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Cookbooks

Recipe: Watermelon Margaritas

Feature by Sybil Pratt

A celebration of the best that the Tex-Mex tradition offers, The Tex-Mex Grill and Backyard Barbacoa Cookbook, illustrated with 75 archival and new photographs, takes you on a tour of famous Tex-Mex restaurants, taco trucks, cook-offs and tailgating extravaganzas, and has all the recipes you'll need to make these spicy treasures in your own backyard. No Tex-Mex fiesta could start without a Margarita, and you'd be hard-pressed to find a more welcoming summer cocktail than this super-seasonal, rosy-pink Watermelon version. If you can't find "watermelon liquor," no problema—just add little more tequila!

Serves 4

Thanks to Gramercy Tavern manager Nick Mautone for the frozen watermelon ice cube idea.

1/2 small watermelon
8 ounces Simple Syrup
4 ounces freshly squeezed lemon juice
4 ounces freshly squeezed lime juice
12 ounces gold tequila
8 ounces watermelon liqueur
12 mint leaves

Cut the watermelon into 1-inch cubes, removing the seeds as you go. Place the cubes in a colander set inside a bowl. Stir the cubes gently to extract juice without breaking up the cubes. You should have at least 8 ounces of juice. Put the watermelon cubes on a tray and freeze until solid—about an hour.

Mix the syrup, lemon juice, and lime juice with the watermelon juice. To serve, divide the frozen cubes among 4 glasses. Add the tequila, then the liqueur, and then the juice mixture and stir. Garnish with the mint leaves.

Recipe from The Tex-Mex Grill and Backyard Barbacoa Cookbook; Broadway Books.

A celebration of the best that the Tex-Mex tradition offers, The Tex-Mex Grill and Backyard Barbacoa Cookbook, illustrated with 75 archival and new photographs, takes you on a tour of famous Tex-Mex restaurants, taco trucks, cook-offs and tailgating extravaganzas, and has all the recipes you'll…

NonfictionEducation

Helping your kid make the grade

Feature by Stephanie Gerber

As students gear up for school, here are four picks to help parents make the most of their child’s education, from preschool to college.

THE RIGHT START
The subtitle of Jenifer Wana’s preschool primer says it all: “The Ultimate Guide to Finding, Getting Into, and Preparing for Nursery School.” Type A moms everywhere can breathe a sigh of relief because How To Choose the Best Preschool for Your Child will save you loads of time navigating essays, interviews, applications and recommendation letters. Beginning at least a year before your child starts school, Wana offers organizational tips for researching, visiting and enrolling in preschool. This process might seem straightforward—your little tyke is only three after all—but the to-do’s are daunting.

Wana helps you determine what’s most important to you and your child in choosing the right preschool (location and cost are biggies for most families). To help you narrow down the options, she includes helpful overviews of different preschool types (Montessori, play-based, Waldorf and others) and comprehensive instructions on researching and evaluating schools.

Wana provides lots of questions that will make you look smart to the discerning admissions officer and even offers acceptably pushy tips on getting off the waiting list. Once little Susie is accepted to the perfect school, a countdown will get the whole family ready for the big day.

KINDGERGARTEN SUCCESS
Regardless of whether they attend public or private school, most children will be given some sort of IQ test by the age of five. Author Karen Quinn has written a comprehensive guide to this secret world in Testing for Kindergarten. It’s a process foreign to most parents, and these early test scores don’t even correlate well to later success. However, the tests have enormous impact on whether a child will get into a competitive private kindergarten or a free public gifted program.

Quinn turned herself into an expert on the topic after her son Sam was faced with developmental delays caused by hearing problems. At age three, he scored in the 37th percentile. After Quinn’s intervention, he scored in the 94th.

Testing for Kindergarten shows how every parent can improve their child’s abilities and scores. First, Quinn explains the most common IQ tests and the seven abilities they measure. Then she helps parents refocus the way they interact with their child to start sneaking learning into everyday life. Daily Life Lessons are easy ideas, like what to do while setting the table, and there are loads of games and activities.

Quinn keeps the overload factor down by focusing on the most important things you can start on day one (dialogic reading, talking to your child constantly). Don’t miss this empowering guide.

SINCERE SLACKERS
As most parents know, boys are different from girls when it comes to organization, time management and study skills. Author Ana Homayoun outlines her specially designed organizational system for preteen and teenage boys in That Crumpled Paper Was Due Last Week. This professional tutor says boys’ struggles in school are rarely due to difficulties with the class material. Instead, disorganization is the root cause.

To get boys back on track, Homayoun outlines a practical plan that focuses on building skills rather than just improving grades. She identifies five factors that add up to chronic disorganization: trouble with multi-tasking, over-involved parents, technology distractions, sleep deprivation and fear of making wrong choices. Parents play a key role in implementing change, starting by identifying their son’s dis-organizational style (the overscheduled procrastinator or the sincere slacker) and helping their sons set three academic and three personal goals.

The specific to-do’s are geared for maximum efficiency. Prepare an organized binder for each class. Don’t do homework in the bedroom; instead try the dining room table. Turn off the music, and put away the cell phone and computer. A five-week strategy for implementing the straightforward advice helps parents and boys see results fast.

COLLEGE BOUND
From the author of the bestseller The Naked Roommate comes The Happiest Kid on Campus, a practical parents’ guide to helping your child get the most out of the emotional and tumultuous college years.

Author Harlan Cohen writes with a wise, funny point of view. He’s young enough to understand kids these days and help parents avoid major eye-rolling on touchy subjects like sex, drugs and alcohol. Pretty much any topic that parents are embarrassed to talk about with their kids is covered with sensitivity and common-sense advice.

Cohen also helps tech-illiterate parents navigate the muddy waters of texting, Twitter and Facebook. He says email is out of date, so if you do want to keep in touch, learn to text. But limit it to twice a week.

Cohen has plenty of advice on practical matters, including handling orientation, packing, move-in day and the basics of financial aid and, of course, dealing with difficult roommates. This handy guide will help parents survive the first few months until your child finds his place on campus.

As students gear up for school, here are four picks to help parents make the most of their child’s education, from preschool to college.

THE RIGHT START
The subtitle of Jenifer Wana’s preschool primer says it all: “The Ultimate Guide to Finding, Getting Into, and…

Parenting

Building skills for life

Feature by Rebecca Steinitz

At the start of the 21st century, parents are understandably worried about how to help children navigate a world characterized by economic uncertainty and academic pressure, cyber-distractions and omnipresent media. These books offer advice for every stage of the parenting journey.

In recent years, scientists and psychologists have gained dramatic new insights into the brains and behavior of babies and young children. Among other things, they have discovered that babies are aware of language, numbers and feelings at just a few months old, and that the executive functions of the brain, which help us organize our lives and behavior, are critical to achievement. Ellen Galinsky draws upon these insights in Mind in the Making, an overview of the seven “learning skills”—like “Focus and Self Control” and “Critical Thinking”—that, she argues, help children succeed in life.

Galinsky references her own experiences, brief parenting anecdotes and the research and opinions of experts as she first details the importance of each “essential life skill” and then provides suggestions for how parents can stimulate that skill. The suggestions are as specific as games to play and questions to ask, and as broad as reducing parental stress. While Mind in the Making offers much food for thought, its breadth can be overwhelming; just trying to follow the 19 suggestions for promoting focus could drive a parent to distraction.

HELPING CHILDREN LEARN
Like Galinsky, Jane Healy focuses on the brain; while Galinsky addresses the basic skills that underlie success in all aspects of life, Healy—an educational psychologist, teacher and brain expert—specifically tackles learning problems, and her approach is both more focused and more comprehensive. In Different Learners, she makes a persuasive case for attending carefully to both genetic and environmental causes of learning problems.

