Stuart Little

I enjoyed Stuart Little, but in the world of children's literature I feel like I'm committing blasphemy by saying I did not love it. My main complaint, ridiculous as it sounds, is that this book lacks credibility. The story is about a talking mouse, whose family accepts him for who he is. I knew that much when I started reading, but when E.B. White conveniently created a situation which would allow Stuart to drive a miniature car, I grew sceptical.

Stuart lives his day-to-day life, so there is no goal that drives the story. When halfway through it, Stuart finds himself smitten with a bird named Margalo, the story changes direction. Without saying good-bye, Stuart leaves his family in search of the bird. He tells his friend, who happens to be a dentist, who just so happens to own a miniature car, that he has run away from home. This decision to run away is very rash since the only family member Stuart dislikes is Snowball the cat. An inquisitive reader, like myself, might wonder why Stuart did not write his loving family a letter so they wouldn't worry about him.

Then, the final layer on this unbelievable cake of a story is when Stuart decides to woo Harriet, a miniature woman he meets on his journey searching for Margalo the bird. Yes, Margalo the bird. Remember her? I found the confetti style of this book very frustrating. I was not surprised when I read on Wikipedia that Stuart Little received a "lukewarm welcome" when it first came out in 1945.

E.B. White is well known for his book "Charlotte's Web," which he wrote seven years later, when he knew how to organize a book a little bit better. In that one, Wilbur the pig's goal is not to be eaten, a worthy goal that deserves the support of all readers. This sign of improvement goes to show that writers should keep writing because great books follow lesser ones.

Ivy and Bean!

I wish I could summon with the powers of my brain box sets of the Ivy and Bean books to hand out to little girls I pass by on the street. I know that Dolly Parton's literacy program gives enrolled children a free book a month from birth until they start kindergarten. I think this program is FABULOUS, but I wish something like this was available for older children. That way, more kids could read the Ivy and Bean books.

I have only read 3 of the 7 books in the series and I can't wait to read the rest. These books are funny and clever and full of adventure! We've come a long way since enduring the contrived cuteness and stupidity of children on The Brady Bunch and Full House. Cindy Brady and Michelle were my on-screen role models growing up. I imagined that I might have a manufactured audience fawning over me. It is really nice to see smart, curious, and adventurous female characters who shy away from nothing. These books will inspire girls to have larger aspirations than just being cute and receiving fleeting heartbeats of attention.

The author Annie Barrows is a gift to this 4-8 age group. She can make a dish-washing scene suspenseful and a ghost-evicting scene hilarious. It is no wonder why these books are so popular.

Flat Stanley flashed before my eyes

Tonight I helped a man and three women move a 2 ton safe from my mom's garage. As the people tilted the safe so that it nearly fell on top of me, I thought of those wonderful books by Jeff Brown. Yes, I almost died and Flat Stanley flashed before my eyes. I thought I would be able to mail myself to Philadelphia to visit my brother. Fortunately, no one was flattened. I survived and I am thankful.

And Flat Stanley rules!

Wintry rhyming books

"Snowbots" and "Snow Bugs" are essentially the same book. Both books rhyme and are suitable for kids aged 3-7. Although it's been a while since I've read "Snow Bugs," I read it so many times to a little boy several years ago that the rhymes are now branded on my brain.

The other day at Powell's Books, I took "Snowbots" with me to the coffee shop so that I would be properly entertained while I waited for my friend to arrive. It sounded so familiar. I almost shouted, "This is 'Snow Bugs,' only with robots!" for everyone in the coffee shop to hear. Good thing I have some self-control.

An editor once advised me against rhyming in my own work because very few writers can pull it off. I was rhyming words like "jelly" with "Botticelli" and "success" with "acquiesce." Since I would still like to write rhyming books and get them published, I am always interested in reading other rhyming books and trying to see how those writers pulled it off. With both of these books, I think the key factor is simplicity.

Both of these books are awesome. They are sure to help robot and bug enthusiasts learn to read and provide snowdrifts of fun that will never melt.

