YA Fantasy: Vessel, Sarah Beth Durst

Vessel
Sarah Beth Durst
ISBN: 9781442423763
Follows the adventures of a girl fated to die and allow her clan's goddess to claim her body, when the goddess never shows up.


Nicely plotted, and the romantic entanglements didn't make me want to stab anyone in the eyes, so that's always a benefit.  Lots of really good world-building, and an interesting take on how bad things happen in a world with active gods all over the place. Not so thrilled that the eventual villain is revealed as a mad depressed person.

Very enjoyable.

Fantasy: Elemental Masters: A Study in Sable, Mercedes Lackey

A Study in Sable (Elemental Masters)
Mercedes Lackey
ISBN: 9780756408725
Germanic opera divas, Sherlock Holmes, and the Watson couple as Elemental Magicians.

So much fun, so fluffy.  I'm still bemused by the cover flaps giving the entire storyline away, as they did with the other most recent book with the Native American plotline.  Very odd, but that was the one off note in an otherwise quite satisfying read (although the call-backs to the Selkie book were a bit heavy-handed).

Nonfiction: TED Talks, Chris Anderson

TED Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking
Chris Anderson
ISBN: 9780544634497
Chatty and informative, with lots of tips and no hard rules.

Fairy Tales: Magic Fairy Stories From Many Lands, Susan Taylor & Severino Baraldi

Magic Fairy Stories From Many Lands
Susan Taylor, illustrated by Severino Baraldi
ISBN: 0831757329 (Gallery Books, 1974)
A set of lesser-known fairy stories and folk tales with delightful classic-style illustrations throughout.

Baraldi's illustrations are beautiful and evocative; they remind me of the classic Dean's fairy tale illustrations, but these are a little more sinister and a bit more expressive, and also more representative of people of color or ancestry not in the classic northern european fairy tale mould.

Story summaries and comments below.

Foolish Frances: A variant of the Fisherman and his Wife story, where Mrs Luck tries to find someone who only wants something minor - someone who is mainly content and happy with their life so far.  Mrs Luck finds Frances, who lives happily in a mud hut, and after some coaxing from Mrs Luck, after several demurrals, then wishes for a little cat to keep her company.  Then of course she realizes she needs a goat to provide milk for the cat, and maybe a goat-shed, then a cow, then some hens, then she realizes she'd love to dance, but her dresses aren't good enough, and really she needs help with her hair also, and furthermore other people dance better than she does, and really she ought to have a big beautiful house to go with her beautiful hair and dresses, and won't Mrs Luck call her Madame Mayor now that she's hooked the leader of the town into marriage? The now-miffed Mrs Luck retracts all of the gifts, except the little cat, and that is why Lady Luck is so fickle and bad-tempered.

I would have liked this story a whole lot better if Frances had been the sort of "naive clever" rustic who shows the meddling Mrs Luck that bothering people with extra things when they've insisted they're perfectly happy is perhaps not helpful - as it is, it's too much of a Fisherman's Wife for me to really think much of it.

The Rich and Poor Widow (I also know it as Barren Wheat and as Why Sea Grass Grows): A haughty wealthy widow runs her husband's shipping company brilliantly with her business acumen, but her heart is cold and her soul is barren.  During a famine, she and the other wealthy compete to find and display the most beautiful treasures of the world.  A kind and loving sea captain (who is sweet on the widow, but she's spurned him) brings back a ship full of wheat to feed the hungry, arguing that charity and kindness is the greatest treasure, and that she would be beloved and blessed if she were to feed the wheat to the people of the city.  She is unmoved, and dumps the wheat over the side of the ship into the sea.  The famine worsens, everyone hates her, and she loses all her wealth and business.  That summer, the dunes by the sea all grow what looks like wheat, but it's barren and inedible.  Eventually the widow is reduced to gleaning in the fields, and she is humbled and kind. She's rescued by the kind captain, who is now wealthy and land-owning.

An interesting combination of the hauteur from Beauty and the Beast with the gleaning motif from the Book of Ruth in the Bible.  I wish the widow had learned to be kind without having been reduced to starvation first, but that's fairy tales for you.

