unadulterated.us

Exit, Pursued by a Bear by E. K. Johnston - review

 

In her author's note, E. K. Johnston admits straight out that she wrote this book while very, very angry. I bet she did. This is a fucking great novel.

Exit, Pursued by a Bear is about a teenage rape survivor. Hermione, a popular athlete - co-captain of her cheerleading team - is drugged, raped, and left half-submerged in a lake. She cannot remember the crime or identify her attacker. She is angry, hurt, and sad, but she and her team and her family tackle each step of her recovery process with courage, love, and determination.

And there you have the bare bones of your standard-issue Problem Novel, during the course of which we will watch our heroine struggle bravely to regain her confidence, conquer her self-doubt, and perhaps find love. Excuse me while I never ever read a book like that again. Maybe, because Emily Johnston has written this book, I never have to.

Because Hermione does NOT struggle with self-doubt. She is quite clear that the only person to blame here is the guy who attacked her, and if she even momentarily loses her clarity on that score, her best friend Polly is burning with fury at her side, ready to remind her. Nor does Hermione have to deal with parental shellshock or smothering. Hermione's team rallies around her - even the boys try to act normal, with mostly pathetic results (ehh, boys). When she slaps her ex-boyfriend, whose stance is that "she'd have been safe if she'd been dancing with me," her therapist is eager to hear how hard. And when Hermione stops in to see the pastor to ask him to stop reminding the congregation to remember her in their prayers - she does not WANT to be Hermione the Rape Victim and who can blame her - the pastor looks her in the eye with compassion but not pity.

Everyone holds their breath when she has to endure examinations, pregnancy tests, and a termination procedure, but they never once utter the word "options" - which Hermione notices with gratitude. 

Exit, Pursued by a Bear is a freaking casebook of How to Think and Do when dealing with a victim of sexual assault.

And in the hands of a lesser writer, this might result in tedium or sanctimony. It might at least be distracting. I think we've all seen movies like that - cancer movies especially perhaps. Debra Winger spewing love and forgiveness from her hospital bed in Terms of Endearment, Susan Sarandon nobly handing over the reins to Julia Roberts in Stepmom.

But bless her, E.K. Johnston (author of The Story of Owen, which is my sons' hands-down favorite book of all time right now, and in my own top ten) is NOT a lesser writer. I read this book in three hours, propelled onward by characters I loved and who loved each other. It is marketed as a cross between Veronica Mars and A Winter's Tale, but honestly I saw more Jessica Jones in it than Mars - Hermione faces her trauma with some of Jessica's belligerence (but none of her bourbon), and the friendship between Hermione and Polly is just as rock-solid as Jessica's relationship with Trish. Remember, at the end of the series, the big climax is Jessica telling her best friend that she loves her? Same thing here. "I love you." "I know."

I imagine that Emily Johnston wrote this book after seeing yet another young rape victim publicly blamed for the crime perpetrated against her. I imagine that she sat down, all gritted teeth and flared nostrils and hair on fire, and wrote this book for all those girls, to show them that SOMEBODY knows the right way to treat them, to talk to them and about them. And if that's what we need, if we, as parents, faculty, friends, cops, teammates need a template for how to respond in a situation we hope no woman ever has to endure, well, now we have it. Lucky for us it's a compulsive, easy read, because I'm hoping it gets assigned in about a million advisories, homerooms, and health classes.

Look for this stellar work of realistic fiction in March, 2016.

I Crawl Through It by A. S. King - review

 

Let me be right up front about something: I couldn't wait to read this book.

There aren't a whole ton of people writing literature - Literature with a capital L - for teens these days, and even fewer that I can stand to read. Not because they're bad, not at all - but because the truth of teens is so hard. If you write it well, it's going to hurt.

Everybody Sees the Ants hurt. Reality Boy, that too. But after reading Glory O'Brien's History of the Future, which had pain but also love and humor and that whole thing where you hate your best friend - well, there was no way I was not going to hit that pipe again just as soon as possible. I got a copy of I Crawl Through It at this year's School Library Journal Day of Dialog, and I started it on the subway back to the hotel.

