The Three Spinning Fairies: A Tale From the Brothers Grimm
Retold by Lisa Campbell Ernst
Dutton, $16.99
Ages 6-8 years
Once upon a time, there was an author who took some thread from the Brothers G and spun a funny tale. Foolish Zelda doesn’t want to be the baker’s daughter forever, because it’s too much work, even if it’s only spinning string for boxes. Of course, by the Murphy’s Law of fairy tales, she ends up, like the more famous miller’s daughter, locked up with rooms full of unspun flax. Her rescuers are not named Rumpelstiltskin, but Anita, Benita and Bob? Lisa Campbell Ernst’s pictures catch the loopy ambience; check the picture of Zelda’s mother, “retired to a sunny island where ovens had not been invented.”
Wake Up, Me!
By Marni McGee, illustrated by Sam Williams
Simon & Schuster, $17
Ages 2-5 years
So you’ve had enough of bedtime books? Try a wake-up call, with an older toddler, not in a crib. Rise and shine, for bear and boy, and, in short order, for parents. Sam Williams’ pictures catch both the newly fresh colors of the early morning world and the rushing dynamic of someone who must be slowed down for dressing, breakfast and such technicalities as shoes before a good play in the yard, where the wind “tickles” the trees. Wonderful pictures, especially of the breakfast table, from a child’s-eye level.
I Invited a Dragon to Dinner: And Other Poems to Make You Laugh Out Loud
Various authors, illustrated by Chris L. Demarest
Philomel, $16.99
Ages 4-8 years
Who are the authors? Their names wouldn’t yet be familiar to you, because they got their works into this book by winning a contest to find talented new writers of verse for children. Perhaps one of the criteria for winning was a subject that would delight an illustrator. Chris L. Demarest’s pictures have ample humorous fields for play here. Judy Dyl’s “Why Do I Have to Be Clean?” is a little girl’s lament because her “mean mom” won’t let her live like other creatures: “They live with their dirt.” Demarest shows us what it would be like if porcupines had to comb their quills. “Billy Bupper,” by Robert Ora Thomas, tells about a gymnastic sandwichmaker whose exuberant flip looks not only possible but fun, like reading this poetry.
Green Boy
By Susan Cooper
McElderry/Simon & Schuster, $16
Ages 9-12 years
Susan Cooper has a gift for time-slip fantasies, and here she takes this genre to a Bahamian setting, where developers are menacing the remote ecology of Long Pond Cay. Trey, 12, and his mute little brother, Lou, love to play there and are helping their grandfather, a bonefishing guide, as he fights the developers. What’s unexpected is the moment when Lou and Trey slip into another time zone, in the future, in a world dark with pollution. There, in Otherworld, Lou takes on tasks his older brother can hardly imagine, and the reversal in their roles is delicately handled. Suspensefully, they move in and out of time at several moments. Add in the myth of Gaea, the Green Man, the return of their disreputable father and a hurricane, and young readers will be turning pages rapidly.
Little Rat Sets Sail
By Monika Bang-Campbell, illustrated by Molly Bang
Harcourt, $14
Ages 6-9 years
Rather than settling for just a cute visual idea — a little rat in a sailboat — Monika Bang-Campbell gives Little Rat quite a convincing character. “She was scared of the water.” She doesn’t have a choice about lessons. “Her parents just signed her up.” In her house, every picture on the wall is about seas and sailboats. Little Rat clutches her pink tail with an anxiety known to every blanket-hugger in the world. The other animals don’t look afraid on that first day, and, what’s worse, they all have on neat life jackets. “Everybody else was cool. Little Rat felt like a dork.” Her slow progress through the chapters is quite believable, and she becomes a lovable rodent. And the pictures? Glorious. This book makes you want to sail.
