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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.

Mary Cassatt: Extraordinary Impressionist Painter by Barbara Herkert and Gabi Swiatkowska - review

A picture book biography is more than the product of an author. You could safely say that the responsibility for its appeal is shared by the author, the illustrator, and the subject, especially when the subject is herself an artist.

If you think of the recent picture book bio of Anna Pavlova, Swan: The Life and Dance of Anna Pavlova, you quickly realize that some people will pick it up because it's about a marvelous ballerina, some will snatch it because they are fans of the author, Laurel Snyder, while still others will be drawn in by artist Julie Morstad's exquisite and sensitive illustrations. 

I'm going to argue that there's one other person who should get a lot of credit for a truly extraordinary picture book biography, and that's the editor. If you listen to Laurel talk about Swan (and you should, on Matthew Winner's Let's Get Busy podcast interview of Laurel and Julie), you'll hear about the editorial process that resulted in words selected like gems from a velvet case and an illustrator who was an inspired choice by Melissa Manlove, the book's editor at Chronicle.

Similarly, in the acknowledgements for Mary Cassatt: Extraordinary Impressionist Painter, the artist thanks "Christy O." and for good reason. Christy O. can only be the editor Christy Ottaviano, who has her own imprint at Henry Holt. Christy must have been the one who read Barbara Herkert's picture book script about the life of Mary Cassatt, and thought, "Gabi Swiatkowska." At the very least, Christy's the one who signed off on the pairing. And it's a genius matchup. Here's why.

Gabi Swiatkowska has never not produced art that is interesting to look at. Her work is intentionally mannered and old-fashioned looking, but with a knowingness that winks at the reader. A little girl might be dressed in meticulous period gear, all pantaloons and petticoats, but her expression will be one of very specific discontent. See Queen on Wednesday.  I have wondered, however, how this serious-seeming but off-kilter art goes over with kids. Part of the wit of this work is in the interplay between the formal elements - the grown-up colors, the slightly surrealistic perspectives and the painterly textures - and the expressionistic content, and I don't know if children always can catch it.

And then you have Mary Cassatt, who was revolutionary for her time, painting scenes of everyday domestic life through the lens of a new generation of artists. Barbara Herkert does a great job in this book explaining the context of Cassatt's work - she saw the brighter colors and loose-limbed poses of Degas and his dancers and applied those ideas to the subjects she liked to paint.

Self-portrait, circa 1878, Mary Cassatt

When the modern viewer looks at her work, however, all we see are babies and moms. Babies and moms wearing placid expressions, depicted in pastel colors. Yawn. We have trouble seeing what's extraordinary about her work, because the angles and colors and the way she used materials - so shocking at the time - are now perfectly accessible to us.

 

From the book. The difference is subtle, but I see it.

So when you put Gabi Swiatkowska, who has always been interested in what her subjects are THINKING, onto the case of Mary Cassatt, whose content is no longer challenging to the viewer, you get the best of both worlds. A sweeter color range - and fewer random birds - in Ms. Swiatkowska's illustrations, and a sense of challenge and alertness in Ms. Cassatt's paintings. 

This book has finally made Mary Cassatt relevant to me. Good job, ladies!

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. 

 

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.

 

Nonfiction Monday - High Riders, Saints, and Death Cars: A life saved by art by Nicholas Herrera - review

 

It's the fortunate teenager who will come across this beautifully produced art book and its subject, self-taught folk artist Nicholas Herrera. Not only does Herrera describe his process, inspirations, and technique, but he speaks frankly about his wild youth, bad behavior, and the consequences thereof.

 

 

The Wreck, Mi Vida de 25, 1999

 

 

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.

 

Reading on the radio: Brief lives

Why does a kid read a biography?

 

A couple of reasons. The most common reason is the old "I have to write a book report on George Washington Carver." Boy do you want to find a peppy, well-illustrated biography of George Washington Carver for that kid. A decent book, written by someone who actually cares about and is interested in George Washington Carver, as opposed to a generic series biography written by someone who got the assignment in an email, will make all the difference for that kid.

The Groundbreaking, Chance-Taking Life of George Washington Carver and Science and Invention in America by Cheryl Harness. National Geographic Children's Books.

These Cheryl Harness biographies are just the right length for older elementary school students. Heavily illustrated by the author and loaded with extras like timelines and maps, they are interestingleisure reads but work for writing reports as well.

 

Some kids will read biographies by choice: either they're interested in the subject, and they're inhaling everything they can find about, say, Jimi Hendrix in every medium available; or they're that kid who only likes true stories. That kid deserves a subscription to the National Geographic Photobiographies series.

Jimi: Sounds Like a Rainbow: A Story of the Young Jimi Hendrix by Gary Golio, illustrated by Javaka Steptoe. Clarion Books. This impressionistic book about Jimi is notable for its wild mixed-media illustrations and for an afterword that addresses his use of drugs and alcohol without being judgemental or whitewashing the facts.

