On the Beach: Water Sings Blue: Ocean Poems by Kate Coombs

TIDELINES

OCEAN DRAWS ON THE SAND.
WITH TRINKETS OF SHELL AND STONE.
THE WAY I WRITE ON THE SIDEWALK,
WITH A STICK OF CHALK AT HOME.

SEA SIGNS HER NAME IN LETTERS
LONG AND WAVY AND CLEAR.
SAYING, "DON'T FORGET ME--
---I WAS HERE...
WASSS HERE,
WASSSSSS HERE."

Inexorably drawn to the sea as we are, humans have a fascination with its edge, where land ends and the ocean begins. What we find and see there has a mystery, a glimpse of life in another world, one where water is the breath of life and the source of everything. From its sandy-beach-with-footprints endpapers to the last sigh of the retreating tide, poet Kate Coombs latest, Water Sings Blue (Chronicle Books, 2012), is like a day at the beach, leaving the dark town "with its closed brown shutters and doors" to take a boat down the bay to shore, where seagulls soar and Frank the Hermit Crab sets up his real estate office--with everything from a modest periwinkle cabin to a kingly conch shell for the wealthy beachgoer--and the beachcomer can shop in a tidal pool ("They carry everything there... mussels by the bushels..."). There are lyrical metaphoric lines, evoking Shelley, such as these from "Sand's Story."

WE USED TO BE ROCKS.
WE USED TO BE STONES.
WE STOOD PROUD AS CASTLES,
ALTARS AND THRONES.

NOW WE GRIND AND GRUMBLE,
HUDDLED AND GRAVE,
AT THE TOUCH OF OUR BREAKER
AND MAKER, THE WAVE.

Coombs' metaphors can be comic, as she compares seagulls to beagles ("All they think about is food!"), until they are transformed instantly when they leap into the air:

... WHEN SEAGULLS TAKE WING,
THEY BECOME A NEW THING.
ATTAINING SOME DIGNITY.

BUT BEAGLES ARE ROUND
AND REMAIN ON THE GROUND,
PRETTY MUCH DIGNITY FREE.

Water Sings Blue lets the readers soar with the seagulls, swim for their lives from the shark and cringe from the "black hole" of the oarfish's maw, undulate and trail with the jellyfish, shine and splash with seafoam, and lease a summer place from Frank the Hermit Crab, in a wonderful collection of lovely and lyrical, humorous and ironic, and downright captivating poems in many styles, haiku to couplets, free verse to classic form. This new book is as refreshing as a sea breeze and as heart-touching as an "ILY" written in the sand. Perhaps the best poetry book for children of all ages of this season, finely and fittingly illustrated by the talented Meilo So.

As the Wall Street Journal reviewer says, "A feeling of sweet delicacy pervades the pages," and Publishers Weekly adds, "Coombs punctuates her sweeping, lullaby-like poems about the ocean with surprising personification and unexpected imagery."

I say, get this book and read it to anyone who will listen, really listen to it. Like holding a conch shell to the ear, it is the sound of the sea.

Grampsitting: How to Babysit a Grandpa by Joan Wildish

Babysitting a grandpa is fun--IF you know how....

Gramps management is easy. You know what he likes to do--eat ice cream, take slow walks, color pictures for his fridge, and catch a quick snooze....

When Grandpa says "Naptime!" the best way to to put him to sleep is a lo-o-o-n-ng book!"

While he's getting his ZZZs, you need to play or read quietly so he gets his nap out (so he won't wake up grumpy), and then it's time to take him outside for a walk.

If it's sunny, sunscreen up--especially the top of his head!"

If you want to get this sitting job again, be sure to clean up any mess you two make. So, when it's getting to be time for Mom and Dad to return, get Grampa started on the cleanup. Pitch in and do it with him, and don't forget to make it a game! Then, when you hear them coming, reassure Gramps:

"See, they always come BACK!"

