Jack On The Road: From Norvelt to Nowhere by Jack Gantos

"You don't want to flatten me," Bunny Hoffer warned, "'cause I have some incredible news."

"Another Russian sneak attack?" I asked.

"Better than that," she cried out.

"Well, don't just stand there like a lawn gnome," Miss Volker snapped, referring to Bunny's stumpy size. "Spit it out!"

"Well," she boldly announced with a flourish. "Private sources tell me that a very old lady named Mrs. Custer at house E-19 has returned to town. And you know what that means."

"Do tell me," Miss Volker replied with disdain.

"It means," Bunny explained slowly, calculating the impact of her point, "that you are no longer the last standing original old Norvelter in Norvelt."

It's Halloween afternoon, the Cuban missile crisis is in full swing, and the little town of Norvelt has barely recovered from the murder of all but one of its  ancient founding ladies. Only Miss Volker remains, given a lifetime charge by the town's founder Eleanor Roosevelt to be local coroner and obituary writer.   Although  she and Jack, a.k.a. The Grim Reaper, complete with scythe and the latest detective skills, haf traced the old-lady murders to Mr. Spizz, who vanished before justice could be served, it seems Mrs. Volker is not out of a job after all. When a long-forgotten Norvelt expatriate, Mrs. Custer, returns to her old house, she, too, is dispatched by a Halloween cookie laced with the same poison that killed the others.

Jack, costumed for Halloween as Mr. Spizz and sporting a  schnozz just like Spizz's (sculpted from cadaver-wax by Bunny, the undertaker's daughter), witnesses Mrs. Custer nibbling the tainted Girl Scout cookie and falls under suspicion from the local police,  but  Jack and Miss. Volker are sure that the murderer is Spizz, with a peculiarly romantic motive.  More than a half-century ago, Miss Volker swore to  Spizz that she would only marry him when she was the last founding lady alive,  and now, with the sudden death of the newly-returned Mrs. Custer, she is convinced that Spizz has again resorted to murder to force her into keeping her promise of matrimony.

But with a new mystery to resolve, Volker's spunk returns after its brief funk. With the zeal of her idol, Eleanor Roosevelt, in her eyes, she proclaims that she and Jack have a special mission:

"A great moment of clarity has saved me.  I'm going to track down that thick-skulled white whale and then I'm going to kill him.  I'll be his Captain Ahab."

"But didn't Moby Dick kill Ahab?" I suggested delicately because she was so worked up.

"Not in my version," she squalled. "In my version I'm Mrs. Captain Ahab and I jam my ivory peg leg right down Moby Dick's blowhole.  Sometimes it takes a woman to get the job done properly." She gave me a severe look that squelched what I was about to say.

"Don't you dare feel bad for wanting to knock off Spizz," she commanded.  "He deserves Old Testament justice--an eye for and eye and a tooth for a tooth."

So Miss Volker sets out on quest that out road-trips anything  Hollywood has to offer, with twelve-year-old Jack at the wheel of a battered VW Beetle with "Runs Great" painted on the windshield and Miss Volker armed with a pistol and a harpoon with a length of rope attached, in a chase story with as many plot twists as the rocky road to Rugby, Tennessee.  The seemingly deranged Volker tracks the elusive Spizz from Eleanor Roosevelt's fresh grave at Hyde Park to Miss Volker's childhood home in the Utopian English village of Rugby, Tennessee, to the swamps of south Florida. But there is a steely and sane method behind Volker's madness, and at the end of their mission, the dearly departed rise from their caskets, the real murderer and his plot to destroy Norvelt are outed, and true love conquers all, in Jack Gantos' long-awaited,  wildly wacky, comic, and dead serious sequel to his Newbery Award-winning  Dead End in Norvelt (see review here).

In that review I said, "Gantos' novels are like no other, filled with drop-dead wacky fun, seemingly chaotic, but somehow pulling themselves together brilliantly, like kaleidoscope glass which suddenly falls into a meaningful and beautiful pattern as it turns. Serious and hilarious, fast-paced yet reflective, untidy but emerging as solid coming-of-age story, this novel easily takes its place within Gantos' formidable body of work." Those words equally describe the just-published From Norvelt to Nowhere (Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2013), a not-to-be-missed novel for Gantos fans and all middle readers who like an out-of-the-box read that revels in and reveals the Jekyll-and-Hyde dichotomy of the human personality.

