The Dark

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Eleanor & Park

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They vanquished a nasty witch and saved their various realms in The Hero’s Guide to Saving Your Kingdom. Now princes Liam, Frederic, Duncan, and Gustav are preoccupied with family and fame when a new adventure beckons. Christopher Healy’s The Hero’s Guide to Storming the Castle, with illustrations by Todd Harris, finds Briar Rose blackmailing the League of Princes into setting off with her, Cinderella, Snow White, Rapunzel, and Liam’s sister Lila to steal a mystical object from the diminutive Bandit King. Add in an evil warlord with nefarious plans, loads of witty banter, plenty of action, and a cliffhanger ending to ratchet up the entertainment level. (8–12 years, HarperCollins/Walden Pond)

In Sage Blackwood’s Jinx, a cranky wizard named Simon adopts the title character and grudgingly teaches him a little magic. All is well until Simon performs a spell on Jinx that makes the boy’s ability (to see people’s emotions in colorful clouds around their heads) disappear. Jinx, aided by two new friends, seeks out Simon’s rival, an evil wizard called the Bonemaster, to regain his power. Flowing dialogue, easy character interaction, and a familiar yet original vibe and setting make the novel inviting, compelling, and ripe for future installments. (8–12 years, HarperCollins/Harper)

Maya thought she had vanquished her immortality-hungry nemesis Henri de Fourcroy in The Cabinet of Earths, but in A Box of Gargoyles, he casts a spell to force her to restore his vitality. Maya and her friend Valko must outwit the spell while contending with powerful forces, gargoyles…and a very bad violinist. There’s plenty of strength and charm in Anne Nesbet’s follow-up — especially in the animated, personal voice of the narrator, who seems to speak out of Maya’s own head but, at the same time, offers its own sympathetic interpretation of events. (8–12 years, HarperCollins/Harper)

Sixteen-year-old potions master Kyra, the star of Bridget Zinn’s Poison, is reluctant to trust anyone, even her best friend, the future queen, Ariana. The well-crafted tale slowly reveals why Kyra shot a deadly potion at Ariana, and why, when Kyra has never missed a target, she missed that one. The author’s use of modern language in a magical setting adds to the charm; the complicated/flawed characters are realistic, and the plot twists and turns, including dramatic cliffhanger chapter endings, quick getaways, and disguises, make this a fine rollicking adventure from start to finish. (11–14 years, Hyperion)

From the April 2013 issue of Notes from the Horn Book.

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Like Jennifer Adam and Alison Oliver’s BabyLit series, Les Petits Fairytales maintain that it’s never too early to introduce readers to the classics. Some might argue that these series are meant more for book-loving adults than children. The BabyLit books are pure concept books, exploring colors, numbers, and other primary concepts in the framework of classic stories (such as Pride & Prejudice and Moby-Dick). Even with this classic-lit context, the books don’t make much linear storytelling sense. Unlike the BabyLit titles, however, Les Petits Fairytales can be read as concept and story books and encourage child/adult interaction while introducing new concepts. In this way, I find the Les Petits Fairytales series is geared less towards literary-leaning parents and more towards the intended child audience.

I first fell for these books because of my love of all things fairy tale, but I appreciate them more after realizing what they have to offer beyond the cute gimmick. In addition to the books’ emphasis on interactivity, the glittery covers provide a nice touch-and-feel aspect, the bright colors are eye-catching, and the toddler-sized characters are relatable. I was pleased to discover that four more entries (Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, Rapunzel, and Sleeping Beauty) will be added in early May. I hope these new books live up to their predecessors.

What do you think of the Les Petits Fairytales series? Has anyone tried reading them with young children?

