Feeling Sad by Sarah Verroken - review

Feeling Sad by Sarah Verroken
Add this to your arsenal of 'feelings' books. Do it right away.

Duck is sad, and it's a gloomy day. Why? Doesn't really matter. It happens, right? Nothing to be alarmed about or belabor - best to just find a way past it and see if we can brighten things up a bit. Which is exactly what Duck does, inspired by a friendly frog who suggests merely, "Cheer up. Look ahead!"

Duck looks around and finds one small bright spot. Then she takes action, calling to the clouds to help her find the sun. This is good stuff. This is the kid participating in and taking control of her mood. This is also not demonizing sadness. By the way, this is also not about grief, which is a different sadness, and is addressed in other books.

I want to draw special attention to the art. Big and textured, starting out scratchy and dark and then, as Duck's mood lightens, getting brighter and more colorful. I want to say these are monoprints, but there is certainly some digital alteration in there, and maybe a little collage. Sarah Verroken's blog showcases more of her work. Looking forward to seeing more from her.

Banned Books Week FTW!

There are few holidays I enjoy celebrating more than Banned Books Week. To me, banning a book is just such a brilliant way of acknowleging its power and encouraging young people to read it.

People challenge books in school and public libraries all the time, everywhere. bannedbooksweek.org, in addition to their list of Banned Book Week events, now has a map of book challenges in the United States. Here's what they say about it:

There are hundreds of challenges to books in schools and libraries in the United States every year. According to the American Library Association (ALA), there were at least 513 in 2008. But the total is far larger. 70 to 80 percent are never reported.

I took a look through the ALA's list of challenged and banned books for 2008-09 and I was happy to see books that I've reviewed on this blog, and more importantly, books that I've bought for the two school library collections that I manage.

Here is just a sample of the books that people have felt most threatened by in the past year. If I've reviewed it, the link is on the title. Get threatened! Read these books!




Alexie, Sherman. Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian.




Brannen, Sarah. Uncle Bobby's Wedding





Colfer, Eoin. Supernaturalist. This book had me on the edge of my seat, though I never reviewed it here. Dystopic YA fiction oh yeah!




Green, John. Looking for Alaska. Nobody writes realistic teen stories, with all their real drama and real humor, like John Green. Apparently somebody objected to all the real.




Kaysen, Susanna. Girl, Interrupted. Oh sure, it's harsh. It's graphic. But for any girl going through mental torment, it is a warm port in the storm.




Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. ...but remember, it's a sin to ban a classic.




de Haan, Linda and Stern Njiland. King and King.





Harris, Robie. It's Perfectly Normal. It's perfectly predictable for a book with the word "sex" in the subtitle to get some people's panties in a twist. Reading the word isn't going to give your kids chlamydia, you know.




Pullman, Philip. The Golden Compass




Parnell, Peter. And Tango makes three. Gay! Gay penguins! Indoctrinating our children with their cuddly gayness! AAAGH!




Myers, Walter Dean. Fallen Angels. One of the very few books about modern war for teens, and people complain about the language.




Salinger, J.D. Catcher in the Rye. Yup, people are still objecting to the depiction of nosepicking in this book.




Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Every year. Every year somebody gets worked up about it. As if our children would never learn the n-word if it weren't for that rascal Huck.

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.

Goldilocks and the Three Bears by Lauren Child, photography by Polly Borland, set creation by Emily L. Jenkins - review

Goldilocks and the Three Bears by Lauren Child, photography by Polly Borland, set creation by Emily L. Jenkins
Goldilocks is a doll. A beautifully made wool felt doll with a head full of honey curls and a sultry, sultry gaze. The bears are dolls. Fuzzy, immaculately-dressed, bears with birdlike eyes.

AAAAAAAGHHH!!

Wait, maybe I am too quick to judge. The sets are very cute and dollhousey. The dedications page is interesting and beautiful. But somewhere, the ageless ghost of Dare Wright is working herself up into a delusional jealous frenzy. And dolls - they just freak me right out.

The Very Silly Mayor by Tom Tomorrow - review

The Very Silly Mayor by Tom Tomorrow
You know what? This is not bad! Bright colors, readable artwork, cops in clown costumes... yeah, I'm giving this the thumbs-up.

