Without a Prayer! Two Bad Pilgrims by Kathryn Lasky

In 1620 a ship called the Mayflower left England bound for the New World in the west. On board were Pilgrims seeking a new life in a land where freedom.....

HEY! THIS IS BORING! HERE'S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW.

THIS BOOK IS ABOUT US---FRANCIS AND JOHNNY BILLINGTON--AND HOW MUCH FUN WE HAD ALMOST
BLOWING UP THE MAYFLOWER, LIVING WITH THE INDIANS, AND CAUSING LOTS OF TROUBLE IN THE NEW WORLD!

Literature is full of bad boys, from Tom and Huck on, but who knew that two naughty lads were among those staid, gray-clad Pilgrims?

Well, it seems that the Pilgrim Fathers filled out their passenger manifesto with several families of what the Pilgrims called "Strangers"--some of them adventurers, some scofflaws one step ahead of the constable--who boarded alongside the Winthrops and the Bradfords. Of especial note among these were the Billingtons, a family with two sons, Francis and John. Records show that their parents were no prizes, but Frankie and Johnny were decidedly something else!

In the hands of Newbery-winning author Kathryn Lasky, the waggish Frankie and Johnny tell their own story their way in her latest, Two Bad Pilgrims (Viking, 2009). The brothers' boast that they almost blew up the Mayflower is documented as no idle brag: bored with the seemingly endless games of "draughts" (checkers), "naughts and crosses," (tic-tac-toe), and "Lummelen," (keep-away) on the long voyage, it seems the two got their hands on some "squibs," gunpowder twisted inside a paper straw, used like matches to ignite cannons. Caught almost "red-handed" just in time, the Mayflower escaped, as one of the Pilgrim Fathers put it, "through God's mercy a great danger...." on the high seas, no thanks to Frankie and Johnny.

WE WEREN'T SO BAD. MAN, THERE'S BAD AND THEN THERE'S REALLY BAD. WE WERE JUST MIDDLING BAD. SO WE NEARLY BLEW UP THE STINKFLOWER. IT WASN'T LIKE WE MEANT TO!

Having nearly aborted a whole major chapter in American history doesn't seem to have inhibited the Billington boys. Put to communal tasks immediately when they set their feet on North American soil ("WE WERE ALLOWED TO PLAY FOR ABOUT THREE MINUTES BEFORE THEY PUT US TO WORK!") Frankie and Johnny managed to skip the labor detail most of the time, perfecting their tree-climbing skills to avoid detection. While they were goofing off in the treetops, however, they spotted some large bodies of water to the west, and one of these discoveries is known to this day as the Billington Sea. Avoiding close contact with their hard-working fellow colonists had another unexpected advantage: they and their parents waltzed through the "Great Sickness" with nary a sniffle, being, as their fellow colonists probably grumbled, too lazy to die.

Making himself scarce from schooling and labor did get Johnny taken hostage by the neighboring Nauset Indians, who didn't seem to be signatories to the treaty with Massasoit. The colonists had given the rascal up for a goner when word came of a wandering golden-haired lad living with the "natives" down around Cape Cod. Probably with understandable reluctance, the village elders negotiated for his return, in the process fortuitously establishing peaceful relations with the Nausets, who strangely seemed to have enjoyed Master Billington's sojourn with them.

"I'M B-A-A-CK!"

Pious Pilgrim history to the contrary, our first settlers were always a mixed lot, with their share of ramblin' guys who sometimes serendipitously brought their improbable good luck along for the ride and added to the colorful mix that is our land to this day. With insouciant asides from the two lads breaking into the earnest efforts of "the Professor" to narrate the official account of Plimoth Plantation, Kathryn Lasky's hilarious tales of the Billington boys will delight young readers with their little-known exploits. John Manders' caricature-styled illustrations add to the fun--and the historical facts--of the book. For older kids, who think they know it all about the Pilgrim Fathers, this new Thanksgiving story will be both a revelation and a total romp!

WHO? Daddies Do! by Lezlie Evans

Who tangles and wrangles
and wrestles for fun,
then cries "I surrender!"
You're tougher! You won!"?

Daddies do it well, and in their own special way. When they go out for fun, they don't worry about their kids' hairdos and outfits. When their youngsters aren't quite up to a tough job, daddies give them credit for having the courage to give it their best try.

Daddies are great for big bear hugs and bubbly bathtub scrubs. Daddies brag on little buddies when they grow a bit more tall, and at parades daddies' shoulders help them to see it all. Whose forts are the tops? Who cheers first belly flops? Who knows how to get little ones to try something new? Who does all that? You know who!

Who reads the best stories
and snuggles with you,
then drifts off to sleep
before he is through?

