Let Sleeping Dragons Lie! A Perfect Time for Pandas (Magic Tree House #48) by Mary Pope Osborne

Dear Jack and Annie,

We haven't finished translating the last lines of the secret rhyme to reverse the statue spell Teddy cast on Penny. But we do know the fourth object we need to break the spell. It is

A healthy food, grainy and good
baked with love, tough as wood,
round in shape, the color of sand
given to those who have lost their land.

Once you have found the last object, please hurry to Camelot. Morgan and Merlin will return by break of day tomorrow.
--Teddy and Kathleen

Things are going critical in Camelot. If Jack and Annie are going to help Teddy break the spell on Merlin's beloved Penny the Penguin, they must find the last object needed for the release spell to succeed. And to find it, they must use the waiting Magic Tree House with its time-traveling guide and potion to journey to southwest China.

Jack and Annie are happy to find themselves in modern China, 2008 to be exact, where their jeans, tees, and backpacks fit right in with the kids around them hurrying to school in Wolong Town. The serious-minded Jack tries to steer his adventurous little sister to the town's restaurants, where he hopes someone will identify the mystery food described in the riddle, but when the impetuous Annie discovers they are near a giant panda preserve, she insists that they rent mountain bikes and make the trip up Sleeping Dragon Mountain to see the pandas first.

At the Wolong Panda Preserve, Jack and Annie tag along with a friendly older American tourist, pretending to be her grandchildren, suit up in volunteer coveralls, and meet Bing-Bing, a friendly adult panda and watch the young pandas playing in "Panda Kindergarten," and even the sober Jack is enthralled with the appealing animals. Still, Jack is worried about their search.

"How did this happen?" said Jack. "We should be working on our mission. Not stuck in a cage picking up panda poop!"

But the date is May 12, 2008, the morning of the catastrophic earthquake in Sichuan, and the Sleeping Dragon Mountains which surround Wolong begin shake and send an avalanche down on the kids not long after they leave the preserve. Although the road is blocked with boulders and downed trees, Jack uses Kathleen's short-lived magic potion which enables him to grow to the size of a two-story house, and lifting Annie to his shoulders, he reluctantly agrees that they must return to the preserve to offer help to the panda scientists Dr. Ling and Master Lee. Luck is with them there, where they recover Bing-Bing hiding and locate three missing panda cubs, and Jack is amazed when Dr. Ling begins to feed the hungry panda a special bamboo flour panda bread--hard as wood, grainy, and the color of sand. Jack realizes that in helping the pandas as Annie insisted, he has also found the one thing to complete their mission.

Annie smiled at Jack. "Remember--things always seem to work out when we just do the next right thing," she said.

"Funny how that works," said Jack.

Mary Pope Osborne's Magic Tree House #48: A Perfect Time for Pandas (Random House, 2012) is amazingly as exciting and informative as her preceding titles in this deservedly best-selling series. Osborne doesn't miss a beat as she combines information with fantasy adventure in a fast-paced and highly readable beginning chapter books just right for its intended readers. Pair this one with her companion study guide Magic Tree House Fact Tracker #26: Pandas and Other Endangered Species: A Nonfiction Companion to Magic Tree House #48: A Perfect Time for Pandas (Random House, 2012) for a perfect primary/early middle grade introduction to these fascinating animals.

Oh, yes, and with the four powerful objects Jack and Annie have garnered from this and the previous three books, Teddy is able to release Penny the Penguin from statue-hood just in time for the return of Morgan and Merlin to Camelot, and Jack and Annie are back in Frog Creek just in time to make it to school! Whew!

Rescue Squad: I'll Save You, Bobo by Eileen and Marc Rosenthal

WILLY IS HAVING A HARD TIME READING.

Willy is all settled in a comfy armchair, his sock monkey Bobo beside him, and a book about a really big dinosaur open on his lap. But things just aren't working out.

Earl the Cat obviously feels left out, and keeps trying to work his way into that cozy storytime setting. He jumps on Willy's head, and when Willy shoos him away, he jumps on the back of the chair, leans over, and puts his paws on the open book.

"GO AWAY, EARL!"

Willy manages to get to the book's conclusion as Earl sits to the side, contemplating his next move. Willy finds the ending very unsatisfactory. This dino only eats trees! Boring.

"LET'S WRITE OUR OWN BOOK, BOBO!

