review: The Yankee at the Seder

The Yankee at the Seder by Elka Weber. Illustrated by Adam Gustavson. Tricycle, 2009 (978-1-58246-431-2) $16.99

It’s the day before Passover, 1865, and ten-year-old Jacob is disappointed at the end of “the War of Northern Aggression”: “I was never going to be a Rebel general. I’d never capture a whole unit of Yankees single-handed.” He’s also scared at what the future holds: “No one knew whether the Union would treat us well, now that they’d beaten us.” So when he sees a real live Yankee soldier come walking down the street, his first reaction is not friendly. Then, much to Jacob’s amazement, he realizes the Yankee is a fellow Jew.

When he runs in to tell his mother, she invites “that Yankee” to their seder, telling Jacob: “Jacob, every year we being the seder the same way. We say, ‘All who are hungry, let them come and eat; all who are in need, let them join us for the Passover meal.’ A hungry man needing a seder has come to our home. Would you send him away for wearing a blue coat?”

“Maybe,” thinks Jacob.

The seder progresses as usual, with one little hiccup. Jacob’s father pointedly speaks up in favor of rebellion. The Yankee responds, “Sir, it is one thing to rebel against an unjust government. But Passover isn’t about people rebelling against a government, sir. It’s about how no man wants to be a slave and about how wonderful it is to be free.”

Although it seems to have a specific readership, this book has a surprisingly broad and pertinent message, at a time when so many people in the United States are very divided against one another. Corporal Levy doesn’t exactly convert Jacob to his way of thinking, but he does show him the value of finding common ground.

Warm paintings illustrate this unusual and thoughtful tale, based on a true story which is described in end notes. * (5 & up)



© 2011 Wendy E. Betts

FTC disclosure: Review copy provided by the publisher. This blog is completely independent, but I receive a small percentage if you order books from Powell's via this site.

review: Bugs By the Numbers

Bugs By the Numbers written and illustrated by Sharon Werner and Sarah Forss. Green Apple, 2011 (978-60905-061-0) $19.99

You might guess from the cover image that this book is visually arresting and you'd be right. A follow-up to the award-winning Alphabeasties, it features bugs impressively created from numerals; the already large book has an even bigger impact with many cut pages that fold out. It's not actually a counting book, but each page gives numeric facts about a bug: "scorpions have 8 legs. They're arachnids, relatives of spiders. Scorpions are very adaptable. Many species are able to live for 1 year on 1 meal." For each of these factual snippets, the graphic designers had a field day; simpler uses of color and plenty of white space keep the pages from seeming impossibly busy. (5 & up)

© 2011 Wendy E. Betts

FTC disclosure: Review copy provided by the publisher. This blog is completely independent, but I receive a small percentage if you order books from Powell's via this site.

review: Piece=Part=Portion

Piece=Part=Portion by Scott Gifford. Photographs by Shmuel Thaler. Tricycle, 2003 (1-58246-102-3); 2008 (9781582462615) $7.95 trade pb

I was first attracted by the clean look and simplicity of this math book, but on further examination found it's also amusingly clever. The idea given in a short introduction is that "in the language of mathematics, fractions, decimals, and percents are three different, but connected, ways of describing the same thing." Fifteen examples of (unrelated) numbers are each expressed as a fraction, decimal and percentage and illustrated by a photograph. The photos are all of quite ordinary things, but find fractions where you might never have thought to see them: 1/5 is one stick of gum left in a package, 1/3 of a traffic light is lit up, 1/10 is two socked feet with one big toe peeping out.

A colorful, uncluttered design potentially makes this book accessible to younger children who enjoy numbers, and it may help children who are learning the concepts reinforce the information. Also, it's just fun to look at. (3-8)

© 2010 Wendy E. Betts

FTC disclaimer: Reviewed from a copy from the public library. This blog is completely independent, but I receive a small percentage if you order books from Powell's via this site.

review: Violet

Violet by Tania Duprey Stehlik. Illustrated by Vanja Buleta Javanovic. Second Story Press, 2009 (978-1897187-60-9) $14.95

I couldn't get a cover illustration for Violet, but here's a book trailer that gives a sense of the illustrations. It's a very eye-catching book, with a spiky haired, elongated heroine and some seriously surreal backgrounds; the overall effect is sometimes childlike, sometimes pretty, and occasionally even a bit creepy in a rather Coraline-esque way. It sorts of makes sense when you realize that Violet is set in an alternate world, one in which people are red and blue and yellow--and in Violet's case, violet.

