Review of Humans of New York, by Brandon Stanton

Art, Musings, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review, True Stories 0

Humans of New York

by Brandon Stanton

St. Martin’s Press, New York, 2013.
Starred Review

This book is completely fascinating and delightful. I sat down to just glance through it — and ended up reading the whole thing.

Brandon Stanton explains the process that got him started writing the blog, Humans of New York. He lost his job as a bond trader, and I like his explanation of why he turned to photography:

I lost my trading job that July and immediately decided I wanted to be a photographer. I had enjoyed my time as a trader. The job was challenging and stimulating. And I’d obsessed over markets in the same way that I’d later obsess over photography. But the end goal of trading was always money. Two years of my life were spent obsessing over money, and in the end I had nothing to show for it. I wanted to spend the next phase of my life doing work that I valued as much as the reward. Photography seemed like an obvious choice. Like I said, it felt like a treasure hunt. And that seemed like a pretty good way to spend my time.

He began taking photos in Chicago and Pittsburgh. His plan was to do a photo tour through several major American cities. Here’s how things developed:

I repeated the process in Philadelphia. I spent my days combing the streets for interesting photographs, and each night I deposited the photos in a Facebook album. I named this album “Bricks and Flags.” My photos remained similar to those I’d taken in Chicago and Pittsburgh, but with one notable exception. I was starting to take more and more pictures of people. I’d begun to move beyond candid shots, and was actually stopping strangers on the street. The resulting portraits seemed to be the most compelling of my photographs, so I focused more energy on seeking them out.

I arrived in New York in early August. I planned to spend a week in the city before hopping on a plane for the West Coast, but I ended up staying for the rest of the summer. I remember the moment my bus emerged from the Lincoln Tunnel and I saw the city for the first time. The sidewalks were covered with people. The buildings were impressive, but what struck me most were the people. There were tons of them. And they all seemed to be in a hurry. That night, I created a photo album for my New York photos. I called it “Humans of New York.”

This book is full of those photos, from three years of work on the streets of New York. They are wonderful and amazing. Some just say where they were taken, but at least half have captions from what the person said. These add so much. And the people! Flamboyant, quiet, old, young, the eye of Brandon Stanton’s camera shows you that people are beautiful.

A few of the captions that made me smile:

“I look like God. Don’t I?”

(This picture is of an old man in a wheelchair whose face looks exactly like the face of God as painted on the Sistine Chapel.)

I love the one of a man with three dogs on leashes smiling at a boy on a leash, which is held by his father. The caption reads, “I saw them walking on two opposite ends of the plaza, and started praying that they’d end up in the same place.”

Another one is a side view of two boys with Mohawks. One boy is taller, and has a bigger Mohawk. The caption says, “One day you will grow to be like me.”

But the one that made me laugh out loud and show my son was a picture of a man facing away from the camera with a giant costume head of Elmo slung over his shoulder in a net bag, with more parts of the costume coming out the top. The caption says, “Something horrible has happened to Elmo.”

Those are some of the funny and clever ones. The majority, though are simply beautiful. Beautiful, striking, and fundamentally human.

This book takes less than an hour to read, but you will think about it for much, much longer.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/humans_of_new_york.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of Sidekicked, by John David Anderson

Award Winners, Children's Fiction Review, Science Fiction, Starred Review 0

Sidekicked

by John David Anderson

Walden Pond Press (HarperCollins), 2013. 373 pages.
Starred Review
2013 Cybils Finalist

Reading this book makes me especially glad that I got to be a Cybils Middle Grade Speculative Fiction judge this year, because I probably wouldn’t have picked it up without that motivation. And I’m so glad I did.

This is a superhero book, which I’m not necessarily a fan of, but it has a lot of depth, an exciting plot, and realistic enough details, you can believe it would happen that way.

Andrew Bean is a sidekick, the Sensationalist. The book opens with him hanging over a pool of acid next to his best friend, Jenna, in her sidekick identity as the Silver Fox. Fortunately, Jenna’s Superhero comes and saves them both. Drew’s Super, the Titan, has never shown up when Drew needs him.

