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Christine Davenier is an illustrator whom I have admired from afar for a while and only recently plucked up the courage to invite to our Illustrator Wednesdays. I was first wowed by her illustrations in the book, SAMANTHA ON A … Continue reading →

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Parched
Melanie Crowder
Middle Grade

Summer has come and gone so quickly, fortunately packed with a lot of amazing reads. Which made choosing this first Fall review hard! I decided to go with my fellow Vermont College friend and amazing writer, Melanie Crowder's first book, Parched. You might argue that I'll be slightly biased in my review of this work, but this story, from its inklings to final version, won a few prestigious VCFA awards, landed Melanie her agent and first book contract. It doesn't need my bias. It stands... shines... all on its own.

Very succinctly, the story chronicles the struggles of a girl surviving on the parched African savanna and a boy escaping a d(r)ying city in search of water.

In only 160 pages, Crowder develops characters and situations so powerful they have followed me throughout all of my other reads. It's a little bit magical how she does this. It's as if she discovered Hemingway's secret for parsimony. The writing is sparse but fully packed. In some ways, it's as if poetic style has been applied to prose. For that reason alone, if you're looking for tricks of the trade, Crowder's work will keep you up nights deconstructing to figure out just how she does it.

POV is used extremely deftly. Whenever the story follows either child, POV is omniscient/close 3rd. However, this is interspersed with an unusual 1st person perspective from the POV of the main hunting dog. These short chapters are like a raw, direct, honest emotional punch that jolts the reader and pulls them deeper into story.

Finally, this story itself works like a dip into the pool of all the story that is going on around the characters. Crowder shows only what needs showing, while nevertheless belying a sense of extreme depth to her characters.

Spoiler Alert: Dogs do get hurt in this book. Yes, it is another dead dog book. My kids may never forgive me for buying it for them and urging them to read it. Protest signs against parental evilness line the walls of our house. I can think of no greater compliment for Crowder. She pulled them in. She made them care. She made them mourn and KEEP READING.

Move over Where the Red Fern Grows. There is a new contender for greatness. 

For more great reads, stroll over to Barrie Summy's site. She's serving them up cool and refreshing!

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Cupid. Julius Lester. 2007. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 208 pages.

A long time ago, when Time was still winding its watch and Sun was trying to figure out which was east and which was west, there was a king and queen. I don't know what country they were were king and queen of. That information was not in the story when it came down to me. Sometimes, stories don't understand; what may not be important to them is very important to us.
Now I'm sure there are people who can tell this particular story without having a name for the kingdom this king and queen ruled. Jupiter bless them. I guess I'm not that good of a storyteller, because I need a name for the kingdom. I asked the story if it would mind my giving the place a name. It didn't see any harm in it, so I am going to call it the Kingdom-by-the-Great-Blue-Sea.
The story also does not have names for the king and queen. I know they had names, but nobody would say to them, "What's up, Chuck?" or say, "Looky here, Liz," if those happened to be their names. I am in agreement with the story this time. If nobody could use their names, there is no need to have them in the story. As for what the king and queen called each other, they were probably like any other married couple and he called her "Honey" and "Sweetheart," and she called him "Good Lips" and things like that, which we don't need to pursue any further.
The king and queen had three daughters. I know what you are thinking: the daughters didn't have names, either. That is partly true. Two of the girls were name-naked. I'm not even into the story yet and already we have four people that the Internal Revenue Service could not send a letter to. (1-2)

I absolutely LOVE the narrator of Cupid. Lester rewrote this classic tale of Cupid and Psyche (a tale originally found in Apuleius' The Golden Ass) in the voice of a Southern black storyteller. I'm not sure it works for every reader--I've found a handful of negative reviews--but for me it worked well. I just fell in love with it, and stayed in love with it! I would recommend listening to this one--there is a great audio production of it!

I thought the storytelling was lyrical. The story focuses on the not name-naked daughter of the king and queen, Psyche, the most beautiful girl in the world--most beautiful mortal girl anyway.

I tried to write something that would give you an idea of how beautiful she was, but the letters of the alphabet got so confused and jumbled up trying to arrange themselves into words to describe someone for whom there were no words, they ended up crying in frustration. I hate trying to make words out of letters that have been crying and are so wet they can't stay on the page. Later on in the story, after the letters dry off, I'll try again to arrange them into enough words so you'll have some idea of what Psyche looked like. For now you'll just have to believe me when I say she was the most beautiful woman in the world (3).

Who should be jealous of our young princess other than the great goddess of love herself, Venus.

Yes, Venus is jealous. She wants revenge. She wants it now. And who better to deliver it than her winged son, Cupid? Cupid's mission? To make Psyche fall in love with someone she shouldn't. Someone ridiculously ugly or inappropriate. Or some inanimate object, perhaps. Anything to bring shame on the mortal girl will do in Venus' opinion.

