Review: The Gospel According to Jesus Christ

The Gospel According to Jesus Christ by José Saramago

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I rate this as a 3 because 3 means I liked it. When I look at the overall ratings for this book I find myself wondering how many people who rated it 4 or 5 did so mostly because they finished it. I think there's probably a bias that direction in overall ratings, anyone else? Especially if it's supposed to be great literature. This book took me months to commit to, with a page here and there until just last month. I guess the early pages took a lot of acclimatizing.

Anyway, I know I was tempted to rate it 4 or 5. The in-the-moment of the reading made me notice aspects of the standard story in new ways, and there were some really enjoyable moments of irony that make great sense. I don't think it will change the way I think about people the way Saramago's [b:Blindness|2526|Blindness (Blindness, #1)|José Saramago|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327866409s/2526.jpg|3213039] did, and it won't change the way I think about God the way [b:Book of J|357579|The Book of J|Harold Bloom|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1389449240s/357579.jpg|347731] or [b:Purity and Danger|667203|Purity and Danger An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo|Mary Douglas|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1397423597s/667203.jpg|653252] did. But there were some striking moments--especially in dialog--and the overall humanizing parallel between Joseph's guilt complex and Jesus' was absolutely interesting to follow, just to see how it played out. I didn't mind some of the artistic license with the standard events because literature that involves gods as characters begs to be understood in terms of power. What does a story with a god as a character help us think who we are and what we are about?

In the end the genius was in the writing style. Saramago was so careful about pacing the book, making it linger extensively on that long missing story of character development that has so many careful threads laid out for it, even in just the canonical text. His youth, like real youth, stretched out willfully. Then in the last pages the narrative dropped over a waterfall, the way time starts to rush after 30, then cascaded out quickly to the end. I thought that was a deft way to emphasize that the beginning and middle of a story are more important than the end.

PS I don't know how these reviews get tagged 'spoiler alert'. As if I told how the story ended here? And as if everyone in the world doesn't know how this story is likely to end?



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Review: The Gospel According to Jesus Christ

The Gospel According to Jesus Christ by José Saramago

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I rate this as a 3 because 3 means I liked it. When I look at the overall ratings for this book I find myself wondering how many people who rated it 4 or 5 did so mostly because they finished it. I think there's probably a bias that direction in overall ratings, anyone else? Especially if it's supposed to be great literature. This book took me months to commit to, with a page here and there until just last month. I guess the early pages took a lot of acclimatizing.

Anyway, I know I was tempted to rate it 4 or 5. The in-the-moment of the reading made me notice aspects of the standard story in new ways, and there were some really enjoyable moments of irony that make great sense. I don't think it will change the way I think about people the way Saramago's [b:Blindness|2526|Blindness (Blindness, #1)|José Saramago|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327866409s/2526.jpg|3213039] did, and it won't change the way I think about God the way [b:Book of J|357579|The Book of J|Harold Bloom|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1389449240s/357579.jpg|347731] or [b:Purity and Danger|667203|Purity and Danger An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo|Mary Douglas|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1397423597s/667203.jpg|653252] did. But there were some striking moments--especially in dialog--and the overall humanizing parallel between Joseph's guilt complex and Jesus' was absolutely interesting to follow, just to see how it played out. I didn't mind some of the artistic license with the standard events because literature that involves gods as characters begs to be understood in terms of power. What does a story with a god as a character help us think who we are and what we are about?

In the end the genius was in the writing style. Saramago was so careful about pacing the book, making it linger extensively on that long missing story of character development that has so many careful threads laid out for it, even in just the canonical text. His youth, like real youth, stretched out willfully. Then in the last pages the narrative dropped over a waterfall, the way time starts to rush after 30, then cascaded out quickly to the end. I thought that was a deft way to emphasize that the beginning and middle of a story are more important than the end.



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Review: Back to Blackbrick

Back to Blackbrick by Sarah Moore Fitzgerald

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I enjoyed how this story played with narrative and memory as two sides of a coin. Exploring loss in general via dementia and a very down-to-earch time travel story was a fascinating patchwork of writing ideas. The themes and issues were nicely displaced and then emphasized by having most of the story within the fantasy time frame. It didn't feel like an 'issues' book, but it clearly worked with current realistic fiction issues. If the plot threads were predictable, it was still fun to watch Fitzgerald unfold them in clean understated writing. Some of the transitions and pieces of plot didn't fit as nicely as others, but it was still good reading.



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Review: Caminar

Caminar by Skila Brown

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I have a hard time deciding whether the poetry added to this narrative or felt more gimmicky. In a story that was about the same length as a children's novella (something like [b:Sarah, Plain and Tall|106264|Sarah, Plain and Tall (Sarah, Plain and Tall, #1)|Patricia MacLachlan|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327254558s/106264.jpg|2674739]) the style of writing small episodes into poems was interesting for sure. There are two things the poetic style clearly did for me during the reading: 1. It helped me make prosody decisions for the reading voice in my head, with most of the poetic devices being used to control pace and phrasing; 2. It helped me see and feel the narrative in clear segments. Some of these segments were meant for character development, not just plot. Poetry was good for expressing this, and I enjoyed the imagery and sounds when I was supposed to understand what Carlos felt. The poetry would also give clear segments to discuss interpretations with a group.

The shaped and chiasmic poems were interesting because they drew me out of thinking in linear narrative for that episode. There were fewer of these types of poems, so either they were more work or too many of them would have been difficult to read the narrative? Not sure. This also begs the question of what it would take to present the whole narrative with a more circular rather than linear feel.

As far as young people being dragged into war, this was a very small one-sided chunk. In other narratives of this type, the young person trying to travel cross country would be forced by chance into traveling or serving with one side and then as travel continued get conscripted into the other side. This feeling of no clear 'sides' was clearly represented in the poem Voices I Heard. I would have liked to see that theme drive the plot a bit more, because the plot was really just a 'from here to there' story. It was great to see Carlos' actions save his grandma and her village, because it showed a young person as capable, in control, and taking charge of decisions.



