Book Buds Kidlit Reviews

Animals with attitude

Cool Cats Counting

by Sherry Shahan; illustrated by Paula Barragan

Each page features different animals, a different number and a different dance. Dance? You bet. It’s salsa time!

Imagine Pablo Picasso stumbling into a Latin discotheque filled with barnyard animals, and you’ll have a feel for this finger-snapping counting book. The animals, in their florid dresses, zoot suits and even hip-hop outfits, look off-kilter and flattened, somewhat like late Cubist renderings, only in a jalapeno-hot palette.

And they tango, rumba and cha-cha their way through syncopated verses up to the number 10 in both English and Spanish:

Eight rats
Spin and snap
Rat-a-tat-tat
HIGH JINKS!
Ocho Ratas

Though the press packet talks obligingly about multicultural blah-blah-blah, it’s okay to buy this for its foot-tapping fun.

Rating: *\*\

A nighttime seal of approval

Water Beds: Sleeping in the Ocean

by Gail Langer Karwosky; illustrated by Connie McLennan

I haven’t lost much sleep wondering how marine mammals from orcas to elephant seals get a little shut-eye of their own without drowning, but this book has a major “holy sea cow” factor going for it.

Dolphins sleep with one eye open, for example, and harbor seals “hang like bottles.” A little boy in red pajamas sleeps right beside them, helping kids imagine what they’d look like in the same positions.

Karwosky and McLennan do a good job revealing the animals’ secrets, and activities at the back reinforce the lessons. Not to mention it adds ammunition to parents’ arsenal in getting their kids ready for sleepy-time: if a walrus can snooze in the arctic cold, kiddo, what’s your excuse?

Rating: *\*\*\

Coming out of her shell

Carolina's Story: Sea Turtles Get Sick Too!

by Donna Rathmell; photography by Barbara J. Bergwerf

Sea turtles can get the flu? Shows what I know. But thanks to the expert ministrations of the staff at a South Carolina aquarium, a loggerhead sea turtle’s nursed back to health after she washes up on a beach one day.

Although she’s named after the state where she surfaced, Carolina isn’t anthropomorphized, thank goodness. Rathmell lets this true story more or less tell itself, since it’s deeply affecting without needing to pander to its intended audience.

The photos do the job neatly if not all that artfully, letting us see each stage of the animal’s recovery. She gets her barnacles scraped off and even gets an injection, poor thing, before she’s well enough to paddle back into the surf. Hooray!

Rating: *\*\

Mousy Misbehavior

Tip the Mouse Runs Away

Tip the Mouse Can't Sleep

by Carol Ottolenghi; illustrated by Marco Campanella

Brightly illustrated art and a squishy padded cover promised a fun read to me as I dove into these books. But I was soon let down by Ottolenghi's stories about a mischievous young mouse and his adventures in misbehaving. The artist's cartoony illustrations are bright and cheerful but don't do much to kick these books up a notch, which they desperately need.

The first book, "Tip Can't Sleep," is a bland story of Tip, his teddy bear and being afraid of the dark. The old formula of "trouble sleeping - Mom has some story about stars watching over us - everything is fine" had nothing original to offer or keep my attention.

Moving past "Can't Sleep's" blandness, "Tip Runs Away" actually appalled me with the young mouse's constant rudeness and disregard for his mother, his running away, the parent's failure to chastise or punish him for his rampant brattiness and his failure to learn any sort of lesson or mature in character at the end.

I had to force myself to read these books several times preparing this review. And so here's my "tip:" pass up these books that are merely okay and invest elsewhere in books you are more likely to read again and again out of sheer enjoyment, not duty.

Note: Reviewed by Dawn Mena

Rating: *\

Casualty of war

Alia's Mission: Saving the Books of Iraq

by Mark Alan Stamaty

What would you do if war broke out? What would you try to save? If you’re one of my many librarian readers, you know exactly what you’d do. You’d be stuffing books under your coat, same as your counterpart in Basra on the eve of the 2003 invasion.

Alia Muhammad Baker’s the modest, brainy type. She grew up proud of her ancient heritage, but mindful of the last time her culture was destroyed: by invading Mongol hordes. Feel free to draw any parallels, of course.

Actually, Stamaty, who pens the acerbic Washingtoons and other political comics, steers clear of the blame game for Alia’s peril in this quick-reading graphic novel about her herculean effort to save 30,000 volumes from the Basra library before the bombs drop.

Stamaty shoehorns in several critical days’ worth of frantic activity in stark beige-and-black, with dialogue in all-caps for extra oomph. A compelling narrative plays itself out on Alia's facial features alone; you can even make out flames reflected in her eyes as her beloved library burns.

Rating: *\*\*\*\

Weather forecast: slight chance of miracles

Jerusalem Sky

by Mark Podwal

I should stop reading press releases. They, well, de-press me. This one was chock full of blurbs by such literary heavyweights as Nobel laureate Eli Wiesel (“will bring the city closer to you”), Cynthia Ozick (“the very hues of Paradise”), even Maurice Sendak (“fierce bite, healthy spirit and sheer joyousness”).

You’d think Solomon, Jesus and Mohammed all co-wrote it.

