Book Buds Kidlit Reviews

Mmmm ... berry tasty

Blackberry Banquet
by Terry Pierce; illustrated by Lisa Downey
Sylvan Dell

This snappy rhyming text has all the woodland animals zeroing in on a blackberry bush with its yummy, just-ripe treats. That is, until growly Bear turns up, sending them all scurrying in a farcical cascade of mishaps. But who will get the last berry--and the last laugh?

Pierce keeps the text light, with lots of appropriate onomatopoeia  for all  the animal noises when they're happily munching. Downey's lifelike art captures just a hint of whimsy in their gleeful gobbling. And, of course, there's more info on blackberries and their place in the "food web" and a yummy recipe for blackberry smoothie.

This is one of Sylvan Dell's better outings this season, with a more imaginative and sprightly treatment of a nature topic, but one that doesn't stray far from its factual basis.

Rating: *\*\*\

Travel to Europe for Poetry Friday

Someday When My Cat Can Talk
by Caroline Lazo; illustrated by Kyrsten Booker
Schwartz and Wade

reviewed by Kelly Herold

Cats have fascinated humans for thousands of years. Their enigmatic smiles, their tendency to snub their humans for any minor slight, their expressions of deep knowledge and understanding. What is he thinking? is something a cat owner often considers.

The little girl hero of Caroline Lazo's Someday When My Cat Can Talk has some ideas about her cat's inner intellectual life. Her cat, she thinks, has a tale to tell about a trip abroad: "He'll tell me how he hopped a ship/and where he stowed away./He'll cheer the wind that blew his fur/as he sailed beyond the bay."

The little girl's cat travels all about Europe--from England to France to Spain and Italy.  And Lazo's rhyming text conveys a sense of fun and humor throughout the tale. Take this stanza, for example:

He'll speak fondly of the snail he met
while camping out near Cannes.
And he'll whisper why she's hiding
from the chef at Cafe Sands.

The cat comes home to the little girl, who imagines he'll tell her stories about his European travels. But the cat, alas, is a cat in the end and the little girl and the reader is left to guess about his adventures: My cat will tell me all these things/when he talks to me someday./Until then, when the sun goes down,/he always sneaks away.

Kyrsten Brooker's paintings--in a warm palette of dark greens, reds, blues, and browns--merge an impressionist style (a la Cezanne, in this case) with touches of collage.  Their quirky, but approachable, style works beautifully with Lazo's rhyming text.

Pack your bags!  Let's follow that cat this Poetry Friday.

Nighty-night, li'l critters

Animals are Sleeping
by Susanne Slade; illustrated by Gary R. Phillips
Sylvan Dell Publishing

This short but sweet bedtime book sneaks in some lessons about animal habitats, showing polar bears, sloths, fish and other critters catching some zzzz's. Slade's simple verses aim for the preschool crowd with plenty of repetition and easy-breezy rhymes, and Phillips' lush illustrations almost glow, with touches of day-glo colors shimmering out amid the somnolent dark blues and greens.

The book's been vetted by a zoologist for accuracy, so there's no anthropomorphism or cutesy antics. The animals are shown as they would be in the wild. What I like is how it confers instant genius status on the reader, making you a hero to your kids, who have know way of knowing that you'd never seen a sloth sleeping, either.

The "For Creative Minds" exercises in the back reinforce lessons on what the pictured animals eat and where they sleep. But it's also fine for reading just before you tuck your human cub under the blankies too.

Rating: *\*\*\

Listen Up! Don't Miss This One

Listen, Listen
by Phillis Gershator; illustrated by Alison Jay
Barefoot Books

reviewed by Kelly Herold

Celebrate the seasons in style with Listen, Listen. This charmer of a picture book aimed at the two- to six-year-old reader makes you appreciate every quarter of the year, even depressing ol' winter. Listen, Listen has that one-two punch--a combination of snappy, lively text and intricate, nostalgic illustrations that will please the adult and the child reader.