Daddies Do (Sterling Books, 2018), in Lezlie Evans' newly published salute to the many good deeds of daddies, just right for those upcoming Fathers' Day doings in June. Author Lezlie Evans' comic and cozy quatrains focus on what fathers bring to the parenting mix, climbing trees and soothing the sick, clapping for plays and untangling fishing lines, and artist Elisa Ferro's fanciful animal fathers, grounded in predominantly green scenes, are charming and comforting figures for the youngest readers in this new Dad's Day story, a reassuring and sweet look at what daddies do.

Do It with Daddy! Let's Have a Daddy Day by Karen Kingsbury

LET'S GO ON A DADDY DAY.
A TIME FOR ME AND YOU.
TODAY WHILE YOU'RE STILL LITTLE
THERE'RE SO MANY THINGS TO DO.

Karen Kingsbury's Let's Have a Daddy Day (ZonderKidz, 2010) riffs on the format of the folk lullaby, "Hush Little Baby," in which the singer invents the IF-THEN loop, coming up with an escalating series of possible alternative gifts, as in "If that mockingbird won't sing/Papa's gonna buy you a diamond ring." Here the papa in question comes up with wonderful activities for a "Daddy Day," beginning with building a fort in their tree, but just in case, he's also got a Plan B.

BUT IF THE RAIN FROM YESTERDAY HAS MADE THE TREE TOO WET,
WE'LL BUILD THAT HOUSE ANOTHER DAY. IT CAN'T BE DONE JUST YET.

SO HOW ABOUT SOME TADPOLES? CANBY CREEK HAS LOTS OF THOSE.
THEN WE COULD HAVE A DADDY DAY WITH SQUISHY, SOGGY TOES.

But what if those tadpoles have already turned into frogs? Well, there's always the lake, a perfect place to play Army rangers. And if it's too hot to chase each other around down by the water, there's always the vacant lot for an pick-up game of baseball in which everyone gets to star. Of course, that vacant lot could now be the site of a new building, in which case.... well, you get the picture.

This daddy is a fount of ideas for what to do on Daddy Day, and in case ALL of those scenarios turn out to be a no go, Dad and the two kids can always get down on the floor for a bit of wrestling or playing horsey on Dad's strong back.

'CAUSE, HEY, WE'RE HERE. WE'RE SIDE BY SIDE!
LET'S DROP DOWN TO THE FLOOR.
LET'S WRESTLE 'TIL WE LAUGH AND CRY
AND SHOUT OUT LOUD "NO MORE!"

SO WHEN YOU'RE ALL GROWN UP AND YOU LOOK BACK UPON THIS DAY,
YOU'LL KNOW HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU 'CAUSE WE TOOK THE TIME TO PLAY.

Around Fathers Day it's always good to be reminded that those "Daddy Days" don't last forever. So for fathers looking for a way to observe their day, Karen Kingsbury's motto is carpe diem. Whatever else the kids have in store for you, seize the day and play with the kids for a while. They'll love it, no matter what, as long as you're in the game with them.

Father Knows Best? Your Baby's First Word Will Be Dada! by Jimmy Fallon

COMPETITIVE PARENTING: ROUND 1!

Why NOT? Why CAN'T a baby's first word be DADA instead of MAMA?

A belligerent-looking bull demands a DADA out of his little calf.

MOO

A righteous ram offers DADA.

The little lamb listens.

BAA

A dog demands a dada from his offspring.

The pup woofs back. A persistent rabbit and tomcat try their luck. A rooster crows out his da-da-doodle-do! A daddy pig grunts out his preferred alternative title.

But nature has the last word, and none of the newbies come up with the magic word.

Well, logically, human history and speech development experts agree that MMMM! is easier to say that DDDD!

But expecting his first baby, Jimmy Fallon refused to accept the popular wisdom. To overcome the mommy milk advantage, he offered his new baby a bottle and called it a dada. "Want your dada?" he cooed.

Did it work? Well, no.

But you can't blame a dad for trying, in Fallon's best-selling new salute to fathers, Your Baby's First Word Will Be DADA (Feiwel and Friends, 2015). Miguel Ordonez's deadpan animal babies, done up in simple Playskool-shapes deadpan their usual "ribbets, peeps, oinks," and "meows." But if it's any consolation to loving dads like Jimmy Fallon, his baby animals don't exactly say "Mama," either! And artist Ordonez offers a triumph to doting daddies in his comic closing endpapers, where all the little ones do manage to yell out DADA, all except a determined little duckling, that is! There's always one in every crowd!

This is a wonderful Fathers Day book for expectant daddies, and a natural for babies, toddlers and even almost-emergent readers who learn to decipher a few animals sounds along the way.

Dad's Day Done Your Way: Fathers' Day Roundup

Maybe Mothers' Day came first--in the calendar and in history--but parents deserves equal time, and authors and illustrators have long been busy creating Dads' Day stories. Fatherhood takes all kinds, considering that nature seems to have shaped a lot of models of fathers across the varied genomes of known species, but basically a good dad is one that is there at the right times. Human dads come in all shapes and sizes, too.