YOU'LL HAVE A SCARY ADVENTURE, AND I'LL SAVE YOU."

Willy gathers paper, pencils, and crayons and stretches out on the floor and begins illustrating and narrating his story for Bobo as he draws. There's a jungle (where monkeys come from, he points out) and a snake that scares the illustration of Earl away.

"AND WE HAVE A TENT!"

Earl obviously wants to be part of this jungle adventure. He sits on Willy's drawings, he stalks Bobo from outside the tent, and he finds a way to collapse the whole fantasy along with Willy's tent. Even when Willy's drawings show Earl eaten by a giant snake, the real-life Earl continues to get into the act, finally pouncing and making off with Bobo in the midst of Willy's fictional rescue.

"OH, EARL!"

Two's company and three's a crowd. It's an ongoing skirmish between Earl the Cat and the would-be twosome Willy and Bobo, in Eileen and Marc Rosenthal's latest in this series, I'll Save You Bobo! (Athenium, 2012), another episode in the cat vs. sock monkey saga which began with the Rosenthal's first hit, I Must Have Bobo! (Atheneum, 2011). Marc Rosenthal's cartoon-type panels, with a very animated Willy and a totally deadpan but somehow expressive Earl, work well with Eileen Rosenthal's wry and lean text to make a funny tale that kids will love.

Odd Couple: Rat and Roach-Friends to the End by David Covell

EVER SINCE THAT DAY THEY MET, RAT AND ROACH HAVE BEEN SIDE BY SIDE.

THEY GET ALONG GREAT...

MOST OF THE TIME.

Even the best of buds have their disagreements, and it looks as if proximity can be getting problematic around their own household, a sewer under Avenue A in mid-town. Roach is a persnickety pest: he likes prissy decor and fine and fancy cuisine, and hates Rat's mucky footprints on his clean carpet, his moldy garbage breath and odious off-gassing, and he particularly hates Rat's heavy-handed hugs! Rat has had it with Roach's pettiness and his too pretty housekeeping! The little annoyances soon escalate into a major squabble, and this vermin fray quickly approaches a best-friend breakup.

Will this critter couple split forever, or will a cooling-off period give these household pests a second chance as roomies? In David Covell's brand-new Rat & Roach Friends to the End (Viking, 2012), there's not much doubt, given the title, that these two will work it out, but the fun is in Covell's quirky illustrations done up in an appropriately refuse-brown palette, which give this familiar friendship premise a decidedly different setting.

As Publisher's Weekly puts it succinctly, "Covell introduces a classic New York City odd couple in his debut picture book."

Hold Your Fire! Dragons Love Tacos by Adam Rubin

MAYBE IT'S THE SMELL OF THE SIZZLING PAN.

MAYBE IT'S THE CRUNCH OF THE CRISPY TORTILLAS.

MAYBE IT'S A SECRET.

EITHER WAY, IF YOU WANT TO MAKE FRIENDS WITH WITH DRAGONS, TACOS ARE KEY.

And if you are entertaining dragons, you'd better have lots of tacos. Boatloads of tacos. Really.

But there's one thing you must NOT have with the tacos. SPICY salsa. (Not unless you want to throw a party that will make the Olympic cauldron look like a backyard barbecue.)

That means no hot chili peppers in the salsa. NO hot chilis. No jalapenos, no serranos, no anchos, no poblanos. And not even a whiff of Tabasco.

That means MILD SALSA only. What's that at the bottom of that label in really small print?

Totally Mild Salsa. {Now with spicy Jalapeno peppers.]

Jalapenos? Stop the party. Don't let those dragons get to the plates of tacos. Stop that one--the one about to take a bite!

TOO LATE!

KBLOOOOEY! Fiery breath everywhere. The dragon party is a flaming success, if you don't count the burned-down houses.

The dragons are apologetic, and get busy rebuilding the charred houses until the neighborhood is restored.

MAYBE THEY'RE GOOD SAMARITANS.

MAYBE THEY'RE JUST IN IT FOR THE TACO BREAKS.

Together again after their 2008 hit Those Darn Squirrels! (Clarion), this talented pair of jokesters are back again with another hot hit, Dragons Love Tacos (Dial, 2012). Adam Rubin contributes a breezy, off-the-cuff narrative style while Daniel Salmieri's stylized guouache and colored pencil illustrations are an object lesson in visual humor. Publishers Weekly quips that this book gives "a whole new meaning to 'housewarming,'" and says it is "off-kilter fun for those who like their picture books (and salsa) zesty and fresh."

