Pink Me

Nonfiction Monday - Miss Etta and Dr. Claribel: Bringing Matisse to America by Susan Fillion - review

 

Art and history intertwine in the story of Claribel and Etta Cone, two sisters from Baltimore whose intellectual openness and love of art–not to mention tidy personal fortunes–brought them into contact with many pioneering minds of the early 20th century. More than mere art patrons, the sisters forged decades-long friendships with Gertrude Stein and her brother Leo, Pablo Picasso, and especially Henri Matisse.

 

The collection of art that they amassed, which includes many masterpieces of Postimpressionism as well as works from Asia and Africa (now at the Baltimore Museum of Art), liberally illustrates the gracefully designed pages of this book. So too do the author’s colorful Matisse-inspired illustrations, most of which are based on archival photographs. The book is a pleasure not only to behold but to hold, too - prestige paper and meticulous attention to color honor the author, her subjects, and the art.

 

Painting by Susan Fillion based on a famous photo from 1903.

An art educator in Baltimore, Susan Fillion has obviously spent untold hours with the Cone Collection and with the voluminous correspondence and other papers of the sisters. She frequently describes a scene or situation from Claribel’s or Etta’s perspective, an effective and engaging device. In the hands of a writer less intimate with the sisters, this might feel false or presumptive, but Fillion keeps it simple and convincing. A beautiful and accessible gateway to a study of Postimpressionism, and a moving portrait of two extraordinary women.

Adapted from a review that originally appeared in School Library Journal.

 

Today's Nonfiction Monday Round-up is at Emu's Debuts.

 

12 Things to do Before you Crash and Burn by James Proimos - review

Short. Raucous. Undiluted. Pungent. Sneaky. Foulmouthed. Bright.

These words describe one of two things - your favorite uncle or James Proimos's first book for young adults.

Sita's Ramayana by Samhita Arni, illustrated by Moyna Chitrakar - review

The Ramayana is the ancient epic story of the exiled prince Rama and his beautiful wife, Sita. When Sita is kidnapped by a love-struck demon king, her husband’s efforts to rescue her result in a war that eventually involves not only demons and mortals, but also gods, monsters, and even animals. This story has been told and retold, painted, performed and translated in every medium imaginable. 

 

High tech.

 

Battle of the Books full bracket prediction!

And that's it! With Life: An Exploded Diagram, I have officially read all of the contenders in School Library Journal's Battle of the Books. I am ready to go public with my brackets, and, perhaps more importantly, with my predictions for how the BoB cocktail party that SLJ is going to throw for all the characters in the contender books is going to shake down.

(I made up this cocktail party, in case you were looking for your invite. Since it's imaginary, everyone is invited!)

I am not taking into account my thoughts about the inclinations of the individual judges, as Liz Burns has in her prediction post at A Chair A Fireplace and a Tea Cozy - that's just too much to get my tiny brain around. So I'm just plunging in. DEEEEP BREATH. Remember that I am crap at this.

 

Life: An Exploded Diagram by Mal Peet - review, plus bonus Battle of the Books prediction

Clem was born premature, when his pregnant mother was startled by a heartbroken Nazi pilot shooting her chimney to pieces at the end of World War II in rural Norfolk, England.

Using this birth as a pivot point, Mal Peet tells us the story of Clem's family from the time his grandmother was a girl to nearly the present day. We see the twentieth century work its changes on this family, as wars take men away and bring them back, social movements carry Clem's family out of their indentured hovel and into estate housing and allow Clem to attend an exclusive school, and romantic love finds a foothold.

Reading on the radio: Brief lives

Why does a kid read a biography?

 

A couple of reasons. The most common reason is the old "I have to write a book report on George Washington Carver." Boy do you want to find a peppy, well-illustrated biography of George Washington Carver for that kid. A decent book, written by someone who actually cares about and is interested in George Washington Carver, as opposed to a generic series biography written by someone who got the assignment in an email, will make all the difference for that kid.

The Groundbreaking, Chance-Taking Life of George Washington Carver and Science and Invention in America by Cheryl Harness. National Geographic Children's Books.

These Cheryl Harness biographies are just the right length for older elementary school students. Heavily illustrated by the author and loaded with extras like timelines and maps, they are interestingleisure reads but work for writing reports as well.

 

Some kids will read biographies by choice: either they're interested in the subject, and they're inhaling everything they can find about, say, Jimi Hendrix in every medium available; or they're that kid who only likes true stories. That kid deserves a subscription to the National Geographic Photobiographies series.

Jimi: Sounds Like a Rainbow: A Story of the Young Jimi Hendrix by Gary Golio, illustrated by Javaka Steptoe. Clarion Books. This impressionistic book about Jimi is notable for its wild mixed-media illustrations and for an afterword that addresses his use of drugs and alcohol without being judgemental or whitewashing the facts.

 

When I asked my friend Tracy, who teaches 3rd grade, if any recent biographies jump out at her as being particularly noteworthy, she shrugged. "The Harry Houdini book," she said, "but mostly I just enjoy reading the biographies that the kids write."

