CUPCAKE (PICTURE BOOK)

Book du Jour:
CUPCAKE by Charise Mericle Harper (Disney/Hyperion)

I promised you cake today.

I didn't want to like this book.  Was it just adding its dozen to the cupcake craze sweeping every other block?  Was it one of those overly-saccharine books that ultimately says "I'm okay, you're okay?"  No.  It was not.  Yes, It capitalizes on our national love of frosting.  Yes, it ultimately says, "I'm okay, you're okay," okay.   But it also has a double-page spread of different cupcake characters (fancy flower-top cupcake, stripy cupcake, polka-dot cupcake) that is absolutely irresistible; how can you not choose a favorite?  And for gosh sakes, don't we all need a candle, to help us find our inner light?  This story is perfectly adorable, encouraging, and screams for various follow-up projects, whether decorating paper cupcakes or pulling out the pastry bags for some real action.  Three yums up.  (5 and up) And also, for lots of layers and zero calories, add BETTY BUNNY LOVES CHOCOLATE CAKE to your collection, featuring an energetic floppy-eared character that finds her cocoa-covered true love and is enamored enough to stick it in her sock. The thin-lined, watercolor illustrations are expressive and funny, and overall, a is the icing on the cake for a very realistic depiction of a hard-headed little girl in bunny's clothing (not that you might know any yourself). A nice choice for the FANCY NANCY and OLIVIA jet-set of readers. And if you're just in it for the pastry, please don't forget Janet Stein's THIS LITTLE BUNNY CAN BAKE, which lets some boys in the kitchen door, too.  (5 and up)

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More Esmé stuff at www.planetesme.com.

THE GINGERBREAD MAN LOOSE IN THE SCHOOL (PICTURE BOOK)

Book du Jour:

THE GINGERBREAD MAN LOOSE IN THE SCHOOL by Laura Murray, illustrated by Mike Lowery (Putnam)

I'm the Gingerbread Man,
And I'm trying to find
The children who made me,
but left me behind.

Looking for the children in this reverse chase, our Gingerbread friend gets a grand tour of the school, and manages to find his friends in the end.  Comic-book framing paired with fun, simple illustration and a limited but snazzy palette of browns, greens, turquoise and red makes for visually active pages that are still easy to follow when sharing with a classroom.   This cookie is genuinely sweet!  (5 and up) For other reads off the cookie sheet, taste-test THE GINGERBREAD GIRL by Lisa Campbell Ernst, or my favorite, Mini Grey's adventurous GINGER BEAR. And don't forget to share the original, newly reprinted with a handsome embossed cover, Paul Galdone's THE GINGERBREAD BOY, which, in combination with the other titles in Galdone's "Folk Tale Classics" series, has comprised my latest baby-gift-of-choice." The children never seem to trust that old fox, no matter how nice he tries to be...for a while, anyway. Oh, well.

And! While we're on the subject of the way the cookie crumbles, there's Jan Brett's busy GINGERBREAD FRIENDS, which is eye candy as much as it is eye cookie, and the Randall Jarrell's beautiful, old-fashioned first chapter-book read-aloud (yes, all you first grade teachers, this is for you!), THE GINGERBREAD RABBIT, illustrated by the great Garth Williams (of whose talents you are acquainted from CHARLOTTE'S WEB.

To be devoured with or without milk.
Cake tomorrow.

Links are provided for informational use. Don't forget to support your local bookseller.
More Esmé stuff at www.planetesme.com.

THE GIRL WHO CIRCUMNAVIGATED FAIRYLAND (Fiction)

Book du Jour:

THE GIRL WHO CIRCUMNAVIGATED FAIRYLAND IN A SHIP OF HER OWN MAKING by Catherynne M. Valente (Fiewel and Friends)

Save Fairyland, little twelve-year-old-girl!  (No pressure.) With lots of wordplay, a quest to vanquish in the name of good and a whimsical cast, perhaps this is a contemporary nod to Norton Juster's  THE PHANTOM TOOLBOOTH featuring a female protagonist (and how timely, with a 50th Anniversary Edition and an Annotated Edition out and about?)...excepting, September has an enthusiastic spirit all her own, falling in line with the best of the Practical Princesses and other more liberated girls who have wandered--or wended--their way into fairy tales. Smart, lovely, sensory, descriptive language, too, with plenty of vocabulary that means what it says and says what they mean (bedraggled shoes, dense bread), always exciting and never dumb (just like good old William Steig used to do...how about BRAVE IRENE? ).   Isn't it perfect when an author has a high regard for, um....words?  And girls?  Helps a lot. (11 and up)

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More Esmé stuff at www.planetesme.com.

TROUBLEMAKER (FICTION)

Book du Jour: 

TROUBLEMAKER by Andrew Clements (Scholastic)

What could be more exciting than a new title from the master of realistic school fiction?  A poignant story about how difficult it can be to turn over a new leaf once a reputation for mischief is imprinted upon the mind of teachers and classmates.  I have a feeling that Sahara would like this book. (9 and up)

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More Esmé stuff at www.planetesme.com.

HORNBOOKS AND INKWELLS (NONFICTION)

Book du Jour:

HORNBOOKS AND INKWELLS by Verla Kay, illustrated by S.D. Schindler (Putnam)

A trip to an 18th-century one-room schoolhouse in a book, through the magic of terse verse and good-humored pictures!  How about wearing neck yokes for punishment, or ice-skating at recess, or bathroom in the outhouse?  Yeesh, makes young 'uns today look rather milquetoast.  The terse verse is brought to life through the good-humored, detailed drawings, fittingly fettered with straight lines.  Let's write "we love Schindler's mannered illustrations" 100 times, in our best handwriting.  A perfect preface for another historical schoolroom story, Avi's THE SECRET SCHOOL, in which a fourteen-year old girl in 1925 gets to work behind the teacher's desk, or Laura Ingall's Wilder's amazing depiction of 19th century school life in LITTLE TOWN ON THE PRAIRIE. You tell your readers, "When I was a kid, I had to walk two miles uphill in a snowstorm to get to school to read these books, and you get to take the bus to the library!"  That'll learn 'im.  (8 and up)

Links are provided for informational use. Don't forget to support your local bookseller.
More Esmé stuff at www.planetesme.com.