ILLIN I S UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN PRODUCTION NOTE University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library Large-scale Digitization Project, 2007. University of Illinois Press AVkA A pd THE BUvL LE T IN OF THE CENTER FOR CHILDREN'S BOOKS July/August 1995 Vol. 48 No. 11 A LOOK INSIDE 373 THE BIG PICTURE Companions of the Night by Vivian Vande Velde 374 NEW BOOKS FOR CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE Reviewed titles include: 375 * The Arkadians by Lloyd Alexander 380 * Rosie the Riveter: Women Working on the Home Front in World War II by Penny Colman 389 * Poppa's New Pants written by Angela Shelf Medearis; illus. by John Ward 393 * The Same Place but Different by Perry Nodelman 401 * From the Notebooks ofMelanin Sun by Jacqueline Woodson 402 SUBJECT AND USE INDEX 404 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 Centerfor Children'sBooks (ISSN 0008-9036) is published monthly except August by the Graduate School of Library and Information Science (GSLIS) of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of Illinois Press, 1325 S. Oak, Champaign, IL 61820. STAFF Roger Sutton, Editor (RS) Deborah Stevenson, Assistant Editor (DS) Elizabeth Bush, Reviewer (EB) Susan Dove Lempke, Reviewer (SDL) Betsy Hearne, Consulting Editor and Faculty Liaison (BH) Heather McCammond-Watts, Editorial Assistant (HMW) Reviewers' initials are appended to reviews. THE CENTER FOR CHILDREN'S BOOKS ADVISORY BOARD Leigh Estabrook, Dean, GSLIS, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Selma K. Richardson, Professor, GSLIS Christine Jenkins, Assistant Professor, GSLIS Richard C. Anderson, Director, Center for the Study of Reading, UIUC Jean Osborn, Associate Director, Center for the Study of Reading P. David Pearson, Dean, College of Education, UIUC Violet J. Harris, Associate Professor, College of Education Nancy O'Brien, Education Subject Specialist, Library, UIUC Peggy Miller, Associate Professor, Department of Speech Communication, UIUC Ann D. Carlson, Associate Professor, GSLIS, Rosary College Janice Harrington, Head of Children's Services, Champaign Public Library Elizabeth Huntoon, Director Systemwide Children's Services, Chicago Public Library Janie Schomberg, Librarian, Leal Elementary School, Urbana, Illinois SUBSCRIPTION RATES 1 year, institutions, $35.00; individuals, $29.00. In countries other than the United States, add $7.00 per subscription for postage. Japanese subscription agent: Kinokuniya Company Ltd. Single copy rate: $4.50. Reprinted volumes 1-35 (1947-1981) available from Kraus Reprint Co., Route 100, Millwood, NY 10546. Volumes available in microfilm from University Microfilms, 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. Subscription Correspondence. Address all inquiries about subscriptions and advertising to University of Illinois Press, 1325 S. Oak, Champaign, IL 61820. Editorial Correspondence. Review copies and all correspondence about reviews should be sent to Roger Sutton, The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, Children's Research Center, 51 Gerty Drive, Champaign, IL 61820 Second-class postage paid at Champaign, Illinois © 1995 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 Cliff Nielsen, from Companions of the Night ©1995 and used by permission of Harcourt Brace and Company. JULY/AUGUST 1995 * 373 THE BIG PICTURE Companions of the Night by Vivian Vande Velde No, you're not suffering from dtja vu-we did just feature a YA vampire novel on the cover back in April (Mary Downing Hahn's Look for Me By Moonlight), and Vivian Vande Velde's Companions of the Night is another excursion, albeit a very different one, into the genre. Apparently, excellent vampire books, like bats, come in flocks. This one has a terrific start: sixteen-year-old Kerry drives out in the middle of the night to retrieve her weeping little brother's mislaid stuffed bear, and she stumbles into a gang of people who have assaulted and are now planning to kill a young man whom they insist is a vampire. Quick-witted Kerry helps their vic- tim, Ethan, escape, but the vampire hunters, convinced that she too is a vampire, kidnap her father and little brother in an attempt to bargain with her. What you can't tell your patrons is that Ethan is a vampire. Kerry, to her horror, discovers this fact when she turns to Ethan for assistance, and she makes a bargain with him: if he will