The January Carnival of Children’s Literature is up at Under the Covers.  So…read it!  I’m there.  Crazy.

Ok, file that under yesterday’s news, but I’ve got two girls getting over pneumonia, so this is the first time I’ve touched the computer in 48 hours.

Oh, and speaking of yesterday’s news and things to go read, Poetry Friday was at Adventures in Daily Living this week.  I’m decidedly not in it, but PF always makes for a good read.

The Harmonica Pocket.  Ladybug One.  2008.

[ This is part 2 in my installment of bringing you album reviews that feature ladybug-counting songs, seemingly. ]

I’d love to describe this album accurately, but it’s going to have to come down to faith on your part, reader.  I can lead you to (full-length!) samples, and even other reviews, but that can’t prepare you for the whole-album experience.  Even if you’re already familiar with one of Harmonica Pocket’s grown-up albums—I wholeheartedly recommend Birds Falling from the Sky—I bet you’ll still find yourself surprised.  Good surprised.

I don’t usually like when start out rocking and fade into naptime, but it doesn’t bother me so much with Ladybug One.  Maybe that’s due to the fact that the whole album is pretty mellow.  It’s not like hitting a wall.

Album highlights:

• “Firefly” – this one is my favorite from the album.  It has a funky 1960s pop feel to it.
• “One Tree Said” – as Stefan Shepherd from Zooglobble said, this song “sounds like a track from a future Decemberists kids’ CD.”  Spot on.  Not just the sound, but the narrative lyrics, too.  Not preachy, like a tree v. chainsaw song could easily end up.  [ listen to the Mary Macaroni (2005) version ]
• “O Susanna” – a 5/ time signature and an Indian flavor make this rendition a must-hear. [ listen ]

other reviews: 
Kids’ Music that Rocks | Zooglobble

Siobhan Dowd.  The London Eye Mystery.  David Fickling Books, 2008.  ["Originally published in Great Britain by David Fickling Books, an imprint of Random House Children's Books, in 2007." -- t.p. verso]  323 pages.  Age 9 to 12.

After the first nine pages, I found that this novel was not gripping me, so I went to bed.  Lying there, I started ruminating about why I was so disinterested in a book that received so many starred reviews.  And a person disappearing from a sealed pod should be interesting.  After about ten minutes I realized that, if I was going to be awake anyway, I might as well be reading.  Page ten hooked me.  It wasn’t the mystery—it was the narrator, Ted.  Specifically, this:

“Being socially excluded is a bit like being excluded from school.  Instead of a head teacher telling you you have to leave, it’s more that everybody in the rest of society acts like you don’t exist.  And you end up with all the other people who are being ignored.  And you’re so angry that society is treating you like this that you take drugs and shoplift and form gangs in revenge.”

Ted takes everything literally.  His hand “shakes itself out” when he’s uncomfortable.  He’s smart, and knows a lot about meteorology.  His approach to problem-solving is to painstakingly analyze all factors involved, including any Coriolis effects.  But it didn’t occur to me until the word “syndrome” started getting thrown around that Ted had any significant impairment.  The text does not offer any official diagnosis, but according to the CIP he has Asperger Syndrome.  Let’s trust the catalogers.

Ted’s airquotes{ syndrome } is what allows him to solve the mystery of the missing cousin.  Sadly, it also causes him to be ignored, especially by his mum, who forms a habit of shooing him away.  The mystery, in and of itself, is slow-going.  The first genuine clue isn’t uncovered until halfway through the novel.  But the mystery isn’t really the heart of the story.  I think it comes down to family relationships, and their durability when exposed to stress.  That, and Ted’s different-operating-system brain (an analogy that was smart the first time, and increasingly annoying when repeated thereafter).

After everything I had to say about Well Witched, I’m happy to report that The London Eye Mystery has suffered no symptoms of Americanization.  This was only occasionally confusing, with words like “lilo” (and I’m happy to report that I’m not the only one who didn’t know that term).  Still, to prove my point, it’s not rocket science.  I knew it had to be either an air mattress or a trundle bed, or something along those lines.  Turns out it’s the former.