Kevin Henkes

The Jellybeans and the Big Dance

This is a great book about making friends and celebrating differences. Emily, the main character, is the most skilled dancer in her class, and is disappointed by the other dancers' lack of enthusiasm and grace. While eating an assortment of jellybeans, Emily realizes that being different is a delight. To boost morale, she gives the other dancers bags of jellybeans before the big performance. This book should bolster kids' problem solving skills and help them build friendships.


Co-written by Nate Evans and Laura Numeroff (author of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie), and illustrated by Lynn Munsinger, "The Jellybeans and the Big Dance" is a sweet book. I highly recommend it.

The Year of Goodbyes

I'm the kind of person who likes to try and make sense of the senseless and bring clarity out of chaos. Still, some brutal acts are impossible to comprehend.

In a speech last night about the Arizona shooting, President Obama said that trying to find answers to why a tragedy happened will only lead to more finger-pointing and divisive debates. "The Year of Goodbyes" is not a finger-pointing book. It is a book about the ill treatment and elimination of European Jews, as observed by a 12-year-old German Jewish girl, Jutta, who writes with surprising composure and maturity. But most of all, it is a book which emphasizes the importance of friendship and celebrates one Jewish family's triumphant escape from Nazi Germany.

The book was organized by Jutta's granddaughter, Debbie Levy,with Jutta's help. Jutta kept a poetry book as a girl, which her friends helped fill with their drawings and poems. Despite the sad title, "The Year of Goodbyes" is not a sad book. I actually laughed when one of Jutta's friends tried to pass off a Goethe poem as her own in Jutta's poetry book. When I was younger, I read a book called "We are Witnesses," which is similar to "The Year of Goodbyes" in that it is a collection of children's diary entries, but "The Year of Goodbyes" is a much rosier book, suitable for elementary school children.

Hopefully, children who read this book will feel inspired to keep diaries and poetry books as well, so their families might have wonderful keepsakes passed down.

The Shrinking of Treehorn

Edward Gorey illustrated this bizarre and delightful book, The Shrinking of Treehorn, which was published in 1971.The patterns on people's clothes and the household decor aroused in me admiration and envy of his artistic talent. Gorey's inability to capture motion (or emotion for that matter) results in a distinctly static style. Sometimes his characters look as if they are glued to the wall, or as if they are statues about to tip over.

This book is very text-heavy, but I think children will still enjoy it, as I did. Kids don't need to have aristocratic, neglectful, and flamboyantly-dressed parents to relate to Treehorn and his shrinking dilemma. Anybody whose ever felt ignored or misunderstood will find amusement and sympathy in this character. I just learned from Amazon that there is a Treehorn trilogy, so I can't wait to read the other two books.

The Amazing Trail of Symour Snail

Yay! The Amazing Trail of Seymour Snail is a cute and funny book about a snail who loves to create slimy masterpieces. His artistic grandeur catches up with him when he's trying to find his true path. This is a perfect book for the 5-8 age group, since kids learning to read may need a boost of confidence, just like Seymour Snail.

I remember when I was a kid, staying with some crabby people in San Francisco (I was like a surrogate kid for a wealthy childless couple for one week out of the year) and I remember sitting in the woman's office overlooking a huge garden and hearing her tell me that William Faulkner was the greatest writer of all time. I was only half-listening to her, because I was far more interested in the sparkly trail of slug slime that wound around her office. This memory came back to me while reading this book. It seems obvious now that a slug in a children's book would be a brilliant artist.

Lynn E. Hazen also wrote an easy reader called Cinder Rabbit. That one was also good, but in my opinion, it was no Seymour Snail. The character Wicked Winifred in Cinder Rabbit is a lot like the dreaded Mr. Stink Bug in The Amazing Trail of Seymour Snail. Both are 100% mean characters with no redemptive qualities, who pick on perfectly sweet protagonists. Now I want to psycho-analyze the author and find out what kind of stink bugs and wicked winifreds have influenced her writing. :)