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Stephen Krensky and Sara Gillingham’s I Can Do It Myself! and Now I Am Big! board books celebrate the increasing independence of toddlers and their pride in accomplishment. In I Can Do It Myself!, a little girl picks out her own clothes, blows her nose, eats, etc. In Now I Am Big!, a little boy presents before-and-after scenarios: “I used to be shy. / Now I am brave.” Gillingham’s retro illustrations add a sweetly nostalgic feel to Krensky’s rhyming texts. (2–4 years, Abrams/Abrams Appleseed)

I Say, You Say Animal Sounds! and its companion volume I Say, You Say Opposites! (both by Tad Carpenter) are fun participatory texts with oversize gatefolds. The art is colorful, though not always realistic (in Animal Sounds, the lion’s grassland is purple, and the duck’s green pond is situated on a field of blue grass), but this whimsical break from realism won’t detract from the pleasure of the shared reading experience these books afford readers. (2–4 years, Little/LB Kids)

These Flip the Flap & Find Out books introduce very basic science concepts to preschoolers. Who Lives Here? asks readers to figure out what animal (out of four choices) lives in a particular kind of habitat. The animal is then revealed on the following page. What Happens Next? is a study both of animal behavior and of cause and effect. In both volumes, Marc Boutavant’s illustrations are well cued to Nicola Davies’s content, depicting scene-setting scientific details while enhancing the fun of discovery. (2–4 years, Candlewick)

Tom Slaughter’s Boat Works: A Giant Fold-Out Book and Simms Taback’s Dinosaurs: A Giant Fold-Out Book are guessing-game books. Starting with a question on the left (Boat Works asks, “What am I?”; Dinosaurs asks, “Who am I?”) and a clue on the right, the right-hand page then folds out to reveal another piece of the picture and a second clue. A final fold reveals the answer in a gloriously large seventeen-inch square. Boat Works is bright and geometric, while Dinosaurs features Taback’s characteristic naive art with thick black lines. (2–4 years, Blue Apple)

From the February 2013 issue of Notes from the Horn Book.

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In Rae Carson’s The Crown of Embers, new queen Elisa (The Girl of Fire and Thorns) must learn to rule while dealing with internal and external threats to her authority. Initially hesitant, Elisa grows savvy and ruthless as she makes some hard, unpopular choices. Her Godstone prompts her to embark — with romantic interest Hector, Lord-Commander of the Royal Guard — on a quest to find a legendary magical-spiritual power source. Assassination attempts and perilous journeys ensure nonstop action, and a bracing conclusion opens the door for further exploration of this pseudo-Spanish/Mediterranean fantasy world. (13 years and up, Greenwillow)

In Scrivener’s Moon, the third book in Philip Reeve’s post-apocalyptic, post-technological Fever Crumb series, Fever (a nano-machinery-enhanced hybrid-human) and her engineer mother undertake a perilous search for much-needed Ancient technology. The novel culminates in the brutal and spectacular birth of a mobile London, followed by an epic battle, setting the scene for Reeve’s Mortal Engines and its sequels. Characterization is deep and revelatory; themes are rich and seamlessly interwoven; and the complex plot will keep readers riveted. (12 years and up, Scholastic)

Beth Revis’s Shades of Earth, the third book in her Across the Universe trilogy, picks up with Earth-born Amy and ship-born leader Elder leaving the ship Godspeed. Once they make planetfall on Centauri-Earth, tensions quickly rise between Elder and the recently awakened colony of “frozens” — which includes Amy’s parents. A calculating military-industrial corporation, a shadowy alien menace tracking the colony, and a new mystery Amy and Elder must solve make for plenty of plot twists by book’s end. (14 years and up, Penguin/Razorbill)

The renewed war between chimaera and seraphim takes center stage in Laini Taylor’s Days of Blood & Starlight. Karou (Daughter of Smoke & Bone), as the new resurrectionist, repopulates the chimaera, while her star-crossed lover Akiva reluctantly takes a lead role in the seraphim army. Surprises ratchet up the suspense, as do acts of personal sacrifice, and Karou’s eventual emergence as a leader helps forge an uneasy alliance between the chimaera and Akiva’s band of rebel angels as a battle against the seraphim looms. (15 years and up, Little, Brown)

From the January 2013 issue of Notes from the Horn Book.

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Over the Moon: The Broadway Lullaby Project (Easton Studio Press, May 2012) includes a book of illustrated poems/lullabies, two CDs of the songs, and an e-book. Actress Kate Dawson developed this project to honor her cousin, who died of breast cancer. For Kate, lullabies were a way of connecting with her cousin’s young children after their mother’s death. She wanted to create “a collection of original lullabies, composed and performed by members of the Broadway community” with profits benefiting the Breast Cancer Research Foundation and Young Survival Coalition.