Cupid is the story of what happens when this "god of love" falls madly in love himself, falls for the one girl his mother would NEVER approve of! 

Cupid did not understand what had happened to him. If you think about it, t

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Today we bring you another installment of Youth Media Movers and Shakers. We've culled through industry publications looking for the recent executive placements we think you should know about. If you have executive news that you want us to... Read the rest of this post

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Written by Jill Esbaum, Illustrated by Jack E. Davis, HMHarcourt, 2009

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a portraitby Jeanette WinterHarcourt 1998Out of the darkness I emerge, and the next few weeks are going to be heavy with picture book biographies and graphic novels. Not that any of you are keeping tabs, just what I've been soaking in for the past couple of weeks while visiting the island of Incommunicado.For this intimate look at the painter Georgia O'Keeffe, Winter has chosen to tell not so

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Sorting Out Harcourt...

In addition to Allyn Johnston leaving Harcourt, the company's acquisition by Houghton Mifflin has brought about a number of other changes as well. Here's the scoop I've gotten at this point.

Harcourt Children's Books, now an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Children's Book Group, will be moving all operations to New York by the end of June (same address as Clarion Books). Betsy Groban is the senior vice president and publisher of the HMH Children's Book Group, and Jennifer Haller is associate publisher. Art director Michele Wetherbee is leaving the company.

At this point, the status of imprints Voyager Paperback, Odyssey Paperbacks and Red Wagon Books are under consideration. Harcourt Children's Books will be publishing only hardcover picture books and fiction. The company continues to not accept unsolicited manuscripts, preferring agented material.

Here is the current Harcourt information as it stands:

HARCOURT CHILDREN’S BOOKS
Imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Children’s Book Group, 215 Park Ave South, New York, NY 10003. Web site: www.harcourtbooks.com. Senior Vice President and Publisher: Betsy Groban. Associate Publisher: Jennifer Haller. 20% of books by first-time authors; 50% of books from agented writers. "Harcourt Children’s Books publishes hardcover picture books and fiction only.”

• Harcourt Children's Books no longer accepts unsolicited manuscripts, queries or illustrations. Recent Harcourt titles Tails, by Matthew Van Fleet; Leaf Man, by Lois Ehlert; The Great Fuzz Frenzy, by Janet Stevens and Susan Steven Crummel; How I Became a Pirate and Pirates Don't Change Diapers, by Melinda Long, illustrated by David Shannon; and Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich, by Adam Rex, are all New York Times bestsellers. Other Harcourt titles include Evil Genius, by Catherine Jinks; and Each Little Bird That Sings, by Deborah Wiles, a 2005 finalist for the National Book Award.

How to Contact/Writers Only interested in agented material.
Illustration Only interested in agented material.
Photography Works on assignment only.
Terms Pays authors and illustrators royalty based on retail price. Pays photographers by the project. Sends galleys to authors; dummies to illustrators. Original artwork returned at job's completion.

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Allyn Johnston Leaving Harcourt...

I've known since last week that Editor-in-Chief Allyn Johnston was leaving Harcourt after 22 years there. The news just broke in PW Children's Bookshelf yesterday. Today is Allyn's last day at Harcourt. Over the years she's worked with authors and illustrators the likes of Jane Dyer, Lois Ehlert, Mem Fox, Cynthia Rylant, Debra Frasier and Marla Frazee.

Allyn wrote a wonderful piece for me focusing on picture books for the 2009 CWIM, finishing it up soon after she was let go. Reading her piece, feeling her love of picture books, getting a glimpse of what an insightful editor she is, made me sad to think that someone who it seems was put on this earth to edit picture books could be let go as a result of a corporate merger (Houghton with Harcourt).

Here's a excerpt of her CWIM piece:

“Authors and illustrators are our most important resource. Without them none of us would be here. Our primary job in the editorial department is to maintain—and build—strong, trusting, collaborative relationships with them so they keep bringing their projects to us. And when those projects are wonderful, great. The editorial development process is relatively smooth. But when talented folks bring us weaker ideas—or ideas that don’t quite make sense yet—we must try our best to help them figure out how to make the project work and to coax it out of them without being discouraging.
I think our biggest role, then, is to believe in our authors and illustrators, to believe great things can happen.”

I wish great things for Allyn as she moves on to the next phase of her career. As soon as I have news about what she'll be doing next I'll let you know in this space. In the meantime, you can contact her here.