"Gantos’s sequel to his Newbery-winning Dead End in Norvelt offers less history, more murder, and another hefty helping of zaniness," says Publishers Weekly succinctly.

IT'S HALLOWEEN NIGHT.
A NIGHT TO BEWARE.
GOSLINGS ARE ON THE PROWL.

OLLIE STALKS IN THE CORNFIELD.

The gosling gang goes out to scare somebody and grab for treats everywhere. Gossie goes as a wizard, and it's fowl play for Gertie, costumed as a chicken. BooBoo is a fuzzy bunny rabbit, and Peedie does his darndest to be a dragon.

Little Ollie, the odd man out, trails along behind, wrapped as a mummy, while the rest of the gaggle find treats in the pumpkin patch, the beehive, the haystacks, and the standing cornstalks. Ollie falls even farther behind as the other goslings hoot and howl and stop to bob in a bucket of apples.

But wee Ollie spots a ghost just hanging around in barn door and greets him in his own language-- BOO!-- and gaggles at a gang of grinning jack-o'-lanterns.

Whooooo! The wind rises, thunder crackles, and a spooky scarecrow sways in the breeze, and Gossie, Gertie, BooBoo, and Peedie sprint for the shelter of their barn to scarf down their remaining treats.

But Ollie has gotten into the autumn ambiance and takes his time hiking home, so that the other little goslings are already zoned out on candy and dozing by the time he arrives. But when he piles his share of goodies between them, the goslings wake and go for Ollie's offerings, ready to share his haul. It's an outstanding Halloween outing for all!

Oliver Dunrea's trick-or-treat tale, Ollie's Halloween (Gossie & Friends) (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013), is all ready for Halloween, dressed up this year as a new board book edition which boasts all of the goslings in a group adventure, with all the trappings--fake ghosts, pumpkins galore, wind-borne leaves flying, and a dark and stormy night for the setting, all done up in his trademark cute-as-a-button illustrations, set against bright white mid-page in a wash of watercolor. A fine first Halloween story which introduces the traditions of the scary season without the scare to young spooks.

For a pair of fine fowl stories, pair this one with Tad Hill's Halloween adventure, Duck & Goose, Find a Pumpkin (Oversized Board Book) (see my review here.)

Whatever! Some Monsters Are Different by Daniel Milgrim

SOME MONSTERS ARE AFRAID.

SOME ARE NOT.

It's "different strokes for different folks," and according to Daniel Milgram's newest picture book, the same goes for little monsters. Some of them like to dance the night away, and some just prefer being spectators. Some talk their friends' ears off, and some eschew all that yadda yadda yadda.. Some are picky eaters, and some of them are only too eager to eat anything that won't eat them first.

Vive la difference is Milgrim's theme as he dishes up a variety of little monsters, all quite charming and all quite diverse, but none is so cute as his little star, in his combo spaceman-Viking helmet with antlers and alien's antenna decked in Yuletide ornaments, not to mention his superhero's blue cape. All of them are just perfectly wonderful just the way they are, and that's the way we like it.

Artist-author Daniel Milgrim's simple little story, Some Monsters Are Different (Henry Holt, 2013) celebrates all of the ways there are to be, one just right for that shy child who's not sure he or she will fit in into whatever the world brings next. Milgram is also the author and illustrator of the ironically funny Goodnight iPad: a Parody for the next generation, which reminds us that while it's fine to be wired, it's also fine to be turn off and tune out sometimes.

Moon in My Backyard: Moonday by Adam Rex

THE MOON HUNG FULL AND LOW.

AND TOUCHED THE TOP OF TREES.

WE WHISPERED WORDS LIKE BIG AND BEAUTIFUL.

THROUGH THE BACKSEAT WINDOW I FOLLOWED ITS LIGHT.

THEN I DRIFTED TO SLEEP....

In a dreamlike sequence, a sleeping child is carried to bed and wakes the next morning to find the moon, which had seemed to follow the family car on their nighttime drive, waiting in her backyard, huge and glowing.

In her robe and slippers Mom peers out, a bit perplexed, coffee cup in hand, from the back porch. Dad gives the girl a boost up. She stands in a small moon crater for a moment.

"I'M GOING TO HAVE A LOOK AROUND."

