Pink Me

One Cool Friend by Toni Buzzeo, pictures by David Small - review

 

Oh David Small! For decades you and your wife gave us stories that we loved, populated by characters that, for all their exaggerated features, were wonderful, recognizable real people. Your landscapes and buildings always looked effortless but terrific. Then you wrote Stitches: A Memoir, and we all cried our eyes out. Amazing graphic novel memoir. And I don't know about other people in my industry, but I figured, given the acclaim Stitches garnered, David Small would then by and large quit illustrating picture books.

So pleased to be wrong!

Dead mice, shy cats, problematic whales and Goldie Hawn: Pink Me talks to Mac Barnett and Adam Rex!

 

In the new picture book Chloe and the Lion, a little girl blows a jarfull of change on the merry-go-round, gets dizzy, loses her way in the woods, and meets a hungry lion. Then she ends up standing on a street corner wearing a tube top in order to lure more unsuspecting children into the lion's clutches.

Wait. No. That's not what happens at all! That's me, the reviewer, hijacking the story. Which I am completely not supposed to do. Bad reviewer! Fired!

Hey and you know who else is not supposed to hijack the story of a picture book? The illustrator. Yup. The illustrator is not supposed to draw a purple dragon instead of a hungry lion (even if a dragon is way cooler), because if he does, the author is going to step in with a WAITAMINIT, VARLET - YOU DRAWS WHAT I TELLS YA TO DRAW, and then maybe the illustrator will retaliate by drawing the author in a variety of interesting and humiliating outfits, and then the illustrator will find himself FIRED. And eaten.

Like it? Me too!

Piggy Bunny by Rachel Vail, illustrated by Jeremy Tankard - review

Liam is a little pig who insists that he is a bunny. His family assures him they love him just the way he is; his sister tells him to get over it. He is still insistent: "Hello, my name is Liam and I'll be your Easter Bunny." The neighbors are skeptical but his parents continue to love and support him.

And I say, "Love it."

Bawk & Roll written by Tammi Sauer illustrated by Dan Santat - review

From Bawk & Roll:

The lights went down.
The curtains went up.
The barnyard went wild.

YES. Have I gushed about a picture book recently? Let me check. Nah, not really. Well get ready, because I am ready to talk about Dan Santat.

The Unruly Queen by E. S. Redmond - review

Unruly. We can start with that. There's something rough and challenging about the word. It calls to mind glamorous rogues who are always getting in bar fights. Elizabeth Taylor in Taming of the Shrew. Wouldn't you like to be thought of as 'unruly' from time to time? Slightly unsafe? Unpredictable, like the high-heeled little spitfire on the cover of this new picture book?

Let's open her up and see.

On the title page we see a uniformed maid, an old lady with a big bottom, high heels and garters, down on her knees with a bucket scrubbing marker off the striped wallpaper. On the next we meet our evil little regent, rollerskating down the hall in a pink tutu and bow, marking the wall with a thick china marker. Her eyes are cast back at the maid and she is smiling a tiny, rotten smile.

I think I'm going to like this. I love characters that actually shock children.

Nonfiction Monday - Ancient Egypt: Tales of Gods and Pharaohs by Marcia Williams - review

Do you love Marcia Williams? I love Marcia Williams. Marcia Williams is a British illustrator and author. She writes large-format, intensively-illustrated adaptations of classical literature for kids.

Let me tell you how great this is: lots of little kids get into tales of adventure, and then their parents think to themselves, "Oh, I'll bet he would love Robin Hood!" Or King Arthur, or the story of Troy, etc. And then they ask the librarian - "I want him to read King Arthur." Whereupon the librarian is like, "Errr... you know that adultery and patricide play a big part in that story, right? Is he ready for The Sword in the Stone?"

Zero the Hero by Joan Holub and Tom Lichtenheld - review

It's a Friday afternoon and my son, 8-year-old Zhou, is helping me review Zero the Hero. Joan Holub wrote this book, and Tom Lichtenheld did the drawings. Lichtenheld has been a Pink Me favorite ever since Shark vs. Train for his clear, happy colors, lovely layering, and strong, funky line. And Joan Holub's Goddess Girls books are getting a lot of play with my middle grade girl readers. She sent a stack of goddess bookmarks along with the ARC of this picture book, and they were snapped up in a jiffy.

Your Neighborhood Librarian: So, youngster. What do you like about this book?

Cold Cereal by Adam Rex - review

 

Sometimes it is hard for me to respond to a book as a reviewer. Some books hook me just the same way a book would have hooked me when I was ten years old, and I am in, along for the ride, imagining myself sleeping in Anne Boleyn's bed at the Met, or confronting an evil horseman in a snowy lane in Wales.

I think that's why I do this.

And do you know how kids recommend books to each other? Have you heard them try? It's no use trying to teach them to sketch the main character and then set up the situation - they're going to either tell the entire plot in minute detail or they're going to reproduce a run of dialogue, bafflingly out of context and unintelligible due to their uncontrollable excitement.