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Review: All Different Now: Juneteenth, the First Day of Freedom

All Different Now: Juneteenth, the First Day of Freedom by Angela Johnson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



A very nice example of complementary text and illustrations. While the two modes crossed over into 1-1 correspondence part of the time, the story being told by [a:E.B. Lewis|104923|E.B. Lewis|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1273604805p2/104923.jpg] on the whole adds clear narrative elements and character to the story presented in words. Johnson's poetic language could absolutely stand on its own, as could Lewis' storyboard. With the visual and verbal stories put together, it made for a beautiful experience.

Lewis' watercolors are spare and articulate. I noticed his use of the blank white of his paper for contrast (a black cheek bathed in sunlight, a field of brown faces against a field of cotton).

Also, I loved that Johnson zoomed in on this vital moment in history, a day, a single event when things changed--through the eyes of one unnamed girl who showed us what the experience was like. A perfect slice of history, with no need to drag out the whole timeline. The timeline is always there, but with kids we don't get a lot of chances to make history feel real, feel human.

There's a good amount of context in the back matter. I would have liked to see a more thorough list of research sources, rather than a glossary.



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Review: The Right Word: Roget and His Thesaurus

The Right Word: Roget and His Thesaurus by Jennifer Fisher Bryant

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Bryant and Sweet have something going on here! This is the third biography in their collaboration, and I look forward to the next one. I started out worried that the style was too much the same as [b:A River of Words: The Story of William Carlos Williams|3238642|A River of Words The Story of William Carlos Williams|Jennifer Fisher Bryant|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347836624s/3238642.jpg|3273289], but it's really a broad style and palette that seems to be consistent across this series.

For this book, [a:Melissa Sweet|427613|Melissa Sweet|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1377800536p2/427613.jpg]Sweet made a powerful effort to illustrate concepts again and this puts her squarely in the complementary rather than corresponding relationship to the words--a mark of quality! Concepts: what it means to be consumed by lists and categories, what it means to be fascinated by data and scientific processes of collection. Her use of ephemera from the sciences was brilliant, and the busy pages are fun to look at on their own, adding a full and rich visual narrative to Bryant's writing. She provides a visual experience that shouts out the partners' research and use of primary sources!

I think the text suffers from the full timeline approach to biography. I understand that for a children's book there's this desire and maybe need to provide the full arc of the lifetime, but [a:Jennifer Fisher Bryant|500077|Jennifer Fisher Bryant|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1261105300p2/500077.jpg]Bryant clearly mentioned in her afterword some rich narrative threads that she merely hinted at in the writing. I would have liked to see one of these focused on and developed instead of the full timeline. Give me a deeper feel for who he is as a character, not just the timeline! If you're going in for round 4, gang, would you consider this slice of life approach? I still give it four stars despite my misgivings, because this is one of the top writer/illustrator partnerships working right now!



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Review: Under the Egg

Under the Egg by Laura Marx Fitzgerald

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I really enjoyed this thriller story with its background in art history and the current art world. Fitzgerald tipped a hat early on to Salinger by putting her loner protagonist in an old, decaying NYC house (direct reference to [b:Franny and Zooey|5113|Franny and Zooey|J.D. Salinger|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1355037988s/5113.jpg|3118417]). I enjoyed how Fitzgerald unfolded the specifics of this special art puzzle. The resolution happened very quickly, and I almost missed it because I was reading that chapter while trying to get kids to brush their teeth before bed, but it was something she had led up to through the whole book. Not a complicated plot, but enough so that it was nice to see her bring all the threads together by the end. Librarians were at first an object of fear, but then emerged to become heroes who were given enough air time to develop a romantic side-narrative.

What was most fun was seeing in this book some of the very facts about Raphael that Nancy had been bringing home to me all semester long from her art history class at UNC. This is a good pleasure read for anyone interested in art history.

Another interesting thing was seeing the digital divide represented so well. Theo's friend Bodhi is digitized, but Theo is almost a Luddite. This is so true from person to person these days--one person is deeply immersed in technology, and the next one never uses it. The nice moment with this was when Bodhi was reading from a wikipedia page, and Theo was filling in the conversation with details she knew. At first this just seemed like a clever way to do exposition, but then I realized it was a character having a dialog with wikipedia--very current!



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Review: Ivan: The Remarkable True Story of the Shopping Mall Gorilla

Ivan: The Remarkable True Story of the Shopping Mall Gorilla by Katherine Applegate

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



I'll be disappointed if this book gets serious Caldecott action.

It was a bare-bones full-timeline biography, already treated so much better in Applegate's novel [b:The One and Only Ivan|11594337|The One and Only Ivan|Katherine Applegate|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1326506063s/11594337.jpg|16536239]. The story wasn't really interesting, except as a visual follow-up to the novel (which was good, but I really disagreed with its Newbery award). I wish Applegate had focused in on a slice of the story that could have been developed more roundly, like the transition to the zoo being difficult, or what one might think of Ivan's paintings.

Karas' work is interesting to look at. His most intriguing choice was to make the humans cartoonish and flat while making the gorillas realistic and expressive. He used both space on the page and painting/drawing techniques to create shifts in tone as the narrative moved along--also somewhat of a separate, complementary narrative (not so for every spread, but for many).



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Review: Grandfather Gandhi

Grandfather Gandhi by Arun Gandhi

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



This was a pleasant slice of history from a primary source. The interesting turn is that it is less about Mahatma Gandhi, and more what it was like for the grandson to grow up in his shadow. Expectations were thick in the telling, and Evan Turk's fiber work was a brilliant way to illustrate the boy's fomenting anger and frustration. It felt human to see the doubt and anger be the object of the story and take up the bulk of the time. While the lesson his grandfather taught him was probably important, this felt less important than Arun's mismatch to the big world of expectations.

