Book Reviews

No! That's Wrong!

| Tasha

No! That’s Wrong! by Zhaohua Ji and Cui Xu.

When the wind snatches a pair of red lacy underpants off of a clothes line, a rabbit discovers them.  He immediately decides that the underpants are a hat with perfect holes for his ears.  He then heads through the woods and other animals try on the underpants as a hat.  It isn’t until he meets a donkey who proves that they are underpants and should be worn on the other end that the rabbit wears them correctly, but his tail doesn’t really fit into them and the other animals ask him why he’s wearing a hat that way.  So he returns to his original way of wearing the underpants as a hat.  The endpapers feature animals wearing all sorts of people clothes in unique ways.

How can you go wrong with a book about underpants being worn wrong?!  You can’t!  It is universal child humor, as proven by the Chinese author and illustrator.  One aspect of the book that I love is that there is a grownup, sensible voice at the end of each two-page spread that speaks in vain.  The illustrations are great fun, enhancing the tone of the words.  In fact, I dare you not to giggle at the crocodile wearing the underpants.

Recommended for reading to only a few children at a time, so that you don’t lose control of a larger group.  Some of the pages have more detailed drawings which will work best for small groups to giggle at.

If a Monkey Jumps Onto Your School Bus

| Tasha

If a Monkey Jumps Onto Your School Bus by Jean M. Cochran, illustrated by Jennifer E. Morris.

This book is published by Pleasant Street Press, a new small press publishing children’s books whose first books were released in December.   I wanted to point this out, because I think it is so important that we start looking beyond the large publishers for quality books.

This book is structured as a guide book for what you should do if the animals break out of the local zoo and start heading your way.  And what should you do?  If a hippo appears offer her pancakes and tea.  Let the lion drive the carpool.  And just get out of the elephant’s way as he rounds the bases.  The book is filled with humor and situations that children will enjoy.  The juxtaposition of zoo animals and their everyday routines will get children engaged and laughing along.  To add to the fun, try to spot the monkey on each page.

Cochran’s jaunty rhymes contribute to the spirit of fun and move the book along at a romping pace.  Morris’ art is vivacious, colorful and very child-friendly.  The docile animals add to the fun without creating any worry at all for children, even the grinning alligator is friendly. 

Share this one for storytimes on any zoo animal, but especially monkeys.  The rhyming is fun to read aloud and the illustrations will project well to a group.

Nature's Paintbox

| Tasha



Nature’s Paintbox: A Seasonal Gallery of Art and Verse by Patricia Thomas, illustrated by Craig Orback.

Wowza.  This is a great book of poetry for children! 

The book moves as a single poem throughout the seasons, rhyming and rhythmic and capturing with clarity each season.  The book also combines an understanding of art with the verse, moving from medium to medium to evoke each season as pure and distinct from the others.  Winter is done in pen and ink, spring in pastels, summer in watercolors and autumn in oils.  And each illustration shows why that is true in the same way as the dazzling poetry does.  While I enjoyed the poetry throughout the book, I am filled with amazement and wonder at the autumn section where Thomas’ verse gets as voluptuous and full as the season itself.  The book begins with spare verse about winter, slowly developing throughout the year until autumn arrives and the boundlessness of the season, the colors is almost overwhelming.  Colors are described as “redorangepurplebronzeindigogoldgreen.”  And you know just what she means.  It is a joy to read, to dance along with these words and these illustrations through the year.

Highly recommended as a read aloud.  You won’t be able to read it to yourself anyway when you reach those colorful words in autumn because they beg to be read aloud and come to life.  Add this one to your seasonal story times or units.  Plus it can be enjoyed by art classes looking at different media where children understanding the seasons already can relate.  Children aged 6-9 will enjoy this best of all.

Apples and Oranges

| Tasha

Apples and oranges:  going bananas with pairs by Sara Pinto.

Pure silliness in a very appealing package, this book will offer groans of delight.  Each page offers a pair of objects and asks how they are alike.  You then turn the page to find the strange reason they are alike.  And yes, there are always always obvious reasons, but those are never the ones given in the book.  So here’s one for you:

How are a starfish and an octopus alike?  Give up?  They both don’t knit.

The book goes on and on like that, much to the delight of children it is shared with.  In fact, they will begin to make their own outrageous guesses as to how the items are alike, creating a really interactive experience for them.  The cacophony when shared with a class will be joyous and fun.

The illustrations by Pinto are friendly, funny, and continue the silliness onto the page.  They are the perfect match of line drawings featuring nicely drawn animals and objects and also a silly vibe after the page is turned. 

Sure to be a hit with children, especially if you as a reader play it deadpan and serious.  Children have to be a certain age to get the joke, so I’d recommend sharing this one with ages 6-8.

The Surrender Tree

| Tasha

The Surrender Tree by Margarita Engle.
Released in April 2008.

The author of The Poet Slave of Cuba returns with another historical verse novel about Cuba.  The book focuses on Rosa and her efforts to heal the sick and wounded throughout the many wars Cuba fought during the mid-to-late 19th century.  Rosa, once a slave but then illegally freed, learned to be a healer and then taught herself how to use the local fruits and fauna as remedies.  She hid in caves, huts and the jungle from many different people throughout the years.  Some people began as her enemies and then were healed by her and joined her side.  Others like Lieutenant Death continued to hunt her despite her kindness.  Most of the characters in the book are based on real people, but Engle had to extrapolate about their daily lives and their personal concerns.

Engle’s poetry is just as powerful and intriguing as that in her first book.  Once again tackling one of the darkest and most awful parts of any country’s history, her poetry offers a guiding light of beauty in the jungle-filled darkness.  Written in any other form, the bleakness of the subject could have been overwhelming, but Engle again succeeds in overcoming it into hope.

