Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen

 

Many of us were introduced to Jon Klassen’s illustrations with his debut picture book, I Want My Hat Back (picture book gold, by the way). This was followed with This Is Not My Hat, which I’ve yet to review, but as it was recently awarded the Caldecott Medal, it goes to show that it wasn’t just me that thought it was brilliant. 

So, you can imagine that I was pleased to see that there was yet another picture book illustrated by Jon Klassen in the market. (I know it’s been out a while now, ‘Life’ has been keeping me from writing reviews).

The fact that it’s illustrated by Jon is enough for me to love it already, but it shouldn’t overshadow Mac Barnett’s writing. This is a smart and snappy book that delights in play between words and pictures. 

Wolves by Emily Gravett

Emily Gravett is wonderful! I love the way she uses book conventions to make her stories truly irreverent.

In this book, for example, We follow Rabbit, who goes to the library and borrows a book about wolves. Oh what's this? The reader in now holding a book called wolves which contains a rabbit holding a book about wolves... we read together...

Gray wolves live in packs of between two and ten animals. 

We find out more and more about them, as the rabbit walks home, too engrosed in the book to notice that a wolf has come out of the pages. He even walks right up the tail and along its back.

Then we learn, at the same time as the rabbit, that it eats lots of kinds of animals, both large and small... like beavers, voles and ...

We turn the page to see a viciously ripped and clawed back over and the torn remnants of a page saying "rabbits."

We turn the page again to read:

The author would like to point out that no rabbits were eaten during the making of this book.

It is a work of fiction.
And so, for more sensitive readers, here is an alternative ending. 

I'll leave it to you to read the alternative ending for yourself, but it's much happier and unrealistic. but it clearly illustrated by torn scraps from earlier in the book. 

She's just too good! I wrote a review a little while ago on one of her other books and I just love everything she does.

 

4.5 Gold Stars

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The Heart And The Bottle by Oliver Jeffers

Once there was a girl, much like any other

She delighted in everything, in discovering new things, and questioning and thinking and exploring 

... until the day she found an empty chair.

So, to avoid the unpleasant and painful thoughts and feelings, she put her heart in a safe place: A bottle that she hung around her neck. 

She didn't notice, question or dream any more, but at least her heart was safe. 

Then one day, she couldn't answer a question a child asked her and she discovered with out her heart, she couldn't answer it, nor could she remember how to get her heart back out of the bottle. 

Luckily she meets a girl who knew what to do and she put her heart back where it belonged.

Awww. This is one of those books that just feels good. You might have noticed that my picture book reviews tend to keep coming back to this sort of theme. I love stories about being in touch with your emotions/creativity/imagination. It's a better way of being, in my opinion. And this is such a lovely book for that collection.

Find it, read it, enjoy it.

 

4.5 Gold Stars

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Ish by Peter H. Reynolds

 

Peter H. Reynolds captures particular ideas in such a beautifully simple way, his straight forward books can be life changing. In the way that the slightest of redirections can lead you to a very different destination. As in: If you always look at things the same way, you'll never see them differently, turn your head just a bit, and the view is delightfully varied and diverse. 

I feel I'm not making any sense, let's just say this is a review-ish...

Ramon loved to draw.

Any time.

Anything.

Anywhere.

One day, Ramon was drawing a vase of flowers.

His brother, Leon, leaned over his shoulder.

Leon burst out laughing.

"WHAT is THAT?" he asked.

I think we've all been there at some point in our lives, even if it's not with drawing, or anything particularly creative. Sometimes people laugh at, or don't understand things that we have worked very hard on. And that can really throw us off. 

Ramon has trouble finishing drawings, he just can't make them look "right" until he finally gives up. 

Then he sees his sister has taken a scrunched up piece of paper and he chases her back to her room where he is met by a veritable gallery of smoothed out discarded drawings. Including the vase that started it all.

This is one of my favourites,"

Marisol said, pointing.

"That was SUPPOSED to be a vase of flowers,"

Ramon said,

"But it doesn't look like one."

"Well it looks vase-ISH!" 

she exclaimed. 

Enter the slight change in seeing things. With the freedom of 'ish' Ramon launches back into his drawing knowing that things don't have to be "right" or "perfect" but can be an expression and still be considered valid and good. 

It's this type of book that alleviates the weight of the world from your shoulders.

 

4.5 Gold Stars

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What's In The Witch's Kitchen by Nick Sharratt

I'll start with this: my nieces love this book. I gave it to them a year or so back and they still laugh each time it is read to them, or when they read it to themselves (because they know it so well).

I move on to this: I love this book.