"OKAY," SAID MOM. "ZIP UP YOUR COAT."

The whole town finds that the moon has filled the day with it pale white light. At school Ms. Ellen, sleepy but still game, seizes the teachable moment to do a science lesson on the moon, looming outside the windows, but by math time the teacher gives in to the urge and takes a snooze, drowsily dismissing class first.

Everyone in town is yawning through the daylight-less day, until someone notices a consequence that really dampens their spirits. The tide is coming in--and in and in--into the town, down the streets, and turning the backyard into a lake.

"I COULD DO WITHOUT IT," SAID MOM.

Something must be done. Finally the girl has a thought.

"MAYBE WE COULD TAKE IT FOR A DRIVE."

Everyone remembers that moment when as a child we noticed that the moon followed us as we drove through the night, but only author-illustrator Adam Rex would come up with a gorgeous picture book with the answer to the question: "What would happen if the moon followed me home?" in his latest, Moonday (Hyperion, 2013).

In contrast to a dreamlike sequence of lovely images lighted by this persistent but beautiful moon, Rex provides plenty of visual humor--the teacher drowsing off, her head on her desk, the teenage garage band banging out heavy-metal lullabies, the family trying to dim the backyard moon by draping it with tablecloths and blankets so they can sleep, the dogs howling hoarsely at the never-setting moon, and Mom lamenting the loss of her favorite tablecloth after the family drives the moon back to its original spot above the hill.

Young readers will giggle and then ask, "Was it all a dream?" Publishers Weekly likens Rex's artwork to one of Edward Hopper's nightscapes and says, "It’s a suggestive account of the movements of the dreaming mind, and a gentle departure from Rex’s more madcap work."

The Grumpster: Crankenstein by Samantha Berger and Dan Santat

EVERY MORNING DURING THE PRODUCTION OF THIS BOOK, DAN SANTAT DEPRIVED HIMSELF OF COFFEE.

JUST THE RIGHT AMOUNT OF CRANKINESS WAS IMPERATIVE!

And why would that erstwhile jolly jokester Dan Santat want to get in a grouchy groove? Because he's got to find the proper funk to draw Crankenstein as he goes through one of his downright disgruntled days.

HAVE YOU SEEN CRANKENSTEIN? YOU'D TOTALLY KNOW IF YOU HAD. YOU'D SAY "IT'S A GOOD DAY!"

CRANKENSTEIN WOULD SAY...


MEHHRRRR!

Crankenstein is a bit of a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde hybrid. He'll be looking like a regular kid, about to tuck into a stack of pancakes... and if there's only a pitiful drop of syrup left in the bottle, he becomes ... Crankenstein. A cold rain, untied shoelaces dragging in the puddles, a bit of dog poo on his shoe, a melting-too-fast popsicle, a long, long, line for the carnival ride, a spoonful of gross-o medicine--all are enough to turn his face as green as the Incredible Hulk's and signal a temper tantrum on the way! Is there anything out there funny enough to make this sulky kid smile?

Samantha Berger's just-published Crankenstein (Little, Brown, 2013), peevishly illustrated by a sullen, out-of-sorts, definitely decaffeinated Dan Santat, has just the right tongue-in-cheek touch to tug a smile out of the grumpiest kid, especially when he gets the chance to meet another grumpster just as temperamental as he is. Calling all ye green meanies! As Kirkus Reviews promises, "Get ready to read this aloud a lot.

Presumably, author Samantha Berger is into bad behavior, being the author of Martha Doesn't Share! and Martha Doesn't Say Sorry! (see my reviews here), and Dan Santat has surely battled his share of bad outcomes in his illustrations for Mac Barnett's Oh No!: Or How My Science Project Destroyed the World. (see review here).

Holiday Expandinator: It's Halloween. I'm Turning Green! bhy Dan Gutman

I still can't get over the fact that on Halloween people just hand you candy and you don't even have to pay for it or anything! Halloween is the best holiday of all.

By now the streets were filled with lots of kids out trick-or-treating. We saw some pretty scary-looking costumes. Then I saw the most hideous, horrifying creature in the history of the world.

It was Andrea Young. And she was with her crybaby friend Emily. "We're good witches, not bad witches," Andrea informed us.

I'm a mutant zombie pirate," said Ryan. Arghhhhhh!"