It felt a bit cheap that the worst moment of anger was almost throwing a rock at someone. I'm not sure what to think. It makes him seem like he's inflating himself some by giving us an 'almost' moment, and then solving it by going directly to his wise grandfather for advice. While this may be the true memory, is it the best story about learning to work with anger? I wasn't so convinced.



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Review: A Dance Like Starlight: One Ballerina's Dream

A Dance Like Starlight: One Ballerina's Dream by Kristy Dempsey

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Cooper's palette, settings, clothing are spot-on. It looks like a 1940s-1950s set and cast! Once in the 70s when everyone was all romantic about the 50s I asked my mom what those days looked like, and she said she remembered almost everything was brown. All the pink and candy-apple red in the tv shows and movies was exaggerated, rare color for a very muted time. Cooper does much to set the tone and to emphasize accuracy as an expectation for this historical fiction piece.

The best thing about Dempsey's story was that she displaced the story of Janet Collins into the point of view of a little girl inspired by Collins' 1951 debut at the Met. This slice into an everyday telling of this story captured me. This move sets Kristy Dempsey apart from recent biographers of Josephine Baker ([b:Josephine: The Dazzling Life of Josephine Baker|17043027|Josephine The Dazzling Life of Josephine Baker|Patricia Hruby Powell|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1365397015s/17043027.jpg|23361239] and Florence Mills ([b:Harlem's Little Blackbird|13531513|Harlem's Little Blackbird|Renée Watson|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1333578009s/13531513.jpg|19093186]), who went for the rags to riches formula. There was really only one 'moment' in the words that grabbed me, when the Ballet Master noticed the unnamed narrator dancing. Even in historical fiction, I expect the storyteller to show me instead of just telling me. And in a story about hope I wanted Dempsey to build on the one moment and craft something evocative in unfolding the visit to the Met.



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Review: The Snow Show

The Snow Show by Carolyn Fisher

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



This kind of presentation is a great way to keep the storybook alive as greater demand for informational text pushes forward. There are a lot of good narratives in science, including how snow is made. Given how 'just right' things have to be in place for it to happen, it's amazing we have so much snow in the world!

All of this was made even better when we brought Carolyn in by Skype from Calgary to talk to our class about storyboarding, illustration, and production for the book! Exciting to have this kind of insider perspective. She did a fantastic presentation, with drawing included, and via Skype it was so reasonable.



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Review: Buried Sunlight: How Fossil Fuels Have Changed the Earth

Buried Sunlight: How Fossil Fuels Have Changed the Earth by Molly Bang

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I was not drawn in as strongly to this book as I was [b:Ocean Sunlight: How Tiny Plants Feed the Seas|13039569|Ocean Sunlight How Tiny Plants Feed the Seas|Molly Bang|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1344693911s/13039569.jpg|18203420]. Maybe it was the palette, maybe it's because I had been looking for a good book on plankton and hadn't been searching for a good book on CO2.

While reading I had a hard time remembering the sun was the narrator because Bang only kept a subtle visual presence on each spread. The little yellow dots in the fossil fuel areas was not quite enough to remind me sunlight was supposed to be a character. I liked the way [a:Carolyn Fisher|1312768|Carolyn Fisher|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-ccc56e79bcc2db9e6cdcd450a4940d46.png] kept her Snowman narrator visually present throughout her presentation on how snow is made in [b:The Snow Show|4414904|The Snow Show|Carolyn Fisher|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328834459s/4414904.jpg|4463068], even when in vapor form.

Still, I like Bang & Chisolm's series, and this felt like a clear and even-handed description of how carbon emissions are related to climate.



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Review: The Slug

The Slug by Elise Gravel

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Funny dialog between narrator and slug lightened up the facts, and the animation-style cartoon illustrations brought a great tone. This was a good way to do an informational presentation about slugs. I hoped at first this was going to be a sample of an under-represented animal getting a picturebook dedicated to it. While that's partially true, I was disappointed to see it was part of a series on disgusting animals. The others in the series: worm, fly, rat would be fun to read, too! I'll have to get them. This disgusting animal series is an interesting and fun thing to see in its own right, so I still found it very enjoyable!

Why no back matter or sources for the research?



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Review: The Slug

The Slug by Elise Gravel

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Funny dialog between narrator and slug lightened up the facts, and the animation-style cartoon illustrations brought a great tone. This was a good way to do an informational presentation about slugs. I hoped at first this was going to be a sample of an under-represented animal getting a picturebook dedicated to it. While that's partially true, I was disappointed to see it was part of a series on disgusting animals. The others in the series: worm, fly, rat would be fun to read, too! I'll have to get them. This disgusting animal series is an interesting and fun thing to see in its own right, so I still found it very enjoyable!



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Review: Galapagos George

Galapagos George by Jean Craighead George

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



This is another example of the growing trend of using biographical style to treat the story of a remarkable individual animal. Jean George shared her own surname with Lonesome George, the tortoise the story is about. So she used this name to trace the tortoise's ancestors back eons into evolutionary time. It was a good technique, and a simple way to present some scientific facts about the tortoises.

At first I was bothered by the near duplication of Jason Chin's cover from [b:Island: A Story of the Galápagos|13170025|Island A Story of the Galápagos|Jason Chin|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1340899771s/13170025.jpg|18349340]. But the interior was different enough that it did not feel like a simple ripoff. While the narrative held things together, it was not particularly compelling or engaging. The back matter has plenty of reference information both about the book itself and to guide me out to other sources. In particular, George mentions the Charles Darwin Research Station and near the end features working scientists--good move!



