Book Buds Kidlit Reviews

Book Buds' first challenge

Okay, I'm new to the idea of blog challenges, so this will be an easy one.

I'm trying to help a girl after my own heart -- a total bookworm who reads anything you leave in her path and hopes to be a journalist someday. Her well-intended parents are Israeli scientists -- brilliant folks, but on unfamiliar turf when it comes to directing her reading habits, even leaving aside the language barrier.

Oh yeah, big-time empathy for me, the daughter of a nurse and an accountant who also didn't know what to do with their budding book lover.

Today, I offered to compile a list of childhood classics she can take out of our local library (now that she's finished the Narnia series). Then I thought, hey, I have all those brilliant literary readers, I'll ask THEM for suggestions!

So that's what I'm doing. In the comments section below would you pretty please:

1) Describe the ONE book you believe no highly intelligent, very motivated pre-teenaged girl should grow up without.

2) Limit your reasoning to only one sentence, please, because I have a short attention span (this is the challenge part -- keeping it brief).

3) If someone has already picked your favorite, please pick something else. The idea is to compile a nice, long list to keep her busy all summer.

Is it Black Beauty or Secret Garden or Little Women? Or something more contemporary?

See? Very easy. Anybody can jump in and there is no such thing as a stupid suggestion.

Many thanks in advance for the help.

Moonstruck all over again

Team Moon: How 400,000 People Landed Apollo 11 on the Moon

by Catherine Thimmesh

True story: I was in fifth grade and Ken Barry was bragging over lunch about his Dad this, his Dad that. I don't remember what was so special about his Dad, but I knew my Dad had some sort of weird occupation -- CPA -- whatever that was.

So I went for the old standby.

"Well, my Uncle Sol ... "

"I don't care if your Uncle Sol built the Apollo moon rocket!" Ken said.

"Well, he DID!"

You shoulda seen the expression on his face. Heh.

Sol Boles, a radar and sonar engineer with Grumman Aircraft, was a legend in our family. He had a house full of moon memorabilia, including a real moon rock and a poster autographed by the entire Apollo 11 team. He happened to be in Washington, D.C. one year while we were vacationing and led us through the newly opened National Air & Space Museum -- followed by a small throng who mistook him for a docent.

Uncle Sol would've been pleased with Thimmesh's tribute to the many people who put together the triumphant Apollo 11 mission. She recaptures some of its glow for a new generation with spectacular photos, excerpts from transcripts and interviews from some unusual contributors, including a seamstress who helped make the space suits.

Although I fall in love with Neil Armstrong all over again every time I read about him (I had a big crush on him as a moonstruck six-year-old), it's good to remember we did this as a nation. Everyone played their part in figuring out how to achieve President Kennedy's deceptively simple exhortation "of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth."

Thimmesh breaks the mission down into its separate challenges, whether it was unexpected alarms or a near-empty fuel tank, and includes photos of many of the contributors in the back.

I love the seamstress, Eleanor Foracker, best:

"We didn't worry too much until the guys on the moon started jumping up and down."

A few caveats: Thimmesh's narration is on the dry side, and sounds a bit book-reportish. You've seen many of the moon pics before and there's always plenty more available straight from NASA's website.

But you'd be hard pressed to find a kid's book more thorough in its presentation of mission minutiae, or one that includes so many voices.

Rating: *\*\*\

The Queen of Princess Books

The Princess and the Pea

by Lauren Child; illustrations by Polly Borland

Reviewed by Deb Clark

Thanks to the marketing juggernaut at Disney, my daughter – along with just about every other pre-school-age girl in the country – is a princess fanatic. I don’t mind her fervor for fairytale royalty, but the way the stories portray marriage as the means to Happily Ever After worries me.

My 4-year-old has already proposed to three of her friends – two boys and a girl – and announced that she’d like me to schedule the ceremony for her next birthday.

One night she insisted she needed a wedding dress RIGHT THAT INSTANT. And today she informed me that we had better pick out a prince for her 1-year-old sister, because she is obviously too young to do it herself.

So I approached Child’s “The Princess and the Pea” with understandable trepidation. But the book quickly swept us both off our feet. My daughter and I were captivated by the illustrations. Viewing them is like entering a doll’s world.

The castle’s paneled rooms – fashioned by Child out of cornflake boxes and picture board – are painted in sumptuous colors and decorated with miniature furniture, floor coverings, wall hangings, even tiny, working chandeliers.