Claustro-Critter: Don't Squish the Sasquatch by Kent Redeker

"HELLO, MR. BLOBULE! MAY I PLEASE RIDE YOUR BUS?

I HOPE IT DOESN'T GET TOO CROWDED.

I DO NOT LIKE TO GET SQUISHED."

It's obviously the first stop of the morning for Mr. Blobule's bus, and its first passenger, a green Bigfoot, nattily attired in black suit, bow tie, and Derby, carrying a black briefcase, obviously has his issues as he takes a solo seat in the very back of the bus.

But as the city bus tootles through the quirky urbanscape, things get critical for this claustrophobic critter. A cast of creatively-conceived critters board the bus, one at a time--Miss Elephant Shark, Mr. Octo-Rhino, Miss Loch-Ness-Monster-Space-Alien, all dutifully reminded by Mr. Blobule of the new house rule:

DON'T SQUISH THE SASQUATCH!

But Senor Sasquatch grows progressively more squeamish in his redoubt in the back of the bus as the other amply-proportioned creatures crowd him more and more.

At last our neurotic character has reached his limit. Thrusting his head and arms wildly through the window, he vents his anxiety: AAAAARGH!

Mr. Blobule's bus suddenly reaches its capacity, and in a dramatic four-page gatefold, it EXPLODES: KA-BLOOEY!

The bus is blown, its passengers thrown into the street, and Mr. Sasquatch starts having a monster meltdown on the sidewalk. What to do? Can Mr. Blobule come up with a serendipitous prescription to soothe the Sasquatch?

There's a super silly solution to this off-beat story, skillfully scripted by author Kent Redeker, in his delightful Don't Squish the Sasquatch! (Hyperion, 2012). Told entirely in the cumulative conversations between the driver and his hybrid critter passengers, with the oft-repeated "Don't squish the Sasquatch" as a refrain that will have kids chanting along with the dialog, this picture book is equally reliant on Bob Staake's illustrations, done in a stylized but abstract style that pretty much defies description but is nevertheless wonderfully suited to this wacky but sweet tale of tolerant friends.

As Publishers Weekly puts it, "...this is a book to be read aloud. Loudly."

Oh, No! Not AGAIN! It's a Tiger! by David LaRochelle

ARE YOU READY FOR A STORY?

ME, TOO!

WE'LL START IN THE JUNGLE WHERE THE TALL TREES GROW AND THE MONKEYS SWING FROM VINE TO VINE.

WAIT A MINUTE!

THAT'S NOT A MONKEY. THAT LOOKS LIKE. . .

A TIGER! RUN!

One tiger is bad enough, but just when our heroes, a boy and a girl out for a quiet storytime walk in the woods, make their escape to a deep, dark cave, seemingly populated only by flapping bats, they notice some shadows in the back of the cavern. Oh. no! those shadows look like. . .

A TIGER! RUN!

It's definitely a case of "we've got to stop meeting like this!" as our storybook strollers succeed in eluding what is seemingly that same tiger over and over again, in David LaRochelle's forthcoming It's a Tiger! Chronicle Books, 2012), In one delightful double-page spread, the kids scale a convenient ladder out of the cavern into the sunny jungle again, only to find themselves in a nest of snakes. And one of the snakes looks like the striped tail of someone all too familiar:

BLUE SNAKES, GREEN SNAKES, EVEN A BIG FUZZY SNAKE
THAT LOOKS JUST LIKE. . .

A TIGER!

RUN!

It's out of the frying pan and into the fire for our two fleet-footed protagonists, as they meet the same striped critter at every turn. This tiger tale is a sure kid pleaser, with it predictable refrain which will have youngsters joining in with each suspenseful page turn. Thanks to illustrator Jeremy Tankard's terrific, stylized illustrations, this tiger is both the essence of tigerosity and yet somehow possessed of the warm furry friendliness of a plush toy pal. With strong black-line and vivid colors, this fantasy tiger turns out, of course, to be a real pussycat, one who'll curl up, let the kids use him for a pillow, get his ears scratched, and listen to a story just for him, one which has a familiar beginning:

WE'LL START IN THE JUNGLE WHERE THE TALL TREES GROW....

[Insert your own tiger tale here.]

