Clipped! Lawn Boy Returns by Gary Paulsen

"You're saying we actually need someone to manage the people who are working for us to manage the business?" I said.

"Crazy, isn't it?" said Arnold. "But just think--you're stimulating the economy by giving all these people jobs."

"But who's going to manage the people we hire to manage the people who manage the business?"

"Oh. Well....wait. That would be just silly."

"Good," I said.

It's only been a month, a month since Lawn Boy inherited his grandfather's trusty old riding mower and decided to earn a few bucks to fix up his bike so he could ride around goofing with his friends. Then he met Arnold, a down-on-his-luck accountant/investment counselor who offers to "manage" LB's money for a free mowing job, and the rest is financial history. Lawn Boy finds he has the knack for mowing, and when he has more jobs than he can cover, Arnold offers his also unemployed buddy Pasqual to lend a hand. Before he knows it, LB has employees and a schedule, and Arnold is investing his surplus cash in risky ventures which just happen to turn over triple digit returns. Arnold talks him into taking over the management of the punchy but promising boxer Joey Pow and Pow turns a neat profit, too. From a broke twelve-year-old kid, Lawn Boy is suddenly a mini-magnet, with $400,000 (and change) in the bank, and his family's financial worries are history, too.

Well, the summer winds on, and in the sequel to his best-selling Lawn Boy (Yearling, 2009) our hard-mowing hero is back with Lawn Boy Returns (Random, 2010) just in time for the this summer's growing season.

Picking up where he left off, we see Lawn Boy beginning to yearn for the simplicity of the old days when all he did was mow a few lawns, ruefully ruminating on the fact that he never did get time to buy that inner tube and ride his bike. He's now the titular head of a going concern. Arnold has expanded the company's services to include pool maintenance, garage cleaning, and landscaping, necessitating some new hires--an attorney, a tax accountant, a business manager, an administrative assistant/webmeister, and an office manager, (pretty surprising since the "office" is still Arnold's dining room and kitchen tables, that is until his negotiations on a corporate headquarters building are consummated.)

Then things get complicated. Joey Pow sorta "forgets" to throw a fight that the local crooks had, er, invested in heavily, and LB's grandma is the hostage of choice until the, um, "discussions" are complete. Zed, Joey Pow's a self-proclaimed second cousin by multiple marriage turns up and parks his rusty rig in LB's yard, inviting his beer-bellied buddies for a beer-and-wienie bash, and leans on LB for a cushy job with the family business. Suddenly, Lawn Boy learns that the company is being audited by the IRS and his parents are being sued for violation of child labor law. His all-American rags-to-riches story has made him a media darling, and there's a covey of cute girls encamped on his curb with autograph books.

Another promising start-up is threatened by overexuberant expansion.

Nothing sucks like success. It's time for the chairman of Lawn Boy, Inc., to take charge.

Gary Paulsen's short and snappy second book is just as drop-dead funny as the first and should be read as soon as the first book is finished. Lawn Boy is a likable, intrinsically cool character who rides it all out on the well-worn seat of his grandpa's mower, and when things seem overwhelming, he finds a note, taped to the bottom of the seat and neatly printed from his late Gramps:

"A ship is safe in the harbor, but that's not why ships are built."

Yep. Lawn Boy has truly tried the waters, and as the summer wanes, and after a much-needed layover in a quiet cove, he's ready to face school and is almost looking forward to the simplicity of trig. But of course, Arnold has big plans for adding winterizing and snow removal to the company's services and then ....

These two books, best-sellers in humorous tradition of Jeff Kinney's Wimpy Kid, are often touted as "reluctant reader" fodder. Newbery winner Paulsen is indeed the master of full-speed storytelling and straightforward but memorable prose, but for the middle school reader these two books have more than brevity going for them. His chapter titles--"The Origins of Economic Collapse," and "Crisis Management as a Form of Team Development"--point up his tongue-in-cheek but telling commentaries on the perils of entrepreneurship, with Lawn Boy's innate common sense in the mix to make sure it's smooth sailing ahead for Lawn Boy, Inc. It's a lot of laughs and a lesson in life in one fell swath of close-clipped lawn as Lawn Boy rides on.

Hoops with Alex: Fancy Nancy and the Sensational Babysitter by Jane O'Connor

TONIGHT OUR PARENTS ARE GOING TO THE MOVIES.

A NEW BABYSITTER IS COMING.

HER NAME IS ALEX AND SHE IS A TEENAGER.

I AM VERY EXCITED.

Nancy is hoping her little sister falls asleep very early so she can have Alex all to herself. Her agenda (an agenda is like a list, only fancier) calls for Alex to play dress up and dolls and then look through fashion magazines with her and choose the best ensembles (that's fancy for outfit). Then Alex arrives, and Nancy finds out that the best-laid lists often go amiss!

I AM STUPIFIED.

A TEENAGER IS IN OUR LIVING ROOM--A BOY TEENAGER.

"WHERE IS ALEX?" I ASK. "I'M ALEX," HE SAYS.

OH, NO! THIS IS PRACTICALLY A BABYSITTING TRAGEDY.

Nancy leaves the disappointing babysitter to play blocks and read bedtime stories to her little sister. She knows it's not Alex's fault that he is a boy, but admits to feeling a little melancholy (which is fancy for sad) as she reads to her doll Marabelle quietly in her room.

Then Alex appears at the door. Her little sister is asleep, and Alex has an idea for her. Would she like to learn to juggle? "Oui, Oui, Oui!" She would.