I suppose you’ll want to hear about where I come from, and where I got my powers, and what radioactive bug I was bitten by, and all of that junk. You’ll want to know that my father was a researcher for a top-secret government program studying the properties of dark matter or that my mother was really an Amazon princess blessed with godlike powers. But the truth is, my father is an accountant — not a fake accountant masquerading as a costumed vigilante, but a real honest-to-god, dull-as-a-dictionary accountant with a closet full of white shirts and a carefully managed pension. My mother is an aide at Brookview Elementary — an aide because she got pregnant with me while in college and never finished her teaching degree. Neither of them has any superpowers, unless you count my father’s ability to calculate tips instantly or my mother’s uncanny ability to forget I’m not four anymore, sometimes still wiping the corner of my mouth with a napkin damp with her own spit the way she did when I was a toddler.

The truth is, I was born the way I am, without gamma rays, without cosmic intervention, without a flashback episode explaining my secret origins. I was born with a condition — doctors were careful to call it a condition and not a disease — called hypersensatia, which basically just allows me to see and smell and hear things better than most people. And when I say most people, I mean better than six billion other people. In fact, there are apparently fewer than five hundred people who have this condition, and none of them to the same extent as me. That makes me special, I suppose, though I prefer to think of myself as one of a kind.

Drew is part of a program at Highview Middle School for training Sidekicks called H.E.R.O. – Highview Environmental Revitalization Organization. Their job is to keep trash off the streets. (“Sometimes it’s the thing that’s right in front of you that you keep looking over.”)

Now, Drew’s super power of extraordinary senses isn’t the greatest in a fight. He has a utility belt, but that’s only useful if he’s wearing it. A new kid named Gavin has joined the program. He sweats a substance that encases him in protective rock-like armor. Gavin is a member of the football team and seems to be impressing Jenna, while Drew is working on distinguishing the difference between certain smells.

Meanwhile, the Dealer, a supervillain everyone thought the Titan had killed years ago, comes back from the dead (apparently) and breaks his surviving henchmen out of prison — the Jack of Clubs, the Jack of Spades, and the Jack of Diamonds. Drew finds the Titan — in a bar — but he refuses to help. And one by one, the superheroes of the city of Justicia get removed. Only Jenna’s superhero, the Silver Fox, seems able to deal with them.

But then the Jacks go after the sidekicks of H.E.R.O., apparently trying to use them as bait to catch their heroes. Of course with Drew that doesn’t work, but he almost dies along the way. But how did the Jacks know their secret identities? Who leaked that information? Whom can they trust?

It all works out to a thrilling conclusion that will keep the reader turning pages. I liked the realistic touches. Like our protagonist would have a superpower that doesn’t help him much in a fight. And Drew has regular middle school concerns like what is being served in the cafeteria, getting out of gym class, and what to wear on his first date. This book makes fun reading with a whole lot of suspense thrown in.

johndavidanderson.org
harpercollinschildrens.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/sidekicked.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of The Case of the Vanishing Honeybees, by Sandra Markle

Children's Nonfiction Review, Science, Starred Review 0

The Case of the Vanishing Honeybees

A Scientific Mystery

by Sandra Markle

Millbrook Press, Minneapolis, 2013. 48 pages.
Starred Review

Here’s a nonfiction book about practical science, involving an important mystery that’s happening today. Facts about bees are presented, with plenty of photos.

The author starts with the problem. She looks at a scene from a particular day in October 2006 with a specific beekeeper, Dave Hackenberg. He went to his hives and found thousands of worker bees missing. They weren’t even dead, but without the worker bees, the untended brood (developing young) also died.

Next, the author goes on to explain why honeybees are so important and how they work to pollinate plants. We learn about the queen bee, the drones, and the worker bees, along with their different jobs in the hive.