Escape!: The Story of the Great Houdini by Sid Fleischman. Greenwillow Books. Fleischman has also written a long-form kids' biography of Mark Twain, called The Trouble Begins at 8: A Life of Mark Twain in the Wild, Wild West.

 

Tracy's response, though, is a great reason to encourage kids to read biographies. Barbara Kerley's The Extraordinary Mark Twain (According To Susy) is a lively portrait of the writer as an eccentric family man, and includes portions of the biography written by his (ultimately tragically ill-fated) daughter Susy. Ms. Kerley also includes a page of entertaining instructions for writing a biography yourself.

I've been asking around, and it seems to me a lot of people can remember maybe one biography that they read as a kid that made a big impression on them. For my husband, it was a book about an ice hockey player called Roger Crozier, Daredevil Goalie. 

 

Crozier was a "daredevil" because for many years he didn't wear a facemask. I would say maybe he should have.

 

For me, it was Thor Heyerdahl's Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific by Raft, the story of six men crossing the Pacific on a handmade raft. Like-minded readers today might try Into Thin Air, The Perfect Storm, or a biography of an Arctic explorer.

Onward: A Photobiography of African-American Polar Explorer Matthew Henson (Photobiographies)by Dolores Johnson. National Geographic Children's Books.

 

You never know who is going to inspire a young person. It's worth asking what they're interested in, what they want to be when they grow up, what fiction books they read.

A kid who likes funny fiction will love the nonfiction stories that children's author Jon Scieszka tells about growing up with his five brothers. I would like to note that I finally found a name that stumped Maryland Morning host Tom Hall - luckily, Mr. Scieszka's website gives us a handy pronunciation guide!

Knucklehead: Tall Tales and Almost True Stories of Growing up Scieszka, by Jon Scieszka. Viking Juvenile.

 

 

Audrey Hepburn with the writer Colette.

People who like princessy books will love the light, wonderfully stylish drawings of Audrey Hepburn in the picture book Just Being Audrey. Her mother was a baroness! How come I never knew that?

Just Being Audrey by Margaret Cardillo, illustrated by Julia Denos. Balzer + Bray.

 

Kid is thinking about law? Why not think big!

Sonia Sotomayor: A Judge Grows in the Bronx / La juez que crecio en el Bronx by Jonah Winter, illustrated by Edel Rodriguez. Atheneum Books for Young Readers. Bonus for being bilingual!

By the way, Jonah Winter is a name to look for when choosing biographies for children. He's written picture book bios of all kinds of people, from Frida Kahlo to Hildegard von Bingen to Sandy Koufax. He comes by his interest honestly - his mother Jeanette Winter, with whom he collaborated on the Hildegard book and a book about Diego Rivera, also writes picture book bios to watch for. She has done Jane Goodall, Georgia O'Keeffe, Bach, Emily Dickinson and more.

 

Another terrific author who has something of a specialty in biographies for kids is Kathleen Krull. Wilma Rudolph, Jim Henson, Cesar Chavez and L. Frank Baum have each caught her attention. She also has written a series of lively collected biographies - books about musicians, presidents, athletes, pirates, writers taken in context. Look for books with "(and What the Neighbors Thought)" in the title.

Lives of the Athletes: Thrills, Spills (and What the Neighbors Thought) by Kathleen Krull, illustrated by Kathryn Hewitt. Harcourt.

Emily Arnold McCully, who is probably best known for Mirette on the High Wire, for which she won the Caldecott Medal, also writes and illustrates terrific nonfiction. Manjiro: The Boy Who Risked His Life for Two Countries (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) tells about a Japanese boy who helped open up relations between Japan and the U.S. in the 1800's.

Which brings us to another important point about biographies written for children. What I just wrote about Manjiro makes it sound boring as dirt - but in the hands of a talented writer like Emily Arnold McCully, his story sings with pathos and adventure. The pictures glow and the characters come alive.

 

Biographies are written for children of all ages and reading abilities. Dan Yaccarino's book on the ocean environmentalist Jacques Cousteau has no more than two sentences per page, with bright, graphic illustrations.

The Fantastic Undersea Life of Jacques Cousteau by Dan Yaccarino. Knopf Books for Young Readers.

Second and third graders can handle a little more text: I love Keep Your Eye on the Kid: The Early Years of Buster Keaton by Catherine Brighton, about Buster Keaton's early years. The way this book breaks down Keaton's pratfalls and early movie-making process, it's hard not to want to try some of his tricks out for yourself. 

 

I'm going to leave off with a book about a woman whose tricks you should maybe not try at home. Amelia Lost: The Life and Disappearance of Amelia Earhart is probably the best of many Amelia Earhart books written for kids. The story of Amelia's life is told in strong, well-paced chapters, but between each chapter we get the hour-by-hour account of her fatal flight and the subsequent rescue efforts. Author Candace Fleming has pieced together a great deal of research, and without speculating on the fate of Amelia and her navigator, allows us to imagine her voice desperately calling out over the radio in the empty Pacific.

