Month: October 2010

Zen Ghosts

| Tasha

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Zen Ghosts by Jon J. Muth

The wonderful Stillwater the panda returns for a third time with another picture book filled with Zen.  In this book, Stillwater spends time with the children as they prepare to go trick-or-treating.  Then after they are finished, he brings them to a place where a panda tells them the story of Senjo.  In the story, Senjo is in love with her best friend from childhood.  But when her father gets ills, she is forced to marry a wealthy man.  Ochu, the man she loves, leaves the village because he cannot bear to see her marry someone else.  But as he is leaving, he sees Senjo on the bank and they run off together.  Years later, Senjo feels she must try to reunite with her father.  When they return to the village, Ochu speaks to her father and then discovers that Senjo has been ill in bed since the night Ochu left years ago.  The two Senjos meet and merge together into one.  So the question asked is which Senjo is the true one?  It is a marvelous Koan that is not meant to be solved.  Modern children may be frustrated by this type of story, but all the more reason for them to hear it.

Muth takes the setting of Halloween, combines it with a ghost story of sorts, and turns the holiday into something new.  The children in the story are always talking about their candy and their costumes.  Just as in the other Zen books by Muth, the children remain children completely.  They ponder new ideas and discover new ways of thinking, but they are children still.  Muth’s water colors are rich and autumnal here until the story within the story begins and the colors fade to whites and grays.  Muth offers several great double-page spreads that really capture autumn and Halloween.

This is a very different Halloween story, but one that really has a place in every library.  It is beautifully written, illustrated with elegance and offers a new perspective for readers.  What more could one want?  Appropriate for ages 5-9.

Reviewed from copy received from Scholastic.

Alpha Oops! H Is for Halloween

| Tasha

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Alpha Oops! H Is for Halloween by Alethea Kontis, illustrated by Bob Kolar

The mixed up alphabet antics continue in this second Alpha Oops book.  A isn’t ready to go on, but H has to start a Halloween book anyway.  H starts with Halloween, and the other letters join in for a Halloween-themed alphabet that is not in any particular order.  As the letters reveal themselves, poor B keeps on trying to get his word in but is upstaged each time.  He tries to be a buccaneer, but P is wearing the same costume for pirate.  X has trouble finding the perfect word too, but S is there with a great idea.  Keep an eye on the bottom of the page as the alphabet fills in with pumpkins bearing the letters that are in alphabetical order.  You will just have to wait until the end of the book to find out what B has in store for you!

This book is filled with laughs thanks to the underlying story of the letters putting on a show.  The asides from the different letters are very funny, offering a deeper story to this book than just the alphabet and letters. It turns this book into one that children too old for regular alphabet books will really enjoy. 

Kolar’s illustrations are filled with great deep colors from an eerie yellowy green to vibrant reds to glowing orange.  The book fairly pops with color and action.  Make sure to take the time to look at the illustrations because he has filled them with critters, candy and plenty of additional laughs. 

A bright, funny alphabet book that is a perfect Halloween treat.  No trick.  Appropriate for ages 3-6.

Reviewed from library copy.

The Halloween Kid

| Tasha

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The Halloween Kid by Rhode Montijo

In a unique mix of wild west action and Halloween treats, this book tells the tall tale of the Halloween Kid.  The Halloween Kid keeps Halloween safe for all children going trick-or-treating.  Riding his trusty steed, he is able to truss up toilet paper mummies, wrestle vampires, tickle ghosts into submission.  He was so good at it that Halloween was quiet for some time.  But then the Goodie Goblins came to town and folks started talking about canceling Halloween entirely.  The Halloween Kid hadn’t had to fight off baddies for a long time, so he was rusty.  Unfortunately, that made him the target of an ambush.  Now who can save The Halloween Kid?

Montijo has written a book in a slow drawl that is filled with plenty of action and lots of Halloween creatures.  While the Halloween Kid is the powerful hero of the story, so are the children in the book.  This is a book all about kid power and courage.  The illustrations are done in a limited autumnal palette of oranges, yellows and black.  They have a real cartoon appeal to them.  Interestingly, they have been marked up a little as if printed on newsprint that has transferred to other pages.  It makes for a book that feels timeless and well loved. 

A Halloween story perfect for preschool audiences who would like a few monsters but almost no scares.  Appropriate for ages 4-6.

Reviewed from copy received from Simon & Schuster.

Mary’s Penny: A Feminist Folk Tale

| Tasha

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Mary’s Penny by Tanya Landman, illustrated by Richard Holland

A feminist retelling of a classic folk tale, this book combines a stylish modern feel with the classic feel and tone of a folk tale.  A farmer needs to decide which of his children he will leave his farm to.  Will it be the brawny Franz or the beefy Hans?  He doesn’t even consider his daughter Mary because she is a girl, though Mary does have something her brothers lack: brains.  The farmer gives each of his sons a single penny.  Their challenge is to purchase something with their one penny that will fill the entire house.  Franz heads to the market and purchases lots and lots of straw, but he cannot manage to fill the entire house.  Hans heads to the market and purchases lots and lots of feathers.  Though he fills the house further than his brother, he too fails.  Now the farmer is in despair until Mary asks to try.  And you will just have to read the book to find out how Mary spends her penny and fills the entire house.

