Hold the Macaroni! Crankee Doodle by Tom Angleberger

Doodle: "I'M BORED!"

Pony: WE COULD GO TO TOWN!"

Doodle: NO WAY. I HATE GOING TO TOWN.  THERE ARE TOO MANY PEOPLE IN TOWN.  THEY ALL RUN AROUND AND RING BELLS AND EAT PIES AND THEN THEY YELL AT EACH OTHER TO STOP RUNNING AROUND AND RINGING BELLS AND EATING PIES. THERE IS NOTHING GOOD TO DO IN TOWN.

Pony is clearly bored, too, and a day in town looks a lot better than hanging around with a cranky Yankee who harangues on and on about everything.

Pony suggests that Doodle could shop for a feather for his hat and call it macaroni--which he adds means fancy. Doodle is not convinced.

"SAYS YOU. THAT'S THE SILLIEST THING I EVER HEARD.  IT'S... MACARONI!

YOU KNOW WHAT'S FANCY?  LASAGNA.  LASAGNA IS FANCY.  LASAGNA HAS ALL THOSE RIPPLES ON IT, AND THEN IT GETS BAKED WITH CHEESE AND TOMATOES AND VEGETABLES. THEN YOU CAN EAT IT WITH SOME GARLIC BREAD.

NOW THAT'S FANCY!"

Doodle's plaint rants on and on. He doesn't like to shop! &He has too much stuff already! The new stuff breaks. It's too far to town and, furthermore, Pony smells too terrible to ride!.   Yada Yada Yada.

It's a cranky Yankee Doodle temper tantrum.

Pony and Doodle glare at each other.

Stalemate.

Then Pony tries another approach.

"HEY! I SMELL LIKE A PONY!  AREN'T YOU THE ONE WHO IS SUPPOSED TO GIVE ME A BATH?  BUT NOOOOOOO!  

BOO HOO HOO! SNIFF. SOB. SNORT."

Tom Angleberger's and wife Cece Bell's Crankee Doodle (Houghton Mifflin Clarion, 2013) pits a curmudgeonly Yankee Doodle against a persistent pony desperate for a change of scene. Angleberger's narrator cleverly delineates his comic contrarian and his pony boy with the urge to shop till he drops, in dialogue that will ring familiar to parents of young shopaholics. Designed in cartoon panels with quirky characters who speak in thought balloons, this one trots along  merrily, paralleling  the back story of that inevitable trip to town that the old patriotic song describes. Hysterically and historically funny!

"A historical hoot full of goofy, eye-rolling goodness," quips Kirkus in its starred review.

The Customer Is Always Right! Down At the Dino Wash Deluxe by Tim Myers

..THIS JOB'S NO PICNIC.

YOU GOTTA KNOW THE CUSTOMERS!

NO TWO DINOSAURS ARE ALIKE.

The Dino Wash Deluxe is doing business! Dinosaurs are lined up to get their scales scrubbed shiny, and our little proprietor knows just how to keep them all happy. Ankylosaurus' many knobby protrusions require detail work. Rinsing the top of Pachycephalosaurus' big bald head necessitates a long ladder. Spinosaurus' twenty-foot-tall spines require really sudsy scrubbing and polishing. And don't even ask about all the crevices to clean on a finicky Stegosaurus!

But our little car wash manager keeps a nervous eye out for one down and dirty customer that his clients report is in town--Tyrannosaurus Rex!  He's one customer you really want to leave happy!

And then there he is, demanding the dino wash deluxe.

"GIVE ME THE WORKS" HE SNAPS.

But when our little dino scrubber comes forward with his shampoo, the T. Rex gets very testy. Could it be that this big guy is afraid of a few suds in the eye?

"IT STINGS!" HE WHIMPERS. 

How do you shampoo a Tyrannosaurus Rex? Very carefully, in Tim Myers' dandy Down at the Dino Wash Deluxe (Sterling, 2013). Myers' illustrations are big and bold and bright, with each scaly critter portrayed comically and yet authentically, with a thumbnail drawing and summary of each dinosaur appended for young dinosaur scholars. Pair this one with any of Jane Yolen's and Mark Teague's classic How Do Dinosaurs... books, such as  How Do Dinosaurs Clean Their Room? for a clean sweep of a double dino treat.

"I Call My Baby My Sugar:" Mister and Lady Day: Billie Holiday and the Dog Who Loved Her by Amy Novesky

Billie Holiday loved to sing. As a girl, she sang along to her favorite songs on a borrowed gramophone.

She dreamed of being a star...

... and a star she became--the Great Lady Day.

But sometimes stars need someone to listen.
That's what friends are for.

Lady Day's dogs were her best friends of all.

