Holiday House Research Articles

I Like You the Best (review)

Reviewed by: I Like You the Best Hope Morrison Thompson, Carol . I Like You the Best; written and illus. by Carol Thompson. Holiday House, 2011. [32p]. ISBN 978-0-8234-2341-5 $16.95 Reviewed from galleys Ad 5-7 yrs. Dolly the Pig and Jack Rabbit are best friends, but the friendship goes awry when they paint portraits of each other—"You made me look like a lumpy pumpkin!" "You made my ears look like slimy slugs!"—that result in offended estrangement. The friends go through several emotional stages, from anger to sadness to the ultimate realization that they care far too much about each other to let the friendship go, [End Page 347] and soon all is forgiven. At its core, this is a tale of a special kinship that honestly explores the pain that comes when a friendship hits a rocky patch. The topic isn't hugely original, but there are several useful lessons in dealing with anger integrated into the story (at her maddest, Dolly takes a deep breath "all the way in and all the way out," while Jack "counts slowly up to ten, and back down again"), and their mutual devotion is sincerely portrayed. The key conflict in the story is far too adult for the age of the friendship, however, and youngsters are unlikely to emotionally identify with the problem. The text also concludes with a phrasing more natural to kids of the book's native Australia: Jack announces, "We're both chilled now, Dolly," a declaration that may be confusing to young Americans. The artwork is spirited and informal, with frenetic charcoal outlines that are then smudged and filled in with color. The palette is simple, sticking largely to the pink and red of Dolly's porcine skin and shirt and the blue of Jack's shirt. The concrete lessons on dealing with anger may help out a few listeners, and audiences may enjoy the playful presentation of the good friends' good times together. Copyright © 2011 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Lafayette and the American Revolution (review)

Reviewed by: Lafayette and the American Revolution Elizabeth Bush Freedman, Russell. Lafayette and the American Revolution. Holiday House, 2010. [88p.] illus. with photographs ISBN 978-0-8234-2182-4 $24.95 Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 5-8. Married at sixteen, a father at eighteen, and certainly one of the wealthiest men in eighteenth-century France, the Marquis de Lafayette could easily have settled into the privileged life of the nobility. With little taste for taxing manners and protocols, he scuttled his own opportunities at court and attuned his dreams to emulating the military distinction of his forebears. Smitten with the ideals of American colonists fighting for independence, he defied family, king, and official French neutrality and bargained for a commission in the Continental Army. Congress may have initially regarded him as little more than a promising connection to a future alliance, [End Page 128] but the untested Lafayette quickly proved himself a wily strategist and able commander (to say nothing of a generous donor to the cause), and his engagement at the decisive battle at Yorktown would be considered critical to the outcome of the Revolution. Freedman capitalizes on the inherent interest of a man who launched a heroic career while still in his teens, and the young general's story is told in fluent, polished prose. While more information on the complexity of his subsequent years during the French Revolution would have broadened the context of his career, the focus of this title is Lafayette's contribution to the American independence, and it's effectively explored. With its attractive, heavily illustrated layout, timeline, source notes, bibliography, and index, this invaluable addition to the collection of Revolutionary War material should serve report writers and engross middle-school fans of military history. Copyright © 2010 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

The Place of Lewis Carroll in Children's Literature (review)

