We recently received Peter Rabbit: Jeremy Fisher Rocks Out (Penguin/Warne, May 2015), part of a series of paperback picture books adapted from the Peter Rabbit TV show.
Jeremy might be rockin’ out, but I’d bet Beatrix is rolling over. (Not that she’s likely ever stopped rolling over.)
For more on Beatrix Potter, including her ties to The Horn Book, click here.
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There are so very many things I could say about Kiki Jones’s Build a Boyfriend (Penguin/Price Stern Sloan, May 2015). Are there overly mature sexual innuendos for children ages ten to fourteen? Sure! Is there a strong message expressing that physical appearance is of the utmost importance when procuring a partner? Yep! What about an intense focus on stereotypical hetero-female desires? Absolutely! Does this “activity” book show young readers that society’s obsession with feminine physical attributes is okay because, hey, it’s being done to dudes, too? Yes, indeed! I could say all of that about this book. Instead, though, let’s get to the more important matters.
- Penguin Young Readers Group’s catalog states that there are “over 1,500 unique boyfriend combinations” in Build a Boyfriend. How is a girl to choose with so many options? The front cover instructs the reader to “create the cutest guy ever” but, with over 1,500 possible combinations (1,728 to be exact), how can a girl ever complete the task? Building a boyfriend has become my new job. How will girls ages ten to fourteen, with school, homework, and extracurricular activities, manage it? Perhaps this is the sneaky lesson in Build a Boyfriend: get ready, girls, you have to do it all and you have to do it all at the same time. My suggestion? Take them out of school! It will give them more time to focus on their Cutest Guy Ever.
- He has “fun, floppy hair that’s as wild as he is” but, if you ask me, that hair looks awfully well groomed. How to know if his “floppy” hair really indicates fun? I need a “scent” option to see if my Cutest Guy Ever smells like product, Perfection, or unwashed hair and too much fun. One of them “looks so cute in hats” but why, I ask, is he wearing that hat? Is it because he hasn’t showered in a few days? This is an easy fix! I suggest a scratch and sniff addition, for the girls who care whether their Cutest Guy Ever smells like Cheez Whiz.
- What if I want the attributes listed in the text, but not all of the attributes displayed in the accompanying photo? I certainly want “a mysterious and sensitive soul that stares straight into mine…” but that stare comes with some pretty tacky earrings. And that “smile that makes me weak in the knees” sounds fantastic but, well, he’s wearing a mustard-yellow turtleneck sweater. Honey, you can’t wear mustard yellow — it washes me out.
- There are only three choices per page: hair, eyes, and mouth. So, I can create a boyfriend who has “a gentle wave of soft, dark, luxurious locks…Playful hazel eyes that say ‘let’s try something new’…And a strong, chiseled jaw…Sigh.” But, what if I want eyes that say “let’s try something new” and also “might get me into trouble”? I mean, who knows what this “something new” is? With only three options per page, my choices for distinct characteristics are incredibly limited. Yes, Build a Boyfriend, I want my Cutest Guy Ever to have “lips so soft I wonder if they are actually there when we kiss” but I also want him to have “a smile that could melt a thousand hearts (including mine).” Let’s fix this, shall we? I propose MORE die-cuts. Or perhaps transparent pages with text so I can layer attributes. But, oh no, this is going to lead to far more options than 1,728…
- And, finally, my Cutest Guy Ever has a very serious problem: none of his parts match up. His red hair and barely-there beard are way too big for his trim face. I’m worried about him. How does that thin face support such a giant forehead? Why are his cheeks so sunken in? Is he going to make it? Don’t make me choose again, Build a Boyfriend — I’ve already spent my entire work day finding a perfect guy.
This spiral-bound activity book comes out in May, at which point you, too, can spend a significant amount of your time finding true aesthetic perfection. That is, as long as it can be found in the 1,728 options given. If not, well, I guess you’re just out of luck. Better option? Give it to the young readers in your life — they’re much more malleable and, now that they’ve been taken out of school, have way more time to decide.
(Oh, and if you can’t wait until May, there’s a Build a Boyfriend Instagram!)