The Elf Boy: A barren woman and her farmer husband are given a half-elven child to raise, but the woman can't keep up with all the conditions laid upon her, especially to keep the elven rose water out of her eyes so she can't see fairy.  The child is taken back, but he pines, so the woman is stolen away to be with him in fairy, until she's caught reciting the Lord's Prayer over him.  When the child himself begins murmuring the prayer, he's reverted to fully human, and the child and woman are returned to the farm and to normal Christian life.

I'd really love to figure out a way to work this out so that the Christian overtones weren't necessary.  I love the idea of a fae community realizing that a half-human child would need human parenting, but that the parents can't keep up with the strictures and the child has to eventually choose to be human or elven.

The Forest Prince (I know it also as The Wild Prince and The Royal Woodsman): A prince suffers a hunting accident and goes slightly mad in the woods as a result, before the "wild man" is then captured and placed in a cage on display in a neighboring King's garden.  Pleas about his identity and his humanity are ignored, and the Prince finally bribes the Princess to release him by holding her golden ball hostage.  When the King chases the escaped Prince, the Prince captures the King and keeps HIM in a cage until he grows matted and wild.  The Prince tells the King that he'll only free him if the Princess marries the Wild Woodsman who was caged before (the King doesn't realize that his captor the Prince IS the Wild Woodsman).  The Prince and Princess meet, the Prince passes a set of marriage tests with the help of the forest creatures he befriended in the woods and in the cage, and the King is set free, and the two royals marry.

A classic based on old tales of the knights of the round table, and other fables of wild men or hermits in the woods who are secretly royalty in disguise for various reasons.  I like that the Prince is somewhat vindictive, but I wish the Princess had a bit more agency or time to fall in love.

The Rain Woman: A pair of young lovers and an older wise woman travel to the center of the earth during a drought to waken the Rain Woman to keep the land from burning under the attentions of the rampant Fire Man, after the boy's father refuses to let the pair wed unless the girl proves herself first.

This one is new to me, and I really liked it.  I liked that the girl was the one who had to waken the Rain Woman, and that the boy helped her as best he could, and that the parents were reasonable and kept their promises, and I even liked the dichotomy of the Fire Man and Rain Woman, and the little Rumplestiltskin-esque trickery going on to find out the secret of where the Rain Woman was buried away.

The Glass Box: A sweet farm girl marries the Prince, and subsequently becomes Queen.  Her two older sisters are bitter and jealous, and when the Queen delivers children, they steal them away and replace them with dogs and cats.  The town and the King accuse the Queen of witchcraft, so she seeks the assistance of a wise woman and a sacred bird to prove her innocence and to find her children, using a glass compass to find her way to a valley where if you turn back, you're turned to stone. Of course she turns back.  Then we skip to her children, who, after the deaths of their kind and good foster parents, are determined to find their parents, with the help of a wise woman and a sacred bird, led by a set of glass compasses.  The boys in sequence fail, but the youngest girl (with a gold star on her forehead if you haven't figured it out by now) overcomes the trials and sets free her brothers, her mother the Queen, and a whole army of other idiots who turned around in the valley before getting to the bird.  The bird confirms everything, and the army heads back to keep the King from marrying the Queen's nasty older sister.

This is a little bit of a "everything but the kitchen sink" sort of tale, but it was fun and the odd detail of replacing the babies with dogs and cats (that were then treated and raised like royalty) was interesting, as is the idea of a clear glass compass.


The Three Oranges: a trio of brothers goes to a wise woman to learn their fortunes.  She asks them what they most desire - the first wants a beautiful wife, the second a rich one, and the third, simply someone he would love, and who would love him.  The wise woman tells them of a far-away castle with an orange tree with three ripe oranges.  If they can retrieve the three oranges all together, without hurting the tree, all will be well and they'll have their heart's desire.  Sadly, the brothers are all idiots or incompetent.  They split up, hurt the tree, and fail to harvest the oranges, until the youngest brother, who does pick them, but only by tearing off the whole branch.  Then the elder two brothers eat all their rations on the way home, and tear open the oranges in their hunger, and have nothing to offer the beautiful rich ladies who appear before them.  The younger brother saves his, and feeds his new wife.  Sadly, because he broke the branch, the wise woman has to punish him, and pricks his wife with a needle and turns her into a bird until the dumb man's mother figures out that the bird has a needle in it's neck.  Then they go rescue the other brothers, and somehow despite their incompetence and stupidity, they also get the wives they were after.