While learning problems often originate in the brain, Healy argues that they can be dramatically exacerbated by a child’s “home, school, community, and culture.” Carefully laying out the workings of the brain, along with the causes and consequences of different kinds of learning issues, she argues that paying close attention to a child’s specific needs and making changes in their environment and behavior can make medication unnecessary.

Healy is persuasive, thoughtful and, above all, sympathetic to the challenges and fears parents face, providing many useful tips and strategies for how they can help their children.

GETTING IT RIGHT FOR GIRLS
In Girls on the Edge, Dr. Leonard Sax, author of Boys Adrift, now turns his attention to the opposite sex. Sax believes that contemporary culture, with its focus on appearance and performing for others, is preventing girls from developing an “authentic sense of self.” In the first part of the book, he targets early sexualization, the Internet and environmental toxins as primary causes of this absence, and obsessions (from anorexia and alcohol abuse to perfectionism) as one of its signal manifestations.

Sax, a strong public advocate for single-sex education, believes that boys and girls are innately different and should be taught and coached in different ways. In the book’s second half, he outlines some of these differences and offers advice on how to help girls flourish.

Some of Sax’s suggestions are common sense: limiting and supervising computer time, making sure your daughter gets enough sleep, being a “Just Right” parent (“firm but not rigid, loving but not permissive”) instead of “Too Hard” or “Too Soft.” His focus on gender difference and single-sex environments may be more controversial, but will ring true for some parents.

ONE MOTHER’S TEENAGER
While Sax takes a big-picture look at today’s teenage girls, in My Teenage Werewolf, author and mom Lauren Kessler focuses on one girl: her preteen daughter, Lizzie, with whom she increasingly finds herself “completely immersed in mutual hostility.” Seeking to understand Lizzie, and to prevent the semi-estrangement that characterized her post-adolescent relationship with her own mother, Kessler sets out to explore the world of contemporary teenagers.

She begins with research, learning about strategies for communicating with teens, the hormonal and brain changes that make teenagers so erratic and impulsive, and the stresses they face today. She joins Lizzie at school, camp and wrestling practice, becoming a “cultural anthropologist” of “the world of the twenty-first-century teen girl.”

In the two years she spends immersed in Lizzie’s life, Kessler discovers that her daughter is not a raging, sulking beast determined to make her mother’s life miserable, but a strong, thoughtful individual. Acknowledging Lizzie’s autonomy, and letting go of her own need to control her daughter, Kessler finds her way to the mother-daughter relationship she seeks—a relationship that was really there all along.

At the start of the 21st century, parents are understandably worried about how to help children navigate a world characterized by economic uncertainty and academic pressure, cyber-distractions and omnipresent media. These books offer advice for every stage of the parenting journey.

In recent years, scientists and…

FictionWomen's FictionMystery

Dazzling debut authors

Feature by BookPage staff

With more and more new writers getting published each month, it’s sometimes daunting to decide which newly minted authors to add to your reading list. From historical novels to literary fiction to mysteries that will keep you up all night, here’s a look at the best debut fiction of the season.

SUSPENSEFUL FAMILY DRAMA

The basic plot of The Swimming Pool sounds like a soap opera: A devoted wife and mother of two is murdered. Shortly after, her husband—a suspect—dies in a car accident. Seven years later, the son of the dead couple has a steamy affair. His lover? The woman who was his late father’s mistress.

Under Holly LeCraw’s spell, what could have been pure pulp is instead a passionate and suspenseful family drama and murder mystery, set during the sultry summertime of Cape Cod. LeCraw skillfully alternates between past and present, allowing the reader to observe Marcella Atkinson’s affair with Cecil McClatchey; the consequences it has on both her family and his; and her later relationship with Jed, Cecil’s son.

The aftermath of betrayal and the cost of passion loom large in the story’s background. Did Marcella and Cecil’s affair cause the death of Cecil’s wife, Betsy? Was Marcella’s temporary happiness with Cecil worth disrupting the lives of her family? Is it possible to find happiness after horrific events?

Although LeCraw’s descriptive prose is sensual and worth savoring, readers will whip through The Swimming Pool, eager to find out what really happened on the night of Betsy’s murder. At the novel’s conclusion, they’ll relish the fact that LeCraw is a debut author—how thrilling it is to anticipate what she’ll come up with next.

—Eliza Borné

BEHIND THE FREAK SHOW

To the modern thrill-seeker, the main event of P.T. Barnum’s Circus may be the strangely trained animals or death-defying stunts. The original circus, however, began with a much humbler lineup, as “A Museum of Curiosities” in New York City in the mid-1800s.

In The Transformation of Bartholomew Fortuno, readers get an inside peek at the lives behind the freak show, home to skeleton men, oversized beasts and bearded women. But the performers in Barnum’s sideshow are real people, complete with genuine struggles, emotions, ambitions and love lives. The story’s protagonist, Fortuno, or “Barthy,” is one such multifaceted character.

After meeting a new addition to the cast, Mrs. Iell Adams, Barthy’s tiny world is widened by his own curiosity. Intrigued by her alluring look, he begins to question his own “talent,” asking himself for the first time if he has chosen his life or if it has chosen him.

Trudging through his doubt, he follows the impulses of his newfound feelings, sometimes to his own detriment, and often leaving others in the wake of his decisions. Beginning as a troubled soul who rarely stopped to dwell on the past or realize the implications of the present, Barthy emerges transformed by the twists and turns of his true self-discovery.

Bryson’s writing invites readers directly onto the showroom floor with her apt descriptions of the culture surrounding the Museum life. She’s done her digging—and it’s clear in her detailed portrait of the complexities and conflicts of a life behind glass. This is an apropos end-of-summer pick for the historian and/or the endlessly curious. Whether or not they’re familiar with Barnum and his enterprise, readers will find much to appreciate in this story about the life-transforming power of love.

—Cory Bordonaro

THE DEPTHS OF LIFE AND DEATH

One of the hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease is the tangling of the fibers used for sending and receiving neural messages, particularly in the regions of the brain associated with memory. As one of the leading researchers into the biological prevention of Alzheimer’s, Victor Aaron can identify all the signs of the disease with textbook precision, but it is only upon losing his wife in a car accident that he truly begins to understand the fickle and fleeting nature of memory.

In Rosecrans Baldwin’s You Lost Me There, Victor has memorialized his marriage as picture-perfect, but when he stumbles upon his wife’s private reflections on their relationship, recorded for their therapist, he begins to realize just how incompatible his own perceptions of the relationship are relative to his wife’s. As he delves deeper into Sarah’s recollections, Victor finds himself increasingly overcome with grief as he struggles to reconcile his memories of their grand romance. With the dawning understanding that “you never know what lurks beneath people, even when they’re perfect on paper,” Victor finds he must mourn Sarah all over again.

Unrestrained yet elegant, You Lost Me There is a powerful meditation on the all-consuming nature of grief and the power of memory as both redeemer and destroyer. A novel of contradictions, it plumbs the depths of life and death, sense and sentimentality, youth and maturity—all while tackling the big quandary of how we can hold on to the past while moving forward. This is a novel for which all the romantic intellectuals of the world will rejoice, as Baldwin proves there can be such a thing as a cerebral author who writes with his heart.

—Stephenie Harrison

SECRETS OF A SCOTTISH TOWN

The post-WWII town featured in A.D. Scott’s enjoyable novel is not a happy place. The weather in this Scottish Highlands village is often dismal and the people are hidebound, which leads too often to downtrodden women, mistreated children and a reflexive distrust of strangers. Then a little boy dies. At first it’s assumed that his death was accidental, but the town is gripped by horror as it’s revealed that the child was murdered. Who could have done such a thing?

The crime is of special interest to the staff of the Highland Gazette: Joanne, the typist, married to a brute who beats both her and their children; Rob, the charming cub reporter; McAllister, the editor-in-chief; and McLeod, “the subeditor and all-around fusspot know-it-all.” As the mystery of the boy’s death grows more tangled and frustrating, it’s McAllister who finds a possible clue to solving the crime in a secret trauma he’s been nursing for years.

