Ask the Passengers

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Jennifer Brabander asks The President’s Stuck in the Bathtub author Susan Katz about writing presidential poetry. Read the full review of The President’s Stuck in the Bathtub here.

Jennifer Brabander: Which president was the hardest to write a poem about?

Susan Katz: James Monroe. The incident I used for his poem was the only unusual detail I was able to unearth, even after reading four or five biographies. One historian dubbed him “dull as a stone.” I’d have to concur. (The easiest to write a poem about, I unofficially add, was George W. Bush since he wrote half the poem for me!)

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Owen is another big Ivy + Bean fan.

There are certainly fancier button-making kits out there for kids, but they cost twice as much—and, of course, they don’t feature pictures of this fab duo. However, I can’t quite see Ivy and Bean enjoying the button maker—it seems a tad tame for them. Wouldn’t they just use the pins to poke big sister/babysitter Nancy? Indeed, an online search led to an excellent list of the type of crafts and activities Ivy and Bean really find of interest. (And the materials involved are easy to locate—a banana, scotch tape, red twisty ties, and a soft place to fall, like a bed or sofa.) My advice? Forget the button maker and find a banana. Then check out even more neat Ivy and Bean activities on Chronicle’s website for free.

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One insect you won’t find in your backyard (unless you live in the Amazon) is the titan beetle, with jaws “powerful enough to snap a pencil in half.” Kids have the opportunity to marvel over this and numerous other beetles in Steve Jenkins’s The Beetle Book. Colorful cut-paper beetles stand out crisply from the white backgrounds. They’re remarkably detailed, right down to the intricate patterns on wing casings and the delicate nature of the insects’ legs. (5–8 years)

Profiles of eight insects (and one spider) that make their own dwellings are presented in Roxie Munro’s Busy Builders. As always, Munro expertly employs perspective, on one page zooming in close enough to see the hairs on an insect’s legs and the shape of its antennae, and then on the next backing out to feature the geometric details of its home. Detailed explanations on the construction techniques and purposes of the structures are interwoven with facts about life cycles, food sources, and habitats. (6–9 years)

In Douglas Florian’s UnBEElievables: Honeybee Poems and Paintings, puns and wordplay enliven the poems, and rhythmic verse echoes bee behavior, as much with sound as with sense (“I’m a nectar collector. / Make wax to the max. / A beehive protector. / I never relax”). A paragraph of facts elucidates each spread, but the real energy here is in the deceptively casual watercolors that illustrate this offbeat and attractive book. (5–8 years)

As selected by Lee Bennett Hopkins, poets including X. J. Kennedy, Alice Schertle, and Kristine O’Connell George celebrate Nasty Bugs. Kids who love bugs for their yuck factor will appreciate these verses about lice, ticks, bedbugs, stink bugs, cockroaches, and more. Will Terry’s luridly vivid illustrations show the anthropomorphic critters up-close and personal. Three pages at the back provide scientific information about each bug. (6–8 years)

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Lady Hahn and 
Her Seven Friends

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The thirty-six stories of Tomo: Friendship Through Fiction—An Anthology of Japan Teen Stories (Stone Bridge Press, March) cover a wide range of genres (prose, verse, graphic narratives) and feature nine stories translated from the Japanese. With the exception of Graham Salisbury and Alan Gratz, most of the authors, many of whom write for adults, will be new to American teens. The book was published in March to mark the one-year anniversary of the disaster, and proceeds will go to Hope for Tomorrow, which provides educational expenses, mentoring, tutoring, and foreign language support to high school students in the hard-hit area of Tohoku.

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In Ivy + Bean: No News Is Good News, the girls want some cash, and Bean’s dad suggests they create a newspaper about life on Pancake Court. After they successfully collect money from their neighbor-subscribers, the friends realize they had better go find some newsworthy stories — and do they ever. Like Ivy and Bean, author Annie Barrows and illustrator Sophie Blackall feed off each other’s creativity with hilarious results in this eighth entry in one of the funniest young chapter book series around. (6–9 years)

Gooney Bird on the Map, written by Lois Lowry and illustrated by Middy Thomas, is the fifth book in the series. With February break on everyone’s mind, the conversation in Gooney Bird Greene’s second grade class constantly turns to three students’ fabulous vacation destinations. In this story about a sensitive subject, big-hearted Gooney Bird predictably comes up with the perfect group project to help everyone happily refocus on schoolwork. (6–9 years)

In Friends: Snake and Lizard, the beguiling pair introduced in Snake and Lizard now share a burrow and are business partners, too, “Helper and Helper.” Different as their habits and appetites are, their relationship involves the ongoing negotiation that gives this chronicle much of its humor. The two bicker constantly; still, the outcomes are fair, reasonable, and often capped with a delightfully ironic twist. Gavin Bishop’s colorful spot art reinforces the affectionate characterizations and the humor in this wise and funny text by Joy Cowley. (7–10 years)

Though not part of a series, Kindred Souls will be warmly greeted by Patricia MacLachlan’s many fans. Ten-year-old Jake has a close relationship with his grandfather, eighty-eight-year-old Billy. The mysterious arrival of a stray dog that glues itself to Billy adds a touch of magic that hangs in the air after Billy’s death, when we hear a rumor of a stray dog turning up at an ailing woman’s home in the next town. These are time-sculpted themes, and MacLachlan gives them her particular stamp of plain speaking and poetry. (7–10 years)

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My six- and eleven-year-old daughters had no interest in following the rambling story, thank heavens, because neither did I. What we were eager to get at were the instructions for drawing chubby Little Man and the various creatures and objects he sees, outside and at the Halloween Costume Ball. We laid the book on a table (the flexi-bound book stays open nicely), and while my older daughter and I were all about using the directions (some are trickier than others), my first grader just went ahead and drew the animals, using her sister’s pictures for inspiration.

Jack-o’-lanterns, candy, bats, and owls are all here, plus lots of cute woodland critters. An index makes it easy to look up directions for each item—a good idea, as I imagine we’ll visit this book again. While I doubt the book’s recipe for Little Man’s favorite dish, escargot, will have kids eagerly donning aprons, it might appeal to adult readers, who also might be interested in drawing some of the odd, not-so-Halloweeny items. (Anyone care to draw a grater grating some lemon zest?)

Get your Halloween on, folks, and get drawing.

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