P i n k M e - has moved!

Thought you'd never miss me 'til I got a Fat City address

noreply@blogger.com (YNL) — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 22:49:00 +0000

Or, actually, a TypePad one.

Pink Me on Blogger is no more. Say hello to Pink Me on Typepad! That's http://pinkme.typepad.com/ if you need to cut and paste it into something. Update your aggregators! Fix your links! Buy me some new business cards!

With all my heartfelt admiration and respect,
your neighborhood librarian

Feeling Sad by Sarah Verroken - review

noreply@blogger.com (YNL) — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 11:53:00 +0000

Feeling Sad by Sarah Verroken
Add this to your arsenal of 'feelings' books. Do it right away.

Duck is sad, and it's a gloomy day. Why? Doesn't really matter. It happens, right? Nothing to be alarmed about or belabor - best to just find a way past it and see if we can brighten things up a bit. Which is exactly what Duck does, inspired by a friendly frog who suggests merely, "Cheer up. Look ahead!"

Duck looks around and finds one small bright spot. Then she takes action, calling to the clouds to help her find the sun. This is good stuff. This is the kid participating in and taking control of her mood. This is also not demonizing sadness. By the way, this is also not about grief, which is a different sadness, and is addressed in other books.

I want to draw special attention to the art. Big and textured, starting out scratchy and dark and then, as Duck's mood lightens, getting brighter and more colorful. I want to say these are monoprints, but there is certainly some digital alteration in there, and maybe a little collage. Sarah Verroken's blog showcases more of her work. Looking forward to seeing more from her.

Banned Books Week FTW!

noreply@blogger.com (YNL) — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 13:20:00 +0000

There are few holidays I enjoy celebrating more than Banned Books Week. To me, banning a book is just such a brilliant way of acknowleging its power and encouraging young people to read it.

People challenge books in school and public libraries all the time, everywhere. bannedbooksweek.org, in addition to their list of Banned Book Week events, now has a map of book challenges in the United States. Here's what they say about it:

There are hundreds of challenges to books in schools and libraries in the United States every year. According to the American Library Association (ALA), there were at least 513 in 2008. But the total is far larger. 70 to 80 percent are never reported.

I took a look through the ALA's list of challenged and banned books for 2008-09 and I was happy to see books that I've reviewed on this blog, and more importantly, books that I've bought for the two school library collections that I manage.

Here is just a sample of the books that people have felt most threatened by in the past year. If I've reviewed it, the link is on the title. Get threatened! Read these books!

Alexie, Sherman. Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian.

Brannen, Sarah. Uncle Bobby's Wedding

Colfer, Eoin. Supernaturalist. This book had me on the edge of my seat, though I never reviewed it here. Dystopic YA fiction oh yeah!

Green, John. Looking for Alaska. Nobody writes realistic teen stories, with all their real drama and real humor, like John Green. Apparently somebody objected to all the real.

Kaysen, Susanna. Girl, Interrupted. Oh sure, it's harsh. It's graphic. But for any girl going through mental torment, it is a warm port in the storm.

Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. ...but remember, it's a sin to ban a classic.

de Haan, Linda and Stern Njiland. King and King.

Harris, Robie. It's Perfectly Normal. It's perfectly predictable for a book with the word "sex" in the subtitle to get some people's panties in a twist. Reading the word isn't going to give your kids chlamydia, you know.

Pullman, Philip. The Golden Compass

Parnell, Peter. And Tango makes three. Gay! Gay penguins! Indoctrinating our children with their cuddly gayness! AAAGH!

Myers, Walter Dean. Fallen Angels. One of the very few books about modern war for teens, and people complain about the language.

Salinger, J.D. Catcher in the Rye. Yup, people are still objecting to the depiction of nosepicking in this book.

Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Every year. Every year somebody gets worked up about it. As if our children would never learn the n-word if it weren't for that rascal Huck.

Trouble Gum by Matthew Cordell - review

noreply@blogger.com (YNL) — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 11:00:00 +0000

Trouble Gum by Matthew Cordell
Here is a book. A book with gum. A book with two brothers. A book with two brothers stuck inside on a rainy day who aren't usually allowed gum because - oh my god gum! Gum on the furniture! In the carpet! Gum in the hair! Swallowed gum! Gum on the wee little faces! NO GUM!

My colleague La Mirabile (also the mother of boys) is sitting next to me cackling over this book. Seriously, she's laughing so hard I'm worried she's going to swallow her own gum.

Matthew Cordell illustrated one of my favorite picture books about brothers, Righty & Lefty. Maybe he has sons. Maybe he has brothers. But he sure as heck knows how funny it is when a little boy jumps off the couch and into a pile of cushions and momentarily stuns himself.

Goldilocks and the Three Bears by Lauren Child, photography by Polly Borland, set creation by Emily L. Jenkins - review

noreply@blogger.com (YNL) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 22:25:00 +0000

Goldilocks and the Three Bears by Lauren Child, photography by Polly Borland, set creation by Emily L. Jenkins
Goldilocks is a doll. A beautifully made wool felt doll with a head full of honey curls and a sultry, sultry gaze. The bears are dolls. Fuzzy, immaculately-dressed, bears with birdlike eyes.

AAAAAAAGHHH!!

Wait, maybe I am too quick to judge. The sets are very cute and dollhousey. The dedications page is interesting and beautiful. But somewhere, the ageless ghost of Dare Wright is working herself up into a delusional jealous frenzy. And dolls - they just freak me right out.

One K-5 school library, coming up! The 000's

noreply@blogger.com (YNL) — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 11:00:00 +0000

Checking out the picture books

Late this summer an entire library of books was delivered to a new school in Baltimore. I should know - I picked all 2,254 of them. It was what you might call a labor of love. Emphasis on the "labor". Actually, emphasis on the love.

As we shelved what amounted to thirty thousand dollars worth of brand-new beautiful books, one of our parent volunteers said, "I bet you've read half the books in this room!" I did a quick scan of a few shelves and admitted that actually, I have read probably upwards of 75% of them. Most of the fiction, all of the picture books, and one heck of a lot of the nonfiction. Wow. I am either really really sad or really really dedicated.

You may hire me to create or maintain your school library collection, and I will certainly not object, but I thought it might be nice to share some of the lists I created. I'll do a series of about a dozen posts, at least the nonfiction, starting with the 000's. This will be my own version of School Library Journal's Series Made Simple issue (which is a great resource, by the way).

The 000's are kind of a weird little miscellany area of a school library. Every school should have a set of the World Book, and please do buy an almanac every year, but if you have the bucks, try to get a few "strange but true" reference books in there. Some kids really respond to Ripley's Believe It Or Not and Guinness World Records. Books like these have a sneaky added benefit - the indexed entries introduce kids to a nonlinear method of approaching a book, important when they're doing real research later.

Gee, Joshua. Encyclopedia Horrifica: The Terrifying Truth About Vampires, Ghosts, Monsters, & More. A kind of weird book to start off with, but, as the kid says in Beetlejuice, "I myself am strange and unusual."

Teitelbaum, Michael. Bigfoot Caught on Film: And Other Monster Sightings!. The 24/7: Science Behind the Scenes series from Scholastic is... it's ok. Little niblets of info, good for hooking readers, but it's nice to have something with a little more depth to back these books up, in case your readers do get interested in the subject. I picked carefully through this series and selected just a few titles.