Billie Holiday sang all kinds of songs, and Billie Holiday had all kinds of dogs.  She had a pocket poodle and two tiny Chihuahuas, Chiquita and Pepe. She had a long-eared beagle, a Great Dane called Gypsy, and a terrier with a name that spoofed the song "Besame Mucho" named Bessie Mae Moocho.  But her best friend was a big brown boxer called Mister.

Mister was almost always with Billie. He wore sweaters she knitted for him, and a fur coat just like hers for chilly late-night walks.  He growled when rude fans jostled to get near the star singer. He kept her company in her dressing room in ritzy night clubs, snacking on the steaks Billie ordered for him, and even waited for her in the wings when she sang on stage at Carnegie Hall.

Lady Day was famous for singing the blues.

But the sadness of her songs didn't matter to Mister.

As long as he could hear her, he was happy.

Billie Holiday's life had its good times and its bad times, but she always had Mister, who was always ready to listen to her sing.  Then, during one bad time she had to be away from her best friend for a year. That's a long time for a dog.

Would he remember her at all?

Then, there he was!

Running down the train platform, Mister leaped on Lady!

Amy Novesky's forthcoming Mister and Lady Day: Billie Holiday and the Dog Who Loved Her (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013) flows like one of Billie's easy-going jazz songs, focusing on the love and support that she found in her companion dog Mister, her most loyal and best friend.  Novesky's  simple storytelling style is enhanced by Vanessa Newton's  photo-inspired period illustrations in charcoal, gouache, and collage, which personalize the stylish Lady Day, glamorously gowned with her signature magnolias in her hair, and in her more informal moments cuddling barefoot on the rug with Mister, singing "Sugar, I Call My Baby My Sugar," to him. (See Billie and Mister in her dressing room here.)

"This introduction to the jazz great has tons of kid appeal," says School Library Journal..

That's MY Monster: Wilfred by Ryan Higgins

OUR STORY BEGINS IN A FARAWAY PLACE WHERE THERE ONCE LIVED A LONESOME GIANT NAMED WILFRED.

WILFRED WAS HUMONGOUS AND HAIRY.

Far, far away, in another galaxy, there may be a place where huge, humongous, hairy guys are considered hunks, but Wilfred's home town is not one of those.

Although the thing big Wilfred craves most is a friend, his planet features small, hairless people, and Wilfred is too monstrous and too hirsute for their tastes. But one small, bald boy thinks Wilfred is interesting. Wilfred is so eager to please that he does whatever the boy suggests, playing a ukulele, playing golf, even doing the boy's math homework. The boy likes the hairy giant and invites him back.

But the townspeople have another plan. They gang up and shave off Wilfred's shaggy gray hair as the price of letting him back into town. Wilfred can't find his friend, but he does find that being bald all over is chilly and retreats to the warmth of a fire in his cave. Satisfied, the townspeople use the shaggy shavings to make themselves wigs and warm, knitted sweaters.

But when the little boy goes out into the teeth of a blizzard to look for his still humongous but now hairless friend, the people realize that they have made a big, hairy mistake, in Ryan Higgins's just-published  Wilfred (Dial, 2013). When the shivering giant heroically forces himself away from his fire circle to save his friend, the folks all agree that a hairy hide can indeed hide a warm heart. A sweet story of unlikely friendship, remorse and restitution and ... ZIPPERS!

Both Sides Now: Inside Outside by Lizi Boyd

Lizi Boyd's Inside Outside (Chronicle Books, 2013) is a book that is much more than it seems at first glance.

Using brown butcher paper as her medium, Boyd opens with a plain house, a small boy seen through the window as a snowman stands guard just outside, while inside he works, intent upon planting seedlings for spring. Pictures on the wall show plants and trees which foreshadow the season to come.  The seasons change outside. as the boy moves out and then back into the house. Trees leaf out, flowers comes up and bloom, and birds appear in the trees, nesting and then feeding their babies.

Accompanied by his constant companions, a black dog and two mice who get on with their own parallel lives, unmindful of the events around them, the boy flies his kite in spring, finds a turtle in the warming pond, tends his garden, and fills his wading pool for the dog and cat to enjoy.

The scenes shift from inside to outside and back again, each move prefigured by the other, with the boy building a boat inside while sailboats float in pictures on the wall, and takes it outside to sail it on the pond while the turtle and dog watch from his beach towel. Fall comes, suggested first by the boy's paintings of autumn trees on the walls and carried outside as colored leaves float down from the trees and birds fly, fleeing south from approaching winter.

At last it is winter outside again, and the boy is seen through the windows, decorating a little evergreen inside, as snow falls on his snowman outside.

Cleverly placed die-cut rectanglar windows give little readers a chance to predict what comes next in this endlessly inventive essay on the seasons. It will take many look-throughs to take in all that is going on in Inside Outside. This seemingly simple little wordless story book has surprises and much to observe for youngsters just learning to "read" a picture book through its illustrations.

"... creative genius at work," says Kirkus Reviews.