Dawson and co-creator Jodi Glucksman brought together some of the biggest names in musical theater and children’s book illustration for this one-off compilation. The composers/lyricists include Stephen Schwartz, Stephen Sondheim, Tony Kushner, and Sammy Cahn. Singers such as Vanessa Williams, Audra McDonald, Anika Noni Rose, and Michael Cerveris lend their vocal talents. Artwork from illustrators such as Sean Qualls, R. Gregory Christie, Wendell Minor, Marc Simont, Richard Egielski, Paul O. Zelinsky, Javaka Steptoe, Melissa Sweet, Jon J Muth, and Peter H. Reynolds accompanies the lullabies, and an illustration by Jules Feiffer graces the cover.

The songs’ topics are diverse, as are the musical styles, though all are relatively soothing and slow as befits lullabies. One song, “Yolanda” (about a “gypsy queen”), doesn’t fit lyrically, but Judy Kuhn’s masterful vocals and the calming orchestration still connect this piece with the rest of the collection. Many of the songs rely on guitars, bass, and percussion, but the occasional accordion, cello, cittern, or bass flute adds variety. Two instrumental tracks called “First Sonogram” and “Winding Down to Sleep” are some of my favorites to listen to repeatedly.

One drawback: the book and CDs don’t match up. The CDs’ nine additional songs and different sequence make it difficult to follow along in the book as you listen to the music. Given the artists involved — including Emily Arnold McCully, Betsy Lewin, and Lauren Castillo — I would have loved to look at the illustrations for these additional songs while I listened. A deluxe e-book edition (unseen) does include the entire collection of songs and may be the best choice for ease of reading along. According to the project’s website, a documentary about The Broadway Lullaby Project is also in the works. (The website features several sample songs and behind-the-scenes pictures and video as well.)

When I first saw this collection, I thought it might contain songs from Broadway shows that would work as lullabies. I was equally satisfied to discover that these were original songs created specifically for this noteworthy project, but I’m still intrigued by my initial idea. What Broadway songs do you think would make great lullabies?

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A follow-up to last fall’s fabulous A Charlie Brown Christmas app, Loud Crow’s latest story app It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown! (October 2012) is based on the 1966 animated holiday TV special of the same name. Linus spends Halloween night in a pumpkin patch, faithfully waiting for the elusive Great Pumpkin to appear, while everyone else (even morose Charlie Brown) enjoys “tricks or treats” and a costume party. The app is narrated by Peter Robbins—the original voice of Charlie Brown, now grown up—and features much of the plot and dialogue (including the original character voices) from the cartoon. A user-friendly format in terms of narration, animation, page turns, and word recognition allows readers to experience the beloved tale in a new way.

Unfortunately, this story app relies on its connection to a free supplemental games and activities app called The Great Pumpkin Festival, and the combination is problematic. Whereas the Christmas app did a nice job, in a single app, of integrating easy-to-use activity features into the story, this pair of apps is glitchy, confusing, and cumbersome.

Once users create the required account for The Great Pumpkin Festival app and log in, they choose costumes and accessories to customize their own Peanuts avatars. (Some free options for each item are provided, but the more interesting ones must be “purchased” with either coins or candy bought through iTunes or earned by participating in activities.) Users can carve pumpkins, browse other users’ costumed avatars and decorated pumpkins, and “like” pumpkins and guess what people carved. On Halloween, the pumpkin with the most likes will be crowned “The Great Pumpkin.” Avatars, pumpkins, and achievements may be shared to Facebook. The Festival app itself is pretty fun — for the social media–savvy and for those willing to buy more coins on iTunes (with real money!) to pay for things in the app. My problems concern how it connects to the Great Pumpkin story app.

On the title page of the story app, readers can log in to their Festival app account to upload their avatar. If you have your Festival account turned on, your avatar will appear several times in the story alongside the Peanuts characters. It would make sense for the app to simply ignore the concept of avatars if the user isn’t logged in to their account. And for the most part, it does. However, in one scene, when there is no avatar inserted, a black ghost appears on screen in its place as Lucy directly asks the avatar what it is supposed to be. This pulls the user out of the storyline and makes the secondary app intrusive on the story.

Additional issues in the story app: it occasionally just shuts itself off, at least one of the text balloons appears to be misaligned, and I think there’s supposed to be a candy matching game to play when the kids go trick-or-treating, but it doesn’t work properly. I would have appreciated a how-to section with more information on the activities. Reviews of the app in iTunes reveal that other users experienced similar problems. There is also a redundancy to the scene where users can play three songs (“It’s a Long, Long Way to Tipperary,” “Pack Up Your Troubles In Your Old Kit Bag,” and “There’s a Long, Long Trail”) on the piano, à la Schroeder, while Snoopy dances on screen. First the narration includes each song, then the keyboard appears and the user plays each song, then an animation kicks in and the song is played for a third time.

Some of the features do work well: users can tap objects on the screen to activate additional content, and the animation is generally well timed to the narration. Users also have the option to decorate their own pumpkin, which appears once in the story; turn the narration and/or music off; and navigate using a helpful scene selection guide. Users can discover five more activities in the story to earn rewards (i.e., more candy for the supplemental app).

Are you confused yet? I certainly was after spending an afternoon with these apps. Frankly, the number of drawbacks to the story app as it now stands outweigh the positives. Here’s hoping they improve the story app in later updates. I wish Loud Crow had done a better job of linking the two apps—or had released one all-inclusive app. Since the free Festival app works well on its own (though it’s a bit dull after the initial creation of avatars and pumpkins), I recommend that you download it and forego purchasing the story app.

Both apps are available for iPad, iPhone, and iTouch; Great Pumpkin: $4.99, Festival: free.

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The app, developed by Joyce’s own Moonbot Studios (2011), is a hybrid of the short film and the picture book. As in the film, music and animation move the story along, providing a cinematic flow. But, like the picture book, the app also includes a textual story to follow and still images to view. This combination, with the addition of evenly paced narration and interactive features, sets the app version of Morris Lessmore apart from its companions.

By now the story is familiar to many: Morris Lessmore loves stories and surrounds himself with books. When a terrible storm destroys his home, he is left to wander. He encounters a woman with flying books and follows one of the volumes to a library, where he spends many years caring for the books and sharing them with others. When he finally departs the library, he leaves his own story behind. A little girl finds it and starts reading, bringing the tale full-circle.

The app relies on user participation throughout the story to advance (or enhance) the narrative. Sometimes this interaction is as simple as turning the pages or tapping highlighted images on the screen to make them move, change, or produce sound (i.e., opening a door for Morris to fall through, or having him throw a book in the air to make it fly).

More elaborate activities invite users to play the story’s musical motif “Pop Goes the Weasel” on a piano keyboard, write on the pages of a book, put together a puzzle, or make Morris fly (by tilting their device). This flying activity — meant to represent the theme of losing oneself among the words in a book — is a little awkward to maneuver, and doesn’t quite produce the desired effect of flying through a story (the words don’t move past Morris as you’re flying him around the screen). Regardless, it’s obvious from the app’s variety of interactive features that Moonbot Studios is pushing the boundaries of app innovation and presentation.

My favorite interactive feature involves helping Morris hand out books to library patrons. When a book — either A Christmas Carol, Treasure Island, Frankenstein, or Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland — is given to one of the three individuals in line, that person changes from grayscale to full color (a metaphor used throughout the story to illustrate how reading can brighten lives). Suddenly dressed like a character from that book, the patron quotes one of the character’s lines; the transformations are humorous to say the least. Other allusions to famous tales occur earlier in the narrative; when Morris enters the library for the first time, users tap the books to hear famous lines by Shakespeare, Twain, Dickens, Fitzgerald, Poe, and Conan Doyle.

The easy-to-access settings menu gives control over music, narration, language, and text, making this a very user-friendly app. Some cool extra features: users can watch the award-winning animated short film in its entirety along with an additional “making of” video.

I found this app, like the film and book, to be a story worth telling — I’m happy to have the opportunity to experience it in a range of different formats. I think Morris would be, too. Available for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad, $4.99 in the App Store.

A separate IMAG-N-O-TRON app (requires later generations of Apple devices  with iOS5 and a WiFi connection; $0.99) allows users to point their device at a page of the print book and watch it come to life on the screen.

