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Suzie Bitner Was Afraid of the Drain
By Barbara R. Vance
Copperplate Publishing
$17.95
ISBN: 978-0-615-31444-0
Ages 7-12
On shelves now.

When I was a kid, children’s poetry certainly existed but as far as I knew nobody was out there actively promoting the idea that I read the stuff. Our schools didn’t have Poetry Month. Poem In Your Pocket Day was hardly the norm. And the idea of a Children’s Poet Laureate? Unheard of! Absurd! Still, I read a little poetry on my own. There was always Jack Prelutsky, who I considered the poor man’s Shel Silverstein. Now Silverstein THAT was a dude who knew what appealed to kids. Though he had an odd tendency to traipse into the world of cutesiness (his hug poem = an ugh poem), his work tapped into children’s fears and sick twisted humors better than anyone. And books like Where the Sidewalk Ends and A Light in the Attic looked better than the other books too. They were big thick books with black and white illustrations on pure white pages with plenty of space around the words. Variations on this form of published have existed throughout the decades since. Most recently would be Barbara R. Vance and her collection of poems in Suzie Bitner Was Afraid of the Drain. Not tapping into the sheer weirdness of a Silverstein, Vance still provides looks at the familiar aspects of a child’s life and couches those observations in rhyme.

A collection of 124 poems, Barbara Vance explores the ephemera of childhood. Some poems take on the realistic problems lots of kids face. Things like “My Brother’s Bike” or “Bored” or (maybe just a little less common) “Worms for Pets”. Other poems stray into the fantastical, like “Pantry Party”, “A Ghost Who Loves Movies”, and “Don’t Make the Tooth Fairy Angry.” Each poem is couched on pure white space with small interstitial illustrations to accompany. The book also includes an index of the poems, both by title and by first line.

It took me a while as I read this book to realize that Vance’s poetry style stands opposite most of the poems we read for kids today. I’ll tell you how a usual funny poem for children stands. You read about a situation, say a kid raking leaves, a kid with braces, or a kid who likes to dress up. You read through as the kid describes their situation. Then you get to the end of the poem and the last sentence is a funny surprise kicker you didn’t see coming. This is sort of an established form in children’s poetry. We’ve come to expect it. I certainly (and without really realizing it) had come to expect it, so it was with a bit of a shock that I realized that mostly Vance avoids this particular style. The closest thing you’re going to get to a kicker on that poem about the kid who likes to dress up is a suggestion that you might like dressing up too. And this is fine. Vance is totally within her rights to keep her poems from looking like everybody else’s. Sh

Thresholds
By Nina Kiriki Hoffman
Viking (an imprint of Penguin)
$15.99
ISBN: 978-0-670-06319-2
Ages 9-12
On shelves August 5th.

I like to characterize trends with great all-encompassing, massive statements that fail to take into account exceptions to the rule. For example, after reading Thresholds by Nina Kiriki Hoffman, my instinct is to throw my hands wide and pronounce to the world, “2010 is the year of young adult authors writing for children and finding that in doing so they acquire a whole new audience and fanbase.” I root this statement in only one other 2010 book (One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia) but one is good enough for me. Nina Kiriki Hoffman has at least twelve YA books under her belt, but until now she has shied away from middle grade fare. With Thresholds she changes her game, offering a fantasy (or is it science fiction?) that taps into the dual early adolescent desires of bonding with something friendly and powerful and befriending the outcasts that prove cooler than everybody else.

You should probably know three things about Maya right from the outset. First off, her best friend Stephanie recently died and Maya’s family has moved so as to help their daughter cope. Second, Stephanie has found herself living next to a house where the denizens come and go in odd fashions, play strange instruments, and speak in tongues she doesn’t always understand. Third, there was a fairy in her room recently. It happened one night when Stephanie probably should have been asleep. No one would think much of it either, were it not for the fact that because of the strange fairy’s scent an odd boy decides that he can trust Maya. Next thing she knows she has a strange magical egg embedded under the skin of her wrist, and her neighbors are the only ones who can help her. Now Maya, like it or not, has gotten caught up in their world. The only question now is what’s in that egg and what will happen when it decides to hatch?

