Book Buds Kidlit Reviews

Spinning legends

The Silk Princess
by Charles Santore

Random House

Reviewed by Kelly Herold

Charles Santore takes an ancient Chinese legend about the discovery of silk from silkworms and turns it into a story of magic and adventure for the school-aged child.  Indeed, The Silk Princess is a picture book best suited for children who already enjoy The Magic Treehouse or The Spiderwick Chronicles.  It's a picture book for children
entranced by wonder of myth and enchantment.

Princess Hsi-Ling Chi is the lone and ignored daughter of The Emperor Huang-Ti.  Even though Hsi-Ling is an obedient and well-behaved child, she can never live up to her brothers in her father's eyes.

One day, Hsi-Ling is enjoying her tea in the royal gardens when a cocoon falls in to her tea.  The cocoon begins to unravel in the hot tea and Hsi-Ling tells her mother, "'I will tie this end of the thread around my waist, and you, Mother, will hold the cocoon.  I shall walk away from you, and we shall see how long this fine thread is.  I will go to the end of the gardens, should the thread reach that far.'"  The thread--not only a silk thread perfect for weaving, but also a symbol for one's first steps away from home--reaches much further from the garden.  Hsi-Ling walks as far as the Palace, the Holy
Mountains, and a bridge, under which a fearsome dragon lives.  When Hsi-Ling crosses the bridge and defeats the dragon, she meets an old man who teaches her the secret of silk thread and promises to accompany her home. 

Santore uses the language of myth and legend in The Silk Princess, never simplifying for the sake of genre. Moreover his palate is sophisticated--full of browns, oranges, reds, and dark greens--perfect for readers beginning to learn more about art.  What is most striking about the visual aspect of The Silk Princess is how Santore highlights Princess Hsi-Ling's face.  While all the characters are painted in a realistic style with
only slight exaggerations, Hsi-Ling's face is mobile and infused with light.  In every illustration, she is the focus as light and shadow play upon her beautiful, expressive face.

The Silk Princess is highly recommended for readers ages six to ten.  Don't be afraid to give it to older children as well--children who may be studying legend or China in the fifth and sixth grades.

Rating: *\*\*\

A primary book on elections

If I Ran for President
by Catherine Stier; illustrated by Lynne Avril

Albert Whitman & Co.

How fitting that the child on the cover is African-American, just two days after Barack Obama's historic win in the Iowa caucuses. Because now when this book, like so many others, says anyone can run for president, you can read it with conviction in your voice, regardless of your political persuasion.

There are the usual caveats, as an introduction cautiously points out: you have to be born here, for one. And it tries to sum up our baffling electoral college in a few quick lines.

But then we move swiftly into the election cycle--the year of media blitz, campaign stops, caucuses and primaries and conventions and The Big Night in early November. It's a taut summary of what it takes to run, filled with cutesy-isms like the candidate showing off his straight-A report card or favorite pets frolicking in the oval office.

We get this all from a kid's eye view. Or rather, several views, as it rotates through six different kids of varying ethnicities; three of each gender, all without making any mention of such skin-deep differences.

It all sounds giddily exciting, a year of wow-bam-wahoo fun, nevermind all the nasty adult stuff like partisan attacks, media stalking and those nasty campaign ads. There's plenty of time for kids to lose their innocence about that stuff--the New Hampshire primary's tomorrow, after all.

Rating: *\*\*\

Dancing his troubles away

The Only Boy in Ballet Class
by Denise Gruska; illustrated by Amy Wummer

Reviewed by Kelly Herold

Being the boy who likes ballet—or figure skating, or clogging, or, well, you get the picture—is never easy. When you’re the boy who likes ballet, you’re usually the only boy in your dance class. And that's the least of your problems. Often, other boys at school will make fun of you. And, surely, there’s a disapproving relative—an uncle, or a grandmother, or a parent—who will try to convince you that ballet is simply not appropriate for boys.

Enter Denise Gruska’s The Only Boy in Ballet Class, a book for those children who love something so passionately they can’t help but following their dreams. “Tucker Dohr loves to dance ... The other kids think he’s weird, but he can’t help it. It feels right to him. Like breathing.”

Tucker loves to dance so much that he tries to ignore the fact that he’s the “last one picked for softball. And basketball. And volleyball. He tries to pretend that he doesn’t care. He reminds himself that he’d rather dance anyway.” But we all know ignoring only helps so much when you’re in grade school. The small print in parentheses tells us, “But sometimes he has to cry about it at night when he’s alone.”

The boys playing football are the cruelest to Tucker and he has to endure their taunts on the way to his afternoon class each time he attends. But, and this is what I like best about The Only Boy in Ballet Class, the bullying is simply a conflict and a fact of life, not the focus of the story. Tucker’s love of dance and his passion for movement stays front and center and, thanks to Amy Wummer’s charming and accessible illustrations, comes through to the reader. We dance with Tucker when he needs to “leap over Marbles” (the family cat) or “spin past his tricky, tricky twin sisters.” We feel Tucker’s joy in movement and want to dance along.

