Review: Captain Awesome to the Rescue by Stan Kirby

| Tasha

captain awesome to the rescue

Captain Awesome to the Rescue by Stan Kirby, illustrated by George O’Connor

Eugene’s family has just moved to Sunnyview and he has to start a new school.  Happily, Eugene is very courageous.  He has to be in order to transform into Captain Awesome.  Now if he can just find his cape, before he’s attacked by Queen Stinkypants, also known as his little sister!  When Eugene starts school, his teacher gives him the responsibility of caring for the class hamster, Turbo.  Eugene does a very careful job, until one day he discovers Turbo has been hamsternapped.   It may just take Captain Awesome to reveal what really happened to Turbo and save him from some villainous plot.

This beginning chapter book has the mass appeal of superheroes.  It also has a cheery tone and a light touch.  The humor has the right tone for this age group, and doesn’t push it over the top.  This is a book that parents and children can share together, something you want with first chapter books.  As with all early reading books, the story is simple and the characters are not complex.  Still, there is adventure, plenty of villains, and the making of friends to carry the book well.

While this makes a good choice for reluctant readers, it is also good for children who are reading early as well.  There is no content here to disturb parents of preschoolers who may be reading naturally on their own.

This is a great pick for children who will soon enjoy Captain Underpants but are not quite ready as readers.  Appropriate for ages 5-7, or younger if they are starting to read on their own.

Reviewed from library copy.

Review: The Family Tree by David McPhail

| Tasha

family tree

The Family Tree by David McPhail

This is the story of a very special tree.  It was left standing when the rest of the space was cleared to build a house many years ago.  This tree would shelter the little house.  It witnessed many changes over the years as horse and wagon changed to cars.  There were births and deaths on the farm, until finally it was the great-great grandson of the original building of the home who lived there.  The tree still stood, strong and straight.  But then it was threatened as a new road was planned that would run right through it.  The grandson refused to let the tree be cut down, and wild animals join him to keep it from happening.  So the road plans must be changed and the tree continues to grow now by the large bend in the road.

There is something to be said about a picture book that decides to tell the story that feels right, the one that resounds in your bones, rather than the one that would happen in real life.  When I saw the bulldozers in the book, I braced myself for heartache, or for the story to turn into that of growing a new tree from an acorn that originated with this tree.  But instead McPhail told a story for tree lovers of all ages, who wish that there were bends in the big highways to keep huge old trees alive. 

McPhail’s writing is simple and straight-forward.  He tells the story with a great matter-of-fact tone that belies the wildlife appearing and the wonder of the tree standing.  His art is signature McPhail with its fine ink lines and watercolor softness.  It has both the clarity of the modern day and the softness of memories.

Get this into the hands of those who hug trees.  They are guaranteed to love it.  Appropriate for ages 3-5.

Reviewed from copy received from Henry Holt and Company.

Review: The Fairy Ring by Mary Losure

| Tasha

fairy ring

The Fairy Ring or Elsie and Frances Fool the World by Mary Losure

This is the true story of two young English girls who fooled everyone with the photographs they took.  Elsie and Frances were cousins who hadn’t met until Frances moved to England from South Africa.  When Frances, age 9, visited the beck behind their small house, she saw tiny little brown men in green clothes walking about.  But the grownups teased her about seeing fairies, and there was one thing that Elsie at age 15 wouldn’t tolerate and that was teasing.  So the girls set out to take a photograph of fairies that would stop the teasing entirely.  It was all meant to be a little joke, but quickly got out of hand as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle got involved along with international publicity.  It wasn’t until much later that the ruse was finally admitted to.  But in the end, there is still one magical photograph that wasn’t staged by the girls, and you can decide if there are really fairies in it.

This well-researched nonfiction book for children has the appeal of fairies and also the intriguing story of two young people who lied and got away with it for a very long time.  Losure manages to recreate the world that the children were growing up in, but not dwell on overly long descriptions.  It is a brief book, one that looks closely at the truth behind the photographs but also one that keeps one small part open to the wonder of fairies too. 

The girls could have been depicted in a quite different way than Losure handles them here.  They did deceive people and created more images that spread more lies.  But Losure does not show them as calculating at all, rather they are caught in the life that their small prank takes on, unable to admit the truth and unable to stop the insatiable curiosity about the images.  There is an exceptional dignity to the way their story is told here, one that pays homage to both the lie and to the belief.

