The Return of Zita the Spacegirl, Ben Hatke

The Return of Zita the Spacegirl
Ben Hatke
ISBN: 9781626720589
Juv: Graphic Novel, human girl navigates alien menaces trying to keep herself and her friends safe.

This is the third (and last?) installment of the Zita the Spacegirl graphic novel series.  (Parts 1&2 reviewed here)

After Zita gets her best friend accidentally teleported off Earth into a universe full of aliens and marvels, she manages to get him sent home through a series of adventures chronicled in the first two volumes.  Unfortunately for her, a copy-bot impersonates her, resulting in her being branded as a criminal and incarcerated on a rocky asteroid, which is where we start.

Zita keeps her spunky attitude pretty intact as various friends (old and new) appear like clockwork to help Zita and the other unfortunate captives escape the brutal clutches of the Screed Dungeon Lord, and to prevent the Screed from using the final (?) portal device to invade Earth itself!

Lots of stuff going on, and lots of characters to remember from the last installments, plus a few more interesting characters to learn to love.  The ending is bittersweet, with a not-so-subtle hint towards further adventures (which I would be all about, just FYI) that Zita and Joseph will undertake with their assorted and colorful friends.

Storytime Potentials: Once Upon a Twice, Denise Doyen, Barry Moser

This book came up as a suggested title when I was searching for "Mouse" themed books for an upcoming storytime.

Sadly, this one is waaaaay too long and linguistically complicated for use in storytime, but it has interesting potential as a storytelling (ie - no books, just memorized) experiment, along the lines of Jabberwocky.

Once Upon a Twice
Denise Doyen, illustrated by Barry Moser
ISBN: 9780375956126
picture book with "nonsense verse" of portmanteau words, mostly descriptive, narrating the tale of an especially adventuresome mouse who didn't heed the cautions of his elders.

The language in this is just stellar, although I have to give an early shout-out for the beautiful cover with the glorious moon hanging over dense jungly grass-scape (shades of William Joyce's The Leaf Men) and the lush dark pages with firefly glows on every page not-quite concealing the pairs of non-firefly-eyes that peer hungrily at the little mousies.  (Attentive viewers can pick out snake and cat eyes on many of the pages, as well as a soaring hawk silhouette menacing overhead.)

Now, that said, the language.  I love nonsense verse, but here the words are really not that nonsensical - they're more like rap or beat poetry vocalizations and improvisations - here's an example from early in the book describing the mice:

The Mice were scoutaprowl
They runtunnel through the riddle -
Secret ruts hid inbetwiddle-
But one mousling jams the middle!
Whilst he goofiddles, others howl;
"What's the holdup?  What's the matter?"
Night's qui-etiquette is shattered!

And another one later on, describing a deadly danger:

Half-submerged, a slender queen
Esses 'cross the pond unseen,
Espies the furlickt mouse's sheen,
Sly serpentine - bound not to miss...

So really, I do think that "nonsense verse" is taking it a little far.  Anyone can see where those words are coming from, and the implications of them as so blended or creatively applied (I'm especially fond of "esses" as a water-snake's movement verb).

Anyway - the actual story isn't all that amazing - brazen mouse wants to stop and smell the roses, to enjoy life under the moon, and ignores warnings to stick to hidden paths and to watch out for danger.  A quick snap, a snaky struggle, and our mousling learns an important life lesson, which results in a long life, and great popularity as a teller of terrible tales to subsequent mousy generations.

I really do think it would be fun as a Halloween story to tell, I just can't do it with my group because they're way too young.  I almost think that adults would enjoy the wordplay more if they were just listening.

Tuesday Storytime: Back to School

It really feels like fall today - the air is crisp and cool, the breeze is blowing, and the muggy haze of summer is melted away.

Smaller group, but fun as always.  One of our books (Go Home, Mrs. Beekman!) this week was a teeeeensy bit of a stretch for my group; it's a little long, and we have a lot of babies) but I did two really short ones to compensate, and I think everyone comported themselves quite well.


Go Home, Mrs. Beekman!
Ann Redisch Stampler, illustrated by Marsha Gray Carrington
ISBN: 9780525469339
Brightly colored busy scenery with colorful (but mainly white) students.

Emily does not want to go to school on her first day, so she extracts a promise from her mother to stay at school with her for a "million gazillion years" and keep Emily safely on her lap the whole time.  Mom gamely lives up to her promise even though after noon on the first day, parents aren't allowed.  This simply means Mrs. Beekman has to get creative, disguising herself as a coatrack, an oversized hat, a large green dog (a possible wink to the Emily with the big RED dog), a flying yellow bird (brought in on a helicopter) and a hula-hoop.

Emily, on the other hand, begins to realize that her promise wasn't too well-thought out after the end of the first day - she wants to start playing with her new school friends, and to do interesting new school things, but she's stuck on her mom's lap, as promised.  Emily spends a few days passively hoping that her mom will "forget" about the promise, but on the hula-hoop morning, she finally bites the bullet and informs mom kindly that her services aren't required any longer.