Jean Reagan's wry switcheroo on babysitting, How to Babysit a Grandpa (Alred A. Knopf, 2012) will keep kids chuckling at the role reversal, as she puts all those oft-repeated babysitting mantras in the mouth of her preschool protagonist. Lee Wildish's wry comic illustrations are suitably tongue-in-cheek and offer lots of visual humor which further extend the fun. On Fathers Day, grandfathers with a sense of humor will enjoy reading this one to their grandkids, and pointing out that they, of course, would NEVER, EVER, fall asleep on the job.

For Dads: My Dad by Steve Smallman

SOME DADS DRINK SODA AND GIVE YOU A SLURP,

AND THEN LAUGH OUT LOUD WHEN YOU DO A BIG BURP!

Some dads are tender and gentle, snuggling and cuddling, or picking you up when you just have to cry. But sometimes they can be silly, jumping with you in puddles, and making a mess of what they're cooking. Dads can seem like giants and then put you way up on their shoulders to make YOU feel even bigger.

Steve Smallman's sweet and simple couplets sum up the various sides of dads--grumbling and grumping when they can't put up the tent just right, but making up for it by being the best in the world at reading funny stories, in his new My Dad (Good Books, 2012). Illustrator Sean Julian makes his Daddy Bear big and warm and fuzzy, with obvious glee in his eyes when he gets in on the kid fun like the big kid he sometimes is, using colorful characters under the bluest of blue-sky days for a father-and-son playdate, even utilizing a vertical gate fold to show how tall Little Bear feels way up high on Daddy Bear's shoulders.

A loving tribute to the best in dads and to the best of dads, perfect for a toddler to share with Dad on Fathers Day.

Homefront: The Diary of Piper Davis: The Fences Between Us, Seattle, 1941 by Kirby Larson

I couldn't look at Hank's ship when it pulled out of port. I felt like a little kid--maybe if I didn't look, he wouldn't really be gone. Mrs. Harada put her arms around my shoulders. But nothing could fill up the Hank-sized hole in my heart.

Then she told me she had something for me. "Here, Piper," she said, handing me this diary. It fit into my hand like it belonged there. "I bought it a long time ago. Now seems like the right time."

It's the perfect time," said Pop. "Every thirteen-year-old girl could benefit from the self-reflection a diary offers."

"This is Piper's." Mrs. Harada wagged a finger at Pop. "No one can tell her what to write in it. Not even you."

Piper's funny, loving big brother has joined the peacetime Navy to travel the world, but his carrier joins the fleet at Pearl Harbor just before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Suddenly the war becomes very close to Piper's coastal Oregon home. Fearing air raids, the town begins drills, with blackouts and curfews every night, and her family spends frightening days waiting for letters from Hank and news of his ship, he Enteprise, as the war in the Pacific is joined. Piper's dad, a minister to their local Japanese church, spends a lot of time at work, and her older sister Margie drops out of nursing school to work long hours in a defense plant.

Piper begins to rely upon her diary, ("DeeDee" for "dear diary") to record her thoughts. There are still good times, listening to big bands on the radio with her best friend Trixie, school dances with Bud, the dreamiest-looking eighth-grade boy, and a very different Christmas as the country settles into wartime mode.

But then President Roosevelt signs the Japanese removal act, decreeing that "alien and non-alien residents of Japanese origin must be rounded up and "removed" to internment camps, and Piper watches her old babysitter Mrs. Harada, her classmate Betty Sato, and all the members of her father's parish and the entire Japanese community, many of them citizens, are rounded up and crowded into trains and sent to a desolate, cold, and windy detention camp in Idaho. Like other people around her, Piper is torn between her fears for their young soldiers and sailors and their sympathy for their Japanese friends who lose their homes and businesses, some even imprisoned for fear that they might be spies. Everything is changing, and Piper turns to her diary and her camera to record the changes and her jumbled thoughts.

Then, as rationing of food, fabric, tires, and gasoline begins to change their lives at home, Piper's life is totally disrupted.

I hate, hate, hate my father!

Tonight after supper, Pop said he had something to tell me.

"We're moving." Pops cleared his throat. "To Minidoka."

I dropped my fork. "Where? No. No."

He's the pastor, not me, so I don't know why I have to go to Idaho. I'm not going to move.

