HI YO, Maybelline! Leroy Ninker Saddles Up by Kate DiCamillo

LEROY NINKER WORKED AT THE BIJOU DRIVE-IN THEATER CONCESSION STAND.

HE SAID, "THANK YOU VERY MUCH!"

HE SAID, "EXTRA BUTTER ON THAT?"

HE ALSO SAID "YIPPIE-I-OH."

Former toaster thief Leroy Ninker has gone straight, sublimating his love for toast dripping in butter by serving up extra-buttery popcorn at the local drive-in.

But Leroy has another mania, more powerful than his taste for toast.

Leroy longs to be a cowpoke. He has a ten-gallon hat that dwarfs his diminutive frame. He has cowboy boots on his feet and a coiled lasso at his belt. And on double-feature Wednesdays, Leroy is enthralled with those images of bigger-than-life cowboy heroes on the silver screen.

THE COWBOYS WERE MEN WHO CAST LONG SHADOWS AND KNEW HOW TO FIGHT INJUSTICE. THEY WERE MEN WHO WERE NEVER, EVER AFRAID.

"YIPPEE-I-OH." LEROY WHISPERED. "THAT'S THE LIFE FOR ME."

But Leroy is missing part of the complete cowpoke package--the cow horse.

With dreams of a spirited steed named Tornado, Leroy sets out, on foot of course, to find his mount. What he finds is Maybelline.

Maybelline has five teeth, a swayed back, and a lotta miles on her, but the old girl's got quite a few gallops left in her git-go. She comes cheap, but she comes with three stipulations from her former owner, Patty LaMarque.

"THERE ARE THREE ITEMS YOU GOT TO REMEMBER. ITEM ONE IS THAT MAYBELLINE IS THE KIND OF HORSE WHO ENJOYS THE HECK OUT OF A COMPLIMENT. YOU GOT TO SWEET TALK MAYBELLINE, UNDERSTAND?

>ITEM TWO IS THAT MAYBELLINE IS A HORSE WHO LIKES A LOT OF GRUB. A. LOT. OF. GRUB.

ITEM THREE IS THAT MAYBELLINE IS THE KIND OF HORSE WHO GETS LONESOME QUICK. DO NOT LEAVE MAYBELLINE ALONE FOR LONG, OR YOU WILL RUE AND REGRET THE DAY."

Leroy promises, but from his first giddy-up, he comes to realize that Patty's warnings were serious. Sweet talk comes easily to the snookered Leroy, but after he's cooked up all the spaghetti and tomato sauce in his house for one feeding, he realizes that Maybelline is like to eat him out of house and home, And when the well-fed Maybelline proves too large for the door to his tiny domicile, Leroy loyally beds down on the doorstep to keep his noble mount company all night. Yippie-i-oh.

But a torrential rainstorm unloads right over Leroy and Maybelline, and when the loyal Leroy dashes inside for an umbrella for his horse's head, Maybelline takes off for points unknown. Has Leroy lost his nag and his dream of riding the purple sage into the sunset?

Two-time Newbery author Kate DiCamillo works her wry wit and sweet literary magic again in her latest beginning chapter book, Leroy Ninker Saddles Up: Tales from Deckawoo Drive, Volume One(Candlewick Press, 2014), a new title in her notable Mercy Watson series, Tales from Deckawoo Drive. Little Leroy is a delightfully positive character, devoted to his dream and determined to please his persnickety mount at all costs, Another spirited and humorous tale of the denizens of Deckawoo Drive in which a pig and an old nag share their thing for tea and buttery toast together, this new one has a lot of appeal to young readers, aided by the presence of Chris Van Dusen's wonderfully comic western-styled drawings and page decorations, a design which gives this cowpoke and cayuse tale tons of pizzazz for primary graders just venturing into chapter books. "Readers will have a hootenanny of a good time," says The Bulletin for Children's Books.

Watch for the next exciting entry from the Deckawoo Drive posse, Francine Poulet Meets the Ghost Raccoon: Tales from Deckawoo Drive, Volume Two, forthcoming from the dynamic duo of DiCamillo and Dusen in August, 2015.

Puns A-Plenty! Amelia Bedelia's First Field Trip by Herman Parish

"Welcome to Fairview Farm," said Farmer Dinkins.

"I'll take you to see the animals, and then Mrs. Dinkins will show you her garden.

She's got a real green thumb!"

