Book Reviews

Max and the Dumb Flower Picture

| Tasha

Max and the Dumb Flower Picture by Martha Alexander with James Rumford.

This is Martha Alexander’s last book.  You have probably read some of her books, but to jar your memory she did the Blackboard Bear series.  This final book was completed from her unfinished manuscript and sketches by James Rumford. 

Max’s teacher Miss Tilley wants the class to color a picture of a rose for Mother’s Day.  Each child is given a sheet with the same rose copied on it, but Max knows that his mom would not want that for a present.  So Max refuses to color the sheet and runs from the room, hiding behind the bushes to create his own flower for his mother.  Everyone looks for Max, even the police, and when he is found he shows everyone his flower.  All of the children are inspired to create one of their very own, unique from everyone else’s.  Make sure to take time to look at the end pages filled with flowers drawn by Martha Alexander’s friends and family.

A simple story, well told and inspiring, this book will remind everyone that you don’t have to stay in the lines, don’t have to color a red rose like everyone else, and can create your own art and beauty.  Along the way, children who are happy to create their own art, stop.  They start following our rules, losing their creativity.  Suddenly skies are no longer orange and pink, cows are not purple, and clouds a fluffy in front of a corner sun.  This book is a small step towards fixing that and giving children back their own voice, odd, unusual and colorful.

I can see using this with adults working on creativity.  It reinforces that there is no right or wrong answer when being creative and expressive.  It is also a wonderful book for children who are just beginning to feel the pressure to stay in the lines.  Let’s all wander outside those lines and celebrate it!  Appropriate for ages 4-7.

Reviewed from library copy.

Magic Box

| Tasha

Magic Box by Katie Cleminson

On her birthday, Eva got a box!  A special box that she jumped into and became a magician.  Her first trick was to create a pet called Monty, who turns out to be an enormous polar bear.  Then she pulled rabbits out of hats.  Lots of rabbits.  She went on to make food, bring in musicians, and have a big party.  And in the end, she clicked her fingers and made everything disappear.  Almost everything.

First, let me say that I love seeing a girl magician who is not a witch.  That alone makes this book worth reading and having on library shelves.  Readers will also appreciate the beauty of imagination here on the page.  The illustrations use thick black lines which are then mixed with splashes and blots of color – imagination at work and visible.  The story is brief and powerful.  It is short enough to read aloud to young audiences but deep enough to spark discussion.

A lovely look at creativity with a large splash of magic, this book is certain to float right into readers hands.  Appropriate for ages 3-5.

Reviewed from library copy.

Child’s Garden: A Story of Hope

| Tasha

A Child’s Garden: a story of hope by Michael Foreman

This story of a child’s world reduced to rubble and devastation is one that will ring true with children of war, and ring warning bells with children who have not witnessed it.  A young boy lives in ruins, separated from the green hills he loves by a fence.  In the rubble, he discovers a shoot of green which he nurtures.  It becomes a grapevine that covers the barbed wire fence, bringing butterflies and birds, and sheltering shade.  The soldiers tear down the vine, leaving it dead.  It isn’t until the next spring that the boy sees green sprouts on the other side of the fence and a little girl tending them.  Then green sprouts appear on his side of the fence, where both vines grow to cover the fence in between.

Told simply and with great respect, this slim picture book manages to evoke hope, growth, change and community.  Using imagery to make his case about war, Foreman has created a book that is accessible and profound.  What a great image of green vine covering stark wire, life absorbing death, connection replacing coercion.  At the same time, it can be read by small children as a vine, and a vine alone without losing much of its power and statement. 

Perfect for discussing peace and community with classes, this book naturally starts dialogue and questions about the world, our own prosperity, and violence.  Appropriate for ages 4-7.

Sacred Scars

| Tasha


Sacred Scars by Kathleen Duey

I adored Skin Hunger when it came out, despite it’s precipitous ending.  Remember those debates?!