Scott shows us that many in the town have secrets. Some are trivial, like the secrets children keep to stay out of trouble. But some are monstrous. Scott not only captures the townsfolk’s insularity and way of speaking, but writes beautifully about the natural world that surrounds them.

Written with humor, compassion and a fine sense of tragedy, A Small Death in the Great Glen is the first in a series by this promising new author.

—Arlene McKanic

THE MULTICULTURAL EXPERIENCE

Shoko was eight years old when American bombs fell on Nagasaki; she and her family experienced the repercussions from that day throughout their lives. Her younger brother Taro grew up hating all Americans, so when Shoko decides to try to “better” herself by marrying an American GI, Taro vows he will never speak to her again.

After relocating to the States with her new husband, Shoko struggles to become an American. She is aided by a book given to her by her mother when she left Japan, How to Be an American Housewife, but still finds it difficult to fit in. Margaret Dilloway, whose own mother was Japanese, writes perceptively about the neighbors who never visit, the classmates of Shoko’s daughter, Sue, who laugh about her mother’s accent, and PTA meetings where Shoko is painfully out of place.

Years later, in San Diego, Shoko has a weak heart, and knows she may die before she has the necessary operation to repair it. She longs to visit Japan once again and reconcile with Taro—“the only one who knew me, the real Shoko.” She asks Sue (now a divorced mother of precocious 12-year-old Helena) to go to Japan in her place—to try and find her uncle Taro. Sue agrees to go, Helena in tow; their journey becomes a revelation, in a myriad of ways. Sue learns things about her mother’s culture she had never heard of, finds cousins she never knew she had and comes to realize how much her Japanese roots really mean to her—and to Helena.

In this emotionally rich debut, Dilloway delves into all familial relationships: mother-daughter, father-son, husband-wife and sister-brother—each one both complicated and enriched by the added ingredient of the multicultural experience. Readers will easily relate to her touching, often humorous story of the way unbreakable family ties can stretch over decades, and from one generation to another.

—Deb Donovan

A ROAD TRIP WORTH THE RIDE

Bill Warrington, a cantankerous old man with Alzheimer’s disease, believes he has one last shot at something. But as the story unfolds, we see that every character has one last chance to drop the baggage from their angry past. All that is a bit iffy, however, since the key to bringing about a happy ending depends on a crusty grandfather on the brink of forgetting what he was trying to achieve in the first place.

Enter Bill’s granddaughter, April, a typical teenager looking for any chance to escape her tightly wound mother. And escape she does after yet another argument at home followed by a bit of luck. As it happens, Bill is ready to hit the road for one last hurrah in his ancient Impala.

In April’s eyes, this road trip’s purpose is to fulfill her dream of making it to California to become a rock star. But Bill has a secret or two. His plans for this trip are to reunite his feuding sons and his domineering daughter, April’s mother. But as the odometer miles add up, it becomes clear to April that Bill may not be able to pull off this shenanigan with his mental stamina fading faster every day. And how is a 15-year-old, alone and far from home, supposed to handle this deteriorating geezer while helping him achieve a highly unlikely reconciliation?

Bill Warrington’s Last Chance turns out to be quite a ride for all the characters involved—and it proves that taking a chance may not turn out exactly as you had planned, but it’s darn worth a try.

—Dee Ann Grand

 

A BUOYANT BEACH READ WITH HEART

Susanna Daniel’s Stiltsville is rooted in a community of stilt houses towering above Biscayne Bay, Florida, where the author spent much of her childhood. Daniel masterfully evokes the sticky Miami heat and refreshing ocean breezes, but there is so much more to these pages than fetching seaside images. Daniel’s characters are emotionally complex and so believable that Stiltsville almost reads as a memoir rather than a work of fiction.

The book’s beating heart is Frances Ellerby, whom readers follow on a moving journey that hits all the milestones: marriage, parenthood, trying illness, burial of loved ones and the highs and lows in between. Frances shares the spotlight with her attorney husband Dennis, only daughter Margo and son-in-law—with whom she chaffs—Stuart. On the periphery are Dennis’ parents and sister, characters that aid in relaying a story of unwavering familial support and friendship.

Daniel strikes a perfect balance of wit, weakness and tenderness in Stiltsville. As Frances raises a daughter, contemplates infidelity and cares for an ailing husband, her values are challenged and ultimately defined. It is not as light as other beach reads on the market, but Stiltsville emerges wonderfully buoyant.

—Lizza Connor Bowen
 

 

With more and more new writers getting published each month, it’s sometimes daunting to decide which newly minted authors to add to your reading list. From historical novels to literary fiction to mysteries that will keep you up all night, here’s a look at the…

Children's & YAPicture Book

The adventure of kindergarten

Feature by Alice Cary

As my own brood heads off to middle school and high school this year, kindergarten seems like a very long time ago. Starting school is such a milestone, and those first few days are filled with excitement, jitters and sweetness.

DEAR DIARY
Antoinette Portis’ Kindergarten Diary is a great way to get youngsters ready for their big day. Written in diary form by a young student named Annalina, it covers her first month of school with humor and insight. Annalina voices her fears (of school, of the teacher, of other children), but gradually discovers that she loves everything about her school, and by the end of the month, she is “Too busy to write any more!”

Even older kids who’ve already aced kindergarten will enjoy Annalina’s observations, such as what she plans to wear on her first day (bathing suit, ballet skirt, plaid shirt, cowboy boots, no socks), and what her mother makes her wear (nice blue sailor suit dress). Portis’ lively illustrations combine drawings and photographs in a style that resembles a kindergartner’s diary, right down to the wide-lined paper.

ANNIE TO THE RESCUE
Another lively kindergartner is “Adventure Annie,” who made her debut in Adventure Annie Goes to Work. Toni Buzzeo brings this delightful character back to life in Adventure Annie Goes to Kindergarten. Dressed in a red cape and red boots, Adventure Annie is always on the lookout for great excitement, so she stuffs her backpack with her zookeeper hat, high wire slippers and walkie-talkies, “just in case.” This exuberant girl is every kindergarten teacher’s nightmare as she paints the hamster cage (to make the habitat look “natural”) and sneaks out to the jungle gym by herself. However, Annie and her walkie-talkies come to the rescue when two of her more timid classmates get lost while fetching milk cartons for lunch. This fast-paced tale will have readers chuckling, and Amy Wummer’s pencil and watercolor illustrations reveal the unfolding action and make Annie’s red cape fly.

LARGER THAN LIFE
While Annie is obviously ready for kindergarten (and more!), young readers will enjoy pondering this question: Is Your Buffalo Ready for Kindergarten? As with the beloved Clifford the Big Red Dog, size is a bit of an issue for a buffalo kindergartner. However, Audrey Vernick’s witty text makes this shy student a super-sized hit as he adjusts to his new classroom. Daniel Jennewein’s simple illustrations give this buffalo big, winning eyes and lots of lovable expressions. Little ones about to spend their own first days in kindergarten will be reassured by this big guy’s successful efforts to fit in.

CLASSROOM KITTY
There’s another fluffy, floppy face in Kindergarten Cat. Found outside and rescued by Mr. Bigbuttons, this lucky feline gets a new name (“Tinker Toy”) and a new home in a cheery kindergarten room, making a bed in the paintbrush drawers. In J. Patrick’s Lewis’s rhyming text, Tinker Toy proves to be a whiz, giving all the right answers with carefully enunciated “meows.” Ailie Busby’s mixed media illustrations are clever kindergarten-style creations that bring the classroom in focus.

These picture books will get prospective students in the right frame of mind for their own monumental quests. As Adventure Annie’s mother advises, “Sometimes kindergarten is its own adventure.”

As my own brood heads off to middle school and high school this year, kindergarten seems like a very long time ago. Starting school is such a milestone, and those first few days are filled with excitement, jitters and sweetness.

