Tag Archives: Nature

April 17, 2013 · 4:45 pm

The Deep, Deep Puddle by Mary Jessie Parker, illustrated by Deborah Zemke

Deep Deep Puddle“On a busy street in the late afternoon, the rain begins …” Okay, so it’s sunny out at the moment, but it is late afternoon, just the time of day when I’m most likely thinking about total escape. Come join me as I fall head first into The Deep, Deep Puddle.

The first to discover such depths is “One shaggy dog,” who wanders a little too close and “…Glub … Glub … Glub … he sinks out of sight.” But no need for worry, because soon enough, he’s joined by two too-curious stray cats, three thirsty squirrels … six distracted tourists … nine fleeing robbers … until 10 police officers finally appear and “Halt” the in-going, wet traffic.

Eleven tanker trucks with 12 workers manage to “Schlurp! Schlurp! Schlurp!” the puddle away, and a countdown to order allows 10 officers to arrest nine robbers while eight vendors sell the spectators snacks and seven taxis reappear to ferry six tourists elsewhere. Meanwhile, the five children and the rest of the menagerie of once sodden creatures return to terra firma … at least until the next deep, deep puddle appears.

Illustrator Deborah Zemke‘s colorful, whimsical style adds delightful depth to author Mary Jessie Parker’s forwards-and-backwards watery adventures. From the playful feline pair reaching to touch their reflections, to the sinking tourist reaching up and out to save his cell phone, to the half-masked robber trying to gather his spilled bills, to the crowd of sidewalk gawkers witnessing the puddle’s schlurping-up, Zemke imbues her gleeful pictures with energy and motion, perched on the edge of anticipation and discovery, not to mention just plain old-fashioned cheery fun.

Go head … the workday is almost over. Come jump right in!

Readers: Children

Published: 2013

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March 21, 2013 · 1:14 pm

Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver

Flight BehaviorOnce upon a time, I loved every book Barbara Kingsolver wrote: The Bean Trees grew into me, then Homeland and Other Stories, Animal Dreams (still my favorite), Pigs in Heaven. Heresy, I know, but Poisonwood Bible was not a favorite, but after surviving Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, I had to admit that my devotions diminished. Then came Flight Behavior last fall, and I couldn’t seem to avoid seeing that title bandied about in various literary listserv headlines, best-of compilations, award finalist short and longlists. So, in a fit of nostalgia, I hit ‘play.’

Dellarobia Turnbow is a discontented mother of two young children, trapped in a shot-gun marriage at age 17. Eleven years later, she’s still living in tiny Feathertown, Tennessee, in a house built by her in-laws, beholden to them for what little she and her sweet (but dull) husband have. Hiking up the mountains with intentions to flee her  confining life – by starting an affair with the local telephone repairman – she comes upon a forest of monarch butterflies. The locals think it’s a miracle (Dellarobia’s mother takes groups up there for a fee!), the news goes national, and Dr. Ovid Byron arrives to tell the world that this disruption in the migration pattern of these majestic butterflies is actually an aberration of nature signaling disasters yet to come. Ovid’s passionate erudition is both an intellectual and emotional charge for Dellarobia who, surprise!, turns out to have a brain too big for her small-minded town. She spends three-quarters of the book in self-absorbed angst, and when she finally makes a major decision (spoiler alert!), a sudden deluge inundates her entire life.

Somehow, I managed to survive 17 hours of dogged, misplaced loyalty. Kingsolver herself reads Flight Behavior – and her website shouts, “audiobook wins raves.” A link to a Publisher’s Weekly review touts, “Kingsolver proves an excellent reader of her own work, perfectly conveying both Dellarobia’s gossipy, accented smalltown neighbors and the distinctive Jamaican accent of intellectual Ovid …” That supposed “distinctive Jamaican accent” is most definitely not; what comes forth is some indistinguishable cacophony. But here’s the worst offense (did the reviewer actually listen in full?): the good doctor makes a distinct point to the shut-in Dellarobia who questions his background about being from “‘The United States of America. St. Thomas, Virgin Islands.’” The word “Jamaica” does not appear anywhere in the book. Not all islands are the same. Nor are all island accents interchangeable, either!

Oh, but I digress. If read you will, be sure to choose the page. Just in case you had any doubt that this is a novel with a message, be warned: from deforestation, rising tides, mudslides, global warming, a flood of epic proportions, and more, it’s all in there. As important as environmental awareness, protection, and active restoration are, such sledgehammer reminders of our earth under threat doesn’t necessarily make for effective storytelling.

