Six Picture Books

There, There. Sam McBratney. Illustrated by Ivan Bates. 2013. Candlewick. 40 pages. [Source: Review copy]

Little Hansie Bear, who loved to pretend, thought it would be fun to walk like a duck. Unfortunately he fell over sideways into a deep-down ditch. He hurt his knee and couldn't get out again. His dad came to help. 

I am not usually one who gushes over Sam McBratney. Guess How Much I Love You is not my favorite or best book ever. But. I really did find myself liking his newest book, There, There. It is the story of a father and son. It is the story of two not-so-good days. It is a tender story about comfort: showing love, giving support, cheering up.

Little Hansie is not having a good day. It starts when he's pretending to walk like a duck, but, that's just the first injury of the day. His father comforts him with hugs and a calm there, there. But Hansie isn't the only one who needs some love. His father, who was NOT pretending to be a duck, needs some love too. And Hansie knows just what to say and do to make his dad feel all better.

I really loved, loved, loved the illustrations. If I didn't love the illustrations so very much, I might not love the book so much. The text is good: very sweet. But the illustrations, for me, make it extra-special.

Text: 4 out of 5
Illustrations: 5 out of 5
Total: 9 out of 10

Bear In Love. Daniel Pinkwater. Illustrated by Will Hillenbrand. 2012. Candlewick. 40 pages. [Source: Review copy]

A bear lived in the woods. He had a little cave, just big enough for him. Every morning, the bear would crawl out of his cave, rub his eyes, stretch, and feel the morning sun. Then he would look around for something to eat.

I really, really adored Bear in Love. Bear is a lovable character. I love, love, love the fact that he likes to make up his own songs and hums. I love his personality. I just do. Someone else must have been watching Bear too. Someone else must think he's special too. For Bear has a secret admirer. Someone who leaves him presents. It starts with one little carrot. But that's just the beginning. Bear likes having a friend, even if he doesn't know who his new secret friend is. Soon Bear starts leaving gifts in return. Will Bear ever stay awake long enough to discover who his new friend is?!

I loved this one. I thought it was a great story. The illustrations, well, I loved them too. There was just something charming about them!

Text: 5 out of 5
Illustrations: 4 out of 5
Total: 9 out of 10

I Haiku You. Betsy E. Snyder. 2012. Random House. 28 pages. [Source: Review copy]

Your everyday song,
my favorite alarm clock--
good morning to you!

I found this collection of poems charming. I did. The poems are short, of course, because they're haiku. I like the emotional nature of the poems. These are poems of joy, of love, of friendship, of family.

For example, I just love this one:
you hug away tears,
making boo-boos all better--
best teddy ever 

Text: 5 out of 5
Illustrations: 3 out of 5
Total: 8 out of 10

Pigs in Pajamas. Maggie Smith. 2012. Random House. 32 pages. [Source: Review copy]

Penelope Pig has been planning a party, a sleepover party for Saturday night. All around town, pigs are putting on pj's. They're packing and snapping and zipping up tight. We're pigs in pajamas, to Penny's we go--in prints, plaids, and pinstripes, a sleepywear show!

Pigs in Pajamas is playful, very playful. It is a celebration of the letter P. If the alliteration in the text doesn't convince you that P is a wonderful letter, perhaps, the illustrations will. Yes, this picture book has illustrations worth paying attention to every little detail.

Overall, I liked it.

Text: 3 out of 5
Illustrations: 3 out of 5
Total: 6 out of 10

Rain! Linda Ashman. Illustrated by Christian Robinson. 2013. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 32 pages. [Source: Review copy]

Rain!
Rain!
"Nasty galoshes."
"Blasted overcoat."
"There goes my hair..."
"Is it raining cats and dogs?"
"It's raining frogs and pollywogs!"
"Hippity-hop!"

Rain has dual narrators. One narrator is a very grumpy old man who does NOT like the rain, not at all. The rain is ruining his day. He's a complainer through and through. The other narrator is a child who LOVES the rain, who is so very excited to go out in the rain and play. When these two cross paths that morning, something happens. Will the old man lose a bit of his crankiness?

I liked this one. It is simple. There isn't a lot of text. The illustrations are very expressive.