"I'm the underwerewolf!" said Billy. Grrrrrrrr!"

"My mom told me that violent costumes are inappropriate for children," Andrea said.

The usual suspects are all assembled in Dan Gutman's latest in his My Weird School series, My Weird School Special: It's Halloween, I'm Turning Green! (Harper, 2013). The guys are randomly costumed,  (Billy in his annual appearance in his underpants), with the sole objective of collecting enough candy to last all year, while the girls ;loudly proclaim their plan to donate their candy to poor children and save the world, but before the two groups finish swapping insults, they are menaced by The Halloween Monster, a huge, hairy, black-furred dude who extorts all their loot.

It was the worst thing to happen since TV Turnoff Week!

To console the guys, Andrea persuades them to follow her to the weird Mrs. Yonker's house for a special Halloween treat. As fans of the series know, Mrs. Yonkers is bonkers, and this Halloween she has a new invention, the MicroMole 4000 Expandinator, to try out on her hapless students. And when she turns A. J.'s bite-sized Hershey bar into a confection the size of a Thanksgiving turkey, Arlo is all for giving their diminished cache of candy the Expandinator treatment.

But, as if on cue, who should appear again  but The Halloween Monster.  And this time he's not after their candy; he's after Mrs. Yonker's invention, with which he plans to control the known world! Can even Mrs. Yonkers out-wrestle this threat and make the world safe for the rest of the Weird School year?

The prolific Dan Gutman has several (marginally) more serious series to his credit (The Million Dollar Series, The Genius Files, and his notable historical fiction cum fantasy series, Baseball Card Adventures, all cleverly crafted tales often touted for "reluctant readers," but this one is simply full-fledged super-sized silliness devoted to adventures in the world of the Weird School and its kooky staff and students.  Gutman (or his weary but game editors) even adds a Halloween-themed appendix, replete with "Weird Halloween Facts," (...because it's really important to learn stuff so you won't grow up to be a dumbhead like certain people--Andrea--I know), "Mystery Maze," "Monster Match," "Wacky-Word Story Time," "My Weird School Trivia Questions," and much, MUCH MORE! Sure, it's the bite-sized fiction equivalent of trick-or-treat sweets, but a little bit of silliness, like a spoonful of sugar, makes the rest of the school year go down! Go ahead. Have a Green Halloween!

Fitting In: RAWR! by Todd H. Doodler

BEING A DINOSAUR IS HARD.

The first day of school is not working out. T.R. (for T. Rex) knows he's in trouble when he discovers that he's bigger than the school bus. He's bigger than the teacher. He's bigger than his desk, and it goes without saying that he's bigger than the other kids.

And his friendly way of saying hello, RAWR,  doesn't go over too well either.

Even though T.R. is on his best behavior, being helpful assisting the crossing guards in front of the school and tiptoeing around the classroom aquarium, his classmates remain skittish. He uses his best table manners, tipping the table in the cafeteria carefully so that his lunch slides deftly into his toothy mouth.

"BURP!"

T. R. even remembers to say "Excuse me," for that lapse,  but for some reason, nobody wants to sit with him at lunch.

But at recess, he finally gets a break when the ball gets stuck on the roof. It's not even a stretch for T.R. to retrieve it. And when the kids discover that sliding down his tail is lots of fun, it looks like T.R. has got this school thing working for him at last.

Todd H. Doodler, famous for his glorious giggle starters, the Bear in Underwear books, breaks out a new character in his latest, Rawr! (Scholastic, 2013), complete with a touchably poofy fabric relief likeness of his hero on the cover. Bringing  a lighthearted look at fitting in at school as a premise, Doodler's simple comic illustrations and story line have something of the minimalist charm of Norman Bridwell's early childhood classics, Clifford The Big Red Dog and its many sequels, and T. Rex's lusty "RAWR!" may prove a popular greeting among the story circle set.

"Starring" Tara! The Apple Orchard Riddle by Margaret McNamara

"SHOW ME A LITTLE RED HOUSE WITH NO WINDOWS AND NO DOOR, BUT WITH A STAR INSIDE."

Ace primary-grade teacher Mr. Tiffin is off on the big yellow bus with his class for a field trip to the apple orchard. Most of the kids are really psyched about the trip, but to add a little sauce to the apple tour, Mr. Tiffin provides a little brain teaser to keep them on task. Only Tara seems to be unfocused as they board the bus.