A real green thumb! Little Amelia Bedelia perks up her ears. That's something she's never seen. Does Mrs. Dinkins also have a pink pinkie? But, drat! Mrs. Dinkins is wearing her gardening gloves! Amelia Bedelia determines that she's going to see that green digit before this field trip is over!

In fact, Fairview Farm gives young Amelia a lot of new things to think about. Does a farmer plant jelly beans along with the green beans? If a hen eats peppermint candy canes, will her eggs be striped red and white? And how can vegetables have heads and ears and eyes? Lost in thought, Amelia has to be reminded by Farmer Dinkins to keep up with the tour.

"Hey, Daydreamer!" he says. "Shake a leg!"

"Which one?" said Amelia Bedelia.

"Which one what?" said the perplexed farmer.

"You said, "Shake a leg!'" said Amelia Bedelia.

"Right!" said Mr. Dinkins.

Amelia Bedelia shook her right leg and ran to catch up.

Our literalist little scholar also has a punny event when she is asked to pitch in and "toss" the salad for the class's picnic lunch--with predictable results!

There's plenty of farm lore and knowledge along with the giggles in Herman Parish's newest, Amelia Bedelia's First Field Trip (Greenwillow, 2011), with Lynn Avril's light-hearted illustrations to add to the fun. Amelia's class learns about taking care of farm animals, tries their hands at milking Sunshine the cow, sit on the big tractor, and when little Amelia Bedelia is disappointed to learn that there are no such things as jelly bean plants, Mrs. Dinkins give them a chance to see how real jelly is made, beginning with a chance to do some pickin' in the berry patch.

And that green thumb? Amelia Bedelia does learn what a real green thumb can do in a garden, and the whole class gets a chance to develop their own green thumbs as Mrs. Dinkins passes out real pumpkin seeds for them to take back to cultivate. It's everything a field trip should be, plenty to learn, novel hands-on experiences, and a few shared laughs along the way. Although Peggy Parish's original Amelia Bedelia stories are forever young, Herman Parish's sequels featuring the first-grade Amelia give this beloved character a new lease on her literary life.

Other schooltime stories of little Amelia include Amelia Bedelia's First Day of School, Amelia Bedelia's First Apple Pie, and Amelia Bedelia's First Valentine.

Action Figures: Masters of Disaster by Gary Paulsen

"I've called you here today, men, because I have an important announcement. One that will change our lives."

"I am proposing," Henry continued, reading carefully from his notes, "that we Undertake and Implement a Series of Daring Experiences and Grand Adventures the likes of which the history of Western civilization has never seen, at least not from twelve-year-olds in suburban Cleveland."

"Why?" Reed asked, a hint of panic in his voice. "Why are we underwhatsitting and implewhositting?"

"Henry's got spring fever," Riley explained, somewhat dismissively.

"What I have in mind is so much bigger than that," Henry said. "I'm working to create a series of tasks that will Prove Our Manhood and show us What We're Made Of. And if we play our cards right, we just might Alter the Course of History a time or two."

"And, of course, Impress Girls and Get Them to Notice Us."

It's the buddy movie writ small in Gary Paulsen's latest comic guy novel, Masters of Disaster (Wendy Lamb Books, 2010). Henry Mosely is the Swengali, the master planner with the sweeping vision here; Riley is the methodical plotter, the calculator of formulas, the charts and graphs guy, and the amanuensis of awesome adventures, and Reed, who worries about curfews and loss of blood, is the hapless chump who actually is drafted to carry out all Henry's grand schemes.

It's Reed who proves that, yes, it is possible to ride a bike down a steep roof, bounce off the diving board and swimming pool cover and execute a full airborne somersault into a trash can of used disposable diapers--safely. It's Reed who actually loses his pants to one wild beast and encounters a mad elephant, a.k.a., the sinister Boy-Eating, Water-Dwelling Snake Creature of Cleveland (don't ask!) during their survival weekend in the neighborhood woods. And it's Reed, who, attired in a haz-mat suit of Riley's contrivance who experiences the ultimate Dempster-Dive to collect specimens for what in Henry's grand scheme is going to the the science experiment to end all science fairs--and nearly does.

With thrills, spills, gunky garbage, pond scum, dirty diapers, and varieties of doody that all leave poor Reed with a permanent, er, essence, what's not to like here?