A list of stories for younger readers in which dads get their due is here.

And for dadly advice from a grown-up father for a dad to read to himself, there's the humorous look at Dad-Hood by that master of maleness, Dave Barry, You Can Date Boys When You're Forty: Dave Barry on Parenting and Other Topics He Knows Very Little About.

Founding Father In A Funk? Cheer Up, Ben Franklin by Misti Kenison

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN IS SAD.

NO ONE HAS TIME TO FLY KITES WITH HIM.

"Poor Richard" is not being a perky patriot!

All the other Founding Fathers (and Mothers) are otherwise engaged.

Betsy Ross is busily embroidering stars on a flag. Sam Adams is planning an exclusive costumed tea party down at Boston Harbor. Abigail Adams is managing the family farm while John Adams is working hard, helping Tom Jefferson draft the Declaration down in Philadelphia.

Alexander Hamilton is down at the counting house, counting out the money. Paul Revere can't wait to light his lantern and hop on his horse, and George Washington is totally engaged in drilling his dragoons.

NOBODY is down at the tavern, up for a debate with Ben.

So Ben wanders down to Independence Hall, where all his fellow founders are gathering to listen to T. J. read a document called the Declaration of Independence. Ben Franklin doesn't get his kite up, but at least the air down there is ELECTRIC with excitement--and freedom!

Misti Kenison's Cheer Up, Ben Franklin! (Young Historians) (Sourcebooks/Jabberwocky, 2017), fittingly published on the Fourth of July, sets the scene with all the Founders assembled, in this perky book which pictures all the "Fathers (and Mothers) of Our Country" as they worked to build a beginning for the country. For the youngest of American history buffs, this brief book in the publisher's Young Historians series introduces the major players in the pre-Revolutionary War period in a charming little board book that piques kids' appetites for more American lore, as author-illustrator Kenison introduces these famous figures in simple prose and appealing illustrations. Along with this one, keep Kenison's Where's Your Hat, Abe Lincoln? (Young Historians) on hand for Lincoln's Birthday and Presidents Day in February.

You Go, Girls! Not One Damsel In Distress by Jane Yolen

The title of Jane Yolen's new edition of Not One Damsel in Distress: Heroic Girls from World Folklore (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018) tells it all.

In this collection of fifteen folktales from around the world, there are no princesses languishing in towers, no maidens rescued from dragons, evil wizards, ravaging wolves, witchy stepmothers, or devils in disguise.

In tales from Africa, medieval Germany, ancient Greece, the distant mountains of China or the sands of the desert, brave young women combat river beasts, cruel fathers, Sioux warriors, and sultans with sneaky gender tests. These heroes (Yolen eschews the terms heroines or sheroes) are peasants, pirate lasses, or princesses who outrun, out-battle, and outwit their foes. Some are well known--Atalanta, Mollie Whuppie, and Bradamante--and others are not, but all are young women who relied on their courage, strength, will, and wit to do great deeds and help themselves along at the same time.

Author Yolen's well-researched and finely honed narratives straightforwardly take her protagonists and their cultures as they are, without apology for a world in which fathers leave daughters to die in the woods or devilish wizards abduct kind girls. Her heroines themselves make no apologies and take no prisoners, but get down to work to save themselves and others.

True to the folklorist's creed, Yolen's appendix notes cite her multicultural sources and parses some of the metaphoric villains: in the tale "Marsha and the Bear," she suggests that the Bear is indeed Russia gobbling up Azerbaijan and Marsha is the patriot who foils the attack. In this revised edition of Yolen's 2000 collection, Not One Damsel in Distress: World Folktales for Strong Girls middle readers will find excitement and spirited inspiration.

Why Do You Love Me? Just Because You're Mine by Sally Lloyd Jones

"DAD!" SHOUTED LITTLE RED SQUIRREL.

"LOOK AT ME!"

Little Red Squirrel and his dad are playing in the woods, and the little one is eager to show off his skills. He runs as fast as the wind. He climbs way up high in the tree. He knows just how to find super-secret berries.

"HAVE I TOLD YOU TODAY HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU?" DAD SAYS.

"BECAUSE WHY?"

"DO YOU LOVE ME BECAUSE I'M ABSOLUTELY BRAVE?"

In Sally Lloyd Jones' latest, Just Because You're Mine (Harper, 2011), the answer is predictable: Dad is proud of all his accomplishments, for sure, but they are not the reason he loves Little Red Squirrel. He loves him, not because he is fast and friendly, brave and handsome, although those are all good things. The answer, in the book's title, is the evergreen reason that parents love their little ones, "just because..." you belong to me and I belong to you. Frank Endersley's soft and soothing illustrations fit Jones' straight-forward text, making this one a great book for Fathers' Day or just any day that Daddy reads the story out loud.