Rookie Yearbook One edited by Tavi Gevinson - review

Here's something I would not have expected, certainly not on a night when I have a deadline looming on another project - I opened the mail after work and found a copy of this fat book, the first print product of Tavi Gevinson, aka The Style Rookie, and I opened it up and read the first couple of pages... and then I read the whole thing straight through for like five hours.

Tavi - don't you know who Tavi is? Tavi is this wonder-child. Only 16 years old now, she started blogging about style and fashion when she was like eleven and quickly became a fashion world darling. She wore her hair in a faded blue-gray bob, sometimes with a giant bow. She was, by all accounts, enthusiastic and questioning, eager to learn, a total fashion fan, but always with a point of view. I never read The Style Rookie, though. Really, I spend so much time keeping up with children's lit, all I have time for is Go Fug Yourself and sometimes Lainey.

 

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.

Piggy Bunny by Rachel Vail, illustrated by Jeremy Tankard - review

Liam is a little pig who insists that he is a bunny. His family assures him they love him just the way he is; his sister tells him to get over it. He is still insistent: "Hello, my name is Liam and I'll be your Easter Bunny." The neighbors are skeptical but his parents continue to love and support him.

And I say, "Love it."

Boy21 by Matthew Quick - review

Finley is the only white kid on his basketball team. He's not the tallest, or the most talented, but he is the hardest-working player, and that has earned him his position as starting point guard. That hard work might just one day propel him out of his crime-infested ruin of a hometown.

So is Boy21 a sports novel? Not exactly.

Finley has played and trained - obsessively, single-mindedly - since he was ten years old, when something bad happened to his family and he found that shooting 500 free throws in a row allowed him to not think about it.

Is Boy21 a coming-to-grips-with-crisis novel? Not exactly that either.

Finley has time for only one thing in his life besides ball, and that's his girlfriend, best friend, and only friend, Erin. She is beautiful and the star of the girls' team and has a lot of patience. She gets along with Finley's drunk grandfather, his sorrowful father, and she loves Finley, even though he speaks rarely and breaks up with her every basketball season.

So it's a young love novel? Ok I know I'm getting annoying with this - I'll stop.

The Downside of Being Up by Alan Lawrence Sitomer - review

Given all the news recently about the inconceivably arrogant, morally chthonic behavior of certain people in central PA - people who make me type in all caps, people whose f-ing job it was to teach teenage athletes about discipline and integrity and in the process turn them into admirable men, and yet who somehow valued winning or the status quo or... something - I mean, I just can't fathom what possible motive there could be for keeping silent - over the safety and well-being of a legion of children...

Yes. Given that, I would like to offer up a healthy, happy novel about a healthy, normal boy, a boy fortunately unmolested by predatory old men - a boy whose only real tormentor is the tail that wags his dog.

That's right - I'm talking about Bobby's boner. Allow me to relate a conversation I had with my boys.

Dave & Violet by Sarah Adams - review

Unexpected.

When I was a kid, we had a big fat book called Golden Treasury of Children's Literature. It was full of excerpts from longer books - a chapter from Mary Poppins, a chapter from The Wizard of Oz. Some poetry, some obscure stuff. A really scary Rapunzel. I ate that book up and then forgot it, although I think it is the reason that I have an unexplained but vehement dislike of excerpts. I felt terribly cheated, not getting the whole story.

I forgot the book, but the images from it nonetheless live strongly in my head. Kind of like a K-Tel record, the book excerpts it contained were not illustrated with the canonical illustrations one associates with these works. They were very good - I think Charley Harper illustrated the Bambi story - but they were different, and they imprinted strongly on my mind. For example, despite multiple readings of an edition of The Hobbit with the Tolkein illustrations, and despite the towering charisma of Ian McKellen, I still envision the Gandalf in that book when I see Gandalf in my head.

