Crocs! For Poetry Friday

"It really is a pity
That you had to leave the city
Because of all the horrifying critters

GIANT tabby cats
And defiant scabby rats
Large enough to swallow baby-sitters"

So begins Crocs, by David T. Greenberg, illustrated by Lynn Munsinger (2008, Little Brown). The hero flees the horrors of the urban jungle, to a tropical island where at last he feels at peace. But this does not last long:



"Pudgy as a panda
relaxed on your veranda
wiggling your toes within your socks

You sadly have no notion
All around you, in the ocean
Are tons and tons of terrifying CROCS!"

The crocs are wild, and scary, and wacky as all get out (as only Lynn Munsinger's crocs could be). They wreck crodocilian havoc, but in a playful way, luring the child into their reptilian world, and things are working out happily. Then a croc whose like you've never seen in a picture book before emerges from the ocean...

Cliche time (but true none the less): "playful, rollicking verse" coupled with "enchantingly diverting pictures." (Although actually I don't think "diverting" is used that much). But regardless, this book is fun to read aloud, and fun to look at, and kind of strange. Definitely one for the child who appreciates more than a bit of surreality with their playful, rollicking verse.

David T. Greenberg has, according to the jacket flap, been dubbed "our emerging poet of Gross" by the New York Times. There was only one small grossness in this book, however. I haven't read any of his other books (Slugs, for instance), but I shall look for them. Lynn Munsinger I already know and love, on account of Tacky the Penguin and Custard the Dragon.

For more Poetry Friday fun, head over to the roundup at Under the Covers.

More about age banding in the UK

For those interested in the proposed age banding of books* in the UK, which is due to begin this fall-- here's the media page of the Publisher's Association, with links to articles from yesterday and today about where things stand. (JK Rowling has now signed the petition against it...but does she actually have any clout left?)


*not a sticky label you can peel off, but actually part of the cover, saying 5+, 7+, etc.

Timeslip Tuesday--Frannie In Pieces

Today's Timeslip book is Frannie in Pieces, by Delia Ephron (2007, Harper Collins, 374 pp). Warning: this is a spoilerish review (for instance, I've already indicated that this is a timeslip story, which the reader won't even start realizing until page 142,and the where and when parts aren't made clear until much later. However, the reader finds out on page 6 that Frannie's father has just died, so I too feel comfortable starting there, without spoiling too much.

Frannie's parents are divorced, and although she lives with her mother, she spends much of her time happily with her father, helping him scrounge for found art in the trash, admiring his woodworking, and doing her own drawings. But one afternoon, she finds him lying dead on the bathroom floor. Sorting through his belongings weeks later, she finds a present--a beautiful wooden box, with her name, Frances Anne, and the number 1000, engraved on it. Inside are painted wooden puzzle pieces, and a picture of a village by the sea. Taking home this gift, she starts to secretly piece the puzzle together...and (Oh bother. I don't want to spoil it. But this is where the timeslipping happens).

In the meantime, her mother has landed her with a job as a camp counselor, where she sets the kids to work on a collage of common household poisons (until they start having nightmares) and tries to think of cunning retorts to throw back at her cute, and very annoying, fellow counselor Simon. Her best friend Jenna is in love, the existence of her stepfather has shifted her relationship with her mother for the worse, and above all, she misses her father. These unexceptional plot lines are leavened with humor, and Ephron is good at showing what Frannie is thinking without putting it into explicit words. When Jenna visits for the first time after Frannie's Dad dies, Frannie is trying to get under her bed. Here's Frannie's reaction, when Jenna begins to cry: "I scooted under the bed. All the way under this time. I am a turtle, and this is my shell." Frannie's time as a reluctant camp counselor is one of the more entertaining examples of this sub genre that I've read, and indeed, there are lots of little funny bits, such as a timetravling crumb of Velveeta cheese, that fell with Frannie into the puzzle...

Frannie slowly fits more pieces together, alone at night in her room, visiting the village by the sea, where, maybe, her father waits for her, and the book ends, logically enough, when the pieces are together. The time traveling element could easily have been left out of the book--the puzzle could have been just that, and Frannie could have put the pieces of herself and her family together without the help of its magic. And indeed, it takes so long for anything magical to happen, and she spends so little time in the magical “there” that it almost seems like an afterthought. But still, it made the book stand out in my mind—it would still have been a good book, but not as memorable as I found it.

If you have a timeslip review to share, please leave me a link!

Lisa of Under the Covers is in with a look at a great timeslip book for younger readers--Time Cat, by Lloyd Alexander. Thanks, Lisa!

