Year: 2011

The Tree House: Wordless and Wonderful

| Tasha

treehouse

The Tree House by Marije Tolman and Ronald Tolman

This is a wordless picture book by a father/daughter team who have created a magical immersive experience.  A polar bear swims towards a tree house that stands alone in the water.  Later, a brown bear arrives in a boat.  The two bears stay together in the tree house, reading books as the sea below turns pink with a flock of flamingos.  As the flamingos pass, more animals arrive, including a rhino who bashes the trunk of the tree, two pandas, some owls, a hippo, and a peacock.  Another bear arrives via balloon and takes the peacock away.  The other animals head off, leaving the two original bears together in the tree house.

My synopsis doesn’t capture the beauty of this picture book at all, as is often the case with wordless picture books, the story is so much more about the pictures than anything that can be summarized in words.  The illustrations are simple and beautiful.  The tree house itself is unchanging, printed in exactly the same way from page to page.  It offers a consistency while the world changes around it.  The level of the water rises and falls, the sky changes colors, the seasons move.  The tree house stands, staying constant through it all, even as it supports so many animals.

There is a lovely gentle mood throughout the book.  A sense of playfulness and unexpectedness fills the story as well.  The surprise of the suddenly pink page when the flamingos arrive is visually arresting and very effective.  The colors are deep, from a blue that is almost black and perfect captures late evening to a canary yellow that sings. 

This is a book of wonder, a beautiful place to spend some moments with someone in a tree house out in the water.  Appropriate for ages 3-5.

Reviewed from copy received from Lemniscaat.

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Mirror: A Reflection of All of Us

| Tasha

mirror

Mirror by Jeannie Baker

This book tells two stories at the same time from two distinctly different cultures.  Each story focuses on a family and a day in their lives.   One story is set in Sydney, Australia where a boy lives with his family and baby sibling.  They drive a minivan to the hardware store to get more materials to renovate their home.  The other story features a family in Morocco.  Here too a boy lives with his family and his little sibling.  They travel to the market by donkey to sell a rug, some sheep and some chickens.  That same rug is the one picked out by the Australian family at a rug store to have in their home.  The entire book is a celebration of the interconnected nature of our lives no matter what nation we live in.

The book can be read in several ways, either both stories at the same time, or each one completely separately.  It opens with the Australian story with an English introduction on the left which is read from left to right.   The Moroccan story is on the left with an introduction in Arabic.  The entire Moroccan section is read right to left just like Arabic.  Each story has its own separate pages bound together with a shared spine and cover, which I see as very symbolic of the entire book concept.

After the introductions, the bulk of the book is wordless.  Through Baker’s incredibly delicate and detailed collage illustrations, readers will discover the universal nature of the two cultures and also their differences.  Baker shows different foods, different pets, different transportation, different lands but the stories are so similar, the families so alike, that the focus is never on the differences but on the similarities.

This is a masterpiece of a picture book.  While not appropriate for a story time, it is a book that should be shared for its celebration of diversity, multiculturalism, and humanity.

Reviewed from library copy.

To get a better sense of the structure of the book, take a look at the video below:

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Messing with Classics

| Tasha

Last week, I posted about an upcoming movie version of Peter Pan with the working title of Peter Pan Begins.  My hopes were not high for the film, given the disappointments of previous Peter Pan films.  I mean, you know that it’s bad when it’s the Disney version that was the best version done yet.

I thought my expectations could not be lowered, but I should not have feared.  They were lowered.  Considerably.

According to Cinematical, the film being pitched as Peter Pan Begins rethinks the relationship between Peter and Captain Hook.  They are writing Peter Pan and Captain Hook as BROTHERS. 

Ugh.  Ick.  Sigh.

Pettyfer as Peeta?

| Tasha

Looks like Pettyfer may be building on his teen novel heart-throb career.  He’s already appeared in both Beastly and I Am Number Four.  Now he is under consideration for Peeta in The Hunger Games.

So what do you think?  Is he Peeta to you?

Thanks to /Film for the information.

Recovery Road: Stunning Honesty

| Tasha

recoveryroad

Recovery Road by Blake Nelson

Madeline is in rehab at Spring Meadows.  She has been moved to the halfway house where they are allowed to go to a movie once a week.  What starts as a protest and a joke, becomes a habit for Madeline even after her only friend at rehab leaves.  She meets Stewart there, a gorgeous boy who is also at the halfway homes.  The two of them connect immediately and even though there are strict rules about associating with the opposite sex, they manage to start a relationship.  Madeline leaves rehab to continue high school, leaving Stewart to finish his time in rehab.  Now the question is whether their relationship live without the intensity of rehab and in the cold light of real life.

