unadulterated.us

What do we think about the old guys? Some Writer and The Best Man - reviews

Guess what I'm doing? I'm kind of ridiculously excited - I'm participating in my first Mock Newbery! It's a bunch of grownups reading a whole bunch of kids' books that seem to be getting award buzz and then we're going to get together and eat snacks and argue about them! The books. Although maybe also the snacks.

If you live in Baltimore and this sounds like fun, give me a jingle. We're well underway, but we haven't had our first meeting yet, and we might be able to squeeze you in ;)

Some of the books on our list are Wolf Hollow by Lauren Wolk, Ghost by Jason Reynolds, and The Inquisitor's Tale by Adam Gidwitz. This week, I mightily enjoyed reading Jenni Holm's Full of Beans. Historical fiction without the weight, that's Jenni's M.O. She makes it look easy.

I also read The Best Man, by living national treasure Richard Peck, and Some Writer!, the biography of E.B. White by Melissa Sweet, possibly the best match of biographer and subject I can imagine. And god help me, I have thoughts.

 

 

Some Writer! The Story of E. B. White by Melissa Sweet

My goodness did I lap up this book! Every page, every scrap was balm and wisdom and joy - the excerpts from White's correspondence, the photos of him in canoes and on porches, the sketches and scraps from Melissa Sweet's magic art studio of treasures. Even the page numbers, some of which are typed on old red-bordered gummed labels, make one want to pull out the art supplies and a journal and go sit on a stump somewhere.

But - and jeez I hate typing this - is it for kids? Is there enough 'this is where Stuart Little came from' to sustain a young person's interest, or will the (and I mean really stellar) evocation of White's appreciation of simplicity and the outdoors seem repetitive or obvious to people who have not yet had to face the kind of economic and emotional realities that might keep them locked indoors 40 hours a week?

And if not, would that make it less 'good' of a book? I guess that's yes and no. You know what, wait a minute, that's a no. The book is 100% a great book. Whoever it's written for, it stands as a finely honed, perfect encapsulation of an extraordinary talent. Well, two of them. Melissa Sweet comes off almost as well as E.B. White.

Do I buy it for a school library? I do, and I expect it will be used at the very least for author studies. Do I buy it for the public library? Of course I do. Public libraries need to have all the good stuff. Do I buy it for my niece or nephew? I have at least 18 nieces, nephews, niece/nephewlike cousins, and grandnieces and -nephews. I would buy it for like... 4 of them. Hold on. *counts on fingers like a big girl. Five.

But for sure I would buy it for myself:

"There was a lake, and at the water's edge a granite rock upholstered in lichen., This was his pew, and the sermon went on forever." -- E.B. White, "A Boy I Knew," Readers Digest 1940

 

The Best Man by Richard Peck

Agghhh!! I'm drowning in a morass of ambivalence!

This book is terrific. The writing, the insight, the characters - all the things that are here are terrific. It's like... like the objects in the curio cabinet in my mother's dining room. Each item: each miniature domino set, porcelain sea urchin, loose semiprecious stone, expedition medal and antique fountain pen is a treasure, and each for different reasons. In this book, the parents who work from home, one as a marriage counselor, the other restoring antique automobiles - are treasures. Grandpa the architect, in his seersucker suit and straw hat - a treasure. Beloved Uncle Paul, in his bespoke sportcoat and wingtips, who will turn out to be both wise and gay, is a treasure. Archer's house is a treasure. Large, square, situated in a "leafy suburb" of Chicago - I can picture it, I just can't afford it.

Which is not entirely an insignificant point.

Because, like my mom's beautifully lit collection, this book is just about the whitest thing I've come across in a long time. There are things that are *not* here, amid its sparkling array of treasures. There don't seem to be any black people, for one thing. Nor anyone with a Hispanic or Asian surname. And, regardless of the skillful references to Angry Birds and YouTube and Uncle Paul's wedding - it is missing a true feeling of contemporaneity.

Now of course my mom's cabinet doesn't have to represent every facet of the human experience. It would be weird, for example, for her to include a set of manumission papers - to our knowledge, nobody in our family was ever enslaved. And the expedition medal is an object to be proud of - not everybody does the dangerous thing for which it was awarded. But at the time it was given, it was almost exclusively white men who had the opportunity to earn it.

And while Mom may add a new item to that cabinet every few years, it is by its nature disconnected from the present time. That collection (and I mean this as a compliment rather than the reverse) reflects her point of view, and her point of view is that of a white woman born in a leafy suburb sometime before the middle of the last century. God, she's going to kill me for writing this.

In the case of The Best Man, I feel a similar point of view applies. And it's not - it's a valid point of view, and for sure there are kids in Evanston going to one-class-per-grade seemingly all-white elementary schools that are close enough to home that they can walk. But although this may be an increasingly rare point of view, it's not one that is lacking in representation.

I also take issue with the hunky student teacher who shakes up Archer's fifth grade year. All of a sudden, there are field trips! Something new every day! Mr. McLeod takes over for the regular teacher, Mrs. Stanley, when she gets tripped up by improper fractions. Really? Guy teacher shows the ladies How It's Done? Hrrumph.

But my gosh, it just KILLS me to quibble with this book. Uncle Paul's orientation, love story, and wedding are treated so wonderfully - that is, as if being gay were not a big thing, which it isn't. In many families. In many communities. But not all. So that's really nice.

And lord Richard Peck is funny. And his main character learns some things without the reader feeling Taught, which is no mean feat. I personally, a white woman born in a leafy suburb who walked to school until she was 17, very much enjoyed the book.

But I think its time, like that of the quotidian antiques resting on glass shelves in my mom's dining room, has passed. Now is the time for it to be admired for its form and craft, because we are not likely to need to use it.

Happy International Women's Day to us all: some positive sexuality in pop culture

Not bad - just drawn that way.

You hear a lot, in some circles, about how difficult it is to teach children about values in the face of persuasive and abundant media depictions of violence, licentiousness and other bad crap, including sexual violence and predatory behavior toward women that is often dressed up as romance. I'm looking at you, Edward the vampire. What was that character's last name? Crap, now I have to go check.

Aaaand I fell down a Renesmee rabbit hole. BOY is that character a mess. Talk about a plot Band-Aid, jeez. Need to tie something up? Get Renesmee to do that thought-projection thing and everybody's all up to speed.

The Twilight books and movies are indeed remarkable in the number and variety of bad relationship behaviors that they romanticize. Endangering oneself to get attention? Bella. Stalking? Edward. Treating a potential romantic partner as an attainment? Heyyyy werewolf and vampire, I see you guys dick-jousting over there.

 

I use this image to illustrate some of the less-popular traits of adolescence in our Something Wicked This Way Comes of Age presentation. In that talk, we discuss how the popularity of horror fiction among teens makes perfect sense given the evolutionary imperatives that drive their neurological and emotional development. The whole MUST MATE thing, mostly. 