Back home from home, and a 6 word memoir

I am just back from a trip down to my parents' house in Arlington, VA, and find that I've been tagged with a meme by Cheryl Rainfield:

1. Write a six-word memoir.
2. Post it to your blog including a visual illustration if you would like.
3. Link to the person who tagged you in your post and to this original post if possible so we can track it as it travels across the blogosphere.
4. Tag 5 more blogs with links.
5. Don’t forget to leave a comment in the tagged blogs with an invitation to play.

This is rather a timely meme for me, because my mother asked my sisters and me to clean out the attic, which we did yesterday morning, while she was out of the house, and I found a box of my old journals from college and grad school. They were rather melancholic ("I wish I were dead"), which I think is simply a reflection of my age (young) and my youthful tendency to write when less than sober, but still, reading it all made me appreciate very much the place I am in now.

So, Memoir 1 -- "Sentimental"

"Happy, then lonely, now very happy."

Finding that too cloying, I moved in the opposite direction with Memoir 2 -- "Bitter"

"Past years, weeding. This year, weeding." (actually, I like weeding).

So here is my final attempt-- "Realistic"

"Not now. Go away. I'm reading."

My journals can easily be put away in my trunk here in my own home, but I'm not sure that my mother envisioned all the Nancy Drews (lots and lots), the complete Black Stallion series, and many more of that ilk, all taken down from the attic, unpacked and shelved in my grandfather's old room. This was made possible in part by putting some of his American history books carefully in stacks in the closet (they are rather nice books, and if one our children were to become a historian, it would be a shame if they had to buy them all over again). We put my mother's own stash of childhood books (mostly in French, so of little immediate use to any of her grandchildren) in a tidy pile on her chest of drawers. As I said above, she wasn't home. I wonder if she has noticed yet.

The meme says I have to tag five people, but that seems excessive, especially since it's not book related. I shall just tag one person, Cloudscome at A Wrung Sponge, because I bet she'd write a good memoir, and probably post a good picture.

Prince Caspian, the Movie

I quite enjoyed the movie of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and was vaguely looking forward to going to see Prince Caspian. Not so much, after reading this rather curmudgeonly take on it from today's Guardian...oh well.

Tennyson, by Lesley M.M. Blume

Welcome to this week's edition of Timeslip Tuesday. Please leave a link if you'd like to share a Timeslip review of your own (and it dosen't have to be posted today!). This week's book is Tennyson, by Leslie M.M. Blume (Alfred A. Knopf, 2008).






Eleven year old Tennyson, growing up in Mississippi during the Great Depression, knows that she has to keep her mother aware of the poetry of everyday life--the moment she fails, her mother will leave. And Tennyson and her little sister Hattie will be left behind in a ramshackle little house on the banks of the Mississippi River, while their mother heads off to chase her dream of being a famous writer.

One day it happens, and their Mama is gone. But instead of staying put, with their loving father to look after them, the girls are left at Aigredoux, the family plantation house, while their father searches for his wife. He had turned his back on Aigredoux, and the blood money that built it, years ago, but now his girls are given back to it, to the care of their Aunt Henrietta, whose only thought is to use them in marriage to rebuild the glories of the past.

Aigredoux has become an almost inhabitable ruin, described by Bloom as colorless, built of ice, melting like sugar in the rain, with its residents sheltering under mosquito nets to keep the falling plaster out of their hair. But her first night there, Tennyson travels back into the plantation's past, and sees

"...Aigredoux, basking in the flame of dawn sunlight, resotred to its former glory.

It asn't until she saw Aigredoux like this, blinding and beautiful and powerful, that Tennyson truly understood what it meant to be a Fontaine."

Her dreams show her the tragedies that happened at this place a hundred years ago, and she learns what her father meant by "blood money." She turns the past to her own use, writing the stories down, and sending them off to be published, so that her mother might read them, and come back to save her daughters.

At first I thought that Tennyson's trips back to the past, where she is just an observant ghost, were "extras" that enriched the book, but weren't as important as the present. But this slipping through time makes the house, and all it represents, real. Tennyson's travels through time are a pretty powerful way of showing the power of the past to effect the present. And in providing her with her stories, the past becomes an active agent in shaping the course of events.

A bit of light relief is provided by a New York editor and his ghastly journey south, but in the main, it is the ghosts of a dark past, and the unhappiness of a decaying present, that dominate this book.

Incidentely, if I were writing an essay for school about this book (and I'm sure many are going to be--this is the sort of book with so much depth to it, so much history and so many layers of meaning that I'm sure it will be assigned reading in many classrooms), I'd focus on the house. Blume's writing consistently makes the house a living entity--"War was coming. The house was losing its color, like a woman whose face goes white with fear." Or one could write quite a bit on why "Tennyson," as opposed to, say, "Shelley," as a romantic poet to be named after. Perhaps Blume was thinking of Tennyson's poem, Mariana--"With blackest moss the flower- plots were thickly crusted, one and all." etc. Perhaps not.

