Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

I L L IN S UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN

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THE BUvL LE T IN · _ OF THE CENTER FOR CHILDREN'S BOOKS November 2004 Vol. 58 No. 3

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A LOOK INSIDE

111 THE BIG PICTURE Madam President by Catherine Thimmesh; illus. by Douglas B. Jones 112 NEW BOOKS FOR CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE Reviewed titles include: 116 * CallMe Maria by Judith Ortiz Cofer 117 * FairMonaco written and illus. by Brock Cole 119 * The Sea of Trolls by Nancy Farmer 127 * Pagan's Vows by Catherine Jinks 143 * Science Verse by Jon Scieszka; illus. by Lane Smith 144 * The Train ofStates written and illus. by Peter Sfs 155 PROFESSIONAL CONNECTIONS 156 SUBJECT AND USE INDEX EXPLANATION OF CODE SYMBOLS USED WITH REVIEWS * Asterisks denote books of special distinction. R Recommended. Ad Additional book of acceptable quality for collections needing more material in the area. M Marginal book that is so slight in content or has so many weaknesses in style or format that it should be given careful consideration before purchase. NR Not recommended. SpC Subject matter or treatment will tend to limit the book to specialized collections. SpR A book that will have appeal for the unusual reader only. Recommended for the special few who will read it.

The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books (ISSN 0008-9036) is published monthly except August by the Publications Office of the Graduate School of Library and Information Science (GSLIS) of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and distributed by the University of Illinois Press, 1325 S. Oak, Champaign, IL 61820-6903.

REVIEWING STAFF Deborah Stevenson, Editor (DS) Betsy Hearne, Consulting Editor and Faculty Liaison Elizabeth Bush, Reviewer (EB) Timnah Card, Reviewer (TC) Karen Coats, Reviewer (KC) Krista Hutley, Reviewer (KH) Hope Morrison, Reviewer (HM)

Reviewers' initials are appended to reviews. OFFICE STAFF Molly Dolan Krista Hutley Maggie Hommel

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Periodicals postage paid at Champaign, Illinois © 2004 by The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois Drawings by Debra Bolgla. This publication is printed on acid-free paper. Cover illustration by Douglas B. Jones from Madam President ©2004. Used by permission of Houghton Mifflin Company. NOVEMBER 2004 * 111

THE BIG PICTURE

Madam President by Catherine Thimmesh; illus. by Douglas B. Jones

It's November and it's time to elect the president of the United States. Once again voters, regardless of party affiliation, will go to the polls and select candidates in impeccably tailored business suits and conservative, camera-friendly neckties. Again, there's not a kick pleat, a diamond tennis bracelet, or even a pair of comfortable pumps in the running. Thimmesh challenges the seeming inevitability of all this in a sassily organized and argued rallying cry for girls-soon-to-be-women to stake a claim for the Executive Office. In the opening sequence a pigtailed tweenager announces she intends to become president. Peers and adults suggest more easily attainable goals, citing examples of women who flexed considerable political muscle outside the Oval Office. She could, for instance, marry a president: Edith Wilson appears to have called the shots during her husband's period of disability. Or she could vote for the president: Elizabeth Cady Stanton worked long and hard to secure that right for women, despite never enjoying it herself. She could get into Congress: Nancy Pelosi sets House Democratic party agenda. Why not land a presidential appoint- ment? You can't deny Madeleine Albright's clout. How about settling for vice- president? Geraldine Ferraro almost-made it. If all else fails, move to another country: an entire generation of Iceland's children "thought the president of a country was always a woman." Sorry, but that's just not good enough. The Con- stitution stipulates two criteria for the presidency and neither one is gender, so our girl is bound for the White House with pigtails flying. If you're looking for an unabashed praisefest, this isn't it. Thimmesh selects female politicos who fare no better or worse than their male counterparts- Jeannette Rankin cripples her political career with her pacifist vote against entry into World War I, and the Mondale/Ferraro ticket goes up in flames-and she blazes through the thumbnail entries with a recap of each subject's notable "first" and a pithy quotation in blue font-so many stepping stones paving women's path to the White House. Indeed, one occasionally wishes she would slow down long enough to nuance a broad statement (the WPA "is generally credited with the country's economic recovery from the Great Depression") or to substantiate an eyebrow-raising claim (Edith Wilson's assertion that she did not make decisions for her husband has been disproved by "recent evidence" from his medical records). However, she delights in ironic tidbits and delivers them with a dash of venom. Susan B. Anthony rises in historic stature from a three-cent stamp, to a fifty-cent stamp, all the way to a silver dollar. The ratification of the Nineteenth Amend- ment turns on a letter from Mom to her Tennessee representative son. Senate chambers are notably tardy in adding "Wo-" to the Men's Room doors. 112 * THE BULLETIN

Jones is adept at interweaving framing scenes that separate "chapters" with focus pieces that advance Thimmesh's argument. Fictional characters, with their freckles, ruddy cheeks, and slouchy socks, could sit for Norman Rockwell, but although a palette muted in gray tones suggests historical pedigree, the crisp angularity of the figures and their startled, patronizing, or contentious expressions are grounded in the present moment. Caricatures of the featured women seize the witty metaphor: Nancy Pelosi drags her chair to the presidential table; a broom- wielding Frances Perkins makes sweeping changes in labor policy; Margaret Thatcher is clad in armor. Thimmesh's messages are clear: women have the political wherewithal to hold executive office, and the U.S. is looking mighty shabby in the equal opportunity department: "[WJhile the closest the United States has come to electing a woman to the highest office was to have Geraldine Ferraro a vice presidential can- didate two decades ago, at least twenty-eight other nations ... have elected female heads of state." Come on, gals, the door's been kicked wide open. Who wants to be first to step on through? (Imprint information appears on p. 148.) Elizabeth Bush, Reviewer

NEW BOOKS FOR CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE

ADLER, DAVID A. Bones and the Big Yellow Mystery; illus. by Barbara Johansen Newman. Viking, 2004 32p (Viking Easy-To-Read) ISBN 0-670-05947-1 $13.99 R Gr. 1-3 Newly independent reader Jeffrey Bones is a self-styled detective: while at the mall with his grandfather, Jeffrey collects clues from store signs and from his school bus driver, Mr. Green, and helps find a mislaid bus. In the process, Jeffrey meets a friendly dog with curly hair and a curly tail in a pet-store window, and while Jeffrey is saddened when his parents say he's too young to have a pet, he's thrilled that Grandpa takes Detective Dog Curly home with him. Illustrations packed with shine and motion bring Jeffrey's mall mystery to life, the characters caught with bright eyes and mobile expressions as they work through the clues to the solution. Emergent readers will feel secure with the simplicity of the text and the mystery, both of which are gauged for an audience just beginning to learn the fine points of decoding. Main character Jeffrey is clever in a way that other kids his age will appreciate-it is entirely believable that neither Grandpa nor Mr. Green thinks of backtracking through the suits and shoes to find Mr. Green's original entrance and therefore the parked bus, but the hints given in dialogue and illustration are sufficient to lead Bones and the reader to the correct conclusion. Warm relationships between Jeffrey, Grandpa, and Detective Dog Curly meld with the punchline clout of a last-page pun to make the story satisfying on multiple levels, a quality that will win this new series many friends among easy reader enthusiasts. TC NOVEMBER 2004 * 113

ASHMAN, LINDA How to Make a Night; illus. by Tricia Tusa. HarperCollins, 2004 4 0p Library ed. ISBN 0-06-029014-5 $16.89 Trade ed. ISBN 0-06-029032-3 $15.99 R* 4-7 yrs After a particularly raucous day that leaves Papa's hair "haywire" and Mama's face "pale," one girl rises above the rabble of her uncountable siblings and proceeds, in a manner resembling the work of a domestic fairy, to make the night. Climbing a tree, she mops up the clouds and lassoes the sun, tucking it into her pocket. She rolls up the blue sky and dyes it black, splattering it with gold paint for a starry effect. She makes the moon from a bit of rock and assembles a nighttime choir of crickets and owls. Then she goes home and tends to more familiar evening chores, cleaning herself and her room before supper and bed. The rhyming text shifts from a businesslike briskness, as the little girl swings into action, to gentler, more tactile evocations of night's drowsy fall as her efforts bear fruit. The illustrations have a ramped-up Quentin Blake feel to them; that is, Blakelike character shapes get treated to thick black outlines that wiggle and break on their figures, making them seem frenetically in motion. As the little girl begins to create the night, Tusa introduces collage effects, using photographs of leaves, fabric, and bugs to high- light the eccentricity of the project. Lemons, golfballs, artichokes, and marbles become planets, an homage to "Hey, Diddle, Diddle" takes shape, and scientific line drawings punctuate the delightfully weird fantasy. Back at home, the collage features disappear and the cartoonlike family members return, bringing closure to the story. Youngsters who relish an active role in making their days and nights work will have a lot of fun with this quirky tale. KC

Avi The End ofthe Beginning: Being the Adventures ofa Small Snail (andan Even Smaller Ant); illus. by Tricia Tusa. Harcourt, 2004 144 p ISBN 0-15-204968-1 $14.95 R Gr. 3-5 The adventures of Avon the snail and Edward the ant extend from Avon's front door to the end of his branch and back again. This book (based on an earlier work by the author) is therefore more about the adventure of going than actually getting anywhere, since placid Avon and eager Edward's contemplation of the small hap- penings they encounter (the birth of a butterfly, a cricket in need-they think--of their assistance) is more interesting than the actual events. Their chronicle comprises not a story so much as a collection of narrative tangents rife with the wordplay and hypercourtesy typical of genial British classics such as Winnie the Pooh (to which Avi's chapter titles, with their "In Which . . " format, allude). Each short chapter reads as a complete fable by itself, while the book en toto celebrates new experiences, especially if these come as a result of the change in oneself rather than a change in one's surroundings. Softly shaded black-and-white drawings portray this gently optimistic world in small sketches distributed liberally throughout the book, the creatures' expressive and often homely faces adding warmth and personality to the sprightly text. TC

BARRY, DAVE Peterand the Starcatchers;by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson; illus. by Greg Call. Disney/Hyperion, 2004 4 52p ISBN 0-7868-5445-6 $17.99 M Gr. 7 up The Peter of the title is a pre-Pan version of the legendary boy in green, and Barry and Pearson are proffering an explanation of his origins in this prequel. Here 114 a THE BULLETIN

Peter is being transported by ship (the Never Land), along with his fellow orphans, to a faraway kingdom that will appreciate their cheap and disposable labor, where he meets and befriends first-class passenger Molly Aster. Unbeknownst to Peter, Molly is a young Starcatcher, a tribe that tries to collect fallen star matter that has made it to Earth before its power can be used for ill by the wrong people; unbeknownst to both Peter and Molly, the trunk ofstarstuff that was ostensibly traveling on another ship with Molly's father is actually traveling in the hold of Peter and Molly's ship. The fearsome pirate Black Stache is better informed, however, and he's ruthlessly pursuing both ships, and then Peter and Molly, in his determination to acquire the trunk that he's sure will bring him unimaginable power. This starts off as an entertaining pastiche of period pirate adventure, with sassy repartee and kitschy comedy detail (Black Stache's secret sailing gimmick is a sail shaped like a huge brassiere), and the book has diligently accounted for all the key elements of Peter Pan, ranging from Peter's eternal youth and ability to fly to Captain Hook and his crocodile follower. Unfortunately, its buccaneering energy is squandered over the course of the long and often slow narrative, and the starstuff plotline is talkily expounded and poorly mated with the piratical tale. The straightforward writing, especially about more serious emotions (such as Peter and Molly's mutual attraction), is awkward and pedestrian, and characters are sometimes inef- fectively differentiated (it's easy to confuse the nasty pirate captain with the nasty skipper of the Never Land) or evolved (there's no obvious reason why a formerly lazy and dissolute seaman becomes the orphans' champion). Occasional full-page illustrations lose their edge in their smudgy gray tones, but they help lighten the density of the text. Aside from those fans determined to see their authorial idols embrace the pirate life, readers will likely fare better with McCaughrean's The Pirate'sSon (BCCB 9/98) or Meyer's BloodyJack (BCCB 12/02). DS

BLUMENTHAL, DEBORAH Don't Let the Peas Touch!: and Other Stories; illus. by Timothy Basil Ering. Levine/Scholastic, 2004 [48p] ISBN 0-439-29732-X $15.95 Reviewed from galleys R* 6-9 yrs Three personable stories chronicle the authentically thorny relationship between Sophie and her older sister, Annie. In the first story, Annie's culinary display falls afoul of Sophie's determined pickiness; in the second, Sophie's good intentions aren't enough to achieve the quiet time Annie requests; finally, Annie makes up for a mean big-sister remark with a surprise pet that she and Sophie can share. These gently shaped slice-of-life stories fairly vibrate with personality, and that personality is usually that of forceful little Sophie, whether she's holding her meat up to the light in wary search of fat and gristle or helpfully leading her toy animals in a very quiet circus while her sister studies. Sprightly natural dialogue captures the true, not always fond, tone of sisterly exchanges, and careful word choice makes the simple sentences a quiet triumph of rhythmic exposition. Mixed-media illustrations rely mostly on strong acrylic pigments, often textured with scrawls of grease pencil; Sophie's redder-than-red curls draw the eye in most illustrations, but they're well balanced with a delicious buffet of spicy touches and cool colors, standing out against softly muted backgrounds. The vivid colors and changing layouts, ranging from spot art to vignettes to spreads, provide a rollicking visual cadence, while the sharp lines of faces add emotional punctuation to the scenes. The three-chapter format allows the readaloud pleasure to be drawn out over several sittings, and NOVEMBER 2004 * 115

beginning readers brave enough to tackle occasionally creative font will also enjoy this sisterly literary outing. DS

BRACKETT, VIRGINIA Restless Genius: The Story of Virginia Woolf. Morgan Reynolds, 2004 14 4 p illus. with photographs Library ed. ISBN 1-931798-37-0 $21.95 R Gr. 9-12 This highly readable literary biography of Virginia Woolf moves dexterously among the many relationships and ideas that influenced the troubled writer. Brackett employs a straightforward journalistic style, but Woolfs life was so rich and complicated that little embellishment is needed to make for fascinating reading. Brackett is forthright about the more controversial aspects of Woolf s life and the lives of those around her, including their complicated sexualities and marital structures, their personal and professional passions and jealousies, and Woolfs recurrent problems with depression, hallucinations, and suicidal impulses. That said, the book tends to give Woolfs relationship with Vita Sackville-West short shrift; she mentions that it was influential in her writing and continued until Woolfs death, but she doesn't tell us anything about the nature of a love affair that was obviously quite important in her subject's life. Instead, she focuses on the strong but often fractious relationship Woolf enjoyed with her sister Vanessa, and the literally life- sustaining love and support of Leonard, Woolfs husband and business partner. Throughout, the work offers interpretive readings of Woolf s novels, showing how and why her experimental prose continues to be influential. Brackett traces out thematic continuities that occasionally disrupt the chronology of events, but it's a forgivable sin in light of Woolfs formidably active intellectual life that kept her juggling multiple projects at any given time. Pictures and portraits of important figures in the Woolfs' lives appear throughout the text; the layout is unfortunately somewhat stodgy, and the photographs reproduced in subdued pale grays. A chronology is included, as is a bibliography and an index. The work relies on endnotes without in-text citations, making this an accessible read for students new to the conventions of scholarly writing; advanced students who have read Woolfs fiction and nonfiction prose will welcome this intimate portrait of a very important artist. KC

BRENNAN, HERBIE The Purple Emperor. Bloomsbury, 2004 4 31p ISBN 1-58234-880-4 $17.95 R Gr. 7-10 This sequel to Faerie Wars (BCCB 5/03), beginning just weeks after the assassina- tion of faerie Emperor Apatura Iris, continues the adventures of Iris' children Pyrgus, Holly Blue, and Comma and their human friends Henry and Mr. Fogarty as they battle the machinations of the Faeries of the Night and the demons of Hael. The evil faerie Lord Hairstreak, Prince of Darkness Beleth, master spy and pedophile Chalkhill, and ever-practical murderous scoundrel Brimstone have recovered from the losses suffered in the first book and now engage in ever more dastardly tactics to take control of the faerie empire-the most attention-grabbing of which is the kidnapping of the newly (and illegally) resurrected Emperor Iris (okay, he's a zom- bie) for use as a pawn in a political coup. Swiftly paced and narratively complicated, the novel is a significantly stronger offering than its predecessor, crammed with the gruesome details and reprehensible characters that make it, like the earlier volume, attractive to fantasy buffs and gamers, while developing those characters sufficiently to give readers the happy sense that they truly are living in 3-D. Comma's 116 * THE BULLETIN still-inscrutable personality (is he preternaturally crafty, or just insane?), the continuing liberty of the whole cadre of archvillains, and Holly Blue's growing romance with Henry promise more kingdom-rocking escapades to come. An extensive glossary is included. TC

BRUCHAC, JOSEPH, ad. Raccoon's Last Race: A TraditionalAbenaki Story; ad. by Joseph and James Bruchac; illus. by Jose Aruego and Ariane Dewey. Dial, 2004 32p ISBN 0-8037-2977-4 $15.99 R 4-6 yrs Azban the Raccoon has long, long legs. He is faster than Bear, faster than Fox, faster than Rabbit. He is even faster than Big Rock, who goes tumbling down the mountain, "Ka-boom!Ka-boom!Ka-boom!" Thinking this is a race, Azban zigzags in front of Big Rock as it rolls, but as he turns to sneer at his supposed competitor, he trips... and Big Rock keeps on rolling: "Ka-boom!Ka-boom!SPLAT!Ka-boom! Ka-boom!Ka-boom!" The humble ants agree to help tug poor flattened Azban back into shape, but his impatience and rudeness keep them from finishing the job, leaving the raccoon in the squatty, not-at-all swift shape we recognize. Beginning with a startling face-on double-page spread of the long-limbed, crafty Azban, Aruego and Dewey's distinctive comical, texture-rich illustrations give this roadkill folktale a pulsing visual rhythm, the dark-furred characters (and storm-cloud-blue Big Rock) romping and racing all over the pages on clear-toned backgrounds of blue, green, and yellow. Concise, dryly humorous sentences describe Azban's vanity and downfall in succinct paragraphs, their content developed by the illustrated action and their brevity facilitating reading aloud or alone. Notes from the adapt- ers give the history of the Azban stories among the Abenaki (and one print source) and correlate these legends with other American Indian trickster tales. TC