A beautiful fairy-tale rendition of how life isn't fair, nor sensible.  The visuals of the ripe oranges are arresting, but the tale itself is a bit muddled and has lots of stuff going on, from the clever youngest brother trope to the beautiful woman disguised as fruit or baubles.

Mrs Luck and Mr Money: a really long and frankly not very interesting morality contest between Luck and Money as to which one is really needed more, and which one is more important.  The two are married, and trying to decide who will be the boss of the marriage, so they torment this poor farmer with a horrible life until he's destitute, then offer him assistance to see which helps him the most.

Not a fan.

The Magic Thread: seen this one in lots of places.  A bright boy is given a magic ball with a gold thread peeking out of a hole in the side.  The thread represents his life, and he can pull the thread out to make time pass more quickly for him.  He (of course) pulls the thread to escape boredom and pain and anticipation and things desired but delayed, or wars or illnesses, until he's very old and realizes that he's missed most of the life that other people have.  The ending has the man asking for the gift to be taken away, and he wakes again as a young boy with his whole life ahead of him again.

Another strongly moral offering, but still fun to see what the boy chooses to skip in life.

The Prince's Pilgrimage: another new one for me.  A Queen is desperate for a son, and promises the (always unnamed yet capitalized) Holy Saint that the kid will do a year-long pilgrimage on his 18th birthday if she has a child.  18 years later, Prince is setting off on his pilgrimage, and mom offers him wise advise for finding a traveling buddy.  A good friend is found, and the two are inseparable and loyal to each other, even when faced with the temptations of a meddling King who wants the Prince for a son-in-law.  At the culmination of the journey, the friend is supposed dead, but the Prince personally carries the body to the shrine of the Holy Saint and the friend revives. The final test comes when, after marrying the Princess, the friend is sick unto death (caused by the King-in-law) and the Prince has to sacrifice his infant daughter to save his friend.  He does so, and the Holy Saint appears and resurrects the child, blessing the parents for their loyalty to their friend.

HOLY GAY SUBTEXT BATMAN!  Yeahhhhh, so about that close bosom friendship there.

Graphic Novel: Feathers, by Jorge Corona & Jen Hickman

Feathers
writer & illustrator: George Corona
colors: Jen Hickman
letters: Deron Bennett
ISBN: 9781608867530
Order vs Chaos, white vs black feathers, street urchins, and a scary cowled figure trailing blood-red mind-controlling music.

Poe was left with his foster father as a small feathered infant boy.  His father wishes to keep him secret and safe, but Poe sneaks out during the daylight hours to help the Mice - the street children of the wild Maze outside the giant walls of the orderly City.  Bianca is a bored spoiled child of the city, and she runs away during a trip out into the Maze.  Paired up with Poe, the two children discover a sinister plot that threatens all the children of the city - inside and out.  Further, Poe discovers more about his heritage and two mysterious "narrator" figures hint at further stories to come.

Something very "Steamboy" about the bare-bones plot of a strange boy - an outsider even among outsiders - joining forces with an upper-crust girl against semi-mystical forces of evil, but beyond that overarching association, it's a fun story that reads quickly and very clearly with a smallish cast of quite neatly individualized characters who all serve important character or plot functions.

The panels are clear and generally easily followed, but some of the action scenes are a bit muddled or unclear, and we're left to consult the character dialogue to figure out what happened.  I really like the inclusion at the end of the process pages and original pitch along with commentary from the author/illustrator to show his thought-process in developing the story and the character appearances.  

Summer Reading Research: Pretty Princess Books

One of our weekly themes this year is "Knights and Princesses" and I've had fun searching through Amazon and the catalog for the most diverse and interesting and active books I could find.  However, I do admit to a soft spot for a beautiful princess book (illustrations and actual princesses), and here are two that won't be getting used this summer, but still deserve a shout-out for being utterly lush and delightful.

In the "so pretty but so peculiar" category, we have:
The Twelve Dancing Princesses
retold and illustrated by Ruth Sanderson
ISBN: 9781566568647
A peculiar re-telling of the traditional tale has plot-holes galore, but is so pretty it almost doesn't matter.

Sanderson is a manifestly accomplished illustrator, and if she wants to re-tell a fairy tale to illustrate, more power to her. Next time around, might I suggest a little more attention to the narrative?