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written and illustrated by Marla Frazee Harcourt 2008 James and his friend Eamon are going to Nature Camp for a week. It's a day camp near Eamon's grandparent's beach front house where the boys spend their week. If you want to see what they did at camp all you need to read are the endpapers which are snapshots of their time at camp. Their best week ever happened at Bill and Pam's (Eamon's

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Linda Urban Harcourt 2007 Zoe wants a piano. In her mind she considers herself a piano prodigy waiting to be discovered. She's just a baby grand away from Carnegie Hall. But when her easily-distracted dad is charged with procuring the instrument he returns home with a cheesy Perfectone D-60 organ, complete with electronic rhythm sections and lessons that feature television theme songs in its

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by Laura Leuck illustrated Kyle M. Stone Harcourt 2007 This cracks me up. Not the book but my original notes taken a few weeks back. This rhyming picture book explores The joy of raising boys Without a mother's love aboard A pirate ship of noise A father's tenderness is buried In text beneath the gruff Exterior of belching lads And other other pirate stuff First, I don't remember penning

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It's like Oz, where I'm headed -- somewhere over the rainbow. Places I've never been, people I've never met -- but no strangers. In Book-Tour Oz, we are all kin.

If you are making your way to this journal for the first time, you'll see I've been practicing, in anticipation of your arrival. You can familiarize yourself with the room by scrolling down this page.

You'll find the tour schedule on the left -- hope I'm coming to a theater near you! You can easily sign up to receive journal entries in your email inbox each day. (And you can easily quit whenever you want.) You can sign up to have this blog added to your feedreader. You can just pop in and visit when you feel like it. I'll keep the front room picked up and make sure there's a pitcher of sweet tea in the fridge.

Scroll down and you'll read about the road trip that intrepid Harcourt book rep Michael Hill and I took to The Happy Bookseller in Columbia, South Carolina last Thursday.

You'll read about my love affair with Sandy Koufax and the 1960s Los Angeles Dodgers and see how my admiration finds it way into ALL-STARS. (And take a look at the comments -- you'll see that I wasn't the only fan in love with Koufax!)

You'll see how I spent my summer -- and learn some about my family, Atlanta, and my new.... husband. (Hint: it's not Sandy Koufax. But he's fine...so fine... and it's his birthday today. Happy Birthday, Jim!)

You'll meet wonderful North Carolina teachers who are writing their personal narratives.

You'll find that I'm just as nervous about this tour as I say I'm not. Something like that -- do read "Shirley Jackson and the Book Tour." You'll find that I'm excited, too. Those opposites that Uncle Edisto speaks about in LITTLE BIRD... they catch me up every time.

And if you scroll to the bottom (not far), you'll read Pat Grant's thoughts on why THE AURORA COUNTY ALL-STARS is a great American novel. Bless your heart, Pat.

Pat and Elisabeth Grant-Gibson own Windows, A Bookshop in Monroe, Lousiana. I met them on tour with LITTLE BIRD in 2005. These women -- and their staff, and their community -- are amazing. They host The Book Report every Wednesday morning -- "A scintillating once-a-week, one-hour radio magazine about books originating live from the KMLB studios in Monroe." Check them out!

I'm going to check out a suitcase. I'll be living out of it until the end of September. I can't wait to clap eyes on old friends, make new ones, and bring stories back with me to tell for years to come. I tell my students that every moment we live is our story. And each person's story is important -- it connects us to all of our stories. Walt Whitman knew it:

"Come, said the muse, sing me a song no poet has yet chanted; sing me the universal."

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I'll back up quickly before we move forward, and tell you about our intimate gathering at Little Shop of Stories in Decatur, Georgia on August 25 -- a steamy summer Saturday. Owner Diane Capriola put the word out to area writers and teachers, and that's who showed up for a lovely hour and a half of talking shop, reading from ALL-STARS, and munching on Crackerjacks -- House Jackson, age 12, is a Crackerjack baseball pitcher, or so we're told in chapter one of THE AURORA COUNTY ALL-STARS.

Here is something I've learned about book signings: Every book signing, every bookstore, every bookstore owner is so different. Each owner's vision is different, and each audience creates a kind of personality or character that the author must read and respond to. Figuring out what works best in each unique community is a puzzle and a challenge for the bookstore owner. If that owner is very good at this puzzling, it's a gift to the author. Here's Diane behind the desk, smiling that knowing smile.

When Diane called me a little over two years ago to introduce herself and tell me she was opening an independent children's bookstore in Decatur, Georgia, I said, "good luck!" And I meant it sincerely, as I'd heard about independent bookstores closing across the country. I had no idea how tenacious Diane and her business partner Dave would be. Just one example: Jake's Ice Cream is adjacent to Little Shop -- no wall separates the two businesses and customers mingle back and forth between the two. "The books will get sticky," people said. They didn't. The comfy couches between Jake's and Little Shop have housed many an intimate author talk, ice cream sometimes included.

Hmmm, I think, as we settle into the furniture. Lots of writers in this bunch; some teachers, a few kids. Punt. We talk about the writing process, the choppy sea of publishing, do we need agents? and then savvy reader-mom Kim says, "This is all well and good, but what about your characters? How do you create them?"