Text: 3 out of 5
Illustrations: 3 out of 5
Total: 6 out of 10

The Day The Crayons Quit. Drew Daywalt. Illustrated by Oliver Jeffers. 2013. Penguin. 40 pages. [Source: Review copy]

One day in class, Duncan went to take out his crayons and found a stack of letters with his name on them. 
Hey Duncan,
It's me, Red Crayon. We need to talk. You make me work harder than any of your other crayons. All year long I wear myself out coloring FIRE ENGINES, apples, strawberries, and EVERYTHING ELSE that's RED. I even work on holidays! I have to color all the Santas at Christmas and ALL the hearts on Valentine's day! I NEED A REST! Your overworked friend, Red Crayon

Quite simply, I loved, loved, loved this one. I read it months ago, but, I put off reviewing it because I knew that I could never do it justice in a review. I knew that I could never express just how clever and fun it was. I also knew that I would be tempted to quote from every crayon's letter. I knew that would be too much.

Have you read this one? What did you think? I loved the premise of this one. I liked the creativity of it. I liked the personality of it. And I adored all the "kid art." The ending was very fun!

Text: 5 out of 5
Illustrations: 5 out of 5
Total: 10 out of 10


© 2014 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

Alvin Ho: Allergic to Babies, Burglars, and Other Bumps in the Night (2013)

Alvin Ho: Allergic to Babies, Burglars, and Other Bumps in the Night. Lenore Look. Illustrated by LeUyen Pham. 2013. Random House. 183 pages. [Source: Review Copy]

With each book in the series, I find myself liking the series less. In this fifth book in the series, Alvin Ho is dealing with something tragic: the pregnancy of his mother. I had never thought of Alvin Ho as being particularly stupid and/or hard of hearing, yet, when the book opens with his mother nearly nine months pregnant and him acting as if the news is brand new, I lost respect for Alvin. It is not as if this would be his first younger sibling. If that was the only slight issue I had with the book, I wouldn't have found it that bothersome. But what bothered me the most is the "sympathetic pregnancy" of Alvin, the fact that everyone: his mother, his older brother, ALL of his classmates, his teacher, his mom's doctor, everyone teases Alvin about his fat little belly that looks "eight months pregnant." Granted, not every one who mentions Alvin's pregnancy mentions an exact month. But this teasing about his belly, his weight, made me uncomfortable at best. Alvin and his classmates go to the library and read books on pregnancy; they look at pictures and decide amongst themselves how "far along" each boy is based on the size of his belly. It was just very strange. I could understand how children might get confused and misunderstand the language of adults, or the origin of babies in general. But, when Alvin openly walks around saying things like he's about to have a baby, that he obviously believes his "sympathetic pregnancy" is a real pregnancy and there are no adults in his life (or an older brother even) who tells him the truth, well, it just bothered me. Alvin's gullibility even makes him appear foolish ON television. I don't enjoy cringe-worthy books. The humor felt all wrong in this book. I don't really understand why there was a second story about burglary if there wasn't going to be much resolution to it. Alvin is afraid of enough without adding to it.

© 2013 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

Book of Lost Things (2013)

The Book of Lost Things. (Mister Max #1). 2013. Random House. 400 pages. [Source: Review copy]

I definitely liked The Book of Lost Things. Perhaps I didn't LOVE it as much as The Very Nearly Honorable League of Pirates, but, it was still a very good read. Mister Max is set in England at the turn of the twentieth century.

Max's parents are famous actors in the theatre. The novel opens with his parents receiving an invitation to go on a special tour. It seems a luxurious offer. Max's grandmother, a librarian, feels the offer is too good to be true. Though she's not allowed to look at the actual invitation or the tickets it contained. Max was to be included in the trip, but, he was to meet his parents at the ship before it departed. When he arrives, quite on time, his parents are gone, the ship has gone too. Or so it appears. In truth, the invitation was a trap. The name of the ship was part of the deception, as was the destination. Max has no idea what happened to his parents. They were able to write a quick note to be given to the "boy on the bicycle" (Max), however, which has a message of sorts for him. So Max is partly on his own, partly under the supervision of his grandmother.

This is NOT a book about Max searching for clues as to what happened to his parents. Max is NOT involved in anyway with that search or research. Once his parents have vanished, well, Max's concerns are mainly economic. This is a book about a somewhat creative boy finding a way to make money while he waits for others to solve the BIG mystery of what happens to his parents. He has two or three little mysteries to solve. And at these little mysteries he excels. These little mysteries might be predictable to adult readers. But despite the fact that adult readers may see how the end will come together, the story itself is enjoyable enough. The book has a handful of interesting characters, Max included.

For readers looking for a quest, a desperate boy willing to risk it all and go on a fantastic journey to find and save his parents, you may be disappointed. But depending on your expectations, you might find yourself surprised by how entertaining it is. 