First things first, this is one of the most beautiful fairy tale books I've seen. I'm quite partial to the lush gilded overdone illustrations of Kinuko Craft or Sarah Gibb (to name two very diverging methods of achieving lush and overdone) and Sanderson falls quite neatly into that same realm.  These princesses are beautiful and have individual features, and exquisite dresses, the environments are detailed and delightful, and every page has beautiful details and grace notes to catch the eye and marvel over.

On the downside, the story has plotholes fit to drive a truck through.  Our story begins with the king declaring that any prince who wished to try and solve the mystery of the worn-out dancing slippers would be welcome to try, and that many princes had attempted, but all had vanished during the night.  Later on, we find that the vanished princes are the dancing partners (and the oarsmen in the swan boats) for the princesses, and that the princesses are the ones who bewitched them all, each in turn.  So - did the princesses dance with each other before then?  Did they row themselves across the lake?  How on earth do the daughters of a king who is quoted as "a man who did not believe in magic cloaks or enchanted castles" find a magic trap-door, learn to bespell princes with enchanted wine, and find a magic kingdom conveniently underneath their bedroom?  I know these issues exist to some extent in the original tale, but by making the daughters the active party in the dancing scheme with no obvious explanation how, all those impossibilities become a little harder to ignore.  And really, the goal in a fairy tale is to just ignore the impossibilities and enjoy the story.

If those beautiful illustrations aren't sufficient to distract from the plot-issues, then I really don't know what would.



And in the "too long, but utterly enchanting" category, we have:
The Princess Who Had No Kingdom
Ursula Jones, illustrated by Sarah Gibb
ISBN: 9780807566305
Gibb's signature silhouettes and "Grahame Johnstone"-style willowy fae characters make a delightful modern fairy tale even more delectable.

Full disclosure, as soon as I read this book, I bought a copy for myself.  It's SOOOO good.  Jones has written a lovely story about a princess who lives on a pony-cart and supports herself by delivering odd packages to people, and by visiting local royals, trying to find her kingdom.  (She's obviously a princess, because that's her name, and she's beautiful and sweet and kind, so: obviously a princess.)  Despite set-backs, and the haughty disdain of the actual nobles, this sweet girl stays true to herself and realizes that perhaps life among the nobility isn't so grand after all, and she finds her own kingdom without having to go very far away at all.  It's delightful and sweet and modern and just sassy enough to not be totally cloying, and that's not even starting on the illustrations.

The illustrations are amazing.  When I was a child, my grandmother had a set of Dean's fairy tales and nursery rhyme books, the ones illustrated by Anne and Janet Grahame Johnstone.  I spent a good portion of my childhood poring over those stories and those haunting and fae illustrations, especially the ones from the Frog Prince and the White Cat.  Gibb reminds me so strongly of those delightful illustrations, but adds her own delightful touches like the truly stunning cut-out/silhouette work, and the fine-line details along the borders of just about everything. They're just perfect. They make my heart hurt with how delightful they are.

I love everything about this book, except that it's too long to read in storytime.  

New Arrivals: Picture Book: The Airport Book, by Lisa Brown

The Airport Book
Lisa Brown
ISBN: 9781626720916
Diverse cast of characters progress through a trip by airplane.

This is a fun little picture book, with scenes very similar to the Richard Scarry "busy book" style of lots of vignettes scattered throughout the page, all of which progress through the story in the background behind the narrated main story.

Another excellent resource for storytime, and one I'll pair up with Miss Mouse Takes Off (Jan Ormerod) and hope to find a third that focuses on the travel aspect instead of on the "oooh lookit the cool plane" approach.

If you use this for storytime, be aware that there's really no good way to incorporate all the back-stories into the front-loaded narrative, and that's a bit of a shame, but at least it gets the book in front of them, and they can always check it out afterwards and learn about all the sub-stories at home with their parents.

Tuesday Storytime: Summer Reading: Fantastic Friends

Our theme this year is Fantastic Reads and Where to Find Them, and so all of our selections this year are a little fantastical. Our statewide theme is health-focused, so as the summer progresses, lots of the stories will focus on fantastical foods, but for the first storytime, we're going with Fantastic Friends.

Larf
Ashley Spires
ISBN: 9781554537013
Larf is a hipster sasquatch who is conflicted about being the only sasquatch - especially when he maybe isn't?