Must mate - and confused as hell about it. Which is why it's so frustrating when movies and TV aimed at them furnish so very many examples of What Not To Do With, To, or Around the Object of Your Affection; How Not To Refer to Your Guy or Lady; What Not to Ask Them To Do; etc and obviously I could go on all day. But good moments in media exist too. I was inspired to run a few of them down because... well because we took the kids to see Deadpool this weekend. We're bad, we know.

 

GIVE IT: All the goodies for this holiday season

 

I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed... -- Lloyd Dobler, Say Anything

 

It's not just me, is it? Faced with the task of buying one or more THINGS per family member or dear friend - determining what that THING shall be, finding it, pricing it, procuring, storing, sometimes hiding it, then processing it via gift wrap and tags - doesn't everyone get a little Doblery? After all, he gives her his heart - something he had to neither shop for nor wrap. She gave him a pen.

But, for better or for worse, we're giving gifts. And you know what will make you feel a little better about participating in this annual collective shuffling of goods bought sold and processed? If those goods are actually, you know, GOOD. Like books. 

Read on, babies!

The Jumbies by Tracey Baptiste - review

I love helping kids find books. I mean, der, that's what unadulterated.us is all about, that's why I work in the public library, etc. etc. But it bears saying. One of the things I love about it is surprising a kid. Say it's a kid who doesn't want a book. A kid who is reflexively embarrassed because his mom is insisting that he talk to the librarian. He just wants me to go away and stop asking him questions.

Nicki Minaj wants nothing to do with this reader advisory nonsense.

 

So I say, "What about a book where a bunch of people get killed?" And the mom's face goes like - "errr..." and the kid is just startled enough that he forgets how mortified he is by the situation.

 

Until she starts hearing about little girls battling supernatural fireball demons.

Now let's talk about The Jumbies!

The Tapper Twins Go to War (With Each Other) by Geoff Rodkey - review

Sometimes my children like a book. Ok, if you are at all familiar with my two sons you might be rolling your eyes right now. Yes, Milo and Ezra are enthusiastic readers. But that doesn't actually mean that they just loooove all books. The fact is that they, like most enthusiastic readers, have developed into fairly critical readers as well.

They'll race through a book and then when you ask about it, say, "Ehh." That's good intel. I need to know that. It doesn't do to falsely praise a book to a kid.

I won't give an ehhh book to a picky reader. I might give an ehhh book to an avid reader, especially if she is impatiently waiting for a favorite to come in. In that case I am happy to say, "Listen, can I give you something to read until the next Artemis Fowl/Cupcake Diaries/Origami Yoda gets here? Here's something that will tide you over. It's ok. It's exciting enough, but it may not knock your socks off."

And she'll respect you for it - they can't all blow you away, and you're not doing anybody any favors by pretending otherwise. Especially not a kid who reads two or three books a week.

 

 

But The Tapper Twins Go to War (With Each Other) is NOT THAT BOOK. NOT, I repeat, the "ehh" book.

A greatness of graphic novels - Winter 2015

Locked down and blizzarded up, you need a dose of color, don't you? The kids are kind of eating each other and you're sick of telling them to get off YouTube. Time to hit the graphic novel section:

 

The Golden Compass Graphic Novel, Volume 1 (His Dark Materials)

"You're going to have to realllly convince me," I can hear famous curmudgeon Philip Pullman mutter as he surveys the latest in what I imagine must be a never-ending parade of proposals to adapt his 1995 masterpiece trilogy His Dark Materials into graphic novels. He probably imagined himself as Penelope at her loom, trying to wave off a crowd of greedy suitors. He's got a Classics turn of mind, does our Phil.

But I'd say that the old atheist let the right one slip the ring on. This art - patently Frenchy in its scritchy artiness - is specific enough to let the reader's personal mental images of Lyra, Pan, Lord Asrael and NOT NICOLE KIDMAN Mrs. Coulter persist. It hews extremely closely to the original text (it's going to have to be hella long), so first-time readers will be no more lost than the rest of us were at first. 

 

 

And the images of the College, the bogs, the gyptians' boats, and the glowing, faded sky of Lyra's England are beautiful. Panels are very small - there are often as many as a dozen per page - but the exterior scenes are extraordinarily full of light and air. Go ahead and click on that right-hand image to see it larger. Yum.

More after the break...

What just happened at the Newbery/Caldecott Awards

The ALA Youth Media Awards were just announced about an hour ago. These honors are awarded by committees of librarians who read, evaluate, and discuss approximately a femto-jillion books in a year and decide which book in a given category is THE BEST of the year and which few are THE RUNNERS UP.

I generally don't comment on these awards on this blog because, like any other award, calling any given anything THE BEST in a year is ridiculous. YOU ARE THE BEST TOMATO. WORLD'S BEST JOKE 2014 IS WHAT EDDIE IZZARD SAID ON TWITTER NOVEMBER 13th. THE AWARD FOR BEST LEFT BOOB OF 2015 GOES TO KATY PERRY'S LEFT BOOB.

 

I also have found these awards to be kind of stuck in the mud. Historical fiction or relationship drama tends to get recognized while funny books are disregarded. Lotta "girl books" have gotten the Newbery, while the Caldecott has gone to a disproportionate number of men. Creators of color are under-represented, as they are in all of children's publishing, except in the awards that are specifically given to African American or Latino authors and illustrators, which often go to the same squad of (very talented and totally deserving) people every year.

Put it this way - when an illustrated prose novel (The Invention of Hugo Cabret) won the Caldecott Medal one year everyone went, "WHOA!!" And when a nonfiction book (Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village) won the Newbery people all gasped. This is what has passed for bold in previous years.

 

This year's awards are something else, though.

Children's books that adults should read too - Brown Girl Dreaming and El Deafo

I'm a generalist. Professionally. Personally, I'm a bit of a specialist, but - hrmhm - that's just between us. No, I'm a generalist librarian - a librarian who serves both adult and juvenile customers. Most public library systems don't expect their professional staff to be proficient with teens, children, adults, and seniors, but the one I work for... does.

As you might imagine, librarians in other systems sometimes scoff at this arrangement. School librarians in particular are kind of amusingly horrified.

Generalists are expected to maintain at least a glancing knowledge of the adult best-seller list and genre fiction (I can name 3 Amish romance authors off the top of my head - we all can!) and stay abreast of trends in juvenile and young adult literature. It's admittedly kind of a lot. You read a lot of e-newsletters.

But the up side is that when I read an adult novel, I notice when that book includes teen or kid characters who are going through teen or kid things, and I file it in my head as possibly good for underage readers. Books like this are called Adult Books for Teens, and there's a whole blog over on SLJ devoted to them. There's also an award, the Alex Award. In an interesting boomerang effect, if you are an adult who likes books that are both well-written and fast-paced, you might mine these lists for suggested reading. I do.