COFER, JUDITH ORTIZ CallMe Maria. Orchard, 2004 [144p] ISBN 0-439-38577-6 $16.95 Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 7-10 Letters home (and a few back), free-verse poems, and "Instant Histories" of friends and passersby record fifteen-year-old Maria's struggle with her identity as a Puerto Rican immigrant on the mainland, caught in limbo between her Island heritage and her new home in an urban barrio (and between her mother, who stays in Puerto Rico, and her father, a diehard Puerto Rican mainlander). The allure and possibilities of language have always appealed to her, and now language becomes a way to create her own identity and find a way to embrace all her heritages as she becomes a trilingual poet (fluent in Spanish, English, and barrio Spanglish), ready to make her place in a rich multicultural world. Marfa's characterizations of herself and others are consistently eloquent yet believably tremulous in their emergent power, and her various texts reflect her growth as a writer, their erratic power finally coalescing toward the end to produce some startlingly thoughtful, image- rich pieces: "My treasure room is full./ My second language/ is a silver cup/ from which I intend to drink/ the best wine./ Each word I make mine/ is a pearl, a diamond,/ a ruby, I will someday string/ into a necklace/ and wear everywhere,/ as if I had been born/ rich in English." The mix of brief pieces in different formats gives this work the enticing air of literary collage, so even timid readers will find in Maria's self-portrait a quiet power, making this offering a strong addition to the Latino/a collection as well as an eloquent story of identity and coming of age. TC NOVEMBER 2004 * 117

COLE, BROCK FairMonaco. Front Street, 2004 [32p] ISBN 1-932425-07-1 $16.95 Reviewed from galleys R 5-8 yrs Maggie, Katie, and Nora are initially frustrated by their stay with Granny, whose obsession with safety means she won't let the girls do anything interesting like take a walk, play on the fire escape, or send little Nora down the laundry chute; she's too worried even to tell them the glorious story of the night she danced with the Prince in fair Monaco. When the three sisters resignedly go to bed, they get sucked into the frightening and frightened dreams of the granny-witch about the terrible threats of the city, but they wisely counteract the bad witchy dreams with good dreams of their own, thereby transforming not only the dreams they're inhabiting but also the urban world to which they awake. Cole imbues his fluid prose with echoes of nursery-rhyme structures and rhythms, giving the girls' dreamy peregri- nations a context that makes them particularly plausible. It's the illustrations, however, that expand the text into a story: Granny's apartment (described in the text as being on Queen Street, but identified in the illustrations, in a nod to the old expression, as being literally on Queer Street) initially appears to be a decaying urban wilderness, an understandable cause of the old lady's fear, but the morning after the girls' transformative journey, the battered streets teem with bustling and affectionate human life (the proximity to a faded building labeled "Club Monaco" suggests that Granny's Prince may have appeared long ago, but not actually so far away). Whether the lines are parading in skewed regimentation through the cityscapes or trickling and meandering to create organic figures, they dominate the illustrations, but the slightly muted watercolors soften the visual bite; the gentle tones also meld the scenes together, deliciously delaying the discovery of quirky elements that make the art worth poring over (the nocturnal transformation of the girls' room, the elements of Granny's grannyish apartment). While some of the changes wrought do seem to be external (the graffiti is apparently being painted over), it's clear that Granny's willingness to look with new eyes is really what allows the streetscape to cheer up. Even kids unconcerned about the underlying implications will revel in this celebration of positive kid power and the good that lurks right beneath our eyes. DS

DALE, ANNA Whispering to Witches. Bloomsbury, 2004 30 4 p ISBN 1-58234-890-1 $16.95 R Gr. 4-6 Joe Binks, off to visit his mother, stepfather, and stepsister for Christmas, runs into some strange people on the train to Canterbury, and he's so unsettled that he gets off at the wrong stop and has to borrow a bike for the last five miles. The bike, however, turns out to be a bespelled broomstick, and it races off with Joe through hedges, fences, and traffic to land him among a coven of witches. Though they send Joe home sans his memory, the young witch Twiggy reverses the spell because she's spotted the symbol of a rival coven drawn on Joe's suitcase. Attempting to solve this mystery puts Joe and Twiggy on the trail of another: finding a long-lost page from a famous book of magic before the wrong witches find it first. This British import will likely suffer from comparison with Harry Potter, as it goes through some familiar paces without adding anything terribly new to the already substantial witch market. Still, this magical mystery strikes the right balance between silliness and suspense, keeping readers hooked with well-timed clues while throwing in some good-natured tweaking of witch lore (like the supposedly dangerous Spillikins of Doom, a sort of evil pick-up-sticks). The witches in the coven 118 * THE BULLETIN

are charmingly eccentric, but it's their status as perennial underdogs in "polite" witch society that will make them attractive to children who are already sensitive to their place in the social hierarchy. Though the ending is unbelievably tidy, this will likely satisfy those reading for pure entertainment, especially lovers of easy witchy fantasy. KH

DAVIES, NICOLA Poop: A Natural History of the Unmentionable; illus. by Neal Layton. Candlewick, 2004 6 2p ISBN 0-7636-2437-3 $12.99 R Gr. 3-5 One might say it's been a crappy year, what with Goodman's The Truth about Poop (BCCB 6/04) and now this title from Nicola Davies, stalwart provider of early-grades biology works such as Surprising Sharks (BCCB 2/04) and One Tiny Turtle (11/01). Davies is more briskly knowledgeable as well as humorous, providing a well-ordered tour de feces from the variety of shapes and sizes of different animals' excretions, through the reasons for that variety (and for varieties in color), and to the recycling of poop whether through the animal of its origin or through other species (an Australian town has a monument to the humble dung beetle). There's also some compact explanation of the other uses of poop, whether it be an aid to navigation or a message-sometimes hostile, sometimes enticing-to other creatures. The coverage is concise yet thorough, and the details have the appeal of trivia while effectively presenting the material as part of the larger biological jig- saw. Layton's zany scrawls, touched with muted, grayed pastels but predomi- nantly (of course) brown, add enough silliness to keep readers unselfconscious about their own giggles as they read; diagram captions and speech balloons convey information as well as adding interest. This will make a lovely little biological present for the reluctant readers' shelf. An index and glossary are included. DS

DICKINSON, JOHN The Cup ofthe World. Fickling, 2004 4 32p Library ed. ISBN 0-385-75034-X $17.99 Trade ed. ISBN 0-385-75025-0 $15.95 R Gr. 8-12 When at seventeen Phaedra is faced with marriage to the kind but ordinary Prince Septimus, the ethereal knight who has visited her in dreams since she was eleven answers her plea for help by stepping abruptly from her reveries into reality, bringing with him a ship and soldiers to safeguard their nocturnal elopement. Phaedra discovers the knight is Ulfin, the March-Lord ofTarceny, a nobleman independent of the current King and possessing arcane powers. Phaedra sacrifices home, father, and Kingdom to be with her new husband, only to find she has made herself the bone of contention in a civil war that beggars the land and draws Ulfin far from her in battle. Left alone in Ulfin's castle, Phaedra receives visits from unearthly visitors who bring with them a pervading sense of evil. Fearing she has gone mad from her guilt and shame over the war, she hopes for salvation from Ulfin-only to find that her mate has a darker soul and darker secrets than any she brought to their marriage bed. In Phaedra's Kingdom, the political balance of power constantly shifts as lords, ladies, and knights change landholdings and loy- alties within an intriguing layering of classical, medieval, and ancient pagan influences, the many strata providing fertile ground for the development of a story rich in emotional and symbolic power. These strengths, combined with skillful, often lyrical wordcraft, are offset by Phaedra's locational and emotional distance from nearly every other primary character. As a result of this distancing, the ability of NOVEMBER 2004 * 119

the story to engage the reader is subdued until the last hundred and fifty pages, where Phaedra confronts the consequences of her actions. Still, fantasy buffs with a proclivity for well-built imaginary worlds will want to join Phaedra on her ex- traordinary if dilatory journey toward autonomy. TC

DOYLE, MALACHY Splash, Joshua, Splash!; illus. by Ken Wilson- Max. Bloomsbury, 2004 32p ISBN 1-58234-837-5 $15.95 R 2-5 yrs Joshua and Granny are having an especially wet day; they feed the ducks in the pond, splash through puddles while walking the dog, play in a fountain, spend time at a pool, and finally, ride a bus home through the rain. Their adventures are told with sometimes rhyming, sometimes rhythmic wordplay that splashes off the page and bounces off the tongue. The illustrations echo the splashy text: the chunky paint splattered on the cover and endpapers assumes more control but no less energy throughout the book, with the bold, paint-stroked figures barely con- tained by their swooshy black outlines. Wilson-Max's perspectives take the reader right down the slide and under the water with Joshua and his granny; between the energy of the text and the exuberance of the illustrations, it's a breathless and exhilarating ride. KC

FARMER, NANCY The Sea of Trolls. Jackson/Atheneum, 2004 4 59p ISBN 0-689-86744-1 $17.95 R* Gr. 5-8 Out of all the boys in their eighth-century Saxon village, eleven-year-old Jack is chosen by the Bard to become his apprentice. Soon Jack is learning how to call up fog and fire and sense the flow of the life force in the world around him-important skills to possess, it turns out, when he and his six-year-old sister, Lucy, are kidnapped by Viking raiders and swept across the sea to become slaves in the Northland. Accompanied by Bold Heart, a brave, intelligent crow from his home village, Jack seizes his only chance to win freedom for himself and his sister by embarking on a journey to Jotunheim, the land of the trolls, where he may or may not be able to drink from the Well of Mimir and gain the wisdom necessary to reverse his accidental magical disfigurement of the harpy-tempered, half-troll wife of King Ivar the Boneless. In this substantial and swiftly moving fantasy, Jack's medieval world envelops the reader from the first page, and even secondary characters and villains have sufficient faults, virtues, dreams, and disappointments to make them sympathetic to the reader to some degree. This adroit worldbuilding and dead-on characterization combine with faultless plotting and an irresistible mixture of historical truth and mythological invention to create a tale of high adventure and exploration that reads with unexpected sensitivity, warmth, and humor. Maps, a cast of characters, a series of short explanatory appendices, and a list of sources are included. TC

FREDERICKS, MARIAH Head Games. Jackson/Atheneum, 2004 260p ISBN 0-689-85532-X $15.95 R Gr. 7-10 "I don't want anyone knowing me," says Judith, who finds that real life, with its snickering ex-friends, competitive brainy classmates, and faraway father, simply reinforces her sense of vulnerability. Her preferred realm is her online game, wherein she relishes taking the role of a cunning and indomitable male thief, but a showdown with a destructive and mysterious fellow player robs her of even that pleasure. 120 * THE BULLETIN

When she realizes that the person behind that player is actually Jonathan, the bad boy of her apartment complex, she embarks on a wary partnership with him, wherein they draw on their gaming interest to create a more challenging live-action game of their own, developing a surprising friendship along the way. As she did in The True Meaning of Cleavage (BCCB 3/03), Fredericks displays an admirable gift for significant perception expressed in accessible and often witty terms ("What happens if you try not to be the doof everyone says you are, but you find out, whoops, you really are a doofP"), which makes her subtle understanding look easy. The book tackles head-on the notion of the pleasures of gaming and its contrast to the unruliness of real life (Judith is still haunted by an attempted sexual assault from a year ago, and as a consequence she's particularly drawn to the power she sees in male game characters), but it's believable in its depiction ofJudith's growing interest in the rewards of reality. While a few inconsistencies remain in the portrayal of bad-boy-turned-friend-and-possible-boyfriend Jonathan, his prickly relationship with Judith effectively conveys his complexity as well as her ambivalence; there's also a smoothly executed subplot about Judith's grudging friendship with Katie, the ditzy, work-shy rich girl out of step with her overachieving classmates. The humor is welcome and the intelligence penetrating, while Judith's growing connection to her fellow humans may encourage uncertain teens to strengthen their own relationships. DS

FRIEND, NATASHA Perfect. Milkweed, 2004 [208p] Trade ed. ISBN 1-57131-652-3 $16.95 Paper ed. ISBN 1-57131-651-5 $6.95 Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 5-9 When Isabelle fails to meet her younger sister's bribe standards, April tells their mother Isabelle's secret: she's bulimic. This revelation lands Isabelle in group therapy, where she adamantly refuses to discuss her grief over her father's death or her mother's subsequent incapacitating depression. In Isabelle's mind, the real benefit to Group is her incipient friendship with Ashley, the queen of eighth grade, who behind her polished exterior hides deep insecurity and a major-league eating disorder. Eating disorder plots aren't new, even with the intensity of physical detail provided here (there's in fact quite a bit of unintentional how-to offered), but Friend tells this more as a family story, bringing a spontaneity and engagement to Isabelle's narration that lifts this above most pointed problem novels. In particular, Isabelle's frustration with her mother's frozen refusal to allow the family to grieve and to acknowledge her own problems (Isabelle says bitterly, "I so much did not want to hear the words tired orfine anymore") is painful and understandable; the family dynamics, with Isabelle and April alternating between squabbling and anxious solidarity, are nuanced yet legitimate. Readers drawn by the car-crash fascination of eating disorder will stay for the witty and perceptive family drama. DS

GEISERT, ARTHUR Pigaroons; written and illus. by Arthur Geisert. Lorraine/ Houghton, 2004 32p ISBN 0-618-41058-9 $16.00 R 4 -7yrs In Nursery Crimes (BCCB 9/01), Ames, Iowa suffered from the larcenous rampage of topiary thieves, and now Geisert exposes yet another nest of piggish crime, this time on the banks of the Mississippi. The Pigaroons have swiped the huge ice NOVEMBER2004 * 121

block so lovingly cleft from the frozen stream by the peaceful River Patrollers, who enter-and generally win-the ice carving contest at each year's festival. The Pigaroons sculpt the purloined block into a larger-than-life Hernando de Soto, leaving the River Patrollers with nothing but a thin slab of ice, their plucky spirit of inventiveness, and a powerful thirst for justice. While the Pigaroons hawk popcorn balls and show off their gleaming creation, River Patrollers devise a hot-air balloon to speed their secret weapon to the Ice Festival. Hovering above the crowd, they train a highly polished ice lens at de Soto and the popcorn balls, reducing them to water and goo. Take that, Pigaroons! This is vintage Geisert: obsessive in architectural and Rube Goldbergian detail, meticulous in precision line hatching, straightfaced in narration, and delightfully overinvested in his porcine universe. Between Geisert's pilfering pigs and Daniel Pinkwater's muffin-nabbing polar bears, kids can rejoice in the current crime spree in the animal kingdom. EB

GIFF, PATRICIA REILLY A House of Tailors. Lamb, 2004 [144p] Library ed. ISBN 0-385-90879-2 $17.99 Trade ed. ISBN 0-385-73066-7 $15.95 Reviewed from galleys Ad Gr. 4-7 Roughly based on the author's own grandmother's immigration story, this historical novel chronicles thirteen-year old Dina Kirk's emigration from Germany to Brooklyn in 1870. Though initially overjoyed at the prospect of a new life away from her family's sewing shop with "Mama's rich older brother" in New York, Dina is surprised and dismayed to find that she is expected to do piecework in the German tenement district where her uncle (who is in fact not rich) lives with his young bride and their baby. This is a fairly typical immigration narrative, punctu- ated by periods of homesickness, the trials of smallpox and a housefire, and loving letters sent from her family back home. Dina runs the gamut of highs and lows, from determination to return to Germany as quickly as possible to enchantment with the sounds of the English language and the beginnings of a romance with a young German locksmith. Her voice is stubbornly obstinate and her abrasive interactions with her uncle ("we rubbed each other like emery") a bit offputting; rather than coming across as admirable for her spunk, she seems unappreciative and anachronistic in her constant talking back and confrontation. Her relationship with her uncle's wife is endearing, however, and the gradual building up of her place in the new family is well developed. The atmospheric details of the crowded Brooklyn streets paint a visible picture of tenement life in the time period, making this a useful work of fiction to include in immigration units. An afterword, identifying those parts of the story taken from Giffs own lineage, is included. HM

GODDU, KRYSTYNA PORAY Dollmakers and Their Stories: Women Who Changed the World ofPlay. Holt, 2004 160p illus. with photographs ISBN 0-8050-7257-8 $17.95 Ad Gr. 6-10 This collective biography features a treatment of five women noted for their con- tributions in the design and business of dollmaking, then goes on to a brief over- view of some contemporary women currently doing creative work in the field. The result provides not only a glimpse into the history of the modern doll (the creators of Madame Alexander dolls, Barbie, and the American Girls dolls all get chronicled here), but also a look at the entrepreneurship these women have dis- 122 * THE BULLETIN

played as they developed processes, built companies, and found niches in the world- wide marketplace. Unfortunately, the text is dry and slow moving, and the portraits of the dollmakers are adulatory and unquestioning; the occasional undersized black-and-white photographs of the dolls (and sometimes the dollmakers) won't really give doll-hungry readers the up-close and personal encounter they desire. Still, business-inclined readers and those whose interest in dolls has gone beyond that of the casual user may welcome this more involved treatment, and they'll appreciate Goddu's implicit statement of ownership: women defined the doll as it stands today, and women have the right to love dolls and design them still, at age nine or ninety. A varied list of resources includes organizations and museums (suitable for participation in and visiting by young people); there are unfortunately no notes or index, but a bibliography is included. TC

