Book Reviews: Children's Books
Below are book reviews I wrote as assignments for my Resources for Digital Age Children class.
Picture Book
DE LA PEÑA, Matt. Last Stop on Market Street. illus. by Christian Robinson. 32p. Penguin/G. P. Putnam’s Sons. 2015. Tr $16.99. ISBN 978-0-399-25774-2; ebook $8.99. ISBN 978-0-698-17334-7. LC 2014019913.
PreS-Gr 3—With assistance from Robinson’s vibrant acrylic and collage illustrations, de la Peña chronicles CJ and his nana’s bus ride across the city after church. While initially unhappy with their venture (“How come we always gotta go here after church?”), CJ warms to it over the course of the ride as they encounter a blind man and his dog, a musician who creates “sunset colors swirling over crashing waves” in CJ’s imagination, and a rainbow above the grimy cityscape. While a bus ride is a commonplace event – which may help it appeal to younger children – de la Peña’s evocative language (“The bus…sighed and sagged and the doors swung open.”) makes it anything but. The text lends itself well to being read aloud, and Robinson’s cheerful abstract illustrations reinforce the liveliness of city life and remind the reader there is beauty everywhere if one looks hard enough. –Stephanie Allen, University of Washington Information School
Fiction
SPRINGER, Nancy. The Case of the Missing Marquess. 216 p. Penguin/Puffin. 2007. Tr. $6.99. ISBN 978-0-14-240933-6. LC 2005013260.
Gr 4-8—When Enola Holmes’s mother goes missing on Enola’s fourteenth birthday, she knows something is suspicious and rides her bicycle into town to telegraph for her famous older brothers. Sherlock and Mycroft’s introduction immediately adds tension to this historical mystery with their displeasure at Enola’s wildness, as she is not the demure Victorian lady they expected. Rather than be sent to boarding school, Enola displays her ingenuity by engineering a corset and bustle that double as luggage and tricking the driver escorting her to school into stopping at her father’s grave so she can escape to London to search for her mother. Once in London – which is full of rats, beggars, and gas street-lamps casting “wan skirts of light” – she is kidnapped alongside the titular marquess and improvises a bold escape. While the pacing is uneven, with the focus being less on finding the missing marquess and more on locating her mother, readers looking for a spunky heroine and immersive historical detail might forgive this. –Stephanie Allen, University of Washington Information School
Non-Fiction
COLLARD, Sneed. The Prairie Builders: Reconstructing America’s Lost Grasslands. 80p. index. Houghton Mifflin. 2005. Tr. $17.00. ISBN 061839687X.
Gr 4-7—Photographs and interviews provide a human element to this introduction to the effort to restore Iowa’s tallgrass prairies. Collard, a trained biologist and prolific children’s science writer, spent two weeks interviewing those associated with the Smith National Wildlife Refuge project and meticulously documenting plants and animals in detailed photographs that appear on almost every page. The research is never overwhelming; instead, it is presented in easily digestible language – with a glossary included – to outline the historical destruction of America’s prairies by white settlers and then describe the present efforts by lawmakers and scientists to restore some of the grasslands for the next generation to appreciate. The photographs and the use of white space on the more text-heavy pages make this book less intimidating for newcomers to informational books. A list of additional resources is included, encouraging further exploration of the subject. –Stephanie Allen, University of Washington Information School