Another vital piece of Engle’s powerful art is her ability to create single complete poems that work alone and yet together create a complete history and story.   Here is one of my favorite poems in the book:

Rosa

Gathering the green, heart-shaped leaves
of sheltering herbs in a gial forest,

I forget that I am grown now,
with daydreams of my own,

in this place where time
does not seem to exist
in the ordinary way,

and every leaf is a heart-shaped
moment of peace.

If you enjoyed Poet Slave, then you must try this one.  Highly recommended for ages 12-14.

Trouble

| Tasha

Trouble by Gary D. Schmidt (released on April 21st, 2008)

Schmidt has created another wonder of a work, completely different once again from his previous books but just as rich in language while remaining easy to read and devour.

Henry’s father always told him that if you build your house far enough away from Trouble, then Trouble will never find you.  But Trouble finds their family anyway when Henry’s older brother is hit by a truck while out jogging.  The truck is driven by Chay Chouan, a Cambodian teen, sparking racial tensions that had been simmering for some time.  Henry is trapped between his deep admiration for his brother and the truth as it slowly emerges, changing forever his perception of what honor is, what brotherhood is and what strength is.

Schmidt’s language is amazingly clear yet evocative.  My copy of the book looks like a hedgehog from all of the passages I have marked.  Here is a favorite passage taken from a galley copy:

His mother reached out to Henry and drew him to her.  He could not remember another time when she had held him so tightly.  Or when his father — with eyes closed and his hands up to his face again– had looked so… empty– as if the soul had left his body, and his body understood that it would never come back.

Another nice piece is the beginning of chapter four where Schmidt describes the transformation of a town from a healthy industrial community to a ghost-filled desolation where eventually the Cambodian immigrants who understood ghosts came to live.  The first two pages of that chapter are breathtakingly brave and beautiful.

This book is filled not only with strong passages but with strong characters and complex situations that slowly reveal their complexity to Henry and the reader.  It is a joy to slowly work through the puzzle of the book, learning as each page turns and lingering over amazing language.

Highly recommended for readers ages 12-14.  Every library should have a copy of this book and make sure that children and teens who love to read will be exposed to the delight of this writing.

Waiting for Normal

| Tasha

Waiting for Normal by Leslie Connor.

Addie has spent her life waiting for normal, but her mother is not capable of offering her that.  Now they are living in a trailer in a rough section of town, but at least they are together.  Addie’s ex-stepfather Dwight continues to be a strong figure in Addie’s life, making sure she gets to see her two younger sisters who live with him.   Addie finds pleasure in the community she finds herself in.  She makes friends at her new school as well as at the convenience store across the street from the trailer.  She finds balance and care outside of her mother.  But as her mother descends deeper and deeper into her own life, leaving Addie on the outside, Addie is forced to finally come to terms with the situation she finds herself in.

The characters in this novel are breathtakingly real.  Addie is a strong girl who struggles humanly in her situation.  Dwight is a hero of a stepfather, creating an alternative world for Addie to escape to every so often.  And Soula and Elliot are vivid characters who fill Addie’s lonely times when she’s home.  Even Addie’s mother is a well-rounded character, making the world so much more real and clear.  This is the story of so many children who live in broken homes, poverty, and carelessness.  Connor does not take it too far nor does she shrink from the dirty truth of the situation.  She walks a fearless line of truth through Addie’s life.

Even more impressive is the way that Connor uses symbolism that children will immediately be able to relate to.  Her book is more than a script, evoking the feelings of Addie with passages like this one on page 213:

“…while I was at the inn I started feeling like a Tootsie Roll Pop.  On the outside I was having a shiny-good colorful time.  But I could feel my chewy, gooey center squishing and squashing inside of me.”

Highly recommended for it’s strong writing, great characters, and grip on reality, I consider this one of the top novels for ages 10-12 this year.

The Missing Girl

| Tasha

The Missing Girl by Norma Fox Mazer.

The five Herbert sisters live in a world where they are poor but safe in their small town.  Unknown to them, a man has started watching them, waiting to catch glimpses as they hurry off to school, trying to remain unnoticed.  The tension in the book builds as each girl takes risks that would be considered safe in any other book.  Until one girl takes one risk too many and goes missing.

Each of the girls has their own unique personality and problems, from wanting to escape to failing spelling.  Their strength (and the novel’s strength) comes from the fact that the girls are fascinating both as individuals and as a group.   The family dynamics are complicated not only among the sisters but also between their parents.  The pacing in the novel is deliberate and tense, slowly escalating to the point of no return.  

In the end, the book is immensely satisfying.  Girl power is definitely rocking in this book, even though none of the sisters would see themselves as powerful.  Mazer has created a novel where children are victims but not powerless, a novel that needs to be read and that teens will love to read.

Recommended for ages 12-15.

Nic Bishop Spiders

| Tasha

Nic Bishop Spiders by Nic Bishop.

Breathtaking photographs accompany gripping information in this award-winning nonfiction book for children.  The photographs are crystal-clear, illustrate the text well, and will get children dashing from one to the next.   Each page is a different color, highlighting the photographs themselves and lending an air of fun to the book. The text is easy to read and fascinating. 

Highly recommended for any child, but especially for those who enjoy nonfiction more than stories.  This is a perfect bedtime or lap book for those children who will want to pore over the details in the photographs and talk about their own discoveries.

Make sure you read the note at the end that talks about Bishop’s techniques.  They are just as interesting as the spiders themselves. 

Nic Bishops website:  nicbishop.com