Juv Fantasy: The Castle Behind Thorns, Merrie Haskell

The Castle Behind Thorns
Merrie Haskell
ISBN: 9780062008190
A lush and leisurely re-working of Sleeping Beauty set in Brittany in 1518, with saints and magic and themes of family betrayal, friendship, trust, and forgiveness.
Read December 28, 2014

Lovely to read through, but it will be a very specific middle-grade reader to appreciate the vocabulary, dense thematic structure, and really superbly slow narrative pace.  It's fun for me as an adult, as a fast reader, and as someone who appreciates fairy-tale re-workings and historical fiction, but I think that it might easily fail to grab attention.

Sand (great name for a smith) wakes up in a fireplace, and realizes he's in the Sundered Castle, which has been hidden behind thorns since his father was a child.  The castle is still hidden behind thorns, but now they are keeping him prisoner as well.

I'll try to remain vague to avoid spoiling everything.

I loved the slow build of exploration and discovery.

I loved the focus on mending and repairing, especially how it relates to the other characters.

I loved the unapologetic hatred towards war and violence.

I loved the way that forgiveness was presented - not as a religious or civic duty, but as an act of self-preservation and personal mental/emotional health.

I loved the mending magic, the saints, and the Greek afterlife complete with Lethe, shades, and pomegranate seeds.

I loved Sand's enormous complicated blacksmithing solution.

I loved that the resolution was prosaic and mundane and that the "punishment" for the guilty was self-inflicted (although that was a little too perfectly settled, and I really feel for that priest and those poor knights).


The author has another fairy-tale re-working (12 Dancing Princesses) that I have almost picked up several times and just never felt like it grabbed me: The Princess Curse.  Now that I've read this one and have high opinions of the language and writing style, I might give that one a try even if the storyline itself doesn't seem as personally interesting.

New Picture Book: A Dance Like Starlight, Kristy Dempsey & Floyd Cooper

A Dance Like Starlight: One Ballerina's Dream
Kristy Dempsey, illustrated by Floyd Cooper (A Beach Tail)
ISBN: 9780399252846
Lyrical text and dreamlike sepia-textured scenes show the inspiration of Janet Collins in 1951.

This is a perfect pairing for Firebird, and I foresee an influx of beautiful black ballerinas in years to come, inspired by these two lovely books.  (I'm already doing a storytime with these two and Amazing Grace - it's just too perfect not to.)

A young girl stands in the wings and imagines dancing along with the ballet corps, while her seamstress mother creates the fantastic ballet costumes for the dancers.  A sympathetic dancing master, and a mother determined to inspire her child bring them to the Met for the debut of Janet Collins dancing - four years before Marian Anderson's debut.

Again, the storyline is beautiful, and the racial issues, while apparent and clear, aren't judgmental or vindictive.  The entire work is hopeful and joyful, and I hope that it inspires others to reach for their dreams and to take courage from those who have gone before.

Three Parts Dead, Max Gladstone

Three Parts Dead
Max Gladstone
ISBN: 9780765333100
Sf/fantasy/urban fantasy/alternate world fantasy.
Craft Sequence titles: Three Parts Dead, Two Serpents Rise, Full Fathom Five, and (upcoming book's working title: Last First Snow)

This is a world where Gods exist, and live in (mostly) symbiotic spiritual cohabitations with humans: humans provide worship (soul energy) to the Gods, and the Gods use (some of) that energy to protect and prosper their people.  The Gods also use the energy to protect and prosper themselves, and once they are strong and savvy enough (through worship and assiduous soul energy use) they also create complex power-sharing and alliance deals with other Gods.

A few generations ago, science finally caught up to religion, and Crafters were realized - essentially scientists realized that this soul energy could be measured, realized, and harnessed, and quite a lot of scientists became essentially mages who reaped soul energy from anywhere they could find it (usually destructively) as they tested the limits (pretty much non-existent) and abilities (pretty much endless) of their new power-source.  The Gods realized they were in danger from these atheistic power-hungry humans, and Craft-less humans realized that these upstarts were either going to 1) compete with their Gods for available soul energy (weakening the Gods by cutting into their power-monopoly), and/or 2) destroy the countryside in their mad scientific pursuit of knowledge (and, let's be honest here, more power).

So the Craft and the Gods fought a huge and bitter war, leaving many Gods dead, most normal people scarred by the flagrant abuse of powers on both sides, and the Craft hiding in the skies from the potentially pitchfork-wielding mobs.

Now, the Hidden Schools and the countries ruled by the elder statesmen of the Craftspeople do their best to stay hidden, to find and nurture young Crafters, and, secondarily, to provide services and scientific advances for the enclaves of the religious, and to the people in the countrysides.

Got all that?

Into this world, a traumatic and potentially catastrophic event: One of the few remaining Gods, Kos Everburning of the city of Alt Coulumb, is dead.  Gods are really not meant to die, and this specific death is being blamed on a power imbalance (the party line is that either Kos or his Church didn't adequately monitor the soul energy contracts he was involved in, and an unexpected call for aid precipitates his fall).  Our heroines are essentially soul-lawyers and Craft-investigators, and they have their suspicions.

I love this world, and the interesting balances of power and responsibility, and the differences in knowledge and worldview provided by different characters who are either religious or not, or who are conversant in Craft or not, are really clever ways to present information about the world that may or may not be so much fact as opinion.

On the downside, the way this world deals with nearly unlimited potential power-scales and abilities made it a perfect recommendation for my husband, which is a real shame because he devoured this one in two days and started on Two Serpents Rise before I could get my hands on it!  

Tuesday Storytime: African American Dancing Dreams

Chalk another one down for my absurdly specific storytime themes!

It's not my fault, really.  I ordered Firebird, and then A Dance Like Starlight came through as a new addition the same week, and I've loved Amazing Grace since forever (blame Reading Rainbow).

We started with Amazing Grace, because that one really is at the length-limit for my age-group, then I put Firebird in the middle, and A Dance Like Starlight at the end.  The entire storytime was a little on the long side, but they all went together so well that I felt it was worth it.  I did end up "abridging" Amazing Grace and Dance Like Starlight a little bit on the fly.


Amazing Grace
Mary Hoffman, illustrated by Caroline Binch
ISBN: 0803710402
Classic Reading Rainbow book about sexism, racism, and the power of acceptance.

Grace is an imaginative, dramatic girl who loves to act out stories.  When her teachers decides to do a class performance of Peter Pan, Grace wants to be Peter - but her classmates disagree - she can't be Peter because she's a girl, and she can't be Peter because she's black.  Her mother and grandmother disagree, and take her out to see a beautiful black ballerina performing in Romeo and Juliet.  Grace learns her lines, auditions with her whole soul, and the whole class ends up agreeing that she will be a perfect Peter Pan.  The final image of her in her costume is one of my favorite illustrations in a picture book.


Firebird
Misty Copeland, illustrated by Christopher Myers
ISBN: 9780399166150
Reviewed here,

I liked how it was so conceptually different from Amazing Grace, and the way the art and colors are so vivid and wild and surreal, but at the same time, very clear and understandable.


A Dance Like Starlight
Kristy Dempsey, illustrated by Floyd Cooper (A Beach Tail)
ISBN: 9780399252846
Reviewed here.

The sepia tones in this story felt much more drab compared to Firebird and Amazing Grace, but I don't think it detracted from the story.  The text doesn't seem very long on the page, but when reading, it goes a lot more slowly, and it isn't very intuitive and flowing (at least it wasn't for me).  I ended up eliding or abridging sections, especially because it was the last book and the wiggle-worms were out in full force.

Romance: The Captive, Grace Burrowes

The Captive
Grace Burrowes
ISBN: 9781402278785
PTSD and other scars of captivity and abuse are lightly, but coherently, glossed over as wounded warriors find comfort and family with each other.

This isn't going to be a review, more of a ramble, so if you don't like being thoroughly spoiled, feel free to enjoy the short version: it was enjoyable, written with proper language/relationships, and has an interesting emotional through-line connecting all of the major characters.

Now for the longer, rambly, spoilery bits.  You've been warned!

First-off, the author really ought to be careful including symptoms of PTSD in her stories without understanding how pervasive and debilitating it can be.  On the one hand, I don't like reading about tortured psyches and broken bodies, so I appreciated the light touch.  On the other hand, by glossing over the very real debilitating symptoms so lightly, the author runs a real risk of angering readers who are familiar with these real-world traumas.

Second, how delighted I am that the author actually uses proper (mostly) forms of address and names and usages.  So many "regency" or "historical" novels (romance and otherwise) use their setting and time-period about as well as a grade-school production of Shakespeare - a bit of window-dressing on the set, a few "quaint" mannerisms (that don't make sense in context and are actually from a totally different place and time), and a few misplaced attempts at formal speech ("thou" and "thee" misinterpreted as formal, or stilted phrasing substituting for actual dialogue).  While authors like Mary Robinette Kobal perhaps go a bit far in the opposite direction (she has an actual research dictionary and refuses to let her characters speak a single word that can't be sourced from the proper time and place) it is at least refreshing to read something in an admittedly fluffy genre that has enough pride to actually present the time-period's language and mores somewhat accurately.

Thirdly (it's a Monday, lists are necessary) I get into the strangely sophisticated emotional resonances between the characters.  The "Captive" of the title is most properly the hero: Christian Severn, Duke of Mercia.  He was captured and tortured by the French (we're set here during the time of Napoleon) and upon the war's completion, was released and made his way back home.  He is also the one suffering most obviously from what we see now as PTSD.  However, the other two main characters are also captives who are suffering from their wounds.  The heroine of the story is Gillian, Countess of Greendale (Christian's cousin-by-marriage), who has finally outlived her merciless abuser of a husband, and is suffering from her own wounds, which polite society and the requirements of politics mandates she keep secret.  It would be enough for the story to have these two characters bond and recover based on their similar fragile states and slow recovery (in story terms, this is nearly a perfect relationship - in real-life, such emotional wounds nearly require an undamaged and preternaturally patient and empathetic loved-one to act as a support).  However, these two aren't the only people involved.  Christian has a daughter, the only other surviving member of his family, and she is silent through the entire book, supposedly due to the trauma of her father's absence and the deaths of her mother and brother.  The real reason for her silence is revealed late in the story, showing that she too has been held captive.