 

When I asked my friend Tracy, who teaches 3rd grade, if any recent biographies jump out at her as being particularly noteworthy, she shrugged. "The Harry Houdini book," she said, "but mostly I just enjoy reading the biographies that the kids write."

Escape!: The Story of the Great Houdini by Sid Fleischman. Greenwillow Books. Fleischman has also written a long-form kids' biography of Mark Twain, called The Trouble Begins at 8: A Life of Mark Twain in the Wild, Wild West.

 

Tracy's response, though, is a great reason to encourage kids to read biographies. Barbara Kerley's The Extraordinary Mark Twain (According To Susy) is a lively portrait of the writer as an eccentric family man, and includes portions of the biography written by his (ultimately tragically ill-fated) daughter Susy. Ms. Kerley also includes a page of entertaining instructions for writing a biography yourself.

I've been asking around, and it seems to me a lot of people can remember maybe one biography that they read as a kid that made a big impression on them. For my husband, it was a book about an ice hockey player called Roger Crozier, Daredevil Goalie. 

 

Crozier was a "daredevil" because for many years he didn't wear a facemask. I would say maybe he should have.

 

For me, it was Thor Heyerdahl's Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific by Raft, the story of six men crossing the Pacific on a handmade raft. Like-minded readers today might try Into Thin Air, The Perfect Storm, or a biography of an Arctic explorer.

Onward: A Photobiography of African-American Polar Explorer Matthew Henson (Photobiographies)by Dolores Johnson. National Geographic Children's Books.

 

You never know who is going to inspire a young person. It's worth asking what they're interested in, what they want to be when they grow up, what fiction books they read.

A kid who likes funny fiction will love the nonfiction stories that children's author Jon Scieszka tells about growing up with his five brothers. I would like to note that I finally found a name that stumped Maryland Morning host Tom Hall - luckily, Mr. Scieszka's website gives us a handy pronunciation guide!

Knucklehead: Tall Tales and Almost True Stories of Growing up Scieszka, by Jon Scieszka. Viking Juvenile.

 

 

Audrey Hepburn with the writer Colette.

People who like princessy books will love the light, wonderfully stylish drawings of Audrey Hepburn in the picture book Just Being Audrey. Her mother was a baroness! How come I never knew that?

Just Being Audrey by Margaret Cardillo, illustrated by Julia Denos. Balzer + Bray.

 

Kid is thinking about law? Why not think big!

Sonia Sotomayor: A Judge Grows in the Bronx / La juez que crecio en el Bronx by Jonah Winter, illustrated by Edel Rodriguez. Atheneum Books for Young Readers. Bonus for being bilingual!

By the way, Jonah Winter is a name to look for when choosing biographies for children. He's written picture book bios of all kinds of people, from Frida Kahlo to Hildegard von Bingen to Sandy Koufax. He comes by his interest honestly - his mother Jeanette Winter, with whom he collaborated on the Hildegard book and a book about Diego Rivera, also writes picture book bios to watch for. She has done Jane Goodall, Georgia O'Keeffe, Bach, Emily Dickinson and more.

 

Another terrific author who has something of a specialty in biographies for kids is Kathleen Krull. Wilma Rudolph, Jim Henson, Cesar Chavez and L. Frank Baum have each caught her attention. She also has written a series of lively collected biographies - books about musicians, presidents, athletes, pirates, writers taken in context. Look for books with "(and What the Neighbors Thought)" in the title.

Lives of the Athletes: Thrills, Spills (and What the Neighbors Thought) by Kathleen Krull, illustrated by Kathryn Hewitt. Harcourt.

Emily Arnold McCully, who is probably best known for Mirette on the High Wire, for which she won the Caldecott Medal, also writes and illustrates terrific nonfiction. Manjiro: The Boy Who Risked His Life for Two Countries (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) tells about a Japanese boy who helped open up relations between Japan and the U.S. in the 1800's.

Which brings us to another important point about biographies written for children. What I just wrote about Manjiro makes it sound boring as dirt - but in the hands of a talented writer like Emily Arnold McCully, his story sings with pathos and adventure. The pictures glow and the characters come alive.

 

Biographies are written for children of all ages and reading abilities. Dan Yaccarino's book on the ocean environmentalist Jacques Cousteau has no more than two sentences per page, with bright, graphic illustrations.

The Fantastic Undersea Life of Jacques Cousteau by Dan Yaccarino. Knopf Books for Young Readers.

Second and third graders can handle a little more text: I love Keep Your Eye on the Kid: The Early Years of Buster Keaton by Catherine Brighton, about Buster Keaton's early years. The way this book breaks down Keaton's pratfalls and early movie-making process, it's hard not to want to try some of his tricks out for yourself. 

 

I'm going to leave off with a book about a woman whose tricks you should maybe not try at home. Amelia Lost: The Life and Disappearance of Amelia Earhart is probably the best of many Amelia Earhart books written for kids. The story of Amelia's life is told in strong, well-paced chapters, but between each chapter we get the hour-by-hour account of her fatal flight and the subsequent rescue efforts. Author Candace Fleming has pieced together a great deal of research, and without speculating on the fate of Amelia and her navigator, allows us to imagine her voice desperately calling out over the radio in the empty Pacific.