Possibly they're going to try to relate the mood of the book to an experience they've had - my friend Rabbit, who is thirteen, does this all the time, and I love it. I can never follow his parallels: "You know how like you could be in the desert, but it's cold, except it doesn't look like it could be cold? This book is exactly like that," but I could listen to him all day.

The Biggest, Bestest Time Ever! by Stephen McCranie - review

 

Gr 3-6–Fans of Calvin and Hobbes will gravitate to this graphic-novel chapter book featuring an inventive kid and his talking dog.

Mal has typical social trouble at school, hiding his intelligence and struggling to make his feelings known to a cute girl while trying to avoid the class blowhard. His single mom doesn’t seem to be very supportive, sending him to bed without supper, threatening to ground him, and spanking him in the first three chapters, but these travails set him up as an underdog who will prevail in the end.

The Future of Us by Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler - review

I spent the weekend without Internet access. Yup. No service where we were staying, no bars on the phone, and a 3G indicator that winked in and out when the wind blew through the pines.

As it happens, I needed to get ahold of someone, and so I was a little infuriated by this lack of connectivity. But I was also reading The Future of Us, a sort of post-dated YA sci-fi novel set in 1996, so it was kind of apropos.

The Downside of Being Up by Alan Lawrence Sitomer - review

Given all the news recently about the inconceivably arrogant, morally chthonic behavior of certain people in central PA - people who make me type in all caps, people whose f-ing job it was to teach teenage athletes about discipline and integrity and in the process turn them into admirable men, and yet who somehow valued winning or the status quo or... something - I mean, I just can't fathom what possible motive there could be for keeping silent - over the safety and well-being of a legion of children...

Yes. Given that, I would like to offer up a healthy, happy novel about a healthy, normal boy, a boy fortunately unmolested by predatory old men - a boy whose only real tormentor is the tail that wags his dog.

That's right - I'm talking about Bobby's boner. Allow me to relate a conversation I had with my boys.

Catching up on middle grade chapter books

It's Election Day here in Maryland - the midterm general election, not the primary, so there's not much hoopla. Oh, Maryland. Stay sweet. Anyway, the children are off school, and it's Tuesday, my day off, and it's a beautiful fall day, so I thought I'd catch up on what my boys have been reading. 

They've both reached the point that they are reading for fun independently. And kind of a lot. It's great, but I have to say, a little scary. I bring stuff home from the library I think they'll like, and they read that stack in a weekend, and then start eyeing the review copies I get in the mail.

This is going to sound like a back-door brag, but I am legitimately worried that they're a little too erudite for their own good. Zhou, who is in grade 3, complained at a class book discussion a couple weeks ago that he thought the metaphor in the title of Jerry Spinelli's memoir Knots in My Yo-Yo String was insufficiently reiterated in the text. In almost those words. Right? That's an oy vey moment, for sure.

11 Experiments That Failed by Jenny Offill & Nancy Carpenter - review

 

Ok, stop: the peaceful, rapturous expression on our girl scientist's face as she lets fly a slice of bologna in the school cafeteria would have sold me on this book even if I had not already been giggling, snorting, and cackling on almost every page prior.

I'm going to scan that page. Hold on.

Tsk. I can't fit the book on the scanner without breaking it in half, and it's a library book. I'm going to take a picture of that page. Hold on.

 

Look at that. That's a The-Hills-Are-Alive face. That's Elizabeth Taylor in National Velvet crossing the finish line with a half-ton of wild but gifted racehorse under her butt. That face - you just know it - is going to get in soooo much trouble in about fifteen seconds, but for now, that is the face of scientific validation.

 

The Last Dragonslayer by Jasper Fforde - review

 

"Who, exactly, is the Mysterious X?"

"They're more of a what than a who. It won't be in a form you'll recognise, and there is something other about X that defies easy explanation. It's more of a sense than a person. A shroud, if you like, that confuses their true form. It also smells of unwashed socks and peanut butter. You'll be fine."

Tiger looked at the note, then at the Quarkbeast, then at where the moose had been but suddenly wasn't, then back at me.

"This is a test, isn't it?"

Yes, little children, this is a test. Are you going to grow up to be the kind of person who not only reads all the books of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy but who also seeks out the radio recordings? Will the Discworld become a second home to you? If you cut yourself shaving, will you always claim that "it's just a flesh wound!" in a defensive tone and a British accent?

If so, The Last Dragonslayer is your brand of silly.

Benjamin Bear in Fuzzy Thinking by Phillippe Coudray - review

There is a giant, bulging slob of a penguin in the refrigerator on the front cover of this book. A giant bulging penguin who has apparently eaten everything in the refrigerator. A bear and a bunny confront the penguin. They are deadpan, silent - are they coming face to face with the consequences of a previous bad decision? Is the penguin a nightmarish symbol of some kind, a living, breathing reminder of our greedy id?

I don't know. I haven't read the book yet. I was just so struck by the cover that I had to sit and gaze at it for a little while. These colors are wonderfully sophisticated - the walls and floor are three different shades of khaki tan, the bear and bunny are two edible browns, and the interior of the fridge is light blue with a lot of gray in it. This is a cotton pencil skirt, a man-tailored ice blue silk shirt, and a very nice leather belt, perhaps from Façonnable. Ok, on my budget, maybe J. Crew.