I don't expect my fluffy reads to have much to them.  Somewhat coherent plots are nice, somewhat established characterizations are even better.  Emotional resonance is so far down that list that I don't even think about it - I just don't expect these books to have any real philosophical or emotional depth.  Perhaps that is prejudiced of me, but I don't feel that it's a lack, just something the genre doesn't tend to select for.  This book tho, it was interesting.  I wouldn't say that it impacted me emotionally. but the writer-mind that lives in the back of my head was clapping with delight at each discovery that reveals the characters have more in common with each other and the main theme.

Now, all that said, don't expect the villain or the plot to be any great mystery - it is quite clear, and rather straightforwardly laid out along the traditional pattern,  Likewise, the romance develops absurdly quickly, and several plot threads (or perhaps red herrings) are carefully laid out and then carelessly cast aside.  Despite this, I enjoyed the reading immensely, and it's nearly all because of the intricate interior relationships and understandings that the main cast had for each other.

For those interested, this is apparently related to three other titles:
The Soldier
The Heir
The Virtuoso      

New Picture Book: Firebird, Misty Copeland & Christopher Myers

Firebird
Misty Copeland, illustrated by Christopher Myers
ISBN: 9780399166150
Chunky, vivid, textural collage highlights an aspirational story of dance and dreams.

Misty Copeland is a ballerina, an African-American ballerina, a GREAT ballerina.  She came late to dance, and had many moments of doubt and hardship along the way (A Life in Motion).  In this picture book, she contrasts the vulnerability and fear of a young dancer with the pride and accomplishment of a career ballerina.  Misty dances through the pages as a professional, most notably in her role as the Firebird, but the focus is on a younger dancer, who is discouraged by the lack of role-models who look like her, who know her background, who feel her isolation.  By focusing on the student, Misty can offer herself as an example, a role-model, and a potential mentor without coming across as preachy or holier-than-thou.

Lots of celebrities and activists try to create picture books, but they often go horribly wrong.  While this isn't a masterpiece, it's a solid and inspiring read, and I'm glad to add it to our collection.  I look forward to using it in a storytime about mentors, dancing, or inspiration.

Tuesday Storytime: Let it Snow! (and commentary on religious/holiday storytimes)

So I used Blizzard a bit sooner than I had originally planned.

Christmas-time storytimes are a little difficult, to be totally honest.  I live in the Bible Belt of the USA, and Christmas is a cultural institution.  In many ways, it is a secular holiday - Santa Claus, Elf on the Shelf, and "presents under the tree" for all sorts of families.  However, around here, it is also a very VERY Christian holiday.  For many people, Jesus is the reason for the season, so focusing on Santa won't cut it.  

On the other hand, I have a feeling that there are a lot of people around here who are silent about their affiliations; Jewish, Muslim, atheist... and to have a public institution (a library, no less) featuring a specific religious holiday is unfair to the population as a whole - unless I also have the wherewithal to provide storytimes on Ramadan, Hanukkah, Solstice, and humanism (to be clear, I think most of my storytimes are humanistic) in order to balance the scales - and I can't do those because I don't have the necessary materials to do so.

Many libraries deal with the problem by simply not having storytimes around the winter holiday break - reasons given are that lots of staffers are on vacation, it's a dead time of year with patrons being out of town or hosting relatives - but I am here consistently, and I like to have the option available for people who need something to remain consistent and scheduled through the seasonal frenzy.  

So what do I do?  So far, I've ignored it completely.  I tend to do a "winter" theme - this year it's snow-storms.  I do feel a little sad that I can't read "The Night Before Christmas" to a group of adorable children, or that I can't show any of the beautifully-illustrated Nativity books to my families.  But I just can't bring myself to do it.  As a private person, I'll read those stories and love them, regardless of my personal beliefs, because I can appreciate the beauty in them as something separate.  If a patron requests Christmas books, I'll find them the best ones I can, and enjoy the recommendation process.  But with storytime, I have a whole group as a captive and un-knowing audience - they don't know what I'm going to read beforehand, and they really can't leave in the middle of things.  Because I can't know my patrons' relationships with religion, because they're stuck with my readings, I feel I need to stay scrupulously secular.

Thankfully, there are reams of excellent books to choose from, including the three I read today!

Started with Blizzard, reviewed yesterday.

Cat and Mouse in the Snow

Tomek Bogacki

ISBN: 0374311927

Series title, textural painted "furry" sibling cats and sibling mice play in the snow.

I use this pretty consistently every winter, because it's short and sweet and has lots of movement and flow in the narration.  The illustrations are grey and brown and white and could be dreary, but always manage to have enough energy and dynamic focus to keep from being bland.  A cat and mouse head out to play one morning in their meadow, but find a snow-covered landscape.  They search for the green meadow, but fall down a snow-mound and are covered in snow, whereupon their siblings (mice and cats) emerge and are frightened by the two "monsters" until they also fall down the snow-mound, are equally covered in snow, and proceed to play together all evening.  Sweet, no drama, no bad behavior from anyone.

Big Snow

Jonathan Bean (Building Our House)

ISBN: 9780374306960

A boy pesters his mom about an incoming snowstorm through the day.  Sketchy, color-blocky.

I love the opening and closing spreads of the neighborhood, comparing them before the snow (please note the sad sled being pulled in dead grass) and after the snow makes everything soft and indistinct.

I also love the mom, who is unfailingly kind to her distracted child even when his "help" with the chores simply makes her own work harder.  

I also love that the story managed to get some freaky snowstorm-inside-the-house imaginary scenes in there as a dream sequence - very Jumanji-like, but having it framed as a dream means the story itself remains very true to life.  

Good pacing, good character movement and posture, and a fun story as much about anticipation as it is about snowy days.  

  

  

New Picture Book: Blizzard, John Rocco

Blizzard
John Rocco
ISBN: 9781423178651
Norman-Rockwell Americana in a pint-sized snowy adventure.

This was adorable.  We're taken back to the past, when a freak blizzard blew through our narrator's town, burying it in over 4 feet of snow in one afternoon.  At first, this was a great treat (school let out early, snowmen and snowforts galore) but after a couple of days of being snowed-in, spirits start to settle, and the food starts getting tight.

In a heroic (and adorable) bid to save the family from gustatory boredom, our narrator sets out across the blizzarded neighborhood to fetch groceries for his family and for the neighbors.  A full-spread page of his perambulations through the neighborhood make it clear that this was not some dire mission, but an adventurous trek - there might be a few detours and digressions along the way.  Still, every journey must end, and the alert reader will be happy to note the grocers kindly phoning back home to report on the adventurer's progress.  Back home again, tired and thrilled with victory, and a reward of cocoa WITH MILK as the capper for the event.

The illustrations are really what makes this book.  It's like Rockwell illustrated a picture book.  Slightly tongue-in-cheek, laser focus on the simple joys of life and of a mythological "simpler time" in the past, a keen childs'-eye-viewpoint, and bright colors and traditional lines that manage to not be garish or overdone.

Really beautiful, and perfect for a storytime for our blizzard-less southern kids.  

Biography: Neil Patrick Harris, Choose Your Own Autobiography

Neil Patrick Harris: Choose Your Own Autobiography
Neil Patrick Harris
ISBN: 9780385346993
A biography of NPH that is, actually, in Choose Your Own Adventure format.

I used up so many sticky-notes on this book.

Way back in the mists of time, I read Choose Your Own Adventure books, usually of the Indiana Jones variety, and let me tell you - Indy is a super-hero, because I read those books with the movies in mind, and every choice I could make, I chose like Indy.  I DIED ALL THE TIME.  Every time, I died, usually before the adventure even started.  What the heck kind of adventure was this if an adventurous character couldn't even get into it properly?

The only way I could make it to a "good" ending was if I literally searched out ALL the endings, found the SINGLE GOOD ENDING (compared to about a dozen or so really unfortunate ones, and about three or so iffy ones) and proceeded to work backwards by marking page-numbers.  And you know what I found?  The only way to get to a good ending was to choose the most boring and non-adventurous answer there was, every single time.  That's bullshit.  

Thankfully, this Choose Your Own Autobiography is not bullshit, because NPH has had a wonderful life, and has made some really adventurous choices, and very few of them end up in tragic unfortunate demises (although you might want to watch out for a redux of Joss Whedon, or on Sesame Street - apparently trying to re-experience a magical collaboration is a death sentence).  My only complaint is that I think I killed a small tropical tree owned by 3M keeping track of my progress in order to make sure that I read the whole thing.

If you want to read bits-and-pieces of NPH's life and family and acting and hosting and singing and magic (although not much of the magic, as he plays his tricks close to his vest) then this is a perfect little book.  I almost want to seed it through waiting rooms across the country, as a protest against three-seasons-outdated-issues of WebMD's pamphlets, recipe-optional Woman's Days, and threadbare Sports Illustrated with defaced photos of sports players.  It was great to just read a few segments at a time and then set it down to work or live life myself.

If you want to actually go through his (scuse me, "your") life chronologically, then honey, you're in for a bit of work.  It should be possible, but I limited myself to simply being thorough, and after a very Time Traveler's Wife sort of life, went back and tried to re-assemble the actual chronology in my head (most likely super-incorrectly).  That approach alone meant that it took me a whole day longer to make sure I'd hit everything.  If you read slowly, or don't have as good a memory for what you read, it might be more frustrating (there are places where it doubles back and re-uses footage, as a good Choose Your Own Adventure does) but it's still a fun adventure.

