Spork

by Kyo Maclear  
illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault  
Kids Can Press  2010   

Neither Fork nor Spoon, can the lonely Spork find acceptance in the world?  

Poor Spork.  A misfit in the cutlery tray, a one-of-a-kind in a world of deeply polar divisions. In a place were different kitchen utensils can live in harmony in the drawer this misfit simply doesn't fit in.  In an effort to fit in, to choose, Spork tries on a hat but is too round to be a spoon.  Spork tries on a crown but is too sharp to be a fork.  When it comes to the table there is no call for a Spork, it's either one thing or another that is needed, but not both.

But what's this?  Something that needs a utensil that's not too round, not to sharp? Like Goldilocks, someone needs a utensil like Spork that's just right.  It's a baby.  And having found its place Spork is now happy to be Spork.  

I have to admit, at first my reaction to the explanation that Spork was a little bit Fork and a little bit Spoon -- I saw Spork as a hermaphrodite! I know that's wrong, but I didn't immediately saw Spork as being mixed race which is clearly the message.  Kids will get it (I think) and this was another of those reminders that sometimes we have to keep our adult brains at bay.  

That said, there is a curious message here.  Spork doesn't fit in among the tableware, tries to fit in by choosing sides, and then gains acceptance only when someone outside the kitchen finds Spork useful.  I'm not sure how I feel about this.  On the one hand it could be akin to telling kids that one day they'll realize that there's a whole world out there and they'll find their place among those who will understand and accept them.  But it also feels a bit like the cavalry coming to the rescue, like there is nothing Spork does to feel comfortable with who they are until they are appreciated by something external. 

For the young, I think the "Can't we all just get along?" message is strong, and by using cutlery to tell the story it opens up the issue of multiracial image and acceptance for discussion. 

Don't Touch That Toad

& Other Strange Things Adults Tell You  
written by Catherine Rondina
illustrated by Kevin Sylvester
Kids Can Press  2010


A collection of superstitions and folklore passed down by adults, refuted and supported, and an attempt to arm kids with the facts behind the phrases.  Entertaining, but it's no snopes.com.

I like the idea of arming kids with the truth as a way of disarming the myths kids often find themselves presented with, whether from parents as this book presents or, as I experienced many of them, from other kids.  Everything from french fries can give you acne to ostriches burying their head in the sand when scared shows up here, with the myth presented on one page with the reveal on the page turn.  Grouped under health, science, weird, and animal, with a special section set aside for the unexplainable things parents say ("I wasn't born yesterday, you know!") Don't Touch That Toad fits snugly among those nonfiction titles that benignly amuse and casually educate.

If only.  

In presenting the information in a light-hearted conspiratorial tone it would be nice if the counterarguments presented had some bite to them, and perhaps a little more background.  Early on we get An apple a day keeps the doctor away which we're told is false.  It's yummy and packed with vitamins but eating one a day won't prevent you from getting sick, a reader is told.  So, yes, technically, it's not correct.  And the text goes on to explain how apples have the ability to kill bacteria in the mouth, helping prevent tooth decay, so it reasons that an apple a day might keep the dentist away.  But what is the origin of the phrase?  If a reader were told that an apple helps fight high cholesterol, that daily apples can improve repertory problems including asthma, that the vitamin C they contain helps promote the immune system, could it be that there's more truth to the phrase than simply the idea that if you eat an apple you won't get sick? 

Another canard I was hit with as a kid is here, If you swallow a watermelon seed, a watermelon will grow inside your stomach.  Preposterous, given the number of seeds accidentally swallowed every year by people of all ages.  My aunt used to scare me that an apple seed (apples again!) if swallowed would grow a tree out of my navel.  In disproving this myth the text goes so far as to talk about a doctor trying to replicate the conditions of a human stomach in which to grow seeds.

He should have tried replicating lungs.  As recently as a couple weeks ago a man was discovered to have a pea germinating in his lungs.  And a year ago a man in Russia was discovered to have a fir tree sprouting in his lung.  It doesn't negate the point that the myth of swallowing seeds holds no merit, but if the point is to arm young readers with facts to bat down their parents this counter-intelligence should include things to arm parents into being more responsible with what they tell children.  Another myth was based on the idea of the "three second rule" for eating food that's been dropped on the floor, but one day recently in the kitchen my kids and I heard an NPR story about a scientist who did studies and found that depending on the environment the rule could extend to a full 18 seconds.  That's quite a different result than the one presented in Don't Touch That Toad. What's a kid to do in the face of such contradictions?

I realize this borders on the idea of criticizing the author on what they didn't write, but the fact is my kids heard the news story about the 18 second rule at the same time I did.  They head about the seeds growing in people's lungs as well.  News of the weird is out there, and in the battle against superstition and urban legend truth is almost always more alarming than fiction, and the best antidote.