Amelia Lost: The Life and Disappearance of Amelia Earhart by Candace Fleming. Schwartz & Wade.

 

Nonfiction Monday is hosted today by the marvelous Travis at 100 Scope Notes. I have been M.I.A. from NF Mon for a while, but I'm happy to be back.

And be sure to listen to my conversation with host Tom Hall on this Friday's Maryland Morning with Sheilah Kast on Maryland's NPR station, WYPR 88.1 FM. If you're out of the listening area, audio of the segment will be online by the end of the day on Maryland Morning's website.

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.

Knucklehead by Jon Scieszka - audiobook review

 

Jon Scieszka has five brothers. Jon Scieszka is a funny writer. Ergo, Jon Scieszka's stories about growing up with his five brothers = funny. Oh, I laughed out loud, all right. I read bits aloud to the librarians in the workroom who wanted to know just what was so damn funny, and they laughed out loud. But we're moms. Moms of boys. We have to think boys are funny, or else go googoo and end up carted away in a van.

I first reviewed this book two years ago. I read it to myself while our house was undergoing extensive renovation. It was kind of a distracted review, touching on Peruvian hats, Luke Wilson and my great-cousin Margaret's nose.

But such a funny book. I really needed the laughs during those dark days - my kitchen was open to the outside world for about a week, making it less kitchen-y and more like, let's say, a shed.

We have revisited Knucklehead this summer, now that it is available on audio, read by Mr. Scieszka himself. I checked it out of the library specifically for the benefit of my husband and his multitude of siblings, many of whom were going to be in from out of town and spending copious hours in our minivan last week.

Nonfiction Monday: Can I See Your I.D.? True Stories of False Identities by Chris Barton, illustrations by Paul Hoppe - review

 

When I was a kid, I didn't really like children's literature. Sure, I read Five Little Peppers and How They Grew and Judy Blume (especially the spicy ones!), but mostly I would sneak books off my parents' shelves. I read Saki and All Quiet on the Western Front. I read Tropic of Cancer at about age ten. (BO-RING!)

What I liked the most, though, were the books my dad would bring home from traveling. Airport paperback crime novels and true crime. Oh, how I ate up that true crime.

Now that my job is helping kids find books that they'll want to read, I have noticed that there's not much true crime for kids. I can't give them what I read at that age - Helter Skelter gave me nightmares for years - decades! So along comes Chris Barton (The Day-Glo Brothers, Shark vs. Train) to fix this flaw.

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?

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.

Dave the Potter by Laban Carrick Hill, illustrated by Bryan Collier - review

You are going to want this book.

This is a rare story, beautifully told, illustrated with power, and it has ties to things that children can touch and do.

What, you want more?

Heh, just kidding. Of course you do. How about you want a story that will help educate children about the time when slavery was legal in the United States, that does not flinch from the tragic inequities of that period, but which nonetheless is not unremittingly bleak? A story that celebrates a person whose skill and artistry transcended status and transcends time? Now you know. You want this book. I knew you would. 

Summer Birds: The butterflies of Maria Merian, by Margarita Engle, pictures by Julie Paschkis - review

Oh, here's a picture book that was just WAITING to be written. Maria Sibylla Merian, 1647-1717, was a scientific illustrator who grew up in Germany but did her most famous work in Suriname.

Look at those dates. Then think, "Suriname?" Yes my skeptical friend. In 1693, at the age of 52, Maria Merian went to South America with her sister to draw animals. Just to give some context - what else happened in 1693? Well, Louis the XIV was king. The Amish split from the Anabaptists that year. The last dodo died. And two middle-aged German women hiked up their skirts and went to South America.

The Extraordinary Mark Twain (According To Susy) by Barbara Kerley, illustrated by Edwin Fotheringham - review

I had a review for this book half written, and then I looked through it again. I caught the variety of voices - Twain's, his daughter Susy's, and the author's. I surveyed the back matter - author's notes on Twain and on Susy, and a one-page outline of "How To Write a Biography." And I don't know, man. I'm not sure this is so much a library book as it is a textbook, and I mean that in a good way. It's readable, entertaining, true, and totally instructive. Possibly it should be required in every elementary school classroom.

Much has been written about Mark Twain, one of America's best-known novelists. He has been biographized for all ages and all reading levels. The extraordinary Barbara Kerley (The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins, You and Me Together, and Greetings From Planet Earth to name just a few) had been thinking about doing it herself when she came across an interesting fact: Twain's daughter Susy had done it, at the age of thirteen.

What a gold mine, right? Firsthand observations of the biographee by a biographer who knows what young people want to know because she is one herself! So Kerley gets her hands on microfilm of the complete manuscript, finds just the right excerpts, and fills in just the right background and geographical details.

