Month: September 2012

Review: Squeak, Rumble, Whomp! Whomp! Whomp! by Wynton Marsalis

| Tasha

squeak rumble whomp

Squeak, Rumble, Whomp! Whomp! Whomp! by Wynton Marsalis, illustrated by Paul Rogers

Released October 9, 2012.

This very jazzy picture book will have your toes tapping along in no time.  It’s the story of a young boy who sees the noise, music and rhythm in everything around him.  From the squeak of the back door to the rumble of trucks on the highway, it all makes the music that surrounds him.  Throughout the book, real musical instruments are also woven into the loose storyline.  There are bass drums, his sister’s saxophone, violins, a trombone, tubas, and even a full band or two.  Coming from Marsalis, readers will not be surprised that the final instrument in the book is a trumpet, right before all of the noises and music come together at the end. 

So many musical books don’t quite work right, but this one really grooves.  The rhythms of the writing are catchy and great fun.  Incorporating the sounds of the world into the musical beat adds to the fun, showing rather than telling children that music can be found everywhere around them.  The writing is simple and effective, and I promise that your head will bob along to this song.

Rogers’ art is completely joyful.  He has incorporated the various noises into his illustrations, popping the lettering in orange color and wild large fonts.  Everyone in the book seems to be moving to the beat, inviting you to join the dance.

This is a dynamite book about music and sound that will have everyone moving along to the beat.  Appropriate for ages 3-5.

Reviewed from ARC received from Candlewick Press.

Roald Dahl Funny Prize – 2012 Shortlist

| Tasha

The 2012 Shorlist for the Roald Dahl Funny Prize has been announced.  There are two age categories with six books in each vying for the final prize of being the funniest British books of the year.

Here is the shortlist:

AGES 6 & UNDER

  

The Baby That Roared by Simon Puttock, illustrated by Nadia Shireen

My Big Shouting Day by Rebecca Patterson (US Title is My No No No Day)

Oh No, George by Chris Haughton

  

The Pirates Next Door by Jonny Duddle

Stuck by Oliver Jeffers

The Worst Princess by Anna Kemp, illustrated by Sara Ogilvie

 

AGES 7-14

  

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Flies Again by Frank Cottrell Boyce, illustrated by Joe Berger

Dark Lord: The Teenage Years by Jamie Thomson, illustrated by Freya Hartas

The Dragonsitter by Josh Lacey, illustrated by Garry Parsons

  

Gangsta Granny by David Walliams, illustrated by Tony Ross

Goblins by Philip Reeve

Socks Are Not Enough by Mark Lowery

Review: Just Say Boo! by Susan Hood

| Tasha

just say boo

Just Say Boo! by Susan Hood, illustrated by Jed Henry

If you are going to get just one Halloween book this season, this is the one!  Head out trick-or-treating with three siblings dressed up as a witch, a bat and a shark.  The neighborhood is filled with others out on Halloween, but there are still moments when you can be scared.  So what happens when you get a wobble in your knees from ghosts in the trees?  Or a wolf howls nearby?  Or the wind whips and whines through the trees?  You say BOO! 

Told in a rollicking rhyme, this book begs for audience participation.  The book follows a rhythm and pattern nicely, giving listeners the perfect cue to shout BOO! along with the story.  Hood nicely changes it up towards the end, reminding children to thank people for candy with a playful nod. 

Henry’s illustrations have a wonderful playfulness to them but also turn to the dark and shivery nicely too.  Once out on the streets, the colors turn to pure Halloween with oranges, purples and blacks adding to the atmosphere.  Back inside, there is lots of yellow, eliminating all of the creepy shadows nicely.

A perfect book for Halloween where you want audience participation and not to scare anyone.  This book is much more about the small shivers of Halloween than the big frights.  Appropriate for ages 3-6.

Reviewed from copy received from HarperCollins.

Parents and E-Book Sharing

| Tasha

joan ganz cooney

This summer, the Joan Ganz Cooney Center did a survey about parents habits in sharing e-books with children.  Their focus was specifically on families who had iPads, since that has emerged as the dominant device for books for children.  The entire study is worth a read, but here are some facts pulled from it:

  • Of parents who own an iPad, 72.5% of them have read e-books with their children.
  • Parents who did not share books on their iPad had a much stronger preference for print books.
  • 89.9% of parents who share e-books with their children reported that they read mostly print books.  Only 7.5% said they read the same amount of print and e-books with their children and 2.7% said they exclusively read e-books together.