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Review: Weeds Find a Way

Weeds Find a Way by Cindy Jenson-Elliott

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



[a:Carolyn Fisher|1312768|Carolyn Fisher|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-ccc56e79bcc2db9e6cdcd450a4940d46.png]'s deep textures and dynamic lines in the composition drew me in and gave me a sense of movement, something happening on each double-page spread throughout the whole book. This started with a wide variety of seeds moving around the landscapes, finding their way. It culminated with the lines signifying plants moving by growing down, up, and out. The beauty of the weeds was enchanting, and reminded me of the Lao and Hmong people I knew in San Diego, who insisted there was no word in their language for 'weed'. I loved the earthy palette. The back matter offered more information on specific weeds and on what it means for a plant to be a weed. While this information offers much of what is there on the wikipedia page, the story itself is built on its own narrative structure, not on a simple narrative outline.



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Review: Ashley Bryan's Puppets: Making Something from Everything

Ashley Bryan's Puppets: Making Something from Everything by Ashley Bryan

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



For the prolific author-illustrator, this felt like a tribute book. His eclectic array of puppets is each displayed and introduced in free verse. While the strangeness of his puppets is attractive, and I would love to see them in a performance, I did not get much of an experience from this book. It was more like a gallery or exhibit catalog than a children's book. There were too many presentations in a row, and no narrative to hold them together. Also, if I see puppets, I want to be led to a performance.

I didn't know about Bryan's puppet-making before, and the use of found objects was fascinating--especially the ways he was able to channel imagery and tone from African traditional sculpture.



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Review: Bad Bye, Good Bye

Bad Bye, Good Bye by Deborah Underwood

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



For the words, the only thing about this book is the word play on badbye/goodbye. Underwood also did well at writing so the rhythm stayed clear. But I thought this was the sort of overdone topic and style that editors weren't supposed to be interested in even looking at anymore. "How about a book where a kid moves away from home, but learns to feel better--and it will rhyme!?" I guess once you've got a foot in the door and you have an editor you can pitch ideas the regular public couldn't even get an agent to look at.

Bean's illustrations were interesting to look at. The way he used blurred overlays and backgrounds around the main picture gave a feeling of movement, but not using the simple drawing technique of dynamic lines. This is reminiscent of Donald Crews, who made movement with similar techniques in books like [b:Shortcut|368196|Shortcut|Donald Crews|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1388254903s/368196.jpg|3109645]. I felt not only movement, but also a cinematic feeling of many things happening or moving around the main figures in time with recently past images gradually fading and others coming into focus.



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Review: Brother Hugo and the Bear

Brother Hugo and the Bear by Katy Beebe

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Primary source documents often have these little human moments that hint at a wider story. Beebe took this found moment and magnifies it into a charming tale. She did not take the easy way out, and chose to exit with a good punch line. Schindler did a good job of using the narrative elements known from the flat iconic church style, without needing to go all the way there. He offered depth with a hint at the flatness, and went to town instead with the decorative elements in and surrounding the capital letters.

All in all I enjoyed it because of how it treated this small slice of history, without the need to present the whole timeline. The end notes provided enough context to help me see how the artists made their decisions, and to appreciate the historical facts and background knowledge both of them brought in their research.



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Review: Draw!

Draw! by Raúl Colón

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Colón charts his own path in a medium well known in the 80s and 90s from the likes of [a:Chris Vanallsburg|6865653|Chris Vanallsburg|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-ccc56e79bcc2db9e6cdcd450a4940d46.png] and [a:William Joyce|137553|William Joyce|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1407870851p2/137553.jpg]. Not to mention, it reminds me of Nancy Erekson's beautiful prismacolor on paper work! Nancy reminds me how long this kind of layering takes, so I appreciate how much work the book represents. Colón's flawless drawing! I could sit and look at the giraffe page for hours! I loved watching how he used the palette for all the shadows and nuances. Look at those reds in the chin stripes on the zebra, and the blue green shadows on the backs of the giraffes' legs! And the way drawing paper insists on its own texture despite the colors makes each page so look-at-able.

The peritext says [a:Raúl Colón|3513587|Raúl Colón|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1307040621p2/3513587.jpg] used lithograph pencils, and Nancy and I discussed whether he did the scratches in the paper beforehand so the drawing wouldn't go into those grooves or whether he scratched afterward to create those interesting contour lines. I think Nancy is probably right: he likely grooved his pencil drawing before digging in with the prismacolors.

The little jokes in the narrative were a lot of fun: Making the front and back of the story in the 'real' world less realistic, drawn with black outline; moving out of imagination was a visual loss, more spare; keeping the animal from the previous page and showing it in the background on the next page--the rhino was pretty funny; the way the little heron gets on its tiptoes to try to see the elephant drawing; boy on back of elephant, birds on back of buffalo. Not laugh-out-loud jokes, just fun.

It's a simple narrative: draw pictures of folks and share sandwiches with them. As with other memorable books about making pictures ([b:Harold and the Purple Crayon|98573|Harold and the Purple Crayon|Crockett Johnson|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327390957s/98573.jpg|1285373], [b:Journey|17262290|Journey|Aaron Becker|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1367256642s/17262290.jpg|23859090]) Colón's work makes magic out of visual imagining.

A wonderful main character with brown skin, strong multiculturalism without making the story follow that topic. There was no trace of tokenism, just good representation in a strong wordless picturebook.



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Review: Feathers: Not Just for Flying

Feathers: Not Just for Flying by Melissa Stewart

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Stewart made a cross-cutting narrative that was a clear arc across the entire book, using similes to find human connection to the information. This broader presentation is in large print at the top of each page, suggesting a read-aloud of the entire book to get the main point (diverse functions of feathers on various kinds of birds) before coming back to look at the detailed text vignettes on each page that explain feather functions in more informational terms.

Remarkable illustrations, challenging material, demanding a realism that must have been painstaking. What was even more fun about the illustration was how Brannen illustrated all the little adhesives and office supplies (frames, paper, cardboard, pins, paperclips, tape, staples). This gave me the feeling that I was looking at her visual research, not just at her paintings. I loved how this playful postmodern decision makes me think about Brannen and storyboarding process.

While some of the writing work, and certainly the illustrations added to the informational outline, this is clearly one of those books where the question "is it better than looking at the wikipedia page" raises my eyebrows. I think there should have been a different cut through this topic to justify a full four-color hard-cover picture book.