Quotable:

Ted had more than one thing figured out:

“I’m not a philosopher.  I’m a meteorologist.  But I believe in meditation.  Buddhists believe that if you empty out your head, that’s when you find enlightenment.  Kicking the shed is a good way of emptying out your head.  It’s like jumping on a trampoline.  You kick or jump, you jump or kick, and eventually all the thoughts march out of your ears, like a line of toy soldiers heading for the edge of the table.  You’re left with nothing—the empty nothing I told Salim about, which is frightening and lonely, but simple and clear.” (pp. 248-249)

other reviews:
The Book Club Shelf | emilyreads | Jen Robinson’s Book Page | Oops…Wrong Cookie

I have not read a single one of these books!  In my defense (a) three of the Newbery awards are high on my TBR list, and (b) I’ve only been reading real, actual literature for pleasure since the beginning of December.

Gripe:  Exactly when did they stop twittering the awards?  At exactly the same time that I was scheduled to go on-desk, and therefore no longer able to watch the webcast.  So glad Kids Lit was live-blogging it!

P.S.  Eat that, Silvey-inspired Newbery controversy.  Can we stop hearing about that now?

Sara Varon.  Robot Dreams.  First Second, 2007.  208 pages.  All ages.

Dog meets robot.  Dog loves robot.  Robot loves dog.  Then tin meets salt water, and the relationship’s sustainability factor immediately plummets.  Dog, having no choice but to move on, experiences several cycles of friendship and loss.  Robot, rusted and immobilized, relies on dreams and fantasy, and experiences what could have been.  If clouds had arms and flowers could walk, that is.

I wouldn’t say that the book is wordless, exactly, but there is neither narration nor dialog.  The illustrations are simple, as are the events that transpire, leaving room for interpretation of the significance of its themes and the emotions at play.  I found myself reminded of The Snowman by Raymond Briggs, as the only paneled, wordless story I read as a kid—not to mention the melted snowman.  I’m not sure if the reader is meant to make this connection, or if the snowman was chosen simply to reflect the seasonal changes that are integral to the story.  Either way, this is not Varon’s first melted snowman.

I think this book is appropriate for all ages.  There are some things that younger audiences may miss, sure, but that’s true of anything, really.  As an experiment, I’m going to give it to my five-going-on-six year old and see what happens.  I think I might intervene at the rusting-up part, because it’s drawn pretty subtly, and I don’t want dog’s abandonment of robot to seem heartless.  Other than that I think she can handle it.

also reviewed at:
100 Scope Notes | emilyreads | A Fuse #8 Production | Miss Erin | Shelf Elf

On Thursday, January 8th I had my first proper storytime as a proper children’s librarian.  Thanks to Thomas Roy from the Union Leader, who stuck it out with me, I have the photos to prove it:

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

We read Lily Brown’s Paintings, The Dot, and Not a Stick, then painted using eye droppers and listened to Family Tree.  It was a great deal of fun.

Helen Frost.  Diamond Willow.  Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008.  111 pages.  Age 9 to 12.

What makes a poem?  At least 50% of the time, I think it comes down to line breaks.  Diamond Willow has plenty of those.  To see a picture of a diamond willow stick (Frost has one on her website) is inspiring, and may put you at ease about the shape of the “poems”—diamond-like, but not diamonds exactly—as well as the boldfaced nuggets within.  The physical layout of the text becomes an integral part of the story, much more noteworthy than the words themselves, and it makes for a fast read.

Willow perceives herself as having a set of related problems:  she’s ordinary, unpopular, and competes with sled dogs for her father’s affection.  She bargains with her parents to “mush the dogs out” on her own so she can bask in her grandparents’ unconditional love, but an accident on the return trip leaves their best dog blinded.  Of course her parents’ love is also unconditional, and remembering this allows her to take sizable risks later in the novel, fighting one ill-conceived plan with another in an effort to save the injured dog from being euthanized.

