A delectable picnic of picture books, middle-grade and young adult fiction by Hudson Valley authors and illustrators, reviewed by Susan Krawitz, Nina Shengold, and Robert Burke Warren.
Picture Books
26 Pirates by Dave Horowitz
Nancy Paulsen Books, 2013, $16.99
A predictable alphabet book from the creator of The Ugly Pumpkin and Five Little Gefiltes? This Rosendale-based writer/illustrator would rather dance the hempen jig than serve up a standard salute to the score-plus-six letters of the English language. Seagoing scalawags ranging from Pirate Arty to Pirate Zach are depicted in quirky, cut-paper images that offer a humorous counterpoint to the silly rhyming text. Add a crew of expressive frogs and pages loaded with sight gags, and what do you get? Pirates of the...(your kids will gleefully chant the rest). —SK
Happy Punks 1 2 3 by John Seven and Jana Christy
Manic D Press, 2013, $15.95
Berkshires dwellers John and Jana, parents of "free-range rockstar" twins and the author/illustrator team behind 2012's rollicking A Rule Is To Break: A Child's Guide to Anarchy, understand the link between traditionally antisocial impulses and fun. Happy Punks 1 2 3 features mohawked, jet-pack-wearing, blue-haired, multiethnic, male, and female punk rockers finding joy in making very loud music, spray painting garish posters, and shopping in a funky thrift store. Robots, monsters, and animals join the exuberantly colorful illustrations, amplifying this hilarious counting book's whimsy-scale. Little rebels—and parents hoping to encourage individualism—will love this one. —RBW
Hattie McDimple Makes A Wish by Kevin Vincent Kelly
PublishAmerica, 2012, $24.95
Dandelions may be the bane of green-lawn obsessives, but to wide-eyed Hattie, they're "a most beautiful sight." On a barefoot stroll with her country grandmother, she's delighted to hear that the yellow "wish flower" will turn into a white fluff-ball, magically carrying secret wishes aloft. But what should she wish for? Rip Van Winkle Bridge sculptor Kelly's bold graphics and affirmative text weave a fable of generosity. Though PublishAmerica's full-page ad deserves weed-whacking, this home-grown book is as cheerful and bright as the flower it celebrates. —NS
If You Want to See a Whale by Julie Fogliano, illustrated by Erin Stead
Roaring Brook Press, 2013, $16.99
"If you want to see a whale, you will need a window, and an ocean, and time for waiting and time for looking and time for wondering, 'is that a whale?'" So begins this pensive, engagingly wrought musing on patience, focus, and distraction by the Olive-based writer and Caldecott winning illustrator who created 2012's "and then it's spring," winner of the Ezra Jack Keats Award. The illustrations are a wired-age antidote, with small, quiet images set against the largeness of water and sky. Like the duo's first collaboration, this gentle story shines with the luminous glow of a classic book, the kind your children will someday read to children of their own. —SK
Light in the Darkness by Lesa Cline-Ransome, illustrated by James Ransome
Disney Jump at the Sun Books, 2013, $16.99
An African-American woman whispers her daughter's name in the darkness, leading her through moonlit woods. When learning to read is punished by public whipping—one lash for every letter—school must be held secretly, in an earthen pit covered by pine boughs. Award-winning Rhinebeck author Cline-Ransome's suspenseful text and her husband's night-soaked watercolors are a perfect marriage, illuminating the fierce determination of slaves "taking in learning like it's their last breath," and the hard-won pride of a girl who can finally write her own name. —NS
Meet Me at the Art Museum: A Whimsical Look Behind the Scenes by David Goldin
Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2013, $18.95
Bringing children to an art museum is a must for many parents, but walking through endless rooms of don't-touch masterpieces isn't every child's happy place. Well-known Woodstock illustrator David Goldin marries the most engaging element of the experience—the actual artwork—with two characters who take an after-hours tour of the museum's inner workings. Daisy, a docent's name tag, and Stub (yes, he's been ripped in half) illuminate everything from bronze statues to the roles of curator and archivist. Though slightly didactic in tone, this book is a definite do-touch for museum-loving families. —SK
Want to Be in a Band? by Suzzy Roche, illustrated by Giselle Potter
Random House, 2013, $17.99
As one third of the legendary folk pop sister group The Roches, Suzzy Roche spent an adventurous three decades entertaining audiences, from street corners to concert halls. In this charming book aimed at ages 4 to 8, she uses that wealth of experience to convey both the gritty realities of struggle plus artistic satisfactions large and small. Folksy-yet-hip illustrations by the Hudson Valley's own Giselle Potter add gentle humor, showing how a fictionalized version of the Roches—the Thirds–age realistically and gracefully, with sanity and sister-love intact. —RBW
Middle-Grade Books
Dear America: The Diary of Minnie Bonner a City Tossed & Broken by Judy Blundell
Scholastic, 2013, $12.99
Fourteen-year-old Minnette, indentured as a housemaid to pay off her father's debt, moves to San Francisco with the wealthy Sump family. The day after they arrive, the earth shudders, and the city splits apart—it's 1906's Great San Francisco Earthquake. The Sumps, including teenage daughter Lily, are killed. Mistaken for Lily, Minnie goes along with the deception—as an heiress, she could help her indigent mother, and herself. But as the city burns, she realizes this choice will repulse her only friend and attract her father's enemy. National Book Award winner and Katonah resident Blundell has crafted a vivid, emotionally immediate addition to this long-running series. —SK
Family Tree: Better to Wish by Ann M. Martin
Scholastic, 2013, $16.99
During the Great Depression, Abby Nichols grows from an eight-year-old whose biggest problem is how to spend her dime at a small-town Maine fair to a headstrong young woman struggling with multiple suitors and limited options. Beloved Baby-Sitters Club author Martin casts a nostalgic glow without letting readers forget that the "good old days" included casual racism, economic snobbery, and sometimes heartbreaking cruelty. Better to Wish is a moving launch for a quartet of books that will portray four generations carved from the heart of the same family tree. —NS
A Field Guide to Chrysalies: They're Not Faeries! Written and illustrated by Paul Keskey
SeaDragon Press, 2012, $19.95
New Paltz artist and writer Paul Keskey offers a tantalizing bit of backstory for this gorgeous "field guide": In an abandoned Adirondack cabin, he came across the journals of eccentric 17th-century naturalist Garritt Varding, who studied and recorded his interactions with a race of creatures created when moon dust falls on a butterfly chrysalis, i.e. Chrysalies. Among Varding's papers was a magical, amber-encased Chrysalie; once in Keskey's hands, this object opens their world to him, and he dutifully records all he sees, rendering in breathtaking detail their delicate beauty. The lively text covers their habits, lifestyles, and jobs as stewards of nature. —RBW
Young Adult Books
The Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Robin Palmer
Speak, 2013, $9.99
It's never easy having a famous parent, but being the only child of an ex-sitcom star whose drunk-driving arrest just went viral may be its own ring of hell. Teen photographer Annabelle Jackson has looked after her mother Janie–impossibly charming and just plain impossible–for so long she's forgotten their roles are reversed. When Janie pulls herself together for a movie shoot in Hudson, Annabelle has to deal with a new normal...normal. Palmer traces her baby steps toward trust with compassion, warmth, and a welcome dose of humor. (Spoiler alert: Annabelle meets a cool local boy while reading Chronogram.) —NS
Not Exactly a Love Story by Audrey Couloumbis
Random House Books for Young Readers, 2013, $16.99
Poor Vinnie. His crush moves away, his parents divorce, and his mom remarries, relocating him from city to suburb. Snatched from his comfort zone, the 15 year old makes an unsteady leap by phoning Patsy, the dream-girl next door. Unfortunately, he dials at midnight, anonymously (it's pre-caller ID 1977), and when he blurts an expletive, she hangs up. To right his wrong, he starts calling nightly. And it works, until he realizes it's the suave phone persona he created that Patsy's falling for, not the real, zits-and-all Vinnie. Newbery Honor winner Couloumbis crafts a fun, page-turning read that circles tenderly around the heart of teendom. —SK
Rotten by Michael Northrop
Scholastic, 2013, $17.99
Michael Northrop excels at reaching a notoriously remote demographic: teenage boys. With Rotten, he does it again, offering a pitch-perfect first-person tale of troubled teen Jimmer Dobbs, whose mom adopts a rescue Rottweiler; Jimmer names him Johnny Rotten, or J. R. Jimmer's budding relationship with the damaged canine is going okay until J. R. bites one of Jimmer's friends (frenemy is more like it). Jimmer's life—and his single mom's—begins to crumble in the aftermath. Among other stressors, Jimmer's shameful "what I did over summer vacation" secret ekes out, and he must work through understandable hostility and forge difficult, but necessary, relationships. —RBW
Touching the Surface by Kimberly Sabatini
Simon Pulse, 2012, $16.99
This dazzling debut from Dutchess County teacher-dancer-mom Sabatini whisks the reader away to the afterlife, where petulant protagonist Elliot is but a soul, grappling with fellow souls who must face—or, if they choose, ignore—all manner of consequences from choices made in their earthly incarnations. Sabatini creates an exquisitely tangible alternate reality, ordering the cosmos with impressive authorial derring-do, crafting answers to ontological questions with grace, disarming simplicity, and nary a trace of dogma. All while believable teens—teen souls, that is—tangle with affection, selfishness, and doubt. Thought-provoking and romantic, Touching the Surface takes risks with narrative and form, and succeeds on multiple levels. —RBW
You Look Different in Real Life by Jennifer Castle
Harper Teen, 2013, $17.99
15 minutes of fame? Try a decade. Documentary hit Five at Six featured five upstate kindergartners; Five at Eleven revisited them five years later. Now 16, they're about to go under the microscope for the third time, and narrator Justine is not happy about it. Castle's smart, flowing prose burrows deep into her diverse characters' complex lives, their edgy relationships with one another, and the issues of growing up in the public eye. During an unexpectedly dramatic shoot, Justine finds her true role in the documentary—and in real life. Any resemblances to Michael Apted films or college towns near Skytop Tower are strictly enjoyable. —NS