Reviewed by: The Place of Lewis Carroll in Children's Literature Dorothy G. Clark (bio) Susina, Jan . The Place of Lewis Carroll in Children's Literature. New York and London: Routledge, 2010. As I was traveling cross-country in early 2010, the seventeen-year-old sitting next to me in our overbooked coach section leaned over to see what I was reading. I noted that it was a book about Lewis Carroll by the scholar Jan Susina, and shared that I had just learned that Carroll had written 98,721 letters, probably two thousand a year. She gasped and almost pulled the book from my hands in a sincere desire to learn more. The opportunity to learn more—to be startled by facts and surprising pieces of information and perception—is exactly what Susina provides us in this capacious, remarkable book that has broad appeal to nonacademics, scholars, and Carroll specialists. It is a text that generates delight, enthusiasm, and wonder. A contribution to Routledge's respected Children's Literature and Culture series, The Place of Lewis Carroll in Children's Literature situates Carroll in literary and cultural history in a manner and method characterized by Susina's quoting of Umberto Eco: "Books always speak of other books, and every story tells a story that has been told." Susina not only locates Carroll in the books, events, and literary figures that shaped or influenced him during the nineteenth century, but also grounds his discussion in more recent scholarship. In an organic, interconnecting process, Susina links Carroll's life and work to other artists and scholars and provides an internal bibliography, creating a tapestry of ideas and references. Susina self-consciously structures this study as a "series of interlinking chapters that focuses on Carroll's adventures as a children's writer" (2) and "a hypertext, like the Alice books themselves, in that the reader does not need to read it in a linear fashion, but can choose their own adventure by reading the chapters in a sequence of their own inventions" (3). This ethos of invention and playfulness informs Susina's study. With a nod to his keen awareness of the plethora of Carroll criticism, Susina begins his study with the wish "to find a bit of room and add to the lively discussion of Carroll. Like Alice, I suggest, "Come, we shall have some fun now!" (11). The Place of Lewis Carroll in Children's Literature consists of twelve pithy chapters that begin with Carroll's juvenilia and end with a critical examination [End Page 253] of contemporary multimedia adaptations. Intervening chapters provide a diverse array of Carrollian issues, including his photography of children, his extraordinary letter writing, class and gender issues, the tradition of the literary fairy tale, and his role as entrepreneur/businessman/marketer and contributor to the publishing industry. These subject areas—some familiarly controversial, some startlingly new—are re-presented through a rich analysis that integrates a prodigious understanding of Carrollian scholarship and cultural history. A core of key ideas presented in the Introduction weaves its way through the majority of these multifarious chapters. These ideas resituate Carroll's place in children's literature and present new "places" in which Carroll has been surprisingly influential. Right off (and throughout the essays), Susina takes strong issue with P. J. Harvey Darnton's pronouncement in Children's Books in England (1932) that Carroll's Alice books "changed the whole cast of children's literature" (3). The effect, notes Susina, was to mark Alice's Adventures in Wonderland as the great divide so that prior to its 1865 publication, all children's books were primarily instructional and afterward primarily "to entertain and delight." Susina argues that such distinctions are too neat, noting as evidence the publications of Catherine Sinclair's Holiday House in 1839 (a copy of which Carroll gave to Alice Liddell) and Edward Lear's A Book of Nonsense in 1845. With this correction to the record, however, Susina also asserts that the Alice books themselves include "modest social lessons" as well as more explicitly didactic ones. As evidence, he cites paratextual materials included in later editions of the Alice books as well as in the Sylvie...

Muddy as a Duck Puddle and Other American Similes (review)

Reviewed by: Muddy as a Duck Puddle and Other American Similes Deborah Stevenson Lawlor, Laurie. Muddy as a Duck Puddle and Other American Similes; illus. by Ethan Long. Holiday House, 2010 [32p]. ISBN 978-0-8234-2229-6 $16.95 Reviewed from galleys Ad 6-9 yrs Are you "independent as a hog on ice?" Do you sometimes feel "zany as a chigger chased around a stump"? You'll find these and other usefully phrased characteristics laid out in Lawlor's tribute to colorful American language, which lays out twenty-six similes in A-to-Z format. The idea has obvious potential for the language arts curriculum, and kids will particularly appreciate the predominance of animals in these lively phrases. Unfortunately, the concepts aren't very well conveyed by either the illustrations or the closing explanatory notes (which provide a regional citation as well as a gloss for each entry); the explanations are often unclear, unhelpful, or simply uncomprehending—"happy as a clam at high water" doesn't actually mean "safe and secure," for instance, and the "fine as frog hair" note never explains which meaning of "fine" is being employed. Long's digitally created illustrations are loud and cartoonish, with plenty of humorous exaggeration in their dramatization of the concepts; the compositions sometimes lack focus, though, a drawback emphasized by the fatness of the figures. Despite the flaws here, the title's easygoing format and [End Page 343] colorful flair make it enjoyable as a quick read as well as a readaloud, and it could add some linguistic brio to the classroom. Copyright © 2010 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

The Best Horse Ever (review)