I am happy to say that through grit, persistence, genre-savvy, and rampant cheating I got through unscathed (and un-quicksanded) to the grand musical finale.  Have to say, I'm pretty thrilled with the life!
    

 

Tuesday Storytime: Trucks

Yeah, I know, why pick this theme for this time of year.  I felt like it.  :)


Tough Trucks
Tony Mitton (Dinosaurumpus), illustrated by Ant Parker
ISBN: 0753456001
Anthro-animals work with slightly cartoonish trucks on jobs with very metered verse blocks.

I really like this one for the vocabulary: study, accelerate, "weave and wend," piston, liquids... really interesting and potentially unfamiliar words for little ones.  The rhyme is solid (sometimes a bit too solid) and perhaps a bit plodding, but it works for the measured pace of the very loose framework of "trucks and truckers working at jobs."  Because the characters are all various animals, there's no indication of gender, except for a waitress-cat wearing a frilly apron.  I would have preferred to see frills on a couple of the truckers/workers or a gender-neutral apron on the wait-staffer, but at least they are animals, so one can plead that they are multi-gendered.


I Love Trucks!
Philemon Sturges, illustrated by Shari Halpern
ISBN: 0060278196
Multi-gendered, multi-ethnic drivers and characters fill a tiny town full of types of trucks.

Our narrator for this very short and simple trucking celebration is a kid playing with trucks in a sandbox, describing various types of truckish jobs that get done while the blocky, primary-colored artwork keeps the environment simple and straighforward and very appealing.  The best-loved truck is an ice-cream truck, so if you're in a rural or ice-cream-truck-less area, be prepared for some really intense questions about trucks that dispense ice-cream.


Trucks Roll!
George Ella Lyon, illustrated by Craig Frazier (Stanley Mows the Lawn)
ISBN: 9781416924357
Abstracted and graphically-intense scenes in forced-perspective or otherwise intriguing compositions.

This is my favorite truck book from today, and might be my favorite truck book in general.  Frazier's graphic art is just phenomenal, and everything from the endpapers (in that bright burnt-yellow industrial corrugated-iron pattern) to the movement and energy blasting out of his pages just makes me so energized and happy as a reader.  The storyline isn't amazing - it isn't really a story, and is really very like Tough Trucks as far as ideas go, but here we stick with trucks on the road, and what they might carry (wild cargoes like rabbits or giant cookies under tarps) and it works much better to have our focus limited to road trucking.  What also works much better is the rhyme and cadence here - we get shorter rhymes and so less interesting vocab, but the words and phrases just leap out, with the coda "Trucks roll" becoming more and more impressive til we reach the end.  Finally, the idea of having the "Trucks stop" in the middle of the book, and ending at dawn (another bravura graphic design, with the shadows on the trucker, the steam on the coffee, and even the hood-ornament as a bird reaching for the sky, all with bright yellow and orange sun rays streaming across) is really brilliant, and a nice change from the usual choice of stopping at "bedtime."   Love this book.

New Arrivals: Juv Nonfiction/Picture Book: Some Bugs, Angela DiTerlizzi, Brendan Wenzel

Some Bugs
Angela DiTerlizzi, illustrations by Brendan Wenzel
ISBN: 9781442458802
Super cute, super short, and lively primary-colored pages with LOTS of energy and movement.

This one is going straight to the storytime list.  I can't wait to do another Bugs storytime to set this into as my middle book.  It's super short, and the pictures are amazing.  We're easy on plot this time around: just a continuing narrative that rhymes over spreads "Some bugs sting.  Some bugs bite.  Some bugs stink. / And some bugs FIGHT!"  We get lots of different kinds of bugs, in a vivid version of a natural habitat, and set up so that they're easily identifiable with the aid of the "What's That Bug?" page on the end (a brilliant idea, by the way).  We do have a spider or two (not bugs!) but given the aim for the youngest naturalists, I'll let that slide.  Expect to see this one coming up in the Storytime rotation sometime this spring when I get all naturalistic and inspired by the warm weather.

JuvFiction: A Different Twist, Elizabeth Levy

A Different Twist
Elizabeth Levy
ISBN: 0590332295
(Published originally by Apple/Scholastic in 1984, based on a teleplay by Dianne Dixon as an ABC weekend special by Scholastic Productions)

Found this via someone searching for an old book remembered from childhood.  I didn't read it myself back then, but it seems like it would have been right up my alley.

Basic bones: Christi is an aspiring actress/singer, and she's delighted when her actor crush Phil Grey comes to her hometown to direct a staging of Oliver! - until she learns that he's only casting local boys in the "urchin chorus."  She and her best friend Lizbeth hatch a plot for Christi to become Chris - which works perfectly well until Christi's scruples, as well as the more technical difficulties of playing a boy in a theatre environment (dressing rooms, close quarters) force her to reveal herself the night of the dress rehearsal.

Overall, pretty good, if really stereotypical and quickly paced.  I can tell that it was originally a tv performance, because of the very visual and action-oriented scenes that weren't really necessary - the wheelie and the constant prat-falling being the main tells.  I enjoyed the contrast in relations between Christi and Lizbeth, and between Chris and her new stage friends, and with her parents.

It even managed to not date itself horribly - there are no mentions of anything technological in any detail that would date horribly, and even the attitude towards ear-piercing is looked at as a personal view, not as a society or cultural thing.

A cute, light-hearted read.    

New Arrivals: Picture Book: Dragon's Extraordinary Egg, Debi Gliori

Too cute for words.

Dragon's Extraordinary Egg
Debi Gliori
ISBN: 9780802737595
First published in UK as "Dragon Loves Penguin"
Textural, close-up views, colorful drawn characters reminds strongly of Mo Willems' Pigeon books.

A penguin is telling her young chick a bedtime story.  This story is epic and filled with mystery and fantasy - a clan of dragons lives on top of a frozen volcano, while penguins live down below on the ice.  An eggless dragon spies an abandoned egg on the ice, adopts it, raises it, and teaches the very undragon-like creature (spoilers: its a penguin) how to live happily among dragons, until one day when the penguin notices a certain change in the temperature that the thicker-scaled siblings and friends don't notice.  At the end, a character returns in a surprise cameo, revealing a much closer relationship between the current happily-listening chick and the amazing story (or history) being told.

A bit on the long side for storytime, sadly.  It's hard to get adoption-friendly stories that aren't polemics or utterly treacly (sorry, I Love You Like Crazy Cakes, but the shoe fits) or really specific.  This one is just cute and outre enough to be enjoyable for most kids, but with a special pop of meaning for anyone adopted (or really, anyone who feels like they just don't fit in with their family).

New Arrivals: Picture Book: Three Bears in a Boat, David Soman

Three Bears in a Boat

David Soman (Ladybug Girl and Bumblebee Boy)

ISBN: 9780803739932

Nautical and expressive bear cubs in soft-wash environments, navigating tricky emotions.

Our bear protagonists are siblings, and so you know from the start that there are certain kinds of trouble that it takes good friends or blood-relatives to get into.  After an accident, the trio heads out to repair the damage (and to prevent them from having to fess up).  The sailing isn't always smooth, and the relationship is strained by blame for the accident, but shared peril and misery are always great to put things in perspective.  Our intrepid wanderers come back, somewhat the worse for wear, and find what they were looking for was always right at home (which, in picture book land, is about as good of a moral as you can get).  Special props for the anxious and clingy mother bear at the end, who adults will realize has been much more exercised over the missing cubs than over the broken trinket.

Unsurprisingly from the deft creator of Ladybug Girl, these siblings have good hearts and good intentions, but we see in this story that emotions and circumstances can bring out the worst in even the best of us.  Showing how they rely on each other, forgive each other, and take responsibility (shared) for the inciting problem is a great visual (and so very visual - check out those postures and faces and emotional colorings) to give to little kids who are still figuring out all this complicated emotional and relationship stuff, with brains that aren't even done growing yet.  Sometimes I think that picture books like these that show empathy and emotional connections might even do a lot of grown-ups good.

  

Nonfiction: The Victorian City, Judith Flanders

The Victorian City: Everyday Life in Dickens' London
Judith Flanders
ISBN: 9781250040213
An exhaustive overview of life for the poor and lower-middle classes in London.

This book has taken me AGES to finish, and it wasn't that it was uninteresting, it was that it was enormous.  424 pages of text, and another almost hundred more of notations, references, and indexing.  Good grief.

She covers everything, in a mostly organized manner (I never did quite figure out what relation the vignettes at the beginnings of each section were meant to have in common with the section itself) and is honest about sources and conjectures and what we think we know and what we actually do know.

If anyone is planning to write about the City during this time-period, this is a worthy investment, and seems to be the sort where if you can't find the exact details of what you need here, you'll certainly find the research to lead you where you need to go.

I'm glad I read it, and I enjoyed it, but I'm glad to see the end of it - I feel like I've been slogging through the City myself, and am desperate for some fresh air and a change of scenery.

Tuesday Storytime: Winter

Even though it rarely snows down here, I feel like it's important for storytimes to show different places and different experiences.  These are three fun, wintery, snowy-day stories to show how different the seasons can be.

It's Winter!
Linda Glaser, cut-paper scenes by Susan Swan
ISBN: 0761317597
Extremely detailed, slightly stylized scenes with bright contrasts focus on the natural world in winter.

