Review of Freddie Ramos Springs into Action, by Jacqueline Jules

Zapato Power, Book Two

Freddie Ramos Springs into Action

by Jacqueline Jules
art by Miguel Benitez

Albert Whitman & Company, Chicago, 2010. 77 pages.

Here’s a second book about Freddie Ramos, a kid who lives with his single mom in an apartment complex — but a kid who has super-powered shoes.

It turns out to be a problem in school, because Freddie can’t help but be super fast any time he runs. Mr. Vaslov, who invented the purple sneakers, needs to invent a way to turn the super speed on and off. Freddie finds the wristband Mr. Vaslov is working on, but where is Mr. Vaslov? Should he try the invention out, or is it ready?

This book is a perfect first chapter book. The story is short and simple, with eight short chapters and lots of pictures, but has the wonderful fantasy of super shoes, and a problem to solve. It begs the question: What would you do if you had super powered sneakers?

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

Review of The Trouble with Chickens, by Doreen Cronin

The Trouble with Chickens

A J. J. Tully Mystery

by Doreen Cronin
illustrated by Kevin Cornell

Balzer + Bray (HarperCollins), 2011. 119 pages.

It’s always good to find a beginning chapter book that’s funny, clever, and absorbing. The Trouble with Chickens has twenty-two short chapters, but there are plenty of pictures and lots of space between the lines. A child will feel he or she has accomplished something when they finish the book, but they will have fun while doing so, and it’s not too intimidating.

It always helps when the book is funny. This book is a hard-boiled detective story, but the detective is a search-and-rescue dog who’s been put out to pasture. A chicken wants his help.

Here’s how J. J. Tully puts it:

“I could track the six-day-old scent of a lost hiker and pull a fat guy out from under a pile of rubble, but I couldn’t get that crazy chicken out of my yard.”

Two of the chicken’s four chicks are missing, and it’s up to J. J. to track them down. Unfortunately, he must endure help from the two chicks who are still on the loose. And the crime ends up being much more nefarious than it appears at first.

Doreen Cronin is the author of the brilliant Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type, and its companions. Now she turns her hand to entertainment for children ready to read on their own. She’s still got that great sense of humor and gives us a look at human passions by displaying them in the bodies of animals. A lot of fun.

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

Review of Zapato Power: Freddie Ramos Takes Off

Zapato Power

Freddie Ramos Takes Off

by Jacqueline Jules
art by Miguel Benitez

Albert Whitman & Company, 2010. 77 pages.
2010 Cybils Award Winner: Short Chapter Books

I’ll mention right from the start that the author of Freddie Ramos Takes Off is a friend of mine. She’s in our DC KidLit Book Club and is a very sweet person. So I was super happy when her book won the Cybils Award for short chapter books.

Since then, I’ve had more than one parent ask for a chapter book for a child who has just recently learned to read, and this book is perfect. There are eight chapters, with large print and lots of pictures, so the book is not daunting at all. Best of all, the story is about a Hispanic boy who receives a gift of shoes that make him Super Fast! What child hasn’t fantasized about that?

I love the refrain of Zoom! Zoom! Zapato! when Freddie runs with his purple sneakers. He runs so fast, all people see is a puff of buzzing smoke. He races a train; he recovers a library book left behind; and he solves mysteries!

This book is a lot of fun, and it fills a nice niche as well.

Zoom! Zoom! Zapato!

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

Review of Clementine, Friend of the Week, by Sara Pennypacker

Clementine, Friend of the Week

by Sara Pennypacker
pictures by Marla Frazee

Disney Hyperion Books, New York, 2010. 161 pages.
Starred Review

I love Clementine! By reading Clementine, Friend of the Week, I’ve finally caught up to read the most recent brilliant addition to the books about Clementine. I enjoyed this one very much. The books, besides being clever and funny, are gaining in some depth. There were several plot threads, all related to friendship, that all twined together in this book, even though the storyline is quite simple.

These books are shortish chapter books with plenty of pictures, but there’s so much there. Clementine reveals so much in her speeches, and the wonderful pictures give you a more realistic — and funny — perspective on what’s going on. Taken together, this book is an absolute delight.

Right at the start of the book, Clementine announces that she’s been chosen for Friend of the Week. Margaret, who’s a whole year older, knows all about that, and has plenty of ideas for getting people to write nice things in Clementine’s booklet. The trouble is, when Clementine goes to Margaret’s apartment to see her booklet, something happens that makes Margaret mad, and all of sudden they aren’t friends any more.