Nancy doesn't do so well with juggling, that is, unless she sticks to just one ball. But then she has an idea for Alex. Nancy pulls out her hula hoop and gives the eager but unskilled Alex a few pointers.

I DEMONSTRATE HOW TO HULA.

NOT TO BRAG, BUT I CAN HULA HOOP FOR SOOO LONG.

Then the thirsty hoopsters nibble teacakes and drink lemonade from Nancy's dainty teacups, pinky properly up in the fancy way.

Alex is awesome!

Jane O'Conner's recent Fancy Nancy and the Sensational Babysitter (HarperFestival, 2010) shows that Nancy Clancy is still the hostess with the mostess, even when her guest list turns out not exactly as expected. Aleksey and Olga Ivanov pinch hit for illustrator Robin Preiss Glassner amiably in this appealing (and inexpensive) little bedtime tale that will help youngsters lose those babysitter blues.

CSI for Kids: Crime Scene Science by Karen Romano Young

PANTS ON FIRE?

Someone who is lying will not touch his chest (where his heart lies).

Someone who is lying will not make eye contact.

When someone is telling a true story, he uses more hand gestures than when he is lying.

When someone is lying, he may touch his face or mouth more often.

Liars blink less often.

Sure, it's a long time until science fair season rolls around. But Karen Young's Science Fair Winners: Crime Scene Science (National Geographic, 2009) makes great summertime reading fare for upper elementary and middle school readers. Divided into "workshops," this intriguing book is divided into action sections where kids can actually learn about crime scene work--such as fingerprinting, photography, and the technology of blood, including spatter patterns--all of which which offer many engaging summertime projects which take from one day to weeks to carry out in full. Kids make their own fingerprint sets, using friends as subjects, and learn how to categorize them and refine their identification techniques. Another workshop teaches CSI apprentices how to make foot- and tire-track casts, both "positive" and "negative" and how to calculate the height and weight and gender of the "suspect" from such prints.

The text lists the branches of science utilized in each workshop, e.g., in the case of footprint analysis (anatomy, physiology, math), how to calculate the ratio between foot length and height, offering a web site (www.mathforum.org) for help. Each workshop offers the steps of crime investigation which conform to the classic steps in the scientific method, with sections arranged under headings: the buzz (the history and theory); the lingo (terminology); You'll need... (the materials and subject skills required); what to do (steps in the experiment/investigation). Materials are mostly inexpensive; most equipment is fairly accessible (video camera, still camera, recording device, television set, ruler); and subjects are friends and classmates.

Other "workshops" include these fascinating areas: the training of K-9 search dogs, with training exercises for your own dog in scent detection; visual memory and face recognition and expression reading (including detecting false testimony as shown above) in witness and suspect evaluation; and blood analysis. Some workshops offer extremely cool skills such as preparing a sample of your own DNA (using GatorAde!) and how to detect biowarfare substances in mail. Special text boxes (Consider This/Present This) offer suggestions for using workshop experiences to formulate a winning science project. Each section offers Workshop Resources which take the reader outside this book to other resources, such as the National Geographic Body Farm video, the invaluable HowStuffWorks.com, and many other online sources to extend the text. The final section, "Present It," provide tips for preparing and presenting a winning crime scene science project. An appendix offers sources for supplies and equipment, web sites, books, magazines, science programs for kids, and a full index.

Everyone loves a mystery, and Science Fair Winners: Crime Scene Science offers a lot of summer fun for young detectives that can actually pay off with a favorable verdict by the science fair jury next year.

Other great books for summer reading and activities include CSI Expert!: Forensic Science for Kids, Science Sleuths: Solving Mysteries Using Scientific Inquiry, and Have You Seen This Face?: The Work of Forensic Artists (24/7: Science Behind the Scenes: Forensic Files). Fans of mystery fiction and young sleuths will also find these nonfiction sources great background reading for those sleuthing novels so popular for free-time reading in the summer.

Lagoon Lifeguard: Nathan Saves Summer by Gerry Renert

At the beginning of every summer, Nathan volunteered to be the pond lifeguard. He demonstrated how long he could hold his breath underwater. He showed everyone how many animals he could carry at once. If he had to, he even floated on his back, becoming a perfect raft.

But every summer the animals came up with reasons why Nathan shouldn't be the pond lifeguard.

"Nathan! Relax and enjoy your vacation. It's too hot to work all day."

Now a hippo has the right stuff to be a lifeguard, right? After all, he's a water-dwelling mammal who with his extensive belly has a built-in flotation belt. The vacationing jungle animals, however, see the conflict between the small pond that is their summer resort and the avoirdupois-challenged Nathan's, er, significant body mass. Finally, after poor Nathan has spent his own hard-saved money to equip himself with full XXXXL-sized lifeguard gear, the animals just have to 'fess up with the real reason for the rejection...

The animals stared at Nathan. Finally one of the hyenas blurted out, "Nathan, you can't be the lifeguard because... because you're just too large!"

Nathan sighed. "Maybe it's not me who is too large. Maybe it's the pond that's too small!"

Nathan sadly sees that, the pond being what it is, his career in lifesaving is a no-go. But that night while he broods all alone he hears a violent splashing in the pond. Diving in with a significant splash, he rescues a thrashing tiger cub and tenderly wipes the water from his face. Strangely, the drowning victim is not appreciative.

Nathan looked around and couldn't believe his eyes. All the water was gone!

A crowd of animals gathered and stared in disbelief at what was once their pond.

Looking upset, the tiger cub said, "Nathan, I was just trying to dive for a fish!"