Amelia Lost: The Life and Disappearance of Amelia Earhart by Candace Fleming. Schwartz & Wade.

 

Nonfiction Monday is hosted today by the marvelous Travis at 100 Scope Notes. I have been M.I.A. from NF Mon for a while, but I'm happy to be back.

And be sure to listen to my conversation with host Tom Hall on this Friday's Maryland Morning with Sheilah Kast on Maryland's NPR station, WYPR 88.1 FM. If you're out of the listening area, audio of the segment will be online by the end of the day on Maryland Morning's website.

Librarian to the Stars: At the Governor's Ball

 

 

Providing reader advisory services to movie and TV stars may sound like it's all glamor and glitz - private screenings at Matt Damon's place, long walks with Taylor Kitsch, tequila shots with Cameron Diaz - but in reality, it's hard work. It's a year-round, always-on-call job that requires constant monitoring of tons of information sources. You should see my office - a dozen laptops and giant flatscreens feeding me 24-hour updates from Cynopsis Kids, Early Word, Rama's Screen, and the Hollywood Reporter.

But that's what it takes. What would happen if, out of the blue, Hailee Steinfeld chased you down in a hallway at NBC panting, "I have to read a science fiction novel for English but I hate science fiction!" It wouldn't do to flail around until you lamely suggest she reads Virus on Orbis 1. Nooo. That kid, she needs more action. Not so much character development. Black Hole Sun is the book for her. She'd be perfect as the voice of the AI that is the main character's advisor, conscience and best friend. Or she could be the kick-ass love interest Vienne.

Tune in to my wave as I provide book advice to the attendees of the 84th Annual Academy Awards from my perch by the bar at the Governor's Ball...

Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys - review, plus Battle of the Books prediction

 

We are well shut of the twentieth century, I think. That was the first thing that crossed my mind as I closed Between Shades of Gray at about 1:30 in the morning last night. Good god. This is historical fiction that grabs you by the throat.

Where are we? We are in Lithuania in June of 1941. Stalin has annexed the country and part of his strategy for integrating it seamlessly into the Soviet Union is to round up anyone who might object and send them to Siberia. 

Who are we? Fifteen-year-old Lina, upper middle class, a gifted artist, with a ten-year-old brother and a beautiful mother. Papa, a university administrator, has already disappeared when soldiers pound on the door and throw Lina's family into a truck.

Chime by Franny Billingsley - review, plus Battle of the Books prediction

 

What is happening to 17-year-old Briony Larkin and the miserable fenside village of Swampsea? Briony is beautiful and intelligent, neglected by her father after the death of her beloved stepmother. Possessed of a supernatural gift that allows her to see and converse with the nature spirits that surround her village, before she died, her stepmother commanded Briony to avoid the swamp where these spirits live lest something terrible happen.

To make an already joyless life considerably worse, Briony is responsible for her difficult twin sister Rose, who, due to a blow to the head when the girls were seven, exhibits symptoms and behaviors similar to those associated with autism spectrum disorder.

Then a handsome boy comes to the village, and with him progress: the swamp is to be drained and Swampsea to become the terminus of a London rail line. As Swampsea struggles to - belately - join the twentieth century, Briony struggles with new roles that she both fears and desires. I'm always looking for neat coming-of-age metaphors, and the advent of the modern age is a good one. Will Briony allow herself to fall in love? Will she learn to control her power? Will she figure out the deceptions that have been perpetrated upon her, leaving her full of frustrated, self-abasing rage? 

Pink Smog by Francesca Lia Block - review

Louise at thirteen is friendless and flat-chested. Bad luck and worse decisions have torn apart the cozy canyon life she shared with her parents, B-movie director Charlie Bat and starlet-turned-homemaker Brandy-Lynn, and now she lives in a courtyard condo down below the smog line. Instead of her tiny, hippie elementary school, she's attending a big public junior high where everything seems like a competition. And then, after one too many drunken arguments with Brandy-Lynn, her dad leaves.

Pink Smog: Becoming Weetzie Bat is the prequel to Francesca Lia Block's popular Weetzie Bat stories - this is Weetzie before she becomes fully Weetzified: not yet blonde, only partially sparkly, showing barely a hint of the wistful siren to come. With some of the glitter swept away, the emphasis is on Louise's feelings and encounters, which have always been well-written, but can be overshadowed by the feathered, flowing, Mod Podge fabric of Weetzie's later life. Heartbroken, teased, neglected, and possibly hexed, Louise begins to learn about risks that are worth taking and people who are worth cherishing. She is a peaceful child who, when faced with cruelty and loss, develops into a young woman who is pliant but not wimpy, strong but not aggressive.

A fresh gem for Weetzie's fans, Pink Smog stands comfortably alone as well. It would serve as a Gateway to Francesca Lia Block (which is an arch a lot of us are happy to have passed through - Jezebel once called Weetzie Bat ""The Book for Girls Who Ended Up Taking a Gay Dude to Prom" - I myself took my best friend's much-older brother), and although marketed to grades 9 and up, this book could be wise comfort to a reader as young as 5th grade whose family has undergone sudden change.