Ready to Ribbet? Stink and the Freaky Frog Freakout by Megan McDonald

THE SHARK SNEAKED THROUGH THE WATER LIKE A SILVER STREAK.  STINK FELT SOMETHING GRAB HIS LEG.     S-S-SHARK ATTACK!!

AARGH! STINK LEAPED OUT OF THE WATER, KER-SPLASH!

THE SNEAKY SHARK WAS HIS SISTER JUDY!

"I'M A SHARK AND YOU'RE STILL A POLLIWOG. YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE TO PUT YOUR HEAD UNDERWATER SOME TIME, STINK!  I'M ALMOST A BARRACUDA!"

Swimming lessons are not exactly going swimmingly for Stink, stuck with his head determinedly above water, inseparable from his swim noodle, while almost-Barracuda Judy shows off, diving to the bottom of the pool for quarters. Stink can't wait to get away from the water.

But when he finds a little tree frog with three legs in the locker-room shower, Stink gets interested in frogs. Frogs show up in his bathtub, his boots, the garden hose, and even in their garage. Is it raining frogs?

To find out why the town is full of frogs, Stink's dad takes him and his friends to the local nature center for a lesson on amphibians, where a graduate student named Jasper invites them along for the annual Frog Neck Lake Frog Count--if he can pass a test on identifying frog calls. Judy even pitches in to help, Stink leaps to the head of the frog call class, and with his Frog Log clipboard and Sophie and Webster along as assistants, Stink counts croaks and  learns a lot about why, because of environmental problems, there are fewer frogs croaking in the lake but more of them sproinging in the suburbs than ever before.

Then the next morning, Stink wakes up in the middle of an exciting Spiderman dream  to find a  frog licking the freckle on his arm. Could this frog be like Peter Parker's spider?  Could it be giving Stink special frog powers?

THE FROG WAS BLUE.

THIS FROG WAS NOT NORMAL.  THIS FROG WAS A MUTANT!

AND ... THE FROG HAD LICKED STINK.  JUST LIKE THE SPIDER THAT BIT PETER PARKER!

FREAKY FROG FREAKOUT!  STINK HAD A PETER PARKER OF A SECRET!

At breakfast the raisins in Stink's cereal start to look just like dead flies.  He eats them first. Then he eats all of Judy's  dead flies, er, raisins, too.  He discovers that his tongue is long enough to touch his nose.  He has an overwhelming desire to play outside in the rain, leaping through puddles and playing in the mud.  Worms are even looking good to him. Can he be feeling his freaky frog powers?

Now Stink can't wait for the next swim lesson.  Frogs love to swim underwater, and they never need a noodle, either. Stink just knows he's going to leapfrog forward into barracuda level even before Judy!

Megan McDonald's latest, Stink and the Freaky Frog Freakout (Book #8) (Candlewick Press, 2013), has Stink & Company hopping happily into a watery world of amphibians as bossy Judy Moody's little brother Stink finds himself diving into the deeps all by himself in this eighth book in the spinoff Stink series. A little sibling rivalry (and cooperation), a bit of overcoming fears, a lot of incidental learning about amphibian environments, and Peter Reynolds' inspired black-and-white comic illustrations make this newest Stink story a winner for reluctant and beginning chapter readers and a natural for summer nature study adventures. McDonald even tucks in fun frog Creature Feature quizzes along the way so that readers take away some awesome amphibian information as well as a dozen ways to say "Ribbet!"

Turn, Turn, Turn: Pinwheel by Salina Yoon

SPARKLING, SPINNING,

LIGHTS FREEWHEELING.

Although the actual pyrotechnics are reserved for the ending, the artistic fireworks of Salina Yoon's fresh and fascinating new book, Pinwheel (Little, Brown, 2013), go off with each turn of the page and turn of the wheel which set her designs into motion.

A companion book to her 2012 tour de force, Kaleidoscope, Yoon here gives the young reader a spare but poetic text to accompany her dazzling design features which transform the grill of a train, a flower in the field, a bee, a butterfly, and a hot air balloon into a constantly changing image.

A sunflower's center rotates kaleidoscopically. A colorful kite soars up and up, right off the page and above the book.  A butterfly's wings transform  the design coloration into many sorts of butterflies, and a hot air balloon changes as it rises, leading into a finale of starbursts from rainbow sky rockets.

All of these wonders are contained with a small but bright board book format in which every page opens up a different scene under the control of the reader.   The award-winning Salina Yoon continues to break new ground with her ingenious interactive picture books with this new one, a delight for the eye altogether! Publishers Weekly adds its own star for this one, calling it a "winning combination of lyrical writing and smart interactive design."

Night-Night All: Everyone Sleeps by Marcellus Hall

Everyone was getting ready for bed.

"Goodnight, everyone!" they all said.

Dad switches off the downstairs lights as everyone traipses off toward their bedrooms. Baby is sound asleep, her big sister is ready to snooze, and the cat curls up for a long nighttime catnap.

Even the computer sleeps.

But there is one still wide awake--a big-eyed pug who watches everyone settle down and leave him for the land of dreams.

Feeling all alone in the house, he roams outside to see if anyone is awake.  He sees ducks dozing in a row, frogs sinking to the muddy bottom of their ponds to snooze.  Bears can sleep for months, and giraffes sleep standing up.  Polar bears drowse on ice floes, and walruses sleep on their backs in the sun.

The little pug spots a herd of sheep, all together in a grassy field.  Are they all asleep? He stops to count how many are sound asleep."YAWN!" The pug almost dozes off, himself, before his insomnia reasserts itself and he sadly heads for home.

It's lonely.

And then he sees his house with a lamp shining from one upstairs bedroom.  It's his girl.  And she's not sleeping either.

She couldn't sleep and neither could I.  But maybe together....

The noted and multiple award-winning Marcellus Hall's new Everyone Sleeps (Nancy Paulsen/Penguin Books, 2013) takes a humorous look at the search for sleep as his little pug protagonist sets out to find someone with whom to share his insomnia, with a surprise ending that will give readers a sleepy giggle. Hall's trademark illustrative style is put to good use in his appealing nightscapes as his cute little hero, seriously-seeking-sleep, finally catches some zzzzs.

Popular books illustrated by Marcellus Hall include Karma Wilson's The Cow Loves Cookies, Sherry North's Because You Are My Baby, and Lee Bennett Hopkins' City I Love.

Don't Mess with MAMA! Mo Willems Presents... That Is Not A Good Idea by Mo Willems

"WHAT LUCK!    DINNER!"

A dapper fox, obviously on the prowl, practically twirls his mustache and licks his chops as he spies a tempting and tasty entre, a guileless-looking, blue-babuska-wearing goose, clutching her wicker shopping basket.

He gallantly invites her for stroll and she demurely accepts.  The melodrama ratchets up incrementally, as she in turn accepts the suggestion for a walk in the woods and a visit to the foxy gentleman's kitchen, where he engagingly begins to prepare their lunch, a savory soup in an alarmingly large stock pot.

So ...  you think you know where this one is going?

Well, not with the wickedly wry Mo Willems as the director of this little one-reeler thriller.

Casting his little melodrama in the format of a silent film short subject, Mo Willems provides medium shots of the Fox and his quarry with closeups of the unsuspecting stooge goose coyly concurring,  alternating with gray-toned title frames in which six little goslings act as a Greek chorus, with  appropriately fateful prophecies.

"THAT IS NOT A GOOD IDEA!"

The warning subtitles become increasingly dire, with considerable overacting by the juveniles, as Fox's nefarious plot thickens, until at last he invites Goose to come closer to the simmering pot to taste for that elusive missing ingredient!

"THAT IS REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY NOT A GOOD IDEA!"

But the seemingly hapless hen turns the tables on this well-turned-out scoundrel in a climactic tour de force that has the reader suddenly realizing who those warnings were really for, in Mo Willems' latest, That Is Not a Good Idea! (Balzer & Bray, 2013). Willems ends this little tale of peril with a final frame showing the goose and her chicks enjoying a savory soup with, um, just the right missing ingredient. Willems puts the silent film format to perfect use here, with each page a frame of a hand-cranked short subject, with a conclusion that would have his foxy villain (were he not otherwise engaged in seasoning the soup) crying "Curses! Foiled again!" Roll credits!

How Willems manages to continue to top himself with each flawless picture book would confound even the Keystone Kops.  With a few well-chosen facial expression lines and telling body language, peerless page pacing, and a wry wit that wins over all ages, this winner of multiple Caldecotts and  Theodor Seuss Geisel Awards shows yet again that he is indeed the master of  picture-book craft.

As Publishers Weekly puts it cunningly and punningly, "a wickedly droll poultry-in-peril yarn."

Retaking Tara: Confederates Don't Wear Couture by Stephanie Kate Strohm

"Um, I have a boyfriend," I reminded Dev. No well-muscled man in uniform was going to change that.

"No, you don't," Dev replied breezily.

I rolled my eyes. "Dev, you've met him like fifteen times."

"Technically, you don't have a boyfriend," Dev explained. "According to the laws of Back to the Future, Garrett McCaffrey, your alleged boyfriend, doesn't even exist. Because he hasn't been born yet. And may never be born if we change the path of history as we know it.

"Back to the Future isn't real science. And we don't actually go back in time," I countered, eyeing him suspiciously. "You know this, right?"

"I'm just saying--what happens in 1861 stays in 1861."