• A cutaway of the Twain house in Hartford shows us Susy observing her Papa all over the house - talking to the cats, reading in bed, striding about the dining room pontificating between courses.
• We are taken to the family's country retreat - Susy's aunt's house - and given a rundown of daily life there.
• Twain's writing process is described in detail, including Mrs. Clemens' judicious editing - she is shown toning down the rougher areas, while the Clemens daughters look on ruefully.

The book is brilliantly designed as well. Twain quotes appear in one typeface, Susy's in another, and Susy's writing is bound into Barbara's larger book as little journal pages. I don't know who thought of that, but it's genius. Hey and speaking of larger books, could publishers please quit with the oversize? Lots of libraries cannot accomodate the tall books, especially in non-fiction, and must shelve them spine-up instead of spine-out, which means they circulate less. (This message has been brought to you by me, Charlotte, Kate, Irene, and a whole bunch of other school librarians.)

If you bought The Trouble Begins at 8 by Sid Fleischman (my respects, old man, you will be missed) last year, you might be thinking twice about buying a second Twain title so soon. But do. The two books complement each other, and this one is for a younger audience.

Susy was Twain's favorite daughter, and she died at the age of 24. As it happens, I ran across Laura Skandera Trombley's new book Mark Twain's Other Woman while I was assembling this review, and found this tragic paragraph:

Twain was alone [in London, after a twelve-month world lecture tour] when a second cable arrived... informing him that Susy, his favorite daughter and the child most similar to him in many respects, had died an agonizing death from meningitis at the family's home in Hartford while her mother and sister were still en route. For two weeks, Susy's fever spiraled and she grew delirious, sometimes wandering through the empty house... As the infection spread, she went blind. She found a gown belonging to [her mother] Olivia hanging in a closet and spent her last hours stroking and kissing the dress, believing in her delirium that her mother was dead... For the rest of his life, Twain mourned his lost daughter."

I am so glad that Barbara Kerley has given us the bright and bold Susy, as well as her famous father.

Tricia is hosting Nonfiction Monday today at The Miss Rumphius Effect.

All Star! Honus Wagner and the most famous baseball card ever, by Jane Yolen, illustrated by Jim Burke - review

Honus Wagner: the name doesn't conjure the immediate haloed recognition that the names Babe Ruth, Satchel Paige, Shoeless Joe, or Jackie Robinson do. If the average kid has heard of him, it is probably because of that fabulously valuable baseball card - the card that Honus himself had pulled from circulation because it came in packs of Piedmont cigarettes and he didn't want his young fans to think that he approved of cigarette smoking.

Right there we know we are reading about a principled athlete, a public figure conscious of his status as a role model, and we can always use more of those.

But, as we learn from Jane Yolen's heartfelt, admiring text and Jim Burke's powerful oil-on-board paintings, Honus Wagner was not only a conscientious celebrity, but also an extraordinary ballplayer, leading the league in batting EIGHT years during the years 1900 to 1911. He has a base-stealing record - three in one inning! - that still stands, and he was one of the first five players inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Yolen's bio, unlike some sports biographies that focus on a single event or character trait in an athlete's life, gives us Mr. Wagner's story from birth, through an astonishing twenty-one seasons of major-league ball, on to his retirement and Hall of Fame induction. She paints a portrait of the original lovable lug, a bow-legged coalminer's boy with long arms whose youthful strength came from loading coal.

The illustrations are notable not only for their muscular energy - one two-page spread gives us three views of Wagner's wide-legged batting style - but also for a subject-appropriate palette of sandy browns and muddy greens. Faces are often turned away or shadowed by ball caps, lending emphasis to the action. And the composition is masterful: large areas of plain or textured color give these paintings a strong feeling of space and movement.

Great sports biographies are gold in the school library, and this is absolutely one of them.

The Secret World of Walter Anderson by Hester Bass, illustrated by E.B. Lewis - review

The Secret World of Walter Anderson by Hester Bass, illustrated by E.B. Lewis

"Art was an adventure, and Walter Anderson was an explorer, first class."

Oh heck, I don't have to read any further. I'll buy this book for our school library for that line alone.

One of the reasons I suspect that it is hard to write children's books about artists is that, by and large, artists are weird. Can I say that? Sure ok there are artists that live in a house, paint in a studio, come home every night at 5:30 pm and make the salad... but many many visual artists are Aspy like Warhol, or tortured like van Gogh, or, at the very least, desirous of an immense amount of solitude. Cezanne. Georgia O'Keeffe. And Walter Anderson.

It can be difficult to explain to a child why a grownup might need to be alone. Really alone. Alone for a long time. The three books I've linked to here, Cezanne and the Apple Boy, Georgia Rises, and The Secret World of Walter Anderson, do a good job of showing what the artists were after with all that solitude: there's a lot of air, a lot of nature, and, thankfully, a lot of reproductions of each artist's actual work. Can't stand artist biographies that don't show the work.

But of the three, I think it's the Walter Anderson book that succeeds best. The text of the book focuses on the privations that Anderson endured - chose to endure - in order to work on a uninhabited barrier island off the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, while a long author's note relates his biography, not shying away from the mental illness that seemed to be palliated only by perfect isolation.