Other reviews of Tennyson can be found at .com/?p=2558">Semicolon and at The Reading Zone, and here's one from Miss Erin, who jumped the gun and reviewed this last fall. There's an interview with Bloom at Bookworm Readers, and here is Blume's own webpage.

Books I read in June

Here's the list of books I read in June, not counting picture books, re-reads, or the books read in that happy 48 hour period earlier this month when I took part in Mother Reader's challenge (my list for that is here and here). Or, of course, the books I can't remember...

Magic Lessons, and How to Ditch Your Fairy, by Justine Larbalestier. My review of the later is here.

The Gates of Bannerdale, by Geoffrey Trease. The last in the very engaging Bannerdale series (published 1949-1956), about four children growing up in the Lake District, takes Bill and Penny to Oxford University. This series was recently reprinted by Girls Gone By Publishers.

Dancing Naked in the Mind Field, by Kary Mullis. He won the Nobel Prize for chemistry. I would have liked more chemistry in this book and less about Kary Mullis, with whom I seem to have little in common (for instance, I believe in the deleterious effect of human behaviour on the earth's climate, and have no desire to go to strip clubs).

Sally by Louise Dickinson Rich (1970). Rich is best known for her autobiography We Took to the Woods, but after leaving the woods, she wrote several children's books, this being one of them. It is a rather unconvincing portrayal of a seemingly autistic boy being miraculously rehabilitated by life on an island off the coast of Maine, partly due to the efforts of Sally, the orphaned foster daughter of the boy's grandparents.

Tennyson by Lesley M.M. Blume, and
Frannie in Pieces by Delia Ephron, both of which I hope to review in the near future, as in, perhaps, tomorrow, since they are both timeslipish, and tomorrow is Tuesday, which is when I write about such books.

Angel's Gate, by Gary Crew (1995). Mainly about the capture and rehabilitation of the two wild children of a murdered prospector in Australia, told from the point of view of the young boy whose family takes them in.

House of Many Ways, Diana Wynne Jones. More on this later, d.v.

The Seeing Summer, by Jeannette Eyerly (1981). This starts out pretty well, with one girl overcoming her reluctance to make friends with another girl who is blind, but when the blind girl got kidnapped, I lost interest.






And finally, Lock and Key, by Sarah Dessen, a ya book which was a great pleasure to read.




I also raised another $1,300 for my library with a used book sale this month, and am busily preparing a list of books I'd like to buy to offer our children's librarian for her consideration....

Cool books with which to escape summer

Els over at Librarian Mom has a list up of ten great summer time books-that is, books that take place during summer vacation. They are very good books indeed.

But I myself find that, when the temperature starts getting up there and the humidity decides to play too, and the plants and the family all wilt miserably, I prefer winter time books. So as an antidote to summer, here are some good reads that will take you to cool places (literally).

Winter Holiday, by Arthur Ransom. A frozen lake in the north of England gives a group of children the chance to live the life of arctic explorers, culminating in a race to the "north pole" through a raging storm. This is my favorite of the Swallows and Amazons books.

My favorite of the Moomin books (Tove Jansson) is also the coldest-Moominland Midwinter. If you read one winter book this summer, it should be this one. A troll child wakes from hibernation to find his summertime world transformed. The creature to the right is the Groke, a being so cold that it freezes whatever it sits on...

Peak, by Roland Smith. You can't get much colder than the top of Mount Everest. Unless you flip through The Fellowship of the Ring to that bit where they are stuck in the snow on the pass of Caradhras...

The White Darkness by Geraldine McCaughrean. I'm not one of those who fell in love with this tale of a teenage girl caught in a web of madness in Antarctica, but maybe if I'd read it during the summer, instead of in December, I'd have liked it more.

The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula Le Guin. One of the best horribly cold, horribly long trips through winter ever written, on one of the coldest habitable planets ever imagined.

The Long Winter, by Laura Ingalls Wilder. A great book for making the reader appreciate a sunny day and a few tomatoes.

Julie of the Wolves, by Jean Craighead George. A girl survives the arctic cold by becoming part of a wolf pack. I like the wintry bits in George's My Side of the Mountain very much--especially the idea of spending winter inside a hollow tree. But there's a lot of spring, summer, and fall as well, so I don't count it.

And Both Were Young, by Madeline L'Engle. An introverted, misfit girl at a Swiss boarding school, young love, and lots of ski-ing. What's not to like?

The Year of Jubilo, by Ruth Sawyer. Lucinda, from Roller Skates, hunkers down with her family for a long winter in a small house in Maine. There's some bits of other seasons too, but the bit that really sticks in my mind is this: one way the family got the house winterized was by poking wool in all the window cracks with a knitting needle. Every fall I keep meaning to try this myself.