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Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen’s latest, Sam & Dave Dig a Hole (Candlewick, October 2014), has been getting quite a bit of buzz (including Caldecott buzz) and has appeared on several best-of-year lists (including Horn Book’s own Fanfare).
With all that talk, I can’t be the only person to accidentally call it “Sam & Dean Dig a Hole.” Right?
The Winchesters at work
Especially given that “Sam & Dean Dig a Hole” is a major plot point in a significant number of Supernatural episodes.
Any illustrators out there want to draw me a mash-up? 
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With new friend Echo. Do I have to give her back?
It seems as though all of my friends have new kittens and want to torture me by constantly posting pictures, resulting in a serious case of kitten envy. For various reasons (#1 being my neurotic adult cat), introducing a kitten to my life is not the best plan at the moment, so I’m contenting myself — for now — with a few kitty-centric books.
On the cute-overload side…
I Knead My Mommy and Other Poems by Kittens by Francesco Marciuliano (Chronicle, August 2014)
The latest in Marciuliano’s series of pet-perspective poetry books (I Could Chew on This, I Could Pee on This) features a kitten’s-eye view of the world. Although the brief poems admittedly aren’t great literature, they are frequently funny or touching; one of my favorites is “Not Goodbye”:
I still smell the older cat
On his favorite chair
On his favorite blanket
On his favorite toy
On me
I still smell the older cat
But I can’t find him anywhere
And now his dish is gone
And now his bed is gone
And now you are crying
But I still smell the older cat
So tomorrow I will look again
The poems are accompanied by many super-cute (stock) photos of kittens in all their fuzzy, bobble-headed glory. A good gift book for the crazy cat person on your list.
The Itty Bitty Kitty Committee: The Ultimate Guide to All Things Kitten by Laurie Cinotto (Roaring Brook, March 2014)
Part photo album, part how-to book, this paperback inspired by “kitten wrangler” Cinotto’s blog of the same name introduces several dozen of her previous foster cats as well as basic kitten care and the responsibilities kitten-fostering entails. Instructions for DIY kitten accoutrements, an advice column “written by” adult cat Charlene, comics created with photos and speech bubbles, kid-oriented tips on keeping kittens happy and healthy, and suggestions for helping shelter cats round out this offering. The kitty pics are definitely the main attraction, though; just try not to squee at this one.
On the bizarre-but-kinda-awesome end of the spectrum…
Downton Tabby: A Parody by Chris Kelly (Simon & Schuster, December 2013)
Cats make a weirdly appropriate (re)cast for the Edwardian-era BBC drama about an entitled family and their servants: “A Code of Conduct for Cats and Gentlefolk” offers advice such as “Never do anything for yourself that someone else can do for you,” “Communicate disapproval [and affection] with a withering glare,” and “Loaf in a decorative and highly charming manner.” This is a strange and not entirely successful little volume, but the well-dressed hairless cat as the acerbic “Dowager Catness” is pretty spot-on. (Another gem: a diagram of a formal place setting indicating the “mouse fork,” “vole fork,” etc.)
Pre-Raphaelite Cats by Susan Herbert (Thames & Hudson, May 2014)
Possibly even stranger (/cooler) is this collection of cat-ified Pre-Raphaelite portraits. Thirty works by Pre-Raphaelite founders Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Holman Hunt, and John Everett Millais and their followers are reimagined with a variety of anthropomorphized kitty subjects. Some highlights: homages to Rossetti’s Beata Beatrix, John William Waterhouse’s Ophelia, and Edward Burne-Jones‘s The Golden Stairs. Each painting on the recto is accompanied by a few lines of contextual information or a short quotation on the verso; about half the versos include spot line-art of the featured felines. Black-and-white thumbnail reproductions of the original art are appended.
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…but is this cover
reminiscent of this cover?
In his March/April 2014 article “What Makes a Good Book Cover?” Thom Barthelmess praises the Grasshopper Jungle cover’s “iconic simplicity,” which “piques our curiosity” with its compelling minimalism. The same can certainly be said of Woman‘s cover art…but for a different reason!
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