The worry, of course, with a kid book written by uber-snarkmeister cartoonist Tom Tomorrow, is that Mr. Tomorrow is writing for the parents - that the very silly mayor is in fact a member of the Bush family and Sparky the Penguin is doing his usual emperor-has-no-clothes schtick, and kids will find it amusing but parents will nod smugly. "That George Bush," they'll smirk internally. "What a dorkus."

But that is not what Tom Tomorrow has done here. Sure, you could read the very silly mayor, with his pronouncements that firefighters should use peanut butter to put out fires instead of water, and that everyone should paint their houses purple and green, as George Bush. But you could read the very silly mayor as just about any authority figure that people follow without question. Your third-grade teacher, for example.



The book is, in the end, about dissent. It's about speaking up when you don't understand something, or when you have an opinion, or when you think that cops can't possibly catch robbers when they're wearing clown shoes. Plus - silly!

You are the first kid on Mars by Patrick O'Brien - review and interview

You are the first kid on Mars by Patrick O'Brien

2009 is the fortieth anniversary of the first manned mission to land on the moon. Did you know that? Yeah maybe the astounding array of commemorative books tipped you off. We've had books by everyone from Buzz Aldrin to Norman Mailer hit the shelves this year. Many, if not most, of these books have been inspiring and beautiful. Many, if not most, have made me cry.

But while I am fully aware of the importance of the Apollo 11 mission as a concrete example of the highest heights that can be achieved - by man and by mankind - I have wondered just how engaging this story is for young people. My own children are mystified and a little alarmed when I get all choked up reading them Brian Floca's atmospheric and detailed Moonshot or try to explain to them the unique perspective represented by former astronaut Alan Bean's paintings in Mission Control, This is Apollo.

That's why I think Patrick O'Brien's work of "speculative non-fiction" is so important this year. For my kids, and for their friend Alex, who is the model for the kid in the book (disclosure: Pat's family and mine have been friends since our 3rd-grade boys were barely walking, much less traveling the solar system), space travel is not something that happened on a tiny black-and-white TV set in the kitchen forty years ago. Space travel is not even the - let me take a deep breath and try to use an adjective that is not pejorative - somewhat tepid space shuttle program.

Space travel is "huge ships shaped like pine cones with lots of little sonar devices and everyone wears goggles that can switch from night vision to underwater vision to sunglasses!" (I asked.) They think the future will involve "a permanent space colony on the Moon as big as Texas!" "Or maybe at one of the Lagrange points!"

But ok, that's my kids. Not every kid knows that the gravitationally stable Lagrange points are good spots for a space station. But I will argue that my kids are representative of many kids when they think that space travel is part of their future. And Patrick has done our kids a service by writing and illustrating, with his usual blend of meticulous research and stunning art, a reasonably plausible conception of travel to Mars. His journey includes a space elevator up to a geosynchronous orbit point, a nuclear thermal ship that gradually accelerates to 75,000 miles per hour as it covers the 35,000 miles to Mars, and a Mars lander that bombs through the Mars atmosphere before parachutes drop it gently to the dusty red plain.



The friendly, explanatory second-person narration contrasts nicely with the giant grin on the face of the kid as he bounds across the Martian surface. Makes it feel like the book is being narrated by a teacher chaperoning a really good field trip, trying to keep from letting on that she is just as excited as the kids are.

Anyone familiar with O'Brien's previous books (on topics like sailing ships, extinct mammals, knights, and, er, dinosaurs in space) will know that the man researches like a maniac. Marianne Dyson, herself an author of numerous kids' books on space, picked apart every fact presented in You Are the First Kid On Mars when she reviewed the book, but revised her opinion when the author emailed her, addressing her objections and supporting his every phrase. It is really nice to know that the book stands up to that kind of scrutiny.

The artwork in this book was done on a computer, a departure for O'Brien, who, in addition to illustrating his own books, paints large oils of ships under sail. His mastery of the software and techniques involved is impressive - many of the illustrations look like they could be photos, which is important for those kids who want things to be above all else "real".

We had the delightful O'Brien family over for dinner this weekend, and after my husband's excellent fish tacos, I had the chance to ask Pat some questions about the book.

Your Neighborhood Librarian: What was your inspiration for writing You Are the First Kid on Mars?

Patrick O'Brien: My editor, Tim Travaglini, was really into the whole space idea. It was his idea to do a speculative book about going to Mars. My books usually come from my ideas, but this one came from him.

YNL: Was there anything different about writing about future science vs. your usual subjects?