 

The accidental genius of Weasel High by Rick Detorie - review

Slipping into the boy-friendly spot between Diary of a Wimpy Kid and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is a new young adult novel by Rick Detorie, creator of One Big Happy, a strip you may have seen on your newspaper's comics page.

Not a graphic novel but in fact a liberally illustrated prose novel (with extremely short paragraphs), The accidental genius of Weasel High is about a 14-year-old boy named Larkin navigating his freshman year of high school. Larkin's not too bad off - he has a couple of good friends and nobody picks on him much. He has a dreadful sister who manages to throw things into sharp relief, when she's not actually throwing things, and parents who are basically ok even if they are generally clueless and embarrassing.

 

Darth Paper Strikes Back: An Origami Yoda book by Tom Angleberger

I love it when an author slaps a reference to another book into his or her own, especially in kids' or YA books. It's a sly way of suggesting to the reader, "If you are enjoying my book, here's what I like - you should try it!" Rebecca Stead not only drew inspiration from A Wrinkle in Time when she wrote When You Reach Me, but she wove the older book firmly into the narrative. I don't know anybody who finished that book and didn't at least consider re-reading Madeleine L'Engle's classic. If there's bookshelf in a picture book, I always squint to see what titles the illustrator has drawn.

Charlie Higson wrote a bookworm character into The Dead, and that kid's finest moment was when he defended himself from a mindless cannibal attacker using his copy of The Gormenghast Trilogy as a weapon. That's a great little glimpse into Charlie Higson's head.  

 

The book that Tom Angleberger slides into Darth Paper Strikes Back is Robot Dreams, Sara Varon's nearly wordless graphic novel about a dog and a robot who are pals. That book is full of emotion without being mushy. It says a great deal about loyalty and love without embarrassing the reader.

Hm. Hmm, I say.

Apple Pie ABC by Alison Murray - review

Well, I've been on something of a YA kick this summer, as all both of my regular readers could tell. I'm preparing to be a facilitator at Books for the Beast this fall, in the Horror/Suspense category (join us, won't you?), and so there have been a lot of cannibals and nail-biting (do cannibals bite their nails?) around my house lately.

 

Maybe that's why I responded so warmly to this dumpling of an ABC book that I found on the New Picture Books shelf. It has pie! A girl in ponytails! And an extremely winsome dog of the beagle-y terrier-y variety. WHAT could be more wholesome than that?

The beagle's name, I find out from the book's website, is Georgie. And the little girl in the blue jumper is Grace. A is for apple pie, and B C and D are the verbs Grace uses to bake it, cool it, and dish it out. After that, it's all Georgie, finding a crumb on the floor and then obsessing over that fat pie, plotting and pining in a realistically single-minded puppy way. Alison Murray's text is cool and simple and perky, getting around the tricky letters so smartly that I had to go back and look - what did she do about X?

The art features a subtly unusual palette of navy blue, blood red, burnt orange, and the slightly off pastels that are produced when those colors are watered down. This scheme results in contrasts that are graphically strong - the navy blue jumper against a watery blue background, for example - while maintaining color harmony.

This looks to me like good confident ink and brush drawing on top of chunky, forthright shapes done in some kind of print process - silk screen I guess, given the texture. The ink still looks sticky, which is an effect I love for children's books. After watching dozens of kids visually reverse-engineer the illustrations in dozens of picture books so that they can try to duplicate a style or effect, I am partial to art techniques that reveal process or bear the imprint of the materials used.

More of this Scotswoman's art is on her blog, called everything is pattern.

 

Electronic Thursday - My Dad Drives a Roller Coaster Car

My Dad Drives a Roller Coaster Car by Crab Hill Press

 

Zoomy! Dad drives a roller coaster car, Aunt Frizzy drives a spinning teacup, Grandpa drives a log flume - but young Hank is not allowed to drive any of these things! Retro illustrations by Daniel Guidera are vivid and poppy, and even the action is kind of retro - each of the exciting, silly vehicles will take off if you touch them and pull back, just like the classic spring-loaded cars, trucks, jets, nuns, and frogs that we've been annoying the cats with for decades.

My co-reviewer, three-year-old Baby A, delighted in making the vehicles go, but didn't pay much attention to the text. I myself was very amused by the multitude of sound effects and surprises that reward exploratory screen tapping. Tappity tap! Also, Mom and Aunt Frizzy have pink hair - my kind of family!

Trailer on YouTube.

Also reviewed on I Education Apps Review.

 

Dead End in Norvelt by Jack Gantos - review

 

I made it to page 12 of Dead End in Norvelt before I was giggling so loudly that my family made me stop and read aloud to them. You may not get that far.

Jack Gantos writes two kinds of books: good books and great books. (Also Love Curse of the Rumbaughs, which might be either, but which is so spectacularly weird that it's hard to tell.) Dead End in Norvelt is one of the great ones, for sure. It concerns an eleven-year-old boy named Jack Gantos who lives in a New Deal planned community in Western PA in 1962. He is a kid who likes "history or real-life adventure books, mostly," a mostly-good boy with frequent nosebleeds, an active imagination, and a knack for getting blamed for stuff that is not entirely his fault.

