Shelf Awareness--The Shortest Day

PB Review: The Shortest Day

The Shortest Day by Susan Cooper, illus. by Carson Ellis (Candlewick, 32p., ages 5-up, 9780763686987)

In The Shortest Day, Newbery Medal winner Susan Cooper honors the history of midwinter "traditions that we still celebrate, whether or not we remember where they came from."

On the winter solstice, "everywhere down the centuries," a stooping sun makes its tired way across the bleak winter sky. People accomplish what they can during this shortest day of the year but, when night falls and the old year dies, these same people gather, "singing, dancing,/ to drive the dark away." Lit candles placed in trees and homes are adorned with bright green and red holly. "Beseeching fires" are tended "all night long" in rituals to try "to keep the year alive." And finally, when "the new year's sunshine blaze[s] awake," the revelers "carol, feast, give thanks,/ And dearly love their friends, and hope for peace."

In an author's note, Susan Cooper discusses how existence on planet Earth is cyclical, with lives being "governed by the patterns of light and darkness." Early peoples, she explains, developed "rebirth rituals" to feel that they had some measure of control in bringing back the sun. The Shortest Day began as a work for the theater--"a joyful celebration of the winter solstice, in music, dance, and words"--and is strongly influenced by northern European beliefs, though many faiths incorporate similar traditions. Here, Cooper's words are perfectly paired with Caldecott Honor artist Carson Ellis's ethereal gouache illustrations. Ellis's paintings masterfully juxtapose the physical world of Cooper's revelers with the spirits and beliefs they are celebrating. This gorgeous volume will remind readers they are a part of the vast history of the world. "Welcome Yule!" --Lynn Becker, blogger and host of Book Talk, a monthly online discussion of children's books for SCBWI.

Discover: This uplifting, illustrated poem for young children shows how ancient winter solstice rituals are still alive in modern holiday traditions.

Shelf Awareness--No Place Like Home

PB Review: No Place Like Home

No Place Like Home by Ronojoy Ghosh (Eerdmans Books for Young Readers, 32p., ages 4-7, 9780802855220)

George isn't happy. He never smiles or speaks to anyone. He's a "grump" who doesn't "even like ice cream." What the polar bear really needs is "to go back home," though he can't remember where that should be. George leaves the city and tries the jungle, only to discover he's not a fan of "sleeping in trees." He tries a mountaintop, but isn't happy about heights; tries the hot desert, but gets thirsty. When George reaches the sea, he rows "sadly for days and days."

Eventually, he finds a place where he's not "grumpy anymore"--a place so "cold and covered with ice" that it feels perfect for a polar bear. Ronojoy Ghosh's winsome illustrations depict a sweet-looking George (despite being a grump), who is accompanied on his quest by some equally appealing tiny birds. George and bird-friends can be "sure of one thing. There is no place like home." --Lynn Becker, blogger and host of Book Talk, a monthly online discussion of children's books for SCBWI.

Discover: The city doesn't feel like the right place for a polar bear, so George sets off to find where his home should be.

Shelf Awareness--Reverie

YA Review: Reverie

Reverie by Ryan La Sala (Sourcebooks Fire, 416p., ages 14-up, 9781492682660, December 3, 2019)

Ryan La Sala's debut is a darkly imagined, riveting fantasy that delves into the unlimited potential of getting lost in one's dreams. When Kane wakes in the hospital, he can't remember the accident. Apparently, he rammed his dad's car into an old mill and needed to be pulled from the Housatonic River. The car had "exploded on impact... the mill, and everything within fifty feet of it, was scorched." The police think "the whole thing" was "deliberate and thought out," suicidal even, and they want answers. So Kane, accompanied by sister Sophia, trespasses at the historical site in an effort to clear his name. As Kane wanders, struggling to remember, something "huge and spider-like" emerges and chases them from the mill.

Kane undergoes a psych evaluation, where the dazzling Dr. Poesy warns Kane that his "story takes place within a much larger story”--a story that is bigger than the East Amity Police investigation and potentially dangerous. In fact, a local painter has disappeared and Dr. Poesy strongly hints Kane may be a suspect. Dr. Poesy says they will help Kane as long as Kane keeps a journal in which he must write anything he remembers about his "incendiary" incident.

