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After taking a look at our selection of hot new releases and popular kids' books ... it's more than likely we're suckers for picture books about love, kindness, and compassion.

The latest book from non-fiction queen Candace Fleming is The Children's Book Review's number one best selling young adult book.

For picture book fans there's a new Charlie the Ranch Dog book from Ree Drummond, and Tad Hills has the bestselling duo Duck & Goose featuring in a book perfect for some pre-summer reading. Middle Graders have more from The 39 Clues and How to Train Your Dragon series, while teens can indulge in Kami Garcia's Dangerous Creatures.

Sparky!
By Jenny Offill
Illustrated by Chris Appelhans
Schwartz & Wade (an imprint of Random House)
$16.99
ISBN: 978-0-375-87023-1
Ages 4-8
On shelves March 11th

The sloth is not a noble animal. Few people spend time contemplating their heroic qualities and distinguished countenances. Had I an Oxford English Dictionary on hand I’d be mighty interested to learn whether or not the term “sloth” as in “a habitual disinclination to exertion” was inspired by the tropical, slow-moving animal or if it was the other way around. Perhaps it is because of this that we don’t see them starring in too many picture books for kids. Sure you’ll get the occasional Lost Sloth by J. Otto Seibold, A Little Book of Sloth by Lucy Cooke, or even Slowly Slowly Slowly, Said the Sloth by Eric Carle, but unlike other animals there is no great slothian icon. When you say “sloth” to the average person on the street, they don’t instantly think of a famous one. Sparky! may come close to changing that. Tongue planted firmly in cheek, the sublime and subversive Jenny Offill pairs with first timer Chris Appelhans to give us a subdued but strangely content little tale about that most classic of all friendships: a girl and her sloth.

“You can have any pet you want as long as it doesn’t need to be walked or bathed or fed.” Our heroine’s mom probably regrets telling this to her daughter but it’s too late now. The minute she said it the girl headed straight to the library and there, in the S volume of the Animal Encyclopedia, she learned about sloths. In no time at all one appears via Express Mail and she names him Sparky (thereby giving away the fact that she harbors impossible sloth-related dreams). Her know-it-all neighbor Mary Potts is not impressed, so our heroine determines to show off her pet in a “Trained Sloth Extravaganza”. Naturally, this does not go as planned, but even after everyone has left and it’s just her and Sparky, she can’t help but love the little guy. With a quick tag to his claw she makes it clear that he is it. “And for a long, long time he was.”

I was talking with some folks about picture books earlier today and in the course of our conversation I discovered something interesting about the way I judge them. While art is definitely something I take into account when I decide to love or loathe an illustrated work for kids, it’s the writing that always tips the balance. I’d read some of Offill’s picture books before and while I liked them fine they did not inspire in me the kind of rabid fan response I’ve seen other librarians profess thanks to 17 Things I’m Not Allowed to Do Anymore. Sparky! is different. Here, the book cuts to the chase right at the start. Our heroine (who remains unnamed throughout) makes it clear that her raison d’être is to have a pet. When Sparky arrives she pours herself into his care, never mind that he’s about as needy as a houseplant in this regard. There was something so enticing about her cheery demeanor, even in the face of cold hard facts. Her mother right from the get-go also has this world-weary air that suggests more than it tells. As for the repeated lines of “a promise is a promise”, it’s a line that clearly reflects our heroine’s worldview. The combination of wordplay and story definitely made this one of the more interesting picture books I’d seen in a while.

Illustrator Chris Appelhans comes to us from the world of animation, having worked on such films as Coraline and The Fantastic Mr. Fox. Comparisons to Jon Klassen, another animation escapee, are not entirely out of left field either. Like Klassen, Appelhans prefers a subdued style with a limited palette. He knows how to get a great deal of humor out of a character’s lack of movement and emotion. The sequence where the girl plays everything from King of the Mountain to Hide-and-Seek with Sparky would not work particularly well unless Appelhans utilized this technique. Add in the funny little story and I’m sure you’ll hear a lot of folks comparing this to Extra Yarn or something equally wry. That said, Appelhans is his own man. Emotion, for example, is something he alludes to beautifully. Note the bags of worry under Sparky’s eyes. I’ve never quite known what to call these, but they show up periodically in books and comics for kids. They’re great character reference points. The kind of bags that Charlie Brown would sport. Here, they suggest more about Sparky’s state of mind than anything else.