Then she looks at the current mystery. What are the suspects that might be causing CCD (Colony Collapse Disorder)? Could it be a change in habitat? Could honeybees be overworked? Could widespread use of cell phones be causing the problem? Could mites be the killer? Could a deadly fungus be killing honeybees? Could pesticides be the problem? The book looks at each of these possibilities and explains how they may hurt colonies of bees.

As you can tell, there are many possible causes, and some of them may be working together in certain cases. The last third of the book looks at strategies beekeepers are using to attempt to end CCD.

Throughout the book, large full-page pictures, with informative details work hand in hand with the clear text. There’s more helpful information (websites, tips for helping, glossary, index) at the back.

lernerbooks.com

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of The Coldest Girl in Coldtown, by Holly Black

Paranormal, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

by Holly Black

Little, Brown and Company, New York, 2013. 422 pages.
Starred Review

I’m not a fan of vampire novels. In fact, I liked Twilight specifically because it didn’t read like a vampire novel. However, I am a fan of Holly Black. So when she wrote a vampire novel, I had to at least try it.

Tana wakes up after a big party lying in a bathtub. When she goes out to see where everyone else is, she finds them all dead.

One of the windows was open, she noticed, curtain fluttering. The party must have gotten too warm, everyone sweating in the small house and yearning for the cool breeze just outside. Then, once the window was open, it would have been easy to forget to close it. There was still the garlic, after all, still the holy water on the lintels. Things like this happened in Europe, in places like Belgium, where the streets teemed with vampires and the shops didn’t open until after dark. Not here. Not in Tana’s town, where there hadn’t been a single attack in more than five years.

And yet it had happened. A window had been left open to the night, and a vampire had crawled through.

But Tana learns that not everyone is dead after all. Aidan, her ex-boyfriend, has been bitten, but is alive, and tied to a bed. And there’s a vampire boy chained beside the bed.

When Tana was six, vampires were Muppets, endlessly counting, or cartoon villains in black cloaks with red polyester linings. Kids would dress up like vampires on Halloween, wearing plastic teeth that fitted badly over their own and smearing their faces with sweet syrup to make mock rivulets of cherry-bright blood.

That all changed with Caspar Morales. There had been plenty of books and films romanticizing vampires over the last century. It was only a matter of time before a vampire started romanticizing himself.

Crazy, romantic Caspar decided that unlike decades of ancient, hidebound vampires, he wouldn’t kill his victims. He would seduce them, drink a little blood, and then move on, from city to city. By the time the old vampires caught up with him and ripped him to pieces, he’d already infected hundreds of people. And those new vampires, with no idea how to prevent the spread, infected thousands.

In America, they ended up shutting the vampires up in Coldtowns. Anyone infected was supposed to go to a Coldtown. If an infected person could keep from drinking human blood for eighty-eight days, the infection would flush out of their system. But few could do that. Tana’s mother couldn’t.

Tana ends up setting free Aidan and the vampire. But as they escape out the window, one of the vampires from the slaughter gets his teeth on her leg, so she may be infected, too.

Tana knows they need to get to Coldtown. The trouble is, no one who goes into Coldtown is allowed to come out, infected or uninfected. There’s only one way out, and that’s with a token you get for turning in a vampire. For some reason their vampire companion, Gavriel, wants to go into Coldtown. He says he has a friend he needs to kill. So Tana gets a token for bringing him with her. If she can keep from turning into a vampire, she’ll be able to go home when it’s all over.

This book is scary and compelling. The world is frighteningly believable. Vampires in Coldtown livestream their parties, and Tana meets some teens who have always wanted to go to Coldtown and become vampires. The life is glamorized, and the reader isn’t surprised when it doesn’t turn out as they hoped.

Along the way, Tana makes friends and allies and gets involved with Gavriel, who has some dark secrets. But worst of all, her little sister decides to come find her.