Reviewed by: The Best Horse Ever Deborah Stevenson DeLaCroix, Alice. The Best Horse Ever; illus. by Ron Himler. Holiday House, 2010 [80p]. ISBN 978-0-8234-2254-8 $15.95 Reviewed from galleys Ad Gr. 2-4 It's finally happening for nine-year-old Abby—she's getting a horse of her very own. When Griffin arrives, she's struggling a little to adjust to the reality of her new responsibilities, but she's still completely besotted; the problem is that her best friend, Devon, doesn't seem to properly appreciate this new wonder in Abby's life, causing a rift between the two. Sibling dynamics are particularly well depicted here: Abby's little brother, Brad, easily gets Abby's goat and uses threatened tattling to blackmail her, yet she still misses his company when he's elsewhere. Abby's self-focused attitude is developmentally credible, while her stretching to handle the large task she's taken on is evoked in ways that kids will recognize (she keeps making mistakes that put her and Griffin into risky situations). The Devon plot isn't well explored or successfully concluded, though—in fact, the story wraps up with startling haste—and the book tends to brush off the implications of Abby's horse-handling errors. Himler's gentle, sketchy illustrations are a little ill at ease in drafting horses, but the kids have an informal authenticity that enhances the it-could-happen-to-you flavor of the story. Youngsters who like to enhance their horsey yearnings with the trappings of reality will likely enjoy putting themselves in Abby's place and telling themselves that they'd have done better. Copyright © 2010 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Time for Bed, Baby Ted (review)

Reviewed by: Time for Bed, Baby Ted Hope Morrison Sartell, Debra. Time for Bed, Baby Ted; illus. by Kay Chorao. Holiday House, 2010 [32p]. ISBN 978-0-8234-1968-5 $16.95 Reviewed from galleys Ad 2-4 yrs Ah, bedtime antics. In this rhyming story, Dad is ready to tuck baby Ted in for the night when Ted begins a lengthy series of imaginative and evasive pretends, inviting his father to guess what non-bedgoing critter he is now. Ted works his way through ten animals, from the more common duck and mouse to the more unlikely porcupine and seal, and in response to each performance, the endlessly patient father simply states, "Let's get this baby _____ ready for bed." The irregular rhythms and line lengths mandate a few practice readings, especially in light of the text's challenging duration, and some of the verses strain a bit for sound and [End Page 303] sense ("Let's get this baby seal ready for bed./ We'll BARK him up, dive deep in the DARK,/ and tuck him QUIETLY into bed"). The good humor remains true to the end, though, when Ted gets himself settled down for the night, and the playful internal rhymes and followable end-rhymes (it's all about rhyming with "Ted") provide structure and appeal. Illustratively, the figures are a bland at times, but Ted is an expressive little tot with a tousled head of hair and brightly hued pajamas, and the gleam in his eye suggests that he may be just as much of a handful in the waking hours as he is at close of day. Those willing to embrace some hectic fun at bedtime will want to check this out; it may find even more use in a wide-awake storytime, where little ones can try their hand at their own snapping, quacking, hopping, hanging, waddling, etc. Copyright © 2010 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

The Grand Mosque of Paris: A Story of How Muslims Rescued Jews During the Holocaust (review)

Reviewed by: The Grand Mosque of Paris: A Story of How Muslims Rescued Jews During the Holocaust Hope Morrison Ruelle, Karen Gray . The Grand Mosque of Paris: A Story of How Muslims Rescued Jews During the Holocaust; written and illus. by Karen Gray Ruelle and Deborah Durland DeSaix. Holiday House, 2009 40p. ISBN 978-0-8234-2159-6 $17.95 R Gr. 5-8 The Grand Mosque of Paris, built in 1926, was a community center as well as a place of worship. Any Muslim could find the help they needed in the mosque and, from 1940-1944, many Jews found refuge there as well. The bulk of the narrative takes snippets of biographical tales of Jews who, at some point, passed through the mosque in search of assistance. Most of these Jews shared a common North African ancestry and were thus perceived by the Muslim community as neighbors; most didn't stay more than a few days, but for many, the mosque offered life-saving protection, falsified conversion papers, or, in the most extreme tales, the means to escape out of Paris by way of the underground souterrain that connected the mosque to the Seine River. The narrative is clearly written, and though the material [End Page 126] is denser than the picture-book format might suggest, it's approachable despite its weight; the stories told, most of which are based on a 1990 film documentary, are full of small details and thought-provoking episodes. Perhaps as fascinating as the story itself is the author's afterword, which details the challenge of researching an historical event that was entirely clandestine at its time; there are few if any written records, few if any survivors, and few if any primary source materials that reference the events described herein. The oil illustrations change tone to reflect the events, with descriptions of the secret workings of the mosque cast in shadows and dusty grays, while descriptions of the solace offered therein are cast in bright, natural light and luminous blues; the intricacies of the mosque's tilework are recreated in detail, adding rhythm as well as atmosphere. This is a seldom-told piece of history, and it will expand the picture both of humanitarian action during the Holocaust and interfaith relations. An afterword, glossary, and extensive bibliography are included. Copyright © 2009 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