PO: All of my other books are about historic and prehistoric nonfiction subjects. It is fiction, because it hasn't actually happened, but I was treating it as a nonfiction book. The reason that it’s in the second person is I read some books like that as a kid. You will go to the Moon is the one that I remember most clearly. And they had it all wrong, it’s really funny to see all that. Presumably, my stuff will be all wrong.

YNL: What was your research process? Do you regularly read science periodicals like Wired or Scientific American? Or was this a new area for you?

PO: I’ve always been a science guy, I was a biology major in college, but my son is really into space. We watch a lot of space stuff on TV. When Alex was really young, he liked real space more than the fictional movies. We'd watch NOVA together, and his toys were Apollo models, not Star Wars toys. I read a lot about space with him, and on my own.

I used the most up to date, most accurate information that I could find about what it would take to get to Mars. I went through the NASA website, books on space travel.

YNL: Is this your first work created digitally?

PO: This is the first book I illustrated on the computer.

YNL: You're such a good painter though - why did you decide to do it using techniques that are new to you?

PO: Well, for fun, as a change. It was different, and I just thought it was appropriate to the subject matter. The thing about using the computer to do the art, a lot of people who don’t do it think you just push the spaceship button and you get a spaceship. You push the astronaut button, and you get an astronaut, and then you make it do what you want. But you still have to draw it, you still have to paint it. It’s just one more medium. When they invented watercolors, it didn’t put the oil painters out of business.

But there are advantages. You can make infinite changes - with watercolors, pretty much once it's down, it's there. You can make a certain amount of changes with oils, but with the computer, you can keep adjusting it until it's just what you want. I used Corel Painter X and a tablet, so it’s a lot like painting. It wasn't hard to learn.

YNL: Did you find it hard to stop making changes? Was it tempting to keep touching it, trying out variations?

PO: No. A little. I know what I’m going for, I have a picture in my mind, and when I've made that, it’s done.

There you go, folks. I made it, it's done. You will go to the Moon was, not surprisingly, on my shelf as a kid too.

The Lion and the Mouse by Jerry Pinkney - review

The Lion and the Mouse by Jerry Pinkney

Jerry Pinkney is a god. I think that's my whole review. No, wait, I have to mention that this book is wordless (except for beautifully lettered onomatopoeia incorporated into the paintings).

In a year when Jerry Pinkney also illustrated The Moon Over Star, I think he is his own stiffest competition for a Caldecott.

Call Me Gorgeous by Giles and Alexandra Milton - review

Call Me Gorgeous by Giles and Alexandra Milton
I have the eyes of a lemur and the beak of an octopus, the skin of a monitor lizard and the broken toes of an unfortunate debutante.

Actually, none of that is true. What I have are the eyes of a Scots-Irish Protestant and the posture of a Hungarian peasant - my fractious temperament is like that of my New England ancestors and my ability to tan comes from generations of watermen on Maryland's Eastern Shore.

Pieces of various creatures (eye of frog, feet of chicken) lead the reader of the happy, beautiful Call Me Gorgeous! to expect a monstrous chimera, when instead, the creature at the end of this book is quite fabulous - and she knows it! Colored pencils and collages of handmade paper make the teeth of the alligator look sharp and the ears of the pig soft, the chameleon's tail scaly and the bat wings veiny.

We are all hybrids, and this book exalts our stitched-together-ness without whomping the reader over the head with bullhorned messages about DIFFERENCES! CHERISHING THEM! and LABELS! BOO TO LABELS! Would make a fun read-aloud.

Endpaper bonus: each animal shown in its entirety.

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.

Thunder-Boomer! by Shutta Crum, illustrated by Carol Thompson - review

Thunder-Boomer! by Shutta Crum, illustrated by Carol Thompson
A summer afternoon story, magnificently paced as a storm builds and then crashes over a farm family, onomatopoeia out the wazoo, and Dad's underwear flying around the farmyard.

Scooter's scared! He hides his head beneath
the couch,
but the rest of him won't fit.

Lovely rhythm, homespun imagery, powerful watercolor paintings. Ahhh. A perfect peach of a summer book.

The Big Elephant in the Room by Lane Smith - review

The Big Elephant in the Room by Lane Smith
Ok. I'm going to have to heavily synopsize this book, which I don't usually do, because - SPOILER - this is kind of a negative review, which I am stunned to be doing about a Lane Smith book. THE Lane Smith. The Lane Smith whom I love for John, Paul, George & Ben, and for BIG PLANS, and Madam President, not to mention his many excellent collaborations with Ambassador Jon Sczieska. So I need extensive backup if I'm going to even remotely disagree with any line or syllable of a Lane Smith book.