Bigger than a Bread Box by Laurel Snyder - special guest review!

 

I love my friends, and when I think of the friends I have, I realize what a fortunate person I am.

First: A few years ago, I got to chatting with a brilliant, funny author at the annual KidLitCon - Laurel Snyder. It turned out that in addition to sharing certain opinions, vices, and an inappropriate sense of humor, we share weird geographic coincidences: she grew up a couple blocks from where I live now, and in high school she moved to the neighborhood where I grew up. Her friends were the younger siblings of my friends. When she lived in freakin' Iowa, her downstairs neighbor was a woman I've been friends with since birth. We might actually be the same person.

So I can't review her book.

Next: Also a few years ago, we got a new librarian at work. Yes I know that's a weird construction, but that's how we say it. We got a new librarian. She had the same name as me! Then we found out that we both have a kid the same age, a kid who loved to read and went to a Baltimore City charter school; and we also discovered that we both read a lot of teen fiction, and have almost the same taste! In books, accessories, food, you name it. We might actually be the same person. On Pink Me, I call her Eerily Similar Paula, and she's helped me out before.

Today, she and her Eerily Similar Kid, Thespian Girl, have contributed a mother-daughter review of Laurel's new book, Bigger than a Bread Box.

 

 
 

ESP: How did you get your hands on an advance copy of Bigger Than a Bread Box, Thespian Girl?
Okay, so me and Daddy were walking around at the ALA conference, and the lady at Random House said “Oh honey, I have a few books that you might like!” and I picked one up and started reading the back of it. Meanwhile, Daddy poked me in the ribcage and said “You have to get this book. Look at the dedication. It’s for Baltimore.” I said okay and I took it even though I didn’t really like the cover. I thought it might be a murder mystery or something about wizards.  

ESP: What made you read it anyway?
Well, it was on my shelf and you told me I needed to read the next day and not watch any “stupid TV shows”. I read the first page and I was like “huh.” Then I read the next page, and the next page and the next page….”

ESP: I remember you read a part out loud to me. You said “this author really is from Baltimore. I can tell because of the detail when she describes Rebecca’s row house.”

There weren’t doors or walls between the downstairs rooms of our row house. The flooring just changed colors every ten feet or so. You knew you were out of the kitchen/dining room when the fake brick linoleum stopped and the pale blue carpet started. Then you were out of the living room and into the front room when the blue carpet changed to brown. That was like a lot of row houses were in Baltimore, like tunnels.

ESP: Kind of like our house?
Yes, quite!  

ESP: So that made you keep reading? What’s it really about?
Yes. And the book got better and better as it went on. I read it mostly in one day while you were at work. It’s about a twelve year-old girl named Rebecca. She lives in Baltimore with her mom and dad and her toddler brother Lew. Her mom and dad have been arguing a lot, and then her mom decides it’s time to “take a break.” She drives Rebecca and Lew all the way to Atlanta, Georgia to stay with their grandmother. She doesn’t bother to tell Rebecca that they’ll be staying for a long time and that she’ll have to go to school there too. During the first night her and her mom get into an argument. Rebecca misses her dad. She gets mad and runs upstairs to the attic, where she discovers a collection of bread boxes. She only knows that’s what they are because they say “bread” on them. While she’s poking around up there, she says she wishes she had a book. She starts opening the bread boxes. They’re all empty except for the last one, which, coincidentally, has an Agatha Christie book in it. She brings the box down to her room.  

ESP: Does she know right away that it’s magic?
No. She figures it out that night when she’s feeling homesick. She’s crying about all the things she misses about Baltimore. She says “I wish there were gulls” into her pillow, and then she hears a skreeeee noise coming from the breadbox. There are two seagulls inside! 

ESP: So what does she wish for next? Is it a unicorn?
No, and I don’t want to ruin the story. She can only get things that are real. And that fit inside the bread box.  

ESP: So it’s a book about a magic bread box? Is that how you would describe it?
Not just about a magic bread box. It’s about school drama, family, and how unfair it is when adults make decisions for you that you don’t like.  