My Darlin' Clementine (review)

Reviewed by: My Darlin' Clementine Elizabeth Bush Gregory, Kristiana . My Darlin' Clementine. Holiday House, 2009206 p. ISBN 978-0-8234-2198-5$16.95 Ad Gr. 5-8 Eleven-year-old Josie opens with the tale of her older sister's disappearance on the day of her wedding; the bridal flowers on the slippery footbridge over the treacherous river testify to likely tragedy. The voice of seventeen-year-old Clementine herself then picks up the narration starting in the previous year of 1866, telling of how her and Jess' father, too sick to continue gold mining, takes up with a band of vigilantes and gamblers, puts the family into debt, inadvertently causes his wife's death, forbids Clementine to pursue her dream of becoming a doctor, and corners her into marrying the dastardly father of the young man who courts her. This nineteenth-century lye-soap opera is inspired by the sentimental ballad of the same name, whose five verses and refrain precede the narration and provide readers some clues about how Clementine's story may, or may not, play out. That teaser is an appealing and effective device, but the ensuing plot strains under the twists and turns Gregory metes out and the deliriously but improbably happy ending she concocts for all characters left alive. Still, Clementine leads a far more eventful life than your run-of-the-mill calico and braids heroine, and readers inured to the typhoid fever, prairie fires, and loneliness of Western tales will undoubtedly welcome this spicier melodrama. Copyright © 2009 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

The Family in English Children’s Literature (review)

Reviewed by: The Family in English Children’s Literature Elizabeth Gargano (bio) The Family in English Children’s Literature. By Ann Alston. New York: Routledge, 2008. Well-researched and thorough, Ann Alston’s The Family in English Children’s Literature is an ambitious attempt to chart ideological assumptions about the family in the children’s literature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Alston persuasively contends that children’s literature is inherently conservative in its celebration of an idyllic nuclear family that serves as a haven in a disorderly and contentious world. As she argues, even when twentieth-century children’s literature graphically portrays bleakly dysfunctional families, it implicitly holds up a countervailing ideal to the chaotic reality. In general, Alston asserts, children’s literature celebrates the traditional two-parent family, the solace of a conventional home with orderly spaces and predictable routines, and the shared family meal, which serves as an emblem of familial warmth, comfort, and affection. Reflecting the structure of this argument, Alston organizes her book into three sections. The first chapter offers a brief social and theoretical history of the family, and its arguments will already be familiar to scholars of children’s literature and culture. Viewing the family as a “site of discipline” and of Foucauldian “surveillance,” this chapter traces both the gradual emergence of the nuclear family and its links to the middle class (10). Alston’s purpose here is not to explore new or original ideas but rather to provide a concise history of a specific line of argument that has been made many times before. The next two chapters examine depictions of family in children’s fiction from 1818 to 2003, emphasizing the endurance of idealized nineteenth-century conceptions of domesticity. Because she covers so much territory here, Alston must restrict herself to very brief analyses of the numerous works under discussion. While these chapters provide a valuable historical review for those new to the field, Alston risks losing those readers in search of a complex or original argument. Her historical review tends toward concise plot summaries linked with brief analyses that emphasize the enduring importance of the family as a locus of disciplinarity and a focus for didactic instruction. Alston seems to hit her stride, however, in the final section; these three chapters explore a series of themes and motifs related to family life: the conception of home, domestic space, and the family meal as an image of emotional sustenance and parental nurturing. Here, Alston develops engaging and extended analyses that shed new light on an array of recent and classic children’s texts. As she convincingly argues here, traditional housekeeping practices and family meals frequently become indices of [End Page 293] a family’s health and viability. While spatial partitioning can offer an illusion of privacy and independence in a child’s bedroom, in fact the so-called bedroom sanctuary serves as a “controlled” space, since its “ownership” is still “vested in the adult” (99). Despite its clear strengths as a valuable and concise historical review, Alston’s work occasionally suffers from an overly reductive thesis. As she repeatedly asserts, “[e]ven in the more modern texts, the traditional family is depicted as desirable,” while “families that deviate from this ideal are depicted as other” (26). Thus, for Alston, “the strict patterns of children’s literature are inescapable” with regard to domestic ideology and familial norms. Whether the families portrayed in individual novels are idealized, mixed, or dysfunctional, they always appear to reinforce the traditional nineteenth-century norms enunciated in such works as Sherwood’s The History of the Fairchild Family or Sinclair’s Holiday House. Such an argument lacks nuance; the more interesting question involves the tension between children’s literature’s undoubted endorsement of traditional norms and its complementary tendency to stray into subversive transgressions of those norms. While it certainly holds a measure of accuracy, the danger of Alston’s thesis is that it risks equating such works as the Fairchild Family, Roald Dahl’s Matilda, and the Harry Potter novels without accounting for their differing degrees of tension as they strive to resolve (or fail to resolve) idealistic familial norms and subversive subtexts. Ultimately, the presence of...