If you like vampire novels, you’ll love this one. If you don’t like vampire novels, like me, you just may find yourself loving it anyway. You certainly will have a hard time putting it down unfinished.

blackholly.com
lb-teens.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/coldest_girl_in_coldtown.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on an Advance Reader Copy I got at an ALA conference and had signed by the author.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of Paris, My Sweet, by Amy Thomas

Cross Cultural, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review, Travel, True Stories 0

Paris, My Sweet

A Year in the City of Light (and Dark Chocolate)

by Amy Thomas

Sourcebooks, 2012. 280 pages.
Starred Review

In 2008, Amy Thomas had a wonderful week’s vacation in Paris. Little did she know that would lead to bigger things.

That trip was the first time I was in Paris during the summer, and it was absolutely amazing. I loved that it was light out until after 10:00 p.m., giving me several extra hours to roam back-alley streets and sit by the Seine. I was excited to discover new neighborhoods like Bercy and Canal Saint-Martin and new “bistronomy” restaurants like Le Verre Volé and Le Comptoir du Relais. I got sucked into the semi-annual sales, les soldes, and hooked on Vélib’s, the public bike-sharing system.

And then there were all the chocolatiers.

By that time, I was just as obsessed with sweets as I was Paris. I had a column in Metro newspaper called “Sweet Freak” and a blog by the same name. I knew every bakery, dessert bar, gelateria, tea salon, and chocolatier in New York City. When I traveled, I built my itinerary around a town’s must-visit sweet spots.

So naturally during that week in Paris, I researched the city’s best chocolatiers, mapped out a circuit, and then Vélib’ed between eight of them. It was exhilarating and exhausting, not to mention decadent. It was a chocoholic’s dream ride. I wrote about my Tour du Chocolat for the New York Times, and it went on to become a top-ten travel story for the year. As I was secretly plotting a way to spend more time eating chocolate in Paris, the in-house recruiter of the ad agency where I worked casually walked into my office one day and asked if I wanted to move to Paris. I was getting transferred to write copy for the iconic fashion label Louis Vuitton. It all happened so suddenly, and seemed so magical, that I had to ask: was Paris my destiny or sheer force of will?

I guess it goes to show that you just never know where life will take you. You search for answers. You wonder what it all means. You stumble, and you soar. And, if you’re lucky, you make it to Paris for a while. Here’s what happened when I did.

Now, I love Paris. And I still remember exactly the taste of the caramels we bought at a chocolate shop there. So I was predisposed to love this book, and I did.

Amy Thomas took a sweet-lovers approach to Paris and to writing this book. Each chapter focuses on a different delicious concoction that can be found in Paris. She ends up each chapter telling where you can get them in Paris, but also where you can get something similar in New York City. She uses her knowledge of sweets in New York City to good effect, and then discovers the places in Paris.

Readers of this book now have a fabulous excuse to go back to Paris. I’ve got to try some of these! One thing’s for sure. The next time I go to Paris or New York City, I’m going to bring this book — or at least the addresses from it.

godiloveparis.blogspot.com
sourcebooks.com

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on my own copy, which I got at an ALA conference and had signed by the author.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of When Charley Met Grampa, by Amy Hest and Helen Oxenbury

Contemporary, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

When Charley Met Grampa

by Amy Hest
illustrated by Helen Oxenbury

Candlewick Press, 2013. 36 pages.
Starred Review

Even though I’m not a dog person, this story of a boy and his puppy completely charmed me. Of course, I’ve been a fan of Helen Oxenbury’s pictures since my own son was small and we were all captivated by Tom and Pippo. The dog pictured here is so expressive and endearing, it’s hard to imagine anyone not falling in love.

The story is simple. Grampa is coming to visit Henry. Henry writes to tell Grampa about his new dog Charley. Grampa writes back that he’s never been friends with a dog before.

Then Henry and Charley go through the falling snow to the train station to meet Grampa. I love lines like this: “Charley’s tail was up in the air, which is code for I know the way to the station.”