Lloyd-Jones' previous books include the best-selling How to Be a Baby . . . by Me, the Big Sister (How To Series), Being a Pig Is Nice: A Child's-Eye View of Manners, Song of the Stars: A Christmas Story, and Time to Say Goodnight.

Daddy Love! If My Love Were a Firetruck by Luke Reynolds

If my love were a firetruck,
Its sirens would flash all night!

"How do I love thee? Let me count the ways," said the poet, and in Luke Reynolds' If My Love Were a Fire Truck: A Daddy's Love Song (Doubleday and Company, 2017), his "Daddy's Love Song" counts up the ways a father loves a child in big, strong metaphors. He loves as loudly as a trumpeting elephant, echoing across the landscape, as bright as a blazing rocket soaring out of sight, as loud as a race car's "vroom," as loudly as a brass band's "boom."

He protects his son like a knight's shield fends off a dragon, like a bear's big hug that lasts all night long.

But after all that daddy love, with its clash and bang and roar and vroom, it comes down to a sweet snuggle, one in which they both fall gently asleep, with the boy resting on his father's chest, cuddling his firetruck as he falls asleep, with the moon at the window.

It's dream time now.
I'll meet you there.

My love for you
Goes everywhere.

And isn't that just how a parent loves a child, to the moon and back? Lucas Reynolds' rhyming text makes good use of his manly metaphors, but ends with a warm and tender closing, skillfully illustrated by Artist Jeff Mack, who handles both the mighty images and the sweet affection that boy and father share. This is a heartfelt and heartwarming bedtime story especially for dads that lets fathers show just how they feel. Says the Wall Street Journal's reviewer, "Luke Reynolds offers extravagant metaphors for paternal affections . . . a series of tenderhearted comparisons matched with colorful, exuberant pictures by Jeff Mack."

The Gift: Grandpa Loves You by Helen Foster James

BE BRAVE AND TAKE CHANCES,
HAVE FUN AND ENJOY
EACH MOMENT, MY LOVE,
MY PRIDE AND MY JOY.

If "a child is a gift you give yourself," the child of your child is an even greater gift for a grandparent.

In Helen Foster James' Grandpa Loves You (Sleeping Bear Press), a grandfather greets his "Honey, Grandbunny" with love and promises of all the wonderful things they will do together--roaming the woods, flying kites, fixing things, sharing bedtime hugs, and best of all, digging, as Grandpa shows Bunny how to dig an awesome burrow!

In this companion book to her earlier hit, Grandma Loves You!, the youngest is welcomes into the family circle with the anticipation of all the times together that are to come. Artist Petra Brown adds soft-toned illustrations of the two cottontails, a gray, bushy-browed Grandpa Rabbit, and small, but big-eared Baby Bunny.  The two stay busy, enjoying exploring the big world together, as Grandpa gives him the best gift of all--love and joy in his life. Author James includes a special page at the back of the book for a real grandfather to add his promises of joys to come to the book for his own grandson, making this one just right to give, in lieu of a Fathers Day card, to loving granddads to read to their young ones.

On Broadway and In The Heights! Game Changers: Lin-Manuel Miranda by Stephanie Kraus

Lin-Manuel Miranda was looking around a bookstore one day when he came across Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow. He bought the best-selling biography and began reading it on vacation. The book describes how Hamilton, an orphan from the Caribbean, wrote his way out of poverty and helped shape a new nation.

How does a young guy turn the story of one of America's founding fathers into a record-breaking Broadway musical hit?

Lin-Manuel Miranda grew up with lot of music in his house--pop songs, salsa, and Broadway show tunes, which he loved, and although his family couldn't see all of them, he did see and love Cats, Les Miserable, and The Phantom of the Opera. He loved his piano recitals and he and his school bus driver led rap competitions on the way to grade school. Miranda played in school productions, as Conrad Birdie of Bye Bye, Birdie and the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, The Pirates of Penzance. He was hooked.

The musical theater was his calling!

After college Miranda helped composer Steven Sondheim translate the famous musical West Side Story (based on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet) into Spanish, and after some roles on stage, Miranda decided to compose a show that took advantage of a diverse cast, and his result was the hit Broadway musical In the Heights, which won 13 Tony Awards. A hit like that is hard to follow, and that is why Miranda was in that bookstore, searching diligently for a subject that would inspire a different sort of show, and inexplicably, he settled on the subject of Alexander Hamilton, born in the Caribbean, a Revolutionary War general, member of the Constitutional Convention, and first secretary of the treasury of the U.S. in George Washington's first cabinet, and the only member of that administration killed in a duel by another politician.