Enabling Environments: Book box

Nursery WorldVol. 2009, No. 6 FeatureEnabling Environments: Book boxPublished Online:4 Mar 2014https://doi.org/10.12968/nuwa.2009.9.6.1092990AboutSectionsView articleView Full TextView EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack CitationsPermissions ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail View articleAbstractAnansi and the Magic Stick by Eric A Kimmel and Janet Stevens (Holiday House) Lazy Anansi stomps off when hard-working Warthog, Lion, and Zebra laugh at his messy house. He tries to steal Hyena's magic stick, which follows his orders, but disaster results. FiguresReferencesRelatedDetails 1 June 2009Volume 2009Issue 6ISSN (print): 0029-6422ISSN (online): 2059-9358 Metrics History Published online 4 March 2014 Published in print 1 June 2009 Information© MA Education Ltd

One Fine Trade (review)

Reviewed by: One Fine Trade Hope Morrison Miller, Bobbi , ad. One Fine Trade; illus. by Will Hillenbrand. Holiday House, 2009 [32p] ISBN 978-0-8234-1836-7$16.95 Reviewed from galleys R 5-8 yrs McGinty, Alice B. Darwin; illus. by Mary Azarian. See review under Markle, Sandra, on p. 370 Miller, Bobbi, ad. One Fine Trade; illus. by Will Hillenbrand. Holiday House, 2009 [32p] ISBN 978-0-8234-1836-7 $16.95 Reviewed from galleys R 5-8 yrs Georgy Piney Woods, the finest peddler who ever lived, has a major task before him; his daughter Georgianne has asked him to trade her horse "for a shiny silver dollar" [End Page 373] so she can buy a dress for her wedding. The loving father sets out and embarks upon a series of trades, first trading the horse for a cow, then the cow for a dog, then the dog for a cypress stick, and so on, until, after a few setbacks, he acquires the dollar; soon enough Georgianne is decked out in a fine ruffled dress and Georgy Piney Woods is headed out to trade in her chicken for a pretty veil. Based on an old folk song, Miller's adaptation offers a rollicking romp along the country peddler's trade route. The story, told in a lively rawboned country style, sticks to its trading-up pattern in the beginning, then makes a playful departure with a dose of magic realism, wherein the cypress stick grows and grows and Georgy Piney Woods is able to make his finest deal yet. The mixed-media illustrations possess sharp pencil outlines, soft watercolor tones, and touches of digital layering pattern; compositions are full of variance in light, shadow, and, most notably, texture, as patterns and shadings stand out in differing degrees. There's a folksy, backwoods feel in the humorous exaggeration and rustic detail that aptly suits the tall-tale feel of the text. The spirited language begs to be read aloud, and little listeners will get a kick out of the motley cast of characters. A brief source note is included. Copyright © 2009 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

The Anne Frank Case: Simon Wiesenthal's Search for the Truth (review)

Reviewed by: The Anne Frank Case: Simon Wiesenthal's Search for the Truth Hope Morrison Rubin, Susan Goldman . The Anne Frank Case: Simon Wiesenthal's Search for the Truth; illus. by Bill Farnsworth. Holiday House, 2009 [40p]. ISBN 978-0-8234-2109-1 $18.95 Reviewed from galleys Ad Gr. 5-7 Despite its Anne Frank–focused cover, this is actually more a biography of Simon Wiesenthal, the Holocaust survivor and Nazi hunter who, over the course of his lifetime, brought more than 1,100 Nazi war criminals to justice. Wiesenthal miraculously survived twelve different concentration camps, kept names of SS guards and their crimes committed to his memory, and later provided this information to the War Crimes Office before launching his mission as a Nazi hunter. A 1958 [End Page 332] event, wherein protesters at a stage production of The Diary of Anne Frank claimed that Frank never existed, compelled him to attempt to prove Anne's reality by tracking down the Gestapo officer who arrested the Frank family. Wiesenthal's story is certainly moving, and the uncovering of the events of the Frank family's arrest makes for some dramatic detective work. Rubin's text is often stodgy and textbooky, though, a tendency enhanced by the annoying use of italics to identify words and terms defined in the glossary ("Anne and the others were sent to concentration camps"). Furthermore, the book never really explains how proving Anne Frank's existence fights broader Holocaust denial. Simon Wiesenthal is, however, a notable figure, and an accessible biography of his life is long overdue. Farnsworth's paintings are literally illustrative but interestingly moody, and their sweep, ranging from three-quarter to full-spread, often dominates the pages, especially in the dramatic portraits. Extensive end matter is included, including a concise two-page biography of Wiesenthal, archival photographs, a list of resources, a glossary, an index, and detailed source notes. Copyright © 2009 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Washington at Valley Forge (review)