I think that children’s books will prove a tough nut to crack for publishers.  Do you make the books interactive?  Is a book filled with videos and things to click on still a book in parents’ eyes?  Or do you convert over just the format of the print volume?  Aren’t opportunities being lost there? 

How do you feel about e-books and small children?  Are you a parent who shares e-books or not? 

Review: Ready for Pumpkins by Kate Duke

| Tasha

ready for pumpkins

Ready for Pumpkins by Kate Duke

Hercules, or Herky for short, learned a lot being the classroom guinea pig in Miss MacGuffey’s first grade.  He learned to paint, he learned about Halloween, but best of all, he learned that he could plant a garden from seeds.  And Herky had seeds from the Halloween pumpkin that he had saved in his cage.  So when he was taken for the summer out to the country, he knew he just had to plant his own garden.  He met Daisy, a rabbit, who helped him find a sunny place to plant the seeds.  Herky dug up the dirt, planted the seeds, and watered them.  But then he had to be patient as they grew, and that was the hardest part!  The plants grew, flowers appeared, and finally pumpkins.  But Herky had to return to school before they turned orange!  Will he ever know how his pumpkins turned out?

This is a charming mix of classroom pet story and gardening.  Duke makes Herky quite a character.  He’s impatient to the point of digging up the seeds to see what is happening, angry when the birds and beetles attack his garden, and yet he is also hard working enough to make a garden in the first place.  The writing is simple and reads aloud easily, making this a good book to share with a fall class.

Duke’s art is full of simple lines and bright colors.  As the garden grows, she shows the wild beauty of the pumpkin vines, their many flowers and the slow process of pumpkins growing to maturity.  Daisy and Herky are engagingly drawn little creatures whose growing friendship mirrors that of the garden.

A great pick for pumpkin season or as an addition to spring growing books too.  Appropriate for ages 3-5.

Reviewed from copy received from Random House.

Review: Hit the Road, Jack by Robert Burleigh

| Tasha

hit the road jack

Hit the Road, Jack by Robert Burleigh, illustrated by Ross MacDonald

Opening this book, I was surprised that it was not based on the song at all.  Instead, this is a tribute to Jack Kerouac’s On the Road.  Jack in this picture book is a jackrabbit who longs to travel America.  So he leaves New York and rides his bicycle to Boston and then Buffalo.  Pennsylvania and Cleveland are next with Detroit too.  Jack spends some time in Chicago before heading back into the countryside and hopping a train.  A car carries him to the Great Plains and Mount Rushmore.  He sees the Rockies and the desert mesas before arriving at the Golden Gate.  Jack has reached his west coast destination, but the road still calls. 

Burleigh takes the picture book done in verse to another level here.  Never forced, always brimming with honesty and joy, this verse rhymes but does so in a sophisticated way.  It has all of the rhythm of the beat poets inside of it too, paying double homage to Kerouac both in subject and style.  Young readers will explore the United States in this book, but even better, they will get a feel for what makes America great. 

MacDonald’s illustrations have a playfulness and joy that matches the text well.  Done with a vintage feel, Jack has huge ears but is more human than rabbit most of the time.  Shown in his leather jacket and rolled-up jeans, Jack is the ideal companion on the road.

This is a special book where subject matter and form combine to create something all the more amazing.  It may be difficult to get this into the hands of the right kids, but it is worth the challenge for a book this good.  It will also make a great book to share with elementary classes studying the United States.  Appropriate for ages 6-8.

Reviewed from copy received from Abrams Books for Young Readers.

Review: Cat Tale by Michael Hall

| Tasha

cat tale

Cat Tale by Michael Hall

This is an exceptional picture book that I’m not sure I will be able to explain well enough.  If I bungle this, just take my word for it that this is a book you want to get your hands on.  Told in a rollicking verse, this is the story of three cats: Lillian, Tilly and William J.   The three of them head out on some adventures that are driven by the words in the lines.  I think it will work best if I just pull a few of the early verses:

They pack some books and kitty chews.