But go Piper does. Trixie's family offers to let her live with them to finish eighth grade, and Margie stays behind to work at Boeing, but Piper's dad insists that she go with him.

In Twin Falls, outside the internment camp, Piper finds the town filled with "No Japs" signs, and they are soon evicted from their rented house when the owner discovers that her father works with the detainees at the camp. The Japanese families with whom she has celebrated Christmas and Easter, birthdays, and family outings are crammed into unheatable rooms, with hardships which range from dreary food in the mess hall to dust which yields to deep mud to rattlesnakes under the buildings, but when a school is set up there, Piper chooses to attend with Betty and the other children, despite the cold and constant illnesses that sweep through the children and elderly population.

Using her diary and her camera to chronicle and sort out the events unfolding around her, Piper matures as she weighs the hardship of the detainees against the sacrifice of all Americans, and although unable to resolve the conflict within, she realizes that there is something that everyone can do. Betty's brother volunteers for the Army, hoping to prove that Japanese-Americans are good citizens, and Piper does what she can to make their lives better and to help on the homefront.

It was Pop who helped me learn the most important thing. He made me realize that even if we can't do much about the fences that get built around people, when fences get built between people, it's our job to tear them down.

Newbery author Kirby Larson's The Dear America: The Fences Between Us (Scholastic) captures some of the fear, dislocation, and trials of the early days of World War II with the first person narrative of a sheltered young teen girl in 1941. Based on real characters from wartime Oregon, this edition in the Dear America books, an extensive series which features notable authors, is an absorbing "you are there" account of those days on the homefront for middle readers. Those who have enjoyed the American Girls Collection (Pleasant Company) will find this series equally to their maturing tastes. This addition is likewise supported by backmatter--epilogue, "Life in American in 1941," an historical and photographic appendix with related web sites, the text of speeches by President Roosevelt, and even a wartime sugarless recipe for oatmeal cookies from the period.

For a poignant novel from the point of view of a Japanese-American girl detainee of Piper's age, see Cynthia Kadohata's Weedflower (Atheneum).

Sing, Sing, Sing: Lisa Loeb's Silly Sing-Along

When it comes to the genre of "family music," Grammy-nominated songstress Lisa Loeb is one of the divas. Her soft, whispery, right-on-pitch voice has won her fans with kids and with parents who need her merry but calming influence for those times when car rides get long and monotonous.

In her latest and third album/book for children, titled Lisa Loeb's Silly Sing-Along: The Disappointing Pancake and Other Zany Songs (Sterling, 2011),illustrated by Ryan O'Rourke, all the songs are meant to be silly, especially the title number, "The Disappointing Pancake."

"IT WAS HARDER THAN THE TABLE, SO I THOUGHT IT WAS MY PLATE.

I HIT IT WITH A HAMMER BUT IT DIDN'T EVEN BREAK!"

The strange circular object defies scientific analysis. Is it a Frisbee?

"I LOOKED THE WINDOW AND I SAW IT GLOW.

MAYBE IT'S THE MOON OR JUST A UFO."

More songs in this vein follow: "A Codibye Dose" (A Cold in My Nose), "Fried Ham," and "Chewing Gum" are modern compositions, some by Lisa herself, and some, such as "Found a Peanut" and "Sipping Cider (Through a Straw)" are traditional kid tunes from way back.

Loeb rounds out her songbook with an appendix which includes "Note on Songs" and some recipes, which include, of course, one for Un-Disappointing Pancakes.

No musical ability is needed, as you can pop the included CD in and let Lisa perform and teach the songs until they become singalong favorites. This one is fun for family singalongs, camping, summer day groups, and long car trips.

Loeb's previous albums for children include Catch the Moon [With CD], a potpourri of original tunes and traditional nursery songs, including "Twinkle, Twinkle" and "Big Rock Candy Mountain," and Camp Lisa, a collection of summer camp songs, many from yesteryear to please old and young.

The Clothes Make the Dog: Zorro Gets An Outfit by Carter Goodrich

THE DAY BEGAN LIKE ANY OTHER FOR ZORRO AND MR. BUD. THEY HAD THEIR BISCUITS AND WERE READY FOR THEIR WALK.