DEAR DIARY
…

Children's & YAPicture Book

From studio to stage: Dance breaks down boundaries

Feature by Julie Hale

If you know any stagestruck youngsters begging for ballet lessons, a trio of new dance books will get them off on the right foot. As these stories demonstrate, everyone has a special sort of grace, an inner vision that’s worth expressing through movement. Share these inspiring books with aspiring Sugar Plum Fairies, and they’ll be demanding an encore.

Authors Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan have collaborated on several award-winning art books for young readers, including Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Through the Gates and Beyond. They have a gift for distilling multilayered historical incidents into appealing, easy-to-understand narratives. Their new book, Ballet for Martha: Making Appalachian Spring, is a fascinating account of the history-making collaboration that occurred in the 1940s between composer Aaron Copland, sculptor Isamu Noguchi and modern-dance choreographer Martha Graham. Re-imagining the give-and-take that transpired between the trio as they completed the legendary dance piece Appalachian Spring, Greenberg and Jordan offer readers a unique glimpse of creative minds at work.

The story takes place in the studio and on the stage, as Martha develops movement for the dance, which features a cast of American archetypes: The Pioneer Woman, the Preacher, the Bride and her Husbandman. Noguchi, meanwhile, creates minimalist sets to suit Martha’s aesthetic, and Copland composes “rarin’ to go rhythms” that synthesize traditional American musical genres—a blend of reels, ballads and hymns that provide the perfect melodic backdrop for the piece. The dance’s triumphant premiere takes place on October 30, 1944, with Martha herself performing as the Bride. Brian Floca’s detailed watercolors deliver a sense of the choreographic style—athletic, angular and somewhat primitive, with none of ballet’s gentle refinement—that would make Martha famous. For young readers unfamiliar with modern dance, this is a magical introduction to an important artist. Source notes, biographies and a bibliography supplement this accessible story.

Brontorina, a winning picture book by James Howe, shows that the spirit of dance can strike any species. When Brontorina Apatosaurus, an orange dinosaur of planetary proportions, appears at Madame Lucille’s Dance Academy for Girls and Boys, she’s dying to unleash her inner ballerina. Madame is initially confounded by her would-be pupil, but the children persuade her to let Brontorina take the class, where she proves surprisingly graceful—although a flip of her tail nearly flattens the students, and with every jeté, her head scuffs the ceiling.

Brontorina feels more at ease in the studio after Clara, a fellow student, comes to class with a surprise: a pair of ballet slippers in Brontorina’s size (that’s extra-, extra-, extra-large). When all is said and done, Brontorina’s large-scale talent exceeds the limits of the Dance Academy, and a search for an adequate performance space ensues—with unexpected results. “I want to dance,” Brontorina insists from the start. By the end of this amusing book, her dream has come true. Brought charmingly to life by Randy Cecil’s ebullient illustrations, Brontorina’s story will please ballet lovers of all ages.

The author of more than 50 books for young readers, Lesléa Newman presents an inspiring story about the importance of perseverance with Miss Tutu’s Star. Selena is a girl who lives to dance. It’s how she moves through the world. It’s what she does instead of socializing. Inevitable, then, is the trip she and her mother make to Miss Tutu’s Dance Academy so she can enroll in ballet class. At the studio, the lithe, limber Miss Tutu teaches an assemblage of adorable students—bewildered-looking boys and prim girls, all clumsy and uncertain as they struggle with new steps.

In class Selena is discouraged by ballet’s challenges, but her teacher provides encouragement: “Even when Selena fell, / Miss Tutu said, ‘You’re doing well. / What matters most is from the start, / My dear, you’ve always danced with heart.’” With patience and practice, Selena becomes more accomplished, and she makes a surprising stage debut that brings the audience to its feet. Delivered in delightful rhymed verse, her story is sure to strike a chord with little ballerinas. Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ colorful paintings convey Selena’s love of movement—the sheer joy she experiences through dance. A fun, frolicsome tale, Miss Tutu’s Star proves that practice pays off.

If you know any stagestruck youngsters begging for ballet lessons, a trio of new dance books will get them off on the right foot. As these stories demonstrate, everyone has a special sort of grace, an inner vision that’s worth expressing through movement. Share these…

Children's & YAPicture Book

Treats, not tricks, for little ones

Feature by Alice Cary

On Halloween night, the streets of our small town burst with goblins and strolling parents. It’s a once-a-year party that can’t be beat. Here are four picture books guaranteed to get you in the “spirit.”

Jon J Muth continues his captivating, thought-provoking Zen series in Zen Ghosts, a unique Halloween tale. As in Zen Shorts and Zen Ties, the story features a giant panda, Stillwater, who pays an instructive visit to three siblings. After trick-or-treating, Stillwater “draws” the trio a mysterious story, based on a Zen koan, or parable. Muth explains in an author’s note that this great ghost story “leaves you with more questions than answers,” and he’s right. His trio of Zen books can truly be enjoyed—and contemplated—by all ages.

HAUNTED HOUSE
The Curious Little Witch, by the late Belgian author/illustrator Lieve Baeten, is a delightful book, perfect for youngsters who want some non-scary Halloween fun. Lizzy and her cat are taking a spin on Lizzy’s broomstick when they spot an unusual house, which turns out to be full of magical details and friendly witches. Upon landing, Lizzy breaks her broom, leaving her in a pickle. She explores the house room by room, from top to bottom, finding a different witch in each location. Young readers will enjoy lingering over Baeten’s intricate illustrations, including a final large cutaway floor plan. The Curious Little Witch is likely to be enjoyed all year round, not just at Halloween.

MOM’S ADVICE
Another good no-scares book is Always Listen to Your Mother written by the mother/daughter team of Florence Parry Heide and Roxanne Heide Pierce. Ernest is a good little boy, who always “picked up his toys, ate all his vegetables, sat up straight, and listened to his mother.” When a new family moves next door, Ernest befriends young Vlapid, who loves to swing from the chandelier, write on the walls and create all sorts of havoc. This might seem a friendship destined for disaster, but the joke is that Vlapid’s mother likes life that way, and Ernest can dutifully report that Vlapid always listens to his mother. Children will love this gentle tale, made all the more fun by the whimsical illustrations of Kyle M. Stone.

FEARFULLY POETIC
For frightfully fun Halloween poems, a treat is waiting with Hallowilloween: Nefarious Silliness from Calef Brown. Brown is well known for his magical wordsmithery, as seen in his best-selling book of nonsense poems, Flamingos on the Roof. His verbal acrobatics continue here in high form, in lines like these from “Not Frankenstein”: I’m not Frankenstein, / but people say / I’m “Frankensteinesque.” / I sit at a desk / in my mountain lodge / and do decoupage. / It’s an homage you see, to the human collage—that’s me! While easily accessible, these are verbally dazzling poems, perfect for elementary students and sophisticated preschoolers. Both audiences are likely to benefit from additional explanations of some finer points of vocabulary and idiom from an adult, but the poetry is far from pedantic.

NEW KID IN TOWN
You’ve heard of spaghetti westerns, of course, but what about a Halloween western? Rhode Montijo brings the genre entertainingly to life in The Halloween Kid, a rootin’, tootin’ romp. The Halloween Kid keeps order in town, wrassling “pumkin-suckin’ vampires” and tickling leaf-pile ghosts, whom he calls “heap-hauntin’ holligans” (parents, get ready—this book is best read with a Western-drawl). He’s got a new mission now, wrangling the Goodie Goblins, who are stealing sweets and terrorizing trick-or-treaters. Did I mention that the Kid is cute, with a Lone Ranger hat, mask, and lariat, and always astride his trusty stick horse?