A perky (possibly asian) girl is our host for this tour of winter in the Northern USA, beginning with late autumn and the first snow-fall, and ending with the barest beginnings of spring snow-melt.  We see a few human-centric activities (catching snowflakes, sledding, making snowpeople) but the focus is on the natural world and what the animals and environment is doing.  The illustrations are crazy-detailed, with a stylized edge to them that makes them just sharp enough to avoid being cutesy.  Really good overview for the length, and an excellent jumping-off-point.


Hibernation Station
Michelle Meadows, illustrated by Kurt Cyrus
ISBN: 9781416937883
Adorable fuzzy woodland creatures (and the odd frog) dress in jammies and attempt to cozy up.

This one is short and sweet, with much of the interest in the busy overstuffed illustrations (very similar in feel to Jan Brett) that show the various animals failing at falling asleep for the winter in their cramped communal log.  After much whining, protesting, last minute complaining, and general unhappiness, the bears (the conductors) marshal the troops, rearrange the sleeping quarters and roommates, pass out last-minute snackies, issue kisses and hugs and snuggles, and get everyone tucked in properly for the winter.  Did I mention that it was adorable?  I've done this one before, and I'm sure I'll do it again.  This one also got picked to go home to older siblings, which is always nice to have happen.


Winter is the Warmest Season
Lauren Stringer (Deer Dancer)
ISBN: 0152049673
Plump, cozy, fluffy illustrations show why winter is actually warmer.

This is a favorite, and it went over just as well today as usual.  Several kids caught the title, and were instantly disagreeing with the premise.  They enjoyed the slight cozy subversion.  Our narrator (gender ambiguous) walks us through their reasons why winter is warmer: from hot cocoa to fuzzy mittens to cats who deign to sleep on laps now that the windowsills are too cold.  These are usually contrasted with summer activities or analogues, so cold summer pools contrast with hot winter baths, and cold jelly sandwiches with toasted cheese.  A great ending to the storytime, and a fun read overall.

New Arrivals: Juv Nonfiction: Dozer's Run by Debbie Levy, Rosana Panza, David Opie

Dozer's Run: A True Story of a Dog and his Race
Debbie Levy with Rosana Panza, illustrated by David Opie
ISBN: 9781585368969
A dogs'-eye-view of the world makes this story of an unlikely marathon participant more vibrant.

I really like this book, but I don't think it's well suited for Storytime, because of all the questions it raises (which is a common difficulty with true-life books - real life being not inclined to wrap up nicely or explain itself handily in the confines of a picture book).  Despite that, this is an adorable story of a strange afternoon when a suburban dog decided to join the half-marathon in Highland, Maryland.  He jumped straight in from his yard, and ran to the finish line, then almost as quickly, vanished back home.  After donations flooded in under his name (people sponsored individual runners to raise money), the organizers tracked him down, and named him an honorary mascot.

The text is very much from a dog-like perspective, which is odd considering it isn't from Dozer's viewpoint (unless the author believes that dogs think about themselves in the third person) but does add a bit of charm and possible rationale to an otherwise un-explainable event.  The story incorporates information from runners on the route, from organizers, and from the family, to piece together how the run might have gone, and giving a basic narrative of events that is straightforward, even when it doesn't offer explanations.

The art is pleasant, but the people all have very oddly-shaped faces and heads.  Not really unpleasant, just noticeable.  Scenes are nicely composed, but perhaps less vital and active than they could have been.

New Arrivals: Juv Nonfiction: Ashley Bryan's Puppets, Ashley Bryan & Rich Entel

Ashley Bryan's Puppets
Ashley Bryan, photographs by Rich Entel
ISBN: 9781442487284
Poems and close-up photographs of "found-object" puppets and dolls.

As an adult, and someone who is overly invested in the re-use portion of steampunk creative philosophy, and someone who really enjoys puppetry and strange objects of art and play, this is a really interesting book.

As a child, I would have been freaked right out.  These puppets are some creepy creatures.  Many of them are made with old bones or shells or antlers or strangely twisted organic shapes of driftwood, with strange eyes (often pupil-less) and oddly distorted features.  They all have names and stories (which are also often odd), and come in groups organized by some underlying theme or through-line that I'm not able to discern.

I spent a good while poring over the creatures, and I really do like them.  They remind me strongly of the creatures built to inhabit the world of the Dark Crystal and Labyrinth movies, or of del Toro's strange imaginations.  For some, that might be a warning, for others, an invitation.

I don't know that I'd keep it from a kid if they were interested, but I think I would be prepared to deal with nightmares afterwards.

Very odd, very peculiar.

Photo-Biographical: Behind the Scenes, Judi Dench

Behind the Scenes
Judi Dench
ISBN: 9781250071118

A lovely photo book about a lovely and talented actress.  I've always looked up to her, and reading through this book of photographs and her anecdotes and memories about her family and her craft and her career (and her co-workers) was truly enjoyable.

Tuesday Storytime: Arrrr, Pirates!

There are a lot of pirate books out there, and it's always fun to read through them, and try to find ones that are short enough, funny enough, and different enough from each other to do an entire storytime.

How I Became a Pirate

Melinda Long, illustrated by David Shannon (Nicholas Pipe)

ISBN: 0152018484

The No, David! illustrator graphically (and sometimes grossly) caricatures ebullient pirates.

Jeremy Jacob is on the beach, digging a moat, minding his own business, when Braid Beard the pirate (love that name) swoops in, declares him a perfect digger for their treasure, and sweeps him off onto a pirate ship for adventures all day long.  No parents, no manners, no vegetables!  It's all fun and games until bedtime, where there's no story, no tucking in, and no goodnight kiss - and that's all before the giant storm that everyone's too busy to comfort him about!  Inspiration strikes, and Jeremy Jacob manages to get back home, and do the pirates a favor into the bargain.

The Night Pirates

Peter Harris, illustrated by Deborah Allwright

ISBN: 9780439799591

Lucky Tom gets to tag along with a pirate crew of little girls as they stealthily steal a treasure.  

Awake one moonlit night, Tom notices a band of pirates (little girl pirates!) stealing the front of his house as a disguise.  He tags along on a fairly straightforward short jaunt to a pirate island, where the grown-up pirates are routed, treasure stolen, and little girls return Tom (and the front of his house) back home safely.  Very interesting artwork - sort of collage-like with different paper patterns and textures with superimposed figures.

A Pirate's Guide to First Grade

James Preller, illustrated by Greg Ruth

ISBN: 9780312369286

Ghostly "imaginary" mateys accompany this young swab to his first day of school, narrated in pirate.

I love the "pirate" narration, and the illustrations are clear and open enough to carry the meaning when the words don't make sense to the little ones.  I love that the imaginary mateys are enthusiastic adults.  I love his green jolly-roger shirt, and "Old Silver" the Captain (teacher).  The characters are diverse without seeming to be effortful, the day progresses quickly, and the text is minimal (printed in "piratical" font, but in a larger-than-normal size to make reading to a group easier).  Really fun to read, and an excellently inventive concept that really stands out from the crowd of pirate fare.

New Picture Books: Winter is Coming, Tony Johnston

I saw a review for this earlier in the year, and have been waiting for it ever since.  I'm happy to say that while it isn't what I expected, it is absolutely beautiful, an amazing message, and a delight to read and pore over the illustrations.

Winter is Coming
Tony Johnston, illustrated by Jim LaMarche (The Carpenter's Gift)
ISBN: 9781442472518
Breathtaking colored pencil, acrylic, and ink artwork is utterly entrancing.  Beautiful.

This book is SOOOO PRETTY!  The premise is pretty slim - a naturalist girl (armed with sketchpads, binoculars, and notebooks) heads out into the woods as fall changes to winter, watching and recording the behaviors and appearances of the animals as they prepare for the rough season ahead.  Some of the thoughts and comments are a little bit stilted or odd, coming supposedly from a pre-pubescent narrator, but that is easily forgiven considering the underlying messages of peaceful observation, of awareness of the cycles and lives of animals in their natural habitats, and of conservation and protection.

But you guys, this book is flat out, drop dead, utterly breathtakingly heart-rendingly GORGEOUS.  The colors, the girl in her varied outfits as the days pass by, the animals and birds, the sketchy but detailed woods and fields.  Just makes my heart ache that I can't draw.

Unreservedly recommended.

Graphic Novel (two Trade collections) Thor, God of Thunder: The God Butcher & Godbomb; Jason Aaron & Esad Ribic

I've been slowly dipping my toe back into reading serialized comics again (God help me), starting with the new Thor (she's lovely! - but only two issues so far) and the "off-duty" Hawkeye series.  I heard good things about this one, and thought I'd give it a whirl, as it's a fairly-stand-alone story.

Thor: God of Thunder; Vol.1: The God Butcher
Writer: Jason Aaron
Artist: Esad Ribic
Color Artists: Dean White & Ive Svorcina
Letterer: VC's Joe Sabino
Graphic Novel: collecting Thor: God of Thunder, issues 1-5


Thor: God of Thunder; Vol. 2: Godbomb
Writer: Jason Aaron
Artist: Esad Ribic
Pencils: Butch Guice
Inks: Tom Palmer
Color Artist: Ive Svorcina
Letterer: VC's Joe Sabino
Graphic Novel: collecting Thor: God of Thunder, issues 6-11


In this graphic collection, we get not one, not two, but THREE Thors!

We first encounter our God of Thunder many thousands of years in the past, before he has become worthy of wielding Mjolnir, and has to make do with flying goats and the great axe Jarnbjorn.  Poor guy.  He's on earth, enjoying the adoration and warmaking of the early Vikings, when he gets his first indication that something is very wrong with the universe, as an encounter quickly becomes deadly.

Next up is of course Thor of the Avengers in the present day (whenever that happens to be), familiar to most via the recent Marvel movies.  He's tooling around the universe, and stops to answer a child's prayer for rain - the gods of her world have stopped answering them.  Naturally brash and curious, Thor investigates, and to his shock, he's dragged into another deadly encounter with a foe he had long-ago forgotten, back on earth.

