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Watermark Teacher Feature – February 28, 2007
In this issue:
BOOK NEWS
Fresh titles
UPCOMING EVENTS
Anna Quindlen is coming in May!
BOOK REVIEWS
* “Who’s Got Game?” by Toni Morrison & Slade Morrison
Scary-story graphic novels:
* “Goosebumps Graphix: Creepy Creatures” by R. L. Stine
* “Goosebumps Graphix: Terror Trips” by R. L. Stine
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Hello, everyone!
Do you hear that? It’s the sound of Spring Break rapidly approaching. Just hold
on tight, and it’ll be here soon. I promise. Until then, we have a whole passel
of new and exciting youth books for the edification and amusement of your kids
and students. Read on.
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FRESH TITLES: New books to put spring in your springtime
“Junie B., First Grader: Dumb Bunny” by Barbara Park (Random House Books
for Young Readers, 0375838090, $11.99, hardcover) Junie B. Jones is back, and
she’s hopping mad! She’s stuck wearing a silly rabbit costume with huge clumsy
feet, and it’s distracting her from her one true goal: winning the Big Prize in
the egg hunt at Lucille’s rich expensive mansion. Youngsters will laugh and
laugh at Junie’s antics, and they’ll also get good practice catching her
inevitable grammar mistakes. This is a great seasonal book for solo reading or
for reading aloud to a group. (For ages 4 to 8)
“Stink and the Incredible Super-Galactic Jawbreaker” by Megan McDonald
(Candlewick: 0763621587, $12.99 in hardcover, or 0763632368, $4.99 in paperback)
Your young readers probably know Judy Moody, but have they met her little
brother Stink? He’s a handful. In this second book of his adventures, Stink gets
a faulty jawbreaker (it was tasty enough, but left his jaw completely intact!)
and decides to launch a letter-writing campaign. Caught up in getting tons of
free stuff from responsive companies, he soon runs into trouble and has to make
amends. This book is quick and fun, and it gives a good introduction to
letter-writing and to the concept of idioms and their meanings. (For ages 4 to
8)
“The Treasures of Weatherby” by Zilpha Keatley Snyder (Atheneum,
141691398X, $15.95, hardcover) This is one for Lemony Snicket fans. Pint-size
hero Harleigh Weatherby (called “Hardly” by his many enemies) teams up with a
terribly curious girl named Allegra to explore the shadowed and ancient
Weatherby House--and to protect its fabled treasures from falling into the hands
of greedy villains. Snyder is a three-time Newberry Honoree, and her brand of
safe-but-spooky mystery-adventure is just right for readers wishing for another
taste of the “Series of Unfortunate Events.” This book has oversized characters,
awesome Kid Gothic settings, and a toothsome mystery for the young and sleuthful.
(For ages 9 to 12)
“Cures for Heartbreak” by Margo Rabb (Delacorte Books for Young Readers,
0385734026, $15.99, hardcover) At the start of this new teen novel, New York
City high-schooler Mia has lost her mother suddenly to a long-undetected cancer.
Left with her sister and her dad, she’s trying everything she can to put her
heart back together. Her self-prescribed remedies include wearing too much
make-up, reading romance novels, getting into fights with her sister, developing
hypochondria, and falling in love. But nothing really works for her: she learns
there are no quick cures, and she can’t rush her grief away. Rabb’s funny,
heartfelt writing delivers all these forgivable teenage fumblings with wit,
humor, and perfect sympathy. (For ages 13 and older)
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UPCOMING WATERMARK EVENTS
Looking ahead: Anna Quindlen coming in May!
Novelist and “Newsweek” columnist Anna Quindlen will visit Wichita on Thursday,
May 3 for a 7:00 p.m. Watermark reading and signing. (We’ll announce the
location and other details in coming weeks; it will need to be someplace BIG.)
In the meantime, pencil the date into your calendars, ring the friends in your
phone tree, and plan an outing for your student group or book club. Quindlen is
touring to support her latest novel, the bestselling two-sister story “Rise and
Shine,” which follows a popular television host who falls from grace after
September 11 and turns to her estranged sibling to help her pick up the pieces
of her life.
For a full listing of Watermark events, including book clubs and art openings,
visit the Events page of our Web site at:
http://www.watermarkbooks.com/events.html
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BOOK REVIEWS
A fable-filled picture book and two spooky middle-reader graphic novels:
“Who's Got Game?: The Ant or the Grasshopper?, The Lion or the Mouse?, Poppy or
the Snake” by Toni Morrison & Slade Morrison, illus. by Pascal Lemaitre
(Scribner, 0743283910, $25.00)
This surprising hardcover picture book brings together three previously
published stories written by Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winner Toni Morrison and
her son Slade Morrison. Each one is an inspired, street-smart take on one of
Aesop’s Fables, and each retelling offers a clever twist ending that makes an
age-old story fresh and new again.
