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The Retired Kid by Jon Agee
I love my job. I do! I'm a librarian and I get to see lots and lots of shiny new books. And I'm part-time, so I don't even have to go to meetings and stuff. But sometimes it is hard work. Sometimes I'm on the telephone and I have to find out where a lady can buy George Foreman brand underpants (Sears). Sometimes there's a kid who only wants to read true stories about female lacrosse players (sorry, kid - how about soccer?). Sometimes people make strange comments about my hair (No, God didn't give me this color, but thanks for asking).

Jon Agee's Brian sometimes feels the same way. School, soccer practice, broccoli... being a kid can be hard work, and one day he decides he's had enough. "It's been a wonderful eight years," he informs his family, "but I need a break."

He moves to a retirement community in Florida, and lives the life, improving his golf game and taking afternoon naps. But before too long he realizes that, what with the prune juice smoothies and the history-channel documentaries, maybe life in retirement isn't for him. So he un-retires, returns home, and, like Brett Favre, is signed to the Jets for 12.8 million dollars welcomed with open arms.

Brian feels he still has something to contribute to the profession. Me, too!

The Giggler Treatment by Roddy Doyle
Your Neighborhood Librarian: Dude, thanks for reading this book to me in the car.
Prosper: You're welcome.

YNL: What did you like about The Giggler Treatment?
P: I don't know. I just liked it. It was funny.
YNL: Talking seagull?
P: Yeah! That was funny, and the Gigglers, they were funny.

YNL: Anything unusual about this book?
P: Well, there was a lot of poo in it.
YNL: And that's unusual?
P: Yes!
YNL: How about the questions?
P: That was unusual. It was like someone else was reading the book.
YNL: And asking the author questions?
P: Yeah! And he was always like, "Good question!"
P: And I liked the talking biscuits, the one was like, "When you put your feet in water, when you take them back out, they are wet! Isn't that interesting?"
YNL: That was funny. Because, like...
P: It's not!

YNL: We were driving, so I didn't notice it has illustrations til now. Are they just, like, decoration, or do they tell you about what's going on?
P: They don't tell you what's going on, but you can see what people look like.

YNL: What kind of kid would you recommend The Giggler Treatment to?
P: My friend [Titan], because he really likes funny books.

YNL: Thanks, man. Can I take your picture with that book?
P: I guess.



Prosper is seven and will be entering 2nd grade in a month. He also likes funny chapter books like Sideways Stories from Wayside School and detective chapter books like Encyclopedia Brown.

I would leave this review entirely to him, except I really have to note that the entire book takes place during the time it takes a man to walk four steps toward a giant pile of wet dog crap. Plus there's quite a lot of back-chat from an imaginary reader. Altogether Joycean, Proustian, Pynchonesque - name some other authors completely inappropriate for seven year olds and slap adjectival suffixes onto them - but funny (Ok, funny-er, if you, like four other people on the planet, thought Gravity's Rainbow was really a stitch).

Batman: The story of the Dark Knight, written and illustrated by Ralph Cosentino - review

Your Neighborhood Librarian: So, you guys, you read this book. Did you like it?
Nature Girl: Yes!
Mao: Yes!
Zhou: Yes!

YNL: What did you like about it?
Nature Girl: I liked it because it reviewed the part when he was a child.
Mao: I liked it because it had the Batcave under the house and by the seashore.
Zhou: I liked the meditating picture.

YNL: So, you guys are big superhero fans.
NG: Sorta.
YNL: Do you think that someone who's not a superhero fan would like this book?
Mao & NG: Yeah.
Mao: I'm not a superhero fan myself. ["Yeah, right!" thinks his mom.]

YNL: What did you think of the art?
NG: I liked it a lot. They put a lot of detail into it.

YNL: The colors? You like the colors?
Mao and NG: YES!

YNL: Is it the same kind of art you see in other picture books?
Mao: Not actually.
NG: It's a very unfamiliar book.

YNL: Does it look like a comic book?
NG: Sorta.
Mao: It has very shapish pictures.
YNL: And that's like a comic book?
NG: I think it's a comic book pretty much.

YNL: Did you think it was violent?
NG: A little.
Mao: Nah, I didn't think it was violent.
NG: I thought it was violent because of all the cutting and the hitting. And Two-Face has a very ugly face and that's violent.

YNL: Did it scare you?
NG: A little bit.
YNL: What part?
NG: When it was saying "There will always be a criminal to stop... a victim to save... a monster to fight... and a crook to catch."
YNL: What's scary about that?
NG: The 'monster to fight,' because it makes me think maybe Batman would lose.