Gershator's rhyming text is, simply, perfect. It scans and it sings as you travel through the year.  Here, for example, are the first four lines of the text:

Listen, listen...what's that sound? Insects singing all around!
Chirp, chrip, churr, churr, buzz, buzz, whirr, whirr.
Leaves rustle, hammocks sway. Splish, splash, children play.
Clouds drift, dogs run. Sizzle, sizzle, summer fun.

Go ahead.  Read it aloud.  I know you want to.

Alison Jay's detailed illustrations have an old-fashioned feel to them. They are presented as cracked oil paintings and feature old-fashioned school houses and animals like those you'd see in the work of Margaret Wise Brown.  Jay's color scheme is rich and warm--with dark reds and light blues and greens of every shade. The pages are so inviting, you want to fall into them and live in this peaceful world of seasonal activity and sound.

Rating: *\*\*\*\

Up, up and away

Pilot Pups
by Michelle Meadows; illustrated by Dan Andreason
Simon & Schuster

My son never had much enthusiasm for stuffed animals, which generally gather dust on his shelves, with a new, notable exception. His kindergarten class just did a unit on pets and created a stuffed animal shelter. Families donated their less-beloved plush toys, which were renamed and kept in a "kennel" (really wire baskets stacked on their sides). Each kid adopted one for a $1.00 donation to the Anti-Cruelty Society.

Seth brought home "Fluffy," which Brett and I renamed "Scruffy" for the kitty's much-abused condition. Don't tell that to Seth, who gleefully described how she jumped out of her cage to him and purred in his arms. Fortunately, she eats only Lego blocks and hasn't needed a litter box, though she could probably use a good stain-sticking and some judicious restitching.

I thought of Fluffy as I read Pilot Pups, since it captures so well the absolute, unshakable belief of kids that their favorite plush toys do indeed have a rich, inner life--when we're not looking. In this one,  two stuffed puppies soar around the house as the human family obliviously goes about their morning.

Meadows keeps the rhymes short and spirited, with plenty of alliteration, repetition and other nifty tricks for beginning readers:

Canines cruising,
in control.
Searching, searching--
on patrol.

Andreason strikes a playful tone in his oil paints, which are infused with a cheerful, golden glow. We had fun with this one, though I'm told Fluffy gets jealous.

Rating: *\*\*\

POETRY FRIDAY Ehlert's 'Oodles'

Oodles of Animals
Lois Ehlert
Harcourt, Inc.

Ah, joy of silly joys! What's more fun that curling up with a wiggledy-piggledy toddler and dazzling her with colors and rhymes that zing. She might even sit still for the whole book (I can dream, can't I?)

The wildly popular Ehlert doesn't need my help selling books (though I'm always happy to take a tiny commission should you order via the box above). Her latest features several familiar feathered, finned or furry friends per page, from the ever-popular penguins to a not-too-scary wolf.

Her cut-paper creations in vivid primary colors are a wonder to behold, as bold, geometric shapes come together as various animals, and who knew that hole punches and pinking shears could be put to such artsy uses. The poems also leap out for their cleverness and simplicity that should keep parents as amused as kiddies.

Here's a small sampling:

CHICKEN
If a chicken crossed
the road and rampled,
would the eggs she laid
be scrambled?

CATERPILLAR
A caterpillar's
future plan
includes a
butterfly wingspan

I particularly liked CATERPILLAR, as it forms the end papers, with numerous geometric caterpillars looking like gear parts from a mechanical drawing.

And there are several along the lines of CAT, which use the most obvious rhymes and still manage to sound fresh:

CAT
A cat
is a purr
wrapped up
in fur.

In a word: delightful.

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: *\*\*\

POETRY FRIDAY Getting a glump in your throat

I'm beginning to feel a personal connection to Don't Bump the Glump!: And Other Fantasies, and not just because I attended the fancy launch party last week.

A quick rewind: it's Shel Silverstein's first poetry collection and the only one with color illustrations, which HarperCollins is reissuing. It's a classic, full of jottings and doodles of a mad menagerie of made-up monsters, and doesn't need a review from me. Just thought you'd like a little sample, is all.

