Book Buds Kidlit Reviews

Bring It On!

Aliens Are Coming! The True Account of the 1938 War Of The Worlds Radio Broadcast
by Meghan McCarthy

Reviewed by Deb Clark

Fabulous art, snappy dialogue, remarkable story. Yeah, yeah, that’s all good stuff for a children’s picture book. But to pass my family’s litmus test you have to tell me: how many funny voices can I make when I read it to my kids?

Aliens Are Coming! Is an amazing book on all counts. Who’da thunk a marvelous topic for a children’s book is Orson Welles’ infamous 1938 radio play of The War of the Worlds—a broadcast that lead to mass panic and hysteria when up to a million people feared that Martians actually were invading. But McCarthy’s gripping and well-researched retelling of the story, along with her lively and hilarious illustrations—the humans are almost, but not quite as bug-eyed as the aliens, although far less inclined to copious drool—make this one an instant hit in my house.

And I’m not alone. This book has received special nods from a slew of reviewers and even won a review spot in The New York Times. The freaking New York Times, people. That’s big stuff for a little kids’ book.

As for the funny read-aloud voices? Let’s just say that the things that can be done with all that breathless dialogue from the actual play make my kids beg to hear this story over and over and over.

For readers who want to get really wonkish about the facts of the story, the book ends with a detailed author’s note. Even more background, including newspaper clippings, audio broadcasts and pics of a wonderfully kitschy and bird befouled monument honoring the hoax, can be found on McCarthy’s website at www.aliensarecoming.com.

Note: here's another review of this book.

Rating: *\*\*\*\

Is history repeating itself?

Aliens Are Coming!

by Meghan McCarthy

My Dad wasn't fooled for a minute. While the rest of the country panicked at the thought of a Martian invasion, Dad sat thrilled by the radio on October 30, 1938 as Orson Welles updated the sci-fi classic "The War of the Worlds." Unlike thousands of others who fled their homes, jammed traffic or prepared for the worst, Dad caught the fact it was just a show.

At least, that's what he claimed.

McCarthy captures the wide-eyed hysteria that accompanied the notorious broadcast, plus we get to see slobbery, tentacled aliens. Yes! With tongue firmly planted in cheek and a retro touch to her brush, she reprints some of the script and depicts what people imagined was happening.

Cut to reality: jammed switchboards and clogged intersections, and a desolate pasture in a New Jersey town called Grovers Mill (in Princeton Township) where the first ship allegedly landed. I've actually seen the water tower people mistook for a "Martian cylinder." I guess it's easy to laugh now, eh?

As she cuts back and forth from fictional to real, McCarthy's palette shifts from rusty Martian reds to black-and-gray tones, as if listeners were extras in a 1930s movie. She stays true to the era and resists the temptation to slide into 1950s B-movie camp.

Beginning and substantial end notes flesh out this fascinating glimpse into how one nutty genius hoodwinked a country.

Karl Rove, are you listening? 

Rating: *\*\*\*\

Spacing on rockets

This Rocket

by Paul Collicutt

My son is bigtime into outer space, whereas I am merely an aging space cadet. So while his room is chock-a-block with stars and spaceships and astronaut-related stuff, I merely gaze off into the cosmos. At least we both keep busy, even if only one of us is moving.

This book's on his recent list of must-reads, since it's so obviously on-topic, but I found it short on details, and it skips around chronologically.

The Flash Gordon feel to the graphics is what makes this book soar. We whiz through rocketing history from the Soviet space chimp through the international space station. The highlight is, of course, the Apollo 11 countdown, blasting vertically across the final pages.

"This rocket" repeats on every page, paired with opposites: big rockets and small, zooming up and splashing down, etc. The repetition does wonders for wee minds, of course, and it's clearly geared toward the gizmo-obsessed, as are the rest of the books in Collicutt's transportation series: "This Truck" and "This Train" to name but two.

Rating: *\*\

Roaring over my head

The Noisy Airplane Ride

by Mike Downs; illustrated by David Gordon

Photoshopped illustrations save this book from bogging down in technical jargon. Gordon used real pictures of airplanes and morphed them into something akin to acrylic paintings. You can make out every dial on the glowing panel, yet the plane becomes a ghostly silhouette at night.

But I still don’t know how to translate words like “thrust” into ordinary English, though I’m impressed Downs can fit rhymes around all the techno-babble. Written by a pilot, the book tries to de-mystify an airplane’s many odd pings, roars and rattles for the young traveler with some lively onomatopoeia, but I don’t see its appeal beyond a narrow audience of gadget-obsessed boys.

Rating: *\*\

Stories soar above controversy

Fantastic Flights : One Hundred Years of Flying on the Edge

by Patrick O'Brien

The first cross-country flight took 49 days. Howard Hughes' "Spruce Goose" had a 320-foot wingspan, longer than a football field. The first words ever uttered from space were in Russian: "I see Earth. It's so beautiful." Who said being a geek can't be cool? Each page introduces another chapter in aviation history, starting with a bird-shaped hang glider and ending with Pathfinder hitting Mars' rocky soil. The stories are fact-filled and crisply told, the illustrations precise, if not terribly electrifying.

There's no mention of airport delays, of course, nor of babies getting frisked. More seriously, while the Hindenburg disaster is prominently mentioned, the space shuttle story overlooks a few mishaps like, oh, the occasional fiery death. Talk about positive spin: even cynical ol' me was tempted to see flying as more of a miracle than an ordeal.

Rating: *\*\