A very readable nonfiction work that will be enjoyed by children reading the popular fairy series out right now and may lead those fiction readers to find more nonfiction to enjoy.  Appropriate for ages 8-11.

Reviewed from library copy.

Review: Devine Intervention by Martha Brockenbrough

| Tasha

devine intervention

Devine Intervention by Martha Brockenbrough

When his best friend shot him in the head with an arrow, Jerome died instantly.  Now he finds himself in between Heaven and Hell, given a second chance to save himself from eternal torment.  He’s been appointed as Heidi’s guardian angel as part of soul rehabilitation.  Jerome didn’t actually read the handbook for guardian angels, so he’s mostly just winging it.  Heidi has heard Jerome’s voice in her head since she was small.  When she got older, she started to realize that others don’t hear voices like that and that she may be crazy.  So Heidi started to withdraw and kept more and more to herself.  She doesn’t always listen to Jerome’s advice, though he tries to help.  So when she and her best friend head on stage during Talentpalooza and there is a major wardrobe malfunction, Heidi has no one but herself to blame.  But that’s not why she was out on the pond’s thin ice at all.  Though her life (or death) will never be the same after falling through.

Brockenbrough strikes just the write tone in this novel.  While deep issues are dealt with, she keeps the writing light and playful.  It helps that she is a truly funny author, writing with a hilarity that makes reading the novel pure fun.  At the same time, she does fully explore the meaning of life in the book, what death may hold for us, and the importance of family, even dysfunctional ones.  Her lighter tone makes these deeper issues all the more reflective and powerful.

The two main characters are very successfully drawn.  For me, Jerome is the voice of the book.  It is his perspective on life and death that makes the book work so well.  Heidi on the other hand is vital to the book, but doesn’t have the whiz and bang of Jerome.  That said, a book only needs one star of a character.  Heidi makes a grand secondary lead character, offering a different perspective and a lot of action to the book.

This funny teen novel about death and life features juvenile delinquents as guardian angels.  I think that explains a lot about life.  Appropriate for ages 13-15.

Reviewed from ARC received from Arthur A. Levine Books.

Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children’s Book Awards

| Tasha

The Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children’s Book Awards are given annually to two children’s books: one in the young adult/middle reader category and the other in the picture book category.  The award winner is chosen by two different groups of children and teens. 

Here are the winners:

 

Young Adult/Middle Readers: The Whole Truth by Kit Pearson

Picture Book: Loon by Susan Vande Griek, illustrated by Karen Reczuch

This Week’s Tweets and Pins

| Tasha

Here are the links I shared on my Twitter and Pinterest accounts that you might find interesting:

You can also check out my other blog, Sites & Soundbytes for tweets and pins about libraries, ebooks and social networking.

50 Inspiring Children’s Books with a Positive Message « Positively Positive http://buff.ly/KYpdTO ‪#reading‬ ‪#kidlit‬

Adelaide high school library gets rid of all 10,000 books | The Punch http://buff.ly/LI6wEV ‪#libraries‬

Battle the "Summer Slide" – Keep Kids Learning AND Having Fun this Summer | Kids Life – Tuscaloosa’s Family http://buff.ly/KyC0wq ‪#reading‬

Beth Revis: The Book of My Heart – a gorgeous post about writing the book that is ripped from your soul – http://buff.ly/Ke0iMT ‪#writing‬

‘Daughter of Smoke and Bone’ sequel cover revealed! | Shelf Life http://buff.ly/KHYxTC ‪#yalit‬

For Young Readers, Print or Digital Books? | MindShift http://buff.ly/K9oMch ‪#kidlit‬ ‪#ebooks‬

If you like books like these: dark teen reads | http://guardian.co.uk http://buff.ly/KLEqYb ‪#kidlit‬

The Los Angeles Public Library: Frightening Books to Help People of Any Age Own the Night http://buff.ly/KLFUSd ‪#yalit‬

Paula Danziger’s Best Friends Revive Amber Brown Series http://buff.ly/LuDULl ‪#kidlit‬

Raising a Bilingual Child on Books | Literacy Help http://buff.ly/K9lOEr ‪#reading‬

Robert Pattinson tipped for Hunger Games sequel | Film | http://guardian.co.uk http://buff.ly/KL86Du ‪#yalit‬