But about that personal connection. I'm on a diet. I empathize with some of these hungry monsters. Though I'd rather have a few cookies or a slice of pizza than a little kid, thanks. Too bony for me. (though I do tell my kids they're scrumptious ...)

The Bibely

The Bibely's habits are rather crude
He shuns all ordinary food
And rather enjoys
Girls and boys.
So when you sense him drawing near
Pour some ketchup in your ear
And pretend you're a roast
Or a poached egg on toast
Or a small piece of blueberry pie--
And maybe he'll walk right by.

POETRY FRIDAY Jack Prelutsky's 'My Dog May Be A Genius'

My Dog May be a Genius
by Jack Prelutsky
Greenwillow

Prelutsky's tenure as the nation's first Children's Poet Laureate ends in May, when the Poetry Foundation announces his successor (no, I have no idea who's in the running). Publishers have been eager to cash in on the foundation's imprimatur and they'd slap a gold sticker on anything with his name on it, which isn't entirely Prelutsky's fault, even if I've chided him on this blog for it.

Fortunately, his career blazes on, and he has another collection of poems out before he goes back to merely being the performer with a thousand funny voices and the creator of rampantly silly stanzas.

As usual, his best verses are those with a punchline or some sort of payoff:

I crossed a lion with a mouse.
Their progeny patrol my house,
and often roar, demanding cheese--
I give them all the cheese they please.

And he's at his worst when trying to sneak a message in, as he does with a plodding paean to schoolwork in "Homework, Sweet Homework":

My friends think I'm loony
to take such delight
in homework, sweet homework--
they're probably right.

He also adds several concrete poems, with an understated assist from illustrator James Stevenson, as in the vertiginous "I am Climbing up a Ladder" that reads from bottom to top.

I'll leave you with one of my favorites, "A Turtle," partly because it's a prime example of how he uses adult words for comic effect, but mostly for its Zen-like resolution:

A turtle never feels the need
to ambulate at breakneck speed.
Of course, unsuited for the deed,
it certainly would not succeed.

Because a turtle takes its time,
its life is quietly sublime.
It's happy in its habitat ...
there's something to be said for that.

Rating: *\*\*\

Taking the piss out of sexism

On Top of the Potty and other get-up-and-go songs
by Alan Katz and David Catrow
Margaret K. McElderry Books (Simon & Schuster)

Did you know that girls don't poop or pee? I had no idea. Here I am, trying to potty train my 2-1/2 y.o. daughter who, I can assure you, has the requisite girl parts and, as far as I can tell, produces the usual prodigious excretions.

But in 32 pages of goofy songs and illustrations, there isn't a single girl going potty. Not one. Every single child in this book shown going potty is a boy. Every child shown in need of potty time is a boy. Every song features a boy character. There are two girls in the background in a single scene, and two completely random women characters who aren't shown in any potty-related activities. Everybody else is male.

Where have the author and illustrator been for the last 2 billion years? We're past the amoeba stage, guys. We have two sexes now.

Okay, so this doesn't try to be a primer on potty training and we don't see any boy parts anyway. It's the latest in their series where they've rewritten lyrics to old kids' songs--some really old--for maximum gross-out humor. So we get "Tinkle, Tinkle on the Floor" and "On Top of the Potty" (for "On Top of Old Smokey") and the like.

Maybe the duo thinks girls are the gentler sex and don't like to mention the unmentionables. They should've been at our dentist's when Lael proudly announced, "My have vagina!" That the dentist doesn't examine that particular orifice was incidental.

I don't have the patience for authors who ignore half their intended audience, or who treat girls as mere extras. They have five books out and I see a girl on only one cover, so I doubt it's any better in Take Me Out of the Bathtub and their other books.

And the quality of the lyrics? Set your mind to it and you can rewrite just about anything for potty humor. It's not like they've cornered the market. And, yes, it'll draw the expected laughs and guffaws--mostly from my kindergartener, who no longer needs help on the subject.

Rating: *\