BUT THERE WAS A DELAY.

"ZORRO, WE HAVE GOT A SURPRISE FOR YOU! YOU HAVE YOUR VERY OWN OUTFIT!"

His very own outfit is something no dog ever wants.

Little Zorro is not exactly a swashbuckling figure in that midnight blue cloak and cowl. And he knows it.

Unfortunately the other neighborhood dogs get the ironic humor in his costume, too.

"HEY, WONDER DOG!" EDDIE AND THE BOYS LAUGH. "FLY AROUND!"

Mr. Bud tries to distract poor Zorro with their daily chase of Slim, the pesky local cat, but this pug is too discomfited to even look at Slim, who yowls in derision at Zorro's costume from atop his trash can.

Chewing sticks and chasing in the park have no appeal, either.

Zorro is the victim of peer pressure. Portly pugs in caped costumes just aren't cool.

But then a dashing, flashing new figure appears on the scene. He's the fastest thing on four legs! He's a fearless Frisbee catcher! The other mutts in the dog park are agog as the dynamic Dart dashes across the green. This newcomer is definitely a top dog if there ever was one. And. . . he is wearing an outfit!

Nattily attired in a oh-so-French striped sailor's shirt and sassy bandanna, Dart is definitely a style-setter. And as all the dogs look on, jaws dropped in amazed silence, his gaze falls on Zorro.

"HEY! COOL OUTFIT! LET'S RACE!"

Any kid who has ever had to go out in public in uncool clothes their mother made them wear knows exactly how little Zorro feels in Carter Goodrich's just-published Zorro Gets an Outfit (Simon & Schuster, 2012). As in his hilarious first book, Say Hello to Zorro! (see my review here) Goodrich's simple but telling text and the hyper-expressive facial expressions and body language of his two dog buddies tell the tale. Set off in a carefully chosen palette and eye-catching line against bright white backgrounds, Goodrich's appealing illustrations make this one a ready read-aloud or an accessible self-reader for the early grades. Costumed in a cape or just himself, Zorro is definitely the dog of the day.

Odd Couple: Honeybee and Horsefly by Randy Cecil

HONEYBEE WAS TIRED. SO HE YAWNED AND PLOPPED DOWN INSIDE A FLOWER FOR A NAP.

BUT A HORSEFLY WAS ALREADY INSIDE.

THEY HAD A FIGHT.

IT WASN'T PRETTY.

HORSEFLY LOST A WING. HONEYBEE LOST A WING, TOO.

"DRAT!"

Horsefly and Honeybee are now on foot, and disgusted with this unfortuitous turn of events, set out to trudge cross-country for home.

But as they soon discover, being an impromptu pedestrian is the least of their worries. In due course of time both are captured by a hungry frog, and the two former enemies find themselves together in reluctant captivity on a lily pad in the middle of a pond while Bullfrog forages for a bit more food, a tad of tasteful variety for his upcoming repast.

Double DRAT!

What a revolting development this is! The two are unable to swim for it, and with only one wing each, neither can fly away from what will soon be Bullfrog's dinner plate. What to do?

As author Cecil sagely quotes in his author's note, "We are each of us angels with only one wing, and we can only fly by embracing one another." (Luciano De Crescenzo), the two bugs combine their assets, and in an unlikely alliance manage to cooperate well enough to flap away on their combined wings just out of the reach of the long and tacky tongue of the frog. Bullfrog watches his dinner as it flies floppily but effectively away:

"DRAT!" SAID BULLFROG.

Necessity is the mother of invention, and Honeybee and Horsefly form a marriage of convenience that seems their only way out of their self-inflicted situation, finally finding a new napping place in a safe flower and a new partner in flight.

"Politics makes strange bedfellows," says the old proverb, and Randy Cecil's newest, Horsefly and Honeybee (Henry Holt, 2012) is a simple but powerful parable that applies broadly across much of human life. We're all stranded on the same lily pad, Cecil seems to be saying, and to quote yet another famous saying, reinforces the message that "In union there is strength." Kids will love listening to this one several times over and chiming in on the "Drats," but they will also sense the subtly delivered truth that sometimes we have to drop our differences, pool our powers, and get this thing off the ground before we all go down the tubes! Comic illustrated characters and a bright palette help get this little cautionary tale take off as a story time treat.