Electronic Thursday: The Three Pandas by Valerie Mih and See Here Studios - review

 The Three Pandas by Valerie Mih and See Here Studios

Little Mei Mei goes walking in the forest and smells something yummy. Why, it's the three bowls of bamboo porridge that Mama, Papa, and Baby Panda left on their table while they took a walk! Mmm, that baby panda's porridge is 只是权 (just right)!

Layered photo collage is the medium for the gorgeous but friendly illustrations. Not too flashy, with homey interiors featuring Chinese furnishings and decor, and lovely misty exteriors depicting a sunny clearing in the bamboo forest. Mei Mei is adorable, with a giant toothy smile, and the pandas are just the giant balls of fluffy fur that pandas always are. I like the unobtrusive music, all tinkly piano and clarinet notes, though I confess I might have wished for more Chinese instrumentation.

AND IT'S BILINGUAL. Why does not every single dang iPad app give the user multiple language options? (Note: IT'S EASY.) The Chinese narration is clear and expressive. My picture book app review buddy, four-year-old Baby A, got a big kick out of listening to the app in Chinese and telling me the story, as if she were translating.

 

Knucklehead by Jon Scieszka - audiobook review

 

Jon Scieszka has five brothers. Jon Scieszka is a funny writer. Ergo, Jon Scieszka's stories about growing up with his five brothers = funny. Oh, I laughed out loud, all right. I read bits aloud to the librarians in the workroom who wanted to know just what was so damn funny, and they laughed out loud. But we're moms. Moms of boys. We have to think boys are funny, or else go googoo and end up carted away in a van.

I first reviewed this book two years ago. I read it to myself while our house was undergoing extensive renovation. It was kind of a distracted review, touching on Peruvian hats, Luke Wilson and my great-cousin Margaret's nose.

But such a funny book. I really needed the laughs during those dark days - my kitchen was open to the outside world for about a week, making it less kitchen-y and more like, let's say, a shed.

We have revisited Knucklehead this summer, now that it is available on audio, read by Mr. Scieszka himself. I checked it out of the library specifically for the benefit of my husband and his multitude of siblings, many of whom were going to be in from out of town and spending copious hours in our minivan last week.

Electronic Thursday - Nash Smasher! by Bill Doyle and Crab Hill Press

You know what would make a great picture book app for the iPad?  Bang on the Drum All Day. Yes, the Todd Rundgren song. It speaks of the cathartic power of music, how it can transport us, and testifies to the bliss of creative activity. Plus it is super-hooky and unapologetically stupid.

I don't want to work,
I just want to bang on the drum all day.
I don't want to play,
I just want to bang on the drum all day.

Ever since I was a tiny boy,
I don't want no candy, I don't need no toy.
I took a stick and an old coffee can,
I bang on that drum til I got blisters on my hand!

 

Right? Any kid can play the drum. You could make an iPad app with drum pads of various tones, let a kid tap the screen to make rhythms and hear the difference between a tom and a snare and a bass drum - heck, they could even learn how to play a backbeat or a paradiddle. It would be so fun!

Sigh. Nobody ever asks me.

But the ever-amusing Rundgren is kind of just the guy to do it, so here's hoping he gets an iPad and befriends a couple of youthful fans/software developers. Til then, I will have to content myself with what's actually out there in picture book iPad app-land. To wit:

 

Books in the beach bag - leisure reading for middle grade

 

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 (Click each thumbnail to see this photo assemble.)

 

Adult Swim at our pool is fifteen minutes, and I swear, that can be the longest fifteen minutes ever in the history of time. Longer than the fifteen minutes it took you to figure out the new remote. Longer than the fifteen minutes it took Jane Austen to describe who rode in which carriage on that crucial twenty-minute journey to the ha-ha. Way longer than the fifteen minutes you had to stand in line at the DMV, because at least then you could fantasize different options for blowing the building up.

NO you can't have more money for the snack bar.

NO you can't go to the baby pool.

NO you can't play Angry Birds on my phone with your wet hands.

Who likes saying no all the time? Not me. Far better to give the kid a seat in the shade, a cold water bottle, and a just-for-fun book to read. I asked all the kids who had assembled for my younger son's birthday party to grab a book and cram onto the couch for this month's Pink Me banner. Here, amid a long list of entertaining summertime reads, are the books that caught their eye:

 

Small Persons with Wings by Ellen Booraem - review

I am a classic judge-a-book-by-its-cover-er, and it's been burning me lately. I picked up this one grownup book because it had a woman in a print dress holding a giant handgun on the cover, and I figured it'd be like that funny movie where Sissy Spacek shoots her husband. I picked up Now Is the Time for Running because it has a kid with a soccer ball on the cover, and I don't read enough sports novels. Holy hell, is that book not a sports novel.

I did not pick up Small Persons With Wings by Ellen Booraem for kind of a long time, because it has a girl's cute feet standing pigeon-toed on the cover, and that middle-grade faux awkwardness is something that sets my teeth on edge.

Also wrong about that one.