"HURRY UP, TARA! YOU'LL MISS THE BUS!" Robert scolds.

TARA TOOK A SET BY HERSELF NEXT TO THE WINDOW. SHE LIKED TO LOOK OUTSIDE AND WONDER ABOUT THINGS.

"TARA'S IN DREAMLAND AGAIN," tattles Anna.

"THE LIGHTS ARE ON BUT NOBODY'S HOME," snarks Elinor.

The class is met by Farmer Hills, who is just full of apple lore to share with the kids, and Mr. Tiffin reminds the kids that they need to be thinking about his riddle while they listen to their guide.

"I'M NOT TOO GOOD AT TESTS," says Tara softly. "IT TAKES ME A LITTLE MORE TIME TO DO THINGS."

Mr. Tiffin has noticed that. He smiles at Tara and urges his charges along as Farmer Hill holds forth on the properties of different varieties of apples, their colors and textures, how each variety is picked, and at last how the chosen apples are pressed to make cider. The kids get to pick an apple for themselves, and Farmer Hill proudly presents each student with a cup of his just-pressed cider and a doughnut.

"TARA'S NOT EATING HERS!" Jake reports.

Tara seems to taking her apple apart, seed by seed, but Mr. Tiffin forges on, reviewing the class on what they've learned, and Elinor expertly reels off the the names of the apples they've seen--Crispin, Fuji, Gala, Red and Golden Delicious, and Macoun!"

Academic objectives covered, Mr. Tiffin returns to his teaser:

"HOW ABOUT THE RIDDLE?" HE ASKS.

Jake and Robert, Molly and Charlotte, even star student Elinor are stumped.

But by this time, it's no surprise who has been "looking at things" and thinking outside the box all this time, in Margaret McNamara's just-in-time-for-the-field-trip story, The Apple Orchard Riddle (Schwartz & Wade, 2013). Like its companion book, How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin? (see my review here), McNamara's insightful portrayal of classroom dynamics skillfully embedded in a core curriculum concept book, backed up by G. Brian Karas' funny and telling illustrations of kids busy being kids, make her newest the perfect introduction or review book for those fall units on the autumn season. McNamara and Karas even add endpapers which show labelled illustrations of the various apples and include endnotes with additional apple lore.

There are lots of apple orchard and pumpkin patch books out there, many of them absolutely delightful, and these two belong in the top of the pile on the harvest wagon. "A sweet, slice-of-school-life story," puns Kirkus Reviews.

The Elephant in the Room: Hiding Phil by Eric Barclay

"LOOK! AN ELEPHANT!"

Three kids meet up with an elephant stranded at the bus stop and invite him to join them at the playground.  With his tiny hat secure on his head, the pachyderm and the kids have a blast on the slides and see-saw, and Phil even offers his long trunk for a jump rope. The kids can't bear to say goodbye to their new buddy.

"MOM AND DAD WILL LOVE PHIL!" the girl gushes.

Suddenly logic rears its party-pooping old head.

Um, No. They won't. Obviously, Phil won't fit in their house.

But the kids are hopeful.  Maybe they can sneak Phil by, under their parents' radar. But how do you hide an elephant?

The oldest boy tries hiding Phil under the dog house.

It looks like a red-roofed football helmet on Phil, and what's more, it's stuck!

By the time Phil is free, the dog house is a pile of splinters. But the kids haven't given up yet. They rake up a pile of autumn leaves deep enough to conceal all of Phil except his fedora. But the leaves give Phil a sneeze. KER-CHOOOO!

The leaves leave in the breeze from that big sneeze, but the kids have another inspiration. Throwing an enormous tarp over Phil, they paint a door and two windows on the front and write "CLUBHOUSE" over the door. This trick can't miss. Hopefully, they invite Mom and Dad to view their new backyard hangout.

"UM... IS THAT AN ELEPHANT?" says Mom.

Busted.