Back at school, Kane learns that he has a small, close-knit group of friends who call themselves "The Others"; they, like the experience of the accident, have "been cut from his memory entirely." Kane, seeking information, eavesdrops on them debating how to handle him and his missing "powers." Another "reverie" will be happening soon, they say, and it's Kane who has always unraveled them. This time, however, the group agrees they must keep him away. Furious with all the secrets and needing to learn more, Kane seeks out the reverie, finding himself in a "crazy fantasy" involving "a subterranean civilization that worships a god called the Cymo." Kane has to somehow survive until the reverie becomes "unstable" and starts to "collapse," at which point he is supposed to unravel it--if he can remember how.

In East Amity, where dreams actually do become real, readers feel the tangible danger as the "fantastic realities people lovingly [create] for themselves" spin out of control. Like so many others in Reverie, Kane wants to believe he can escape into the "intoxicating potential" of dreams. But, before the end of this thrilling narrative, Kane must either come to terms with fighting "for a reality that fails so many, so often" or, instead, fight to change it. --Lynn Becker, blogger and host of Book Talk, a monthly online discussion of children's books for SCBWI.

Shelf Talker: After surviving an accident of which he has no memory, Kane discovers it's up to him to save his town from dreams that magically become real.

November Recommendations

Novels:

In CALL DOWN THE HAWK, by Maggie Stiefvater, Ronan Lynch has “the most dangerous of secrets.” He’s a dreamer, who can “fall asleep, dream of feathers, and wake with a raven in [his] hands.” But Ronan is not the only dreamer. Each time Hennessy sleeps for more than twenty minutes, she brings back “a copy of herself.” Hennessy and her art-forging clones sneak into the Fairy Market, desperate to find a magical painting before she's literally killed by her own nightmare. Carmen Farooq-Lane goes to the Fairy Market because she's part of a group dedicated to killing all dreamers in order to stave off an apocalypse that one of them will bring about “with starving, unquenchable fire.” This is the same fantasy-infused world as Stiefvater’s Raven Cycle quartet, with her gorgeous, melodious prose, but this new stand-alone trilogy takes place in a dangerous, surreal underbelly in and around the nation’s capitol. It’s Raven Boys meets Six of Crows. (YA)

THE DOWNSTAIRS GIRL, by Stacey Lee, features Jo Kuan, a young Chinese woman living in Atlanta, GA, in 1890. After she’s fired from her job as a milliner’s assistant, the 17-year-old takes a job as lady’s maid to the supremely disagreeable daughter of a wealthy high society couple. Unbeknownst to all, Jo moonlights as the increasingly popular Miss Sweetie, the new advice columnist for one of Atlanta’s newspapers. Jo struggles to hide her identity-- a Chinese girl giving advice to white women would be scandalous!—even as she lives in secret below the print shop, But when a mysterious letter surfaces that gets her thinking about her unknown parentage, Jo’s troubles are only beginning. This charming novel, with its strong, resourceful heroine, takes on issues of race and gender by being thoroughly entertaining and hard-hitting all at once.(YA)

THE YEAR WE FELL FROM SPACE, by A. S. King, tells the story of sixth-grader Liberty Johansen, whose parents are divorcing. Liberty has always used her handmade star maps to make sense of the world, but when her dad moves out and then refuses to see Liberty and her younger sister, Jilly, Liberty finds herself unable to read the constellations anymore. Life spins out of control, but a meteor falling into the woods near her house seems to help. Liberty is a complex kid, with troubles that seem real and relatable, and her solutions are, too. (MG)

DIG, also by A. S. King, is a surrealist novel about five teenagers who live on the fringes. The Shoveler, The Freak, Malcom, Loretta, and Can I Help You? are beautifully defined, compelling characters who all come from troubled families. There’s also Marla and her Easter dinners, and Marla's husband Gottfried, who made millions once he ditched the family potato farm. The whole lot of them are caught up in dysfunctions of all kinds, including "a toxic culture of polite, affluent white supremacy.” A. S. King books are always fascinating. (YA)

Picture Books:

In JUST BECAUSE, by Mac Barnett, illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault, a child tucking into bed asks her father a barrage of fairly typical kid questions, such as “Why is the ocean blue?” and “What is the rain?” This child, however, receives some unexpectedly creative answers, which are stunningly illustrated by the always amazing Arsenault. Candlewick does a great job here production-wise, and don’t forget to check under the dust jacket.