Prieto, Anita C. B Is For Bookworm: A Library Alphabet. These alphabet books from Sleeping Bear Press are a bit uneven. This one is pretty dry, but I wanted to fill out a small suite of library-themed books. If you're tempted by the ABC book for your state, or about a particular subject, be sure to get your hands on it and read it through first. Some of the words can be awfully obscure.

Ruurs, Margriet. My Librarian Is A Camel: How Books Are Brought To Children Around The World. How people live around the world is a particularly important theme in this school, and one that I personally find important. Kids find the juxtapositions fascinating, too. The pictures in this book are very nice.

Farndon, John. Visual Encyclopedia (DK). I keep buying and buying this book, and they keep loving and loving it until they love it to pieces. I'm not the world's be-all end-all fan of Dorling Kindersley - I don't think they fact-check hard enough - but this single-volume encyclopedia + elementary school kids = LOVE.

Aronson, Marc. For Boys Only: The Biggest, Baddest Book Ever. Frankly? I bought this on Jon Scieszka's recommendation. More graphically interesting and up-to-date looking than that other "dangerous" book, which I swear was written for parents.

Farndon, John. Do Not Open. Irresistable, full of fun facts about freaky stuff, several activities and suggestions for bringing the info in the book to life. Worth the few extra bucks. My 8 year old got a copy of this for his birthday and was enraptured. His little brother is learning to read just as fast and as hard as he can so he can have a turn with it.

Macdonald, Guy. Even More Children's Miscellany: Smart, Silly, and Strange Information That's Essential to Know. Same stuff, but for smaller kids.

McDonald, Megan. Stink-O-Pedia: Super Stink-y Stuff From A To ZZZZ. I like Stink Moody. I like him better than his sister, Judy. I buy Judy Moody, but I buy Stink too. He's funny, he's good-hearted, he's a 'second chapter book' for boys who think fantasy is pointless. Stink reads encyclopedias in his spare time, so I thought I'd offer his fans Stink's very own encyclopedia.

Murrie, Steve & Matthew. Every Minute On Earth: Fun Facts That Happen Every 60 Seconds. I never can seem to find enough books about time. Time is hard to explain. So when this book arrived at the public library, I snatched it. I stood and read it between customers at the information desk and I figured if I was fascinated enough to read it all the way through, surely somebody in that school would be too.

Mark, Jan. Museum Book: A Guide To Strange And Wonderful Collections. This is Baltimore, baby. We've got a light bulb museum and a teeth museum and we used to have a dime museum. We are to strange and wonderful as Paris is to lovely and inspiring.

Marcus, Leonard S. Side by Side: Five Favorite Picture-Book Teams Go to Work. Marvelous funny anecdotes, lots of illustrations showing all steps of the creative process, a very nice introduction to the concept of collaboration. Terrible cover though.

The Very Silly Mayor by Tom Tomorrow - review

noreply@blogger.com (YNL) — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 04:38:00 +0000

The Very Silly Mayor by Tom Tomorrow
You know what? This is not bad! Bright colors, readable artwork, cops in clown costumes... yeah, I'm giving this the thumbs-up.

The worry, of course, with a kid book written by uber-snarkmeister cartoonist Tom Tomorrow, is that Mr. Tomorrow is writing for the parents - that the very silly mayor is in fact a member of the Bush family and Sparky the Penguin is doing his usual emperor-has-no-clothes schtick, and kids will find it amusing but parents will nod smugly. "That George Bush," they'll smirk internally. "What a dorkus."

But that is not what Tom Tomorrow has done here. Sure, you could read the very silly mayor, with his pronouncements that firefighters should use peanut butter to put out fires instead of water, and that everyone should paint their houses purple and green, as George Bush. But you could read the very silly mayor as just about any authority figure that people follow without question. Your third-grade teacher, for example.

The book is, in the end, about dissent. It's about speaking up when you don't understand something, or when you have an opinion, or when you think that cops can't possibly catch robbers when they're wearing clown shoes. Plus - silly!

You are the first kid on Mars by Patrick O'Brien - review and interview

noreply@blogger.com (YNL) — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 14:33:00 +0000

You are the first kid on Mars by Patrick O'Brien

2009 is the fortieth anniversary of the first manned mission to land on the moon. Did you know that? Yeah maybe the astounding array of commemorative books tipped you off. We've had books by everyone from Buzz Aldrin to Norman Mailer hit the shelves this year. Many, if not most, of these books have been inspiring and beautiful. Many, if not most, have made me cry.

But while I am fully aware of the importance of the Apollo 11 mission as a concrete example of the highest heights that can be achieved - by man and by mankind - I have wondered just how engaging this story is for young people. My own children are mystified and a little alarmed when I get all choked up reading them Brian Floca's atmospheric and detailed Moonshot or try to explain to them the unique perspective represented by former astronaut Alan Bean's paintings in Mission Control, This is Apollo.

That's why I think Patrick O'Brien's work of "speculative non-fiction" is so important this year. For my kids, and for their friend Alex, who is the model for the kid in the book (disclosure: Pat's family and mine have been friends since our 3rd-grade boys were barely walking, much less traveling the solar system), space travel is not something that happened on a tiny black-and-white TV set in the kitchen forty years ago. Space travel is not even the - let me take a deep breath and try to use an adjective that is not pejorative - somewhat tepid space shuttle program.

Space travel is "huge ships shaped like pine cones with lots of little sonar devices and everyone wears goggles that can switch from night vision to underwater vision to sunglasses!" (I asked.) They think the future will involve "a permanent space colony on the Moon as big as Texas!" "Or maybe at one of the Lagrange points!"

But ok, that's my kids. Not every kid knows that the gravitationally stable Lagrange points are good spots for a space station. But I will argue that my kids are representative of many kids when they think that space travel is part of their future. And Patrick has done our kids a service by writing and illustrating, with his usual blend of meticulous research and stunning art, a reasonably plausible conception of travel to Mars. His journey includes a space elevator up to a geosynchronous orbit point, a nuclear thermal ship that gradually accelerates to 75,000 miles per hour as it covers the 35,000 miles to Mars, and a Mars lander that bombs through the Mars atmosphere before parachutes drop it gently to the dusty red plain.

The friendly, explanatory second-person narration contrasts nicely with the giant grin on the face of the kid as he bounds across the Martian surface. Makes it feel like the book is being narrated by a teacher chaperoning a really good field trip, trying to keep from letting on that she is just as excited as the kids are.

Anyone familiar with O'Brien's previous books (on topics like sailing ships, extinct mammals, knights, and, er, dinosaurs in space) will know that the man researches like a maniac. Marianne Dyson, herself an author of numerous kids' books on space, picked apart every fact presented in You Are the First Kid On Mars when she reviewed the book, but revised her opinion when the author emailed her, addressing her objections and supporting his every phrase. It is really nice to know that the book stands up to that kind of scrutiny.

The artwork in this book was done on a computer, a departure for O'Brien, who, in addition to illustrating his own books, paints large oils of ships under sail. His mastery of the software and techniques involved is impressive - many of the illustrations look like they could be photos, which is important for those kids who want things to be above all else "real".

We had the delightful O'Brien family over for dinner this weekend, and after my husband's excellent fish tacos, I had the chance to ask Pat some questions about the book.

Your Neighborhood Librarian: What was your inspiration for writing You Are the First Kid on Mars?

