This book doesn’t look like anything but itself. It doesn’t read like anything but what it is. It is not flashy but it is weirdly engrossing. I think it could have been truly great, but there’s no shame in being merely grand. A book that bucks conformity with every pretty page. Swings big. Aims for the stars.
Want a book that’ll stick in your brain for long periods of time for all the right reasons? Chant along with me then . . . my footprints, my footprints, my footprints . . .
If there is an art to rendering expository facts with a narrative feel, then Meghan McCarthy is this type of book’s Vincent Van Gogh. Never sacrificing beauty, never skimping on reality, she provides the perfect balance while also managing to come up with books that kids will really really enjoy reading. A treat to eye and ear and a blessing to parents of the firefighting obsessed nationwide. The best at what it aims to be.
It’s kind of gratifying to know that the story has been finding its audience. And what child wouldn’t find the notion of living on a school bus, tricked out like a long, yellow mobile home, enticing?
It’s the first of my new Vintage Reviews series. Today I travel back in time to 2006, the first year I started blogging. What book did I review for Halloween that year? Turns out, it was this now out-of-print but still beautiful classic.
Small in the City is not flashy or gaudy or loud. It is quiet and serious and oh-so very beautiful. Beautiful right down to its little paper soul. Once in a while, a reviewer gets to talk about a modern day classic. Today, I am that reviewer, and this is that book.
Don’t be surprised then if you detect a note of longing in the eyes of the kids that read this book. Thick with adventure, chock full of awe and beauty, this is what they mean when they say comics are an art unto themselves. The finest of the fine. Questing done right.
You know why you haven’t heard more people talking about this book? Because nobody knows how to sell it. Well, sorry folks, but the secret is out now. It’s one of the best books I’ve ever read for kids, and maybe the best school rated children’s novel I’ve encountered period. This, right here, is the book of our times.
When is a book about a dog more than just a dog book? Or a book about grief more than just about death? To make their lives easier, publishers like to slot books into categories. This one goes in the pile of books about holidays, while that one is for kids afraid of getting haircuts. But no matter the type, the best picture books transcend their boxes. This one does.
When a book is as funny, smart, beautiful, and interesting as Monument Maker, you have a chance to remember that old adage about judging a book by its cover.
Set in contemporary Seattle with a Suquamish/Duwamish protagonist, Day (Upper Skagit) highlights a historical injustice by writing a book a kid might actually enjoy reading. No mean task. I think I may have devoured it entirely in one sitting.
I don’t know what it took to make Mr. Nogginbody come into the world, but whatever confluence of the planets allowed this madcap exercise in increasing hijinks to happen, I say let’s have more of it! In a sea of picture books that remain unmemorable five minutes after you’ve read them, Mr. Nogginbody hits the nail on the head. Hard.
By my thinking you can never have enough nonsense taking up residence in a human brain. Calef Brown’s latest just proves it.
Good news. I know exactly what to do with this particular middle school book. You need to weigh it down with awards, so many that it can no longer stand under its own weight and is forced to stagger to the display unit that stands front and center in the library where all the best books go. Then, and only then, will it have found its true home.
There’s something going on in this book. A wry, whipsmart, funny tale that actually may have a thing or two to say about female empowerment. Or not? It’s easy to read too much into this book, but I’d say it’s also just as easy to read into it everything that you need it to be. Intelligent writing for kids that will not just appeal but engage and entice.
Recent Comments