Undoing the Blue: Blue Chicken by Deborah Freedman

AT LAST THE PICTURE IS ALMOST FINISHED.

THE CHICKS ARE WHITE, THEIR COOP IS IS BROWN...

AND THIS DAY IS PERFECT FOR PAINTING THE BARN.

The scene is set on the title page of Deborah Freedman's Blue Chicken (Viking, 2011). An unfinished drawing is spread across the two pages--white chicks in front of a brown coop, and an as yet uncolorized barn with perfect draftsmanlike lines stands on the left, a timid calf peeping out from one side of the wide door.

On the drawing table are a ruler, pencil, paintbrushes--and two pots of paint, red and blue.

BUT WAIT! DOES ONE OF THE CHICKENS WANT TO HELP?

And here is where this bucolic illustration (and story) fly the coop. A little chick escapes from the environs of the brown coop and wanders up to try to select a brush from the blue paint pot.

The paint pot tips, it splashes, and suddenly the tidy scene is flooded with blue--the chick, his fellow chickens, yellow duckies, the orange cat, and all in one messy, splish splash of blue. Like a primordial flood, the blue threatens to obliterate the whole drawing in one wash of watercolor.

But then the now blue chick spots a third jar--this one with a mysterious clear liquid. Can he save the day by painting over the blue with this paint? Miraculously it restores everything to its original state--except the sky, which remains the perfect shade of blue for a clear sunny sky...

ON A DAY THAT IS PERFECT...

FOR PAINTING THE BARN.

And through the studio window the chickens studiously watch a woman draw up her ladder and begin to paint the real barn outside the window a bright red.

Several modern picture book creators have begun to play with the concept of the physical book--some, such as Lane Smith in his It's a Book or Mo Willems in his We Are in a Book! (An Elephant and Piggie Book) tease the mind of the reader with the creative expansion of the limitations of static characters stuck on the two-dimensional page, drawing the reader into the story as unseen characters themselves. Others, such as Chris Van Allsburg, in, for example, his Bad Day at Riverbend and David Wiesner in his Art & Max, play with the very conceit of the limitations of illustrations on the plane surface of the page. In Blue Chicken Freedman makes the static illustration the source of the story in a fusing of media and word which will engage the reader over and over.

"Breathtakingly beautiful meta-illustrations will draw many eyes to this tale of a curious chicken who spills some paint... Delicate and durable, visually sophisticated yet friendly: simply exquisite," - says Kirkus Reviews, in a rare starred review.

Trading Places: Pinch Hit by Tim Green

Sam hesitated for a minute, not certain he wanted to hear the answer to his next question. "So... you like being me?"

"Most of it. What about being me?" said Trevor.

"What's not to like?"

"If I could play baseball, it'd be pretty perfect," said Sam.

"My dad says nothing's perfect."

"That's funny," Trevor said. "Mine, too!"

The one bright spot in Sam's rusty trailer lifestyle has always been baseball, and now with a great team, moving through the playoffs to the top spot, he has a chance to win a coveted place at the USC Summer Program that will be his ticket to a stardom in the big leagues. When his dad, an English teacher with a dream of writing a hit movie script takes him along to a "pitch" meeting at the movie studio, he suggests that Sam sign up as an extra to make some summer money while they're there.

Sam is astounded when an obviously excited casting director hastily picks him as a replacement stand-in for mega-kid star Trevor Goldman. Sam soon sees why: except for his longish hair, he and Trevor are dead-ringers for each other, scarily identical, even down to their mutual passion for baseball. The two soon conclude that their similarities in looks, voice, and personality are no mere happenstance. Both know they were adopted as newborns, and they just know they must have been twins, separated at birth.