The Newbery-winning (for Hatchet: 20th Anniversary Edition) Paulsen, who has written plenty of serious-themed, metaphor-dense, coming-of-age novels in his time, is also the author of drop-dead funny, laugh-out-loud boyhood adventure tales--Lawn Boy,Lawn Boy Returns, How Angel Peterson Got His Name, and Mudshark, to cite a few--and here has a non-stop, tongue-in-cheek, laughfest that will keep even reluctant readers page-turning until the thrilling conclusion, in which even the guys' arch-nemesis, the loutish bully Dwight Hauser, gets his well-deserved comeuppance and the boys manage to Prove Their Manhood and even Impress Girls.

"It was," Riley said, "awesome."

"I'm so glad someone other than me is going to wind up smelling like crap," Reed said.

"I can't wait for summer vacation," Henry said.

I can't wait for the summer sequel.

Poor Richard Rides Again: Big Nate Strikes Again by Lincoln Peirce

THINGS I CAN'T STAND
by Nate Wright, Esq.

Egg salad
School picture day
Bubble gum that loses its flavor in 20 seconds
Any art project involving egg cartons or pipe
cleaners
GINA

Big Nate is back, but he's not having his best week.

The good news? He's finally been named captain of the SPOFF (Sports Played Only For Fun) fleece ball team. The bad news? That show-off, know-it-all, perfect A+-only Gina is on his team. She can't hit, she can't catch, and she can't pitch--anything but sarcasm, that is, and her pitiful performance is the only thing that stands between Big Nate and the SPOFFY, the coveted soda-can-covered-with-crumpled-foil trophy for the championship.

The good news? He's assigned to do research on Benjamin Franklin, whom Nate finds to be a pretty cool dude. The bad news? His partner on this big-deal project is--Gina.

Nate actually hides out, er, does research on Big Ben in the library while dodging other duties. Nate is proud of his research product, BEN FRANKLIN COMIX, which the stodgy Gina rejects, pointing out the superiority of her thick desktop-published thesis, complete with web photos and copious facts about Franklin, Citizen and Founding Father.

Nate sees an opening here. He makes Gina an offer she can't refuse: she pretends she can't play on fleece ball days, and he "lets" her do the whole report all by herself, assuring that her record of perfect grades will remain intact. It's a win-win for our boy!

But best laid plans often go astray. First, Mrs. Godfrey, stickler for the rules of writing, detects, amazingly, a significant transgression in Gina's report:

Mrs. Godfrey starts flipping through it. Her smile slowly fades.

"Is--is something wrong?" Gina says. Her voice sounds a tiny bit higher than usual.
"Can you tell me about these visual aids?" Mrs. Godfrey asks.

Gina looks panicky. "I...um...printed some of them off the internet and I photocopied the others from library books."

Mrs. Godfrey frowns "The instructions were very clear." She reads them aloud.

"Visual aids are an important part of your project. You must create them yourself. Using images from outside sources could result in a failing grade."

At first Nate secretly smirks. How tragic for poor Gina. But then he remembers that as part of the team, her grade is also his grade. And he's already failing. Ooops!

In Lincoln Peirce's second cartoon classic, Big Nate Strikes Again (Harper, 2010) it's a win-win for both Gina and Big Nate, as Big Nate pulls this one out when he produces his Ben Franklin Comix, which knocks Mrs. Godfrey's socks off with its creative graphic exposition of the well-researched highlights of Poor Richard's career. Advantage: Nate. But then Gina comes off the bench to sub for the injured Nate and hits it out of the park in the championship final of the SPOFF playoff.

Score: Nate: 1; Gina: 1. And the rivalry continues.

As in his New York Times best-selling Big Nate: In a Class by Himself, Peirce hits a home run in Big Nate Strikes Again, with his hilarious spoof of middle school angst and his practiced cartoon exposition. Jeff Kinney, author of the wildly popular Diary of a Wimpy Kid, says, "Big Nate is funny, big time." He ought to know.

Peirce's just-out latest is Big Nate: From the Top.

Movin' On: Diary of A Wimpy Kid: The Ugly Truth by Jeff Kinney

Tuesday: When I got to school today, Rowley was waiting by my locker, and he had a huge smile on his face. Then I noticed he had a big pimple right in the middle of his forehead. Most people would have stayed home from school if they had a zit like that, but here's what Rowley said--"MY MOM SAYS I'M BECOMING A MAN!"

Later on, I saw Rowley hanging out near the older kids' lockers. So I guess he thinks just because he got a pimple, he's part of their club now or something.