Montijo’s illustrations are the perfect blend of modern and retro, featuring oranges, yellows, and an effective use of black, some done in silhouette—all adding to the tale’s energy. There’s plenty of old-fashioned excitement (but nothing gross or garish), including an ambush in a cave and a daring escape and rescue by the Kid’s sidekick horse. In the end, the Kid restores order and rides out of town under a moonlit sky, saying: “Y’all keep trick –or-treatin’ now, ya hear?” Yee-ha, this is one clever book!

SCAREDY CAT
A full Halloween moon and a brisk wind set the spooky stage for Nancy Raines Day’s On a Windy Night, in which a young boy in a skeleton costume walks through the woods alone. The gentle rhyming text builds tension as the boy imagines he hears a voice: “CRACKLETY-CLACK, BONES IN A SACK. / THEY COULD BE YOURS—IF YOU LOOK BACK.” The voice gets louder; clouds become ghosts; skeletons dance in the field, and the boy fears he felt a head in the field.

Just when things could hardly get worse, the boy realizes that he is being stalked by a cat, not a ghoul. George Bates’ pen-and-ink, digitally colored illustrations add to the charged atmosphere, with dark blue, orange and black tones filled with just the right amount of “comfortable” scariness, as readers spot the cat stalking the boy, and watch tree branches, for example, morph into an image of a giant bat. For preschoolers, this book will likely be the source of repeated read-alouds filled with spine-tingling squeals of fright and delight.

On Halloween night, the streets of our small town burst with goblins and strolling parents. It’s a once-a-year party that can’t be beat. Here are four picture books guaranteed to get you in the “spirit.”

Jon J Muth continues his captivating, thought-provoking Zen series in Zen…

Crafts, Hobbies & Home

Party ideas for kids

Feature by Joanna Brichetto

In Naked Eggs and Flying Potatoes, author, educator and Emmy Award-winning TV science wizard Steve Spangler conjures new tricks for kids, kidders and kids at heart. He makes it easy to transform ordinary household stuff into extraordinary outcomes, most of which tend to “ooze, bubble, fizz, bounce and smoke,” not to mention spew diet soda 12 feet into the air. Even the seemingly simple are fun: Who knew a hex nut could make a balloon scream? A few experiments are particularly suitable for Halloween parties, such as the gloriously gross cornstarch/borax goo (which made a kid lose his lunch at my daughter’s fifth birthday party), the giant smoke rings and all activities involving dry ice. Spangler’s fun-centric approach insists “it’s not about the science, it’s about the experience,” but parents and teachers can be assured the science is solid; experiments are framed with easy-to-understand explanations and real-world applications.

POOHSTICKS 101
Turkish Delight & Treasure Hunts by Jane Brocket is a collection of recipes, activities and, as the author describes them, “'I want to do that!’ moments” culled from beloved books like Winnie the Pooh, Mary Poppins, The Chronicles of Narnia and so on—books in which children always seem to be eating or doing “all sorts of marvelous things.” Each marvelous thing gets a brief introduction to establish context, to remind us why these classics are so formative to our lives and to entice us to read classics we may have overlooked. Readers can now bake Ma’s Hand-Sweetened Cornbread from Little House on the Prairie, whip up Enid Blyton cocoa, munch “Wind in the Willows River Picnic Cress Sandwiges” and try “Heidi’s Grandfather’s Simple Cheese and Bread Supper.” We can also make a Borrowers house, try Alice in Wonderland croquet, learn poems by heart just like Anne of Green Gables and plant a Secret Garden. Aside from being a charming excuse to revisit favorite stories, Turkish Delight & Treasure Hunts is a ready-made opportunity to connect with young readers who “need to find out about the things children have always done [and] to make their own literary discoveries.”

TOP PICK FOR LIFESTYLES
Even the healthiest-minded readers of Candy Construction by Sharon Bowers may want to rush out and buy ridiculously large amounts of candy for the children in their lives. My own whole-food, organic scruples have been chocolate-chipped away by this seductive volume. Why? Because these sweet creations are not just cute as a (candy) button and easy as (moon) pie, they are seriously fun to make. And I mean fun to make with kids, not merely for kids, because even though the end product might be fabulous, the real goal is in the messy, focused, cooperative and creative process. With a few building materials—frosting “glue,” store-bought brownies, Rice Krispie treats and other no-bake structural elements—plus basic dollar-store candy, kids can make pirate ships, pyramids, steam trains, construction sites, fairy-tale castles, creepy critters, games and even jewelry, all 100% edible. Simple instructions and big color photos bring out the inner engineer in all of us. Perfect for a group activity at birthday or holiday parties, or for one of those days when folks are trapped indoors.

In Naked Eggs and Flying Potatoes, author, educator and Emmy Award-winning TV science wizard Steve Spangler conjures new tricks for kids, kidders and kids at heart. He makes it easy to transform ordinary household stuff into extraordinary outcomes, most of which tend to “ooze, bubble,…

Graphic Novels & ComicsGraphic Memoirs

Perfect pairings of art and prose

Feature by Becky Ohlsen

Graphic novels continue to break new ground, with recent works that run the gamut in both style and content. Here we take a look at four of the best new releases, ranging from a colorful tale of pirates and sea monsters to a close examination of democracy in America.

A CLASSIC TALE
It took Joann Sfar’s touch to make me finally fall in love with the story of The Little Prince. Sfar’s illustrated version of the classic by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is more playful than precious; the combination of his captivating artwork and the pared-down prose allows the story to sneak up on you rather than blatantly yanking your heartstrings. As drawn by Sfar, the mysterious prince from a tiny, faraway planet is adorable, wise and funny, rather than simply tragic. Sfar gives him depth and attitude, with tired shadows around his big blue eyes and subtle facial changes that express feelings it would be clunky to describe in writing. Sfar tells as much of the story as he can visually, employing words only when necessary, which gives the whole thing a feeling of restraint that the original lacks. In my favorite scene, the little prince meets a wild fox who begs to be tamed (“It means creating a bond,” the fox explains). So the prince tames him, but when it’s time to leave, the fox starts to cry. “So it hasn’t been worth it,” says the prince. “Oh yes it has,” the fox replies, and suddenly whole swaths of adult life make sense. (Sfar’s fox looks a lot like the namesake of his best-known book, The Rabbi’s Cat—angular, sly and prone to curling up expressively.)

ON THE HIGH SEAS
Similar in tone and in its rich color palette, The Unsinkable Walker Bean by Aaron Renier is, on the surface, a rollicking tale of pirates’ adventures on the open sea. But in fact it’s a story about loyalty, honor and keeping your promises. Walker Bean’s beloved grandfather has fallen ill after being cursed by a stolen skull; it’s up to Walker to return the skull to where it belongs and end the curse. But to do that, he has to keep the skull out of the hands of a creepy octopus man, a feisty pirate girl and his own father, among others. There are also huge, menacing lobster women and a ship that turns into a planetarium. Like all young boys trying to solve grown-up problems, Walker makes mistakes, but he also makes some very helpful friends, including a pirate boy named Shiv and, eventually, tentatively, that feisty pirate girl, Gen. Renier’s drawings are vivid and expressive, full of movement and sound, and the twist at the end of the story adds an unexpectedly heartwarming touch. Walker’s adventures will continue in Volume 2 of the series.

TRY, TRY AGAIN
At the other end of the graphic-novel spectrum is Good Eggs, Phoebe Potts’ memoir of her and her husband’s struggle to get pregnant. Her spare and simple line drawings invite you into the story; it’s mostly realistic, but with occasional flights of fancy that spring from Potts’ imagination. A discussion of a soul-sucking job, for instance, includes one panel showing a row of new college graduates on an assembly line, a “PhD factory,” as she puts it. And when she meets her future husband, something he says makes her draw herself being held aloft by little doves (who then drop her to the floor when he mentions having a girlfriend). It’s sweet, and effective. The writing is also excellent: sharp, clever, realistic dialogue with no wasted words. Potts grew up in Brooklyn, and her characters talk the way people talk in Brooklyn—always entertaining, and usually hilarious, even when the subject matter is serious. The story centers on her desire for a child, but it’s all the other things she discovers—about her own life, her priorities and values—while pursuing this desire that make the book so rewarding.

