Book Reviews

Book Review: Say Hello to Zorro! by Carter Goodrich

| Tasha

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Say Hello to Zorro! by Carter Goodrich

Mister Bud had a great life.  He had his own bed, his own toys, his own dish, and best of all, his own schedule.  His schedule had plenty of nap time, meal time, and walks.  Everyone followed the schedule.  Period.  But one day, the schedule was interrupted when a stranger showed up.  Zorro, a new dog, was moving in with them.  At first it was tough and there were fights, but then both Mister Bud and Zorro realized that their lives were a lot better together.  And everyone followed the new schedule.  Period.

Goodrich writes with a real sense of comic timing.  The book reads aloud beautifully, often using a page turn to add to the suspense of a sentence.  The growing friendship of the two dogs is a pleasure to read.  Especially noteworthy is the fact that neither dog changed their personalities as the book progresses, but rather found common ground for their friendship.

The illustrations make great use of the white background.  They tell the story with visual humor that adds to the book’s tone.  The colors are bright and friendly.  Best of all, the illustrations capture emotions perfectly.  There is the joy of a walk, the quiet of a nap, the anger of a new dog, and the silent lean of a dog waiting to be fed. 

Pet lovers, this is a book that you will relate to immediately.  A great addition to any dog story time, this book will also work for friendship or new sibling units.  Appropriate for ages 4-6.

Reviewed from copy received from Simon & Schuster.

Also reviewed by:

Book Review–Three by the Sea by Mini Grey

| Tasha

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Three by the Sea by Mini Grey

Dog, Cat and Mouse all live happily together by the sea with their household chores neatly divided.  But when a Fox comes ashore, he causes all sorts of trouble.  He brings tempting items from The Winds of Change company that will change their lives.  Dog’s gardening is criticized for only being buried bones, so the stranger offers Mouse herb seeds and new cookbooks.  Dog is encouraged to wear a new collar and is upset at Cat’s laziness.  Cat is shown how dull and repetitive Mouse’s cheesy recipes are by the Fox offering some canned fish.  Soon all of them are at odds with one another.  In the end, Mouse heads away along the shore, but is picked up by a wave and carried out to sea.  When Cat tries to help, she has trouble floating.  So finally Dog, rescues them both.  Now the lives of the three look very different, so was the Fox actually helpful or harmful?

Grey’s book is about cooperation, working together, and also outside influences which can be seen in different ways.  She has created a picture book that is not definitive about the Fox and his influence.  The nuanced conclusion offers room for discussion and speculation.  Grey’s illustrations continue to charm.  She incorporates photographs and cut paper art into them to great effect.  They have a whimsical charm that invite readers right into the world she creates.

Another winner from a great picture book author and illustrator, this book will be a great addition to any beachy story time.  Appropriate for ages 4-6.

Reviewed from copy received from Alfred A. Knopf.

Also reviewed by:

Book Review–Cat Secrets by Jef Czekaj

| Tasha

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Cat Secrets by Jef Czekaj

This book is for cats only, so if you want to read it you will have to prove that you are, in fact, a cat.  The cats in the book are hard to deceive.  If you keep turning the pages, they will be on to the fact that you are not a cat at all.  They will test you.  You will have to meow.  You will have to purr.  Can you stretch like a cat too? And then the final test.  Can you nap like a cat?  This is a book that happily breaks down the fourth wall, celebrating silliness through a very interactive story line. 

Czekaj follows the likes of Mo Willems and one of my childhood favorites, The Monster at the End of This Book, as he allows the audience into the book and to feel as if they have input into the storyline.  His very simple illustrations have a modern feel to them.  They let the humor stand on its own and don’t oversell it at all. 

This is a book that will read aloud extremely well.  It’s one that I would save for that final book of a story time because it will stop the wiggles immediately.  Appropriate for ages 2-4.

Also reviewed by 100 Scope Notes and Creative Literacy.