They have to wait for the train, so Henry tells Charley about Grampa. The train finally comes and they meet Grampa, who asks Charley if he’s friendly or fierce. On the way home, Grampa’s green cap blows off his head, and Charley runs after it, getting lost in the snow. There’s a page with both Henry and Grampa calling for Charley. “And then he was there. With Grampa’s green cap.”

The book ends as cozily as possible:

That night Charley jumped on the bed with Grampa. He looked in Grampa’s eyes and Grampa looked back, which is code for
I love you,
I love you,
I love you.

They both fell asleep.
And Grampa snored wild.

Simply a cozy, warm, beautiful book about a boy, his dog, and his Grampa.

candlewick.com

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon, by Alexander McCall Smith

Contemporary, Fiction Review, Mystery, Starred Review 0

The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon

by Alexander McCall Smith

Pantheon Books, New York, 2013. 242 pages.
Starred Review

It’s probably silly for me to continue to review these books, since they are most fun read in order, as you get to know the characters over time. And those who have read this far, like me, will certainly want to continue, so all I really need to tell you is that another book is out.

I like it when the books include satisfying puzzles for Mma Ramotswe to solve, and this one does. As well, Mma Makutsi is expecting a baby! But Phuti’s troublesome aunt is determined to come stay with them and keep people away after the baby is born. And, Surprise! Charlie, of all people, is quite taken with the baby.

Mostly, I enjoy these books because of the pleasant time it gives me with wonderful people. As another title proclaimed, reading these books is being in the company of cheerful ladies.

I always like to include a quotation that shows Mma Ramotswe’s practical, peaceful, and matter-of-fact approach to life. Here’s one that made me smile:

In her experience, those who took the husbands or wives of others could rewrite history – not always, but often – and the marriage they had broken up would be portrayed as being in much worse condition than it really was.

pantheonbooks.com
alexandermccallsmith.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/minor_adjustment_beauty_salon.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of Words with Wings, by Nikki Grimes

Award Winners, Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary, Poetry, Starred Review 0

Words with Wings

by Nikki Grimes

WordSong (Highlights), Honesdale, Pennsylvania, 2013. 84 pages.
Starred Review
2014 Coretta Scott King Author Honor Book

Words with Wings is a novel in verse about a girl who’s a daydreamer.

Here’s the poem that shares its title with the book:

Words with Wings

Some words
sit still on the page
holding a story steady.
Those words
never get me into trouble.
But other words have wings
that wake my daydreams.
They fly in,
silent as sunrise,
tickle my imagination,
and carry my thoughts away.
I can’t help
but buckle up
for the ride!

Some of the poems tell about Gabby’s life. Others tell about her daydreams. The daydream poems, imaginative and fun, usually start with the word that sets off the daydream. For example:

Waterfall

Say “waterfall,”
and the dreary winter rain
outside my classroom window
turns to liquid thunder,
pounding into a clear pool
miles below,
and I can’t wait
to dive in.

At the start of the book, Gabby’s parents split up and she has to move with her mother across town, and attend a new school. Once again, she’s known as the daydreamer. She has to deal with the other students teasing her and a new teacher trying to get her to pay attention and trying not to disappoint her mother. She has some nice victories in the book, and I love how she learns to value her own imagination.

nikkigrimes.com
wordsongpoetry.com

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on an Advance Reading Copy signed by the author, which I was given at an author lunch hosted by Highlights, at ALA Annual Conference.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of The Nazi Hunters, by Neal Bascomb

Award Winners, Children's Nonfiction Review, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review, Suspense, True Stories 0

The Nazi Hunters

How a Team of Spies and Survivors Captured the World’s Most Notorious Nazi

by Neal Bascomb

Arthur A. Levine Books (Scholastic), 2013. 242 pages.
Starred Review
2014 YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Award Winner

Here’s a work of nonfiction that reads like a thriller. I didn’t realize until I read the note about the author at the back that this book was based on the author’s book for adults, Hunting Eichmann. It doesn’t read like an abridgement.

Because of the nature of the material, this is a book for teens and preteens, rather than children. But anyone who enjoys a good spy novel will enjoy this true-life tale.