A simple story, Violet is about Violet's first day at a new school. She's pretty nervous about fitting in, but everything goes fine. Then when her dad comes to pick her up, a girl from her class is puzzled: "Your dad is BLUE??!" Violet's never thought about it before, but now she wonders. "Mom was red. Dad was blue. So, why wasn't she red or blue? Come to think of it, all her red friends had red parents. Her yellow friends had yellow parents. Her blue friends had blue parents. So why was she purple?"

When she gets home, Violet's mom shows her how mixing blue and red makes "a lovely purply-violet" and tells her that "people come in a whole rainbow of beautiful colors." (Only the colorful hands of the adults are shown, another piece of the overall offbeat look of the book.) And the next day, when a boy is puzzled by her red mom, she says proudly, "My mom is red, my dad is blue, and I... am Violet!"

I'm torn between thinking that Violet looks awesome, and that it's great to see a messagey sort of book with such unusual and interesting illustrations, and thinking that it's kind of an odd fit with the text, which is so matter of fact. In a way, of the two of them the book trailer is more interesting than the actual book. Which is not to say that a straightforward book on this subject isn't welcome, especially one that is not heavily didactic; I just wonder if the kind of kids who appreciate a straightforward story might also prefer more straightforward illustrations. Like Violet, I feel a little mixed.. but overall, I like the book enough to hope it finds its audience. (4-10)

© 2009 Wendy E. Betts

Nonfiction Monday: Gone Fishing

Gone Fishing written and illustrated by David McLimans. Walker, 2008 (978-0-8027-9770-4) $16.99

This follow-up to the Caldecott Honor book Gone Wild: an Endangered Animal Alphabet counts from one to ten and then back again, illustrating the numbers with stylized, folk-art drawings of endangered sea creatures. Drawn in blue, white and black, against blue or black backgrounds, the pictures are very striking, though squeezing the animals into the shapes of the numbers is sometimes an exercise in imagination. Each page also contains a more realistic drawing plus some basic information about the creature: class, habitat, regions, threats and endangered status. A "Diving Deeper" section at the end offer more detail on each one, and there is also a section on ocean facts by tens: "Less than 1 percent of water on Earth is freshwater. In every fisherman's haul of shrimp, the nets catch up to 10 times the weight of the shrimp in other species, which is then trashed. Giant kelp, the fastest-growing plant in the ocean, can grown up to 100 feet long in little more than a year."

As nonfiction this book is a little dry, no pun intended, but numbers that come with tentacles, bulging eyes and sharp teeth are an immediate eye-catcher, and the creative use of limited colors and negative space only adds to the strong visual appeal. (5-10)


copyright 2009 Wendy E. Betts

Other blog reviews:

A Patchwork of Books
In The Pages...
SherMeree's Musings
Check It Out

review: Frankenstein Takes the Cake

Frankenstein Takes the Cake written and illustrated by Adam Rex. Harcourt, 2008 (978-0-15-206235-4) $16.00

From the cover illustration of "Frankenstein" eating the groom off his wedding cake, to the back cover's "Haiku About Adam Rex"--"He knows Frankenstein's/the doctor, not the monster./Enough already"--this book of monster poems is undeniably funny, with jokes lurking in every tiny area, even on the copyright page and under the jacket flap. (Library workers are going to go crazy processing this one.) And like Rex's previous book, Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich (my review here), it could take hours to fully appreciate the astonishing illustrations, filled with sly visual allusions and tributes. "Dracula Junior" is a perfect take-off on Charles Shultz, a vampire Charlie Brown, with bat instead of zigzag on his shirt. A running gag about Edgar Allen Poe is a black & white, big-headed, gothic extravaganza. And doctored photographs of the pumpkin-headed Headless Horseman and other of his ilk are superbly done and hysterically funny; I love the Horseman trying to nonchalantly slouch by a throng of "grandmas" who "hound me with piecrusts and poke at my head" with wooden spoons.

But--you could tell there was a but coming, couldn't you?--even more than the previous book, this one is heavy on the jokes for adults. The cultural focus this time seems less on the appreciation of old monster movie characters and more on the Internet age: The Headless Horseman keeps a very familiar looking running blog called "Off the Top of My Head,"; messages from extraterrestrials turn out to be classic spam. And a lot of the jokes from "Frankenstein's" wedding are about irritating mothers-in-law and the bride's last minute cold feet, again more adult arenas. Not that there's anything wrong with that!--just keep it in mind if you're choosing this book for a child. I've seen it recommended for teens, and certainly more literate middle graders could enjoy it. Here's a thought: any kid who enjoys the "Simpsons" Halloween specials would probably love it.