It's Not Easy Being Green: Monsters Aren't Real by Kerstin Schoene

"MONSTERS AREN'T REAL.

THEY CAN'T BE."

"THEN, WHAT AM I?

It's hard enough on a guy's self-concept to be a bit, well, quirky-looking. Four horns. Big lopsided eyes with a beady stare. Green lichens growing on his head.

And now you're saying I don't even EXIST? But... look! There I am in the mirror. Listen here!

"I'M BIG AS A MONSTER.

I'M SCARY AS A MONSTER.

AND I'LL PROVE IT!"

Our (actually quite cute) monster spray paints "MONSTERS ARE REAL!" all over walls and hangs signs from every tree. Alas, it is all to no avail. People just don't see a monster no matter how much he uproots saplings and waves his claws about. Finally, tears appear in frustration. What's a lonely monster to do?

But, of course, our little no-monster monster finally finds a kindred spirit in Kerstin Schoene's sweet little story of finding yourself at last, in her just-published Monsters Aren't Real (Picture Book) (Kane Miller, 2012). As Kermit the Frog once pointed out in song, "It's not easy being green," and Schoene's appealing little monster's search for a place of his own will draw smiles from youngsters who won't be able to keep from rooting for this displaced little guy.

Summer's Lease: Summer Days and Nights by Wong Herbert Yee

What is so rare" as a summer's day?

Here is a summer day (and night) as seen through the senses of a young child, whose bare feet carry her after a butterfly and whose ears lead her to investigate a buzz, whose eyes are surprised and delighted to see a big, fuzzy, yellow and black bumblebee hovering by the pond.

In the halcyon world of Wong Herbert Yee's latest in a youngster's outdoor adventures, Summer Days and Nights (Henry Holt, 2012), a little girl strolls barefoot through a daisy-bedecked meadow, taking in the sights, sounds, and smells of a summer morning. She sits beneath a shady tree to sip her lemonade, and then she's ready for a different experience.

WHAT ELSE IS THERE TO KEEP ME COOL?
KERSPLASH! I JUMP INTO THE POOL!

After a splash in the wading pool, parents beckon the child to another summer delight, a picnic by the playground in the park.

A GOLDEN SUN SINKS IN THE SKY.
ANOTHER SUMMER DAY GONE BY.

But when darkness comes and it's too warm to fall asleep right away, the summer night is still calling her outside. A field mouse rustles below her window, and a hooting barn owl and barrumping bullfrog call her to a concert.

SUMMER NIGHT, MOONLIGHT SKIES,
WINGING, BLINKING FIREFLIES.

And when this happy little girl finally closes her eyes to "dream of summer days and nights," we realize that such a time of childhood is itself a dreamlike experience. Yee's simple rhyming couplets and soft-focus colored pencil illustrations on watercolor papers give this charming little tone poem of a book a dreamlike look and mood of its own, which reminds the adult reader that early childhood, like summer, "hath all to short a date."

"Small in scale but large-hearted in scope. . . Yee uses a free-associative first-person narrative to capture, beautifully, the meandering, quotidian episodes of a child's day outdoors," says The New York Times.

Yee's other books in this seasonal series are Who Likes Rain? and Tracks in the Snow. (read my review here)

Out of the Mouths of Dogs: What the Dog Said by Randi Reisfeld

I wished I could grieve like a normal person, instead of feeling abandoned and--and guilty.

"Grace." Regan's voice rose over the chaos in the cages, echoing along the concrete hallway. "I think I found him! He's sooooo cute! He looks like a multi-poo!" she said. "That's what Sheena has!" Sheena Watson, queen of the high school jungle, Regan's cohort in fabulousness.

"No, no, no. Pick me!"

I spun around. In the cage behind me, a dog sat, posing as if for a portrait of canine good humor and fidelity. His shaggy gray muzzle seemed strained into something resembling a smile.

"Did you hear that?" I asked Regan.

"She didn't," the dog assured me. "You're the only one who can."

Since her police officer father's sudden death in a drive-by shooting, Grace has lost her anchor. Grace's grief is mixed with guilt, a relentless feeling that her insistence that her dad make her soccer tryouts that afternoon put him at work early and into the wrong place at the wrong moment. Now she is listeing to a pound dog and suspects she's losing her mind.