ESP: How did the book make you feel when you were reading it?
I was excited and on edge! I couldn’t guess what was going to happen at all. She (Laurel Snyder) did a great job with the entire story. There wasn’t too much of anything or too little of anything. It was a perfect book. The ending is a good set up for a sequel, hint-hint!

 

Paula is a good friend and I want to thank her and Thespian Girl thoroughly for this thoughtful take on a terrific book. My only regret is that when either of them starts writing books herself, I won't be able to review them. Maybe I'll get Laurel to do it!

Here's some more help, from 12-year-old kid named Lily, who made this beautiful book trailer for Bigger than a Bread Box:

 

I swear, tween girls should be running this country. They are so smart!

Notes from the insect world

I suppose it had to happen sooner or later. Most of my friends have gone through it already. Some of them have had to deal with it over and over. I'm just lucky I have boys, and I can shear 'em like sheep.

It's head lice.

Gross.

Nonfiction Monday: Manners Mash-up - review

I'd have had this book reviewed earlier, but there was a manners emergency.

One of Zhou's teachers came into the library with her almost-three-year-old son, who has got to be one of the cutest little guys in the whole world. She was looking for ABC books, truck books, and dinosaur books (I love three-year-old boys!) - and also a manners book that wasn't too heavy-handed.

I kind of pooh-poohed her - at almost three, there's plenty of time to teach him about elbows on the table. At almost three, they're so cute that we still forgive them if they forget to say "excuse me" when they burp. We're programmed that way. But Kayisha had this story to tell:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nonfiction Monday: 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.

Dirty little secrets by C.J. Omololu - review

Lucy's mom is a compulsive hoarder, and Lucy is sixteen years old. Think how embarrassed you were about your parents when you were sixteen, and then think about how Lucy must feel.

Luckily, nobody at her school knows that Lucy's house looks like those houses on that show, and Lucy is bent on keeping it that way. She's keeping her head down, avoiding close friendships, checking to make sure her clothes don't smell when she leaves the house, waiting out the year and a half until she can get out of that hellhole like her older brother and sister, and hoping nobody ever, ever sees past her front door.

And listen, that may sound like a metaphor, but in Lucy's case it's just true. I swear, poor kid.

Kindergarten Diary: as told to Antoinette Portis by me, Annalina - review

Check out this quote from Kindergarten Diary:

We are Room 2K.
We are fine!

Assertive. Clear-eyed. Defiant-like. Almost... anthemic. And, written as it is beneath a drawing of three little kids hanging upside-down, big smiles on their faces and their belly-buttons showing, "fine" begins to assume a whole bunch of meaning:

• First kid (subtext): "Not only are we 'fine,' we are happy and fine!"
• Second kid (subtext): "And we're just going to get fine-r!"
• Third kid (subtext): "Not only did we have nothing to worry about, you parents can quit your hand-wringin' too!"

Stars Above Us by Geoffrey Norman, illustrated by E.B. Lewis - review

Amanda is afraid of the dark. I would be too, if my Daddy were going off to war. But Daddy pastes glow-in-the-dark stars to her ceiling and brings home a black lab puppy before he goes, and, while Amanda and her mom miss Daddy and fear for his safety, he does after all come home safely.

 

Any adult who can make it through Stars Above Us without choking up, please call me. I'd love to read it aloud to the second grade class, but you'd have to mop me up with a sponge afterward. E.B. Lewis, as always, much respect. Gorgeous work.

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.

Really, Really BIG questions by Dr. Stephen Law - review

Really, Really BIG questions about life, the universe, and everything by Dr. Stephen Law, illustrated by Nishant Choksi (and gentlemen, when the illustrations are as important to the book as these illustrations are, you PUT the illustrator's NAME on the COVER. Respect!)

I would like to organize my thoughts about this book. To do it justice. Because the book is certainly well-organized. It takes major philosophical questions - both the eternal ones, like "How can I tell right from wrong?" and the excruciatingly current ones, like "Did someone design the universe?" - breaks them down gently, and then finds accessible, often amusing analogies to go about finding the answers.