By the same token, when I read children's literature, which I mostly do, sometimes I notice when the characters, the setting, or the obstacles they confront would resonate with the adult readers I serve. There's no blog for Children's Books Recommended for Adult Readers, but maybe there should be. 

 

Spring 2015 Preview - Soup to nuts!

What the heck. Let's do this.

For some reason - it's not like I've got nothing else going on - I have been unusually aware of upcoming titles recently. I've spent a bunch of time on Edelweiss and Netgalley scanning publisher catalogs, and just yesterday attended the Book Buzz that the AAP put on at DC Public Library.

Reps from Scholastic, Penguin, Sourcebooks, Quirk, Tor, and many others gave a roomful of librarians a preview of what they've got coming down the pike.

Here are the books that I thought really stood out, plus books that weren't represented at the event that I know about and am looking forward to. These are in age order.

Hello, I'm Johnny Cash by G. Neri - review

 

I don't know about these passion-project picture book biographies. Don't get me wrong - *I* love 'em. My colleagues love 'em. Awards committees love 'em. Parents sometimes love 'em.

But I have to heave a heavy sigh and admit that I have trouble getting a kid to take Andrea Davis Pinkney's marvelous, swingy Ella Fitzgerald: The Tale of a Vocal Virtuosa into his or her hands, or The Boy Who Loved Math: The Improbable Life of Paul Erdos, or the new picture book biography of Golda Meir, Goldie Takes a Stand!: Golda Meir's First Crusade.

 

 

Golda. Meir. WHO... reads that book? HOW... do they end up picking it up? Without adult intervention, that book NEVER gets read. I interviewed the brilliant Chris Raschka about his new picture book biography The Cosmobiography of Sun Ra: The Sound of Joy Is Enlightening this past spring. And I somehow never got up the courage to ask, "What the hell, Chris Raschka? What child will be interested in the life of Sun Ra?" I played Sun Ra's music for my kids in the car, and after about 20 minutes, they politely asked me to turn it off because it was making them crazy.

 

 

They've never wondered about these people. They've never even heard of them, in some cases. It is usually possible to tease out a reason for kids to learn about them - we need true stories of struggle against adversity, the power of will, or an example of a kid "just like you" who grew up to find his or her place / succeed on his or her own terms / change the world. But in ten years at the library, I bet have helped fewer than ten kids who were looking for a picture book biography. 

I'm not saying they'll never get read. WITH the aforementioned adult intervention, they'll get read. They'll also show up in classrooms an get taken home for reports. Although since they aren't programmed to provide report answers (no bolded vocabulary words, no timeline, no maps), kids tend to reject them in favor of Time for Kids or Who Was when report time comes around.

Hello, I'm Johnny Cash stands a greater chance than most of getting plucked off the shelf by an auntie or a dad - there are plenty of grownups who just can't wait to share The Man in Black with their kids. Heck, my friends Aimee and Jim named their firstborn June.

And I'm so glad. I love this book. Greg Neri is clearly a devoted fan, inspired by the way struggle and talent shaped the life of this extraordinary musician. In a note at the back, Greg states that he shaped this biography around the stories Cash told about himself - in essence, telling Johnny's story the way Johnny would tell it.

That is such an interesting take on research, and I think especially thoughtful for a children's book. Everything I've read about Johnny Cash seems to indicate that he wanted to inspire people to do good deeds and follow their conscience, and to that end he would probably have told children about the poverty and sorrow that shaped his actions in his early years, and how music kept him going and ultimately lifted him up.

 

Big curves, arched body, and then the guitar angling just north of a horizontal line - everything points at Cash's squinty take-aim expression.

The oil illustrations are in a straightforward pictorial style, full of air and open faces. That picture on the cover pretty much says it all - this is one case where the cover is just as strong as the interior art (I'm looking at you Grandfather Gandhi - why is your cover so blah when your inside is so dramatic?!).

In the end, regardless my misgivings about the audience for picture book biographies, as long as the publishing companies will put a few bucks into them, I am of course happy they're around. School libraries should keep buying 'em, teachers should use them to introduce music units and history units and to put a human face on math and the sciences.

And I'll keep shoving them at youngsters and parents at the public library. "Golda Meir! Very important lady!" "Sun Ra! Um... it's important to show that even serious weirdos have a place in our culture!" Who knows, that kid may grow up to be our next serious weirdo, brilliant mathematician, or straight-shooting Israeli prime minister.

 

Books to end all books - WWI for kids

It's 2014, the centennial of the onset one of the bloodiest, most devastating wars in history. A war which should have taught the world the dangers of nationalism, military escalation, and imperialism. Well, we all know how that went.

On the UP side, the WWI centennial gives us (educators, parents, librarians) an excellent opportunity for engaging the kind of reader who connects with nonfiction, especially history, and especially the kind of history that involves guns. I'm not using the word "boys," but you know what I'm talking about.

 

 

Author Laurel Snyder's male-variety offspring enjoying a Civil War reenactment and Nathan Hale's Big Bad Ironclad at the same time.

My particular boys have been reading up on WWI because our family is going to Belgium for a bridge dedication. Their great-great-uncle did a heroic deed and then promptly died, making my husband's brothers and sisters the closest thing he would ever have to descendants. You can read about it here if you are so inclined. We will be touring battlefields and cemeteries and museums, and we have all been boning up just in case the plaques are all in Flemish.

Here are a few recent books for your WWI collection:

Series books for summer pleasure reading - This is the post for parents

 

I know what you want. I see you. You come in to the library with that little-bit-panicked look in your eye: "Oh shit there's no school for like MONTHS and they're going to do nothing but play Minecraft and moan about being bored." Or pull scary crap like balance-beam on an 8-foot fence. YEESH.

I am right there with you. Milo is in the basement right this second watching those awful Sky Does Minecraft YouTube videos. Or porn. No I did not just write that. I take it back. Wait, let me just get him up here, I'll be right back. 

................

He was practicing guitar. OF COURSE. God, I am so not ready for him to be a teen.

Anyway, you want book recommendations for your children so that they do not forget how to read / become glassy-eyed screen zombies over the summer. You want books that are IRRESISTABLE, books that they will plough through and then ask for the next. In short, you want series books, and you want series that have been out for long enough that there's no waiting for the next book.

 

How to pick a cookbook for your kids

 

It can't be easy, right? Writing a cookbook for kids? I mean, if you're writing a cookbook, that means you are a good cook. You know your asparagus from your elbow macaroni, if you know what I mean. And here you are writing instructions for people who don't know what the salt looks like when you tell them to get it out of the cupboard.

IT'S THE BLUE CYLINDRICAL CONTAINER. CYLINDER. YOU KNOW, ROUND LIKE A... oh Christ I'll get it. SEE? THIS IS SALT.

In which I am unexpectedly won over to the idea of DRAGONS

 

It is the damnedest thing.