Note that Publishers Weekly was not charmed by Sparky! In fact, Publishers Weekly was pretty much bummed out by the whole experience of reading the book at all. Talking about it, they dowsed their review with words like “glum”, “lonely”, “miserable”, and (my personal favorite) “burdened with pathos”. A reading of this sort happens when you walk into the book expecting it to cater to your already existing expectations about what “pet” books should do. Where PW found the book depressing, I found it smart and serious. Yep, Sparky looks mildly perturbed for most of the book, but that’s only when he’s taken out of his natural environment. The very last image in the book of him finally getting to lie in his tree next to his girl is the only time we ever see him smile. As for the girl herself, she knows perfectly well what she got herself into and why her dream of getting him to perform fell through. And she’s a happier person than the seemingly self-assured Mary Potts, that’s for sure, having a fair amount in common with Calvin from Calvin & Hobbes. As such, this isn’t the downer fare you’d necessarily expect.

The School Library Journal review, for that matter, did a small bit of hand wringing over whether or not children would come away from this book with the clearly misbegotten understanding that having a sloth for a pet would be fun. Since this is a work of fiction (and the underground sloth procurement market remaining, for the most part, elusive to their needs) I hardly think we need fret about whether or not kids will take the wrong message away from Sparky! After all, it makes sloth ownership look just about as appealing as whale ownership in Billy Twitters and His Blue Whale Problem. Sparky is awfully cute but as our heroine is quick to learn, he’s not about to do much of anything he doesn’t want to do. The only time he does something the heroine suggests, it’s when he munches slowly on a cookie she’s offered him (and then proceeds to take back when it’s clear he’s going to take all day with it).

It’s a much quieter picture book than those full of glam and glitz, cluttering up our shelves. Like its color scheme Sparky! suggests that pet ownership is not a predictable path. Or maybe it’s saying that imposing your will on others, particularly the barely sentient, isn’t the way to go. Or maybe it’s just a funny book about a funny sloth. That works too. However you look at it, there’s no denying that though it’s a silly idea (telegraphed by the silly contrast between the title and explanation mark and the cover image) with a slow, steady feel and delightful premise. You read into the book what you want to read into it. For me, that means reading into it a great story with beautiful art (that final sunset is a doozy), and likable characters. What more need you in life?

On shelves March 11th

Source: Galley sent from publisher for review.

Like This? Then Try:

• This Moose Belongs to Me by Oliver Jeffers

• Let’s Get a Pup! Said Kate by Bob Graham

• Matilda’s Cat by Emily Gravett

• Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett

Professional Reviews:

• A star from Kirkus
• Publishers Weekly
• Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

Never Forgotten
By Patricia C. McKissack
Illustrated by Leon and Diane Dillon
Schwartz & Wade
$18.99
ISBN: 978-0-375-84384-6
Ages 4 and up
On shelves October 11, 2011

The more I read children’s literature the more I come to realize that my favorite books for kids are the ones that can take disparate facts, elements, and stories and then weave them together into a perfect whole. That someone like Brian Selznick can link automatons and the films of Georges Melies in The Invention of Hugo Cabret or Kate Milford can spin a story from the history of bicycles and the Jake Leg Scandal in The Boneshaker thrills me. Usually such authors reserve their talents for chapter books. There they’ve room to expound at length. And Patricia McKissack is no stranger to such works of fiction. Indeed some of her chapter books are the best in a given library collection (I’ve a personal love of her Porch Lies). But for Never Forgotten Ms. McKissack took tales of Mende blacksmiths and Caribbean legends of hurricanes and combined them into a picture book. Not just any picture book, mind you, but one that seeks to answer a question that I’ve never heard adequately answered in any books for kids: When Africans were kidnapped by the slave trade and sent across the sea, how did the people left behind react? The answer comes in this original folktale. Accompanied by the drop dead gorgeous art of Leo & Diane Dillon, the book serves to remind and heal all at once. The fact that it’s beautiful to both eye and ear doesn’t hurt matters much either.

