Not Your Usual Day at the Beach: Roxie and the Hooligans at Buzzard's Roost by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

Since Roxie's daring adventure foiled the bank robbers with the help of her town's notorious Hooligans, Roxie has hoped for a truce with that scruffy, ragtag gang of misfits.

But Roxie underestimates the Hooligans. Even when her Uncle Dangerfoot takes her and her bespectacled friend Norman along to his beach house, hoping to work on his hush-hush invention with his friend Lord Thistlebottom far from prying eyes and the press, they find a way to stowaway.

It was almost five hours later, and evening when they reached a large old house that sat back a bit from the ocean. Roxie and Norman were very stiff.

Uncle Dangerfoot reached for the latch on the trailer and opened the door. "What in thunder...?" he bellowed.

Roxie stared as Helvetia Hagus, Simon Surly, Freddy Filch, and Smoky Jo came tumbling out.

It seems as if Roxie cannot escape the Hooligans. Uncle Dangerfoot inexplicably accepts their story that their parents will not come to fetch them, and although the housekeeper and cook, Mrs. Tumbledry, is kindly, the other tenant, the Widow Bittersweet, veiled and gowned in heavy brown mourning garb, is scary weird. Rosie and Norman resolve to make the best of the uninvited guests, and Uncle Dangerfoot and Lord Thistlebottom seem totally absorbed in their secret invention... until the larcenous Helvetia, always on the lookout for a source of lucre, manages to swipe it.

The kids discover that the covert contraption is a rocket-powered jet pack, and Helvetia seizes the opportunity to try it out. Apparently the device is not quite ready for prime time, but Helvetia survives soaring above the beach, followed by a dive into the sand. The cat is out of the bag, and Uncle Dangerfoot is forced to explain the real purpose of his hideaway. He and Thistlebottom conceal their device in the Widow's baby's crib, where the petite Smoky Joe has elected to sleep, and, swathed in a baby blanket, she winds up being mistaken for the jet pack and kidnapped by the nefarious villain, Alfred Applejack.

Can Rosie and the remaining Hooligans combine forces to save Smokie Jo, or will she have to rescue them, in Phyllis Reynolds Naylor's second rip-roaring, harem scarem comic adventure, Roxie and the Hooligans at Buzzard's Roost (Atheneum Books, 2018).  In this series, Naylor's delightful ability to combine colorful and perilous adventures with picaresque humor is reminiscent of John Bellairs in his quaint and comic Gothic series which include The House with a Clock in Its Walls (Lewis Barnavelt) and his The Mummy, the Will, and the Crypt (Johnny Dixon). Naylor, Newbery Award winner for Shiloh (The Shiloh Quartet), never fails to delight and enthrall readers, and this easy reading adventure novel is just right for summer nights.

Shelter Pup: Puppy's Big Day (Bad Kitty) by Nick Bruel

IN CASE IT'S NOT OBVIOUS, KITTY IS IN A VERY, VERY, VERY BAD MOOD TODAY.

AND NOBODY KNOWS WHY.

IT'S WORSE THAN THE DAY SOMEONE SAID KITTY NEEDED A BATH.

IT'S WORSE THAN THE DAY THEY CANCELED HER FAVORITE TV SHOW CLAW AND ORDER.

Clueless as usual, Puppy is oblivious of Kitty's obvious body language. He's in such danger of having his hide shredded that his owner decides to call for backup to get him out of ground zero.

UNCLE MURRAY IS HERE!

Good ol' Uncle Murray is delighted to play dog-owner-for-the-day, but Bad Kitty provides a hurried cat conniption send off, and Puppy and Uncle Murray have to exit the house at top speed.

Uncle Murray soon has a run-in with the legal requirements of dog ownership. In short order he gets citations from an ornery off-page officer of the law--tickets for having no leash, no poop-scooping equipment, no dog license, and walking Puppy through a NO DOGS ALLOWED park.

"HOLY SALAMI! THIS WHOLE DOG-WALKING THING IS STARTING TO COST ME SOME BIG BUCKS!"

Finally Uncle Murray finds the dog park. Safe at last?

Not really. Puppy soon acquires an ardent admirer, the world's ugliest lady bulldog, who chooses him for her love interest. Assuming that the drooly toy mouse Puppy has been schlepping is a romantic offering, she snatches it. A bad scene ensues--and both dogs are hauled off to the doggy slammer while Uncle Murray is up a tree, protecting what remains of the seat of his pants.

In his latest, Bad Kitty: Puppy's Big Day (Roaring Brook Press, 2015), author-illustrator Nick Bruel has a fine time spoofing the I'm-in-the-Jailhouse-Now scene at the pound, adding a grizzled old Llasa Apso lifer named Gramps and a stir-crazy chihuahua called Hercules, until Uncle Murray finally appears to bail out Puppy. All's well that ends well, with old-softy Uncle Murray adopting the three pound pooches, and when the slimy toy mouse Puppy has carried all the way turns out to be Bad Kitty's lost Mousey-mouse, peace is finally restored at the Bruel/Bad Kitty household and Puppy is (temporarily, we presume) Bad Kitty's best friend.