It was a perfect prom with her BF Garrett, the nerdy but nice soul mate she met interning as a re-enactor in a restored Maine colonial village the previous summer, but prom is past and it's time for the history-obsessed and beauteous but brainy Libby to make some summer money before she and Garrett begin college together at Amherst. As usual her fashion-obsessed friend Dev has found a way to cash in on his dress designing talent as a sutler, a merchant camp follower for Civil War re-enactments across the Deep South.  Dev convinces Libby that with her to model his Scarlett O'Hara knockoffs, they'll rake in the neo-Confederate dollars and have a blast, with the added bonus of hanging around lots of cute Confederate hunks all summer. So while Garrett is off to intern at the Boston Globe Libby finds herself heading off to Sweet Home Alabama, hoop skirts and wasp-waisted corsetry at the ready.

All is not sunny down in Dixie, despite the undeniable charms of Beau Anderson, their exceedingly dashing guide and corporal in the re-enactor Confederate forces preparing for mock battle near Tuscaloosa.  Dev declares that he is near death when he learns that Confederates don't do coffee (there's that pesky coastal blockade between the Rebels and their caffeine supply), and Libby finds Southern belle undergarments give even her the vapors in the Deep South heat, but sales are booming on sutler's row, especially when the public sees what the petite Libby can do for Dev's well-crinolined antebellum gowns.

But Libby finds that she is still a magnet for faux ghosts, as a pale wraith is sighted, bewailing that a nineteenth-century curse is about to befall the last surviving Anderson man--who would, of course, be the buff and gallant Beau.  Libby suspects that the ghost's appearance is part of a land grab scheme by a mercenary builder who wants to turn Civil War battlefields into tracts of Tara knock-off condos, but the ghost is undeniably intimidating when it leaves behind messages predicting Beau's death scrawled in fresh chicken blood.

Meanwhile, the downright darlin' Beau seems to be enchanted by Libby's vintage charms. Given that Beau, unlike Garrett, shares her obsession for history, Libby also finds his courtly manners, soft Southern accent, and ways with a waltz almost irresistible.

The plot thickens like a pot of cold grits when the media gets hold of the historical ghost mystery, the news spreads all the way to Boston, and Garrett finds himself assigned as reporter for the Globe's Southern affiliate, the Tuscaloosa News, covering this historic ghost story.  Garrett is instantly jealous of Beau, who returns the favor, and Libby suddenly gains an understanding of Scarlett O'Hara's dithering between Ashley and Rhett.  It's a frothy romantic triangle and an admittedly vintage Scooby Doo ghost hunt to boot, as the re-enators roam the Southland all the way to the Carolinas before Libby and Garrett break the story, save the historic battlefields, and once more re-inact true love, in 1861 and in the present.

As with her first summer story, Pilgrims Don't Wear Pink, (see review here) Stephanie Kate Strohm's just-published  Confederates Don't Wear Couture (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013) is a fizzy and funny summer frolic with a soupcon of Civil War history along the way, worthy of packing along for vacation fictional fare.

Love's Labors Lost?... : One Bright Ring by Gretchen Geser

ONE BIG SMILE
ONE LITTLE HOLE
ONE BRIGHT RING
FALLS TO THE GROUND.
A GIRL CRIES, "HEY!"

Everyone loves a lover, and even a young girl out for a stroll with Mom knows that romance is on the mind of a red-haired young man with a big smile and and huge bouquet of roses in his hand. He is surely hurrying to meet the girl of his dreams and pop the big question!

But--hold the violins!

A ring--THE RING--has just fallen through a hole in his jacket pocket and bounced across the sidewalk to land at the little girl's feet..

Our girl is honest and she instantly figures out that that one bright ring is soon going to be sorely missed. Pulling her mother behind her, she dashes after the young man. But just as she calls out to him, TWO jackhammers commence their racket at the curb, and the young man never hears her cry. With THREE tugs on Mom's arm, she runs after the young man, but a wide stroller with FOUR babies blocks her way. Just as she gets around the tots, a dog walker comes into view with FIVE frisky hounds trying to go in five different directions at the same time. Then there are SIX signs on the corner, and one of them sadly says STOP! The young man is totally out of sight!

But our girl has the heart of a true romantic, and she is sure he must be meeting his sweetheart in a lovely little pocket park nearby. With a regretful look, she passes a bakery with SEVEN enticing cupcakes on a tiered stand and keeps on going. Then she sees the red-haired suitor through the trees. As she draws near, she tiptoes EIGHT quiet steps to peer through some bushes, and there is the young man with his intended. She is holding her roses and the young man is reaching for the ring. He looks in his pocket NINE times--frantically--with TEN tears running down his cheeks. Suddenly our girl knows just what to do to make this scene turn out just the way the young man had dreamed!