Patrick O'Brien: My editor, Tim Travaglini, was really into the whole space idea. It was his idea to do a speculative book about going to Mars. My books usually come from my ideas, but this one came from him.

YNL: Was there anything different about writing about future science vs. your usual subjects?

PO: All of my other books are about historic and prehistoric nonfiction subjects. It is fiction, because it hasn't actually happened, but I was treating it as a nonfiction book. The reason that it’s in the second person is I read some books like that as a kid. You will go to the Moon is the one that I remember most clearly. And they had it all wrong, it’s really funny to see all that. Presumably, my stuff will be all wrong.

YNL: What was your research process? Do you regularly read science periodicals like Wired or Scientific American? Or was this a new area for you?

PO: I’ve always been a science guy, I was a biology major in college, but my son is really into space. We watch a lot of space stuff on TV. When Alex was really young, he liked real space more than the fictional movies. We'd watch NOVA together, and his toys were Apollo models, not Star Wars toys. I read a lot about space with him, and on my own.

I used the most up to date, most accurate information that I could find about what it would take to get to Mars. I went through the NASA website, books on space travel.

YNL: Is this your first work created digitally?

PO: This is the first book I illustrated on the computer.

YNL: You're such a good painter though - why did you decide to do it using techniques that are new to you?

PO: Well, for fun, as a change. It was different, and I just thought it was appropriate to the subject matter. The thing about using the computer to do the art, a lot of people who don’t do it think you just push the spaceship button and you get a spaceship. You push the astronaut button, and you get an astronaut, and then you make it do what you want. But you still have to draw it, you still have to paint it. It’s just one more medium. When they invented watercolors, it didn’t put the oil painters out of business.

But there are advantages. You can make infinite changes - with watercolors, pretty much once it's down, it's there. You can make a certain amount of changes with oils, but with the computer, you can keep adjusting it until it's just what you want. I used Corel Painter X and a tablet, so it’s a lot like painting. It wasn't hard to learn.

YNL: Did you find it hard to stop making changes? Was it tempting to keep touching it, trying out variations?

PO: No. A little. I know what I’m going for, I have a picture in my mind, and when I've made that, it’s done.

There you go, folks. I made it, it's done. You will go to the Moon was, not surprisingly, on my shelf as a kid too.

Creature ABC by Andrew Zuckerman - review

noreply@blogger.com (YNL) — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 15:47:00 +0000

Creature ABC by Andrew Zuckerman

Andrew Zuckerman has made an entire little industry out of the images from his big fat Christmas-present book Creature. There are notecards and floor puzzles and a calendar, and now there's an ABC book.

I kind of can't fault the guy for it, either. When I swung open the cover of Creature abc, I gasped. His pictures of animals great and small - details, portraits, and full-length shots - are lit so brightly I worry for their fur, and shot (and printed) at such a high resolution as to appear three-dimensional. I just looked through the portraits (of humans) on his web site, and I didn't actually want to be that close to Nick Nolte.

The big bold black sans-serif text is easy to read. The little fact boxes about each animal that appear at the end are easy to digest. And there is just nothing funner than turning each thick page with a three year old. "What is that animal? It's a LION, you're right! Is that lion gonna eat you? NO! You eat that lion up first!"

Definitely my new favorite present for two- and three-year-olds.

The Lion and the Mouse by Jerry Pinkney - review

noreply@blogger.com (YNL) — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 15:40:00 +0000

The Lion and the Mouse by Jerry Pinkney

Jerry Pinkney is a god. I think that's my whole review. No, wait, I have to mention that this book is wordless (except for beautifully lettered onomatopoeia incorporated into the paintings).

In a year when Jerry Pinkney also illustrated The Moon Over Star, I think he is his own stiffest competition for a Caldecott.

I, Q by Roland Smith - review

noreply@blogger.com (YNL) — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 14:19:00 +0000

I, Q by Roland Smith Book One: Independence Hall

Hold on to your butts, as Samuel L. Jackson says when he tries to reboot an entire island. And don't try to read this one if you're at all sleepy - Roland Smith has written a spy novel (the first in a series), and he is NOT kidding around!

Our story opens as teenage Q (short for Quest) and Angela become brand-new step-siblings, the children of two single-parent musicians who have found each other, fallen in love, and become massive rock stars at a fairly late stage in life. (Which is kind of a nice bone to throw the middle-aged reader - I had fun imagining Patty Smith as Q's mom and John Doe as Angela's dad. Shouldn't Patty Smith and John Doe fall in love and go on tour?)

Anyway. The new family embarks on a cross-country tour in a luxury bus, but when a crusty old roadie shows up by the side of the road and turns out to be a freelance secret agent intent on protecting Angela from people who want to use her as leverage against her allegedly dead biological mother, a Secret Service agent killed by a suicide bomber at Independence Hall... (remember to breathe)... they realize that their trip is going to be even stranger (and possibly longer) than anything rock and roll could have thrown their way.

I think that sometimes people underestimate how much complexity kids can take. Yes, much of the plot of I, Q hinges on who knows what, when they know it, and how they know it - but that's spycraft for you. The 39 Clues series is similarly sinuous, plot-wise, and also works in missing parents, a boy-girl team, and an overall sense of Trust No-one. Any kid who goes for that series will lap up I, Q like fizzy pink lemonade.

Action, secret identities, shifting alliances, interesting locations (the next one's set in the White House!), groovy rock-star perks (Q can get tickets to the hottest show in town for people who help them), and, most of all, quick-witted cool kids who can think for themselves put this book right up there with the Alex Rider series and other "realistic" adventure novels such as The London Eye Mystery and the Young Bond Series.

If you liked the Twilight books by Stephenie Meyer - book list

noreply@blogger.com (YNL) — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 13:04:00 +0000

If. You Liked. Stephenie Meyer's Twilight. There. I said it.

I have put together this list I don't know how many times in the past couple of years, and I guess I just have to bite the bully (get it? like Twilight shoves all the other books around?) and admit that: 1) People want to read Twilight and 2) People LIKE Twilight.

I mean, why am I such a snob about these books anyway? What was I reading when I was eleven? I'll tell you what I was reading when I was eleven. No wait, read this book - Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading by Lizzie Skurnick - and you will know what I was reading when I was eleven. And I turned out ok. Reasonably ok. Ok shut up - am I exploring my nascent sexuality with my twin brother or luring my arch-enemy into a leech-infested pool? No. I am not. That was a rhetorical question by the way.

And maybe that's setting the bar kind of low, but I think it is some kind of proof that young readers of Twilight are not going to grow up and fall in love with pale, stalker-y older men. Pale, stalker-y older men are in fact CREEPY in real life, and almost all young women are viscerally and instinctively aware of this. We can trust our girls. (Hi, Olivia! We can trust you, right?)

There's still the issue, recently pointed out by someone at the Princeton Romance Writers Conference (and I am too lazy to go looking for it so I am going to paraphrase), that these paranormal romance novels represent something of a throwback to the old doctor/nurse kind of power differential that turned so many of us against romance novels to begin with (think Mr. Rochester and his employee - Jane - in Jane Eyre). Nowadays, romance novels feature women who are just as strong as, and on equal social footing with, the men, but in Twilight et al, the male character is by definition more powerful than the girl - he's immortal! he can change into an animal! or, uh, sparkle!