Trevor has it all, rich, famous, and even loving parents, a mansion with his own batting cage and personal baseball trainer, a Malibu beach house, and a limo at his disposal, but the one thing he can't have is a place on a regular baseball team, with teammates, a season of play, a chance to see how good he really is at the game. In their eerie similarities, Trevor sees a way to live that dream, and persuades Sam to trade places with him for a few days. As a sweetener to the deal, Trevor and his co-star McKenna, who seems taken with Sam, offer to help Sam's father find a producer for his "old school" horror film script, Dark Cellar. So Sam gets a haircut and the two make the switch.

Sam discovers that like baseball, acting seems to be in his blood, and after a few bumbles, he begins to enjoy performing before the cameras and living in a style to which he is not, to say the least, accustomed. Trevor finds pinch-hitting for Sam takes more than acting skills, making a few fumbles in the field, and finds that hitting the curve ball is something his hired tutor neglected to teach. But like Sam, he finds that he's got the basic ability in him and his learning curve in the infield and at the plate is steep. He finds Sam's laid-back and literary dad a pleasant change from his own supercharged and often absent father and despite the constant aroma of the adjacent landfill, life in Sam's trailer home has a certain simplicity that he immediately settles into. Meanwhile, despite nagging worries about their switch interfering with his baseball dreams, Sam is liking the perks of being a movie star with a teen queen girlfriend.

But then, push comes to shove for the boys' plan. Trevor realizes that his baseball skills are not ready for the unscheduled appearance of the USC scout at a game and sees that he and Sam will have to find a way to switch back quickly or Sam may lose his one opportunity to make the summer camp. Even with McKenna's help, the double exchange ends in a cliffhanger chase with the whole identity trade on the line for this dynamic duo.

Tim Green, who practically owns the franchise on the gameplay-with-family-tension sports genre, makes a switcheroo himself in his latest, Pinch Hit (Harper/Collins, 2012), drawing the plot premise for this one from two classics, Shakespeare's tale of separated twins, The Comedy of Errors (reprised in Broadway's The Boys from Syracuse), and Mark Twain's evergreen The Prince and the Pauper, in which a ragpicker and a princeling exchange places with comedic and dangerous consequences. This one takes a bit of Coleridge's classic "willing suspension of disbelief," but with Green's strong storytelling chops in play, it's good page-turning fun, as Sam and Trevor make the best use of their identical DNA to carry off their plan and in the process begin to appreciate the challenges and rewards inherent in their very different lives. As one of Shakespeare's other titles says, "All's Well That Ends Well" and while Sam nails his big scene on the set and Trevor manages to make the diving catch and hit that curve along the way, this one plays out as a different sort of baseball novel for young Tim Green fans to devour.

Can We Build It? Builder Goose: by Boni Ashburn

HERE WE GO 'ROUND THE CONSTRUCTION SITE,
THE CONSTRUCTION SITE, THE CONSTRUCTION SITE...
...ON A SUNNY MONDAY MORNING!

Mother Goose may be busy looking for the muffin man, but Builder Goose is already hard at work down at the construction site, and he has an array of tools and vehicles at hand to help.

But then, all good little construction books have colorful pictures of dump trucks, steam shovels, and front loaders. Boni Ashburn's brand-new Builder Goose: It's Construction Rhyme Time! (Sterling, 2012) takes a new tack on the "Can We Build It?" theme. Ashburn has versified the construction process from preliminary plans to final cleanup with a charming re-write of Mother Goose's old-fashioned manuscript, coming up with wry little modern rhymes that get the job done with verve and bounce.

"SING A SONG OF GARBAGE.
A BUCKETFUL OF TRASH.
FOUR AND TWENTY LOADS OF IT,
READY TO BE MASHED!

Everything from wheelbarrows to heavy graders, excavators to an (itsy-bitsy) skid steer are celebrated in the rhyme scheme and meter of famous children's rhymes, familiar favorites from "This Old Man" (This Little Forklift,) as "Little Jack Horner (Little Jack Hammer) do their thing in the appealing primary-color illustrations of Sergio di Georgi, giving this new book for preschool construction fans a joyful day on the job site. Pair this one with Sherri Rinker's dynamic new best-seller, Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site, (see my review here) for a skyscraper of a storytime!

