Book Review: The Magician's Elephant

By Kate DiCamillo
Candlewick Press, 2009
Ages 9-12


In The Magician's Elephant, Kate DiCamillo's newest novel, Peter Augustus Duchene only wants to find his missing sister and know that she lives. It opens with a fortuneteller revealing to Peter that he will find her with the help of an elephant. The same night an elephant mysteriously appears, falling through the roof of the Bliffendorf Opera House, to the astonishment of both the magician responsible, and the noblewoman who is rendered paralyzed by the incident.

The rest of the story is a boy's journey from a joyless existence with a militant and neglectful guardian, to a life full of revelation, hope and, finally, a family. Around the holidays when family and hope are in high demand, this kind of story seems especially important. The tale of motley lost souls with converging plotlines, is similar to The Tale of Despereaux and Winn Dixie. When an author like DiCamillo takes such pains to tell a story using language that is as magical as the miracles it describes, readers may not care this isn't exactly a departure. For instance, in the following passage Peter is describing the life he knew before his parents died:

[Leo Matienne] leaned back in his chair. "Begin at the beginning."

Peter started in the garden. He began his story with his father throwing him up high in the air and catching him. He began with his mother dressed all in white, laughing, her stomach round like a balloon. "The sky was purple," said Peter. "The lamps were lit."

Yoko Tanaka's black and white illustrations enhance the waifish tone, and the cover conveys a silent film quality very appropriate for a story that feels whispered in one's ear.

There are no grand plot twists or cliff-hangers here. This is not a narrative to be plowed through, but a reverie in which to be immersed. If you love near-perfect prose, and the question, "What if?" If you want a story to curl up with under your comforter that will make you feel nostalgic and hopeful about the world then read this little lullaby of a tale.

Way Up and Over Everything
by Alice McGill
Illustrated by Jude Daly
Houghton Mifflin Books
In Bookstores Now
Ages: 6 and up

Way Up and Over Everything is a moving piece of African American Folklore, told in the voice of an African mother, telling you just the way it was told to her, long ago.
It’s no surprise to learn that the author of this book is a professional storyteller. The voice is colorful and rhythmic.

The narrator’s grandmama’s mama, Jane, grows up on the Georgia plantation of “Ol’ Man Deboreaux.” When the master brings five more slaves over from Charleston, Jane befriends one who says his name is “Edet.” The overseer shouts at him, reminding him that his name has been changed to Bob.

The depiction of slave life is true to life, without being too much for a young listener, and the language is rich. Slaves learn to “work by the whip. . . If a hoe rested too long, the whip popped. If cottonseeds didn’t hit the dirt fast enough, the whip popped.”

At mealtime, the five new slaves slip away from the rest. When Jane finds them they are over the hill and the owners have taken off to recapture them. As the overseer gets closer and all looks hopeless for the escapees, they merely twirl in a circle and “step up on the air.” They are flying away! And no one can believe their eyes. They float into the sky like helium balloons, ignoring the threats of those on the ground.

The folk art seems obviously appropriate here. Long furrows in the field echo long lines of the log cabin quarters, echo the rows of people sitting on the long wooden benches at mealtime. This is pleasing to my eye. The people in particular are painted so sparingly they look ready to take off before they actually do.

An author’s note explains the origins of this story come from the desire for freedom, when people believed escaped slaves had literally vanished into thin air. A mystic, poetic story that would be a great intro to a discussion of black history.

Highway Cats

Janet Taylor Lisle

Illustrated by David Frankland

Philomel Books
Sept 2008

Age: 9-12

Highway Cats is a sweet story about the healing power of miracles and making your voice heard. Feral cats, each haunted by a sordid past, live along the highway in constant conflict with each other. Then a mysterious trio of luminescent kittens arrives. After being inexplicably spared from death, they go on to inspire unity amongst this quirky community.

A parallel thread has humans, in short, scripted scenes, that are planning to develop the cat community's habitat. As the heavy equipment comes in to lay down a road, the scalawag cats, now inspired by the miracle of the kittens, come together to successfully defend their land.

