Scaredy Squirrel Makes a Friend
By Melanie Watt
Kids Can Press, $14.95
Ages 4-8 years
Scaredy Squirrel is worried about biters, beavers, walruses and Godzilla. Not everyday would he leave his tree and seek a new friend. A goldfish in the park’s fountain, however, seems as if it might be not too risky. Armed with a name tag and air freshener, he leaves the safety of his tree. What he finds is “not part of the plan”: a dog. Eventually Scaredy realizes the dog is looking for a friend as well (and is definitely not a walrus). OK, so he drools and smells doggy, but what is a little air freshener between friends? An affectionate look at timid participants in life’s long dance.
Dreamquake
By Elizabeth Knox
Frances Foster/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $19
Ages 12-15 years
This second book of “The Dreamhunter Duet” continues its exploration of imagination, thought control, family identities and adolescents. Individuals with special powers–often but not always inherited–can enter The Place, hunt for dreams and bring them out to share with others, though it’s largely for commercial or political reasons, not altruistic ones. Laura seems to have inherited her famous father’s powers, before he mysteriously disappears, but her friend, Rose, was not so lucky with her mother’s abilities. Issues of friendship, class and sexual attraction roil among the younger dream hunters, against a background of political tyranny. Unexpected plot turns and a rewarding and engaging read.
Good Sports
By Jack Prelutsky, illustrated by Chris Raschka
Knopf, $16.99
Ages 4-7 years
Jack Prelutsky here shows he merits his title of children’s poet laureate with language that is rhythmic and zippy, and an attitude that can amplify the enjoyment of playing sports without becoming obsessed with mastery in any of them. Yes, he understands “the soft, sweet sound of SWISH!” when a free throw is successful, but missing the Frisbee doesn’t seem to make it less fun to play with a friend. Chris Raschka’s broad moving strokes of watercolors catch the pleasure of life in motion.
The Tale of Pale Male
By Jeanette Winter
Harcourt, $16
Ages 5-8 years
Jeanette Winter’s carefully framed portraits of the red-tailed hawks whose nesting place on New York City’s 5th Avenue became such a sensation in 2004 present the birds as clearly iconic, balancing the setting and action around them, whether they are hunting to feed their chicks, or their nest is being removed by angry building owners. (Eventually, bowing to the public pressure of bird lovers who stood across from this co-op building to watch the hawks, the building restored the nesting area.) The pleasing patterning of every surface adds to our sense of comfort in what finally happened between nature’s creatures and urban dwellers.
If You’re Happy and You Know It: Jungle Edition
By James Warhola
Orchard/Scholastic, $14.99
Ages 3-5 years
Yes, it is the familiar song, but pleasantly reimagined with the participation of jungle animals, who start out as stylized playground equipment–a puffin “rocking horse” on a coil instead of a pony, for instance–but end up coming alive to join the children in song. They’re not clapping their hands but scratching their fur, stomping their feet or flapping their wings. The final pages sum it all up, so that your own little animal can enjoy stomping, jumping, blinking and laughing. If they’re happy, that is.
Different Like Coco
By Elizabeth Matthews
Candlewick, $16.99
Ages 6-8 years
Preschoolers wouldn’t get the point here, but their older sibs (and probably mostly their older sisters) will, about the ways Coco Chanel stood out from the world of the rich and corseted, the buyers of fashion when she started out. She didn’t wish to be ruled by conventions about behavior or fashion (or even about telling the truth about her own life), but she eventually turned the world of couture around, not fleeing her difference but insisting upon it.