Personally, this makes sense to me. The author mentions that her husband had been director of the Walter Anderson Museum, and it has been my experience that spending a lot of time with a person's stuff is the best way to learn that person. Bass clearly feels this guy. And luckily, her text was teamed with E.B. Lewis, whose sensitive, realistic watercolors have brought such warmth to books like The Negro Speaks of Riversand Jacqueline Woodson's The Other Side. His animals and landscapes, particularly the water and the varying light on the island, are masterful.

Of the many artist biographies that I choose when I select books for a school library, this will be one of my favorites.

In the belly of an ox: The unexpected photographic adventures of Richard and Cherry Kearton, written and illustrated by Rebecca Bond - review

In the belly of an ox: The unexpected photographic adventures of Richard and Cherry Kearton, written and illustrated by Rebecca Bond

Richard and Cherry Kearton - brothers, cap-wearers, English guys - loved the outdoors, and they loved taking pictures. They published the very first natural history book illustrated with photographs instead of drawings.

Now. How can I put this without sounding boring?

Their work democratized the study of nature in England and abroad. Ok that's boring. But listen: before these guys, natural history books were illustrated with beautiful etchings, color lithographs, et cetera. 

 

Even the least idealized images of birds, beasts, and habitats in even the least intimidating book on natural history (such as the 40-volume, moderately-priced The Naturalist's Library) could not bring the real, observable natural world into a person's hand the way that one of the Kearton's photographs of a nest could. Before the Keartons, it might be said that the habit of observing nature for its own sake was limited to upper-class eccentrics, scientists, and eccentric scientists. The Keartons' photographs showed that the wonders of nature were accessible to anyone, and that even a goose on her nest was in its own way wonderful.

Still boring. Crap, sorry. It's a subject I know a lot about. I helped manage the photo collection at the American Museum of Natural History for a few years. So I get a little excited.

But don't think that I'm giving this book an enthusiastic endorsement only because I find the subject interesting. I just read a new kids' biography of George Eastman, and I had to say meh, even though I think he was fascinating, and even though I was very pleased that the book emphasized his philanthropy. I just found it to be over-story-fied. Not every person's story resolves into exciting little mountain ranges of plot, and trying to force it to do so is doing nobody any favors.

The Kearneys, for example, did not have the most electrifying lives. They were happy boys in the country, then they were somewhat less happy men in the city. The story ramps up slowly, until Richard and Cherry are designing their own blinds so that they can photograph wildlife without scaring off the critters. Cherry hides under a blanket, in a haystack, and in a fake tree. They commission a fake ox from a taxidermist in London, and Cherry hides inside that, too.

When their book comes out, in 1895, it is a success. They spend the rest of their lives traveling and taking pictures.

Rebecca Bond does not try to blow this story up big. Her prose, like her watercolors, is calm and warm as she strolls through the Kearneys' lives up to and including publication of that first book. She bases many of her illustrations on photographs that they took of each other in the field - Cherry rappelling down a cliff, carrying the fake ox, standing in a river. Most satisfyingly, these photographs are reproduced in the back of the book, along with endnotes and a bibliography.

This book contains plenty of information for a brief report, or to get a kid started on his own research - and yet, it is simple (and interesting) enough to be read aloud to a group. I also have every confidence that there will be children who absorb the information about the Kearneys' methods and results, and who go out to try some wildlife photography of their own. Maybe my kids.

Cromwell Dixon's Sky-Cycle by John Abbott Nez - review

Cromwell Dixon's Sky-Cycle by John Abbott Nez

I have an embarrassing confession to make. When I first heard about the balloon boy two weeks ago - the lad who was supposedly floating away in a homemade balloon - I assumed that the kid had made a flying machine, and he was taking it out for a test drive. I didn't think he was imperiled by anything more than official and parental disapproval, and that not 'til he came down.

I think I read too much juvenile fiction. Most kids don't build flying machines, and, as it turns out, such was not the case.

So imagine how happy I was to learn about Cromwell Dixon! Kid was fourteen when he started work on a homemade airship. From 1907 to 1910 he built and flew bicycle- and motor-powered flying devices, borne aloft by hydrogen-filled gasbags that his mother helped him make, winning competitions and at one point making the New York Times. Ha! Some kids build flying machines after all!

It's a great story, and I'll bet John Abbott Nez was thrilled when he ran across it. A genuine kid inventor - a boy who reached for the sky and attained it! And Nez does a great job with it. The text is energetic, with just enough technical detail to be interesting and not so much as to be a barrier. Pencils and watercolors give the art an old-timey delicacy, but a strong color palette and animated expressions keep it lively.

I especially love Cromwell's mom - she looks confident, supportive, proud, and not even an ounce worried, even when her baby boy rises into the blue yonder riding on a frame of sticks with a giant silk bag of volatile gas inches above his head. Tell you what, no son of mine's gonna try a stunt like that! Especially since, as it turns out (and as Nez doesn't mention in his book because, well, why would you) Dixon died at the age of 19, in a plane crash at a stunt flying exhibition.