With their beloved pond now reduced to a puddle, Nathan the hippo is really in the jungle doghouse.

But, wonder of wonders. Down the hill the animals discover that the water from their pond has now joined with a tidal pool to form a lovely lagoon, big enough for all of them and for the largest and happiest lifeguard in the jungle--Nathan. It's a happy ending, with a weighty moral: sometimes heft is a handicap, but sometimes being hefty comes in handy!

Carrie Bradshaw's witty illustrations of the frustrated Nathan carry much of the weight in this simple tale of dreams realized despite all in Gerry Renert's gently humorous Nathan Saves Summer (Raven Tree Press, 2010).

Keeping Greens Green: Nibbles: A Green Tale by Charlotte Middleton

...Every guinea pig in Dandeville loved dandelion leaves. All day long, happy sounds of munching and nibbling filled the air.

Until, one day, that is. Dandelion leaves began to run out.

Christopher Nibbles is just like the rest of the guinea pigs in his town. He loves munching dandelion leaves, and at first they are everywhere. But as the dandelion mania takes over the town, they begin to disappear, nibbled right down to the ground. A sign in the local diner says it all:

MENU TODAY

CABBAGE AND LETTUCE WRAPS ON A BED OF CABBAGE LEAVES

CABBAGE SOUP

CABBAGE AND BROCCOLI QUICHE

Only Nibbles notices why the dandelions are disappearing. The eager eaters of Dandeville are nibbling them down to the stems before they get a chance to flower and scatter their seeds to replant themselves. Then Nibbles spies a happy sight under his bedroom window--the last dandelion plant in town, perhaps in the whole world! Nibbles searches the Internet and visits the library to research dandelion culture, and soon he knows all about composting and cultivating the elusive dandelion and transplants it to a carefully manicured bed.

Nibbles carefully watches his plant mature in secrecy until at last it produces a gloriously white head of seeds. And then it's off to the top of Daisy Chain Hill he goes and with a propitious breeze, he scatters his ripe seeds in the wind to reseed the beloved food crop all over town.

Charlotte Middleton's Nibbles: A Green Tale (Marshall Cavendish, 2010) is an English transplant which is sure to take root wherever Earth Day is celebrated and wherever this parable of responsible consumption can be read. Middleton's tone is gentle, not didactic, and her appealing collage illustrations have texture, depth, and oodles of clever detail (such as the Nibbles' online shopping sites and the book titles in the Dandeville Library) that will appeal to young readers. As Publisher's Weekly says, "Middleton's free-spirited mixed-media illustrations—Nibbles has dimensional whiskers and wears green, floral-print shorts; a “chewy” cabbage appears in photo-collage—keep this allegory about consumption lighthearted."

Piece by Piece: Leaving Gee's Bend by Irene Latham

I mean to tell you, there ain't noplace in the world like Gee's Bend. It's like a little island sitting just about in the middle of the state of Alabama. Only instead of ocean water, it's caught up on three sides by a curve in the Alabama River. Ain't noplace in Gee's Bend you can't get to by setting one foot after another into that orange dirt that likes to settle between your toes. I reckon the hard part is how once you're in Gee's Bend, it ain't all that easy to get out.

Ten-year-old Ludelphia Bennett finds refuge from her monochromatic hard-working life in the tiny black community of Gee's Bend, Alabama, in 1932 by sewing any scraps of colored cloth she can get her hands on into quilt tops. But when her mother, already weakened from influenza comes down with pneumonia after giving birth to little Rose, Ludelphia believes that only Dr. Nelson across the river in Camden can save her life and their family's future.

But the river is way up and Joe's Ferry is abandoned when she arrives to cross. Ludelphia braves the current alone on the log raft ferry, but the cable breaks in the torrent and she is washed far downstream. Barely escaping the flood water with her life, Ludelphia is discovered hiding in her barn by the feared Mrs. Cobb, freshly widowed wife of the storekeeper to whom the Bennetts owe money they can't repay. Unhinged by the almost simultaneous sudden deaths of her husband and beloved niece, the old woman is alternately kind, giving Ludelphia breakfast and a ride to Camden, and threatening, waving her shotgun, calling her a witch, and promising that she's coming to Gee's Bend to take everything everyone has to pay off their debts to her husband. Ludelphia is treated kindly by Dr. and Mrs. Nelson, but the good doctor is too overworked to visit a patient with the then untreatable malady.

Now Ludelphia knows she has no choice but to return to Gee's Bend as quickly as she can to warn her family and neighbors to hide their livestock, tools, and seed stock from confiscation by the crazed Mrs. Cobb. With no ferry to speed her, the forty-mile walk around the river would take days, so in desperation Lu hides herself in one of the wagons in the shotgun-wielding Mrs. Cobb's caravan in the hopes that she can escape in time to warn everyone, not knowing whether her mother will be alive when she returns.

In a a suspenseful narrative, Irene Latham's Leaving Gee's Bend (G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2010) creates a small world peopled with characters simultaneously ignorant and wise, kind and cruel, centered around the ten-year-old Ludelphia, who, although blind in one eye, sees things with more clarity than most. Lu is indeed an unusually perspicacious young heroine, but then so is Scout Finch in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird with whom she shares an intimate and ultimately complex view of race and human nature in the Jim Crow South. Latham portrays the raw harshness of rural black life unflinchingly, but her strongly-drawn characters, even the "not right in her mind" Mrs. Cobb, wo believes that the "witches" of Gee's Bend are the cause of her grief, never lose their humanity. Ludelphia herself manages to find color and order in her quilts, as throughout the experience she pieces together scraps of bright fabric, her mother's apron tie, the doctor's handkerchief, and her own feed-sack-cloth pocket, to build a hard-headed but meaningful pattern out of it all.