Doodleday by Ross Collins - review

There are some picture books that I gravitate to so strongly, it's like they are the Sun and I am a speck of planetary debris.

Hm. "Debris" sounds so drab. Brightly colored planetary debris. Planetary crayon shavings. Or... planetary confetti. I am wearing my calavera cowboy shirt today, and feeling not at all drab.

Plus I am looking at this orangey yellowy and bright white picture book, which is probably what made me think about the Sun, and that book is not making me feel drab either.

Are you going to kiss me now? by Sloane Tanen - review

All that really has to happen here - if you're me, at least - is to see the words "Sloane Tanen."

 

 

"Samantha looked around the playground in amazement. Her mother had been right. She really was the smartest and the prettiest."

 
"Goodnight moon, hello, martini."

 
"It's dad calling about the birth control prescription I took out of your backpack and taped to his cell phone."

 

At least, that was all I had to see when my friend Sarah messaged me on Facebook: "Have you heard of my friend Sloane's new book? Do you want to?"

I have the coolest friends.

Nonfiction Monday: Manners Mash-up - review

I'd have had this book reviewed earlier, but there was a manners emergency.

One of Zhou's teachers came into the library with her almost-three-year-old son, who has got to be one of the cutest little guys in the whole world. She was looking for ABC books, truck books, and dinosaur books (I love three-year-old boys!) - and also a manners book that wasn't too heavy-handed.

I kind of pooh-poohed her - at almost three, there's plenty of time to teach him about elbows on the table. At almost three, they're so cute that we still forgive them if they forget to say "excuse me" when they burp. We're programmed that way. But Kayisha had this story to tell:

Brass Monkeys by Terry Caszatt

 

Couple weekends ago we fired up the fire pit for the first time this year. Fire good.

Fire is convivial and pretty and warm and often smells spicy and smoky and exciting. Plus it's good for roasting marshmallows. And since this is Jesus season, we had PEEPS to roast on our fire. If you've never tried it, may I recommend. I don't like Peeps, but a roasted Peep is like a bite-size crème brûlée. A vaguely poultry-shaped, distinctly trailer-park crème brûlée. Or in the case of the bunny-shaped ones, a vaguely tumor-shaped trailer park crème brûlée. SO GOOD.

Little Chicken's Big Day by Katie and Jerry Davis - SPECIAL GUEST REVIEW

My guest reviewer today - my very first guest reviewer, by the way, but I have a couple more lined up - is my colleague Christina, aka Dances With Chickens.

I give most of the real people in my life blogonyms when I mention them on the interpoops, partly because I love giving people nicknames and I'll use any excuse to do it, and partly because if they get pissed off at me I can say, "Er... whaddaya talking about? When I referred to 'my colleague Token Boy Librarian' I was talking about... uh... the other... boy librarian."

Nonfiction Monday - You Just Can't Help It! Your Guide to the Wild and Wacky World of Human Behavior by Jeff Szpirglas - review

 

Ok Jeff Szpirglas is one of my people, I can tell. Is it the pinstripe suit (below)? No. Ironic deployment of business wear is, at best, a heavily qualified predictor. Is it because, in a set of factoids about acceptable public behavior, he advises young people about proper comportment at a rock show ("Stand up, punch the air with your fist")? Not that either, although I will take this as evidence that he is one FUN classroom teacher.

Nonfiction Monday: Can I See Your I.D.? True Stories of False Identities by Chris Barton, illustrations by Paul Hoppe - review

 

When I was a kid, I didn't really like children's literature. Sure, I read Five Little Peppers and How They Grew and Judy Blume (especially the spicy ones!), but mostly I would sneak books off my parents' shelves. I read Saki and All Quiet on the Western Front. I read Tropic of Cancer at about age ten. (BO-RING!)

What I liked the most, though, were the books my dad would bring home from traveling. Airport paperback crime novels and true crime. Oh, how I ate up that true crime.

Now that my job is helping kids find books that they'll want to read, I have noticed that there's not much true crime for kids. I can't give them what I read at that age - Helter Skelter gave me nightmares for years - decades! So along comes Chris Barton (The Day-Glo Brothers, Shark vs. Train) to fix this flaw.

Forsythia & Me by Vincent X. Kirsch - review

 

Speaking of rabbits. I was admiring this new book from Vincent X. Kirsch (The Two Little Boys from Toolittle Toys) with my friend and colleague Mrs. Rabbit the other day.

"Look!" I said. And also "Awww!"

"This guy has the most delicate etchy line, but his shapes are bold and strong."

"I like the little details. Look at her with her heart-shaped glasses!"

 

Blue Chameleon by Emily Gravett - review

Let's just get this right out of the way: Emily Gravett earned my undying devotion long ago, with Monkey and Me, and she's never let me down since. So - no surprises - I am going to gush about this book. Get ready.

Chameleon, who is drawn using the most vibrant colored pencils on the roughest paper I've ever seen, is sad. All that throaty texture and voluptuous color is for nought - he is nothing but blue on the inside. So, gamely, he tries to make friends.