To sum up: there are two kinds of moms I cannot see myself becoming - Mrs. Dixon, who stood proudly by as her son risked his life to prove that his machine worked; and Mrs. Heene, who... yeah just ugh.

My thanks to Tim Travaglini at Penguin for hooking me up with this book.

A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah - review

AvLong Way Gone by Ishmael Beah

Just a quick review. Ishmael Beah's memoir of his time as a boy soldier in Sierra Leone, A Long Way Gone is somewhat outside my usual scope for Pink Me. It's not terribly new, and it's usually shelved as adult nonfiction. I'm including it only because I read it recently, and it frequently appears on summer reading lists for middle and high school students.

I know there's some controversy about whether or not Ishmael Beah has been entirely truthful in this memoir - but I do not care. There's some controversy about whether or not lots of people are truthful in their autobiographies. I once read Zsa Zsa Gabor's autobiography (get it on audio if you can, it's a scream), and she claimed to have been deflowered by Kemal Ataturk.

Ok I know there's a difference. Zsa Zsa Gabor did not, as far as I know, grow up to work for the U.N. But what I'm saying is, unreliable narrator or no, A Long Way Gone is the clearest window into the terrible experience of being a boy soldier that I've read, and for that reason I recommend it for classroom use in high school. I believe that teens should read books that are inspiring and show what good exists in the world, but I believe that without contrast, without an appreciation of exactly how bad we can be, noble actions cannot be appreciated either.

I would also argue - loudly - that this book be paired with one of Alexander McCall Smith's Botswana books. It becomes easy to perceive Africa as full of horrific violence and abysmal poverty, because middle-class, stable Africa rarely makes the news, and McCall Smith accurately depicts Botswana in all its rather boring beauty. Unless we can see the people in Beah's book as people just like us, what happens to Beah and his friends and his family retains an air of fiction, whether it be true or not.

Becoming Billie Holiday by Carole Boston Weatherford - review

Becoming Billie Holiday by Carole Boston Weatherford

‘Becoming Billie Holiday’ begins with a quote by Tony Bennett: “When you listen to her, it’s almost like an audio tape of her biography.”

This book could be that biography. Nearly one hundred first-person narrative poems detail Holiday’s life from birth until age 25, the age at which she debuted her signature song “Strange Fruit.” The poems borrow their titles from Holiday’s songs, a brilliant device that provides the reader with a haunting built-in soundtrack.

As in her previous book, ‘Birmingham, 1963,’ Weatherford’s language is straightforward and accessible – almost conversational. She captures Holiday’s jazzy, candid voice so adroitly that at times the poems seem like they could have been lifted wholesale from Holiday’s autobiography, ‘Lady Sings the Blues.’

Floyd Cooper’s sepia-toned, nostalgic mixed-media illustrations provide an emotional counterpoint to the text. Resembling old photographs seen through a lens of aching hindsight, they make explicit the pain that Weatherford studiously avoids giving full voice to in her poems. For, although Holiday’s early life was one of relentless rejection, discrimination, and poverty, the author stays true to her subject, and maintains a resolute and defiant tone, albeit one tinged with regret.

Prostitution, rape, jail time, violence, and minor drug use are described in the book, but it ends on the proverbial high note, before the singer’s drug use, alcoholism, and early death. This captivating book places the reader solidly into Holiday’s world, and is suitable for independent reading as well as a variety of classroom uses.

Labels: biography, black kids, diversity, poetry, superstar books

Snow Falling in Spring by Moying Li - review

Snow Falling in Spring by Moying Li
I have to say, I always found the story of Mao's War on Sparrows to be a little far-fetched. Leader of one of the world's largest countries, and he takes aim at... sparrows? Seems a little petty. On the other hand, commanding every man, woman, and child in China to go outside, 24 hours a day, for weeks, and frighten off millions of tiny birds so that they have nowhere to land and drop dead out of sheer exhaustion? Inconceivably arrogant. Almost an arbitrary exercise of power. Also, I know it was 1958, but surely somebody must have realized that eliminating such a widespread species might have complicated consequences.

All in all, it sounds exactly like the kind of thing some short-sighted, delusional monarch might decree in a fairy tale.

I recently read about it in Sparrow Girl, a picture book set during the Cultural Revolution, written by The Talented Sara Pennypacker (the Clementine books, Pierre In Love) and illustrated by the likewise talented Yoko Tanaka. A little girl rescues a few sparrows from the Sparrow War and keeps them in her family's barn. In spring, when it becomes apparent that the absence of sparrows has caused a proportional increase in the insect population, and crops all across China are being ravaged because of this, she releases the last sparrows in all of China, and there is hope.

It's a lovely book and a sweet story, but it reinforced my "Naw... really? Oh come on," attitude about this event.

But I think Moying Li's memoir (the book I'm actually reviewing), subtitled "Coming of age in China during the Cultural Revolution," finally has me convinced.