The blurb for this book that caught my eye is “Ingrid Law’s Savvy as seen through the eyes of a young Ray Bradbury.” I love that they had to put that “a young” in there. Old Ray Bradbury would be a whole different ballgame, of course. Mind you, it’s an interesting statement above and beyond the age designation of one of the nation’s greatest science fiction writers. First off, the blurb pairs two different genres together. Savvy is a Newbery Honor winning fantasy about a girl who receives a special power (like the rest of her family) at the age of thirteen. Ray Bradbury, on the other hand, is a master of science fiction. Put the two together and you would expect to find a book that appeals to both sci-fi and fantasy fans equally. No mean task. To my mind, I suppose that Thresholds could be characterized as sci-fi. Everything has a logical dimension. Just the same, as a general rule, when you open your first chapter with a girl discovering a fairy, folks are going to label you fantasy whether or not there’s a scientific practicality to that fairy being there.

The real reason I think they decided to compare this book

Spilling Ink: A Young Writer’s Handbook
By Anne Mazer and Ellen Potter
Illustrated by Matt Phelan
Roaring Brook Press (a division of Holtzbrinck Publishing)
$17.99
ISBN: 978-1-59643-628-2
Ages 9-12
On shelves now

I was child writer. Which is to say, I was one of those kids who wrote endless stories between the ages of nine and fourteen or so. Of these stories, I finished only one. And I remember taking a writing class over a summer once that I enjoyed, but otherwise I didn’t have a lot of direction when it came to my writing. I dabbled a bit in high school, but for the most part my creative side floundered for many years before getting a bit of a revivification in adulthood. So it’s impossible for me not to wonder how all of that might have been different had I encountered a book like Spilling Ink: A Young Writer’s Handbook as a child. As far as I can tell, there wasn’t anything like Anne Mazer and Ellen Potter’s book back in the 80s or 90s. For that matter, there hasn’t been much like it in the 2000s or 2010s! Mazer and Potter have essentially come up with a juvenile-friendly version of Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird. I don’t invoke that standard of inspirational writing lightly when I compare it to this book, either. Though there might be the occasional detail I’d expand upon or move about in this title, for the most part Spilling Ink is the perfect book (or gift, for that matter) for any child who dabbles in putting their words in other people’s heads.

Kids may know author Anne Mazer best from her [title: The Amazing Days of Abby Hayes] series. Ellen Potter, on the other hand, is better known for the Olivia Kidney series or her individual books like SLOB. Now these two authors have joined forces to provide their young readers and incipient writers with a bit of guidance. Spilling Ink: A Young Writer’s Handbook splits into three neat and tidy sections: “Part I: Ready, Set, Go!”, “Part II: Crafting Your Story”, and “Part III: The Writer’s Brain”. Within those sections, the authors discuss everything from voice and revision to writer’s block and writing partners. The result is an exhaustive but not exhausting series of practical points of advice for kids interested in becoming that most glorious of occupations: writers.

Mazer and Potter work as well as they do together partly because their written voices meld well and partly because they consistently make good points. For example, right from the start they make it clear that in your book the main character is going to have to want something. I can’t tell you how many published children’s books I read where the characters noodle about, not wanting anything in particular while interesting things happen to them. Some adult writers could benefit from the advice in this story, I think. Another good point is made about making sure your title matches your text. You don’t want a funny title on a serious book, a

Oh No! (Or How My Science Project Destroyed the World)
By Mac Barnett
Illustrated by Dan Santat
Hyperion Books
$16.99
ISBN: 978-142312312-5
Ages 4 and up.
On shelves now.

I’ve been wracking my brain trying to come up with a name for this new breed of children’s book author/illustrator we’re seeing these days. It’s a genre without a name. We’re seeing a lot of picture books these days that engage kids, but also turn on their heads classic picture book forms. It started with books like The Stinky Cheese Man and The True Story of the Three Little Pigs and now includes titles like Pssst! or The Purple Kangaroo or Guess Again!. Oh No! (Or How My Science Project Destroyed the World) is just the latest addition to a fast growing genre hereby dubbed Juvie Satire, and it is the creation of two of the genre’s kings. Author Mac Barnett burst on the children’s literary scene running as fast as his legs could take him, and illustrator Dan Santat glides right along side him, painting every dog, cat, and chicken that happens to cross his path. Alone, they are impressive. Combined, they may well be either unstoppable or too wacked out for the average child’s mind to handle. Let’s hope for the former.

We enter this story midway through the action. As our heroine says, “Oh no . . . oh, man . . . I knew it.” Next thing we know she’s facing the retreating back of a mechanical wonder on the rampage. Says she, “I never should have built a robot for the science fair.” Flashback to her winning the top prize at the science fair, just as her creation bursts through the gym wall to cause a little mass destruction. Feeling just a twinge guilty about the whole thing (and unable to stop her robot herself), our heroine returns home and turns a small toad into a robot fighting monstrosity. This goes well, the robot is destroyed, and the mayor of the city is very pleased with the solution . . . that is, until the toad takes off after seeing a tasty airplane fly by.