YNL: What about these villains? Do the villains bother you?
NG: Well, they creep us out sorta. Yeah, like Penguin and Joker.
Mao: Catwoman makes me sort of like - eeech!
YNL: 'Eeech?'
Mao: Pretty, like, scared.
YNL: Catwoman more than the others?
Mao: Yeah. Two-Face and Catwoman.



Nature Girl is seven, Mao is six, and Zhou is five. Flip through this book before you hand it to a kid - some kids (and some parents) might balk at the sharp teeth, the lurid, energetic retro-y illustrations, and the whole BIFF! ZAP! POW! of it all.

We're Off to Look for Aliens by Colin McNaughton
When is a gimmick not a gimmick? When it WORKS, baby! How's this for a gimmick: Colin McNaughton's new book has a BOOK glued inside it - a book called "We're Off to Look for Aliens".

We're Off to Look for Aliens starts with a man accepting a book from the mailman. The man is Dad, and Dad writes and illustrates children's books. The book is his new book, fresh from the printers, and, judging from the characters that surround Dad as he works (Captain Abdul, Preston Pig, etc.), Dad is Colin McNaughton.

Dad asks Family to have a look at the new book, and steps out to walk the dog. Turn the page, and there's Dad's new book! (Becky from Young Readers took a picture of the book-within-a-book) Dad's new book ROCKS. In it, a character (who looks a lot like Dad) leaves Earth on a rocket with his faithful dog Wilberforce to look for aliens. Dad's new book is colorful, energetic, set to the tune of "Here we go 'round the mulberry bush," and full of rockin' aliens with lots of eyes and bumps.

Dad comes home and Family gives him their review. Unfortunately for Dad, Family has just one problem with it, and I'm not going to tell because it's a darn cute joke!

This one goes home with me.

Ah! We are back from two weeks in various cities and beaches in the American Southeast, and did we have time to read? We did!

I read:



So Yesterday by Scott Westerfeld
Loved it! The whole "cool hunter" thing is a bit nineties, but you gotta love a good mystery, and a good mystery that is full of cool stuff is even better. Also, Westerfeld's examination of the co-opting of youth trends for mass consumption is straight out of Commodify Your Dissent, a compendium by the folks at The Baffler that every teenager should read before cracking that next can of Monster Mixxd Energy Juice.

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
(reviewed while I was on vacation in New Orleans, thank you very much)

Farthing by Jo Walton
Technically a grown-up book, I would recommend Farthing to any young adult reader interested in speculative fiction, history, or mystery. It's an illuminating "what-if" novel set in an England that has accepted Hitler's "Peace with Honor" - disguised as an old-fashioned English country house mystery: Gosford Park meets Brazil. There are many discussions involving sexuality, i.e. who is homosexual and who is not, but no sex.

The Nasty Bits: Collected Varietal Cuts, Usable Trim, Scraps, and Bones by Anthony Bourdain
Essays by the author of Kitchen Confidential and The Bobby Gold Stories. I recommend the crap out of Tony Bourdain - but not, typically, for kids. There's the language, not to mention the extremely frank talk about sex and drugs. There are some teenagers, though, especially the ones considering restaurant careers... hey, they should know what they're getting into!


My rising 2nd grader read:



Black Lagoon adventures, books 1-7 by Mike Thaler ; illustrated by Jared Lee
The kid is giggling to himself as he goes through and then reading passages out loud to his younger brother. I'm taking that as a thumbs-up.


My husband read:



How the States Got Their Shapes by Mark Stein
Recommended road trip reading. At every state border, as we hollered out "Good-bye, Georgia!" and "Hello, Alabama!" Bob would have some anecdotal treasure to relate about battles, topography, bureaucratic snafus, and the duplicitousness of Virginia. Luckily, he kept most of them to himself. (I kid! I kid!)

Also, he read The Economist. Also the newspaper. On the beach. I swear, one of these days I'm going to strap him to a chair and force Robert Ludlum down his throat. Or... eww.


On audio:
Our faithful minivan transported us a grand total of 2875 miles. And did we listen to books in the car? We did!



We spent most of our time in the car with Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Rick Riordan. We got through The Lightning Thief, The Sea of Monsters, and The Titan's Curse.

