Not So Tight! Hugs from Pearl by Paul Schmid

PEARL IS SWEET. SHE'S A VERY GOOD FRIEND.

SHE PLAYS FAIR. SHE SHARES HER LUNCH TREATS, AND BEST OF ALL....

PEARL LOVES TO HUG!

But Pearl is not perfect. Pearl's problem is that she is prickly. No, she's not a petulant or pugnacious or persnickety personality. Pearl's problem is that she is a porcupine!

Her classmates say "OUCH!" a lot. Her teacher keeps the Band-Aids handy. Soft-hearted Pearl prefers not to hurt anyone, and her quillaciousness is getting in the way of her personal relationships. What to do?

She tries long hot baths to soften the quills. She pokes pincushions on the offending points. She even talks her mom into a butch-style quillcut. But none of these procedures are permanent solutions to the prickly problem. But Pearl is persistent. She perseveres at her search for a solution, and one day, observing bees working around a thorny rose bush, she comes up with a compromise that cuts down on the need for so many Band-Aids at school.

Paul Schmid's newest, Hugs from Pearl (Harper, 2011), takes a look at personal problems that flow, not from what kids do so much as from what they are. Kids are tall, short, nearsighted, shy, clumsy, and a whole passle of physical characteristics that can affect relationships, and Pearl is a porcupine who takes her innate prickliness in hand and finds a useful work-around to deal with it. Schmid's illustrations are simple, funny, and telling, pointing up this character's real dilemma and her courage in taking ownership of it and persisting in finding a solution. Pearl is a girl whose loving nature shines through in a sweet and satisfying story.

For more giggles, pair Pearl with Deborah Underwood's A Balloon for Isabel, reviewed here for a pair of sisters-above-the-skin, a prickly pair of porcupine protagonists who find a way to make their quills work for them.

Love Grows! Plant A Kiss by Amy Krouse Rosenthal

IT GOES LIKE THIS.

LITTLE MISS

PLANTED A KISS.

Amy Krous Rosenthal's and Peter Reynolds' new Plant a Kiss (Harper, 2012) begins with a silly bit of wordplay, in which a girl "plants her kiss" in a freshly dug hole in the ground and tends it carefully, and ends with a sophisticated symbolic representation of love, a sparkly vaporous representation of the concept which drifts across the surrounding world. It's a kind of sleight of tongue and pen that manages to work, thanks to Rosenthal's carefully lean language and Reynolds' illustrative art, which, without a single kiss, buss, or smooch or smack, without a single hug, caress, squeeze, or embrace, manages to convey the essence of love in its most rarified state. Little Miss's gardening technique is equally spare.

SUNSHINE. WATER.
GREET. REPEAT.

No one expects much from her plantings, but amazingly love blooms, and Little Miss scoops the love up in her bright red bowl to give to all. The observers are not sure that such largess is well conceived.

"DON'T DARE! IT'S TOO RARE!"

But when all the love is given away, when our Little Miss returns...

...ENDLESS BLISS!

Zen, Occam's razor, or a simple application of the theory of less is more, whatever, Rosenthal and Reynolds manage to carry off this picture of the way love grows in a little book that, shows that the more you give away, the more you get and, well, speaks volumes.

'S No Valentine: Snowy Valentine by David Petersen

On a snowy Valentine's Day, Jasper Bunny still could not think of a gift good enough for Lilly. Jasper loved his wife very much, so he couldn't give her just any old gift.

Ah, a common dilemma. The greater the devotion, the harder the choice.

Jasper decides to seek the wisdom of the group and sets forth down the steep hillside in the snow to see what kind of Valentine gifts his neighbors are giving their near and dear.

The Porcupines are settled around a cozy fire, with all seven porcupine pups knitting away on a scarf for their mama. They are all too happy to teach Jasper their art, but Jasper is all thumbs, and after extricating himself from the tangled yarn, concludes that knitting is not for him.

Marion the Frog's window glows with yellow light and she eagerly shows off her special gift for her beloved--a heart-shaped box stuffed with hand-dipped chocolate-covered flies.

"Definitely not something my Lilly would enjoy!" Jasper muses.

Jasper plods on through the snow and meets up with Everett Raccoon's colorful gypsy caravan, his bouquets in full display, hoping for a last-minute Valentine's Day sale. But, alas, the flowers have wilted in the chill, and frost-bitten posies don't exactly make the statement he's after. Jasper trudges on through the snow until he comes to the cottage of Teagan the Fox, his mullioned windows glowing with firelight inside. Teagan welcomes him warmly and quickly ushers him inside. But then, things take an unfortunate turn:

"I do understand," says Teagan with an ingratiating smile. "I myself have been hunting all day for a Valentine's gift to impress my vixen, Faith--

And I think rabbit stew would be just the ticket!"