Clever mom, lovely progression of emotions for our little Emily, and a very longsuffering school teacher makes for a fun inversion story, which makes it a great pick, even if it's a touch on the long side.


The Bus for Us
Suzanne Bloom
ISBN: 0563979322
Hugely diverse city-kids build up at a bus-stop, waiting for a school bus while a progression of other interesting vehicles pass by.

I partly like this one for the totally non-textual diverse kids that build up - the actual words are really limited and repetitive "Is this the bus for us, Gus?" "No, Tess, this is a(n) X" - but the scenes are dynamic and filled with lively and varied kids and pedestrians and drivers, and a whole unstated story involving a dog, cat, and turtle.  Love showing it off to the kids, and the super-quick progression makes it perfect for my middle read.


 
llama llama misses mama
Anna Dewdney
ISBN: 9780670061983
Series books with a llama child and mother, this time dealing with new-school anxiety and separation.

I flat out love the llama llama series.  The facial and body expressions are just amazing, the rhymes are cute and fun to read without usually feeling labored or reached-for, and the issues are just spot-on.  All of them are good, and model excellent validation of feelings while still requiring appropriate behavior, within age-appropriate parameters.  In this one specifically, I like that they make a careful note that it's ok to feel sad or miss people, but that it is also ok to try to distract yourself from your sad feelings, and that sometimes the distraction can actually help you feel better.  Good "moral" for teaching kids how to self-regulate.

Next week is a holiday for me, and then after that I think we're going to read about mice.  I like mice.  
     

Graphic Novels: Hildafolk Series, Luke Pearson

Graphic Novels are always fun, especially when they're nice kid-safe ones that can help reluctant readers.

The series titles in order, all by Luke Pearson:

Hilda and the Troll (HC re-issue of originally-titled Hildafolk from 2010)
ISBN: 9781909263147

Hilda and the Midnight Giant
ISBN: 9781907704253

Hilda and the Bird Parade
ISBN: 9781909263062

Hilda and the Black Hound
ISBN: 9781909263185

Basically, Hilda is an explorer and an adventurer.  She's spunky, curious, and is constantly finding new peoples to learn about and new places inside and around her city (some real, some perhaps less real, some not exactly congruent with reality) to have interesting adventures.

The map on the first spread of Hilda and the Troll is very useful, otherwise the adventures all end up in a sort of placeless muddle (not that there is anything wrong with that, either) but I always like having a good solid map to reference, and this is a good one.  Sadly, neither the map or the vivid endpapers make it into the other three volumes of the set, which is a disappointment, to be perfectly frank.

However, the stories inside are worth it, and they are frankly, weird as all get-out.  I love them.

The Midnight Giant has some great musings about size and friendship and realizing what's important, and not judging people by appearance, all mixed in with a funky story dealing with teeny people and giant people, all sharing the same space (honestly, rather badly).

Hilda and the Bird Parade hits on the differences between life in the country and the city, how hard it is to integrate with a new group of friends (or even if you want them as friends) the importance of not getting lost, and of being empathetic towards others (especially if they turn out to be a giant magical Thunderbird) and most importantly, the benefits of having positive expectations, which is a great lesson, even if it's really hard to live up to sometimes in actual life.

Hilda and the Black Hound has an exultant Hilda joining a Scouting group, and showing off her ability to get badges because she used to live out in the country.  This goes about as well as one might imagine, with bonus hijinks created by the various magical creatures all up everywhere.  The underlying lessons touch on racism, parental pressures to excel, and preconceived stereotypes.

Very European, truly awesome, hope there are more to come!

Juvenile Nonfiction: Josephine, Patricia Hruby Powell, Christian Robinson

Got some new books into the library, and this one was a Junior Library Guild "premier selection" book, and it's about Josephine Baker (who was awesome, and horribly treated in America) so I thought I'd take a look.

Josephine
Patricia Hruby Powell, illustrated by Christian Robinson
ISBN: 9781452103143
Biography of Josephine in free verse and odd naive illustrations

Bad stuff first - the art style is not my favorite.  The wobble-armed figures and strange round-headed audience and kindergarten-style landscapes just didn't do it for me.  I'm sure lots of people will really love the spunk and liveliness of the pictures, and the freedom from representative human form, but it wasn't for me.  Sorry, Mr Robinson.


The text was really interesting - a spare progression of free verse, no rhymes, but a lot of powerful word-choices, and lots of SHOUTING with capital letters.  It really made me feel like someone was Tumblrizing a biography for fun.  It's an interesting approach, and I think that it works overall, although there were times where I thought that clarity of narration slipped in favor of keeping the text relatively sparse.  I especially was struck by the handling of her various marriages; first at fifteen to a Pullman porter, whereupon she met and married him in the space of three lines, left him by the start of the next page, ignored him completely for 36 pages, then divorced him in one stanza:

"The very first thing,"
She divorced Willie Baker -
ended that long-ago marriage."

Then the millionaire fly-boy who she met, married, and divorced in four lines (he doesn't even get a name).

Then finally she marries her orchestra leader, who does get a name, but only two lines before he's dropped completely in favor of learning about the children she adopts as her Rainbow Tribe.