My boys, who are 5 and 6 years old, now know the traits and attributes of all the major Greek gods and a fair number of the minor ones. They cried out for "more Percy" every time we got into the car. Unfortunately for my husband and I, the narrator, Jesse Bernstein, is... well. In addition to a gritted-teeth Queens accent that would make Archie Bunker proud (shtreet, frushtrated, firmiliar, foward, bedgeroom), the guy continually misplaces the emphasis in sentences and phrases. Also? A word to audio book producers? When your narrator encounters the word "ichor" and pronounces it "icker"? Stop the tape and look it up. He does animal voices really well, though.


And at bedtime:
Since the boys share a room, I can read to them both at bedtime, usually a long chapter book, while they fall asleep in their beds. I have read Nurse Matilda, The True Meaning of Smekday, and A Hat Full of Sky in this way. My Boov voice was irresistable, as I predicted, but the Nac Mac Feegles nearly did me in.



On the road I started reading the second Skulduggery Pleasant book, Playing with Fire. I am pleased to report that it is starting out just as sardonic and action-packed as the first book, and I am proud to say that I am working Skulduggery's deep velvet voice almost as well as Rupert Degas, who read that first book so amazingly well that we replayed sections again and again.

Here's to beach chairs, lounge chairs by the pool, couches in shady living rooms. Anywhere you get a chance to just sit and read. That's vacation, baby.

Sipping Spiders Through a Straw: Campfire songs for monsters, lyrics by Kelly DiPucchio, pictures by Chris Grimly

I must admit that when I picked up this clever book, all I could hear in my mind was the 1980 Squeeze song "Pulling Mussels From the Shell." That would be one messed-up book: 80's pop songs reworded for Halloween. But sort of appropriate. Richard Butler of The Psychedelic Furs always looked kind of undead to begin with.

But the book. It's cute! Kids who love monsters will love it! Kids who love messing with song lyrics (and what kid doesn't, I ask you? Can anyone think of "Kawasaki lets the good times roll" without also hearing the filthy version too?) will love it. Fans of grody illustration will love it, and that includes all those grown boys who read the really gross graphic novels.

Dads who cannot keep themselves from singing in the car (that's you, baby, and also that's John The Boss, who laughed out loud when he read this book) will be pre-empted by their children whenever they start in with "Skinnamarink" (which we already have our own filthy version of) or "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall". Ha ha ha ha! We're driving 2600 miles in the next 3 weeks! I'm a little hysterical already!

Tuff Fluff: The case of Duckie's missing brain by Scott Nash

Thank goodness for Scott Nash. With this book, the first of a series, the illustrator of the Flat Stanley books shows that he, like his late partner in crime, out there thinking of the first graders. Not everybody is. I mean, I love Elephant and Piggie very much, but I bet that when Mo Willems's daughter grows out of Beginning Readers he'll move on to kids' graphic novels (please? that would be really great!). In fact, I wonder if, after my kids grow out of Beginning Readers, if I'm going to continue trolling those aisles for something, anything fun and readable and cool-looking.

Well, hopefully, Scott Nash will always be there for the little guys.

My recent graduate of first grade snatched up Tuff Fluff as soon as he saw it, plopped right down on the floor, and started reading it to his younger brother. That's the highest endorsement I know.

Eggs by Marilyn Singer, illustrated by Emma Stevenson

I did not review this book when I first read it. I checked it out, took it to school, and handed it straight to the first grade teacher. It is, bar none, the best book about eggs and nests I have ever seen for early elementary school children. Don't get me wrong: An Egg Is Quiet is great, and gorgeous, but Eggs has about 300 times more information - perfect for inquisitive little kids.

These few sentences on fertilization are worth the price of the book.

"It usually takes a male and a female to make babies. Females make the eggs. Males fertilize them with sperm. When birds, reptiles, mammals, insects and some amphibians mate, the eggs are fertilized inside the female."

On a road in Africa by Kim Doner, afterword by Chryssee Perry Martin
A day in the life of an animal orphanage in Kenya, told in colored pencil, oil washes, and rhyme.

The textures and details of a trip along the road, to the market, and around the orphanage more than make up for a few rather strained rhymes ("lion" rhymes with "try on," for example). The depictions of people and animals look suspiciously like portraits, and in the afterword we learn that "Every scene in this book has happened and happens still; every person exists and, this very moment, may be wrapping a snuggly blanket around a frightened baby baboon or heating milk for a tiny new cub".

Swahili vocabulary words enrich the text and add a participatory element to an inspiring and accessible book about Africa, excellent for sharing with a class.

My Travelin' Eye by Jenny Sue Kostecki-Shaw
Wow. There's a lot to look at in this book.