And believe me, I'm not jealous. But this is a kid who still sleeps with a pile of stuffed animals every night, so it doesn't make any sense that he gets his first pimple before I got MINE.

Everybody's favorite middle schooler is moving on, if not necessarily up. Scrutinizing himself in the mirror for non-existent signs of puberty, Greg turns to Mom and Dad for comfort:

But they told me that when they were my age, they were WAY behind their classmates. Then Dad told me not to expect to get a lot of facial hair even when I'm an adult, because he's a grown man and he only shaves once or twice a week.

Well, that was some REALLY bad news. They're always saying you can grow up to be anything you want, but now I realize that that's not true.

Greg sadly marks off jobs he can never measure up to--pirate, lumberjack, magician, criminal--from his future career choices.

And there are other issues. Now that her children are older, she says, Mom decides to take some college courses and lets the men of the house know that they now own some new chores. When that doesn't exactly work out, Mom hires a maid, Isabella, who doesn't work period. But Mom refuses to fire her even when Greg finds her nylon socks in his bed where she has been napping daily.

Algebra is not going too well, either, but Greg hopes the "Lock-In" overnight party at the school will make up for having no best friend and bad math grades. But that night Greg comes to a major realization:

At one point George Fleer started chasing people around with his outie, which was pretty terrifying.

See, this is the kind of thing I can't stand about boys my age. When it comes down to it, they're just a bunch of wild animals.

Greg figures he's stuck in middle-school limbo, but then, just as he's forced to play assistant flower boy at Uncle Gary's fourth wedding, the family matriarch Gammie calls him in for the family rite de passage, "the Talk."

I was a little nervous, but I was also kind of excited. Gammie's been around the block about a million times, and I figured she's got a lot of wisdom stored up. And to be honest with you, these days I could really use some.

Jeff Kinney's fourth installment of his Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Ugly Truth (Amulet Books, 2010) is a bitter-sweet outing. Greg Kinney is just as funny as ever, but he's growing up a bit, too. As Gammie points out, his next few years are going to be good ones to avoid family photos that he'll regret later, but she also makes the case that getting old is no walk in the park either, and Greg figures out that maybe these last years as a kid are not so bad after all. Getting into the weeds of early adolescence just makes this series funnier, with laugh-out-loud situations that are right on target for kids going through their wonder years, and poignantly (and perhaps painfully) familiar for those who have left those years behind.

Mr. Cool: Mudshark by Gary Paulsen

This is the Principal. Would the custodian report to the faculty restroom with a large stick, safety goggles, and a respirator mask? And would whoever took the erasers from room two of three please return them and refrain from removing erasers in the future? And also, while it is loose, and in spite of what I said in the last announcement, the gerbil is not, per se, a wild animal and will not, repeat, will not attack. So please refrain from screaming or otherwise panicking should you see said gerbil.

Will Mud... Lyle Williams please report to the principal's office? Immediately.

When Lyle (a.k.a. Mudshark), so-called because of his incredibly cool agility and deadly skills at the local version of rugby, is summoned to the principal's office, the harried Mr. Wagner recruits his noted skills of observation and unerring recall at unraveling the ongoing mystery of the disappearing erasers, which is spreading to every classroom in the school. That issue would seem one of Mr. Wagner's lesser worries--there's a serious population explosion in the school's cycle-of-life crayfish experiment, and a renegade hamster apparently being pursued through the HVAC ducts 24/7 by AWOL teacher Mr. Patterson. And about what is going on in that faculty bathroom--don't even ask!

Mudshark is one of those inevitably cool kids, doted upon by the faculty and reverenced by his peers for his innate coolness, but his reputation is no accident. With his skills of observation honed by multitasking--rescuing his toddler triplet sisters from untoward encounters with electric outlets and tasty-looking lumps in the cat litter while seemingly reading everything he encounters and remembering everything he observes, Mudshark is that rare 'tweener boy--one who thinks.

Yes, he owed his speed and attention to detail to Kara, Sara, and Tara.

But the way he moved wasn't why Mudshark was cool.

Mudshark knew cool wasn't in how you moved or a name or clothes or whether or not you were asked to play on anyone's team.

It was all in the way thoughts ran through your mind, the way you managed the flow of electrical changes jumping from one brain cell to another to form ideas.

That's what makes somebody who they are. And that's why Mudshark was so cool.

He thought.