Landman’s text here sets just the right tone.  She plays with the repetition and rhythm of the traditional folk tale, yet injects a modern sensibility about the role of women in society.  Thanks to the traditional features of the book, it is a pleasure to read aloud.  Holland too plays with the traditional and modern.  In his case, he uses sleek modern lines and modern illustration techniques yet still manages to have something vintage in them.  The illustrations have lots of white space and textures and patterns that make them very interesting and unique.  They also have a flatness that hearkens back to traditional folk art. 

A skillful combining of the traditional and the modern, this book should not languish on your folk tale shelves.  Get it into the hands of parents and teachers.  It would also make a great choice when librarians visit elementary classrooms, because its modern edge will draw slightly older children into the story.  Appropriate for ages 4-8.

Reviewed from library copy.

Bink & Gollie: By Golly What a Charmer!

| Tasha

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Bink & Gollie by Kate DiCamillo an Alison McGhee, illustrated by Tony Fucile

Bink and Gollie are two girls who are friends but could not be more different.  They live together yet apart, Bink in a cottage below the tree where Gollie’s ultra-modern tree house perches.  The two of them use their roller skates to get around town, but beyond that they agree on very little.  Everything from striped colorful socks to goldfish friends to imaginary mountain treks come between them.  In the end though, their friendship remains strong, bolstered by pancakes shared together.  The book is broken into three chapters each a vignette that is funny, charming and delightful. The book is written for beginning readers who will discover two amazing girls that they will long to share a stack of pancakes with too.

The authors have created two characters who are very different yet read as real people with their own quirks and interests.  Bink is younger, wilder and delightfully mussed.  Gollie is steady, level headed and yet has her own moments of imagination.  The authors did not feel constrained by the vocabulary of most beginning readers, instead they introduce young readers to longer words, taking time to put them in context and even define them.  This is a book that will have new readers stretching at just the right pace.

Fucile’s illustrations help bring the differences and friendship of the girls to life.  From the firecracker hair of Bink to the lean lines of Golllie.  The sleek nature of Gollie’s tree house to Bink’s small homey cottage.  Each detail is perfect to underline their differences and their connection to one another.

I look forward to seeing the next Bink & Gollie book.  I can’t wait to see where this friendship heads next.  Appropriate for ages 6-8.

Reviewed from library copy.

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Fatty Legs

| Tasha

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Fatty Legs: a True Story by Christy Jordan-Fenton & Margaret Pokiak-Fenton, illustrations by Liz Amini-Holmes

This is the story of an Inuit girl and her experiences in a residential school.  Margaret Pokiak decides at age 8 that she must learn to read.  And the only way that she will be able to learn to read is to attend the residential school that is many miles away from her home village in the arctic.  Her father and older sister, who have both attended the school, try to convince her to stay at home and learn the native way instead, but she insists.  At the school, she encounters the Raven, a nun who immediately takes a dislike to Margaret and her strong will and courage.  She begins to intimidate Margaret, putting her in red stockings unlike the rest of the girls and meting out harsher punishments to her.  But through it all, Margaret remains strong.  A sympathetic nun sticks up for her and eventually Margaret finds her way back to her family.

The book softens the story to a level that children will be able to handle, focusing more on the emotional and mental hardship than physical abuse.  The humiliation of Margaret by the Raven will resonate with children as will the harsh conditions and poor food.  Married to these in the book is the loss of culture and language, which is as horrible as the treatment. 

Margaret is an amazing girl with her self-possession, her courage and her faithfulness to herself and her culture.  She is brave beyond belief as she enters a foreign culture and comes away having shown them what being human is all about.  The book is simply written, allowing the story to carry through.  The illustrations are strong, depicting the harsher times at the school.  Historical photographs are worked into the book, tying it firmly to history and the true story it is based on.

This book is definitely worth having in a public library.  It offers a clear view of residential schools nicely paired with a young girl’s naive desire for education.  Large font, plenty of interspersed images, and a short length will have reluctant readers interested as well.  Appropriate for ages 8-11.

Reviewed from copy received from Annick Press.

The Winds of Heaven

| Tasha

The Winds of Heaven by Judith Clarke

An amazing book that takes a deep look at love, depression, sisterhood, and life.  Clementine and Fan were opposites in many ways, but that just drew them closer.  They were more sisters than cousins, pulled together over the summer they spent at Fan’s house in Lake Conapaira.  Clementine was dull and regular next to the wild and amazing Fan.  But Fan’s life was not good, living alone with her abusive mother now that both her father and older sister had left.  Fan longed to head to the blue hills that she could see from her room, knew that there was something special out there waiting for her.  As time went on, both young women faced decisions that would change their lives, fears that would overwhelm them, and responsibilities that weighed upon them.  This is a book about the two very different friends, who both relied on each other despite their distance from  one another and the small choices that forced them even further apart.

