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I'm Not. Not drawn by Pam Smallcomb, not written by Robert Weinstock - not reviewed by me!

I think I need to be friends with Robert Weinstock and Pam Smallcomb. First of all, they're pals of James Proimos, who lives around here somewheres and is a lot of fun to run into at book festivals and the like. (And whose own books are great, not to mention the animation - NICE animation.)

Secondly, Pam Smallcomb and Robert Weinstock appear to know how to be good friends - if this book is any indication.

But I'm not reviewing this book, so I'm not going to explain that statement.

The Strange Case of Origami Yoda by Tom Angleberger, audio version by Recorded Books - review

The Strange Case of Origami Yoda (Unabridged Audio CDs)

When you were in sixth grade - think back - did you have questions? Were there conundrums? Navigational issues? Did gym class make you cry? Was there a kid who wouldn't quit buggin' you? What about that embarrassing nickname you couldn't seem to shake?

And who can you go to for advice? Mom and Dad are nice, but a little out of touch; and teachers - well when the teachers aren't busy enforcing all those those weird arbitrary rules (can you really get detention for eating chalk?) they're spouting aphorisms that either everyone already knows or nobody can understand.

Sixth graders need Yoda. Wise, cryptic, all-knowing Yoda.

Mockingbird by Kathryn Erskine, read by Angela Jayne Rogers - review

Ten year old Caitlyn seeks closure. She's not entirely sure what closure is, but she knows that it will help her come to grips with the death of her big brother Devon. And Caitlyn's not the only one who needs closure - the school shooting that claimed Devon's life has plunged her entire town into a morass of sorrow and confusion. Everyone she knows - the kids at school, her teachers and counselor, and especially her father - is shaky and stunned. But Caitlyn has Asperger's syndrome. She experiences the behavior of others as a series of unrelated vignettes whose meaning she must puzzle out, and while she has some tools for solving these puzzles - the facial expressions chart in the counselor's office helps - her best guide has always been Devon.

At first blush, this book may seem too full of sorrow and unusual circumstance to be interesting or applicable to many readers. But Caitlyn's extremely literal interpretations, unbiased reactions, and open-hearted attempts at friendship and empathy help those around her gain fresh perspective on words, actions, and events. Devon always knew this about her, which is why he called her Scout, after the character in To Kill a Mockingbird. Caitlyn's errors and successes at parsing her world invite discussion and reflection, and although it can be difficult to distinguish between Caitlyn's thoughts and her dialogue when listening to the book, Angela Jayne Rogers's unadorned narration is poignant and forthright, and makes Mockingbird ideal for a group read/listen.

Reader Advisory at Christmas time

Ok, listen. I know I have something of a reputation for being able to find a book for any kid, but it's not like I'm some kind of genius. I ask them what they've been reading and what they've enjoyed and I try to come up with a book that's kind of like what they say they like, and when all else fails, I give them one of the Lunch Lady books. (Preorder Lunch Lady and the Bake Sale Bandit today!)

Simple!

My usual question to a reader, adult or kid, is, "What's the last thing you read that you really liked?"

If the grownup says, "Oh, I really enjoyed Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter," I give them A Short History of a Small Place.

You got a kid who says, "I liked Who Shrunk Daniel Funk?" you can give that kid Oggie Cooder.

If a kid says, "I liked the Molly Moon books," I recommend The Pig Scrolls. Yeah that's tracking sideways a little, but I've seen it work.

But I asked a sweet little brown-eyed first-grade girl last night what was the last book she read that she really liked, and she thought about it a little and said, "I guess it was that biography of Neruda."

Nonfiction Monday - Code Quest: Heiroglyphs, written by Sean Callery, illustrated by Jurgen Ziewe - review

 

Here's what I wrote when I reviewed this title for School Library Journal:

Fans of Ancient Egyptian history or readers of Rick Riordan's The Kane Chronicles will delight in learning to decode Egyptian heiroglyphs for themselves in this interactive work of nonfiction. A first-person mystery story narrated by an Indiana Jones-like archaeologist provides a slender thread upon which is hung multitudes of sidebars, factoids, captioned photos, graphic text elements, maps and diagrams. Photos of Egyptian artifacts and sites are reasonably plentiful, but of such small size they can be difficult to appreciate.

The illustrations that accompany the archaeologist's story are rendered digitally, employing exaggerated perspective and texture mapping, which gives the book a video game effect. The accompanying CD, however, includes a font for making one's own heiroglyphics on a computer - not a game. A determined reader will sift through the cacophony of clues to decode all the heiroglyphic and pictographic messages, but the design clutter and tiny typefaces will cause all but the most obsessed codebreakers to give up.