A version of this review appeared in VOYA a few months ago.

Pink Me: Librarian to the Stars! Jennifer Lawrence Edition (special appearance by Brad Pitt)

I feel like Tony Shalhoub's character in Galaxy Quest: "Heh heh," he chuckles, mentally adding up the squad of enemy alien soldiers guarding the [whatever], the rock monster the crew had encountered on a recent visit to a desolate planet, and the ship's transporter mechanism. "I just had this really interesting idea."

I've just done a little idle internal arithmetic myself. I read a lot, right? Mostly kids' and YA books. It's ridiculous. And it's gotten to be I kind of feel like I'm cheating when I take time out for the essentials: Vanity Fair's Hollywood issue, September Vogue, and Go Fug Yourself. Your essentials may not be my essentials. There's room for all of us here.

 

But my consumption of gossipy fashiony stuff means that I do kind of keep an eye on the traffic at the intersection of these two interests of mine - namely, when YA (and sometimes kids') novels are made into movies. Like... Ooh there goes Oscar nominee Viola Davis again - she's going to be in the movie they're finally going to make of Ender's Game. Hm. I wonder just exactly where Viola Davis fits into Ender's Game. Ugh here's another mouth-breathing Hemsworth: which YA heartthrob part is he going to be panting all over this time? You know. Everybody does that.

And you can't help wondering, you know, if you somehow found yourself sharing a First Class row with say Brad Pitt (I could get bumped up, it could happen!), what would you end up talking about?

 

Battle of the Books preview post

Do you follow the SLJ Battle of the Books? It's the kidliterati version of March Madness, pitting fiction against nonfiction, dystopic sci-fi against humor, graphic novels against verse. It's win or go home as a few elite judges (Lauren Myracle, Matt Phelan, Maggie Stiefvater, and Jonathan Stroud, among others! Wow!) debate the merits of 16 of the most highly-decorated and fulsomely-praised children's and young adult books of this year.

One of the things that I like most about the BoB brackets (besides the fact that you can call them BoB) is that the books are seeded in alphabetical order. This leads to some amusingly disjunct head-to-head beat-downs: the gritty Okay for Now versus the magic-tinged Wonderstruck, for example. It might also be the only place you'll see the sincere, informative Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans go up against the heartfelt-but-in-a-very-different-way Inside Out and Back Again.

For the first time this year, I am in prime position to follow along, having read more nine and a half of the sixteen contenders. I discussed many of the books in this year's battle in my Newbery Preview post - but the Big N has historically not conferred any advantage during Battle of the Books, past Newbery winners having gone down in early rounds. Here's the list, and it's on Goodreads too.

The High Street by Alice Melvin - review

 

This is just me being cranky, isn't it. I am the only person in the world who will look at this pretty, wholesome, lots-to-look-at picture book, this rhyming de-cumulative stroll down a London street filled with people and pets of all ages, colors, countries of origin, and sizes - and go, "Hmmph."

Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway - review

Here's a rare thing: a review of a bona fide adult book on Pink Me. Suitable for teenagers? You decide. (There's a breakdown at the bottom of this review.)

 

I wish I could write the review this book deserves, as Nick Harkaway (not his real name) wrote the review that Neal Stephenson's Reamde deserved - the one I was in the process of writing in my head. Stephenson's book was an action novel taken to absurd lengths, a nonstop global car/boat/bike chase firefight populated by real characters, most of whom you had to fall in love with. Ergo, I think it's no coincidence that Harkaway (still not his real name) felt he had some solid ground upon which to stand while surveying the fatness of Reamde. 

Angelmaker is leaner, sprawls less, but is similarly packed with spies and murderers and gangsters who run and drive and use weapons, and they're all real people. Well. Some of them are not. A few of them are... but no, I'm not going to say. 

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews - review (plus bonus rant, again)

 

Rules are for sissies. Yes, yes they are. Especially, I would say, in Young Adult fiction. All this hoo-ha and malarkey about people debating What is Young Adult lately - with so many grownups reading adventure fiction like The Hunger Games, why is one novel with a teen protagonist (let's just say Going Bovine) marketed to teens and why is another (call it Huge) marketed to adults - and as far as I'm concerned the fastest, funniest, most wrenching, most challenging stuff is YA and all the rest is non-age-specific genre fiction.

Mad at me yet? Read more!

Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett, illustrated by Jon Klassen - review

 

I have in the recent past poked (gentle) (I hope) fun at Jon Klassen's illustration style, saying that in the future, people will be able to pull a book illustrated by him off the shelf and say, "Oh yeah... 2011! Remember that, with the slightly spattery browny-gray inks and deadpan expressions? I Want My Hat Back! I loved that!"

Totally. I have worn that rich but drab palette for the past five years. I've wanted a skirt with his blocky animal figures on it ever since Cats' Night Out. His cover for The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place almost made me want to read that book.

But now, reading Extra Yarn, we learn about his color, too. It's good color.