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Review: Hatchet

Hatchet by Gary Paulsen

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



A quick caveat. My 2 stars are for the 2006 reprint edition with the green cover only.

It's like Simon & Schuster didn't even hire a copy editor. Someone made a bad scan of an early manuscript or something, and then didn't even check the copy! For example, page 69: "[The bear] was black, with a cinnamon-colored noise." This edition came out in 2006, well before the financial crisis, well before all the editors at all the publishing houses started getting fired in droves.

For a Newbery Honor book in reprint, you'd S&S would be careful. At any rate, when the misprinted words didn't make sense in the sentence it emphasized the odd, repetitive style Paulsen used in this book, but in unfavorable ways. I believe the first time I read it, this was part of the book's charm even though it was hard to get used to--it was a kind of writerly writing. This time, with the copy editing errors I had to endure not only the repetitive prose, but then I had to re-read a lot of those sentences, multiplying the effect unpleasantly.

Anyway, the book is on Pearl's 'battle of the books' list this year, and this was the only edition B&N had on the shelf. So I'm reading it aloud to her. Bonus, she threw up this evening right before I read Chapter 7 to her, the one with all the throwing up! I might get back in later and rate the book better if I can go down to the library and get an older edition. Lazy publishing just made me crabby.



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Review: Conversational Tahitian; An Introduction To The Tahitian Language Of French Polynesia

Conversational Tahitian; An Introduction To The Tahitian Language Of French Polynesia by D.T. Tryon

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



Are you interested in learning Tahitian? Are you not French? This book is about all there is. Got the last two cheap used copies from abebooks and amazon, sent one to Bela just before she ships out next week!



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Review: The Pilot and the Little Prince: The Life of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

The Pilot and the Little Prince: The Life of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry by Peter Sís

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Sís is a long-time favorite of mine, and I find his recent foray into biography interesting. In his interview in The Guardian he writes about his inspiration for this book, showing that his motivations are largely personal. I don't think I appreciated this biography as much as he would have wanted. I don't always like picturebooks that try to do a whole lifespan in the biography. Lately I'm more intrigued when an author picks out the interesting slice from a bigger-than-life life and deepens the experience of just that moment.



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Review: Josephine: The Dazzling Life of Josephine Baker

Josephine: The Dazzling Life of Josephine Baker by Patricia Hruby Powell

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Powell's rhythmic yet unmetered prose was a perfect match to Josephine Baker's improvisational style. Robinson's folk-art style allowed him to emphasize movement with flowing lines and evocative shapes. This was a great match of author and illustrator. The consistency of the pictures with the subject reminded me of [b:A River of Words: The Story of William Carlos Williams|3238642|A River of Words The Story of William Carlos Williams|Jennifer Fisher Bryant|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347836624s/3238642.jpg|3273289]

From my review of Robinson's work with Renee Watson on [b:Harlem's Little Blackbird|13531513|Harlem's Little Blackbird|Renée Watson|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1333578009s/13531513.jpg|19093186]: "Like other well-known biographies of American figures, this one focuses on a 'from humble beginnings all the way to the world stage' narrative." This thematic similarity made me wonder how the project came about. Did Robinson pitch it and get matched up to Powell, or did Powell pitch the book and then Chronicle editors asked Robinson because of his known work?

It is the sort of 'pull up your own bootstraps' story that we love in America. But the story is laced with sad moments skipped over quickly in the writing. Clearly, to fulfill her potential as an artist, Baker left a lot of people behind. These were not excluded from the story, but Powell makes it seem like none of these cruelties mattered, when they might have been a deep source of humanity in the writing. I see many writers today, even on TV now, who are good at presenting darker moments of cruelty without painting over them or justifying them. If this had been different I would have reached for that fourth star.



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Review: El Deafo

El Deafo by Cece Bell

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



So at first I was skeptical because of the drawing style. I was worried that the story would be preachy, condescending, or smarmy. The tone of the stylized animal people reminded me of Marc Brown, and I didn't want to see a remix of Arthurian ;-) sermons. Bell unworried me quickly.

Her first-person narration was compelling from the very first pages, including her gradual realization as a preschooler that she was losing her hearing. I expect a lot of people will be writing about how the book handles a topic in diversity, but I didn't feel like this book was topical at all. It was enjoyable and engaging because of the clear human themes, it was so much more than a book about being deaf, and certainly did not devolve into any kind of pity story.

People, myself included, often feel paralyzed and unable to say what we really want to say. I think this is what Bell did with authority in this book. Any potentially risky situation can make loss of voice happen. Bell exaggerated this for me with anxiety about her hearing devices, but she also gave this theme plenty of air time in other dialog (not about hearing) between her and her friends and family. I felt like I got a very specific experience of inclusion and exclusion, the tension between wanting a strong identity yet feeling 'othered' by forces outside my control. It was a good experience! Because the power she eventually gained mostly just 'happened', it did not feel like she was working toward a big finale about the triumph of the human spirit as much as she was showing how she was able to transform herself around some small happy accidents of fate.

As such, I was a little disappointed when the afterword was dedicated solely to discussion about growing up deaf. Yes, I appreciated its overall value, but hoped for a little more than a topical discussion. I would have liked to read maybe even an invited preface by another author (like [a:R.J. Palacio|4859212|R.J. Palacio|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1351246501p2/4859212.jpg]on the cover) where some of the broader literary work might have been noticed in front or back matter for this edition! (Maybe when it goes to next edition, right?)



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Review: The Book with No Pictures

The Book with No Pictures by B.J. Novak

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



My favorite thing about writing this review was putting the book on my 'picturebooks' shelf. It has to go there, because it does everything (but one) to send the signals it is a picturebook. While absence of pictures is the point of the book, Novak used standard size, cover, endsheets, and other picturebook format to craft the contradiction (counterpoint)!