In recent years, YA trends have come on about as subtly as a brick tornado. Vampires. Zombie plagues. Fairy tales. Mermaids, oh god the mermaids. Last year it was cancer. And you'd think, if I took a mermaid trend in stride, I would not be surprised by the sudden appearance of dragons in contemporary YA fiction. I'd be like, "Aw come on guys - it's all dragons nowadays!" But there I was, five pages into Talker 25, going "What the...? It's dragons?"

I think it's because they're just so doofy. Right? Giant lizards with wings? What is that - half dinosaur, half... fairy? How are you going to fit that into a world? Literally - how are you going to fit that creature into a world filled with humans?

Then there's the stigma that goes along with being the dragon-obsessed girl. If you're not careful, your dragon novel will make you look like the kind of girl who goes as Daenarys Targaryen for Halloween. (OR TO HER WEDDING OH GOD MY EYES)

 

 

Hee hee hee. I got a little sidetracked. 

It's beginning to look a lot like BOOKSHELF - Great pairs of book to give kids 2013

 

 

Well there aren't a lot of shopping days left until Christmas, but the good news is that in these depressing final days, when the best that most stores can offer is a choice between Picked-over or Shopworn, your favorite independent bookstore is an absolute ACE at getting that brand-new book - or books - for you just about right away.

Let's place our order, shall we?

When you get to the bottom you go back to the top of the slide - some recent (mostly YA) reads

...which is my way of saying oh my life - and my reading - has been HELTER-SKELTER for the past couple of months. Here's why - allow me to solicit your interest in some excellent upcoming events and ongoing projects:

1). I'm on YALSA's Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults booklist committee (nominate your favorites today!)

 

2). I'm a facilitator at Enoch Pratt Free Library's biannual teen reading fest Books for the Beast (join us!). It's an all-day event (free lunch!) October 19th with super speakers and small group discussions. This year, we will be joined by RAINA TELGEMEIER! SHARON FLAKE! and ROBIN WASSERMAN!!

I want to read The Waking Dark so badly, but I have so much required reading right now, it's silly.  You however should read that book, and then come to Books for the Beast and tell Robin Wasserman what you thought of it! It's supposed to be scaaaary!

 

3). I'm moderating the Sassy Girls panel at the Baltimore Book Festival September 29 (and this one you better get to, if you are my friend at all). My sassy authors (I wonder if any of them are old enough to remember Sassy? Did you know that some marvelous hipster angel is scanning all of her old Sassys and putting them online? Damn, I still dress like that half the time) anyway my sassy authors are:

• Elisabeth Dahl (Genie Wishes)
• Erica Perl (When Life Gives You O.J. and many others)
• Shawn Stout (the Not So Ordinary Girl and Penelope Crumb books)
• Elissa Brent Weissberg (The Short Seller)
• Tracey West (about a million adaptation and series novels, also co-author of the very sweet Cupcake Diaries books)

 

4). Just announced! I'm a first-round judge for the Picture Books category of the Cybils Awards! Bring it on picture books YEAAAAHHH! Nominations are open to the public, and the online form will be up October 1!

 

 

5). I'm covering the Américas Award, given this year to Sonia Manzano for The Revolution of Evelyn Serrano, for School Library Journal's online newsletter. Sonia Manzano is also Maria from Sesame Street and that fact just fills me with love every time I remember it.

Also recognized this year by CLASP (the Consortium of Latin American Studies Programs) are Martin de Porres: The Rose in the Desert by Gary D. Schmidt, the hyper-award-winning Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, Drummer Boy of John John, and In Darkness, which has been on my to-read list ever since I saw that weird cover. Any novel that features Toussaint L'Ouverture as a guest character vaults right up my list. Blame Madison Smartt Bell.

 

All this extracurricular activity has led to periods of binge reading during the last few months: graphic novels, funny realistic YA fiction, heartbreaking YA fiction, and rock'em sock'em middle grade/YA speculative fiction. Plus picture books, I'm always reading the picture books, but those I manage to run down in gang posts on Pink Me fairly regularly.

So now I'm going to try to binge-review. GO:

Summer reading - had me a blast

 

Man, I do love talking about books on the radio. Last week, the Marc Steiner Show needed a librarian for a segment about what kids are reading this summer, and I was lucky enough to be in the supply chain for that request.

I had never been to the WEAA studio at Morgan State University, and it was spacious, bright, and airy. Plus, it was extremely wild to conduct a conversation with That Voice. Marc has been on Baltimore radio for ever - he is smart, friendly, and uncompromising, and I've tuned in to his wave a thousand times I'll bet.

Enoch Pratt librarian Jessica Brown and I tag-teamed Marc with some great books we'd brought for the occasion. It was a great dynamic - Jessica and I propped each other up, collaborated, illuminated more than one side of some of the books discussed, and were mutually stumped when Marc brought up a book that sounds like a political parable about Jerusalem's West Bank.

Here's the audio of our talk:

Battle Bunny - the rock opera

Not really. Nobody sings. Well, they sing, but it's not... Oh just watch it.

 

 

I know what you're thinking. "Oh, sure, she's always complaining she has no time to read, but she'll spend most of Memorial Day weekend - when she should be barbecuing or binge-watching Arrested Development (Fun fact: I have never watched Arrested Development!) clipping video."

It's true. But I can't help it. I love making videos with my kids. And this one was inspired by the forthcoming Battle Bunny by Jon Scieszka and Mac Barnett, pictures by Matthew Myers.

Actually, I was just looking for an excuse to dress Ezra up in an Afro wig and a pink bed jacket. If you look closely, that's the same jacket Miss Volker wore in our production of Dead End in Norvelt. Jack Gantos was a good sport about our massacre of his Newbery Award-winning book, hope Mac & Jon don't get too mad at us for blowing their framing device.

 

 

Oh my living room is such a mess and I haven't even been to BEA yet! Middle grade boy books, Spring 2013

 

I know it's a losing battle, keeping the place in some kind of tidy shape, and it's certainly not all the fault of my kids. The books, lord the books. But sometimes I am just in a GET IT ALL OUT OF HERE mood, and such is the mood that descended tonight.

I haven't had the time to read hardly anything lately, so as we picked up books and shelved them or put them in the Back to the Library bag, I got Milo (11) and Ezra (nearly 10) to talk about the books they've read.

 

 

Ezra: Battle Bunny is the result of a ten year old who just watched a whole lot of apocalypse movies making his mark on a cute little Birthday Bunny tale. It's terrifically funny - there's a picture on Battle Bunny's wall that shows a bunny mama leaning over a bunny baby and the ten-year-old added the words "Drink your poison."

NB: The overstimulated ten-year-olds actually responsible for Battle Bunny are Jon Scieszka and Mac Barnett, with illustrations by Matthew Myers... 

Read and grow rich - How my kids did on the 1922 SAT-10

 

As the kids were getting ready for bed last night, my husband pulled out Unbored: The Essential Field Guide to Serious Fun and flipped through it.

