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Something Sleeping in the Hall. by Karla Kuskin. 1985. HarperCollins. 64 pages. ISBN:  9780060236342

Though the title at first suggests something sinister, Something Sleeping in the Hall is a collection of poems about a child's desire to have a pet. Short, easy-to-read poems celebrate birds, cats, pigs, dogs, dragons, elephants, and every other kind of animal imaginable. Some poems are sweet, others funny, but they all relate to that universal wish kids have for a pet to love and care for.

The poems in this collection are untitled, and visual cues are used instead to mark where one poem ends  and the next begins. I missed the cues at first, because  I tend to look more closely at text than images, but kids who are just learning to read are more likely to do the opposite, so they would probably be tuned into those cues much more closely than I was. I'm not sure it wouldn't have been more effective to just name the poems, but the tiny illustrations marking when the poem is about a bird, when it is about a pig, when it is about multiple animals, etc. are a distinctive feature of  this book that I think kids will like.

Kids will  also like some of the dark humor in a few of  the poems. For example, there is a hog in one poem who eats both a dog and a frog. The end of that poem says, "And then he lay down / bang - / and died." Other poems joke about a cat eating mice and a bear who walks down the street greeting and eating every creature he meets.  Early elementary schoolers love to be grossed out, and they love to be surprised, and these poems really deliver those two key components.

This collection is a great introduction to poetry for the youngest readers. It shows that poems can be playful, and that they can talk about everyday things in interesting ways. Some of the poems in this collection are only one or two sentences long, such as "It makes me squirm / to watch a worm." Even older kids who are intimidated by poetry might find relief in the fact that such a short and simple sentiment is actually a complete poem. I also like the way some of  the poems toy with the conventions of early reader books, such as the one on pages 14 and 15 that talks about a "blue bird on a branch," a "wild bird on a wig," and a "third bird in a bunch." The illustrations for that poem are almost like a rebus and they help kids decode the words while also letting them laugh over the silliness of the text.

Though Something Sleeping in the Hall is almost as old as I am, it still holds up for today's beginning  reader audience. The book is out of print, but my library system still has a copy and I suspect many others will as well. I plan to use at least two of the poems at my beginning  reader story time - either as rebuses or flannel boards. Share this book with animal lovers who are learning to read and watch them enjoy their first experiences with poetry.

I borrowed Something Sleeping in the Hall from my local public library. 

For more about this book, visit Goodreads and Worldcat. 

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When the Stellans move onto Apple Street, Katie is determined to become their little girl’s babysitter. Finally, they call to hire Katie, but on her very first night of babysitting, Mrs. Stellan’s expensive heirloom jewelry goes missing. Feeling terrible, Katie decides she absolutely must find the thief and bring him or her to justice- whether it turns out to be one of the boys from school, the yardman, or the mean new girl.

This well-plotted middle grade mystery was first published in 1985, a year before the Baby-sitters Club series came into existence. It is the last of three books about Katie Hart, the first of which, entitled Too Many Boys, was published in 1965. Too Many Boys was renamed Katie and Those Boys when it was reprinted in 1974, and it was followed in 1976 by Katie for President. Katie’s Baby-sitting Job makes no real reference to the prior books, nor does it have a definite conclusion to signify the end of a series. For all intents and purposes, it really stands on its own.

As in many of these older Apple paperbacks I have read, I noticed that this one has much more formal-sounding dialogue than a lot of tween series paperbacks being published today. The way the kids talk to each other - and to adults - sounds much more sophisticated and scripted than anything normal kids might say, and there is very little slang. Though the book isn’t particularly deep or layered, the language adheres to a certain sense of propriety and politeness that, though inauthentic, was kind of enjoyable. The tone definitely dates the book - perhaps even further back than the actual copyright - but it also gives the book a retro charm that adult readers of kids book get a kick out of.

Other quirks also date the book. There is a lot of talk of the mothers of the kids in the story hiding their various valuables when they go out of the house. These days, I think they’d be more likely to keep their valuables in a safe, or to have security systems installed to prevent theft. I also find it hard to believe that names like Dick or Sarah Lou would have been very popular in the 80s; it’s likely these names were chosen for the first book in 1965, when those names were more common.

Still, though, it amazes me how much of this book is still relevant today, as is. Kids still desire money to buy things - maybe not Christmas presents for friends, as Katie does, but certainly other items like cell phones and video games - so Katie’s motive for becoming a babysitter in the first place is something kids can definitely still relate to. The mystery, too, remains plausible, and I think Katie’s approach to solving it is much more believable than in some other middle grade mysteries. I also like that the mystery isn’t too terribly scary; I would have read this as a kid and had no trouble sleeping afterward, which means it is really very tame.

Finally, I think it’s nice that the book actually resolves Katie’s issues with the new mean girl in the neighborhood in a positive way. So many tween books seem to glorify and even promote this kind of enmity between “geeks” and “popular girls,” but this story really sees both girls as people and allows them to make up for their flaws and assumptions about one another. Sometimes I suppose it can be enjoyable to love to hate a fictional character, but I think kids also appreciate fully-developed characters in

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Herbie Jones. by Suzy Kline. 1985. Puffin Books. 96 pages. ISBN: 978069811939

 Third grader Herbie Jones has a lot on his plate in this 1985 school story. He’s sick of being in the lowest reading group, to the point that he has actually started studying his spelling words. He’s also been invited to a girl’s birthday party, to which he brings a most unfortunately inappropriate gift, and a short while later, he’s forced to go into the girls’ bathroom to face an apparent ghost. On top of that, he has to visit the Reading Supervisor and talk his way out of trouble when he’s caught sneaking off for lunch on a class trip.