Grace, the smart one, the sister with straight As, has stopped turning in homework, stopped learning anything, stopped seeing her friends, lost in grief for the father who seemed to her the only one who understood her. Her mom throws herself into work and her books on grief management, and her sister Regan hasn't missed a beat with her friends and despite lackluster grades, is deep into scheming to get herself admitted to Parson's School of Design.

Enter Rex the rescue dog. Looking to pad her college application, Regan decides that she and Grace will adopt a shelter pooch and enroll it in the local canine companion program, becoming trainers to turn the pound puppy into a service dog for handicapped children. A born manipulator, Regan passes the actual training classes over to Grace, and Mom goes along with her lopsided plan, hoping that the dog and social involvement will draw Grace out of her self-imposed isolation.

But this rescue dog talks so that only Gracie can hear him, and what he says is making sense. Afraid to tell her family that she's having conversations with a goofy-looking mutt, Grace has no choice but to go with Regan's plan. Along the way, Grace is drawn in by Rex's infectious live-in-the-moment doggy wisdom and his amazing ability to psych out human motivations.

Rex's canine sensory equipment also come into play when Grace discovers that one of the teens in the class is JJ, the boy who may have been a witness to her father's unsolved murder, and to add to the mystery, she learns from the instructor that her own father was instrumental in getting JJ, identified as an at-risk kid because of his gang involvement, into the class. At first horrified by being forced together with someone she believes was involved in her dad's death, Grace gradually comes up with a plan, with the help of Rex's amazing abilities, to force JJ to reveal the shooter responsible for her father's shooting to the police.

Part fantasy pet tale, part mystery story, Randi Reisfeld's and H. B. Gilmour's What the Dog Said (Bloomsbury, 2012) is above all a story of one girl's grief. Grace slowly finds her way back to her own life, and with Rex's help, finds that bittersweet resolution that keeps her father a living part of that life. This funny-sad story rises above the humorous device of the talking dog story to become an insightful coming-of-age novel with appeal to a variety of young adult readers.

Downfall! No Jumping on the Bed by Tedd Arnold

IN HIS ROOM ON THE TOP FLOOR OF A TALL APARTMENT BUILDING, WALTER WAS GETTING READY FOR BED.

HIS FATHER SAID, "IF I'VE TOLD YOU ONCE, I TOLD YOU A MILLION TIMES:

NO JUMPING ON THE BED.

SOMEDAY IT'S GOING TO CRASH RIGHT THROUGH THE FLOOR!"

HMMMPPHH! An order like that is practically a dare to a mischievous little boy, and when Walter hears thumps from upstairs, he knows it's his friend Delbert, jumping on his bed.

"IF DELBERT CAN JUMP ON HIS BED, SO CAN I!"

But Walter has pushed his luck once too often. It seems that Dad was right!

With an horrendous crack, Walter finds himself and his broken bed crashing through the floor, right into Miss Hattie's spaghetti. In a wild domino effect, the impact sends Walter and the astonished Miss Hattie, meatballs and all, through the floor and the ceiling of the Mr. Matty, watching TV, and in an ever-increasing calamity, the three go into freefall into Aunt Batty and Fatty Cat's cozy evening, Mr. Hanratty's painting project, and on top of Maestro Ferlinghatti's string quartet rehearsal.

His eyes closed in horror, Walter falls down into the sub-basement of the building, when...

HE LANDED ON SOMETHING SOFT.

HE OPENED HIS EYES. EVERYTHING WAS IN PLACE.

"WHEW!" THOUGHT WALTER.

Safe in his own intact bed, Walter settles back down for what he hopes is an uninterrupted, dreamless sleep this time, when suddenly he hears an ominous CREAK from the room above his, where Delbert, it seems, is still jumping on his bed.

In this re-illustrated 25th anniversary edition of Tedd Arnold's first book and first runaway hit, No Jumping on the Bed 25th Anniversary Edition (Dial Books, 2012), there's still a surprise ending to this cumulative cautionary tale about a fantastical bedtime adventure. It seems Delbert gets both his comeuppance and well-deserved downfall in this totally rib-tickling tale that has always been a guaranteed read-aloud killer diller, especially with little boys. I'll leave it to you to decide whether you prefer Arnold's new remix, with more exaggerated cartoon-style, digitally colorized illustrations, to those in his classic 1987 version, but the story remains solid bedtime or storytime fare full of chuckles and visual humor for primary readers.