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?

Precious Little by Julie Hunt and Sue Moss, illustrations by Gaye Chapman - review

 

You know the kid. She puts star stickers on the apples of her cheeks. He insists on wearing a cape everywhere. She may grow up to be the kind of lady who spraypaints one boot yellow and the other silver. He may grow up to be the guy who owns fifty hats and knows how to ride a unicycle.

I know a disproportionate number of people like that, I think. How has that happened?

 

Anyway, Gaye Chapman, the illustrator of this dreamy silken kaleidoscope of a picture book, is probably one of those people. Lord knows she draws for them. But before I start piling up a bunch of adjectives about the art, let me summarize the story:

 

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.

Reading on the radio: Caldecott thoughts

Whew! Glad to be done with the Newbery post! That award is so loaded, so hard to talk about without hurting someone's feelings. On to the Caldecott!

 

From Ice by Arthur Geisert

Why is it that, while Newbery conversations feel like minefields, Caldecott conversations feel like wildflower-strewn Alpine pastures? Is it because every artist whose work even gets mentioned in the same breath as the C-word is by definition inarguably talented? Is it because you get to look at pretty things while you're looking for examples, rather than getting paper cuts leafing through novels trying to find that passage where the author really nails it?

 

From Me... Jane by Patrick McDonnell

I think it's because it's a lot easier to put your finger on what you find worthy in a particular book's illustration program than it is to pinpoint what you like about a big piece of prose. You can say, "Marla Frazee is a wizard of the color black," or "The fat contour lines that Kevin Henkes uses make his shapes so accessible to little kids." And I think that unfortunately, Newbery conversations often switch around to what you didn't like about an author's characters or style.

 

From If You Lived Here by Giles Laroche

But I've spent some time cross-referencing the Cybils picture book finalists (fiction and nonfiction - on which panel I served this year) with the few Mock Caldecott lists that people dream up, along with all the illustrated things I've read this year, and I came up with a list of some books that I think are among the items the 2011 Caldecott Committee spent time talking about on their way to conferring one Medal and up to four Honors.

Don't take my word for it though (really, DON'T) - motor on over to your library and check out a huge batch of picture books so you can play along yourself! I'll be running down some of these books on the radio January 13 at about 9:40 am, on WYPR's Maryland Morning program. 88.1 on your FM dial in Baltimore, and online at www.wypr.org.

Reading on the radio: Newbery thoughts

Oy, the book awards. Not the Nerdies, which are voted on by you the public; nor the Cybils, which have open nominations and then two panels of book bloggers as judges; and not the Maryland Black Eyed Susan Awards (nominated by school librarians, voted on by students), the Eisners, the National Book Award or the Roald Dahl Funny Prize, which I sure wish we had in the U.S.

No, I'm talking about the ALA's annual awards: the Caldecott, the Printz, and especially the Newbery.

Putting my money where my mouth is - 2011 Books to Buy, Not Borrow

Okay, remind me to not let Pink Me go dormant for more than a week ever again. This site became such a magnet for spam comments - casinos, antibiotics, generic Cialis, lonely girls, lonely girls in casinos taking generic antibiotics - oh I got it all, baby!

I hope your December has been reasonably uneventful. No inflamed joints, for example. Or impounded vehicles. I hope Christmas Eve didn't find you thirty feet up in a tree rescuing a stray kitten. I'd like to think that you are easing into the New Year in full possession of your voice and without intermittent fever and a hacking cough. Jury duty is for you but a distant bothersome memory, as is the veterinarian's office. You will have had no height-induced panic attacks nor fights with your loved ones and you will have made merry with all your good relatives, while the ones who are b-holes stayed away.

If not - if your holidays have included any of the above situations or b-holes, or if you're like me and the past week has included ALL OF THEM (AAALL OF THEM GOOD GOD LOOK AT THAT WHY AREN'T I DEAD?) - allow me to direct you to a suite of posts on another blog, posts which I recommend purely for their temporary palliative effect.

TEMPORARY. Nobody wants to see you pole dance.

Meanwhile, I am going to ease back into the business of thinking about children's literature by engaging in the time-honored activity of making a list. I can't call it Pink Me's Best Books of 2011, because I frankly can't think that hard. Not at this point. Can I interest you in a kitten? No, I'm going to call it Books I Would Buy in 2011.

Texas Gothic by Rosemary Clement-Moore - review

Just a quick YA book review today, pumpkins - I am up to my [pick a body part you don't mention in polite company] in holiday crafting and carding and cocktail recipes.

What? Cocktail recipes are not part of everyone's year-end frenzy? Huh. What do you guys do?

 

 

Rosemary Clement-Moore delivers two things that have become the normal main features of YA books for girls: cold supernatural thrills and hot boy romance. What makes her hot boys and cold thrills stand out from all the rest are the girls that navigate the spaces between them: they are aggravated and amused, intrigued and insulted, cool but occasionally klutzy. They may find themselves covered in bat crap, but they will likely leave with an awesome exit line. Their narration conveys the knowing but self-conscious tone that is native to all teenage girls.