Board Book Reviews–Hello Friends Series by Emma Quay

| Tasha

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Good Night, Sleep Tight by Emma Quay and Anna Walker

Let’s Play House by Emma Quay and Anna Walker

Puddle Jumping by Emma Quay and Anna Walker

Yummy Ice Cream by Emma Quay and Anna Walker

Four new board books welcome the youngest readers into a group of three friends.  There is Panda, Sheep and Owl, who are all different, enjoy different things, but manage to be the best of friends despite that.  The series has warm illustrations that are done with a mix of paint and fabric.  This lends a real richness and friendliness to them.  The text of the books is brief, humorous and engaging.  These are stories that are simple and great fun.

Good Night, Sleep Tight is a bedtime story.  The three friends decide to go camping in their sleeping bags.  They all settle in, but both Owl and Sheep are uncomfortable.  Only Panda is cozy, so the other two decide to join Panda in the one sleeping bag.

Let’s Play House has the friends building a play house together out of a blanket and some chairs.  But the house doesn’t work out so well, especially after Panda stands up to leave, taking the roof with him.  But all is not lost, as a new game is invented.

Puddle Jumping is about bravery.  Owl and Panda have great fun jumping over a big puddle the three friends discover.  But Sheep is scared to try, scared she will fall on her bottom and get hurt.  Eventually Sheep does try to jump the puddle, and she ends up having a lot of fun in an unexpected way.

Yummy Ice Cream is about sharing.  Sheep and Panda both have ice cream cones that are very yummy.  But Owl doesn’t have any.  The three friends find a very inventive way of making two ice cream cones into more.

As you can see, children will recognize their own play and activities in these books.  These are modern, stylish board books for the youngest of children.  Appropriate for ages 1-3.

Reviewed from copies received from Penguin Books.

Book Review: Enclave by Ann Aguirre

| Tasha

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Enclave by Ann Aguirre

Deuce lives underground in her enclave where life expectancy is short and live is brutal.  From the time she was a brat, she knew that she wanted to be a Huntress.  Now that she is 15, she goes through the naming ceremony and is given the role of Huntress in her community.  It is her job, along with her partner, to protect the enclave from the strange beings, Freaks, that share their underground world.  Deuce is paired with Fade, a Hunter who was not born in the enclave, but found wandering underground.  As Deuce learns more about their society, she begins to question the enclave’s rules and the injustices she sees.  When she sacrifices herself to save a friend, Deuce is thrown out of the safety of her community and forced to survive with just Fade to help her.

The strength of this book was in the underground world, the enclave and its lies, the brutality of the life, the unquestioning people, the darkness and danger.  The world Aguirre created underground is compelling and intriguing.  Deuce’s character is equally successful.  She is a strong heroine whose weakness is ignorance thanks to the enclave.  She experiences real growth as a character as she learns the truth.

Unfortunately, the book does not stay underground.  When Deuce and her partner head to Topside to survive, the book loses some of its strength as well as its unique society and setting.  For me, the book seemed to drag despite the high level of violence.

But for me, worst of all was that the world building that worked so well underground began to fall apart.  The Topside misuse of women angered me, but even worse was the insistence that one of the raped women accept one of the gang as a compatriot in their travels.  That she had to let her repeated rapes go and learn to cope seemed to trivialize rape and survival at the same time.

Readers of dystopian fantasy may enjoy this series, but I will stop reading with this first book.  Appropriate for ages 15-18.

Reviewed from copy received from Feiwel and Friends.

Also reviewed by:

Book Review–The Loud Book by Deborah Underwood

| Tasha

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The Loud Book by Deborah Underwood, illustrated by Renata Liwska

The author and illustrator of The Quiet Book return with a much noisier book that celebrates the different kinds of loud there are.  The noises follow a bunny through his day from waking up with alarm clock yard to a sister snoring at bedtime and finally crickets singing.  Many of the loud moments could be considered quieter ones, focusing on the noises that can seem loud in different situations.  This is a great noise-filled foil to the first book.