I started again with the needle. Mama always said you should live your life the same way you piece a quilt. That you was the one in charge of where you put the pieces. You was the one to determine how your story turns out.

Well, it seemed to me some of them pieces had a mind of their own.

Irene Latham weaves her story around the history of her native Alabama, especially the very real and now famous quilt makers of Gee's Bend, whose work exhibited in the Whitney Museum of Art in New York has been likened to that of modern masters such as Picasso. Although Ludelphia is a fictional character, she bears the name of one of the famed quilting families of Gee's Bend, and her story, like Scout's, should become a staple of Alabama--and American--historical fiction.

Tempus Fugit! City Dog Country Frog by Mo Willems and John Muth

CITY DOG DIDN'T STOP ON THE FIRST DAY IN THE COUNTRY. HE RAN AS FAR AND FAST AS HE COULD.

AND ALL WITHOUT A LEASH!

CITY DOG SPOTTED SOMETHING HE HAD NEVER SEEN, SITTING ON A ROCK. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" ASKED CITY DOG.

"WAITING FOR A FRIEND," REPLIED COUNTRY FROG. "BUT YOU'LL DO."

And do he does. It's a friendship made in heaven, and through the spring days Country Frog smiles broadly as he teaches City Dog to do all the froggy things--jumping, splashing, and sitting on rocks. City Dog's tail never stops wagging, and Frog learns to ride on the swimming Dog's head.

City Dog returns in summer, and he begins to teach Country Frog city dog games--sniffing, barking, and especially fetching sticks. Country Frog tosses and City Dog fetches. Country Frog keeps on smiling, and City Dog's tail never stops wagging as the two friends play all day, and when it rains, Country Frog shelters Dog under an umbrella leaf.

Then it is Fall, and City Dog returns to Frog's rock by the pond, hoping for dog or frog games.

"I AM A TIRED FROG," REPLIED COUNTRY FROG. "MAYBE WE CAN PLAY REMEMBERING GAMES."

Dog and Frog sit on their adjoining rocks and remember the jumping, and splashing and sniffing and barking and fetching games. And that is fall.

And then it is winter. When City Dog returns, there is snow everywhere, and ice covers the pond. Country Frog is not on his rock, and City Dog sits there alone, his tail down and still, as the cold wind blows over the lonely scene.

Spring returns, and with it City Dog, but Country Frog does not. City Dog is still alone on the rock. Then someone appears.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" ASKED COUNTRY CHIPMUNK.

"WAITING FOR A FRIEND," REPLIED CITY DOG SADLY.

THEN HE SMILED A FROGGY SMILE. "BUT YOU WILL DO."

Mo Willems, three-time Caldecott and two-time Geisel award winning author/illustrator, famed for his humorous urban cartoon-style stories, has written a different sort of story, teaming up with the Caldecott winner John Muth (Zen Shorts) to create a beautiful and moving story, elegant in its simplicity and depth, about the cycle of the seasons, the cycle of life, and the circle of friendship. Their product, City Dog, Country Frog (Hyperion, 2010), is a book which needs to be seen to be fully appreciated. Muth's watercolored illustrations are softly stunning, like the text simple and spare, yet fully evocative of each season, rendered alternately in the soft greens and pastels of spring, the lush deep colors of summer, and the more limited oranges and browns of fall (even Frog moving from his summer green to take on that autumnal shade), and finally the muted blues, grays, and lavenders of the snowy winter scene. Dog's tail, wagging or still, speaks volumes, as does Frog's happy grin when the two are together. It is a book which says more than does the text, the words and illustrations becoming one, yet augmenting each other in that form which comes together to make the perfect picture book.

Sleepy-Time Gal: Fancy Nancy and the Late, Late, Late Night by Jane O'Connor

WHEN SHE WAS A CHILD, MRS. DEVINE LIVED IN HOLLYWOOD. SHE USED TO SEE LOTS OF MOVIE STARS--ONLY MRS. DEVINE CALLS THEM CELEBRITIES. ISN'T THAT FANCY?

SHE HAS A SPECIAL SCRAPBOOK OF PHOTOGRAPHS. SOME ARE AUTOGRAPHED. THAT MEANS CELEBRITIES SIGNED THEM.

Sipping tea daintily on her veranda, decorated with classic movie posters, Nancy and Mrs. DeVine look at her treasured scrapbook of movie memorabilia. When it's time to go home, Mrs. DeVine even allows her to borrow her precious collection overnight. Ooo la la! Nancy can't wait to study each page in the privacy of her own room. Back home, though, Nancy is inspired to dress up like one of the glitterati and pose for glamour shots snapped by her little sister pretending to be one of the paparazzi.

Before she knows it, it's almost bedtime. It's a school night, Mom says firmly, and after a quick brushup on her spelling words for the upcoming test, Nancy must go right to bed on time. Not to worry, though. Nancy has stashed her flashlight and Mrs. DeVine's precious poufy patchwork scrapbook under the covers, and after Mom and Dad say nighty-night, she crawls under the sheet, switches on her personal reading lamp and studies every page, enthralled. It's been a perfect night, Nancy thinks, as she finally puts her head on her pillow at 10 P.M.!

I BET EVEN CELEBRITIES DON'T STAY UP THIS LATE!