In Texas Gothic, strange doings are afoot at a big ol' cattle ranch in the west Texas Hill Country. Has an archaeological dig disturbed a centuries-old ghost? Or are nefarious humans taking advantage of local folklore to scare people away, and if so... why? Teenaged Amy Goodnight, the only intentionally "normal" member of a family of benign but powerful witches, seems to be the only one who can get to the bottom of The Mystery of the Mad Monk... but not only is she mortified at the Scooby Doo-ness of the whole "Mad Monk" thing, she is also nearly literally mortified by the ghost's overtures.

If you enjoyed Nancy Drew's The Secret of Shadow Ranch as a kid (yum, cowboys!) but are too self-aware to let yourself get caught up in silly stuff like The Ghost Whisperer, this is the book for you. Gotta love gothic.

The Cheshire Cheese Cat by Carmen Agra Deedy and Randall Wright, illustrated by Barry Moser - guest review by Zhou, bonus rant by me

 

It's been a very Dickensy week here at Ye Olde Crumbling House of Bookes. Not Dickensian, thank goodness - we've all been getting three square meals and wearing actual shoes most of the time. Admittedly, you might catch my children looking doe-eyed and pathetic when asking for a fourth bowl of cereal (four bowls the other morning! I might as well serve it in a trough!). And if you've been following the other blog to which I contribute, you might detect a scent of Scrooge in our posts about drinking one's way through the holidays.

But, you know, I don't hate Dickens. No, nope, I don't. I hate fake Cockney accents, Barbie(™) in A Christmas Carol, I hate animatronic carolers and a hell of a lot of things that are inspired by Dickens, but I will give the man his due. Although a run like this past week is pushing it:  

 

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.

In Defense of the Realm by Sanjay Deshpande, illustrated by Lalit Kumar Sharma - review

 

The Akkadians of Central Iraq, hungry for new lands to conquer, have set sail for the great cities of Sind, in what is now southern Pakistan. Prince Meluha and his teacher Chandrayaan are out hunting when the invaders launch their assault upon Meluha’s city, and so it becomes the handsome (and quite often shirtless - hell, everyone's shirtless in this thing!) prince’s responsibility to travel to the other Indus Valley cities and rally their rulers to stand together against the hostile armies of Akkadia.

 

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.

Reading on the radio - Gift books 2011

 

There is a secret joy that librarians are allowed at holiday time. Although we are ardent in encouraging people to borrow, not buy, most of us... well, we're kind of into books. We can't help wanting to own them. And though librarians vary in the extent to which they successfully keep themselves out of bookstores - some don't even try - all bets are off when it comes to buying gifts for our family and friends.

I stopped in at WYPR's Maryland Morning to talk to host Tom Hall about this subject. I brought a great huge stack of books and asked Tom to pick out the ones he wanted to know more about. If you miss the broadcast, you can listen to our conversation on the Maryland Morning website by the end of the day. The station has also posted a list of the books I brought to the station, or click "Read more" to see an expanded version (book trailers! whee!).

 

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.

Electronic Thursday - Monkey Boy to Lunch Lady by Jarrett J Krosoczka - review

 

If success could be attained via charm and personality alone, Jarrett Krosoczka would have had this fame and fortune thing sewn up a long time ago. I'm admitting this right here - I love the guy. His books are a joy, and he's a born showman in person: at panel discussions, he sings, he draws, he engages the crowd and sometimes wears costumes. In the strange, airless space that is the online author visit or virtual storytime, he is responsive and enthusiastic and introduces his dog.

 

That's Jarrett in his red pleather suit at the Guys Read: Thriller panel at BEA last year, seated between Jack Gantos and Jon Scieszka (who is not wearing a wig) (for once).

But as important as enthusiasm and hard work are, they do not automatically translate to stardom in the demanding, puppy-eat-puppy world of children's lit. Jarrett's newest publication, From Monkey Boy to Lunch Lady: The Sketchbooks of Jarrett J. Krosoczka, tracks the ups and downs of his career as an author/illustrator and the sometimes crooked path along which an idea travels on its way to becoming a book.

Dave & Violet by Sarah Adams - review

Unexpected.

When I was a kid, we had a big fat book called Golden Treasury of Children's Literature. It was full of excerpts from longer books - a chapter from Mary Poppins, a chapter from The Wizard of Oz. Some poetry, some obscure stuff. A really scary Rapunzel. I ate that book up and then forgot it, although I think it is the reason that I have an unexplained but vehement dislike of excerpts. I felt terribly cheated, not getting the whole story.

I forgot the book, but the images from it nonetheless live strongly in my head. Kind of like a K-Tel record, the book excerpts it contained were not illustrated with the canonical illustrations one associates with these works. They were very good - I think Charley Harper illustrated the Bambi story - but they were different, and they imprinted strongly on my mind. For example, despite multiple readings of an edition of The Hobbit with the Tolkein illustrations, and despite the towering charisma of Ian McKellen, I still envision the Gandalf in that book when I see Gandalf in my head.