The book sets the stage with what happened in World War II. It looks at the particular, focusing on the story of a young man, Zeev Sapir, in Hungary. Zeev later testified at Eichmann’s trial. The book explains the four phases of Eichmann’s plan: Isolate the Jews, secure Jewish wealth, move the Jews to ghettos, and finally, transport them to camps. His job was to get them to the camps, and he didn’t claim responsibility for what happened to them there.

The first chapter briefly explains Eichmann’s rise to power and his escape from Germany at the end of the war. The rest of the book focuses on how he was discovered in Argentina by Israeli Secret Service, and the elaborate plan they needed to be able to abduct him, bring him to Israel, and put him on trial.

I was struck by the sheer number of those involved who had lost family members in the Holocaust. I shouldn’t have been surprised, but the details as mentioned in this book brought it home to me.

I like the way the book explains the importance of the trial of Adolf Eichmann:

The Eichmann trial was almost more important in the field of education than in that of justice. David Ben-Gurion achieved his ambition: The trial educated the Israeli public, particularly the young, about the true nature of the Holocaust. And, after sixteen years of silence, it allowed survivors to openly share their experiences.

In the rest of the world, the intense media coverage and the wave of Eichmann biographies and fantastic accounts of his capture rooted the Holocaust in the collective cultural consciousness. The Shoah, as it was also known, was not to be forgotten, and an outpouring of survivor memoirs, scholarly works, plays, novels, documentaries, paintings, museum exhibits, and films followed in the wake of the trial and still continues today. This consciousness, in Israel and throughout the world, is the enduring legacy of the operation to capture Adolf Eichmann.

The book is full of photographs all along the way, including pictures of important documents, such as the captain’s logbook for the El Al flight out of Argentina and Eichmann’s Red Cross passport. This reminds the reader, all the way through, that these exciting events actually took place.

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on an advance review copy I got at an ALA conference.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of Locomotive, by Brian Floca

Award Winners, Children's Nonfiction Review, Historical, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

Locomotive

by Brian Floca

Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2013. 64 pages.
Starred Review
2014 Caldecott Medal
2014 Sibert Honor Book

Our library is shelving this with nonfiction, and I think I’m going to list it there. Technically, this is a fictional story, but the book is more about facts than the story of the travelers featured. The story merely provides a frame for telling about steam travel across the country as it would have been in 1869, when the transcontinental railroad went all the way through.

The charm of this book lies in the magnificent artwork. The book is a large square shape, with lots of room for details. Small train lovers as well as big train lovers will be delighted to pore over each page.

The basic text tells a fairly simple story of a family traveling to meet their father and husband in California, addressing the reader, telling you what it would have been like.

Now comes the locomotive!
The iron horse, the great machine!
Fifty feet and forty tons,
wheels spinning, rods swinging,
motion within motion, running down the track!
She’s bright in her paint and her polish —
the pride of her company and crew.
She pulls her tender and train behind her,
she rolls up close to where you wait,
all heat and smoke and noise:

Hear the clear, hard call of her bell:
Clang-clang! Clang-clang! Clang-clang!

Hear the Hisssssssss and the Spit of the steam!

Hear the engine breathe like a beast:
Huff Huff Huff!

Brian Floca uses font, size, and position on the page to make the words themselves part of the story, especially the sound effects. On this page, the words come closer and push the family back, as they gaze at the giant locomotive.

The journey goes all the way across the country, and so many details are given. Pictures of landmarks decorate the pages, and we see the different kinds of terrain, what the passengers are doing, and what the train workers are doing, from the boy who sells newspapers to the engineer.

The extra large pages give the reader both panoramic vistas and extreme close-ups to things like the engine and the mighty wheels. The inside front cover tells about building the Transcontinental Railroad and the inside back cover tells about how steam power works in the locomotive. No space is wasted.

This book is a train-loving kid’s dream come true. And it may create some train lovers as well.

brianfloca.com
KIDS.SimonandSchuster.com

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