We have two friends - donkeys, although that's not important right now - and the first donkey says to the second donkey, "Can we talk about the big elephant in the room?"

The second donkey assumes that "the big elephant" is code for "the large and obvious issue that we have until now wilfully chosen to ignore, lest it foment outright conflict between us." (A classic example of "the elephant in the room" might be, say, my cousin-in-law's sexual orientation, of which her mother is unaware, thanks to scores of relatives not mentioning it. For decades.) Let's leave aside for the moment that this euphemism is maybe a little grown-up, not to mention obscure, for some kids, and move on to the issues that the second donkey thinks could qualify as "the elephant in the room."

Second donkey thinks his friend might be angry that he (second donkey) ate all the ice cream. Or that second donkey broke first donkey's computer. Deserted him when the bully came around. Took the cool bike so that first donkey was left riding the tricycle. Glued him to his chair. Made fun of his backpack. Laughed at first donkey when he laughed so hard he peed his pants - and then told another kid about it. Aaaand about a half-dozen more things that second donkey has done to (or by omission of action caused to happen to) his good buddy first donkey.

But no. There is, in fact, a big elephant in the room. His name is Stanley, and he's watching TV and eating ice cream - apparently he's a friend of second donkey. I personally would have been more satisfied if the "big elephant in the room" had turned out to be a thug hired by first donkey's mom to come and beat the squee out of second donkey.

I mean, sure, friends pull crap on each other, and forgive each other (and to be fair, first donkey in the end exhibits a scowl - he didn't know that second donkey had spread it around school that he'd peed his pants, and he is, finally, ticked off), and usually come up karmically even in the end. I think it's good to demonstrate to kids that even if your pal Jason or Jacob or Courtney or Michaela was dicky to you today, tomorrow is another day... BUT. That second donkey kid (am I out of line to call him a jackass?) is WAAAY over three strikes here.

I love me some Lane Smith. He's one of the few authors whose books I buy sight unseen. But this doesn't work for me.

Harriet's had enough by Elissa Haden Guest, illustrated by Paul Meisel - review

Harriet's had enough by Elissa Haden Guest, illustrated by Paul Meisel
I have two words for you: Most realistic (without being sad and weird and scary) book about a mommy-kid fight I've ever seen.

Now I recognize that that's ... 18 words. But I want to emphasize: it's quite a feat. How many books can you think of that are about a kid getting pissed off? Oh, I'd say about 8% of all picture books have to do with a kid losing his/her temper, and the consequences thereof. Most of them are about dumb little freak-outs, but a few (When Sophie Gets Angry, The Red Dragon, No Dessert Ever) try to address the kind of overwhelming anger that is actually scary to a kid. I actually find those books scary. It's tricky.

There are far fewer books that deal with a parent getting angry. Every parent knows that sometimes that kid just pushes the right buttons. You're not supposed to react - you're the grownup - but, well, it happens. To every parent. All the time. But, as I say, very few books that hit this.

Harriet's mom wants Harriet to pick up her toys. Tells her three times. Harriet says no, kicks over a bunch of blocks. And there we go. Harriet's being carried up to her room to "cool down". "No, YOU need to cool down!" counters Harriet, which earns her a door-slam on top of her time out.

The other day, my 7-year-old was standing in front of me lying to me.
Mad as hell, I grated, "How does it make YOU feel when someone is lying to you?!"
"It makes me want to SMACK them!" he hurls back.
"Well what do you know? Another thing we have in common!" I yell.
We stood there looking at each other until he cracked up. It's a good thing he and I have the same sense of humor too.

After Harriet threatens to run away, and is worn down by the kindness of her family, she is given the chance to apologize to her mom, which she does. Mama apologizes in turn for yelling and for the door slam, and then everybody helps each other with their tasks so that they can all sit down to dinner together.

Some parents think apologizing to a kid leaves the kid on shaky ground - that the kid needs to think of the adult as infallible in order to feel secure. I think that when a parent has demonstrated fallibility - like when the parent has lost his or her temper - you need to model sincere regret. How else is the kid going to know how to gracefully extricate him- or herself from the terrible stupid things that he or she has will have said or done in a fit of anger?

Life skills, baby. It's not just tying your shoes.