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.

Gossip Girl: Psycho Killer by Cecily von Ziegesar - review

 

I have a few things to confess before we begin.

1. I picked up this book because I saw it on Go Fug Yourself.

2. I like serial killers. I mean I like BOOKS about serial killers - do not start writing me from jail, you murdering fiends. And I like clothes. So I decided to read this book because I was in the mood for some uptown Serial Mom action.

3. Errr... you know what I mean.

4. I decided to review this book in order to show that I am not all Snobby McTyraHater and I bow to no-one when it comes to a healthy appetite for escapist kitsch.

5. Lastly, I have never previously read anything written by Ms. von Ziegesar, and I've never seen the show. But you knew that.

Modelland by Tyra Banks - review

Books can be badly-written in any number of ways. The characters may be poorly defined, the plot predictable. The pace may stutter. The author may have O.D.-ed on simile, or rely too heavily on certain phrases ("His scar prickled like fire"). Or the author may assume that his or her readers are total idiots, and load the text with unnecessary clarification. ("'What are YOU doing here?!' she exclaimed, a look of surprise on her face.") A Tragic Overuse of Capitalized Nouns may strangle the reader in Unwarranted Portentousness.

Tyra Banks doesn't really do any of these things. FYI. I mention this in case you, like me, had some kind of suspicion that a person with no apparent experience writing fiction might be, I don't know... TERRIBLE at it. I'm terrible at it, and I write all the damn time.

 

But she's not good at it, either.

 

Fractured Fables from Silverline Books - review

Kids who like the Little Lit titles (It Was a Dark and Silly Night..., Folklore and Fairy Tale Funnies) will cackle over this collection of familiar tales given an irreverent twist. Rapunzel thinks the prince's request to 'let down her hair' is 'really random'. Gepetto injures his hand trying to spank his robot son after the Blue Fairy grants the wish that makes Pinocchio a real boy. Red Riding Hood's Grandma runs a martial arts academy. Cinderella rejects the lovely blue ballgown provided by her fairy godmother - she was thinking more "Anne Hathaway at the Oscars".

A Butterfly is Patient by Dianna Hutts Aston, illustrated by Sylvia Long - review

I swear to God, I thought the last thing I needed was One More Butterfly Book. And I also thought, when I saw that this book had been nominated for a Cybils Award in the Nonfiction Picture Book category, for which I am a first-round judge, that maybe I had finally outgrown my susceptibility to Sylvia Long's gorgeous watercolors and graceful calligraphy.

After all, I am well aware that A Seed Is Sleepy and An Egg Is Quiet - I have bought those books, I have gifted those books, and I have recommended those books. They make good baby shower gifts, among other things. I mean, as well as being informative and inspiring. I thought there was probably not one more serene natural subject worthy of Ms. Long's well-researched scrutiny and Dianna Hutts Aston's tranquil prose.

But holy crap, I could stare at this thing for hours. Lovely.

So if you have Waiting for Wings and Arabella Miller's Tiny Caterpillar and Laurence Pringle's An Extraordinary Life in your school or classroom library and you thought you were done, well, better make a little room on the shelf. And give your kids sketchbooks and some colored pencils - they're going to want to go outside and draw something.

 

Something like this owl butterfly, caligo memnon, with a 5-inch wingspan.

Numbers by Rachel Ward - review

Here is the trick with magic realism: if you're going to add a little magic to your realistic story, just drop it in there and don't futz with it. Like cold butter on warm bread, if you try to even it out you will just tear holes in your plot and make yucky little crumb-butter tumbleclots. In other words, if Grandpa can fly, he can just fly, ok? Don't start rattling off a long and involved explanation about curses or fairies or mitochlorions - people will get suspicious.

If your main character can see the date of a person's death when she looks into their eyes, you should just tiptoe out on stage, hand her that little piece of business, and then back off real nonchalant-like.

Like Rachel Ward does. Oh, Rachel Ward. Nicely done.

The Maze Runner by James Dashner - review

 

I cannot get behind this book. I wanted to, I did - oh, and based on recommendations by other people, I have been recommending it to teens and tweens who like action for a good year now - but I think it is poor science fiction.

Thomas is a teenage boy who wakes up one morning in a windowless metal room, unable to remember much more than his name. When the room opens up, he finds himself in a community of several dozen boys, all of whom arrived in what they call the Glade just as he did, devoid of memory. The Glade is a sizeable square area surrounded by tall stone walls. Behind the walls, on all sides, is a gigantic maze. In the two years since the first boys were delivered to the Glade, they have formed an extremely functional, organized, (mostly) self-sustaining society, and have set themselves the task of solving the giant maze - looking for a way out.

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.

 

Poetry Friday - Afterschool enrichment club pickup snafu haiku

Brown couch. And I found
no ride. Waiting is so boring.
Dad, it ends at 4.

-- Milo, age 10

 

The Mary Ann, Betsy, and Paula Show - This is the moment for kidlit apps

At the SLJ Leadership Summit in Alexandria a few weeks ago, I saw a demo of the Pat the Bunny app again. Have you seen the trailer for that app? You watch. I'll wait.