“The Ant or the Grasshopper?” tells how an ant spends most of his summer storing
up for the wintertime while his grasshopper friend uses the warm season to make
music. In the usual version, the grasshopper would come off as a fool compared
to the responsible ant, but the Morrisons deal out a surprise. The ant turns out
to be a materialistic hoarder and the grasshopper is a generous artist: the
former refuses to acknowledge the value of the latter’s work, and so their
friendship crumbles. The ant may not go hungry inside his well-larded home, but
he does end up feeling selfish and lonely.
The two other stories throw similar curveballs: in “The Lion or the Mouse?”
after the humble rodent pulls a thorn from the kingly lion’s paw, he develops
delusions of grandeur and begins pushing all the other animals around. At first,
the Lion puts up with this behavior out of gratitude, but he eventually realizes
that the mouse has become a bully because he’s scared to just be himself: a
mouse. Likewise, “Poppy or the Snake?” rewrites the fable of the farmer and the
snake, telling how a man runs over a poisonous serpent, then decides to bring it
home to let it heal up. A reader can see the bite coming from a mile away, but
the Morrisons still manage to inject wonder and excitement into the build-up.
Strong rhythms and quick, easy rhymes make “Who’s Got Game?” a fun book to read
aloud, and it would be an excellent addition to any activities involving fables
and stories that teach lessons. The pictures in the book are small enough to
encourage individual reading, but the characters and conflicts are so oversized
and emotive that even a rambunctious group will be captivated when hearing it
read aloud.
(For ages 4 to 8)
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“Goosebumps Graphix 1: Creepy Creatures” and “Goosebumps Graphix 2: Terror
Trips,” both by R. L. Stine from Scholastic Graphix (paperback: 0439841259 and
0439857775, each $8.99; hardcover: 0439841240 and 0439857805, each $16.99)
R. L. Stine’s tales of icky beasties and spooky shadows are perennial favorites
among young readers, who seem to have an almost inexhaustible appetite for scary
yarns. To feed this yen, Scholastic has begun publishing a series of graphic
novels in which up-and-coming cartoonists adapt Stine’s stories into
action-packed black-and-white comics.
The first volume, “Creepy Creatures,” was released in the fall. It unveils three
monster-filled adventures: In “The Werewolf of Fever Swamp,” a biologist
relocates his family to a marsh in the Deep South, where his young son and
daughter have run-ins with weird hermits, quicksand bogs, and wild dogs carrying
a contagious shape-changing infection. The story’s art is a perfect mix of shady
shapes and feral, bristly lines that seem ready to jump off the page.
“The Scarecrow Walks at Midnight” takes place on a remote, dusty farm where
living scarecrows haunt the corn fields and chase away unwanted people; it
boasts some wonderfully washed-out American-Gothic-style illustrations that have
a genuine creep factor. The final story, “The Abominable Snowman of Pasadena,”
is a more light-hearted romp about two siblings who meet a yeti in the arctic
and try to bring it home to sunny California. The book ends not with a bang but
with a good guffaw.
The newly released second book, “Terror Trips,” follows a theme of vacations
gone diabolically wrong: in "One Day at Horrorland," a trio of young people
traverse a sinister theme park (where the rides may be out to get them), and in
"A Shocker on Shock Street," two siblings visit the set of a hair-raising
monster movie (where the “extras” are actually maniacally dangerous robots).
While the jump-and-run antics of the first two tales are a bit repetitive, the
book is capped off nicely by “Deep Trouble”--a gem of a story illustrated by
American manga artist Amy Kim Ganter, author of the manga “Sorcerers and
Secretaries.” In it, two siblings on summer break pitch in to help their
marine-biologist uncle with his research and are soon pulled into a hunt for a
real, live mermaid. Ganter captures all the inherent fun and wonder of their
encounters with her playful drawings while still delivering Stine’s signature
twists and surprises.
This on-going series of youth graphic novels is a big hit among middle-readers
always hungry for something spooky but not too grown-up for their age. The
stories deliver legitimate creepiness, but they’re not so intense as to really
freak kids out. If they go in for the “Cirque du Freak” series or enjoy the
“Fear Street” books, your young readers will surely go ga-ga over Goosebumps
Graphix. And since the stories are being adapted (and abridged) by highly
talented young comics creators, they often boast pacing and atmosphere superior
to the R. L. Stine originals.
These two volumes are available now, and a third, called “Scary Summer,” is
scheduled to arrive in July. Its most promising aspect: it features an army of
evil lawn gnomes.
(For ages 9 to 12)
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Past reviews and archived issues of Teacher Feature can be read on-line on the
Watermark Web site at:
http://www.watermarkbooks.com/teach.html
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Say goodbye to February, everyone: March is on the march!
Mark David Bradshaw
Click here for the Teacher Feature Archives
Peruse
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