Book Buds Kidlit Reviews

A ratty little sister

Rosie and Buttercup
by Chieri Uegaki; illustrated by Stephane Jorisch
Kids Can Press

Everybody who'd be perfectly happy swapping their siblings for a bag of chips, raise your hand. I have both mine in the air. Can I swap them even if they're full-grown? Please? I promise to eat the chips slowly.

Yeah, okay, I'm over the sibling rivalry thing. Mostly.

But if it weren't for that ages-old tussle over birth order, there'd be so much less fodder for adorable picture books, this one included. Rosie's a rat with pet crickets and a taste for dried dandelion puffs. She looks mighty cute in a tu-tu too, as depicted with European flair in Jorisch's watercolors.

Buttercup ruins a perfectly good solo act, and a fed-up Rosie offers her free to a good home. Fortunately, it's the babysitter down the street, who takes Buttercup off Rosie's hands long enough for her to cycle through her immediate bliss, then gradual remorse and finally, sheer panic.

If you've seen this before in other forms, it's fine to recycle the idea, as it rarely gets old. Rosie gives it a girly girl spin, though I'd have liked to see more of Buttercup's personality to better underscore their conflict.

Rating: *\*\

Planting a seed of kindness

The Apple-Pip Princess
by Jane Ray
Candlewick Press

You know how the fairytale goes. There are three sons or three daughters and the aging father or wizard or king will leave all he has to the wisest one, as determined by some task or other they must complete that will prove which one deserves to rule.

The oldest is usually ambitious, the second is vain and competitive, the third has a good heart. They each set about scheming or building or vying for the king's attention, but the third prevails through some simple act of kindness or previously unsuspected wisdom.

Think King Lear but without all those messy deaths.

Ray offers her colorful take of the old tale in a naive style, which emphasizes its folkloric origins. She uses a warm palette, perhaps drawing from a Mediterranean or North African palette (judging by the dark-skinned family, though of course that's beside the point). A handful of mixed media collages are skillfully placed for maximum comic effect when the bad siblings wreak their havoc.

Three princesses each possess something of their late mother's--two choose material things, the third picks a simple box, which she fills with such charming keepsakes as a burst of nightingale song or a splash of sunlight.  And, of course, an apple pip.

When the old king's challenge comes, Ray sets the stakes high: the land's been barren since the queen's death and devoid of birdsong or laughter. Each daughter has only a week to impress their still-grieving father. You're rooting for the youngest, Serenity, especially as the wicked older sisters only find ways to make folks more miserable.

Serenity doesn't fail in her mission, or in her ability to please readers too. She's a delight to watch in action, thoughtful and kind, and her smallest, simplest act of selflessness sprouts into something much larger than expected, as all good deeds in all good folk tales do. All her enchanted items get used in the process, but each has its payoff too. At no point does Ray belabor the message, and even the mean older sisters get a pleasant reprieve. 

Rating: *\*\*\*\

Hum a happy Toon

Silly Lilly and the Four Seasons
by Agnes Rosenstiehl
TOON Books

TOON Books ran out of copies of their three debut titles before they even hit the shelves the other week. I got an email press release (as I suspect a lot of bloggers did, but I'm too lazy to check Technorati) with a fun quote from the publishers:

“We were in the middle of preparing for our launch,” says Editorial Director Françoise Mouly, also the Art Editor of The New Yorker, “but I couldn’t imagine a more welcome distraction.”

Here, here.

I plan to review all three titles, but picked Silly Lilly as my immediate favorite for its understated simplicity and total girl appeal. Like all graphic novels, the story is told in comic format, though the gap between picture book and graphic novel has all but disappeared. About the only way I didn't know this was, in fact, a picture book is that there's no narration, no text imposed over the art except in Lilly's speech bubbles.

The book breaks into five short vignettes, one for each season plus a bonus Spring. In each, Lilly sets herself a simple task, such as going to the park or the beach or picking apples. And that's it--though every story has its twist at the end, when a sea shell has a tiny inhabitant or a snowball goes astray.

It's all Lilly, and she's all glee and giggles, a pen-and-ink Everygirl who can turn any day into a pleasant adventure.

I'm all for it.

Rating: *\*\*\*\

Blossoms for Mom

Flower Garden
by Eve Bunting; illustrated by Kathryn Hewitt
Harcourt, Inc.

I haven't reviewed many board books, but then I haven't encountered many as lovely and enticing as this one. A young girl and her Dad are planning a special birthday surprise for her mother in this sweet, all-too-brief story told in super-simple quatrains.

We meet the girl--and her would-be garden--in the store:

Garden in a shopping cart
Doesn't it look great?

Garden on the checkout stand
I can hardly wait.

And so it goes, until the flowers have been lugged home, repotted and perched in a window box overlooking a bustling city street. Hewitt captures expressions flawlessly in her warm, earthy acrylics, from the girl's glowing fascination to the mother's genuine surprise.