Another one I liked lots as a child is Hans Brinker, or The Silver Skates. by Mary Mapes Dodge It's a bit too didactic for my tastes these days, but still, cold as all get out, which is the immediate point. Who can forget little Gretel crying on the frozen rubbish heap, or the great ice-skating journey on Holland's frozen canals?

My husband suggests Tom Fobble's Day, by Alan Garner--one of the Stone Book Quartet, it is about the making of a sledge, and the power and continuity of tradition. (He also suggested some darling Thomas the Tank engines stories). He has just come back in with Letters from a Lost Uncle (from Polar Regions), written and illustrated (brilliantly) by Mervyn Peake. Both of these are cold books for younger readers.

And then, if one still feels too hot, one can get lost in the Wild Wood in winter with Mole (The Wind in the Willows).

Splat the Cat

Well. Midsummer's Day is past, the days are getting shorter, and winter is on its way. Once again spring was too short for all that I wanted to do. However, there is always next year. I always looked forward to the new school year for this reason--it was a fresh start, a blank slate, a chance to actually acquire good study habits (I pulled my first all-nighter in 5th grade. I have not made any progress since then).

So in this hopeful, looking forward to school frame of mind, today's book review is a first day of school story: Splat the Cat, written and illustrated by Rob Scotton (HarperCollins, 2008). Never before has an artist so vividly captured the anguished nervousness, verging on hysteria, of a kitten who doesn't want to go to school.

Splat is scared stiff on the morning of his first day of school, and every little hair in his fur is charged with electric tension. To comfort himself, he packs his pet mouse, Seymour, in his lunch box. But when he opens it, and the other kittens see A MOUSE, pandemonium ensues as they chase after him. Splat goes Splat as he tries to save his friend. But Seymour wins the approbation of the class when he is able to open the jammed milk cupboard, and Splat, now that he knows the other kittens believe cats can love mice, looks forward to the next day of school.

The illustrations offer engaging shifting perspectives, a tremendously amusing cat child, and some visual jokes for the keen eyed child or adult. But the pictures lost me when Splat arrived at school. Splat is an unclothed black cat. All the other kittens are clothed, greyish, shadowy and kind of spooky cats. It's a scary school even before the other children try to capture Splat's beloved pet.

In short, this isn't a book I would recommend to the child nervous about the first day of kindergarten- I'd suggest Rosemary Well's animal children instead. This book is more for unflappable kids, and grownups, who like their picture books slightly surreal and slightly slapsticky.

Pictures from Splat the Cat can be found at Rob Scotton's website. Another review can be found at Cheryl Rainfield's blog-- she finds the book reassuring, not kinda scary, the way I do.

Scotton is also the author of Russell the Sheep. Having typed that, I am wondering if it is a pun, as in cattle rustling. Probably not, because if Scotton had wanted to make that joke, he would have written Russel the Cow/Bull. Oh well.

Timeslip Tuesday-- The Gauntlet, by Ronald Welch

Welcome to this week's edition of Timeslip Tuesday. Please send me links to your own timeslip reviews! They don't have to have been posted today--time is malleable, after all, and I'm happy to post links to books reviewed in the distant past.

The first timeslip book that I can remember reading was The Gauntlet, by Ronald Welch (1951). I was 9-ish, and well on my way to a love affair with all things medieval, and I thought this book was just the greatest thing ever.

On the wild hills of Wales, lost in the mist, an English boy named Peter finds a gauntlet laying on the grass.

"Hardly realizing what he was doing, he slipped his right hand inside the heavy gauntlet, and his fingers groped inside the wide spaces, for it was far too large for his small hand.

From behind there came the thud of hooves, a shout, shrill and defiant, the clang of metal on metal, and then a confused roar of sounds, shouts, more hoof-beats, clang after clang, dying away into the distance as suddenly as they had come. The gauntlet slipped form Peter's hand, and he shook himself as it he had just awakened."

Still in the present, Peter learns that he is related to the De Blois family, the Norman lords of the nearby ruined castle. In the local church, he finds the brass plaque commemorating a boy named Peter De Blois, who died 800 years ago.

The gauntlet takes him back to that time, and he becomes that long dead Peter, enjoying loving parents and the most luxurious life that Norman Wales can offer, but with the threat of a Welsh uprising a constant reality. Always over his head hangs the shadow of the real Peter De Blois, who died so young...and when the Welsh do attack, Peter must risk his own life to save the castle and his family

I found another copy of this book last year, and was prepared to be just as enchanted as I had been when I was nine. It didn't happen. I seem to have added in my own mind a lot of extra story involving Peter's relationships with his medieval parents, that wasn't there in the real book. Sigh.