As postmodern fiction, the book is gimmicky. But it is clearly directed at the read-aloud as the toy being played with, so this specific gimmick is something we haven't already seen a lot of. For example, similar postmodern objectifying of the book was there in Lane Smith's [b:It's a Book|7747422|It's a Book|Lane Smith|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1316737426s/7747422.jpg|10577192], but Smith's work plays on different features of the picturebook experience. Novak makes narrator and audience into literal, explicit characters instead of leaving them tacit or projecting them onto an illustrated character in the book--I get to imagine this fictional read-aloud person in the book as 'me'.

Because it demands an audience that is well-saturated with experience in read-alouds, I can't see myself doing this read-aloud until I am sure the kids do have that deep experience with picturebooks and read-alouds. A well-versed crowd of picturebook aficionados should be ready for the laughs!

Finally, and most enjoyable--this is a book about prosody! The small sans-serif reader parts felt like I should read them in Jim Gaffigan's 'aside' voice from his stand-up comedy. Direct use of graphic design elements such as font, size, color, ellipses, page placement (including use of negative space), are a little bit over the top. I tend to prefer it when readers are guided to a choice instead of 'told' how to read the words. But many of these graphic design moves help Novak stage the obviously different characters with a kind of 'stage directions' tone that helps readers maintain the different voices needed for the book to work well. So despite my preferences, it was a pleasing approach to prosody.

I'd love to see Novak do something more with these simple manipulations of narrative structure and the social machinery of the picturebook read-aloud!



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Review: Harris and Me

Harris and Me by Gary Paulsen

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I'm reading this the same time I'm reading [b:Hatchet|69940|Hatchet (Brian's Saga, #1)|Gary Paulsen|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1388190251s/69940.jpg|1158125] out loud to the family. I should have picked this one for read-aloud! The nostalgia of farm life is well-laced with manure, chores, cuts and bruises. Watching the two boys get into trouble chapter after chapter was like repeated dips into the Foolish section of [a:Stith Thompson|288488|Stith Thompson|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-ccc56e79bcc2db9e6cdcd450a4940d46.png]'s folk motif chapter on the Wise and the Foolish.

The episodes would have felt completely folk-tale-ish if they hadn't reminded me so much of the dumb stuff my cousins and I used to do up at grandma and grandpa's property in Butler. I laughed out loud several times during the reading, so that Pearl had to come over and see what I was reading. She might be in next.



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Review: The Vacation

The Vacation by Polly Horvath

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



This was a great read-aloud. I so enjoy when Polly Horvath puts her effort into drawing the characters in all their humanity even if it paints her into some strange plot corners. I don't know if I even remember what really happened for most of the book, but I do remember laughing out loud over and over at the way Henry and his aunts said things. When Henry realized that he preferred his 'unpleasant' people to the milquetoast folks they met near the end, it felt good to agree. This is one of the great things about experiencing unpleasantness in books--I can agree with Henry in principle, but then be glad I'm not actually in the family in the book. Unpleasant people and situations are also so much more interesting and tolerable when the writing is funny!



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Review: Can You Survive Storm Chasing?: An Interactive Survival Adventure

Can You Survive Storm Chasing?: An Interactive Survival Adventure by Elizabeth Raum

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



An informational spin on the choose your own adventure structure, embedding the 2nd-person 'you' character (me) into factual scenarios of extreme weather. The choices were pretty benign, until I made a wrong one! (And ended up with a severed carotid artery from a flying shard of glass.)

Elizabeth Raum did a good job of working in the real-life science work with the facts about each kind of storm. Quick pacing of the plot elements makes up for lack of development in the stock story.

Just enough photos, but maybe could have used more? Back matter good for informational text. Uncertain whether bibliography items were Raum's sources or her ideas for extension texts.



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Review: West of the Moon

West of the Moon by Margi Preus

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Nancy warned me the ending might be disappointing, but I didn't realize she meant the very ending! Instead of the last mini-chapter, Preus should have written just, "And they all learned their lesson and decided everyone could be friends." Gads, she held it together right until then. I literally threw the book down. Was this Margi Preus, a bully editor, who made the call on that too-easy ending?

Okay, so that bothered me, and a handful of loose strands she left hanging from earlier in the story. But I think Astri will linger with me for a while. She was a complicated, well-drawn antihero and I couldn't help but follow her along like Greta and have my heart broken a bit by each bad decision she made. She felt like a real person with real regrets that would follow her around. I started out rating this book as a three-star, but then I thought about how the middle of the book really drew me in with its character development and nice work with suspense.

In a piece of historical fiction I appreciated such a clear page of citations. Just enough to get one started. I think editors need to press the issue of being more clear about what is the difference between sources and extension material. The vague term 'bibliography' does not suggest academic sources enough, especially since its overuse as a term for extension materials in children's books for the past 20 years. I favor the term 'sources' as an honest representation of research. I'm not sure [b:Growth of the Soil|342049|Growth of the Soil|Knut Hamsun|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320482326s/342049.jpg|2435698]is the Hamsun title I would have picked to cite as an influence for this story. And did Preus not read Theodore Blegen or Ole Rolvaag?--I find these omissions from the list strange. Also, Astri feels like a page pulled right from Kristin Lavransdatter, especially the first book. I guess you can't credit every influence, and maybe I'm just being hyper-aware of possible Norwegian influences.

It was fun to see the stories about death I knew from Katherine Briggs' English tales (in addition to the traditional Norwegian raft), and I thought Preus might use these motifs to lead herself to an interesting and maybe elegant finish to the book with Astri dying. No dice. [Nancy also reminded me this nice weaving of folk material was so well done in [book:The Tiger's Wife|8366402], and I could certainly see that. The Norwegian storytelling also brought Paulsen's [b:The Winter Room|207589|The Winter Room|Gary Paulsen|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1386922287s/207589.jpg|1097662] to mind.]

I just felt like with a little more attention to the ending this could have been a book for the ages. Lois Lowry comes to mind as someone who has figured out how to craft a difficult ending that leaves one thinking and wanting to talk to people about what it all meant. Who else does it well?



