Summer Reading Roundup 2009

by Susan Krawitz, Anne Pyburn Craig, Nina Shengold, May 26, 2009

PICTURE BOOKS

Funny Farm
Mark Teague
Orchard Books, 2009, $16.99
Edward the proper Boston terrier makes a mess of things on his first visit to Hawthorne Farm, but who cares? This is a place where sheep brush their teeth, cows play tetherball, and pigs do-si-do at the barn dance. Richly imaged illustrations humorously counterpoint the deadpan text by Columbia County author/illustrator Teague (LaRue for President).

Humpty Dumpty Climbs Again
Dave Horowitz
G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2008, $16.99
From rebel gefiltes to rock-climbing eggs, Horowitz is the grandmaster of eloquent ovals. Humpty’s great fall occurs in an upwardly mobile kingdom whose cliff-top tower recalls Mohonk’s Skytop. Grounded by fear, he bottoms out (literally) before finding the courage to climb again. This read-aloud hoot may be the only picture book ever to mention Tenzing Norgay in its acknowledgments.

Ladybug Girl and Bumblebee Boy
David Soman and Jacky Davis
Dial Books for Young Readers, 2009, $16.99
As any preschooler knows, playing is easy and cooperating with others can be hard, but when Ladybug Girl and her friend Sam argue at the playground, imagination saves the day. When Sam is dubbed Bumblebee Boy, a squirrel becomes a monster, the slide turns into a giant snake, and more bug superheroes appear. Another delightful offering from the Rosendale husband/wife team who created the best-selling Ladybug Girl.

Lazy Little Loafers
Susan Orlean, illustrated by G. Brian Karas
Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2008, $16.95
Orlean’s superbly snarky New Yorker column about the idleness of babies gets a grade-school makeover, as a resentful rant by the big sister of a pampered slacker who gets to “hang out in the park, relaxed and cheerful—and mostly naked.” Dutchess County illustrator Karas wittily saddles the narrator with piles of dull gray homework and a backpack twice her size.

More Pocket Poems
selected by Bobbi Katz, illustrated by Deborah Zemke
Dutton Children’s Books, 2009, $17.99
Port Ewen poet Katz gathers 44 poetic petit fours by Emily Dickinson, Ogden Nash, Jorge Torres, William Shakespeare, and others in this teacher-friendly sequel to her Parenting Book Award winner Pocket Poems. As one of Katz’s own contributions deftly observes, “You can carry a sunset / people, the sea, or a home / neatly tucked inside a pocket / when they’re tucked inside a poem.”