Ronald Welch eschews such emotional characterization in favor of detailed lessons in medieval armor, falconry, food, warfare, and the like--this is one of those timeslip stories where the author uses the ignorance of his main character as a didactic platform. It's still a pretty good story, and I guess that at the time I must have found all the details of medieval life fascinating. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this book to a young reader, but I think that us adult type readers of juvenile timeslips, with our more demanding expectations, might find it a bit too heavy handed. I also am now firmly on the side of the Welsh.

For more timeslip stories, please click on the label to the right.

Alligators and Polar Bears for Nonfiction Monday

In last week's Nonfiction Monday post, I reviewed a rather lovely book about hermit crabs by Janet Halfmann. Very impressed by her writing, I was inspired to read to my children two of her other books (whose numbers are legion).

The first was Alligator at Saw Grass Road, illustrated by Lori Anzalone (2006, Smithsonian's Backyard). And, as was the case of the hermit crab book mentioned above, this was the best picture book about alligators that I have read (I have read at least three others. Probably more. It is a testimony to their mediocrity that I can't remember what they were). My 7 year old, dismissive at first, was soon engrossed in the story of an female alligator and her children (whom we meet first in the egg). My 5 year old, less jaded, was enthusiastic from the start.


The second was Polar Bear Horizon, illustrated by Adrian Chesterman (2006, Smithsonian Oceanic Collection), telling the story of a mother polar bear and her young cubs. Since I haven't, to the best of my knowledge and belief, read any other non-fiction books about polar bears, I can't make any sweeping statements about this one. But we enjoyed it (except that it looks like the illustrator drew goofy smiles on all the bears, which got on my nerves a bit. But maybe polar bears just naturally come with goofy smiles?).

Both of these books are narrative non-fiction, with none of those informational sidebars that are so distracting for the one reading out loud. Halfmann's writing is clear and relaxed; it is a pleasure to read. Both these books are part of an institutional series, but do not at all feel pushed out quickly to meet that institutions specific requirements. And both these books are packed full of information, and interesting little plot elements, and include more explicitly informational details and glossary at the end.

I can now say with confidence that Janet Halfmann is my favorite narrative non-fiction author. Disclosure: although I got these books from the publisher, they did not slip me anything extra to ensure a good review.

For more non-fiction kid's books, head over to the Nonfiction Monday book roundup!

Sunday Garden Stroll

Last Sunday I posted a picture of the red rose climbing our barn. Here is is again, with the last of the roses now joined by a clematis:
We do not have a particularly communal approach to gardening--each of us has our own special bits, and special plants. These two are definitely my husband's plants--he picked them and planted them, and built their trellis.

Here's one of my own, a delphinium that I grew from a seed, and that I love dearly:



Has anyone else tried growing delphiniums from seed? I try every year, and this is the one plant that made it to maturity. I have not a clue as to where I am going wrong.

The tree holding up the delphinium is a Cox's Orange Pippin, one of the many apple trees my husband has planted (although, since I am an archaeologist and therefore Good With Shovels, I did the bulk of the hole digging).

For more Sunday Garden Strolling, visit A Wrung Sponge!

The Edge of the Forest is up

The June issue of The Edge of the Forest (an online monthly journal of children's literature) is up, and looks especially tasty:

* An interview with singer-songwriter—and author of Middle Grade fiction—Dar Williams, by YA author Carrie Jones.
* Poet J. Patrick Lewis graces The Edge of the Forest with a bittersweet original poem.
* Sarah Stevenson (a.fortis) and TadMack (Tanita S. Davis) talk vampires in Fiction with Fangs.
* Not one, but two Summer Reading features: Julie M. Prince takes reading to the pool and Sarah Mulhern suggests summertime reading for kids of all ages.
* Gail Gauthier is this month's Blogging Writer.
* We have three great columns this month: Candice Ransom considers The Long Summer for A Backward Glance, teacher Stacy Dillon gives us her students' picks for Kid Picks, and Little Willow tells us What's in Teens' Backpacks this summer.
* Reviews in all categories—from Picture book to Young Adult.

I shall now go read it...

The Doofuzz Dudes

The Doofuzz Dudes Rescue Moondar (2006), The Doofuzz Dudes: The Princess Detector (2006), The Doofuzz Dudes: The Babbling Bottles (2006), and The Doofuzz Dudes: the Black Pearl of Laramoth, all by Roslyn J. Motter, (White Hawk Publishing), illustrated by Kimberly Nelson. Ages 7-9.














I'm going to start by saying right out front that my seven year old adores, just adores, this series. Here are his thoughts: "The Doofuzz Dudes series is good for kids seven and older because it's very creative and has a lot of magic. (Five year old brother, a bit plaintively: But I like it). I really like this series, and my friends will like it too. It's really good. I like the writing and pictures, as well as the front covers. I enjoyed it. The use of words is very creative and increases some kids' vocabularies along with their reading and writing skills."

He is, in fact, the intended audience. And these books are great for the 7-8 year old boy, who has perhaps read the Dragon Slayer Academy series, but isn't ready for Harry Potter.