Clementine spends the whole week trying to think of ideas, but then her kitten, Moisturizer (Clementine names pets from words she finds in the bathroom.), gets lost and she can’t think of anything else. The story threads get woven together and Clementine finds out what true friendship is all about.

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

Review of Bink & Gollie, by Kate DiCamillo and Alison McGhee

Bink & Gollie

by Kate DiCamillo and Alison McGhee

illustrated by Tony Fucile

Candlewick Press, 2010. 82 pages.
2011 Geisel Award Winner
Starred Review

In the tradition of Frog and Toad, George and Martha, and Elephant and Piggie, here’s another easy-to-read book about two friends who are very different, but who have a great time together.

This one’s a beginning chapter book, with 82 pages, rather than a traditional easy reader format. But much of the story is told in the exuberant pictures and there are not a lot of words on each page. Readers will feel they have accomplished something when they finish this book with three chapters.

Bink is short and a little wild, with yellow hair going in every direction. Gollie is tall and calm, and likes things just so. You can see all that from the picture of them rollerskating on the front cover.

The first chapter brings a conflict in their personality types:

“‘Bink,’ said Gollie, ‘the brightness of those socks pains me. I beg you not to purchase them.’

‘I can’t wait to put them on,’ said Bink.”

After some conflict over the socks, the two friends come up with a compromise bonanza.

The book goes on in the classic tradition of friendship tales — with simple situations that test the friendship, but allow the friendship to come out strong and shining. The illustrations in this book tell much of the story and convey much of the emotion behind the words. And it’s fun to read one of these tales where we see cordless phones and a laptop computer in the illustrations. The book is classic — but modern.

This week I had a couple different people ask about chapter books that are not too difficult, but for a child who wants something beyond the traditional easy reader. Bink and Gollie will fill the bill. There are lots of big words: “outrageous socks,” “marvelous companion,” “remarkable fish,” and “extraordinary accomplishment.” But there is not a lot of text on each page, and many of the big words are repeated throughout the book. Children who read it themselves will realize that they have achieved an extraordinary accomplishment.

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

Review of Clementine’s Letter, by Sara Pennypacker

Clementine’s Letter

by Sara Pennypacker
pictures by Marla Frazee

Hyperion Books for Children, New York, 2008. 150 pages.
Starred Review

I am so hooked on Clementine! This is the third book about this irresistible third-grader who knows how to pay attention — to the important things.

Just when Clementine is getting the hang of third grade and in sync with her teacher, he applies for a special program to send a teacher to Egypt. The class is supposed to write letters to the judges about their teacher, and Clementine decides to write a letter to make sure he doesn’t go.

Meanwhile, she has to deal with a substitute. A substitute who doesn’t know how things are done in their classroom.

“The rest of the morning got worse. By the time the recess bell rang, I bet I heard a hundred ‘Clementine-pay-attention!’s. And every time, I was paying attention!

“But okay, fine, not to Mrs. Nagel, because she had gone from boring to extra-boring. Instead, I was paying attention to the astoundishing idea that had jumped into my head when I passed by the trash-and-recycling area last night. Which was the opposite of boring, believe me.”

Sara Pennypacker doesn’t settle for just the story of what happens to Clementine at school. She also weaves in Clementine’s interactions with her parents and baby brother, her neighbor the prissy Margaret and Margaret’s brother Mitchell, and Clementine’s scheme to buy her mother a present. I love the way Clementine goes to find names for her brother. Since her name is also the name of a fruit, she feels her brother should have the name of a vegetable. She finds some interesting names at the Chinese grocery, and from then on we hear about Bean Sprout and Bok Choy and Scallion.

These books would make absolutely wonderful bedtime reading — if only I had a child young enough. I’ll keep it in mind some day for a grandchild! And meanwhile, if you’re lucky enough to have an early-elementary-school-age child to read aloud to, I think the Clementine books would make a delightful choice.

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

Review of The Talented Clementine, by Sara Pennypacker

The Talented Clementine

by Sara Pennypacker
Pictures by Marla Frazee

Hyperion Paperbacks for Children, New York, 2007. 137 pages.
Starred Review

I’m hooked on Clementine, and am so happy I finally discovered her. In this second book about her, her third grade class is going to put on a talent show. But Clementine does not think she has any talents that could be displayed in a show. Not like Margaret, whose fourth grade class will also be taking part. Margaret has talents to spare.