Frost occasionally breaks from Willow’s narration for a non-verse observation from an animal inhabited by one of the characters’ ancestors.  She does so boldly—hearing from these characters directly asserts the reality of their existence, rather than being spiritually suggestive.  I think weaving differing viewpoints into the story works well, but the animal-people give me a feeling of unease.  There’s an author’s note devoted to the diamond willow sticks, and I think the animal incarnates deserve at least an end note.  Is this an aspect of Athabaskan beliefs, or does it just seem like something indigenous North American peoples would believe?

As an experiment, I tried to create a condensed/abridged version by reading only the boldfaced words, typically between 2 and 8 words per page.  Reading these bits alone will give you the gist of it, but more the emotions at play than any clues about plot, or even characterization.  There was a bit of leading on page 20, though:  “Sometimes I feel like two people.”  One might not notice it the first read through, but if you look closer you see that it has nothing to do with the rest of the words on that page.  There’s an interesting twist in the story that I don’t think anyone would predict, but the dog’s “human” personality—and her memories of the life of a fetus—seem to trivialize the revelation and what it could mean to Willow.

other reviews:
A Fuse #8 Production | The Reading Zone | A Year of Reading

Frances England.  Family Tree.  2008.

No offense Frances England, but your album is in need of a pan.  Everyone on earth is batting their eyelashes at you, but there’s no such thing as perfect, and I’ve never been much for hype.  So!  The first time I listened to the Family Tree I was concerned that I would soon grow weary of the nonverbal “lyrics”—the “ba da ba das”—but that concern was shortly resolved.  The album gets most of its “ba da ba das” out of the way in the first two tracks.  Well, it takes a break from them, anyway.

But then came “Animal Friends”!  Which can best be described as a conservation lecture.  If nothing else, it lacks subtlety:  “They’re all in danger of fading away/ Now it’s our turn to save the day.”  Sell it to someone else.

…well, I tried, but those are the worst things I can find to say about this album.  Family Tree is fantastic.  Overall, the album starts and ends quietly, with some rockingness in between.  This model is preferable than those kids albums that start loud and end quietly, like they’re trying to tell us it’s time for our kids to have a nap.

England’s voice is magical.  You can almost hear her eyes twinkle when she sings.  At times her voice approaches a whisper, like she’s letting you in on a secret.  I must admit, I had a hard time distinguishing between songs during my first few listens, but once you gain familiarity with the album it’s not hard to recognize the songs’ differing personalities.

Album highlights:

• “Fast Train to Grandma’s” – I like songs that sound like things.  This sounds like a train, though perhaps more the chugging aspect than the chooing.
• “Don’t Fly Away” – Not really a match, but it reminded me of Ladybug Picnic.
• “I Scream, You Scream” – Except…the bit about the cell phone, while lyrically sound, nonetheless sounds like it was chosen just because it rhymes with “cone.”  This would never preoccupy anyone but me.

Car litmus test:  I could listen to this 18 times in a row before snapping and forcing my kids to listen to NPR for three days straight.

other reviews:
Kids’ Music that Rocks | Zooglobble

Frances Hardinge.  Well Witched.  HarperCollins, 2008.  ["First published in Great Britain in 2007 under the title Verdigris Deep by Macmillan Children’s Books." -- t.p. verso]  390 pages.  Age 10 to 14.

One-sentence summary:  Don’t loot from a wishing well or you’ll find you’ve become a member of a possessed cult.

Let’s just start by saying that this novel is bloody brilliant.  (I can hear myself saying that in a disgraceful faux English accent…ugh.  Be glad this isn’t a podcast.)  It would have to be brilliant, and probably also clever, for someone of my attention span to polish off an almost 400 page book, happily.  The story was consistently and pleasantly unpredictable.  However, there were some…let’s call them “issues”…with its Americanization.

Nothing seemed amiss until 102 pages in, when I read about the character who was notorious for searching students’ backpacks—legend has it that she “confiscated your sweets and chips and ate them herself.”  Even though it wasn’t the first appearance of the word chips, I couldn’t help but picture these kids walking around with backpacks full of greasy steak fries.  Surely that can’t be right.  Then it occurred to me that I had read the word fries a number of times, not to mention that the frequent use of the phrase shopping cart, never once calling one a trolley.  Is this supposed to take place in England or not?