In 2009, after a year of work on his idea, Miranda previewed his signature song "In the Room Where It Happened" at a White House gala with a standing ovation, and his complete musical Hamilton: An American Musical opened in 2015 to even more Tony Awards and even a Pulitzer.

Author Stephanie Kraus tells the amazing story of the Puerto Rican composer who brings American patriot Alexander Hamilton into Broadway history with new rap style, along with many other musical forms, in her biography, Beyond Words: Lin-Manuel Miranda (Time for Kids(r) Nonfiction Readers) (Time For Kids). As nonfiction for middle-school and high-school students, this book is illustrated with lively color photos, and the biographical part of the text is broken up with fact boxes, "Stop and Think," boxes, pie-graphs of the racial composition of Broadway plays, and other eye-catching features, along with basics such as an appendix that boasts a glossary, index, "Try It Out!" and "Stop and Think!" sections, and a bibliography with books, video, and websites. This stylish biography has much to offer readers in showing how success in any area involves everything a person learns--at home, in school, from associates, and in the life around him or her.

Bedtime with Dad: Panda Whispers by Mary Beth Owen

Underneath a shooting star,
Llamas hum near mountains steep,
Dreaming of the things they'll find
Waiting at the highest peak.
Llama whispers, "Top of the world!"

In a cozy bedroom, where a dozen stuffed animals listen from the quilted bed, a father reads a bedtime story to his daughter, while through the windows the sun lowers on an ocean vista. In the girl's lap we see this book, Panda Whispers, open to a page where a panda and baby settle down to nighttime dreams.

Panda cuddles with her cub,
Pointing to the tallest tree.
She gives his back a gentle rub.
Panda whispers, "Dream of climbing!"

Mary Beth Owens' lyric, dreaming cadence of rhymes pictures animal parents with their young, settling down to sleep, while the mother or father softly whispers a suggestion for sweet dreams.

Resting in the rolling ocean,
Sleepy dolphins close their eyes.
High above a golden moon
Is tossed into the starlit sky.
Dolphin whispers, "Leap up high."

Against deep blue backgrounds, cheetah, alligator, and penguin parents, to name a few, wish for dreams that match their young's desires. Swan whispers to the cygnets of tasty lily roots awaiting, with the words "Bottoms up!" and in their meadow den Red Fox murmurs, "You'll find crickets" to his kits. Owen pictures each animal and baby realistically on one side of the double-page spread, while soft, dreamy illustrations portray the dreams of the young on the other. "Fast as lightning!" whispers Cheetah, as the kittens race through their dreams, and Lemur softly speaks of leaping through the highest branches, with a loving "Hold on tight!"

The final pages return to Dad and his little girl, beyond them the setting sun lighting up the sails of boats on the darkening sea, and as her plush animals sprawl asleep on her bed and her eyes droop, he whispers his own wish for her:

In the bedroom child and father
Hear the ocean in the night.
"Dream you'll sail to far-off places,
Then sail back by morning's light.

Father whispers, "I'll be waiting here. . . . Good night."

A fitting and timely tribute to fathers and an inviting summons to sweet sleep, Owen's Panda Whispers, captures a memorable bedtime moment for the young.

Man and the Moon: Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me by Eric Carle

Eric Carle's beautiful Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me is usually viewed as a book about the lunar cycle, with its fantasy story of the dutiful dad who tries to give his little girl the full moon, only to be forced to wait until it shrinks to a manageable-enough size to retrieve.

But this story can just as easily be viewed as a story with a sentiment which makes it well suited for Father's Day as well.

Before Monica went to bed, she looked out of her window and saw the moon. The moon looked so near.

"I wish I could play with the moon," said Monica.

"Papa," said Monica, "please get the moon for me."

Papa got a very long ladder. He carried the very long ladder toward a very high mountain. Then Papa put the very long ladder on top of the very high mountain. Up and up he climbed.

Perhaps all proud papas have moments of wishing to give their daughters the moon, but this devoted dad actually fetches a fantastic ladder and mounts it to the very surface of the full moon, where he sees that the moon is much too massive to manage by himself. But the wise old moon counsels patience, promising to shrink until he is the proper size for a plaything.

And Monica is pleased with her little crescent moon and plays with it happily as it wanes until it suddenly vanishes from sight altogether. Saddened, little Monica watches the place in the sky where the moon once soared.

Then one night, Monica saw a thin sliver of the moon reappear.

Each night the moon grew... and grew... and grew.

A loving father who longs to give his daughter her heart's desire not only does so, but also gives her a gift which continues to delight forever. It's a beautiful thought, beautifully executed. Carle practically invented the modern book-as-toy, and this one, with its four-page gatefold which shows the dad carrying a ladder so long it continues off the left and right-hand pages, shows his skill in creative book design with vertical flaps which open upward and downward to reveal Papa's climb up to the moon and back down to Earth with his prize.