And they don't have to get up at dawn and go to school either. Nancy is exhausted by her late, late, late night. She's too pooped to try out for double Dutch at recess and definitely flubs the audition on her spelling test, and when Mrs. DeVine invites her to dinner and the vintage movie National Velvet on TV that night, she can barely keep her eyes open long enough to politely decline that gentille invitation.

THAT NIGHT I GO TO BED EVEN EARLIER THAN MY SISTER!

AND GUESS WHAT? MRS. DEVINE TAPED THE MOVIE FOR ME!

In Jane O'Connor's latest Fancy Nancy and the Late, Late, LATE Night, (HarperFestival, 2010) even movie star wannabes need their beauty sleep. Ably assisted by associate illustrator Carolyn Bracken, Nancy is just as fancy as ever in the new addition to O'Connor's best-selling picture paperback series about America's favorite fan of elegante language. Bonne nuit, Nancy!

Top 6 1/2 Worst Things about Middle School: How to Survive Middle School by Donna Gephart

The first day of summer vacation is important, because what you do that day sets the tone for the rest of the summer.

David Greenberg's hopes for a great post-sixth-grade vacation turn out to be a bummer of a prophecy. He can't wait for his best friend Elliott to come over so that they can video another episode of TalkTime, a comedy series David bases on his idol Jon Stewart's Daily Show. Hammy the hamster is ready for his Hammy Time skit, and teen sister Lindsay is sure to furnish an unsuspecting appearance in his "Daily Acne Forecast" segment.

But Elliott would rather head for the mall and hang around hoping for a glimpse of the suddenly fascinating Cara. David's summer days turn into lonely solo appearances on TalkTime without his sidekick Elliott, as their time together is totally taken up with interminable conversations centered around anguished (to the as-yet unsmitten David) discussions of "Does Cara Epstein like me?" David misses his agorophobic mother who abruptly left the family months before, and even at a family pool party finds his cousin only too willing to scare him spitless with tales of the upcoming terrorizing trials of "Harmone" Middle School, most of them ending with some poor kid getting flushed in the boys' room by the perennial, ever-flunking, ever-flushing school bully Tommy Murphy.

It's a bummer summer. But, then, on the first day of school, David is devastated when Elliott assures him that school uniforms are verboten on the first day, and David is the only kid who shows up looking like a loser in a ratty tee. But before he can even let Elliott know how he feels about this prank, Elliott snubs him for the "Neanderthal table" at lunch presided over by the hulking Tommy Murphy.

Short and small for his age, David has to take refuge with the lunch nerds for the first time in his life, and as the weeks go by barely manages to escape Tommy Murphy's promise to beat him up. His only bright spot are his TimeTalk videos, especially the one in which, lacking Elliott, he uses a magazine cover Jon Stewart as straight man. Despite his loneliness, David senses that this one is a winner and uploads it to YouTube along with the others. Then, amazingly, David does make one friend, the curly-haired charmer Sophie, who chooses him as a project partner and loves his comedy videos, enthusiastically emailing links to her former home-schooling friends network.

Suddenly David's YouTube videos go viral, and he finds himself a local media phenom, being interviewed by the local newspaper and a sort-of famous writer from the Philadelphia Inquirer. Still David feels like a nobody. What use is a million hits on YouTube while everyone at Harmon Middle School calls him by Murphy's nickname, "Lameberg." Even his sister, finally moved by the publicity to look at his uploaded videos, is embarrassed and outraged by her "acne forecast" role and isn't speaking to him. His dad orders him to take all the TalkTime video down immediately. And then, the final coup de grace on what seems the worst day of David's life, he finds Hammy dead, and almost loses it in science class, rushing out to hide his tears in the boys' bathroom, where he is ambushed by none other than Murphy, who finally submits David to that adolescent rite of passage, the "twirlie" in the latrine. To make the humiliation even worse, another kid gives the alarm to his teacher and David emerges, dripping with filthy toilet water and still weeping, to see his whole science class with their teacher watching outside the bathroom door.

It looks like things couldn't get worse. But then, Jon Daly sees his videos and loves them, even scheduling "his future replacement's" clips for an upcoming show. Will coast-to-coast media glory save David Greenberg's middle school years?

Donna Gephart, author of 2008's very funny and timely As If Being 12 3/4 Isn't Bad Enough, My Mother Is Running for President!, has in her latest How to Survive Middle School (Delacorte, 2010) a poignant yet hilarious tale of early adolescent angst which flows like a feature film script. All the characters are believable, and David himself is a particularly appealing character, confronted by the often incomprehensible mores of middle school, as a "wimpy kid" who uses his special talents to find his own place in both the middle school and the wider world as best he can. Kids, er, looking forward to their first days in the middle-school milieu will especially enjoy Gephart's story of how one boy makes it.

Cretaceous Sluggers: Dino-Baseball by Lisa Wheeler

THREE UP, THREE DOWN. NO ONE SCORED.

BASEBALL FANS ARE GETTING BORED.

T-REX IS A GO-TO GUY! WIND IT UP, PIVOT, AND LET IT FLY.

STEGO RUMBLES DOWN THE LINE. COMPY CALLS "THIS ONE IS MINE!"

GLOVES THE BASEBALL, THROWS HIM OUT. THAT'S WHAT BASEBALL'S ALL ABOUT!

What's better than a summer baseball game? How about a battle royal between those kings of the Cretaceous, the rock'em, sock'em, sluggin' dinos, featuring those rivals of the era, the meat-eating Rib-Eye Reds vs. the plant-loving Green Sox.