And so, day after day we watched the battle unfold as vigilant Beijingers stood their ground. Then, suddenly, sparrows started to fall from the sky, utterly exhausted. Soon there were hardly any left. At dinner one evening, flushed with pride as he waved a copy of the People's Daily, Baba announced that in our city alone we had eradicated over 400,000 sparrows!

Moying Li takes us along as, step by step, her country moves from the excitement and hope that accompanied The Great Leap Forward to the paranoia, zealotry and despair of the Cultural Revolution. Her family goes hungry, is split up, endures denunciation, but ultimately survives and moves forward. The kindness and loyalty that she encountered during these years brought tears to my eyes as I read.

The pace never falters in this gripping memoir. Not too demanding, the book includes some photographs and a helpful glossary (which would have been enhanced by pronunciations - my favorite axe to grind), and would be a spectacular class read, in addition to being a great leisure read.

Labels: age: Grade5 and up, biography, diverse cultures, history, superstar books, YA

Knucklehead: Tall Tales and Almost True Stories of Growing up Scieszka, by Jon Scieszka - review

Knucklehead: Tall Tales and Almost True Stories of Growing up Scieszka by Jon Scieszka
Jon Scieszka has five brothers. Jon Scieszka is a funny writer. Ergo, Jon Scieszka's stories about growing up with his five brothers = funny. Oh yeah - I laughed out loud. I read bits aloud to the librarians in the workroom who wanted to know just what was so damn funny, and they laughed out loud. But we're moms. Moms of boys. We have to think boys are funny, or else go googoo and end up carted away in a van.

And I also believe that Knucklehead will make children laugh out loud. There is fire, there is urination. There is getting away with stuff, and there is not a single one of those Peruvian hats with the pigtails down the side that make everyone - EVERYONE - look like Luke Wilson making his very best confused face.

Sorry. Distracted. Been writing in a coffee house lately while my house gets some work done. ("While we're in there fixing the deviated ceiling, how about we give you a whole new kitchen at the same time? Wouldn't you like your kitchen to look like... THIS?" I believe that's also how my mother's cousin Margaret got Patty Duke's nose.)

Back to Knucklehead. Funny, definitely funny. Very reminiscent of Bill Sleator's Oddballs, also a collection of funny stories from the author's childhood, many involving mud. And while the author packs in plenty of forbidden fruit, like how to construct a mortar ("Don't try this at home" - yeah thanks, Mr. Ambassador. My kids get ahold of this and we can say bye-bye to the attic window! (If we're lucky.)), there are also tons of positive messages about the joys of playing outside, the glories of Go, Dog. Go!, the good things about grandparents, Reading Is Fun, and... the value of military academy. Also, the chapters are short enough and the reading level low enough to hand it to, oh, grade 2 and above.

But the thing is, I have never successfully gotten a kid to read Oddballs. The fault in the case of that book may lie with the cover, which is I think more appealing to grownups who like Joseph Cornell and Robertson Davies than it is to kids. But it may be the nostalgia. It may be that kids just aren't as interested in true-life stories that aren't recognizable to them.

If it's the cover, the Scieszka book is going to go better: the cover of Knuckleheads resembles a pulp comic book, with 9-year-old G.I. Jon popping out of a tank turret. But if it's the nostalgia... listen, I'm only ten years younger than our Ambassador, but the world described in Knuckleheads already feels like my parents' generation. Men in skinny ties, nuns in habits with full wimple.

On the other hand, the family that took us in and fed us last night mentioned that they are reading Knuckleheads together, and laughing their butts off. Specifically, the Crossing Swords chapter was mentioned, and I'll say this: "Crossing Swords," in which Scieszka describes how he and his brothers could turn even going to the bathroom into an opportunity for imaginative play (and hoo boy is that the most sedate description you'll ever read for that particular activity!), may well establish this book as the passed-around page-marked Diary of a Wimpy Kid for this year. I'll even go so far as to call those few pages Jon Scieszka's ticket to immortality, and that's saying something.

Certainly we'll be mentioning his name as we mop up the bathroom floor - here's to you, Mr. Ambassador!

Labels: age: Grade1 and up, biography, funny, nonfiction

Manjiro: The boy who risked his life for two countries, by Emily Arnold McCully - review

Manjiro: The boy who risked his life for two countries, by Emily Arnold McCully
Beautifully illustrated. Packed with detail. A suspenseful story. I'm not too sure what else to say, except that it's a shame all of the preceding phrases have been completely leached of meaning by overuse, like a beautiful cotton kimono that has grown faded and fragile after six months on the back of a teenage Japanese fisherman stranded on a rocky island eating albatross eggs and drinking rainwater to stay alive.

Detail. Suspense. Beautiful illustrations. More information. I'm gonna find something to nominate it for. Wow.