Nice, too, that the book's rugged cardboard will hold up to rough treatment from little fingers, as this may become a fast favorite. Toddlers are notorious for getting restless quickly, but the story is short and the rhymes easy, and you can point out flowers and colors to keep them engaged.

The art features an African-American family, but the appeal should quite obviously be universal. (I like how many illustrators no longer assume the default race of characters is white, but that's another topic for another day.)

Rating: *\*\*\

Sweet surprise

When Ruby Tried to Grow Candy
by Valerie Fisher
Schwartz & Wade

I want to be the crotchety lady next door who's really just misunderstood, and even knows a trick or two about the right way to plant jelly beans. I'm not far enough along to be the old lady in purple, but I'd settle for the middle-aged misfit who teaches an imaginative girl some unusual gardening techniques.

Ruby's wary of the rickety fence that divides her house from her reclusive neighbor, until her red ball goes over the top. Does she go after it? Why, no, she stays home and there's no story and we all go to bed. Not! Of course she goes after it, and comes face to face with Miss Wysteria, in her green wellies and floppy sunhat in a garden straight out of a '60s acid trip. Teacups grow on trees and playing cards form a shrub in these lush watercolor, ink and mixed-media renderings, where much of the background's out of focus in a happy fusion of color.

Ruby's smitten, even if Miss Wysteria's all business. When's the last time you were warned to "pick eggbeaters before a storm. Otherwise, when the wind blows, the din is deafening."

The book's title tells you what crop Ruby tends, and I'm thrilled to report there's no underlying message or moralizing whatsoever, or at least none that's obvious. Nope, this lighthearted nonsense is just pure, delicious fun.

Rating: *\*\*\   

Bee-yoo-ti-ful, dahling!

Minji's Salon
by Eun-hee Choung
Kane/Miller Book Publishers

I'm giving so many buds lately, I could be a florist. But I can't resist stories that celebrate girlhood with truly feminine flair. I think publishers are finally turning the page, so to speak, on the mini-amazons and boys-with-pigtails that passed as girl protagonists for so long. You don't need to climb trees or skin your knees for a great adventure, as Choung shows us in this charming peek at a girly girl's fantasy beauty parlor.

We first meet Minji peering into the salon. The story then alternates between the salon and Minji's home, where she's set up shop with watercolors instead of dyes and crayons for rollers--with the family dog as her customer. On the left-hand page is a woman getting her hair styled, on the right is Minji's colorful and messy mimicry. 

Dressing up is a rite of passage for girls--witness the Fancy Nancy phenomenon--and Choung's playful take should win the heart of the little one marauding your closet. Choung, a South Korean, has a decidedly Eastern style to her art, with flat figures on a white background. The subdued hues get interrupted by wild splotches of color, especially where Minji's our focus--underscoring how much of a whirlwind she must be.

Rating: *\*\*\

Inside a dream

The Girl in the Castle inside the Museum,
by Kate Bernheimer; illustrated by Nicoletta Ceccoli
Schwartz and Wade

reviewed by Kelly Herold

Castle is a beautiful pearly-white onion. This dreamy picture book, aimed at readers ages three to seven, invites children into a layered world, and moves them from observer to participant in incremental stages.

The Girl in the Castle inside the Museum opens as a fairy tale would: "Once upon a time, there was a girl who lived in a castle." Then we discover that the castle is in a museum, inside a glass globe. "When children came to the museum, they pressed as close as they could to the glass globe in which the castle quietly sat. "

Once we look inside the globe, we learn more. The girl inside is sometimes lonely, but her world is beautiful and she takes pleasure in its beauty. She also dreams and tells stories.  Sometimes she even dreams about the reader and invites her into her world: "Now in her room and in her dreams, inside the castle inside the museum, inside this book you hold in your hands, you keep her company in a magical world. "

And the reader will want to keep the girl company. Berheimer's text is dreamy and rhythmic, drawing you in as the layers of the onion are peeled back to its core. And Ceccoli's illustrations? Swoon. Ceccoli's illustrations are heartbreakingly lovely and she has composed them with a childlike perspective--from above and looking in to the center. She has created a magical world a child will only be too happy to join. It's a world of lush browns, oranges, greens, roses, and grays. A world of Escher-like staircases and rooms with animate toys jumping and spinning around its center. A world with a magical, beautiful princess just looking for a friend.

I dare you not to enter the castle inside the museum.

Rating: *\*\*\*\

POETRY FRIDAY A garden of poetic delights

A Poet's Bird Garden
by Laura Nyman Montenegro
Farrar, Strauss & Giroux

I had the pleasure of meeting Laura at our very first kidlitosphere conference back in October, where we had an eye-opening chat about what it's like to be both author and illustrator.

I envied her ability to see a book from the first sparkle of inspiration through the many drafts of verses to the final jot of color, knowing that every comma and brush stroke flows solely and completely from her vision.