Many questions are left unanswered. Most, even, I'd say.

"How can we decide who is right about eating animals? We all agree it's wrong to kill and eat humans. But many of us think it's okay to eat other animals. And if it is okay, what's the difference between humans and other animals that makes it okay? Can you think of such a difference?"

That is the end of the segment on "Should we eat animals?" The author builds a solid platform of known vs. unknown logical quantities, and tops his structure with a challenge to the reader, all the while using friendly, down-to-earth language and a tone that never feels lecture-y.

There are a couple of areas that possibly - hmm - skirt the edge of oversimplifying. A discussion of observation and evidence avoids use of the word "experience," even though experience is an important tool that we use to collect data about and forge expectations of our world. I think this omission is intentional - because so many fallacious arguments are based on experience. But it would be churlish of anyone to deny this book based on such minor elisions.

Dr. Law has something of a cottage industry in teaching philosophy to non-philosophers. He is the editor of the journal Think, (somewhat pompously subtitled "Philosophy for everyone") and is the author of three well-received books about philosophy for older children. He even wrote the DK Eyewitness Philosophy book. Really Really Big Questions is his attempt to reach the youngest readers yet.

The design integrates the text blocks, headlines, and the funny, bold, retro-contempo style cartoons in a very up-to-date way, with lots of white space and big eroded type. Well, not "white" space. Every high-tooth page is full-bleed in a different bright color. A little hard to read? Eh, a little.

Extra points for a diverse cast of characters: boys, girls, grownups, kids, white, brown, green, gray (lots of aliens - and also robots!). And in case you got a little glimmer of recognition from that subtitle ("life, the universe, and everything"), there's an excellent piece of logic from Douglas Adams on page 15. Extra points for quoting Douglas Adams.

Patrick the Somnambulist, written and illustrated by Sarah Ackerley - review

Patrick the Somnambulist, written and illustrated by Sarah Ackerley
To all of the tedious, obvious, cheery-fake picture books that try to demonstrate that Being Different Has Hidden Benefits! REALLY! Your Love of Ballet / Eccentricity / Fashion Sense / Favorite Color / Intelligence / Strabismus / Bipedalism / Love of Poetry / Lack of Athleticism / Species / Size / Diet / Unusual Color Makes You Special (and ok, most of these books are neither tedious nor obvious, I am just being lazy, because I tend not to remember books I don't like) - I finally have a response: LOOK AT THIS ONE.

Patrick is a normal penguin kid who is also a sleepwalker. His concerned parents take him to therapy. The therapist confirms that Patrick is a normal penguin kid who is also a sleepwalker. Teaches Patrick a fancy word for himself - somnambulist. Patrick adores his new word, is empowered by it, does great things under its imprimatur. Goes on Conan. Becomes a multi-millionaire at the age of six.

The little full-page watercolor illustrations are witty and sweet, done in a rather somber nighttime palette that in no way harshes the happy, giggly mellow of the text. Love the mute, soulful penguin expressions (no mouths on these penguins and yet we know just what they're thinking). Kids will get a laugh out of all the odd situations Patrick finds himself in as a result of his sleepwalking, and parents will surreptitiously enjoy, "At first his parents just thought he was just weird."

Who hasn't thought that at one time or another?

Endpaper bonus: Patrick wrapped in toilet paper, rocking an umbrella, and wearing a plunger on his head.

Labels: animals, funny, picture books, problem solving, superstar books

Tsunami! by Kimiko Kajikawa, illustrated by Ed Young - review

Tsunami! by Kimiko Kajikawa, illustrated by Ed Young
Breathtaking. Pass-around-the-workroom-and-marvel-at-it gorgeous. Intense. Gripping. A terrific story. I seem unable to describe this book except in tiny movie-blurb phrases. It's that good.

