Year: 2011

Review: Brownie & Pearl Take a Dip by Cynthia Rylant

| Tasha

browniepearl

Brownie & Pearl Take a Dip by Cynthia Rylant, illustrated by Brian Biggs

It’s a very hot day.  After sitting in front of the fan with lemonade, Brownie and Pearl decide to head for the pool.  Time for swimsuits, a beach ball and sunglasses.  They head to their small pool that is just the right size for both of them.  It feels so nice, but then Pearl leans in a little too close and gets a lot wetter than she wanted to.  In the end, it still feels nice to have a dip, but also nice to spend time drying out in the sun.

Rylant has created a very cheery series for toddlers.  Brownie and her pet cat Pearl have small adventures that very young children will relate to and understand.  Rylant has an ear for simplicity in her writing, creating a book that is simple but tells a full story.

Biggs’ illustrations are equally warm and friendly.  They are large, bright and warm.  The colors are rich and vibrant, creating a book that would work well for a group of toddlers as well as one-on-one.

A great pick for a hot summer day, this book will be enjoyed by children ages 2-4.

Reviewed from copy received from Beach Lane Books.

Also reviewed by

Board Book Reviews

| Tasha

i feel happy yoon little book

I Feel Happy by Salina Yoon

Explore emotions in this board book.  The book comes with one puzzle piece that has a rotating wheel.  The piece is the face of the child and children can rotate the mouth so that the face shows different reactions.  Turn pages in the book, and different situations are explained.  The child can then show the emotion that they would feel in that situation.  The puzzle piece is attached to the book with yellow ribbon.  It’s a novelty book that would work well in public libraries thanks to the durability of the piece and the pages.

It’s a Little Book by Lane Smith

A version of It’s a Book that is perfect for the toddler set.  Here you have the donkey and gorilla in diapers, exploring what a book is.  Is it for chewing?  Is it for wearing?  Is it for flying?  Each time the donkey comes up with an idea, the gorilla gives it a “no.”  Until the end, “It’s a book, silly.”  None of the controversy of the first book but all of the charm.  And yes, it did take a lot of effort to call the character “donkey” here.

Review: The One and Only Stuey Lewis by Jane Schoenberg

| Tasha

one only stuey lewis

The One and Only Stuey Lewis by Jane Schoenberg, illustrated by Cambria Evans

This series of stories are about Stuey’s time in second grade.  Stuey is not a confident kid, often choosing to just not even try before has a chance to fail.  When he starts second grade, Stuey pretends to be sick because he can’t read as well as he thinks he should be able to.  But Stuey is also creative.  When his mother tells him he can only trick-or-treat on their block, he comes up with a cunning plan to get plenty of candy.  But things do go wrong, like when he doesn’t get put on the same soccer team as his  best friend and instead is put on a team with a girl in his class who drives him crazy.  But in the end, it all works out and second grade becomes something that Stuey never wants to end.  After all, who knows what will happen in third grade?!

Schoenberg has written this book at just the right level for young readers.  She has infused the story with humor, making the book very appealing to children.  It also helps that the chapters read almost as separate stories about Stuey, so it can be tackled one chapter at a time.  She also clearly sets the premise for each chapter, creating tension and driving new readers to figure out how the story ends.

Stuey is a very likeable character, filled with doubts and concerns just like any real kid.  He is also inventive, which gets him both in and out of scrapes.  Stuey shows steady growth through the stories and readers will not be surprised to find that he loves second grade by the end, even though the short book started with him dreading it.

Evans’ illustrations are fun-filled and friendly.  The black-and-white images do a lot to break up the text into more readable pieces. 

A great pick for readers who are leaving the beginning readers and ready to tackle chapter books.  Appropriate for ages 5-7.

Reviewed from copy received from Farrar Straus Giroux.

Also reviewed by:

Hunger Games Sequel Scheduled

| Tasha

With all of the hype and interest in The Hunger Games film, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that Lionsgate has already scheduled the release of the sequel. 

Catching Fire, the movie, is scheduled to be released on November 22, 2013.  Put it on your calendar! Winking smile

Via /Film

Board Book Reviews

| Tasha

American Modern Books shared two new board books that are coming out in September.  Both have a modern art vibe that is captivating:

colors harper counting in the garden

Colors by Charley Harper

This is the third board book by Harper and follows his alphabet and counting books.  Here the colors correspond to animals and natural colors in the illustrations.  There are red birds, blue water, orange leaves, and a yellow moon.  There are also some more man-made items in the book like fire hydrants, cars and hats.  The design here is very successful with the small size of the board book format creating a very nice frame around the illustrations.  There is also a lot of variety in the images, though all are thoroughly modern.

Counting in the Garden by Emily Hruby, illustrated by Patrick Hruby

This counting book counts visually as well as in the text of the book.  Steadily count from 1 to 12 with items from the garden.  After each new number is counted, readers turn the page to see that item added to the garden.  What starts as a green and brown, but fairly open and plain field becomes robust and crowded with plants.  The illustrations are strong with plenty of color and lots of energy.  They have modern lines and are very clean and clear.

These two books are sure to please parents looking for books that they too will enjoy reading again and again. 

Reviewed from copies received from AMMO.

Book Review: The Babysitter Murders by Janet Ruth Young

| Tasha

babysitter murders

The Babysitter Murders by Janet Ruth Young

Dani seems to have a normal life on the outside, but she starts to have violent and invasive thoughts that she can’t control.  She has visions of doing inappropriate things or saying rude things about people she loves.  When she starts to think about murdering the little boy, Alex, she babysits for, she knows she has a problem.  When the thoughts start, she hides the large sharp knives in the garage and keeps checking on Alex to make sure she hasn’t hurt him.  Though she tries to tell her mother and her best friend, they don’t understand what she is trying to express.  Finally, in desperation, she decides to stop babysitting altogether, but while doing so admits to Alex’s mother what she has been thinking.  Soon the Dani is at the center of a media frenzy about a killer babysitter and is the target of an extremist group.  Everyone wants justice, but what is justice for something that never happened except in her mind?

This book builds slowly allowing readers time to understand Dani’s situation and relationships.  The book really picks up in the middle and ending, with even the length of the chapters shortening.  It reads at a very fast pace towards the end, making for a satisfying and riveting read. 

Dani is a very successful character.  A girl who is so sweet and kind, so afraid of disappointing others.  She is also an athlete, a musician, and on the way to having a boyfriend.  It is this normalcy that makes her mental illness work so well in the book.  This is not a girl who is a loner, but one with a healthy family life and social life.  Young has excelled at creating a girl who is normal but abnormal at the same time.

Young also works to emphasize the point that mental illness is not accepted by our society, though it should be.  The book is also about the speed of media frenzy, the overreaction of a community, and the targeting of a teen who has done nothing wrong.   It is about the fear of mental illness and the media’s disdain for it and yet their thirst for a big juicy story.

An outstanding look at mental illness in a teen, this book asks big questions many of which remain only to be answered by the reader.  Appropriate for ages 14-16.

Reviewed from copy received from Atheneum Books for Young Readers.

Also reviewed by

William Sleator Dies

| Tasha

School Library Journal has the news of William Sleator’s death in Thailand at age 66.  He was the prolific author of over 30 books for all ages. 

I have two favorite Sleator books.  As different as can be.

  

Interstellar Pig is one of those books that you can hand to reluctant readers who enjoy science fiction.  It also book talks beautifully thanks to its great premise of a board game that is actually a battle for the survival of the human race. 

Oddballs is a short story collection.  But what stories!  Weird, funny and completely great.

Tuxedo Gin–The Movie

| Tasha

Disney will be adapting the Japanese manga Tuxedo Gin into a film called Tux.  Robert Ben Garant, co-writer of Night at the Museum, will be writing the script.  Garant will also be executive producing along with Isamu Kamei.

One wonders what Disney will do with what is said to be a gritty storyline.  We know they can handle the penguin element, but how much Disney-fication will have to occur to make the story work for them. 

Has anyone read the original graphic novel series of Tuxedo Gin? 

Via Deadline

I Am Eight!

| Tasha

368548511_fdd413a7f4

It’s the 8th anniversary of this blog!

This year its name changed from Kids Lit to Waking Brain Cells, as I changed jobs.  Happily, I am able to continue blogging at my new job as well, even though I’ve left children’s work behind years ago.  But I never stopped reading children’s books or supporting children’s programs. 

I am also very happy to have readers like you, who continue to read my reviews and other content year after year (after year)…   Thank you for your comments, your support, for being a community of readers that I love being a part of.  You all make it a joy to blog, read and share. 

So thank you!  New readers and vintage readers (tried to avoid that “old” word) you make my day over and over again throughout the year.

Photo from http://www.flickr.com/photos/t3mujin/368548511/