Egad! Things have come to a pretty pass, Jasper muses, as he finds himself literally in the soup! Either Faith Fox or Lilly Rabbit is going to be seriously disappointed on this Valentine's Day!

But love will find a way, and there will be a Valentine surprise in store for Lilly and for readers in David Petersen's Snowy Valentine (Harper, 2011)--a huge heart-shaped Valentine in the snow, created by Jasper's faithful tracks, and Lilly's happiness will be complete.

David Petersen, whose graphic style is familiar from his popular Mouse Guard series, is at his best in his first color picture book. Although his plotline breaks no new trails through the well-trodden February story snowscape, his illustrations, black-line drawings, bright with delicate and luminous watercolor, have great charm, evoking hobbit-y homes or the seven dwarves' cozy cottage: Miriam Frog's little random-stone house features rounded glowing windows, their mullioned panes forming spiderweb shapes, and Petersen's interiors recall the snug dwellings of Frog and Toad, Winnie the Pooh, and other classic characters. Publishers Weekly also puts Petersen in very good artistic company, writing "Petersen’s storytelling and artwork offer hints of Beatrix Potter and Kenneth Grahame. It’s a world that readers will be happy to lose themselves in."

Doing Chores for Abe: Abe Lincoln At Last! (Magic Tree House #47) by Mary Pope Osborne

The third thing to break the spell
is a single feather from a hero's hand.
Use it wisely to give him hope--
the hope he needs to heal his land.

The Magic Tree House whisks Jack and Annie back in time on their third Merlin Mission, back to 1861 at a momentous time in the nation's history. On the brink of war with the southern states, Abraham Lincoln and his family have just moved into the White House. When Jack and Annie land in a tall tree, they see a crowd flocking into the President's House for a gala reception, many of the mob hoping to meet with the President and plead their own cases. Jack and Annie wonder how can they even find the President in such a clamor. Abe Lincoln is obviously the hero, but how do they find this mysterious feather, and how can it give him hope at this perilous moment in history?

But as they start down the rope ladder, they are attacked by a small whirlwind in the form of a little boy, a very bossy boy, and his gentle older brother.

"Hello!" the boy shouted when he saw Jack and Annie. "Who are you? Why are you in our tree house?"

"It's not your tree house!" said Jack.

"Yes it is!" the boy said confidently.

"Tad, hush!" said the older boy. "Don't mind my brother Tad!" he shouted.

"But it's ours!" Willie!" said Tad. "The White House is our house! And the tree house is in our yard! I'm coming up!"

But their meeting with the excitable Tad and his brother Willie turns out to be lucky for Jack and Annie, who do get a promise of a meeting with their dad Abe later when he goes for his daily ride. For insurance, though, Jack and Annie take a sip from the magic potion left for them in the tree house and make a wish to meet Lincoln and fulfil their mission.

But Jack and Annie find it hard to "trust the magic" as they suddenly find themselves in a forest, meeting a dirty, tousle-haired boy who calls himself "Sam" and promises to take them to Abe Lincoln when he finishes grinding his corn at the mill. Then, to their horror, Sam's horse kicks him in the head and they find themselves compelled to take him home on that same balky horse and try to do his chores while he rests his aching head. Chopping wood, getting water from a spring, milking Sam's cow and making cornbread for dinner turn out to be more than they can handle, but all ends well, as Sam's father returns from a long absence in Kentucky with a new wife and a wagon full of goods, including books for Sam to read. In gratitude for their help, Sam gives them his favorite quill pen and inkwell of blackberry ink.

Just as Sam begins to explain that he's been playing a prank on them, the magic ends and Jack and Annie find themselves hurled through time back to the lawn of the White House, where President Lincoln greets them warmly, saying he remembers them from the time when he was a boy and they helped him home and tried to do his chores.

"I spent the day with you once long ago," said the president. "And you vanished, right before my eyes, outside our log cabin in Indiana."

"You were Sam?" said Jack.

Lincoln smiled. "I haven't seen you since that day so long ago. And you haven't changed at all. Why have you come back?"

Jack realizes he knows how to answer, what to say to fulfil their mission, and taking the feather pen, he writes a message for the troubled new President.

Never lose hope. This land will live peacefully as one nation one day. With freedom for all. You have our word.

Mary Pope Osborne continues her best-selling beginning chapter series with her latest, Magic Tree House #47: Abe Lincoln at Last! (Random House, 2012), just in time to honor Lincoln on Presidents' Day, with a message of hope that is still good to hear today. For teachers and students doing research, there is as always a companion nonfiction title,
Magic Tree House Fact Tracker: Abraham Lincoln: A Nonfiction Companion to Magic Tree House #47: Abe Lincoln at Last! (Random House, 2012).

Counting Valentines: 10 Valentine Friends by Janet Schulman

LISTEN, KIDS (BABY, TOO)!

IT'S TIME TO SAY "I LOVE YOU!"