Yummy: The Last Days of a Southside Shorty by G. Neri, illustrated by Randy DuBurke - review

Yummy looks at you from the cover of this book and you can't help but stare back. His glare is impenetrable, challenging, blank, hostile. The coldest stare you've ever seen.

Yummy's eleven, and he was a real person, and that cover picture is a faithful reproduction of his mug shot, the only known photo of him. It's almost impossible, meeting that gaze, not to want to break it, not to want to find something that is not hard, not injured, behind those eyes. No eleven-year-old should seriously look like that. He ought to be playing, with that look.

Nonfiction Monday - Ballet for Martha: Making Appalachian Spring by Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan, illustrated by Brian Floca - review

Last night we took our kids to a concert of choral music, and right in the middle of the program, one of the second grade mommies from our school stepped to the front of the ensemble, opened her mouth, and let loose with some of the purest, most accomplished, happiest music I have ever heard a human being produce. We had no idea.

Such moments are revelatory. To see a person stand at the intersection of discipline and imagination and bring forth something as unexpected as art... well it blew my mind, I can tell you. What could you do, what could any child do, what could any child not do, with an idea and hard work and desire?

X Isle by Steve Augarde - review

When people express discomfort about the recent spate of dystopian novels for young people - books that feature a grim, brutal, ruined future in which children live by their wits (although often the wits are assisted by some kind of edged weapon) - they are pretty much talking about this book.

After the seas have risen and a series of hurricanes have devastated the planet and drowned the land, people are starving. The people of Baz's London neighborhood rely on a team of divers who trade canned food salvaged from submerged warehouses for items like rabbits, cigarettes, batteries and the like. Once in a while, the divers, who live on an island, accept a small, skinny boy to come to the island to work for them. The island is thought to be a paradise, and parents save up exceptionally rare items to bribe the divers to take their boys.

Dark Emperor & Other Poems of the Night by Joyce Sidman, illustrated by Rick Allen - review

What god of publishing comes up with these illustrator pairings for Joyce Sidman's books? It's extraordinary. I honestly thought nothing could match the pair-up of Joyce's precise word choice and Beckie Prange's precise art in Ubiquitous. The work of both women managed to be scientifically accurate and lyrically lovely at the same time.

But in Dark Emperor, Rick Allen uses an old-fashioned medium - linoleum-block printing - to illustrate the mystery and fascinating life of the world at night, and the synergy between the images and the poems is just as perfect.

There's something about a woodcut. The organic texture of the printed ink and the shape of the gouged lines will always  invoke early illustrated books. Compositionally, because the block of wood already has a shape, woodcuts almost always have their own frame, even if it is only implied, and even if that frame is broken, as it is in many of the prints in this book. This formal quality tends to lend the images a little extra authority.

Anyway, all that gallery talk jibber-jabber aside, these illustrations are just gorgeous. I can only guess how many layers of printing Rick Allen piled up to make such sophisticated color blends and juxtapositions. Each picture is a world one could sink into.

 

Isn't that amazing?

And the poetry, shouldn't I talk about the poetry? About the mushrooms:

they spread their damp

umbrella tops

and loose their spores

with silent pops.

"Silent pops." Can't you just see it? And smell the musty damp earth? Aren't you just a kid, scrunched down close to the ground, examining the miraculous weird perfection of a mushroom?

Well I am.

And I always love Joyce Sidman for providing a paragraph or two of prose information about the subject of each poem.

Rick Allen has this to say, in part, about the process of making the illustrations for this book:

The prints for Dark Emperor were each printed from at least three blocks (and in some cases as many as six) and then hand-colored with a strongly pigmented watercolor called gouache. There are definitely faster methods of making a picture, but few more enjoyable in a backwards sort of way.

Hail. Hail to the artist/craftsman. And to the poet/scientist.

Give books

Not these books. Fun books. Pretty books. Books that kids will be excited about getting, and will be happy to own. Books like the ones in this SUPER LONG POST. Read and enjoy.

There are so many excellent things to give this year that I am just going to list them out. Here's a handy table of contents:

Hold Me Closer, Necromancer by Lish McBride - review

I read a lot of books, right? I read a lot of books that are not necessarily for me. That's what Pink Me is for - I review books for people who choose books for kids. I'm happy with this state of affairs. I wouldn't do it if I weren't. And it's not too often that I have to read something that I truly dislike.

But. Even I have needs.

So, you wanna know what I love? You wanna know what I really, really love? I mean, besides the Spice Girls (obviously), and Peter Stormare? Besides Lou Reed's voice, the Pacific Northwest, fringe on just about anything, and making fun of Martha Stewart (have you ever read her blog? Consumption hasn't been that conspicuous since the Gilded Age!)?