Along with his full-format picture books, Nick Bruel's latest beginning chapter book, done in comic graphic novel style, is a fine addition to the prodigious Bad Kitty series. Bruel's slapstick sight-gags never fail to crack up youngsters, but his visual and verbal humor is so slyly sophisticated that even grownups find these books sidesplitting read-alouds. As usual, Bruel includes "informational" sections" ("Kitty's Horrible But True Facts About Dogs") on such natural questions as to why dogs must be walked (and cats don't), why dogs lick people's faces (and cats don't), and why dogs sniff butts (and cats don't) that will elicit equal measures of gagging and giggles from young readers.

"As always, Bruel's writing is hilarious, and his excellent illustrations make the story complete. Bad Kitty fans will enjoy this volume immensely," adds School Library Journal.

For more Bad Kitty tales, read my earlier reviews here.

Dog My Dragon! Mason Dixon: Fourth Grade Disasters by Claudia Mills

"Fourth grade!" said Mason Dixon's mother as she sat on the family-room floor surrounded by bags of school supplies. "Tomorrow is the first day of fourth grade!"

Lying on the floor next to her, Mason tried not to scowl. He must not have succeeded, because she said, "Stop frowning! Fourth grade is wonderful. It will be your best year yet!"

That wasn't saying much.

Mason Dixon is a wet blanket. A lovable wet blanket, but still.... He doesn't like surprises. He doesn't school. He doesn't like sports. He doesn't even like Halloween costumes.

And what he's sure he's not going to like, big time, is being one of the Plainfield Platters, a locally famous choral group of fourth and fifth graders from Plainfield Elementary. He doesn't like to sing and he especially doesn't like to sing in public, in front of an audience--something he discovered in Kindergarten when, performing as an enthusiastic little tipping teapot, he fell off the risers and brought down the house with lots of loud laughter. Class bully Dunk Davis has never let anyone forget about that public appearance. All Dunk has to do is hum a few measures of "I'm a little teapot" to put Mason in a full-day funk.

But Mason has some things going for him. There are his parents, cheering him on, overenthusiastically for Mason's taste, his beloved dog, Dog, his best friend, perennial optimist Brody Baxter, and his second-best friend, the quietly brilliant Nora.

And his new teacher, "Coach Joe" isn't grumpy and doesn't hate boys like his previous teachers. What he is, though, is another over-the-top optimist.

"All right, team! Come up for a huddle! If we're going to have a winning season this year, we have to have a winning attitude!

This year," Coach Joe said, "We are going to be making a full-court press on writing." He pumped his fist into the air.

Mason wasn't the type of person who pumped his fist into the air.

A full-court press on writing was another clue that this was not going to be a good year.

Already a past master of lip-sync, Mason positions himself on the risers as far from Dunk as he can get and manages to get through the early rehearsals of the Platters, comforted by his deal with his parents that he can drop the chorus after the first concert if he still doesn't like it. He plugs away on his writing assignment, working on a story about Pedro the Piano who does not like to play in public. Everything is going along uneventfully, the way Mason likes it, until the first performance of the Plainfield Platters draws near, and Brody notices that their large, plush mascot and inspiration for the school song, Puff the Magic Dragon, has a tail in desperate need of repair. Puff is losing his fluff! Brody offers Mason's mother's services as seamstress, and she happily accepts the job. In fact, she is so taken with the honor that she even volunteers to make a kid-sized Puff costume for the chosen soloist for the concert.

Now Mason is really worried. More than usual, that is. What if Dog takes out his love of chewing things up on Puff? Dog is a wonderful dog, but he's an expert in getting his teeth into things that don't need chewing! And what if, in appreciation for his mother's costume, Ms. Marengo picks him to be the soloist? All Mason can do is warn his mother, three times, to keep Puff in her sewing room, behind closed doors while he's at school.

For once Mason resolves to be proactive, selling his music teacher on the idea of making him a one-man stage crew in charge of house lights and piano bench placement. Now, with a little bit of luck, Mason feels he can escape even lip-sync public "singing" and still keep his deal with his parents, and if all goes well, after the big performance, he will no longer be a Plainfield Platter! Life will be simple and uncomplicated, like Mason likes it.

But Mason's feeling of dread is indeed a portent. Dog seizes his chance when Mom dashes downstairs to answer the doorbell and totally consumes Puff the Magic Dragon's head. Mom says she will take care of it, but Mason is racked with anxiety. And then during the parent performance, Brody, dressed as Puff, has his one-and-only attack of stage fright when it is time for his big solo. Somehow, Mason Dixon feels sure that the total responsibility for this disaster is on him.

In Claudia Mill's second story in her Mason Dixon series, Mason Dixon: Fourth-Grade Disasters (Alfred A. Knopf, 2011), skillful and witty writing make this perpetual party-pooper into a totally sympathetic and hilarious character. In the tradition of Judy Bloom's classic Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, this series by the veteran and award-winning Claudia Mills, amiably illustrated by Guy Francis, has well-developed characters with which younger middle readers can identify and plenty of family and classroom humor to keep them laughing all the way. "Hilarious yet believable twists and deadpan humor make this glimpse into fourth-grade life a treat," says School Library Journal.