Finally, we get Ancient Thor, a dead ringer for Odin (and about as snarky) who weilds Mjolnir in an abandoned and ruined Asgard, pinned down and repeatedly tormented by inky liquid void creatures who won't ever kill him, but leave him there to rot in bitter solitude.


From these introductions, we gradually learn, as Thor does, the story of a disillusioned young person who becomes ever more bitter and vengeful, until he finds great power and uses it to revenge his slights.  As he travels his dark road, he becomes so much worse than the evils he set out to annihilate.

There is time-travel here, and it's handled decently well (I was grateful to the call-outs to the X-Men's greater familiarity with such things, and with the inevitable forgetting that occurs to prevent this being expected by the elder two Thors).

I will say the climactic sequence was a little confusing with multiple iterations of the same person flying about being Godlike, in what I think were several different locations.

Still, the gist of the story was always clear, the character(s) of Thor are actually amazingly differentiated, there are secondary characters who are interesting and seem to have lives outside of their appearances here.

There is also drama and humor, evil and benevolence, great power to overcome or co-opt, a villain that is always treated sympathetically by the text, even as he's being pummeled by Gods, and an underlying question of whether these "gods" even deserve to be named such and worshipped (said question is left unanswered, in a bravura moment of introspection by a normally less-than-thoughtful Thor).  

Not bad for a comic book, huh?

Graphic Novel (Trade collection) Wonder Woman: The Circle, Gail Simone

Wonder Woman: The Circle
Gail Simone
Pencils: Terry Dodson, Bernard Chang, Ron Randall
Inks: Rachel Dodson, Bernard Chang, Ron Randall, Jon Holdridge
Colors: Alex Sinclair, I.L.L., Lee Loughridge, Pete Pantazis
Letters: Rob Leigh, Travis Landham, John J. Hill
ISBN: 9781401219321
Finished November 24, 2014


This one has been on my desk for months, but for some reason, intelligent apes and super-Nazis just bugged me too much, and I never got rolling with it until today.  The Nazi's and apes petered out pretty quickly, but I'm still confused by pretty much everything that happened in the modern world, and would have been totally happy to stay on the island (in the past and the present) to watch the political / religious / jealous intrigue work itself out over time.

Tuesday Storytime: Thanksgiving

I love Thanksgiving storytimes.  There are so many good and interesting Thanksgiving books to hunt through and familiarize myself with, and it's lovely to have them all up on display to tempt patrons to check them out.  However, finding books that suit my particular style and age-group is a little harder, and I've fallen back on a few favorites over the years.  This year is no exception.

A Plump and Perky Turkey

Teresa Bateman, illustrated by Jeff Shelly

ISBN: 0761451889

Cartoonish, crowded spreads and vignettes capture loads of energy, expression, and emotion.

This one is just barely short enough for my kids to handle - it's got some impressive chunks of rhyme in it, and I wonder if the little ones are actually catching the story itself, but no matter if they don't quite get it.  Squawk Valley has not managed to procure any turkeys for their communal Thanksgiving Feast, because the birds have wised up and fled.  Instead of hunkering down to bowls of shredded wheat, the townies decide to lure a bird in by pretending they need a model for a "turkey-themed" art fair.  Pete the clever turkey (a very large part of me deeply wishes that he'd been named Tom) decides he's just the bird for the job, models and preens and eats his fill - then skips out right before dinner.  The ending is a tad quick, and therefore a bit anti-climactic, but it's still a funny take on Thanksgiving turkey shenanigans, without the problematic kidnapping flavor of Eve Bunting's A Turkey for Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving Cats

Jean Marzollo, illustrated by Hans Wilhelm

ISBN: 0590037145

Soft-edged and soft-colored "vintage" drawings show happy cats prepping and enjoying a rustic feast.

I've used this book three years in a row now, and I am still quite happy with it.  It's short, snappy, the pictures are adorable, and the storyline is easy to follow as we see "Farmer cats" harvesting veggies, fruits, and dairy, and then "Kitchen cats" prepping them all into lovely foods, all the while "farmer kittens" and "kitchen kittens" play around underfoot.  I love that there seems to be a purposeful presentation of both farm and kitchen cats as being both genders.  Adorable, short, and sweet.

Thanks for Thanksgiving

Julie Markes (Good Thing You're Not an Octopus), illustrated by Doris Barrette

ISBN: 9780060510985

Rich saturate colors call to mind Victorian holiday cards, featuring child-focused scenes.

This is another that I've used for several years running, and again, I continue to be quite happy with it.  The length is perfect, the illustrations are lovely and clear, and the language is simple without being cloying or cutesy.  The concept is roughly like a prayer, but the "Thank you" phrasing is non-religious and non-directed.  Each spread offers thanks for a situation or scene that is relevant and understandable to a child; "Thank you for play dates, for swings and for slides" and "Thank you for Mommy, and warm, cozy cuddles." A perfect ending for storytime, and a nice contemplative and gratitude-filled read.

Nonfiction, Microhistories: How We Got to Now, Steven Johnson

Related to a PBS special, this book is oddly flat, especially considering the interesting innovations and conceptual foundations it deals with.  It took me several weeks to finish, which is rare for me - I kept putting it down and procrastinating getting back to it.

How We Got to Now: Six Innovations that Made the Modern World
Steven Johnson
ISBN: 9781594632969
Finished November 24, 2014

Our six innovations are:
Glass
Cold
Sound
Clean
Time
and
Light

The idea is that while individual "gee whiz" inventions like lights or phonographs or detergent are really great and all, what really matters to society and the development of culture and technological advances are the underlying relations between scientific concepts, and that the area of the "near possible" - the stuff that is just close enough to current technology and social mores to imagine - drives the great majority of the underlying stuff we all take for granted as part of a modern world.

Interesting idea, but somehow the execution of it just fell a bit flat for me.  I don't know if it was because it's tied-in to a television series, and the passion and energy went towards the visuals and the presentation there, but it just didn't click with me.

Still, really nifty information, and that concept of the "near possible" is a newly named one for me, and one I'm going to keep in mind.

New Nonfiction Picture Books: Ferris Wheels, Edward Hooper, the Holocaust, and Ocean Navigation

A varied set of books today, and all of these were notable, and beautiful.

All of these are technically biographies, but all of them are listed as nonfiction in their respective subject matters, which I prefer.

From the least to most profound:

Mr Ferris and His Wheel
Kathryn Gibbs Davis, illustrated by Gilbert Ford
ISBN: 9780547959221
Lovely light-infused spreads showcase the challenges and the glory of the first Ferris Wheel.

The illustrations here really are spectacular, but the story is well-paced and clearly presented.  After the Eiffel Tower stole the show at the Paris World Fair, Chicago was in a panic to find something extraordinary to present the very next year that would not leave American reputations in the dust.  After a failed contest to spark new ideas, the committee finally gave Mr Ferris permission (but no money) to attempt his monstrous wheel, which everyone expected to be a folly at best, and a hazard at worst.  Everyone expected it to fail, but they underestimated the strength and utility of the newly produced steelworks.  After months of labor (grittily illustrated in sepia) the wheel rose majestically into the sky, worked perfectly, entranced the nation, and inspired copies to be built across the county.  A sources section gives the origins of specific quotations, but could have used a larger bibliography.


Dare the Wind: the Record-Breaking Voyage of Eleanor Prentiss and the Flying Cloud
Tracy Fern, illustrated by Emily Arnold McCully
ISBN: 9780374316990
Beautiful watercolors in striking compositions enlivens a straighforward tale of sailing.

Ellen (Eleanor) Prentiss was trained by her sea-faring father in the arts of sailing and navigation, at a time when most women remained in the home.  After marrying another sailor, the two joined forces as captain and navigator, which became useful when they purchased an experimental clipper ship (designed for speed at sea) and discovered an experimental "scientific method" of following better winds and ocean currents to achieve better travel times between far-flung ports.  At this time, the only way to get from New York to San Fran by sea was to go alllllll the way around South America first.  Ellen Prentiss and her husband shattered the record of roughly four months by making the same voyage in just under 90 days, then years later, cutting nearly another day off her own record.   A beautiful book, with a fun, fast-paced story of an adventurer and scientist, pushing boundaries and making history in the process.


Edward Hopper Paints His World
Robert Burleigh, illustrated by Wendell Minor (How Big Could Your Pumpkin Grow?)
ISBN: 9780805087529
Loving re-creations (and re-imaginings) of Hopper's work do a lot to add resonance to a narrative that strives a bit too hard for deeper meaning.

An excellent early biography of a famous American painter (Hopper's most generally-known work is Nighthawks, showing a pair of well-dressed patrons at a 24/hour diner with a white-clad cook, surrounded by the darkness of city streets at night) is straightforward and direct, but has a very odd, somewhat off-putting way of forcing the reader to consider things in a deeper way.  Not content to present the life and paintings of the artist in context, the narration tries to force a connection between the artist and the subjects he painted, and the style of his paintings.  Perhaps the background is there to support it, but it felt forced and slightly pretentious.  Still, the paintings in the book are beautiful, and do a great deal to support and magnify the biographical information.


Gifts from the Enemy
Trudy Ludwig, illustrated by Craig Orback
ISBN: 9781935952978
Haunting oil-paintings and expressive faces carry this slim hopeful narrative of the Holocaust.