Wait - what?  Did she love any of them?  Were they jealous?  Why marry someone in the first place if she's going to immediately leave town or if he's not in favor of her performing?  Did she have biological kids with anyone?

There were several instances like this (none quite so glaring) where I thought that just a little more background (the war effort) or a few extra lines (her final American tour) might have aided understanding.

Overall, really interesting, although I feel for the poor kid who tries to use block quotes from this strange creature to back up their biography assignment in class.

The Mirk and Midnight Hour, Jane Nickerson

The Mirk and Midnight Hour

Jane Nickerson

ISBN: 9780385752862

YA: Civil-War gently creepy fantastical novel of manners.

This is a companion-book of sorts to the author's first book, Strands of Bronze and Gold, and where that one gently tweaked the Bluebeard tale, this one has Tam Lin at heart.  

The story begins with our focus character Violet reeling from the loss of her twin brother, dead in a Civil War battlefield.  Her father is preparing to head to war himself, leaving her behind with the family slaves, Laney and Michael, and baby Cubby.  Violet's household is soon filled to the brim with a stepmother (more pathetic than wicked), a stepsister (excellent character development there, shattering expectations), and a set of cousins - one, the fae and sensitive child heir to a luxe plantation, and the other, a swaggering blockade-running showboat of a young man, from the cadet branch of the family, raised on the plantation, and expected to be the heir himself until the unexpected birth of his young cousin.  The variety of relationships (and neighbors) made the story really flow like a novel of manners, gently showing relationships building and changing over time.  The discovery of an injured Union soldier in an abandoned lodge nearby, cared for by the enigmatic and creepy VanZeldt "family" of a white doctor and a set of haughty Africans changes everything, and the ripples of her discovery will impact every corner of Violet's life.

As in the other story, I was very happy to see that abusive characters are shown clearly, with no excuses made for their behaviors, even when other characters don't see (or remain willfully blind) to those faults.

I also liked the way that the author presented the question of slavery - slowly showing Violet becoming aware of how her way of life was impacting people that she loved or respected.  It could have been corny or harsh, but it was almost natural.

I especially enjoyed the tension set up by the VanZeldts.  They exist somewhere on a range from casually evil to amoral to totally alien, which is an interesting path to take with your main "villains" and I think only works as well as it does for me because of the association with the unknowable fae of the traditional Tam Lin tale.  Relatedly, I thought that the integration of houdoun and voodoo and grisgris and rootworking was done nicely (even the shoutout to traditional zombies!)  I especially enjoyed reading all the various interpretations and justifications that the different characters used to make their non-Christian practices fit into the dominant culture and belief system.

The storyline didn't grip me quite as hard as the first one did - I think partly because of familiarity.  I've encountered lots of variants on Tam Lin, some good (as this one was) and most really wretched, where I don't recall ever reading a novelization of Bluebeard other than Fitcher's Brides (which I liked, but felt like the fairy-tale association was a bit forced into the cult setting).

I'm happy to see Nickerson writing another novel so soon, and I hope that she continues - her take on the Civil War south is a nice change of pace and setting from usual fantasy works.

 

Tuesday Storytime: Boats

Last week of summer for most of us here in SC, so I'm finishing out the season with the last of a trio of "vacation" books, looking at boats on rivers and oceans.

Two of these are repeats, I've used and liked them before, but the middle book (Little Tug) is new to my library, and I tried it out for the first time today.  I liked it also - very short and cute.

Toy Boat
Randall de Seve, illustrated by Loren Long
ISBN: 9780399243745
Painterly full-spread illustrations of a handmade toy boat on a dangerous night alone on the lake.

This is a sweet book, but it does get a little intense - there's a separation, then a storm, and a night alone on the water before the happy reunion with the boy.  I love the cadence of the words here, and the repeated "Move along" from the various sources.


Little Tug
Stephen Savage
ISBN: 9781596436480
Blocky print in limited color palette and very few words show the tug helping boats, and then a sweet goodnight.

This is my first read of this one, and I was a little worried that the lack of text would be a bit of a problem, but the flow was really smooth and slow, and that allowed plenty of time to appreciate the artfully blocky pictures.  I especially liked that the sailboat is male, and the motorboat is female.


Sail Away, Little Boat
Janet Buell, illustrated by Jui Ishida
ISBN: 1575058219
Stylized people and beautiful water scenes follow a toy boat from a brook downstream to the ocean, in verse.

This one is one where I'm not entirely sold on the verse structure.  Some books really just sneak it in there, and other books practically celebrate their verse structure, and some are just so brilliantly versified that it's a joy to read them.  This one is just a bit meh, and that makes it hard to summon the necessary energy to read this (decently long book) in the necessary rhythm to keep the verses and rhymes somewhat pointed.  That may just be me being a bit tired today.  Otherwise, I love that the boat itself is pretty much an excuse to explore the sights and sounds and wildlife (so much wildlife) along a brook, river, bay, and ocean.  The water, especially the fishes in the water, are just mesmerizingly painted.


And that's the end of summer for us, so next week, we'll do "Back to School" even though most of my group are too little to be in classes yet.