January 2008

Seattle's Child Reads:
New Books by Northwest Authors

By Wenda Reed

Thanks to the staff in the children’s department of University Bookstore in Seattle for their help in compiling this list of favorites.

Board Books

Count the Birdies
Matthew Porter, Capitol Hill artist and co-owner of Bluebottle Gallery, is gaining a reputation for his stylized animals (last year’s ACB book). His new book, Count the Birdies, helps little ones learn colors and numbers with exquisite drawings of uncommon birds and plants, based on Japanese woodcuts (Simply Read Books, 2007).

Fruit and Vegetables
Sara Anderson, designer and children’s book writer and illustrator, has only to step from her apartment in the Pike Place Market to find subjects for her luscious new books, Fruit and Vegetables. With startling colors and simple shapes, the yummy foods seem to jump off the page. Wouldn’t it be fun take the books with you when you shop, and have your child find the fruits and vegetables pictured to try at home? Also look for re-issues of her first children’s books, Colors and Numbers (all Handprint Books, 2007).

Picture Books

Larry Gets Lost in Seattle
On their first trip to our city, Larry the dog and his boy Pete get separated in this new book by West Seattle native John Skewes. Follow the little yellow dog with the big nose and worried expression as he searches through a dozen favorite landmarks. The charming illustrations make up for the clunky rhymes, and you learn a little about each spot Larry visits (Sasquatch Books, 2007). A portion of book sales proceeds will be donated to the West Seattle Food Bank.

Glass Slipper, Gold Sandal: A Worldwide Cinderella
Prolific Seattle folk illustrator Julie Paschkis clothes Cinderella in the costumes of 17 countries as she weaves her interpretations through Paul Fleischman’s global retelling of the famous folktale. As he brings in details from different countries – the cinders from Korea, the crocodile with the golden sarong from Indonesia, the stepmother wrapping the girl up in a mat from Laos and the glass slipper from France – Paschkis creates intricate unifying backgrounds to each page (Henry Holt and Company, 2007).

Rabbit’s Gift
Here’s another story that’s traveled around the world. Bainbridge Island author George Shannon first discovered the gentle tale of the generous little rabbit as an English translation of a German story, and later found it re-told in Japanese and in French. Rabbit finds two turnips, and shares one, sparking a series of “pay-it-forward” acts by the animals of the forest. It’s a lovely book to share with little ones as an antidote to the “gimmes.” Painterly illustrations by Laura Dronsek enhance the quiet mood of the forest. (Harcourt, 2007).

Ten Naughty Little Monkeys
Take the “Ten Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed” rhyme and continue it as nine, eight, seven … monkeys race out the door, skate in the street and climb up a tree. Each time, one of them has an accident and the doctor in the banana-print necktie goes bonkers in this funny adaptation by Renton writer Suzanne Williams. Can you spot the rascally monkey on each page that is causing all of the trouble? Will she get her comeuppance? The illustrations by Suzanne Watts are adorable (HarperCollins, 2007).

Adventures of Riley: Operation Orangutan
Riley is a 9-year-old red-haired adventurer who gets regular breaks from his ordinary life to track wildlife in exotic lands in the company of his scientist uncle and family. In his newest adventure, Bellevue writer and photographer Amanda Lumry takes Riley to Borneo, where he stays with researchers living deep in the rain forest. He has close encounters with a proboscis monkey, sun bear, baby orangutan and paradise flying snake while learning about the fascinating strangler fig tree and watching his host collect orangutan pee. Laura Hurwitz’s colorful cartoon drawings are combined with Lumry’s photographs. Also new this winter are Adventures of Riley: South Pole Penguins and Adventures of Riley: Polar Bear Puzzle (all Eaglemont Press, 2007).

Middle Grade Science

Will It Blow?
Think Mount St. Helens is old news? Not while it’s still shaking and “passing gas” and building up pressure inside. Beginning with graphic descriptions of the 1980 eruption, Portland science writer Elizabeth Rusch invites readers to “become volcano detectives” by following clues provided by earthquakes, gas emissions, deformations, heat and lava. Will they be able to decide whether, or when, it will blow again? With all of its side trips and experiments, and the helpful illustrations by Seattle illustrator K.E. Lewis, kids could be absorbed for hours (Sasquatch Books, 2007).

Talking Trash: Flotsam, Jetsam and the Science of Ocean Motion
Seattle oceanographer Dr. Curtis Ebbesmeyer found a new way to monitor ocean currents when 80,000 sneakers fell off a container ship from Korea and washed up on Washington and Oregon beaches in 1990. This was followed by another dispersion of 28,800 rubber duckies and other bathtub toys on Alaskan and Washington coastlines in 1992. Loree Griffin Burns chronicles Ebbesmeyer’s tracking of these items, as well as hockey gloves, fir logs, LEGO® pieces, computer monitors and more. In this expansive, leisurely read, you’ll learn about waves, tides, currents and things called “nurdles” and “gyres” – fortunately, there’s a glossary at the end (Houghton Mifflin, 2007).

Uncover a Tiger and Robotic Gorilla
Seattle writer Paul Beck puts his previous background as exhibit developer at Pacific Science Center to good use with these two new super-books. Uncover a Tiger is a 16-page book incorporating a model of a Bengal tiger – as you turn each page, you find out about the digestive system, skeleton, skull and other parts of the body as you look at one part of the composite model. There are dozens of interesting side facts about the animals and their habitat on each page. Robotic Gorilla is a 16-page book packaged with a robotic model to build, for ages 8 and older – it has moving limbs and eyes that light up (both from Silver Dolphin Books, 2007). Beck has also written Uncover a Crocodile, Uncover a Race Car, Robotic Bat and Robotic T-Rex, also from Silver Dolphin Books.

Young Adult

Gym Candy
We’re drawn into Mick’s life from the moment he throws a purple and gold mini-football around his backyard with his ex-Husky dad to his triumphs in the championship high school football game to the point when he aims a gun at his best friend. Seattle teacher Carl Deuker has a real ear for the teen voice, and creates a believable, likable kid, with a complex family, who tentatively embarks on the use of performance-enhancing drugs and gets caught in their web. There’s no preaching here, and you don’t have to be interested in football to enjoy this page-turner. Although Mick’s high school is fictional, it’s fun to follow all of the Puget Sound references (Houghton Mifflin, 2007).

Deadline
Ben Wolf is a high school football player, too, although the game is less central to the story. Deadline is a fascinating look at the choices the teen makes when he’s told in August that he has an aggressive form of leukemia and will probably not live out the school year. Spokane writer Chris Crutcher does not focus on the disease, but on Ben’s decision to refuse treatment, not to tell anyone until he has to, and find out as much and experience as much as he can in his last year. I found his own and his friends’ and family’s reactions to his news unbelievable, but the book is still an interesting exploration of what you would do if there were no reason to avoid risks. Plus, there’s lots of wit and wry humor sprinkled throughout the story. (Greenwillow/HarperCollins, 2007).

Wenda Reed is managing editor of Seattle’s Child.

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