Gazing upon the illustrations in Tsunami!, I could feel the thunder of the great wave in my chest. I felt the pressure of the silence before the wave, and I heard its hissing retreat. The two-page spread of the wave hovering over the village is the best work that Ed Young has ever done, and the story is just as strong. He depicts scale so masterfully here - the temple gate, in pieces, tiny against the crashing wave... the villagers so small as to look like confetti on the exposed beach.

I am grateful that the story is set "long ago" in Japan. If this book had been about the more recent tsunami, it would have been too emotionally wrenching for me, and possibly for younger readers too.

Labels: age: adult children, age: Grade1 and up, diverse cultures, picture books, superstar books

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

I get so hungry, by Bebe Moore Campbell, illustrated by Amy Bates - review

I get so hungry, by Bebe Moore Campbell, illustrated by Amy Bates
I could tell by the illustration facing the title page that this book was going to make me cry. We see a little girl, alone on the couch watching TV with a big bowl of potato chips in her lap, her face expressionless in the light from the picture tube.

The book is about Nikki, a little girl who is overweight, and how she comes to terms with it, and what she does about it. And first of all, I want to make clear that I admire the late Bebe Moore Campbell for writing this book. Her heart was obviously in the right place. The book is written in the first person, and we feel Nikki's hurt when she is teased. We are there when Nikki takes comfort in food. Our heart sinks along with Nikki's when she realizes that the food that is available to her at home is not helping. This is a tribute to Ms. Campbell's skill and empathy.

In addition, I think it was very brave of the author to address Nikki's mother's role. If someone is going to come looking for a book about childhood obesity in my library, it will probably be a parent, not a child, but I Get So Hungry in no way lets the parent off the hook. Nikki's mom uses food for comfort, too. She prepares fried food, keeps potato chips and soda in the house, and packs Nikki giant lunches with no fruits or vegetables. She lies to the pediatrician when he says, "No more junk food."

BUT.

The book is also loaded with stereotypes. Nikki, her mother, and her new teacher, Mrs. Patterson, are overweight because they eat only bad foods, eat so fast that they can "barely taste them", lie about food, sneak food, "can't stop" eating, and use food to reward or comfort themselves. I think that very few people will see themselves in this comprehensive roster of destructive habits.

Also, Nikki is motivated to lose weight when Mrs. Patterson falls ill. The teachers whisper that her illness is a consequence of her weight. This, as my friend Kathryn pointed out, is an inappropriate intrusion. Not only is this plot point not about the child, but it also implies that Nikki will suffer dire consequences because of her weight, and that is a loong line to draw. It seems a dangerous and unnecessarily scary message to the child who may be reading this book.

Further, Nikki is teased quite a bit by a classmate. After she loses some weight, that classmate teases her again, but her friends point out that there is no longer any reason to tease her, because she is no longer fat. WHAAT? Put down that potato chip, kid, else everybody's going to make fun of you, and what's more, they'll have every right to. Aagh.

The flip side of childhood obesity is the body dysmorphia that some children fall prey to. Healthy boys and girls torturing themselves over every pound, assigning disproportionate significance to food. Implying that cookies can endanger your life or that extra weight will make you lonely... no. That's too heavy-handed.

There's a happy ending to I Get So Hungry. Mrs. Patterson starts walking every morning before school, stops sneaking food in class - instead, she sips water - and starts eating lots of fruits and vegetables. Once she explains all this to Nikki, and recommends that Nikki start eating only when she's hungry, Nikki joins Mrs. Patterson on their morning walks. They both lose weight, and in the end, Nikki talks her mother into walking too.

I think that this is a bit insulting. It seems to imply that losing weight is as simple as "Back away from the donut and get off your butt," and it's not. What's more, Nikki and Mrs. Patterson lose substantial weight over the course of just a few months. When Nikki joins Mrs. Patterson for their first walk together, they are wearing gloves. When we see a much smaller Nikki coaxing her mother out for a walk around the block, it is still cool enough for them to be wearing long sleeves and a vest.

