Birdie’s Big Girl Shoes
Sujean Rim. Little, Brown, $15.99 (40p) ISBN 978-0-316-04470-7
Rim, whose illustrations accessorize the Web site DailyCandy, makes her authorial debut with a story of a girl who covets the fabulous high-heeled footwear of her stylish (and strikingly waifish) mother. When her mother finally relents and allows her daughter to play dress up with the contents of her shoe closet (that’s right, a la Sex and the City, mom has a closet just for shoes), Birdie learns the answer to the question, “What price beauty?” For while the shoes represent that perfect, drool-worthy combination of improbable geometry and sublime superfluity, wearing them isn’t child’s play. “[H]iding was impossible with pointy Mary Jane sticking out,” Birdie discovers, and when it comes to turning cartwheels, “landing sure was tricky in sky-high stilettos.” Rim’s gossamer watercolors exude a breezy élan and they pop with luscious color—the pinks are especially juicy. The exaggerated scenes of Birdie trying on her mother’s shoes are priceless (in one, she balances inside one shoe as if on a seesaw), and the target audience will identify both with Birdie’s desire to play grownup and her epiphany that barefoot is better. Ages 3—6. (Sept.)
The Legend of Ninja Cowboy Bear
David Bruins, illus. by Hilary Leung. Kids Can, $16.95 (32p) ISBN 978-1-55453-486-9
This comic book—style story features three amiable characters who challenge each other to a series of contests only to realize that “no one had to be the best. They were each special and unique—just like you and me.” Leung’s action-filled, brightly-colored illustrations, which have a burnished, wood-grain quality, seem ready-made for animation. With style and humor, the collaborators show how the bear’s strength allows him to build a higher rock pile than the ninja, the cowboy’s “precision and accuracy” allows him to pick more raspberries than the bear, and the ninja’s agility allows him to catch more rabbits than the cowboy. The simple story about accepting one’s gifts also provides the basis for a game featuring the three characters, which is described at the end of the book. A variation of “rock-paper-scissors,” the game does not rely on hand signals, but encourages children to use full body play as “ninja beats cowboy,” “cowboy beats bear,” and “bear beats ninja” (an online version of the game is also available, but seems like scant fun compared to striking bear and ninja poses). Ages 4—7. (Sept.)
Sleep, Big Bear, Sleep
Maureen Wright, illus. by Will Hillenbrand. Marshall Cavendish, $16.99 (32p) ISBN 978-0-7614-5560-8
Something’s lost in translation—to funny effect—in this picture book about a hard-of-hearing bear’s bungled preparations for a long winter’s nap. As autumn rolls along, Old Man Winter, a whiskery face in the clouds, warns his friend, Big Bear, of the approaching cold weather. But Big Bear can’t quite make out Old Man Winter’s recurring suggestion—“Sleep, Big Bear, sleep”—and instead hears all manner of like-sounding phrases such as “Drive a jeep, Big Bear, drive a jeep,” or “Climb a mountain steep, Big Bear, steep.” Each misguided effort leaves Big Bear more and more tired, until Old Man Winter finally makes himself heard. First-time author Wright creates an appealing blend of silliness and read-aloud exuberance in her rhyming text. Hillenbrand’s (Louie!) brown bear, accompanied by an energetic rabbit sidekick, has a friendly, expressive face and attacks his tasks with verve, despite his growing exhaustion. The rolling countryside, glowing in seasonal moonlight, or dotted with fine white snowflakes and crisp evergreens against a wintry gray sky, will have readers longing for a cup of hot cocoa. Ages 4—8. (Sept.)
Stars Above Us
Geoffrey Norman, illus. by E. B. Lewis. Putnam, $16.99 (32p) ISBN 978-0-399-24724-8
In his first picture book, mystery writer Norman presents a leisurely told story about how a child deals with the absence of her soldier father. When Amanda is afraid of the dark, her father shows her the sights and sounds that make the darkness beautiful—such as fireflies, stars and crickets. And when her father is deployed half a world away, “Amanda would look at the Big Dipper and the North Star and think of him.” Both author and artist neatly weave together repeated images of the stars, Amanda’s new black lab, the blinking of fireflies, the sound of crickets and how a family copes with separation. Although Norman’s language is sometimes awkward, Lewis’s painterly illustrations shimmer with family love and warmth as he portrays the family’s reunion at the airport and their first dinner together again. “It had been a long, long time since they had done this.” After dinner Amanda shows her father his surprise—a room full of glow-in-the-dark fireflies and stars. A quiet, affirming tribute to the resilience of families. Ages 5—8. (Sept.)