I learn how to read from ALL-STARS -- something I'll be discovering the entire time I'm on tour. I try to relate the adults' questions to the kids' fidget factor so I don't lose either. I eat my Moon Pie.

Then I sign books. I discover that Dr. Pearl McHaney from Georgia State is here. Dr. McHaney is a Eudora Welty scholar; the ancient, wrinkly, lovable pug dog in ALL-STARS is named Eudora Welty. Diane! You called the Eudora Welty Society! See what I mean? Bookstore owners find the most interesting, unusual threads to follow when setting up a signing, just as readers unravel their most personal, internal threads as they devour a book and make it their own.

I'm going to devour ELIJAH OF BUXTON by Christopher Paul Curtis and THE WEDNESDAY WARS by Gary Schmidt, the two books I purchase from Diane. I'll get lost in the worlds those authors create for me, and then I'll pass them (the books and the worlds) on to Logan, one of the most discerning 12-year-old readers I know.

I've been home from Columbia and Happy Bookseller for three days. I've done my laundry, watered my garden, cut my hair, paid the bills, cleaned out my email inbox (a first), watched the Justin Timberlake concert on television with my daughter, and lay on a blanket under the stars with my husband (still such a new word!).

The Tour Packet arrived via FedEx from Harcourt. In it are luscious lists of bookstores, schools, libraries, events, signing confirmations, flight numbers, media escort cell phones, hotel reservations, an itinerary as long -- longer! -- than my arm.

It's official. It's a tour. Here we go.

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I started this post on Friday -- how did it get to be Saturday already?? Let me explain. No, eez too much -- let me sum up.

Chickens! On Thursday (after hot-footin' it out the door) I drove to LOVE, RUBY LAVENDER territory -- Comer, Georgia -- where Michael Hill farms and sells books for Harcourt.

Michael covers the southern region for Harcourt -- Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, the Carolinas, Florida (whew) and puts many miles on his car each season as he visits booksellers across the South, showcasing Harcourt's latest catalogs (both adult and children's titles). Michael and his long-time sweetheart Melissa (who also used to be a sales rep for Harcourt, and who owned a children's bookstore in Athens before that) have an organic farm in Comer, and live their lives as considerate partners with the earth, animals, minerals, vegetables... and books.

Here's part of the Harcourt Southern Region Sales Office, next to the chicken coop and near the John Deere (Melissa shows off a stack of this season's books):
Two years ago, when Michael and I did this part of the book tour together with EACH LITTLE BIRD THAT SINGS, there were four dogs who greeted me joyfully as I arrived at the farm. Now there are three. Spiffy (Bo-Bo's mother) died an old-age death, but Bo-Bo, Alice, and Hale-Bopp swarmed around my car as I arrived on Thursday morning. These gentle dogs were my inspiration for Eudora Welty, the loveable old dog (who does not disappear! Have I redeemed myself?!) in THE AURORA COUNTY ALL-STARS.

Here's Alice wondering why Michael and Melissa are sitting outside in the middle of the day holding chickens. It's a board meeting, Alice (note rooster in background):









Recalcitrant board members:










And here's the house:
We're on our way to The Happy Bookseller in Columbia, South Carolina, a three-hour drive. Owners Andy and Carrie Graves have set 5pm as the time when kids, teachers, and parents will come hear the debut of THE AURORA COUNTY ALL-STARS. After the signing, Michael and I will grab some supper before we head back home. It will be 10:30pm when we return to Comer. The chickens will be roosting in the hen house. The ducks will be back in the barn. I will pat Alice on the head, hug Michael, and drive home. It will be midnight as I pull into my driveway, back home in Tucker, Georgia. It will have been a day well-spent -- good conversation, good friends... and a good signing, too.

Here is the staff at Happy Bookseller in Columbia:

From left: Compton, Todd, Carrie (holding Henry, who will have a little brother by Thanksgiving), Thomas, and Andy.

At 5pm we shared stories. I told the assembled crowd that my books are fiction, but they come out of my history, my life, my personal (narrative!) stories. I read snippets from all three novels, and recited some of FREEDOM SUMMER... oh, and I sang ONE WIDE SKY. That book has music to go with its 88 words, thanks to my husband (still getting used to that word!) Jim Pearce. Kids had great questions, and great stories about playing baseball, which of course is part of what ALL-STARS is about (baseball, that is). I forgot to take photos of the comfortable crowd of kids, teachers, and parents, but I did think to dig out my camera as I was signing books.

Here's Kitty. Hellooooo, Kitty!

Kitty is an thespian and so is 14-year-old Finesse Schotz in ALL-STARS. "I'd be the perfect Finesse!" said Kitty. I have to agree, she's got the outfits down.