In Lisa Wheeler's Dino-Baseball ) (Carolrhoda Books, 2010) it's a prehistoric play-by-play down at Jurassic Park as T-Rex goes toe to toe with Triceratops and Raptor tries to trounce Troodon in a slugfest that could have been heard all the way back to the Tertiary period.

GREEN SOX NEED TO CHANGE THE SCORE,
THEIR ONLY HOPE, APATOSAUR.
HE'S AT THE PLATE,
HE SETS HIS STANCE.
STRIKE ONE, STRIKE TWO!
ONE MORE CHANCE!

The fans go wild! Who will win the battle of the big beasts? Well, when these two teams clash, it's always a monster mash. Wheeler and her illustrator Barry Gott know how to let the tension build until the thrilling climax, as they proved in their earlier dino-sports thrillers, Dino-Hockey (Carolrhoda Picture Books) and just right for World Cup time, Dino-Soccer. Wheeler knows how to pitch those Cretaceous couplets with the best of the rhyme team, while Barry Gott's robust raptors burst with prehistoric power. And on their final pages of their latest contest, there's a hint that there is yet another Jurassic showdown, this time on the basketball court, in the works.

BUY YOUR TICKETS AT THE COURT

FOR DINO-HOOP'S NEXT SEASON'S SPORT!

P.S.: Be sure to fill out your saurian scorecard with the full scientific names of these dynamic dinos of the diamond displayed on the Jumbotron on page one!

Tall Tale Papa: My Dad by Chae Strathie

MY DAD TELLS ME TALES

OF INCREDIBLE THINGS,

LIKE HOW HE ONCE SPROUTED

A GREAT PAIR OF WINGS.

Any kid who has a dad lucky enough to fancy himself quite the raconteur is lucky. The little girl in Chae Strathie's My Dad! has such a dad, one who gives himself fantastical adventures and allows his little listener the opportunity to go along with him as he spins his yarn.

HE BATTLED A DRAGON

WHO LIVED IN A CAVE,

AND RESCUED A PRINCESS.

HOW TERRIBLY BRAVE.

And the captive princess rescued is, of course, daddy's little girl, who imagines herself the heroine (or at least the loyal apprentice) in every tale her dad conjures up.

Strathie's My Dad! (Worthwhile Books, 2010), perkily rhymed and softly illustrated by Jacqueline East, is a tribute for Fathers Day to dads who not only bring home the bacon but know how to ham it up, feeding their children's imaginations along the way.

Awesome Arachnids! Hair-Shooting Tarantulas and Other Weird Spiders by Carmen Bredeson

ICK. THIS SPIDER LOOKS LIKE BIRD POOP!

BIRDS THINK IT IS JUST A PILE OF POOP.

THE BIRDS DO NOT WANT TO EAT POOP.

THE LITTLE SPIDER STAYS SAFE.

In addition to the bird-dropping spider, Carmen Bredesen's new Hair-Shooting Tarantulas and Other Weird Spiders (I Like Weird Animals!) (Enslow, 2010) offers some of the strangest of the spider clan--the water spider, which spins a silk nest underwater and traps air bubbles on its legs to carry home for later use, the trap-door spider who spins a silk liner and hinged door which it can flip open to snatch delicious prey, and the tarantula, which flips sharpened hairs off its belly to impale its enemies. Then there is the happy-face spider, whose back has a smiley-face in full color to fool diving birds and the raft spider which can run across the surface of a pond when its sensitive leg hairs detect a bug or small fish suitable for prey nearby in the water.

Each weird spider is given a double-page spread which includes a full color photo portrait of the critter in its native habitat. In the front of this fascinating nonfiction book for early readers is a pronouncing glossary, and additional back matter includes an index and books and web sites for further learning.

Goodnight, Sweet Princess: Princess Says Goodnight! by Naomi Howland

At the palace in the nighttime,
When the Princess leaves the ball,
Is she practicing her curtsies
While she dances down the hall?

Even princesses (and princess wannabes) have bedtimes, and Naomi Howland's and David Small's newest, Princess Says Goodnight, (Harper, 2010) takes a novel look at how one would-be royal daughter sees it.

The book actually begins on the title page, with an ordinary family enjoying their evening together. An older boy and girl are deep in their books in comfy easy chairs, the sleepy family hound is hogging the couch, and, stifling yawns, the weary parents begin to amble toward their beds. One member of the family, however, has her own view of this prosaic scene.

The younger girl, a red-headed bundle of energy, skips behind her parents down the hall, and as they pass the long hall mirror, we get a glimpse of how she sees herself--in a fine medieval gown, with her royally-attired parents who are obviously ready to take off their crowns and rest their royal heads. Brother and sister morph into court jester and chamber maid, and the Princess ascends the castle staircase in the royal manner, lit by an elegant candelabra, to find frothy milk and a creamy chocolate eclair awaiting for her in the royal bedchamber. The Princess' chamber features an elegant canopied bed, and she is served her bedtime snack from an ornate pitcher on a silver salver.

When she takes a bubble bath, what do you suppose?
She has a special fluffy towel for each one of her toes!

A princess, of course, can order all her clothes in her favorite colors, which in her case is "every pretty shade of pink," and her bathrobe is silky, flounced, and floating with feathers. The jester amuses her while her lady's maid tidies up, and then her royal parents drop in for the final nightly ritual:

Does Daddy check the mattress for peas and other lumps?
Will her mom fluff up her pillows and smooth out any bumps?