AN AMERICAN JOURNEY
Taking the search for fulfillment from the personal to the political is Maira Kalman’s And the Pursuit of Happiness, an investigation into the roots of democracy in America and how it has changed throughout our history. Kalman was inspired by the 2008 elections, and on inauguration day she went to Washington, D.C., to begin a sort of political-science travelogue. She gets a crush on Abe Lincoln, discovers you can patent a peach, chats with farmers and meets diplomats. The sketches and collages she uses to illustrate what she learns are placed opposite pages of her hand-written observations, which are spirited and funny, keeping the material from ever seeming dull. On the very early origins of America, for instance, she says, “Growing tired of the ocean, creatures migrated onto the land. Then came dinosaurs and motorcycles.” Which sounds about right. A few pages later, we learn, “Then came Commerce and Greed.” It’s a fast-paced tour, hitting all the highlights and the lowlights, and enhanced with Kalman’s sketches and paintings as well as archival photos, postcards, pages from old books and diaries, etc. There’s a lot to learn from this book, but reading it never feels like hard work.

Graphic novels continue to break new ground, with recent works that run the gamut in both style and content. Here we take a look at four of the best new releases, ranging from a colorful tale of pirates and sea monsters to a close examination…

Animals

Going to the dogs

Feature by Deanna Larson

The cooler weather of fall signals a time to get closer to friends and family—and the animals that add spice to our lives and teach valuable lessons along the way.

SMALL WONDERS

The power of a 25-pound beast to alter a life is made evident in You Had Me at Woof: How Dogs Taught Me the Secrets of Happiness. Julie Klam, a former intern for “Late Night with David Letterman” and Emmy-nominated writer for VH1’s “Pop-Up Video,” sees her solitary single life turn upside down after she rescues a fugly Boston terrier named Otto, who comes along at just the right time to remedy Klam’s status as a commitment-phobe. “It made me feel good to see him content,” Klam writes. “I took care of him and he took care of me. Within six months of adopting him, I grew up.” Klam eventually marries the producer of her VH1 show, a marriage that results in an adorable daughter, Violet, and a parade of foster dogs to and from their tiny apartment after she decides to volunteer for a Boston terrier rescue group. These little one-act adventures in the sacrifices and rewards of dog guardianship have humanity, occasional tragedy and sadness, and plenty of hilarity as this compact family in an even tinier space attempts to save the neurotic, unwanted and abandoned, including an elderly dog that provides a miracle just when the family least expects it.

PUPPY POWER

Fans of the best-selling memoir Merle’s Door: Adventures from a Freethinking Dog will be ecstatic to hear that Ted Kerasote has another dog. Kerasote, a warm and winning writer, is an equally gifted photographer who traces his new puppy’s early development in Pukka: The Pup After Merle. Their action-packed and tender moments, narrated from Pukka’s point of view and accompanied by more than 200 color photos, provide a coda and healing for those who remember Kerasote’s journey with another special yellow dog. From Pukka in front of the wood-burning stove in Kerasote’s beautiful cabin in Kelly, Wyoming, to exploring Yosemite National Park, rafting on rapids (complete with doggie life jacket) and hiking to the top of Jackson Peak, readers can follow the growth of a tiny puppy into an adventurous adolescent lucky enough to romp past some stunning scenery with an owner who appreciates him as deeply as any dog longs to be.

“If you can manage to make the world small enough—say the size of a miniature poodle—it becomes the universe.”

HOPE & HEALING

Sages come in all sizes. A miniature black poodle named Bijou serves as her owners’ “Canine Zen Master” in What a Difference a Dog Makes: Big Lessons on Life, Love, and Healing from a Small Pooch. Springing from New York Times editor Dana Jennings’ popular blog post about how his beloved elderly dog Bijou helped him recover from cancer (and get his son through a concurrent health crisis), the book expands on the joy of dogs and the healing aspects of the “simple gift of their presence.” In touching and mischievous sections like “You Take the Dog Out, I Have Cancer” and “The Holiness of Dogs,” Jennings adds simple Zen-like truths “by” his guru Bijou at the end of each chapter to illustrate the emotional power, insight and many blessings that one animal can provide. “Strangely enough,” Jennings writes, “if you can manage to make the world small enough—say the size of a miniature poodle—it becomes the universe.”

OFF THE BEATEN PATH

Journalist John Zeaman creates a masterpiece of contemplation in Dog Walks Man: A Six-Legged Odyssey. After becoming the de facto dog walker in his household, Zeaman discovers that the daily routine with standard poodle Pete moves from being a grind to serving as an inspirational return to boyhood and its “fringe places” like woods, abandoned lots and railroad right-of-ways. Pete shows a “boundless enthusiasm for the outside world [that is] like the reincarnation of that juvenile self.” As they set out each day with “anthropological curiosity,” like two innocent and hopeful vagabonds lost in the “aimlessness of childhood wandering,” they slow down and create a “space where things could just happen.” Their adventures, familiar to all dog walkers—from nasty weather and squirrel chases to prying a used “adult entertainment” item from Pete’s jaws—become extraordinary through Zeaman’s eyes. His droll observations on dog-walking combine insight, solace and meditation, taking readers into the heart of a routine task, dusting the ordinary with the divine. “At night, Pete and I would escape the sometimes suffocating sweetness of family life—the pajamas and stories, the smell of toothpaste and sheets, the damp goodnight kisses and prolonged hugs,” he writes. “We’d slip out into the silky night like a pair of teenage boys with high hopes for a Saturday night.”

The cooler weather of fall signals a time to get closer to friends and family—and the animals that add spice to our lives and teach valuable lessons along the way.

SMALL WONDERS

The power of a 25-pound beast to alter a life is made evident in You…

MemoirBiography

Celebrity sightings

Feature by Pat H. Broeske

The holidays are a perfect time to reach for the stars—of the celebrity kind. This season’s offerings include the cool and the classic.

A COMPLICATED LADY
Before she became a campy caricature as the queen of mean, Joan Crawford was a box office goddess—and one of the hardest-working women in the business. In Possessed: The Life of Joan Crawford, veteran Hollywood chronicler Donald Spoto helps restore his subject’s reputation by going film by film through her life. Reminding us of her professionalism, he also counters some of the claims of adopted daughter Christina Crawford, of Mommie Dearest notoriety.

The survivor of a hardscrabble childhood, Crawford came to Hollywood as a dancer during the silent era. The former Lucille Le Sueur—her name was changed in an MGM-sponsored contest—ultimately logged a staggering 87 films. (For comparison’s sake, Julia Roberts has made 40.) Some are classics (Mildred Pierce, Humoresque, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?); many are forerunners of today’s “chick flicks.” Most remain watchable.

Married four times, she once said, “I am a woman with a woman’s needs—a husband.” Yet her men were sometimes other women’s husbands, including Jeff Chandler and the director Vincent Sherman. Yes, she was a clean freak and perfectionist, and vodka became a too-frequent companion. But Crawford was a generous performer and a faithful friend, and her adopted twin daughters told Spoto she was a good and caring mother. (Cathy, one of four adopted Crawford children, is the only twin still living.)

A recluse in her final years, Crawford succumbed to cancer in 1977. Time will tell if her movies—or her daughter’s tell-all—will become her legacy.

THE KING OF COOL
Steve McQueen spent his last days in Mexico seeking alternative treatment for cancer. That, and some unfortunate post-mortem photographs, cast a shadow over his death, at age 50, in 1980. But today it’s the man, his movies and his undeniable screen presence that endure.

The coolest of all the cool movie cats, McQueen was also the most contradictory. His characters were calm, collected. But he was tightly coiled, distrustful of women and ultra-protective of his professional turf. In Steve McQueen: The Life and Legend of a Hollywood Icon, author Marshall Terrill, who has written previous McQueen titles, delves beneath the public persona.