I once interviewed Mr. Barnett about his writing and he had some interesting things to say on the subject of kids and their remarkable inability to feel bad about massive foibles. In terms of this book Mr. Barnett said, “I wanted to write about a very particular kind of regret that only children can feel: a regret that is sincere but also usually less acute than the situation warrants. I’m thinking particularly of an episode at 826LA, a nonprofit writing center I used to run. I walked into the bathroom to find a kid who’d flushed many paper towels down a toile

Skywriting: Poems to Fly
By J. Patrick Lewis
Illustrated by Laszlo Kubinyi
Creative Editions
$17.95
ISBN: 978-1-56846-203-5
Ages 4-8
On shelves September 1, 2010

We were promised jet packs. That’s what the future was supposed to hold for us. When you think of the future you may imagine things like flying cars or personalized jet packs. So in many ways the future just boils down to thinking up new ways to soar through the air. Humans get a real kick out of that sort of thing. Now I have never seen a jetpack make an appearance in a non-fiction title for children before and I CERTAINLY have never seen one in a non-fiction book of poetry. That’s what you get, though, when you read through the latest from J. Patrick Lewis and partner in crime Laszlo Kubinyi in their, Skywriting: Poems to Fly. Lewis has written out thirteen poems tracing the history of humanity’s obsession with flight. From Icarus to outer space, in essence. The result comes off as a kind of ode to not just our successes but our fantastic failures as well. Where there’s a jetpack, there’s a testament to our amazing/nutso imaginations.

Thirteen poems trace thirteen attempts at making it to the sky. Some were successful, as with the Montgolfier brothers’ hot air balloon. Some were utter failures, like the multiplane of the Marquis d’Equeville. Some you’ve undoubtedly heard of, like the zeppelin. Others, like the kooky Piaseckivz-8P Airgeep or the French Equestrian Balloon are a little more obscure. And some, when all is said and done, never even left the minds of their creators (as with the beautiful Minerva that graces the cover of this book). The desire to lift oneself up unto the heavens above inspires both genius and madness in flight’s inventors. Tragedy and triumph too. Backmatter includes Endnotes and a Timeline.

Lewis allows himself to have a bit of fun with this particular book. For example, poems are not held to the same standards or rote forms. Instead, their formats pair well alongside their texts. So it is that the utterly ridiculous Ornithopter is described in a limerick, while the poem about The Wright Brothers gets a more respectful A/B/A/B format. As for the wordplay itself, how do you resist a line like, “metal Darth Vader / impersonator” to describe a sleek metal fighter jet?

One quibble I might have would be the fact that the Icarus story that starts us off is never identified as a myth in either the poem or the backmatter. One might assume that kids would be familiar with this myth and discount it as legend, but couched alongside all these true moments in history, I would have liked this to have been a little clearer.

Though it is by Kubinyi, this exact image does not appear in the book.

Though the Endnotes mention the tragic ends to some of these creations, the text of the poems themselves is consistently upbeat. You see the LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin then, rather than its less fortunate cousin, the Hindenburg. Similarly the Space Shuttle Columbia STS-109 is seen at the height of its power. It’s only when you read the notes in the back that you hear about its own fate. Some readers may wish that a sober note could have been made in the poetry, alluding to these two incidents

Keeper
By Kathi Appelt
Illustrated by August Hall
Atheneum (an imprint of Simon & Schuster)
$16.99
ISBN: 978-1-4169-5060-8
Ages 9-12
On shelves now.

I don’t consider myself a particularly sentimental person. I don’t really cry at movies (E.T. was supposed to go home, for crying out loud). Television shows leave me high and dry (sorry LOST finale). And books? Considering that I read most of them in quick bits and bites as I travel the New York City subway system, you’re going to be some kinda book to crack so much as a sniffle out of me, let along an out-and-out bawl. So imagine my surprise the other day as I stood on the platform of the F train in Brooklyn, tears merrily streaming down my face as I read Kathi Appelt’s latest. Now I’ll be the first to admit that there were some personal reasons why this book was hitting me as hard as it was. And what’s more, I’m fairly certain that if I was eleven and reading the same book I wouldn’t have cracked so much as a sniffle. That said, there are some authors that can make words twist emotions out of your chest. Who can embarrass you when you board the F train, trying desperately to look like you weren’t just crying over a small, unprepossessing children’s book. Appelt’s one. And her latest is going to win over a whole new generation of young fans.