GRAY, MARGARET The Lovesick Salesman; illus. by Randy Cecil. Holt, 2004 184 p ISBN 0-8050-7558-5 $16.95 R Gr. 4-6 Irwin and Seymour are best friends, at least, they're friends until Seymour's training to be a hero swells his head and he scorns the love of the beautiful, intelligent princess Julia, whom Irwin secretly adores. Over the next three years, the former friends see little of each other as Seymour learns to advertise his own heroism, Julia practices ruling the country and playing hard to get, and Irwin enjoys a contented life in the candy business in spite of his unrequited passion. However, when Julia turns fifteen, she turns all their lives upside down by arranging a tournament for her hand, hoping to discourage the hordes of hopeful young heroes that throng the castle and to encourage Seymour to put in an appearance. Instead, through a series of accidents and the jealous interference ofJulia's older sister, the witch Murgatroyd- Liza, Seymour sponsors Irwin as a contestant, giving true love a chance to win the day (which eventually leads to Irwin's becoming the loving father of the protagonist of The Ugly Princess and the Wise Fool, BCCB 12/02). Packed with twisting but finally intersecting plot lines, wry characterization, and contemporary caricatures of traditional fairy-tale elements, the novel gives readers plenty to giggle at, while the black-and-white illustrations of dorkily potato-faced, French-fry-fingered folk both emphasize and soften the satiric bent. The characters become more silly and the plot more random in the last third of the book, making the tale a frothy parody rather than a comedic masterpiece, but middle-grade readers awake to the contradictions inherent in image-driven popular culture will appreciate this witty takedown, as it manages to retain the frivolous delight of fairy tales and commercial marketing while poking fun at both traditions. A map of the kingdom is included. TC

HAHN, MARY DOWNING The Old Willis Place: A Ghost Story. Clarion, 2004 [2 0 8p] ISBN 0-618-43018-0 $15.00 Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 4-6 Diana is excited when the new caretaker at the old Willis place turns out to have a daughter, Lissa, who's Diana's age; Diana's existence, which is restricted by a series of inflexible rules, largely limits her to staying on the Willis place and playing with her little brother, Georgie, so she's thrilled by the prospect of genuine friendship. Though Lissa is somewhat taken aback by Diana's strange ways and appearance, NOVEMBER 2004 * 123 the two girls soon become close companions, but their closeness makes it increasingly difficult for Diana to hide her frightening secret (which she withholds from the reader as well as from Lissa): she and Georgie are ghosts. Lissa's diary entries, which counterpoint Diana's narration, are relentlessly dutiful in their plot exposition rather than credible as actual preteen journal writing, but otherwise Hahn's sure hand at haunting is evident. The story offers some genuine horror, since the ghost of Miss Lilian Willis, who was responsible for Diana's and Georgie's deaths, still hunts for the two kids, but the malevolence isn't a driving narrative force but rather a carefully measured seasoning in an emotional middle-grades-suitable ghost story. The twist of secretly giving the ghost herself the narration will be new to many young readers, and the unfolding of the plot will remain creepy and enjoyable no matter where along the narrative way they realize the reason for Diana and Georgie's strangeness. This satisfyingly fills that gap between more light-hearted early ghost stories and the hard-edged terror of classic older works, so it'll need no ghostly assistance to fly off the shelves. DS

HALE, SHANNON Enna Burning. Bloomsbury, 2004 317p ISBN 1-58234-889-8 $17.95 R Gr. 8-12 With her best friend, Isi, happily married and ruling the country of Bayern (see Goose Girl, BCCB 11/03), Enna returns to the Forest to live quietly with her brother, Leifer, who has found a piece of vellum that explains how to speak the language of fire and so control it. Unfortunately, this knowledge works in the user like a powerfully addictive drug and usually leads to a rather crispy death, i.e., burning from the inside out. The power seems the perfect weapon to defend Bayern from the attacking forces of neighboring Tira, so Enna commits to memory the writing on the vellum, in spite of the fact that Leifer burned himself to a shell during the course of just one battle. Soon Enna's power over fire is discovered, and she is captured by the Tirans and brainwashed into using her talent against her own people. Isi, too, has found that her ability to speak with the winds is more a burden than a gift-the constant flow of information from the living air is beginning to drive her mad. In spite of Enna's exploits as a spy and a saboteur, her story is more an exploration of self than a tale of adventure. However, Hale's lifelike characters and down-to-earth dialogue invigorate the story throughout the development of Enna's supernatural powers and her (and Isi's) subsequent descent into addiction and madness. Equally potent is the balance between the despair gener- ated by Enna's mistakes and misfortunes and the hope given to her by the love of her friends and her own resilience. A poignant exploration of dependency, abuse, and recovery but also a finely crafted fantasy, this novel will be appreciated as much for its reflection of the real world as for its development of a complex imaginary realm. A map is included. TC

HANNIGAN, KATHERINE Ida B: ... and Her Plans to Maximize Fun, Avoid Disas- ter, and (Possibly) Save the World. Greenwillow, 2004 256p Library ed. ISBN 0-06-073025-0 $16.89 Trade ed. ISBN 0-06-073024-2 $15.99 R Gr. 4-6 At nine years old, Ida B is happy with her life on her beloved farm and her homeschooling with her beloved parents; she can fit into her busy, self-imposed schedule all of the most important things-like figuring out how to talk with the apple trees and to hear what the brook is really saying. The idyll is over when 124 * THE BULLETIN

Mama is diagnosed with cancer, and the resulting treatments leave her too weak to teach Ida B. Still shocked by the physical change in her mother and the resulting loss of security at home, Ida B bitterly resents her return to the rule-bound public school that made her miserable in kindergarten. Worse, Daddy confesses that he's had to sell part of Ida B's beloved orchard to a housing contractor in order to pay Mama's medical bills, enraging Ida B with what she sees as his broken promise to her and to the land. Though some of the interludes (especially Ida B's collusion with the trees) border on the precious and the protagonist's contemplations sometimes slow the pacing, Ida B is an appealingly strong-willed character, and her emotional honesty, as she determinedly refuses to forgive her parents or enjoy the possibilities of school, adds depth to the narrative. Her precocity in self-expression allows her to speak for youngsters less gifted, while her youth limits her understanding and makes poignant her feelings of loss and her struggle to protect herself in a world that seems out of control. There's also plenty of laugh-out-loud humor in Ida B's observations and actions, but it's the concrete descriptions of her mael- strom of emotions that will lead readers to embrace her as a friend. TC

HARRINGTON, JANICE N. Going North; illus. by Jerome Lagarrigue. Kroupa/ Farrar, 2004 40p ISBN 0-374-32681-9 $16.00 R 5-8 yrs Leaving behind a loving assembly of grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends, Jessie and her family load their banana-yellow station wagon with all they own and head North toward a better life, away from the segregated South of the early '60s. Jessie's questions and worries about leaving home are met with "don't knows," but as she feels the tension of a low gas gauge with only white gas stations in sight, she begins to think that maybe things will be better for her family up North. The thrums of Harrington's language beat out the road rhythms of a long car trip. Her attention to detail deepens the symbolic resonance of the family's journey; for instance, it is as if the land itself offers the family welcome, with the dirt symbolically and actually changing from the red clay of Alabama to the fertile black earth of Nebraska. Lagarrigue's deeply hued, soul-stirring landscapes escort the family from that red earth, across the drifted white cotton fields of Mississippi, through the turquoise night sky of Arkansas, to the verdant welcome of Nebraska. His people are warm and wistful, and his grainy, rough-brushed surfaces give the impression of being hazed over with the memory of the hope that pushed these pioneers northward. Together, text and illustration offer an almost tangible em- bodiment of the regrets that accompany leaving and the anticipation of better things to come. This offers a keen emotional verification to similar accounts of African-American families leaving the segregated South, but it will have appeal for any family leaving the familiar in search of something better. An author's note is included. KC

HARRISON, METTE IVIE Mira, Mirror. Viking, 2004 314p ISBN 0-670-05923-4 $16.99 Ad Gr. 6-12 Trapped for over a hundred years in the mirror, Mira has become almost as cold and self-promoting as the traitorous sister witch who sealed her there. She lies to and manipulates innocents and pilfers magic in order to appropriate enough power to release herself from the confines of the mirror, but before Mira achieves freedom, a mysterious crone (actually Mira's long-lost sister) steals the Mira-mirror, NOVEMBER 2004 * 125 threatening to keep the spellbound witch as a slave forever. Having learned that "magic is born in death... But love is born in life, and death cannot end it," Mira surprisingly gives up her own quest in order to salve the wounds of her aged sister sorceress, an act which leads (indirectly) to Mira's own release. This version of the wicked-witch story is peopled by multilayered, sympathetic characters, whose dis- tinct voices and personal agendas twist the age-old plot into new shapes. The satisfyingly realistic feudal setting is grounded and expanded by the definition of the bloody source of the witches' magic; the resulting mixture of fascination and revulsion will keep readers transfixed through page after page of elegant prose until Mira's quest has ended. Unfortunately for readers so riveted, after the first 150 pages the rising action levels off, and while Mira continues to discourse on love both sisterly and motherly, her actual experience of any healthy affection is so slim that her sudden adoption of love as a guiding principle during the ending sequence simply cannot be believed. Still, some readers will care more about the secondary characters than about Mira-not an impossible preference, since the secondary characters are the ones who really learn how to give and receive love- and these will take the sputtering finish in stride. TC

HILL, ELIZABETH STARR Wildfire!; illus. by Rob Shepperson. Farrar, 2004 6 6p ISBN 0-374-31712-7 $16.00 R Gr. 2-4 Ben lives with his great-grandmother and his grandparents in the Florida woods, which this year are dangerously dry, making Independence Day fireworks out of the question. New boy Elliot tags after Ben, but when he puts down Ben's small town and his house and family, Ben wants to show Elliot a thing or two. On a dare from a local girl, Ben takes a group of kids into the brush and sets off a rocket, unleashing a shower of sparks and scaring Elliot's new puppy into the forest. The two boys chase the puppy deep into the trees, where they face the threat of a charging wild boar and the burgeoning wildfire. The straightforward prose main- tains a healthy vigor, peppering the narrative with believable dialogue and apt, occasionally fresh descriptions: "Ideas bubbled in him, sweet as soda." Black-and- white illustrations employ some interesting perspectives and compositions, giving the friendly-lined figures a milieu with a little extra depth. While skeptics may wonder if a ten-year-old boy could outrun a wild boar, or if the boar would fail to smell him as he hid in a thicket with a squirming puppy, the rapid pace of this animal rescue story and the satisfying tie-in of all the plot lines make this book a sure sell to readers just beginning to embark on longer literary adventures. TC

HILLENBRAND, WILL Asleep in the Stable; written and illus. by Will Hillenbrand. Holiday House, 2004 32p ISBN 0-8234-1824-3 $16.95 Ad 3-7 yrs Baby Owl starts his day in the middle of the night, filled with questions about the family he has discovered sharing the barn: "WHOOOO. .. is that baby sleeping in the nest below?" Mama explains, "That is Jesus, the Holy Child." "'WHOOOO,' asked Baby Owl, 'is that man with the beard?' 'He is the baby's earthly father,' answered Mama. 'The Holy Child also has a Heavenly Father."' Baby Owl's questions concerning the baby's eggless birth and featherless state lead Mama into a gentle discussion of Divine paternity, the warmth of God's protection, and even the origin of the bright star that glows over the barn. This is not the traditional retelling of the Nativity story-indeed there's no mention of how the family came 126 * THE BULLETIN

to the barn, much less any hint of the Baby's mission-nor is it a Friendly Beasts tale, with animals tenderly nuzzling the Holy Baby. This is more properly Baby's First Catechism, which concludes rather illogically with a mama loves baby/baby loves mama bedtime wrap-up. The mixed-media and collage illustrations focus primarily on the owls (only three spreads feature the Holy Family, and two of them are nearly identical), to whom Hillenbrand imparts an unexpected cuddliness. A variety of mottled, scratched, and layered textures give depth to the simple figures. Hillenbrand initiates the parent/child dialogue on the spiritual aspect of Christmas, but if your own owlet inquires, "WHOOOO is God?," you're on your own. EB

HOOSE, PHILLIP The Race to Save the Lord God Bird. Kroupa/Farrar, 2004 196p illus. with photographs ISBN 0-374-36173-8 $20.00 R* Gr. 6-10 Hunted by artists, naturalists, and even millinery suppliers, and squeezed by di- minishing habitats, the Ivory-billed Woodpecker is now found only in collectors' cabinets and museum displays. Hoose traces its flight path to extinction from the early nineteenth century through the last verified sightings in forest canopies of the southeastern United States and Cuba, weaving not only a tale of a single species' demise, but also of the evolution of ornithology from mere physical description, to investigation of behavior and habitat, to commitment to conservation. Hoose is a gifted storyteller, opening with a riveting scene of a wounded woodpecker trashing a hotel room with all the zeal of a rock band, and then spinning a gripping adventure tale that comprises everything from "plume wars" over ladies' hat trim, to murdered game wardens, to the development of bird-call recording devices, to the heartbreaking failure of conservator/developer compromise. An ample selection of black-and-white photos, fascinating sidebars on a wide variety of subjects (e.g., an 1807 squirrel scalp tax; the inverse relationship between bobbed hair and feathered hats), maps of the shrinking Ivory-bill range, a timeline, glossary, index, and detailed source notes are included. There is no plangent predic- tion of ecological gloom and doom here, just an engrossing story that leaves readers with the uncomfortable suspicion that this plot plays out more often than we like to believe. EB

HUGHES, SHIRLEY Ella's Big Chance: A Jazz-Age Cinderella;written and illus. by Shirley Hughes. Simon, 2004 4 8p ISBN 0-689-87399-9 $16.95 R 6-8 yrs Ella's dad owns a successful dressmaking shop, and Ella bids fair to follow in her father's footsteps as a master clothier. The arrival of a stepmother and stepsisters is followed by the conversion of the shop into a couture gallery, forcing Ella to work nonstop in the basement while her stepsisters saunter through the upper floors, modeling her creations for customers. Doorman/delivery boy Buttons stands by Ella, cheering her with serenades and impromptu moonlight dances in the store- room. When the Duke of Arc gives a ball and Ella's fairy godmother sends her off to it, resplendent in a limousine (Buttons's newly enchanted delivery bicycle) driven by an impeccably dressed chauffeur (Ella's cat), the little dressmaker captivates the Duke but eludes captivation herself, preferring to marry Buttons and set up her own shop of "stunning clothes." (The Duke retreats to South America to "recover from his broken heart.") The earnest tone of the text works perfectly with the NOVEMBER 2004 * 127 rags-to-rags romantic twist to invest this reworking of the traditional tale with fresh allure. The 1920s fascination with color, line, and texture in clothing provides ample scope for gouache and pen illustrations drenched in shimmering hues, swirling with bold curves, and enriched with riotously striated shading, while mi- nor plot points receive black-and-white treatment in miniature panels below the text blocks. Viewers, listeners, and readers alike will enjoy the visual and narrative richness of this period renovation. A note gives credit for inspiration for the ball scenes and dress designs. TC

IRVING, JOHN A Sound Like Someone Trying Not to Make a Sound; illus. by Tatjana Hauptmann. Doubleday, 2004 40p Library ed. ISBN 0-385-90910-1 $17.99 Trade ed. ISBN 0-385-74680-6 $15.95 Ad 4-6 yrs A bump in the night awakens Tom and prompts him to tell his father of the furry monster with no arms and legs that has undoubtedly taken over the house. Though the text indicates that he is conversing with his father about the monster (who logically concludes that it is a mouse in the walls), the pictures show Tom and his teddy exploring the night-dark house. Dad gives Tom a strategy for dealing with the critter-just hit the wall when you hear him scritching and scratching. Tom is comforted enough to go to sleep, but baby brother, Tim, who has been awakened by the commotion, gladly heeds his father's advice, since he has no idea that a mouse isn't a wet, furry monster with no arms and legs. The book's look vaguely recalls Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are; it alternates wordless, crosshatched spreads with pictures that sometimes do and sometimes don't cross the ditch, all held tightly in check by tidy white borders that contain the text. The palette is appropriately (if monotonously) deep-night purple and turquoise with moonlit shadows that comically enhance the size of the "monster" the boy and his bear are stalking. The boy seems always to be bathed in the glow of moonlight, however, and his rumpled pjs, spiky bedhead, and wary eyes take the fear right out of the nighttime for the child viewer. Taken from one of Irving's novels, wherein the story is penned by a rather unpleasant writer for children, this doesn't entirely stand on its own: poor little Tim has been left out of any climactic reassurance, and the ending is stunningly abrupt. The conceit and the descriptions are certainly evocative, though, and youngsters may appreciate this comforting explanation of mysterious nocturnal noises. KC

JINKS, CATHERINE Pagan's Vows. Candlewick, 2004 [33 6 p] ISBN 0-7636-2021-1 $15.99 Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 7-10 After facing Saladin in the Crusade and surviving a bloodbath at the Roucy de Bram estate (Pagan in Exile and Pagan's Crusade, BCCB 2/04), Lord Roland and his squire Pagan Kidrouk have had their fill of death, and they present themselves at the Benedictine abbey of Saint Martin and ask to be accepted as novices. Roland immediately retreats into maudlin penitence, not only for the blood on his hands, but also for his forbidden love for a heretic woman. Pagan, always ready to follow the knight wherever he leads, finds monastic discipline far more daunting, particularly when his smart-mouthed retorts cause the irascible novice-master to load him up with lessons in logic and rhetoric. During one of many punishments, Pagan connects an overheard remark about the number of beggars seeking alms with a 128 * THE BULLETIN

disparate number of distributed coins, and soon he's hot on the trail of embezzle- ment, blackmail and, ultimately, murder. This is no knockoff of the Brother Cadfael titles, and the mystery, though engrossing, serves more as plot device to explore Pagan's and Roland's commitment to a life of godliness (and to their en- during friendship) than as the main event. Jinks again displays an amazing knack for blending utterly convincing period detail, earthy wisecracking, and profound respect for courtly and spiritual ideals, regardless of how difficult they may be for her characters to attain. There is at least one more volume to come in the Pagan series, and the final scene that finds the knight helping his squire onto a horse, bound to prepare for a career as a lay canon lawyer, will leave fans of the series (who absolutely know the pair cannot be separated for long) howling for the next title. EB