As with the previous book, I was more blown away by the pictures than the verses, but though they have some flaws of scansion and meter, they're also entertaining. I particularly enjoyed the running parody of Poe's "the Raven"; the raven's ending line--"what a bore," "Tipper Gore" "Get the Door! (Ya stupid poet)" gets funnier every time it appears. (8 & up)

See and hear a poem from the book, performed by its creators, here.

Other Blog Reviews:
Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

review: It's Time by Judith Mammay

Note: The only place I've been able to find this book for sale online is Barnes and Noble.


It's Time by Judith Mammay. Illustrated by Todd Fargo. Turtle Books, 2007 (978-0-944727-20-1) $9.95 pb

It's Time follows a school day in the life of Tommy, an autistic boy "mainstreamed" in a regular classroom. Tommy has a hard time when people touch him, it's too noisy, or the routine gets changed, and sometimes that leads to screaming and tantrums. But Tommy doesn't want to scare the other kids in his class, so he is doing his best to keep calm and use his words.

It's Time stands out amongst most other autism books for being from the autistic child's perspective, and Mammay does a nice job of showing how hard Tommy is working not to melt down and demonstrating the tools he uses, like asking "what will happen?" when there's a scary change in routine. The sometimes negative responses of the other children in the class are also depicted; they are reminded by their teacher that "it is Tommy's autism that makes him do this" and encouraged to help him by being quieter when it's too noisy for him.

An artificially high note at the end of the story is a bit jarring--"After that, whenever there was a change, Tommy did better using his words"--but my main problem with this book is the pen & ink and watercolor illustrations, which are unattractive , stilted and oddly proportioned, not maintaining much character consistency from page to page. Insets of a mouse at the bottom of the pages, intended to demonstrate what Tommy is feeling inside, just come off as gimmicky since they basically show the same emotions already shown in the illustrations. Perhaps they would have seemed to have more kid-appeal to me if they were more attractively drawn.

It's Time may be of interest to autistic kids, but its main audience will probably be classrooms like Tommy's, that need some understanding of an autistic child's needs. I actually think the story is inherently interesting enough to have a more general appeal, if the book was redesigned and reillustrated. (6-10)

review: Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?

Why Did The Chicken Cross the Road? written and illustrated by various. Dial, 2006 (0-8037-3094-2) $16.99

Fourteen children's illustrators put their minds to an age-old question and came up with some hysterical possible answers. Chris Sheban's chicken unfortunately missed a catch, breaking a window. Marla Frazee's runs from a wet coop to a sunny palatial one, thinking, "duh." Harry Bliss' chicken is on the run from the mutated zombie chickens from Mars! Only Mo Willem's chicken--obviously a close relative of his pigeon--sticks to the story, telling the hostile cops that are interrogating it, "I just did it to get to the other side! Honest!" Not all of the artists went for humor--Jerry Pinkney's chicken is on the way to a cozy, pastoral picnic and Mary Grandpre's walks into a surreal landscape--but the book as a whole is extremely funny, as well as delightful to peruse. An extra spread at the end describes why each of the artists crossed the road and gives short listings of their other books, for further reading. This is a great choice for beginning or reluctant readers. * (5 & up)

Nonfiction Monday: Postcards from Washington D.C.

Postcards from Washington D.C./Postales desde Washington D.C. written and illustrated by Laura Crawford. Raven Tree Press, 2008 (0-9795477-0-9) $16.95

Part of the series, "Traveling With Anna," this is a partially bilingual book (English/Spanish) that uses a postcard-to-friends format to describe places of interest in Washington D.C. An eye-catching design mixes formal photos of the sites with casual pen & ink and watercolor pictures of the friendly Anna, who smiles with bookworm glee at the Library of Congress (even though nothing can be checked out,) and gazes soberly at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, putting some flowers under her uncle's name. Each section includes a "postcard" from Anna, enthusiastically describing her trip, plus a few additional facts as text.

Anna's postcards are engaging, giving interesting information that will appeal to kids, such as a description of a ritual in Arlington National Cemetery: "A guard marched 21 steps, clicked his heels, faced the tomb, waited 21 seconds, and marched back." After visiting the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, she writes: "Money isn't made of paper. It is really linen and cotton. That's why it doesn't get ruined in the washing machine!"

Postcards from Washington D.C. isn't completely successful as a bilingual book, because only the additional text is offered in Spanish; the postcards themselves, the best part, are only given in English. It's still an excellent resource for English speakers planning a family trip to D.C., for kids interested in other places, or for classroom reading. (6-10)