Gretchen Geser's just-published One Bright Ring (Henry Holt, 2013) is an appealing story of love's labors (nearly) lost which also manages to be a counting book and a sweet little treatise on honesty to boot. Geser's cityscape is simple but charming, making use of the motif of the silent observer, in this case a little black cat who watches from every page as the story unfolds. Geser even makes good use of that meme of the moment--the cupcake--as her final page shows our heroine back at the bakery, a cupcake in hand, as she gazes happily in the show window at a wedding cake with a miniature of the happy couple in the park right on top. All's well that ends well in this little morality demi-drama,  with, as Publishers Weekly puts it, "an air of both excitement and romance."

I Hate Badurday! Saturday Is Dadurday by Robin Pulver

AFTER THE TWINS WERE BORN, MIMI AND DAD HAD AN IDEA FOR THEIR FAVORITE DAY.

IT CAME AFTER FRIDAY, AND MIMI AND DAD CALLED IT DADURDAY.

With newborn twins, Mom is totally busy, and Mimi feels left out.

So Dad steps into the breech and offers to spend all day Saturday doing things they both like to do. After sharing their custom-designed silly-shaped pancakes, the two of them read the comics in the newspaper, and then each makes out lists of fun ways to spend the day. They compare notes, choosing matching things on both their lists.  They ride bikes and make silly-shaped picnic food. When it rains they stomp in puddles and get happily wet.

Dadurday is Mimi's BEST day of the week.

But one day Dad regretfully announces that he's going to be working on Saturdays for a while.

"BUT WHAT ABOUT DADURDAY!" MIMI ASKS.

"IT WILL STILL BE DADURDAY WHEN I GET HOME!" DAD OFFERS.

"IT WON'T BE THE SAME!" MIMI MOANS.

At first Mimi is stunned into a major meltdown. Daduday is SADurday.

Dadurday is MADurday!

Dadurday is BADurday!

Mom promises to play with Mimi if the twins ever go to sleep at the same time, but Mimi knows that's probably not going to happen any time soon.  Mimi wants Saturday to be HER day again.

"TODAY SHOULD BE MIMIDAY!  ME! ME! ME!"

But after a while, Mimi calms down and decides that she's going to make the best of it as Dad said.  Working on Saturday is definitely a lemon, but she sets to work making some Mimi lemonade!

And when a dispirited and tired Dad finally comes home, Mimi has artistic decorations and party hats to welcome him back and  silly-shaped pancakes on the griddle for his supper, in Robin Pulver's just-in-time-for-Fathers-Day book, Saturday Is Dadurday (Walker, 2013). Mimi is an ebullient girl with a mind of her own, but she soon gets it that it's not all about her just in time to make it a Dadurday after all. R. W. Alley's watercolor, pencil, and ink illustrations keep the angst light while capturing the real emotions that Dad and Mimi share. Sometimes things are beyond mom and dad's control, and Mimi rises to this occasion with admirable flair.

Graduation Evaluation: The Best Thing about Kindergarten by Jennifer Lloyd

It's not over until it's over, but for Mrs. Appleby's Kindergarten class, all a-bubble over their graduation program today, it seems like it is. They've practiced singing their song on the stage and finished their craft-paper mortarboards, and they can't wait to march in with their parents as the audience and stand up there proudly.

But there is still a little time until they get the call to line up for the procession, and Mrs. Appleby has one lesson left to teach.

Mrs. Appleby looked at her class proudly.

They had made fancy hats... and special decorations.

They knew how to sing their graduation song.

"We still have time for one last guessing game. See if you can guess what is the best thing about Kindergarten?

Hands shoot up. Tabitha says it must be Calendar Time, and some of the kids who agree start reciting the days of the week!

Corinne disagrees. It's the Playhouse Center for her. Benjamin favors the Block Box, and Clara goes for Arts and Crafts.

Suggestions fly--everything from Math Time to the all-time favorite--Recess!

But Mrs. Appleby smiles and shakes her head. Nobody has guessed her best thing yet. But just as the circle of kids are racking their brains, the call comes to line up and go to the auditorium for the big ceremony.

"This is our grade today.
With much pride we are on our way!" they sing.

The diplomas are passed out to much applause from their teacher and the whole audience. But some of the kids still have a question for Mrs. Appleby, and this time she has the answer:

"Kids, what's the best thing about Kindergarten?" she says, with a dramatic pause.

"It's each one of you, of course. My students are the best thing about Kindergarten!"

Jennifer Lloyd's newest, The Best Thing about Kindergarten (Simply Read Books, 2013) is a great read-aloud for the end of the school year for kindergartners, a simple, child-centered story which celebrates how a group of very different preschoolers have made the transition into a class of real school kids. Qin Leng's illustrations are full of movement and colorful energy just like any group of five-year-olds, and  Lloyd's text recalling the academic adventures of the year has earned this one a gold-star review from Kirkus. A Kindergarten teacher herself, Lloyd is also an experienced author. (See my review of her earlier book, Ella's Umbrellas, here.)