Unbored is a pretty great book - it has about a million unexpected and funky things for a kid to do: DIY Fiction! Farting Games! Make a Cigar Box Guitar! and it sits on our shelf until somebody pulls it out and has a little fun with it and then puts it back where it'll sit for another 6 months. That book makes a great gift (although if there's a second edition, I'd recommend the illustrations to be a little less hipster/retro. If it were me, I'd get Stephen Gilpin to do 'em. And I might spring for color.).

Anyway, tonight Bob found this page of questions from the 1922 Stanford Achievement Test, and just for fun started reading them out loud. I am always pretty amazed at the random stuff my kids know, and tonight I just had to ask - how do you know that?

So here's a sample of the questions from page 202 of Unbored, and how my kids knew the answers. VERRRY interesting, and a huge validation of leisure reading.

Unlucky Charms by Adam Rex - guest video review by Milo!

I am a lucky woman. By almost any metric, that's me, Lady Lucky. I can walk under ladders.

One of the ways in which I am lucky is that there are about five authors out there whose work is just exactly what I want to read. I can go to those authors and always always be surprised and moved. Gibson. Liz Jensen. Nick Harkaway. Charlie Higson. Ian Fleming (but that's more of a sick obsession). And by "always always" I mean - no duds. No books that make me go "ehhh." Neal Stephenson for example. Love everything he's written either side of the Baroque Trilogy, but those three books made my eyes roll back into my head, and so he doesn't make this list. 

What I'm getting at - obviously - is that Adam Rex does. I don't know what is similar in our backgrounds or genetics or whatever, but his imagination travels paths that seem enticing and familiar to me - as if they are paths that I glimpsed once from a passing car and wished I had the time to detour into. His humor makes me laugh out loud on trains and in bars.

Which is why I can't review his latest book, Unlucky Charms, the second in The Cold Cereal Saga. This author speaks so clearly to me that I can't tell how he sounds to other people. I can't be objective while I'm giggling out my nose. Luckily, I have a couple of clear-eyed readers in my house who can be relied upon to give you the what when I can't. Here's Milo:

 

 

Now, I admit I read the ARC of Unlucky Charms as soon as I snagged it at ALA Midwinter, and I admit I was going to pass it to Milo as soon as I got home, and I further admit than when this hardcover came in the mail - pretty much before I got home, thank you someone at Harper! - Milo grabbed at it as if he were a magnet and it was made of paperclips, but let me tell you, Milo is not a man who will allow preconceptions to influence his appreciation of a book.

So when he tells you it is funny and brave and awesome - you better believe it. Available Feb 5.

 

 

From Unlucky Charms by Adam Rex - Marcos Horchata reporting

 

PS: Good lord I have written yet ANOTHER review of something involving Adam Rex in which I forgot to mention the art! How do I keep doing that? Adam Rex is supernaturally talented as an artist. His illustrations are the kind that kids pore over, looking for clues, soaking up the visual realization of scenes they have already mentally assembled from the author's words.

They exhibit charm, draftsmanship, and a particular genius for realistic expression, facilitated I believe by his habit of sculpting little heads and using them as models. I like to think he mounts those heads on tiny plaques and hangs them on the wall when he's finished - a miniature hall of horrors. Maybe he talks to them, they're like a Greek chorus when he's stuck on a drawing. "Make him fatter," grunts Frankenstein. "With bigger eyebrows!" yells Grandpa Ned. "What is that sweater about?" snipes Barnett. 

This art, by the way, is not something I am worried I'm biased about. I know art, and I'll borrow a technical term from art criticism here and call it GOOD. It's GOOD ART.

Buy this book, buy all his previous books. Support him so that he can keep feeding my habit, and I swear you will thank me for it.

 

Rip Haywire and the Curse of Tangaroa by Dan Thompson - review plus bonus boy book rant

 

Secret agent Rip Haywire is half Mark Trail, half The Spirit, and half Bruce Campbell. His canine sidekick TNT is half Lassie, half Mr. Peabody, and half the dog from Family Guy. Ooh, this is fun! Rip's girlfriend/archenemy Cobra? Let's see... half Miss Scarlet, half Agent 99, and half Natasha Fatale. And if those character descriptions add up to 150%, well, that's just how far over-the-top Dan Thompson, creator of the globe-trotting rock-em-sock-em noir parody graphic novel Rip Haywire and the Curse of Tangaroa! plays it.

Unusual Creatures: A Mostly Accurate Account of Some of Earth's Strangest Animals by Michael Hearst - review

Come for the freaky pictures, stay for the entertaining text. Boy, if I could give aspiring nonfiction writers one piece of advice, it would be - try to make a book that I can recommend to kids using that sentence. Although I guess it doesn't work for like, presidential biographies. Freaky pictures of presidents are rarely appropriate for kids.

Anyway. Michael Hearst, the author of Unusual Creatures: A Mostly Accurate Account of Some of Earth's Strangest Animals, seems to have figured that magic sentence out all by himself in this, his first nonfiction book for kids.

Planet Tad by Tim Carvell

This is going to be a great go-to for those middle grade boys who think they like nothing but Diary of a Wimpy Kid. The MAD Magazine logo on the cover is going to help. It's formatted like a blog, including those little mood icons from - what was that? LiveJournal? I'm forgetting already. Even the word "blog" sounds dated. Even to me, who writes two.

Diary-like entries detailing Tad's aspirations and humiliations are interspersed with flat-out observational comedy: Do you think flightless birds think they're going to fly one day, and then realize that's never going to happen (paraphrase)? The comedy made me laugh out loud, and then share with the class.

My To-Read List - A Book Festival Recap

 

Kate Milford, Jonathan Auxier, and Morgan Keyes signing at the Baltimore Book Festival. Obscured: Shannon Hale and Sheila Turnage. All-star!

Based on a TOTALLY scientific survey of current middle grade fiction, i.e., attending the back-to-back National Book Festival (grueling) and the Baltimore Book Festival (delightful!), talking to a jillion kids and their parents, a few booksellers, and a dozen or so authors, I have updated my To Read list in the following ways, and for the following specific reasons:

 

Guest post by Ellis Weiner - in which I give the author of The Templeton Twins Have an Idea permission to swear

Pink Me can't resist a funny man. It's true - you can show me your muscular prose, your scenes of wooing and swooning, but when a writer rips out something that makes me laugh out loud, well then, you can cancel my appointments for the next few days.

That is how, even though I have always foresworn the Blog Tour thing, I am a stop on Ellis Weiner's Blog Tour. Ellis Weiner is funny. His first book for children, The Templeton Twins Have an Idea: Book One, has made the rounds in my house (I read it, both boys have, it tops one of the stacks on our coffee table in the current banner photo, and our copy currently resides on my husband's bedside shelf alongside multiple back issues of The Economist (I assume for bedtime readalouds to the kids but after all I don't know what happens around here when I have second shift at the library)), and made each of us giggle. Why haven't I reviewed it? See about a dozen previous posts subtitled OH WOE I AM OVERCOMMITTED and GAH! LIFE!