Aglow with Carle's distinctive technique and palette, it's a lovely book with a lovely message for fathers.

Hyde and Seek: Jekel Loves Hyde by Beth Fantaskey

...suddenly the whole world seemed as topsy-turvy as a boy in the girls' room. I saw everything from a distance, like I was a character in a movie filled with ambiguous heroes and unexpected villains.

The most gallant, self-sacrificing guy in school was a murderer. The hottest, most popular stud had just propositioned the plainest, least popular virgin. The virgin became some sort of crazy slut when night fell. Fathers stole from daughters and attacked their sons. Mothers were too damaged and preoccupied to hold their own children....

Chemistry, where I'd once found order in the universe, wreaked havoc on souls.

And that's just the first half of the novel.

Beth Fantaskey's forthcoming Jekel Loves Hyde (Harcourt, 2010) begins, with eery overtones of Stephanie Meyers' Twilight series, as Jill Jekel is magnetically drawn to the handsome and brooding Tristen Hyde, whom she first encountered at the brink of her father's grave, when he appears in her chemistry class. Beyond the almost comic coincidence of their names with the characters in Stevenson's classic Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, both feel some deeper connection drawing them together despite themselves.

Their teacher Mr. Messerschmidt unexpectedly brings them together by suggesting that their literary names on a collaboration for an upcoming chemistry competition for a $30,000 scholarship prize, will help them catch the eye of the judges. But although both at first resist the idea, there is a deep and deadly reason why they must bring all their skills and intelligence together in what is not a mere science project, but a matter of life and death for themselves and their surviving parents.

Tristen convinces Jill that the premise of Stevenson's novel was true, that the Dr. Jekyll of the story indeed did exist and concoct a potion which created a monster, a monster who did not die as at the end of the fictional tale, but lived and procreated, passing down his twisted drive to morph into a murderous monster, and that he, Tristen, is the living heir of that evil line. Jill, too, discovers that she is the descendant of that very Dr. Jekyll and that her father's seemingly mysterious murder is part of that centuries-old man-made curse.

Together Jill and Tristen discover in her father's locked study complete notes from Dr. Jekyll's experiments. For Jill, who had just learned that her father pilfered her college account before his murder, the discovery seems at the least a way to win the chemistry prize and fund her studies. But for Tristen the notes mean much more. As their friendship and nascent love develops, he at last confides his deadly inheritance, confessing the murderous dreams which he has nightly, dreams in which he finds himself bloodily slaying a girl who is finally revealed as Jill herself. Tristen sees their replicating the original experiments successfully as a way to recreate the formula which will destroy the monster within himself and the monster he detects more and more in his father, a noted psychiatrist. And as the two move deeper into their own romance and come upon final success with their experiments, Jill, too, is tempted to try to escape her own reserved nature and experience briefly the power that Jekyll's formula imparts, while Tristen, temporarily cured by one administration of their formula, realizes that with his dark side has gone his powerful musical creativity.

At times the turns of plot here may strain the necessary willing suspension of disbelief a bit, even for this imaginative example of the Gothic genre. Yet Fantaskey fearlessly touches on the serious theme amidst the gory twists of her plot, the question of the role of the dark side of the human spirit in generating its core energy, its very creativity.

This sort of dark fantasy is not for everyone, of course, but those young adult readers who were fascinated with the demon lover theme in the Twilight series may find Jekel Loves Hyde very much to their taste.

Beth Fantaskey is also the author of the humorously satiric and very highly-reviewed Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side, which also turns upon the demon lover theme, but this time with a wickedly comic twist which combines romantic sizzle with an ironic poke at this popular and strangely glamorous genre,

I Hate Badurday! Saturday Is Dadurday by Robin Pulver

AFTER THE TWINS WERE BORN, MIMI AND DAD HAD AN IDEA FOR THEIR FAVORITE DAY.

IT CAME AFTER FRIDAY, AND MIMI AND DAD CALLED IT DADURDAY.

With newborn twins, Mom is totally busy, and Mimi feels left out.

So Dad steps into the breech and offers to spend all day Saturday doing things they both like to do. After sharing their custom-designed silly-shaped pancakes, the two of them read the comics in the newspaper, and then each makes out lists of fun ways to spend the day. They compare notes, choosing matching things on both their lists.  They ride bikes and make silly-shaped picnic food. When it rains they stomp in puddles and get happily wet.

Dadurday is Mimi's BEST day of the week.

But one day Dad regretfully announces that he's going to be working on Saturdays for a while.

"BUT WHAT ABOUT DADURDAY!" MIMI ASKS.

"IT WILL STILL BE DADURDAY WHEN I GET HOME!" DAD OFFERS.

"IT WON'T BE THE SAME!" MIMI MOANS.

At first Mimi is stunned into a major meltdown. Daduday is SADurday.