That eternal plea of kids, "Can we keep him?" no matter what sort of critter they bring home, provides the premise for Eric Barclay's hilarious story of a mission impossible, Hiding Phil (Scholastic, 2013). Barclay utilizes a minimum of simple but telling text in this story, and his retro comic characters (somewhat reminiscent of the popular cartoon "The Family Circus") and his happy use of visual jokes tell the story with a bit of pathos, plenty of wit, and an empathetic ending.  Hiding Phil is a honey of a kid pleaser, great for read-aloud times or for self-reading for beginners. "Prepare yourself for a "trunkload" of fun," quips Children's Literature.

Weighty Matters: How Much Does The Gray In An Elephant Weigh? by Elle Van Lieshout

WHEN YOU VISIT THE ZOO
DO YOU WONDER LIKE I DO...

WHY DOES THE GIRAFFE HAVE SPOTS OF BROWN?
AND DO THE ZEBRA'S STRIPES GO UP OR DOWN?

A small boy's imagination flows freely as he strolls the zoo with his grandfather and envisions the animals he sees in rather strange situations.

Are tangled necks a problem when a pair of flamingos do tangos and fandangos?

Does the rhino know his horn is where his nose is supposed to go?

Does the polar bear, in the summer heat, go for an icy frozen treat?

And does the crocodile's dentist have to count and clean all those teeth?

Elle Van Lieshout's and Erik Van Os' How Much Does the Gray in an Elephant Weigh? (Lenniscott, 2013) is not your usual trip to the zoo with Grandpa. Artist Alice Hoogstad's imagined animals are portrayed in soft but surprising shades, and instead of daydreaming of animals in their natural habitats, this boy conjures up visions of them in fanciful settings--the zebra and giraffe getting their striped and spots painted on in an artist's studio, the croc in a dentist's reclining chair, a lion getting his mane tamed in a salon makeover, and the elephant on an appropriately sizable scale weighing in with and without the gray. Kids who like their zoo trips on the wild side (in more ways than one) will find this rhyming and imaginative outing not your everyday walk in the zoological park.

Close Encounters: Mr. Wuffles! by David Wiesner

"LOOK, MR. WUFFLES, A NEW TOY!"

Mr. Wuffles is a laconic tuxedo cat who finds store-bought cat toys, polka-dotted mice, balls with bells inside, assorted things with feathers--beneath his notice.

But among those pathetic objects that obviously only appeal to those dumb cats, there is ONE thing that has a novel appeal.

It is a football-shaped metal thing with legs, looking like nothing so much a miniature colander with a lid, but obviously it has an enticing smell that intrigues Mr. Wuffles. Strange sounds are emanating from the object, and Mr. Wuffles gives it the cat treatment, rolling over and batting it with his paws, carrying it about in his mouth, and giving it a trial bite.

But inside that apparent toy are five tiny, badly shaken-up space aliens, rubbing their battered green heads and moaning and groaning in their own language, mostly triangles and squares with exclamation points. Their equipment is damaged, too, as  their green-clad chief engineer discovers. Their red-robed captain leads them out of the spacecraft where they are suddenly menaced by a black and white paw with notable claws.  Fleeing under the radiator and  inside the walls,  they meet up with an assortment of household ants and beetles and see that the insects have already chronicled their cat conflicts in cave-style drawings on the internal wall, showing Mr. Wuffles in all his fang-and-claw ferocity!

Despite the language barrier between the minuscule aliens and the assorted hexapods, they form an alliance of convenience against their mutual enemy. They seal their mutual defense pact with a ceremonial feast from the ants' cracker cache. That done. the ants and beetles haul in a supply of roundish objects--screw shanks, pencil erasers--candies--from which the aliens slice disks which they use to repair their engine.

Obviously, a diversionary tactic is going to be required to allow the alien space ship to escape Mr. Wuffles' orbit.  The ants and an airborne ladybug keep the cat distracted long enough for the extraterrestrials to launch their ship through the window just ahead of the disgruntled Mr. Wuffles' claws, which embed themselves in the windowsill as he watches them soar toward space beyond his backyard.

Five-time Caldecott  honoree, David Wiesner, clearly has another winner in his Mr. Wuffles!(Houghton Mifflin Clarion, 2013), another of his comedic fantastical stories that concludes quixotically, still leaving the "reader" of this almost wordless book with plenty to ponder. For his tiny space travelers, Wiesner collaborated with a linguist to create a graphic language which kids who love codes and cyphers will enjoy, and his cryptic closing.page will provide readers with plenty of open-ended inspiration to continue the story of Mr. Wuffles and his adversarial allies.

Using his own cat, Cricket, as model, Wiesner creates a central character who is a totally real-looking cat, who like most of his clan, disdains his owner's proffered cat toys without even a sniff. Wiesner's aliens, however, are another story, fanciful robed figures somewhere between humanoid and ant-like, and the collusion between these space travelers and household vermin is a comic contrast to Mr. Wuffles' predictably catlike vigil at the crack beneath the radiator. A master of storytelling in graphic form, Wiesner has the critics in the palm of his paw in this one, a new classic that, as Booklist's reviewer writes, readers will "pounce on."

Lullaby-Me! Nighty-Night, Cooper by Laura Numeroff

COOPER CLIMBED OUT OF HIS MOTHER'S WARM POUCH.

"I CAN'T SLEEP," HE SAID. "PLEASE, CAN YOU SING? THEN I'LL GO TO MY BED."

Day is done. Gone the sun. The warm bath is finished, the fuzzy, footed jammies are buttoned up, and the cozy coverlet is turned down. It's that moment between the time when all the activities of the day are done and the very second sleep finally comes. For most of history parents have filled this time with bedtime stories and lullabies to take little ones through that transition, and Cooper's mama realizes that getting to that moment is going to take some winding down for her restless little joey. She decides to wing it with her own version of "Rock-a-Bye, Baby:"

"ROCK-A-BYE BABY, HE'LL SEE THE COWS...."

Cooper is now wide awake. This is a good game. He asks for a rewrite of one about mice.

To the tune of "The Farmer in the Dell," Mama makes up a song in which warm milk puts the mouse to sleep. But the power of suggestion doesn't work on Cooper.

Gamely, Mama improvises on "Twinkle, Twinkle."  Cooper's eyes are still wide open. With prompts from her not-sleepy son, she sings new sleep-themed lyrics to "Mary Had A Little Lamb," and even "Jingle Bells."

"ARE YOU GETTING SLEEPY?" MAMA ASKS.

Mama's impromptu lullabies are working--on her. Her eyelids are heavy, and she stretches out on the couch. Then Cooper has an idea. He knows a song he can sing for Mama, his own version of "Lullaby and Good Night:"

"CLOSE YOUR EYES.
ALL IS RIGHT.
NOW I'LL KISS YOU
GOODNIGHT."

Laura Numeroff's brand-new bedtime tale, Nighty-Night, Cooper (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013), illustrated by Lynn Munsinger, has these two notable picture book pros at the top of their game. The obvious rapport between Mama and Cooper portrays this battle-of-the-bedtime as a loving, shared ritual, with some fun for both, as Cooper gets to reverse roles and put Mama to bed, tucking his blanket around her and giving her a goodnight kiss. Munsinger's soft but insightful illustrations--her subtle expressions and good-hearted body language--all portrayed in the space of a cozy blue couch, capture perfectly that moment when the child begins to take over his or her own bedtime. Nighty-Night, Cooper is one of the best bedtime stories of the year, one which parent and child can both enjoy.

Words, Words, Words: Rocket's Mighty Words by Tad Hills

Rocket rides, er, READS again.

Rocket, that newly eager reader pup, is back with a helpful compendium of vocabulary words used in the earlier best-sellers on the joy of books and reading, Rocket's Mighty Words Schwartz & Wade, 2013).

Not a stand-alone story, this book is an adjunct to the previous picture books starring that persistent  pup, Rocket, and his persevering pedagogue, Little Yellow Bird, How Rocket Learned to Read and Rocket Writes a Story (see my reviews here), featuring Hills' fetching illustrations of a chalkboard filled with related words from Rocket's adventures.

This new book joins the publisher's "boxed set" of the two books with a "Reading Tree" word aid, Rocket's Learning Box, and with a nod to kids who prefer plush pets to go with their reading lessons, the admittedly adorable How Rocket Learned to Read Doll, which adds to the fun and appeal of learning to read with Rocket.  Emergent and beginning readers will welcome more of the encouraging example of Rocket, the dog who resisted and then embraced reading and writing.

I Can't Believe I Pecked the Hole Thing! Peck, Peck, Peck by Lucy Cousins

MY DADDY SAID TO ME,
IT’S TIME TO LEARN TO PECK A TREE.