Little Beauty by Anthony Browne - review

Little Beauty by Anthony Browne
I am joined in my review of this book today by my friend Juicy, who is 5.

YNL: Juicy, say hello to the folks.
Juicy: [waves. Juicy likes to keep 2 fingers in his mouth]
YNL: Looking at the cover of this book, what do you think it's going to be about?
Juicy: It's about a guy who doesn't have a brain and who gets one.
YNL: That's not a brain, kid, that's a kitten on the gorilla's head.
Juicy: I SAID "FRIEND" not "brain".
YNL: Sometimes it's hard to understand you with your fingers in your mouth.
YNL: So here's the gorilla using sign language to ask for a friend, and here are his keepers. Can you tell what they're doing by the way they're standing?
Juicy: Thinking.
YNL: That's called body language, like the gorilla uses sign language. And then one of them has an idea. What do you look like when you have an idea?
Juicy: [Takes fingers out of mouth, crosses arms in front of him.]
YNL: How does the gorilla feel about his new kitten?
Juicy: He loves her!
YNL: How can you tell?
Juicy: Because she's cute?
YNL: Some people don't like cute. What makes you think the gorilla loves the kitten?
Juicy: Because the gorilla's happy?
YNL: How can you tell the gorilla's happy?
Juicy: Because he has a smile on his face. [Juicy is beginning to think I am a little stupid]
YNL: "They did EVERYTHING together." What are they doing here?
Friend the Girl (Juicy's sister, 8) interjects: POOPING!
Juicy: POOPING AND PEEING!
Juicy: He's SWINGIN ON THE LIGHT!
Juicy: He turned into a polar bear. He's turnin brown he's gettin dirty.
YNL: Uh-oh. What's happening here?
Juicy: The gorilla's angry at the TV. He busted it.
YNL (reads): "'We have to take Beauty away now,' said another."
Juicy: They're starting to cry because they love each other.
YNL: So what did the kitten do when they asked who broke the TV?
Juicy: He lied.
YNL: Do you think it's ok that Beauty lied?
Juicy: No.
YNL: Do you think the keepers believed Beauty?
Juicy: Yeah.
YNL: Really? So why did they let Beauty and the gorilla stay together then?
Juicy: I don't know. Because grownup cats can... It's the same as humans. Babies act different than kids, kids act different than grownups. So the the kitten acted... if that actually happened... I don't want to explain it because it's a long story.
YNL: But if they believed the kitten broke the TV... I don't get why they didn't take the kitten away.
Juicy: Me neither.

Ok, that didn't turn out how I expected. Well, we all really enjoyed the book, and Juicy kept his fingers out of his mouth kind of a lot. Cheers to Anthony Browne, wherever he is!

How to Train with a T. Rex and Win 8 Gold Medals by Michael Phelps with Alan Abrahamson, illustrated by Ward Jenkins - review

How to Train with a T. Rex and Win 8 Gold Medals by Michael Phelps with Alan Abrahamson, illustrated by Ward Jenkins
Oh my gosh do I need this book!

When you select books for school libraries, you are always on the lookout for sports-related books. It's a fact that some people - usually gentleman-type people, although there are ladies who fit this description too - just won't read anything that's not about sports. So we need sports books for every assignment: we need sports fiction, sports poetry, sports science project books, and lots and lots of sports biographies.

Most of that stuff is easy. Dan Gutman and Tim Green can carry a lot of water for a school librarian (especially Gutman - guy, if I ever meet you, I'm gonna kiss you right on the mouth!). But then there are the bios. Now, when you select biographies of athletes, you want to cater to local tastes. I mean, of course, we're all going to buy LeBron and A-Rod, but you might not plonk down your school system's hard-earned $17.95 on, say, Troy Polamalu unless your school is full of Steelers fans. Even if he is an athletic polymath with fabulous hair. Which, yeah, no Steelers fans in Baltimore.

So there's my problem. Baltimore. Which is in Maryland. We play things like lacrosse here, and do you know what I have to offer the young ladies looking for biographies of outstanding female lacrosse players? Zip. Also, our football team is the Ravens, whose players are famous not only for their athletic prowess, but also for their arrest records. So, no juvenile biographies of famous Ravens. (Way to go, JAMAL.) And? we don't even have a basketball team.