In a lot of ways, Herbie is a lot like contemporary chapter book heroes - especially Alvin Ho. He has the same worries and anxieties shared by many third graders past and present, and his voice is very authentically eight years old. I’m not sure reading groups are divided up quite the same way now as they were in the 1980s and 1990s, but I definitely remember being aware at all times of who was in which group when I was in elementary school, so that part rang very true for me. I also loved Suzy Kline’s depiction of boy/girl interaction, and the slow emergence of co-ed friendships that starts to occur around this age. I could see some of the same behaviors and characteristics in Herbie and his classmates that I see in the characters from the Horrible Harry books.

Probably my favorite thing about the story is all the references to Charlotte’s Web. I know third grade is when I first read that book, and I think that is still the grade where most kids read it. The fact that Herbie and his friends read and discuss the book makes them that much more realistic, and also provides great positive reinforcement for kids who might not otherwise see the relevance of an assigned book. It’s also great how Herbie actually analyzes the text in order to help the girls in the lowest reading group realize the good qualities of spiders. It’s a great early example of close reading, and is likely to encourage kids who have not yet read Charlotte’s Web to pick up a copy.

It’s hard to pinpoint the specific things that make this book feel dated to me, but it definitely read like an older book. The illustrations probably helped me to draw that conclusion, since the kids have very 80’s clothes and hair. I also doubt kids are asked to clap erasers in their classrooms these days, and names like Lance, Margie and even Herbie sound like the names of much older people than third graders. I think it would also be difficult to find a 95-cent cheeseburger. They’re not even on the dollar menu at McDonald’s nowadays! Still, though, Herbie Jones and its sequels (Herbie Jones and the Class Gift, Herbie Jones and the Hamburger Head, and What’s the Matter with Herbie Jones?) are all still in print, and I think their fresh 21st century covers will appeal much more to kids than the original covers. All in all, this first book in the series - which was also Suzy Kline’s first book, period - is a gentle read filled with all the concerns and questions faced by a third grader, and it will appeal in particular to readers (and parents) who aren’t into a lot of technology talk and toilet humor.

I borrowed Herbie Jones from my

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In Summer Light. by Zibby O'Neal. 1985. Viking Children's Books. 160 pages. ISBN: 9780670807840

This 1985 coming of age novel is the story of Kate, the daughter of a famous artist, who returns home from boarding school with mononucleosis and must, against her wishes, spend the summer with her family. Most disgusting to her about her stay at home is her father’s attitude toward everyone around him, as though they live to serve his whims. Kate has been subject to this treatment herself, as her father once painted a picture of her, and then dismissed her presence in it, stating that it didn’t matter whom or what was in the picture, because it was the painting style, not the subject, that was important. Kate’s resentment over this and other slights has caused her to stop painting altogether, and it’s also making it difficult to write her paper on the Tempest, since Prospero reminds her so much of her father. The only bright spot in the summer is Ian, the graduate student staying with the family while he researches Kate’s father. Kate admires Ian, and respects his opinion, and before the summer is over, she falls in love with him and with painting all over again.

This novel is rather serious in tone, and highly introspective. O’Neal uses beautiful, direct, language to paint very specific pictures in the reader’s mind of each of the characters, Kate’s home, and especially her father’s artwork and attitude surrounding it. Because the narration is in third person, there is sometimes a feeling of distance or disconnection from Kate, but the reader never stops being invested in the story at any point. Kate’s anger toward her father, and her desire to make her own decisions and to have an identity separate from her dad’s create such interesting moments of inner conflict that the reader can’t help but keep reading, if only to enjoy the emotional rollercoaster. Kate’s feelings for Ian also contribute to those ups and downs by adding a layer of tension to the story, and providing the middle ground between Kate’s hurt feelings and her father’s continual cold shoulder.

I read a brief “report” on this book in Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading, which is what inspired me to read it, but I had no idea I would love it so much. The story is predictable in many ways and follows a certain formula I think many coming-of-age stories adhere to, but every word is so carefully chosen, and there are many gorgeous passages that I actually read aloud to myself so I could enjoy the language that much more. Though it’s cataloged as juvenile fiction in my library system, the only comparisons I could really make in terms of subject matter were to YA titles like That Summer, Up a Road Slowly, and A Separate Peace. I think it would appeal to readers who like those, and I also think it would work well in a classroom setting. There is so much to analyze and so much to learn in just O’Neal’s writing alone.

What a disappointment that a book like this is out of print! I can’t name very many contemporary realistic fiction coming-of-age novels, so maybe it’s a genre that has fallen by the wayside in children’s literature in recent years, but this book is so well-written, and really not very dated at all, so it’s hard to believe there wouldn’t still be a market for it. If you can get your hands on a copy, give it to strong readers in grades 5 to 8 who like

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