Tidbit: I’m loathe to leave you without an environmentally protective alternate suggestion … so might I suggest the witty and rollicking Ruth Ozeki? I adored both My Year of Meats and All Over Creation; her latest, A Tale for the Time Being, sits high on my ‘must-read’ piles.

Readers: Adult

Published: 2012

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April 28, 2012 · 8:33 am

Scat and Chomp by Carl Hiaasen

Mega-bestselling author Carl Hiaasen might write formulaic young adult titles, but he’s just so goofball funny, it’s hard to put his books down – not to mention the covers are so irresistible, too. Following the massive success of his YA debut Hoot (which also got the royal Hollywood treatment) about overzealous construction and owls, Hiaasen moved to raw sewage pollution and fishies in Flush. In Scat and Chomp, he gleefully brandishes his secrets of success – an environmental theme set in Florida, good kids in tough situations, rogue (and/or missing) parents, and some of the most inept experts you’ll ever encounter between the pages (or stuck in your ears). By the way, if you decide on iPod-ing either or both, you’ve got some ‘famous’ choices depending on your age … Ed Asner for Scat, James Van Der Beek for Chomp.

In Scat, Nick and Marta aren’t exactly the biggest fans of their biology teacher Bunny Starch, but when she goes missing during a field trip cut short by a sudden fire, the two classmates are willing to risk their safety (and maybe their sanity) to get some answers. Meanwhile, a greedy heir and his aging sidekick from Texas, have insidious plans to drill for oil in protected swamp lands, home to the endangered Florida panther. In the midst of this fast-paced adventure, Nick’s elaborate plans to become a lefty like his soldier-father who returns armless from Iraq, is one of the more worthier tissue-demanding episodes in a many a novel for any audience.

Consciously or not, through his rollicking latest, Chomp, Hiaasen seems to enjoy taking a few jabs at the deadbeat mother in Scat who deserts her husband and son to open a Parisian cheese shop – Chomp‘s fromage isn’t particularly kind to reality stars! Back in the Everglades, Wahoo Cray’s family’s financial straits send his mother to Shanghai to teach Mandarin to ex-pat executives, while he and his wild-animal wrangler father, Mickey, reluctantly agree to work on the next episode of the popular reality show, Expedition Survival! Before they even get on location, father and son unexpectedly pick up one of Wahoo’s classmates – named Tuna! yes, only Hiaasen can make this stuff up! – who clearly needs to escape her violent father. The show’s biggest goal at first seems to be keeping the dimwit star (fake name, fake accent, fake credentials) from becoming a wildlife casualty, although protecting the wildlife from the pampered personality might prove to be the greater challenge. That is, until Tuna’s drunk father shows up claiming his “flesh and blood” … real life survival indeed!

As I wait impatiently for Hiaasen’s next young adventure, I’m chuckling and guffawing through some of his adult titles: brave kids, wacky adults, blind greed, eco-saviors abound … albeit without the PG-rating. First rule of bestsellers proves true: don’t fix what ain’t broke!

Readers: Middle Grade, Young Adult

Published: 2009, 2012

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April 3, 2012 · 12:55 pm

Larf by Ashley Spires

As we leave the wild mountains and head back to (so-called) civilization this morning, I’m convinced that Ashley Spires‘ Larf captures that disorienting journey just right, with lots of easy laughter offered on every page. Re-entry always requires maintaining a sense of humor!

Larf thinks he might be the world’s only sasquatch. He’s a seven-foot-tall vegetarian who has a preference for red scarves. He jogs, he gardens. He lives with his bunny-friend Eric somewhere far in the snow-capped mountains. Nobody knows that Larf exists, and “he likes it that way.”

Until … reading the newspaper one morning, he sees an article claiming the upcoming appearance of a sasquatch in the nearby city. Curiosity – and the possibility of hanging out with someone of his own kind – makes him reluctantly head out of the wilds …

He does his best to fit in (he’s “a master of camouflage,” after all), but with fur and feet like that, strangers tend to take notice. “All the activity, all the people and all the noise was making things worse. Larf can hardly see straight, let alone think straight, in all this hubbub.” [I know just how he feels, too!] But Larf perseveres … and his tenacity eventually leads to a promising (beastly) meeting.