Okay, so the book probably shouldn't scare kids with too much depth.  I get that.  But that aside, I would have wished the book included more background into where these notions come from in the first place, especially with the "parentisms" at the end of the book.  Many of these are idiomatic phrases, like no use crying over spilt milk and you made your bed now you lie in it, that are written off as "unexplainable" when clearly they could be. 

I like the idea behind Don't Touch That Toad, I like the format and what it covers, but I'm afraid that if you're going to offer kids information to combat the sayings and aphorisms adults toss out then you need to truly arm them with information that will stop them cold.

The Adventures of Jack Lime

by James Leck
Kids Can Press  2010

A trio of hardboiled detective stories for the upper middle grade set.

Jack Lime is a kid people go to when they need to have problems solved.  Problems like cheating boyfriends and missing bikes and gambling rings and kidnapped... hamsters.

As with all detective stories, Lime has to wade his way through the sort of half-truths and double-crosses he's presented with, trying to reconcile what peopletell him with what he has to piece together through observation.  And as with all who meddle in the affairs of others there is a price, usually a punch to the face or the breadbasket.  Getting around the issue of doing a job for hire, Lime does what he does for the favors he can collect and use as barter down the road.  He's a lone wolf (orphaned, living with his grandmother), worldly (from big city LA to small town Iona),  who can usually solve the case but rarely gets the rewards he deserves.

Written in the first-person tough-guy voice of classic hardboiled fiction, Jack Lime is the closest I've seen to anyone grafting Raymond Chandler's Marlowe into children's literature.  Not that other's haven't tried, but those others all suffered from the strain of their own efforts to appear clever and arch.  Leck has managed to find just the right tone and though it is still an affectation of style it comes off as effortless and natural. 

And it's appropriately short.  I would have been happy for any one of these cases to be a book unto themselves, but that Leck gets three satisfying stories into 126 pages makes its case against those books that drag out a single drama for upwards of 275 pages.  Present the case, get on the job, land in some trouble, wiggle out of trouble and solve the case.  No need to get clever and drag things out endlessly.  The "crimes" are within the realm of possibility, if slightly exaggerated to match the genre, solved without the use of unbelievable talents, and doesn't pit whiz kids against idiot adults.  I think this is my new standard for what can and should be done with detective stories aimed at the older middle grade reader.

My Letter to the World

And Other Poems
by Emily Dickinson
with illustrations by Isabelle Arsenault
Kids Can Press 2008

It would take a very specific type of young reader to recommend this book, but for the receptive this is a gorgeous introduction to the world of Emily Dickinson.

In this slim volume from the Visions of Poetry Series by Kids Can Press we are given seven of Miss Emily's better known poems. The poems are short but spread across several pages each to better shift the illustrations to fit the mood. In this way they almost read like a collection of short illustrated stories.

As the poems have no titles, the careful reader learns that a new poem has started because the first word is set in an aqueous blue handscript with the rest of the text set in type. It can take a poem or two to understand what is going on -- especially since there's no way of knowing how long a poem will continue -- but it does have an odd way of extending the poem, lengthening the experience, forcing a reader to slow down and savor the word and illustrations.

Admittedly, I felt a little unsettled by the way the poems were broken up until I got into the rhythm. When you have seen these poems presented whole on a single page, to then see them pulled apart methodically over a few pages can be disorienting. I wasn't comfortable with what was happening until I realized that I shouldn't want to feel comfortable. This discomfort forced me to see the poems anew. What a lovely experience.

Taken as a whole, this collection feels a bit... dark. This is Miss Emily's territory, and probably another of those situations where these poems would not be published for children to read (much less illustrated so handsomely) if they were written today. Must protect the children, think of the children!

And so:

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

It's Poetry Friday. Check out more over at Under the Covers.

Stormy Night

by Michele Lemieux
Kids Can Press 1999

I love the serendipity of libraries. Yes, there is a lot of order, a lot of things in their proper place, but what they provide is the opportunity to discover something you never knew you were looking for.

Like this book.

On a stormy night a girl goes to bed but is unable to sleep. "I can't sleep! Too many questions are buzzing through my head." Indeed, in short order our restless narrator is wondering where infinity ends and what you would find on the other side of a hole in the universe. Over the course of the 240 pages deep philosophical questions -- the kinds kids ask -- are mingled with the offbeat and occasionally silly, one to a page facing a black and while illustration. This is no light read, nor is it an intimidating romp through some of the deeper inquiries about life on earth.

It also provides no answers, just whimisical illustrations to match the question at hand. For example, "And hell -- does it exist?" is matched with a peek at the top of the stairs down into a basement where the shadows of familiar items take on the ominous appearance of demons. as the storm rages through the night the questions get darker, but as morning comes, with the light come the bigger, more open questions -- What of we could live forever, and know all of life's mysteries.

My library had this shelved among the hardcover middle grade books. It's exactly the sort of book I enjoyed stumbling across as a young reader and I was secretly thrilled when my youngest took an interest in it after glancing at a couple of pages. This is the way to address the questioning nature of philosophy with children. Just be prepared to be confronted with a lot of follow-up questions.