I want messages about diet and exercise to be part and parcel of every input our children receive. I want books that make it clear that health and fitness are the responsibility of the whole family, the whole community.

But I Get So Hungry is not that book, for me (and for Other Paula, Patty, and Kathryn, each of whom read this book at my request. I wanted to be really sure it wasn't just me). I think it dwells on Nikki's sadness when she is overweight and glosses over the hard work of maintaining a healthy lifestyle. It makes a faint cultural connection (the fried food, the African American characters), but omits any reference to the role that safety plays when parents must make choices about their children's afterschool activities. Sedentary, inside activities are safer than going outside in some neighborhoods. In addition, in single-parent households like Nikki's, outside play raises questions of supervision - does mom make dinner, or does she go outside and keep an eye on Nikki?

It makes me sad. Bebe Moore Campbell was such a wonderful author, and, as I said, her heart was surely in the right place. Amy Bates has created beautiful, sensitive illustrations. The book is saturated with empathy. But it just - misses.

Labels: age: Grade1 and up, black kids, problem solving

Peg Leg Peke by Brie Spangler - review

Peg Leg Peke by Brie Spangler
Oh my gosh! A boo-boo! A broken leg! Well then, let's see if we can distract you from your sorrow... and that's exactly what the author does when she meets this sweetie little toddler Pekingese. A good book to have on hand when the kid goes facefirst skidding into the concrete, or had to have a splinter out, or got stung by a bee.

Labels: age: PreK - Grade3, animals, funny, problem solving

The What's Happening to My Body Book for Boys by Lynda Madaras - review

The What's Happening to My Body Book for Boys by Lynda Madaras

Holla! Dance around! Oh baby! Mmm! Get down with your bad self!

The new edition of Lynda Madaras's excellent "Oh my god what's that hair doing there?" book is finally available at the library where I work, and from the jobber I buy books from! Thank you, oh thank you. I have read ALL the puberty books, and this one is the best one out there for boys, but I never could use it before, and here's why:

Adolescent boys are just coming to tentative grips with their masculinity - this kid, and his best pal Duckie there in the background, are not the boys they're going to consult when they have questions about acne and condoms. And GOD knows they don't want to be seen carrying this kid around. At the public library, I have seen boys actually recoil when I have offered this book to them. Parents have taken one look and winced.

Last year, when our school expanded to seventh grade, the reading specialist tasked me with three requests: World War II, beauty and hygiene, and puberty. So I read ALL the puberty books. What's Going on Down There?, The Boy's Body Guide, the AMA's Boy's Guide to Becoming a Teen ... and this was the one that addressed all of the issues. (It comes down to surprise boners - most puberty books do not address the sudden and unwelcome trouser tent, a phenomenon that boys can be too embarrassed to ask about in sex-ed class. It needs to be in a book that they can consult privately.)

Thank you to my system and thank you to my book vendor. The rest of Lynda Madaras's body and hygiene books are also available with this new cover.

Labels: age: Grade5 and up, boy books, nonfiction, superstar books, YA

Junk Man's Daughter by Sonia Levitin - review

Junk Man's Daughter by Sonia Levitin with illustrations by Guy Porfirio
This is from the Tales of Young Americans series, which I think is not part of the American Girl empire. Just the same, it is a straightforward little historical fiction picture book of a family coming to America, facing poverty, and becoming successful through perserverence, ingenuity and hard work. I am sure there are kids for this book. All due respect to Sonia Levitin? but not really any that I know though.

Labels: age: Grade3 and up, diverse cultures, diversity, girl books, historical fiction, picture books

No English, by Jacqueline Jules - review

No English, by Jacqueline Jules, illustrations by Amy Huntington Blanca speaks no English when she arrives in Diane's 2nd-grade class. But instead of hammering on the old "it's ok to be different" nail, this book makes a number of small, good points - about intention, about sensitivity, and about the importance of bilingual books in a library's collection. Unfortunately, this particular book is not bilingual at all - might have been nice to have presented it in both English and Spanish.