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Review: The Night Gardener

The Night Gardener by Jonathan Auxier

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I enjoyed how this book worked for me. The situations and characters brought out that genuine sense of dread and impending danger I recognize from nineteenth-century gothic novels. While Auxier cites different author influences, I was reminded clearly of Joseph Sheridan LeFanu, who was also excellent at evoking similar feelings. And he also noted that his wife is a scholar of Victorian literature, so it made sense.

I thought the storyteller character was a bit overdone and anachronistic, but it also appears to be a signature device of Auxier's (after visiting his site and seeing the romantic significance of the Anglo Saxon scop). The ending was also difficult to stomach, too tidy and preachy. My favorite gothic novels, while reaching a satisfying resolution, also do not work so strongly to dissipate the horror--it lingers in the story and then in my mind for a few days afterward.

So Auxier's directly didactic 'message' about wishing (he actually has characters cite Aesop in the text) was over the top in the ending, but was very interesting to follow throughout the body of the text (parts 1 & 2), where the power of the magic over the characters made a lot of sense.

Lu, you were right, it does have a lot of the tone and elements from Splendors & Glooms!




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Review: Great Lakes Shipwrecks & Survivals

Great Lakes Shipwrecks & Survivals by William Ratigan

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



This was an absolute favorite for our 2nd and 3rd graders in Marianne McWhirter's class in Dimondale, Michigan. We used to sing the song Christmas Tree Ship in class all the time, and because each of the episodes presented in the book is so short, it was very readable even by our young children. A lot of the time, that's the secret with difficult text. If it's short enough, kids will figure it out. It's a great book for challenging the idea of levels based on text alone (vocabulary, grammar), and not considering motivation and engagement in the formula.



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Review: Fakes And Forgeries

Fakes And Forgeries by John Townsend

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I laughed out loud when Lu brought me this "True Crime" for kids series book. There are ten in the series. I think it's interesting that true crime is a clear genre in literature generally (and in tv and film), but that it is just a 'topic' in children's literature.

I rated it a 3 mostly because it was so fun to see this topic represented. But one of the key elements of fake and forgery stories is how the people get caught, or why they did it. There was none of the tension and interest that is generated by these key elements of the story. It was more or less an overview of kinds of fakes and brief introductions to some of the more interesting people. It should maybe be a 2 because of these problems, but the series kind of stands alone so it deserves a little more credit!



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Review: The Canning Season

The Canning Season by Polly Horvath

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



Well, the book has been out for eleven years already. But I am a late-comer to Polly Horvath so here I am. This is hands down one of the best YA novels I've ever read.

Polly Horvath pulls no punches when she decides to let her characters go down difficult paths. There is a lot of Dickens and fairy-tales in the background with themes of abandonment, rescue, and self-reliance. But it's the way Horvath does it all that makes the book shine. Her prose and dialog are inviting and rhythmic. Tilly and Pen Pen made me laugh out loud many times, and even the lines of the minor characters are human and funny. One of the magical things is that the characters who don't do what we think they should do don't end up painted as villains. Somehow she writes it so I see them as just people, who probably don't know any better, or can't be what we want them to be. This is a tall order for youth fiction!

It has the same charms as [b:The Trolls|100477|The Trolls|Polly Horvath|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1312001124s/100477.jpg|1859684], but with a much more intricate novel narrative (where Trolls was episodic). I'll have to amend my review of Trolls, now!



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Review: Hello, My Name Is Ruby

Hello, My Name Is Ruby by Philip C. Stead

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



Just okay. I'm expecting so much more from the Steads, both of them, since Amos McGee.

This was a simple parable, with a predictable lesson on trying to make friends who are like you and not like you. There are some fun moments along the way to break up the lesson, but I still felt like I was being preached to and not having an experience.

Nancy was telling me today about the use of the aesthetic term ekstasis from Greek philosophy to talk about a kind of transport or outside-oneself perspective that can be achieved in art. That's a lot of what I think I expect from the best picturebooks, and why I'm usually disappointed by didactic literature--it positions me very deliberately in a specific, pre-decided place.



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Review: Parrots Over Puerto Rico

Parrots Over Puerto Rico by Susan L. Roth

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I haven't seen a sideways book since [b:Tadpole's Promise|669839|Tadpole's Promise |Jeanne Willis|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1176956591s/669839.jpg|892370]. I'm surprised more people don't do this. I realize it makes for a different kind of read-aloud, but a picturebook is just as easy to hold the tall way as the wide way. And the tall page gives a different kind of expansiveness that is appropriate for a book about birds, trees, and sky.

I'm not a great fanof the paper cutting art anymore. But it works well for feathers and leaves, so again, good choices.

The narrow sans-serif "Francois One font was a little difficult to read, especially since it was placed on textured and colored background. Christy Hale made the words big enough and with just enough character spacing to be still legible, so it still feels like professional work even though I didn't like it.

The rescue story was remarkable, with a cautionary conservationist agenda, it gave the slice of life for science and scientists--a feel for the interesting possibilities of field work.



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Review: Inside Outside

Inside Outside by Lizi Boyd

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Utopian waldenesque fiction for the very young. It was great to see this kid and dog doing everything with no adults bossing them around. Each page turn showed me a microcosm all within the house and yard--there's enough to explore and do there. The kid's imagination gets to have free rein even though it's a mostly realistic (if idealistic) setting.

In this book, play = we make, we do, we take care of. The social world is a world of willing pets, semi-wild animals, and imagined friends.

The cutouts were well done, and it was nice that the book was wordless, because I got to focus on the cutouts as the second narrative. These paper play elements were so well executed, I couldn't see them half the time. Brilliant graphic design and illustration to achieve this kind of illusion without flaps or stickers. The illustrations gave me a lot to look at on each page, for making inferences and holding onto meaningful details.