Here are Endea and Errin, sisters, with their mom.

Beautiful.








And beautiful is Makenzie, who plays outfield on her Little League team:

It was so good to hang out and catch up with the folks at Happy Bookseller again. Columbia has a great indie in Happy Bookseller. Andy and Carrie partner with the schools and community to bring stories to readers throughout South Carolina -- good work.

I came home with books, too: I was excited to find THE ECHO MAKER by Richard Powers in paperback. (More on Powers' work at some point.) Michael Hill recommended MISTER PIP by Lloyd Jones, about a man who begins reading GREAT EXPECTATIONS to a group of children on a tropical island... their lives transform. A have a character named Pip in ALL-STARS. I named him after the orphan in GREAT EXPECTATIONS, a book I loved in high school and studied again as I readied to write the serial story that would become THE AURORA COUNTY ALL-STARS. Michael also gifted me with THE THEORY OF CLOUDS by Stephane Audeguy -- I'm looking forward to reading this one, too.

So this was the first stop on the travelin' book tour. I'm home for the weekend and will catch a flight to Jackson, Mississippi on Tuesday, where I'll begin a four-day whirlwind of schools, libraries, and bookstores -- do come with me as I head for Faulkner and Welty territory (we'll visit Rowan Oak and the Welty Home together) and family (and, Lord, you'll meet them, too). My stories take place in Mississippi, that land of those opposites Uncle Edisto talks about in EACH LITTLE BIRD THAT SINGS. I'm heading for the homeland.

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I woke at 4 (as usual) and got up (as usual) and went back to bed at 6:30 (uh-oh) "just for a few minutes." Wrong.

Hot-footin' it out the door this morning for the second "Day 1" of THE AURORA COUNTY ALL-STARS tour. The first "Day 1" was right here in Atlanta, at Little Shop of Stories on August 25. That was our kick-off (and I have pictures to share)... now we have one day in Columbia, SC, then home for the weekend.

I'm driving to Michael Hill's house. Michael lives just outside Athens, where he takes care of booksellers in Harcourt's southern region. We'll drive to Columbia together this afternoon for a 5pm signing, then drive back. We did this two years ago for LITTLE BIRD's tour as well -- I'm so looking forward to catching up with Michael and introducing him to you -- if he'll allow me to do that. So stay tuned, come with me, and let's see what develops at Happy Bookseller in Columbia.

One thing I've decided I want to do on this tour is purchase books for a 12-year-old boy named Logan, a 7-year-old girl named Olivia, and a new baby girl named Delaney -- my grandkids. Got book suggestions? Send them my way, please! And do tell me -- what should *I* be reading this season?

Gotta go -- come with me!

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by Adam Rex Harcourt 2007 I get it now. I wasn't sure before when I first came across Adam Rex's Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich last year but after seeing this there's no doubt in my mind: Adam Rex is making picture books for adults. Sure, they can be enjoyed on certain levels by kids but the reality is that there's just too much packed into his illustrations for these to be for

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Houghton Mifflin Buys Harcourt Ed Division...

It's been all over the publishing newsfeeds, but in case you have haven't read about the Harcourt Education business being purchased by Houghton Mifflin, here's a link.

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Here's what I've been working on recently...






Illustrations for an educational anthology by Harcourt, these are for a Kiowa folk tale about how the sun came to be in the sky. I'm really pleased with how they turned out, and I finished them a week ahead of schedule.

My website
My blog

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by Cynthia Rylant
illustrated by Diane Goode
Harcourt 2007

After a visit to a museum a boy decides he'd rather be an alligator. A gift of a costume alligator tail and head provide an instant transformation. Now he can deal with bullies fearlessly, enjoys school more, thrives.

Rylant's breezy rhyme and Goode's light drawings make an absurd-but-real situation and make it fun. Perfect for reading to the little boy who insists on wearing his superhero pajamas all the time, equally for any child who feels they are somehow different, trapped within conformity.

My only complaint is that as good as it is, it feels thin. I'm not so sure this deserves its own book as it does a place in a collection of shorter story-poems, the way Edward Lear's works were collected.

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Bow-Wow Bugs a Bug by Mark Newgarden and Megan Montague Cash. Harcourt Children's Books. $12.95.