Back in February, Australian writer Roslyn J. Motter offered me books 1-4 of the Doofuzz Dudes series. Thinking they might appeal to my son (and how right I was), I accepted. When they arrived, I started reading to myself...but didn't get very far. So the four books languished for a while in one of my many book piles, until one day my son found them.

"Wow! What are these?" he asked. "They look cool!' And indeed the cover appeal of the books is quite high. So I started reading them out loud to him, and before long he was sufficiently engaged so as to read large chunks of the text to me (which is a most excellent thing for him to do, being not yet a truly independent reader). Before long, this had become his favorite series in the world. When he was asked to make a book character puppet for school, he chose Zarundok, a wizard character who appears in all the books. We read them slowly, because I kept making him do his share, but he was always anxious to get back to them. And he is looking forward to book number 5, which will be out in the relatively near future.

These are books that I would unhesitatingly give as birthday gifts to his contemporaries (particularly since they aren't available in bookstores in the USA, reducing the chances that the kid will already have them). As soon as we've finished this review, my son will be lending them to his friends. I'd like my public library to have copies, because I truly think they'll circulate, but it's looking like we'll be keeping our copies.

So, here's what they are:

In book one, we meet our hero, Toby Doofuzz, who is just about to turn nine. On his birthday party treasure hunt, Toby, his brother, and two friends (who call themselves the Doofuzz Dudes) find a mysterious chest buried in a cave. And in the chest is a book, "Spells for a Magical King," and a jeweled crown. Toby puts on the crown, and begins to read...and out of the book jump hundreds of small people. "All hail King Toby!" they cry, and so begins the quest of King Toby and his friends to restore these people, the Moondarians, to their homeland. Into a magical world they journey, lead by the wizard Zarundok, with each chapter bringing a new challenge--guard geese, a joking giant, the Puzzle Master, a dragon, biting trees, and the evil Prince Florian--until the inhabitants of Moondar are safely home.

In books two, three, and four, the boys return to face new challenges with Zarundok's help, meeting scores of fantastical creatures and journeying to strange new places. And always the shadow of Prince Florian looms over their adventures!

Episodic adventures in short chapters are a type of storytelling that, I think, works well for kids who aren't flying off on their own into longer and more complex books. However, these aren't books that most adult readers would want to curl up with, because the linear narrative style and episodic plots mightn't be quite complex enough to satisfy (at least they weren't for me). Likewise, the books' characters, although real enough for my son's purposes, don't quite achieve flesh and blood status in my more critical/jaded adult mind. However, the fourth book is by far the best, and book 5 may be better still.

The books are illustrated by the author's young niece, and for me, combined with the writing style, this created an illusion that the books themselves were written by someone young. I think that this is part of what makes the books so kid friendly--the unintimidating story telling might well make it easier for kids to become absorbed by the fantastical world of Moondar.

As I mentioned above, you won't be able to walk into a bookstore in the US and buy these books, but you can order them online here. For more information about the books, here's the Doofuzz Dudes website.

Boys and Reading--some rambling thoughts inspired by a great article

Via Jen Robinson's Book Page, I found this very, very interesting article from Reading Rockets --Boys and Books, by Jane McFann (2004). Here's the introduction:

The statistics are consistent: Young male readers lag behind their female counterparts in literacy skills. This article looks at the social, psychological, and developmental reasons why, and suggests solutions — including the need for more men to become role models for reading.

I think there are many more books available that have appeal to boys (see, for instance, Guys Read) than there were in my youth way back in the 70s (I could be wrong about this, since I myself was busily reading Enid Blyton ad nauseam at the time and not much else).

But it is hard, sometimes, for me to put the books my boys want into their outstretched and eager hands. It is much easier to buy books that appeal to me, than books that really truly don't. This is one reason I like libraries so much, because I let them check out anything their little hearts desire. Ditto those occasions when they help me with book sorting for the library used book sales. Well I remember the fight they had over the organic chemistry textbook two years ago--one wanted it so that I could teach him chemistry (ha ha ha), the other wanted it because it was red. The point of this, though, is that I think you can raise a child to love books even before they love the process of reading.

However, there are limits. When he was two, older son desperately wanted me to buy him an SAT practice book at a used book store (mainly, I think, because he wanted to color in all the circles). I wasn't about to spend $10 on it, and the ensuing emotional distress wasn't pretty. I did, however, buy him a really ghastly book about textiles a few months later. It was only $1, it made him happy, and it kept us from being persona non grata at that book store (unlike the one above), but still. It is harder when I take them to a real book store, where I am expected to spend real money.