And Mudshark knows that he needs to engage all his thinking processes to figure out just what is going on at his school. For one thing, there's a talking parrot, the newest pet of librarian Mrs. Underdorf, who seems to be supplanting Mudshark in his role as school solver of mysteries. That parrot seems to know everything despite the fact that he is supposedly always locked in a cage in the library. Mud knows that he must solve the missing eraser mystery before the parrot does to keep his cool status at school. And he knows that the place to start has to be in close observation of the school's overworked custodian, a faceless mop-wielding nonentity to the rest of the school, but whom Mudshark discovers is recovering PTSD viction of Vietnam whose basement mop room is a museum of fine art and Baroque music and who reads everything from Plato to Mark Twain. He also fancies himself "The Custodian of Joyful Things," including, as Lyle learns, one errant gerbil and student creations on the school's blackboards, the preservation of which has become an obsession which has rendered him incapable of erasing the boards at day's end.

Mudshark quickly intuits the root of Mr. Wagner's eraser mystery, but his solution requires some delicacy, which ultimately involves Betty Crimper's Foul Odor Elixir cooked up in science lab, Mrs. Downside's sometimes evil cat, his buddy Kyle's amazing disappearing tricks, and avoidance training for the big-mouthed parrot. Mudshark and his curious crew carry off the plot, even bringing Mr. Patterson home from his obsessive diversion through the duct work in the process. All is almost all well.

This is the principal. I cannot stress strongly enough that, for your own safety and per the restrictions of Homeland Security, to whom, by the way, we'd like to offer a warm welcome, you please refrain from going anywhere near the faculty restroom. Oh, and great news about Mr. Patterson. While he hasn't caught the gerbil, his application for another summer of teaching wilderness camp has been approved. Way to go, Mr. Paterson!

Although Paulsen exercises literary license in keeping the veil intact over the mystery in the faculty bathroom, he manages to keep middle readers laughing all the say through this deft and comic school story. A short (83-page) and snappy outing, along the lines of his hit comedy Lawn Boy, in Mudshark (Random House, 2009) Paulsen proves that he's still the king of boy protagonist comedy in this quirky page-turner in which anyone who's ever eaten the Prune Liver Surprise in a school lunchroom will feel right at home.

Dust Bunny Funnies: Rhyming Dust Bunnies by Jan Thomas

What do all those dust bunnies under the bed DO when they're just hangin' out? And why ARE they always hangin' out under there anyhow? And WHERE do those dang dust bunnies come from in the first place?

If these and the question of the meaning of life have always tantalized the mind, Jan Thomas' brand-new rib-tickler Rhyming Dust Bunnies has the answer to at least the first two queries. (Hey, two out of three ain't bad!)

Ed, Ned, Ted, and Bob, dust bunny buddies, have their rhymin' timin' well honed:

"Hello! We are Ed, Ned, Ted, and Bob. We rhyme all the time!

"Hey," says Ted. "What rhymes with car?"

"Far!" parries Ed.

"Jar!" zips back Ned.

"LOOK!" shouts Bob.

"No, Bob," explains Ed patiently. "'Look' doesn't rhyme with car!"

Ed tries it again. "What rhymes with bug?"

Ted and Ned fire right back with "mug" and "jug," but Bob yells, more loudly than before, "LOOK OUT!"

Ned gives it a shot with "dog." Ed and Ted whip back with "hog," and "log." Bob, with even greater intensity, warns loudly, "HERE COMES A SCARY MONSTER WITH A BROOM!"

"No, Bob, NO!" Ned explains pedantically. "'Here comes a scary monster with a broom' doesn't rhyme with anything, really!"

"AAAAHHHH!" It may not rhyme, but the meaning is clear that it's time to scram under the furniture, and the four woozles do.

As the four dust buddies cower under the cover of a chest, Ned heaves a sign of relief. "Good call, Bob!" he whispers. "Now," begins Ted, "what rhymes with cat?" "Sat!" says Ned, "Pat," says Ed.

"VACUUM CLEANER!" yells the ever vigilant Bob.

"Thwptt!"

"Um, Bob, what rhymes with HOW DO WE GET OUT OF HERE?"

"HELP!"

As a humorous emergent reader book, Rhyming Dust Bunnies is a clean sweep, with plenty of context clues in the pictures to suggest the harder words. Early readers will immediately want to share this one with their reading buddies.

Other easy-to-read funny stories by Thomas include What Will Fat Cat Sit On? and The Doghouse.