Day: July 27, 2010

Summer Birds

| Tasha

Summer Birds: the Butterflies of Maria Merian by Margarita Engle, illustrated by Julie Paschkis

Maria, a young girl living in Germany during the Middle Ages, disproves the ancient belief that butterflies, frogs and other small creatures spontaneously generate from mud.  Maria instead observes their transformations as they change from egg to caterpillar and finally to moth or butterfly.  She must study them in secret because others would accuse her of witchcraft for dealing with these insects that they believe are evil.  She paints what she sees, documenting the changes and her observations of their lives.  Readers will enjoy this marriage of science and art in a picture book format.

Maria can serve as an inspiration for us all.  She took a long-standing theory and through her own powers of observation and judgment disproved it.  Following her own interests of science and art, Maria was an explorer, a scientist and a discoverer.  The author’s note at the end of the book tells readers more of Maria’s story, including what she went on to do as an adult.  Charmingly, the picture book remains simple and straight forward, never getting bogged down in the mud.

Paschkis’ art has a folk-art feel that ties it naturally to the time period of the story.  Her use of strong, simple lines echoes the simple strength of the writing as well.  As a reader, I had expected to see more of Engle’s poetry in evidence here in her first picture book.  It was a pleasure to see that she excels at simple storytelling just as much as she does at imagery and poetry.

A powerful combination of art and science, just like Maria, this book is appropriate for ages 5-9.

Reviewed from copy received from Henry Holt.

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Griff Carver, Hallway Patrol

| Tasha

Griff Carver, Hallway Patrol by Jim Krieg

Griff Carver is a legend in school law enforcement, but he was expelled from his old school for going too far in the name of justice.  Now he’s at Rampart Middle School, a school that is perfect on the surface, but seething with crime underneath.  Griff is not a rookie.  He can sense littering out of the corner of his eye, nabbing the principal of the school on his first day on patrol.  Griff finds himself partnered with Tommy, a Camp Scout, who is unable to see past the thin veneer of respectability at his school.  Instead, Tommy accuses Griff of being the bad guy, resulting him getting him kicked off of Patrol Squad.  That won’t be enough to get Griff to stop seeking out the real bad guy who is running a fake hallpass scheme.

Tongue-in-cheek and riotously funny, this book takes the crime genre and sets it in middle school.  Fans of crime fiction and crime programs will love seeing some of the favorite tropes of the genre played with.  The lingo Griff uses is dead on, adding to the humor of the book.  The pairing of the veteran Griff with the naive Tommy is also directly out of the genre.  Adding to the feel is the use of recorded statements and Patrol Squad reports to form the storyline. 

The setting here is humorously drawn as well.  The middle school is depicted not in lengthy descriptions but through the eyes of hall patrol.  I especially enjoyed No Man’s Land, the area on the school grounds where the erasers are cleaned, forming a permanent fog of dust.  What could be more perfect for the genre than a meeting in the fog?

A great summer read, this book will have middle school readers laughing out loud, engaged with both the humor and the action itself.  Appropriate for ages 10-13.

Reviewed from copy received from Razor Bill.