Underwood has collected lovely moments throughout a day that range from very loud and disruptive to funnily loud like a burp in a classroom to noises that only seem loud because of the circumstances.  For each noise, she offers a little phrase that explains the situation and the noise, often with a wry sense of humor.

Liwska’s illustrations offer a fuzzy, warm group of animal characters.  She has a great sense of humor in her work, capitalizing on the most humorous moments and capturing them to great effect. 

A perfect companion to the first book, this noise-filled book is sure to be a hit with any noisy group of preschoolers, meaning all of them.  Appropriate for ages 3-5.

Reviewed from library copy.

Also reviewed by

Harris and Me by Gary Paulsen–A Family Favorite

| Tasha

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Harris and Me by Gary Paulsen

When I first read Harris and Me, I had it along with me on a family trip with my husband and parents.  I ended up reading entire portions of it aloud to a room of adults who all hooted and laughed and begged for me to continue.  Then when my older son was around the right age, I read it aloud to him.  He loved it.  This week, I finished reading it aloud to my younger son, who loves to be read to but doesn’t care to read to himself much.  He asked for his own copy so he could read it whenever he liked.

Some lines from the book have entered our vocabulary in our family.  If I get grumpy, my husband (far too often) says “Now, Buzzer…”  Whenever a little car revs past our house, I say “the engine starved for oxygen its entire life.”  And perhaps even worse, we all get the joke and laugh, immediately thinking of the scenes from Harris and Me.

Paulsen has created a book that is so funny.  It reads aloud like a dream, and having read it aloud cover-to-cover at least 3 times by now, I should know.  The humor is often naughty, involving things like peeing on an electric fence, being kicked in the groin by a cow, and attempting to kill a very evil rooster.  At the same time, it is belly-laugh funny, quoting lines great, and will linger with you after you finish it.

And the ending, well.  Let’s just say it’s the most challenging part to read aloud because no matter how many times I read it, I will always cry.

So if you are looking for a book to hook a kid with its humor, with its inappropriateness, with its pure appeal, look no further!  This one is a winner with every person I have ever shared it with.  It’s a definite family favorite for three generations of our family.

Book Review–Oliver by Christopher Franceschelli

| Tasha

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Oliver by Christopher Franceschelli

This minimalist board book has an interesting novelty piece at the end.  On most of the pages there are only an egg and one line of text.  The text explains the limitations of being an egg.  An egg can roll from side to side, even stand on its head, but still it is just an egg.  Until something happens.

In this book, the final moment where the egg becomes something else is told through a non-removable ribbon that runs through two pages.  Turn the page and the egg is transformed into a chick.  The process of turning that page is fascinating and will have children turning the page back and forth from egg to chick to egg.

The book has a sturdy feel that would make it a novelty book that could survive a public or school library.  Appropriate for ages 2-4.

Reviewed from copy received from Lemniscaat.

Book Reviews–Bunches of Board Books–The Second Bunch

| Tasha

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Busy Elephants by John Schindel and Martin Harvey

The latest in the Busy Book series from Tricycle Press, this book features wonderfully crisp and clear photos of elephants.  Nicely, the photographs are also dynamic with elephants of different sizes interacting, running, splashing and blowing.  Get this into the hands of the smallest animal lovers.

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Grandma Calls Me Gigglepie by J. D. Lester, illustrated by Hiroe Nakata

A third board book from the pair who gave us Mommy Calls Me Monkeypants and Daddy Calls Me Doodlebug.  The book moves through human and animal grandparents interacting with their grandchild and calling them a variety of suitable endearments.  This is an adorable concept that continues to work well due to the sweet illustrations and sentiments inside.

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The Little Composter by Jan Gerardi

This lift-the-flap board book not only promotes composting but has an intriguing premise where the flaps conceal the remains of the eaten food.  A jaunty rhyme moves the book forward to the end where the worms start to do their work and the garden work begins.

All books reviewed from copies received from Random House.