He turns himself yellow and curvy to try to fit in with his potential new friend Banana. No dice. Turns orangey sunset gold and blub-blub-blubs at his potential new friend Fish. That fish's expression is priceless, as is the green grasshopper's when Chameleon hops after him in pursuit of companionship.

Poor Chameleon. He has all but given up, faded whitely into the page, when a there's a tap on his tail.

 

Look! Someone who shares his appetite for fun, his bangin' dance moves, AND his fashion sense! The other chameleon, I mean - I'm sure it was just a coincidence that this book arrived the day I wore my new purple suede cape embroidered with multicolored flowers over a green and blue striped sweater.

This is your storytime: you read the book, then we all get to do our best imitations of bananas, snails, socks and rocks. And at the end, we strike our most fabulous pose! Have a wonderful weekend, everyone! And if you live in Baltimore, join us Sunday at The Chameleon Cafe to eat the amazing small plate creations of chef Jeff Smith (the man who taught me how to carve a pig head) in support of The Neighborhoods of Greater Lauraville! 4pm to 7pm, $40 prix fixe.

 

Blue Chameleon also reviewed at The Bookbag, Kids Book Review, and Waking Brain Cells.

Cloudette by Tom Lichtenheld - review

 

Cloudette. Cloudette is a little bitty soft white cloud. A friendly little cumulus cream puff whose name, as I say, is Cloudette. I could say that all day: isn't it satisfying when you come upon something that is that just-right and self-evident? "Yes," you think. "Of course her name is Cloudette." It's so clever - not show-offy clever, just cute clever. Clever like putting bacon in a chocolate bar. Anyone could have thought of it. But you know what? Tom Lichtenheld thought of it.

And since Tom Lichtenheld thought of it, he got to write a story for Cloudette, too. It's not a very complicated story. It's got a status quo, a note of dissatisfaction, crisis, venue change, and resolution. That's a nice arc, and in Lichtenheld's hands it has balance and excellent pace. It's a story that's built like a brick... rainbow.

Pink by Lili Wilkinson - review

Forgoing my usual Electronic Thursday post because I am just that excited about the U.S. debut of Australian teen services librarian Lili Wilkinson. Smart, funny, individual, open-hearted, uncontrived - Pink is like the Ferris Bueller of YA novels. Herewith, Pink:

 

I think, if my husband and I had girls instead of our two boys, I might be sorely tempted to move to Australia or New Zealand. If the girl protagonists of the last couple of YA novels I've read from those parts are any indication, girls down there are smart and strong and funny even when they screw up.

Which Ava, the star of Pink, does. Kind of a lot. Ava is not so sure where she fits in. Her hippie-intellectual parents are thrilled with her life: her subdued ungirly fashion choices, her good grades in public school, and especially her neo-Beatnik vintage-aggro Anais Nin-reading girlfriend Chloe. But Ava, as I say, is not so sure.

Ava thinks maybe she might like going to prom - with a boy, wearing a corsage. She thinks it might not be so bad to wear skirts. And she is absolutely sure that her favorite color, secretly, is pink.

So she transfers to an elite high-performing high school. She starts dressing girly. She cultivates friendships among the Pastels, the preppy, sure-of-themselves perfect people at her new school. But after bombing at the auditions for the school musical, she finds herself on stage crew, among the few black-clad misfits on campus.

And oh, the shenanigans that ensue. While trying to be a Pastel, she finds that she enjoys herself more among the stage crew. Even though she is pursuing a lacrosse-coifed jock at her new school, she tries to maintain her relationship with the beauteous and acerbic Chloe. How all this gets juggled and what happens when the balls drop to the floor and go bouncing all around the stage is a disaster that is just plain fun to watch.

There's so much to love here, but I think I'll have to adore the characters the most. The stage crew misfits, of course, are fun. Their banter alone makes this book a priceless addition to a short list of realistic YA fiction that also includes Paper Towns, Going Bovine, Audrey, Wait!, The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, and Fat Vampire.

Brittle Chloe is the personification of outrageous cool. I knew a girl just like her in high school - never knew what became of that girl but I always expected her to turn up as the owner of a cabaret-style nightclub in New York. Or an NPR overseas correspondent.

Even the glowing preps are given individual strengths and traits - they are more than just The Smart One, The Artistic One, The Slutty One. Ok The Slutty One is a bit one-dimensional, she doesn't have much dialogue.

Finally, I have a few random points to make. Yes the title of the book is Pink and the title of this blog is Pink Me, so I would naturally be expected to at least try this book out. But two separate editors at Harper urged me to read it, both saying, "BESIDES the fact that it's called Pink - you're just going to love it."

AND... any book that successfully integrates a rather involved joke from the Aristophanes play The Frogs - to the point that as soon as I finished the book I fished out my old copy of Aristophanes and found that scene and laughed myself silly over it - that is a book that seeks to share the love. Also there are references to the Hubble Space Telescope. And a sci-fi movie marathon. Pranks. Physics. More Greek.

Also, sigh. Sadly, I guess this is still a rare and great thing, and so it's probably important that I point it out. Wish it were not still rare: gay, lesbian, and questioning characters who are just gay, lesbian, and questioning people, and whose sexuality is not the point of the whole book or even the point of their characters. Although there is more than one interesting conversation about homosexuality and image and femininity. Nice stuff. Plus, one homophobic character who gets over it. It can happen.

