying the hunt for Tillie's eggs in each day's picture, and chuckling over the vintage chicken-themed items that pop up here and there - a chicken doormat, board games, table linens, and a juice glass that I covet.

I can't think of a more lovely hommage to these sometimes underappreciated farmyard friends, and I was so pleased to read that the chickens in the book - and all the chickeny props - are the author's own. I look forward to the further adventures of Tillie.

You're a bad man, Mr. Gum! by Andy Stanton, read by the author - review

You're a bad man, Mr. Gum! by Andy Stanton, read by the author

"'I am glad you asked me that,' said Friday, 'because the universe is my specialist subject and I am the winner of quizzes where that's concerned.'

This audio book had our whole family giggling all the way up Interstate 95 from Georgia when we came home from Spring Break. Really. Now, I don't want to take away from the print edition, which is certainly a funny book, with hip little illustrations and a chapter entitled "Mr. Gum Has a Cup of Tea" whose entire text is "Mr. Gum had a cup of tea," but on audio...

Let's put it this way. The other audio book that we really enjoyed on that trip, Neil Gaiman's The Neil Gaiman Audio Collection, included an interview with the author as a Special Bonus Feature. The interview is conducted by Gaiman's daughter Maddie, who asks good questions, including: "Why do you like audio books?" Neil answers this (and all the other) questions with his accustomed brevity, saying, (and I am paraphrasing here - that thing about Gaiman's brevity was me lying) that he likes audio books because he as an author can read the book as he first heard it in his head when he wrote it. Funny voices and all.

So, Andy Stanton apparently had choirs of lunatics speaking in his head when he was writing You're a Bad Man, Mr. Gum!. Or maybe just Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, and the entire Monty Python ensemble, including the dead guy who wanted to be a doctor. His characters are by turns terrible and silly, mystical and silly, adorable and silly, crabby and silly, and... silly. PLUS we get extremely Adams-y silly stuff like"

"She ran past a cat's ears that were lying on the pavement and a cat's nose and whiskers that were lying on the pavement and a cat's body and tail and legs and eyes and claws that were lying on the paveme -- in fact it was all just one cat, lying on the pavement."

And don't look for any Special Bonus Features on this CD, or in the book, because there AREN'T ANY.

Or... that's me lying again.

Patrick the Somnambulist, written and illustrated by Sarah Ackerley - review

Patrick the Somnambulist, written and illustrated by Sarah Ackerley
To all of the tedious, obvious, cheery-fake picture books that try to demonstrate that Being Different Has Hidden Benefits! REALLY! Your Love of Ballet / Eccentricity / Fashion Sense / Favorite Color / Intelligence / Strabismus / Bipedalism / Love of Poetry / Lack of Athleticism / Species / Size / Diet / Unusual Color Makes You Special (and ok, most of these books are neither tedious nor obvious, I am just being lazy, because I tend not to remember books I don't like) - I finally have a response: LOOK AT THIS ONE.

Patrick is a normal penguin kid who is also a sleepwalker. His concerned parents take him to therapy. The therapist confirms that Patrick is a normal penguin kid who is also a sleepwalker. Teaches Patrick a fancy word for himself - somnambulist. Patrick adores his new word, is empowered by it, does great things under its imprimatur. Goes on Conan. Becomes a multi-millionaire at the age of six.

The little full-page watercolor illustrations are witty and sweet, done in a rather somber nighttime palette that in no way harshes the happy, giggly mellow of the text. Love the mute, soulful penguin expressions (no mouths on these penguins and yet we know just what they're thinking). Kids will get a laugh out of all the odd situations Patrick finds himself in as a result of his sleepwalking, and parents will surreptitiously enjoy, "At first his parents just thought he was just weird."

Who hasn't thought that at one time or another?

Endpaper bonus: Patrick wrapped in toilet paper, rocking an umbrella, and wearing a plunger on his head.