Night Life: Red and Yellow's Noisy Night by Josh Selig

ONE NIGHT YELLOW WAS GETTING READY FOR BED WHEN THERE WAS A VERY LOUD NOISE.

IT WAS RED, PLAYING HIS STRUMMY.

Yellow and Red are as different as, well, daylight and dark. Yellow is plump and placid; Red is fit and frenetic; Yellow is a morning person; Red is obviously a night owl. Yellow just wants to sleep; Red wants to swing and play the night away.

It's an impasse, a standoff in the olive tree.

Yellow pulls his pillow over his head to muffle Red's music, while Red just pumps up the tempo, jacking up the volume to entice his friend to join in. It's LOUD! Yellow can't sleep with all that noise, and Red just has to jazz it up on his strummy! Can this conflict be resolved?

It can and is, in Josh Selig's Red & Yellow's Noisy Night (The Olive Branch) (Sterling, 2012) as Red figures out that strummies can swing both ways: he can play more mellow music, a lulling lullaby that gently floats Yellow off to his desired dreamland. All's well in Olive Tree land, as Yellow snores while Red strums softly. Selig's illustrations, based on the international cartoon show, have the necessary verve and energy to extend the super simple text, deftly delineating these two very different characters and their rational compromis to keep the peace in their tree. Not a bad thought with which to fall asleep!

Dino-Delvers: Dinosaur Dig by Penny Dale

ONE DINOSAUR DIGGING A HOLE.

A VERY BIG HOLE!

What could be better to preschoolers than combining two of their favorite subjects--big machines and dinosaurs? In Penny Dale's jolly counting tale, Dinosaur Dig! (Nosy Crow/Candlewick Press, 2011), there are ten familiar (triceratops) and not-so-familiar (baronyx) dinosaurs at the controls of a wide variety of construction gear--from the familiar dump truck to the rarely spotted telehandler as the drivers dig, shovel, dump, hoist, and pump concrete into a giant but mysterious hole. The machines multiply, each with their own dino-types of drivers, as the workers on this big project count up from one to ten and while young readers are left to wonder: WHAT are they building?

SPLASH!

It's a splash-crash ending as the dinos cool off in their very own self-constructed mega-swimming pool!

The endpapers of this one tell the tale. The front inside cover is bedecked with the ten driver dinos, (with labels) and the back cover features their construction equipment in all its mighty power, equally identified by name. It's a dynamite dinosaur project which youngsters can count on!

Pair this one with Chris Gall's Revenge of the Dinotrux (see my review here) for a dynamite dino power duo.

One for the Team: Mason Dixon--Basketball Disasters by Claudia Mills

Mason took the first spoonful of his Cheerios and milk.

"Um, Mom and Dad?" Mason said. He tried to keep his tone light and casual. "I was thinking that I might go out for basketball this year."

His mother found her voice first. "But, Mason...."

But, Mason?

"You've always said you're not a sports person!"

If there was anything that was irritating, it was hearing quotes from your previous self.

Mason Dixon is a Cheerios and milk, plain tee shirt and brown socks kind of guy. And he really has no burning desire to play basketball. But his best friend Brody needs a ride if he is going to play basketball, and Brody, who has hustle, easily talks Mason into enlisting his gung-ho parents in the idea. "Believe me, this is going to be great," Mason tells them, trying to copy Brody's enthusiastic tone.

Down at the Y, there is good news and bad news. The good news is that perennial class bully Dunk is not on his team. The bad news is that his mom volunteers his dad to be the coach when no one else offers to do it. Dad is now Coach Dan. Weird.

Mason's dad admits he know little about basketball and zilch about coaching it, but true to form, he cheerfully orders a book on how to coach online, and spends the weekend boning up on good coaching techniques. Mason knows that this is going to be a basketball disaster. After all, Dad has only read the first three chapters, now embarrassingly adorned with sticky notes, as they meet for the first practice. He tells the team seriously that they are going to learn to win with grace and lose with dignity.

Mason is relieved to see that he is not potentially the worst player. A kid named Dylan has that position nailed. Dylan is so afraid of the ball that he dodges any passes that come his way and drifts around the court trying to stay as far away from the floor action as he can. Mason is pretty sure that the the "losing with dignity" part of Coach Dan's pep talk is the one that the Fighting Bulldogs are going to get plenty of chances to practice.