Newbery honoree, Lisle, has succeeded in telling a fable that feels fresh and familiar at the same time. It manages to quite pointedly comment on the environment and government without coming off as didactic. Though the point of view sympathizes the cats' perspective, the animals are just as flawed as the humans. This juxtaposition of the human and animal points of view not only emphasizes the disconnection between these communities, but also the government's disconnection from the real world. A great intro to a discussion about building communities. A poignant read.

Birds On A Wire

By J. Patrick Lewis &
Paul B. Janeczko
Illustrated by Gary Lippincott
Wordsong
(an imprint of Boyds Mills Press)
December 2008
Ages: eight and up

Birds On A Wire calls itself A Renga ‘Round Town. I’d never heard of a renga before I picked this up, so the introduction was helpful. It does a good job explaining this Japanese mother of haiku.

From the intro:

A traditional renga is written by two or more poets. The first poet writes three lines, the second poet follow that with two lines, the first poet comes back with another three lines, then two, three, two, and so on.

The cool thing is, each new verse must link in some way to the verse before it, but not with the others. This creates a longish kind of poem where each stanza has something new to say, and yet holds hands with the lines immediately before. To complicate things more, we are told the renga does not need to tell a story, but it should have a beginning, a middle and an end.

For example, in Birds On A Wire, the poem covers an entire day, with widely varying happenings that are yet linked together in clever, if sometimes obtuse, ways. Children won’t get them all, but that’s okay since the language is beautiful enough on its own to entertain. I like this one:

Poet one:
Flood waters on the creek!
Bon voyage, grasshopper,
On this morning’s paper boat

Poet two:
Carrying news
to nowhere

This book would be wonderful in a third grade classroom where they are studying the haiku format. I love the idea of students participating in a “Classroom Renga,” or partnering with each other to create poems for two voices.

The slightly subdued, watercolor panoramas give important clues to some of the stanza connections, as in the following:

Glazed with rain
A red wheelbarrow headstands
By the hardware store

The old doctor recalls
Childhood barnyard.

The image of the reflecting doctor enhances the text particularly well here. The art throughout evokes a sense of lingering--moments frozen by poetry. Birds On A Wire has much to offer a wide age range, and language that is a joy to read again and again.

My One Hundred Adventures by Polly Horvath

Schwartz and Wade
2008
Ages: 10-14

I discovered and fell in love with Polly Horvath's writing in Everything on a Waffle. After reading everything she's written before and since, one thing is for sure. Her work is artful writing, no matter the topic. Take a couple of sentences like these,

"I pray for a hundred adventures. And maybe, I think, if I pray all the time unceasingly as Nellie is telling us we should, as I walk to town and help my mother shuck oysters, as I make baskets from reeds and sweep the floors or weed the vegetable garden, as I sit mooning over the movement of the wind and lying on my back, lost in the thoughtlessness of doing nothing, then there might be a response."

(*pause* to fully appreciate this sentence)

This book is set by the sea, about the daughter of a poet searching for meaning in her life through the adventures she experiences one summer. The adventures range from extraordinary to quietly profound. The narrative reads like rolling waves. Still, the characteristic, quirky humor is stirred in, giving that most wonderful of make-you-laugh-and-cry-in-the-same-paragraph reading experiences.

Some have quibbled about plot structure and the all-important arc. I think the character IS the plot, and the tension between the outrageous and the poetic create an arc of self-discovery. In the end, poetry (love) wins. How do we live with the outrageousness of life without letting our egos get in the way of love? I want to read this to my children and ask them if they think Mrs. Gourd deserved what she got. Is justice merely a more dignified word for revenge?

Jane, the protagonist, says, "More often than not, when my mother sits on the porch steps now, we are totally silent. I think we are memorizing the sound of the waves."

Don't you want to read a book where people talk like this? And tell a story you recognize as your very own? And is in the form of a prose poem to boot? Polly Horvath must love our crazy world. This book is an ode to the ocean, a love song to life.

Owl In Love

By Patrice Kindl
Graphia (June 7, 2004)
Age: 9-12



I finally finished reading Owl over the Christmas Break. Since this novel, Patrice Kindl has written Goose Chase, and others. Owl is a shape-shifting teenager who is also in love with her science teacher. I really appreciate Kindl's writing style, with a distinctive and strong authorial voice. The story is contemporary and ethereal at the same time. The whole novel was so well-paced and plotted, the ending did not quite live up to the rest for me. But this is so worth reading. A writing class unto itself.