Sometimes a book just falls into your lap without rhyme, reason, or explanation and you’re left gaping like a fish until someone’s able to tell you something about it. Well “Bow-Wow Bugs a Bug” fell into my lap and due to its very nature I’ve been left gaping for some time. I gotta say, this is one of the weirder creations to float down the river, and I’m torn between being utterly charmed by it and marching over to Harcourt Books to DEMAND the story of its creation. Basically, what we have here is softy Megan Montague Cash joining forces with Mark Newgarden to produce a picture book about a curious dog. Who is Mark Newgarden? Well, in a recent interview with MrSkin.com I learned that he’s an alt-comic mastermind with the book, “We All Die Alone,” already under his belt. He’s lived in a converted funeral parlor, has a great take on Tijuana Bibles, and once deconstructed the comic strip Nancy. The next thing you know he turns around and produces something called, “Bow-Wow Bugs a Bug.” An inconsistency? Not in the least. Though he’s curbed his style to the world of wordless picture book adventures, this title uses its misleading simplicity to lure the reader into a false sense of complacency. Then, BAM! It ratchets up the weirdness meter to 110%. With a clear sense of its artist’s comic-laden past, and a firm grounding in what makes a picture book “good,” Newgarden and Cash have produced the weirdest bit of kidlit fluff I’ve seen in a very long time. Their tongues are planted firmly in their cheeks and they know how to play for laughs by balancing out visual humor with sheer out-and-out ridiculousness. Impressive.

A single black dot makes a leap off a pure white page towards a sleeping terrier. The pup wakes up and begins his day only to find himself somewhat entranced by the insect in his presence. Without thinking much about it he proceeds to follow the bug around a single city block. Slowly the situation grows more and more surreal as Newgarden and Cash begin to play off of expected norms. When pup and bug meet their identical twins it’s a great excuse for a series of panels where they try to get the other to do something different. Things get curiouser still. Giant dogs follow tiny bugs. Hundreds of dogs follow hundreds of bugs. And then, in a kind of coup de grace, hundreds of gigantic bugs follow hundreds of tiny dogs. Exhausted and more than a touch weirded out, Bow-Wow heads for home where pup and insect can settle down for a good long sleep.

It’s not really fair when a reviewer is handed a book with a blurb like this on the back cover: “What an odd, sweet, surreal, and hilarious adventure from Newgarden and Cash. It’s what Crockett Johnson, Ernie Bushmiller, and Rod Serling might have come up with if they shared a bench at the doggie park. I love it!” Well thank you sooooooo much, Lane Smith. First of all, being that Newgarden’s a huge Bushmiller fan, I suspect Mr. Smith was being coy with his references. But the fact of the matter is that this nails the tone of the book perfectly. I’m jealous. I could never have paired these three artists together, and yet that’s exactly how the book feels. Reality is upended suddenly and regularly in this title and it’s a joy each and every time. I’ve tried to pinpoint the exact moment the book won me over, heart and soul, and I think it had to be when Bow-Wow runs into an enormous dog following an enormous bug. Still, there’s a subtlety to the illustrations in this book that rewards the careful reader. I’ve never seen a book so perfectly perform the old look–blink–look-again move. And when Bow-Wow’s face is reflected in the kaleidoscopic eyes of the lead bug, his oh-come-on-now expression (raised eyebrow and all) is priceless.

The problem with books that look this simple is that adult readers will often skim it once, assume there aren’t any noteworthy details, and put it down without a second glance. Kids, on the other hand, are bound to be rewarded time and time again whenever they re”read” certain sections. Did you notice that when Bow-Wow meets his virtual twin and his bug does the same, everything the dogs do the bugs do? If the dogs put on green cat masks, so too do the bugs. Balancing on balls while donning fezzes? So too do the bugs. The art in this book is fabulous and suggests a fun but twisted mentality. Now will someone please explain to me why it is that Garbage Pail Kids, that insane construct of the mid-1980s that, to any sane and rational mind, had NO redeeming qualities, managed to jump-start the careers of such artists as Art Spiegelman and Bow-Wow's own Mark Newgarden? You wouldn’t know it to look at it, but this book bears the weight of some serious alternative kid-fare.

Of course, the sheer simplicity of the title lends itself to a couple difficulties here and there. For one thing, forget trying to suck any authorial/illustrator information out of it. I had naturally assumed that Mark did the illustrations and Megan the plotting, but a quick glance at what passes for a publication page and you can see that this book was “designed by Megan Montague Cash.” So… so huh? We must assume that she is the artist here. There’s no sign of a title on the cover either. I appreciate the simplicity of the design, but this seems a bit silly. At the very least, mention who did what.

The wordless picture book is a peculiar beastie. They can serve as ways to get illiterate or struggling readers interested in the world of books and literature without scaring them off. How different is “Bow-Wow Bugs a Bug,” from the “Polo” adventures by Regis Faller, after all? Kids also often get assignments in school requiring that they find a wordless picture book and write a story about it for class. “Bow-Wow,” is a bit too simple for that particular assignment, but for anyone collecting picture books of the wordless variety, I won’t hesitate to recommend it in a heartbeat. There are only so many times you can hand someone an Anno or Lehman's “The Red Book” without feeling a bit drained.