They choose a spot.

They spot some ewes.

They use a box to hide from bees.

And so it goes on, each line pulling the last word from the line before to create a new situation.  But even better, these are homophones rather than the exact same word.  Best of all, the story is fun and engaging.  This is word play at its best.

Hall has also created engaging artwork to go along with his playful verse.  Done in bright colors and big shapes, the art has an appealing texture.  Created from acrylic paint and paper cut outs that were combined digitally, it is eye-catching and cheerful.

Bravo for a book that invites children to look closely at the words they are reading and just may be the best way ever to introduce homophones to children.  Appropriate for a variety of ages.  Younger children will enjoy the art and verse while slightly older children will understand the word play best.

Reviewed from library copy.

Review: The Other Normals by Ned Vizzini

| Tasha

other normals

The Other Normals by Ned Vizzini

Perry Eckert loves to play Creatures & Caverns in all of his spare time.  He doesn’t have any friends to play the game with, so he just creates characters.  When someone inspires him to create a character based on himself, he does.  Of course the character differs in some ways, like his red skin, yellow hair and tail, but he is also not that strong, not that fast, but full of honor.  Perry’s parents are worried about him being a social outcast, so they send him to summer camp.  There, Perry is swept into a world where Creatures & Caverns is real!  Even better, they need Perry to help them save their world.  All it will take is Perry kissing the most popular girl at camp.  No pressure.

Vizzini is a master of misfit characters.  He takes Perry and throughout the book reveals much more about him than just his geeky exterior.  Instead, we all discover that Perry is a true hero, filled with honor, who is intelligent and very brave.  Vizzini throws in realizations that Perry has about modern American life, about thinking too much and acting too little, that will resonate with readers. 

Vizzini does not shy away from swear words in critical places.  There is also some nudity (on the part of Perry) but I won’t ruin those parts for you.  Vizzini brings lots of humor to the story, enough to bring out big guffaws of laughter at times.  There is also plenty of adventure, some death, enormous monsters, and everything that D&D players would want in a book. 

Get this into the hands of kids you know who game.  They will enjoy not only the game brought to life idea, but also the winning hero at the heart of a great adventure.  Appropriate for ages 15-17.

Reviewed from ARC received from HarperCollins.

Review: The Fantastic Jungles of Henri Rousseau by Michelle Markel

| Tasha

fantastic jungles

The Fantastic Jungles of Henri Rousseau by Michelle Markel, illustrated by Amanda Hall

This striking picture book is a biography of the artist, Henri Rousseau.  It tells the story of this man as he started to do art at forty years old. Rousseau dreamt of being an artist because he saw so much beauty and color everywhere. He couldn’t afford lessons, so he read many books to learn techniques and structure.  At age 41, Rousseau entered an art exhibition for the first time.  The art experts said mean things about his art, but Rousseau kept painting.  Inspired by the World’s Fair in Paris, he began to draw jungles.  Rousseau kept entering exhibitions and kept getting rude things written about his art.  He kept on painting, eventually getting accepted by the younger artists in Paris, like Pablo Picasso.  By the end of his life, no one was laughing or scorning his art.  Rousseau had not just proven himself to the critics, but to the entire world.

Markel has chosen to write this book in the present tense and also to call Rousseau by his first name throughout.  Both of these make the book feel welcoming and immediate.  The prose here is never dense and at times is almost playful as Rousseau (or Henri) starts to discover his talent and inspirations.  It is like you are discovering things alongside Rousseau.

Hall’s art pays beautiful homage to Rousseau’s own work.  Reading her Illustrator’s Note, one finds that she has changed her medium for this book, using watercolor and acrylics to achieve Rousseau’s characteristic look and feel.  She also used some of his original work as direct inspiration, adding his breaking of scale and perspective rules as well.

This is a superb picture book biography of an artist who came late to finding his passion in life.  Both his life and work are inspirations for children and adults to dream big and ignore the critics.  Appropriate for ages 6-9.

Reviewed from copy received from Eerdmans Books for Young Readers.