Children's Book Reviews
Page One of TwoBetsy Who Cried Wolf by Gail Carson Levine
HarperCollins, May, 2002Picture Book, 40 pages
ISBN: 0060287632
Ages 4-8
Ordering information:
Amazon.com
It is through fables, parables, and folk tales
that one generation tries to impart its wisdom to
the next generation. But some of these tales can
become preachy and boring. Enter Gail Carson
Levine, who makes a wonderful leap of skill and
humor to rewrite one of the most famous tales in
such a humorous way that both the adult and the
child will enjoy reading the story together over and over again.
Betsy, who is eight years old, has taken the Shepherd's Oath, and she intends to be the very best shepherd in Bray Valley. Zimmo, the wolf is lonely and hungry, but he has a plan. The sheep act just like a class of third graders: charming, but deficient in good judgment and always close to getting into major trouble. Betsy is very much like a very young, but very determined baby sitter.
Betsy surveys the familiar scene as she takes her charges out into the hills to graze. Sure enough, there is a wolf and he is wearing a muffler, as one of the sheep points out. (Youngsters always notice the oddest things about the rest of us.) Betsy blows her whistle, the villagers drop what they are doing to come to the rescue, and of course when they arrive the wolf has vanished. After all, this wolf has a plan. Betsy is reminded that a long time ago the village had lost a flock of sheep because they had a mischievous shepherd. Of course, as soon as the grownups leave, the wolf reappears. The wolf even howls, so Betsy blows her whistle again. Only a few villagers come, but Betsy has lost all of their confidence. Betsy has to go back to Shepherd's School. In the tradition of resolute young heroines, Betsy becomes even more determined. Of course when she goes out again, encounters the wolf, and blows her whistle no one comes to help her. Betsy must fight the wolf alone. Happily, in her haste to do battle, Betsy drops her lunch pail and her shepherd's pie falls out on the ground. Well, this certainly tastes better than a sheep! Therefore, over lunch, Betsy and Zimmo come to a mutual understanding of each other's point of view and instead of being enemies they form a team of shepherds for the benefit of sheep. After all, shepherd's pie or any kind of lunch beats trying to eat sheep. With this new interpretation of the classic tale, Ms. Levine has probably also told the story of the domestication of the dog.
Scott Nash's humorous illustrations add tremendously to the this wry retelling of the tale of the boy who cried "wolf." The sheep are all individuals, and the illustrations hilariously match up with Ms. Levine's wisecracking sheep. Do not miss all the little cartoons inside the front and back covers, especially the last one deftly hidden under the fold of the dust jacket.
Betsy Who Cried Wolf is a very good choice for those who enjoy a light touch when it comes to cautionary tales and the imparting of wisdom to the very young.
--Sarah Reaves White
Big Mouth & Ugly Girl by Joyce Carol Oates
HarperCollins, May, 2002Hardcover, 272 pages
ISBN: 0066237564
Young Adult
Ordering information:
Amazon.com
Joyce Carol Oates has turned her considerable
talents to writing a novel about teenagers in a
contemporary American high school, and her
portrait of them is both accurate and fascinating.
The American public high school offers a wonderful
experience for the privileged few who are popular,
but the remainder of the student body has to find their
way through the purgatory of adolescence when one
is no longer a child and not yet an adult. This emotional
and physical no man's land must be traversed and then, if
one survives, one emerges stronger and wiser and ready
to take on adulthood. Ms. Oates has entered this world to
tell a compelling story of how two teens, both outsiders,
solve these problems and find solace in a deepening friendship.
Meet Ursula Riggs, who takes after her father who is way over six feet tall. Ursula has made her peace with being anything but a cute, petite charmer like her mother and her little sister. Ursula, who is a top student, decides to become Ugly Girl, big, roughly dressed and definitely defiant. No one messes with big Ursula because she doesn't care what others think of her and she definitely does not put up with anyone, and that includes teachers. Ursula has her hair cut short, and lots of earrings in her ears. She is the best basketball player on the girls' team, and she plays with skill and ferocity. Ms. Oates lets Ursula tell her story in first person.
Matt Donaghy is also a top student who likes to make people laugh. He is tall and gangly, freckle- faced and pretty much a straight arrow. Matt writes for the school paper and has been elected vice president of his class by a margin of eleven votes. Matt's story is told in the third person because he is much less self-absorbed than Ugly Girl. One day in the lunchroom Matt jokes that if his play is not chosen for the drama festival, what might he do, blow up the school? His friends all laugh because Matt is a just being silly. Unfortunately, he has been overheard and his innocent joke is taken so seriously that he is arrested. Matt is dumbfounded, and his family is devastated. Rumors fly all over the school and everyone is excited and full of groundless speculation. Suddenly, Matt is a pariah, and he is deserted by all his friends. Only Pumpkin, his beloved dog, does what all good dogs do. She keeps Matt company and she does not judge. But Pumpkin cannot discuss all the emotions racing through Matt's head, and he feels deserted by everyone. Then he receives and email from Ursula Riggs. Ugly Girl does not like the injustice of how Matt has been treated, so she has decided to make a stand.
Ms. Oates skillfully takes the reader through the emotions, self-doubt, and rage that come with the teenage years. The characters reveal their innermost feelings through emails, most deleted, but some sent. The story moves along as both students develop as they suffer through rejection and betrayal and become stronger. The understanding that this writer brings to this story will be appreciated by young readers, and it will be revealing to adults who must watch the new generation deal with problems that they never had to face.
--Sarah Reaves White
Destination: Space by Seymour Simon
HarperCollins, April, 2002Picture Book, 32 pages
ISBN: 0688162894
Ages 5 and up
Ordering information:
Amazon.com
The Hubble Space Telescope (HST), has continued
to bring us stunning photographs of worlds that exist
beyond our imagination. Seymour Simon, author of
many acclaimed children's books on space, is our guide
in this beautiful and informative book on the latest
knowledge that we have gained from this telescope in
space. The value of HST is that it can send back pictures
from space without the light pollution that we have to
deal with on earth.
Each stunning photograph shows us places undreamed of by our most creative flights of fancy. Turn a page and an even more fantastic photograph awaits; the explanations of the phenomena in the photographs is explained in easy to comprehend language. Each page will add to the reader's vocabulary and understanding of what we are discovering on a regular basis from HST. Photographs of the Eagle Nebula show columns that are blisters on the side of cold, dark gas. The Eagle Nebula is a star-forming part of our own Milky Way. Another page shows a "butterfly" nebula, so beautiful and ethereal that the imagination is stretched. Mr. Simon explains that it may be caused by a very close pair of stars and that one may be swallowing the other. On another page we see a color photograph of a collision of two galaxies. The beauties of these photographs soon exhaust our feeble vocabularies and ability to describe. These sights must be experienced by the young space travelers of tomorrow. It can never be forgotten that we are educating our children to live in worlds we have yet to experience ourselves.
It is easy to see why Mr. Simon is such an acclaimed author of science books for children. A young person who reads this book will be brought up to date on all our latest discoveries about the universe beyond our beautiful blue planet. Perhaps we cannot go there yet, but the dream of doing so must be nurtured, and Mr. Simon is the author to do it. Actually, the adult reader can be brought up to date on the explosion of discoveries about what awaits us beyond our own solar system. Destination: Space is a book that a child will enjoy and it will be equally enjoyed by the adult looking over his shoulder.
--Sarah Reaves White
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