© 2013 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

Two Christmas Books

My Pen Pal, Santa. Melissa Stanton. Illustrated by Jennifer A. Bell. 2013. Random House. 32 pages. [Source: Review Copy]

January
Soon after Christmas, Ava wrote a thank-you note to Santa Claus.
Dear Santa,
Thank you for my Christmas presents. I really like them. But why didn't you eat the cookies I left you? Were you full from the cookies at our neighbors' houses? I'm six years old and I go to kindergarten, or did you already know that?
Love, 
your friend Ava

I really loved this picture book. Ava is a little girl that I just adored. She decides to write a thank-you note to Santa. When he replies, the correspondence continues through all twelve months. I loved this premise. Writing letters to Santa in November or December, very common indeed. But to write to him in April and July? It's one thing to write letters to Santa "asking" (or should I say begging?) for gifts. It's quite another to write chatty letters with Santa, to truly become friends.

Dear Ava,
Thank you for the great drawing. People usually don't think of me on Valentine's Day. Well, Mrs. Claus does, of course, and I think of her. I love giving gifts, but it's also nice to receive them. I say Merry Christmas all year long, so....
Merry Christmas!
Santa

It's a cute picture book. I thought Ava was sweet, and I liked reading Santa's replies. I also loved, loved, loved the illustrations.

The Smallest Gift of Christmas. Peter H. Reynolds. 2013. Candlewick. 40 pages. [Source: Review Copy]

Roland was eager for Christmas Day. He raced downstairs to see what was waiting for him. But when he saw his present, he was not impressed. It was the smallest gift he had ever seen. Had he waited the whole year for this tiny gift? Roland closed his eyes and hoped and wished as hard as he could for a bigger gift.

Peter H. Reynolds is the author of The Dot, Ish, and Sky Color. I have really loved some of his picture books in the past. They are certainly a little different and a bit unique. But that's a good thing.

The Smallest Gift of Christmas is a tale of greed and selfishness. It's a tale of what happens when wishes come true. The first clue that Roland is more than a little greedy comes early. The illustrations on the first page show that Roland's stocking is ten times the size of the other stockings. He must be expecting great things. So his fit when his gift is oh-so-small isn't that big of a surprise. As Roland learns that his wishes are being granted, his true heart is revealed. He is very greedy indeed!

It's a true tale in that I think Roland is a good example of the I-can-never-ever-get-enough-stuff mindset which is a big problem in society. More, more, more, bigger, better, always wanting, never satisfied.

Roland learns his lesson, as you might expect. As he's searching the universe for the biggest and best present ever, he realizes that earth--his home, his family--are very small, very tiny, and so far away as seen through his telescope. In that moment, he realizes that great things can be "small things." His desire for home is just as real as his prior greed.

I definitely liked this one.

© 2013 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

Paperboy (2013)

Paperboy. Vince Vawter. 2013. Random House. 240 pages. [Source: Library]

Paperboy had me at hello. I loved, loved, loved, loved, REALLY LOVED this one. Yes, I'm going to gush about how wonderful and just-right this one is.

Paperboy is set in Memphis, Tennessee, in July of 1959. The narrator is a young boy (11, I think?) who stutters. He doesn't want stuttering to define him. He doesn't think that's fair. He is good at many, many things, like baseball. He is GREAT at baseball. He is good at typing, at writing. He loves words. But his stutter keeps him from loving speaking words aloud. It keeps him nervous and awkward around new people or strangers, people he feels will judge him based on his stutter alone, who will assume that his inability to speak clearly means he's unable to THINK clearly too.

So. The month of July will prove challenging to him for he has agreed to take over his best friend's paper route. Oh, he's not worried about the delivering part. He knows he's got that handled. He's worried about Fridays, about the day when he'll have to go to the door and TALK to people and ask for the money owed. You might think, in some ways, that it would be the first week that would be the most difficult, and that, all other weeks would just be easy after that initial effort. That is only partly true. He does make a friend, a wonderful friend. And he does learn a few life lessons that help him grow up a bit and cope a bit. And, I suppose, you could say that his perspective expands a bit in that he sees that the world is full of people who have problems, who have issues; that every person is dealing with something, struggling with something.

I think I loved the narrator best. The book is in his own words, he's recounting these events. There is something in the narrator's life, a secret that he discovers one day, and it could potentially be big and disturbing--just as there are other events in the novel that could be BIG AND DISTURBING. But this one thing that he wrestles with on his own, quietly meditating on it perhaps, was handled so tenderly and lovingly that it just worked for me. It made a novel that I already LOVED, LOVED, LOVED that much more wow-worthy.

I also loved other characters in this novel. Characters that might have seemed minor, but, were anything but. Characters like Mam, Rat (Art), Mr. Spiro, and, to a certain extent his Dad.

© 2013 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews