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: *\*\*\*\

Comics for kids, can you believe it?

Big Fat Little Lit

The  gray envelope announced THE NEW YORKER in its signature font, all oversized and all caps and importantly stylish. What did THE NEW YORKER want with me? Had I ever had the chutzpah to send THE NEW YORKER any of my execrable short stories? Hmmm ... no. Had someone ordered me a gift subscription? Nope. Maybe they meant some other Anne Levy?

Inside was a graphic novel, or rather, an anthology of graphic short stories. I still thought they had the wrong person. Graphic novels are for grown-ups, right?

See, graphic novelists are victims of their own PR. Having kvetched for decades that comics aren't for kids, they send me a collection aimed straight at the cartoon underpants crowd. The connection to The New Yorker: It's edited by husband-wife duo Art Spiegelman and Francoise Mouly, she being that magazine's art editor.

The collection--culled from three previous Little Lit anthologies--is, of course, literary and brilliant and oh-so-eclectic, and if you know nothing about the genre, it's an easy intro. Fairy tales nestle comfortably next to horror stories and folklore, and my four-year-old easily adapted to the diverse narrative styles and voices: after all, he could see the differences.

The comic world's Big Names are well represented, including Kaz, Jules Feiffer, Patrick McDonnell and my personal fave, Barbara McClintock, looking as classy and lushly detailed as ever. Joining them are such kidlit luminaries as Neil Gaiman and Lemony Snicket, though I'm rarely as thrilled with author/artist collaborations as when it's a singular vision by one person doing both.

The LA Times has also reviewed Big Fat Little Lit (hat tip: Kelly) so I won't repeat details of individual stories. Looking at the big picture, pardon the pun, I was struck by how many were told with forceful moral underpinnings. More than a few protagonists must face the gloomy consequences of their misdeeds and I didn't spot a single story where evil prevailed. Naughtiness, maybe, but not genuine eat-your-family badness.

That's not to say it's all goody-two-shoes fluff. Like the original Grimm's Fairy Tales, many stories venture into nightmare territory, where mothers-in-law try to devour grandchildren, stuffy noses explode with dopplegangers and cute kitties come from alternate worlds, and little that seems comfortable and safe turns out to be so.

I get the distinct impression these are stories written by actual parents who have braved the wild terrain of a child's imagination to chart both its twisted roads and startling flora.

Rating: *\*\*\*\

SEA WEEK Sharks and serpents and sea monsters, oh my!

Sharks and Other Sea Monsters (Encyclopedia Prehistorica Series)

by Robert Sabuda and Matthew Reinhart

Talk about a book jumping out and biting you. You'll be checking your fingers for missing digits with this pop-up primer on marine dinosaurs and other underwater nasties.

Don't be fooled by the plain cover, which hides four fat inches of complex 3-D depictions of the ugliest, meanest critters ever to slither, scuttle or swim beneath prehistoric seas. They literally burst into view in rich, dazzling colors and minutely crafted paper.

Each page also features booklets tucked into the corners with yet more pop-ups and intriguing facts, whether on crocs, sharks and other modern monsters or yet more ancient icky-sauruses.

Tragically, I have to put this book away for a few years, since its paper wizardry is too intricate for little hands. An eye-popping battle between long-necked sea lizards of several species took a few minutes to untangle and tuck safely away. A skeletal Ichthyosaur nearly lost its tail getting refolded.

Nonetheless, this is the book to have to impress your budding marine biologists. Just have the harpoons handy.

Rating: *\*\*\*\

Monster Mama Knows Best

Who Is Your Favorite Monster, Mama?

by Barbara Shook Hazen; illustrated by Maryann Kovalski

On some levels, being a mom of very young children is a little like being a rock star. I’m the center of my children’s universe, both girls thrilling to play with me, show off for me, follow me around or simply cuddle. Their looks of naked adulation I memorize for recall in later years when my star inevitably falls. And then there’s all the screaming, the sleepless nights, the empty bottles strewn about.

Harry is a little monster who loves his mama, and his mama loves him “as much as a mountain, as wide as outside, and deeper every day.” He’s happy when he is the center of Mama’s attention. But when Mama can’t come running because she is tending to baby sister Bronwen or big brother Bruxley, the green-eyed monster takes over our little green guy, leading him to believe Mama has more time for his siblings than for him.

Proving that monster children take the same logical leaps as human kids, Harry decides Mama must love Bronwen and Bruxley more than she loves him. But Mama is clever, and helps Harry figure out for himself that she loves all of her furry, warty children the most. Little Harry is happy again.

Mama’s response makes perfect sense to me, now that I’m a mom and I love both of my kids the same – with every particle of my being and with an intensity that would be frightening if it weren’t so natural. No rock star ever loved her fans as much.

Note: reviewed by Deb Clark

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: *\*\*\*\

Monstrous home improvement

He Came With the Couch

by David Slonim

This books is silly, and that’s a compliment. When Sophie’s family buys a sofa at a rummage sale, a silent, unmoveable creature comes stuck to it. The book’s dedication to Jim Henson, creator of the Muppets, probably accounts for the figure’s resemblance to the famous puppets, with his blue skin, yellow bulb nose and purple hair.

He won’t budge, and the book’s at its quirkiest with the couch getting dragged on family outings, until one day he springs to life in a quick and instinctive act of love. The story’s playful innocence is also reminiscent of Henson, but rendered with the tenderness and simplicity of a bedtime story.

Rating: *\*\

Shhh ... don't scare the monster!

Jitterbug Jam: A Monster Tale

by Barbara Jean Hicks; illustrated by Alexis Deacon

     There’s a boy under the bed! How’s a little monster supposed to get any sleep? Only Bobo’s granpa, the wise and fierce Boo-Dad, believes him, and coaches him to confront the scary human lurking at the edge of his nightmares.

      A clever twist on an old story, right? But what happens when you take this inventive tale and shackle it to two competing ways of telling it? There’s the narrative itself, with its rural, homey inflections and colloquialisms: “lickety-split ’n’ spit fish”, for example, or the gratingly un-clever, “going to crumble like a week-old cookie.”

     And then there’s Deacon’s take, with wickedly delightful Goth overtones in the Victorian-era monster home. Think snails or beetle prints instead of chintz and William Morris. The book is laid out like a graphic novel, giving Deacon the flexibility to move in panels across or down, or to zero in on specific images. The result: a more subtle, layered story than if illustrated in a straightforward, one-scene-per-page way.

     The informal, breezy language and richly dark illustrations don’t mesh well, however, as if creating parallel fantasy worlds, each with its own vocabulary. This is Hicks’ debut as a children’s novelist, and while she’s off to a promising start, she could’ve stood some judicious pruning of verbal clunkers and clichés, which might’ve united words and art into a more seamless whole.

Rating: *\*\*\