It is really hard to make a picture book about some subjects, but it is equally important that somehow we make difficult subjects and hard conversations in a way that children impacted by them can feel seen and justified. (Eve Bunting has been involved in many books of this nature, but even with her masterful touch, most of them are just way too haunting and shattering for me to feel comfortable presenting them to children)  The Holocaust has always seemed like one of those topics that a picture book just can't handle effectively for smaller children.  This book has changed my mind.  Our narrator begins as an elderly man, recounting in clear but understated language how the persecution began, turned to oppression, and then to extermination.  Still, in the midst of terror and hunger and persecution, he found an ally in a German woman who left him food daily, in defiance of posted orders.  This act of compassion, and that gift of food, made him realize that the very stereotypes that allowed Germans to persecute Jews for their "differences" was making him hate all Germans for evil actions they may not have know about, or may be acting against to the best of their ability.  The story ends on this note of hope and peace and compassion.  A short Afterword uses much stronger language to present the deprivation and fear he faced, but reiterates the message of understanding and peace.  A short paragraph explains the Holocaust itself, and a Vocabulary explains the concepts presented in the story.  A final spread includes Questions for Discussion, and Recommended Activities for Young Readers.

Tuesday Storytime: Creativity and Hard Work

This storytime was inspired way back in spring of this year when I was looking through STEM-related books for our Summer Reading Program.  I found this in late spring, and reviewed it in June, and I finally got to use it today.

The Most Magnificent Thing

Ashley Spires

ISBN: 9781554537044

A girl inventor and her pug battle through the struggle to get your inventions to 'just go right' in a series of comic-book vignettes of cartoon-outlined figures and minimalist spaces.

This book is a really excellent representation of so many important things, it's hard to know where to start.  

First, the inventor is a girl, who invents with no help or input from other people, or even parental figures. 

Second, the process of invention is clear and un-idealized, from initial concept to drawing to the sometimes drawn-out process of trial-and-error building.  

Thirdly, the book hits on the importance of motivation, persistence, self-soothing, re-evaluating, and finding different approaches, all without being preachy or dragging the story along.  

Fourthly, each of the "wrong" things is shown being "right" for some other use, getting into re-use and repurposing.  

Finally, the constant conflict between the ideal concept in your head, and the physical manifestation of it in the world (which is always worse, because of natural laws and applicable skill-levels, and is never really understood by anyone else, because they can't see inside your head) is explained so very well for a younger set.

LOVE.

Beautiful Oops

Barney Saltzberg

ISBN: 9780761157281

Board-Book with flaps, "tears" "folds" "spills" and other imperfections and damage, used creatively to become artistic expressions.

I really hesitated to use this book for a few reasons.  First, it's a board-book, so about 6" square - a bit on the small side for group use.  Second, it's got all sorts of flip-out, fold-down, turn-over, open-up, stretch-out fiddly bits on each page, which are awesome, but difficult for me to manipulate and still focus on the presentation of the book.  Third, well, here's where things get philosophical.  The concept of the book is that "oops" moments like spilled paint or torn paper or folded corners or food stains aren't necessarily bad things, and can be used as a springboard for creativity.  Which is a great lesson - for things that are your own (ie, not library books, as this is), and if you weren't wanting to preserve the state of the original thing as it's own work of artistic creation (ie, like a finished picture book, as this is).  So, I was really hesitant, but I loved the concept, and decided to just go with it, and I'm glad I did, because the kids and parents really loved it.  I'm still a little iffy over having maybe presented a subtle argument that damaging library materials is really ok because it can be "fixed" with creativity, but I'll just hope for the best.  

(This is ending up as a very list-heavy posting today.)

The Dot

Peter H. Reynolds
ISBN: 0763619612

Scribbly-drawn black and white characters with loose sloppy colors marking emotionally important concepts or moments.

An older book, but still very good.  Vashti (excellent name for our protagonist, and again a girl creator) does NOT draw, and when her teacher insists, she stabs the paper with her marker, creating a violent (but very small) dot.  The teacher insists she sign it, and the next day, it's hanging in an ornate frame behind the teacher's desk.  Inspired (or more appropriately, challenged) Vashti embarks on an artistic journey of dottyifying.  Colorful dots, big dots, little dots, negative-space dots (amazing description in kid-language for that endeavor), great big enormous dots.  At the art showcase, her works are admired by a younger boy who also "can't draw" but she encourages him to create one small work, and then on the very last page, to "sign it."  Really deep thoughts about the perceived "professional" status of artists, about the difficulty of trying something new, about being personally challenged, about legitimacy, and all wrapped up in a lovely picture book that event the toddlers enjoy.  Excellent work all around.

Next week is Thanksgiving!

Motivational Biography: The Art of Asking, by Amanda Palmer

The Art of Asking
Amanda Palmer
ISBN: 9781455581085
Read November 10, 2014

Basically everything I want to say about this book was said better and faster by Cory Doctorow in his article/review/philosophical musings hosted by The New Statesman, published November 11, 2014.  Because I like to link to people rather than organizations as much as possible, you're headed over to his blog, where there's a short snippet and a click-through to the article itself.

Short version for click-averse or in the wilds of the future where links are broken and chaos reigns:

This is a really great biography of Amanda, and an even greater manifesto to artists and really to people in general to just accept that the majority of people are good and helpful, and to quit feeling like it's an imposition to ask people for help or to contribute.  Most people WANT to help, and it's incumbent on us to learn how to ask without being greedy or pompous, but also without needlessly presenting as a terribly guilty shame-faced imposition.  Just bloody ask already.

The impetus for the book came from a duo of TED talks focused on the same subject, and here in the book she attempts to find the reasons why it's so hard for her (and for others) to just ask people for help.  It's a great social commentary, and a really necessary one for the "business" of the arts right now, as everything is in flux and funding is becoming less and less corporate and businesslike and impersonal.

The book left me excited for the future, and hopeful about humanity, and a little bummed at myself that I don't feel at all brave enough to follow her advice.  I hope when/if the time comes, I can summon the courage to Ask.

Fantasy Romance: The Hearts and Thrones Series 2&3, Spy's Honor and Prince's Fire, by Amy Raby

These are the last two of the trilogy published by Signet, but Amy Raby's got a fourth (Healer's Touch) self-published, as well as a novella in e-pub, and another entire mystery series set in the Indus valley in early pre-history.

Anyway, back to the point.

First book in the series (Assassin's Gambit) I read a while ago, and enjoyed it.  It helps that it's a light-hearted fantasy romp, with less romance and more wacky hi-jinks.

These two were added to the collection at the same time, so I was able to read them together, which was nice.  The other wasn't so far back in the mists of memory that I needed to read it again, but I do suggest that you read all three close together, as the characters do pop back and forth through each other's stories (and this continues in the fourth book, based on the excerpt on the author's website).

Spy's Honor (Hearts and Thrones, book 2)
Amy Raby
ISBN: 9780451417831
Read November 8, 2014

Prince's Fire (Hearts and Thrones, book 3)
Amy Raby
ISBN: 9780451417848
Read November 9, 2014


Spy's Honor is the first, chronologically-speaking, and cover's Rhianne's involvement with the Mosari heir to the throne, in disguise as a slave in her Kjallan imperial gardens.  Despite my preference for reading books in chronological order, I have to say that I feel that this series works much like The Chronicles of Narnia, in that the mid-series adventures of Emperor Lucien and Vitala works much better as the entry point, allowing the reader to then go back and see how "history" unfurled to link his cousin with a neighboring (and somewhat hostile) country.

Prince's Fire then jumps into the future, after Lucien has been ruling peacefully for years.  Despite the glorious history (insert sarcasm) of arranged marriages in his immediate family, Lucien has decided to offer his youngest sister, the Imperial Princess Celeste, in marriage to another neighboring prince (less sarcasm here; the first one apparently worked quite well with Rhianne) as the sweet enticement to a trade agreement.  Hearkening back to the first book, Riorca and assassins feature prominently, as does a lovely island nation that bears a striking resemblance to Hawai'i.  The match is fraught with misunderstandings and prejudices on both sides (naturally) but the duo fall in love (equally naturally) in time to prevent another royal coup and save the island from a natural disaster.

Are these amazing works of plotting and characterization?  Nope.  But they're fun, they are quick reads, the plot zips along with just enough speed that you almost don't notice the plot-rails underneath, and the world-building, although derivative, is actually interesting and cohesive.  The magic style (infinite magic powered through personal connections to a spirit realm) isn't my favorite (I much prefer limited and costly magic) but it's coherent and understandable, and actually reflected in the social/political landscape of the books, which is more than I can say for a lot of more "serious" literary fantasy.

Enjoyable and lighthearted - perfect for a fall afternoon.

Storytelling: "Chain" tales; The Scarecrow's Hat, by Ken Brown

The Scarecrow's Hat
Ken Brown
ISBN: 9781561452408
Picture Book: sketchy/blotchy vibrant watercolors illustrate the tireless "swapping" a hen does to secure a scarecrow's hat (swapping items from barnyard and forest animals) til she achieves her goal: a cozy nest.

This book is another that I need to be careful in using, because while I love this particular story dearly, I don't feel comfortable taking the story "as-is" from the lovely text and illustrations here.  I feel like I can build up a knowledge base of similar "chain," "cumulative," or "circular" fairy and folk tales.  With that background, I can then create a similar story with a more overt cultural background or setting.  That way I will have a story that will be mine creatively, that I can tell (and screw up, and embellish, and cut down...) without feeling like I am disrespecting another artist's creation.

The story of The Scarecrow's Hat (as far as I can tell from limited research) is unique, but the concept of swapping items is not, and a visit to the "Chain of Deals" page on TV tropes shows us the concept is alive and well today.  The oldest versions are folk-tales (Aarne-Thompson category 2030 "Chain" folktales) and a decently representative example can be found collected here and here.

What I find interesting about The Scarecrow's Hat specifically, and what I hope to incorporate into my own version, is the concept that the swapping is not punitive (there's lots of chain stories where the only thing being chained is threat of physical harm) nor is it "tricksy" where a character is purposefully trying to gain advantage over others, or play them for fools while he (usually a Clever Jack) comes out ahead.  Instead, the hen is straightforward and perseverant, and her knowledge of the animals and their habits allows her to create a chain that is mutually beneficial and transparent (although none of the animals ask her WHY she is trading, or to whom).

