Children's Book Reviews

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My First Jumbo Book of Things That Go by James Diaz, Melanie Gerth and Francesca Diaz
Scholastic, June, 2003
Hardcover, 10 pages
ISBN: 0375810536
Ages 4-6
Ordering information:
Amazon.com

My First Jumbo Book of Things That Go
by Natasha Anastasia Tarpley, Illustrated by E.B. Lewis

Kids love things that move, especially cars, trains, trucks, tractors and boats. This book, with its cute pictures of vehicles, and interactive features like lift-up flaps, touch-and-feels and pop-ups will definitely appeal to all the world's young engineering minds. The large, colorful drawings show each vehicle in action: the cement truck is pouring cement, the tow truck is giving a car a tow and a train is on the tracks. From engine to caboose, all of the parts of the train are shown. This colorful interactive book also provides educational value by asking the young reader questions like "What loads dirt in trucks?" The answer, "Dump Truck," is provided underneath a flap which kids can lift after trying to first guess the answer from looking at the pictures. The last two pages feature a huge pop-up of an adorable dog dressed as a train engineer. This section of the book lets children sort cards with the pictures of vehicles on them into the appropriate slot, for more educational fun. The movable parts of the book are made of high quality paper, so parents won't have to worry about their kids breaking or tearing them after the first or second reading. Kids will be able to read and play with Things That Go time and time again.

The Second Summer of the Sisterhood by Ann Brashares
Delacorte Press, April, 2003
Hardcover, 373 pages
ISBN: 0385729340
Ages: Young Adult
Ordering information:
Amazon.com

The Second Summer of the Sisterhood is a sequel to the bestselling The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. However, there is no need to have read the first book in order to enjoy the second one. All the rules for wearing the pants are printed on a page before the title page, and the reader is immediately engaged in this fascinating tale that works out the problems that all teenage girls experience with wisdom and just a touch of magic. (Rule one: you must never wash the pants.) The author's prologue introduces the reader to the world of a group of girls whose mothers had all met in the same pregnancy aerobics class and all were due to deliver in September. Thus the girls grew up together with a special bond. As young people still in school tend to do, they all measured time by summers.

There is no item of clothing that has provoked more attention among the young than blue jeans, so it is not asking too much of the reader to believe that a special pair of blue jeans can have a powerful yet individual effect on a group of teen aged girls growing up in the suburbs of Washington , D. C. Blue jeans have united young people around the world, and selecting a pair is definitely a sartorial event fraught with powerful emotions.

The Sisterhood is diverse. Carmen is Hispanic. She lives with her mother in an apartment. Her mother has never married after her marriage fell apart, but Carmen's father married a woman who has a daughter close to Carmen's age. Lena is Greek, and remembers the sad ending to her romance last summer in Greece. Bridget wonders why her father never speaks to her grandmother, who lives in a small town in Alabama. Bridget has lost her interest in her talent for soccer, has stopped exercising and has dyed her blonde hair dark. Tibby is interested in enrolling in a film class at a local college so that she can make a movie about some things very important to her.

Each girl uses the summer to work out various problems. Carmen's mother begins a romance with a lawyer who works in the same firm she does, and Carmen feels uneasy. Lena is overwhelmed when her big romance, Kostos suddenly shows up and is staying with family friends who live close by. Bridget discovers letters and uncashed checks from her grandmother, and Greta and storms at her father for keeping them from her. In disguise, Bridget leaves for a small town in Alabama to get to know her mother's mother from a distance. Bridget assumes another identity so that she can assess what really happened to her mother. Tibby enrolls in the college course and begins to work on her documentary and finds out too late that the detached and unemotional eye of the photojournalist can truly wound loved ones. Throughout the summer the pants are traded back and forth, but they refuse to work exactly as each wearer would like. Nevertheless, as the summer unfolds, each girl in the sisterhood makes a life change.

Reading a book about a group of girls who share their growing up years will delight younger readers and will bring back poignant memories to older readers.

--Sarah Reaves White

The Wolves in the Walls by Neil Gaiman, Illustrated by Dave McKean
HarperCollins, August, 2003
Picture Book, 56 pages
ISBN: 038097827X
Ages 5 and up
Ordering information:
Amazon.com

The Wolves in the Walls
by Neil Gaiman, Illustrated by Dave McKean

Lucy is a sensible girl and when she hears noises coming from inside the walls - "sneaking, creeping crumpling noises" - she knows it's the wolves. But her mother and father dismiss her fears. For as everyone knows, "If the wolves come out of the walls, It's all over." Although no one ever explains what "it" is, certainly "it's all over" sounds dire. Her mom continues to make fresh strawberry jam and her father continues to play his tuba, unaware of the frightening events that are about to overtake their family. For one night, the wolves do come out of the walls (just as Lucy predicted) and the family ends up huddled at the bottom of the garden, homeless. For the wolves are eating all the strawberry jam, playing her dad's second-best tuba and having a riotous party and generally making quite a nuisance of themselves. It is up to Lucy to be the brave one and sneak into the house to rescue her beloved pig puppet, who was left behind in the rush to escape. After Lucy does some initial reconnaissance, she convinces her family to sneak into the walls of the house. Soon after, they come out of the walls, and the wolves run for their lives shouting, "Flee! For once the people come out of the walls, it's all over."

Neil Gaiman, bestselling author of American Gods, Coraline and The Day I Swapped My Dad for 2 Goldfish, has two little girls of his own and he knows how they think. His heroines, such as Coraline and Lucy, are intelligent children who work things out in their own way, in their own time. They tend not to scare easily and think that grownups do some very odd things indeed. Gaiman's children's books are meant to be read aloud: it is then that his true mastery of words, phrasing, sounds and rhythms becomes so apparent. Award-winning artist Dave McKean (probably best known for his work on Gaiman's Sandman series) does a marvelous job with the artwork, using mixed media: collages, photographs and scratchy pen and ink drawings for the scenes where the wolves run amok. He occasionally uses a four-panel style layout, borrowed from graphic novels which adds to the richness and depth of the story. In fact, the illustrations are quite scary, which make a nice contrast for the matter of fact tone that Gaiman uses to relate the inventive and creepy narrative.

Some themes are beginning to emerge from Gaiman's growing body of children's books: the intelligence of the child which is often ignored or overlooked by adults, the fact that many adults don't really listen to what children are saying, children's routine acceptance of things that adults would find frightening or bizarre, the fact that the world really is a pretty scary place and that bravery is something that will keep one in good stead throughout life. Neil Gaiman continues to surprise readers, not only with his prolificacy, but with his depth of talent.

--Claire E. White

Children's Book Reviews
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Children's Book Reviews

My First Jumbo Book of Things That Go by James Diaz, Melanie Gerth and Francesca Diaz

The Second Summer of the Sisterhood by Ann Brashares

The Wolves in the Walls by Neil Gaiman, Illustrated by Dave McKean