Sprinkled with an offering of ballet terms, Gruska’s text is lively and will appeal most to readers ages four to nine. Her resolution of the bully conflict is unexpected, but fitting with Tucker’s joyful nature and the magic of dance. The Only Boy in Ballet Class is for all the “different” kids of the world and should be required reading in the first through third grades.

Rating: *\*\*\

Snicket's latke's a tasty morsel

The Latke Who Couldn't Stop Screaming: A Christmas Story
by Lemony Snicket; illustrations by Lisa Brown

McSweeney's Books

What, a Lemony Snicket picture book? Oh please, pretty please, may I have one?

Or not. Shrug.

The publisher not being the usual sort to make the kidlit blogging circuit, I had no idea if a review copy would be forthcoming. It was.

And, joy of interfaith joys, the book is indeed wryly funny and lightly philosophical, and by this I mean that it gets its point across without bruising you with repeated beatings.

Its billing as a Christmas story should alert Jewish readers that the story isn't necessarily aimed at them; it's designed to give Christians a feel for being on the outside looking in. By now, many people will know that Snicket is the pseudonym for Daniel Handler, and his wife illustrated this stocking-stuffer-sized book about feeling left out, misunderstood and literally out in the cold.

"This story ends in someone's mouth, but it begins in a tiny village more or less covered in snow."

GROSS-OUT WEEK This book is really crap

Poop: A History of the Unmentionable
by Nicola Davies; illustrated by Neal Layton

Candlewick Press

Oh yeah, a POOP book. Kids won't like that, will they? I mean, it's only a wee-sized book about POOP, not anything designed to appeal to kids, whom we all know prefer to read about nice, clean subjects, like manners and respecting grown-ups and how not to insist in a whiny voice that you must read them a book about POOP right now, pleeeeez.

Ach. I'm disowning both of them.

Did you know that poop gets its nauseating hue from all the colors of our food blending in our intestines? See? An art lesson. And blue whales have pink poop. You can tell all about animals from their poop. F'rinstance, cute bunny wabbits EAT THEIR OWN POOP. Right out of their butts.

Oh yeah, kids will just hate this. And those scribbly, colorful drawings just like a kid would make? They'll hate that too.

In fact, between this and the parasite book, I predict Davies and Layton will have no sales whatsoever and be forced to take up a useful, productive hobby, like re-teaching my kids manners now that they ask for POOP at the dinner table. Gah.

Rating: *\*\*\

GROSS-OUT WEEK Don't bug me

What's Eating You? Parasites -- The Inside Story
by Nicola Davies; illustrated by Neal Layton

Candlewick Press

Ew! Ew! Ew! Need I say more? Ew!

I'm not showing this one to my kids. Nightmare time! At least for Mom.

In 60 stomach-churning pages, we learn all about the critters who make their home in fur, hair, tummies and, oh, gawd, I can't go on. Want to know the grossest? Me neither.

There are lots of, uh, fun facts on parasites of every size and disposition, from how they find their hosts to where they set up camp. I got a serious case of the ickies, and you will too, but there's some useful info on how to avoid them.

It's more of a novelty book, so it's compact and easily lost. Hooray. There's not much else to say. Just shudder, shut it, and tuck it under the rug for the fleas to find.

Rating: *\*\*\

POETRY FRIDAY War is a three-letter word

Why War is Never a Good Idea
by Alice Walker

HarperCollins

Today is International Peace Day (and, incidentally, the Eve of Yom Kippur, Judaism's holiest day), and this poem about war drops like jagged pieces of glass into your conscience, intensely sharp but, in the right light, shining and beautiful.

Set aside the word "never" in the title. You could make a good case for many wars in history, but we're not concerned with polemics here. Walker makes a character out of War; watchful and insidious, unconcerned and toxic:

Though War is Old
It has not
Become wise
It will not hesitate
To destroy
Things that
Do not
Belong to it
Things very
Much older
Than itself.

Walker, author of The Color Purple, obviously doesn't shy away from a controversy, but don't expect subtlety. The extended metaphor has no place to hide in her spare prose, though it builds its own momentum as idyllic images of families and landscapes sink beneath violence and gore.

Vitale's art drives the point home, literally. Turn the page on a lovely Asian panorama and the paper becomes wrapped around a filthy Jeep wheel with its rusting hubcap. Vibrantly hued renderings of azure skies, sun-dappled fields and teeming jungles channel Henri Rousseau or perhaps Paul Gauguin with their fondness for the primitive, in this case symbolizing the pristine. Brace for these pastoral scenes erupting with smears of toxic-looking goo, rusting nails, or cracked enamel. The effect is both jarring and yet sublime; it's hard not to admire the artistry even in what's meant to be the ugliest pages.

A few references chafe: Walker mentions War seeing oil and gas in the earth, though in the entire history of human conflict, only a tiny fraction involved those commodities. She pulls it all off in the end, however, by admonishing the reader about War's contagious effects on us all.

Is this the best way to teach kids about war? I have no idea. My friends and I are all agreed that we'd like to put off teaching our children about the Holocaust for as long as possible, and there are no mentions of Iraq at our dinner table, nor even much about Israel and Palestine.

What you decide to teach a young child about war is, of course, entirely up to you. Walker and Vitale are merely giving you one approach, which, if it doesn't prompt nightmares, should at least inspire numerous questions.

Rating: *\*\*\

POETRY FRIDAY Insect-asides

Today's ant-sized selection comes from Bugs: Poems About Creeping Things, a book no bigger than a flea circus but with Goliath beetle-sized humor.

David L. Harrison channeled Ogden Nash for this offbeat collection that's just the thing for the wiggly worms and buzzy bees in your household. Rob Shepperson's drawings add jots of squiggly fun to the verses.

Below are simply a few excerpts, not whole poems. For that, you'll have to fly, hop, crawl or skitter to the bookstore for your own copy.

From Chigger:

Since we have
to have
the chigger,

Let's be grateful
he's not
bigger.

And, in honor of the Midwest's Cicada season:

Cicacada's grumpy,
red-eyed,
mean,
set his
alarm for
seventeen. 

Rating: *\*\*\

POETRY FRIDAY Some colorful odes to black and white

Poems in Black & White
by Kate Miller

If you've ever been accused of seeing the world in black and white, you're in good company. In these 17 poems, Miller's chosen the two most-prime of all prime colors as her subject matter, and observes the play of light and dark at work in the natural world.

She writes whole odes to the a playful moon "the sun's shy sister" who sends "alabaster beams" criss-crossing a room like a tic-tac-toe board. A newborn's feet are caught forever in ink at the hospital, a comet's blurred "as if some/impish thumb/had smeared/a star/before/the night/had dried."

Miller's art also explores these themes in her monotypes, a new word to me, but it's all explained in an endnote. She smooshed slow-drying paint onto plexiglass, used wooden sticks, fingers, whatever, to create the illustration, then laid paper over the plexiglass and sealed a reverse-image onto it. Sounds complicated, but the result are many restful, placid compositions where light and dark smoothly meld into one another.

I'd give this to an older child, one whose critical thinking skills are advanced enough to relish the imagery and appreciate her descriptive prowess.

Rating: *\*\*\

POETRY FRIDAY Good sports all around

Good Sports: rhymes about running, jumping, throwing, and more
by Jack Prelutsky; illustrated by Chris Raschka

A funny thing happened on the way to reviewing this collection. I went to Jack's poetry reading. He read only a few from Good Sports, but I had an "aha" moment nonetheless. Really, sometimes you need to hear poetry to  get it.

My epiphany came when he described the poems as getting inside the head of kids as they played at a sport. So we're in the moment, when resolve meets the rubber, and the game is made or, more likely, lost.

Because none of these kids are superstars, just regular kids. The untitled poems flit between sports as different as basketball and frisbee, told in first person as a kid tries to catch the ball or score the goal or make the shot. Sometimes they succeed, sometimes they fail, but the real point is to keep trying, right?

In this one, I found one of the better images:

Though I like to swim,
I don't swim very well.
I swim like a fish
That's been sick for a spell.

At first glance, I agreed with reviews this one, or the Publisher's Weekly blurb (on Amazon), which rightly point out the poet's flaws. Perhaps he should give rhyming couplets a rest; abcb gets wearisome after a few pages, and rhymes like ball ... all or won ... fun can grate on grown-up ears.

Prelutsky's at his best when giving us a kid's eye view of the action, matching meter to emotion:

I'm a gymnast,
I can vault,
Swing and spring
And somersault. 

Prelutsky's known for seeding verses with a few choice big words, like epitome or agility, to make kids jump higher or reach further for the right meaning. Most of the poems end in his signature surpise twist, with bonus points for humor:

My dunk will be spectacular--
The greatest of them all.
When I grow three feet taller,
I will dunk this basketball.

If Good Sports sometimes delivers a less-than-perfect performance, Raschka's art sprints to an easy victory. They're great. Amazing, in fact. Raschka's a genius with a watercolor brush. Splash, splash and voila! A masterpiece of movement.

He even experiments with storytelling: a tiny tot grows in stop-action frames to sink the basketball into the hoop, and another page shows a shot from above. A girl's frisbee arm elongates to make the toss; a karate kick lands on the next page.

Broad, watery strokes conjure up simple scenarios, with a flat picture plane as if a child had done this on plain, white paper at home. But there's nothing childlike in how his mishmashed colors jibe and jar and pop out at us at unexpected moments.

Did I mention I got both men's John Hancock's? Raschka was at the reading too. Oh, yeah, I'm the queen. You can all bow now.

Rating: *\*\