Nelson has captured the intriguing mix of boredom and intensity of rehab.  He explores addiction and recovery with an unflinching honesty that forces readers to see the reality of the situation.  Through his two main characters of Madeline and Stewart, readers can see the different paths that recovery can take. 

I don’t want to make this seem like a clinical look at recovery.  Rather, it is filled with emotions and connections and failures and humanity.  It is that humanity that makes the truth so brutal at times.  Madeline is a great protagonist: a person who has made many mistakes but is striving to fix their impact on her future.

One quibble I have about the book is the sudden change of Madeline’s opinion about going to college after high school.  While it is a choice that makes perfect sense, her rapid change of a strong opinion happened a bit too quickly for me.  I found myself thinking about how it would have made much more sense delayed by a chapter or two as Madeline continued to grow and learn.

This is a superior book about addiction and recovery that is honest and human.  Appropriate for ages 14-18.

Reviewed from ARC received from Scholastic.

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Lemonade and Other Poems Squeezed from a Single Word

| Tasha

lemonade

Lemonade and Other Poems Squeezed from a Single Word by Bob Raczka, illustrated by Nancy Doniger

Poetry combines with puzzles and playfulness in this book.  Raczka takes the letters from one word and creates a poem that relates to that word.  Interestingly, the letters are always shown in the order that they appear in the original word, which makes for a fun time unraveling the words in the poem.  If you don’t want to puzzle or wonder if you got the poem right, you can always turn the page and see it written in a more traditional format.

Doniger’s illustrations are simple, modern and offer just the right amount of visual interest without detracting at all from the poems themselves.  The color palette is limited to reds, blacks and grays that make for subtle and friendly support for the text.

Highly recommended, this book will encourage children to try this format for themselves and look at words in a playful way.  Appropriate for ages 8-12.

Reviewed from copy received from Roaring Brook Press.

Harry Potter in the News

| Tasha

Harry Potter frenzy is picking up with the anticipation of the final film.  Here are a couple of interesting recent news items:

Daniel Radcliffe will be appearing on Broadway in How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying.  Unfortunately, it seems Radcliffe has double-booked himself, since that’s the same time that he should be doing publicity for the final Harry Potter movie!

What is a studio to do if their star can’t make the PR tour?  Well, if you are Warner you rent the entire Hirschfiend Theater for five nights to keep the star’s schedule clear for your PR tour.  How much?  $500,000.

In other news for Harry Potter fans, you can now attend the Grey School of Wizardry!  A real world version of Hogwarts for young and old wizards alike.  Tuition is a very reasonable $30 per year though you do pay a bit more as you advance through the courses.  I wonder if a diploma would get me in shorter lines at Universal’s Harry Potter rides? 

Peter Pan–The Movie

| Tasha

Moviefone has the news that a new Peter Pan movie may be in the works.  The movie will be an “origin story” that is tentatively called Peter Pan Begins.  So my guess is that it is the story of how Peter Pan himself became a Lost Boy.

Now if it can just be better than the last few Peter Pan movies.  Anyone want to take bets on that?

Tall Story: A Magical Giant of a Book

| Tasha

tallstory

Tall Story by Candy Gourlay

Andi is a very petite 13 year old and has just found out that she won’t be able to play point guard on her school basketball team, because her family is moving.  The move from their small apartment to a larger home will hopefully allow her older brother, Bernardo, to join their family at last.   But there is no basketball team for girls at Andi’s new school and when her brother does arrive, he is a giant!  Bernado feels very guilty leaving the Philippines and his small village behind.  Over the years, he has become an almost folk hero for his village, where he is credited with stopping the daily earthquakes.  Now he and Andi have to figure out how to be siblings to one another, what family means, and how basketball plays into it all.  This is a funny, touching and heartwarming story that has a great depth to it as well.

The novel is written from both Bernardo’s and Andi’s points of view, allowing readers to relate to both protagonists.  This also underscores their different attitudes about family and their relationship with one another.  The book weaves magic into a realistic story in a way that will have readers convinced that there is magic at work, yet able to also think it may simply be coincidence.  It is very subtly crafted.

This book deals with deep subjects of culture, family and belonging.  At the same time, it remains upbeat and celebratory of our diversity.  This is a book that would work well as a classroom discussion thanks to its natural depth and its positive attitudes.  There is plenty here to discuss that is timely and relevant to any community.

Highly recommended, this is a book that will put a smile on your face and warm your heart.  Appropriate for ages 10-13.

Reviewed from copy received from Random House.

You can check out the book trailer below:

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