Reviewed by: Washington at Valley Forge Elizabeth Bush Freedman, Russell Washington at Valley Forge. Holiday House, 2008 [100p] illus. with photographs ISBN 978-0-8234-2069-8 $24.95 Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 5–8 Freedman and readers revisit the pivotal winter of 1777 to 1778, when newly declared independent Patriots were running long on aspirations for liberty but short on military training, provisioning, and funding. Amid calls for his demotion or resignation, commander-in-chief George Washington kept enough of his demoralized, underclothed, underfed, and underpaid soldiers engaged with the cause to hunker down through the bitterest weather and, with a little help from French and German friends, to train them into a fighting force ready to take on the British by summer. While Freedman does not minimize the heroism of the troops and Washington’s remarkable ability to lead by example, he also incorporates twenty-first-century scholarship that emphasizes the political cabals that threatened to hobble Washington’s career, the tardiness of the Continental Congress to understand field conditions, and the necessity for the general to keep mum about the diminishing size of his army, lest the British take advantage of the worn-down Continentals. The writing is smooth, with a tight focus on the encampment and a judiciously limited dose of background information. Frequent testimony from primary sources, as well as welcome attention to a larger-than-life supporting cast (coverage of the booming von Steuben and his shady past is particularly delightful), push this well beyond standard textbook fare. Plenty of artwork provides rest stops throughout the narrative and, although most of the images were produced well after the events in question, captions occasionally point out egregious romanticization. An index, a Revolutionary War timeline, a selected bibliography, and maps (which, unfortunately, fail to indicate several of the sites mentioned in the text) are included. [End Page 160] Copyright © 2008 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

The Dog Who Saved Santa (review)

Reviewed by: The Dog Who Saved Santa Deborah Stevenson Kelley, True; The Dog Who Saved Santa; written and illus. by True Kelley. Holiday House, 2008; [32p] ISBN 978-0-8234-2120-6 $16.95 Reviewed from galleys R 5–8 yrs It may be the night before Christmas, but Santa’s doing little to help the preparations; the sad truth is that “Santa was a slacker.” His loyal pooch, Rodney, decides he’d better come along on the delivery run, and it’s a good thing, too, since Rodney begins by driving the sleigh and then has to take over the present-schleppage and chimney climbs when Santa conks out. When the public is furious at the shambles of a Christmas, Rodney puts his considerable talents to reforming Santa, and “that’s how Santa learned to be the hardworking spirit of Christmas we know today!” Though the story rambles on a little and the logic doesn’t hold up under close scrutiny (if the Santa-y Santa hadn’t been created yet, why were people disappointed?), there’s too much entertainment here to mind. Rodney is a long-suffering counterpart to the Grinch’s Max but with more drive and executive capability, and the notion of Santa as a couch potato who can’t face what is, in fact, a pretty mammoth job is hilariously heretical (and also understandable to kids who aren’t always keen to bound off the couch for their own labors). Mixed-media art starts with quick, squiggly-lined draftsmanship and adds texture with acrylic paints and colored pencil as well as watercolor. Kelley comically portrays Santa’s North Pole residence as a homey place with a beat-up couch and magnetted mottoes stuck to the refrigerator, and comedic visual elements repay close attention (as in the details of Rodney’s high-powered cubicle, from the pictured reindeer “Employees of the Month” to the volumes labeled “Nice,” “Not Sure,” and “Naughty”). Kids who feel—or would like to pretend—that they’re so over Christmas will find this sly reinvigoration a tasty stocking-stuffer. [End Page 79] Copyright © 2008 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

The Magician’s Apprentice (review)