I know that Nick Sharratt's illustrations aren't for everyone. Some people find them too cartoony and over simplified. But I say, hey! if it works, it works. And Between this and 'The Foggy Foggy Forest' I think his style works pretty well!

"What's in the fridge in the Witch's kitchen?

Open it left or open it right,
Will you like what you see?
Will it give you a fright?"

We then open the fridge (a lift the flap kind of thing) and we see that the fridge has Tasty Cheese in it (much like my own fridge... mmm cheese). Then we see that the flap can open the other way too, and inside we find Bats with Fleas!

And so on it goes, each container in the Witch's Kitchen holding something yummy and something disgusting. You know, the types of things are are sure to illicit giggles from children (and the occasional adult). Things like "Pooh! Lizard's Fart!" and "Nasty! Goblin's Wee!" and "Rabbit Plops!".

Then on the last page, as we try to escape the strange goings-on, there is a scary pop up surprise. Boo! Out jumps the witch herself!

He he he... I'm still chuckling as I write this. 

Do you know what this book is? It's fun!

 

4.5 Silver Stars

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The Mercy Watson Series by Kate DiCamillo and Chris Van Dusen

     

      

 Kate DiCamillo is a crazy genius. Her beautiful lyrical junior fiction novels are nothing short of Amazing. The Tale of Desperaux, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, and The Magician's Elephant are all by far some of the best junior fiction out there.

But how could such a wordsmith create an early reader that stands along side such beautiful junior fiction?

Easy, she says, I'll just invent a porcine wonder: Mercy Watson!

Mr And Mrs Watson, own a pet pig, whom they love dearly. Her name is Mercy.

What does Mercy love? Toast with butter on it. A Good deal of butter. It is her diving force. It is what drives her to get help when the Watson's floor is falling in, it is what leads her to capture a thief in the middle of the night, it is what causes her to bring a whole community together.

She really is a porcine wonder, a dear, a darling.

And boy, does Mrs Watson love dealing out the toast with butter on it!

These books are great fun! They made me chuckle constantly and laugh out loud on many occasions. They work well as early chapter books because there is quite a lot of repetition, but that very repetition is half of the humour.

The fact that she is so clearly driven by her stomach, and her love of buttered toast, yet all her actions are misinterpreted as heroically motivated that it is very amusing to see the mismatch between her thoughts and how she is interpreted.

Yes, Kate DiCamillo is truly fantastic. I can't recommend any of her books highly enough!

Chris Van Dusen's illustrations are PERFECT for this series too. Bright, bubbly, slightly retro, fun, and capture the characters brilliantly! They are too good!

Mercy Watson is a porcine wonder. You should get to know her.

 

4.5 Gold Stars

Find them on Goodreads:

Mercy Watson to the Rescue

Mercy Watson Goes for a Ride

Mercy Watson Fights Crime

Mercy Watson: Princess In Disguise

Mercy Watson Thinks Like a Pig

Mercy Watson: Something Wonky This Way Comes

Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed by Mo Willems

Mo Willems is fantastic! You only need pick up any of his books to discover this for yourself. He started his career as a writer and animator for Sesame Street for which he has won 6 Emmy Awards for his writing.

His books are so funny, not just for children but adults too!

Which brings me to 'Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed'

"There is so much to learn about the fascinating little creatures know as naked mole rats.

But, for this story, you only need to know three things:

1. They are a little bit rat.

2. They are a little bit mole.

3. They are all naked.

Well, they were, with one exception...

Wilbur liked to get dressed. Clothes were fun and warm.

One of the things I love about this book is the use of naked mole rats to flip our expectations. If this were a story about a man who liked to get undressed, I think the storyline would have taken a remarkably different turn. And when he asks "Why not?" (the ultimate question that sways wise old Grand-pah to try on a jaunty suit himself), could have been answered rather firmly and succinctly had it been people in the story...

As it stands, we giggle as the naturally naked mole rats are repulsed by Wilbur's clothing. We see the fun of dressing "fancy or funny or cool" or, as Wilbur says, "or I can just be an astronaut."

The other thing I love about this book is by then end, when clothing has been accepted, not all the mole rats get dressed. In fact there are more naked mole rats than there are ones with clothes. This speaks volumes about acceptance and diversity and being true to yourself than if they had all gotten dressed. To me this says 'each can be who they want to be, and each is accepted for who they are'. Which in this day and age is the type of message that needs to be reinstated more often.

 

4.5 Gold Stars

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JudgeABook: Pretty Monsters - Stories by Kelly Link

Even as I look at this now, I can see why I picked it for a JudgeABook post, but I still fail to see what I'm going to write for the section where I make up a synopsis from the cover alone.