Light the Night: It's A Firefly Night by Dianne Ochiltree

WHEN THE MOON IS HIGH

AND THE STARS ARE BRIGHT,

DADDY TELLS ME

IT'S A FIREFLY NIGHT.

There are warm nights in early summer when an ordinary backyard is bright with magical lights, a night when the fireflies, or lightning bugs, first appear, lifting off from the ground and slowly ascending through the air to the trees, dip... flash... dip... flash...dip... flash.

In their nightclothes, a pink gown for the girl, bathrobe and slippers for Dad, the two go outside into the early moonlight. The girl, filled with that primeval urge to capture a piece of that magic for herself, has a big jar in which she proceeds to capture one, two, three, four fireflies until at last she has ten, making a little lantern of greenish light that she can hold in her hands.

I LOVE CATCHING FIREFLIES

BUT THEY ARE NOT MINE.

I TAKE ONE GENTLY

OUT OF THE JAR.

In that peculiar way of the lightning bug, slowly climbing up the hand until it reaches the highest point before it carefully opens its carapace and spreads its wings, all ten of the fireflies are set free to rise again through the air until her jar is again empty, leaving her hoping that

... TOMORROW WILL BE A FIREFLY NIGHT.

In their just-published It's a Firefly Night (Blue Apple, 2013) Dianne Ochiltree's lyric verse and Betsy Snyder's soft color collages convey something of the wonder and excitement of a summer night lit by those mystery bugs capable of generating light without heat. The author and illustrator together catch some of that joy of childhood, running barefoot through the twilight to catch and hold a bit of that wondrous light in hand, and then setting it free to light another night.  The author also appends a double-page spread of firefly facts which only add to the fascination of these truly phenomenal little beetles.

Thank Ewe, Mom: I Love Ewe: An Ode to Animal Mothers by Aaron Zenz

MY MOM'S A HEN--

BUT LOOK AGAIN!

HENS LIVE UNDERWATER, TOO!

No cluck cluck for these animal mothers; glub glub and blub blub  is more like it for crab and lobster moms, also known as hens.

Some feline animal mothers have elegant, mellifluous appellations, like the lioness, tigress, and leopardess.  And check out Mama Fox's fine moniker: she's a vixen! A goat mama is a nanny, and so a boisterously loud one is a "hootin' nanny," right?

Some animal mothers borrow their names from humans: Mrs. O'Possum is a Jill, and Ma Donkey is a Jenny.  Equine moms are always mares, but mother bears share their titles with mother pigs--they are both sows. And if a baby hollers for Mama Cow, a bovine won't be the only one to answer: Mama Moose, Mrs. Seal, and Mother Hippo and Rhino will report for cow duty, too.

Human mothers have lots of names, too--mom, mum, mommy, mummy, ma, mama, momma, mither, and that's just in English!  But a mom that is a sheep is the only one to which her baby is likely to say I Love Ewe: An Ode to Animal Mothers (Walker, 2013), Aaron Zenz's clever rhyming book about  what we call animal moms.

And for the upcoming Fathers Day, pick a passel of papas in Zenz' newest, a tribute to animal dads' names that is  just as clever and comic--Hug a Bull: An Ode to Animal Dads (Walker, 2013). Zenz points out that the bull that gets a hug could be a gentleman bovine or or perhaps a father giraffe, walrus, moose or alligator! While a mother duck or goose is predictably a hen, her male consort is called drake.

As in his companion book, 27 animal parents are featured in Zenz's pleasant, curvy illustrations. Other book by Zenz include his treatise on baby animal names, Chuckling Ducklings and Baby Animal Friends, his very popular The Hiccupotamus,  and its companion book, The Chimpansneeze.  Having fun with words while coming up with new vocabulary terms is Aaron Zenz's specialty.

The Survival Games: The Testing by Joelle Charbonneau

A shiver snakes up my spine. I don't know what to believe. To believe my father's dreams are something more than dreams is unthinkable. Tomorrow I leave for Tosu City. At the end of the week I will begin my Testing. To refuse is treason and all that implies.

My father puts his arm around me. "Whatever process they used to wipe our memories could have caused the dreams. Our brains might be creating false memories to replace the ones that were taken."

"But you don't believe that." I jump to my feet, angry. "So now what?"

My father doesn't raise his voice to meet mine. "Better that you go to Tosu City prepared to question everything you see and everyone you meet. That might be the difference between success or failure."

"Cia, trust no one," he says in a whisper.