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Review: The Mad Potter: George E. Ohr, Eccentric Genius

The Mad Potter: George E. Ohr, Eccentric Genius by Jan Greenberg

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Alternating between primary source photos and art photos of Ohr's pottery made this an engaging visual experience. The story of the crazy artist being ahead of his time is typical, but still fun to read. And this version put an American twist on it (not the Van Gogh-ish European story we're so used to).

If you ask me, Ohr's biggest marketing mistake was putting too much stuff on display--the display was the spectacle people came to see, and when they had seen it they felt no need to buy anything. He was shrewd enough to warehouse everything after he retired for his kids' sakes. But maybe if he had only shown 1-2 pieces at a time, he would have created an economy of scarcity (but maybe not).

In a lot of ways this was like reading an extended telling of an Antiques Roadshow backstory. Really fun and also sad to contemplate how greatly influential work comes from unrecognized artists, not appreciated in their time.



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Review: Building Our House

Building Our House by Jonathan Bean

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I would call this informational biography. The story is drawn from Bean's life, although his narrator is the unnamed little girl. Heavy nostalgia permeates the entire telling, making building your own home with no other place to live seem like the most idyllic thing any family could do. It draws on a tradition of this theme that reaches out to the Little House books, Walden, and others. The cartoon outlines give the book a graphic novel feel, or Virginia Lee Burton.

Bean controls the pacing by breaking up the spreads into 1, 2, 4, 6 sections. Just when things are really complicated in six sections, the next double is a wide expanse of one picture and one text block again, slowing things down for a long visual experience. Right in the center of the story is a great reproduction of a blueprint. There is a gentle complementary narrative running through the illustrations if you watch the kids, the pets, and the mom. So while the text is almost completely corresponding to the pictures, the pictures offer a little more.



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Review: If You Want to See a Whale

If You Want to See a Whale by Julie Fogliano

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Hands down I would have picked this one for the Caldecott, out of all those on the lists. Fogliano and Stead were already on my radar for [b:And Then It's Spring|11891485|And Then It's Spring|Julie Fogliano|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1317794308s/11891485.jpg|16850550] from 2012.

Three points.
1. Most of the Caldecott hopefuls seem to know they are hopefuls (whether it was the author/illustrator, or just the editor), and so in one way or another it feels like they are trying to win an award and not necessarily to write a great picturebook. That's disappointing--but not so with this book! Lu and I are talking about what it would take to have a book award based on a 3-5 year timeline, so all the hoopla of the yearly award could be avoided. This is the kind of book that will be still good decades from now, and would have been good if it had been written decades ago.
2. This is (almost) the ONLY book among this year's award contenders where the pictures and words are in counterpoint relationship (see my 'counterpoint' shelf). Counterpoint is the more sophisticated and complex relationship of the three usually discussed (corresponding and complementary are the other two). Actually, only a few of this year's top books even had a complementary relationship--most were simply corresponding 1-1 mirrors between text and pictures. It was thrilling that the pictures of the child's actions clearly contradicted what the narrator (who felt like an adult to me) was saying in the words. This created a sense of irony, a pleasure of suspense in finding what would happen on the next page. The gentle palette of watercolors, and the calm dynamics of the composition convinced me the pictures were the thing to believe, and not the words. The decision to avoid punctuation except where necessary was handled very well.
3. The bulk of the pages of the book contradict the title, which I loved. That is, in a book about wanting to see a whale, nearly none of the book is about seeing one. In the end, Fogliano chose to be subtle, to be minimalist and let the pictures have the final 'say' instead of needing to tell us! Brilliant! The whole book is about the 'ifs' and about what one might do while NOT seeing whales. As an account of imagination, I haven't seen anything this good in a long time!

I'll have to see if over time I end up wanting to up the rating to 5 stars. But I reserve that for books where I simply must own a copy, because I use the library when and where I can (I already paid for it with my property taxes!)



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Review: If You Want to See a Whale

If You Want to See a Whale by Julie Fogliano

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Hands down I would have picked this one for the Caldecott, out of all those on the lists. Fogliano and Stead were already on my radar for [b:And Then It's Spring|11891485|And Then It's Spring|Julie Fogliano|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1317794308s/11891485.jpg|16850550] from 2012.

Three points.
1. Most of the Caldecott hopefuls seem to know they are hopefuls (whether it was the author/illustrator, or just the editor), and so in one way or another it feels like they are trying to win an award and not necessarily to write a great picturebook. That's disappointing--but not so with this book! Lu and I are talking about what it would take to have a book award based on a 3-5 year timeline, so all the hoopla of the yearly award could be avoided. This is the kind of book that will be still good decades from now, and would have been good if it had been written decades ago.
2. This is (almost) the ONLY book in this year's award contenders where the pictures and words are in counterpoint relationship (see my 'counterpoint' shelf). Counterpoint is the more sophisticated and complex relationship of the three usually discussed (corresponding and complementary are the other two). Actually, only a few of this year's top books even had a complementary relationship--most were simply corresponding 1-1 mirrors between text and pictures. It was thrilling that the pictures of the child's actions clearly contradicted what the narrator (who felt like an adult to me) was saying in the words. This created a sense of irony, a pleasure of suspense in finding what would happen on the next page. The gentle palette of watercolors, and the calm dynamics of the composition made me believe the pictures were the thing to believe, and not the words. The decision to avoid punctuation except where necessary was handled very well.
3. The bulk of the pages of the book contradict the title, which I loved. That is, in a book about wanting to see a whale, nearly none of the book is about seeing one. In the end, Fogliano chose to be subtle, to be minimalist and let the pictures have the final 'say' instead of needing to tell us! Brilliant! The whole book is about the 'ifs' and about what one might do while NOT seeing whales. As an account of imagination, I haven't seen anything this good in a long time!

I'll have to see if over time I end up wanting to up the rating to 5 stars. But I reserve that for books where I simply must own a copy, because I use the library when and where I can (I already paid for it with my property taxes!)



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