August 2009
Book Reviews
Lazy-Day Books
By Mary Quattlebaum
Playful tales for summer fun.
babies/toddlers
The Odd Egg
by Emily Gravett
Simon & Schuster, 2009, $15.99
A spare text and expressive illustrations combine wonderfully in this mini-mystery. The book opens with five proud mamas brooding their eggs--and with Duck confusedly looking for his. Duck’s gender is key to the humor. As a green-headed male mallard, naturally he wouldn’t have an egg, but he sets out to find what he christens “the most beautiful egg in the whole wide world.” The mother hen, owl and flamingo beg to differ, but Duck continues to perch hopefully atop his giant ovoid. One by one, from smallest to largest, the eggs hatch and the chicks emerge, tiny, fuzzier replicas of their mothers. Finally, with a loud “Creak Crack,” out pops Duck’s surprising but still lovable baby. Kids and adults alike will smile at the image on the end page: the feathered papa and his reptilian child out for a stroll--an alternative but quite happy family.
ages 3--7
The Frogs and Toads All Sang
by Arnold Lobel, with Adrianne Lobel
HarperCollins, 2009, $16.99
Fans of Arnold Lobel’s classic Frog and Toad early readers are in for an additional amphibian romp. This book began as the late Lobel’s handmade gift in the 1960s for family and friends. Thanks to his artist daughter Adrianne, who spearheaded the publishing process and colored the black-and-white pictures, these charming rhymes can now delight a much wider audience. Lobel’s trademark whimsy leaps to the fore once again in poems about a dessert-eating toad and a fiddling frog who would “rather play the clarinet.” And then there’s the toad who is self-conscious about his bumpy skin. He dons a coat and ceases to worry because his outside now is “soft and furry.” These green and brown friends will hip-hop their way straight to a young reader's heart.
Ladybug Girl and Bumblebee Boy
by David Soman and Jacky Davis
Dial, 2009, $16.99
As the intrepid Ladybug Girl, Lulu journeys forth in her red antenna, wings and polka-dot boots. She “leaps over sidewalk cracks that are as wide as canyons” and carries grocery bags as “heavy as a boulder.” Like preschoolers everywhere, though, Lulu has a harder time figuring out friendship. She and her buddy Sam can’t seem to agree on anything. Sam wants to play in the sandbox, Lulu in the top of the play castle. But then Lulu has an idea and invites Sam to become Bumblebee Boy to her Ladybug Girl. Together they save the playground from a Scary Monster (squirrel) and Mean Robot (tire swing). Little ones engaged in their own dress-up play as pirates, princesses and cowboys will relate to this exuberant twosome and their dynamics.
Wolf Camp
by Katie McKy
illustrated by Bonnie Leick
Tanglewood, 2009, $15.95
The brochure for Wolf Camp promises to “put your child in the wilds.” And “wild” is what happens to Maddie, who attends and returns to chase squirrels and howl at night with the family collie. Over time, she reverts to her usual candy-eating kid ways, but when she heads off to summer Bear Camp, Mom prepares for her homecoming by stocking up on honey and fish. Readers will enjoy the off-beat humor, mystified parents and clues to what’s happening in Dad’s newspaper headlines. Especially fun are Bonnie Leick’s illustrations, which show Maddie hankering for bacon and scratching her head with her toes like, well, a wolf.
ages 8--11
Louis Sockalexis: Native American Baseball Pioneer
by Bill Wise
illustrated by Bill Farnsworth
Lee and Low, 2007, $8.95 pbk.
Join the boys of summer in cheering a little-known hero: Louis Sockalexis, the first Native American to play major league baseball. Bill Wise opens this riveting biography with a scene from the Cleveland Spiders-New York Giants game in 1897. As he steps to the plate, the young man from the Penobscot Indian reservation greets the fans’ racist taunts by politely doffing his hat. The author then flashes back to Sockalexis’s childhood, his admiration of his hard-working father, who schooled him in tribal ways, and his love of the game learned from Maine neighbors. Wise shows how Sockalexis faced hostility from the media, fans and fellow players as he tried to follow his baseball dreams. The author then circles back to the opening scene, the showdown between Sockalexis and celebrated pitcher Amos Rusie. Before swinging the bat, Sockalexis spots his father and other members of his tribe in the stands. They had traveled from his hometown to root for him--and to witness the extraordinary home run that follows. This touching true story finds the perfect visual complement in Bill Farnsworth’s dramatic oil paintings.
Escape Under the Forever Sky
by Eve Yohalem
Chronicle, 2009, $16.99
Living in Ethiopia, Lucy, 13, yearns for adventure amongst the wild animals she’s read about. As the daughter of the American ambassador, though, she’s stuck in the embassy complex. And then she’s kidnapped! Escaping in the dead of night, Lucy finds herself alone in the wild, without food or water. As she comments in her deadpan voice: “It was survival of the fittest, and let’s face it, I wasn’t very fit.” But spoiled, sheltered Lucy surprises herself. She tends to her hurt foot, tracks animals to a water source and climbs trees for protection. In one amazing scene, based on a real-life incident, a pride of lions saves her from the angry kidnappers. Why? Lucy has no idea. She stares into one lioness’s “amber eyes, so calm and unknowable, and wondered what she saw.” In assured prose, author Eve Yohalem captures the land’s dangerous beauty--and pens a compelling portrait of a girl owning her own strength and courage.
Gilda Joyce: The Dead Drop
by Jennifer Allison
Dutton, 2009, $16.99
Teen detective Gilda Joyce homes in on the nation’s capital in this fourth book in the acclaimed mystery series. Gilda’s summer internship at Washington’s International Spy Museum becomes haunted by a “lipstick pistol,” a disgruntled CIA mole and the sad ghost of Svetlana, a Soviet spy. Gilda has all the smarts of a Nancy Drew, plus psychic abilities and a sense of humor. You gotta love a girl who lands at Reagan National Airport in a pillbox hat á la Jackie Kennedy. Gilda also shares espionage tricks with Spy Camp kids and advises her widowed mom to avoid dating and stick to “knitting and bowling.” Maryland author Jennifer Allison brings to life quirky Gilda and her unique setting while deftly handling the twists of an intricate plot. Local kids will love finding familiar landmarks in the book.
Mary Quattlebaum is a mother and the author most recently of Sparks Fly High, a colonial American folktale, and Jackson Jones and the Curse of the Outlaw Rose, a humorous chapter book. You can contact her at maryquattlebaum.com, which has information on her 15 award-winning children’s books, school presentations and writing workshops.