When the great Mende blacksmith Dinga found himself with a baby boy after his wife died he bucked tradition and insisted on raising the boy himself. For Musafa, his son, Dinga called upon the Mother Elements of Earth, Fire, Water and Wind and had them bless the child. Musafa grew in time but spent his blacksmithing on creating small creatures from metal. Then, one day, Dinga discovers that Musafa has been kidnapped by slave traders in the area. Incensed, each of the four elements attempts to help Dinga get Musafa back, but in vain. Finally, Wind manages to travel across the sea. There she finds Musafa has found a way to make use of his talent with metal, creating gates in a forge like no one else’s. And Dinga, back at home, is comforted by her tale that his son is alive and, for all intents and purposes, well.

McKissack’s desire to give voice to the millions of parents and families that mourned the kidnapping of their children ends her book on a bittersweet note. After reading about Musafa’s disappearance and eventual life, the book finishes with this: “Remember the wisdom of Mother Dongi: / ‘Kings may come and go, / But the fam

Amelia Lost: The Life and Disappearance of Amelia Earhart
By Candace Fleming
Schwartz & Wade (an imprint of Random House)
$18.99
ISBN: 978-0-375-84198-9
Ages 10 and up
On shelves February 8, 2011

When I was growing up my schoolroom classes would routinely learn about the great unsolved mysteries of the world. How they made Stonehenge. What really happened to the people of Roanoke? And why did Amelia Earhart disappear? Various biographies made of the woman for kids sort of allude to this question early in the book, forget about it during the middle section, then do a quickie wrap-up of it at the end. Basically, they take one of the most interesting mysteries in history and render it a dull dishwater gray. As such, an Amelia Earhart biography would not normally interest me. That is, before author Candace Fleming got her paws on the material. Fleming’s no fool. She knows that if you have a mystery then there is probably a pretty exciting story to tie onto it. Continuity has its charms, but why not chuck the standard bio format if you can get away with it? As such, we get Amelia Lost: The Life and Disappearance of Amelia Earhart. Alternating between the “life” part and the “disappearance” part, kids get sucked into the nail-biting near misses of Amelia’s rescuers between biographical sections where you come to care about the woman herself. And, of course, it’s researched to the hilt. Nice, that.

When some of us think of the disappearance of Amelia Earhart, we think of that eerie moment when she was there one moment and gone the next. In truth, it wasn’t like that. In fact, it was a lot more interesting. In alternating chapters author Candace Fleming jumps back and forth between Amelia’s biographical details and the many people who heard Amelia’s cries for rescue (in vain). There was the fifteen-year-old in Florida who heard “This is Amelia Earhart” issuing from her radio. The sixteen-year-old boy in Wyoming who heard it too. There was the housewife in Texas trying to find an overseas radio program. All these near calls are contrasted with Fleming’s many little-known Earhart facts. Amelia never really flew her “first flight”. She was given identical poses to Charles Lindberg in her publicity shots due to her likeness to the fellow pilot. Her father encouraged her, but also near ruined his family with his alcoholism. And maybe most significant of all, Amelia blew off her instruction in learning how to operate her radio . . . a choice that undoubtedly led to her death. With a director’s grace, Fleming draws the two storylines together in the end, leaving us with little doubt as to Ms. Earhart’s eventual fate. A Bibliography and Source Notes appear at the end.

I like research. I like knowing that an author likes research too. It gives me a sense of comfort in this cold and colorless world. The type of research Fleming brings to this book really puts this book ahead of pack, though. You’ve got your basic historic documents, maps, original photographs, etc. That’s fine. Then you have a newly released Coast Guard file on Amelia. That’s interesting. Add into that the documents relating