This is a sweet story about the pros and cons of putting yourself out there to find a friend, and will be especially resonant with shy or introverted or self-sufficient kids (and adults, tbh).  Larf lives alone with his rabbit Eric, and is happily solo, until he sees an advertisement for a sasquatch at a nearby city, and begins to ponder (and sweat) the idea of having someone else around.  What if's and catastrophizing abound, and a somewhat obvious twist at the end will have the adults laughing.


Dinosaur Kisses
David Ezra Stein
ISBN: 9780763661045
Dinah hatches out and sees a cute pair of fluffy animals kissing. She wants to try, but dinosaur kisses are dangerous to everyone else.

Dinah tries very hard to kiss the other inhabitants of her prehistoric world, but fails miserably; head-butting them, stomping them into the ground, even eating one by accident! When a sibling hatches out next to her, she's overjoyed to finally have someone to share her own style of dinosaur "kisses."


Hey, Al
Arthur Yorinks, Richard Egielski
No ISBN in book: Farrar, Straus & Giroux 1986.
Caldecott winner.  Al and his dog Eddie are fed up with the hard life.  A paradise of birds seems great, but there's a really big catch.

This story is a really excellent showcase of how much storytelling you can pack into a very short narrative, with tight word choices and excellent illustrations.  It even has a delightful Icarus and Daedalus shout-out in there. Beautiful language, great characterization, and a sharp message about creating your own happiness and not being duped by things when they're too good to be true.

Romance: The Bollywood Bride, Sonali Dev

The Bollywood Bride
Sonali Dev
ISBN: 9781617730153
"Ice Princess" Bollywood actress returns home to the USA for her cousin's wedding, reconnecting with her childhood, and with her oldest friend and former lover, who she spurned dramatically at the start of her acting career.

Really enjoyed this.  It was an interesting look at the usual tropes of romances from the perspective of an unfamiliar culture, and I really enjoyed the juxtaposition.

Ria is the straightest-laced of Bollywood actresses, consistently working hard and staying poised and cool on-camera and off.  But she hides deep guilt and an even darker secret with all of her work and her cool unruffled facade.  Once she goes back to her childhood home in Chicago, all of her efforts to be untouchable and untouched will be undone, as she finally is forced to confront the trauma from her childhood.

Dev writes clearly and passionately, and the story is logical and enjoyable, with not too much time spent on emotional or mental distress before a break to recount happy and lighthearted family and friendly interactions.  There are plenty of descriptions of clothing and outfits (male and female) and the descriptions are clear and gushing.  Characters have actual character, and the vast majority of the cast are kind and beautiful people.  There are only two people who are "villainous" in the story, and one of them even shows a surprising spark of humanity at an unexpected moment!

I hope she writes more - it's lovely to see more cultures and more diversity represented in the romance books that are available to people, especially when they are written as well and as movingly as this one.

Graphic Novel Book Club: Princeless, Volume 1. Jeremy Whitley and M. Goodwin

Princeless, Volume 1 (originally: The Arduous Business of Getting Rescued, later subtitled Save Yourself)
writer: Jeremy Whitley
art and colors: M. Goodwin
letters: Jung Ha Kim
ISBN: 9781939352545
Spunky Princess of Color discovers a sword under her bed in her tower, and rides her dragon guardian (who is of course her friend) off to rescue her other sisters from durance vile in their own towers.

Princess Adrienne is introduced as a child, repulsed and analytically rejecting her mother's recitation of a traditional fairy tale of a "fair princess" getting rescued from a tower by a prince who slays the evil dragon.  Fast forward a few years, and dad (King, and really imposing and grumpy) has drugged her and stuck her in exactly that same situation.  Adrienne's not having it, so she co-opts her dragon and sets merrily off on adventure, stopping first to rescue her  youngest sister from her room in the palace home.  Of course, things never go according to plan, and there are some interesting digressions along the way (including an extended running gag about "women warrior" armor as fashion clothing rather than as practical armor, visually-checking several iconic designs along the way.)

This softcover volume includes issues 1-4 of the comic, along with a few short excerpt comic pages about various secondary (and maybe to-be-important-later?) characters and their own unfortunate experiences.

Suitable for kids, but maybe not for reallly little ones, or for sensitive ones.  Safe bet would be 2nd grade and up.