While Spires’ storytelling is adorably amusing, her illustrations are even better. Her much-appreciated, subversive humor is evident throughout: a hapa family watches Larf-footage on their tiny television as the potato-munching father comments, “Aunt Mildred?” and the know-it-all son glibly declares, “A computer-generated fake”; Larf squeezes into skinny jeans for his city trek, strapping tiny bunny Eric into a baby front-pack contraption for the journey; Larf gets mistaken yet again by a passerby at the ticket booth for Aunt Mildred (definitely don’t want to meet her in a dark alley!); the city bus depot fills with a multi-culti menagerie of passengers trying not to stare, including the pigeons. For careful sleuths, Spires playfully draws hints into each scene from Larf”s city arrival until he’s ready to leave, as to what – or who – is coming, cleverly adding another layer of interaction with her younger readers.

Now if only going back to reality could be even half the fun … ah, life …!

Readers: Children

Published: 2012

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March 24, 2012 · 2:22 pm

Lila and the Secret of Rain by David Conway, illustrated by Jude Daly

Lila, her family, their animals are all too hot. Their Kenyan village has not had rain for far too long. The well has dried up, and the crops are failing. “‘Without water there can be no life,’” Lila overhears her mother’s worry. Then her grandfather shares his rainy-day secret: “”You must climb the highest mountain,’” a man once told her grandfather when he was a young boy, “‘and tell the sky the saddest thing you know.’”

Up she clambers to the highest peak the next morning, to tell the sky about her brother’s cut leg, her burnt fingers, and all the other “saddest things she knew.” But still no rain. Her desperate concern for her family, their animals, the crops, makes her sob: “‘Without crops there will be no food, without food the people in the village will become sick, and without water there can be no life.’” As Lila weeps, darkening clouds gather, “until the sky was ebony with emotion.” Lightning, thunder … and by the time she reaches home, “all the villagers were celebrating the rain with music and dancing.”

Award-winning British children’s author David Conway‘s unembellished text introduces a serious subject with just enough gravitas for younger readers. But what lingers most are Jude Daly‘s illustrations: her elegant, elongated figures populating minimal landscapes create beautiful tableaus on every page, threatened by the golden sun which looms closer and closer into Lila’s parched world.

Even in DC, we’ve had such a stretch of unseasonably hot weather (what happened to winter? did we miss spring?), that a rainy weekend just seems out-of-place. Lila provides a perfect antidote for kiddie cabin fever … not to mention a good excuse to crank up the tunes and go dance in the rain!

Readers: Children

Published: 2008 (United States)

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January 4, 2012 · 1:33 pm

Only the Mountains Do Not Move: A Maasai Story of Culture and Conservation by Jan Reynolds

Surely this is one of the most dramatic before-and-after reading experiences I’ve ever had: I read Mountains last fall when it first landed on my desk and then again just recently after I landed back from East Africa. What a difference a few thousands of miles and a couple of weeks make …

Globetrotting author/photographer Jan Reynolds takes young readers on a tour of a traditional Maasai village – an enkang – in Kenya, introducing some of the smiling inhabitants, their enkaji (traditional huts) and their prized cattle and goats, explaining their wandering, herding lifestyle which remains virtually unchanged over many hundreds of years.

In spite of their long history, today’s Maasai –predominantly living in southern Kenya and northern Tanzania – face new 21st-century challenges. Global warming makes their lands dry and barren. Tourism is encroaching into Maasai tribal lands, denying their herds necessary grazing space and unbalancing already delicate cycles of survival. In spite of the hardships, “the next generation of Maasai are also learning ways to adapt to a changing environment,” Reynolds assures near book’s end.

Without a doubt, Reynolds’ story is informative, the photographs striking, and her ultimate message inspiring and hopeful that the traditional Maasai way of life will continue. It’s also kiddie-age-appropriate in introducing the very real dangers of animal extinction, environmental threats, and cultural challenges.

And yet … oh, and yet. On the book’s final page, Reynolds offers a link to a helpful Maasai reference website: http://www.maasai-association.org. Here’s the last few sentences from their “Maasai People” page: “The level of poverty among the Maasai people is beyond conceivable height. It is sad to see a society that had a long tradition of pride being a beggar for relief food because of imposed foreign concepts of development. The future of the Maasai is uncertain at this point.”