It is a striking cover, hinting at things dark, strange and beautiful. And I would be excited to read get a copy and read it, but it doesn't give away much as far as possible narrative is concerned. Which can actually be rather lovely from time to time. I hate when too much is given away...

Anyhow, I like the look of this cover. What do you think of it?

Let's see how I go writing a blurb for it, knowing so little:

She stood on her balcony looking out towards the distant town. It had been months since the last suitor had come knocking. She smiled at the memory of the taste of him on her lips. 

There was a scratching at her chamber door that distracted her from her thoughts. She sighed and went to open it for the beast. She may have been sent here by her cowardly father, trying to escape his death, but a moon had barely waxed and waned before he had this creature on a leash. A sniveling, mangy pet. 

The Castle was hers. 

Tales of her beauty and dominion spread. The suitors came.

It had been months since her last meal.

 

4.5 Silver Stars

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JudgeABook: Cinder by Marissa Meyer

I really like the look of this book. I know it's been floating around for a while now, but I'm just now getting to writing about it. I haven't read it, but it's sitting on my shelf waiting to be read. Now, I love me some fairy tale adaptations, and even though I'm not a huge fan of the Cinderella story itself, how could I not be drawn to Cinderella-as-a-Cyborg? Admittedly, I know more than I should for a JudgeABook post, as the cover doesn't really say anything about cyborgs, only suggests a metal bone structure. But, let's go with it. It's a striking cover nonetheless.

Cinder slipped her foot into the ruby shoe. It was the perfect addition to her outfit. She smiled, thinking that the fragility of the glass pump belied her next-to-indestructible nature.

Standing, she looked at herself in the mirror. Thank goodness for the titanium reinforcement in the sole, imperceptible when she was standing. While her manufacturers had made her figure to perfection, they didn't really get her weight to what a girl would call acceptable. But, with a steel skeleton, there's only so much she could expect. She smoothed her dress. 

She was dressed to kill.

 

4.5 Silver Stars

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Broken by Elizabeth Pulford

When I heard about Broken, I got excited. I thoroughly enjoyed Tussock and so Elizabeth Pulford’s writing was more than enough to make me want to read it. But then I heard that it is narrated by a girl who is in a coma and my interest spiked. Further, the cover is beautiful!

Zara is broken, the back cover tells us, she’s in a coma, trapped in the world of her subconscious. We learn at the very beginning that she was on the back of her brother’s motorcycle when there was an accident. Jem, tragically, died immediately. Zara is in a coma, unaware of his death, unaware of her own vegetative state. All she knows is the broken pieces of her life, over-lapping, intersecting and scrolling through her mind without much rhyme or reason.

She hears snippets of conversation from the hospital room, she remembers things from the past, she knows Jem is missing and she needs to find him. He is her secret keeper. He is the only one she told the whole story to after she was kidnapped as a seven year old and kept in a cupboard for six weeks. She desperately needs to find him. Has he disappeared into one of his comics that he was so obsessed with? Armed with a pencil and an eraser she draws her way in after him to find out.

Piece by piece Zara must sift through her past to unlock secrets she has kept deep inside her.

I really liked this book. The fragmented text types, the disjointed narration, the blurring of reality and fantasy within the comic book; they all build to make a believable picture of a girl in a coma. At no point did I feel it was gimmicky or forced. Even as great idea “narrated by a girl in a coma” is, it is a great premise that could have easily fell flat by a less skilled author. Once I had finished I didn’t think the story in Broken could have been told in any other way. It all works.

This is a YA read that is different other things out there.

 

4.5 Silver Stars

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JudgeABook: After The Snow by S.D. Crockett

I don't know why, but crows and ravens have always fascinated me. And not in a 'harbinger-of-death' kind of way. They seem so astute, so thoughtful. And the shiny blue-black of their feathers is mesmerizing. Have you guessed why this cover jumped out at me yet?

The title I also found engaging. 'After' automatically conjures events and consequences and following-ons that seem to disappear into the white unknown that the future is, even as the elusive snow melts before us.

It is clear how strong I think this cover is? I hope so.

The 3rd step will be interesting. What can I come up with from 'raven' + 'After' + 'Snow' ?

Who would have thought that the midnight bird would find a place to hide in the fallen snow. Surely the contrast would be too great. 

I had not considered the still-smoking remains of my family's home. I had not considered it because until I had emerged from the trees I had expected to find the familiar building intact. 

Tracks in the snow told me they were alive. I had to believe that these markings were their fleeing steps and not the bearers of corpses.

A harsh cry split the air.

 

 

4.5 Gold Stars

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