A Very Big Bunny

Booklist (November 1, 2009 (Vol. 106, No. 5))
Preschool-Grade 1. Amelia the bunny knows all too well that it’s hard to be different. Despite her parents’ well-meaning assurances, the bunny finds her sizable stature a burden. On the playground, her classmates protest that she is too big to play with the other bunnies, so she spends recess alone. Then one day, Susannah, a pint-size bunny with pluck to spare, arrives in class. Her new classmates claim Susannah’s diminutive size prevents her from playing with them, too, but that doesn’t stop the spirited newcomer from seeking out a friend in Amelia and winning her over with a plan to make the two bunnies stand out in an entirely new way. Imbued with charming details that reward close inspection, Russo’s vivid gouache illustrations are a lively counterpart to the text’s refreshingly real-life tone and spot-on dialogue and classroom situations. A rewarding title for discussions on fitting in, bullying, and accepting and appreciating differences.

Scrapbook Starters

Booklist (December 15, 2009 (Vol. 106, No. 8))
Grades 3-6. “Making a scrapbook . . . is a way to tell a story about yourself with pictures and notes.” This attractive title in the Creative Crafts for Kids series guides young readers through the basics of starting, designing, and maintaining a scrapbook, from choosing a theme to forming a scrapbook club with friends to share the fun. The projects include seasonal suggestions, such as a collage of Halloween memories (suggested materials include candy wrappers and fake spider webs), as well as visual celebrations of friends and family. Boxed tips, supply lists, and full-color photos of scrapbooking kids in action, along with completed projects, add visual interest to each spread; diagrams offer fuller explanations for the more complicated activities, such as a paper-folding technique used to make a multipage, foldout family album. A glossary defines technique and design terms, such as layout and negative space, while a final page includes a short list of scrapbooking Web sites. A solid resource on a popular subject.

Dracula Madness

Booklist (March 1, 2009 (Vol. 105, No. 13))
Grades 2-4. Sam is a sheepdog and a detective, but she is nothing like classic scaredy-dog Scooby-Doo. She doesn’t like having to move to a new town, worries about making friends, and loves to eat weird food combinations that her owners don’t want to give her (such as popcorn with ketchup). Her neighbor and walker, 10-year-old Jennie, can hear Sam’s thoughts, and they get along well. When Jennie takes Sam for a walk and shows her the spookiest house in town, they decide to investigate the reclusive owner, Mr. MacIver. When they see men delivering a large, long box, and they see a strange creature working in the basement, they think MacIver might be Dracula. This graphic novel is an adaptation of Labatt’s prose novel Spying on Dracula (1999). There’s just enough creepiness and suspense for younger readers, with simple yet expressive art that stays just on the lighter side of spooky. A nice choice for young mystery fans looking for graphic novel options.

Lawn to Lawn

Booklist (December 1, 2009 (Vol. 106, No. 7))
Grades K-3. In a plot that hearkens back to Toy Story, seemingly inanimate objects left behind during a move go out into the world and find their grateful owner. The four objects here are lawn ornaments: a flamingo, jockey, troll, and deer. Pearl, the little girl whose lawn they have been ornamenting, has a tea party with them at the start of the book but then somehow leaves without them. On their journey to Pearl’s new home, the ornaments focus on avoiding trash trucks and end up meeting lots of other statuary. Other lawn gnomes and flamingos are very friendly, but a gang of “creepy gargoyles” follows Pearl’s friends until a brave moose statue comes alive and chases the gargoyles away. Yaccarino’s clean, bright illustrations have an appealing retro look, and the trek through suburbs, swamps, fields, and city is a visual treat. The book’s ending is fairly predictable (a child–lawn ornament reunion), but the last twist (the ornaments get through the gated community’s gates via a trash truck) is a keeper.

The Hidden Boy

Booklist (December 1, 2009 (Vol. 106, No. 7))
Grades 3-6. The Flint family, believing they’ve won a vacation in a lottery none of them remembers entering, are instead transported—with their neglected neighbor, Phoebe—to a magical and preposterously confusing land. At the center of the tale is Bea, a gritty girl determined to find her little brother, Theo, who seems to have disappeared as the magic tour bus entered Bell Hoot. To do so, she must mount a fight against warring clans, learn the language of honeybees, and dream about another mysterious boy named Ike. Her parents help by reading and making tattoos. Berkeley’s arch writing and his characters’ hilarious, pathos-inspiring temperaments and abilities make this magical stew both compelling and delightful. His jokes are within the grasp of a third-grader but will also delight adults reading this aloud to children. The world-building is just right for the target readers, who will definitely want more from the Bell Hoot Fables series.

Have I got a book for you!

Booklist (September 15, 2009 (Vol. 106, No. 2))
Preschool-Grade 2. The offer stated in this book’s title is issued by a huckster of a fox in a clashing plaid suit. “I can sell anything!” boasts Mr. Al Foxword, and on each spread, he slyly tries to wheel and deal readers into buying the book that they already hold in their hands. Similar in format to Watt’s Scaredy Squirrel titles, the pages mix text and pictures in creative, unconventional layouts that amplify the goofy humor, as Foxword works himself into a nervous, sweaty frenzy, trotting out every sales cliché along the way. Jokes and interactive fun are the point here, not a solid story, and Watt embeds lots of wordplay into the slapstick scenes filled with Foxword’s body language and verbal manipulations. A closing gimmick will bring even more laughs, though underneath the layers of jokes, kids may very well recognize in Foxword’s wheedling a greatly exaggerated version of their own frustrated negotiations with grown-ups. Give this to Mo Willems’ legions of Pigeon fans.

Groundhog Weather School

Booklist (November 15, 2009 (Vol. 106, No. 6))
Preschool-Grade 3. When the annual Groundhog Day forecast proves inaccurate in Rabbit’s locale, he encourages Professor Groundhog to open a weather school with students from around the continent. Soon they gather to begin their lessons in GeHOGgraphy, Famous Furry HOGnosicators, nature’s weather predictors, burrow construction, seasons, and shadows. Finally, they graduate and head back home to hibernate until the big day. Although a good bit of information about groundhogs is tucked into the text, captions, and speech balloons, the approach is so varied and so often witty that children will absorb the facts effortlessly. One clever double-page spread shows six animals checking off whether they have what it takes to be a weather forecaster (i.e., a groundhog), while another shows four students in panels, month by month, from October to February 2. The amusing illustrations, colorful paintings digitally collaged with found objects and papers, set the tone for this inviting introduction to groundhogs and the holiday named for them.