It's the time when creative kids pull out the construction paper, doilies, glitter glue, and scissors and make some Valentines for friends. The late Janet Schulman's latest (and regrettably last) holiday counting book has her little crafters hard at work, making personalized cards and decorating the house for the big Valentine's Day celebration. Annie Lee draws squishable slugs for Patrick, who likes bugs, Baby, who loves her cat, gets a missive from Alex with her cat in a hat, and Baby responds with her best scribbles for everyone:

TOM'S SECRET CRUSH ON ANNIE LEE

INSPIRES A BLOOMING VALENTINE TREE.

All this creativity ends in a Valentine's Day party for all ten kids, and in Schulman's 10 Valentine Friends (Alfred A Knopf, 2011), you can count on a lovely time for all when the friends celebrate Valentine's Day together.

Schulman's earlier holiday counting books include 10 Easter Egg Hunters: A Holiday Counting Book, 10 Trick-or-Treaters, and 10 Trim-the-Tree'ers, all notable rhyming counting board books for the youngest holiday celebrants.

Together or Apart: The Kiss Box by Bonnie Verburg

MAMA BEAR WAS ALWAYS HOME, AND THAT IS HOW LITTLE BEAR LIKED IT.

BUT SOONER OR LATER, ALL MAMA BEARS NEED TO GO AWAY, EVEN IF IT'S JUST FOR A LITTLE WHILE.

Loss is one of life's verities, and even little bears know that somehow.

When Mama has to go away for a few hours, Little Bear knows that that's not a good thing for baby bears. Mama Bear tries to soothe him with a special picnic that morning where they fish and find all kinds of fun. But still Little Bear is not really consoled.

"I MISS YOU ALREADY," HE SAYS.

Mama tells him she will miss him and think about him all the while she's gone, but although he believes her, it doesn't stop his pain at the thought of her absence. Mama Bear suggests that they make a special jar which she will fill with a hundred kisses so that he can take have them whenever he wants. Still, Little Bear is not quite reconciled to the idea. An envelope of kisses does not do it for him either. A hundred kisses on his fingertips won't work. Mama begins to worry.

Then Little Bear comes up with his own idea.He will make his own secret kiss box and fill it with kisses for her to take along.

"SURPRISE! HERE'S A KISS BOX FOR YOU. NOW YOU MAKE ONE FOR ME!"

Little Bear instinctively understands that love is best kept as a two-way street in Bonnie Verburg's first picture book, The Kiss Box (Orchard Books, 2011), so ably illustrated by the notable Henry Cole. Verburg, esteemed editor of many famous books by authors such as David Shannon, Jane Yolen, and even Dav Pilkey, writing from a similar experience with her own children, has here one of the best of the many books dealing with separation anxiety for youngsters, capturing the universal theme here with ease and grace and reminding us of that bittersweet truth:

TOGETHER OR APART, OUR LOVE GOES ON AND ON.

Great Expectations! Pinkalicious: Pink of Hearts by Victoria Kann

At the party I had fun eating heart-shaped cookies, but I couldn't stop thinking about the secret valentine exchange. I knew that somewhere in the art room was a one-of-a-kind valentine with my name on it.

Pinkalicious gets lucky. In the drawing for Valentine partners, she draws her best friend Alison. The Princess of Pink is feeling "in the pink" as she and little brother Peter design a special Valentine for Allison--a BIG pink heart, with lace and beautiful designs surrounding a smaller lace-encased pink heart. Pinkie prints her message, "HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY, ALISON!" She adds plenty of glitter and even a spritz of pink perfume to her proud creation:

"PINKTURESQUE~" said Mommy.

"VALENTINALICIOUS!" said Daddy.

"Yuck!" said Peter, surveying the mess. "It looks like a PINK-STY in here!"

Allison is truly pleased with her elaborate Valentine. But then she hands Pinkalicious a plain-Jane envelope with a simple pink crayoned heart on a ripped-out piece of notebook paper inside.

It is not exactly what Pinkie expected. It looks like Allison spent about half a minute on this Valentine for her. Does this minimalist Valentine mean Allison isn't her best friend anymore?

But as Pinkalicious carelessly drops the stripped-down Valentine on the floor, she notices something more inside.

It was a poem that Allison had written for me.

In Victoria Kann's frothy Valentine's Day easy reading story, Pinkalicious: Pink of Hearts (HarperFestival, 2011), Pinkie gets the message: people are creative in different ways, and Allison has used her unique talent to prepare a special Valentine just for her that shows that she is a good friend indeed. With a bonus of eight sturdy tear-out Valentines and a slew of stickers with which to personalize them on board, this pinkanista paperback is a complete Valentine's bundle inside its covers, but one with a nice message about the different ways of being a friend.

