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Lulu and the Brontosaurus by Judith Viorst, illustrated by Lane Smith - review

Judith Viorst, by virtue of that book she wrote last year when Alexander and his family moved in with her temporarily and made her shiver for the fate of her velvet upholstered parlor chairs (Alexander and the Wonderful, Marvelous, Excellent, Terrific Ninety Days: An Almost Completely Honest Account of What Happened to Our Family When Our Youngest ... Came to Live with Us for Three Months), sticks in my mind as some kind of Joan Didion character. Sharp-eyed, funny, a little uncompromising, extremely self-aware. She lives in D.C., not New York or CT, and D.C. to me implies a certain Nina Totenbergitude.

Or a Mrs. Basil E. Frankweileriness. Like she'd be a person who speaks to children directly and appraisingly, a person who has no patience for the kind of performances that adults sometimes put on in front of children, and who finds the recitations of cuteness or precociousness that children are sometimes expected to roll out in front of adults likewise appalling.

Am I assuming too much about Judith Viorst? Well, clearly. What do I know? Maybe she speaks baby talk to grocery clerks and wears amusement park souvenir sweatshirts every day. But nothing in her new book Lulu and the Brontosaurus would lead me to believe that she is anything but the classy, smart-alecky dame I imagine.

Mirror by Jeannie Baker - review

Two families - one in Sydney, Australia, and one in Morocco. Jeannie Baker takes us through each family's day, showing us warm domestic scenes and sweeping landscapes, making subtle, everyday connections across the seemingly vast gulf of difference separating the two settings.

The Moroccan family gets around by donkey, while the Australians drive a yellow minivan. The Australian kid wears a red t-shirt and jeans, and the Moroccan kid wears his jeans under a red djellaba. Both boys have a baby sibling in a fuzzy yellow sweater. Tea is poured, pets are fed. The Moroccan boy likes to draw: the Australian one writes a story. Maybe they'll write a book together one day.

Nonfiction Monday: Do you Barbie?

As a parent raises a little girl, certain questions will arise.

Do we paint the room pink? What if she wants us to?

Will we ruin her life if we ban glitter? What if we teach her how to use the vacuum and therefore allow her to experience the evils of glitter herself? Will we then be reinforcing gender roles re: housework?

When do we start insisting that she wear a shirt when she goes outside?

Who the hell manufactures hot pants for toddlers and why?

And then there's Barbie.

MORE BEARS! by Kenn Nesbitt, illustrations by Troy Cummings - review

How many times have you been reading a picture book aloud, maybe to your own children, maybe to a classroom full of kids, maybe just to the people waiting on the subway platform or in line at the grocery store (they love that, trust me), only to be interrupted by some goldfish-cracker-eater clamoring for this or that or the other?

"When is the dragon going to eat her?"

"They should not be cooking waffles they should be cooking CANDY."

"You skipped the tizzle-topped Tufted Mazurka!"

I am the 8th dwarf: GREEDY

JUST in time for the holidays, YOU can win $500 worth of books from Chronicle Books. More importantly - *I* can win $500 worth of books from Chronicle! We love Chronicle! High production values, witty choices, verrrry nice graphic novels. All I have to do is list $500 worth of Chronicle books, and I might win that list... and all you have to do is comment on this post! They are calling it Celebrate the Haul-idays with Chronicle Books. What are we waiting for?

 

How I Stole Johnny Depp's Alien Girlfriend. You heard me. Johnny Depp's. Alien Girlfriend. It's forthcoming. French author. Excellent cover. Sounds action-packed and slightly surreal and I want to read it. $17

MORE MORE MORE said the librarian....

Nonfiction Monday: Fist stick knife gun by Geoffrey Canada, adapted by Jamar Nicholas - review

FIST STICK KNIFE GUN. It is a brutal chant of a title, a provocative confession from an avowed defender of childhood, a clear-eyed reminiscence, and a concisely laid out description of what happens to a child when violence is an accepted aspect of his social system.

In prose, it's laudable. Everyone should read it. In graphic novel form, it's a bucket of ice water to the face. Everyone can read it.

The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan - review

I am sure that very little has to be said about The Lost Hero. Author Rick Riordan is rightly beloved of readers from 8 to 18 and beyond - I know many moms who have read the Percy Jackson books with their kids only to become slaves themselves to the exciting plot, likeable characters, and imaginative scenarios. I myself considered buying The Titan's Curse at Target one Sunday even though I knew the book was waiting for me at the library and I could pick it up when I went to work the next day. I needed to find out what happened next.

But something happened at our school's Lost Hero release party that made me appreciate Rick Riordan anew. Not a big thing, but an important thing to me.