Does she hang her tiara on the bedpost overnight?
Does she get a bedtime story before turning off the light?
Yes, she does, and a big kiss, too, and then she says GOODNIGHT!

Now that's the way to retire in royal style, and as we see, all it takes is an inventive imagination to put a princess to bed in the regal manner. Howland's bouncy rhymes are fully augmented by award-winning artist David Small's wonderful watercolor illustrations which breathe life and humor into this fanciful bedtime tale. Little details add charm, such as the ten gilded racks for the Princess' ten toe towels and a family cat which nonchalantly takes these transformations in stride as he follows her to bed.

Once in bed, the Princess again becomes an ordinary little girl in her footed sleepers, ready, along with her plush froggy prince, for her royal beauty sleep. It's a different way to go to bed which will charm devotees of the Disney princess persona and all kids whose imaginations like to begin their dreams well before they fall asleep.

Dark Is Rising: The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan

Bast fixed her eyes on me. Just for a second, they were the eyes of a predator--ancient, powerful, dangerous. "Not everybody can host a god, Carter. But you two are both blood of the Pharaohs. You combine two ancient bloodlines. That's very rare, very powerful. If you think you can survive without the power of the gods,think again. Don't repeat your mother's--" She stopped herself.

Since their mother's mysterious death before Cleopatra's Needle in London, Carter and Sadie Kane have lived apart, Kane travelling ceaselessly with his famed Egyptologist father Julius Kane, Sadie living as a London schoolgirl with her staid English grandparents and cat Muffin. But on one of their dad's infrequent visitations with Sadie, Julius Kane insists on taking them on a Christmas Eve visit to the British Museum, and Carter and Sadie watch with horror as their father begins a magical ritual to free the five primal gods of Egypt from their captivity in the Rosetta Stone--a ritual which ends in an explosion which destroys the stone and in which Julius Kane is sealed in a fiery sarcophagus and vanishes from sight.

The dazed brother and sister are suddenly taken away by Julius' mysterious brother Amos, who reveals that the family is from a long line of magicians which served the Pharaohs and gods and which is now engaged in a world-threatening duel with the rising evil power of Set. Amos whisks the two to Brooklyn through the Duat, the murky underworld which lies beneath the natural world to his mansion in Brooklyn and where they begin to realize their inheritance of magical powers and accept that, for good and ill, they are "godlings," hosting in their mortal bodies the presence of Horus and Isis, and engage in the first of the monstrous struggles which lead them eventually to a world-shaking confrontation with Set in Phoenix, where, enthroned in his powerful red pyramid, he seeks to dominate both the gods and the creation.

Kids who have since the end of the Harry and Percy series pined for cataclysmic battles with magical monsters, demonic devils, evil wizards and deities of the Dark, soul-stealing shamans, and comic servants (here enacted by a clever and very funny baboon named Khufu and and stumpy, grumpy shabti nicknamed Doughboy) will find a deadly dual and Riordan's signature explosions abounding in almost every chapter, with twelve-year-old Sadie holding her own in monster-bashing with her older brother Carter. Carter and Sadie also hold their own in sit-com-style wisecracks, jousting with assorted monsters of mayhem and each other equally as they work their way through a trail of destruction to the final confrontation in, of all places, the Washington Monument in D.C.

Although the battle-strewn quest plot line will feel familiar to fans of his best-selling Percy Jackson and the Olympians, in a way Riordan has outdone himself in The Red Pyramid (The Kane Chronicles, Book 1) (Hyperion, 2010). Carter and Sadie are deeper, more developed characters, and his exposition of the cosmic struggles between good and evil, order and chaos, find a fuller expression in the complex, multi-dimensional mythology of Egypt. Young as they are, Carter and Sadie come to see that behind the constant wars between the gods, beyond the struggle of the magicians to restore the old order on their own, is the overweening threat of Apophis, Chaos, that rising Dark which seeks to control creation. The concept of time, of what it means to be both mortal and to be immortal, and what the course of cosmic history may be is more mature here, as shown in Carter and Sadie's growing understanding of what their parents, powerful magicians themselves, were about when they unleashed uncontrolled forces that night in London. As their father's Ba (spirit) tells them...

You have the best chance at relearning the old ways, and healing the breach between magicians and gods. Your mother began the stirring. I unleashed the gods from the Rosetta Stone. But it will be your job to restore Ma'at. Your mother and I have set the stage. But it is your stage.

Most of all, chaos is rising. Apophis is gaining strength. Which means that we have to gain strength, too--gods and men, united like in olden times. It's the only way the world won't be destroyed.

The Red Pyramid (The Kane Chronicles, Book 1) will no doubt send thoughtful readers scurrying for background reading on Egyptian mythology and history and all Riordan's readers waiting hopefully for the next in this series.

Ennui Antidote: The Big Book of Boy Stuff by Bart King

A boy can may turn to any page and find something to do, laugh at, or think about. In fact, he won't have to turn a single page.

If you're willing to judge a book by its cover, this one is already a winner. The dust jacket reverses to a dead ringer for that venerable black-and-white-marbled composition book, complete with fill-in-the-blank name and subject label with "154 sheets". Beneath the sturdy faux jacket, the staid navy cloth cover is imprinted with the word "PHYSICS" in gold script. It's the perfect go-anywhere underground guide to fun.