So, here in the kids' sports biographies aisle in Baltimore, we've got Johnny U, who played for a team that doesn't even live here anymore, and Cal, who the kids are kind of rapidly forgetting. Thank heaven, then, for Michael Phelps. Can I make little sparkly fireworks shoot out of his name? Blogger? Help me? No? Ok then you have to imagine them.

Michael Phelps is a hometown boy. Born, raised, learned to swim, went to school here... heck, the kid even uses the library where I work (when he uses a library, which, well... after all, you can't read in the pool, regardless of what the condition of a lot of our Large Type books might seem to indicate). Michael Phelps is a bona fide sports hero. Unprecedented achievement. Also, accessible to the point of goofy. Ok, there's the pot thing, but as far as I'm concerned, that just proves he's a real guy. It's not like he tortured dogs or beat up his girlfriend. He just got - one has to imagine - really, really high. Seriously. The lungs on that guy? Bad decision though. Bad. Say no to drugs.

Say yes to How to Train with a T.Rex though! Michael gives us a quantitative look at his Olympics training - in 6 years, he swam 12,480 miles, napped for 273 days, ate half a ton a year, leg-pressed 9 tons per workout... you get the idea. These figures are given scale in multiple ways: we see Michael sitting down to eat half a car, swimming the length of the Great Wall, and lifting a NYC subway car (the W, my old line!) with his legs. Curriculum connection to measurement and scale lessons - niiice! The illustrations are perfect - as loose-limbed and friendly as our hero himself. Although rendered digitally, they have a very nice, tactile, watercolor-y feel. Colors are both bright and earthy. I feel like I've seen the work of Ward Jenkins before (but apparently I haven't), and I like it.

Eight gold medals to this fun new book!

Bring me some apples and I'll make you a pie: A story about Edna Lewis, by Robbin Gourley - review

Bring me some apples and I'll make you a pie: A story about Edna Lewis, by Robbin Gourley
As soon as warm weather comes to Edna's family's farm, good things are ready to be harvested, one after the other. First, it's wild strawberries, which Edna and her sister gather (and eat - "One for the basket and one to taste"), excitedly anticipating the strawberry shortcake they'll prepare. Next, they gather the first wild greens of spring with Auntie, as Edna recites:

But I have never tasted meat,
nor cabbage, corn or beans,
nor milk or tea that's half as sweet
as that first mess of greens.

As Spring turns to Summer, Edna helps gather food that the family has grown (beans, melons, corn) and food that has grown wild (sassafras, honey), all the way to the apples and nuts of autumn. Each time, she and her family sample the goods as they're picking, but also talk about all the pickles, jelly, pies, and bread they'll make, and often quote some few lines of a song or rhyme.

This book is so seamless and languid and pleasant, even though everyone's doing a whole lot of work. The folk rhymes, the foods, and the seasons are woven together in a sunny, smooth, shining braid. And what a pleasure it is to read about the real Edna Lewis, who grew up to be a famous chef, in the Author's Note. We even get a recipe for that shortcake.

Guttersnipe by Jane Cutler, pictures by Emily Arnold McCully - review

Guttersnipe by Jane Cutler, pictures by Emily Arnold McCully
Interesting.

Ben is a young Jewish boy in Canada in the early part of the twentieth century. Determined to help make ends meet for his fatherless family, he takes a job as a delivery boy for a hatmaker. On his first run, he stops by the workplace of each of his family members: sister Rose selling tickets at the movie theater, brother Max setting pins at the bowling alley, and his mother, singing in Yiddish as she sews as fast as she can.

And then something terrible happens. Hitching a ride on a streetcar, he loses control of the bike and is thrown to the ground, the silk hat linings he was to deliver scattered among the trash of the street and ruined. What I find interesting is this: Ben's failure is not a picture-book failure: a ripped-drawing mishap, an ill-tempered word, a dropped pie. This is a truly spectacular failure, a failure in real-world terms - Ben is going to lose his new job, he may be actually injured, and he will be in trouble if the bicycle is broken. One speculates Mr. Green is going to try to get him to pay for those hat linings, too. This is the kind of screw-up that freezes the blood of even an adult with many years of screw-ups behind her.

But lying there in the street, Ben realizes: "His body would heal. There would be other bicycles, other jobs, and other chances. He was only a boy, just starting out, and he had many things left to learn and to experience."

Perspective. Is it something you can communicate to a kid? Can you read this story now, and then next week, when that kid steps on his brother's meticulously-constructed LEGO masterpiece, can you invoke Ben's perspective on failure? I guess we'll see.