This book is full of Clementine’s hilarious attempts to find an act, with an unexpected and satisfying solution.

Once again, Marla Frazee’s brilliant illustrations add to the characterization of Clementine and her friend Margaret. Even before the book begins, we see Clementine walking to the bus with a loaded backpack — until she is overcome by the weight of it and must crawl.

I love the first paragraph, which gives you a taste of Clementine’s way of thinking:

“I have noticed that teachers get exciting confused with boring a lot. But when my teacher said, ‘Class, we have an exciting project to talk about,’ I listened anyway.”

This book is exciting and fun. And I’m not a teacher.

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

Review of The Boy Who Climbed Into the Moon, by David Almond

The Boy Who Climbed Into the Moon

by David Almond
illustrated by Polly Dunbar

Candlewick Press, 2010. 117 pages.

Here’s a whimsical look at a boy with big ideas and the amazing things he finds when he’s willing to act on them.

Paul lives underground in a basement flat at the bottom of a great apartment block. One day, he decides to go and touch the sky.

On his way up the apartment building’s steps, he meets a variety of quirky characters, one of whom shows him the elevator. On the very top floor lives Mabel, the most interesting character of them all. Or is she Molly, Mabel’s identical twin sister, looking after Mabel’s apartment while Mabel is on holiday in Barbados?

Paul’s parents find Paul on the top floor, and Molly shows all of them a new way to look at the world. Paul admits that he is a person who has strange ideas, and all of them celebrate his ideas. They go on a strange adventure to visit Molly’s very shy brother, and eventually all the people in the apartment building help Paul to fulfill his wish of climbing to the moon.

This is a book of delightful nonsense, where logical things are stood on their heads. It celebrates strange ideas and self-belief and adventure and family and dreams coming true and poodles who fly. The illustrations are plentiful and full of fun. I have a feeling that children will “get” this book even better than imaginative adults.

This book is a quick read, perfect for a child who’s beginning to read chapter books, hopefully read when they are still young enough to freely and happily suspend disbelief. Anything is possible!

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

Review of Clementine, by Sara Pennypacker

Clementine

by Sara Pennypacker
pictures by Marla Frazee

Hyperion Books for Children, New York, 2006. 136 pages.
Starred Review

How did I miss this book so long? I suppose it has something to do with the fact that I don’t have daughters. However, as a children’s librarian, I feel remiss at not having read this book sooner.

This book came to my attention by way of Betsy Bird’s Fuse #8 blog. After her poll of the Top 100 Children’s Novels, she did a post about the other titles that got votes, but were not in the top 100. Clementine was mentioned as a 21st Century Ramona the Pest.

When I read Clementine I was completely enchanted. When I checked it out, I was looking for something to read at the “Mother’s Day Mugs” library program. The program was for ages 6 and up to paint their own mugs, so none of the Mother’s Day picture books at the library seemed entirely appropriate — They are mostly geared for younger kids. I found a happy solution in Chapter Three of Clementine. It’s funny, kept their interest, and has a nice section with her mother when she realizes that it’s okay that her mother isn’t the sort who would ever appear in a magazine picture of a mother.

The book is narrated by Clementine. She’s in third grade and definitely means well. So why does she keep on getting in trouble?

The first page gives you a nice taste of what’s to come:

“I have had not so good of a week.

“Well, Monday was a pretty good day, if you don’t count Hamburger Surprise at lunch and Margaret’s mother coming to get her. Or the stuff that happened in the principal’s office when I got sent there to explain that Margaret’s hair was not my fault and besides she looks okay without it, but I couldn’t because Principal Rice was gone, trying to calm down Margaret’s mother.

“Someone should tell you not to answer the phone in the principal’s office, if that’s a rule.

Okay, fine, Monday was not so good of a day.”

The illustrations by Marla Frazee are absolutely brilliant, showing another perspective on things. One of my favorites is where Clementine says this:

“I knew Friday was going to be a bad day right from the beginning, because there were clear parts in my eggs.

“‘I can’t eat eggs if they have clear parts,’ I reminded my mother.

“‘Eat around them,’ she said. ‘Just eat the yellow parts and the white parts.’

“But I couldn’t because the clear parts had touched the yellow parts and the white parts. So all I had was toast.”

The picture on the page facing this picture has Clementine at the table, dramatically holding her throat and making a choking face. Her mother is holding a frying pan and does not look amused. On the floor is an untidy backpack with books and papers coming out.