So who am I to criticize Podwal, whose paintings hang in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and who’s a medical doctor in his “spare” time? Not to mention all the fancy fellowships and awards he’s received. I take it Podwal couldn’t write a bad book if someone mugged him and stole all his ideas (hey, let ‘em blurb that).

He brings his literary and artistic heft to bear on the City of Peace (cough) by citing legends, no, er, myths … wait, wait … uh, beliefs about the beautiful sky over Jerusalem from all three monotheistic faiths. Stuff like:

Legend says that the Jerusalem sky
has a hole in it
made by a jewel
that fell from God's throne.
Through this hole
hopes reach heaven.

The book doesn’t name names: no Temple Mount, Church of the Holy Sepulchre or Dome of the Rock, nor is there room for a discordant note in this lyrical poem.

We get to pretend all three faiths can actually coexist in pastel-hued, light-infused impressionistic harmony, at least for 30 pages. Dang, I’ll never get blurbed at this rate. Okay, here goes: Moving tribute! Transcendent art! Message of hope, etc! Nice if you’re into this sort of thing!

Rating: *\*\

An animal Odd Couple

Rose and Riley

Rose and Riley Come and Go

by Jane Cutler; illustrated by Thomas F. Yezerski

Rose is a vole, and the overly practical one who packs cheese sandwiches for the beach but drags an umbrella out on a sunny day. Riley’s a groundhog and off in dreamworld, cheering up his fretful friend with homemade Worry Dolls, but carrying a baseball bat to fend off “Wild Flowers” instead of wildflowers.

You probably know people like this. In fact, it describes my marriage. In these two slim volumes of three stories apiece, Rose and Riley turn ordinary days into mishap-filled commentaries on the nature of friendship. If one has a problem, the other has a solution, even if it’s as deflating as canceling an un-birthday party.

Cutler’s light touch keeps us chuckling at their quirks, even if there’s no real character arc to follow. We’re just peeking in on a pair of charming knuckleheads. Lucky us!

I had one major caveat with the storytelling: these books are heavy on the dialogue and it can be tough determining who’s speaking. This makes reading aloud difficult, as I get the voices all wrong. Even so, they’ve achieved iconic status in our household, with my son defining “Wild Flowers” the way Riley does, as a bunch of purple-petaled meanies. Hee hee.

Rating: *\*\*\

Exploring the Middle Kingdom

Beyond the Great Mountains: A Visual Poem About China

by Ed Young

This poem started life on a roll of paper towels; Young scribbled a rough draft in a washroom and kept it for 20 years. His press release makes him sound like something of a pack rat, squirreling away scraps that he recycles in his torn paper collages.

I don’t envy his family living with that clutter, but the result is an elegant tribute to his native country. The book opens vertically the way Chinese was meant to be read, with the English verses printed on the edges with the pages staggered, so you can read the whole poem at once.

Inside, each collage first shows us an understated, elegant scene from nature, be it a mist-covered mountain or a sprig of wheat. But each one’s also a clever pictogram of a Chinese character.

Written Chinese is a pictorial language and this book shows how some of the characters evolved (a table in the back compares ancient and modern characters).

That’s not to say East trumps West. Young blends both in perfect Taoist harmony, and credits Matisse’s paper collages for his inspiration. The famous Expressionist’s influence can be found in the marriage of unusual colors – bold turquoises and subdued browns, flamingo and speckled gray – and in achieving a high emotional impact with just a few, lean strokes.

This instantly became one of my favorite children’s books of the year, though my three-year-old is far too young for its subtleties. Save this exploration of the Middle Kingdom for slightly older children, maybe ages 6 and up.

Rating: *\*\*\*\

Desserts to die for

The Bake Shop Ghost

by Jacqueline K. Obgurn; illustrated by Marjorie Priceman

Poor, dead Cora Lee; nobody misses her homely self, just her scrumptious cakes. So she haunts her bakery, scaring off new owners until the plucky Annie Washington shows up. But Cora Lee won’t budge until Annie whips up something that “nobody ever made for me.”

After a cake-making marathon to move heaven and earth, resourceful,  stubborn Annie has a head-slapping epiphany and bakes the lonely ghost a birthday cake.

Priceman’s ink-and-watercolor illustrations swirl and swoop with Cora Lee’s ethereal presence, and a few dabs of brown or gold coalesce into mouth-watering morsels. She’s portrayed Annie as African-American and Cora Lee as white, but the undercurrent of tension between the two seems more generational than racial, with Annie’s offerings running the gamut of trendy ethnic cuisines and Cora Lee being a stickler for tradition.

Their friendship is ordained from the time they meet, however, because who can stay mad with all that chocolate around?

Rating: *\*\*\

Help for a birthday-holic

Stop This Birthday!

by Rowan Cutler; illustrated by Elizabeth McClellan

Zephyr wants every day to be her birthday. No, every minute. Make that every second.

When the birthday fairy wants to curse you, she grants your wish, to paraphrase a popular saying. A frantic Zephyr practically explodes keeping up with all those simultaneous parties, cakes, balloons, gifts, etc.

The illustrations, in vivid primary colors, are a jumble of activity and match the story’s frenetic pace before Zephyr finally comes to her senses. Phew!

My son’s reaction to all the fuss: “I want that!” Hmmm ... maybe he’s a bit young to get the message?

Rating: *\*\