Newgarden and Cash (sounds like an insurance company if you say it just right) have a business future together, no question. With its silent movie references, clean lines, and crisp storytelling, “Bow-Wow Bugs a Bug,” is a keeper. It’s fun and funny and bound to be overlooked unless you start telling your friends and neighbors about it pronto. I may find the design just a bit much here and there, but all in all this one’s memorable.

On shelves June 1, 2007.

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by Susan Beth Pfeffer
Harcourt 2006

What could be more benign than the moon, cycling through the night sky, orbiting Earth and inspiring song and romance.

Bringing with it the end of life as we know it.

Miranda's journal entries quickly bring us up to speed. Her parents are separated, her father's remarried and his new young wife is newly pregnant. Her older brother is finishing up his first year at college and her younger brother thinks of nothing but baseball. Among Miranda's close friends she counts a girl enamored with her Born Again minister. Another friend died in an accident last year. Due to an injury Miranda has had to give up ice skating for swimming but she still follows the rise of a local boy on his way toward the Olympics.

Then there's all this talk -- excited talk -- about an asteroid on a collision course with the moon. The scientists have made their calculations and deemed the event historic but safe. The face of the moon has shown a history of asteroid damage and this current event promises to be spectacular, viewable with binoculars if not with the naked eye.

Miscalculation. The density of the asteroid was greater than anticipated. The moon is knocked from its orbit, closer to the Earth. Tides erupt into tsunamis all over the world. Earthquakes. Volcanoes awaken. The shoreline of every continent is swallowed. News vanishes from coastal radio and television networks. The moon sits uncomfortably close to the horizon.

Panic sets in. Miranda's mom has preservation instincts enough to grab as much cash as she can and go shopping for perishables. Miranda, her younger brother Jonny and their close family friend Mrs. Nesbit all help stockpile goods for the pantry. Miranda feels it's all a bit much, but then everyone is doing it so maybe her mom knows what she's doing. Families start to leave town, kids stop going to school. News comes in spurts from landlocked cities: rolls of the dead are read. The electricity begins to falter. The sky is covered in volcanic ash, the temperature rises, then falls sharply. How long with the heating oil and gas last? What kind of a winter is coming?

How long will Miranda and her family last?

As a member of Gen X (or the tail end of the Boomers, depending on where you set your marker) I'm one of those who have never had to learn first hand what bad times could be like. We've suffered depressions, but not like in the 20's and 30's. We've seen wars, and war protests, but it never really challenged our daily lives the way World War II brought on rationing and home front sacrifice. The Holocaust is something in history books, not living memory. I've seen my fair share of earthquakes (1971 and 1989), watched the hurricanes and tornadoes on the news, read about famine and disaster the world over. But the members of The Greatest Generation have done their job a little too well by cocooning the rest of us from the realities they vowed never to suffer again. We have not, as sheltered Americans, as world citizens en masse, had the personal experience of knowing what we would do when pressed to our limits.

Which is why some of us like reading about Earth shattering events that provoke those corners of our brains to ask "What would I do in that situation?" I couldn't make a steady diet of books and movies like that, like Life As We Knew It, but I could consume my fair share. I think many teens do, and for similar reasons -- because we want to compare our own emotions and reactions with those of the characters. We want to be right, and where we're wrong we want to know how and why. The book, movie or play become personal, we judge the characters and evaluate the situations and run a parallel narrative in our heads. Yes, hoard as much as you can, share with no one, and think about what you do when people get desperate. Can you second guess the medical concerns, the biological variables, the emotional trauma? When the food runs scarce who eats less, who eats more and who gives up all together?

I think Pfeffer has put together a great little story here, one that opens itself naturally to questions of morals and values. That alone probably prohibits it from use in the classroom (because morals and values aren't measured on standardized tests) but it shouldn't prevent whole-hearted recommendations to teens. I have a few questions and items I wish were addressed in the book -- political information, how the governments survived and some of the social mechanics of community, particularly after the first winter -- but perhaps that means I can look forward to a sequel. Honestly, there probably isn't any way to include the political in a journal reporting on a closed system like a single family's survival, still one can always hope.

Hope. Yeah, that's in there as well. The hope that Miranda can one day go to the prom, that the worst is over and that, with some adjustment, life as she once knew it will one day return.

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Alligator Boy by Cynthia Rylant, illustrated by Diane Goode. Harcourt, Inc. $16.00

I imagine that it must be the nicest thing in the world to have a collaborator with whom you’ve worked for twenty odd years or so. How comforting that must be. The pairing of author Cynthia Rylant and illustrator Diane Goode began long long ago when they first worked together to create “When I Was Young In the Mountains”. Badda bing, it wins a Caldecott Honor and the rest is history. I wasn’t aware that the two were still doing any shared projects, and then this lovely little book arrived on my desk. “Alligator Boy” is a small simple picture book that goes against expectations beautifully. If you happen to be in desperate need of a book that will delight your small children, boys and girls alike, but that falls on the understated side of the equation, I cannot recommend this story enough. Charming, charming, charming.