Andrew North Blows up the World
Adam Selzer. Delacorte, $15.99 (128p) ISBN 978-0-385-73648-0
Selzer’s (How to Get Suspended and Influence People) madcap comedy stars a likable third-grader with an overblown imagination and ambitious plans. Convinced that his father and older brother, Jack, are undercover spies, Andrew aspires to enter the family business and become a super-spy with a pet monkey as sidekick. When the boy brings Jack’s calculator (which he’s sure is a “spy gadget”) to school, his teacher confiscates it and locks it in a storage room that is the domain of a grumpy janitor, who Andrew suspects is also a spy. The boy’s mission to retrieve the calculator before the janitor uses it to blow up the school and before his brother notices that it’s missing entails some crafty plotting that brings this fast-moving story to a tidy end. Selzer adds an affecting undercurrent: Andrew’s dealing with Jack’s remoteness since turning 13 (“I knew it was because he was busy with spy stuff, but it still stank. I missed hanging out with him”). Despite the narrator’s flights of fancy, he is a credible, down-to-earth kid. Ages 7—10. (Sept.)
Dancing Through the Snow
Jean Little. EDC/Kane Miller, $15.99 (256p) ISBN 978-1-935279-15-0
As a small child, Min was abandoned in a restroom by her caretaker and has been passed between four foster families in eight years, with no idea who her parents are. Little’s (Somebody Else’s Summer) story opens as Min is being returned to the Children’s Aid Office right before Christmas. Jess, a doctor who once treated Min, comes to her rescue, taking Min home because she too was once a foster child. Because of her past history, Min has trouble trusting Jess and making friends (the school bully calls her “Litter-Bin Min”). But Jess’s love is steadfast and Min comes around (“In one glorious rush, all her jumbled feelings slid away like snow off a peaked roof. She stood transfixed, trying to take in the fragile wonder dawning within her”). By the end of the story Min has a new mother as well as new friends, including Jess’s former foster son, Toby. Though, at times, the dialogue is not entirely credible, as when 12-year-old Toby tells Jess, “You can cuddle with me any time,” the story moves smoothly to its unsurprising but satisfying conclusion. Ages 9—13. (Sept.)
The Sky Always Hears Me and the Hills Don’t Mind
Kirstin Cronn-Mills. Flux, $9.95 paper (288p) ISBN 978-0-7387-1504-9
Written with candor and splashes of humor, Cronn-Mills’s first novel explores the muddled emotions of Morgan, a high-school junior stuck in “Central Nowhere,” her name for her small Nebraskan hometown. Whenever she gets too fed up with life, Morgan drives to the country and screams confessions to the sky. Besides being plagued with feelings of entrapment (“I imagine what it will be like to leave here, and my heart sings a little”), she tires of her “dumb jock” boyfriend, develops a crush on an older boy who works with her at the local market and doesn’t know what to make her kiss with a female classmate. Then there’s the matter of her father’s drinking problem and a family secret so large and ugly it threatens to ruin her relationship with her grandmother, the only person who understands her. Presenting more dilemmas than pat solutions, this provocative story captures the essence of adolescent ennui and uncertainty through an uncensored first-person narrative. Stubborn, quick-witted and determined to make her dreams come true, Morgan will draw sympathy from readers. Ages 12—up. (Sept.)
The Lost Sister
Megan Kelley Hall. Kensington, $9.95 paper (288p) ISBN 978-0-7582-2680-8
Picking up where Sisters of Misery left off, Hall’s sequel finds half-sisters Maddie and Cordelia coming into their psychic powers. With the night of torturous hazing by the Sisters of Misery behind her, Cordelia runs away to Maine with the intention of murdering their philandering father, though her plans change when she discovers his young son (“She couldn’t take away this little boy’s father. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t stick around long enough to make Malcolm Crane wish he was dead”). Meanwhile, Cordelia’s mother has been committed to Ravenswood Asylum following a suicide attempt, and Maddie’s mother is diagnosed with cancer. When a mysterious fire is ignited in the asylum and one of the Sisters of Misery is murdered, Cordelia returns, working with Maddie to find the killer and rescue their loved ones. This suspenseful saga sits between fairy tale and thriller, though readers need not be a diehard fan of either genre in order to appreciate Hall’s intricate story of family history, witchcraft, teenage romance and sisterhood. Ages 12—up. (Aug.)
