Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
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IL L INGI S UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN PRODUCTION NOTE University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library Large-scale Digitization Project, 2007. University of Illinois Graduate School of Library and Information Science ·· " -- -- ---- him ... [which] leads to a showdown with the Fairy Queen. lwithl a wacky cast of characters, including the Wee Free Men, who are six-inches high and speak in a broad Scottish brogue, [this is] a funny and thought- provoking fantasy. A glorious read." -Starred review / School LibraryJournal S"This ingenious melange of fantasy, action, humor, and sly bits of social commentary contains complex underlying themes of the nature of love, reality, and dreams. [Pratchett] fans will not be disappointed." -Starred review / Kirkus Reviews 4- "Prnatrht'sf tnuch is liPhf hut assured as he steers the tale easily THE BULLETIN OF THE CENTER FOR CHILDREN'S BOOKS July/August 2003 Vol. 56 No. 11 t4T " r ,3^ '^.a,-.^~ A LOOK INSIDE 435 THE BIG PICTURE Mystic Horse ad. and illus. by Paul Goble 436 NEW BOOKS FOR CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE Reviewed titles include: 446 * Beggingfor Change by Sharon G. Flake 451 * Moo Cow Kaboom! written and illus. by Thacher Hurd 453 * Shakespeare Bats Cleanup by Ron Koertge 455 * The Dream Bearer by Walter Dean Myers 457 * Mrs. Chicken and the Hungry Crocodile ad. by Won-Ldy Paye and Margaret H. Lippert; illus. by Julie Paschkis 458 * The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett 468 SUBJECT AND USE INDEX 470 ANNUAL AUTHOR AND TITLE 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) Janice M. Del Negro, Contributing Editor (JMD) Betsy Hearne, Consulting Editor and Faculty Liaison (BH) Elizabeth Bush, Reviewer (EB) Karen Coats, Reviewer (KC) Reviewers' initials are appended to reviews. OFFICE STAFF Jennifer DeBaillie Natalie Hoyle SUBSCRIPTION RATES 1 year, institutions, $70.00; individuals, $50.00; students, $15.00. In countries other than the United States, add $7.00 per subscription for postage. Japanese subscription agent: Kinokuniya Company Ltd. Single copy rate: $5.50. Reprinted volumes 1-35 (1947-1981) available from Kraus Reprint Co., Route 100, Millwood, NY 10546. Volumes available in microfilm from ProQuest, 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48106. Complete volumes available in microfiche from Johnson Associates, P.O. Box 1017, Greenwich, CT 06830. Subscription checks should be made payable to the University of Illinois Press. All notices of change of address should provide both the old and new address. Postmaster: Send address changes to The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, University of Illinois Press, 1325 S. Oak, Champaign, IL 61820-6903. All inquiries about subscriptions and advertising should go to University of Illinois Press, 1325 S. Oak, Champaign, IL 61820-6903, 217-333-0950; toll free 866-244-0626. Review copies and all correspondence about reviews should be sent to Deborah Stevenson, The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, 501 E. Daniel St., Champaign, IL 61820-6601. Email: [email protected]; phone: 217-244-0324. Visit our homepage at http://www.lis.uiuc.edu/puboff/bccb Periodicals postage paid at Champaign, Illinois © 2003 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 Paul Goble from Mystic Horse 2003. Used by permission of HarperCollins Publishers. JULY/AUGUST 2003 * 435 THE BIG PICTURE Mystic Horse ad. and illus. by Paul Goble Charged with even more motion and emotion ("Abandoned, lonely, unloved!/ ... There is an old horse in our midst/ Who is without an owner,/ Abandoned, lonely, unloved!") than the stunning Girl Who Loved Wild Horses, which won the 1979 Caldecott Medal, this book moves beyond kinship with the animal world to a cycle of death and resurrection through animals' kinship with the spirit world. Skillfully adapted from a Pawnee story collected by George Bird Grinnell and published in 1889, the story portrays a poor orphan lad whose kindness to a cast- off horse draws jeering from the well-mounted warriors in his tribe. In face of an enemy attack, however, the boy obeys the sickly animal's command to cover it with river mud and ride four times into battle counting coup with a willow stick. The