McQueen grew up fatherless, as his hard-drinking mother bounced from man to man. As a kid he was sent to reform school, worked the carny circuit and hopped freight trains. A place called Boy’s Republic turned him around, as did a stint in the Marines.

He trained as an actor in New York, married popular Broadway dancer Neile Adams (they had two children) and came to L.A. He was starring in TV’s “Wanted: Dead or Alive” when he was cast in The Magnificent Seven. Sensing an opportunity, he gave a still-compelling taciturn performance, stealing the show from star Yul Brynner. With McQueen, less was always more.

Ensuing hits included The Great Escape, The Sand Pebbles, Bullitt, Junior Bonner and The Getaway. While making the latter he romanced co-star Ali MacGraw—whose husband was the powerful mogul Robert Evans. McQueen and MacGraw later married. While they lasted, glamorous MacGraw stayed home to cook and clean. That’s how McQueen liked his “old lady” to behave—while he tomcatted about.

He could be infuriating, even cruel. And he knew it. While quietly battling cancer, he manned up—seeking out old associates to make amends. And he did it on his terms, cool to the end.

A TALENTED LIFE CUT SHORT
Sal Mineo was 37 when he was stabbed to death in what turned out to be a botched Hollywood robbery. With his 1976 murder came revelations of his closeted homosexuality, and rifts among family and friends who anguished over how he would be remembered.

They needn’t have worried. Sal Mineo: A Biography, written by Michael Gregg Michaud, is a revealing but respectful work that captures his sweetness, likability and artistic passion—and the conflicts fostered by the times in which he lived.

Professionally, Mineo was stuck in a time warp. Though Oscar-nominated for both Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and Exodus (1960), he was hampered by his ’50s-era teen idol image, and his mother’s mismanagement of his career.

Personally, his life was a series of private flings with men, and a very public romance with his Exodus co-star-turned-lover-turned-friend to the end, Jill Haworth. Appropriately, the book is dedicated to Haworth as well as Mineo’s longtime male lover, model-actor Courtney Burr. Both gave the author candid, sometimes heartbreaking details about the man they loved.

The book includes some eye-openers, including eyewitness accounts of Mineo’s exploits with a pre-Shindig Bobby Sherman. But Michaud’s delivery is matter-of-fact, not sensational—though he offers plenty of color in capturing the changing eras when rigid mores gave way to the counterculture.

Of course, Mineo will forever be enshrined as Plato, the anguished lonely boy who makes surrogate parents of James Dean and Natalie Wood in Rebel. Michaud makes a case that Plato was the first gay teenager of the movies. Had he lived, Mineo might have eventually and bravely gone on to acknowledge that, yes, that really was so.

CAINE'S COMEBACK
The Elephant to Hollywood is a celebration of survival. Michael Caine (who grew up in London’s tough Elephant and Castle neighborhood) wrote this follow-up to his 1992 memoir, What’s It All About?, when he realized that the career he thought was over, wasn’t.

He credits Jack Nicholson with helping him find his latter-life footing by coaxing him into co-starring in 1996’s Blood and Wine. Now enjoying a more subdued stardom, largely of the supporting actor kind, Caine has found memorable roles—including his Oscar-winning turn in The Cider House Rules, and the part of Alfred the butler in the new Batman franchise—and takes pleasure in working with new talent.

Caine does some double dipping—repeating/embellishing stories from the past book (such as partying with John Lennon, boozing with Peter O’Toole). But he’s a vivid and compelling raconteur, gentle even when he’s barbed.

THE MAN BEHIND THE MAGIC
Were it not for scribes there’d be no stars. Thus, our shout-out to Hollywood: A Third Memoir, by the prolific novelist and screenwriter Larry McMurtry. (Earlier McMurtry memoirs were Books and Literary Life.) By his estimation, McMurtry has had about 70 Hollywood gigs via his novels, including The Last Picture Show, Terms of Endearment and Lonesome Dove, and scripts, such as Brokeback Mountain. In recounting how his relationship with Tinseltown unfolded and flourished, McMurtry writes with a sly wink and an ambling tone, to deliver evocative moments about Southern California, glamour, power—and, of course, stars.

The holidays are a perfect time to reach for the stars—of the celebrity kind. This season’s offerings include the cool and the classic.

A COMPLICATED LADY
Before she became a campy caricature as the queen of mean, Joan Crawford was a box office goddess—and one…

Children's & YAMiddle Grade

Connecting boys with books

Feature by Eliza Borné

Jon Scieszka—author of hilarious children’s classics like The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales and The True Story of the Three Little Pigs—is the king of boy books.

Although he doesn’t want to be pegged as an author who only writes for boys (“I have some of the craziest girl fans!”), Scieszka tends to write action-driven stories with goofy male characters. “I can hardly help it, having had five brothers and no sisters,” he said in an interview with BookPage.

It’s no secret that boys are usually slower to read than girls, have lower test scores and are less likely to read for fun. To combat this gap, Scieszka founded GuysRead.com, an interactive website filled with guy-friendly book suggestions divided into funny categories like “At least one explosion” and “Monkeys and/or apes.”

“Rather than imposing something from the top down, Guys Read is really the ultimate grassroots kind of movement,” Scieszka says. “We hear from our readers what they enjoy.”

Scieszka, who once worked as an elementary school teacher, says the current emphasis on standardized testing has made it even more difficult to connect boys with appealing books. “The whole country has followed this mania for testing, and it’s pushed it down to younger and younger grades, which has really had a terrible adverse effect on boys who are not developmentally ready. The boys are even less equipped to be successful in that world.”

The key to getting boys to read, Scieszka says, is to “show them a reason to want to be a reader, and support them in their interests.”

COMPETING WITH “THE SCREEN”
Another obstacle in getting boys to read is the instantly accessible entertainment available online and on television. That entertainment is more reachable than ever as younger kids have cell phones or even iPads, which Scieszka calls “just like crack or candy—some combination of both.”

The rewards that come from reading are “so different from what you get watching a screen, or even interacting with a screen,” Scieszka says, although he has become involved with creating different kinds of digital entertainment—like Spaceheadz, book one in his new series from Simon & Schuster.

Spaceheadz is about a group of aliens—two in the form of wacky kids, one in the form of a hamster—who invade Michael K.’s fifth grade class. Their mission is to get 3.14 million (and one) kids to say they are Spaceheadz—or else the world will turn off.

The aliens have learned everything they know about Earth from advertising, so their hilarious dialogue sounds like a kooky commercial mash-up. Readers are introduced to the story traditionally—through short, fast-paced chapters in a book packed with Shane Prigmore’s expressive illustrations—but they can continue it off the page with a whole slew of online media. For example, the hamster has a Twitter page, and Michael K.’s teacher has a website readers can really visit. There’s also a “Be SPHDZ, Save the World” website where kids can press a button to support the Spaceheadz cause. Since the website launched a few months ago, more than 12,000 kids have signed up.

Scieszka’s latest project is Funny Business, volume one of the Guys Read Library, which he edited along with Jordan Brown of Harper’s Walden Pond Press. Funny Business has a humor theme and is filled with stories from superstars such as Jeff Kinney, Adam Rex, Mac Burnett and Kate DiCamillo. (Scieszka is quick to point out that “there are plenty of women writers who have written stuff that really appeals to guys, too.”) He is now working on the second volume in the Library, a mystery- and thriller-themed book for which Brett Helquist is illustrating stories by the likes of Walter Dean Myers and Margaret Peterson Haddix.

In the introduction to Funny Business, Scieszka writes that he found “some of the best and funniest writers around” to contribute to the collection—but he explained in our interview that it’s not “the easiest potty humor.” Funny Business is what a guy might read when he needs something beyond those simpler stories.