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[cue Star Wars theme song]

Tomorrow, Saturday October 6, 2012 is the first National Star Wars Reads Day, designed to “celebrate reading and Star Wars.” While this may be an unusual pairing, I’m all for promoting events that encourage children to read. So in honor of the inaugural event, I’ve taken a look at three new Star Wars books that have recently arrived in the office.

Some fans might say it’s never too early to get kids interested in the Star Wars universe. Perhaps that’s why Lucas Books (through publisher Scholastic) has started a line of Star Wars board books. Numbers and counting concepts aside, Star Wars 123 (July 2012) is geared more toward Star Wars-fanatic parents than their newborns. The shiny images may catch a baby’s attention for a few seconds, but the vocabulary and subject matter are a “galaxy far, far away” from what most toddlers are capable of comprehending. The book could be appreciated as a baby shower or novelty gift; in that case, consider pairing it with Star Wars ABC.

Pop-up master Matthew Reinhart’s Star Wars: A Galactic Pop-Up Adventure (Orchard/Scholastic, October 2012) would be a perfect present for school-age children obsessed with the film series — especially if they’re into the Clone Wars. Over the five foldout spreads in this book, readers learn all about the Star Wars universe as depicted in Episodes 1–3 of George Lucas’s famous film franchise. Giant pop-ups portray podracing, Nexu and Acklay monsters, General Grievous, Vulture droid fighters and a Jedi Interceptor, and Lord Darth Vader himself — complete with a light-up lightsaber that changes from Jedi blue to Sith red!! The book, a marvel of paper engineering, maximizes space by including detailed text inside foldout mini-books containing their own small pop-ups.

Darth Vader in all his pop-up glory

Even though the book focuses specifically on the Clone Wars (I admit my loyalty lies with the original films 4–6), the pop-ups are delicate, and it probably won’t have a long library shelf life, Reinhart should be commended for the book’s ambitiousness, comprehensiveness, and overall WOW-ness. I’ve got my fingers crossed for a second book featuring Episodes 4–6!

With a foreword appropriately written by middle-grade author Tom Angleberger (The Strange Case of Origami Yoda, Darth Paper Strikes Back, and The Secret of the Fortune Wookiee), Chris Alexander’s book Star Wars Origami: 36 Amazing Paper-Folding Projects from a Galaxy, Far, Far Away… (Workman, August 2012) will excite Star Wars fans who are also into making things (the same way Star Wars Legos have thrilled them for years). But be warned: this book is not for the casual origami enthusiast. The projects take a lot of practice, skill, and patience to complete (similar to Jedi training). Those who are not origami masters may end up frustrated, with a lot of crumpled paper. Though the projects are broken down by level of difficulty, don’t be deceived. I tried two of the “youngling” (easy) projects and let’s just say they are not my finest artistic achievements.

two “youngling” (i.e., “easy”) projects

I’m a little apprehensive about trying any of the harder projects after my pitiful attempts at the easy ones! The projects require a strong familiarity with origami folds, so I highly recommend reading the origami basics section thoroughly before proceeding. Each project is introduced with a brief description and a film still of the character or ship, and trivia is interspersed throughout to test your knowledge of all things Star Wars. Perhaps coolest of all: 72 sheets of specially patterned Star Wars origami paper! I spent a lot of time flipping through the book trying to decide which favorite ships and characters I wanted to re-create first. Lightsabers, R2-D2, Yoda, C-3PO, Darth Vader, Princess Leia, Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Chewbacca, The Death Star, Millennium Falcon, TIE Fighter, X-wing Starfighter, my list goes on and on. I only wish Alexander had included an origami version of an Ewok! After my failed attempts at Han and the Death Star I was disheartened, but I’m determined to persevere and keep trying out different projects in my spare time (perhaps during a Star Wars movie marathon?).

The website for tomorrow’s event shows a map of sites where events will take place in honor of the day. If you can’t make it to one of the events, activity kits on the website offer recipes, crafts, coloring pages, trivia, and games young padawans (and adult Jedi-wannabes) can do at home — including some origami and pop-ups! But as you tackle any of these projects tomorrow, remember the wise words of Yoda: “Try not. Do, or do not. There is no try.”

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