The Rise of Renegade X by Chelsea Campbell - review

Say you're writing a book about a teenage boy. You sit down, close your eyes, and start free-associating:

"Teenage boy. What do I think when I think teenage boy. Boners. Boners for sure, yeah. Aspirations. 'Why are my parents such idiots?' Okay, what else... stuck at home, but almost ready to fly away... good, good... Impatient for more autonomy, afraid of what he might do with it. Poor decision maker. Self-absorbed, defensive. Uncommunicative, distrustful. Wow. Teenage boys are kind of a-holes most of the time, aren't they?"

And I think it's this kind of honest introspection that has led to many of the most believable teenage boy narrators in realistic YA fiction of late. You've heard of the Unreliable Narrator? Well, I'm calling these kids the (Mostly) Unlikeable Narrator.

Archvillain by Barry Lyga - review

One-line summary? It's Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog for middle grade, without the singing or the penis jokes.

Our protagonist is Kyle Camden, playing the NPH Dr. Horrible part - formerly the most popular boy in school, Kyle was extra-smart even before being blasted by some kind of interstellar radiation that gave him supersmarts, flight, superstrength and invulnerability. Kyle is thoughtful and sensitive, not at all evil. The same interstellar blast that changed Kyle's life also delivers a stranger to Kyle's small town. "Mighty Mike" is our Nathan Fillion/Captain Hammer in this book, strong and self-assured, a callous do-goodnik who is more than a little deficient in the brain box.

Nonfiction Monday: Gaps

It doesn't happen often, but it happens. A mom, a little girl, a boy - most frequently a dad, and what does that say about men and reading and their interests? - approaches the librarian looking for a book that will assist a child in learning about something that he or she wants to know about... and the book does not exist.

Horrors! Gasp! But I'm not kidding here. As much as I complain and moan and groan about the formulaic nonfiction put out by so many publishing companies, I am also grateful that at least somebody has put out a kids' book on stem cell research, or Latvia, or Garrett Morgan.

Because nobody has published one (at least not recently) on radiology. Or star lacrosse players. Or Randy Rhoads (or any other rock drummer that I can think of).

Friday in the frying pan

My sons had their annual checkups the other day with our bustly little worrywart of a pediatrician. Love that woman.

Not only because she reminds me of Valerie from The Princess Bride, but also because somehow, for years, she was under the impression that my husband was a physician. I always kind of wondered why she discussed the boys' health with me in such good technical detail, until one day, as she was explaining an anomalous test result, she cautioned, "Now, your husband, as a professional, is going to suspect [something something]," and I was like, "Hold on. As a professional city planner you think... he might have some insight into Zhou's bloodwork?" Sure, he did two years of premed at Carnegie Mellon before transferring to Columbia and majoring in English and social injustice, but I know more about the implications of a low white blood cell count than he does, and all I did was date a med student for a couple of years.

Anyway, on our way in, I did a book check. "Everybody have something to read while we're waiting? I've got The Rise of Renegade X and no, you can't read it." (too much Frenching for a 9-year-old, he would think it was icky) Mao had The Smoky Corridor by Chris Grabenstein. Then Zhou showed me his book.

Nathan Hale-batross and Jon Agee-lotl*

I crush pretty hard on illustrators sometimes. I love the assured line of a Tom Lichtenheld. The expressive faces drawn by Emily Gravett. Mr. Dan Santat's mastery of movement and composition (which he wrote a post on recently). The deceptively old-fashioned-looking ink drawings of Nancy Carpenter. Patrick O'Brien, who actually paints, and who says his 3rd Captain Raptor book (with Kevin O'Malley) is in the works. David Small for his gestures. Marla Frazee of course. Sigh. Wish I could draw.

Two of my absolute all-time favorites are Jon Agee and Nathan Hale. Agee has this uncluttered, declarative style (lots of white space, authoritative lines) that harks back to Bill Peet or Syd Hoff. Not a bad thing - even after fifty years, Hoff's books still feel fresh and funny, as do Bill Peet's.

Spud by John van de Ruit - review

I find it a little odd that I love boys' boarding school memoirs so much. I'm an American woman who walked to public school every day for twelve years - the British-style boarding school experience could not be further from my reality.

But then I pick up Moab Is My Washpot and I collapse with laughter. Roald Dahl's Boy is dear to my heart. Hogwarts School is my favorite place in Harry Potter. And doesn't J. M. Coetzee attend boarding school in his memoir Boyhood: Scenes From Provincial Life, which I only remember as being devastatingly naked and sad?

Heck, I might even be talked into reading Hitch-22, Christopher Hitchens's account of his prep school years. But I can't read A Separate Peace again. Made me cry in 11th grade, would make me cry now.