Pair this one with Kann's recent Pinkalicious: The Princess of Pink Slumber Party (I Can Read Book 1) for a perfectly pink holiday party, or, even better, to probe the meaning of primary-grade friendship a little deeper, pair it with Diane deGroat's insightful holiday favorite, Roses Are Pink, Your Feet Really Stink.

Not Cool! Hothead by Cal Ripken, Jr., and Kevin Cowherd

What happened next felt like a dream--or maybe more like a nightmare. Don't do it! he told himself, but already he was screaming "No-o-o!" and tearing the glove off his left hand and sailing it high in the air over Willie's head.

In a flash the umpire bolted from behind home plate, tearing off his mask. "That's it, son! You're outta here!"

Stomping across the first-base line, Connor snarled at Jordy. "You couldn't jump any higher for that throw? My grandma could've caught that!"

Connor Sullivan seems to have it all. He's the best fielder and hitter in his Babe Ruth league, his teammates are solid in their positions--except for their screw-up-prone sub, Marty Loopus--and they have the best shot in the league to beat the Red Sox for the championship. Connor has a coveted bid tucked away at home to attend the prestigious Brooks Robinson summer camp. And cute middle school sports writer Melissa Morrow seems to have more than a professional interest in the story she's doing featuring him.

But if things are good in shortstop territory, they are troubling at home. Connor's dad has been out of work for over six months, his mom is working overtime at the hospital to try to take up the slack, and Connor can't help overhearing his parents' worried, whispered fears that they could lose their house. Money for baseball camps doesn't look like a possibility, and Connor can't seem to leave all that behind when he goes on-field.

And suddenly Connor feels like a spectator to his own out-of-control displays of anger on the playing field. At first they are directed at himself when he makes a blooper, but then in horror he hears himself berating his best friend Jordy for not fielding an impossibly wild throw to him at first base.

And Melissa, who is as passionate about her journalism as Connor is about baseball, hints that her story line may change to a chronicle of his his temper displays. Now Cooper also has to worry about whether his hotheaded antics will be the next gone-viral video on YouTube.

In his first in a planned series, Cal Ripken, Jr., and co-author Kevin Cowherd, have constructed a sports novel whose elements will be familiar to fans--a top-notch player whose real challenge is controlling his own emotions, a family situation which doesn't help, an arch rival on the other team, in this case the loutish Billy Burrell who throws beanballs as well as smoking strikes and calls him "Psycho Boy," and the intriguing girl reporter whose eyes he feels on him everytime he takes to the field.

In his first at-bat as a author, Cal Ripken, Jr.'s All-Stars: Hothead (Cal Ripken Novels) (Hyperion, 2011), Ripken navigates these familiar waters, so well charted by Matt Christopher, Tim Green, Mike Lupica, et al, unapologetically, with the added bonus of grace notes of real humor between the members of the Orioles' team, led by the self-deprecatory humor of the ever-game bench-rider, Marty Loopus, whose infectiously funny asides make him a perfect foil for Connor and one of the story's most engaging supporting characters. Here's Marty, doing his thing when Connor returns from his well-earned suspension:

Marty Loopus walked up to Connor, put both hands on his shoulders and looked him squarely in the eye.

"Playoffs start next week,"he said solemnly. "Promise me you'll control that famous temper of yours? Or do I have to keep carrying this team all by myself?"

You gotta love a baseball novel in which even the team's doofus bench sitter shows both humor and a passion for the game, a quality which Ripken gracefully rewards when he gives the bumbling Marty a shot at the catch that could seal the championship for the Orioles. "Fans of Mike Lupica and Matt Christopher will be thrilled," School Library Journal says, and these same fans will be looking forward to the next season of follow-up fiction from Ripken.

X0X0X0! Big Hugs and Little Hugs by Felicia Bond

HAMSTERS HUG.

HIPPOS HUG.

EVERYONE HUGS ALL OVER THE WORLD!

Doting parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts--hardly anyone needs an excuse for giving a cute little one a hug, but just in case they need an occasion to honor the opportunity Valentine's Day offers, notable picture book artist Felicia Bond (illustrator of all of Laura Numeroff's best-selling If You Give A series), has a brand-new title, Big Hugs Little Hugs (Philomel, 2012).

Cheery rhyming text and Bond's familiar art style will please fans of Numeroff's popular books, and no one will be able to resist giving or returning their own Big Hugs Little Hugs after enjoying the process with penguins and pandas, lions and dinos, and other critters. Ants and turtles may not actually hug, but most of us mammals do, in our own way, and we humans enjoy it all our lives, and, as Bond says, all over the world.

Drop-Dead Romance: Zombie In Love: by Kelly DiPucchio

MORTIMER WAS LONELY.

CUPID'S BALL WAS JUST A WEEK AWAY, AND HE DIDN'T HAVE A SWEETHEART.

But Mortimer the Zombie is nobody's sweetheart now.

Not for lack of trying, mind you. Mortimer just can't seem to get the hang of romancing the lasses. He tries a nice red heart--freshly-extracted and still barely beating--but the girls just run away screaming. He tucks his favorite pet worms into the coffin-shaped box of chocolates he presents to one charming chick, but she flees the page in fear and trembling. His gift to the cute waitress at the diner--a diamond ring (still on its former owner's finger)--goes over like a lead-lined casket. His want ad in the lovelorn column of the classifieds--"TALL, DEAD, AND HANDSOME"--inexplicably goes without a reply.

But Mortimer is a swain not easily dissuaded. Dateless but undaunted, he decides to go stag to the ball. He heads off to shop for a new suit--at the nearby undertaker's parlor--and sets off for Cupid's Ball, full of unrequited desire and high hopes.

The joint is jumping, with cavorting couples crowding the dance floor. Mortimer takes up a hopeful stance near the refreshment table, hoping to spot a similarly stag damsel who's looking for a dance partner, but his best greenish smiles and wormy roses seem to discourage snacking and sends the lovelies loping for the nearest ladies' lounge. Soon nobody seems to be in the mood for punch and cookies.

The crowd thins, the band goes into their "goodnight, ladies" repertoire, the staff begins to sweep up, and it looks like Cupid's Ball is going to be a bust for poor lonely Mort.

But then a solitary girl straggles up to the punch bowl and gives Mortimer a hopeful smile--a gorgeously green smile. Never mind that she spills the punch, falls flat on her face, and breaks off a leg in the process! Mildew Mildred is obviously Mortimer's true love, and after they dance the night away (once she reattaches her foot), they go out for a romantic walk through the graveyard, (detached) hand in (detached) hand, and the two soul mates drive off in their very own limo:

HIS AND HEARSE!

In the perfect antidote to hearts and flowers fiction, Kelly Di Pucchio's drop-dead funny Zombie in Love (Atheneum, 2011) takes the zombie lit craze to a whole new level. Filled with Scott Campbell's wry sight gags and dreary palette which gives black humor a new lease on life, this spoof on the lonely-guy-meets-girl love story will evince a gaggle of gross-out giggles, punctuated with "eeeuuuwwws" and "yucks," from kids in the primary grades who find the whole love thing a bit "grossening" anyway. A great little storytime treat with some heart-y har-hars for the pre-Valentine season.

Besame Mucho! The Biggest Kiss by Joanna Walsh

KISSES ON NOSES,

KISSES ON TOESIES,

SUDDEN KISSES WHEN YOU LEAST SUPPOSES.

In her just-published The Biggest Kiss (Paula Wiseman Books) (Simon & Schuster, 2011) Joanna Walsh doesn't hesitate to go for sweet and cute in her new book celebrating the kiss.

"Everybody's doing it!" she seems to be saying, and her free-wheeling rhyming text playfully pulls out all the stops, varying meter and rhyme scheme, but sacrificing nothing in a headlong tour of the animal kingdom. Frog princes sell kisses to assorted fauna, and ants share a smooch perched on an azure elephant's trunk, while the elephant reaches off-page for a buddy to buss.

DO WORMS KISS UNDERGROUND,

WITH THE SOIL ALL AROUND?

But after a romantic roam through the animal kingdom, Walsh brings it home, with a the mother penguin narrator cuddling her little one with a reassuring penguin kiss:

BUT THE BEST KISS...

... IS A KISS FROM YOU!

The fun of Walsh's joyful verse is extended by Judi Abbott's cuddly, rounded critters and bright palette, producing an altogether heart-y book for sharing between adults and little ones.

That Mountain Music: Passing the Music Down by Sarah Sullivan

"Will you teach me all your tunes?.....I want to play like you."

It could be any time and any place. A child with his instrument and a passion for music stands before a master player and asks to be taught what he knows. Passing the Music Down (Candlewick Press, 2011) by Sarah Sullivan begins in a particularly American time and place.

They travel over twisty mountain roads to where banjo pickers make music under the stars... to the old, old mountains...slumbering east of Tennessee.

Come to hear a man lift his body and set their spirits free.

Sullivan's lyric free verse tells the true story of young Jake Krack, whose family drives him from his home in Indiana to meet Melvin Wine, the mountain fiddle player from whom he will learn everything the old man knows. Jake is taken in as a student and as an apprentice sits at the feet of the master until his skills mature and Melvin has passed all his music down, down for one more generation which will keep it alive and take it forward into the future.

Sullivan includes historical and biographical notes, a bibliography and discography, as well as a list of videos and web sites which provide the young student of American folk music sources for further study. But the real appeal of Passing the Music Down is the story of the long, long stream which is American music represented by, but not limited to, the real people she portrays. Veteran illustrator Barry Root's soft, stylized watercolor illustrations add to the gentle mountain mood of this book. Pair this one with Gary Golio's recent When Bob Met Woody: The Story of the Young Bob Dylan (Little, Brown, 2011), (see my review here) for another accessible look into recent musical history for young readers.

X-Dog Martha: Secret Agent Dog (Martha Speaks) by Susan Meddaugh and Jamie White

UH-OH! I'd been caught red-pawed.

I fled the scene. I didn't stop running until I'd reached the chief's office. (Do two-legged spies run this much? Where's my fancy car with the windows open and the top down?) I delivered K9-001's message.

"November 29-X?" the Chief repeated.

"That's right. He said it was a code."

"It certainly is, Martha! The case is cracked." The Chief shook my paw.

"Congratulations, Martha! You saved the soup!"

Martha loves a mystery, and when she is summoned by a mysterious pair in dark suits, dark glasses, and a dark limousine, she is delighted to be told that because of her special abilities, she has been chosen by spymaster The Chief to go undercover as a guard dog in the Granny's Soup headquarters. Rumors are circulating that a nefarious band of industrial spies are plotting to get their hands on Granny's secret alphabet soup formula. Martha is on board with the force right away: after all, she's always dreamed of the glamorous life of a secret agent, and besides, she needs that soup daily to keep on talking.

On the job as K9-002, Martha is disappointed that the role doesn't come with a tuxedo, dark glasses, and toilet water martinis, but she willingly agrees to work with the force's K9-001, guard dog Ruff, a rugged Rottweiler already in place at the factory. On her first night of surveillance, Martha, playing a friendly nighttime watchdog, observes the janitor picking the lock to Granny's office, where the secret formula is kept safe in the, um, safe, to which only Granny herself knows the combination. Certain that she has uncovered the undercover agent, Martha and Ruff take the news to Granny, and watch as she rushes to open the safe and make sure her formula is still there.

It is, and when Ruff tells Martha a secret code to capture the crook (the bilingual Martha speaks dog, remember?), she rushes to report it to The Chief. Mission accomplished. Case closed, thanks to souper-dog Martha, she thinks.

But no. Martha soon learns that The Chief was an impostor who played upon her desire to be a secret agent. Ruff, Agent K9-001, was actually part of the mastermind's plot. He observed the combination Granny's safe (which Martha's owner Helen quickly decodes as 11-29-10) and used Martha's ability to translate it into human talk to get it to The Chief, who then knew all he needed to rip off the recipe and end Granny's Soup's preeminence as Numero Uno in the soup biz.

Martha mopes for a minute or two, but then decides it's up to her to save Granny's Soup and keep herself in place as the world's only talking dog, even if it requires really going undercover, disguising herself as a pink poodle and infiltrating The Chief's operation. But this time, it's not Martha's linguistic skills or becoming a master of disguise that save the day--it's her good old doggy sense of smell that finally uncovers the master criminal and saves the soup.

In their forth-coming-in-February beginning chapter entry, Martha Speaks: Secret Agent Dog (Chapter Book) (Houghton Mifflin, 2012), Susan Meddaugh and collaborator Jamie White put their mystery-solving mutt through her paces in a comic little volume in which Martha again cur-tails the crooks and saves the world for talking dogs. Fans of the hit PBS show and Meddaugh's series of picture books and I-Can-Read Martha Speaks stories will love Martha as souper-spy, and the appended glossary and secret agent activities will undercover additional vocabulary enrichment opportunities as they create their own secret code messages and become "masters of disguise."

Small Kindnesses: Squish Rabbit by Katherine Battersby

SOMETIMES SQUISH WAS HARD TO SEE (WHICH IS HOW HE GOT HIS NAME).

WONDERFUL THINGS PASSED HIM BY.

Squish is truly little, but as we know, good things come in small packages, and this maxim is also true for this little book and its even smaller protagonist.

Squish is a tiny white rabbit who feels unworthy and unnoticed. A tempting red balloon floats by, just out of reach and out to sea. The big white rabbits don't seem to listen to him, and he is lonely, seemingly stuck in his small world.

Drawing a friendly looking little rabbit with sidewalk chalk doesn't do it. An apple tree doesn't make a good playmate either, dropping too many apples at once. Squish gets angry and tries a tantrum, finally throwing a windfall apple as far as he can. It bounces toward the cliff overlooking the sea, and Squish watches in horror as an unseen little squirrel just appears and heedlessly bounds after it. Suddenly Squish finds his voice.

"STOP!"

In a bit of book design drama, the two stare at each other from opposite pages, as they each recognize a kindred spirit, and a friendship begins that makes Squish feel bigger and bigger.

Katherine Battersby's sensitive little story, illustrated minimally with blackline drawings highlighted with a judicious use of red, Squish Rabbit (Viking, 2011), has a lot to say about friendship in just a few words. "A delightful and promising debut," says Publishers Weekly.

Vive La Difference: One of Us by Peggy Moss

Roberta James put her hair up. Straight up, and walked into Baker School.

She was late. Two weeks late.

"I just moved here," Roberta explained to the principal.

It's her first day as the new girl in school, and so far, so good.

Roberta likes the friendly principal, the well-equipped playground, the cheerful, bright hallways, and the library with tons of books. And when she gets to her assigned classroom, a girl named Carmen motions for her to sit with her and two friends.

"Sit here," said Carmen. "You are one of US."

Roberta joins three girls, all with top-knots of hair like hers. One even has braids bent into the shape of a heart on top of her head! All goes well with her new friends until it's time for morning recess. Roberta can't wait to hit those fabulous monkey bars outside.

"We don't play on the playground," said Carmen. "We sit here and talk."

But Roberta is a monkey-bars kind of kid and the other climbers welcome her gladly.

"You're one of US," says Jasmine, and Roberta plays with this active group for the whole recess.

But at lunch, she finds herself invited by another group, the lunch-in-a-flowery-lunchbox group who all sit together. All goes well until Roberta pulls out her pita-wrapped mayo, coconut, and raisin sandwich.

"Kids who eat that kind of stuff sit over there," Emiko informs her.

It seems that in her new school, there's a special group for everything, and Roberta is confused. She retreats to eat by herself at the end of the table while she contemplates where she fits in this cliquish class.

"Who ARE you?" asks Anna, who approaches her curiously.

"I'm a straight-up hair girl who climbs on bars, has a flowered lunch box with a pita roll-up, and wears running shoes," Roberta says.

"So you're one of US."

"I doubt it," said Roberta.

"I'm a trumpet-playing girl who likes baseball and car racing and ballet." said Anna.

"I love building and spicy food and origami and bowling!" said Jason.

"I love spicy food," said Roberta, "and baseball, but I'm not crazy about ballet."

"Perfect!" said James.

And Roberta relaxes, feeling that she has found a eclectic group where she can be herself, whatever that may be.

Although Peggy Moss's One of Us (Tilbury House, 2011) pushes her message of the virtue of diversity a little hard here, she does hit all the right nails on the head in identifying the early stages of elementary cliqueish-ness, those subtleties of appearance or behaviors that make for social success or failure in the early and middle grades. Penny Weber's delightfully upbeat illustrations help make Moss's premise that there is a place for people with different interests and styles, even if it is in a group who value each other because of that variety of traits and talents. It's a point that needs to be made, and Moss's story of a girl with her running-shoe-clad feet firmly on the ground hits home, ending with a double-page spread of the whole class mixing it up on the playground.

Secret Admirer: A Giant Crush by Gennifer Choldenko

My best friend, Jackson, has been making Valentines all day long.

"Who's the special Valentine for, Jackson?"

"It's not special, Cooper, really," he says.

"How come is it so full of chocolate kisses that you can barely close it?"

Jackson is obviously smitten with the cute and charming Cami, although he is too shy to reveal his feelings to his best friend, much less to the object of his affections.

Cooper watches as his friend leaves a giant yellow flower, chocolate kisses, and a giant, handmade Valentine on Cami's desk anonymously. Cami doesn't seem to get the message, but class pest, Carter Corey, and Cami's girlfriends pick up on the vibes and what poor Jackson has feared comes to pass with predictable results:

"Cami and Jackson sitting in a tree,
K-I-S-S-I-N-G!" all the girls sing.

Carter Corey is all too quick to jump on the teasing train. The shy beau is mortified when the taunting comes down, especially after the tall Jackson chooses to pass the soccer ball right to Cami at recess.

Cooper gives good advice to his buddy, telling them that if he wants a girl to like him, he at least needs to let her know about it. But the extra-tall Jackson has a real fear: what if Cami thinks he's a giant!

But faint heart never won fair lady, and on Valentine's Day Cami turns out to have a heart as big as Jackson's Valentine and the feminine moxy to handle the whole situation with definite diplomacy:

"I don't have a boyfriend," Cami tells him.

"But if I did have a boyfriend, he'd be totally giant!"

In the early elementary years, the coming of Valentine's Day provides the opportunity for the ever-popular subject of LOVE to rear its head. Newbery Award-winning author Gennifer Chuldenko combines forces with the equally-award-winning illustrator Melissa Sweet in their latest, A Giant Crush, (G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2011) a Valentine's Day tale which is both empathetic and humorous.

While Katrina Comes: Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward

I bend over and scrub my face dry with my shirt, but the tears still come.

"I can't," I sob.

"I need you," said Randall.

And then I get up because it is the only thing I can do. I step out of the ditch and brush the ants off because it's the only thing I can do; if this is strength, if this is weakness, this is what I do.

After Mama died, Daddy said, What are you crying for? Stop crying. Crying ain't going to change anything. We never stopped crying. We just did it quieter. We hid it.

This was the only thing we could do.