In the post-apocalyptic world of the United Commonwealth, a few hundred sixteen-year-old graduates are chosen to participate in the Testing, with only those remaining eligible for university training and leadership roles. Devastating worldwide war and concurrent environmental collapse has left the surviving humans in small colonies struggling to restore the land and water and repopulate the world, and only those who pass the rigorous Testing can become leaders. Valencia Vale is chosen with four others to represent the Five Lakes Colony and taken to the capital for testing with candidates from other colonies. But the testing involves far more than mere multiple choice questions on history, science, mathematics, and literature. Cia quickly notices that they are watched constantly by surveillance cameras. Those who pass the initial phase are cast into teams which complete hands-on trials, and in her group Cia sees teammate Malachi die almost instantly when he choses to touch the wrong device. The Commonwealth testers offer no assistance to those who die during the trials, and she realizes that simply surviving to the end will be perhaps her hardest task, and that, as her father tried to warn her, one of the threats will be her fellow candidates.

Still, Cia comes to trust Tomas, a boy from her own colony, and they agree to meet and work together on the final test, making their way with only three items of their choice across 200 miles of wasteland from the ruins of Chicago to Tosu City. Uncontaminated water and non-poisonous food are scarce, and there is the threat of mutated wild animals and as Cia learns, mutated humans as well.

The animal snarls as I roll out of its grasp. I scream as the creature's claws slash deep into my left arm. Whatever this thing is, I know I cannot outrun it.

I turn and extend the gun in front of me. As I aim I finally get a look at it. Long legs matted in a tangle of brownish hair. Long arms that are extended toward me with three-inch claws I already know are razor sharp. A hunched back. Curled lips revealing blackish teeth. And the eyes...

My finger pulls the trigger. The eyes of my attacker go wide. There is fear and anger as the wound in its chest blossoms with bright red blood. My enemy sinks to the ground and with its last breath lets out a cry that sounds like a call for help. Now that I have looked into the dark blue eyes of my attacker, I know this isn't an animal. The eyes are too intelligent. The body was twisted and deformed, but there is no doubt. I just killed a human being.

But as Cia and Tomas make their way toward Tosu City, they realize that their greatest danger is from their own kind, the Commonwealth examiners who have set deadly traps along the way and most horrifying of all, from their fellow candidates who will kill to eliminate competition. Although Cia and Tomas share a growing love for each other, Cia remembers her father's portentous words: Trust no one.

Joelle Charbonneau's forthcoming The Testing (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013) joins a long list of dystopic novels, beginning with Lois Lowry's notable  The Giver series and most famously Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games trilogy, dealing with the rebuilding of human society in which young people face trials in a vastly altered system of survivors. Charbonneau's first young adult novel holds its own with others of this genre, dealing frankly with the often cruel choices to be made among the survivors of worldwide apocalypse. Charbonneau's is a  suspenseful narrative which grips the reader from the first pages and continues with unresolved conflicts even beyond the conclusion of this first book in a projected series. Her characters are heroic but believable teenagers and the setting is far from unbelievable in a dangerously devastated earth where choices are never easy.

Opening to high praise from both her fellow authors and reviewers alike, The Testing (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013) offers page-turning intensity and real philosophical questions as it explores what it means to be human and what a human society should be. Publishers Weekly adds "...action, romance, intrigue, and a plausible dystopian premise ... a near-flawless narrative."

Long Live The Queen! Zoe's Room (No Sisters Allowed) by Bethanie Murguia

Zoe loves her room, especially at bedtime.

Every night, Mama gives her a kiss and turns off the light.

Zoe turns it right back on again.

In her room after bedtime, Zoe is Queen. She builds kingdoms, explores strange lands, entertains her royal court, Teddy bear and all, for tea, and stargazes through her special window on the heavens. It's Zoe's very own realm.

But one fateful day Mama delivers a decree that dethrones Zoe and deprives her of her rule over her room.

"Zoe, it's time  for Addie to move out of Mama and Papa's room.  She's going to be your roommate."

Suddenly Zoe's room is not her room anymore. Zoe's crib goes right where Zoe's royal tea table has always been.  With a toddler in the room, lights out means LIGHTS OUT! No more nighttime revels  in her kingdom  for Queen Zoe. No royal tea parties and no more nocturnal explorations.  And when her little sister lets out a loud WAAAA!  in the middle of the night, Zoe suspects why Mama and Papa were only too happy for Abbie to graduate to being her roommate.

Deposed Queen Zoe is miffed at her demotion from her castle and kingdom--until one night a storm rolls through, with lots of lightning and thunderboomers crashing.   Zoe is full of spunk and ginger, but not too independent to mind having a sister as company on a dark and stormy night, in Bethanie Murguia's  brand-new Zoe's Room (No Sisters Allowed) (Scholastic, 2013).   Murguia's comic and assertive  illustrations of  the strong-minded Zoe are scintillating in a story that will resonate with many an older brother or sister forced to cohabitate with a younger sibling.  "Murguia's dark blue washes set the quiet night tone, and Zoe's abundant curiosity shines from the top of her crown to the bottom of her stretched tippy-toes," reports Kirkus Reviews.

Pair this one with Zoe's hilarious debut book, Zoe Gets Ready for a double dose of Zoe-styled pizazz. (See my review here.)