Comic Book Collection: The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, Vol 1 & 2 (issues 1-8) Ryan North & Erica Henderson

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, Vol 1
ISBN: 9780785197027
Collecting The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl issues 1-4, & Marvel Super-Heroes #8 from 1990
writer: Ryan North
artist: Erica Henderson
lettters: VC's Clayton Cowles
trading card art: Maris Wicks, Kyle Starks, Chris Giarrusso

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, Vol 2
ISBN: 9780785197034
Collecting The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl issues 5-8, & material from GLX-Mas Special #1, Thing #8 (from 2006) & Age of Heroes #3.
writer: Ryan North
artist: Erica Henderson
letters: VC's Clayton Cowles
trading card art: Eloise Narrington
colors: Rico Renzi

Bouncy, lighthearted, feisty, and openhearted.  I love Squirrel Girl so much, and this is only the beginning - she was one of the survivors of the Secret Wars mixup, so there's a second set of Squirrel Girl issues starting later in 2015.

This set of issues is a complete arc, and gives a great introduction to the character, who has shed the odd costume from the 90s, but has kept the indomitable spirit and spunky nature that made her such a niche favorite despite long absences from official line-ups.

Tuesday Storytime: Father's Day (a bit early due to summer reading)

We got a delivery with some really cute Father's Day picture books that are new to me, so I thought I'd take advantage of the windfall and go ahead and celebrate a bit early before we have to get summer reading rolling.

Daddies Are Awesome
Meredith Costain, illustrated by Polona Lovšin
ISBN: 9781627794527
Sweet painted dogs and puppies with minimalist backgrounds extol daddies.

Following Papa's Song
Gianna Marino
ISBN: 9780670013159
Beautiful rich colors and a hauntingly sweet story of whales on migration.

Guess How Much I Love You
Sam McBratney, illustrated by Anita Jeram
ISBN: 1564024733
A classic favorite with sweet lively rabbits and a sweet one-upsmanship game of love.



Summer Reading starts next Tuesday!

Nonfiction Photo-Essay: Splendid Slippers: A Thousand Years of an Erotic Tradition, Beverley Jackson

Splendid Slippers: A Thousand Years of an Erotic Tradition
Beverley Jackson
ISBN: 9780898159578
A well-constructed photo narrative of the history of the "lotus shoe" of Han Chinese foot-binding.

Sooo many photographs, including many of unbound feet, and an actual x-ray view of what the foot looked like after being bound into the desired "lotus" form.

In places it was obvious that the author's personal interest in the history of footbinding, and of the remaining historical lotus shoes (so many photographs of shoes) made it difficult for her to address the phenomenon from an entirely unbiased standpoint, although she does make an effort to note the most likely impact of sexist and patriarchal doctrines on a practice that in both practice and stated intent leaves women in pain and effectively hobbled for their entire older childhood and adult lives.  She even compared it with FGM, which I'm sure is going to draw protests from all angles, despite both practices being tied to male sexual control of women and of women's desires.

It was interesting, seemed well-researched, and did I mention all the photographs?

New Arrival: The Kid from Diamond Street: The Extraordinary Story of Baseball Legend Edith Houghton, Audrey Vernick & Steven Salerno

The Kid from Diamond Street: The Extraordinary Story of Baseball Legend Edith Houghton
Audrey Vernick, illustrated by Steven Salerno
ISBN: 9780544611634
Edith was born to a baseball-loving family, joined a pro-team at age 10, and played in Japan.

Edith was born in 1912, and not many women played baseball, but by the time she was ten, there was a local team starting up called the Philadelphia Bobbies (named because they bobbed their hair short as a team identity).  The team was intended for adults, but she impressed them so much that they let her join up, and eventually put her in as starting shortstop.  The Bobbies played all over, mostly exhibition games against male teams because there was no women's league and very few other women teams at all.  When Edith was 13, the team was invited to play a set of exhibition games in Japan.  So Edith traveled across the USA, playing games all the way, to board a steamer in Seattle and head to Japan.

The story is chronological and factual, and focuses pretty much exclusively on Edith's time with the Bobbies and in Japan, but an extended biographical note afterwards glosses the rest of her life and offers other places to find more information about her, and notes her placement in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

New Arrival: Nonfiction Picture Book: Fabulous Frogs, Martin Jenkins & Tim Hopgood

I just can't get over how appropriate the last name Hopgood is here.