That, unfortunately, is the Maasai experience we had. Tourism has tragically fueled a beggar society, where the sound of a vehicle brings children running with outstretched hands shouting for money, food, water. A visit to an off-the-beaten-path-but-tourist-approved (!) Maasai boma (or enkang) little resembled Reynolds’ Maasai adventure: from the comparatively minor (children encrusted with flies and other bugs), to the brutal (women bearing the heaviest physical labor), to the shameful (a teenaged third wife of a much older village ‘leader’ whose back bears both a young child and the purple marks of repeated abuse).

To echo the title, only the book did not change … but certainly my reading did. From a guiltily overprivileged ‘after’-vantage point, I wonder if in a future edition, the final single page might become a more robust appendix to help educators and parents share this cultural experience at a deeper level with younger readers. The “Children Helping Children” section that is just two lines now hints at both need and possibility; it could surely provide further opportunities to engage – and enable – children both here and there.

Readers: Children

Published: 2011

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December 23, 2011 · 9:33 am

The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh

When Firdous Bamji – a veteran narrator – reads Amitav Ghosh‘s haunting novel in his ‘normal’ voice, he’s hardly memorable. But as soon as he ‘becomes’ the searching Piya, the sophisticated Kanai (“‘[s]ay it to rhyme with Hawaii’”), the contemplative Nirmal, the grounded Nilima, and the many, many other characters, Ghosh’s already lyrical, dazzling prose becomes truly transporting.

Piya, a young American marine biologist detached from her Indian heritage, and Kanai, a middle-aged Lothario translator from Delhi, meet over spilled tea on a train from Kolkata to Canning. They are both en route to the isolated Sundarbans, also known as the tide country, an archipelago of hundreds of islands in the Bay of Bengal held together by a vast mangrove forest. Piya hopes to secure the permits that will allow her to research rare river dolphins; Kanai has been summoned by his elderly Aunt Nilima to claim a package left for him by her late husband Nirmal.

What might have been a brief encounter lasts throughout the sweeping, wondrous novel. Piya’s first attempt at tracking her rare dolphin ends in near fatal disaster, and she’s rescued by a reticent local fisherman, Fokir, and his young son. They deliver her to Nilima, a ubiquitous presence in the unpredictable tide country. There on Lusibari, Piya finds Kanai poring over an aged notebook in which his late Uncle Nirmal recorded his experiences during the tumultuous, tragic clashes between the government and the refugee inhabitants of the tide country. Piya’s research in the surrounding rivers and other islands overlaps with Kanai’s quest to better understand his uncle’s troubled past, not to mention his own growing interest in Piya. Piya, in turn, finds herself strangely drawn to the nearly silent – and married – Fokir.

Ghosh remarkably manages to weave politics, history, folklore, research on rare animals and their delicate ecosystems, and even the devastating December 2004 tsunami into an exquisite, heart-thumping adventure … perfect company on the run, by the way. I confess that I so missed Kusum, Horen, Moyna, and the many others, that I now have Bamji reading Ali Sethi’s The Wish Maker to me. Stay tuned … literally.

Readers: Adult

Published: 2005

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December 12, 2011 · 1:11 pm

Grandpa Green by Lane Smith

From the genius creator of It’s a Book (still my personal battle cry!) comes another delightful low-tech celebration of things that don’t require electricity! “He was born a really long time ago,” the tale begins, “before computers or cell phones or television.” Imagine that sort of life for our 21st-century progeny … impossible huh? Well, it’s time to let them read and learn.

Leave it to Lane Smith to remind us all – wifi, (not-so-)smartphone, gadget-addicted adults included, ahem! – of the joys of a whole lifetime well-lived before all that stuff. Meet Grandpa Green, who grew up “on a farm with pigs and corn,” reading stories from actual books when chickenpox keeps him out of school. [Lane Smith even provides obvious nudging that this would be the perfect time to pull out your old copies of The Secret Garden, The Little Engine That Could, and The Wizard of Oz, because of course you have held on to your now-aging editions!]

Grandpa’s long life sees him through a world war that puts his love of horticulture on hold, but leads him to his future wife, to marriage, then kids, grandkids, and even a great-grandkid – the story’s “me.” Now that Grandpa is “pretty old,” he might tend to forget a thing or two, “[b]ut the important stuff, the garden remembers for him.”

I know, I know … but blink those appreciative, poignant tears aside because you won’t want to miss a single stroke of Lane Smith’s artistry.