I consulted my father, who lived in England for a few years, just to make sure I’m clear on my English terminology.  That’s not the problem.  My spouse made the excellent point that it wasn’t much different than removing the “u” from words like favourite or colour.  I get that.  My issue, though, is that changing all these words may be underestimating the reader’s capability to discern their meanings from context.  You don’t have to be too clever or an adult or anything to do that.

Or at least be consistent.  Why change chips and trolleys, but then have him pick up a prescription cream from the chemist?

Lucky for us, Pan Macmillan made the first chapter of Verdigris Deep available online.  I read them parallel.  Most changes are minor:  tyres become tires, trainers become sneakers, cordon tape becomes caution tape, a car park becomes a parking lot.  Some things don’t change:  mum is still mum, and bollocks are bollocks. ^[1]  But it was rather interesting to see which words and phrases and entire sentences were omitted.

Some of the omissions seemed unnecessary:  “Pound” was omitted from pound coins, and “hedgehog” was omitted from Josh’s hedgehog hair.  Some made sense, like omitting “fruit machine.”  (By the way, if you have to look that up, you should know that Britain’s use of the phrase is very different from Canada’s.)  The more substantial omissions seemed more like editorial bargaining than gatekeeping.  I’m not sure if that’s how it works, but that would make sense to me.  The second publisher agrees to the title, but one of their editors still has some opinions about which sections might need tightening, etc?  Hm.

Quibbling aside, I don’t think I’ll ever look at a rogue, overturned supermarket TROLLEY the same again.  Right after I finished this book I noticed one, lodged on its side in a snowbank, that I passed on my way to work every day for a week.  I’m pretty sure it had menacing intentions.  Ryan is right—they do have “far too much body language for objects with no heads or limbs.”

reviews:
Bookshelves of Doom | A Fuse #8 Production

^[1] I propose that the new “A rose is a rose is a rose” should be “Bollocks are bollocks are bollocks.”  Not quite sure what Gertrude Stein would think of that, but I can guess.

Elise Broach.  Shakespeare’s Secret.  Henry Holt and Company, 2005.  250 pages.  Age 9 to12.

The Doctor:  “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
Shakespeare:  I might use that.
The Doctor:  You can’t.  It’s someone else’s.

Doctor Who, “The Shakespeare Code” (2007)

Well, that’s an odd coincidence—a Dylan Thomas figuring prominently in two very different creative works dealing with Shakespeare.  I feel like I’ve uncovered a very important clue.  I just wish I knew what the mystery was.

Look at that gorgeous cover!  The necklace precisely fits the description in the book, and Hero is drawn just as you’d picture her.  That can only mean that the person who did the cover art, at the very least, read relevant parts of the text.  Good for him or her!

Yes, I am actually talking about the cover.  I don’t know how else to review a mystery without spoiling it.  I could booktalk it (with a lot of “duhn-duhn-duhnnnnn” sounds) but that’s not really what I’m going for.  I have a list of grievances, but I can’t talk about them without SPOILERing them.  Maybe there’s not much to spoil…this book is three years old.

Let’s be vague, then.  From the start of the story, you’re not really sure what the puzzle pieces are going to look like, which is cool and exciting.  But then, once those pieces are laid out, you find out there are only six, and you can already see how easily—and neatly!—they’re going to fit together.  Plausibility factor: 0.

I liked it anyway, predictability and all.  Except for how suggestive it was about the bard’s “real” identity.  Okay, maybe publication dates are a little sketchy, but ten years of posthumous publishing?  Repeat citation of plausibility factor.

Question requiring further research:  Is there a very large population of middle grade novels that feature (or don’t, actually) mothers doing the whole Kramer vs. Kramer thing?  Or are these just the titles I happen to pick up?

other reviews:
A Chair, a Fireplace, & a Tea Cozy | Jen Robinson’s Book Page