Snakes Alive! A Crazy Day with Cobras (Magic Tree House #45) by Mary Pope Osborne

The winds blew harder.

"What's happening?" cried Annie. Suddenly two figures ran out of the woods.

"Teddy!" cried Annie. "Kathleen!" said Jack.

"You must come with us to the tree house!" cried Teddy and Kathleen.

"We made a terrible mistake! We desperately need your help!"

Jack and Annie are used to having the Magic Tree House appear suddenly in the Frog Creek Woods and finding Morgan or Teddy or Kathleen waiting serenely inside to send them forth on their missionm, always providing a guidebook and something magical to assist them in their mission. But this time is different.

Teddy and Kathleen are in trouble. Without telling Morgan, they have been trying out her forbidden Book of Spells and have turned Merlin's beloved penguin to stone and cannot undo the spell without mortal help.

Jack and Annie soon find themselves on their way to a land distant in time and space--to the time of the building of the Taj Mahal in India--with a mission to recover the first of four powerful items that will allow the spell to be undone. Equipped only with a potion that can make them grow smaller and larger, the two kids find themselves dressed in silken finery, impersonating ambassadors to the court of the powerful Mogul, a ruler so mighty that no one is allowed to speak to him without his permission, on pain of death!

Annie and Jack are more frightened than they have ever been, even at the court of the Empress of Austria, but when they bow low before the Mogul, he presents them with a gift, just the emerald they have been sent to find. Then the elephant to which they have been assigned to ride out of the Mogul's court suddenly breaks out of the proession and charges into the jungle, where she dumps them to find her lost baby. In the turmoil Jack drops the emerald, and before the two can locate it, a giant King Cobra seizes it and takes it back to her nest. Will Jack and Annie fail their mission and be stuck in medieval India forever?

Very few children's series ever make it into double digits, much less close to fifty sequels, but Mary Pope Osborne's best-selling Magic Tree House has now turned over 45 on the series-o-meter and is still going strong. Pope's latest, Magic Tree House #45: A Crazy Day with Cobras (A Stepping Stone Book(TM)) (Random House, 2011) has all the right stuff to keep this series going--well delineated and likable characters, a unique but historically solid setting, plenty of adventures for the two youngsters on a mission, and a comfortable ending with a familiar feel as the two return back to the same spot and moment in good old Frog Creek. It's a formula that works here and will probably work as long as Mary Pope Osborne continues to come up with fascinating places in time and space for her heroes to visit. Sal Murdocca's delightful retro-style drawings and an abundance of incidental learning embedded in the story raise this solid beginning chapter series above the ordinary fantasy adventure.

For further information, pair this one with its companion book, Magic Tree House Research Guide #23: Snakes and Other Reptiles: A Nonfiction Companion to Magic Tree House #45: A Crazy Day with Cobras (A Stepping Stone Book(TM)) (Random House, 2011) by Osborne and sister Natalie Pope Boyce, to extend the fantasy fun into the wonder of nature science.

Historic Meeting: Lincoln and Douglass: An American Friendship by Nikki Giovanni

Barack Obama may be the first African-American president when he moves into the White House, but abolitionist Frederick Douglass was probably the first African-American guest invited by a president to the inauguration gala there.

Indeed, as the elegantly dressed guests filled the White House ballroom on the inauguration evening of March 4, 1865, Mary Todd Lincoln noticed that her husband kept looking around for someone.

"Is something wrong?" she queried.

"I'm looking for my friend Frederick Douglass. I had invited him to come and bring his wife," Lincoln responded. "Oh, there you are, Fred," he said a bit later. "I thought I saw you a while ago."

"Yes, sir, you did," said Douglass, "but there was a misunderstanding about the door through which I was to enter. The gentleman invited my wife and me to go around to the rear door, and we declined. No matter. It has been cleared up."

Despite the displeasure of some of the guests, it was an historic moment when the two old friends shared the inaugural celebration that night in the White House Indeed, a degree of shared history already lay behind the two unlikely allies. Both were virtually self-educated, and both overcame much to become the leaders who shared that historic meeting and symbolic moment.

Giovanni tells how Lincoln and Douglass first met when Lincoln became a congressman from Illinois. Douglass sought him out as a possible supporter in the cause of Negro emancipation. The two also shared, as the author points out, a love of good food and the need to laugh together despite the deep discord of the time in which their friendship developed. Over the years Douglass pushed his friend toward his eventual belief that the nation could not prosper or continue while the institution of slavery persisted. What the two set in motion has been a long time coming, but then, as we know from another eloquent president, "a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."

Award-winning poet and author Nikki Giovanni's Lincoln and Douglass: An American Friendship (Henry Holt, 2009) is just in time to join the celebration of Abraham Lincoln's bicentennial birthday. Joined by artist Bryan Collier, the co-creator of their Caldecott Honor book and Coretta Scott King award-winning Rosa,honoring Rosa Parks, Giovanni's picture story of an significant American friendship is a welcome addition to books for young readers about our sixteenth president--and about his unlikely but remarkable friend.