Outdoor scenes use rocks, leaves and tree-like twigs against rich, expertly lighted backdrops.

Carefully placed in each scene are the hand-drawn characters, dressed in layers of fancifully patterned paper, and the whole thing is photographed by award-winning photog Polly Borland, whose use of light is truly magical.

Child’s writing gives the familiar story oomph, which, combined with the text’s varying font sizes and italics and the occasional elaborate dropcap, make for a fun read. Like in this excerpt, where the King and Queen tell the Prince how difficult it is to find a real princess:

“They do not grow on trees,” said the king.

“No, no, they do not,” said the queen.

“You see,” said the kind, “a real princess is not only mesmerizingly beautiful and fascinatingly interesting but, most important of all –“

“She has manners,” said the queen.

“No one should ever travel without them,” said the king.

“No, never, never go anywhere without your manners,” agreed the queen, taking her elbows off the table.

A colossal amount of effort went into this book.

Thank you Lauren Child and Polly Borland for taking the time to do it. It’s a rare treat to find a book I don’t mind reading for the third time in one sitting.

Now, if only the story ended with the princess postponing the wedding until she finishes college.

Rating: *\*\*\*\

Just in case I don't have enough to do

At first I thought I wasn't included in this big shindig over at MotherReader's blog, because it's for bigger kids' books and I never get invited to the cool parties. But she sent me a nice note on an older post of mine, so I guess I'm in. Yaaay!

Basically, I have to neglect the kids, the hubby and packing up the house and blog, blog, blog for 48 hours straight sometime between June 15-19. I assume I get the occasional break to pee and refill my iced tea.

Here are the official rules in case you'd like to join the rest of us in reviewing as many books as possible in two days flat.

All you need is a blog, a stack of books, and insomnia.

The case for legalizing whale hunting

Abigale the Happy Whale

by Peter Farrelly; illustrated by Jamie Rama

I really do try to keep an open mind about celebrity authors. After all, they were smart enough to rise to the top in Hollywood, right?

So what am I to make of this flop by screenwriter Peter Farrelly, of "There's Something About Mary" and "Dumb and Dumber" fame that is shockingly unfunny. No potty humor, no semen site gags, no yuks at all, unless you count his numerous puns. But those provoke nervous laughter, the kind you emit from twitching lips before the meds take effect.

Which you'll need. Trust me.

See, Abigale is cheerful despite all the other humpback whales being sad. Come to find out they want to beach themselves to protest pollution. How inspiring. Hey, all you insufficiently liberal beachgoers, just watch us kill ourselves! En masse! Bet that will make you feel bad, huh?

How uplifting. Maybe I should follow up with a few obituaries or the crime blotter.

And now for a few puns. Pardon my ellipses ...

Clem the Clam ... was acting like a real dip ...

"What kind of chowderhead would do this?" The steamed clam snapped.

Abigale ... dug this shellfish ... Clem was so surprised, he clammed up.

I know you want more. There's the golfin' dolphin and Dr. Gus the Octopus and my personal favorite, Fred Doofish the Red Bluefish, who suffers from an enlarged liver from eating poisoned seaweed.

Never mind that he'd probably be yellow, or that I must explain -- again and again -- what a liver is to a four-year-old whose knowledge of human anatomy begins and ends with his pipi. Oh, semen jokes, where are you when I need you?

Back to our story, which ends on Santa Monica, California, beaches with the whales deciding to swallow all the lawn chairs, bowling pins, golf clubs and other household flotsam and spew it through their blow holes onto the beach.

There! Let it be someone else's problem! What a great lesson.

And just in case you didn't get that message beaten into your head with the dolphin's nine iron, the front flap says that half of Farrelly's take goes to Heal the Bay, which cleans up Santa Monica's shoreline. He should give the other half to me, plus a refund for the stronger eyeglass prescription I need now.

Rating: *\

POETRY FRIDAY e e cummings on love

The following is from a collection of ee cummings poems on love, with art by Christopher Myers. It makes me think of my son.

Up into the silence the green
silence with a white earth in it

you will(kiss me)go

out into the morning the young
morning with a warm world in it

you will(kiss me)go

on into the sunlight the fine
sunlight with a firm day in it

you will(kiss me)go

down into your memory and
a memory and memory

i)kiss me(will go)

Big Ben

Now & Ben: The Modern Inventions of Benjamin Franklin

by Gene Barretta

Aargh ... TypePad ate the original version of this post. I'll try and remember all the cool, pithy remarks I made. Gah.

