If We Could Talk to the Animals....: Daisy Dawson Is On Her Way! by Steve Voake

"Ex-excuse me," Daisy said uncertainly, still unable to believe her ears, "but did you say something to me?"

"Of course," replied the dog. "It would have been rude not to." He paused for a moment as if deep in thought, then said slowly, "Wait a minute... Do you actually understand what I'm saying to you?"

"Yes," replied Daisy. "I think I do."

Daisy Dawson is a girl with a Good Samaritan impulse, especially when it comes to animals, and that kindly urge has a way of making her late for school most days. But even though on Monday she promises her mom not to dawdle, when she stops to free a butterfly caught in a spider's web, the butterfly's touch imparts something special. Daisy finds that she now can actually talk with the animals.

First she chats with hound dog Boom, for whom she has been making an extra ham sandwich every morning, and then at school discovers that she can understand two AWOL classroom gerbils helping themselves to someone's lunch in the coat room. Later Daisy strikes up a conversation with a lost ant in the principal's office, learns that Boom has gotten himself caught by the dog catcher sent by a supercilious cat named Trixie, and persuades a squirrel called Cyril and a horse called Meadowsweet to become co-conspirators with her in freeing Boom from Krackdown Kennels, the hoosegow for hobo hounds in her town.

The Krackdown Kennels caper is complicated, with Cyril entrusted with stealing the keys to Boom's cage from the crusty old kennel keeper while she sleeps. Although Cyril runs into some problems with that plan, the much maligned Trixie comes through with an alternative scheme which brings old Boom back home to the barn, a free canine again.

Fetchingly and fully illustrated with Jessica Meserve's rough-line sketches, Steve Voake's latest, Daisy Dawson Is on Her Way! (Daisy Dawson), introduces another adventure for his intrepid animal-loving heroine in this endearing beginning chapter Daisy Dawson series.

Tutor Tot: Judy Moody Goes to College by Megan McDonald

She, Judy Moody, had to take a note home. A note that said she needed extra help. A note that said she was hazy-not-crazy about math. Fact Of Life: She, Judy Moody was a tutor tot.

Judy Moody is in a mood. Not a good mood. Definitely not a Math-i-tude. Definitely a Bad-i-tude. Judy sees hours of counting beads and gluing macaroni to construction paper in her future. But the prevailing Mom-and-Dad-i-tude is that she will be tutored in math. End of Discussion.

But when her parents take her to the local college campus to meet her new tutor, Chloe Canfield, Judy gets a big surprise. The first tutoring session means playing "The Game of Life" as Chloe, nicknamed "C Squared" for her double-initialed name, points out all the real life uses of math concepts around her. There's not a flash card or macaroni shape in sight, and Judy is swept up in the glamour of her new college friend and her exciting college life. Tutoring sessions in the campus cafe, with lattes and hot chocolate on the side, turn Judy's mood into glad-i-tude, and Judy morphs into a third-grader who dresses and talks with collegiate style.

Spending a trendy Saturday with Chloe, Judy uses Choe's mood nail polish on her toes, eats veggie burgers at the campus canteen, hangs out at the Peace Rally, and makes a striking Warhol-styled pop art bandaid print in Chloe's art class which wins an honorable mention at the college's art show. Oh, and Judy Moody's math-i-tude takes a turn for the better as she gets down with Chloe on the "crucial" concepts.

She, Judy Moody, had a brand-new attitude. It was grat-i-tude.

Megan McDonald's latest in this notable series, Judy Moody Goes to College (Book #8) (Judy Moody), maintains the high level of this beginning chapter series which feature a girl with plenty of attitude who, in her new college vocabulary,* moves from from brat-i-tude right into RAD-i-tude. As Publishers Weekly puts it, "It's hard to imagine an attitude that Judy Moody couldn't improve!"

*Appended is Judy Moody's Not Webster's New World Collegiate Dictionary which defines such collegiate lingo as the bomb, crucial, for your 4-1-1, peace out, peeps, 'rents (parents), and wicked.

New Kid Settles In: Piper Reed, The Great Gypsy by Kimberly Holt

Before we moved to Pensacola, we'd lived in California, Texas, Guam, Mississippi, New Hampshire. Just when a place started to feel like home, we had to leave again.

That's the way the Navy life was. Someone was always coming and someone was always going.

For Piper Reed, whose move from San Diego to Pensacola, Florida, was chronicled in Piper Reed: Navy Brat, (reviewed here June 25, 2008) this time the "someone going" is her dad, the Chief, who leaves on a six-month cruise just as she is settling down in their new place. Piper, the middle girl in the family, can't help but feel a bit out of sorts as she watches her dad sail out of their life until next September.

When I wanted to get back at (big sister) Tori, I mentioned her chubby body.

"You're mean, Piper Reed," Tori complained.

She was right. Since Chief left I had said something mean every day.

But despite herself, Piper's upbeat nature reasserts itself as she throws her energy into making friends with their new neighbors, Abe, Yolanda, and little Brady, and into training her poodle Bruna for the Pet Show she is planning for her Gypsy Club members. She is sure she and Bruna will win, but first she has to teach her new dog at least one trick, and Bruna is not cooperating.

While Piper practices teaching Bruna to fetch and little sister Sam teaches her goldfish Peaches II her trick, the family shares some good times. Mom decides that they will have a "different" Christmas while Chief is away, renting a beach house that looks like a flying saucer and decorating a sad-looking "Charlie Brown" tree, and visiting her mother's college art teacher in New Orleans, where Tori renews her acquaintance with beignets while Piper learns that her mom was once an avant garde painter who called herself Coco Kappel.

April brings a major family brouhaha when Mom slips and falls on Tori's secret journal, mysteriously left open on the stairs. Tori paints herself grandly as the long-suffering savior of the situation in her letter to her dad, but Sam is less verbose and gets right to the indictment:

Dear Daddy,

Mommy broke her leg.

Love,
Sam

P.S.: It was Piper's fault.

Under a cloud of suspicion and her dad's warning that "I'll have to get to the bottom of this when I return home," Piper nevertheless forges on with her summer plans, training Bruna to do three tricks with the indispensable help of two-year-old Brady, and sculpting an amazing likeness of Tori's nose with its first pimple in art class. When the long-awaited July 4 Pet Show finally arrives, Bruna performs two out of three of her tricks flawlessly, even without Brady's help. Although TippyToes the dancing guinea pig waltzes off with the prize, Piper is proud that her first Pet Show production is a rousing success. Finally, to her great relief, Sam confesses to leaving Tori's journal open on the stairs, and Piper is at last off the hook for her mom's broken leg.

And when Chief surprises the family by returning home early, they celebrate with an end-of-summer trip back to the UFO beach house, where Piper designs and oversees the construction of a spectacular sand castle.

Mom studied my drawing. "Piper, you really are a talented artist!"

"I guess I just take after Coco Kappel," Piper said.

When a National Book Award author turns her hand to the art of the beginning chapter book, it is cause for celebration. First-time chapter book readers have the chance to begin their solo reading experience with well-drawn characters who seem to come alive right off the pages of print. Holt's second in the delightful Piper Reed series continues the development of an engaging three-dimensional protagonist whose goal is someday to soar with the Navy's Blue Angels.