YA Firsts for Only $2.99 from Tor! http://buff.ly/LIWe7E ‪#yalit‬ ‪#ebooks‬

Review: Lala Salama by Patricia MacLachlan

| Tasha

lala salama

Lala Salama by Patricia MacLachlan, illustrated by Elizabeth Zunon

This poetic lullaby transports readers to Tanzania and life by the lake, Tanganyika.  It is the story of a small family with a father who heads off to work on the lake in his boat.   The mother stays on the shore with her baby, washing the baby, carrying water, working the fields, and cooking food.  The animals of Tanzania are around them in all of their exotic beauty.  Then as the sun sets, the father returns spend time with his family and eventually sails off to the lake again.  The mother and baby sit on the shore, watching the night and the lights on the boats.  This picture book is beautifully foreign, tremendously tranquil, and has a lushness that is exquisite.

MacLachlan’s writing is pure poetry.  It has a great hushed quality to it throughout the entire story of the day.  She also deftly weaves in references to Tanzania, creating such a solid sense of place that this story could never be anywhere else in the world.  She references the colors of the sky, the roofs, and the lake.  She speaks of the hard work, and at the end of each stanza comes the refrain: “Lala salama.”  There is also a deep sense of love throughout the work, wrapping all of the poetry with motherly adoration.

Zunon’s illustrations carry the same lushness as the poetry.  Done in oil paint on watercolor paper, they have a deep color palette that becomes even more deep and dazzling as night falls.  It almost shines with light at times, then seems to drink the light from the room.  Beautiful.

A lush, poetic lullaby of a picture book, this makes a great diverse addition to bedtime reading.  Appropriate for ages 3-5.

Reviewed from library copy.

Review: The Giant Seed by Arthur Geisert

| Tasha

GiantSeed

The Giant Seed by Arthur Geisert

This follow-up to the charming Ice continues the story of the community of pigs.  One night, an enormous seed landed near the homes of the pigs.  The pigs immediately set to work planting it, watering it, and caring for it.  It grew into an enormous dandelion.  Just as the flowers were blooming, a volcano near their village started to erupt.  Hot ash fell onto their homes and the pigs were forced to flee.  They found the solution in the dandelion seeds, riding them to a new island filled with trees and fresh water. 

Geisert’s pig stories are told entirely through pictures.  The long, narrow format of the book allows for a series of panels, one picture on each page, or a lovely long image that takes up the entire spread.  Geisert uses all of these formats for his images.  His illustrations are done in etchings with fine lines and small details.  The mystery of the real size of the pigs continues with one wondering if they are either very tiny pigs or the dandelions are truly larger than trees. 

As readers face another disaster alongside the pigs, they will enjoy the whimsical solution and the impressive art.  Appropriate for ages 4-6.

Reviewed from copy received from Enchanted Lion Books.

Review: Traction Man and the Beach Odyssey by Mini Grey

| Tasha

traction man beach

Traction Man and the Beach Odyssey by Mini Grey

Traction Man and his faithful sidekick Scrubbing Brush are on the way to the beach.  There they explore the depths of the Rockpool to discover what creature live beneath the calm surface.  They are then called upon to guard the picnic from any intruders.  Unfortunately, Truffles the dog decided to bury Traction Man.  Happily Scrubbing Brush was there to dig him free.  But just as they are feeling safe, a wave comes and sweeps both of them out into the ocean.  When they resurface, they have been discovered by a girl who carries them to the Dollies’ Castle where there are garlands, sweet treats, and plenty of pink.  Truffles returns to save Traction Man from the castle, and Traction Man and the dolls head off on a shared adventure, to explore digging to the Center of the Earth.

This is the third Traction Man book, and I continue to delight in them.  Grey has exactly the right tone in the writing with Traction Man often speaking like a movie announcer and always in capital letters.   She incorporates plenty of humor into the book, but the reader is not laughing at the adventures or the play of the children.  Instead it is the inherent humor of action figures, their worlds, and that strong dialogue voice. 

Grey also uses small details throughout the book to really create a full world for Traction Man.  Garbage on the beach has brand names and logos, the text of the book is shown on graph paper with torn edges, action sequences are put into frames and read like comic books.  The end pages of the book are just as fun with details about Beach-Time Brenda, one of the dolls, at the front of the book and a comic featuring both Traction Man and Brenda at the end. 

A great summer read for Traction Man fans, this third book can stand happily on its own.  Appropriate for ages 4-6.

Reviewed from library copy.