Ben Franklin's probably the #1 subject of picture book biographies that cross my desk. He's picturesque -- both visually and as a bio subject. This is the first book I've chosen to review, however, because of its clever format and quirky execution.

On one side is "Now" -- the modern amenities we take for granted, such as odometers, second hands, bifocals, lightening rods and even public libraries. The "Ben" side shows Franklin puttering, tinkering, and hunkering down over his inventions, which include all of the above, plus charting the Gulf Stream, organizing the Post Office, and all that fun with lightening and kites and stuff. 

Such a clever fellow, that Ben!

And that's not even getting into his statesmanship and political thinking, which the author treats lightly to focus on the man's inventive genius.

The "Now" side of the page is perky and vibrant in bright blues, while Franklin's 18th century half is awash in faded siennas, the color of aging documents, except for Ben in his blue coat, creating a visual link between our era and his.

I know from the brief time I lived in a Philly suburb how omnipresent are the many reminders of the man's influence, from Indepedence Hall to the Franklin Museum. The city's infused with awe for the man who was arguably our nuttiest Founding Father. But aren't the oddballs the ones you most want to know?

Like Barretta, a Philly resident, you won't be able to resist getting better acquainted.

Rating: *\*\*\

When the art elevates the story

Waiting for Gregory

by Kimberly Willis Holt; illustrated by Gabi Swiatkowska

Oh, thank goodness I took two semesters of art history in college. And let me also congratulate myself for every major art museum on two continents that I've ever visited, lectures I've attended, coffee-table books I've pored over, gift shops I've drooled in.

Without that background (of sorts), I'd merely be impressed by Gabi Swiatkowska's illustrations, instead of overwhelmed.

She took a mildly amusing story of a girl awaiting her cousin's birth and the old wive's tales about where babies come from and turned it into something magical, surreal and both Old World and other-worldly.

Little Iris wants to know when cousin Gregory will arrive, but gets a different answer from every relative: when the stork brings him or when the cabbage grows big enough or when he's ready to descend a ladder to heaven. Holt's Iris reacts with just the right blend of wonder and skepticism, but it's the illustrations that let us peep into the dazzling workings of Iris' imagination.

On the title page, we're given a formal, 18th-century rendering -- in acrylic -- of Iris with be-ribboned hair and a rosebud-lipped pout. But on the very next page, the girl invites us into what looks to be a hastily penciled "Experimental engineering Theatre Company" with a shadowy interior.

From then on, we're Swiatkoska's captives in page after page of odd inventions and whirring gizmos that throw off the conventions of time. Some of the characters looks straight out of old Federalist portraits, others could be late 19th century or early 20th, judging by their costumes and hairstyles.

As Iris approaches one person after another, considering and then rejecting their explanations, wheels turn, minute-hands tick, a fat stork squeaks along on pulleys, time is measured by arcs of "not too long" and "not too soon", an angel peers ethereally from swirls of pale acrylic paint.

The publisher gave Swiatkowska room to roam, with full bleeds on every page, and she made the most of it, thickly layering paint and enamel, or inking in a tiny figure that might be an afterthought or may be the point of the whole page, tucked into a far corner instead of center stage.

The artist used acrylic, enamel, watercolor and gouache (a kind of opaque watercolor) in defying as many conventions as you possibly can without getting your own exhibit at the Met.

At last, the big moment arrives, announced by Iris' uncle via a machine that is part antique telephone, trumpet, printing press and, of course, clock.

I can only imagine what happens when an author picks up the galleys to her book and sees all this. Holt must've thought "Sheesh, did I win the illustrator jackpot, or what?"

Rating: *\*\*\*\

Hot off the press

The latest issue of The Edge of the Forest is now online. I round up all my Sea Week reviews, in case you'd like to read them all over again. Other features include Betsy Bird from A Fuse #8 Production interviewing a homeschooling group for Kid's Picks, blogging writer Mitali Perkins, and of course oodles and oodles of book reviews in every age category from bloggers and book reviewers across the kiddie lit spectrum.

So hurry on over to the forest!

If you can read this, you're lucky

Sorry for the extra-large type and wider format. I lost my bifocals. Like I needed further proof I'm getting old: I can't even see the computer screen.

Of course, now my cute blog topper is off-center. But the good thing about not being able to see too well is that I no longer notice all the dust in my messy house.

What mess?