JOHNSON, D. B. Henry Works; written and illus. by D. B.Johnson. Houghton, 2004 32p ISBN 0-618-42003-7 $15.00 R 5-8 yrs This fourth entry in Johnson's continuing homage to Henry David Thoreau is likely to appeal even to children who care neither for Thoreau nor for the previous titles in the series (Henry Hikes to Fitchburg,BCCB 7/00, etc.) as it treats a subject more readily recognizable and kid-friendly than the others-unappreciated work. Henry begins his day by "walking to work," but in reality, the walk is the start of his work. He checks the weather and finds a foxhole, and he then uses his observations to warn one neighbor to take in her laundry because it's going to rain and another to guard her chickens against foxes. He helps with gardening, puts some crossing stones in the creek, measures the depth of the millstream, and marks the way to a huckleberry bush ripe for picking. All of these important chores go unnoticed by his by-now familiar neighbors-anthropomorphized bears of Transcen- dentalist fame done up in a cubist style-who assume that he's not doing anything, especially since he ends up where he started, at his cabin. His walk proceeds in a circle around Concord, giving the story a satisfyingly tight narrative trajectory, and Johnson unobtrusively shows the importance of each of Henry's little jobs along the way. The misty weather warrants the graying over of the landscapes that has proved visually unsatisfactory in past offerings; here it works to create a dewy atmosphere for an early morning jaunt. This title offers subtle reassurance that things that don't read like work can be quite important; kids who have had their diligent efforts to keep their worlds in order go unnoticed will feel a kinship with this observant, tireless bear. KC

JOHNSON, MAUREEN The Bermudez Triangle. Razorbill/Penguin, 2004 370p ISBN 1-59514-019-0 $16.99 R Gr. 7-12 When Nina Bermudez spends the summer before senior year away at a pre-college program, the friendship triangle is reduced to a pair as Nina's best friends, Avery and Mel (short for Melanie), labor away together at a local restaurant; to the surprise of both girls, the pairing becomes more than just friendship as their relationship blossoms into romance. When Nina returns, now engaged in a passionate long-distance relationship with a boy from her program, she's caught off-balance by her friends' new closeness and its effect on the triangle, especially as the ensuing year sees Avery and Mel's romance turn sour, almost destroying the trio's long friendship. This is more lengthily ponderous than the author's Key to the Golden NOVEMBER 2004 * 129

Firebird(BCCB 7/04), but its slow movement helps capture the sense of time's passage and provide a credible pace for the girls' growth. Avery and Mel's affair- experimentation for Avery, commitment for Mel-offers not only thoughtful exploration of sexual identity but also intelligent inquiry into relationship meaning and priorities, with Nina feeling shut out of friendship and wondering if there are implications for her own sexuality and Avery increasingly uncomfortable with her and Mel's romance but concerned about the consequences of ending it ("That was the problem with dating your best friend-you needed a really serious reason to stop"). The omniscient narration slips easily from viewpoint to viewpoint, which helps keep the girls sympathetic through good behavior and bad (Avery's dumping of Mel is pretty brutal) and makes credible the final restoration and affirmation of friendship. Readers fond of Brashares' Traveling Pants titles (BCCB 12/01, 5/03) who embrace the different forms in which sisterhood comes will enjoy the company of this trio. DS

KERET, ETGAR Dad Runs Away with the Circus; tr. from the Hebrew by Noah Stollman; illus. by Rutu Modan. Candlewick, 2004 4 0p ISBN 0-7636-2247-8 $16.99 R 4-7yrs When Dad takes the family to the circus, he's so enthralled by the show that he refuses to come home again. Instead, he joins the troupe and travels around the world, sending his bereft family frequent postcards from exotic locales. Eventually the circus returns to town, and Dad's wife and children, newly appreciative of the work and risk behind every successful act, receive him back into their lives with open arms. Notwithstanding their digital layering, the illustrations are deceptively old-fashioned, drawn in pencil, colored with textures reminiscent of old barn paint, and harking back in style to 1800s festival posters (a sample of which is given in the second spread). They exude creativity beyond their influences, however, lark- ing about with perspective and color, redirecting traditional shapes into new pro- portions and drenching the whole in eye-grabbing shades like tangerine, scarlet, and lime, which give even the family's pedestrian activities the feeling of the swift movement and aerial exploits associated with the circus. The characters' thick- lipped smiles and wide eyes emphasize the happy-go-lucky weirdness of the tale, which glosses over the pathos and tension of Dad's hasty abandonment of his family and instead celebrates the sparkle and verve brought into all their lives because of Dad's experiences and new friends (for some reason, the entire family suddenly can do circus tricks now that Dad's home). The text is succinct but sufficient, its humor understated (though occasionally aimed at adults) and inter- dependent with the drama of the illustrations, within which choice details-such as the antics of the family dog or the circus crowds-supply high-spirited entertainment. TC

KIMMEL, ERIC A., ad. Cactus Soup; illus. by Phil Huling. Cavendish, 2004 [32p] ISBN 0-7614-5155-2 $16.95 Reviewed from galleys R 7-10 yrs The traditional stone soup story provides the makings for this original tale set during the Mexican Revolution, wherein the people of a tiny village run to their mayor for guidance when they spot a band of soldiers approaching. "'Soldiers are all alike, no matter whose side they fight on,' the mayor grumbled. 'They eat like 130 * THE BULLETIN

wolves. There won't be a tortilla left when they get through!"' To avoid the inevitable raiding of pantries, the mayor instructs the townspeople to hide their food and go undercover, dressing in rags and smearing dirt on their faces. Inevita- bly, the captain of the soldiers produces a cactus needle and the promise of cactus soup ... only there are a few ingredients that would make the soup much better. The resulting soup, chock full of onions, tomatoes, chicken, and chiles, is such a hit that the townspeople gladly produce the rest of their stores, and "What a feast they had!" The entertaining twist in Kimmel's retelling is the humor of the trick- sters getting tricked; young listeners are certain to catch on to the crowd's persis- tent ignorance ("And to think it was made from a cactus thorn!") and gleefully point out the error of their ways. Huling's watercolor and ink illustrations sometimes tip from stylized into stereotypical, but they offer some intriguing perspectives (looking down over the pot of soup or viewing a crowd scene at nose level), and the elongated Goya-esque figures add a certain drama as well as comedy. The readaloud potential abounds, as does the opportunity to compare Kimmel's Mexi- can take on this oft-retold tale with similar picture-book projects (such as Muth's Stone Soup, BCCB 3/03). An author's note offering historical information is included, as is a glossary. HM

KOONS, JON A Confused Hanukkah: An OriginalStory of Chelm; illus. by S. D. Schindler. Dutton, 2004 4 0p ISBN 0-525-46969-9 $16.99 Ad 5-8 yrs The rabbi has left town, and the dear but dim denizens of Chelm cannot remember how or why they are supposed to celebrate Hanukkah. They send Yossel on a fact-finding mission, but he ends up in the Big City, where the prosperous urban- ites are celebrating their own feast of lights, namely, Christmas. Yossel returns home with plenty of misguided ideas for their festivities, from a tree in the town square (to be decorated with menorahs and dreidels), to a fat man in a velvet suit (blue, with a Star of David belt buckle) who bellows "Oy! Oy! Oy!" Fortunately the rabbi arrives in time to set them straight, and after a fairly staid explanation of the miracle of the lights, "the people of Chelm ate and sang and played games and gave gifts and had the best Hanukkah they'd ever had." Of course, the fun of noodlehead stories in general and Chelm tales in particular is chuckling over the characters' good-natured, topsy-turvy logic. Too often, though, Koons' jokes fall flatter than a latke as he explains even the most obvious gags. Schindler's watercolors do strike the right balance between gentle satire and genuine affection, and the slightly subdued palette of rusty reds, evergreens, and dashes of gold and blue combine Old World sobriety with holiday cheer. EB

KUNS, J. IRVIN While You Were Out. Dutton, 2004 132 p ISBN 0-525-47295-9 $15.99 Ad Gr. 4-6 Penelope's fifth-grade year at her tiny rural school has two big differences from her previous year: one difference is an addition, the new presence of her father as the school janitor, and one difference is a lack, the absence of her best friend, Tim, who died over the summer. Her dad's clumsy and well-meant efforts to be her school chum just make things worse for Penelope, and in her lonely grief for Tim, Penelope begins writing him notes and leaving them in his old desk. Recurrent motifs such as the poems Penelope and Tim created and the succinct, therapy- taught metaphors ("Today my name is Yellow Hope") in which Penelope expresses NOVEMBER2004 * 131 her feelings are distracting and contrived, and plot elements such as the mistaken identity of Penelope's secret correspondent are more neat than emotionally satisfying. The more effective story here is that of Penelope's relationship with her father, as she's legitimately concerned about his job performance (he's quickly gotten bored with every job he has had) and understandably embarrassed by his behavior (he sits with her at lunch and joins in at jumping rope), but she nonetheless recognizes his love and concern. While there are more compelling bereavement stories (Bridge to Terabithia remains the high mark), the account of Penelope's changing relationship with her father may elicit sympathy and even yearning from many youngsters who'd like to find such closeness with their own parents. DS

LA FEVERS, R. L. The Forgingof the Blade. Dutton, 2004 [144 p] ISBN 0-525-47349-1 $15.99 Reviewed from galleys Ad Gr. 4-6 What can a villain do if, once he slays the rightful king and usurps his throne, the blasted wretch's sword of power disappears, its loss threatening his ability to control the kingdom? Kidnap all the blacksmiths and force them to forge blades until one of them manages to craft a suitable replacement, of course. Unfortunately for the despicable usurper, Lord Mordig, one of the blacksmiths he kidnaps leaves behind a surprisingly resourceful eleven-year-old son who manages, with some supernatural help, to infiltrate the conquered castle and challenge Mordig's authority. Predictability largely permeates the plot (of course the supernatural help- ers have magic relics to give the boy, incidentally fulfilling a prophecy) and the dramatis personae display a certain woodenness. Nonetheless, the heroic style and brisk pacing make this short chapter book (first in the Lowther's Blade trilogy) a temptingly bite-sized introduction to epic fantasy for young readers. TC

LEE, STAN Stan Lee's Superhero Christmas; illus. by Tim Jessell. Preiss/Tegen/ HarperCollins, 2004 32p Library ed. ISBN 0-06-056560-8 $16.89 Trade ed. ISBN 0-06-056559-4 $15.99 M 4-7 yrs On the night before Christmas, Santa's old foe the Ice King springs a surprise attack and traps Santa in a cage of ice. The Protector comes to the rescue, only to be trapped himself. Luckily, his wife happens to be the Protectress, and with her powers and their two children's canny planning, both Santa and the Protector are saved, the Ice King melting away in a morass of rock salt and sunshine. To cap off the happy event, the children receive their own superpowers for Christmas. The text from Spiderman creator Lee seems to have been written for a comic book; it is mostly dialogue with occasional snappy sentences, allowing considerable gaps of time and logic that should be picked up seamlessly by the corresponding pictures. However, the technique falls flat in a picture-book format that relies on one- or two-page spreads showing a single action scene; the illustrations only supply small pieces of the action, not alleviating the confusions created by having the bulk of the story told in bad dialogue and jokes that miss the mark. Jessell's illustrations are slick and overcrowded for their picture-book setting, but they're more successful than the text in connecting with their comic-book origins: drawn with exag- gerated realism, the expertly modeled and costumed figures are larger than life and unambiguously good or evil; the dark palette, sparkling with icy blue-white light, gives the battle heightened drama. While the premise and pictures may suck in 132 * THE BULLETIN some children looking for a superhero Christmas, kids with comic-book tastes will be more satisfied with the real thing. KH

LEE, TANITH Piratica: Being a DaringTale ofa SingularGirl'sAdventure upon the High Seas. Dutton, 2004 288p ISBN 0-525-47324-6 $17.99 Ad Gr. 6-9 A tumble down the school stairs unearths a cache of buried memories in sixteen- year-old Art(emesia), and in defiance of her father she leaves the toney academy to return to sea, where she was raised by her pirate mother. No matter that her deceased mother was actually an actress who played a lady buccaneer, and Art merely a child at her side on stage. Art rounds up the old cast-now hawking Pirate Coffee off an undersized advertising ship-and after taking aboard handsome Felix Phoenix, who has been misidentified by the police as highwayman Gentleman Jack Cuckoo, Art thieves her way around the globe, pursued by Goldie (vengeful daughter of an all-too-real pirate), dodging the law, discovering a trunk of treasure maps, and succumbing to true love when Felix rescues her from the gallows at the big finish. This never quite fulfills its Fun Potential; Lee patches together stock elements of piratical romance so conscientiously that her tale has little independent life of its own. The parallel world setting, in which 1802 En- gland is a republic and France groans under monarchy, sometimes seems little more than excuse for Lee to toy with British place names, wordplay which is likely to resonate only with geographically savvy readers. Still, there's action aplenty, and the swordpoint showdown between Art and Goldie is worth the price of passage. EB

LEIBER, FRITZ Gonna Roll the Bones; ad. by Sarah L. Thomson; illus. by David Wiesner. Milk & Cookies, 2004 32p ISBN 0-689-03591-8 $16.95 M Gr. 3-6 One night, a restless Joe Slattermill decides he needs to get out of the house, so he heads to the new gambling joint in town to "roll the bones." A skilled player, Joe is drawn to the craps table where he sees a mysterious, high-rolling Big Gambler. Soon Joe and the Big Gambler are facing off for high stakes, and even as Joe realizes he's gambling for his life with an opponent who's not just a mere gambler but death himself, he begins to lose. There are some interesting elements in the story, with its echoes of folkloric gambles and menacing atmosphere, but the pace is sluggish; even more problematic is the ending, wherein Joe simply bashes death to pieces and thereby manages to escape even after losing to him, which suggests that any tension over the game was merely illusory. The real reason for this book is apparently Wiesner's illustrations; a note from Wiesner, which is revealingly titled "Author's Note," explains that he conceived this project years ago in school as a wordless adaptation, and this incarnation is an expanded and amended version of that long-ago attempt. The pencil-on-vellum illustrations manage a visually intriguing feel, though the club scenes are more literal and less moody, paradoxically making the skull-headed death less ominous than the winding roads to town; ultimately, though, the art never really manages to be effectively narrative or dramatic. Each monochromatic image is seated in a fake frame and placed on carefully faux- aged pages, which would be a nicer design touch if the toasty pigment of the pages didn't further subdue the already understated drama of the sepia-toned art. This isn't successful as a condensed yet shivery visual delight akin to, say, Gaiman's The NOVEMBER2004 * 133

Wolves in the Walls (BCCB 9/03), and kids up to the sophistication of this can probably read Leiber's original story, so this will mostly interest young readers with a taste for comparing variants or looking for impetus to doing their own illustrations of their favorite spooky stories. DS

LESTER, HELEN Hurty Feelings; illus. by Lynn Munsinger. Lorraine/Houghton, 2004 32p ISBN 0-618-41082-1 $16.00 Ad 4-6 yrs Endowed with a solidity prized among hippos, Fragility twists every compliment into an insult and collapses in a tearful heap, sobbing, "You hurt my feeeeelings!" Eventually, no one wants to talk to her at all. Then, during a game of pickup soccer (in which Fragility is an outstanding goalkeeper, since no one can get the ball past her immobile vastness), a marauding elephant tries to incapacitate her with insults. However, as Fragility points out, all of the pejoratives hurled by her persecutor describe his own immensity as well as hers, and soon Rudy the elephant is a soggy mess, collapsed under the weight of his own hurty feelings. Fragility's delicious sturdiness dominates the pastel watercolor illustrations, her prominent gray belly and bewhiskered pink snout counterpointing her floppy hair bow and shiny toenails. Spread after spread emphasizes the benefits of Fragility's bulk, and in the standoff with Rudy, mirror images of rotund hippo and hefty elephant point up the irony of name-calling between giants. However, the point of the text is less well defined: is this a tale of bully besting or self-appreciation? In Fragility's brief confrontation with Rudy, she defends herself and then salves the feelings of her wounded foe, but this exchange provides no obvious reason for Fragility's last- page acceptance of the social value of her physical graces or the complimentary nature of her peers' comments. Still, the visual humor and the many opportuni- ties for group interaction (imagine a cohort of children pretending to blubber like Fragility) may win the book its own cadre of storytime fans. TC

LEWIS, RICHARD The Flame Tree. Simon, 2004 288p ISBN 0-689-86333-0 $16.95 Ad Gr. 9-12 In August, 2001, the fictional Javanese town ofWonobo is gathering support for Nahdlatul Umat Islam, a group (also fictional) branded by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization. The local imam is an outspoken advocate of NUI, and as anti-Western sentiment burgeons, twelve-year-old Isaac Williams, son of doctors at the Union Baptists' Immanuel Hospital, loses his closest friend, Ismail, who aligns himself with radical Islamists. In the wake of the September 11th attacks, Americans are evacuated from Wonobo, but Isaac's helicopter crashes and the boy is taken into custody by NUI adherents, who school the boy in the Qur'an and then, in a televised event, "invite" him to profess Islam. Isaac refuses, but rather than face any of the possible dire consequences he feared, he is promptly released to his parents in a public demonstration of NUI's commitment to Islamic belief in free-will submission to Allah. Lewis clearly intends to explore the boundaries between Islamic faith and Islamist politics, and to suggest that organizations decried as "terrorist" may have more diverse membership than that damning label implies. However, centrist voices that speak here in quiet, instructive, often preachy cadence are swamped by searing images of extremist activity-a booby-trapped corpse that detonates on the hospital grounds, graphic description of a beheading dis- seminated over the Internet, brutal details of Isaac's forced circumcision. More- 134 * THE BULLETIN

over, the disconnect between the level of violence depicted, the complexity of issues presented, and the relatively young age of the protagonist makes it difficult to pinpoint a target audience. Lewis begs for a sophisticated, open-minded readership, and one can only hope that's what he gets. EB

LUPICA, MIKE Travel Team. Philomel, 2004 2 88p ISBN 0-399-24150-7 $16.99 R Gr. 5-8 Danny Walker, who has played on the prestigious local basketball travel team for two years running, has been cut from the seventh-grade team because he's just too short. Never mind that he's a speed demon and an acute strategist-height is what counts. Or at least that's the semi-official reason. More likely it's because Coach Ross has it in for Danny's dad, an absentee father whose own stellar hoops career was snuffed out years ago in a car accident. Mr. Walker's a physical wreck and not much of a father, but he's not about to let Danny's talent be squandered, so he puts together a travel team of outcasts, wannabes, and a gifted tall-girl ringer, and the rest, of course, is middle-school sports fantasy come true. All the clich6s are firmly in place-the ragged practice sessions, the coaches who won't let kids be kids, the alcoholic father who makes good, the best friend who walks out on his league-leading team to join the spirited misfits, and, needless to say, the come- from-behind victory. Sure, it's hokey, but it's also effective, and just about any kid who wishes he could communicate with his parents, catch the eye of the class beauty, or prove his mettle as a player on the court and as a coach on the sidelines can tuck this title under his pillow for the sweetest of hoop dreams. EB

MACLACHLAN, PATRICIA More Perfect than the Moon. Cotler/HarperCollins, 2004 96p Library ed. ISBN 0-06-027559-6 $15.89 Trade ed. ISBN 0-06-027558-8 $14.99 R Gr. 3-5 MacLachlan makes her fourth visit to the Witting family of Sarah, Plain and Tall fame, this time to welcome a new baby for Sarah. In the eyes of eight-year-old Cassie, however, the baby is anything but welcome. Unlike her half-siblings Caleb and Anna, Cassie is Sarah's child, and she is ill-disposed to share that position, repeatedly asserting that she is not going to like this baby; even worse, she is plagued with the fear that, like Anna and Caleb's mother, Sarah will die in childbirth. The author renders Cassie's childish resentment and fear in simple, concrete images and dialogue; the spare, elegant prose that characterizes this series provides a ve- hicle for the believably uncomplicated emotions Cassie brings to this change in her life. She turns to her journal for solace, using her storyteller's gift to write what she wants to be true, and sometimes surprising herself by the way her fears, desires, and jealousy take shape on the page. The book crafts differently nuanced relationships for Cassie as each of her rather doting family members helps her work through her feelings about the baby; even Caleb achieves a new level of sensitivity in dealing with pesky little sisters as he sparks a love of his own. This gentle story about relationships that remain steadfastly loving despite change will appeal most to those who have already developed their own relationship with this blended family. KC

MARTINI, CLEM The Mob. Kids Can, 2004 239p ISBN 1-55337-574-2 $16.95 R Gr. 5-8 For generations, the Kinaar family of crows has convened once yearly in the old NOVEMBER 2004 * 135

Gathering Tree for storytelling and celebrating. This year, the clan threatens to split over questions of religious practice, leadership authority, and individual re- sponsibility for the death of a juvenile killed by a cat, but such concerns are made peripheral by the sudden onslaught of a blizzard that imperils old and young alike, a hazard complicated by the attack of a gang of murderous cats. Three young Crows, Kyp, Kym, and Kuper, provide the daring, brains, and brawn necessary to save the family from both storm and strike, allowing the clan to reform post- disaster under new leadership and with a gentler perspective. Told in first person by the engagingly benign Crow leader, Kalum, to the resurrected flock as a ritual reworking of the family's oral history and group identity, the well-paced story is interlaced with intriguing bits of Crow mythology, law, and Kalum's personal observations, as well as the occasional run-in with those unpredictable, fascinating, ancient enemies of the Crows, the humans. This opening volume of the Feather and Bone: The Crow Chronicles trilogy will soothe readers screeching for animal adventures rivaling those of Oppel's Silverwing (BCCB 1/98) and its suc- cessors. TC

MERCADO, NANCY E., ed. Tripping Over the Lunch Lady and Other School Stories. Dial, 2004 192 p ISBN 0-8037-2873-5 $16.99 R Gr. 3-5 The ten stories in this collection explore that time of life from late elementary to early middle school when your confidence forsakes you at the worst possible moment but your clumsiness never does, when both your love life and your room resemble nothing so much as a science experiment, and when everything having to do with school seems designed to expose you to maximum embarrassment. Fol- lowing a brief but energetic introduction that extols the virtues of laughing your way through the pain of these hyberbolic years, notable authors such as Avi, An- gela Johnson, Terry Trueman, and Susan Shreve, among others, provide opportu- nities to do just that. The collection is especially friendly for reluctant readers and less-than-stellar scholars, as it includes a graphic-novel-style story, and one with a hero whose bad spelling gets him and his teacher out of a tight spot. Following each story is a photo of the writer as a young person (with the exception of Avi, who is "camera shy," and James Proimos, who prefers a cartoon persona) and a "school report," where the author reminisces about cafeteria food, field trips, pranks, gym, teachers, and those unforgettable school smells. Surprisingly few of the stories are encumbered with annoying uplifting morals, and each author manages to mimic, albeit in a slightly different tonal register, the melodramatic keening of those desperately loopy tween years. KC

MYERS, TIM Basho and the River Stones; illus. by Oki S. Han. Cavendish, 2004 [3 2 p] ISBN 0-7614-5165-X $16.95 Reviewed from galleys Ad 5-8 yrs Basho and the foxes live in relative harmony in the Fuka River region of Japan; he willingly shares the fruit of his cherry tree with the foxes, and they leave him in peace to work on his poetry. That is, until one "impatient and greedy" fox decides to play a trick on Basho. Transforming himself into a wandering monk, he con- vinces the poet to sign over all rights to the cherry tree in exchange for three coins that, in fact, are transformed river stones. When the gold turns back into stones 136 * THE BULLETIN

the next morning, the kindhearted Basho responds mildly, by writing a haiku, which, he explains, "lasts much longer" than money. The mortified fox, upon hearing the results of his trickery, begs forgiveness of the gentle poet and tries to pay him with three real coins. Basho denies the offer of money but willingly accepts the fox's second offer of three river stones . . which magically transform into the same three coins the following day. This original tale is creatively patterned to lead the fox through clear levels of greed, then humility, then generosity, and the ending, wherein the fox uses his power for good rather than the satisfac- tion of his own needs, is both imaginative and satisfying. The layout is somewhat cluttered, with text appearing in bordered boxes against busy watercolors, and the text is inconsistently proportioned, with some pages offering a single line and others several paragraphs. Han's watercolors, encompassing a rich, dark palette, effectively invoke the Japanese setting, full of lush gardens and spare architecture; the anthropomorphization of the foxes (they walk upright and wear patterned silk robes) is, however, rather discordant. The fox's evolution is the real strength of the story, and this would work well in juxtaposition with more traditional fox-as- trickster folktales where there is no redemption to be had. An author's note about the historical figure of Basho is included. HM

NEALE, JONATHAN Himalaya. Houghton, 2004 [160p] ISBN 0-618-41200-X $16.00 Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 5-8 You'd think their nearly disastrous sailing journey in Lost at Sea (BCCB 5/02) would have dampened their appetite, but now Jack and Orrie (short for Orchid), alternating narrators, and their younger brother, Andy, are off for a new adventure, joining their father and his girlfriend, Libby, for a mountain-climbing trip in Nepal. Already resentful of Libby, Orrie is furious when she discovers her father is heeding the head Sherpa's warning about child climbers and leaving her behind with Libby and Andy at Base Camp while he and Jack climb the mountain. She's even more incensed to realize that the Sherpa warned against taking Jack up as well, but her father is so afraid of losing his son's love that he can't refuse him this trip ("Dad thinks that if he doesn't let Jack climb, Jack won't love him. And then Jack won't go live with Dad. Dad's right, too"). The Sherpa's warning proves to be well founded, as Jack suffers from altitude sickness during the ascent and the team's attempt to return in bad weather leads to a terrible accident, leaving Orrie, Libby, and Andy as their only hope. Neale is an accomplished traveler who knows his terrain and its risks, and that knowledge imbues this novel with physical au- thenticity: here's one adventure story where readers will be genuinely uncertain about the cast's survival. The portrayals of the protagonists are occasionally less sure-footed (the narrative voice sometimes roams out of believable reach for twelve- and thirteen-year-old speakers, and the preternaturally spiritual Andy strains credibility), but the emotional drama at the heart of the events ("People are so hard, and mountains are so easy") is tough and compelling. The story is bracingly un- compromising in both its acknowledgment of the ferocity and danger of human emotions and the ferocity and danger of the elements: Dad survives the consequences of his mistaken decision, but at considerable cost physically (he loses a leg), financially (there's a high bill for the rescue flight), and emotionally (his relationship with Libby doesn't survive the event). Adventure-loving readers not yet ready to climb the heights of Krakauer's Into Thin Air will find this a chilling and dramatic outing. DS NOVEMBER 2004 * 137

NOLAN, Lucy Down Girl and Sit: Smarter than Squirrels; illus. by Mike Reed. Cavendish, 2004 [6 4p] ISBN 0-7614-5184-6 $14.95 Reviewed from galleys R* Gr. 2-4 Our narrator, Down Girl, is a dog who lives happily with her owner, Rruff, next door to her good friend Sit. In four chapters, she and Sit keep the neighborhood safe from menace ("The secret to our success is simple. We are smarter than squirrels"), even if it means eating above and beyond the call ("When life gives you pie, you should never stop to think"); the two dogs track their masters down after being left at home for lunch, and Down Girl subjects a replacement caretaker to her keen scrutiny ("I loved this boy. He was my new best friend"). This has the same pokerfaced comedy of limited viewpoint as Finney's I, Jack (BCCB 4/04), with the doggy narration streamlined for much younger readers (or even for listeners). Simple vocabulary and brief paragraphs enhance readability without ham- pering style, in fact often increasing it instead, and novice readers will revel in being part of a joke that relies on their superior understanding. Reed's spirited vignettes, which include a helpful (and humorous) opening map of Down Girl's neighborhood, have a homey scruffiness suitable to their subject. This will make dog lovers sit up and beg, and even reluctant readers, if tempted with a booktalk or chapter readaloud, will go fetch. DS

NOYES, DEBORAH, ed. Gothic!: Ten Original Dark Tales. Candlewick, 2004 25 6 p ISBN 0-7636-2243-5 $15.99 R Gr. 9-12 The ten stories in this collection support Noyes' introductory assertion that there is "something gothic about coming of age." Rife with forbidden loves, ancient homes, ghastly secrets, and tragic pasts, these stories-spanning classic, contemporary, fantasy, and humor-conjure up the grotesque, desolate, and shadowy side of growing up. Many of the stories thrust unsuspecting characters into danger without a safety net and watch them plummet into darkness, as in Vivian Vande Velde's "Morgan Roehmar's Boys," where a haunted hayride volunteer makes a fatal mistake when she assumes the ghost of a young boy is a murder victim and not the killer. Though not all of the characters meet such a tragic end, few remain untouched by its possibility, and they approach the brink of adulthood with a heavy loss of innocence. The most resonant stories leave their characters wrestling with this transformation: in M. T. Anderson's disturbing "Watch and Wake," a disaffected teenager, hired to guard a corpse for the night, falls asleep and loses his face, and therefore his identity, to hungry witches, while in both Janni Lee Simner's "Stone Tower" and Gregory Maguire's "The Prank," young women must realize the effect that their family secrets have had on their stunted upbringing before they can hope for better. Breaking up the grimness is Neil Gaiman's hilarious parody of gothic conventions, "Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Nameless House of the Night of Dread Desire," wherein a writer attempting to craft a "slice- of-life" novel cannot escape mockery of his all-too-gothic reality. Young horror fans will find these tales chilling, thoughtful, and surprising, and the collection may pique their interest in such gothic classics as The Castle of Otranto or The Monk. KH 138 * THE BULLETIN

NUMEROFF, LAURA Beatrice Doesn't Want To; illus. by Lynn Munsinger. Candlewick, 2004 [32p] ISBN 0-7636-1160-3 $15.99 Reviewed from galleys R 4-6 yrs "Beatrice didn't like books. She didn't even like to read. More than that, she hated going to the library." Unfortunately for Beatrice, a long-eared basset hound, that is exactly where she has to go three days in a row while her older brother works on his dinosaur report. The story follows the stubborn Beatrice through several days of troublemaking and brother-bothering before he spots a sign for a story hour with the children's librarian. Poor Beatrice is left in a room full of other doggy children where, much to her surprise, she ends up really enjoying the cardi- gan-clad librarian's reading ofAlbert Mouse Has a Brand-New House (which Wanda, the pug seated next to Beatrice, has heard twice). Predictably, when her brother comes to claim her, Beatrice is as resistant to leaving the library as she had been to going in the first place. Numeroff, author ofIfYou Give a Mouse a Cookie (BCCB 7/85), has effectively captured the dynamic and often creatively executed resistance of a stubborn child, the "I don't want to," impossible-to-please kind that adults are sure to recognize, and while the story is a bit self-serving in its purpose, Beatrice is an entertaining protagonist. Though anthropomorphized, she and the other library patrons remain remarkably doglike throughout, especially in the mostly realistic rendering of their faces. This isn't as much fun as Sierra's celebratory Wild about Books (BCCB 9/04); still, librarians are sure to get a lot of mileage out of the relevant theme of the power of a good book. HM

O'CONNELL, TYNE PullingPrinces. Bloomsbury, 2004 22 4 p ISBN 1-58234-957-6 $16.95 R Gr. 7-10 As an American non-aristocrat, fourteen-year-old Calypso Kelly feels terribly out of place at her posh British boarding school, and now she's saddled with Georgina, the school's queen bee and dearest friend of the malevolent Honey ("In a school where bitchiness was currency, Honey was filthy rich"), as a roommate. She manages to goose her status by setting up a fictional affair with an older man from home, but her star zooms to its zenith when a fencing match with the nearby boys' school (a thinly veiled Eton) pits her against young Prince Freddie, the hottie of the British royal family. Freddie promptly develops an interest in Calypso, but is his company worth the wrath of the dread Honey, and is he even the one for Calypso? This is every bit the effervescent chick-lit fantasy the plot suggests, and the details of the hothouse-insular existence at school, ranging from the coolness of the nuns amid an otherwise fusty staff to the convention of slipping vodka into Body Shop bottles for secret imbibing, are an additional rich and gossipy treat. The revelation of Georgina's underlying niceness is gradual and believable, and Calypso's intoxication with dreamy Freddie is played with the right mixture of susceptibility and skepticism; in fact, that's a blend that characterizes the book in general, so that cynical readers can relish the Nancy Mitford mentions while romantic royal-watchers can revel in Calypso's thorny relationship with the hunky heir-to-the-heir apparent. The occasional attempts to convey a meaningful message (usually about confidence in one's self) sink like lead through the froth, and the ending is so abrupt as to suggest authorial abduction rather than a lead-in to a second volume, but readers thrilled by the current windfall of glitzy chick-lit (such as The Princess Diaries, BCCB 12/00, and Burnham's Royally Jacked, 3/04) will NOVEMBER 2004 * 139 want to catch this. A map of Calypso's school and a glossary of British slang are included. DS

O'CONNOR, BARBARA Taking Care ofMoses. Foster/Farrar, 2004 144 p ISBN 0-374-38038-4 $16.00 R Gr. 3-5 Randall Mackey knows exactly who left the baby late at night in front of the Rock of Ages Baptist Church, but if he tells, someone will ask how he happened to be there. Then he'll be forced to admit he was keeping an eye on Queenie Avery, the dementia-afflicted wife of a local janitor who would be heartbroken if he had to send his beloved to a nursing home. As Randall keeps mum, the congregation frets and spats over who should care for the foundling-Miss Frieda, a black woman who is licensed to take in foster children, or the white preacher and his wife, on whose doorstep, so to speak, the baby was abandoned. While the adults quarrel over the guardianship issue, Randall manages to identify the baby's mother, who turns out to be the catalyst for reuniting feuding church members and expanding their mission to overburdened mothers in the town. Again O'Connor explores the dynamics of a tight-knit Southern community (Beethoven in Paradise,BCCB 5/97; Fame and Glory in Freedom, Georgia, BCCB 3/03), wryly jabbing at the gossip and cat-scratching, but ultimately celebrating the bonds of custom and affection that keep the town humming. In this outing she gently but insistently probes racial issues as well, offering a child's-eye view of the block on which the Mackeys are the only remaining white family, and of the church in which Randall's best friend, Jaybird, and his family are the only black members. The racial divide may be hard to cross, but the Rock of Ages believers take their Bible seriously and, in the goofily misquoted words of Randall's bratty friend Althea, "Let all bitterness and wrath be put away from you with a mallet." EB

OGILV, IAN Measle and the Wrathmonk. HarperCollins, 2004 22 4 p Library ed. ISBN 0-06-058686-9 $16.89 Trade ed. ISBN 0-06-058685-0 $15.99 Ad Gr. 4-6 As long as he can remember, Measle Stubbs has been the ward of Basil Tramplebone, a pale, vindictive man with cold, fishy eyes and pointed teeth. When Basil catches Measle playing with Basil's model train set, the man reveals his true nature as a Wrathmonk (definition: an insane wizard) and shrinks Measle to half an inch tall, fating him to wander the landscape of the train set until the steady diet of dough- nut crumbs and pink lemonade drops (litter from Basil's snacks) turns him into plastic, like the other six miniaturized people Measle finds in the set and rescues from petrification by judicious treatment with moldy carrots. As Basil searches in vain for his revived plastic people, his ire mounting against the heroic Measle, and Basil's pet mutant bat lurks in the rafters to eat any tiny thing that moves, the seven victims combine their talents for a last-ditch effort to overthrow the crafty Wrathmonk and win their freedom. This eccentric tale of insurrection and survival relies for its comedic energy almost completely on coincidental twists, given credibility with brief passages describing the characters' emotional and mental processes before, during, and after each providential event. That narrative strategy makes the book a pleasurable but not brilliant read, and the paragraphs dedicated to characters other than Measle, while entertaining, serve primarily to further the plot and not to fully develop anyone's personality. However, Basil's increasing creepiness and (it must be admitted) charismatic enthusiasm for evil will evoke 140 * THE BULLETIN

readerly trills of mirth as well as thrills of apprehension, and Measle affords readers a likable hero with which to identify, centering this offering squarely in the current middle-grade marketing sweet spot. TC

PAULSEN, GARY Molly McGinty Has a Really Good Day. Lamb, 2004 105p Library ed. ISBN 0-385-90911-X $14.99 Trade ed. ISBN 0-385-32588-6 $12.95 Ad Gr. 4-6 Molly McGinty's notebook, with lists and files and phone numbers, schedules and notes and quotes, is the memory bank and organizing system around which she plans her life. The day she loses her notebook is also the day her free-spirited grandmother, Irene, joins her at middle school for Senior Citizens' Day, saddling Molly with carting around Irene's gigantic black purse. It is the day Molly gets a black eye, tears the skirt of her school uniform, escapes being set on fire by juvenile delinquents, catches a plate of spaghetti in the chest, and suffers the theft of her clothes from her gym locker, among other misadventures. When Irene reveals that she is the mastermind behind the disappearance of Molly's notebook and much of the ensuing drama, Molly humbly recognizes that her hyperorganized lifestyle pre- vents her from interacting normally with the students and teachers at her Catholic school-especially with "cutest boy" Jake Dempsey, who likes Molly's grandmother because she's "interesting to talk to." Molly isn't entirely successful as a narrator, since her voice is stiff and her girlishness counterfeit; though the day's events have great comic potential, most are referred to in dialogue rather than seen in action, considerably dampening their humorous effect. That said, the complete unlikelihood of the whole train of events (driven forward by the over-the-top yet completely calm personality of Irene) suffuses the book with an attractive level of manic glee. The additional draw of watching the central character attain an exhilarating closeness to the object of her affection may suffice to lure readers looking for some undemanding yet diverting academic mayhem. TC

PECK, RICHARD The Teacher's Funeral: A Comedy in Three Parts. Dial, 2004 190p ISBN 0-8037-2736-4 $16.99 R Gr. 5-8 News that the superannuated mistress of their rural Indiana school house has, at last, passed away sends fifteen-year-old Russell Culver into a fit of premature re- joicing. Now he can shuffle off the remainder of his academic career and get on with farming-preferably in the Dakotas with his best buddy Charlie. However, he didn't count on the locals actually hiring a new teacher for the tiny band of reluctant scholars at Hominy Ridge School, let alone his own older sister, Tansy, who's just the bargain the tight-pursed citizens are looking for. Tansy's no genius, but she certainly knows every trick in the farm kids' book and, mustering a wagonload of common sense, she fashions a somewhat eccentric curriculum and actually manages to haul Russell and Charlie through their eighth-grade exams, win the approval of the school superintendent, and meet her future husband among her classroom charges. Although there is a clearer trajectory to the Culvers' tale than in Peck's more anecdotal offerings A Year Down Yonder and A Long Wayfrom Chicago (BCCB 1/01, 10/98), the author's deft hand at setting and milking comedic scenes is again strongly in evidence, from the practical jokes surrounding the ghost of the unlamented Miss Myrt Arbuckle, to the strenuous retrieval of an NOVEMBER 2004 * 141

overweight neighbor from a schoolyard ditch. Kids with reservations concerning their own teachers better not look to Russell for sympathy. EB

RABIN, STATON Betsy and the Emperor. McElderry, 2004 294p ISBN 0-689-85880-9 $16.95 M Gr. 5-9 Until permanent accommodation on Saint Helena can be arranged for exiled Na- poleon, he and his retinue are lodged at the Briars, where agent Balcombe of the East India Company is resident. Balcombe's daughter, Betsy, has just returned from her English boarding school and finds that life has gotten much more interesting now that royalty has arrived. She rapidly overcomes her horror of having a public enemy on the grounds, and she takes pleasure in teasing the august guest. Napoleon, in turn, welcomes the diversion of entertaining a pert teenager who refuses to be cowed by his arrogance and yet respects him nonetheless. Huff, tutor to Betsy's little brothers, openly admires the emperor and involves Betsy in an abortive plan to spirit Napoleon off the island in a hot-air balloon. Although it becomes clear that the emperor is trapped on the island for good, Betsy contrives to score a victory for him by racing his horse, Hope, and beating that of Saint Helena's hated governor. Rabin loosely bases her tale on the real Betsy Balcombe, who did in fact make Napoleon's acquaintance during his exile. "Loosely" is the operative word, though. Rabin's concluding notes shed insufficient light on the line between fact and fiction ("Any quotes in this book attributed to Betsy, Napo- leon, or members of his suite were either invented by me or taken directly from historical accounts"), and her insouciant approach to research is troubling ("I have gone to enormous lengths to avoid reading [Betsy's autobiography] as I feared ... it might discourage me from having the temerity to attempt to tell Betsy's story in my own way"). Perhaps that critical bit of reading would have helped Rabin fashion a Betsy who sounds less like a sassy After School Special heroine and imparted the credibility that historical-fiction fans have a right to expect. EB

REEVE, PHILIP Predator's Gold. HarperCollins, 2004 325p Library ed. ISBN 0-06-072194-4 $17.89 Trade ed. ISBN 0-06-072193-6 $16.99 R Gr. 7-12 More than two years after the annihilation of the great Traction City of London, Tom and Hester (MortalEngines, BCCB 3/04) still fly the skies in the airship Jenny Haniver, formerly the possession of the now-deceased Anti-Traction League agent Anna Fang. New enemies stalk their ship, however-the feared radical en- vironmentalist group the Green Storm-and the couple's evasive maneuvers leave them stranded in the icy wastes of the far north, on the seldom-seen Traction City of Anchorage, which is itself beating a hasty retreat from the hunting grounds of another massive predator city. Tom and Hester swiftly find themselves embroiled in a power struggle and a flight for freedom upon which the fate of the world may rest. The highly original future described in the first novel is here presented with more gore and less idealism than before-even the mutually supportive partnership of Hester and Tom shrivels as Hester converts into a hardened mercenary. In fact, no kind deed goes unpunished, as every generous-hearted character, even those in minor roles, suffers at the hands of the ambitious and the vicious. New characters who choose to sacrifice for others' welfare do provide wellsprings of hope, and the addition to the political mix of a newly built Stalker cyborg of Anna Fang, created to lead the Green Storm to victory, and a master thief known only as 142 * THE BULLETIN

Uncle, commander of an unnumbered army of burglar boys, extends the dramatic potential of the tale. This second volume ups the stakes of the saga while preparing readers for a globe-sweeping confrontation in future episodes. TC

RUNYON, BRENT The Burn Journals. Knopf, 2004 374p Library ed. ISBN 0-375-92621-6 $19.99 Trade ed. ISBN 0-375-82621-1 $17.95 Ad Gr. 6-9 Suicidal inclinations and fear of punishment for vandalism drive fourteen-year-old Brent to douse himself with gasoline and set himself on fire. Instead of the hasty end to his trouble he sought, however, he instead finds himself the agonized victim of terrible burns, airlifted to the hospital and struggling to face his altered future, his devastated family, and his arduous recovery. Runyon's autobiographical narration follows the form of a journal that traces the events as they happened from February of 1991 to January of 1992 of his life, starting with a brief chronicle of leadup events and then following from his first fragmented thoughts upon waking in the hospital to his return to regular school a year later. The hard details are faithfully depicted, and the journal is earnest and truthful in its as-it-happens veri- similitude (Runyon is touchingly candid abut the trials and temptations of experi- encing active puberty while undergoing the constant physical attention of attractive nurses). The narrative is largely uninflected and unshaped, however, with events appearing episodically rather than contributing to any overall arc (it's startling at one point to hear a therapist refer to Brent's psychological progress, since little advancement of overall insight has appeared), and the concentration on mundane elements (especially on popular-culture details from the period) sometimes buries the more significant elements of the story. Nonetheless, the truth of the story gives it an impact even when its telling doesn't, and kids troubled by their own darknesses may find this a compelling argument for hanging in there. DS

SANCHEZ, ALEX So Hardto Say. Simon, 2004 230p ISBN 0-689-86564-3 $14.95 R Gr. 6-9 Xio is an effervescent eighth-grader and Frederick is the sweet new boy in class, on whom she has a major crush. The two kids take turns narrating the events as Xio and Frederick grow closer, making Xio giddy with romantic excitement and Frederick increasingly anxious about his lack of physical attraction to Xio. In fact, Frederick is disturbed to find himself more excited about his growing friendship with the handsome Victor ("Please God," Frederick thinks frantically, "don't let me be gay. I'm weird enough as it is"), and he's thrown unwillingly into serious examination of his sexuality. Sanchez effectively differentiates Xio's bubbly, gar- rulous narration and Frederick's tentative and uncertain voice, and the clear depic- tions help make the characters the driving force of this novel. There's some oversimplification (the book implies that nothing other than homosexuality could account for Frederick's failure to be attracted to Xio and for his contemplation of male sexuality) and idealization (after initial reactions, there's little negative response to Frederick's coming out, while another gay eighth-grader bears the taunts of classmates and family with philosopher's wisdom), but the emotional core of the story remains solid and authentic. The inclusion of Xio's viewpoint means that readers identifying with Frederick encounter a model of survivable reaction from a friend, and they also get to see the kind of confusion and disappointment self-misrepresentation can cause in those whose lives they touch. Subplots such as NOVEMBER 2004 * 143

Xio's disappointment with her own absent father (who may in fact be gay himself) and the atmosphere of the multi-ethnic, Latino-rich California community add dimension to the narrative. A lot of kids question their identity before the traditional YA bracket, and this accessible read will give them reassurance and food for thought. DS

4 SCIESZKA, JON Science Verse; illus. by Lane Smith. Viking, 2004 0p ISBN 0-670-91057-0 $16.99 R Gr. 3-6 Scieszka and Smith are evidently working their way around the curriculum, following up their Math Curse (BCCB 10/95) with this exploration of the wonders- or not-of science. There's a slender frame of a youngster panicked into eliding science and poetry, but mostly this is a collection of poetic pastiche, scientific subjects treated or lampooned to the rhythm of classic songs or verses. Approxi- mately a score of verses treat subjects such as evolution ("Evolution," to the tune of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic"), the excessive study of dinosaurs ("Dino- Sore," modeled after Poe's "The Raven"), and the Big Bang ("'Twas the Night," echoing Moore's "A Visit from Saint Nicholas") in verses of various sizes and shapes but a constantly collusively goofy tone. This isn't one of the dorkily dynamic duo's breakthrough volumes, and some of the poetic parodies are more crisply executed than others, but there's good humor enough to get kids guffawing whether they know the poetic originals or not (the final page helpfully, if not entirely straightfacedly, provides source notes). Smith's darkly comic visuals have always had a Victorian touch of scientific oddity, which is put to particularly good use here; the edgy exaggeration and grayed-out palette add a sophisticated spin to the corny joys of the rhymes. Possible uses are myriad, from science class to poetry unit, readaloud to choral reading project to inspiration for kids to write their own verse. For additional amusement, a CD of the author's and illustrator's performance of the entries is included. DS

SHANNON, DAVID Alice the Fairy; written and illus. by David Shannon. Blue Sky/Scholastic, 2004 [4 0p] ISBN 0-439-49025-1 $15.95 Reviewed from galleys R 4 -7 yrs She may look like an ordinary goldy-locked, gap-toothed urchin with strapped-on wings and a sequin-studded wand, but she's a "Temporary fairy" with the creds to prove it. After all, she can turn her oatmeal into cake with a sprinkling of fairy dust (well, sugar), turn her dad's chocolate-chip cookies into her own (through an act of bold preemption), and make herself disappear with a wave of her wand (swatting the light switch). Admittedly, making the dog levitate and her clothes magically dance onto the closet rod is going to take a bit more practice, and she does have a touch of trouble with the duchess, who serves her broccoli and confines her to her chambers for turning her white dress red. Shannon's heroine looks suspiciously like a relative of his rollicking David (No, David!, BCCB 9/98 etc.) and inhabits the same domestic turf where impishness, properly viewed from a child perspective, is the normal course of events. Hasty shwooshes of heavily ap- plied paint that spill untidily from scrappy black outlining underscore the rambunctiousness of the Temporary fairy herself. While this romp doesn't have the David books' bonus of limited vocabulary, it will appeal to little gals who comprise equal measures of sugar and pepper. EB 144 * THE BULLETIN

SHAW, SUSAN The Boyfrom the Basement. Dutton, 2004 198p ISBN 0-525-47223-1 $16.99 R Gr. 5-8 Abused, deprived, and isolated, Charlie has been consigned to life in the basement by his punitive father, and his ineffectual mother is too afraid to intervene. After he accidentally locks himself out of the basement, the sick and malnourished boy is found and taken to the hospital, where the authorities intervene in his situation; all Charlie knows is that he's thrust suddenly out into a world of unfamiliar con- cepts, such as school and pleasurable pastimes, and that he's sure his father is going to punish him for going outside and telling his family's business. Even when he starts to settle in at the home of his new foster mother, Mrs. Harrigan, and his younger foster brother, Ambrose, he remains convinced that his father will return-and perhaps he's right. While the story is still touched with sentimentality and unlikelihood (especially in the climactic scene of Charlie's father's reappear- ance), this is a more cohesive and successful rescue drama than Shaw's previous title (Black-EyedSuzie, BCCB 9/02). Shaw lifts the darkness of her central premise by peopling the story with strongly sympathetic secondary characters, from Charlie's easygoing hospital roomie to his admiring foster brother, making Charlie's incre- mental recovery and blossoming a narratively justifiable response. She also effectively underplays the effects of his deprivation, giving as much time to his ignorance, which will make considerable impact on young readers, as to his fear. This is less a credible psychological exploration than a dramatically drawn fantasy of despair and recovery, but that's a popular and compelling theme; fans of Pelzer's A Child Called It will applaud Charlie's discovery of his own worth. DS

Sfs, PETER The Train of States; written and illus. by Peter Sfs. Greenwillow, 2004 6 4 p Library ed. ISBN 0-06-057839-4 $18.89 Trade ed. ISBN 0-06-057838-6 $17.99 R* Gr. 1-4 It's inevitable: countless school children will attack the perennial states assign- ment, wherein they consult the Fast Facts section of a states series and dutifully copy their designated flower, motto, capital, etc. Now Sfs provides some visual fireworks to spark up the task-and even to engross browsers with a taste for na- tional trivia. All the requisite report data is loaded onto bright, ornately embel- lished circus wagons that boast the state flag, flora and fauna, motto, nickname, and some well-known citizens and/or prominent sites. Each wagon rides a flatbed rail car emblazoned with the state name, the name's derivation, and the date of entry into the Union. Finally, the track is laid atop a yellow band that offers barebones report information, right-sized for the youngest researchers: capital, flower, tree, bird, and "fun fact." The circus cars roll by in order of admission, and the entire parade is framed by horizontal panels that depict the approaching train through the windows of a one-room schoolhouse, the passing train followed by the school children, a glorious double-page spread of American icons performing under a big top, and a closing page of suggestions for further research on each state. Each circus car wittily incorporates elements that reinforce a state feature (Mt. Rushmore tops the South Dakota car; a pair of spuds crown Idaho) or tease kids to check the addendum for explanations (Nevada's prominent camel; the tiny aviator waving from the Kansas wagon). Page-flippers will marvel at the ever- changing intensity of Sfs' delicately textured line and watercolor paintings, and visual learners will delight in this spiffy approach to research. EB NOVEMBER 2004 * 145

SNOW, ALAN How Santa Really Works; written and illus. by Alan Snow. Atheneum, 2004 48p ISBN 0-689-85817-5 $15.95 R Gr. 3-5 If you still believe those Christmas card pictures of the quaint cottage industry at the North Pole, you have been sadly misled. Snow is here with the real scoop on Santa's state-of-the-art operation that encompasses "factories, warehouses, trans- port facilities, a communications center, and many other vital and necessary de- partments." Serious business, this. Elves are recruited, trained (reindeer maintenance, weather forecasting, surveillance), and placed through an annual job fair. Wish letters are processed ("This little girl asked for a china doll. Didn't she get one last year?" "Yes, but her grandmother sat on it"). Children are investi- gated by the CIA (Christmas Intelligence Agency) for behavior patterns. Toys emerge from a two-step process of research and development, and production. Then of course there is the sleigh packing, as toys are offloaded from cleverly concealed tenders. There's even a plausible explanation of how Santa makes his getaway if a child wakes up in the middle of a delivery. Double-page spreads are crammed chock-a-block with enough zany visual details, teeny dialogue bubbles, document excerpts, hard-working elf borders, and industrial diagrams to keep kids busy 'til, well, Christmas. Snow's thorough, plainspoken explanations have the ring of truth for believers and teetering skeptics, and confirmed humbuggers will simply revel in his over-the-top inventiveness. Everyone should pay particular attention, though, to what's in store for those who fall from Santa's favor. There's still time to repent. EB

SPOHN, KATE By WordofMouse; written and illus. by Kate Spohn. Bloomsbury, 2004 32p ISBN 1-58234-867-7 $16.95 Ad 2-4 yrs Dorothy and Gertrude, two artist sisters who live together, are noted for their kindness and their love of animals, but that love doesn't quite extend to a desire for mice to infest their home. Lucy (a mouse) decides to move in anyway. She's grateful that the sisters take her to visit her family in the woods, not understanding that they have just caught her in a safe trap and are trying to get rid of her. Lucy returns, this time with friends, and the sisters resign themselves to having mice for houseguests, until an unfortunate incident with some cooling cookies forces them to get the safe traps out again. Undaunted, the mice tell their friends of the mar- velous cookies, and the sisters accept their fate, even making little beds for their new roomies and featuring them in their books, which become famous. (Indeed, Dorothy Lathrop was the first recipient of the Caldecott medal in 1938, as the author notes.) A bit more explanation of the Lathrops might have provided some energy for the story, since it's rather limited in its own right; the gentle rodential evictions that look like they're going to be a structural element peter out, leaving instead a sweet but unremarkable plot about happy mice. The kindly critter- friendly home is a cozy setting, however, and Lucy's persistence and eventual re- ward may strike a chord with very young listeners. In the oil-paint illustrations, the pert mice seem always to be simultaneously dancing and smelling something wonderful. Other figures-the sisters, their sculptures, the landscapes-have an elemental simplicity that, though warm, lacks depth. It's too bad a little more wasn't made of this enticing Beatrix Potteresque situation, but young listeners with a soft spot for anything with fur will find this a snug, nondemanding story. KC 146 * THE BULLETIN

STANLEY, DIANE The Giant and the Beanstalk; written and illus. by Diane Stanley. HarperCollins, 2004 [32p] Library ed. ISBN 0-06-000011-2 $16.89 Trade ed. ISBN 0-06-000010-4 $15.99 Reviewed from galleys R 4 -7 yrs Otto is a giant misfit. When other giants curse, he coos; when they stamp, he sighs. For a pet, he chooses a drab little hen instead of "a werewolf or a baby dragon." Then redheaded Jack steals poor Clara the hen right out from under Otto's nose. When Otto shinnies down the beanstalk to reclaim his beloved pet, he finds Jack after Jack after Jack, all engaged in some nursery-rhyme activity, but he finally runs redheaded Jack to ground in the market square and retrieves his hen. Homely pictorial details, such as a reverent portrait of Clara the hen over her nest, play for viewer sympathy, and the lush greens and warm browns of the colored pencil illustrations evince a blithe calm even as the characters dash, leap, and tumble over the countryside. The giant's discovery that "scaring humans" is "kind of exciting" adds depth to his kindly nature and establishes him as a rounded hero, while the rapid jumps in and out of familiar nursery rhyme scenarios keep this folktale revision lively despite the somewhat protracted text. Though the ending rings slightly false-Otto's daring act unaccountably reverses his plummeting status in the giant kingdom by sparking a new fashion for poetry, flower crowns, and trimmed toenails-the final image of redheaded Jack warbling with his vocally talented bovine darlings assures a concluding grin. Two pages of Jack-centered nursery rhymes with accompanying vignette portraits from the main story are included. TC

4 4 STEWART, PAUL Lake ofSkulls; illus. by Chris Riddell. Atheneum, 2004 1 p ISBN 0-689-87239-9 $9.95 Ad Gr. 4-6 In this addition to the pun-slinging, skull-cracking tradition familiar from comic books and gumshoe fiction, a nameless "sir knight" (a "free lance," unbonded to any master) accepts a charge from the local Lord Big Nose to overcome nameless dangers and liberate an enchanted crown from a heap of skulls across the lake. The dangers turn out to be three brawny, voracious hags, two of whom the knight vanquishes, while the third fulfills the ancient curse on the crown by beheading Lord Big Nose and reforming the gruesome heap of skulls with his dripping nog- gin at the top. There's not much tension in this breezy entry, and its stock sup- porting characters and plot give readers the same impression they give the knight: that this is a tangential episode, to be enjoyed for what it's worth but not to be taken seriously. However, the knight is a reluctant hero readers will relish; his sardonic internal dialogue, macho remarks, and self-preserving mindset establish him as a medieval Bruce Willis, less irresistible than he'd like to be, but nonetheless entertaining. The untidy line drawings, caricaturish yet energetically charismatic, surround the hero with large-bosomed women and rodent-faced villains and portray the hero as the typical ruggedly handsome fantasy champion, a style that promises the undemanding action the book delivers. TC

STEWART, SARAH The Friend; illus. by David Small. Farrar, 2004 4 8p ISBN 0-374-32463-8 $16.00 R 5-8 yrs Annabelle Bernadette Clementine Dodd's posh parents entrust their little darling to the care of Beatrice Smith, their black housekeeper and nanny. Every day is NOVEMBER 2004 * 147 devoted to a different household chore, with Bea patiently tolerating (and cleaning up after) Belle's attempts to help. Then it's off to the beach, where Belle scampers about while Bea sits or stands, quietly erect and poised, in full-page wordless images that evoke the calm, eternal presence of sand and sea, childhood efferves- cence, and the steady protective companionship of a loving adult. One day, though, Belle takes off on her own, and Bea, sensing danger, must rescue the little girl from the pounding surf. The rhyming text sometimes renders dialogue a bit stiff; in contrast, Small's dexterity with the fluid line and delicate watercolor wash allows him to effectively capture the gangly, unstudied grace of Belle. He complements this flighty wisp of a girl with the upright and stately solidity of Bea, making Bea's final image of post-traumatic exhaustion especially powerful. The ending of the story is abrupt, with an obeisant Belle proffering cocoa to an emotionally wrung- out Bea; the story seems to require not only the nostalgic timeshift where an eld- erly Belle reflects on Bea's memory, but also Stewart's dedication ("To all the people across the world who have saved the lives of children by paying attention when others did not") to achieve narrative resolution. This complex thematic interplay creates a manifold implied audience-children who experience the stead- fast love and heroism of their nonrelated caregivers, caregivers whose ministrations to small children often go uncelebrated, and overly busy parents who are out of touch with their children's daily lives. The result is an homage with the bite of an indictment-warm, touching, and bravely unsettling. KC

STOLZ, JOELLE The Shadows of Ghadames; tr. from the French by Catherine Temerson. Delacorte, 2004 [128p] Library ed. ISBN 0-385-90131-3 $17.99 Trade ed. ISBN 0-385-73104-3 $15.95 Reviewed from galleys Ad Gr. 5-7 In the Libyan city of Ghadames in the late nineteenth century, the women exist in a world of rooftops, a world where conversations, daily chores, and planning for the future all take place several stories above street level. In this coming-of-age tale, twelve-year-old Malika, on the brink of permanent restriction to this rooftop world, has mixed feelings about the strict gender roles enforced by local Muslim tradition. While Mahmoud, Malika's father, is away on a trade journey, Malika, her mother, and Mahmoud's second wife secretly take in an injured man, Abdelkarim, and nurse him back to health. There is little in the way of plot development; the secrecy surrounding their care ofAbdelkarim, who was in fact injured while running from the town's authorities, offers some semblance of tension, but it is a thread that never comes to its full potential. A friendship between Malika and Abdelkarim, and their mutual confusion about the role of men and women in the present day, is similarly connoted without being developed. This remains, however, a beautifully written story about a seldom-described world, and the lyrical descriptions of the town and its traditions offer perspective of a culture un- known by many. The mystical world of the women, the role of the revered healer Aishatou, and the secrets that are just beginning to be revealed to Malika are similarly beguiling if insubstantial. Young readers themselves approaching adulthood may appreciate this window into another girl's experience in a faraway time and place. HM 148 * THE BULLETIN

STROUD, JONATHAN The Golem's Eye. Miramax/Hyperion, 2004 56 2p ISBN 0-7868-1860-3 $17.95 R Gr. 7-10 The sarcastic djinni Bartimaeus and his ambitious master Nathaniel (from The Amulet ofSamarkand, BCCB 3/04), in spite of mutual vows to leave each other in peace, are reunited "two years, eight months" later in another race to save London from the terrorist acts of political conspirators and Resistance fighters. Only Nathaniel realizes that certain of the attacks on the city (mysterious, large-scale destructions of valuable property) come from a source other than the grassroots Resistance, a deduction which leads him on an undercover mission to the formerly great magical city of Prague, which was, not coincidentally, the site of the creation of the first golem, centuries before. Mortal danger, international intrigue, and treacherous allies keep the temperature high throughout this supersized sequel, while Bartimaeus' acid commentary and wry footnotes add pepper to the pot. Resistance fighter Kitty, introduced in the first volume and now forced into action as a major player in the struggle for power, infuses the tale with moral complexity as she consistently chooses idealistic heroism over practical self-preservation, winning Bartimaeus' admiration and providing the more easily corruptible Nathaniel with both a foil and a reason to doubt the wisdom of his own choices. With a fast- paced, open-ended d6nouement assuring readers further high adventure in the next installment, this second book of the trilogy fulfills the potential of the first and promises a satisfying conclusion to come. A list of main characters is provided. TC

THIMMESH, CATHERINE Madam President; illus. by Douglas B. Jones. Houghton, 2004 80p ISBN 0-618-39666-7 $17.00 R Gr. 4-8 See this month's Big Picture, p. 111, for review.

TRUEMAN, TERRY Cruise Control. HarperTempest, 2004 [16 0p] Library ed. ISBN 0-06-623961-3 $16.89 Trade ed. ISBN 0-06-623960-5 $15.99 Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 7-12 In Stuck in Neutral (BCCB 6/00), severely cerebral palsied Shawn gained a voice in print that his life had denied him, while his devoted but exhausted family believed him to be uncomprehending as well as uncommunicating (and his father therefore contemplated a mercy killing); in this followup, Shawn's brother, Paul, describes his progress through senior year in a family shaped by Shawn's constant needs. Paul actually seems to be faring quite well, with high grades and an impres- sive athletic career that will surely bring him scholarship offers for college, but he's actually seething with easily aroused anger, especially at his writer father ("That's the meat and potatoes of Dad's career, being a tragic, famous retard-dad"), who's left his family, but also at himself for not being the brother to Shawn that he thinks he ought to be. This isn't a sequel so much as a different story based on the same situation; while Paul's narrative doesn't outright contradict Shawn's, its impact is its own, and it may even be more effective read independently. Trueman is hu- mane yet honest in his depiction of the price Paul's family pays ("There's no way I'll ever believe that the problems a brother like Shawn brings to a family are 'gifts from God,"' says his devoted sister, rejecting a talk-show host's syrupy platitudes) NOVEMBER 2004 * 149 and the protocols a family can tacitly develop ("We never talk about Shawn this way. We never tell the truth"), as well as the misunderstandings that can result (Paul's father actually left at the request of Paul's mother). Paul's tormenting guilt at his resentment of Shawn and his Shawn-centered life is compellingly depicted, but it's also clear that Paul's actual behavior toward Shawn has been nonetheless pretty commendable (he has a touchingly brotherly habit of secretly slipping Shawn bites of junk food his mother would never provide). Many young people know what it's like to feel trapped by family, and they'll empathize with Paul's dilemma while gaining an understanding of his-and perhaps their own-strength. DS

TURNBULL, ANN No Shame, No Fear. Candlewick, 2004 30 4 p ISBN 0-7636-2505-1 $15.99 R Gr. 6-10 Will Heywood, son of a prosperous merchant, has a more serious outlook than most of his seventeen-year-old peers, and he privately admires the Quakers, whom his father considers to be dangerous radicals. Meeting Susanna Thorn, who works for a local printer, strengthens his resolve to investigate the sect more seriously, and finally to join Susanna's group of worshippers. The two fall deeply in love, and although their Quaker friends quietly approve their proper courtship, Will hides the relationship from his family and tries to defer his father's plans to apprentice him to a London businessman. Parliament threatens to be an even more fearsome obstacle than Mr. Heywood, however, as the 1662 laws severely restrict- ing Quaker meetings unleash a wave of assaults, fines, and imprisonment on their community. Turnbull accomplishes an all-too-rare feat in historical fiction, craft- ing an honest-to-goodness love story that resonates across nearly four centuries. The Quaker persecution that forms the backdrop for the lovers' tale unfolds without pedantic explanation or stuffy expository dialogue, and although Will and Susanna undergo their share of suffering at the hands of overzealous constables, it is ultimately the universal problems of youth, unemployment, and parental resistance that stand in the way of romance. Turnbull doesn't bring them all the way to the altar (or, more precisely, to the meeting house), but she does leave the door wide open for a contented future, and readers will be hard pressed to discover two more truly likable and better matched characters, more deserving of a happy ending. EB

WARD, HELEN, ad. Unwitting Wisdom: An Anthology ofAesop's Fables; ad. and illus. by Helen Ward. Chronicle, 2004 6 4 p ISBN 0-8118-4450-1 $18.95 R Gr. 4-7 Ward, who has adapted individual Aesop tales in picture-book form (The Hare and the Tortoise, BCCB 6/99, etc.) here offers a polished gallery of a dozen fables, all of them featuring animal protagonists. The lushly descriptive, sometimes lofty language brings resonance to popular tales such as those featuring the fox and the grapes ("Sour Grapes"), the wolf in sheep's clothing ("Pot Luck"), and the mouse and the lion ("Size Isn't Everything"); wry and witty turns of phrase ("The mouse in turn tried to look heroic and brave and as unlike a tasty snack as he could") lift these above grave didacticism and add some punch for readalouds. Visually, this is a coolly elegant volume, with its snowy white pages, artistic and varied typefaces (with story titles appearing in a soft gray that's also the color of the page decora- tions), and austere line-and-watercolor art; there's an astonishingly delicate precision to Ward's threadlike outlines and feathery hatching, resulting in animal figures 150 * THE BULLETIN who seem like reality magnified beyond the everyday. The book's sophistication sometimes works against it, however: few young audiences will have the slightest idea what "passing the port" is in "The Trappings of Power," and some of the graceful tale-opening spreads lose impact to the gutter. Unlike Pinkney's illustrated version (BCCB 12/00) or Ward's own single-volume adaptations, this isn't likely to work as baby's first Aesop, but older kids who've been away from the fables for awhile may find this artistic and allusive presentation a lure to reexami- nation. An introductory note provides some background on Aesop and his tales. DS

WEATHERLY, LEE MissingAbby. Fickling, 2004 [208p] Library ed. ISBN 0-385-75053-6 $17.99 Trade ed. ISBN 0-385-75052-8 $15.95 Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 6-9 Thirteen-year-old Emma is shocked to discover that Abby, her best friend from her old school, has been reported as missing; she's even more stunned when she realizes that her uneasy conversation with Abby on the bus was the last sighting anybody had of the missing girl. Emma's worry over Abby sends her into wincing recollection of the demise of their friendship, when their shared pleasure in fantasy literature and speculation led to merciless pillorying and constant humiliation from the popular girls; unable to weather the abuse, Emma changed schools and remade herself as a mainstream teen, petrified that the old social stigma would bring her world crashing down, while Abby staunchly stuck to her Goth and role-playing- games tastes. Now Emma's trying to negotiate a prickly detente with Abby's current friends and to put together old and new knowledge of Abby to unravel the mystery of her disappearance. The story trips sometimes into contrivance, especially in Emma's certainty that her new friends are preparing to dump her now that they know her history and in the slightly Scooby-Doo-esque investigation that discovers Abby's tragic fate (she is eventually found dead, having suffered an accident while setting up a live-action game), but the original premise taps effectively into one of the great guilts of growing up: leaving other people behind. Even readers whose reasons for drifting away from old friends aren't as self-protective as Emma's will recognize the attendant sorrow, discomfort, and relief, as well as the awkwardness of later encounters with the former friend's parents or new friends. Emma's gradual reacknowledgment of the Emma she's been fearfully suppressing is laudable as well as credible, allowing her reintegration to serve as Abby's legacy. Readers will enjoy puzzling out the mystery, and they may take home the quiet point that old friends are worth keeping in the face of change. DS

WELLS, ROSEMARY My Kindergarten; written and illus. by Rosemary Wells. Hyperion, 2004 96p ISBN 0-7868-0833-0 $16.99 R 4-6yrs Unlike most back-to-school books that focus on overcoming first-day jitters and making new friends, this title takes the reader through an entire year of kindergarten curriculum. Wells embeds the first-person narration of one of her signature trapezoidal bunnies in this school tour, taking her from first-day fears through Back to School night, multicultural winter holidays, classroom activities, troubles with math, all the way to cleanup day and the last day of school. Along the way, Wells demonstrates co-curricular activities, such as collecting weeds and seeds, making maps for geography, and measuring everything from caterpillars to blood NOVEMBER 2004 * 151 pressure that parents can do at home to extend student learning. Kid-friendly explanations are offered to explain some of the adult values that school introduces; for instance, in a segment on voting, Grandpa explains, "We vote ... in order to try and make more good things than bad things happen in the world." Later, Papa explains the importance of using proper grammar by comparing a blast on a trom- bone with a song played on the same instrument. The teacher encourages learning-style diversity throughout, offering alternative assignments for students who aren't clicking with the rest of the kids. Each concept Wells introduces is demon- strated by her cheerfully chunky menagerie of woodland youngsters; she reinforces the new words and ideas in border illustrations and captioned inset drawings. Though she doesn't offer prescriptive advice on how to use the book, parents can easily replicate and expand on the ideas to connect with their kindergartners' learning throughout the year. KC

WILKINS, ROSE So Super Starry. Dial, 2004 230p ISBN 0-8037-3049-7 $16.99 Ad Gr. 7-12 Octavia loathes her school, a London academy for the display if not education of kids with rich, famous, and/or aristocratic parents, wishing instead that she could lead a nice normal life like her down-to-earth friend Viv. When her status-mad classmate India invites Octavia to a party (in the hope of getting access to Octavia's director father and the hunky superstar appearing in his current film), Octavia is surprised to find herself not only making a bit of a splash but also meeting a compelling young man, Alex. Although he proves to be the older brother of the loath- some India, and, even worse, Octavia's mother is thrilled at her daughter's new involvement with high society, Octavia begins dating Alex, enjoying his attentions and hoping that together they can find a relationship based on something more meaningful than a high propensity for magazine appearance. The elements here (even down to several characters' names) resemble those in O'Connell's Pulling Princes, reviewed above, so this will also draw readers looking for a window into under-eighteen high life among the moneyed British. That audience will enjoy the loving details of high-fashion clothes and ritzy parties, but they're likely to find Octavia's relentless denunciation of the very things that appeal to them rather offputting; nor does the book generally seem to realize that Octavia's condemna- tions of the chic life are as facile and groundless as she considers India et al. to be (there's nothing inherently superior, after all, about casual clothing), which results in Octavia's being rather unsympathetically smug and self-righteous rather than thoughtfully critical. Consequently, there's actually more effective questioning as well as sheer fun in the O'Connell, but status-intrigued readers may well appreciate the chance to have one's high-status cake and reject it, too. DS

WILLNER-PARDO, GINA My Mom and Other Mysteries of the Universe. Clarion, 2004 [17 6p] ISBN 0-618-43020-2 $15.00 Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 4-6 Arlie's mom loves six-year-old Michael more than she does eleven-year-old Arlie. That's just a fact, Arlie thinks, and she tries not to resent her brother or hate her mom because of it, even as her dad and her aunt (her mom's sister, Isabelle) try to convince Arlie that her nitpicking, strong-minded mother truly does love her. When her parents are hospitalized after a car crash and her mother goes into a coma on the same day that Casey, a strange new girl with her mother's looks, personality, 152 * THE BULLETIN

and history, appears in Arlie's class at school, Arlie is convinced that the new girl, Casey Lane, is really a manifestation of her mother, Lacey Caine. Arlie's associa- tion with Casey is just as problematic as her relationship with her mother has been, and for many of the same reasons, but it also affords Arlie the opportunity to mend that relationship in ways that seem to carry over once Casey moves away and Arlie's mother awakens from her coma. A realistic novel that uses a potentially supernatural occurrence to catalyze a character's personal change is a hard trick to pull off, but Willner-Pardo provides coincidences too numerous to deny and gives Arlie just enough psychic presentiments to bear out her admittedly bizarre beliefs. The characters' relationships throughout are normal and authentic, built on the small choices and interactions of everyday, so that Arlie's credibly modest reconciliation with her mother is equally believable as the result of a devastating accident and as the outcome of an otherworldly encounter-both of which options are presented to the reader, though Arlie chooses to see Casey's friendship as "an incredible gift" she "should just unwrap" instead of analyzing. Those comfortable and uncomfortable with this open-ended resolution will enjoy the concrete details, smooth prose, and sympathetic characterization of this unusually normal paranormal mystery. TC

WITTLINGER, ELLEN Heart on My Sleeve. Simon, 2004 220p ISBN 0-689-84997-4 $15.95 R Gr. 7-10 At the center of this ensemble drama are two high-school seniors, Julian and Chloe, who turn a lip-locking campus preview weekend into a fantasy love through the subsequent exchange of openhearted email. As the story unfolds through emails, instant messages, and old-fashioned longhand letters, relationships are made and broken, deepened and destroyed. Chloe, for instance, has a longtime boyfriend, Eli, but she insists to Julian (and to herself) that Eli is only a platonic friend. Julian's passion is reserved for his music; his infatuation with Chloe's voice con- vinces him that they can be a duet. Both Chloe and Julian have older sisters who, while not overly wise in the ways of love themselves, nonetheless provide the perspective the two need when their "love" turns out to be as thin as the wires that carried it. The format requires some acclimatization, but once the reader has mas- tered whose font is whose, characterization and situation unfold smoothly. To Wittlinger's credit, the rather contrived setup doesn't read like a contrivance; the voices of the teens, the twentysomethings, and the aging hipster parents all ring true if a bit hackneyed. Their written reactions to Chloe's sister's coming out, for instance, are as cliched as they would be in real life, and Chloe, in typical teen-girl fashion, is constantly in danger of drowning in a sea of introspection an inch deep. However, Wittlinger uses the contemporary epistolary genre effectively to explore the vagaries of different kinds of relationships: those online, those carried out on a day-to-day basis, and those born of short bursts of intense proximity (Chloe develops yet another crush on a fellow camp counselor-she is so ready to move on from poor Eli), making this a good choice for book groups who will undoubtedly have experience with each of these types of relationships. KC

WONG, JANET S. Alex and the Wednesday Chess Club; illus. by Stacey Schuett. McElderry, 2004 4 0p ISBN 0-689-85890-6 $16.95 R* Gr. 2-4 Eight mini-chapters in ragged-right text that suggests free verse chronicle Alex's NOVEMBER2004 * 153 passage from rookie chess player at age four to seasoned tournament contestant at age nine. An early enthusiast, Alex loses all interest in the game for three years after being whupped by his next-door neighbor's heartless Uncle Hooya, and he only returns to play when it seems joining the chess club might be more fun than getting trounced in football. Then a surprise confrontation at the city tournament with his "next-door neighbor's Little Cousin Hooya" (accompanied by the hated Uncle Hooya) gives Alex the chance to cement his reclamation of the game. Short lines of text and apt metaphors emphasize shifts in the action and make the story easy and satisfying to read alone, while Alex's unaffected internal dialogue and refreshingly normal reaction to the perks and perils of competition chess make him immediately likable. The dewy sheen and mottled texture of the gouache and ink illustrations lend movement and continuity to the narrative, and the varied perspectives and humorous touches (such as the horrified facial expressions of chess pieces about to be taken) provide the text with vivacious embellishment. A list of "Alex's Top 10 Chess Tips" gives valuable advice to budding chess masters and certifies Alex as an experienced player, bringing the story to a triumphant end. Checkmate! TC

WREDE, PATRICIA C. The Grand Tour, or The Purloined Coronation Regalia; by Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer. Harcourt, 2004 4 80p ISBN 0-15-204616-X $17.00 R Gr. 6-10 Wrede and Stevermer revisit the magic infested drawing rooms of Regency En- gland (Sorcery and Cecelia, BCCB 7/03) as cousins Cecy and Kate, married off- stage to their respective beaux James and Thomas from the previous novel, embark together on their honeymoons on the Continent. Trouble, in the guise of an alabaster flask with an odd, oily residue, finds them in Paris, and the quartet are compelled to foil a dastardly plot to crown a new emperor of all Europe, whose reign will be cut short by a megalomaniac contessa with goddess aspirations. Natu- rally, Thomas' and Cecy's wizardly prowess is called upon to save the day, and Kate proves to be a surprisingly deft hand herself. The authors again have a grand old time making magic feel as comfortable and ordinary among the upper crust as kid gloves and crumpets. In this tale, though, following the trail of moth-eaten coronation regalia and inscrutable rituals (oh, yes, and a couple of murders) is at least as compelling as the arcane arts, and the lovers' adjustments to marriage on the road will delight the romantically inclined. Wrede and Stevermer have hit their stride, and readers will no doubt hope that Kate and Cecy's tour doesn't end here. EB

ZALBEN, JANE BRESKIN Baby Babka, the Gorgeous Genius; illus. by Victoria Chess. Clarion, 2004 [40p] ISBN 0-618-23489-6 $15.00 Reviewed from galleys R 6-9 yrs Beryl has been eagerly anticipating the arrival of a new baby sister, whom she's already named "Babka" after her mother's best dessert, and she's crushed when the arrival proves to be a boy, who's been named Zachary without any input from Beryl and who, according to the jealous Beryl, is "a big, fat, dumb lump." Five brief chapters allow for a bit more thorough exploration than usual of this classic new-sibling drama; Zalben takes a fresh approach in making Zachary not in fact Beryl's first younger brother but no less disturbing for that, and there are appeal- 154 * THE BULLETIN

ing touches in Beryl's relationship with Sam, the younger brother already annoying Beryl. The intervention of Uncle Morty, who tells Beryl and Sam stories of his own childhood, is handled lightly; his anecdotes are thick with character and re- peatable refrains that will make a hit whether listeners believe his message about sibling fondness or not. Chess, more often associated with delicious wickedness (as in Heide's Tales for the Perfect Child, BCCB 11/85), brings her figures' usual beady-eyed intensity to this familiar domestic story; while the result robs her pink- cheeked characters of their usual enjoyable irony, the focused precision of her vignettes and their humorous exaggeration makes them an appetizing balance of tart and sweet. As a chapter-by-chapter readaloud or readalone, this offers a cozy and personable story that will invite audiences to lessen the sting of their sibling bur- dens by spinning their own family yarns. DS

ZHANG, ANGE RedLand Yellow River: A Storyfrom the CulturalRevolution; written and illus. byAnge Zhang and with photographs. Groundwood, 2004 [56 p] ISBN 0-88899-489-3 $16.95 Reviewed from galleys R* Gr. 5-8 Author Zhang had just reached his teen years in 1966, and the uniforms, armbands, rallies, and noisy camaraderie of Mao's Cultural Revolution were nothing short of alluring. As the son of a respected writer and prominent member of the Commu- nist Party, Zhang believed he would be welcomed as a member of the Red Guard. However, as the movement began to target intellectuals, Zhang's father was subject to public humiliation and the boy himself labeled "a 'black kid,' the enemy of the revolution." Neither discrimination nor the ransacking of the family's home deterred him from trying to insinuate himself among the elect, and only when he suffered a beating did he begin to reevaluate his position on the merits of the revolution. Forced relocation to a peasant farming community gave him ample time to rethink his aspirations, and a chance encounter with a box of paints di- rected him to his chosen-and current-career as an artist. Although presented in picture-book format, this is a sophisticated personal reflection on the Cultural Revolution, and even though the formal, clipped narration is not, in itself, particularly daunting, the social turmoil and profound soul-searching herein demand some maturity of its readership. Zhang's digitally produced illustrations are dramatically front lit, often positioning the viewer slightly below the level of the action, a probable reflection of Zhang's work in theater design. A substantial concluding chapter, "China's Cultural Revolution," supplies the background needed to con- textualize Zhang's memoir and can even stand alone as an engrossing mini history lesson on a movement not often discussed in children's literature. EB NOVEMBER2004 * 155

PROFESSIONAL CONNECTIONS: RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS AND LIBRARIANS

BARNHOUSE, REBECCA The Middle Ages in Literaturefor Youth: A Guide and Re- source Book. Scarecrow Press, 2004 208p (Literature for Youth) Paper ed. ISBN 0-8108-4916-X $30.00 This fourth entry in Scarecrow's Literature for Youth Series offers an in-depth bibliography of books about the years 500-1500. There are more than 500 book citations, each including publication information and a brief annotation; because many of the titles referenced are out of print, it is probably more useful as an organizing tool than as a guide for collection development. The division of the entries is a bit haphazard, with sections sometimes governed by geography (Conti- nental Europe, the British Isles), sometimes focusing on a particular group (the Vikings), at other times centering on popular figures (Joan of Arc, Robin Hood); while books of all age ranges are considered, the definite emphasis here is on middle and high school. The book includes nonfiction and realistic fiction but doesn't extend its reach to include fantasy novels set in a context that recalls the Middle Ages. Not all titles are strongly recommended; in the instances where the author has reservations, they are clearly stated in the annotations and are most often due to stereotypical representations. The latter part of the book provides professional resources for educators, including books, articles, and ERIC documents, as well as suggested classroom activities. Although a brief chapter considers non-Western cultures, the definite emphasis here is on Western Europe. Barnhouse, herself a medievalist and teacher, has compiled a valuable resource for any school or public library that provides materials for unit studies on the middle ages. HM 156 * THE BULLETIN

SUBJECT AND USE INDEX

Keyed to The Bulletin's alphabetical arrangement by author, this index, which appears in each issue, can be used in three ways. Entries in regular type refer to subjects; entries in bold type refer to curricular or other uses; entries in ALL-CAPS refer to genres and appeals. In the case of subject headings, the subhead "stories" refers to books for the readaloud audience; "fiction," to those books intended for independent reading.

Abuse-fiction: Shaw Christmas-stories: Hillenbrand; Lee Accidents-fiction: Neale Circuses-stories: Keret ADVENTURE: Barry; Brennan; Clothing-stories: Hughes Farmer; Hale; Hill; Jinks; Reeve; Computers-fiction: Fredericks Stroud Crime and criminals-fiction: Africa-fiction: Stolz Brennan African Americans-fiction: Crime and criminals-stories: Geisert O'Connor Current events: Lewis African Americans-stories: Death and dying-fiction: Friend; Harrington; Stewart, S. Leiber Animals-fiction: Avi Demons-fiction: Stroud Animals-folklore: Bruchac Disabilities: Runyon Animals-stories: Lester Disabilities-fiction: Trueman ANTHOLOGIES: Mercado; Noyes Disasters-fiction: Hill Babies-fiction: MacLachlan; Dogs-fiction: Adler; Hill; Nolan O'Connor Dolls: Goddu Babies-stories: Zalben Ethics and values: Lewis; Myers; Basketball-fiction: Lupica Trueman; Weatherly; Wilkins; Bears-stories: Johnson, D. Zhang BEDTIME STORIES: Ashman; Eating disorders-fiction: Friend Hillenbrand; Irving Ecology: Davies; Hoose BIOGRAPHIES: Brackett; Runyon; Emotions-stories: Lester Zhang Environmental studies: Hoose Biology: Davies EPISTOLARY FICTION: Birds: Hoose Wittlinger Birds-fiction: Martini FABLES: Ward Birds-stories: Hillenbrand Families-fiction: Friend; Trueman Boarding school-fiction: O'Connell FANTASY: Barry; Brennan; Cole; Books and reading-stories: Dale; Dickinson; Farmer; Gray; Numeroff Hale; Harrison; La Fevers; Leiber; Brothers-fiction: Trueman Martini; Ogilvy; Reeve; Willner- Brothers and sisters-fiction: Peck Pardo; Wrede Bullies-stories: Lester Fathers-fiction: Kuns; Lupica; Chess-fiction: Wong Neale; Shaw Child care-stories: Stewart, S. Fathers-stories: Keret China: Zhang Fire-fiction: Hill Christmas-fiction: Snow NOVEMBER2004 * 157

FOLKTALES AND FAIRY TALES: Magic-fiction: Hale; Ogilvy; Bruchac; Hughes; Kimmel; Stroud; Wrede Stanley Medieval life-fiction: Jinks Food and eating-stories: Kimmel Mexico-stories: Kimmel Foxes-stories: Myers Mice-stories: Irving; Spohn Friends-fiction: Avi; Fredericks; Mischief-stories: Shannon Gray; Hahn; Johnson, M.; Kuns; Monsters-stories: Irving Sanchez; Weatherly Mothers-fiction: Willner-Pardo Future-fiction: Reeve Mountain climbing-fiction: Neale Games-fiction: Fredericks Muslims-fiction: Lewis; Stolz Games-stories: Wong MYSTERIES: Adler; Dale; Gays and lesbians-fiction: Johnson, Weatherly M.; Sanchez Night-stories: Ashman GHOST STORIES: Hahn Pigs-stories: Geisert Giants-stories: Stanley Pirates-fiction: Barry; Lee Government: Thimmesh POETRY: Scieszka Grandfathers-fiction: Adler Politics-fiction: Dickinson Grandmothers-fiction: Paulsen Princes-fiction: O'Connell Grandmothers-stories: Cole Prophecies-fiction: La Fevers Grief-fiction: Friend; Kuns Reading aloud: Avi; Nolan; Scieszka Hanukkah-stories: Koons Reading, beginning: Blumenthal HISTORICAL FICTION: Giff; Reading, easy: Adler; Hill; La MacLachlan; Peck; Rabin; Stolz; Fevers; Nolan; Wong; Zalben Turnbull Reading, reluctant: Davies; History, U.S.: Sfs; Thimmesh Mercado; Nolan; Sis; Snow; History, world: Jinks; Zhang Stewart, P. Human rights: Zhang Relationships-fiction: Fredericks; HUMOR: Blumenthal; Bruchac; Johnson, M.; Wilkins; Wittlinger Gray; Keret; Koons; Nolan; RHYMING STORIES: Ashman; Ogilvy; Paulsen; Scieszka; Stewart, S. Shannon; Snow; Wrede ROMANCE: Lee; O'Connell; Identity-fiction: Cofer Turnbull; Wittlinger; Wrede Illness-fiction: Hannigan Royalty-fiction: O'Connell; Rabin Immigrants-fiction: Cofer; Giff SCARY STORIES: Irving; Leiber; Japan-stories: Myers Noyes Jealousy-fiction: Willner-Pardo School-fiction: Hannigan; Kuns; Jealousy-stories: Zalben Mercado; O'Connell; Paulsen; Journals-fiction: MacLachlan Peck; Wilkins JOURNALS: Runyon School-stories: Wells Kidnapping-fiction: Farmer; La Science-poetry: Scieszka Fevers SCIENCE FICTION: Reeve Kindergarten-stories: Wells Sexuality-fiction: Sanchez Knights and chivalry-fiction: Gray; SHORT STORIES: Mercado; Jinks; Stewart, P. Noyes Latinos-fiction: Cofer; Sanchez Sisters-fiction: Harrison Libraries-stories: Numeroff Sisters-stories: Blumenthal Literature, children's: Barry Social studies: Sfs Literature, English: Brackett South, the-fiction: O'Connor LOVE STORIES: Turnbull SPORTS STORIES: Lupica 158 * THE BULLETIN

States: Sis Storytelling-fiction: Martini Storytime: Bruchac; Cole; Doyle; Hughes; Koons; Numeroff; Shannon; Spohn; Stanley Suicide: Runyon Superheroes-stories: Lee SUSPENSE: Hahn Teachers-fiction: Peck Terrorism-fiction: Lewis Toys: Goddu Uncles-stories: Zalben Urban life-stories: Cole Violence-fiction: Trueman Voyages and travel-fiction: Barry; Farmer; Lee; Wrede Voyages and travel-stories: Harrington War-fiction: Dickinson; Stroud Water-stories: Doyle Witches-fiction: Dale; Harrison Women's studies: Brackett; Goddu; Thimmesh Work-fiction: Giff Work-stories: Johnson, D. Writers and writing-stories: Myers Snurtt

A Pabi~em Weekly EdAWo's Pick A Springfmmiw ~ch~i~ I Boalkeww CMi~rm's Pick f awmasy lokng for mthe New Storytelling Books FROM A U G U S T HOUSE PICY HOT COLORS Sherry Shahan Illustrated by Paula Barrag6n September SBN0-87483-741-3 i16.95 ewnhardback binding 5'x 11" pages; all full color rs explode off the page inthis energetic, jazzy picture that introduces children to colors inEnglish and sh. Shohan's rhythmic text echoes Chicko Chicka Boom and Ecuadoran artist Paula Barrag6n's mixed- illustrations expand the rhythm of the text and the of Latino culture.

THREE- MINUTE 1 TALES rnnAll innlhkin IUIE6) rKIM AKVRIUN FOR SURE! FOR SURE! THE WORLD TO SHARE Hans Christian Andersen Translated by Mus White WHEN TIME ISSHORT Illustrated by Stefan Czemecki Margaret Read MacDonald August* ISBN0-87483-742-1 Jul $16.95 * Sewn hardback binding ISBN0-87483-728-t 32 pages,allfull color $24.9 Sewn hardback bindii VIEW &DOWNLOAD THE 7"x 10' Staff Resource Titie ENTIRE FOLKTALE AND MacDonald includes stories from Mexico, China, Indonesia, Japan, STORYTELLING CATALOG AT Cuba, Turkey, Syria, Native America, Jewish culture, and other www.augusthouse.com nanons annrraaions ina useful volume for parents, August House Publishers, Inc. teachers, librarians, church AUGUST August House is the school leaders, and others. HoUSE Storytelling Source. www.augusthouse.com AUGUSTHOUSE / P.O. BOX 3223 / UTTIEROCK, AR72203 / 201 EASTMARKHAM 72201 / 1-800-284-8784 / FAX501-372-5579

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mumx(AOFEiA1ONAL Books make great gifts, but oick- ing the perfect books for your favorite youngsters can be daunting. Let the expert staff of The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books help you navigate the book- store wilderness full of shiny new children's books. Updated and expanded from last year's edi- tion, the Guide Book to Gift Books contains annotations of the best books for giving (and receiving) and is available as a downloadable PDF file that you can print out and use for every holiday, birthday, or other gift-giving occasion on your calendar this year. Listed books have all been recommended in full Bulletin reviews from the last three years and are verified as currently in print. Entries are divided into age groups and include author, title, publisher, and the current list price. To purchase, go to: www.lis.uiuc.edulgiftbooks/ r

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