Dadurday is MADurday!

Dadurday is BADurday!

Mom promises to play with Mimi if the twins ever go to sleep at the same time, but Mimi knows that's probably not going to happen any time soon.  Mimi wants Saturday to be HER day again.

"TODAY SHOULD BE MIMIDAY!  ME! ME! ME!"

But after a while, Mimi calms down and decides that she's going to make the best of it as Dad said.  Working on Saturday is definitely a lemon, but she sets to work making some Mimi lemonade!

And when a dispirited and tired Dad finally comes home, Mimi has artistic decorations and party hats to welcome him back and  silly-shaped pancakes on the griddle for his supper, in Robin Pulver's just-in-time-for-Fathers-Day book, Saturday Is Dadurday (Walker, 2013). Mimi is an ebullient girl with a mind of her own, but she soon gets it that it's not all about her just in time to make it a Dadurday after all. R. W. Alley's watercolor, pencil, and ink illustrations keep the angst light while capturing the real emotions that Dad and Mimi share. Sometimes things are beyond mom and dad's control, and Mimi rises to this occasion with admirable flair.

What Dads Do Best! Oh, Daddy! by Bob Shea

I MAY BE LITTLE, BUT I'M AS SMART AS TWO EIGHT-YEAR-OLDS!

I'M SO SMART I EVEN SHOW MY DADDY HOW TO DO THINGS--AND HE'S A GROWN UP.

I DON'T KNOW WHAT MY DADDY WOULD DO WITHOUT ME!

But this dad is smart like a fox! Getting kids to go along with the routines of daily life in a timely fashion is one of the most difficult of parental responsibilities--especially in those little tasks in which youngsters are born experts in stalling tactics.

Take getting dressed in time for school. With Daddy stealing a harried look at his watch, we see the kid, dressed so far only in his skivvies, cheerfully watching TV while his clothes for the day remain carefully laid out on a chair since the night before. What's a dad to do to move things along without setting off a squabble?

"IS THIS HOW YOU GET DRESSED?" Daddy says, popping into the bedroom with oven mitts on his hands, a bucket on one foot, a polka-dot sock on the other, and a flower pot on his head.

"OH, DADDY!" the kid laughs, and quickly shows his dad how to get dressed properly for school.

When the kid drags his feet about climbing into the car for a trip to Grandma's, Daddy works the same trick, "IS THIS HOW YOU GET IN THE CAR?" he asks, clambering clumsily in through the car's window. Juggling carrots at lunch is another ploy to get the boy to show Dad how to eat his veggies. And just to keep his cover from being blown, Daddy gives the kid a chance to turn the tables: Dad sprinkles the boy with his watering can, which gives the kid a chance to spray his father with the hose to show him how to water flowers properly.

It's all in good fun, showing that good dads know how to use a bit of humor to soften those little life lessons that are the meat and potatoes of upbringing. And when Daddy proves himself totally incompetent in giving himself a hug, the boy demonstrates that he already knows everything there is to know about hugging a funny, sweet Daddy the way he deserves to be hugged.

Bob Shea's new Oh, Daddy! (Balzer & Bray, 2010) uses bright pastel pages to set off his droll comic characters, simple but highly stylized black-line hippos, to illustrate what dads do best, using a bit of humor to get through those necessary routines that are the staples of daily daddying. A joyful and wonderful book for Fathers Day reading and sharing!

Cuddly Creatures: Mommy Loves Baby by Troy Muilenburg

... AND BABY LOVES MOMMY.

Mommy love (and Daddy love, too) is the simple theme of Troy Muilenburg's Mommy Loves Baby (Curtis Christine Press, 2015).

Parent and child together--from the roly-poly pandas on the cover, the s-l-o-o-w-l-y snuggling sloths in the treetops, to the emperor penguin papa protecting his chick from the chill between his feathered feet-- all are shown in fond familial poses. A gorilla father offers a young one a juicy leaf, and Mama Elephant gently touches her trunk to her baby's in a shared kiss.

Author Troy Muilenburg's easily repeated refrains are set off in facing pages with illustrator Andrea Dickkut's soft but realistic portraits of mothers and fathers separately or together nurturing their little ones. This sturdy board book also teaches little ones the names and a bit about the habitat of animals from tiger to koala, rhinoceros to hippopotamus. The notes and chords for an accompanying song are printed at the bottom of each page of text, providing a bonus lullaby for little humans at bedtime.

Overboard! The Boy Who Fell Off the Mayflower, Or, John Howland's Good Fortune by P. J. Lynch

It was all because of the King that we had to leave England.

Our Elders decided we would take our chances in the New World.

In 1620, young John Howland bid his family farewell and cast his lot with the Puritans who elected to leave their homes to seek freedom from persecution by the Church of England for their Calvinist leanings. Still a teenager, John, called Jack, indentured himself to John Carver, boarding a small ship called the Mayflower, sailing secretly before dawn with the tide.