HUM AND SWISH, by Matt Myers, shares the story of Jamie, who is digging and building on the beach. People ask her all kinds of questions about what she’s making and when she’ll be finished, but Jamie has no answers. Finally, someone comes along who understands. The spare text is perfectly paced and supported by Myers’s acrylic and oil paintings.

FIELD TRIP TO THE MOON, by John Hare, is the wordless tale of—yes, a field trip to the moon. One student separates from the group to draw, then falls asleep and gets left behind. But what an interesting time is had before the space bus comes back to pick up the young artist! FIELD TRIP TO THE MOON may be wordless, but there’s plenty of story, told with appealing acrylic art.

--Lynn

Shelf Awareness--The Beautiful

YA Review: The Beautiful

The Beautiful by Renée Ahdieh (Putnam, 448p., ages 12-up, 9781524738174)

When Celine flees Paris for New Orleans, leaving behind a terrible secret and her plans to design "gowns for the Parisian elite," she dreams of finding the city "filled with promise. And absolution." She's bound for the Ursuline convent, whose sisters will find her an "appropriate" husband. Celine tries to see her stay at the convent as a "newfound chance at life," but it's difficult to be excited when she, her friend Pippa and fellow convent resident Anabel are put to work peddling crafts to raise money for the parish orphanage. At least Celine's ability with "ruched silk and Alençon lace" allows her to contribute embroidered handkerchiefs to the wares.

On the trio's first day of peddling, "exquisite" Odette buys all of her handkerchiefs and asks Celine to make her a gown for Mardi Gras. At Odette's fitting, Celine encounters Sébastien, who is handsome in the way of "a prince from a dark fairytale," along with members of the dangerous and "otherworldly" Court of Lions. But, tragically, Anabel--who had been sent by the Mother Superior to follow Celine--turns up dead, and Celine and Pippa find themselves suspect. Until the murderer strikes again, that is, and appears to be targeting Celine.

Renée Ahdieh's (The Wrath and the Dawn) Celine is a strong, deeply conflicted character who attempts to balance society's confining roles for women with her own appetite for excitement. Bad-boy Sébastien, with his "inhuman" friends, is a suitable foil to Celine, and the vibrant city of New Orleans an evocative backdrop for this first in a darkly thrilling series. As the unnamed narrator points out to begin the story, "New Orleans is a city ruled by the dead." By The Beautiful's end, readers will believe it. --Lynn Becker, blogger and host of Book Talk, a monthly online discussion of children's books for SCBWI.

Discover: Celine finds romantic intrigue--and the undead--in this atmospheric YA series opener set in New Orleans.

November's Book of the Month--She Made a Monster

November’s Book of the Month is SHE MADE A MONSTER: HOW MARY SHELLEY CREATED FRANKENSTEIN, by Lynn Fulton, illustrated by Felicita Sala.

“On a wild, stormy night,” a group of friends gathered, reading “aloud from a book of frightening tales." A challenge emerged, whereby each member of the group, which included Mary Wollstonecraft, Lord Byron, and Percy Shelley, would create a ghost story of his or her own. The night before the competition was set to end, Mary still did not have her story. She sat alone in her room, while her friends downstairs talked about the power of electricity and the limits of science. Mary, who very much wanted to be a writer like her mother and the poets below, couldn’t sleep. Instead, her imagination took her to the “chilling tale" that would become the classic Frankenstein; or The Modern Prometheus, first published in 1818 and still widely read today. A story which heralded the beginning of the genre known as science fiction.

This gorgeous NY Times/NY Public Library Best Illustrated Children’s Book is an engaging look at a young woman who wanted to prove that “a woman’s writing could be just as important as a man’s.” Which it is, and which she did! The basis for Fulton's picture book was the forward Mary wrote for the 1831 edition of Frankenstein, but Fulton explains the liberties she took in her own telling.

’Tis the season for spooks and monsters, so it’s a great time to enjoy this origin story of one of the most famous monsters of all time.

--Lynn