 

That bunny is a total evangelist, right? That app actually does things that the book can't do, and that is a book that does things that most books can't do. Pat the Bunny is the app that turns arms-crossed, grumbly librarians into wide-eyed murmury librarians. Bobo Explores Light (reviewed earlier) does that too.

Nonfiction Monday - Bobo Explores Light by GameCollage - review

 

Just press play.

No, I mean it. You want to know what an iPad does, and why? Just hit the play button on that trailer for the new children's science app Bobo Explores Light up there.

What an iPad does, and why:

 

You need this: Picture books for parents

Misnomer. False advertising. NOT picture books for parents. This is NOT a review of Go the F**k to Sleep. What I think about that book was expressed quite soundly - and strongly - by Roger Sutton of The Horn Book. Roger Sutton is a modern-day hero.

No. These are picture books that are fully for children. Funny, sweet, colorful, devoid of swear words. BUT. They are books that grown-ups will legitimately enjoy themselves. It is one of the perks of having little kids - you have an excuse to consume picture books. Some picture books are insipid or tedious. But some are sly and sparkling.

TO WIT:

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.

Even librarians have a lot to learn

I actually took a whole lot of notes at the SLJ Leadership Summit in Alexandria this week. Do I sound surprised? I'm kind of surprised. I've been doing the same thing for kind of a long time now - 7 years at the public library, 5 years writing kidlit book reviews, and I guess I've gotten pretty complacent. Arrogant. Lazy. You pick. So these two back-to-back conferences I've been to, KidLitCon and the SLJ Summit, with their arrays of high-functioning, extra-smart, thoughtful and energetic speakers, kind of rocked my world.

First of all! Mary Ann Scheuer has posted about the apps presentation that we did at KidLitCon with Betsy Bird. She's going to be writing quite a bit more about what makes a good app in the next few weeks, and I will be following avidly.

Next, here are a couple of things I took away from the SLJ Leadership Summit, so ably and affably hosted by Brian Kenney and Rocco Staino. Rocco had to do some inspired vamping for time when presenters suffered the waking nightmare known as Why Won't The Tech Work I Tested it Just This Morning Dammit. The number and variety of devices the projector in that ballroom had to hook up with, I hope it took a Valium and a dose of Flagyl afterwards.

 

Poetry Friday - Foggy Morning Drop-off

You in the Volvo!
Get back there.
Think you're so safe.
All the nerdy Swedes in the world won't save you,
You insist on edging out into traffic like that.

I saw three different cars jump the curb in the parking lot today.
Nobody knows where they are.
Nobody's safe
But everyone's sleepy.

Spilled my coffee trying not to hit
A van nosing out of a side street.
Would have been a slo-mo crash,
Both of us creeping so cautious.

Should have hit him.
Could have gotten our front end fixed.

 

If you are a Baltimorean like me, I hope to see you at the Living Poetry Flash Mob at noon on Saturday on the City Lit Stage! Poets Virginia Crawford and Laura Shovan are hosting a spontaneous poetry composition that you’ll want to try on for size. Attendees wearing Living Poetry Flash tee-shirts will “be arranged” into written on-the-spot, living poems. Tee-shirts can be made at home (instructions at www.authoramok.com) or picked up Friday and Saturday at the CityLit Stage.

 

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.

 

I call myself a critic

So, we're just back from beautiful Seattle, where the food is insane and the drinks are even better. Bob and I snuck off for an out-of-town anniversary weekend, using the excellent KidLitCon 2011 as an excuse.

Thanks to Mary Ann Scheuer of Great Kid Books, I was there helping her do a presentation about ebook apps for kids. We were joined via Skype by Betsy Bird of A Fuse #8 Production - and if you've never used videoconferencing as an essential part of your presentation, allow me to tell you, it's just as nerve-racking as you might expect. But all the tech worked, including a nifty document camera that allowed us to not only project what the iPad was doing, but what we were doing to the iPad.

It was truly a pleasure to stand up there alongside two such knowledgeable professionals.

Nonfiction Monday - Animals with Super Powers by Natalie Lunis - review, plus A Memoriam to Charley, a Brine Shrimp

It's a bittersweet day here on the Pink Me couch. The season's changing, the pool has closed. We recently made the not-difficult-at-all decision to finally ditch this bony old beast for a new couch, one with padding in all the right places, one with cushions that have yet to be vomited on. It's an exciting moment, but I can't help wondering if we will be as happy on the new couch as we have been on the - truly repulsive - Jennifer Convertibles sofa that I bought in New York so many years ago. The frog-printed slipcover will be going too.

Will our crazy pillows fit on it? Will we all fit on it? The boys are getting bigger, and nowadays much more likely to be buried in a D&D manual than in a Hardy Boys mystery.

Added to this seasonal introspection is a sliver of bad news that has hit our family unexpectedly hard: Charley, the World's Oldest Living Brine Shrimp, has died.

 

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.