Also, Ellis Weiner is from Baltimore, and my friend Eerily Similar Paula and I have been nagging the crap out of him to come home and visit our libraries and schools. So when I had the chance to solicit a guest post, I asked him to reminisce about growing up here. 

 

The Brick Bible: A new spin on the Old Testament as told and illustrated by Brendan Powell Smith - review

 

Am I going to do this? I guess I am.

Let me start from the beginning. In the beginning, there was LEGO. Wait, that's horrible. I can't do that.

No. For me, this is the beginning:

Reading on the radio: Great graphic novels for kids

 

From Rapunzel's Revenge, by Hale, Hale, & Hale.

 

Here's your latest list of great graphic novels for kids, courtesy of the legwork I did prior to a recent appearance on WYPR's Maryland Morning. This time, host Tom Hall and I were joined by author and librarian Snow Wildsmith (my idea!) for a talk about which graphic novels, how graphic novels, and, most importantly, why graphic novels for kids. Snow and I get all smarty-sounding at a couple of points there, I totally encourage you to listen:

8-17-12: Comics: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (Literally, the Ugly.).

The Secret of the Fortune Wookiee by Tom Angleberger - review

I swear these Origami Yoda books just keep getting better. The current crisis at Ralph McQuarrie Middle School is... how will everyone get by without the guidance of Origami Yoda, now that Dwight has transferred to fancy Tippett Academy? And by the way, what is going ON with Dwight? Reports are filtering in that he is no longer digging holes and sitting in them, speaks in complete sentences, and, strangest of all, has stopped bringing Origami Yoda to school!

While The Strange Case of Origami Yoda was about accepting and appreciating Dwight and his weirdness, and Darth Paper Strikes Back was about accepting - while not exactly appreciating - Harvey's oblivious jerkiness, each book also has seen the kids gradually gaining consciousness of how their actions affect other people. In other words, Tommy, Sara, Kellen, and their friends are developing - naturally, spasmodically, at different paces (the girls are quicker) - the emotional intelligence of teens. And listen, if you think teens have no emotional intelligence, try spending time with a bunch of 5th graders. Secret of the Fortune Wookie continues this progress, in a way that I can't reveal without spoiling the Fortune Wookiee's actual Secret.

All this emotional growth is delivered in a way that is subtle as hell, though, and conveyed with so much humor that no child will put down this book feeling like he has been Shown How To Be A Better Person.

BONUS: Han Foldo
THING THAT MADE ME SNORT: Mr. Good Clean Fun's puppet sidekick Soapy the Monkey
SEQUEL I CAN'T WAIT FOR: At the end of Fortune Wookiee, we get some big news about big changes afoot at McQuarrie Middle, and I am going to LOVE seeing Tommy, Kellen, Sara, Rhondella, Harvey, Quavondo, Cassie, Remi, Amy, Tater Tot, Lance, Dwight, and even stuck-up Brianna band together to take down the Evil Teaching To the Test Curriculum. I also can't wait to see the Star Wars puns Tom Angleberger will come up with for standardized testing.

Benny's Brigade by Arthur Bradford, pictures by Lisa Hanawalt - review

I have been in a weird mood all day. I just finished reading a really cool and funny adult sci-fi novel (Year Zero by Rob Reid), plus I'm by myself in the house, my whole entire family being out of town, and I'm working the evening shift. So I feel a little unreal.

And then the first picture book I picked up at work today features a pocket-size walrus who emerges from an oversized walnut. Yeah. I should just start drinking right away, don't you think?

 

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Flies Again by Frank Cottrell Boyce - review - aka an excuse to go off about Ian Fleming, which I have been wanting to do for a long time

It's not all that often somebody tries to write a sequel to a classic like this. It's a really big risk - tough to avoid looking like you're just totally crassly trying to cash in on the love and affection for the original book... or else you just look like you're writing fanfic. I'm sure there are any number of "Arwen and Aragorn's Honeymoon" manuscripts languishing in the depths of your laptop's hard drive. And rightly so. Do not print that thing out. Ever.

Video reviews PART DEUX: Invisible Sun, Fake Mustache, The Drowned Vault, and The Familiars

The mountain range of books on our coffee table is a constantly shifting pile of bait for my boys. I bring books home from the library every day that I work - sometimes they place requests, but more often I just snag books that I think they'll like or that I am interested in looking at for this blog. The "leave it out casually and they will pick it up" strategy has been praised by many parents, and even endorsed by Judy Blume, and I can vouch for it as well.

Not so say there haven't been some hiccups, as when I found ten-year-old Milo reading Railsea by China Miéville, which I had pretty much brought home for myself. He is also a big David Macinnis Gill fan now, thanks to this practice.

 

Sweet Venom by Tera Lynn Childs - review

Grace is feeling kind of out of place at her new high school in San Francisco. Newly arrived from a small town, she is hoping to find a friend.

Tough Gretchen has no need or desire for friends.

And snooty rich girl Greer doesn't have friends so much as she has acolytes, minions, and social rivals.

What do these three have in common? Besides first names that start with G? Well, they were all adopted, for one thing... and since this is a teen novel, you might as well guess: they're long-lost triplets. Not just any triplets, either. Descendants of a mythological monster slayer, they have a duty and abilities and there's a prophecy and all of a sudden Grace's GPA is in danger and Greer's Stella McCartney top is going to get mussed.
 
Part Percy Jackson, part Beverly Hills 90210 - with an acknowledged debt to Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Grace has moved to San Francisco from a small town called Orangevale, where she attended a two-story school with stucco-covered walls), this is good fun, marred somewhat by writing that hammers home every expressive nuance ("'What are you doing here?' she demands, clearly unhappy to see me.")

Boy characters are amusingly decorative - entering the action with portentious fanfare, all eyelashes and biceps, only to disappear for long stretches with nary a ripple, reappearing - or not - several chapters later. Although they may have some role in later books, in Sweet Venom they appear to be nothing more than gratuitous romantic interest. A not-too-serious paranormal action novel along the lines of the Maggie Quinn, Girl vs. Evil books.

Adapted from a review originally published in VOYA.

Anticipation - new books to look forward to

Ah, spring! My neighborhood is foaming over with dogwood and azalea, sketched pink scribbles of redbud branches and nodding lilac. Driving the kids to school is like a trip through some wretched YA fairy forest. Except it's also roadkill season, so the smashed rats and opossums on the side of the road give it a little gory, edgy aspect. Again, much like a lot of recent YA. Sigh.

I am totally, happily mired in reading for the YALSA committee I'm on, Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults (go nominate your favorite! do it now! I'll wait!), and I can't in all conscience post reviews of books we're considering for the list - but I can take a break from teenage immigrants and rock stars from time to time in order to cleanse my palate with a new book.

Here are some I have waiting in the wings for me:

 

Nonfiction Monday - Ancient Egypt: Tales of Gods and Pharaohs by Marcia Williams - review

Do you love Marcia Williams? I love Marcia Williams. Marcia Williams is a British illustrator and author. She writes large-format, intensively-illustrated adaptations of classical literature for kids.

Let me tell you how great this is: lots of little kids get into tales of adventure, and then their parents think to themselves, "Oh, I'll bet he would love Robin Hood!" Or King Arthur, or the story of Troy, etc. And then they ask the librarian - "I want him to read King Arthur." Whereupon the librarian is like, "Errr... you know that adultery and patricide play a big part in that story, right? Is he ready for The Sword in the Stone?"

Nursery Rhyme Comics: 50 Timeless rhymes from 50 celebrated cartoonists - review

FIFTY ARTISTS FIFTY! It's like a Ziegfeld chorus line up in this fine large-format comic anthology, except hairier. And less able to walk and sing at the same time. Probably really bad at doing anything in unison.

 

From "Hush Little Baby" by Mo Oh. I love her line and her delicate colors.

Fifty of your favorite comics artists have taken on 50 old-fashioned nursery rhymes, resulting in an anthology that is funny, strange, sweet, and surprising. Some of the artists, like Nick Bruel (Bad Kitty) and Marc Rosenthal (Phooey!), are familiar names in children’s publishing; others, like the talented Mo Oh (Lily Renee, Escape Artist, which is not a good example of her sweet and funny style) and Jen Wang (Koko Be Good), are relative newcomers.

Buried Thunder by Tim Bowler - review

The Rowan Tree Inn has sat placidly under its thatched roof at the center of a picturesque forest village for centuries. "Has sat." That hits me wrong. I don't think there's anything incorrect about it, but... I know I don't like it. "Has satten" sounds better, but "satten" is not even a word. All right, I'm going to leave it. This book's not worth fussing over.

When fourteen-year-old Maya moves into the Inn with her parents and older brother, she experiences that same kind of unease. Disturbing visions, eviscerated foxes, and sinister townspeople seem to conspire with scary nighttime noises to keep her thoroughly freaked out. Is she psychic? Is she imagining things?

Nonfiction Monday - Miss Etta and Dr. Claribel: Bringing Matisse to America by Susan Fillion - review

 

Art and history intertwine in the story of Claribel and Etta Cone, two sisters from Baltimore whose intellectual openness and love of art–not to mention tidy personal fortunes–brought them into contact with many pioneering minds of the early 20th century. More than mere art patrons, the sisters forged decades-long friendships with Gertrude Stein and her brother Leo, Pablo Picasso, and especially Henri Matisse.

 

The collection of art that they amassed, which includes many masterpieces of Postimpressionism as well as works from Asia and Africa (now at the Baltimore Museum of Art), liberally illustrates the gracefully designed pages of this book. So too do the author’s colorful Matisse-inspired illustrations, most of which are based on archival photographs. The book is a pleasure not only to behold but to hold, too - prestige paper and meticulous attention to color honor the author, her subjects, and the art.

 

Painting by Susan Fillion based on a famous photo from 1903.

An art educator in Baltimore, Susan Fillion has obviously spent untold hours with the Cone Collection and with the voluminous correspondence and other papers of the sisters. She frequently describes a scene or situation from Claribel’s or Etta’s perspective, an effective and engaging device. In the hands of a writer less intimate with the sisters, this might feel false or presumptive, but Fillion keeps it simple and convincing. A beautiful and accessible gateway to a study of Postimpressionism, and a moving portrait of two extraordinary women.

Adapted from a review that originally appeared in School Library Journal.

 

Today's Nonfiction Monday Round-up is at Emu's Debuts.

 

Sita's Ramayana by Samhita Arni, illustrated by Moyna Chitrakar - review

The Ramayana is the ancient epic story of the exiled prince Rama and his beautiful wife, Sita. When Sita is kidnapped by a love-struck demon king, her husband’s efforts to rescue her result in a war that eventually involves not only demons and mortals, but also gods, monsters, and even animals. This story has been told and retold, painted, performed and translated in every medium imaginable. 

 

High tech.

 

Librarian to the Stars: At the Governor's Ball

 

 

Providing reader advisory services to movie and TV stars may sound like it's all glamor and glitz - private screenings at Matt Damon's place, long walks with Taylor Kitsch, tequila shots with Cameron Diaz - but in reality, it's hard work. It's a year-round, always-on-call job that requires constant monitoring of tons of information sources. You should see my office - a dozen laptops and giant flatscreens feeding me 24-hour updates from Cynopsis Kids, Early Word, Rama's Screen, and the Hollywood Reporter.

But that's what it takes. What would happen if, out of the blue, Hailee Steinfeld chased you down in a hallway at NBC panting, "I have to read a science fiction novel for English but I hate science fiction!" It wouldn't do to flail around until you lamely suggest she reads Virus on Orbis 1. Nooo. That kid, she needs more action. Not so much character development. Black Hole Sun is the book for her. She'd be perfect as the voice of the AI that is the main character's advisor, conscience and best friend. Or she could be the kick-ass love interest Vienne.

Tune in to my wave as I provide book advice to the attendees of the 84th Annual Academy Awards from my perch by the bar at the Governor's Ball...

Chime by Franny Billingsley - review, plus Battle of the Books prediction

 

What is happening to 17-year-old Briony Larkin and the miserable fenside village of Swampsea? Briony is beautiful and intelligent, neglected by her father after the death of her beloved stepmother. Possessed of a supernatural gift that allows her to see and converse with the nature spirits that surround her village, before she died, her stepmother commanded Briony to avoid the swamp where these spirits live lest something terrible happen.

To make an already joyless life considerably worse, Briony is responsible for her difficult twin sister Rose, who, due to a blow to the head when the girls were seven, exhibits symptoms and behaviors similar to those associated with autism spectrum disorder.

Then a handsome boy comes to the village, and with him progress: the swamp is to be drained and Swampsea to become the terminus of a London rail line. As Swampsea struggles to - belately - join the twentieth century, Briony struggles with new roles that she both fears and desires. I'm always looking for neat coming-of-age metaphors, and the advent of the modern age is a good one. Will Briony allow herself to fall in love? Will she learn to control her power? Will she figure out the deceptions that have been perpetrated upon her, leaving her full of frustrated, self-abasing rage? 

Cold Cereal by Adam Rex - review

 

Sometimes it is hard for me to respond to a book as a reviewer. Some books hook me just the same way a book would have hooked me when I was ten years old, and I am in, along for the ride, imagining myself sleeping in Anne Boleyn's bed at the Met, or confronting an evil horseman in a snowy lane in Wales.

I think that's why I do this.

And do you know how kids recommend books to each other? Have you heard them try? It's no use trying to teach them to sketch the main character and then set up the situation - they're going to either tell the entire plot in minute detail or they're going to reproduce a run of dialogue, bafflingly out of context and unintelligible due to their uncontrollable excitement.