Labels: age: Grade3 and up, biography, history, nonfiction, picture books

Manfish: A story of Jacques Cousteau by Jennifer Berne, illustrated by Eric Puybaret - review

Manfish: A story of Jacques Cousteau by Jennifer Berne, illustrated by Eric Puybaret
I read this picture book biography of the original too-tan diver/explorer/conservationist/filmmaker, the man who made a watch cap look GOOD, out loud to my two boys yesterday and I have these things to say:

1. Who knew that Jacques Cousteau was such a genius? I didn't know he invented the aqualung! I didn't know the research vessel Calypso was a surplus French Navy ship! And I didn't know he was such a film guy!


2. My kids were captivated.


3. My kids kept begging me to quit with the Marseilles accent.

My friend Molly picked it up this afternoon and enjoyed it just as much as I did. But she said, "I was a little disappointed with the illustrations," and I concur.

I just adored the turn-the-book-90-degrees foldout spread... the reader descends through three pages of undersea illustration as the text describes the "strange and shimmering ocean land of swaying plants and ocean creatures" (and just try reading that out loud without the Sunday night Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau accent!); and I love the endpapers, illustrated with paintings of strips of film. But I would expect a biography of Jacques Cousteau, especially one that emphasizes the role of photography in his life, to be more... vividly illustrated. What we got as kids, watching National Geographic specials, besides a sense of the impact of white as a fashion statement and a strong visual reminder to always wear sunscreen, were images of fantastic creature after fantastic creature looming out of the undersea murk. The illustrations in Manfish are just a bit... tamer than that.

Reading Manfish by Jennifer Byrne

This book is nominated for a Cybils award, and rightly so.

Labels: age: Grade1 and up, biography, nonfiction, picture books

The Lindbergh Child (A Treasury of XXth Century Murder) by Rick Geary - review

The Lindbergh Child (A Treasury of XXth Century Murder) by Rick Geary

It's tough not to love Rick Geary. That fussy, old-fashioned style: all those millions of parallel contour lines, his little crenellated edge lines, the beautiful hand lettering... all of it making everything he illustrates look so elegant and classy and clean. Which is so great, because, by and large, lately, Rick Geary illustrates crime.

This contrast nets the most tee-hees in the truly grisly stories - I think I remember reading The Borden Tragedy when it came out, and I seem to recall he does a nice job with severed limbs - but even absent any gore, The Lindbergh Child is an engrossing read.

I am very pleased to have it as an addition to the True Crime nonfiction shelves, and even more pleased that the lack of nudity or profanity gives me carte blanche to recommend it to anyone who can hack the history. About grade 4 and up.

Labels: age: adult children, age: Grade5 and up, graphic novels, history, nonfiction, YA

Fartiste by Kathleen Krull and Paul Brewer, illustrated by Boris Kulikov - review

Fartiste by Kathleen Krull and Paul Brewer, illustrated by Boris Kulikov

"One minute, by chance, he was flexing his gut.
The next, he had sounds coming out of his butt!"

Oh my god. If I did this for storytime, the screams of laughter would collapse the school. Nobody would even hear me after page two. It would be like that Duran Duran concert I went to by accident in 1983.

I think readings of Fartiste should be confined to small groups. Many, many, many small groups.
See, NOT ONLY is Joseph Pujol able to control the tone and tempo of his gas - so much so that apparently the guy could fart out songs and do realistic sound effects - which makes for a pretty funny story, but Boris Kulikov's illustrations are extremely funny. We see a seagull surprised by a fart, we see Joseph putting out the gaslights at the theater - with his butt! - we see his audiences by turns horrified and convulsed with laughter.

Best of all, Joseph Pujol was a real person, and the authors have included a brief account of his star-studded career, plus a list of sources, including Baz Luhrmann's musical Moulin Rouge!. I knew I loved that crazy movie for a reason!

Labels: biography, funny, picture books, superstar books

Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman, by Marc Tyler Nobleman, illustrated by Ross MacDonald - review

Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman, by Marc Tyler Nobleman, illustrated by Ross MacDonald
Oh, this is charming. I mean it. It's a kids' biography of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the writer and artist of Superman, and it got me all choked up.

We meet Jerry Siegel as a shy, lonely, grieving boy in Cleveland (Cleveland! Where all true underdogs come from!) who is mad for pulp fiction and movie serials. Short and bespectacled, he meets his match in Jerry Shuster, who spends as much time drawing as Jerry spends writing. They partner up, rejection rejection, and then, in a flash of wishful thinking, Jerry dreams up Superman, a superhuman alien, masquerading among ordinary humans as shy, four-eyed Clark Kent.

If you've never seen David Carradine's Superman monologue from Kill Bill Volume Two, this is your moment to do so. We'll wait.

Ross MacDonald is the perfect, the ONLY choice to have illustrated this biography. His rounded faces, golden light, and old-fashioned compositional devices cement this book to the era it depicts. I've always liked Ross MacDonald, even after I realized that he was NOT the guy who wrote all those salacious crime novels my dad liked so much in the seventies.

I think my only beef is that when we see Joe Shuster drawing away in his kitchen, I'd have loved to see Joe Shuster's actual early art on the page. I suspect that matters of intellectual property may have intervened.

Labels: age: Grade1 and up, biography, nonfiction, picture books