My goals for the moment are to spend a lot of time with these chain tales, to research Appalachian mountain settings and local animals, and to use that research to create a similar mutually-beneficial chain of swaps that echoes the gentle, quietly clever, deeply persistent effort that the hen makes in The Scarecrow's Hat.

Juvenile Nonfiction: The Many Faces of George Washington, Carla Killough McClafferty

(Talk about an awesome name for our author!)

The Many Faces of George Washington: Remaking a Presidential Icon
Carla Killough McClafferty
ISBN: 9780761356080
Re-Read November 7, 2014

This one came back through the library system, and I actually took the time to read through it properly this time around, instead of simply admiring the artistry of the three mannequins that were created.

I suppose I ought to start from the beginning.  So everyone's seen dollar bills, and we all know what George Washington looks like - old, grouchy, and sort of fat-faced.  Except, that's only what he looked like after he WAS old, grouchy, and sort of fat-faced (most likely caused by inflammation due to those awful dentures).  So - what did the people who VOTED for our very first President see in him?  Sadly, we really haven't had any pictorial evidence - all of his portraits are from after he was old and tired, and the one life-cast taken of him was never really used for references, outside of the one specific statue that had commissioned it.

So a mixed group of awesome people got a truly stupendous grant to research this famous man, to use all the artistic and forensic and re-creative tools at our disposal to figure out what he most likely looked like at three different important points in his life: as a nineteen-year-old "nobleman" surveyor, as a forty-five-year-old General at Valley Forge, and finally at fifty-seven years old, taking the very first American Presidential Oath of Office.  Pretty cool, right?

The absolute stand-out here is the care and dedication and EFFORT put into making these representations as perfect and accurate as possible for each age.  It's a truly multi-disciplinary approach, and it is amazing how lifelike and much more interesting the results are than the boring old portraits on our currency.

Fair warning, if mannequins or uncanny-valley representations of faces and hands creep you out - steer clear!

Nonfiction: biography/ethnography: Dr. Frau: A Woman Doctor Among the Amish, Grace H. Kaiser

Found while weeding the collection.

Dr. Frau: A Woman Doctor Among the Amish
Grace H. Kaiser
ISBN: 0934672342
Finished November 6, 2014

I was interested in this book because I've always had a bit of an interest/soft spot in my affections for Amish and Mennonite peoples.  My own church upbringing was rural and similarly sheltered from secular influence, so I see a lot of my own background in their culture and lifestyles.  One of my favorite nonfiction books as a child and young adult was Rosanna of the Amish by Joseph W. Yoder,("Restored Text" edition with editor Julia Spicher Kasdorf ISBN: 9780836194081).  I read it often, and was very interested in the lifestyles and religious practices which sometimes matched so closely to my own background, and sometimes seemed so strange and alien to me.

This book wasn't as good as I hoped for, the author is obviously not a natural writer (expected, as she's a professional credentialed working doctor), and her vignettes, while interesting, aren't written in a way that enhances or embellishes their natural circumstances.  On the one hand, that means that the stories are un-polished and sometimes lacking in narrative tricks to sustain interest, but on the other, they are obviously true and natural memories of real-life events in all their chaotic and messy undertones.

If you really adore the Amish, this is an interesting outsider's perspective on them, focused almost exclusively on the experiences of birthing mothers and expectant families (much like James Herriot's stories of veterinary life, there's lots of getting up in the middle of the night from a warm bed and rattling around a cold or rainy countryside, hoping that you get to far-flung farms in time to help).  There is very little internal information - the author never learned much (really any) Pennsylvania Dutch, and her experiences and friendships remain the somewhat reserved and professional contacts between patient and doctor, Amish and English, even though in the countryside, both of those boundaries are less restrictive or formal than they would perhaps be in other situations.

While the narrative voice is clear and appealing, the writing skills are a bit lacking, and for me, that lack of polish was a great detriment to the vignettes that were presented, and the vividness of the people and events suffered.

Writing Resource: Kids at Work: Lewis Hine and the Crusade against Child Labor, Russell Freedman

Working on (probably will always be working on) a possible novel, and this is a great collection of Lewis Hine's stunning and heartbreaking photographs of child laborers across the country, in a softbound 9x12 horizontal-orientation book.  Most useful to me for the photos and info on mill and textile workers, and of cannery workers and cotton pickers.

Kids at Work: Lewis Hine and the Crusade against Child Labor
Russell Freedman, photographs by Lewis Hine
ISBN: 9780395797266
Goodwill Find, November 5, 2014

New Arrivals! Nonfiction Picture Book: Plastic Ahoy! Investigating the Great Pacific Garbage Patch

This was a new arrival to my library today, and it's an excellent nonfiction science-inspired book, very like The Dolphins of Shark Bay, only this time focused more on much smaller life-forms.

Plastic Ahoy! Investigating the Great Pacific Garbage Patch
Patricia Newman, photographs by Annie Crawley
ISBN: 9781467712835
Read November 6, 2014

We follow a trio of (women) graduate students on their scientific mission to the Pacific Garbage Patch, each with their own specific purpose, experiments, and scientific focus, and after being introduced to the mechanics of the ship and the scientific method, and to the Garbage Patch itself, we follow along with each student as she explains how she got interested in oceanography, how she became interested in the Garbage Patch, what her experiments are meant to show, and how she's collecting and storing evidence to further her research.  In a really excellent dedication to academic reality, the text doesn't shy away from one girl who does her research, then upon return home, takes her work in a different direction, and doesn't follow up on her Garbage Patch findings at all.

The illustrations are magnificent, and the photos are all scrupulously identified and placed in context.  The overall book focuses on the science being done, with the environmental-clean-up message relegated to the end.  There are extensive Source Notes, a lovely Glossary, and Index, and a page full of varied Further Reading suggestions.

Excellent and interesting nonfiction read that really goes into surprising depth and detail on a specific mission and trio of experimental research.

Goodwill Find! Fantasy: The Coelura, Anne McCaffrey, illustrated by Ned Dameron

Found this at the Goodwill, in the children's section, which I disagree with slightly - I don't think the story would hold a child's interest very well, being a glorified love story.

The Coelura
Anne McCaffrey, illustrated by Ned Dameron
ISBN: 0312930429 (this illustrated edition from 1987, original story from 1983)
Read November 5, 2014

I want to say this is a good book, because the story and the world and the illustrations (let's be honest here and say that my delight was MOSTLY because of the illustrations) were so much fun to jump into for a short afternoon read.  I read it over lunch, it's only 156 paperback-sized pages, and many of those pages are illustrations.  If it weren't for the copyright page, I'd be highly temped to say that the illustrations came first, and the story was created as an attempt to mesh them all together, but knowing the story was written first makes me somehow gleefully happy at the bonkers illustrations of characters, environments, and poses that Dameron decided needed interpreting.  His vision of the protagonist at age 14 is especially delightful, and very reminiscent of the eighties.

So, is this a good book?  Sadly, not really.  The language is stilted and grasping for "alienness" in phrases and descriptions, the characters all speak and act like they're college theatre majors doing their first Shakespeare production, with lots of expansive gesturing (in the text, as well as the illustrations) and very proper, very formal, very unrealistic dialogue.  The plot isn't any great shakes either - in 120 pages, it ought to be trim, but a lot of time and energy are wasted on the wordy dialogue-laden intro, then the follow-up manages both to totally fulfill cliche expectations while missing a giant Chekov's gun in regards to one specific character which changes the entire climax and denouement of the story (in my opinion for the worse).  Also, egregious editor fail:  bells "peal" and one can "peel" fruit.  Different words, different meanings.

Summary: (spoilers?)
Caissa is the "body-heir" of a planetary regional governor (no more specifics, just that he's obviously rich and important and part of "society" in this place - our descriptions of jobs and titles are forever maddeningly vague) and thus will inherit all of his wealth and glory and positions, in addition to whatever she manages to accrue on her own.  Her "womb-mother" is obsessed with fashion and the high-life, and doesn't spend much time on this small world with nothing other than hunting and a small court of provincials.  Mom leaves one day in a huff, declaring that she's still owed part of her "contract" that dad hasn't fulfilled, and Caissa is now curious.  She discovers that there is a missing species on the planet, but meanwhile she just had her first serious proposal to be a mother to a body-heir of another society person (her dad is adamant that she consider the proposal for political reasons that STILL, even after finishing the story, remain unclear), and she's so miffed by his inept and condescending advances that she runs away to fly her personal aircraft out in the wilderness to seethe and pout.  Out there on her own she hears a faint distress beacon from the restricted islands which are connected to the missing species, finds a crashed ship, and the rest of the story proceeds according to exactly what you're thinking it will, discovering the "missing" species and their purpose and value, establishing a love-interest, and putting very shaky legs on a mystery/conspiracy.  There are random detours and red-herrings that spawn at random intervals, flap around wildly to be sure to be noticed, and then are utterly ignored.

So, good story?  Not exactly.  It was a bit frustrating, and more amusing to read than actually good or interesting, but it was a fun experience, and there were those excellent zany illustrations to pore over!

Tuesday Storytime: Counting on Animals

So many good counting, sequential, and numeracy books out there, it's very easy to subdivide them into really specific categories.

Nine Ducks Nine
Sarah Hayes
ISBN:09780763638160
Bright white ducks (and one mallard hen) count down from 9 preparing a tricky surprise for a fox.