Reviewed by: The Magician’s Apprentice Elizabeth Bush Heneghan, Judith The Magician’s Apprentice Holiday House, 2008 [168p] ISBN 978-0-8234-2150-3 $16.95 Reviewed from galleys Ad Gr. 4–6 Jago can no longer stomach the abuse he suffers at the hands of Uncle Callow, a boorish, clumsy itinerant stage magician who squanders their meager earnings on gin, and the boy has picked up enough sleight-of-hand technique to run his own [End Page 427] show. Witnessing a late-night graveyard encounter between a young man and woman, however, soon draws Jago into a mystery that seems to involve an embezzled fortune, plighted lovers, a hidden treasure—and certainly results in the murder of Callow. Jago musters up a few conjuring tricks as he dogs serving girl Anna and her kindhearted mistress, hoping to keep the ladies safe from the nefarious Mr. Armbruster, but for the most part his prestidigitation is in disappointingly short supply. Readers find instead a fairly tepid whodunnit that wraps up on a ship to Brazil, with stowaway Jago befriending a helpful child, Cecily (who’s learned a thing or two about deception from her light-fingered mother), and ultimately revealing the perps and victims in a storm-smacked dining-room scene more suggestive of Agatha Christie than magic movies such as The Prestige. Although seasoned mystery fans will recognize the drill in this British import, readers just testing the genre’s waters should find enough misdirection and deceit in these nineteenth-century shenanigans to keep them guessing. Copyright © 2008 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Eggs (review)

Reviewed by: Eggs Elizabeth Bush Singer , Marilyn; Eggs; illus. by Emma Stevenson. Holiday House, 2008; 32p ISBN 978-0-8234-1727-8 $16.95 Ad Gr. 3-4 Listeners who enjoyed Aston's An Egg Is Quiet can step up here to a wider breadth of information, illustrated with comparable delicacy. Singer begins with a brief discussion of eggs fertilized inside and outside the female's body (although she steers pretty clear of mammalian—particularly human—ova), and then turns to differences in shell composition, size, shape, color, number, nesting and protection, brooding, and hatching. There's probably too much data here for readers to absorb in one sitting, and although the topics unfold in orderly fashion, the lack of section headings makes it difficult to identify text breaks. Stevenson's gouache scenes and vignettes recall nineteenth-century naturalists' illustration in their meticulous [End Page 401] attention to detail. When several unrelated animals or eggs share the same page space, however, scale becomes confusing—a mayfly appears approximately the size of a newly hatched chick, and a cockroach is as long as a spiny anteater. The text is well suited to a late primary grade audience, though, and back matter includes such welcome features as an index, a glossary coordinated with italicized terms in the text, source notes, and more than a dozen websites for wildlife protection organizations. Copyright © 2008 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

The Perfect Cat-Sitter (review)

Reviewed by: The Perfect Cat-Sitter Jeannette Hulick Nagda, Ann Whitehead The Perfect Cat-Sitter; illus. by Stephanie Roth. Holiday House, 2007104p ISBN 978-0-8234-2112-1$15.95 Ad Gr. 2-4 When grade-schooler Rana and her family must suddenly fly to India right before Christmas, her buddy Susan is thrilled to take on the job as pet-sitter for the family's cat and fish. Unfortunately for perfectionist Susan, the job is somewhat trickier than she envisions, and it is further complicated by the recurring appearance in Rana's yard of a deer with Christmas lights entangled in his antlers. As she goes about her pet-sitting duties, Susan also completes a school project based on Rana's trip and learns to get along with a difficult classmate. Young readers new to chapter books will find the writing very accessible, but this isn't as strong as Nagda's other adventures featuring this same group of kids. The characters' dialogue is sometimes stilted ("I will spend at least an hour a day at your house, keeping the cat company," said Susan. "Otherwise, Tiger could get very lonely"), the classroom scenes seem intended to instruct readers more than advance the plot ("'I thought lions were only in Africa,' said Richard. 'India has the only lions left in Asia,' said Susan"), and the troubles with the various animals (e.g., Tiger throws up on the carpet, the deer gets into the birdseed) are fairly humdrum (though the cat does take a brief spin in the dryer at one point). Frequent black-and-white pencil and wash drawings of pleasant-looking people and animals add warmth and interest to the rather bland story, however, and young readers may well relate to Susan's struggles with her less-than-perfect achievements. Just as Susan finally accepts the job she has done, readers may also decide that a story that is "pretty good" is "good enough." Copyright © 2008 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

In the Cards: Fame (review)