horse, magically renewed as a prancing steed, is then killed when the boy disobeys with a fifth charge. Grieving deeply afterwards throughout a heavy rain- storm, the boy sees the horse rise, healed, and rides him home, along with a herd of wild horses, to lead his people and care for his old grandmother "for all her years." In responsibly citing the story's source, Goble acknowledges the fact that he has "had to make changes from the original because certain aspects do not translate well into today's thinking"-perhaps the boy's killing of the enemy on whom he counts coup, and more probably the butchering of the horse by the enemy when it falls after the fifth charge. And from the tale that Grinnell heard during the time he spent with the Pawnee in Nebraska, Goble has omitted an earlier episode in which the rejuvenated horse carries the boy toward a buffalo herd to kill a spotted calf, for whose skin the chief has promised his daughter in marriage. The result of this selection is a shorter but sharply focused tale. Goble's hope that "the spirit of the story is still there" is assuredly fulfilled in his dramatic yet sensitive reconstruc- tion. Though the story itself has deep appeal, it is the artistic contextualization that gives perspective on the tale as part of a "horse culture" rather than a piece of isolated lore. Each illustrative feature adds to the cultural grounding. Eerie blue- and-white endpapers portray the mythic appearance of horses from frothy waves into the green-and-yellow sunshined world, whereupon they turn into a variegated herd thundering across the half-title page. Thus readers witness the "spirit horses, Arusa, surge up from the womb of Mother Earth, through the waters of a sacred lake, to spread out and replenish the wild herds." Traditional designs decorate the copyright information, two pages of meticulous background information on the tribe, and the beginning and end of the legend, which is clean in both verbal and visual composition. The illustrated scenes are dynamically paced and emotionally expressive, with startling contrasts--one double-page spread is vertically barred with birch 436 * THE BULLETIN trees, another shadowed with a massive blue-black thunderhead generating metal- lic streaks of rain over the huddled figure of the boy. A stylized pool of blood, with a butterfly hovering close by, swirls from the dead horse's mouth as the boy throws himself over his fallen mount; later, as the boy hugs the resurrected horse, pools of rain swirl over the entire page. This is one of Goble's deepest creations--durable enough to support imagined journeys of courage and transformation again and again, alone or aloud. (Imprint information appears on p. 447.) Betsy Hearne, Consulting Editor NEW BOOKS FOR CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE ANHOLT, LAURENCE Jack and the Dreamsack;illus. by Ross Collins. Bloomsbury, 2003 26p ISBN 1-58234-786-7 $16.95 Ad 4-6 yrs Philosophical young Jack declares that "the trouble with dreams ... is that you are always asleep when you have them," so he resolves to stay awake when he goes to sleep so he can observe his dreams properly. That night the boy takes a sack "to put his dreams in" and goes off "to search for the middle, the very center of all dreams everywhere." Jack travels through some surreal dream terrain, finding "a small white snail dog," "telephones with beards," a "Finger Forest," a "Human Zoo," etc.; to all of these his response is "AMAZING!" Finally he reaches "the very top branch of the giant Fruit Salad tree that grows right in the center, smack- dab in the middle, in the very bellybutton of all dreams." Jack returns home, his sack heavy with dreams, but when he opens the sack it's empty but for a tiny Dreamseed, which, when planted, grows through the roof. Anholt's text is some- what self-conscious, but it rolls along rhythmically right from the opening lines. Although the pace falters when Jack's journey descends into the list-like accumula- tion of Dreamthings, the momentum is strong enough to keep the story from stalling. The art depicts Jack's dream world and the stuff within it very literally, which sometimes makes the visuals flat, but despite the Candyland look of the images there are some effective surreal moments. Use this tale to trigger a discus- sion of dreams and dreaming, awake and sleeping. JMD BAKER, LESLIE The Animal ABC; written and illus.