Now the second in the series has been released to help people recover from that ending.  And it picks up right where the last book left off, in the midst of the drama and tension.  The book has two interconnected story lines which are set 200 years apart.  Readers get to see the rediscovery of magic in one of the lines and the harsh reality of it in the other.  In both stories is Somiss, the aristocrat who struggles to find the key to magic and after finding it, runs a diabolical school to train young magicians.  Franklin, his servant, also appears in both story lines, as servant, unwilling helper, and magician.  At the heart of the stories is Sadima, who learns magic by reading Somiss’ documents and eavesdropping on his recitations.  She yearns to escape with Franklin, her love, and the street urchins they have kidnapped and caged.  But in this brutal world of magic, there are only desperate choices, evil around ever corner, and constant deception.

Nicely the novel manages to not rehash the first book at all, yet readers who have had a gap of a few years between the novels will find it offers just enough to allow you to remember the first novel.  Duey’s writing is gripping, tense, and engulfing.  She has created a world that is so dark, yet it has piercing moments of light, love and truth.  Duey excels at creating characters with depth and dimension, then immersing them into a twisted story.  It makes for a book that is not only impossible to put down but makes it difficult to breathe deeply while reading.

This novel is filled with violence.  Violence so shattering that it is hard to read, harder to process, and impossible to understand.  She is an author who pushes it to a new limit, daring the reader to read on, dancing on the knife’s edge.  All to great and dazzling effect.  She is an author I don’t trust to keep my favored characters alive.  In fact, I am constantly checking to see which of the stories is written in first person, hoping that guarantees survival.

Though I have used some of the most powerful words I have to describe this novel, it is far more dark, disturbing and taut than I can express.  Teens will love this world, react to its harshness, and eagerly await the third and final book in the series.  Appropriate for ages 13-17.

Reviewed from copy received from publisher.

Old Blue Pickup Truck

| Tasha

The Old Blue Pickup Truck by Candice F. Ransom, illustrated by Jenny Mattheson

This charmer of a picture book takes a day of errands and transforms it into a wonderful outing filled with surprises.  Everything centers around the pickup truck and its ability to carry everything they need.  It changes from a garden to a toolshed to a barnyard all in the course of their travels.  Children will see their own errands in a different way after this book and will be eager to see what the truck will be filled with next.

Ransom has created prose that is simple but sings.  She uses tiny touches to make the book come to life.  At the nursery, readers learn that inside “it smelled like raindrops.”  At the hardware store, the little girl fills a bag with nails of each size and shape.  Mattheson’s illustrations have an old-fashioned feel right at home with the subject.  The round-faced characters are friendly and they are drawn with a folksy style.  The bright colors make the book more modern than it could otherwise have been.  A wonderful combination.

This quiet book is perfect for slow Saturday mornings when you aren’t rushing on your own errands.  It is also a great way to spend bedtime reading, as you travel around the lush green pictures in an unhurried way.  Appropriate for ages 3-5.

Reviewed from library copy.

Toot Toot Zoom!

| Tasha

Toot Toot Zoom! by Phyllis Root and Matthew Cordell.

Pierre, the fox, lived all alone near a tall mountain.  He had no friends at all.  Realizing that there may be friends to be made on the other side of the mountain, he hopped in his car and heads to the other side.  Heading up the mountain, he meets Goat, who asks for a ride in his car.  Pierre then meets Sheep who also wants to find a friend, so he offers her a spot in the car.  Bear then joins them in their search for a friend too.  On their way down the windy hill, it may take a bit of shaking up to get them to notice what they have already found.

Root has created a story that makes a great read aloud.  With not only the refrain of Toot, Toot, Zoom! but also the delight of the screeching breaks when Pierre meets each new animal, this book begs to be read aloud with great flourish.  Cordell has created illustrations with lovely details that will work well with a group.  Make sure you linger slightly on the last page so that everyone can see what happened to the little red car in the end.

Add this to both your car story times and your friend ones.  Guaranteed to Zoom right off your shelves and into waiting toddler and preschool hands.  Appropriate for ages 2-4.

Reviewed from library copy.

The Negro Speaks of Rivers

| Tasha

The Negro Speaks of Rivers by Langston Hughes, illustrated by E. B. Lewis.

Hughes was a mere 18 years old when he wrote this powerful poem which evokes the strength and power of black people throughout the world.  It also is a powerful tie of their story with that of water.  Lewis nicely captures these two aspects of the poem in his watercolor illustrations.  Taking the poem line-by-line, this book pairs each line with a watercolor painting filled with water and people.  Lewis excels at creating different feeling rivers, allowing the water to be blue, but also green, brown, and even yellowy-orange.

The poem and the illustrations combined make this powerful poetry accessible to children.  It is always a thrill to see such great illustrations paired with such language.  Beautiful and strong, honoring the subject matter entirely.

Highly recommended, this book belongs in libraries across the country no matter the color of the community members.  It will prove useful in poetry units and history, but it is most wonderful when just enjoyed for its own sake.

Reviewed from library copy.

Also reviewed by Poetry for Children and A Patchwork of Books.

When You Reach Me

| Tasha

When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead

Twelve-year-old Miranda lives in New York City and is facing a strange situation.  First, her best friend of all time Sal has stopped wanting to spend any time at all with her after he gets punched in the stomach by another kid.  Second, she has found a note that says that she must write a letter about what is going to happen in order to save her best friend and the writer of the letter.  Third, the emergency key that is hidden outside their apartment door is stolen and more the notes continue to arrive.  Miranda is not just solving this mystery.  She has a new friend to spend time with and a lunch-time job where she and two of her friends are paid for their work in sandwiches and soda.  The book is wonderful juxtaposition of strange and normal, fiction and reality.

This is one of the best books I have read in a long time for children in late elementary school.  Its tone is just right, with good humor, mysterious happenings and friendship tensions.  One of those would draw young readers in, all three makes it impossible to put down.  Add to that the satisfaction of unraveling the questions in the novel and this one is a winner.

Each and every character is well-crafted.  Miranda is a fascinating mix of sleuth and denial as she navigates the tensions of the novel.  Her friends and the adults in the book have depth, humanness, and the ability to surprise while staying true to how they are depicted.

The pacing of the novel is deftly done.  Never slow or dragging, it changes with the pace of the story almost effortlessly.  Stead excels at letting the story tell itself.  Her hand is never obvious in the writing or the plotting.  Rather it is a book, a story that is so complete and nicely done that one can’t even imagine another way for it to have been told.

My only quibble is the cover.  This book is just so much better than the cover, more accessible, more fun.  So this wonderful novel may take some hand-selling to get it off of your shelves and into the hands of parents, teachers and kids.  It will make a wonderful read-aloud for classrooms, keeping everyone quiet and involved.  But it is also a great flashlight read, under the covers extending bedtime into the depths of the night.

Reviewed from library copy.

Day-Glo Brothers

| Tasha

The Day-Glo Brothers: the true story of Bob and Joe Switzer’s bright ideas and brand-new colors by Chris Barton, illustrated by Tony Persiani

I am always on the look-out for books that offer a great story combined with nonfiction.  This book definitely has that.  Even better, it offers a tangible example of invention that children can relate to and understand.  Joe and Bob were not similar brothers.  Bob enjoyed working and planning while Joe preferred magic tricks and problem-solving.  The two made the perfect inventing pair.  After Bob suffered an accident and was limited to living in the family’s basement, Joe joined him there to practice using fluorescence in his magic tricks.  The two worked together and created glow-in-the-dark paints.  After years of success, they found that with some tweaking they could create paints that glowed even in broad daylight – day-glo colors. 

The book is written in a style that is inviting and intelligent.  It offers lots of background information on the brothers, understanding that part of the fascination is with the inventors themselves along with their flashy colors.  The illustrations work to great effect with their vintage advertising style and effective use of bright colors. 

A great biographical nonfiction picture book about an accessible subject, this book will be snatched off of shelves for the cover alone.  Add it to bibliographies about inventors and children will be thrilled to have such a youthful title to use for reports.  Appropriate for ages 6-8.

Reviewed from library copy.

Also reviewed by Abby the Librarian with author features on Cynsations and 7 Imp.  You can also visit Chris Barton’s own blog.