King of the Road! Revenge of the Dinotrux by Chris Gall

IT WASN'T FUN BEING STUCK IN A DRAFTY MUSEUM.

TYRANNOSAURUS TRUX WAS NOT HAPPY. KINDERGARTEN DAY AT THE MUSEUM MEANT LOTS OF SCREAMING... BANGING...AND LOTS OF CHEWING GUM ALL OVER HIS CLAWS.

For the Dinotrux on exhibit, Kindergarten field trips are worse than ice ages with an asteroid strike thrown in for free. They've had it up to their headlights with being fossils! Finally, they decide to blast their way out of their exhibit hall.

Dinotrux run amok!

Crashing and smashing their way through the walls of the museum, the Dinotrux take their protest to the streets! Garbageon gobbles clunker cars; Dumplodocus crunches on houses; Velociscraper lowers his blade and does some unsolicited landscaping right through the middle of town. And in the ultimate dinotrux insult, Cementosaurus makes an, er, deposit, dumping right on the steps of City Hall.

Something must be done. The Mayor points out that the Dinotrux behavior is positively primitive and shames them into submitting to a re-education experience at the local schoolhouse. At first the Dinotrux are defiant and give the school kids an example of some really prehistoric classroom behavior. But then they discover something that wasn't around back in the Jurassic Age--monster truck books! The Dinotrux discover reading and soon are reformed--just in time to get in on the city's newest civic construction project--a dynomite Dinotrux-enabled playground.

Chris Gall's newest, Revenge of the Dinotrux (Little, Brown, 2012) combines two killer-diller subjects, dinosaurs and BIG construction vehicles, with just a touch of a King Kong monster meme thrown in as Tyranosaurus Trux clambers up the Empire State Building to make his protest. Kids will chortle as such monster trucks as Semisuarus and Rolladon rumble through the city in a anti-fossil protest at their exhibitdom. Be sure to read this one with its prehistoric tongue-in-cheek predecessor, Dinotrux for a prehistoric truckin' time.

The Art of Teaching: The Art of Miss Chew by Patricia Polacco

Grandma told me I was a natural artist, so I couldn't wait to take art at school next fall.

I only had one problem left--tests. I just couldn't seem to pass them.

But Trisha is lucky. Her new sixth-grade teacher, Mr. Donovan, sees that she easily masters the material but that she reads so slowly that she needs extra time to finish her exams. He also sees something exceptional in her drawings during their once-weekly art-on-a-cart class and arranges for released time for her to join Miss Chew's high school advanced art program two days a week.

"In this class we are going to learn to speak in another language, the language of art. It is the language of emotion and imagination," said Miss Chew.

"But first, you need to learn to see. SEEEEE!"

With her artist's eye, Miss Chew sees Patricia's extraordinary ability, but she also sees something else in it that no other teacher has seen: Trisha sees "negative space" and is able to read only by picturing the pattern of each word within that space. Suddenly the sixth grader sees her reading disability in a different way--as the flip side of her artistic perception, and that understanding gives her insight, hope, and inspiration. She does her best work for Miss Chew, and Miss Chew recognizes her achievement with a promise to give her work a place in the annual high school art show.

But then Mr. Donovan's father in Ireland dies suddenly, and a substitute, the unsmiling Miss Spaulding, takes his place. Miss Spaulding sees Trisha's incomplete tests as examples of laziness and lack of application and rips her unfinished tests from Patricia's desk.

"When I say you're finished, you are finished! Your time is better spent studying for your tests instead of leaving this school to take art classes."

Teaching is an art as well as a set of defined skills, and the young Patricia Polacco is again lucky in her art teacher's ability to see, really see, what she needs to succeed. Miss Chew recruits the system reading specialist, who understands the problem and overrules Miss Spaulding's ban on special art until Mr. Donovan returns, and Trisha's work hangs in the annual art show, the only elementary art student given that recognition.

"Remember," the wise Miss Chew tells her, "yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift."