It's a big season for Mason Dixon in Claudia Mills' third book in this series, Mason Dixon: Basketball Disasters (Alfred A. Knopf, 2012). Mason learns about being part of a team, one which features three girls, including his second-best friend, Nora, finally scores his first goal in a game, survives his first sports injury, and gets to make the pass which leads to his team's beating Dunk's team in the final game.

With gentle humor and great insight into her likeable middle graders, Mills takes her wry and reluctant main character Mason another step forward in this noteworthy series, perfectly pitched just one notch above beginning chapter book level, for its target readers. Kirkus Reviews concludes, "Altogether, this is an amusing if undemanding account of the typical fourth-grade problems the athletically ungifted face as they make their way through school."

Preceding books in this series are Mason Dixon: Pet Disasters and Mason Dixon: Fourth-Grade Disasters.

Night Shift: Horseplay! by Karma Wilson

ONE DAY WHILE FARMER WORKED HIS FIELD,
HE CRIED, "FOR GOODNESS SAKE!
THESE HORSES ARE A WORTHLESS BUNCH--
THEY JUST CAN'T STAY AWAKE!"

These nags are lagging! Their withers seem weary, their stifles seem somnolent, and even their pasterns are pooped. Farmer's whole draft team is draggin'. He can't figure what's wrong with his horses. Are they ill, or are they just lollygagging when there's work to be done?

It seems that some spy work is in order. Farmer hides out in the hay to surveil his horses while they sleep to see what's up. But the problem is obvious--they are NOT sleeping in their stalls!

THESE HORSES DIDN'T SLEEP ONE BIT.
THEY FROLICKED ON THE LOOSE.
GAMES LIKE HIDE-AND-SEEK,
LEAPFROG, AND DUCK, DUCK, GOOSE.

Farmer hauls his herd back into the barn and issues an ultimatum!

"NO HORSEPLAY!"

But the daytime dallying continues. Farmer's horses are still sleeping on their day jobs, and he is forced to ramp up his surveillance. He locks them in the barn and slips in between a block of sleeping sheep to keep the night watch and sees the horses pull out a deck of cards and some seven-layer dip & chips and proceed to hold 'em and fold 'em in a protracted poker game.

And so the horseplay wars continue.

At last Farmer tethers each horse in his stall, and shuts them inside. He pulls up a bucket, seats himself before the horses, and dares them to dare to play.

"OKAY!
COME ON. MAKE MY DAY!"

There's plenty of farm fun in best-selling author Karma Wilson's latest, Horseplay! (Little, Brown, 2012). With Jim McMullan's charming retro illustrations of the frazzled farmer and his frolicking farm animals, carried along by Wilson's quirky quatrains, the whole thing is a rollicking romp in the hay.

"The mood here is of subversive festivity, with a rolling, melodious pleasure to the words and a gratifying, easy quality to McMullan's artwork," says Kirkus Reviews.

Pair this one with its companion collaboration by Wilson and McMullan, Hogwash! (Wilson, Karma) (Little, Brown, 2011) for more fun down on the farm.

The Final Solution: R.I.P. Donald Sobol

Hail and farewell to Donald J. Sobol, the creator of the character who first made it cool to be smart in school! Encyclopedia Brown, the erudite hero of Sobol's fifty-plus-year-old series, introduced millions and millions of kids to the detective mystery genre with tales all set in Idaville, U.S.A.

With memorable characters like the original tough-chick sleuth Sally Kimball and bad guy Bugs Meany and his gang the Tigers, illustrated iconically by Leonard Shortall, Sobol made it respectable to know stuff and taught generations about the fictional device of foreshadowing (clues)! Each book gave readers the short but well-written scenarios of ten hometown mysteries and gave the youthful sleuths a chance to solve the case on their own, backed up with an appendix of solutions.

Sobol's final E. B. book, Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Soccer Scheme is forthcoming in October.

Digital Dialog: Wumbers by Amy Krouse Rosenthal

"Would you like some honey to swee10 your tea?"

"Yes. That would be 1derful. Oh, and I just love your 2-2!"

"It's words from numbers!" proclaims the cover of Amy Krous Rosenthall's and Tom Lichtenheld's new collaboration, Wumbers (Chronicle Books, 2012). Using numeral digits to as stand-ins for syllables, Rosenthall fires off a series of these lingo-digital cre8ions that just get more in10sely funny as she rolls along. Illust8or Lichtenheld provides comic visual cues to help with readers figure out the wordplay, in a cross-curriculum game that will have math and language arts teachers laughing along.

