Artwork TK: a jeremaid

While reading through any number of Advance Reader's Copys (ARCs) of children's literature it isn't uncommon to come across a blank page or inset box with the phrase "artwork TK" on it. In the strange patois of publishing and editing the abbreviation TK means "to come", which apparently originated in journalism and is somehow more phonetic than TC.

Today while reading an ARC for review purposes it occurred to me that this practice seems unusually stupid in children's publishing. I get taken to task at home for using the term stupid and idiotic but since discovering this is a common practice in children's ARCs I find it especially so.

Why.

I have always understood that an ARC represents an unfinished work-in-progress, a chance for reviewers, critics, booksellers and assorted by-readers a chance to see a book prior to it's official release. All these books come with disclaimers that they are unfinished, unedited and as such cannot be quoted without final consultation with the released edition. Very well.

But if you are including art, comics, photos and what-have-you into the book, and more importantly, if you are incorporating that art into the book by making specific reference to it in the text, why and how would you expect someone to make an informed opinion without the illustrations? If those illustrations are not important enough for review then they must not be important enough for the book, and that's going to cause me to wonder if they are being used as some sort of diversion for the intended reader, a slight-of-hand to draw away attention from the perhaps flaws in the text or storytelling, or maybe just a lack of faith in the reader's ability to enjoy the book without them.

Would a publisher ever send out an ARC with missing chapters, whole chunks of pages marked "chapters TK" and fully expect reviewers and critics to just accept that they can review the book with what they've been given? Final reviews may be fact-checked for accuracy but do the reviewers ever really go back and double check on the missing pages to be sure they didn't miss something crucial?

I suppose part of this questioning on my part would have come up (or at least not now) if I hadn't been reviewing a book where (I feel) the illustrations were integral to the text and half way through were replaced by pages of TK. I can understand that the artist might not have had them ready in time for an ARC but I'm currently looking at a book where my opinion about its success is partially determined by how well the illustrated pages are carried through to the end. And my review is due before a finished version of the book can be obtained.

Do I review it assuming all is well or take caution and give it more non-committal coverage?

Recently another very good book was released, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, which I had the good fortune to read as an ARC back in November. In its recent release there has been much discussion and praise over this book, deservedly, including an interview with its author on NPR. But the ARC had two whole sections where there was artwork TK, perhaps a dozen pages in all. Given that the book is a mixture of text and art, maybe a 20/80 ratio in 540 pages, that's not a lot of missing art but I did wonder at the time just how crucial they were to the story.

Crucial or not, there were many in the blogosphere who reviewed the book from those ARCs. Here's where I go off on a tangent.

There's an American movie from the early 1970's directed by Francis Ford Coppola called The Conversation. Fantastic movie. In it Gene Hackman plays a surveillance expert hired to follow and record the actions of a businessman who may be plotting to do harm. Said conversation reveals an interesting section of dialog that is buried in background noise and eventually brought to the surface through the wonders of the technology of the time. Things happen, things go haywire, nothing is as it seems. While the text of the conversation was correct there was a single point, a single word, whose shifted emphasis takes everything that came before and turns the entire story on its head.

One word.

If a single word, properly placed, can change the emphasis of an entire movie plot, why shouldn't it be possible for a couple pages of artwork to change the look and feel of an entire book? Did those out in the blogosphere go back after Hugo Cabret was released and double-check the TK sections to make sure nothing crucial was missing from the first time around?

Would a kid enjoy a book without pictures the way were supposed to review them without pictures?

My personal sense is that the publishing industry is moving too fast for itself. Books don't get the time and attention they deserve when it comes to proofreading and fact checking, publishing schedules are cranked up like the bonbon factory from an I Love Lucy episode, and in the end its just assumed that the pictures don't matter to adult readers because, well, they're there for the kids anyway.

I'm one person, one voice, and I'm probably alone in this wilderness, but if the publishers don't feel the illustrations are integral to the book then they shouldn't include them at all, ARC or otherwise.

That's just me you hear barking at the moon. Artwork TK.

Dimity Dumpty

The Story of Humpty's Little Sister
by Bob Graham
Candlewick 2007

Dimity stopped. Her hands to her face
She took a deep breath...

then removed her shirt

and bandaged Humpty's leakage.

That's page 23, and probably the point where this book turned from a little weird to all the way out there.

The Dumpty family are circus performers, acrobats, to be precise. In a human circus, mind you. They travel from town to town in a circus wagon made from an old egg carton, which is cute, pulled by a chicken, which is weird when you think about it.

While the other members of the family fly through the air with the greatest of ease, Dimity prefers to sit and play her little flute to the animals of the woods. Aw. Humpty, on the other hand, is a handful of a boy, graffiti-ing the wall of his egg carton and running off to tag nearby walls.

Oh, so that's what he was doing up there in the first place, he was off to do a little graffiti! So there goes your messages: graffiti leads to serious leakage.

Okay, so Humpty recovers and returns to the circus life where he's jumping around on the backs of horses for the delight of many who may be secretly wishing for another great fall. Much like there are people who watch auto racing for the accidents.

I'm going to save a lot of people the trouble of calling me on this and say I'm using my adult brain to over analyze an otherwise unusually unique book. I suppose it's reassuring to kids that Humpty only suffered a cracked shell and that his gentle sister was able to save him from fatal leakage and salmonella. It might even be the perfect book to open up young minds to questions about the dangers of climbing walls and how you can't let your fear of falling keep you from a life in the circus.

It still leaves a weird taste in my mouth.

The Friskative Dog

by Susan Straight
Random House 2007

Sharron has a toy Golden Lab puppy she named The Friskative Dog. On one level she knows it is a toy but it's a comfort to her to think of him as real. The dog was a gift from her father, a long haul trucker, who one day left and never came home.

Sharron lives with her mother, with weekly visits from her grandmother, both of whom let Sharron believe that her father is just lost, that he'll return home some day. Her grandmother suggests her son has insomnia, though she means amnesia, which only confuses Sharron even more; How can a grown adult suddenly forget where he lives and that he has a family somewhere?

At school Sharron brings in The Friskative Dog to share whenever she can. Some of the kids give her a hard time for treating an obvious toy like a real dog, especially a pair of snootier girls named Paige and Piper. Another girl, Eboni, probably the closest thing Sharron has to a real friend, treats Sharon and The Friskative Dog with understanding and respect.

Sharron's mother works at a local bodega. She's making ends meet as best she can. One night her mother-in-law comes with news that her son has applied for a drivers license in another state.

Sharron overhears this but she doesn't understand.

A chance encounter with a guide dog for the blind in training, coupled with a school reports on careers, gives Sharron a focus and a purpose. She is now training The Friskative Dog to be a guide dog. Paige and Piper think Sharron is ridiculous and mock her for treating a toy like a real dog. And even though it is against school rules, Sharron brings The Friskative Dog to school in her backpack to teach it how to be patient and obey.

One day The Friskative Dog disappears from Sharron's backpack. First her father and now her beloved toy. Despondent, she stays at home alone while her mother goes to work.

A phone call, a stranger has found The Friskative Dog in her garbage. Heading out to claim her dog Sharron gets a fortuitous ride with Eboni's mother who was delivering her daughter's forgotten lunch. Rescuing The Friskative Dog it becomes apparent that Paige and Piper were behind its disappearance and disposal.

A return of child and toy to home. A confrontation at school. A terse letter from a lost father. A new house. The promise of a real dog.

There was this strange sensation I had while reading The Friskative Dog, a combination of deju vu and a bad dream. Then I realized they were related sensations stemming from the same memory.

I was in a grad level creative writing workshop suffering the weekly evisceration of story criticism. Every couple of weeks we'd submit a story to the group, the following week everyone took turns demolishing both the story and its author's ego, then we'd get a couple weeks to return the favor before going through the whole process all over again. Highly entertaining, emotionally draining, thoroughly unnecessary.

The Friskative Dog only covered the last two feelings.

But there was this one person in the workshop, an older woman who stood out from the rest of us twenty-something author-wannabes. She was old enough to be our mothers and she held every single story she read in such disdain that we all feared she was secretly a professional writer or editor who knew the secrets we were hoping to glean like a flash in a miner's pan. Then came the week for her story and we suddenly bolted to life.

Hers was a story of a small child who was trying to reconcile the loss of a grandparent, struggling with limited language, finally pointing to the blown-out pilot light on the stove to convey her understanding of the loss. And after a collective sigh in silence the author laid a preemptive strike against any possible criticisms we might have, something along the lines of If you people actually read the kind of fiction real people read then you'd understand this story, but as it stands I doubt any of you have the compassion necessary to appreciate what I've written.

Yeah, we tore her a new one after that. What our most articulate classmate finally proffered as a parting insult was to suggest that her story was best suited for Family Circle or The Saturday Evening Post... circa 1971.

Which brings us to The Friskative Dog.

If I were to make the same suggestion does it mean I'm lacking compassion, or that I'm still that same twenty-something grad student who hasn't gotten beyond that arrested state of tearing down other people's works for fun and grades? What is it about this book that reads so much like a workshopped short story? Is it that desperate pull for meaning and emotion? Is it the deliberate way Sharron speaks, the affectation of a fiction writer's idea of a young girl trying desperately to connect the dots in her little world? Why do I imagine well-healed mother-daughter book groups -- perhaps the target audience -- enraptured by this heart-tugging drama while sipping mint tea and eating designer scones?

Then there are the little things that bother me -- that a fourth grader can both be studying algebra and still be so emotionally stunted that she caries a toy dog around. That the snotty rich girls were cut from the same sheet of recycled cardboard. Or that Eboni and her mother are nothing more than a second tier Julia straight from 1960's television, right down to their power-positive single-parent messages and up-lifting moral lessons. God-helps-those-who-help-themselves-lite.

Basically, the story felt like a thousand other stories a la mode. If it weren't so short I might never have finished.

Hours of My Life I May Never Retrieve

It has been a long time since I've seen a movie that made me yearn, nay ached, to to have those precious lost minutes returned to me.

I watched The Devil Wears Prada two nights ago and I'm still feeling the loss.

Years ago when I was reviewing movies for fun and non-profit there were whole seasons filled with dread as Hollywood found ways to fill the calendar year with movies they could not justify throwing into the trash. The early months of January through March are a sort of wasteland while the industry readies itself for the annual gift of collective log rolling which is the Academy Awards. As spring comes into view movies tumble out of the festival circuits and into the movie houses where some writer-director's self-indulgent wanking gets confused with art. And foreign films, mustn't forget those, as they poke their heads up from behind the hedges hoping not to get slaughtered in the pre-summer movie blockbuster assault.

And when you're watching three to five new movies a week your bound to come across things committed to celluloid that could make you weep for those precious lost minutes. Much the same way you can occasionally pick up a book and weep for the tree that gave up its life for results that insult its memory.

Under most circumstances I would never have chosen to see The Devil Wears Prada. I did so with a reluctance that I cannot touch or name except to call it The Sixth Sense. The way a child sees dead people I can see a dead movie. I don't actually have to see the movie in question, in fact I can see as little as 30 seconds of a preview on television, or read the testimonials in a newspaper ad, and I know there's a little brown shark in the bath water.

I suppose, if pressed, I could say that I remember seeing the book in stores when it was first released and, after a glance at the cover art, could have predicted the premise if not the entire plot. So, yes, that could have prejudiced me against the movie. But the curiosity factor was still there, a clever device created by studios and casting directors whereby they lure actors into these movies specifically to fool people like me who should know better.

Why would Meryl Streep be in this movie if there wasn't something to it? And Stanley Tucci, he's never really done something strictly for the paycheck as far as I can remember...

Ah, but see how cleverly they have worked their Hollywood pixie dust! By cloaking Ms. Streep in fine Italian sheepskin they have created a situation where, indeed, she does seem Oscar worthy.

But only compared with the rest of that movie. She isn't even a candle's wisp against the raging gale force wind that is Helen Mirren or the class five hurricane that is Dame Judi Dench. A good actress, yes, but an Oscar nod for a one-note smolder? Please. My best guess is that the Academy felt a little funny not putting up at least one token American, but that goes into politics and would further take me off my already diversionary course.

Afterward there wasn't even the regret that I might have better used the time reading or cleaning my shower but an actual loss, an emotional depression.

And the next night I realized that after all these years it was time to finally give up on 24. Jack Bauer and the CTU gang have lost any pull they once had and I can no longer justify giving them the space of an hour a week. I had hopes that Aaron Sorkin's Studio 60 might serve as a soothing balm after 24, a nightcap as it were, but like that mislaid glass of champagne you find several hours after the party has started the show has quickly grown flat, tepid and leaves an aftertaste like Old Spice.

I never used to watch this much TV, in fact I went through most of the 1990's without using my television as anything more than a monitor for movie watching. Strangely, I didn't seem to miss much. I found I could keep in touch with popular culture through Entertainment Weekly and sound intelligent around the water cooler and at parties and no one was the wiser.

And I got a lot more reading done.

Perhaps, if I'm very lucky, over time I can recoup my losses through a strenuous regimen of reading. A minute here, another there, and slowly the essence of those missing minutes will be reconstituted into a rough approximation of time regathered. A leap day, as it were, as compensation for my industry and dedication.

Until the next ARC of a middling young adult novel crosses the transom, then it starts all over.

Moxy Maxwell Does Not Love Stuart Little

by Peggy Gifford
Schwartz & Wade Books/Random House 2007

Indeed, Moxy Maxwell loves anything but reading the single book she was assigned to read before the first day of school. After a full summer of procrastination Moxy finishes her vacation with a last-ditch attempt to keep her from reading Stuart Little: She's decides to grow a peach orchard to fund her college education, thus proving she is far too intelligent to read the book while saving her parents the burden of paying for education.

But rather than plant the orchard herself Moxy gets her friend and her sister to do it, thus flooding her mother's prize dahlia garden with the garden hose leaving the dog's a giant mud pool to eagerly dig into. Overtaxed from eating several peaches (how else to start the orchard?) she settles into the backyard hammock fully intending to read Stuart Little. But the book's not there. She hasn't see the book in days, and her mother has finally lost all patience.

Later in the day Moxy is to join her synchronized swimming class for their final presentation in which she will play a flower petal. There is a party planned for afterward but Moxy's luck has run out and the much-promised "consequences" are being enforced. Instead of going to the party she is forced to read the book, staying up late the night before the first day of school in order to pass her test on her summer reading. Turns out, once she starts the book, that she doesn't, indeed, like it. In fact, she doesn't understand why she put it off for so long.

I think any parent with a child who has summer reading will relate, and perhaps so will some of those young readers. Moxy gets off easy with only one book -- my kids had one required and four or five "elective" books to down during their summers before third grade -- and there's no sense of Moxy reading anything else. She spends the summer carrying the book around to read when "in case" situations appear, but they never seem to materialize. Again, this is a foreign idea in our house, but I suspect there are plenty of Moxy's out there.

The book is a much faster read that it appears, given that some chapters have titles longer than their accompanying text (Chapter 7, In Which Moxy's Mother Says No is followed simply with the dialog "No."), and it certainly is much lighter in subject matter than most books that appear on summer reading lists. Were it not for the artificial chapter breaks and rambling distractions the book could be condensed into a very good, humorous short story. A beach read for the third grade set, perhaps?

Actually, this is more like one of those confections a child gobbles while they are killing time in the library. Easily taken in one sitting, there isn't even the need to check it out much less own it. Perfectly acceptable for the gooey, summery marshmallow fluff it is.

Due out in early May.

Mail Order Ninja - Another Take

Well, it was nearly a week and finally someone in the house picked up Mail Order Ninja and read it without prompting or suggestion. Afterward, I asked my eldest, age 10, to give me her brief review.

Today I read Mail Order Ninja, and it was better than Millions but not as good as Al Capone Does My Shirts.

The thing I really liked about this was how at the end the Ninja's fights came together with the boy's life.

What would have made this better is if the fights were easier to understand and those little bio cards were kinda funny at the beginning but eventually got kinda annoying.

I would recommend this book if someone were looking for a quick and funny graphic novel that was in a series.

*****1/2 (out of 10)

For the past couple of weeks she has been driven to read from the Massachusetts Children's Book Award list -- at least 25 books total by the end of this month -- and the most recent two books she's read were Millions by Frank Cottrell Boyce and Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko. It's interesting that she compared this book only to her most recent reading and not other graphic novels she has read. She really didn't like Millions (didn't say why) and she really loved Al Capone (ditto). In the graphic novel category she really really loved Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi and wanted more like it; I wasn't exactly comfortable with her reading that but that wasn't for me to say.

The bio cards she makes reference to are meant to introduce major characters and I have to agree, they could have been humorous but they were annoying.

She didn't ask if the second book in the series was available or indicate any interest, but to be fair she still has about 10 more books on her list to read by the end of the month.

And rumor has it there's a galley copy of a certain third book in a particular series floating around the house that must take precedent over others.

An Abundance of Katherines

by John Green
Dutton 2006

So I finally caved and read it. My reasons for not reading it for so long were irrational. It's the math. I wasn't born with the math gene and anything even remotely smacking of math kindles rocket fuel in my stomach and makes my adenoids itch.

Yes, I know the math isn't relevant to appreciating the story, no matter how accurate.

I'm going to be up front about this and admit it's going to take some easing into in order to find the groove for this review. And, honestly, what's holding me down is that in thinking about this book, as a reader and a writer and as someone who occasionally writes reviews, I can't help feeling that books like this require an entirely different approach to discussion. I'm in the shower thinking What this book really needs is a new kind of criticism, the likes of which we haven't seen since Lester Bangs was pounding down NyQuil and frothing about the carpet.

As a further prefatory note there were moments when I wasn't sure about the audience for this book. Is it home schooled prodigies looking for a window into (or out of) their self-torment? Are there sixteen year olds out there who aren't addicted to social websites on the internet, who are intelligent and not at all nerdy, who not only still read but can enjoy the plight of the prodigy and his best friend on a road trip to nowheresville so they can do a little navel gazing before heading off to college? And can they laugh at all the right places without malice? I'd like to think they're out there, I really would, but just how big is that army?

The mind drifts, images of hyper-literate Ronin holed up in boho coffeehouses reading An Abundance of Katherines at a single sitting fills my head. I see seniors, their personal essays nailed, their college apps already in the mail, pausing to reminisce lightly over foolish pranks and late summer nights in local make-out sanctuaries, the burn of long-since renounced fast food burning the back of their throat, coughing and chuckling at the same time.

No, wait, those aren't teens, those are twenty- and thirtysomething hipsters and artsters, the incommunicognoscenti that drift among the sudoku-mad salarymen and women on public transit, peering into the windows of their youth with grins as wry as their martinis. And in the corner, standing alone with closed eyes and humming to himself is Colin Singleton, child prodigy, anagramming the title of his book:

Ken refuted a cabana nosh-in

Unfreshen a cabana to kin, Ed

Ed frees a cabana to inn hunk

Why can't he get away from the cabana? Could a cabana hold the key to happiness? And who, exactly are Ed and Ken, and so on.

Trolling the barren vistas of Tennessee, Colin and his best bud Hassan (introducing himself by saying "I am not a terrorist", and the people laugh) are out on that great post-high school metaphor, the road trip in a vehicle called the Hearse. The roadside lure of the final resting place of Franz Ferdinand leads Colin and Not-a-Terrorist like a divining rod to Gutshot, a company town that manufactures tampon strings.

Yeah, the book's funny like that.

Improbably fun they hit it off well with the backwoods locals, in particular a reluctant likely-prodigy-in-hiding named Lindsey. They pick up a job locally recording oral histories in advance of the town's demise and crash with Lindsey while they sort through their issues. Colin in particular is haunted with understanding why he keeps getting dumped by all the Katherine's he's dated going so far as to develop a mathematical theorem dedicated to determining the length of a relationship. Silly boy! The reason they don't work out is because he keeps dating women named Katherine! Ah, but that's too easy, and would make for a much shorter book.

I tied that once. Or twice. Dating Katherine's, that is. They didn't have much in common beside their name. And the fact that they both dumped me for other guys. And they lied to me about their ages (like I cared). It only took me two, but I got off the ride before I hurled. Totally true.

Meanwhile, back in the sticks, Hassan-the-Not-a-Terrorist consumes Hardee's Monsterthick Burgers by the gross (1420 calories each) and serves as another of literature's great fat sidekicks, part Hotei, part Pulcinella. When he isn't eating or mooning over Judge Judy on television Hass (I like to think of him shaped like the avocado, but with man tits) continues to put off his college education in the mistaken belief that by not doing something with his life he is doing something quite profound. And he gets the local hottie! That is until she relinquishes her opportunity at his Monsterthick-fed Thunderstick over a tryst in the cemetery.

Over my dead body! Franz Ferdinand might call out from the great beyond. And he'd be right.

In the end, as the smog of Gutshot sinks heavily into the rear view mirror, Colin finally breaks the cycle, forsakes his Katherine Wheel, and picks up a extra passenger on his way out of Gutshot and into Whatever is Next.

It's a crappy summary, but accurate where it counts. If it counts at all.

The Higher Power of Lucky

by Susan Patron
illustrations by Matt Phelan
Simon & Schuster 2006

I'm just not feeling this one.

What is it Chekhov famously never said: If there's a scrotum in the first act it had better pay off in the third?

People are falling all over themselves with this book, generating all kinds of comment and opinion and flame wars on blogs, and in that sense perhaps the Newbery committee was right in choosing it. Perhaps. I'm not convinced yet because I'm still working on the honor books.

I'm not going to present a summary here, just some thoughts I had, things that have been gnawing away at me for the last couple of weeks.

My problem with Lucky is that the pieces don't add up for me. Lucky appears to have sprung out of the Mojave fully formed. That she never saw her father growing up, okay, I can understand why she didn't recognize him. But she was old enough to have memories of her mother, old enough to know what she had, yet she makes little to no mention of those memories and those would be the compelling fixtures that would be keeping her from letting go of her mother.

All this Higher Power business is little girl shorthand, but for what? I'm all for letting readers put together the various pieces but we aren't really given the whole puzzle to work with here. I can see Lucky's insecurity in her survival kit, but the catalyst that causes her to run away is her fear that her guardian Beatrice is going to leave her. That ought to dredge up some fears and memories, tap into some of the more repressed anxieties. Has Lucky's attachment to Beatrice supplanted memories of her mother, and if so, why is so quickly to release her mother's ashes before fully understanding Beatrice's desire to formally adopt her?

And that's another thing, that Beatrice. From Lucky's point of view all Beatrice does is complain about the situation she has gotten herself into, with nary an indication of any warmth that isn't token toward Lucky. She misses France, she hates the desert, she wants to see the California that is Los Angeles, a mere 45 minutes away but cannot and hasn't. How does a person so close to the beaches of Southern California not have the ambition to take Lucky on a trip to the beach but can muster an on-line culinary degree and set up a restaurant in a dead-end desert town? And with her ex-husband's (Lucky's dad's) money?

That's when it all fell apart for me. The guy pays for the funeral and hands Lucky the ashes but doesn't introduce himself. Okay. He sends Beatrice child support and helps her to legally adopt Lucky and lends her the money to set up the restaurant... so, what, he'll make sure that his daughter from one marriage and his ex-wife from another are taken care of so long as they remain in the desert far away from him? What kind of a message is that?

Here's the thing, I didn't start out hating the book from the word scrotum, as many others have. A few chapters in I was looking for a Saroyan My Name is Aram sort of thing, a bunch of collected vignettes of a small community hung together with a thread named Lucky. I'd take the quirky characters and situations and in the end I'd get a crazy quilt of an experience that left me feeling as if I'd drifted in and out of Lucky's little world.

Nope. No such luck.

Vignettes gave way to chapters and a story rose off the asphalt like bug-killing heat. As I tried to corral and assemble the fragments I felt like I was sorting through Lucky's bug collection -- haphazard and randomly assorted with missing information and incorrect assumptions. And when it was over, yeah, that scrotum reference hit me as an odd framing device especially when it didn't really add any meaning or texture to the story. If the story had included more odd and colorful (but not obscene) language I might have felt better about what some refer to as mood-setting language.

As for the Newbery, it's probably best to view it much like any horse race, like the Oscars or the Grammys or the Tonys. The test of time is the ultimate award. My only hope: they repackage it with a different cover when it comes out in paperbook to look a little less Lucky's Higher Power isn't the award itself.

Purple and Brown Distraction

I was going to tackle The Higher Power of Lucky today but something in me said it could wait.

I don't normally like to cross-pollinate my various interests without some sort of connection, but this I had to share. Aardman Animation, recently dumped by Disney (good for them) has been producing these little gems for Nickelodeon. They are addictive, incredibly silly, and perhaps occasionally offensive.

And I loved them. Really perked up my afternoon. Enjoy Purple and Brown at your own peril.

Today and Today

Haiku by Kobayashi Issa
Selected and illustrated by G. Brian Karas
Scholastic Press 2007

Drawing from many translations of haiku from the 18th century Japanese poet, these illustrated little gems celebrate the small moments found in nature. The book is divided into four seasons with each spread dedicated to one or two haiku. Some of the illustrations are straightforward in their representation while others add a delicate layer of mystery or texture to the poem.

One poem in particular captured both the essence of the poem and reinterpreted it in a way I might not have considered were I only reading text.

Calm, indifferent
As if nothing's transpired --
The goose, the willow.

Having read that what would you imagine for an illustration? A goose and a willow, naturally, but calm in the face of what, indifferent to what goings on?

The illustration for the poem takes place in the fall, two children looking out the window at a goose by a small pond near a willow. But the building's only marking is a red and white sign, the symbol of a hospital or an infirmary. What really has transpired here? I could spend whole days imagining scenarios, a whole world of stories opened up by the marriage of word and image.

Karas' illustrations are composed on textured papers and directly onto wood panels that showcase their grain, maintaining their link with nature, celebrating nature in the spirit of haiku. The book shows a great deal of care without feeling precious, simple and sweet without the taint of manufacture. Of course the idea that a slick, commercially produced book appears to have simply created itself is an illusion, just as the simplicity of haiku is an illusion for it contains the ability to startle and focus our attention in a few short syllables.

Indeed, as if nothing has transpired. Yet it has.

Mail Order Ninja

Volume 1
Written by Joshua Elder
Illustrated by Erich Owen
Tokyopop 2006

I'm going to be up front about this so you can read this post through whatever prism you prefer: I don't get Japanese manga, or manga-style comics, or anime.

I say this at my own peril as I have come face-to-face with people who would have extracted a pound of my flesh for even daring criticize manga comics. I say this knowing that manga is a billion dollar industry and, as we all know from living in a capitalist republic, billions of dollars cannot be wrong.

That said, I still venture into the worlds of anime and manga with great hope that I have yet to discover gold, that I just haven't found the proper vehicle to awaken my senses, that I have just been plain wrong in my thinking for a very long time.

I also venture into the world of manga because I have two girls in the house, ages 8 and 10, who are discovering the joys of the graphic novel as a nice supplement to their steady reading diet. Please note, that the mention of graphic novels in the previous sentence should not be construed to mean that I beleive or accept manga as graphic novels. I don't. Graphic novels and manga are as different to one another as soap operas are to theatre; just because they use the same dramatic language does not mean they are interchangeable. My use of the term graphic novel to describe my girls' current reading trend is a shortcut meaning "graphically sequential story-telling media". A bit long winded, doncha think?

I checked out Mail Order Ninja because I was searching for something suitable for my third grade girl that wasn't merely comic strip adventures, something a little more substantive than the Babymouse books (which she gobbled in a single sitting, all of them) but not quite The Baby-Sitter's Club or Time Warp Trio or even Goosebumps. (And why these particular adaptations from publishers? Is there really little else out there to adapt at this age level?) I had come across a review of Mail Order Ninja over at Big A little a a while back and was curious. More than curious, really, as Kelly's review spoke of a level of humor and adventure my girls have been craving of late (James Bond and Indiana Jones movies in particular). Bullies and ninja and stuck-up rich girls and everything. Sounded swell.

First I had to get over my gag reflex. It's a visceral thing that happens when I see the big-headed kids with supersized eyes that is the manga style. This angularity of style has never sat well with me, and has never felt either "random" or "whimsical" as the literal translation of the word manga. That done, I settled in and read about Timmy MacAllister and his mail order ninja. After the obligatory opening action scene with black and white ninjas (very subtle: the roles of good and evil are reversed in color!) we meet Timmy, his soccer mom, distracted dad and conniving evil little sister. Just as quickly it's off to school where the local bully and his underlings have set up a toll booth for extracting and tormenting their prey. After a brief exchange where Timmy's sister sells him out for a cut of the profits it's on to school where we meet Felicity Huntington, the aforementioned stuck-up rich girl with her suck-up minions and fashionista name-dropping of Armani and Versacci and...

That's when I had to stop. Not for good, just to take a gut check. If this were a regular book with ninja and extreme bullies and stuck-up rich kids all made out of cardboard would I continue reading? Certainly if I was reading straight text I doubt the all the characters would be described as having large, adorable heads, with glassy eyes and (for the girls) model thin bodies with model perfect wardrobes to match. This for me is the first problem with graphic storytelling, the idealized forms that send shorthand messages about body image to young readers. This is much easier to get around with anthropomorphic images because no one is going to hold their image of a house pet or farm animal up to the images of a comic drawing. But with young minds already bombarded with television and magazine images of what is popular, cool and "ideal" I don't know if we can just gloss over the representations as "just a comic book" any more than we'd overlook stereotypes in traditional fiction because it's supposed to be humorous.

Text offers the reader an opportunity to put themselves into the book, into the minds of characters and settings. With graphic storytelling the viewer or reader is always on the outside. Even in POV representations there's always the sense of just visiting and never the problem of getting lost in the story or the emotion. The lack of realism within the drawings doesn't allow you to forget that you're looking at drawings. Even the most fantastic CGI effects in a movie, equally man made in every respect, has the ability to mimic reality to the point where grown adults can't tell the difference. That really can't be said with graphic novels, even less so with manga.

I soldiered on, trying to put the rest of the story into context with what I would have wanted to read as a fifth grader and with what I would want my girls to read. I tried to reconcile my discomfort with these manga kids seeking their nerd revenge through martial arts and the fact that my own girls don't see anything like this level of bullying or fashion consciousness in their daily lives. Reading Mail Order Ninja my girls aren't any more likely to understand Armani than they do the sexual innuendos of Bond films, so why am I more hesitant to let them read this lightweight book than I am to cave to their movie hunger?

In the end, yes, it's because I do hold books to a higher standard. Not that a book can't entertain or be lightweight in subject, because I certainly don't feel like everything one reads should be Literature with a capital L. But if we're looking at the current phenomenon of the graphic novel -- and all the comic books, manga and strip collections that are lumped into the same category these days -- and we're going to legitimize them with awards for younger readers then I think we need to slow down, learn the language of graphic storytelling, and not give books a pass because they amuse us to the extent that we don't notice how substandard they may be as literature.

Yak yak yak. I sound like a cranky old man. I'm going to leave Mail Order Ninja out on the kitchen table and see if either of my girls pick it up and read it. And if they read it I'll see if they like it enough to seek out part two.

And I'd be surprised if they do, on either count.

The Music of Dolphins

by Karen Hesse
Scholastic 1996

A teen-aged girl, a wild child, is found on an island off the coast of Florida. Named Mila by the Coast Guard crew who discover her, she is quickly handed over to a small group of scientists for further study. Unlike other feral children Mila exhibits a quick intelligence and the apparent ability to understand, if not communicate with, dolphins. There's a reason for this, as Mila explains how she was raised by a pod of dolphins who rescued her at the age of four when the boat carrying her and her mother was capsized.

Not that any of this information comes out so clearly. From the beginning Mila needs to be taught human speech and language, she learns to use a computer to keep a diary, and piece by piece she acquires the vocabulary necessary to communicate to the scientists around her. Early journal entries are in large type and stilted sentences, though her thought process and ideas are pushing to make her verbal skills catch up. She clearly thinks and knows more than she can say.

The more Mila learns, and the more she learns about terrestrial humans, the less she understands. Moved to a safe study house in Boston she doesn't understand why she can't swim the Charles River naked whenever she feels like it, why she must remain locked up in the house. She is happy to "perform" the tests and tasks asked of her, finds a common language in music and the song of the dolphins and whales, so much so that a creeping melancholy begins to take hold. It is clear that as time goes on she becomes less enchanted with her life on land and homesick for her life among the dolphins.

There are other complications as well. The lead scientist, Doctor Beck, hopes to use Mila as a link between communicating with dolphins, to learn the language of the cetacean world. Dr. Beck's son Justin, a teen himself, disagrees with his mother's motives and tries to answer some of the social questions Mila doesn't quite understand. In Justin Mila senses a stirring that causes her to think about mating and her family in the sea and the confusion between knowing her place in the world. Her journal entries begin to decrease, Mila becomes defiant, finally she begins to regress into a depression. In the end there is little else to do but return Mila to the sea... but can they?

At first blush using Mila's voice to tell the story Hesse draws comparison with Flowers for Algernon. As Charlie Gordon's voice and vocabulary grows in Daniel Keyes's story, so does Mila's but with one important difference; From the first page Mila is shown as having knowledge and vocabulary of her life among the dolphins, an almost poetic song similar to those of the cetaceans she's lived with. Mila's struggle isn't about a shift in intelligence but acquiring a new language with which to communicate. It's also about the struggle of trying to understand human emotions and behavior after having almost no contact with humans for most of her life.

To make the distinction clearer Hesse has included Mila in a small study area with Shay, another feral child, a small girl who was discovered locked away in a dark closet for all of her short life. Having no exposure to any nurturing during her short life Shay never makes any progress while Mila always seems to exceed the expectations of her minders. Mila makes it clear in her various journal entries that the dolphin community is much stronger than even most humans experience and that appears to make all the difference. It is also the underlying reason why Mila could never be happy on land.

The question in the end is whether the most responsible thing is to return Mila to her dolphin pod or force her to adopt and adapt to the ways of her species. After reading The Music of Dolphins the answer is obvious, but it's unsettling to think about. Which makes it near perfect to these eyes.

The Story of Cherry the Pig

by Utako Yamada
Kane/Miller Books 2007

Cherry the Pig loves to bake. One day she makes an apple cake, doting on each step of the process to make the tastiest cake she can. Enjoying a cup of tea while the cake cools she hears from the kitchen "It's incredible!" Dashing in she finds a family of mice nibbling at her cake and shoos them away.

Did they say her cake was incredible? They're right! And with that Cherry the Pig sets about to enter her apple cake in the bake-off at coming the Harvest Festival.

Festival time comes and Cherry is as proud as a pig can be when entering her cake in the contest. Then she once again overhears a conversation, the family of mice again. "Why would she enter that incredibly awful cake in the competition?" Could it be? Had she misheard the mice the first time? Perhaps they were right, and perhaps she was making a fool of herself. But it's too late, the competition has already begun and the judges have begin their announcements.

Sitting in the shade there is little left for Cherry to do but wait until the competition is over and take her cake home. Needless to say she is surprised when the winner of the Golden Whisk is announced and it's for Cherry and her apple cake!

Flush with the praise of all the judges Cherry the Pig is moved to open her own bakery. On her way home she discovers a bag of snacks where the mice had been sitting. Cherry tries them and to her amazement they turn out to be biscuits, very salty and very cheesy biscuits. Cherry then understands everything, that mice with a preference for hard, salty, crusty biscuits would never find a sweet scrumptious apple cake delicious. Once she has opened her bakery and served all her delectable items to others she sets about making one last item, biscuits perfect for discerning mice.

Much of the summary of this story is between the lines. The story and dialog are very direct and easy to understand and charming in an innocent sort of way. The book is deliberately paced is a way that is reminiscent of books several decades older yet still feels fresh. In fact, the entire look of the book speaks to picture books of the past. The four-color illustrations in crayon and spot color, bright and cheery in yellow, green, brown and that peachy-red seem to have been borrowed from 1964. There is a sense of nostalgia, a very palpable link between past and present that makes the book feel timeless without trying. It's a bit of Mary Blair filling in a Golden Books pastry. Quite a concoction.

According to her biography on the Kane Miller website it appears this was Utako Yamada's first book, that she has illustrated other books, and that she has been the proprietor of a tea house (named Karel Capek, which speaks volumes in and of itself) and a dessert shop in Japan. It also says she's illustrated at least 20 other books. If they're anything like this -- and the smattering of translated web pages I was able to hunt down with her work on it -- then I'll look forward to seeing those down the road.

As publishers have been dipping into their archives to revive anniversary editions of older books (Anatole and The Happy Lion, for example) it is nice to see that satisfying books can be made that slide in easily along side these classics. More like this, please; More warm and inviting stories with illustrations that match, and a little less of the cold, harsh workmanlike wanking of books whose titles will not be mentioned here.

Fourth Grade Rats

by Jerry Spinelli
Scholastic 1991

"First grade babies!
Second grade cats!
Third grade angels!
Fourth grade . . . RRRRRATS!"

So goes the old playground chant, setting up the story of Spud and his pal Joey as they begin their first weeks of fourth grade. While Spud views the idea of being a rat something less than desirable Joey is proud of the possibilities. Being a rat to Joey means pushing smaller kids off the swings, making a mess of his room, defying his mother, trading peanut butter and jelly for bologna sandwiches, and bathing once a month. To Joey, being a rat is the first step toward being a man.

Spud is dubious, he's not really sure he's cut out to be a rat. Spud also has a crush on Judy Billings who doesn't even give him a second glance. But one day Joey allows a bee not only to crawl all over his arm but sting him and instantly he's a magnet for the attention of girls, including Judy Billings. And if that's what it takes to get her attention, then Spud's going to become a rat.

The going isn't easy for Spud. To prove he's no longer a crybaby he has to watch his video of E.T. and not cry. He has to dump his baby-ish lunchbox and start using a paper sack. He has to climb out onto the roof of his house and get over his fear of heights. And, according to Joey, he has to stand up to his mother and refuse to clean his room. Then Spud screws up his courage and tries to sit with Judy at lunch. When she rebuffs him, and when the school bully pulls the chair out from under him, he goes on a true rat-worthy rampage. He smashes a younger kid's face into his cake, he tosses kids off the swings with abandon, in short order he becomes the king rat.

Impressed, Judy wants to walk to school with him. Along the way she dares him to pick up and carry a spider to school, allowing it to crawl all over him, which vaults Spud into the third grade spotlight. But when Judy needs Spud to climb a tree and retrieve her cat his machismo falters as his fear of heights returns and he remains trapped in the tree until he can be rescued by his parents. Joey's own rattitude takes a sudden turn when his mother finally decides enough is enough. In the end, Spud learns his first steps toward becoming a man has little to do with acting mean and impressing girls and more to do with accepting himself for who he is.

That's quite a bit to cram into 80 pages, and Spinelli does it with the breezy economy that appeals to middle grade readers. It's interesting that Spinelli goes for the fourth graders moving from underdog to top dog because it is clear even in this book that the true top dogs are the barely-mentioned sixth graders. In that respect I think the book serves as a cautionary tale for younger readers who might be looking forward to moving into the top slots, a reminder that age is better served by humility and wisdom not bullying and bravado.

I stumbled onto this book recently after doing some research on playground folklore and anthropology. Although the "fourth grade rats" line is traditional for rhymes ending at fourth grade, versions that go all the way though middle school are slightly different.

First grade babies,

Second grade tots,

Third grade angels,

Fourth grade snots,

Fifth grade peaches,

Sixth grade plums,

Seventh grade ladies,

Eighth grade bums.

There are all sorts of slight regional variations, but none of those that go beyond fourth grade call them rats. I'm not quite sure how seventh grade boys feel about being ladies, or how eighth grade girls feel about being bums, but I can see why a fourth grader might prefer being a rat to a snot.

Cured

This is turning out to be my one-stop mood-lifter. John Green and his brother Hank are exchanging video blog posts. Today John answers Hanks' questionnaire and follows up with the "In Your Pants" game of book title suffixes. John singing his version of a Carter Family favorite just threw me back into the world of the living.

John, I don't know you, but you totally rawk.

Back On the Horse

I've been in a strange funk all this week without reason. I don't know if it's Seasonal Affective Disorder or the lack of snow this winter or just a random case of the blahs. Anyway, late last night I came to the conclusion that I hadn't been blogging enough lately, so here goes a little blog therapy.

I have tired, daily, to post some sort of commentary on the idea of the graphic novel as literature. Part of me feels like I'm trying to reinvent the wheel with my ideas while another part feels like I'm trying to build a hybrid car with Lincoln Logs and Tinker Toys. I've gone through several "drafts" of a blog post and I find myself saying "They're just your opinions, it's only a blog!" every time I get bogged down. But I think before I jump back into that I need to read and review some more books. Y'know, to clear the palate.

Meanwhile, over at the Lisa Yee blog they've announced the winners in the Bodacious Book Title Contest and while I neither won nor took honors I was pleased to see that my entry was one of Lisa's favorites. I am the anonymous party responsible for Pop on Hop.

After suffering the back-breaking abuse of his young cubs using him for a trampoline, Papa Bear becomes a heroin addict.

You know, even when I was a kid I wondered about all that abuse poor Pop took. I had younger sibling and we would occasionally pigpile each other (dogpile to some of you) and that was bad enough. If memory serves we also used to follow up our rough-housing with a game of pretending we were feeble and old and needed to go to a hospital. Ah, childhood.

Rejected

I could just as easily titled this post Blue Monday, in honor of it being the most depressing day of the year. But it's such a day of mixed feelings that I thought Rejected better spoke to my mood.

It's never good to get that envelope back from a publisher, especially when it looks recycled and has the previous address covered with a sticker and other bits and pieces covered over with a fat felt-tipped marker. I'm no Kreskin, but the envelope had all the markings of a sloppy, harried intern. I won't say which publisher or which editor's name was attached, only that it was a little sad to get back the manuscript with nary a comment in sight.

I didn't even get a terse little form letter.

But all is not lost. Before the mail came I was able to toss out 13 lucky manuscript pages that, raw as they are, feel a whole lot better than the manuscript that came home with it's tail between it's legs. Granted, we're talking apples and oranges here -- picture book versus YA -- but it was still nice to be able to get something out ahead of the influence of otherwise bad news.

Oh yeah, and the ALA made some sort of announcements today about some kind of awards. All I really have to say is that as much as I like Flotsam I was pretty sure it would be passed over for something like Adele and Simon. Time will tell whether American Born Chinese really is the best that graphic novels have to offer. I have issues with graphic novels, and it's all about the disconnect between the history and tradition of the form and whether or not the librarians and booksellers really are up to speed with understanding what makes a truly good graphic novel. I'm still stewing over a post about this. Some day...

A parting shout out to Vonnegut, who first introduced me to the phrase Goodbye Blue Monday and saved me from myself back in 8th grade when I was a pubescent mess.

Polo: The Runaway Book

by Regis Faller
Roaring Book Press 2007

"When a smiley face steals his book, Polo goes on another fabulous adventure to retrieve it."

That was the note I made to myself. You can tell I used to summarize movies. Badly, at times.

In what amounts to a graphic novel for the picture book set (and for those of us who enjoy a good, lengthy visual story) this follow-up to Polo's last adventure deals in the same sort of flights of fantasy where the unexplainable is quite natural. Along the way Polo confronts, visits or enlists the help of a variety of creatures and beings who are equally at home in their little worlds -- the genie in the desert, the princess pig in the land of clouds, the chicken flying a balloon craft over the ocean, the cloud people whose boxing ring becomes a dance stage, the penguin whose knitting unravels and becomes the sort of living line that was the stock and trade of Harold and his purple crayon, all jumping from one fantastic setting to then next.

Faller's book doesn't fall into the traditional category of "European" (the book was originally published in France) in that the illustration is immediately approachable. What does feel non-American about it is the scope of the story, it's length, and episodic nature of Polo's adventures. It's a question of trusting the attention span of young readers, I fear, that and the attitude European audiences have toward graphic novels. I have already heard adults refer to this book as a comic book because of its multi-panel format -- lumping it generically and with total ignorance into the same camp as Superman, The Archies and Peanuts gang -- writing it off as something lesser than a traditional picture book. Which is a shame.

If a pre-reading child can sit for 30 minutes and watch, and follow, a television program they deserve enough credit to be given a book with 80 pages that manages to transport them to half dozen worlds of fantasy and adventure. And they only need to know two words to follow along, a phrase only uttered twice in the entire story.

"My book!"

Marly's Ghost

by David Levithan
with spot illustrations by Brian Selznick
Dial 2006

The premise sounds less than promising: Take Dickens' A Christmas Carol and update it to present day, change the holiday to Valentine's Day, and turn Scrooge into a 16 year old boy hardened and embittered against all things romantic after having lost the love of his life.

(Spoilers, such as they are, follow).

Marly is the young girl Ben (short for Ebenezer) has lost to an unnamed cancer, the chains binding her to the living are a charm bracelet filled with memories and mementos her Ben holds so dear they keep both of them from moving on. The three spirits who visit Ben are of Valentine's Day's past, present and future giving him glimpses into who he was, is and could be. The diminutive waif Tiny Tim here becomes a gay couple, Tiny and Tim, who first feel the brunt of Ben's anger and frustration only to see him turn and become their biggest supporters.

It's quite a feat to update Dickens and make it relevant to a teen audience and the effort here is admirable, if flawed. The book calls itself a remix as opposed to a retelling because Levithan has attempted to retain as much of Dickens's original text and dialog wherever appropriate. The effect is that the narrative is woven with odd little bits that never quite seem to mesh with the story being told. There's almost a sense of the archaic in some of the speech, particularly when Ben communicates with the spirits.

I'm also a little confused about the message. Is it that Ben shouldn't grieve the loss, or simply that he's gone too far in wallowing in his grief. With Dickens it is understood that Scrooge had hardened himself over a great many years and his heart hardened over so that his conversion required divine intervention. But the idea here is that Ben has succumbed so quickly that it appears no one has tried to provide the boy any sort of grief counseling at all. Granted, it removes the story from it's flow to look too deeply beyond the simplicity of its origins but it also distracts from the believability of Ben's conversion to suggest that all he needs is an extra-terrestrial reminder of what he's become (and a glimpse at being dead by age 19) to send him to the other side of the emotional spectrum. I'm not a big advocate of psychotherapudic pharmaceuticals but a low dose and a little counseling would have helped Ben a whole better than his conversion into an exuberant pro-love apostle out to spread the good word.

When I was a teen and reading rock and roll criticism seriously there was a review for something that the critic derided snidely as "perfect for 14 year olds in love". Well, I was 14 at the time, in love, and didn't understand why that was such a bad thing. This would have been the perfect book for me back then.

Remy Charlip

This is Remy.
He was born on this day in 1929. I met him when I was a boy, sometime around when he would have been 40 years old, around the age he was in this picture.

I don't fully remember the circumstances, the time or place, it's all part of the dreaminess of childhood. It was a large room, filled with kids, and this free-spirited man who must have come across like a whirlwind. Could it have been at the L.A. County Museum of Fine Art? Perhaps. The space had the large, open feeling of an empty gallery, but more finished and refined than a dance studio or performance space. There was music and singing and dancing, all of it very unconventional. Imaginary Dances, I believe he called them. We were kids, we didn't care what they were called, we just did our little interpretive wriggling and posturing and had a lot of fun.

He wrote and illustrated children's books as well. One of my favorites was a hodge podge collection of illustrated jokes, poems, puns, songs and other playful amalgamations of word and image. It was called Arm in Arm and is, occasionally, still available.

Another book of his that was a favorite is the kind of book that has seeped deeply into the subconscious of many people I have met. Strangely, while many are familiar with the book -- and the sort of word game it engenders between budding wordsmiths and their parents -- few can name it's author. Perhaps you are familiar with Fortunately.

Fortunately, Ned was invited to a surprise party.
Unfortunately, the party was a thousand miles away.
Fortunately, a friend loaned Ned an airplane.
Unfortunately, the motor exploded.
Fortunately, there was a parachute in the airplane.
Unfortunately, there was a hole in the parachute....

Once I got the rhythm of this in my head as a child I could never let it go. For the rest of my days, whenever I heard someone make a declarative statement beginning with either the word fortunately or unfortunately I would find myself (often in my own head, for my own amusement) countering with a humorous rejoinder. And I have heard the call and response of parent and child making up their own fortunately/unfortunately dialog so I know I'm not the only one.

He wrote and illustrated many other books. The circular playfulness of I Love You. The silhouetted gothic of Mother, Mother, I Feel Sick; Send for the Doctor, Quick, Quick, Quick. The gentle care in illustrating the lesson of Margaret Wise Brown's The Dead Bird. The anonymous beasty of Four Fur Feet. They endure because they reach into a vast well of understatement that promotes and celebrates the power and beauty of a child-like imagination. They bare the unmistakable mark of a poet choreographer whose fondness for sharing his exuberance with children was evident in all he did.

Remy suffered a stroke a few years back and has been slowly on the mend. Before the stroke he finished work on a children's book called A Perfect Day to be released in May of this year by HarperCollins. The summary of the book:

A parent and child spend a perfect day together, from sunrise to nightfall.

Though I'm sure it's an accurate summation, somehow I doubt it's as simple as all that.

Not a Box

by Antoinette Portis
HarperCollins 2006

Jules over at Seven Impossible Things has managed to basically say everything (and then some) that I would have wanted to say about this book.

So I'm just going to stand here and nod while you go visit her and read for yourself. Go on, I'll be here when you get back.

* * * !

Excuse me. Sorry, just finishing up some holiday candy. Welcome back.

One of the things this book did was rekindle a memory from my younger days, shortly after I discovered MAD magazine. Dave Berg was a regular contributor who provided cartoon strips grouped around a single subject. The cartoons always felt dated, like an old man from the 1950's giving the younger generation (the 1970's) a jaundiced look. To be fair he took shots across all generations and exposed all for the folly of their thinking.

While I read his cartoons every issue I felt they really said little that wasn't either obvious or cliched. Then One day he did a cartoon centered around Christmas. The house has been ravaged by a trio of kids tearing through their presents, the parents are frazzled, the toys lay scattered all around. But where are the kids? Outside, playing with the oversized cardboard boxes their presents came in.

Which is how Dave Berg fits into all this.

I don't know an adult who at one time or another didn't find more fun with a cardboard box than anything it could have contained. My girls squeal in agony whenever we throw out an empty box, even a shoe box, because they can always see "project" potential in each of them. As a packrat personality (and a messy desk genius) I totally understand; somewhere around her I have a cigar box that I've been holding onto for nearly 15 years and just last week found the perfect project for it. All I have to do now is carve out the time to work on it. That should add another five years to the life of the box before it's either lost, destroyed or repurposed.

The thing about Not a Box is that it's one of those perfect books that makes people slap their heads and go Right! Why didn't I think of this?

And why didn't I?

On Notice 2007

Just a few of the people and things that ought to be on notice.
Subject to change. Daily.

The Homework Machine

by Dan Gutman
Simon and Schuster 2006

There's a lot going on in this little book, and a summary would probably take more words than are in the original book.

Basically four 5th grade misfits find themselves in a heap of trouble when the nerdiest among them uses his computer mastery to invent -- that's right -- a homework machine capable of scanning an assignment sheet and spitting it out complete with answers that mimic their handwriting. The troubles ought to stem from the homework machine itself, but in the cockeyed world Dan Gutman's created it isn't until the kids panic and destroy the computer by tossing it into the Grand Canyon that they even get caught.

Their real troubles come out in the course of things. Snik is the brash loudmouth whose Air Force dad gets deployed to the Middle East. Kelsey lost her dad long ago and has been clamping down on her emotions ever since. Judy's just an effortless brainiac who is longing for something a little more social than hours of homework. And Brenton is the tie-wearing computer whiz who created the homework machine and inadvertently became the coolest kid around by not being cool at all.

That four kids with nothing in common but a large dose of distaste for one another find themselves bound together tighter than most life-long friends is part of this book's larger charm. Leave aside the implausibility of a psycho-stalking marketeer looking to exploit the quad's ability to set trends nationwide, or the willful ignorance of their teacher to follow up on her suspicion that the kids might be cheating, and you're left with the kind of fantasy world 5th graders love to delve into. What could be better than thinking you and your friends could build a homework machine? What could be better than thinking the world is full of adults who haven't got a clue?

Is this a perfect book? Is this a great work of literature for children? No, it is neither, but it's a lot more entertaining than a lot of what I've been reading lately.

It's funny, I've seen some interest in this book by kids but adults who want nothing to do with it once I start in on details. One parent thought it was "dreadful" that a children's book would contain a reference to the current war in the Middle East. Another used the world "distasteful" to describe a book with a main character whose father had died. Almost all thought the idea of the homework machine itself preposterous.

Exactly. Adults don't get it and the kids do, which is why I don't think a vast majority of adults should be buying their kids books. Alas, they make the money, they control the purse strings.

(On the flip side, I witnessed a mother recently supporting her little Billy as he bought an entire shelf of Deltora titles with the justification that "as long as he's reading, I'm happy." Yeah, and you could feed him nothing but cheese sandwiches three times a day because that's all he likes and just as easily say "as long as he's eating, I'm happy", but that would make you an irresponsible parent. Variety being the spice of life and all, I'd rather a kid read 20 different junk titles and learn how to discern good stories and writing from bad. They become better readers that way, as opposed to intolerant binge readers.)

I guess what I enjoyed most about The Homework Machine is that it's the perfect kind of summer read for the 5th grade set when they get tired of Where the Red Fern Grows or wish to shift gears after Number the Stars.

Paid.

A few days ago I received a check in the mail. I had assumed my days for getting paid to write were still in a foggy future. Apparently "paid upon publication" now includes electronic sneak peaks and so I find myself here.

I cannot actually see which of my little brickbats and bouquets are actually available on line but it looks like there's a baker's dozen of them.

Now, what's up with those picture book queries I sent out a while back...