And the award-winning Patricia Polacco puts her artistic gifts to work in her latest, The Art of Miss Chew (G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2012), which joins Thank You, Mr. Falker and Junkyard Wonders (see my review here) in her series of poignant and gloriously illustrated autobiographical picture books which deal equally with art and with the art of teaching, indeed, the gifts of those significant teachers in her life.

Optimism Pays! You Will Be My Friend! by Peter Brown

LUCY WAS VERY EXCITED THE MINUTE SHE WOKE UP.

"MOM! I'VE DECIDED I'M GOING TO MAKE A NEW FRIEND TODAY! ISN'T IT EXCITING?"

Mom tries to suggest that this idea might do with a bit of pre-planning, but the ebullient Lucy can't wait to get into her trademark tutu and start looking for fun critters to befriend.

Enthusiasm and self-confidence definitely aren't Lucy's problem. But she comes on too strong when she meets up with a pleasant-looking frog beside his pond.

"WE'RE GOING TO DO CARTWHEELS AND CLIMB TREES AND HAVE PICNICS!" SHE GUSHES.

And just in case the frog isn't into those activities, Lucy decides to prove that she can enjoy his agenda, too, and with a loud "WOOHOO! jumps into the pool.

The resulting splash empties the pool and ends the nascent friendship before it begins, but Lucy is undeterred. She climbs a tree to befriend the top-grazing giraffe, and interrupts her breakfast. She invites herself to a tete-a-tete with some bees and unfortunately snacks on their honey-filled house, prompting a fast farewell to those potential friends.

In rapid order Lucy strikes out with a beaver, some fish, and commits the ultimate faux pas when she asks an ostrich how it feels to fly. Her only chance for playmates comes with some human toddlers, but they exuberantly make her their toy, as Lucy gets a taste of her own medicine.

But from that encounter, Lucy begins to get the message that coming on too strong is not the way to make a friend, and she lets a lonely flamingo approach her with a friendly overture and finally finds a friend at last.

Last seen in Peter Brown's recent hit, Children Make Terrible Pets, (see my recent review here) the gung ho Lucy learns another lesson about looking before she leaps in YOU WILL BE MY FRIEND! (Little Brown, 2011), filled with Brown's inimitable mixed media art and punctuated piquantly with speech balloons and wry facial expressions that make the over-the-top Lucy lovably irresistible.

Sing, Sing a Song...: Peter Yarrow Song Book: Songs for Little Folks

Peter Yarrow, of Peter, Paul, and Mary fame, has remained true to the work of handing down America's traditional music to succeeding generations. His fourth Songbook, The Peter Yarrow Songbook: Songs for Little Folks (Sterling) is dedicated to his own granddaughter Valentine, as he says, "who one day might sing these same songs to her daughter--what a lovely thought!"

In this volume, Yarrow's focus is on songs for the very young, including such stalwarts as "Polly Wolly Doodle," "Old MacDonald," "This Old Man," "Lavender Blue," and "Pop Goes the Weasel." "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" offers the opportunity to teach preschoolers that precursor to harmony, the round, and "The Green Grass Grows All Around," which gives youngsters an experience with the cumulative verse form and the chance to join in with lines repeated over and over. Yarrow slips a few sly updates into the traditional lyrics, as in one line in "This Old Man:"

This old man, he played five.
He played folk and jazz and jive.

In addition to the twelve familiar songs, Yarrow's text includes the complete lyrics, with many verses, guitar chord charts by name and diagram, historical notes on the origin of each song, and if you're not practiced in musical skills, there is an enclosed CD with the songs performed by Yarrow and his own daughter Bethany, mother of the aforementioned Valentine. Illustrations by Terry Weaver add to the general attractiveness of this well-designed songbook.

The research of current brain science has pointed to the very significant importance of music to the development of the young mind, and Yarrow's song books are a great tool in introducing music and language skills to the preschool mind in its most adaptable stage. Other musical books by Yarrow include The Peter Yarrow Songbook: Sleepytime Songs, and The Peter Yarrow Songbook: Favorite Folk Songs, The Peter Yarrow Sing-Along Special, Day Is Done (Peter Yarrow Songbook). and the classic Puff, the Magic Dragon.