help Kerry get her family back, she (with her ability to go out in the daylight) will help Ethan find and face his chief antagonist, Professor Marsala. There's more to the story, and there's definitely more to the book. Vande Velde employs classic vampire motifs-vulnerability to sunlight, instantaneous healing, immortality-but makes Ethan, with his accessible college-boy charm and genuine rapport with Kerry, a different kind of vampire hero. Kerry herself is in many ways an iconoclastic vampire-story heroine: she has no secret well of yearning for Ethan to tap into, no smoldering resentments for the vampire to feed. She is relentlessly ordinary without being shallow, worried about her parallel park- ing and, in a small ironic foreshadowing, her post-orthodontia dentition. And Kerry and Ethan just plain like each other. Not always-Ethan has his scarier moments, as Kerry wisely reminds herself to remember-but most of the time their simple compatibility is as evident as it is impossible. Where Hahn's book, true to the gothic tradition, was lush and allusively seductive, the tone here is crisp and often funny (the wit is appropriately mordant although never camp) without ever slackening the excitement. It's still genuinely touching, however, when Ethan, in a line that would have been a throwaway in a more sentimental story, finally acknowledges his affection for Kerry by admitting "it would be nice ... to see your hair in the sunlight." The book, while never dry, difficult, or uninteresting, is an intellectual adventure more than a sensual one, its challenges more cerebral than hormonal. Vande Velde keeps the moral ambiguity coming and the reader's loyalty as divided and shifting as Kerry's. Ethan has his attractions, but he poses a genuine threat to Kerry as well as to the general populace, and she's never sure, especially with his constant and easy lies, how much she can trust her life to his goodwill. Yet the 374 * THE BULLETIN vampire hunters are dangerously lawless, bitterly vengeful, and frequently mis- taken about important facts (Professor Marsala is avenging not, as he thinks, a vampirical murder, but a tragedy of teen rebellion). Both the vampire hunters and the vampires commit murder (all offstage, although there's one accidental death and one grisly discovery of a corpse), and both sides coldly use Kerry for their own ends. So who is right? Will she help either side, and if so which and for what reasons? And what does it make her if she does? It's a freshly written thriller, an offbeat love story, an engaging twist on the vampire novel, and an exciting tale of moral complexity. Use it as the center- piece of a discussion of ethics if you dare; otherwise, point the book at the Lois Duncan fans as well as Anne Rice followers, and get out of the way. (Imprint information appears on page 399.) Deborah Stevenson, Assistant Editor NEW BOOKS FOR CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE AARDEMA, VERNA, ad. Jackal's Flying Lesson: A Khoikhoi Tale; illus. by Dale Gottlieb. Apple Soup/Knopf, 1995 33p Library ed. ISBN 0-679-95813-4 $15.99 Trade ed. ISBN 0-679-85813-X $15.00 R 4-7 yrs In a momentary lapse of judgment, a mother dove allows herself to be tricked by Jackal into tossing her two babies down into his gaping jaws. Not to worry, though-Crane devises an even better trick to retrieve the babies: convincing Jackal to learn to fly. Gummed and feathered, Jackal plummets off Crane's back and lands "with such a jolt that the two baby doves popped, kwa-cha, right out of his mouth." Aardema relates this southwest African tale in straightforward prose peppered with onomatopoeic expressions which are easily understood in context. While the image of babies who come to harm due to a mother's gullibility is in- deed disturbing, Gottlieb's crayon-bright, stylized paintings and Jackal's comical comeuppance (comedownance?) allow listeners to maintain a comforting distance from the harsher aspects of the tale. And the reader-aloud who can play up the ideophones, included in the glossary/pronunciation guide, will leave 'em chuck- ling rather than shuddering. EB ADAM, ADDIE Hilda and the Mad Scientist; illus. by Lisa Thiesing. Dutton, 1995 32p ISBN 0-525-45386-5 $14.99 R 4-8 yrs Hilda has "big muscles, big feet, and, best of all, a big heart," and her motto is "I go where I'm needed and stay until I'm not." Her beneficent impulses eventually lead her to Dr.