I took home a copy of this book but somehow didn't get to review it until now, when its bright cover and amusing premise reminded me of my long-ago promise to review it.

In it, a girl opens the door to her pet bird Chirpie's cage, and it flies into a tree. Whoops. Time to call--well, a bunch of poets. Who else? Poets do seem to inspire loopy logic, as in this book from France.

The Poets try to lure the bird back with yoga poses or bird songs, finally deciding to create a serene, bird-friendly "poet garden"--but will Chirpie take the bait?

We must try to imagine
the mind of the bird,
complex and quick-witted,
quite brilliant, I've heard.

If I were Chirpie
fancy and free,
what beauty would beckon me
down from the tree?

Laura states on the back flap she drew inspiration from Vincent Van Gogh's The Poet's Garden (there's even a character named Vincent), but her palette is mostly subdued and warm, though borrowing perhaps more from Matisse with his tilted picture planes and love of patterns and texture.

The poets are a nice mix of ethnicities, without drawing attention to that fact. She uses rhyme and meter when it suits the narrative, though not always consistently, and most often breaking free when Chirpie remains stubbornly up her tree (perhaps symbolically?).

Rating: *\*\*\

A gay ol' time

Mini Mia and Her Darling Uncle
by Pija Lindebaum
R&S Books

Fascinating that a Swede should come up with a book about a gay uncle that feels so, well, American.  He lives in a hip city that is obviously New York or San Fran or San Diego or, well, Miami, except that's where Mini Mia's M&D are off vacationing while various relatives babysit.

Uncle Tommy's her favorite, and no wonder. Lindenbaum draws the other three uncles and even grandma in the dullest beiges and grays, while Tommy leaps off the page with his multiple earrings, goatee and funky wardrobe. He dyes her hair a different color every day, takes her people-watching at cafes or to sad movies.

Of course she adores him, spending every parent-free moment with him, until boring, badly dressed Fergus shows up. He's obviously Uncle Tommy's new partner, though it's never stated. As an adult, I can appreciate what a momentous decision it is for Tommy to introduce his favorite niece to his beloved, but guess who has hissy fits, pouts, sulks, and generally makes everyone miserable? Thankfully, not Tommy or Fergus, or I'd have taken points for stereotyping.

Lindenbaum keeps a careful reign on Tommy's swishiness and what emerges is a grown-up/child relationship with a unique cast. I haven't googled it, but I'm pretty sure there aren't any other picture books about gay uncles. And yet if you substituted, say, a divorced Dad and his new girlfriend, it'd feel about the same, but without breaking such new and important ground in showing kids that grown-ups fall in love on their own terms.

What makes this book so American, despite its European origins (this is a translation) is the general blue-state sensibility toward gay men, that there's something inherently more fun about them, that their sexuality is a happy fact and in no way threatening, and no apology's needed for loud pants or disarming affectations.

Someday, inevitably, this sentiment will spread to red states, or at least to the more urbane parts. All the adoring Mini Mia's out there will make it so.

Rating: *\*\*\

Setting little girls' hearts a-flutter

Fancy Nancy: Bonjour Butterfly
by Jane O'Connor; illustrated by Robin Preiss Glasser
HarperCollins

Here I go again, reviewing a book that doesn't need my help here at Book Buds. But, I ... I ... I ... can't help myself. It's Fancy Nancy! I have the new Fancy Nancy and you don't. Neener neeners!

Oh, I'm going to be so popular at Seth's school. All the cool girls will love me and want to be my friend.

Okay, so the teachers will probably look at me peculiarly until my back is turned, when they'll be snatching this out of Seth's backpack and slipping it into their book nook. Hah! Let 'em try.

I never read the original, which is supposed to be superb, (a fancy word for good), but I do have Posh Puppy, which everyone says isn't quite as impressive. By everyone I mean all the little girls who love Fancy Nancy. Which, y'know, is everyone.

The series gives little girls a (usually) well-behaved, truly feminine girl who isn't a princess or a Barbie, doesn't need rescuing, isn't out to snare a prince and loooooves playing dress-up. In the series' third book, she and best, interracial friend Bree love butterflies and plan a butterfly birthday party for Bree. Alas, Nancy must attend her grandparents 50th wedding anniversary instead. Oh, the horror!

Take tantrums and sulking to an extreme and dress it up in taffeta, crinoline and dangly beads, with a glittery tiara seemingly floating in cotton candy tufts of red hair, and that's our ethereal--if temperamental--heroine.

Preiss Glasser's* Nancy is a dazzling confection of jelly-belly colors and dramatic gestures who gets it right in the end, and we forgive her when O'Connor gives her the right touch of humility.

She even gets her butterflies, which makes it way better than Posh Puppy, which has no butterflies at all.

Ooooh ... I can't wait to share this with the other girls.

Rating: *\*\*\

*Special bonus: Here's Preiss Glasser from the 2006 LA BookFest.