The Underneath

By Kathi Appelt
Illustrated by David Small
Atheneum Books
May 2008 Ages 9-12


So many things have been said about this book already, I could simply employ the use of ditto marks here and be done with it. But that would be no fun, so here it is.

Few books bring me to the point where I simply must sit still after reading and continue to float on the graceful language still swirling in my brain. To call Kathi Appelt's The Underneath graceful isn't enough, though. One must also use the words musical, mythic, aural, haunting, thoughtful, true.

There are two stories, one of an unlikely family of cats and a hound dog living underneath a bad man's porch. Much of this narrative involves the journey of a kitten who made the mistake of venturing from The Underneath despite so many warnings. There is a death in the beginning of the story which creates unpredictability and an uneasiness throughout.

The other story is of enigmatic Grandmother Moccasin, a snake living in a jar tangled in the roots deep underneath a loblolly pine (yes, loblolly. Don't get me started on Appelt's deftness with the setting of this thing). Grandmother is a shape shifter and has been in the jar for a thousand years. Appelt slowly reveals her backstory until it wraps around the other story of these cats and this dog. Loss, redemption, atonement. And don't forget the Alligator King. There is much folklore here.

David Small's illustrations are beautiful and only make the story even more rich. The image of the little girl on the beach is particularly moving. Though this book wants to be read aloud, it is not bedtime reading for your five year old. Not for a five year old at all really. We're talking sadder than Charlotte's Web.


I know, theoretically, no novel is absolutely perfect, but love is blind. And I love this book. I do.

Book Review: The Pout-Pout Fish

Written by: Deborah Diesen
Illustrated by: Dan Hanna
Farrar Straus & Giroux
Age 3-7

Deborah Diesen's The Pout-Pout Fish, with illustrations by Dan Hanna, is sure to leave pouters reconsidering their mood. With this debut offering from both author and illustrator, one is left knowing there will be more to come from both of them.

Pout-Pout thinks his grouchiness is genetic, determined by his enormous and "ever-present" pout. One by one, his ocean pals try to cheer him up, and each one is answered with the fish's weary refrain, "I'm a pout-pout fish with a pout-pout face, so I spread the dreary-wearies all over the place."

Diesen's rhyme echoes the rhythm of rolling waves and the pouty references pour forth with cleverness. "Hey, Mr. Fish, you kaleidoscope of mope," says the squid. Talk about your alliterative insults! Finally, a mysterious silver fish enters the scene and delivers a life-altering surprise.

Hanna's beautifully imagined pictures and ocean inspired palette is an apt pairing with this unlikely fish story. The cartoonish style lends itself to the notion that perhaps, deep down, even Pout-Pout isn't taking himself too seriously. And with a lot of smooching at the end, this is bedtime reading at its best. Pouters take heart! Love does conquer all.

Book Review: Ellie McDoodle: New Kid in School

By: Ruth McNally Barshaw

Bloomsbury USA Children's Books

Ages 8-12

July 2008

Cheezers, Ellie fans don't have long to wait now. The sequel to Barshaw's May 2007 debut, Ellie McDoodle: Have Pen, Will Travel, has all the fun of the first book, with a fresh helping of problems for Ellie.

The story begins at "The End," for, according to Ellie, her move away from what is familiar is surely "the end of everything good."

Barshaw's trademark loose, sketchbook style is in clean lines and black and white. Her gift lies in the smooth flow of visual storytelling, complemented by always humorous and sometimes poignant reflections from Ellie. Under a picture of herself gazing skyward in the woods, she says, "Looking up, the trees and the sky look like jigsaw puzzle pieces that don't quite fit. Funny, that's how I feel: like I don't quite fit." Of course, there are surprises along the way in what is ultimately a funny, warm story about friends, family, and finding your voice.

With Ellie McDoodle: New Kid in School, Barshaw has secured herself as a "perfect fit" in the genre of graphic novels, and in the hearts of Ellie McDoodle loving fans.