"We've sold all our possessions, John. There's no going back," said Elder William Brewster.

And once out upon the "Vast and Furious Ocean," young Jack encounters very bad luck indeed. He is called on deck to help repair a critical timber shivered by the wind, just as a great wave strikes the ship.

A huge wave hit and sent me flying over the side.

Sinking in the silence of the icy green water below the ship, John despairs of his life. Then he sees a rope trailing behind the Mayflower and he seems to hear his mother's voice.

"Wake up, John Howland," I heard.

Lord God, the rope was in my hand!

And John Howland's good fortune continues with a speedy recovery from near death in the sea. But the voyage itself seems ill-fated, arriving not in Virginia near earlier English settlers, but making landfall on a barren and forbidding shore.

"That ain't Virginia, son!" said seaman Bob Coppin. "That's Cape Cod. None of us will survive if we don't stay together!"

Stay together they do, and launching their small shallop, John and the seamen sail along the coast until they locate a small harbor where the weary travelers come ashore. But fate is not fortunate for most of them, and the little settlement of New Plymouth sees the majority of them die before the long winter ends. However, John Howland survives to see Samoset and then Squanto appear to help them raise their crops.  He helps build a common house and then dwellings for the families, working alongside the other indentured servants, including one young girl, Lizzie Tilley, who catches his eye.

And when his master, John Carver and his wife die within a month of each other, young John is left a substantial inheritance.

"Now I was left without a master. I was a free and equal man."

And when the good ship Fortune arrives to resupply the settlers, John longs to take it back to London, but when Lizzie Tilley declines to go with him, he watches the Fortune sail away without him, casting his lot with Lizzie and a new life in New Plymouth. P. J. Lynch's The Boy Who Fell Off the Mayflower, or John Howland's Good Fortune (Candlewick Press, 2015) retells the familiar story of the Plymouth colony as it has not been told before, through the written words and eyes of young Jack, perhaps the luckiest colonist in American history. For as Lynch's author's note tells us, Jack's good luck holds, as the ill-named Fortune falls upon French pirates, never to see the port of London, while John Howland becomes a prominent citizen in the colony, and he and Tilly and their ten children establish a family which now numbers millions of American descendants.

Lynch's simple but strong narration is paired with his stunningly cinematographic gouache paintings, which use various perspectives and vivid light and shadow to delineate the settlers and the Wamponoags, giving new life to the familiar story of the first Thanksgiving and Pilgrim Fathers in striking illustrations that middle readers will not soon forget. Says Kirkus in a starred review, "Based on historical fact, this feast of a book will captivate readers from its opening double-page spread. Sweeping and grand, this personal take on a familiar story is an engaging success."

Thank Ewe, Mom: I Love Ewe: An Ode to Animal Mothers by Aaron Zenz

MY MOM'S A HEN--

BUT LOOK AGAIN!

HENS LIVE UNDERWATER, TOO!

No cluck cluck for these animal mothers; glub glub and blub blub  is more like it for crab and lobster moms, also known as hens.

Some feline animal mothers have elegant, mellifluous appellations, like the lioness, tigress, and leopardess.  And check out Mama Fox's fine moniker: she's a vixen! A goat mama is a nanny, and so a boisterously loud one is a "hootin' nanny," right?

Some animal mothers borrow their names from humans: Mrs. O'Possum is a Jill, and Ma Donkey is a Jenny.  Equine moms are always mares, but mother bears share their titles with mother pigs--they are both sows. And if a baby hollers for Mama Cow, a bovine won't be the only one to answer: Mama Moose, Mrs. Seal, and Mother Hippo and Rhino will report for cow duty, too.

Human mothers have lots of names, too--mom, mum, mommy, mummy, ma, mama, momma, mither, and that's just in English!  But a mom that is a sheep is the only one to which her baby is likely to say I Love Ewe: An Ode to Animal Mothers (Walker, 2013), Aaron Zenz's clever rhyming book about  what we call animal moms.

And for the upcoming Fathers Day, pick a passel of papas in Zenz' newest, a tribute to animal dads' names that is  just as clever and comic--Hug a Bull: An Ode to Animal Dads (Walker, 2013). Zenz points out that the bull that gets a hug could be a gentleman bovine or or perhaps a father giraffe, walrus, moose or alligator! While a mother duck or goose is predictably a hen, her male consort is called drake.

As in his companion book, 27 animal parents are featured in Zenz's pleasant, curvy illustrations. Other book by Zenz include his treatise on baby animal names, Chuckling Ducklings and Baby Animal Friends, his very popular The Hiccupotamus,  and its companion book, The Chimpansneeze.  Having fun with words while coming up with new vocabulary terms is Aaron Zenz's specialty.