Possibly they're going to try to relate the mood of the book to an experience they've had - my friend Rabbit, who is thirteen, does this all the time, and I love it. I can never follow his parallels: "You know how like you could be in the desert, but it's cold, except it doesn't look like it could be cold? This book is exactly like that," but I could listen to him all day.

In Defense of the Realm by Sanjay Deshpande, illustrated by Lalit Kumar Sharma - review

 

The Akkadians of Central Iraq, hungry for new lands to conquer, have set sail for the great cities of Sind, in what is now southern Pakistan. Prince Meluha and his teacher Chandrayaan are out hunting when the invaders launch their assault upon Meluha’s city, and so it becomes the handsome (and quite often shirtless - hell, everyone's shirtless in this thing!) prince’s responsibility to travel to the other Indus Valley cities and rally their rulers to stand together against the hostile armies of Akkadia.

 

Electronic Thursday - Monkey Boy to Lunch Lady by Jarrett J Krosoczka - review

 

If success could be attained via charm and personality alone, Jarrett Krosoczka would have had this fame and fortune thing sewn up a long time ago. I'm admitting this right here - I love the guy. His books are a joy, and he's a born showman in person: at panel discussions, he sings, he draws, he engages the crowd and sometimes wears costumes. In the strange, airless space that is the online author visit or virtual storytime, he is responsive and enthusiastic and introduces his dog.

 

That's Jarrett in his red pleather suit at the Guys Read: Thriller panel at BEA last year, seated between Jack Gantos and Jon Scieszka (who is not wearing a wig) (for once).

But as important as enthusiasm and hard work are, they do not automatically translate to stardom in the demanding, puppy-eat-puppy world of children's lit. Jarrett's newest publication, From Monkey Boy to Lunch Lady: The Sketchbooks of Jarrett J. Krosoczka, tracks the ups and downs of his career as an author/illustrator and the sometimes crooked path along which an idea travels on its way to becoming a book.

Catching up on middle grade chapter books

It's Election Day here in Maryland - the midterm general election, not the primary, so there's not much hoopla. Oh, Maryland. Stay sweet. Anyway, the children are off school, and it's Tuesday, my day off, and it's a beautiful fall day, so I thought I'd catch up on what my boys have been reading. 

They've both reached the point that they are reading for fun independently. And kind of a lot. It's great, but I have to say, a little scary. I bring stuff home from the library I think they'll like, and they read that stack in a weekend, and then start eyeing the review copies I get in the mail.

This is going to sound like a back-door brag, but I am legitimately worried that they're a little too erudite for their own good. Zhou, who is in grade 3, complained at a class book discussion a couple weeks ago that he thought the metaphor in the title of Jerry Spinelli's memoir Knots in My Yo-Yo String was insufficiently reiterated in the text. In almost those words. Right? That's an oy vey moment, for sure.

Fractured Fables from Silverline Books - review

Kids who like the Little Lit titles (It Was a Dark and Silly Night..., Folklore and Fairy Tale Funnies) will cackle over this collection of familiar tales given an irreverent twist. Rapunzel thinks the prince's request to 'let down her hair' is 'really random'. Gepetto injures his hand trying to spank his robot son after the Blue Fairy grants the wish that makes Pinocchio a real boy. Red Riding Hood's Grandma runs a martial arts academy. Cinderella rejects the lovely blue ballgown provided by her fairy godmother - she was thinking more "Anne Hathaway at the Oscars".

The Maze Runner by James Dashner - review

 

I cannot get behind this book. I wanted to, I did - oh, and based on recommendations by other people, I have been recommending it to teens and tweens who like action for a good year now - but I think it is poor science fiction.

Thomas is a teenage boy who wakes up one morning in a windowless metal room, unable to remember much more than his name. When the room opens up, he finds himself in a community of several dozen boys, all of whom arrived in what they call the Glade just as he did, devoid of memory. The Glade is a sizeable square area surrounded by tall stone walls. Behind the walls, on all sides, is a gigantic maze. In the two years since the first boys were delivered to the Glade, they have formed an extremely functional, organized, (mostly) self-sustaining society, and have set themselves the task of solving the giant maze - looking for a way out.

The Mary Ann, Betsy, and Paula Show - This is the moment for kidlit apps

At the SLJ Leadership Summit in Alexandria a few weeks ago, I saw a demo of the Pat the Bunny app again. Have you seen the trailer for that app? You watch. I'll wait.

 

That bunny is a total evangelist, right? That app actually does things that the book can't do, and that is a book that does things that most books can't do. Pat the Bunny is the app that turns arms-crossed, grumbly librarians into wide-eyed murmury librarians. Bobo Explores Light (reviewed earlier) does that too.

The Last Dragonslayer by Jasper Fforde - review

 

"Who, exactly, is the Mysterious X?"

"They're more of a what than a who. It won't be in a form you'll recognise, and there is something other about X that defies easy explanation. It's more of a sense than a person. A shroud, if you like, that confuses their true form. It also smells of unwashed socks and peanut butter. You'll be fine."

Tiger looked at the note, then at the Quarkbeast, then at where the moose had been but suddenly wasn't, then back at me.

"This is a test, isn't it?"

Yes, little children, this is a test. Are you going to grow up to be the kind of person who not only reads all the books of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy but who also seeks out the radio recordings? Will the Discworld become a second home to you? If you cut yourself shaving, will you always claim that "it's just a flesh wound!" in a defensive tone and a British accent?

If so, The Last Dragonslayer is your brand of silly.

Secrets of Tamarind by Nadia Aguiar - review

 

The scientist in Simon wished there was time to study the animals he was seeing and catalogue all the quirks of nature and environment that had driven their strange evolution. A herd of spotted marsupials, almost impossible to see, moved in shifting camouflage as they chased the shadows of clouds. A small, horselike animal with gigantic ears that swiveled like saucers was the first to hear him coming, and when it took off across the plains its drumming hooves alerted dozens of lumbering, slow-moving tortoises who vanished into their shells, leaving a sudden rock bed. Mice-like rodents leaped dozens of feet into a stand of cactus, fleeing from birds that veered away from the unforgiving spikes at the last second. Simon watched in fascination as these dramas unfolded around him.

We went to Costa Rica last summer, and now I think I understand where Nadia Aguiar's prose comes from. The ruby-red birds and flowers, the emerald landscapes, the fruit that is sweet but complex. The dark jungle, the bright hillsides. Roseate spoonbills and strawberry frogs. Honest-to-god toucans. It's all astonishing, but it's real.

 

The miraculous island of Tamarind, where siblings Simon, Maya and Penny washed up after a shipwreck in The Lost Island of Tamarind, reads like that. Deep in the Bermuda Triangle, its startling beauty is murky or brilliant, misted with cloud or sunlit, lush, decadent, fragile... and likely to twist into violence at any moment.