For nerdy girls who like math and aren't ashamed of it. For non-nerdy girls who like a funny book. For anyone who has ever hoped that being a teenager can have a happy ending. A big box of chocolates and a bouquet of daffodils to Lili Wilkinson.

The Adventures of Nanny Piggins, written by R. A. Spratt, illustrated by Dan Santat - review

 

What do you expect from a child care provider? Were you looking for a guitar-playing proto-nun? A mistress of malaprop? That mean-looking lady with the Liz Lemon glasses? Or something a little more... unexpected?

"Oh yes," said Nanny Piggins. "I can regale people with anecdotes from my sordid past and think at the same time."

That's my kind of nanny. In fact, if resumes had epigraphs, I might have to ask her if I could use that quote on mine. It should certainly be inscribed on Nanny Piggins's calling card. After all, I'm just a librarian who used to sell kites for a living - Nanny Piggins is a pig on the run from a cunning ringmaster who has signed her to an exclusive fifty-year contract which stipulates, among other things, that she is to be shot out of a cannon on a daily basis.

So... Mary Poppins she is not.

Bob Staake's Look! A Book! - review

 

Here is a fun exercise in creativity: 

1. Think up a three-item list of rhyming nouns. A screw, bamboo, Anne Hathaway saying "WOO!"
2. Draw a giant complicated colorful scene incorporating these items. NOTE: your scene can include anything you like, but your three rhyming nouns must be on the right-hand side of the page
3. Fold your picture in half like a greeting card
4. This is the tricky part: make holes in the left-hand side of the picture opposite your three rhyming nouns, so that, when closed, your nouns peek out.

Yay! You have made a simple version of the super-cool spreads that populate this masterful visual feast from Bob Staake.

Pilot & Huxley: The First Adventure by Dan McGuiness - review

 

This book was handed around the living room this morning. I finished it, then handed it to my oldest son, "Stop what you're doing and read this book." He read it, and then handed it straight to his 2nd grade brother. When they both finished, I asked their opinions.

"Outrageous!" said my nine-year-old.

"I can't believe there's a whole city made of snot!" said the seven-year-old.

"The rat-vomit dipping sauce was -- awww!" added the older one.

"Are you sure we're supposed to be reading this?" asked his little brother.

YES. I AM SURE, little ones. At least... this unsubtle yak-fest of a graphic novel is certainly not meant for anyone more than it is meant for you, you independent readers under the age of ten of the boy persuasion. Although I can think of A LOT of little girls who will similarly love this randomsensical grosstastic South Park/sci-fi hip rude funny mashup comic.

Up and Down by Oliver Jeffers - review

 

I have this friend who really loves film. He's all Day for Night this and Satyajit Ray that, and he thinks I'm the same way, probably because I used to live in New York and I've read some Thomas Pynchon. But it's a lie, what he thinks about me. Just because I can use the word 'Satyricon' in a sentence does not mean I want to go see Synecdoche New York. "I thought Philip Seymour Hoffman was really great in Twister," is how I try to explain things to him, but he never seems to entirely believe me.*

Which brings us to Oliver Jeffers's newest picture book. Yes, it does.

The Adventures of Sir Gawain the True by Gerald Morris, illustrations by Aaron Renier - review

I never considered manners to be of any real importance until I had kids. Or before I started working the reference desk. Adults tend to be a bit lazy, after all. We say "uh-huh" and we grunt and generally we manage to communicate and not offend too many people regardless. But kids - kids don't know that the "please" is supposed to be there and so they don't apply that deferential vocal inflection or body language or one of the ingratiating facial expressions that adults can use as shortcuts around saying "please." They are unschooled in the "thank you" nod-and-smile.

Sneezenesia by Deb Lucke - review

 

I once yelled at one of my kids so hard I gave myself a cold. No lie. What had he done? Um. He forgot a thing. He forgot a thing something like 65 days in a row, and I admit I kind of lost it. I lectured, I harangued: I got so upset I picked up a kitchen chair and banged it on the floor a few times like Krushchev or Baltimore's former mayor with a shoe. And when I stopped for breath, I sneezed four times and then had to go lie on the couch for three days.

The kid in Sneezenesia has the opposite problem. Poor kid has sneezed so hard he's forgotten his own name! Shopping at the supermarket, he's forgotten what his mom looks like! And then he keeps sneezing and keeps sneezing until all the facts he's ever known - dinosaurs, presidents (none the worse for wear, but Richard Nixon is covered in snot) - pop out of his nose and lie scattered on the floor in the canned foods section.

 

This book came out last year but somehow I missed it. I'm glad I caught it now. I'd put it together with A Sick Day for Amos McGee and do an unexpectedly fun cold-and-flu-themed storytime. Anybody know a good song about sneezing?