What books have you bought for your own children that you can't stand, or read over and over to them despite well-concealed boredom or revulsion simply to encourage their love of books?

ps: One outstanding father in regard to reading to his son is Calvin's dad (from Calvin and Hobbs), who apparently has had to read "Hamster Huey and the Gooey Kabblooie" every night for years. Someone has actually had the nerve to write the book. I shall not dignify it with a link.

"Words and Pictures" exhibit opening

This Thursday, June 19th, a new exhibit opens at the NeuroDevelopement Center in downtown Providence, RI. With the help of brain wave tracking technology, visitors will see how artwork and stories are conceptualized and how they are an integral part of a child’s brain development.

The exhibit opening looks like a lot of fun--local authors and illustrators Mary Jane Begin, Christopher and Anika Denise, Jill Lamere, Maro Garnsworth, and sculptor Ellen Blomgren will be on hand reading and drawing, and kids will also have a chance to create their own Brain Painting:


I hope they let the grownups do it too, because I want a beautiful picture straight from my very own brain. And not that I'm competitive or anything, but I just sort of want to see if my brain's picture would be the prettiest....

In addition, the NeuroDevelopment Center’s psychologists will be on hand to demonstrate EEG-guided brain-training and discuss its benefits for children with ASD, ADHD and other brain-based difficulties.

Timeslip Tuesday -- London Calling

Welcome to the second edition of Timeslip Tuesday, a day on which I look at books whose characters travel through time, and invite other bloggers to do the same (please leave a link in the comments for me to put in the post!).

Today's book is London Calling, by Edward Bloor (Alfred A. Knopf, 2006, 289pp).

John Martin Conway has spent seventh grade at All Souls Preparatory, New Jersey, in a state of depression. At the school on an employee scholarship (his mom's a secretary), his grades are mediocre, and his only friends two other outcasts. All three live in fear of the school bully, Hank Lowrey IV, whose great grandfather, a general in World War II, left the school a generous endowment. After school ends, he retreats to his basement bedroom, rarely coming out. When his grandmother dies, she leaves him the radio his grandfather had brought home from England in 1941, and Martin begins leaving it on as a nightlight, and its tuner, set between stations, as soothing background noise.

Then the first dream comes.

"A boy--small, thin, dressed in mud-brown clothes--leaned out from behind the radio and whispered, "Johnny, will you help me?"

And so Martin begins a strange life of travelling through time to WW II London, where the blitz is raging and Jimmy's world has become one of deadly chaos. Jimmy can't tell Martin what help he needs--instead, Martin must live through a hellish part of London's past until he sees for himself.

"As I stared down at the street, I expected to find myself transported back to my own bed, in my own time, but that didn't happen. I was still in London, in 1940, in the middle of an air raid, and I had no idea what to do next....

The scene around me was horrifying. The bombers had wreaked massive destruction , and the bombs were continuing to fall. Between the shattering bursts of the explosions, I could hear voices crying out in the dark, in pain and terror."

Trying to figure out if the people and places he sees in the past are real, Martin spends the present doing historical research, that incidentally changes received wisdom about General Lowrey. But to find out what help Jimmy needs, he must keep going back in time, until the pieces of the past fall into place. And then he must travel to England himself to bring news from the past to one who lived through it.

This is classic timesliping at its best. There are no science fiction contrivances, simply the unexplained power of the radio that calls Martin back in time. The mysterious boy from the past with his plea for help leads Martin deeper and deeper into a quest for answers. The clues that Martin learns from his visits to WW II London and his discoveries in the present combine beautifully, and as an added bonus to the story, Martin's quest to help gives him a sense of purpose that draws him out of the basement into better relationships with his family.

There's such a lot going on in this book that I glossed over large bits of it. Here are some other reviews that bring up other points -- at Bewildering Stories, at Blog Critic Magazine, and at Kittenpie Reads Kidlit.

And coincidentally, five hours before I wrote this, Colleen Mondor blogged at Guys Lit Wire about books with strong and heroic boy characters, and included London Calling. Indeed, one of the strengths of this book is Martin's metamorphosis from depressed basement dweller to strong and purposeful hero, who seeks to fulfill his obligation to Jimmy no matter what. The fact that he largely accomplishes this through dogged historical research, as opposed to whacking bad guys, makes the book even more appealing in my eyes.


From other blogs:

Liz from A Chair, a Fireplace, and a Tea Cozy is in with a look at King of Shadows, by Susan Cooper.
Lisa from Under the Covers is in with a new one for me-- Ghost Letters, by Stephen Alter.


From Timeslipe Tuesday 1, here: Don't Know Where, Don't Know When, by Annette Laing, 2007

Hermit Crabs for Nonfiction Monday

If you are looking for a picture book about hermit crabs, probably you will end up with A House for a Hermit Crab, by Eric Carle (Simon and Schuster, 1991). This is a fine book in many ways (I like it, my children like it, people all over the country like it) but as far as science goes, I can't help but thing that Carle has vaguely confused decorator crabs with hermit crabs--the titular crab wanders through a year, gathering both new companions and new living accouterments for his shell. Unlikely behaviour for a hermit crab (hence the name?). And although Carle's illustrations are artistically admirable, they aren't a reliable guide to real life creatures.