I love this passage that shows how Clementine’s perspective is quite different from the adults around her. It’s from when the principal gets back to her office:

“Principal Rice rolled her eyes to the ceiling then, like she was looking for something up there. Ceiling snakes maybe, just waiting to drip on you. That’s what I used to be afraid of when I was little, anyway. Now I am not afraid of anything.

“Okay, fine, I am afraid of pointy things. But that is all. And boomerangs.

“‘Clementine, you need to pay attention,’ said Principal Rice. ‘We need to discuss Margaret’s hair. What are you doing on the floor?’

“‘Helping you look for ceiling snakes,’ I reminded her.

“‘Ceiling snakes? What ceiling snakes?’ she asked.

“See what I mean? Me — paying attention; everyone else — not. I am amazed they let someone with this problem be the boss of a school.”

I enjoyed Clementine so much, I ended up accosting a patron at the library on my last day working there. You see, for the two years I worked at Herndon Fortnightly Library, I had this thoughtful grandmother of two girls asking me for book recommendations. She likes to give her granddaughters well-chosen books. I think two years ago, the girls were two and four, so now they must be four and six. A recent big hit with the youngest was Olivia, by Ian Falconer, and the whole time I was reading Clementine, I thought that this book is the perfect follow-up, for just a little bit older girl. I definitely wanted to mention it to this grandma, so when I saw her on my very last day at the library, I had to bring her over to the Clementine books, whether she was looking for books for her granddaughters that day or not.

I got this book read after reading Half-Minute Horrors showed me that reading a children’s chapter book with short chapters was the perfect activity for waiting at northern Virginia traffic lights. I’ve already seen, from the Mother’s Day Mugs program, that it’s great fun for reading aloud to a wide age range.

Any child who’s been in school will appreciate Clementine’s perspective. With plenty of pictures, and not too many words on a page, it’s also a perfect selection for a child ready for chapter books. Definitely a winner in every way! And I agree that she carries on the legacy of Ramona the Pest. I’m going to snap up the other books about Clementine.

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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 the Fairfax County Public Library.

Review of The Birthday Ball, by Lois Lowry

The Birthday Ball

by Lois Lowry
illustrations by Jules Feiffer

Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, 2010. 186 pages.

Princess Patricia Priscilla is bored. When she gets to talking with the seventeenth chambermaid and hears how much the girl loved school, she gets an idea. She’ll wear the chambermaid’s clothes and go to the village school.

The village school has a new schoolmaster, who is trying to learn to look stern, as a schoolmaster should. He is kind to his new pupil and tells her she would make a good teacher, after she takes in hand a little orphan girl.

But Patricia Priscilla can only enjoy this illicit pleasure for one week. For at the end of the week is her sixteenth birthday and the Birthday Ball, at which time she will have to choose a noble suitor.

The suitors who plan to attend are all over-the-top awful. Duke Desmond of Dyspepsia has the face of a warthog and huge, crooked, brown-spotted teeth. He is so ugly that looking glasses, mirrors, and any shiny object that might cast a reflection have been abolished from his domain. He travels with a band of splashers, so that no lake or body of water will be still enough when he passes by to reflect his face.

Prince Percival of Pustula, on the other hand, travels with a team of mirror-carriers, so that he can look at himself instead of at the scenery. He dresses entirely in black and keeps his hair and mustache dyed jet black and well oiled. A servant walks behind him with a brush, ready to brush off his abundant dandruff.

But Lois Lowry’s inventive genius truly stands out in the third and fourth suitors — Counts Colin and Cuthbert the Conjoint. I have to admit this is the first fairy-tale type story I’ve ever read with conjoined twins. They are joined at the middle, but unfortunately, they don’t get along at all. They constantly fight, at least when they aren’t exchanging belches or rude bathroom jokes.

Jules Feiffer’s illustrations perfectly match the book. The people in the book are caricatures, so his caricatures make just the right illustrations. The plot is quite simple, but the fun is in the silly ways all the elements come together to bring us to the outcome we’re looking for of the princess getting to choose the most worthy man at the ball.

The story is light and fluffy and fun. This would be a good choice for girls who like princess stories (or maybe the Rainbow Magic Fairies) and are ready to read a longer book with many chapters, but also large print and plenty of illustrations. It also would make a nice read-aloud with plenty of places for laughter. There are nice silly touches, like the princess speaking to her cat Delicious with words that rhyme with his name, and the queen being quite deaf and always misunderstanding what people say to her.

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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 the Fairfax County Public Library.