Even music teachers can get into the act!

She's learning to play the 2ba.

"Tigh10 your mouth... then 4ce out the air."

"2T!"

Kids already into texting will be in the 4front, f8ed to take to this game in10sely right from the first page, but the rest won't w8 long before they, 2, will be exhilar8ed to join in, cre8ing their own Wumbers. So don't w8 and don't be l8!!

And to ex10d the top-r8ed fun, pair this 1 with Rosenthall's gr8 altern8 wordplay book, This Plus That: Life's Little Equations, and don't 4get the old master who started this all off, William Steig and his never overr8ed cla6, C D C ? and C D B!

2dles!

Swamp Romp: Chomp! by Carl Hiaasen

"Go for it" the director told him. "We're rolling."

"'Kay, mate." Derek Badger slipped up to his neck into the water, careful not to muss his hair.

"Soon the sun will be setting over the Everglades, and I find myself in a perilous predicament. I must now swim across this deep, murky pond to reach dry ground," he intones.

A swelling appeared in the glassy pool--Alice, fourteen feet of alligator, rising to take a breath, the black scales on her broad back glistening like barnacles. She was as wide as a railroad track.

Derek purposely positioned himself to intercept her. Somehow he wound up on her back. "Woo-hoo!" he hollered idiotically.

Derek managed to hang on for three full revolutions before being launched airborne. Alice was still twirling violently when he splashed down. He happened to reenter on the biting end of Alice.

In debt after an enforced layoff caused by a concussion from a frozen iguana felled from its tree by a sudden Florida freeze, veteran animal wrangler Mickey Cray, whose specialty is staged television "adventure" shows, needs cash in the worse way. In desperation Mickey and son Wahoo sign on as wildlife wranglers for Expedition Survival, starring the reality show's pudgy leading ham, Derek Badger. After the 'gator fiasco in his own movie-set lagoon, Mickey soon sees that the most dangerous animal he'll be wrangling is the dim-bulb star himself, whom he christens "Dork Beaver." Having rescued Derek from his tame and well-fed Alice already, Mickey is not happy with his job description. His sensible teenaged son Wahoo quickly sees that his job will be wrangling his quirky and fearless father, who is determined that "Dork" is not going to create havoc among his beloved "Glades critters.

In a WalMart parking lot along the way the Crays add to the wrangling staff a small teenaged girl, Tuna, a runaway with a shiner provided by her crazed, drunken dad, and young Wahoo, seemingly the only rational member of the company, has his hands full.

The first day finds the spray-tanned star reckless grabbing a five-foot water snake for his trademark survival dinner and getting himself thoroughly chomped. The rest of the wildlife wisely make themselves scarce, until a confused bat makes a crash landing in Derek's blueberry cheesecake. Derek calls for cameras to roll as he snatches up the stunned bat and lowers it headfirst into his mouth as his de rigeur survival supper du jour. Not surprisingly, the bat objects and latches its tiny teeth in Derek's tongue and hangs on while the star, temporarily silenced by a mouthful of flying mammal, thrashes around the campfire. Again Mickey has to perform a daring rescue.

Derek, certain that he's been bitten by a vampire bat and doomed to become a vampire himself like the hero of his favorite "Night Wings" flicks, flees into the Everglades forest.

And that's just the beginning of Carl Hiaasen's latest eco-adventure, Chomp (Alfred A. Knopf, 2012). Add to this swampy Hiaasen cast of colorful south Florida characters, Tuna's enraged, pistol-waving, and still drunken father, who tracks the crew down, takes Mickey hostage, steals an airboat and shooting his captive in the foot for control, orders him to find his wayward daughter, hiding with Wahoo somewhere in the Everglades. All of the above are soon pursued by an extremely annoyed 'Gladesman who wants his hijacked hand-built airboat back, assorted local police, Federal rangers from the local Miccosuki Indian Reservation, and the U.S. Coast Guard, and you've got one of Hiaasen's hilarious walks on the wild side, with a gratis side excursion into Everglades ecology.

Fans of Carl Hiaasen's Newbery-winning Hoot and best-selling companion books Flush and Scat should not miss this drop-dead-funny page turner of a chomp romp. "Humorous adventure tales just don’t get any more wacked…or fun to read than this," says Kirkus in their, er, biting and incisive review.