Little Jenny Sue, who was born with a "lazy eye," apparently grew up, went to art school, and started collecting paper, because her collages are about 147 kinds of awesome! She can draw, too, and she tells her story, of appreciating her two different eyes as different sides of her personality, then of having the "lazy" eye strengthened and how her mom helped her through the process, in an entertaining and heartfelt way.

So what we have here is a spectacular book about strabismus and ambylopia. Not exactly a storytime book, but certainly a read-aloud in the school setting. I would say that "lazy eye" could stand in for any difference that is experiential in nature, such as hearing deficit, Asperger's syndrome, even dyslexia.

My Travelin' Eye is food for thought.

Bugs in my hair?! by Catherine Stier, illustrated by Tammie Lyon
Well, if you need a head lice book - and what school doesn't? - this is definitely the one to buy.

Ellie LaFleur is one of those perfect little girls, with cute outfits and shiny hair and a beautiful mom... and if it can happen to Ellie, it can happen to anyone.

Jaunty watercolor illustrations and straightforward, realistic text make this book relatable, informative, and actually kind of interesting. At the end, Ellie makes her own information sheet about lice just for kids, with lots of color and good advice.

The Summer Reading Club theme for this summer is Buggy About Reading, so when we first spotted this book, we were happy to have another bug book to recommend. Then we realized it was a "difficult themes" book about head lice. Oh well. But now that I've read it, I don't know - I might recommend it as a fun Summer Reading book anyway!

Snoring Beauty by Bruce Hale, illustrated by Howard Fine
This is not a bedtime book. This is not a book for the gentle reader. No, Snoring Beauty is a book for a person who can SNORE like a DRAGON. It's a book for the person who really enjoyed reading Ruby Sings the Blues, and Carolinda Clatter!, and The Worm Family.

In short, this is a book for the fee-fi-fo-fummer in your family.

And it's FUNNY. Oversize personalities, hearing impairment, nutty names (Umpudine! I'm going to name our next pet that!), and did I mention the snoring? The art is also funny (and beautiful, done in rich watercolors) - each face is full of life, with exaggerated features that made me think of Tenniel's Red Queen, or Gothic caricatures. Howard Fine was the best thing about All Aboard the Dinotrain and Ding Dong, Ding Dong, but in Bruce Hale, he has met his match! I hope they make fifty books together.

Like most folk / fairy tales, it's a bit long on text, so pick this up for kids maybe 4 and up.

Trainstop by Barbara Lehman
I am not always completely gung-ho about Barbara Lehman's books. Oh, I like them myself, and I always spend a little while reading and admiring, and... then I put them back on the shelf. They're just not all that accessible to little kids, and bigger kids usually pooh-pooh them because they're wordless.

But Trainstop is a bit less abstract than The Red Book or Museum Trip. A little girl takes the subway with her parents, and after her parents doze off, the train stops at a beautiful land populated with adorable little people, who are possibly toys.

She gets back on the train, which continues on its regular route, but then is visited by a couple of the tiny people after she returns home.

In her author's note, my fellow Pratt alum Barbara Lehman mentions that she used to work for the Transit Authority, "making books about using the subways to get to school." There's a page in Trainstop that shows the little girl looking excitedly out the subway window as the subway goes through the city, into the tunnel, then out of the tunnel and into the sunny magic world. That's a page drawn by a person who loves the subway - I would recognize that kind of person anywhere.

Looking for loons, written by Jennifer Lloyd, illustrated by Kirsti Anne Wakelin - review
Everybody should have a house on a lake in Maine. Everybody should be able to wake up at dawn, snag the binoculars, snuggle up in an Adirondack chair on the deck and watch for loons. Everybody's Grandma should make them hot chocolate while they wait, and everyone's mom should bring out an old quilt in case they're chilly. Their dad should get up and make pancakes and bacon while Grandpa makes a fire in the stone fireplace.

Sigh.

This book is like Time of Wonder by Robert McCloskey. I always read that book with at least as much envy as admiration.

The illustrations here are magnificent. Watercolor and pencil on Arches paper, atmospheric and warm, packed with keenly-observed portraits of wildlife. If I ever had a vacation on a lake with the family, I'd get Kirsti Anne Wakelin to draw it. Since I'm not likely to, I'll get this book.

Endpaper bonus: pencil sketches of wildlife.
Minor quibble: the painting on the cover is very low-contrast and kind of busy. I don't think it serves this beautiful book very well.