Fabulous Frogs
Martin Jenkins, illustrated by Tim Hopgood
ISBN: 9780763681005
Beautiful true-to-life illustrations of interesting frogs.

This is a straightforward but very witty look at lots of various frogs from around the world.  We hit the standards like the poison-dart frogs, but also some unusual ones: a life-size illustration of a Goliath frog, and a picture of a Hairy Frog (it isn't actually hair, just strips of skin - possibly exterior gill flaps).

Delightful addition to the nonfiction collection, and I can't wait to use it for Storytime.

New Arrival: Juvenile Graphic Novel: Help Us! Great Warrior, by Madeleine Flores & Trillian Gunn

Help Us! Great Warrior
Madeleine Flores with Trillian Gunn
ISBN: 9781608868025
Um.. The great warrior is a green kirby thing who fights evil (even though she'd rather just chill), I guess?


I came at this cold, so I may not be the best audience for it, but the cover was cute and strange and had multiple women of color on it, so I thought - eh?  Why not!?  I'm now intrigued and very confused.

The Great Warrior is a green kirby blob that lives in a village of other (blueish/greyish) blobs.  Their village keeps getting destroyed by demons from the monster realm, and Hadiyah (an unexplained human (actually not a human, more of a djinni/guardian angel/earth spirit thing), along with "Samson the magnificent" who is the Great Warrior's best friend...? ) basically drops in and says, Great Warrior, you have to go fight the demons because they keep destroying things.

Then in a great plot twist (it wasn't very twisty) it turns out that Great Warrior has a deep dark secret of her own, and she has to make a hard choice to keep her village and her friends safe.

I enjoyed it.  I don't want this review to seem negative - I really did have fun reading it, but I was sooooo confused the whole time.  Are there other ones before this?  I can't figure it out from a search (and not to brag, but librarians are pretty good at searching) and I don't know.  Technically over the course of the story we learn everything we need to know for the story to work, but it seems so offhanded and by-the-bye that I really feel like there's other stories or background info that I'm not privy to.

It was interesting, and peculiar, and odd.  But lots of powerful female characters (good and evil) although Hadiyah got fridged and Samson got stuck in nursemaid territory in order for the plot to progress (grrr argh).  Interesting and lively, but weird.  

Tuesday Storytime: Beach Reads

I was off on vacation this past week, so I had a fellow librarian give my storytime, and I treated everyone to a collection of "beach reads" so they'd all be properly jealous of me.  :)

The Twelve Days of Summer
Elizabeth Lee O'Donnell, illustrated by Karen Lee Schmidt
ISBN: 0688082025
Cartoonish illustrations with vibrant colors and careful plotting to get the numbers all counted in.

Our protagonist character is a cute little girl visiting the beach with her family, and she counts up from "a little purple sea anemone" along with the tune from The Twelve Days of Christmas.  The rhymes are cute, the meter is solid, and the illustrations are adorable.  An excellent silly summer read.


An Island in the Sun
Stella Blackstone, Nicoletta Ceccoli
ISBN: 1841481939
Dreamy fanciful illustrations (think Kinuko-Craft-light) are the star of an "I spy" building rhyme.

Another co-opted rhyme sequence, this one based on the old "I spy with my little eye" format mixed with the "the house that Jack built" cumulative concept.  Despite the cumulative nature, this one is still easily short enough to be the middle book, and to flow quickly and nicely with few tongue-twisters or trip-up meters.


Three By the Sea
Mini Grey
ISBN: 9780375867842
Mini Grey's trademark faux-collage and quirky cartoon detailing.

The "three" of the title are a dog, cat, and mouse, who all live together in a shack by the sea, and have worked out an arrangement of chores and labor that all are happy with - until a slick foxy salesman stops by and insidiously manages to get everyone thinking they do more work, and their housemates are slackers or incompetent.  After a heated argument, things get sorted out (mainly through the ejection of the slick fox) and while things do change, they do so organically, and with goodwill and mutual appreciation.  I'm tempted to give this book to college students in shared housing.  

Just one more regular storytime before our official start of Summer Reading Themes - it was a patchwork mess this year, making it difficult for me to find any extra titles to start at the top of June like I usually try to do.  Oh well - gives me a chance to use some of the beach/summer titles that I rarely get to showcase.