After taking a trip to a museum and seeing a life-sized stuffed alligator in all its reptilian glory, a young boy decides that becoming an alligator is his life’s goal. His aunt, who hears this wish over the phone, is happy to help the kid live his dream and sends him an easily worn alligator head and tail. Though his father is fine with the change, his mother worries about his health and a vet (the doctor wouldn’t come) is quickly dispatched. But as it turns out, there’s nothing wrong with the little alligator, so it’s off to school he goes. And wouldn’t you know it but it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to him. Now he can do everything the other kids can, but he’s also adept at scaring away the school bully and rescuing dogs from dogcatchers. The last image in the book is of the little alligator, tuckered out at the end of a long day, sitting sleepily and happily on his loving mother’s lap.

Now when I read this story I full expected the boy to tire of his gatorial garb at some point in the proceedings so as to learn a rote lesson. Perhaps he’d find that people didn’t trust him as much or that he scared kittens. Then he’d go back to being a boy and we’d get some twist ending where he starts wearing a panda outfit on the last page. This is the standard procedure that a whole heckuva lot of picture books follow, and it’s deathly deadly dull. How much more interesting then to find that the boy wants to be an alligator, becomes one, and is then accepted by friends and family alike. The last image in this book is of the boy snuggled contentedly on his mother’s lap, seemingly without a care in the world. Now, I don’t like to read too much into a book, but this is a picture book that’s going to speak to a lot of people on a lot of different levels. For anyone who has ever felt that they were born in the wrong body and want to change their appearance drastically, this is the perfect gift of a book. This title also struck me as a subtle (and better illustrated) follow-up to Charlotte Zolotow’s, “William’s Doll”. Basically, it's about accepting someone for being what they want to be. Yet unlike those didactic children’s stories out there, this tale is sweet enough that the message (if indeed there is one at all) goes down so smoothly you won’t even realize you’ve learned it until a great deal of time has passed. Kudos to Ms. Rylant then for her good taste.

Of course, equal consideration/congrats/rose petals should be thrown at Ms. Diane Goode. Over the years Ms. Goode has pared down her style to its essential elements. In this story you’ve picture created with line on paper alongside watercolors and gouache. The color palette is a comfortable series of greens, blues, and serene (though certainly NOT pastel) shades and tones. As for the characters themselves, Goode places them in an abundant amount of white space. She knows how to show them off. To let them stand and pose and prance about without cluttering up the images. Yet for all this simplicity, she also conveys some very tender and dear emotions. Cleverly, the alligator head is able to show the emotions of the boy inside of it. And aside from his human hands and legs, you might begin to believe (as the kid himself undoubtedly does) that he really is an alligator incarnate. Now Ms. Goode chose to set this story in a time that never existed, which is rather interesting to look at. By the clothing, you might think that this story took place in the early 20th century (maybe the 30s). Heck, the bully in the book (who proves easy enough to frighten) wears a soft cabbie hat and blue suit. All the boys are in short pants, all the girls are in dresses, and the teacher is prone to a bow tie or two when he feels the yen. On the flip side, this is a fully multicultural books. The vet is black, the schoolmates are all sorts of ethnicities, and there’s even a girl in a wheelchair in one of the scenes. So while this is a time and place in world history that probably never happened, you’ll come to wish that it had.

Ah, but I did have one objection to this book and I’m afraid it deals with the choice to make this a rhyming text. It’s always a dangerous decision on any author’s part. Now by and large and for the most part Rylant does very well by her words. “His days were quite happy, his days were a joy . . . / What a good green life for an alligator boy.” That’s all well and good. Unfortunately, there are times when the rhymes don’t scan. “He found his dear dad and told him the story / of being a lizard, no longer a boy.” Now insofar as I can tell, that’s supposed to rhyme. The entire book is ABABAB. Um… this line doesn’t. Also there is the brief moment of awkwardness here and there. “She asked a good doctor to come and to see / this boy who could not a boy now be.” Doesn’t scan all that well and it’s doggone difficult to say properly aloud.

Quibbles aside, I have a very special place in my heart for this book. Really, it belongs in the same camp as “Imogene’s Antlers” by David Small. By sheer coincidence, it also is coming out in the same year as Emily Jenkins’, “Daffodil, Crocodile”, about a little girl who dresses up in a crocodile head to distinguish herself from her sisters. But where “Daffodil, Crocodile” is madcap and crazed, “Alligator Boy” is small and quiet and supremely sublime. A fantastic book for one-on-one sharing and a great story for any kid who has ever wished to take their dressing up to an entirely different level.

On shelves June 1, 2007

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