Arabella Miller's Tiny Caterpillar by Clare Jarrett
A book about what now? The life cycle of a butterfly you say? How novel!

No, don't listen to me, I'm totally being a crank today. If you have room in your heart or on your shelf for one more butterfly life cycle book, or if, for some reason, you don't have one yet, you should definitely buy this one.

The art is simple and clear, with a springy palette that suits the subject. The text rhymes, and is set to a somewhat unusual meter. I like it - it makes for kind of a halting read, mimicing the caterpillar's locomotion. I also like that the book focuses on Arabella's observation of her little friend without feeling like a textbook.

A couple of boys have the BEST WEEK EVER by Marla Frazee
Ok, here's the weeper of today's batch of picture books! James and Eamon spend a week together with Eamon's grandparents by the beach. They go to nature camp. They run around like maniacs. They watch TV, eat ice cream, jump on the bed, and are brutally honest. They are real children. They have the BEST WEEK EVER.

So why did it make sniffle? Because it had to end.

Winston of Churchill: One bear's battle against global warming, by Jean Davies Okimoto, illustrated by Jeremiah Trammell
Ohhhh-kay. Really nice illustrations. Super message. Nice illustrated summary of the whys and hows of global warming. Friendly-looking polar bears.

But I wonder if all the references to Winston Churchill, including a brief subplot about his cigar, as well as direct quotes from his most famous speeches, will baffle children enough to make them lose interest in what is otherwise a nice story about an important issue. Sure, there's explanatory back-matter, but if you've already lost 'em, what good is back-matter?

The issue is important enough to many parents that they will read this book to their kids and explain every blessed word if they have to, and I will take it home myself, but we'll see.

The apple-pip princess by Jane Ray
Here is a lovely folk tale for spring. Three princesses, each must try to demonstrate to her aging father why she would be the best successor to the throne. One sister is grandiose, one is vain, and the third, Serenity, is little and shy. Ok, sure, it's predictable. But it's lyrical and it has strong but delicate illustrations that incorporate collage, and it has an underlying message about leadership by example. Plus, the beautiful princesses have brown skin, and I'd be lying if I didn't say that will influence my purchase decision.

Every time I sit down with a stack of picture books to review, at least one has to make me cry. Well, get a little misty, anyway - I'm not weird.

I will make miracles is a massive book. Tall and wide, with illustrations done in Chinese ink with brushes that must have been a yard long. You'd have to, just to match the power of this book's idea. A boy, continually asked what he wants to be when he grows up, decides that he will wake the sun every day. And then control the ocean. Heal all the sick. Help the police. Make the world stop fighting.

Susie Morgenstern takes the boy's ambitions far beyond the obvious:

I will stretch out our days and our nights to feel longer
So everyone has enough time to grow stronger.

This jaunty little first chapter book came my way courtesy Betsy Bird at Fuse #8. Every now and then she jettisons some excess ARCs, and I was lucky enough to snag one this time around.

Here's the old underdog-saves-the-day story with a new angle: Medusa, a gorgon, with the requisite snaky hair and reputation for petrification, and her pals Chiron the centaur and Mino the minotaur are picked on at school by The Champions, shiny shiny hero kids named Perseus, Theseus, and, oddly, Cassandra (presumedly pre-curse).

Teasing, name-calling, etc. A hat is snatched off and thrown in the gutter. Then the three freak kids have to go on an unsupervised camping trip with the hero kids, and, what do you know, by using their skills together, the monster kids save the jerky trio of champions and return to Athens big heroes.

Then Medusa turns The Champions to stone anyway, which actually sounds more satisfying here than it does in the book. In the book, her parents are very big on self-control, and you're led to feel proud of Medusa for exercising hers, so it comes as something of a surprise that she blows it at the end. I'm guessing that the author is setting up a conflict for future books.

My sixth-grade friend Alice, admittedly a little old for this book, read it and said, "Meh." I'm inclined to agree. However, the kids that lap up anything to do with Greek gods and heros will accept this book. And I won't hold it against Ross Collins. I adore his illustration style: it's like Marla Frazee with attitude. And Alvie Eats Soupand Supposing are marvelous books, and I'm hoping to get my hands on Germs sometime soon. Wait, no. Oh, you know what I mean.

Here's a few interesting cachibachis....Mental Floss Magazine. I found it on ThinkWoman's This Is Not A Blog blog. (great stuff there...really funky unusual posts and thinking. LYZA's blog is also a fun one to visit, and will keep you on your toes..