Inside the convertible cover, Bart King's The Big Book of Boy Stuff(Gibbs-Smith Press) is chock-a-block with all kinds of guy stuff to do, culled from many sources, some as ancient and non-politically correct as Sir Robert Baden-Powell's boy guide manuals to modern compendia of crafts, science experiments, games, jokes, and construction projects, all designed to get a boy off his duff, off the X-Box, and off his parents' backs doing something fun, preferably in the great outdoors.

A few items give offer nuggets for boys who've always wondered about stuff--what to do after you put beans up your nose, how to cook stuff that grosses out your buddies but still tastes good (anyone for Crapola Cookies?). Others include the magic and card tricks, the "sun tattoo" or secret writing ("PREPARE TO DIE" written on with a cut potato on the bathroom mirror to startle the bather after a steamy shower) or with milk or lemon juice. For the great outdoors there's the milk-jug fort (offer to recycle all your neighbors' cartons and be sure to wash them pronto!). There are diagrams for constructing paper airplanes and model rockets, slingshots, and other things that fly through the air. Most of these are compiled from other in-print sources, with the advantage of being captured under these easily disguised covers.

Like the runaway bestseller of the summer of 2007, The Dangerous Book for Boys, this one makes a super end-of-school gift or summer birthday present for people of the guy persuasion as a nostrum against the summertime blahs.

And, of course, author Bart King has a feminine version, The Big Book of Girl Stuff, all glammed-up in a pink composition book reversible dust jacket and pink cloth "CHEMISTRY" title embossed on the cover, and under that cover instructions such as fighting that killer first crush, fashioning a fake belly button piercing, and fending off the "mean girl" bully. With elementary and middle school kids in the house, both of these are great staples for the home reference shelf.

When Your Dad Was Little....: Your Daddy Was Just Like You by Kelly Bennett

YOUR DADDY NEVER WANTED TO TAKE A BATH.

BUT ONCE IN THE TUB, HE NEVER WANTED OUT.

HE SPLASHED AND SANG

AND MADE HIMSELF SUDSY DISGUISES...

JUST LIKE YOU.

Kids love it when the old photo albums come out and Grandmom shows those old shiny snapshots of your mom or your dad in their diapers. In Kelly Bennett's just-in-time for Fathers Day offering, that's just what happens. There's Grandmom looking very young, but with almost the same hairdo, holding a baby boy who could be you--except it's Dad, right after he was born. And with your baby pictures side by side, he looks just like you.

There's Dad with his stuffed toy, Raggedy Dog. Then there's Bear, who always got his shots first to show that it's not so bad. Grandmom says you did the same thing. There's Dad, on his first day of school, saying "Do I have to?"--just like you.

Believe it or not, Dad wasn't always perfect, Grandmom says. When his team lost, he sometimes got mad and even cried. But he always went back to try again. And sometimes he even got time out. As Grandmom tells it,

MOST DAYS YOUR DAD WAS MY SWEET BOY,

BUT SOME DAYS HE TURNED INTO A WILD THING.

HE RAISED A RUCKUS.

ON THOSE DAYS YOUR DAD WAS SENT TO TIMEOUT...

JUST LIKE YOU.

Bennett's sweet and sensitive Your Daddy Was Just Like You shows the great times and the hard times of growing up, but all of them good days really, now that Dad's all grown up and raising his own boy. David Walker's illustrations of the ups and downs of childhood are insightful, showing Dad going to bed in the dark, with a look of trepidation of his face and on the copycat faces of Raggedy and Bear as they pull the covers up to their chins together or the three of them in a row in the corner for timeout. Boys will be boys, and dads won't forget, at least, not as long as there are grandparents and old photo albums around.

GOOAALL! For the Love of Soccer! by Pele

YOU KNOW WHAT'S BETTER THAN SCORING IN A BIG GAME?
NOTHING!

Long before America learned to bend it like Beckham, there was Pele, Brazil's most famed hero of futbol', arguably the world's most popular sport. Here in the midst of the hoopla over the 2010 World Cup matches in South Africa, with the United States team actually in contention for the finals, it is a good time to look back at one of the people who really got America in the game.

Pele, born Edison Arantes do Nascimento, was a kid whose drive to play was overwhelming. “I would play with anyone, anytime, anywhere!” he says, and his dedication and stamina won him a place with the Santos, the Brazilian team where he led them to many victories over his long career there between 1956 and 1972. Pele was also a member of a Brazilian national team which won several World Cups, including his first in 1958 in which he was the youngest, at age 17, ever to play on a winning team.

In 1974, after a year of retirement from the Santos, he accepted an offer to play with the New York Cosmos, where his games were first featured on nationwide television, including his final appearance in the sport in 1977, playing the first half with his Santos team and the second for the Cosmos and scoring a dramatic goal to end his scoring career. Because of these three years of American play Pele is given credit for firing the interest of young Americans to join in the sport which grew into the tremendous popularity of soccer among school-aged players and the growing ability of national teams in world competition today.

Frank Morrison's For the Love of Soccer! (Hyperion, 2010) features his skillful illustrations in a design intended to inspire young players. In his own words Pele narrates the story of his life in soccer, with the left-hand pages featuring dramatic illustrations of Pele in action from childhood until the end of his career. Each facing page opposite shows a young player in an urban scene following in his footsteps to master the sport, supported by family and local fans. The final page shows the young fan playing with a ball with Pele's autograph. Soccer lovers will appreciate this look at one of the greats of the sport whose career has been a model for millions, a man whom fans of two nations can call their own.

As Pele puts it, "I've never played for fame. I play for the love of the game."

Pele dedicates his book this way:

To the children of the world, especially the children of America, who received me with open arms when I played for the New York Cosmos.