Reviewed by: The Trouble with Twins Jeannette Hulick Freeman, Martha The Trouble with Twins; illus. by Cat Bowman Smith. Holiday House, 2007 [85p] ISBN 978-0-8234-2025-4$16.95 Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 3-5 The previous In the Cards novel (In the Cards: Love, BCCB 1/07) introduced readers to Anna, Eve, and Syd, a trio of three friends who use a pack of tarot cards to help them find answers about their future, with a different friend getting a card reading in each book. This time it's the turn of mercurial Eve, who's desperate to be a famous actress and dismissive of everything else. When the school decides to stage Cabaret, it's put up or shut up time for Eve, and the cards are suggesting that the production may be the way she finally catches the eye of a producer—or are they? Fredericks demonstrates her usual canny sympathy for her young protagonist, with prickly, self-absorbed Eve a character who's not immediately likable but whose anxieties ("Did everybody get picked for the famous and nobody teams, and I'm with the nobodies?") are familiar and credible. The book gently moves Eve along the experiential road so that she begins to grasp that stardom does actually involve some hard work and smaller achievements along the way, and it's authentic in pulling her ethical limits from a desire to differentiate herself from really mean girls as much as an awareness that the jealous treatment of the show's star is cruel and destructive. As with the previous title, the cards are a convenient device for structuring the narrative without overwhelming it, and the three friends are vivid and varied; the story will leave readers wanting more and happy that they'll be getting it in the upcoming volume focusing on Syd. Copyright © 2008 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

The Ultimate Weapon: The Race to Develop the Atomic Bomb (review)

Reviewed by: The Ultimate Weapon: The Race to Develop the Atomic Bomb Elizabeth Bush Sullivan, Edward T. The Ultimate Weapon: The Race to Develop the Atomic Bomb. Holiday House, 2007182p illus. with photographs ISBN 978-0-8234-1855-8$24.95 R Gr. 6-10 Sullivan ably blends science, political history, and social history in this overview of U.S. efforts to create a weapon to stop Hitler in his tracks, an effort that was ultimately redirected to bring World War II to a definitive end in the Asian theater of war. Sullivan covers U.S. enlistment of the world's leading physicists, the uneasy relationship between Manhattan Project science director Oppenheimer and military director Groves, the construction of three massive, secret cities where the uranium and plutonium bombs were invented and assembled, the world-changing test at Alamogordo, and the devastating deployments at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Although many readers will pick up this title with some prior knowledge of the Los Alamos site of operations, many will find that the information about life in makeshift industrial cities of Hanford, Washington and Oak Ridge, Tennessee breaks new ground. Sullivan concludes with a substantive discussion of reaction among the scientific community to the unleashing of destructive nuclear power, and debate within the political community as to whether bombing an essentially defeated nation was morally justifiable. A wealth of black-and-white photographs are included, as are a bibliography, list for further reading, glossary of terms, source notes, and an index. This should quickly become the go-to book for middle-schoolers researching this facet of World War II. Copyright © 2007 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Jamestown, 1607 (review)

Reviewed by: Jamestown, 1607 Elizabeth Bush Cooper, Michael L. Jamestown, 1607. Holiday House, 2007 [112p] illus. with photographs ISBN 0-8234-1948-7$18.95 Reviewed from galleys M Gr. 5-9 Relying largely on the primary source accounts of colonists John Smith, George Percy, and Gabriel Archer, Cooper retells the story of the founding of the English settlement at Jamestown, the troubled relationship between the Englishmen and the Powhatan people who inhabited the region, and the devastation wrought by hostilities and famine among the first arrivals and those who followed close on their heels. Laudable though the use of primary materials may be, Cooper offers readers little guidance concerning their interpretation, complacently allowing them to take Smith's view of events for granted with no consideration of his probable biases. Although a concluding essay on the sources observes, "The biggest gap is the lack of information from the Native Americans. Everything known about Powhatan's people comes from Europeans who knew little about their language or culture," Cooper does not consult recent scholarship from excavations at and around the fort for newer ideas, however tentative, on Anglo/Indian relations. Even the extensive gallery of historical engravings (no photographs of the current site, or even imaginative reconstructions, are included) reinforces an underexamined Anglo-American take on colonization. Source notes, lists for further reading, and an index will serve middle-school researchers, but it would be wise to encourage them to take a look at Lange's 1607: A New Look at Jamestown (BCCB 3/07) to update and balance their reports. Copyright © 2007 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois