Review of the Day: The Talented Clementine

The Talented Clementine by Sara Pennypacker, illustrated by Marla Frazee. Hyperion. $14.99.

When “Clementine” arrived on the scene in 2006 it hit a nerve. Otherwise sane and rational adults began thwapping one another over the heads with the book screaming, “READ THIS! READ THIS! READ THIS!” Children were left abandoned as their parental units devoured the title. Kids, as it happened, quite enjoyed the book as well, but you could be forgiven for not noticing this through the swarm of “Clementine”-addled adults out there. Now the sequel has popped onto shelves everywhere and we are experiencing the calm before the storm. Copies are already flying off the shelves, but we won’t experience the true gale-force winds of the faithful until the summer months. Then watch those copies simply fly. Sequels come with their own set of rules and regulations, of course. Rule #1 tends to be, “Be As Interesting As Your Predecessor,” and is too often ignored by writers. Not Pennypacker. A worthy sequel and a perfectly packaged little gem, “The Talented Clementine,” will please the initiated and uninitiated Clementine-fans alike.

It’s talent show time! Yes, the third and fourth graders of Clementine’s school are gonna put on a production to beat the band and this puts our heroine in a bit of a pickle. Clementine has no talents. None. Zippo o’ talentos. Well, none that she can perform anyway. She cannot dance or sing or cartwheel or Hula-Hoop. Her best friend Margaret can do all of these and more but even with her “help” Clementine’s having some difficulty. And really, it isn’t until the day in question that she discovers something she can do that no other third grader seems capable of. Something that isn't flashy or even noticeable, but that quite positively saves the day.

The funny thing about this particular volume is that Pennnypacker has done away with a subplot. There’s no A story paired with a lesser B story for kicks. This pup’s A and only A from start to finish. You might think that would make the book tedious and slow, but the author appears to know what she’s doing. The concept of figuring out what you do best is infinitely difficult to write about for any extended length of time without sounding like a broken record. All the more reason then for the author to add in details like Clementine super-gluing beer bottlecaps to the soles of her shoes in the hopes learning to tap. I can probably say with certainty that I’ve never read a children’s early chapter book that contained a kid who stinks like a brewery. Other unique details include the presence of adults that aren’t villains. The Principal that Clementine is constantly excusing herself to talk to acts more like an infinitely patient psychotherapist than an authority figure.

I’d like to point out that what I’m doing right now (reviewing this book) is a dangerous thing. You have no idea the position I’ve placed myself in, do you? How easy it is, when reviewing a Clementine, to suddenly lapse into copying down quote after quote from the text without giving it a second thought. I might try to encourage you to read the book by typing something like, “And that’s when the worried feeling – as if somebody were scribbling with a big black crayon – started up in my brains.” That might work. Or I could slip in a little description of the school nurse that says, “She always looks bored, as if she’s just killing time until a really good disease hits the school.” I think you should count your lucky stars that I’ve too strong a sense of self-preservation to ever fall into that trap. Whew!

You know, if we’re going to be perfectly honest with one another here, you should probably know that some people do not care for “Clementine”. Such people have grown tired of the spunky-red-haired-female genre and equate Clem with Junie B. Jones and her pseudo-spunky ilk. Such people, nine times out of ten, have not physically sat down and read the book cover to cover, but some have and Clementine is just not their bag. I’ve also heard objections to Clementine’s maturity or lack thereof. Some people didn’t believe (as seen in the first book) that a third grader would be so immature as to cut off all of her best friend’s hair. But even if that’s your objection to “Clementine”, there’s nothing to stop you from loving its follow-up. Maturity varies with every individual. And if there's any way to describe this heroine, it's as an "individual" indeed.

So why do people like Pennypacker’s books so much? Maybe it’s because she’s damn good at nailing little truths here and there. We know what it’s like when a teacher is so excited by a program that they end up tacking on words to the Pledge of Allegiance like, “With liberty and justice for all and I know we’re all very excited to get to our big project.” Her characters feel believable. Clementine is self-involved, sure. What third grader isn’t? But she honestly feels a concern for her annoying baby brother. In fact, she’s so afraid that the babysitter will forget that he’s allergic to peanuts that she scrawls a, “NO PEANUTS FOR ME!” in blue permanent marker on his head so as to avoid any accidents.

One of the branches in my library system is mere days away from hosting an honest-to-goodness “Clementine” party. There will be a pin-the-bologna-glasses-on-the-face, a pigeon toss, and who knows what all. I was hoping there might be a wok spin, but no such luck. Now after having read the sequel, I wonder what additional crafts and ideas might come of this newest title. A howling contest? A bottle cap coloring station? The mind boggles. Whatever they decide upon, I know that they’ll need plenty of copies of this book when it finally reaches their shelves. Once again, the Clementine-shaped ball that is this book gets knocked cleanly out of the park. A worthy continuation.

Notes on the Cover: Uh, it's Marla Frazee, dude. Short of drawing this cover entirely in her own blood I can't think of a way she could have messed up this image. I also happen to love that Clementine's new shoes make the cover and that the image you see here hints broadly at the talent she eventually finds. Nicely done.

First Line: "I have noticed that teachers get exciting confused with boring a lot."

Previously Reviewed By: What Adrienne Thinks About That, MotherReader, and A Year of Reading. Please inform me if I have missed anyone.

Review of the Day: The Titan's Curse

The Titan's Curse by Rick Riordan. Miramax Books (an imprint of Hyperion Books For Children). $17.95

You know, it still strikes me as odd when I run across a kid who hasn’t read a Percy Jackson book yet. Take, for example, the homeschooler bookgroup I run. These kids aren’t exactly sheltered, but at the same time they don’t feel unnaturally compelled to follow the latest trend due to peer pressure. They hadn’t even heard of Rick Riordan when I proposed to them that we read, “The Lightening Thief”, the other day. Obediently they took the book home and in a week some of them were back, basically begging me for Book #2. Now they’ve found out that I’ve a copy of #3, “The Titan’s Curse,” hidden about my person and if I don’t give it to them soon there will be blood shed. My blood. So while I usually take a long time to process a book before finally getting around to reviewing it, in Mr. Riordan’s case I’m gonna make an exception. The third in the series, in “Titan’s Curse,” Riordan raises the stakes, adds in a couple new gods and monsters, and basically ratchets up the tension while cutting down on the easygoing moments. It's bound to make the fans happy.

Percy’s on a rescue mission. Nothing new there. The fact that he’s getting a ride to the rescue mission with his mom and two of his camp mates is definitely a unique occurrence, though. Percy, Annabeth, and the now re-humanized Thalia (daughter of Zeus) are traveling to a private school where their friend and satyr Grover has made an important discovery. There are two new half-bloods there, a brother and a sister, and it’s up to our heroes to get them to Camp Half-Blood before the resident monster spirits them away. Unfortunately the rescue mission is botched, Annabeth disappears with the enemy, and Percy finds himself facing a whole new bad guy. He’s called The General, and under his command he’s captured the goddess Artemis and is hellbent on destroying the Gods for his master, the Titan Kronos. Now it’s up to Percy and company to rescue the goddess, find Annabeth, and stop The General’s plans before it's too late. Which, I might add, it might already be.

Riordan’s a much cleverer author than anyone gives him credit for. He’s smart enough to know that many of his readers have probably read up on their Greek myths all thanks to his books. Therefore, when someone like Apollo says, “I hate it when pretty girls turn into trees,” you may or may not know what he’s referring to, depending on how well you know your myths. And in retrospect when I look back at the series, it was a really good idea for Riordan not to make Percy the son of Zeus or something like that. It would’ve been the easiest thing in the world to make Mr. Jackson a latter-day Hercules and let the story write itself from there. Far more interesting to give him a lesser god as a pop. Still powerful, mind you, but not heir to the big bad father of them all. Extra kudos for his treatment of Artemis and her Hunters in this book. In the story, the girls that join Artemis to hunt with her have, for one reason or another, eschewed the company of men. Annabeth, it soon turns out, was contemplating joining them. This easily could have been played up as an evil choice or one that no right-minded woman should go with. Instead, Riordan prefers to be nuanced. The choice, we learn, may not be for everyone, but for some people it’s a legitimate lifestyle. It would have been too easy to demonize an all-woman group of this sort. He could have made them into nasty man-haters. Instead, they don’t particularly like men but they also don’t act cruelly towards them.