 

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Graphic Novel, Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith, adapted by Tony Lee, illustrated by Cliff Richards - review

How many trends can you cash in on with one slender book? I mean - sure, nobody'd much heard of Quirk Books before Seth Grahame-Smith audaciously armed Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy with samurai swords and rifles, and now the indie publisher is huge, able to make distribution deals with whomever they want, so who can blame 'em for trotting out as many sequels, t-shirts and ancillary works as they can? Heck, I'm surprised they haven't put out a series of branded Easy Readers.

So it is with perverse pleasure that I announce that my cynical preconceptions about this graphic novel adaptation of a mashup classic were WRONGGGG. WRONNNGG like the clock that bongs out the time in the Hotel Denouement. WRONNGGG like Bella and Edward. Like Bruce Willis and Nancy Botwin in Red (god, that actress will kiss anybody, won't she?). WRONGGG:

 

The Genius Files: Mission Unstoppable by Dan Gutman - review

 

There are some authors, I freely admit, whose books I don't read. Not because I don't think I'll like them, or because I don't think I'd be able to recommend them, but because they are already appreciated and sought out by children. Dan Gutman is, of course, like this. Very few kids need my help discovering Dan Gutman.

When you check a kid's prior reading to get a bead on his/her likes and dislikes, there are certain books you can refer to. "What did you think of Harry Potter?" is a fair question - most every kid will at least know who Harry is. The Magic Tree House books (god bless 'em but don't make me read 'em) are in this category, but not a whole lot else. Wimpy Kid. And, of course, My Weird School. You can triangulate a kid's response to these known series to find where he falls on the axes of funny / mystery / fantasy. Hm. That graph would be an interesting thing to draw. Sounds like a job for xkcd.

The Night Owls by the Timony Twins - review

 

You know, there is so much right with this book, I'm just going to cut to bullet points.

• Single-page comics that work separately but legitimately hang together as a book-length arc. No, legitimately. I'm serious. Like a season of really good TV. And, like a season of really good TV, there are mini-arcs and single-pagers interspersed between and nested within the larger arcs. Comic books have always done this, but not all comic books have done it this well.

• The mashup of the supernatural and the Roaring Twenties is fun. Al Capone goes up against a guy with an enchanted lead pipe. A chorine in a Marx Brothers show is haunted by her dead husband. The Pied Piper of Hamlin is gigging at the Cotton Club (making him the Pied Piper of Harlem?).

The Trouble With Chickens by Doreen Cronin, illustrations by Kevin Cornell - review

The trouble with chickens, in the experience of J.J., the hard-boiled, seen-it-all world-weary hound living out his post-glory days in a country farmyard, is that they're flighty. Untrustworthy. Calculating, manipulative, and either a lot smarter than him, or very very dumb.

The trouble with chickens, in my experience, is that everything wants to eat them and they don't run fast. Still kind of mourning our backyard birds.

How I Stole Johnny Depp's Alien Girlfriend by Gary Ghislain - review

 

Aaaand... this is a different type of YA novel. Another type that I like. There are no superheroes coming to terms with their newfound powers in it (except metaphorically), we are not living in a dystopic landscape (except metaphorically - the setting is mostly Paris), and there is no grief (not even metaphorically).

Instead we have an introverted, buttoned-down teenage boy who meets a fierce, wild-eyed girl, falls instantly in love, and is swept along by her insane momentum until he finds himself dog-bit, tattooed, guilty of criminal trespass, and listening to unfamiliar music.

I'm Not. Not drawn by Pam Smallcomb, not written by Robert Weinstock - not reviewed by me!

I think I need to be friends with Robert Weinstock and Pam Smallcomb. First of all, they're pals of James Proimos, who lives around here somewheres and is a lot of fun to run into at book festivals and the like. (And whose own books are great, not to mention the animation - NICE animation.)

Secondly, Pam Smallcomb and Robert Weinstock appear to know how to be good friends - if this book is any indication.

But I'm not reviewing this book, so I'm not going to explain that statement.

The Strange Case of Origami Yoda by Tom Angleberger, audio version by Recorded Books - review

The Strange Case of Origami Yoda (Unabridged Audio CDs)

When you were in sixth grade - think back - did you have questions? Were there conundrums? Navigational issues? Did gym class make you cry? Was there a kid who wouldn't quit buggin' you? What about that embarrassing nickname you couldn't seem to shake?

And who can you go to for advice? Mom and Dad are nice, but a little out of touch; and teachers - well when the teachers aren't busy enforcing all those those weird arbitrary rules (can you really get detention for eating chalk?) they're spouting aphorisms that either everyone already knows or nobody can understand.

Sixth graders need Yoda. Wise, cryptic, all-knowing Yoda.

Hold Me Closer, Necromancer by Lish McBride - review

I read a lot of books, right? I read a lot of books that are not necessarily for me. That's what Pink Me is for - I review books for people who choose books for kids. I'm happy with this state of affairs. I wouldn't do it if I weren't. And it's not too often that I have to read something that I truly dislike.

But. Even I have needs.

So, you wanna know what I love? You wanna know what I really, really love? I mean, besides the Spice Girls (obviously), and Peter Stormare? Besides Lou Reed's voice, the Pacific Northwest, fringe on just about anything, and making fun of Martha Stewart (have you ever read her blog? Consumption hasn't been that conspicuous since the Gilded Age!)?