“I really love the Captain Underpants stuff, how it mixed up visuals and text, but I know that just drives some people crazy,” Scieszka says. “There are misspellings intentionally in there—the grammar’s not right. The same thing happened to me when I was reading the Sweet Farts books or Sir Fartsalot. . . . It’s sort of like the cheap movie laughs when someone just gets kicked in the crotch. It’s sort of funny, but that’s not hard to do. There are a lot funnier things. So we always try to challenge our readers to aspire to something funnier, more thrilling, more mysterious.”

AN ONGOING ADVOCATE
During 2008 and 2009, Scieszka served as National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, a post Katherine Paterson took over in January. Scieszka remains involved with the Children’s Book Council, “trying to promote children’s books in the best and most broad way.” A message he is passionate about now is the value of the picture book, which he says has “been a victim of that test mania of people thinking that their kids have to be overachievers,” a trend that garnered national attention with the publication of a recent article in the New York Times. The article reported that many parents are steering their children away from picture books in the belief that only chapter books can increase test scores—a claim that has provoked a furious backlash from many teachers and librarians.

“I think that’s a thing we can do out of the Ambassador program—talk to people and say, ‘no, go ahead, let your kids read picture books.’ They don’t have to have a test on everything.”

In all his years promoting books for boys, Scieszka has seen a great change in how people view the issue. Although boys’ test scores are “just as miserable” as they’ve always been, Scieszka says people can at least talk about the problem now. Ten years ago that was not the case; there was just an “unspoken understanding” that boys don’t read.

What is most exciting to Scieszka is the burgeoning credibility of genres that typically appeal to boys—like graphic novels, fantasy and science fiction.

He said, “A lot of those kinds of reading that I talked about way back when have really become accepted in the teachers and library world.”

Jon Scieszka—author of hilarious children’s classics like The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales and The True Story of the Three Little Pigs—is the king of boy books.

Although he doesn’t want to be pegged as an author who only writes for boys (“I…

NonfictionAmerican History

The real spirit of the season

Feature by Amy Scribner

The holidays mean different things to different people. Whether Christmas triggers your inner Grinch or inspires you to do something good for your fellow man, read on and find just the book for you.

BAH, HUMBUG
When I think holiday cheer, I think curmudgeonly comedian Lewis Black. Okay, maybe not. Still, his irreverent and poignant I’m Dreaming of a Black Christmas is well worth your time this season.

Black—a regular contributor to “The Daily Show” whose Me of Little Faith hit the bestseller list in 2008—makes it obvious (often in all caps) that he abhors “the claustrophobic and cloying warmth” of the holidays. He’s kind of an angry dude, but you can’t say you weren’t warned. He starts his book thus: “This book has nothing to do with those of you for whom this holiday is one of the cornerstones you rest your life on . . . This book is really for the rest of us.”

Indeed. Black spends much of the book hilariously skewering the excess of it all, the overeating and excessive spending. And yet, given his cynical view of organized religion and holiday cheer, this book finds Black in a surprisingly reflective mood. He’s at his best when he reflects on the good in humanity, such as when he describes his recent USO tour in Iraq, or muses on the disastrous earthquake in Haiti:

“No one was worried about being a Republican or a Democrat,” Black writes. “There was no debating a budget. There were no arguments over which side had the cheapest Band-Aids. There were no words, just action.

“We are quick to help when someone’s ass is kicked or when we think someone’s ass needs to be kicked. We are great at that. We just don’t know how to take care of ourselves. We are a country where many of our people are living on the edge of catastrophe if not in the middle of it. Maybe we could turn Christmas into a holiday where we help those who are buried here in our country.”

Happy holidays to you, Lewis Black.

SIMPLE GIFTS
And now for something completely different: a new book by Joel Osteen, pastor of America’s biggest megachurch, Lakewood Church in Houston. In The Christmas Spirit, Osteen argues that instead of toys and jewelry, the best Christmas gift is the gift of our time.

Osteen posits that we spend too much time trying to create the perfect Christmas, and that sometimes it’s the imperfections that make a Christmas memorable. He tells of his brother, Paul, a young surgeon struggling to find the joy in the season. With three young children at home and a busy career, he hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in years. An elderly patient who had just lost her husband listened patiently to his woes before telling him, “Dr. Paul, I would give anything to be where you are now as a young parent. I’d give anything to hear the pitter-patter of little feet, to change a diaper, or to make formula for my babies again. I miss that so much.”

“The wise woman reset Paul’s clock that Christmas,” writes Osteen. “She reminded him that he should slow down, live in the moment, enjoy and be grateful for every minute as a parent.”

Osteen’s memories may be seen by some as exactly the kind of holiday treacle Lewis Black so thoroughly excoriates (Osteen grew up in a town called Humble, Texas, for goodness’ sake). But he is so sincere, and his message so simple—spend time with the ones you love, and give to those less fortunate—that even Black might struggle to find fault with Osteen’s Christmas Spirit.

A LEGACY OF COMPASSION
Former Washington Post investigative reporter Ted Gup knew his grandfather, Sam Stone, as a mischievous man who loved to tell jokes and could pull a quarter from young Ted’s ear. But Sam Stone was born Sam Finkelstein, a Jewish boy who immigrated from Romania to Pittsburgh, growing up in a loveless, impoverished home where the children spent hours in the attic rolling cigars to help the family make ends meet.

Sam Finkelstein eventually moved to Canton, Ohio, renaming himself Sam Stone. A successful businessman and father of three, Stone and his wife, Minna, dreamed up the idea of helping those left in dire straits by the Depression. They placed a newspaper ad as “B. Virdot,” an anonymous benefactor who offered $10 each to dozens of families one Christmas season.

After Stone died, Gup’s mother gave him the suitcase of letters sent to B. Virdot in response to his ad. Gup reached out to interview descendents of the letter-writers, and in A Secret Gift, he relays their remarkable stories of distress and recovery in Depression-era America. He opens the door on the quiet shame so many felt in asking for help:

“For many today it is difficult to understand the stigma attached to going on the dole or accepting charity,” he writes. “The shame of poverty was tolerable—so many were in distress that Christmas of 1933—but the loss of face that came of publicly applying for relief, of claiming that one’s needs were equal to or superior to another’s, of enduring the gauntlet of probing questions, of surrendering one’s dignity and privacy, for many was too much to ask.”

As affecting as the letters are, the heart of A Secret Gift is Gup’s loving and painstakingly reported account of his grandfather—an ordinary man who gave an extraordinary gift when it was needed most.

WORDS OF WISDOM
In the Dark Streets Shineth, a quietly powerful book from Pulitzer Prize–winning historian David McCullough, combines photos and text to tell the story of how President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill came together in December 1941 to encourage their nations during one of the bleakest holidays in modern history.

Adapted from McCullough’s performance at the Mormon Tabernacle Choir’s Christmas concert in 2009, the book includes photos from the somber 1941 holiday season and the full text of the addresses that Churchill and Roosevelt delivered from a White House balcony at the lighting of the national Christmas tree.

“This is a strange Christmas Eve,” Churchill told a crowd of 20,000 gathered on the White House lawn. “Almost the whole world is locked in deadly struggle, and, with the most terrible weapons which science can devise, the nations advance upon each other. . . .

“Let the children have their night of fun and laughter. Let the gifts of Father Christmas delight their play. Let us grown-ups share to the full in their unstinted pleasures before we turn again to the stern task and the formidable years that lie before us. . . .”

McCullough—best known for his biographies of presidents Harry Truman and John Adams—also meditates on how classic American Christmas carols figured during this dark time. Although the two subjects seem slightly disjointed, McCullough manages to weave them together, and there’s no denying he perfectly evokes the uncertainty and fear of the time in this beautifully designed book.

The holidays mean different things to different people. Whether Christmas triggers your inner Grinch or inspires you to do something good for your fellow man, read on and find just the book for you.

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