Clarke’s writing is incandescent in this novel.  My book bristles with bookmarks, marking passages where the writing is astounding and staggeringly lovely.  Here is one of my favorites from early in the book where Clementine is describing how different Lake Conapaira is from her home:

You could even smell the difference: a mixture of sun and dust, wild honey and the smoky tang from the old kerosene fridge on the back veranda.  And you could smell feelings, too – Clementine was sure of it: you could smell anger and hatred and disappointment and jagged little fears.  The anger smelled like iron and the disappointment smelled like mud.

Clarke moves from dense writing like this that truly brings a reader into the scene and makes it real to lighter moments, dwelling on certain thoughts for awhile.  And beautifully, those are the moments that the reader carries with them, importantly through the book, the moments that must be remembered at the end.

This is an Australian novel that is steeped in Australia.  Readers will feel the red dirt in the pages, thanks to the vivid descriptions that Clarke offers us.  The sense of place is not only strong, it is inherent to the story.  Clarke set this book in modern time but the bulk of the story takes place in the 1950s and 1960s as Clementine and Fan grow up.  The time is important here too, reflected in the story.

The two characters, Fan and Clementine, are drawn with great care.  Readers learn about how they think, how they approach the world, and the way the world has shaped them in turn.  Though both girls are very different, they struggle with similar things.  They both have moments of weakness and shame, paired with moments of strength and empowerment.  They both see the other person as the strong one, the intelligent one, the beauty.  It is what brings them together and also what drives them apart.

This is a book about our journey through life and the choices we make.  It is a powerful book, one where even though the ending does not surprise is shockingly brutal at times.  Yet with the brutality comes a beauty as well.  Highly recommended, this is a book appropriate for good readers who will enjoy the prose.  Appropriate for ages 15-17.  Make sure you have some tissues around when reading the end.

Reviewed from copy received from Henry Holt.

Read to Tiger

| Tasha

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Read to Tiger by S. J. Fore, illustrated by R. W. Alley

Turn on the light, curl up on the couch, open your book, you are ready to read.  But what’s that noise?!  A tiger is behind the couch chomping on gum!  This little boy has one naughty tiger to deal with just as he is settling in for a great read.  After the tiger stops chewing him gum loudly, the tiger growls pretending to be a bear.  Then the tiger starts practicing his karate, with great yells and high kicks.  The tiger then choo-choos past on a train.  And finally picks up the couch itself to look for his whistle.  Finally, the little boy has had enough but just then, the tiger gets a glimpse of the book the boy has been trying to read and its picture of a tiger.  Which may finally be what it takes to keep tiger quiet: a great story shared with a friend.

The humor of this book is evident from the very first encounter with the tiger.  Wonderfully, the zaniness increases as the story goes on, and children are definitely going to be laughing out loud by the time Karate Tiger leaps onto the page.  Fore has tapped into the glee that readers feel when they see the humor in a situation before the narrator in the book does.  They will delight in it.  Fore also has a wonderful pacing to the book with the tiger doing something disruptive, the boy correcting him, and then settling again to read his book, only to have the tiger do something even more outrageous.

Alley’s illustrations add to the action and wild abandon of the book.  Alley’s use of subtle colors next to bright allows readers to feel the snuggly reading time and then to be jolted in turn by tiger and his red and yellow coat in full action.  So much of the humor is visual here, and very successfully so.

If you are looking for a book about the pleasures of reading that is funny and filled with plenty of action, this is it.  Even better, it is the sort of book that itself proves exactly why reading is fun.  Appropriate for ages 4-6.

Reviewed from copy received from Viking.

Broom, Zoom!

| Tasha

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Broom, Zoom! by Caron Lee Cohen, illustrated by Sergio Ruzzier

What is to be done when Little Witch and Little Monster both need to use one broom at the same time?  Little Witch notices the full moon and heads inside for the broom.  Little Monster needs to use it right then.  Little Witch still wants the broom, but when Little Monster shows her the mess, she lets him use it first.  She even helps him clean things up.  Now it’s Little Witch’s turn to use the broom to fly in the sky.  She invites Little Monster to fly with her, though he’s not really sure he wants to fly at all.

Told in very brief text that is entirely conversation, this book is a winner for young children. Spare and minimal, the text still manages to tell a clear story about sharing and taking turns.  Yet it never becomes didactic at all.  Ruzzier’s illustrations are bright, clear and vibrantly colored.  There is no white space here, just a saturated palette that makes for a compelling visual.

Highly recommended, this is a very sweet Halloween story that is sure to appeal to toddlers who are looking for monsters and witches with no scare.  Appropriate for ages 2-4.

Reviewed from book received from Simon & Schuster.