Jesmyn Ward's 2011 National Book Award-winning novel, Salvage the Bones: A Novel (Bloomsbury, 2011), traces the cataclysmic approach of Hurricane Katrina made concrete in the story of the twelve days in one rural family's lives as the storm grows and strikes.

In the beginning only Daddy is prophetically manic with concern about the storm, raging when his children, all teenagers except seven-year-old Junior, belittle his orders to help prepare for the storm, as yet only a tropical depression in the Atlantic. Oldest son Randall is consumed with his desire to win a basketball scholarship and the upcoming playoff game is his only chance to star and initiate that dream. Skeetah is obsessed with his fighting pit-bull China, about to give birth to her first litter, promising part of his earnings from the sale of the pups to Randall for basketball camp. Main character and narrator, fourteen-year-old Esch is preoccupied with the realization that she is pregnant with a child by her brother's friend Manny, who is oblivious to her situation, oblivious in his interest in another girl.

As the hurricane develops, each of the family's personal storms grows and comes to a climax, until the final approach of Katrina focuses the attention of all upon the storm, breaking with a ferocity that destroys everything they own, stripping them all down to what they really are, a family that in the end helps each other survive and understand that their bonds and their hopes are what they really have to begin again.

Ward skillfully assigns epic, mythical proportions to her story by interweaving the classical Greek tale of Jason and Medea with the struggles of the Baptiste family. In fact, Medea is not the central symbol, but a sort of touchstone, destroyer and preserver, sometimes linked to the white dog China, the mother who gives life and sometimes takes it away, sometimes haunting Esch, who is fixated on the story of Medea as she, the memory of her mother's death still fresh, tries to conceive of herself as a mother, as one who therein holds life and death within her own will, and sometimes seen as the storm Katrina itself.

...Katrina, the mother that swept into the Gulf and slaughtered. She was the murderous mother who cut us to the bone but left us alive, left us naked and bewildered as wrinkled newborn babies, as blind puppies, as sun-starved newly hatched baby snakes. She left us a dark Gulf and salt-burned land. She left us to learn to crawl. She left us to salvage. Katrina is the mother we will remember....

This is not a book for children, filled as it is with the blood, sweat, and tears of life, but mature young adult readers, high school juniors and seniors, those with a grasp of literary tradition and elements of the novel, will find this book absorbing and intensely insightful. The New York Times reviewer points up the dual nature of this novel, a contemporary story on its own, but also a story as primordial as mankind itself: ..."smartly plotted and voluptuously written. It feels fresh and urgent, but it's an ancient, archetypal tale." The Washington Post says "Masterful… Salvage the Bones has the aura of a classic about it." Indeed, Salvage the Bones: A Novel has the promise of joining iconic novels like Moby Dick and To Kill a Mockingbird among those great American novels, firmly rooted in a particular time and place and yet universal in their theme.

Property Rights: I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen

BEAR: "MY HAT IS GONE.

HAVE YOU SEEN MY HAT?

FOX: "NO."

BEAR: "OK. THANK YOU ANYWAY."

A bare-headed bear asks one animal after another--Fox, Turtle, Snake, Armadillo--if he has seen the missing hat. Fox, a man of few words, is laconic; Turtle goes off-topic, remarking that he's been busy trying to climb a rock, and Bear helpfully gives him a boost to the top. Snake On A Limb gives irrelevant information, pointing out that he saw a hat once, a blue and round one.

Bear moves on to question Armadillo, who is no help either.

ARMADILLO: "WHAT IS A HAT?"

Reliable witnesses are in short supply, it seems. Only Rabbit, wearing a peaked red cap, has much to say, and his loquacious reply doth protest too much.

RABBIT: "I DIDN'T STEAL IT!"

Deer, however, has the good sense to ask for a description of the missing chapeau, and as Bear is describing his hat, red and pointed, he suddenly remembers on whose head he has just seen that cap.

Jon Klassen gently draws the veil over the probable conclusion of this crime and punishment story, but young readers will chuckle at Bear's own quiet disclaimer ("I wouldn't eat a rabbit,"), assuming that justice--and nature--have taken their course, as Bear moves off the final page, his red hat restored to its rightful head.

Klassen's just published I Want My Hat Back (Candlewick, 2011) has wowed the reviewers and the public as well, judging by its best-selling status among new picture books. With its ironic understatement, expressive but minimalist drawings, and its wry humor, Klassen's work recalls classics by William Steig, Roald Dahl, and Mo Willems, and in his first outing as solo author-illustrator, Klassen has himself a hit.

Publishers Weekly says it succinctly: "A noteworthy debut," while the New York Times reviewer goes all out: "This is a charmingly wicked little book and the debut of a promising writer-illustrator talent."


Ed. Note: I wrote this review on November 5 and apparently forgot to publish it. Since this book was named a Caldecott Honor book yesterday, it seems that the reviewers called this one about right.