But that I don't know what to do about. EXCEPT. To recommend the following pretty good books as follow up reads for people who enjoyed the romance, the drama, the imaginative world of Twilight. Some of these books feature characters with supernatural powers or are set in alternate or future worlds, but some do not. There's at least one cute boy in each, but none of them has a female protagonist as wimpy as Bella.

The Luxe by Anna Godberson. Soapy and irresistably fancy, dripping with drama. Look at that dress!

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. I reviewed it here earlier. Catching Fire, the next book in the series, has just been published.

Lament: The Faerie Queen's Deception by Maggie Stiefvater. An extremely cute boy, some psychic torment, a well-written, lovely setting, and a harp. It's all good.

Prom Nights from Hell. Stories by Stephenie Meyer, Meg Cabot, Lauren Myracle, and other writers who are all about what it is to be a girl.

Prom Dates from Hell (Maggie Quinn: Girl vs Evil, Book 1) by Rosemary Clements-Moore. Good-looking teens, more dramatic than it looks, snappy dialogue. I reviewed the third book in this series a couple weeks ago.

Tithe by Holly Black. Anything by Holly Black, in fact.

Margo Lanagan's Black, White, and Red books. Dark, with a side of strange, drizzled with a stylish-sexy port wine reduction.

The somewhat overlooked Troll Bridge by Jane Yolen and her son, Adam Stempel. Music, magic, peril, attitude.

A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray. The first in the Gemma Doyle Trilogy, about drama and magic in a Victorian boarding school.

Blood and Chocolate by Annette Curtis Klause. Ms. Klause has been writing about the allure of the supernatural boy for longer than anyone, and in this one, the boy's a werewolf. Grrr!

Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr

Tantalize by Cynthia Leitich Smith

Peeps by Scott Westerfeld

Graceling by Kristin Cashore. Horses, swords, special powers, a fiery heroine, and a gorgeous guy. The sequel, Fire, will be out in early October.

and what the heck... you know what else any red-blooded reader of the Twilight books will like?

Flowers in the Attic, by V.C. Andrews. It's wrong. It's hot. It's so hot that it's wrong and it's so wrong that it's hot. And you just know "V.C. Andrews" is a pseudonym. Who do you think it is really? Wonder if that's what Salinger's been up to all this time.

Call Me Gorgeous by Giles and Alexandra Milton - review

noreply@blogger.com (YNL) — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 11:58:00 +0000

Call Me Gorgeous by Giles and Alexandra Milton
I have the eyes of a lemur and the beak of an octopus, the skin of a monitor lizard and the broken toes of an unfortunate debutante.

Actually, none of that is true. What I have are the eyes of a Scots-Irish Protestant and the posture of a Hungarian peasant - my fractious temperament is like that of my New England ancestors and my ability to tan comes from generations of watermen on Maryland's Eastern Shore.

Pieces of various creatures (eye of frog, feet of chicken) lead the reader of the happy, beautiful Call Me Gorgeous! to expect a monstrous chimera, when instead, the creature at the end of this book is quite fabulous - and she knows it! Colored pencils and collages of handmade paper make the teeth of the alligator look sharp and the ears of the pig soft, the chameleon's tail scaly and the bat wings veiny.

We are all hybrids, and this book exalts our stitched-together-ness without whomping the reader over the head with bullhorned messages about DIFFERENCES! CHERISHING THEM! and LABELS! BOO TO LABELS! Would make a fun read-aloud.

Endpaper bonus: each animal shown in its entirety.

The Roar by Emma Clayton - review

noreply@blogger.com (YNL) — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 00:03:00 +0000

The Roar by Emma Clayton
Almost five hundred pages of brilliantly unpredictable fully-immersive postapocalyptic British fiction, set in a thriftily-constructed half-drowned London, shot through with luminous sensory stimuli and an extra helping of good old-fashioned LANGUAGE. I read it in two days, and I loved it, and I want to do it justice. So I'm going to keep this short.

He paced and watched the sea and for a while he felt like a firecracker with its fuse lit, a bit dangerous - as if when she walked through the door he would erupt and fly around the room breaking the lights, setting fire to things, and taking lumps out of the ceiling. Then he felt all soft and gooey, as if when she walked in he would melt and she would find nothing more than a puddle of love in the middle of the floor. Then he felt both of these things, that he was a firecracker about to explode, but instead of sparks, he was full of love and it was all going to be a bit messy.

Do not take this passage the wrong way. It occurs on page 471, and contains I think the first and the second (and the last) instances of the word "love" in the book. I picked it because it gives you Emma Clayton using a twelve-year-old's casual vocabulary to precisely describe a complex emotional state - some trick! Plus, cute there at the end.

The best science fiction - and, I would argue, the best teen fiction - pulls pieces of the status quo out of context so that the reader has a chance to see some aspect of contemporary life from a new perspective. In the case of The Roar, Ms. Clayton has picked natural resource management, environmental degradation, and (because she is English and name me one English author who doesn't, given the chance) the injustice of class.

Exciting, beautiful, gut-wrenching stuff, fully on par with, say, Jo Walton or Charles Stross. Cyborg animals, fighter planes, high-stakes arcade games, diverse characters, mutations, truly dreadful villains, and food made of mold! No wonder it nearly crests the 500 page mark. The ending feels a little rushed perhaps, but by the time I hit it, I was so swept away that I did not mind.

Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd, edited by Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci - review

noreply@blogger.com (YNL) — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 14:26:00 +0000

Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd, edited by Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci

Ok I'm not even fifty pages into this and I need to email everyone I know RIGHT NOW. (That's me paraphrasing Cordelia in the first ever episode of Buffy - AS IF YOU DIDN'T KNOW THAT).
The first story is about what would happen if you were at ComicCon? and you were a Klingon? and you got real hammered and you woke up with your pants off in a room with a Jedi? You MAY have had to have seen the Seth-Rogen-on-Seth-Rogen fight scene in Fanboys to truly grok the matter-antimatter reaction that such a coupling implies.

And I CAN'T believe that just last week I wrote a completely, slobberingly geeked-out review of Highway to Hell, and I'm using all the same references again. Lame, lame, lame, lame, LAME!

Deep breath. No, okay, sorry I'm JUST too excited. All the little icons on the cover? First of all they're by eBoy, who does cool vinyl toys you can get at Atomic Pop and kidrobot, and that's cool - not geek cool, COOL. Second of all... they're the contributors! (Not the unkillable cheerleader or the knight or the old-school vampire, the more normal-looking people) Cecil Castellucci is wearing a Squidfire t-shirt, or at least that ought to be a Squidfire t-shirt. Scott Westerfeld is sporting green goggles like he's just been out machining the brass engine couplings on his armor-plated zeppelin.

HIS story is a situational analysis: two people, a briefcase full of cash, a bottle of vodka, two guns and a pair of handcuffs in a private compartment on a speeding train. What happens? Well that all depends on the alignment of the two people, now, doesn't it? He even includes a grid. Awww. Like anyone reading this book needs an explanation of Lawful vs. Chaotic.

It really should be called "Geekgasmic". There are all these Easter eggs scattered throughout: comics, jokes about furries, numerous bowls of M&Ms, and gratuitous Dr. Who references.

Oh my god you guys - and in the author bios, each person runs down his or her geek cred.

These people are FRRREAKS.