Pecking holes is what come naturally to young woodpeckers, and this little redhead produces a perfect round hole in the tree on the first try. Daddy says to keep practicing and have lots of fun.

The trouble is, little Woody is having so much fun he doesn’t know where to stop.

AND NOW I’LL PECK THAT BIG BLUE DOOR.
THEN GO INSIDE, AND PECK SOME MORE!

No, Woody! Don’t make holes inside that house!

But, of course, he does.

I PECK THE SOAP, THE BLUE SHAMPOO.
I PECK THE SINK, AND THE TOILET, TOO.

Youngsters’ tickle boxes will turn over as the die-cut holes fill up the pages and the little woodpecker keeps practicing, in Lucy Cousins newest picture book, Peck, Peck,
Peck (Candlewick Press, 2013). Cousins, the author-illustrator famous for the Maisy series, uses her irresistible rhymes and her signature art style, thick black-line drawings and bright gouache primary colors, with the added fun of die-cut holes, perfect for poking by little fingers, scattered throughout the illustrations. With her latest, a story which offers a lot of ways for its use–tactile experience, counting, and just plain fun in sharing–Lucy Cousins should have a ‘hole lot of new readers for this fine feathered tale.

"From the sunny, see-through cover to the final bedtime snuggle, this day in the life of an overachiever (naughty by human standards) is sure to generate chortles and great interest,” says Kirkus Reviews.

Holding onto the Wind: The Mysterious Woods of Whistle Root by Christopher Pennell

Every night Carly stayed in her room, drinking hot tea and sitting in her chair by the little brick fireplace she felt so lucky to have. She read books, waiting for the sun to rise, so that she could finally go to sleep and leave the lonely, wakeful hours behind.

She also dreamed of a life in the sunlight, outside of her little room that too often felt like a prison, despite its coziness.

But that was asking too much, she knew.

She would settle for a friend.

With no one but a rather indifferent aunt, the orphaned and seemingly bewitched Carly is so lonely that when she hears the faint sound of a violin in the night, she is drawn to see who is playing. In what seems like a dream, Carly finds a solitary rat, seated beside a large squash on her roof, fiddling disconsolately.   She follows him into his strange nighttime world, where trios of such rats have always played for  friendly, dancing owls, a world where the roots of the whistle root trees are the musical rats' only protection from now marauding owls and from an even more sinister creature, the Griddlebeast, who has been freed to roam the woods and destroy all who would seek to preserve the fragile remnants of a dimly remembered Moon King's domain.

When Carly follows the fiddling rat into the woods that night, she makes a friend, the anxious and cryptic Lewis, who takes her to a secret underground city of rats, living in charmingly carved little wooden houses under the venerable leadership of Breeza Meezy. The ancient leader studies Carly's face and then leads her to a human-sized wooden throne carved with the crescent moon and welcomes her as the hoped-for Moon Child who will stop the steady disappearance of their musicians, who seem to have lost their power over the owls of the forest.

Carly vows to help and soon learns to fly with the breeze by seeking its mysterious footholds, the tisks, and even finds an ally of sorts, a boy named Green Pitcher, living in a cabin concealed underground beneath their school's library, but even so, an encounter with the Griddlebeast and its ominous whispers convinces her that to save Whistle Root Wood, she must find something called the Crank and perform an act than has not happened since the Moon King's banishment.

Christopher Pennell's debut fantasy novel, The Mysterious Woods of Whistle Root (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013) is imbued with an engaging atmosphere of darkness and mystery, a dreamlike midnight tale filled with characters reminiscent of those found by Alice when she followed that White Rabbit down the rabbit hole. Fans of  mildly scary fantasies, long on quirky animal characters and imaginative adventures, will find the mood and characterizations intriguing, as, in the best fantasy tradition the orphan heroine finds a loving welcome as the dark forces are subdued, at least long enough for Carly to find a friend and a new home with Green's Granny.  Artist Rebecca Bonds' many woodcut-styled illustrations add charm and ambiance to this tale, and some readers may find its homecoming closing satisfying,  but with many loose ends in the plot and no bridging premise to explain the motives behind the whispers of the villainous Griddlebeast and the dark force lying behind him, more literal minded readers can only hope for a sequel--one which will perhaps knit up all of these dangling threads left blowing in those magical breezes of Whistle Root Wood.