Riordan’s also a big fan of casting mysterious phrases the reader’s way. This is nothing new, of course. He’s always loved to bring up an important sentence, then delay its explanation via a fight or some other distraction. Normally he knows how to keep this instinct under control. In “The Titan’s Curse,” however, he’s gone a little overboard. There are more times in this title where the book will say, “It was a long time ago. Never mind,” or, “I decided not to ask what she meant,” or something to that effect than he can really justify as an author. He also isn’t afraid to throw in a convenient plot twist when the fancy strikes. Like, for example, finding an abandoned truck with a full tank of gas when you really need to drive as fast as you can across America. Or someone just happening to fashion bullets out of celestial bronze and then placing them in a helicopter not long before the moment when evil monsters are nigh. That sort of thing. Even Percy’s dreams are never explained, even though they act as perfect little narrative devices. It's a pity.

Which is not to say that the situation in this book isn't direst it’s ever been. The pace and plotting of this book work together very well here. Possibly better than they’ve ever worked before. Riordan juggles humor and action together fairly well, always taking time to introduce new, interesting characters. I also have a weakness for Riordan’s chapter headings. Titles like “I Learn How To Grow Zombies,” or, “The Gods Vote How To Kill Us,” just reel the child reader in. As for his hero, you always root for Percy. Unlike his magician equivalent, Percy never really stays on top of things. If something bad can happen to this guy, it will. He’s a hero but he’s also kind of a screw-up, so he tends to be interesting to watch since you never know who’ll be putting him down next.

Some series books have a clear cut sense of when they’re going to end. Take Harry Potter as your example here. Harry attends seven years of school (in theory) so therefore he has seven books in his series. “A Series of Unfortunate Events” follows a tragic and unlucky set of characters, therefore their books are the unarguably unlucky number thirteen. The “Percy Jackson and the Olympians,” series, however, isn’t so clear cut. We do learn in this book that Percy may have to fulfill a prophecy of some sort around his sixteenth birthday. So at the very least that may mean two more books, always assuming Riordan makes each title exactly one year. However he chooses to wrap the series up, it really doesn’t matter. For the time being, “The Titan’s Curse,” will satisfy its die-hard fans. I don’t know how Riordan managed to find the right child-reader sweet spot, but he definitely managed it. A fine supplement to a fun, fast-paced series.

Notes on the Cover: Nice. Looks like Miramax learned their lesson after that atrocious initial Percy Jackson cover. Now they've employed a Christine Kettner to create the cover design. And this may well be my favorite Riordan cover thus far. The colors alone are magnificent. You've the recognizable New York landmark, Percy (his face in shadow), and some nasty mysterious vines. I love the colors, the angle, and the lighting. It's nice to see a cover that doesn't lean so heavily on photography these days too.

Notable First Lines: "The Friday before winter break, my mom packed me an overnight bag and a few deadly weapons and took me to a new boarding school."

On shelves May 1, 2007.

Reviews of the Day: My Friend Is Sad AND Today I Will Fly

My Friend Is Sad by Mo Willems. Hyperion Books For Children. $8.99

Today I Will Fly by Mo Willems. Hyperion Books For Children. $8.99


Two reviews! Two! I’m giving you two reviews for the price of one. Now you just can’t beat that kind of a deal.

When creative people have children, it has a tendency to affect their work in some way. In worst case scenarios you’ll have celebrities of the Madonna-like persuasion churning out picture books like there’s no tomorrow. Politicians in turn may take time off to “spend more time with their family” (which sounds good even when it isn’t true). But what happens to those people already working in the realm of children’s entertainment? How are they changed by the experience? Take as you example, Mo Willems. Here’s a fellow who was working with Sesame Street and Nickelodeon long before dipping a dainty toe into the waters of children’s book publishing. He does so, along comes his daughter, and Mr. Willems starts changing the kind of work he does. He creates deeply personal picture books like, “Knuffle Bunny” that go on to win Caldecott Honors. He performs with his daughter in a Weston Woods video. And then, most striking of all, he decides to create a book series that his child would be able to read to him. Easy reader books are, to my mind, perhaps the most difficult books to write. It takes a genius like Dr. Seuss or P.D. Eastman to convey concepts and stories with simple words. How much harder would it have to be then to make such a book not only fun to read and easy to understand but also laugh-out-loud funny? Only author Mo Willems knows for sure. Fortunately for us, the Elephant and Piggie books, “My Friend Is Sad,” and “Today I Will Fly!” are entities that stand entirely of their own. If you've never seen funny easy reading, these will soon solve that woe.