Here are two hermit crab picture books that do the subject more naturalistic justice.

The first is Old Shell, New Shell: a Coral Reef Tale, by Helen Ward (Millbrook Press, 2002).

"This crab was very small
but he had been smaller
and the shell he owned
and loved
was getting tight."

He was beginning to look obvious
though he tried hard not to."

So he sets out to look for a new shell, soliciting the help of passing sea creatures, none of whom are the least bit interested. His quest takes an anxious turn when he is knocked out of his old shell, and tumbles down into one that is much much to big. But all is resolved happily when he meets another hermit crab, larger than he is, who has outgrown her shell...

The illustrations are full of lovely lifelike detail, and there are lots of things to spot on every page. A very pleasing book.

But here is the book that I think is the Best Hermit Crab Book Ever-- Hermit Crab's Home: Safe In a Shell, by Janet Halfman, illustrated by Bob Dacey and Debra Bandelin (2007, Smithsonian Institution). In both the two books above, we start in medias res, with the outgrowing of the old shell. Hermit Crab's Home begins at the beginning, with the tiny egg of a Land Hermit Crab tossed onto seashore rocks. It follows the hermit crab through the adventures of life as a hermit crab on land, including the obligatory finding a new shell episode (in her case, it comes from a sandcastle). And it ends with the crab casting her own eggs into the water.

One reason I liked this book so much is that the pictures are up close and low down--the world as a crab might see it. The menacing ghost crab looming above is quite spooky, the sand castle quite magical. I found the straight forward narrative of the crab's life more interesting than the more stylized renditions of the other two authors. It's more a story. Maybe the book even appealed so much to me because the crab protagonist is female. But maybe not--it also appealed to my boys!

Here are more Nonfiction Monday reviews, at Picture Book of the Day.

How To Ditch Your Fairy

How to Ditch Your Fairy, by Justine Larbalestier (2008, Bloomsbury, 320pp).

In the future-ish city of New Avalon, just about everyone has their own fairy. 14 year old Charlie's is a parking fairy. Yep, whenever she's in a car, it will always find a prime parking spot, first try. But that sort of magic is not nice at all for a a girl who's not old enough to drive, and who hates the smell of gas and car exhaust. She longs to have a better fairy--a clothes fairy, like her friend Rochelle, or even an "every boy will like you fairy," like her non-friend, Fiorenze (her fairy has the coincidental side effect of having the opposite effect on girls). Seeing her new friend Steffi, just about the cutest guy she's ever known, falling under the spell of Fiorenze's fairy is enough to drive her over the edge.

So Charlie tries to starve her fairy off, by avoiding mechanical transportation, hoping for a better one to come replace it. She can feel her fairy getting fainter, but in the meantime, she's constantly running late, and raking up demerits at her ultra strict all sports school. And then she find herself kidnapped by the school's star water polo player, who needs her parking luck for his own possibly nefarious purposes.

Fiorenze isn't happy with her fairy either. The two desperate girls are both sure nothing could be worse than what they're stuck with, and so they hatch a plan....

This is a very fun read, with the surreal sports school setting (all sports all the time) providing a wacky background to the even greater wackiness of all the fairies. And the fairies in turn give a new and imaginative spin to the more mundane story at the heart of the book--the familier one of a teenage girl trying to cope with a hectic life, wanting to make the basketball team, wanting a cute boy to like her, and wanting her best friend's clothes fairy to work on her, too.

It seems to me, in a vague sort of way, that fairies started appearing on the little girls' book scene about 10 years or so ago, and are still going strong today. If I knew any middle grade girls who were fans of those pink books with winged thingies on their covers, who are now in 8th grade or so (the publisher suggests ages 12 and up), this is the book I'd give them as a present.

How To Ditch You Fairy is due out in October, but you can read reviews by other people who have been enjoying their Advance Reader Copies (thanks, Bloomsbury) at Teen Book Review, Lessons from the Tortoise, at Librarilly Blond, and at Imperial Purple. And then just for kicks you can head over to Justine Larbalestier's blog, to read about her reading the reviews of her readers...

off topic-- roses on my barn

We wanted a red rose climbing up the barn, and voila--there it is! It will be three years old next month. The barn is 108 years old.

For pictures of the gardens of other bloggers, visit A Wrung Sponge.

My husband adds: The Rosaerie in Maine seems to be able to get most roses to grow quite far north. This one has the rather mundane name Parkdirektor Riggers. Unfortunately the genes for "climber" and "red" outshove the gene for "scentiferous."