This one is very similar to Judy Hindley's Do Like a Duck Does, and I've used it with that one, putting the wordless Rosie's Walk (Pat Hutchins) in the middle for an 'outwit the fox' storytime.  Here I went with the count-down aspect of the story, as the nine ducks begin luring and teasing the fox to chase them down to the "rickety old bridge" as individual ducks keep slipping off to prepare the trap.  Cute, but a couple of comments calling characters "stupid" at the end get redacted by me, just to be on the safe side.



One, Two, Cockatoo
Sarah Garson
ISBN: 9781842709443
Saturated colors in the background make the white cockatoos (in the wild) stand out vividly.

Very cute, but VERY short.  A nice look at addition, on an extremely basic level, and slowly counting up to ten total, with a bonus baby chick bringing us to (an unstated) eleven.  The birds are drawn beautifully and expressively, with lots of inclusive and friendly gestures that don't ever cross the line into too-human.


One-Dog Canoe
Mary Casanova (Utterly Otterly Night), illustrated by Ard Hoyt
ISBN: 9780312561185
Consistently shocked expressions on our narrator's face really sell this cumulative canoe trip.

Our narrator is setting off on a canoe ride, but her sweet pup begs for a ride, which she agrees to, calling their craft firmly a "one-dog canoe."  Her decision gets repeatedly overruled by larger and larger wilderness-appropriate animals - a beaver, a loon, wolf, bear, moose, and finally the one frog that is more than the canoe can take.  The animals are sketched loosely for comedic effect, but remain mostly anatomically correct, and certainly are all size-correct.  The canoe at the end is barely visible.  Everyone naturally gets a dunking, then narrator and dog are back on their way, having reiterated that it really IS a "one-dog canoe."

Halloween Read: Who Was Dracula? by Jim Steinmeyer

A strange Frankenstein's-monster mash-up of three genres in one; literary criticism of Dracula, biography of Bram Stoker, and microhistory of the settings and characters of Stoker's life.  Despite some strange seam-lines and jumps in topic, I thought it was a clever and fairly adept combination, providing apt analysis of the author, the writing, and the nature of the character of Dracula through different perspectives and possibilities.

Who Was Dracula? Bram Stoker's Trail of Blood
Jim Steinmeyer
ISBN: 9780142421888
Finished Oct. 30, 2014

First off, you'll only like this book if you like all of the components therein: biographies (of Stoker, and of other characters from the time-period: Walt Whitman, Henry Irving, Oscar Wilde...) micro-histories (mainly of the theatre, but we get a bit about Jack the Ripper, and about American tours of theatrical companies, and a view of the theatrical/artistic set's socializing and infighting) and literary criticisms (No, Dracula as a character wasn't an attempt to exact revenge on Irving, and can we get over how Dracula is about sex?  We all KNOW it's about sex, we have eyes, we read the book already).

If none of those make you roll your eyes out of your head, then you're in for a treat.  We stick with each non-book subject long enough to get into it (and sometimes long enough to think, "wait a moment, this is really interesting stuff about Stoker's other books/Irving and the Lyceum/Jack the Ripper/Oscar Wilde, but I don't think I've seen anything about Stoker or Dracula in the past four chapters") and then in the next chapter, you're back to Dracula again.

It wasn't at all what I expected, and aside from a cringe-worthy quotation from the author responsible for glittery vampires excusing her not having read Dracula, it was better than I expected; more history, less supposition.

I will say that the underlying question remains mostly unanswered, although hints drop that Steinmeyer tends towards the "it was a composite of lots of influences" school of thought, rather than "it was meant to strike back at Irving" or "It was Jack the Ripper!" suppositions.

I liked the 'coda' towards the end explaining how Stoker's widow used her tenacity and a timely membership in an Author's Society to fight back against Nosferatu (although I'm so glad she failed in destroying it) and to stage critically awful and popularly brilliant versions of Dracula across England and the USA in order to keep herself in mint.  Stoker would have been proud.

Picture Book/Modern Fairy Tale: Pumpkin Light, by David Ray

I really wanted to like this, as I love Halloween, and I really enjoy modern created fairy tales (Jane Yolen's Girl in the Golden Bower is a perfect example), but I was not entranced or even interested in this stolid story with little magic or interest, and painfully workmanlike illustrations.

Pumpkin Light
David Ray
ISBN: 0399220283

I wanted to like it - a book about an early Americana farm boy who loves pumpkins and gets cursed?  Sounds great!  Sadly, the author/illustrator bit off more than he could chew, with both the story and the illustrations getting away from him right from the beginning.  This is a quote from the set-up of the story; "Now there was one other thing Angus loved as much as his mother and father and almost as much as pumpkins and that was to draw and paint."

Just, no.  I'm sorry to be blunt, but those are not the lines of a good story, or a good tale to read aloud to someone.  Sadly, it was like that all the way through.


Bare bones story:
Pumpkin-loving artistic kid stays up too late on Halloween, gets sent to bed without supper, has a very complex bad dream, and wakes to find everything better again.

Longer version:
Angus was born in the fall, under a pumpkin sun, and loves pumpkins and art.  He always goes to town on Halloween to draw the jack o'lantern display at the General Store, then goes home and hangs his pictures on his bedroom walls.  One Halloween he stays too late drawing and runs home (past jeering children who are out there being hateful for no reason at all) and returns home after dark to angry parents who send him to sleep with no dinner, and no pumpkin pie, and no time to hang his drawings on the walls.

Suddenly he's in a hayloft in a barn overlooking his house, watching his mother set a pumpkin pie out on the windowsill to cool.  He's hungry, so he sneaks over, steals the pie, and hides under a scarecrow (why god why) to eat it.  The spirit of the scarecrow (because there has to be a scarecrow spirit) is angry at him for stealing the pie when he was sent to bed with  no supper.  So the scarecrow turns him into a dog, and names him Autumn (Why?  Who knows.) and passes on the terms of the curse - "Autumn" has to spend every night in the barn loft, guarding a "magic pumpkin" (wtf?) until "a forgiving soul carves it and releases the power to change you back into a boy."  Ok.

So now Angus' parents are super sad because their little boy is gone, but the little dog keeps them company, except it insists on sleeping in the loft (and no one asks why this dog is so attached to the loft, or ever goes to check).  A whole bloody year later, somehow the parents magically know the dog's name is Autumn (not even going there) and the boy-dog finally gets a clue that perhaps he can trick Mom into carving the magic pumpkin for her (apparently only once-a-year) pumpkin pie.

He nips and drags at her until she gets up there, sees this lovely pumpkin, and (still not asking WHY a pumpkin is in her hayloft) she drags it home and begins to cut it open, but overcome with memories, decides to try to carve it into a jack o'lantern like her missing son would have done.  The pumpkin lights up magically, and yay, Angus is back!   About here is where I notice that dad has gone suspiciously missing through this whole ordeal.

The light from the pumpkin grows brighter and blinds the magically recovered boy, and when he blinks to clear his eyes, he's home in bed, with his parents hanging up his pictures on his walls, and a pumpkin pie smell wafting in from the kitchen (she baked a fresh one for breakfast, apparently).  A lengthy (everything about this book is lengthy) coda explains how Angus always afterwards treasured a special painting of a dog and a pumpkin.


Ok, so this is obviously trying for Film!Oz territory, where it's all a dream, or is it!?  However, it just seemed like it was trying too hard.  A scarecrow spirit cursing a boy for disobedience ought to be right up fairy-tale alley, easy to accept, but it fell flat, and begged for an explanation.  Why a dog?  Why the deal with guarding the pumpkin?  What would happen if he didn't?  It just didn't make any sense, but so much time was spent explaining things that didn't need explaining, it made the magical (and not-explained) personages and events stick out terribly.

I hate when this sort of thing happens, because I want to fix the story, and it isn't mine, and I can't do anything about it.  Perhaps I'll write my own Halloween fairy-tale with a jack o'lantern obsessed child and see if I can do any better.

Tuesday Storytime: Halloween!

 I love Halloween storytimes!

We started off with the delightful Zombelina, moved through the equally new and strikingly illustrated Ten Orange Pumpkins, and ended on a lighthearted note with Happy Halloween, Biscuit.

Zombelina
Kristyn Crow, illustrated by Molly Idle (Flora and the Flamingo)
ISBN: 9780802728036
Sweet green zombie gets stage fright at her dance recital, until her spooky family arrives to cheer.

This book is ADORABLE.  I will probably read it on non-Halloween nights just as a dancing or performance book.  (Maybe with Rock n Roll Mole?)  Zombelina loves dancing at home, and her loving parents finally take her out to buy supplies and start in dance classes.  Her classmates are a little weirded out by this limb-losing ballerina, but her teacher is accepting and encouraging, and she blooms.  Until the night of her recital, where she gets stage fright, and starts acting like an actual zombie and scares her classmates and audience away.  Her family arrives and cheers her on in a more familiar way, and she performs beautifully, then is whisked home for a celebratory dinner.  Boatloads of wordplay and clever jokes with the illustrations had the parents laughing, while the kids seemed to enjoy our perky adorable heroine.


Ten Orange Pumpkins: A Counting Book
Stephen Savage
ISBN: 9780803739383
Already reviewed.

This one worked very well in the middle spot.  I got through the spider with aplomb (I thought) and the kids especially liked the alligators in the river and the skeleton pirate crew.


Happy Halloween, Biscuit
Alyssa Satin Capucilli, illustrated by Pat Schories
ISBN: 9780694012206
Lift-the-flap book showing Biscuit the puppy hiding or getting into minor trouble on Halloween.

Super cute and as inoffensive as it is possible to be and still cover dressing up in costume and trick-or-treating.  Biscuit and his little girl go out to the pumpkin patch to make a jack-o-lantern, pick out costumes to wear, meet costumed friends, and get treats from a family-member's house before going back home to bed.  Very cute, and one of the parents checked it out after storytime!