Labels: age: Grade1 and up, age: PreK - Grade3, diverse cultures, diversity, picture books, problem solving

From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsberg - review

From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler is my favorite book of all time. In it, two kids, Jamie and Claudia, decide to run away from home. Since they're smart and practical (not to mention snobbish and greedy) and don't want to end up on a curb in Times Square, they plan to run away to a place that's indoors and has some of the comforts of home. They pick the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Isn't that great? That's a thought process that basically makes sense. And you can tell right off that this is not going to be your hijinky plot-driven pratfall novel - they don't run away to the circus, they run away to an art museum. E. L. Konigsberg writes great books, with sharp characters, but this is her genius work. An unpleasant, geeky girl with a violin case and an annoying little brother goes into an art museum - and that's the premise for a successful, beloved kids book? Dag.

What keeps this book going, and what fascinated me as a kid, is the view of the off-hours museum through Claudia's eyes. Claudia is a pretty dissatisfied kid, and in the peace and beauty and mystery of the museum, she has a chance to get out of her crabby self and become absorbed in the beautiful, weird, storied objects that surround her. She gets to touch and examine precious things that are usually off-limits, and in the process, one object stops her in her tracks - a small sculpture of an angel.

When it was my turn, my object was Cupid and Psyche by Jacques Louis David.

I came around a corner in the Cleveland Museum of Art, looking for something to write a paper on for ARTH103, and this baby popped me right in the eye. It's enormous, for one thing, and very detailed, almost realistic. Cupid is climbing out of bed, smirking - yeah, he tapped that - and now he's trying to get out of there without waking her. I believe I met this painting before I met my husband, but this is kind of what my husband looked like when he was 19, when we met (minus the smirk, he would insist I point out).

Claudia wants to learn everything there is to know about "her" angel, and in the process discovers something that only the titular Mrs. Frankweiler knows (looking back, Mrs. Frankweiler had to be a registrar - registrars are consistently the coolest, geekiest people in all art museums I've come across). Though the angel isn't really Claudia's, this secret knowledge is. The process of discovery, the possession of knowledge, and her intimacy with the object change her, showing her what is best and noblest in her nature.

When I had my Art History classes in the basement of the Cleveland Museum, I would leave through a set of very high, very heavy double doors. I'd run down the wide marble steps that led to the Lagoon. I was usually the only person there, and at those moments, I always felt like Claudia - I felt like I lived in that museum, and that all the treasures inside of it were mine. Eventually, I spent so much time with those objects that, like Claudia, I did own them in a way. I sat in front of paintings and tapestries and Japanese woodcuts for hours, desperately hoping to find enough to say about each object to fill a ten-page paper.

I am not a spiritual person. Maybe I'm the antithesis of spiritual - I'm a physical person. I believe in the transformative power of knowledge, and I believe that firsthand observation is the best way to gain that knowledge.

When you can take time to absorb the textures and smells of an object, you can absorb its language, feel the actions that made it, and figure out which questions to ask. You can meet its maker.

Me, I know the political climate that Jacques Louis David painted in - I know why there are laurel leaves on Psyche's bed. I know what the missing letters in the Byzantine tapestry were, and I know what happened when the weaver was running out of room on the right side.

Don't get me wrong - it's not the trivia itself that I groove on. What I like is the way you can decode details of the artist's world backwards from the details of the work.

When I finally had a chance to decide what to do with my life, I chose to live in museums, like Claudia. That book showed me a place filled with intrigue and stories, a place where you could figure out things that nobody else knew.

I have spent a lot of time in Claudia's museum, both as a student and working there, and she was right -- knowing that place feels like having a big cool famous friend. It was a privilege every single time I went into the workrooms of any museum I worked in, from Birmingham to Brooklyn to Baltimore.

Maybe if I'd read a different book, a good book about a scientist kid, for example, I might have been a botanist (except I still would have flunked Calculus). But I read From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, and it changed my life.

Labels: age: Grade3 and up, fiction, mystery