"This was not the end. This was only the beginning."

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.

Hat by Paul Hoppe - review

Hat by Paul Hoppe
This spring, I bought a hat. My husband, who suffers in the sun, had bought a broad-brimmed khaki hat a few years ago, spent actual money on it (rather than getting it free from a vendor or a TV station), which I considered a waste, because this man is a man who will misplace anything not permanently attached to his body, and at least one thing that is, if I have anything to say about that one mole on his hip. But his devotion to his hat is phenomenal, and he has only lost it once.

I have eyed that hat appraisingly for years now. The hat keeps the rain off, shields one from both glare and UV rays, keeps the head cool, and floats, much like the hat in Hat (and you knew we'd come around to the book at some point didn't you?). But my husband's hat does not belong to me, as the hat in Hat does not belong to young Henry, who spies it left behind on a park bench. So Henry - and I - are left to fantasize about the ways our lives would be improved were we to be the owners of the hat.

The marketing drivel that accompanies my husband's hat verges on mystique. The Peterman-esque "owner's manual" implies that wearing this hat will lead to everything from boat ownership to exciting encounters with members of the opposite sex. It says, "Interesting things happen to you when you're wearing a ______ hat." Luckily, the hat in Hat does not tootle its own horn so brashly. Luckily, Henry in Hat can dream up exciting encounters with tropical beasts all on his own.

In the end, I bought my own _______ hat, despite the obnoxious marketing. It stays on when you're flying a large kite in strong wind, what can I say. The other day, some old British dude in line behind me called out, "Be careful, young lady! 'Interesting things happen to you when you're wearing a ______ hat!'" What I called back to him was, "Don't I know it! I'm buying a caulk gun at Home Depot in the rain, how much more interesting could it get?!" but what I thought was, "Bite me, British guy - interesting things happen to me no matter what hat I'm wearing!"

And in the end of Hat, Henry is persuaded by his mom to leave the hat on the bench, in case its owner should return, frantic at the loss of his or her perfect hat. I like to think that Henry's mom knows that, with an imagination like his, interesting things will happen to Henry no matter what hat he's wearing.

My mom is trying to ruin my life by Kate Feiffer, illustrated by Diane Goode - review

My mom is trying to ruin my life by Kate Feiffer, illustrated by Diane Goode
She looks pretty sweet on the outside, with her rosy shirtwaist dress and practical ponytail, green flats and matching purse, but watch out! she'll never let you do anything fun, eat anything yummy, and she talks too loud. Yikes. That last one hits pretty close to home.

So the little girl in this book fantasizes about running away (with mom's assistance), getting the cops on her side when mom reports her missing ("And they'll look at her and ask, 'Is it because you were ruining her life?'"), and ending up with the perfect life. Perfect, that is, except for the no dinner, no story, no bedtime kiss, nobody to fix her bad dream aspects of independent life.

The story is cute, and executed in a kind of contemporary first-person, slightly attitudinal voice. The illustrations are clean and lively. The limited watercolor palette is bright and friendly. I think the book maybe over-dwells on the little girl's fear and discomfort when she is parentless, but by the end, mom and dad and little girl are all together and happy.

Orangutan Tongs by Jon Agee - review

Orangutan Tongs by Jon Agee
You know, I claim to not like poetry. In fact, I claim to have a vicious poetry allergy - this gets me out of poetry night at school and my friends' readings, including the dreaded Open Mic part of the evening. It is this allergy, paradoxically, that I think makes me extra qualified to review poetry books for children.

You see, I have observed that most kids require their poetry to work. If it's supposed to rhyme, it has to rhyme. The meter should march. You shouldn't have to rearrange where in a line you think the natural stress should fall in order to make the line come out even at the end. You should not (John Lennon) throw extra syllables in there just because you like them. "Klutzy" does not make it, in poetry for small(ish) children.

And this is why I can read four lines like "Undies" without my throat closing up and my eyes crossing.

Undies
There are lots of holes in Andy Bundy's undies.
His mom should get some thread and try to stitch 'em.
When Andy's at the beach, he's always cranky and upset,
'Cause Andy Bundy's sandy undies itch him.

(Of course, if you can work underpants into a poem, even better.)

I heard my 2nd grader reading this book aloud to his kindergarten brother, and they were beside themselves giggling. Later, in the car, they tried making up their own tongue twisters. I'd call Orangutan Tongs a must-have for the school library on that basis alone.