How can a single day go so wrong? It wasn’t supposed to be a bad day, after all. It was a day that was leading up to a sweet blue moon. But that was before ten-year-old Keeper ruined her guardian Signe’s traditional crab gumbo by setting the crabs free. Before she inadvertently destroyed grandfatherly Mr. Beauchamp’s most prized possessions. Before she was present when Dogie, a man she sees as a kind of father, watched as his hopes of asking Signe to marry him were dashed before his eyes. Now the only way Keeper can think to make amends is to cast off into the sea with just her dog B.D. in tow to find Meggie Marie. Meggie Marie is Keeper’s mama and, she thinks, a mermaid as well. Along the way Keeper gives up the things that mean the most to her, and comes to appreciate the fact that it’s people, not objects, that bind a family together. No matter how bad your day has been.

When Appelt wrote The Underneath it caused strong emotions in her readership. You loved it or you hated it. A couple folks didn’t commit one way or another, but for the bulk of us that was it. Love or hate. Tempers seethed. Sharp words were exchanged. The important thing to remember is that folks were talking about a children’s book. Their hearts got mixed into the discussion. It’s a powerful writer that can wring such passion out of her readership, even if it results in debates over the quality of the book itself. The Underneath was a dark piece of writing hidden behind a kitten-laden cover. It confronted the nature of evil itself with a villain so nasty, reviewers couldn’t even contest his lack of redeeming qualities. Keeper is an experiment in contrasts. Where The Underneath examined hate and bitterness, Keeper is about love, family, and forgiveness.

There is a note at the back of this book in the Acknowledgment section that strikes me as just as important as any word in the text itself. Writes Ms. Appelt of one Diane Linn, “She lovingly cast her knowledge of tides and currents and stingrays my wa

Joha Makes a Wish: A Middle Eastern Tale
By Eric A. Kimmel
Illustrated by Omar Rayyan
Marshall Cavendish
$17.99
ISBN: 978-0-7614-5599-8
Ages 4-8
On shelves now

There was a time, best beloved, when folktales and fairytales were common. Every other season they filled the publishers’ lists and librarians bought such books in droves. My own library’s children’s room contains a large and impressive folktale section, where parents can grab anything from your standard Snow White tale to perhaps a lesser known story like Anansi and the Moss-covered Rock. That particular folktale, by the way, is by one Eric A. Kimmel, a man who has spent much of his life finding and retelling classic folktales from a variety of different cultures for the American audience. Sadly, I estimate that in 2010 the number of folktales published for kids will, if we’re lucky, come to about ten. Max. And of those ten, how many will be any good? Well, at the very least you can count on Joha Makes a Wish. Adapted by the aforementioned Mr. Kimmel and illustrated by the too-little-known Omar Rayyan, Joha is one of those stories that remind you why we like folktales so much in the first place. They amuse, they inform, and they give us glimpses into cultures other than our own. In this particular case, the Middle East.

On a trip to Baghdad our hero Joha attempts to take a nap against an ancient wall. This doesn’t go so well, though, when the wall collapses behind him, revealing a stick and a scroll that proclaims, “You have found a wishing stick.” Delighted, Joha wishes for new shoes, only to find his old ones gone. A wish for the stick to disappear glues it to his hand. A wish to ride a donkey finds him carrying the animal instead. And you can pretty much guess what happens when he attempts to remove the sultan’s wart. After an encounter with a clever merchant the two realize that he’s been holding the stick upside down. Joha returns to the sultan to remove the copious warts, then finds his stick co-opted by the greedy ruler. Riding a small donkey away at the end, Joha speculates whether or not he should have told the sultan how to use the stick. In the end, it’s evident that he did not.

In his Author’s Note at the start of the book, Kimmel explains a little bit about your classic Joha tale. Joha’s a fool character, much like Jack in European tales. Kimmel ties him into a couple other characters, including Sancho Panza, suggesting that Cervantes got the idea for Sancho when he heard the Joha stories that circulated when he was in a Turkish prison. In Jewish tales, your fool character is either a schlemiel or a schlimazel. In this particular story, Joha is clearly on the schlimazel side of things. He’s a victim, until he can take charge of his problem and then foist it onto someone else. You sympathize with the guy, but at the same time there’s a certain bit of schadenfreude watching him carrying a donkey or fleeing from the authorities on foot.