As families gather in the coming weeks, Grandpa Green is the perfect reminder about the real reason for celebrating the holidays together. Electronics aside, stuff aside, Smith (and Grandpa) will convince you that sharing stories from generation to generation is quite possibly the best holiday gift of all …

Readers: Children

Published: 2011

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November 6, 2011 · 9:50 am

Saturn Apartments (vol. 3) by Hisae Iwaoka, translated by Tomo Kimura

With the debut volume receiving major approval by the American Library Association earlier this year by making YALSA (Young Adult Library Services Association)‘s list of 2011 Top Ten Great Graphic Novels for Teens, the rest of the Saturn series certainly has quite a bright future on translated shores.

Kind and gentle Mitsu befriends a lower level transplant as vol. 3 begins, a woman who is now living in vast, upper-level luxury space but is desperate and lonely, not knowing why her new husband has suddenly disappeared. Mitsu manages to give her lonely soul hope.

He watches a quiet drama between a pair of devoted siblings play out (that one got me soooo weepy). And he repeatedly insists on turning down a lucrative job offer from a mysterious wealthy stranger.

Down below, Sohta questions his menial job at the power plant, dreaming of more challenging work … including somehow, some way making it down to the earth’s surface, in spite of how toxic it has reportedly become. When he starts to spend more and more time away from home, his energetic wife Kayo who loves to cook, feeds others with her delicious meals as she waits and waits. Meanwhile, an interloper appears to try to gain some window space …

Even in the future – perhaps not too distant given our escalating abuses of Mother Earth – we remain unable to let go of the arbitrary lines separating the haves with the have-nots. Navigating the many strictly delineated levels,  Mitsu remains a wide-eyed innocent, drawing friends and strangers to him from above and below, somehow reconnecting even temporarily the tenuous ties between human heart to human heart. He’s a gentle, necessary reminder to reach out and touch someone, without barriers, without expectations, without judgment. The YALSA judges sure picked a good one!

Click here for other previous volumes.

Readers: Middle Grade, Young Adult

Published: 2011 (United States)
DOSEI MANSION © Hisae Iwaoka
Original Japanese edition published by Shogakukan Inc

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September 24, 2011 · 9:20 am

And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, illustrated by Henry Cole

Welcome to Banned Books Week 2011, which begins today and ends October 1. Leading the “Top ten most frequently challenged books of 2010” – at the top for the fifth year in a row, with a respite at #2 in 2009! – is little Tango. Reasons cited: “homosexuality, religious viewpoint, and unsuited to age group.”

REALLY? With all the boring, tedious, just plain old bad books out there, this is the most challenged title out there again? As my teen son has recently started to quip, “Are you kidding me?!!”

Here’s the story: Two male penguins, Roy and Silo, living in New York City’s Central Park Zoo bow, walk, sing, and swim together. Their keeper, Mr. Gramzay notes to himself that “‘[t]hey must be in love.’” When the two try to hatch a rock, Mr. Gramzay finds “an egg that needed to be cared for” and places it in Roy and Silo’s nest. With their careful nurturing, out pops a fuzzy little baby: “‘We’ll call her Tango,’ Mr. Gramzay decided, ‘because it takes two to tango.’” And thus far, the family continues to live happily ever after.

What’s not to love about such a touching, devoted story? It’s beautifully written by a double-Ivy-teaching shrink and a notable Broadway playwright. The illustrations are pretty terrific, too. The whole package is quite inspiring.

Again, I have to ask: REALLY? Detractors can’t even argue the all-too-predictable ‘unnatural’ angle because the prominent “Authors’ Note” on the final page clearly states: “All the events in this story are true.” Yes, true. In case of any confusion, synonyms for ‘true’ include appropriate, authentic, correct, factual, genuine, honest, kosher (love that one!), legitimate, natural, normal, perfect, proper, right, trustworthy, undeniable, and veracious.

As for “religious viewpoint,” I’m left with a giant question mark. I couldn’t find a single mention of anything vaguely religious. As for “unsuited to age group,” that objection also doesn’t hold: Plenty of children of all ages – newborns included! – have two mothers or two fathers (not to mention two-parent families are endangered enough these days!).

In a world blighted by war, poverty, broken governments, and other such man-made causes of death and destruction, celebrating the family unit – and the many miraculous, mysterious ways families come together – gets us one step closer to peace. Go rogue … share the love: read Tango with your kids … the earlier the better!

Readers: Children

Published: 2005

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