A LOT of them have been DMs. Greg and Cynthia Leitich Smith had the Starship Enterprise on their wedding cake. Libba Bray, who wrote the mystical Regency boarding school trilogy that started with A Great and Terrible Beauty, and whom I always pictured as, like, a collector of cameo brooches and lace jabots, apparently went as Columbia to Rocky Horror for TWO YEARS.

The stories are about geeks and geekiness, and they pull no punches. Very few of the geeks in this book are Secretly Hott Geeks, which is refreshing. Gamer geeks, sci-fi geeks, and Trekkers are represented, but so are literature geeks, a pep geek, and even a Golden Age geek. A surprising number of these stories are quite sensitive, but not in a LOTR climax kind of way, more in a Han-Solo-about-to-get-turned-into-a-penny kind of way.

Short story anthologies are always fantastic to hand to people who are not sure what or who to read next. Teens fall into this category at least as often as adults do, but there are precious few YA anthologies. This is the first I've seen in a while that features realistic fiction. With Geektastic, Black and Castellucci are doing teens a big service, introducing them to the likes of Barry Lyga, John Green, David Levithan, and other members of their herd.

Dragonbreath by Ursula Vernon - review

noreply@blogger.com (YNL) — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 14:26:00 +0000

Dragonbreath by Ursula Vernon
It's possible that my opinion of this book has been influenced by the appearance in my bed this morning (at, possibly, 7am, I don't know, I didn't have my glasses on yet), of a seven-year-old who wasn't interested in it when I suggested it to him yesterday at the library, but who had apparently woken up, read the whole book, and now needed to synopsize it for me, read the funniest passages out loud, and tell me that he needs the next book in the series RIGHT NOW. He could barely get the words out for laughing.

After we kicked him out (my saintly husband: "Let Mommy sleep, ok? Go read something else."), I fell back to sleep and dreamed about pudgy animated dragon pirates. Ursula Vernon, get your agent on the phone with Noggin. Danny Dragonbreath is good animated.

So. Danny Dragonbreath is the only semi-mythological creature in a school full of non-mythic reptiles and amphibians. He gets a little picked-on for this, but his is an upbeat, enthusiastic semi-mythological 5th-grade spirit, and he doesn't let that bully Big Eddy the Komodo dragon get him down. His best friend Wendell is (predictably) a more cautious, intellectual type, and in the way of mismatched best friend pairs everywhere, Danny has to cajole Wendell into assisting him in his pursuit of unorthodox solutions to common problems.

In this instance, the problem is a research paper on the ocean, a subject that Danny knows nothing about. Danny's solution? A visit to Cousin Edward the sea serpent, who takes the gung-ho Danny and freaked-out Wendell on an undersea tour. They explore a coral reef, a sunken ship, and a deep-sea trench. Along the way, sneaky Ursula Vernon finagles interesting facts about sea creatures and ocean phenomena into the adventure.

But it's the snarkalicious writing that will keep my seven-year-old, and other kids who appreciate funny (I'm thinking it might appeal to Diary of a Wimpy Kid devotees, if I can get them past the dragon thing) coming back for more. In a sidebar, Vernon writes, "A school of potato salad can skeletonize a cow in under two weeks, assuming that the cow doesn't get bored and move."

Our library system has Dragonbreath filed as a graphic novel, but it's not. It's one of those hybrids, something like The Invention of Hugo Cabret, with pages of panels carrying the action in some places and pages of text doing the bulk of the work. There could be more graphic passages, I have to say. Ursula Vernon's drawing style is extremely nice - full-on grownup quality work, with a strong line quality and bold shading that highlights each panel's central idea. Think Owly.

Such high contrast sometimes makes a comic look ominous and bleak (Dark Knight Returns, Grendel), but in this case, the choice of grass green as a highlight color keeps that from happening, and it's a technique that is particularly appropriate and effective in the undersea scenes. The vertical panels that show the sinuous Edward diving or rising to the surface are unusually lovely. Page layouts are varied and interesting, but still quite simple and easy to follow.

In sum: . I've been looking for a Babymouse for boys for a long time, and I think Dragonbreath is it - snappy, giggleworthy text and strong, coherent graphic passages telling a fun, friendly, exciting story with just the right balance of realism and fantasy. I'm with Mao - we're waiting for Dragonbreath: Attack of the Ninja Frogs with bated breath!

Today I Will Fly! by Mo Willems - review

noreply@blogger.com (YNL) — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 23:29:00 +0000

Today I Will Fly! by Mo Willems
It is obviously completely superfluous for me to review this book. I have lauded the Elephant & Piggie series frequently on this blog. I have personally handed Elephant & Piggie books to dozens of parents, some of whom have actually sought me out later to tell me that little Susie didn't think she was "a reader" until Gerald and Piggie showed her that she was. Heck once I even hired a skywriter to fly over a teaching convention and spell out "GERALD & PIGGIE TAUGHT ME TO READ!!"

But today, my six year old son sat down and read this book to me, cover to cover, sounding out the words. I didn't know he knew how to read. When I told him that, he said, "Neither did I!" We are so proud, and so is he. When I asked him what he wanted to read next, he instantly responded, "Percy Jackson and the Olympians".

In all fairness, I did hear him sort of struggle through Time to Pee! last night with his dad, but I was half-asleep and literally thought I had dreamt it.

What do you hear in your dreams? If it's not a six-year-old reading Mo Willems, you're doing it wrong.

Highway to Hell, a novel by Rosemary Clement-Moore - review

noreply@blogger.com (YNL) — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 19:27:00 +0000

I am woefully behind in my YA reviewing. I have been reading YA books all summer - in part because I like YA books, partly because I got so many YA ARCs at BookExpo, and of course, partly because I like to be able to recommend books to teenagers.

But I haven't been able to bring myself to review them. Sure, Lament: The Faerie Queen's Deception by Maggie Steifwhatever was fine, with romance and uncertainty and music and telekinesis, and the similar but less romance-y Troll Bridge: A Rock'n' Roll Fairy Tale I would recommend without hesitation.

The forthcoming Sphinx's Princess, in which Esther Friesner imagines the pre-royal life of Nefertiti (King Tut's wife) the same way she did Helen of Troy's in Nobody's Princess, was perfectly serviceable clean teen historical romance fiction. The Goldsmith's Daughter, about an Aztec teen who crosses gender lines to protect her family, was terrific - right up until she fell in love with a conquistador. Hey, doesn't everybody love a good-Nazi love story?

I read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and I have independent confirmation that YES it is a good choice for young adult readers. Wondergirl, my favorite middle schooler, read it over the summer at my suggestion, then rented the movie and laughed all the way through it. Hee hee hee!

But WHYYY have I not reviewed all these things? What is the MATTER with me? Have I lost my joy in reading and nowadays I am just plowing through these novels for the sake of getting them done? WOE!

Cough. That was probably a little more melodramatic than the situation warrants. Anyway. I am, by contrast, supernaturally excited about this book, the most recent in the Maggie Quinn, Girl vs. Evil series. I am a newcomer to Maggie, her friend D&D Lisa the evil genius, her paladin of a boyfriend, and the trouble - EEEVIL trouble - that seems to dog their footsteps. I picked up the book because I liked the coolio Craig Phillips cover, and because on it, Maggie wears aviator sunglasses while motoring along in her Jeep with no doors.