“My Friend Is Sad”, is a straightforward little story. Gerald the elephant is mighty depressed and Piggie feels that it is her duty to cheer him up. First she appears before him as a cowboy, knowing how fond he is of them. Gerald is thrilled, then immediately sad. Next Piggie is a clown, but Gerald is STILL sad. When even a time-stepping robot won’t cheer him up, Piggie goes to apologize to her friend for being unable to make him happy. Gerald explains that he is overjoyed now because Piggie is near, but that earlier he was quite unhappy when he saw a cowboy, a clown, and “a cool cool robot,” and couldn’t share these things with Piggie because she wasn’t around. Reconciled the two sit contently, and Gerald remarks that he needs his friends. Piggie can’t help but reply to the reader, “You need new glasses . . .” and all is well. In the second book, “Today I Will Fly”, Piggie is intent on one thing. Flight. Gerald remains incredulous, but his porcine companion is not to be deterred. Hopping doesn’t help and a fine leap away from a vicious dog only means that she jumps particularly well. Soon a solution is found involving a helpful pelican. Impressed, Gerald comments that perhaps tomorrow he will fly as well. “Good luck’, murmurs Piggie with a wink.

I won’t lie to you. I’m a twenty-eight-year-old woman and I’ve been reading these books over and over since I laid my hands on them. I can’t explain it. “My Friend Is Sad”, in particular tickles my fancy. I have a hard time not snickering every time Gerald explains to Piggie why it is that the cowboy he saw made him sad. “But you love cowboys!”, explains Piggie, confused. Gerald smiles and says wistfully, “I do. I love cowboys.” Next thing you know he’s grabbed Piggie by the labels and screams while shaking, “But you were not there to see him!” This cracks me up. Gerald’s despair is so melodramatic and self-absorbed that when he shouts his sorrow over the “funny funny clown” (his knees have buckled by this point, his head thrown back) Piggie can't help but stare at the viewer with the skeptical half-mast expression of someone who feels that she is having her leg pulled. I’ve just gone through and counted at least sixteen different positions Gerald puts himself through so as to convey to the viewer his complete and utter wretchedness. Sixteen, folks. In an early reader. That's class.

Look, I’m not saying that I didn’t have any respect for Mr. Willems before this book. “Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus”, is obviously an exercise in letting a simple drawing speak for itself. But the Elephant and Piggie books require an entirely different set of muscles and for that my admiration has shot up. Simple images are one thing. Simple words are another. Take “Today I Will Fly!” as your example. Like “My Friend Is Sad”, it starts off with a single premise, becomes rapidly absurd, solves the problem (with one character staring incredulously at the other), and ends on a sly joke (curiously by the same person both times). And in both cases Piggie is trying to do something and failing. Interestingly enough, Gerald is the skeptic in the book where his good friend tries to defy gravity again and again. When Piggie comes around to agreeing that a mighty leap does not constitute flight, she declares resolutely, “I will try again!” Gerald looks particularly unconvinced as he exits stage right saying, “I will eat lunch,” and an overly enthused Piggie waves, “Good-bye!”. Comedy. You dissect it and it’s not funny anymore. So I can’t really say how it is that Willems found a way to make stories this straightforward as amusing as they are. That he did is enough for me.

What we may have on our hands here are the makings of an entirely new franchise. Think about the shocking popularity of critters like “The Cat and the Hat”, for example. I don’t want to suggest that someday there will be a filmed version of Elephant and Piggie starring someone like Mike Myers, but stranger things could happen. So before the hype and the overkill set in, take some time to discover this charming twosome on your own. These books may be one of those rare creations that turn the tables so that it is the adults who will be begging their children to read them an Elephant and Piggie book again and again and again. Another hit out of the park for the Willems man.

On shelves April 1, 2007.

Review of the Day: Wolf! Wolf!

Wolf! Wolf! written and illustrated by John Rocco. Hyperion Books For Children. $15.99.

Yesterday at work I had three different patrons ask me for alternate versions Cinderella. How many versions do you want, ask I. As many as you’ve got, reply they. Oy. While searching and running and running and searching for the myriad of admittedly very interesting picture books out there, I started to think about folktales that span the globe. From Ed Young’s, "Lon Po Po” (a Chinese take on Little Red Riding Hood) to “Duffy and the Devil” by Margot Zemach (a book with a “Rumplestiltskin” twist), the world is full of familiar tales. On the flip side of the coin are the stories taken from one culture and put into another for the very first time. Though they haven’t the history and mythology of those stories that naturally developed in different settings, such tales can be interesting in their own right. A fine example of this kind of storytelling is John Rocco’s take on the classic Boy Who Cried Wolf tale. Set in Japan, “Wolf! Wolf!” offers us arthritic wolves and dumb-as-a-post human boys in a tale that is as droll as it is surprisingly gentle.

An old wolf is long past his young hunting days and tries supporting his empty stomach with a large and lovely garden. Trouble is, he has no way of keeping weeds away from his patch of land and the canine is growing increasingly hungry. One day he happens to hear someone calling him from across the mountain. When he investigates, he sees that it’s just a young boy playing a trick on his local villagers. When the boy makes his cry a second time the wolf comes again, but begins to tire of the tricky child. The third time the kid gives a cry the wolf has just about had it. Since his mere appearance (parasol and all) is enough to scare the thoughtless boy up a tree, the crafty creature makes a deal. If the boy ties the plumpest of the goats to a fence post in the wolf’s garden, he’ll... uh... “spare” the rest of the flock. Sure enough, the boy does as our hero asks, but when he finds that the goat has eaten all the weeds and left the now enormous vegetables untouched, he finds that this new friend may prove more useful than as a quick nosh of double-goat dumplings.

It seems surprisingly logical in retrospect to take the tale of the Boy Who Cried Wolf and tell the story from the wolf’s point of view. Rather than make this yet another “The True Story of the Three Little Pigs” knock-off, though, Rocco’s tale makes a kind of perfect sense. When you think about it, when the boy cries, “Wolf! Wolf!”, he is, in a way, directly calling the wolf to the flock. This wolf, being just a tad over the hill, goes to the boy because he thinks he may know the person calling him. The story itself obeys the Rule of Three, and it’s nice to read something where the child character is a putz and the supposed antihero is the smartie. Of course, a part of me wishes that Rocco had stuck to his guns and allowed the wolf to eat the plump and juicy goat at the story’s end. On the other hand, he sets up the happily ever after finale well in advance so that it doesn't feel tacked on when you reach it.

The idea of setting the story in a Japanese setting makes for an interesting read. Not knowing anything whatsoever about the culture of that country, I can’t really speak to whether or not the costumes, clothing, and look of the story are accurate. What I can tell you is that Rocco's pictures, for all their cartoonish glee, carry with them a great deal of sophistication. There is, for example, a picture of the wolf soaking his aching feet in the bank of a riverbed that fills the page beautifully. In the water large white koi flit in the dappled beams of sunlight under large lily pads in a calm green sea. In another view the wolf naps in a cherry blossomed glen beside long eared rabbits and light blue butterflies as the sunbeams reflect the dying day. What Rocco has successfully captured in these images are varying qualities of light. He also knows exactly where to place the white space on his pages too (never an easy task). And if you find that you are unfamiliar with Mr. Rocco’s work, pick up the nearest “Percy Jackson” book and look at its cover. Seem familiar? There you go. On the website Imagekind Mr. Rocco's work was described as, “incredibly whimsical and filled to the brim with color and fantastic details.” There is little need for me to try to say it any better than that.

I once reviewed the children’s book, “A Room With a Zoo” by Jules Feiffer and mentioned in the piece that I had never seen a work of fiction for kids really drill home the agony of throwing one’s back out. Such a feeling is replicated here in “Wolf! Wolf!” but in this case it’s the ache of elderly joints and creaky knees. Grandparents reading this book to their progeny will relate to this most unexpected of protagonists. Altogether, a fine new look at a story we’ve all heard before. The real joy of this book is that not only does it pair with your standard Boy Who Cried Wolf retellings, it can even be read and enjoyed without having any knowledge of the original tale. Beautifully rendered and written with aplomb.


On shelves March 30, 2007.
And be sure to take a gander at Mr. Rocco's website and blog.

(By the way, if you happen to be interested in how folktales crop up in one place or another, consider giving a glance to Idries Shah’s, World Tales: The Extraordinary Coincidence of Stories Told in All Times, in All Places. I don’t know if it’s still in print, but it’s certainly one of the finest records of extraordinary connections between different cultures held together by similar stories.)