And now I've just finished it and I'm happy, I'm happy happy happy. Maggie and Lisa are geeky plus good-looking, but in a believable, Kristen-Bell-in-Fanboys kind of way. Their banter is witty but not so witty that it sounds fake. They call each other "moron" with regularity. They are aware that together, they make up Bart Simpson's sisters, and if you point it out, they will roll their eyes so hard they'll almost knock themselves over.

Maggie is psychic and Lisa is a witch, and BF Justin has the looks, the good manners, and the physical competence of a Riley Finn without all the whining. Seriously, I'll never forgive Whedon for what he did to that character. Make him evil, kill him off, but emasculating him like that was just mean.

The plot is TIGHT. There's enough going on that the author could be forgiven for letting a detail or two go unexplained, but she does not. Furthermore, answers are not hurled into the text at the end in any old "Have this droid's memory wiped" manner. They are woven in, sometimes not even overtly. My new pal Rosemary Clement-Moore doesn't seem to think it's necessary for a character to say, "Oh so that's why the demon absorbed that shotgun blast without injury." If it's not a major plot point, she'll let you make that connection yourself, which, I have to say, is extremely generous. If I'd written anything half so clever, you can bet I would be showing off all my tied-off ends like a Boy Scout who just earned his Knots merit badge.

PLUS. Maggie is petite and powerful, and sassy and cute. I'm a geek. But I didn't think of Buffy until page 270, when she tells a giant amalgamated demon who is doing a good job of intimidating her, "You are so full of crap." Of course, now I can't stop.

The book is, somewhat refreshingly, not without God. I am a little weary of the dances that many authors do in order to keep their teen demon-fighting free of any actual discussion of faith. As when Buffy runs into a high school classmate in the cemetery and he asks (about God), "does he exist, by the way? Is there word on that?" and Buffy answers, "Nothing solid."

In this book, Lisa, in particular, is quite concerned about going to Hell after having summoned a demon in a previous book. There are Catholic characters who participate in the Back Demon Back, saying prayers and swinging branding irons.

Our setting is the fictional Dulcina, TX, right down in the foot of Texas, near the Gulf of Mexico. Lucky for us, Clement-Moore knows her Texas. She writes the landscape - its smells and sky, its few features, the effect livestock has on it, and most of all its subtle rises and falls - really well, with unstrained, natural imagery. You get the feeling she's spent some time on a horse.

(I briefly became a little concerned that the "Moore" in "Clement-Moore" was as in Christopher Moore, which would make sense, kind of like when I found out Justine Larbalestier and Scott Westerfeld are married, but looks like not. Apparently, though, she and I are the same person, because she lists Television Without Pity and Go Fug Yourself as good wastes of time, and Susan Cooper and Meg Cabot - whose blog writing I thought of more than once while reading this book - as hero authors. Plus she liked Firefly. Awww.)

Funny and smart, exciting and hip, Highway to Hell was just the squirt of lime I needed to cut through my midsummer complacency.

The Dunderheads, by Paul Fleischman, illustrated by David Roberts - review

noreply@blogger.com (YNL) — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 01:17:00 +0000

The Dunderheads, by Paul Fleischman, illustrated by David Roberts
Do you want to live in David Roberts's world? I want to live in David Roberts's world. In David Roberts's world, no trip to the thrift store does NOT yield a polyester caftan in a trippy geometric pattern. Or at least a pair of green Chucks. In David Roberts's world, every surface is there to be customized with gaffer's tape in lots of colors. In David Roberts's world, it is impossible to pass by a jacket with a circle zipper pull and not want to put it on. (The circle zipper pull being, of course, the sexiest item ever to appear in the notions aisle.) In David Roberts's world, even a lawn chair with yellow and gray webbing is the coolest webbed lawn chair I have ever seen. That part's actually a bit frustrating. I'm never going to find a lawn chair that looks that good.

But what makes Dunderheads the perfect storm of quirky greatness is that David Roberts's world has somehow overlaid and merged with Paul Fleischman's world. Paul Fleischman, whose previous world, Weslandia, was also a world I wanted to live in. Not least because it's just a darn clever name.

In Paul Fleischman's world, every child feels free to express his or her individuality in every way possible - through the acquisition and deployment of bizarrely abstruse knowledge; by discovering and practicing (and in some cases, inventing) an unique talent; or? by filing one's fingernails into handy tools. In Paul Fleischman's world, Pluck Conquers All.

The Dunderheads are a group of kids so labeled by their villainous teacher, a towering bully who despises children and loves things with pointy teeth and/or spikes. Miss Breakbone keeps an electric chair in her classroom and awards herself a gold star whenever she makes a child cry. In other words, she is a Miss Trunchbull in dire need of a Matilda to scare her off. But this is Paul Fleischman's world, remember?

What follows is not a Use of Underage Magic story - what follows is a classic American Kids Get Even tall tale. Didn't you hear those stories when you were growing up? The story about how those kids, a few years older than you, finally got back at Coach Wolf by putting a potato in his tailpipe? Or how Miss Park lost her eyebrows one time because somebody doctored her makeup? Those kids in those stories were HEROES. Like Paul Fleischman's heroes. Everyday, funny, underdog heroes.

Man, I am really babbling along here, aren't I? It's because I just keep paging through the book and finding more to love. I am pretty darn sure David Roberts has quoted a couple of his own characters from Iggy Peck, Architect and Dumpster Diver, but I can't be fussed to go get those books to check, because they're in the room where my sons are (supposedly) sleeping.

So, one day, Miss Breakbone goes too far. She confiscates an item that the smallest kid, a boy called Junkyard, who wears a rainbow on his sweater and a Quadrophenia patch on his jeans, had been planning to give to his mom for her birthday. She makes him cry. The kids embark upon a daring plan that will humiliate Miss Breakbone and restore Junkyard's pride, not to mention his property.

It's worth mentioning that Dunderheads is a long-form picture book, almost a graphic novel, really. My rising third grader read it to me and to his younger brother with no trouble (their faces shining - they love it when the bad guy gets his due). In the picture above, 5th grader Rabbit is reading it to rapt 3rd graders Legolas, Zee, & Mao, plus my 1st grade Zhou. Although not a chapter book, it falls into that short-long space that is so hard to keep populated when the second graders come around. Thanks, Mr. Fleischman!

It is also worth mentioning that while David Roberts is a master of stylized, expressive characters sporting fearless fashion choices ("from the sixties, seventies, AND eighties" as the classic rock station trumpets), there are many many illustration and design elements quoted from various sources and executed in different styles, all of which he does well. It gives his world a lot of depth. As Laurie Anderson said, "You know? I think we should put some mountains here. Otherwise, what are all the characters going to fall off of?"

And I'm out. Go find this one.

Thunder-Boomer! by Shutta Crum, illustrated by Carol Thompson - review

noreply@blogger.com (YNL) — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 16:01:00 +0000

Thunder-Boomer! by Shutta Crum, illustrated by Carol Thompson
A summer afternoon story, magnificently paced as a storm builds and then crashes over a farm family, onomatopoeia out the wazoo, and Dad's underwear flying around the farmyard.

Scooter's scared! He hides his head beneath
the couch,
but the rest of him won't fit.

Lovely rhythm, homespun imagery, powerful watercolor paintings. Ahhh. A perfect peach of a summer book.

The Big Elephant in the Room by Lane Smith - review

noreply@blogger.com (YNL) — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 15:04:00 +0000

The Big Elephant in the Room by Lane Smith
Ok. I'm going to have to heavily synopsize this book, which I don't usually do, because - SPOILER - this is kind of a negative review, which I am stunned to be doing about a Lane Smith book. THE Lane Smith. The Lane Smith whom I love for John, Paul, George & Ben, and for BIG PLANS, and Madam President, not to mention his many excellent collaborations with Ambassador Jon Sczieska. So I need extensive backup if I'm going to even remotely disagree with any line or syllable of a Lane Smith book.

We have two friends - donkeys, although that's not important right now - and the first donkey says to the second donkey, "Can we talk about the big elephant in the room?"

The second donkey assumes that "the big elephant" is code for "the large and obvious issue that we have until now wilfully chosen to ignore, lest it foment outright conflict between us." (A classic example of "the elephant in the room" might be, say, my cousin-in-law's sexual orientation, of which her mother is unaware, thanks to scores of relatives not mentioning it. For decades.) Let's leave aside for the moment that this euphemism is maybe a little grown-up, not to mention obscure, for some kids, and move on to the issues that the second donkey thinks could qualify as "the elephant in the room."

Second donkey thinks his friend might be angry that he (second donkey) ate all the ice cream. Or that second donkey broke first donkey's computer. Deserted him when the bully came around. Took the cool bike so that first donkey was left riding the tricycle. Glued him to his chair. Made fun of his backpack. Laughed at first donkey when he laughed so hard he peed his pants - and then told another kid about it. Aaaand about a half-dozen more things that second donkey has done to (or by omission of action caused to happen to) his good buddy first donkey.

But no. There is, in fact, a big elephant in the room. His name is Stanley, and he's watching TV and eating ice cream - apparently he's a friend of second donkey. I personally would have been more satisfied if the "big elephant in the room" had turned out to be a thug hired by first donkey's mom to come and beat the squee out of second donkey.

I mean, sure, friends pull crap on each other, and forgive each other (and to be fair, first donkey in the end exhibits a scowl - he didn't know that second donkey had spread it around school that he'd peed his pants, and he is, finally, ticked off), and usually come up karmically even in the end. I think it's good to demonstrate to kids that even if your pal Jason or Jacob or Courtney or Michaela was dicky to you today, tomorrow is another day... BUT. That second donkey kid (am I out of line to call him a jackass?) is WAAAY over three strikes here.

I love me some Lane Smith. He's one of the few authors whose books I buy sight unseen. But this doesn't work for me.

I told your mama I'd get you home, but I didn't say I got no car

noreply@blogger.com (YNL) — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 13:21:00 +0000

Audio books will save your life. Or at least keep you out of jail. Yes. Don't argue. Stop it. It's true! I'm serious! Do you want me to pull this car over? Because I swear I will leave your narrow butt right here by the side of the highway! We have at least 13 more hours in this car today and if you keep arguing with me you will not be going home with the rest of us! And stop making that "Eeeee" sound. I know it's you.

But a crappy narrator, or a stupid story, will NOT help. I listened to The DaVinci Code one summer in the car and I nearly drove off a bridge in desperation. Oh my god that book was terrible. So - the following titles have been selected as being engaging for adults and for kids, often with superlative narrators, classic appeal, and/or historical interest. Look in your local library for these - they're awfully expensive to buy.

Anderson, Laurie Halse. Fever 1793.

Avi. The true confessions of Charlotte Doyle.

Babbitt, Natalie. Tuck Everlasting.

Balliett, Blue. Chasing Vermeer, The Wright 3, and The Calder Game. I admit that I'm not a giant fan of the nasal narrator, but don't let that stop you. Probably just me.

J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan. Narrated by Mister Jim Dale.

Bruchac, Joseph. But not for super-little kids - too scary!

Buckley, Michael. The Sisters Grimm (series). Awfully funny and even more clever, although I didn't like the way the sisters sniped at each other in the first book. The kids did though. I'm just too sensitive.

Collins, Suzanne. Underland Chronicles (series).

Cooper, Susan. The Dark is Rising (series). IF you can find them. Ably narrated by Simon Jones.

Dahl, Roald. British A-listers such as Alan Cumming, Eric Idle, Jeremy Irons, and Lynn Redgrave read Dahl’s subversive stuff. As does the author himself.

Dowd, Siobhan. The London Eye Mystery.

Fleming, Ian. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. SOOOO much better than the movie. Hard to find, but worth it. First of all, mom's not dead, she's along for the ride, and second of all, the ride is great!

Funke, Cornelia. The Inkheart series, the Ghosthunters books, Dragon Rider, and The Thief Lord. Brendan Fraser narrates some of these, and he has a nice voice for it. But they're no George of the Jungle. (And yes, any excuse will suffice for me to link to a picture of Brendan Fraser in that movie.)

Gaiman, Neil. The Neil Gaiman audio collection. Silly + weird = fun. Don't miss the author interviewed by his daughter at the end.

George, Jean Craighead. My Side of the Mountain. Dated, but still beautiful and exciting. Another one that's kind of hard to find.

Landy, Derek. Skulduggery Pleasant series, read by Rupert Degas. Rupert Degas is my new hero. His characterization of the Troll under Westminster Bridge alone is worth the price of admission. There's an interview with the suave, sarcastic, conceited Skulduggery himself at the end. You know, Rupert Degas also reads Cormac McCarthy's The Road. Brr - if I didn't have kids in the car, I would totally be listening to that.

Law, Ingrid. Savvy.

Lofting, Hugh. The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle. Don't let the interminable, strange, sappy movie spoil this crazy old story for you. There is no Anthony Newley and his fruity accent here.

Lowry, Lois. The Willoughbys. Vellly intelesting narration by Arte Johnson, who, apparently, is still alive.

Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter. Award-winning narration by Jim Dale, who I swear has won every award except knighthood and an Oscar for his work on this series.

Riordan, Rick. Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. Ok, I don't like the reader's brutal Queens accent and extremely poor Greek pronunciation. But I suck it up, because the stories are terrific and the kids LOVE them. And so should you.

Sinden, David, Matthew Morgan, Guy Mac Donald (aka The Beastly Boys). An Awfully Beastly Business (series). The GRRRREAT Gerard Doyle reads these. Can't wait! Book trailer here.

Selden, George. The Cricket in Times Square. Friendly narration by the versatile Tony Shalhoub, lovely violin passages.

Snicket, Lemony. A Series of Unfortunate Events (series). Although this series is no longer the hot ticket in print, I feel like the audio versions will persist in popularity, because of Tim Curry's chuckling, mournful, spitty, insane readings. A depressing yet beautiful and hilarious song by The Gothic Archies is a bonus on each audio book.

Stanton, Andy. You’re a Bad Man, Mr. Gum. A truly distinguished audio book. Read by the author, he takes liberties with his own text, adapting certain 4th-wall-busting asides to the audio format. Plus, my god this book is funny! The red fairy in the bathtub who hits Mr. Gum with a frying pan whenever his garden starts looking messy... brilliant!

Stevenson, Robert Louis. Treasure Island. Alfred Molina ("Throw me the idol, I'll throw you the whip") does for the sound of Treasure Island what N.C. Wyeth did for the look - now, whenever I think of that book, I will hear Mr. Molina's voice. Stevenson's very large and at times obsolete vocabulary (what is a mizzen, anyway?) is a lot easier for kids to digest in the audio context. And Molina is a genius with characterization, by turns silky, gruff, naive, you name it.

Stilton, Geronimo. Read by Edward Herrmann.

Wilder, Laura Ingalls. The Little House books. Cherry Jones reads these, in a timeless voice that is both dry and warm. Even if you know these books well, her perfectly paced performance brings them to life in a new way.

White, E.B. Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little. Julie Harris reads Stuart Little, and White himself memorably reads Charlotte's Web. Beautiful and kind of heartbreaking there at the end.

Winkler, Henry. The Hank Zipzer series. The Fonz reads his own books, and when you hear him do it, you'll think, "Seriously? Somebody cast this funny little guy as a cool motorcycle dude?" The seventies really were a little weird.

Woodson, Jacqueline. Anything she reads herself is always going to be beautiful and affecting.

Harriet's had enough by Elissa Haden Guest, illustrated by Paul Meisel - review

noreply@blogger.com (YNL) — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 01:42:00 +0000

Harriet's had enough by Elissa Haden Guest, illustrated by Paul Meisel
I have two words for you: Most realistic (without being sad and weird and scary) book about a mommy-kid fight I've ever seen.

Now I recognize that that's ... 18 words. But I want to emphasize: it's quite a feat. How many books can you think of that are about a kid getting pissed off? Oh, I'd say about 8% of all picture books have to do with a kid losing his/her temper, and the consequences thereof. Most of them are about dumb little freak-outs, but a few (When Sophie Gets Angry, The Red Dragon, No Dessert Ever) try to address the kind of overwhelming anger that is actually scary to a kid. I actually find those books scary. It's tricky.

There are far fewer books that deal with a parent getting angry. Every parent knows that sometimes that kid just pushes the right buttons. You're not supposed to react - you're the grownup - but, well, it happens. To every parent. All the time. But, as I say, very few books that hit this.

Harriet's mom wants Harriet to pick up her toys. Tells her three times. Harriet says no, kicks over a bunch of blocks. And there we go. Harriet's being carried up to her room to "cool down". "No, YOU need to cool down!" counters Harriet, which earns her a door-slam on top of her time out.

The other day, my 7-year-old was standing in front of me lying to me.
Mad as hell, I grated, "How does it make YOU feel when someone is lying to you?!"
"It makes me want to SMACK them!" he hurls back.
"Well what do you know? Another thing we have in common!" I yell.
We stood there looking at each other until he cracked up. It's a good thing he and I have the same sense of humor too.

After Harriet threatens to run away, and is worn down by the kindness of her family, she is given the chance to apologize to her mom, which she does. Mama apologizes in turn for yelling and for the door slam, and then everybody helps each other with their tasks so that they can all sit down to dinner together.

Some parents think apologizing to a kid leaves the kid on shaky ground - that the kid needs to think of the adult as infallible in order to feel secure. I think that when a parent has demonstrated fallibility - like when the parent has lost his or her temper - you need to model sincere regret. How else is the kid going to know how to gracefully extricate him- or herself from the terrible stupid things that he or she has will have said or done in a fit of anger?

Life skills, baby. It's not just tying your shoes.

Airhead by Meg Cabot - review

noreply@blogger.com (YNL) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 18:42:00 +0000

Airhead by Meg Cabot
How can it be that I've never read any Meg Cabot before?

Ahem, actually, I know exactly how that can be, and I'll bet you my colleague TinkerCinderBelleAhontas could tell you too. I am not such a big fan of girly. My hair may be pink, but that's kind of the only pink thing about me. So Princess Diaries? Yeah I'm not likely to pick that up. Queen of Babble? Exact no. When it comes to grownup fiction, I read Chelsea Cain, who, in all fairness, also features a stunningly beautiful heroine in her books, but one who accessorizes with scalpels instead of stilettos.

What made me pick up Airhead then? A strong sense of duty to young adult girl readers? No. Those girls who like Meg Cabot probably already know they like Meg Cabot and don't need me to introduce them. Also, I've never scrupled at recommending Meg Cabot even not having read her. I trust TinkerCinderBelleAhontas, who really enjoys Meg Cabot.

It was seeing Ms. Cabot speak at Book Expo this year. She was introduced by Julie Andrews, and she was appropriately "OH MY GOD y'all, that's JULIE ANDREWS!" even though she knows Julie Andrews from when they made the movie. She was even appropriately "OH MY GOD y'all - a MOVIE!". She doesn't say "y'all," by the way. But she should maybe take it up, it goes good with "OH MY GOD!" She talked about her new series, Airhead, explaining that the brain of a smart, video-game-playing tomboy (Emerson) ends up transplanted into the body of a famous teen supermodel (Nikki), and then admitting that it's maybe not the most realistic book she's ever written. And this is a woman who has written books about an average American girl turning out to be the heir to the throne of a European country, so, as she pointed out, she knows from unrealistic.

Anyway, she was charming and really really funny.

So I picked up Airhead, and I giggled. And I enjoyed the descriptions of the luxe loft life of the supermodel. Plus, I giggled. And I liked the characters, and I got all "Brandon or Dylan" over whether she's going to end up with her homeboy, the secretly studly Christopher or with the dreamy British singer-songwriter Gabriel. (Oh, we all know, don't we?) And - yes you know - I giggled.

AND Y'ALL!!! That is TOTALLY NOT LIKE ME! Do we remember? Hunger Games was almost spoiled for me when it got to the "Brandon or Dylan" part. Same with Graceling! So I am totally crushing on this lighter-than-air, all-romantic-complications-all-the-time girl book? It's amazing. I feel exactly like Em, the tomboy, who has always disdained the girlier things in life, when she realizes that kissing? IS SO GREAT.

Meg Cabot? IS SO GREAT.

Lives of the The Great Artists by Charlie Ayres - review

noreply@blogger.com (YNL) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 19:43:00 +0000

Lives of the The Great Artists by Charlie Ayres
Brilliantly laid out, beautifully printed, brightly written, and augmented with activities, web resources, and fun facts, this book will hook young readers of every type.

Twenty European artists are profiled, arranged in chronological order. Each entry begins with a summary and a portrait, and then the reader is dropped into the artist's life. We accompany J.M.W. Turner as he sells a painting, and wait with Goya for the Spanish royal family, who are coming for a portrait sitting. Facts about each artist's life, technique, and importance are skillfully blended into these present-tense vignettes.

The narrative is written in the present tense, which gives it a fictionalized "feel," but the bulk of the events and feelings described are based on correspondence or other documentation (although such support is not cited in the book).

The works of art chosen to represent each artist are heavy on the drama and detail, resulting in high kid appeal and interesting captions. In some cases, sketches are included. The book's design merits special mention: each artist's entry has its own color palette, drawn from the works of art used as illustrations, and despite the multitude of sidebars, layout is clean and clear.

Back matter includes chronologies of the artists, locations of major collections of each artist's works, a glossary, and catalog entries for each work of art.

Unfortunately, this graceful, thoughtful book is badly marred by a garish cover that not only fails to represent the rich content within, but also fails to acknowledge the author's stated scope - European artists of the past seven hundred years. There is no such qualifying language on the cover, leading to the unpleasant - and offensive - impression that the book is declaring that the only important artists are European.

Antony Mason's A History of Western Art: From Prehistory to the Twentieth Century takes a more encyclopedic approach to this subject and would make a good companion volume.