Alice Cary

by Alice Cary

Who would have ever thought that trains could be pets? It’s just the sort of thing that childhood dreams are made of, and this clever “guidebook” explains everything starry-eyed train lovers need to know.

Imagine a gentle child’s guidebook on caring for dogs, cats or fish. Now insert the word “train” into the text, and literally tons of fun ensues. A young narrator explains that there are several different types of trains, including monorails, freight trains (which “live in the countryside and travel in herds”) and early steam trains (which “pretty much just sit in museums”).

Jason Carter Eaton, author of The Day My Runny Nose Ran Away, likes to think outside the box, and his latest book is no exception. Before you can train a train, you have to catch one, Eaton notes. Suggested methods include trapping it in a net, running it into quicksand or luring it closer with an offering of coal.

Once caught, what next? Having a pet train isn’t easy, so this guidebook suggests that a calming bath (in a swimming pool) can ease a jittery train’s nerves. The author also advises: “Train your train not to leap up on people and to always wipe its wheels before going indoors.”

Eaton’s fanciful, funny text is perfectly accompanied by John Rocco’s energetic illustrations. Together, this creative team brings their trains to life with names like Smokey, Pushkin, Picklepuss and Sir Chuggsalot.

How to Train a Train is particularly pleasing because it’s never cutesy or cartoonish. Rocco’s trains look real (aside from their subtle eyes and expressions), yet he manages to infuse the hulking locomotives with charm and personality. This book is sure to be a huge hit with young railroad enthusiasts everywhere.

Imagine a gentle child’s guidebook on caring for dogs, cats or fish.…

Children's & YA, Picture Book

Children's & YA Picture Book

A story with food for thought

Review by Alice Cary

by Alice Cary

Girl meets squash. Girl decides to love squash like a favorite doll and take squash everywhere.

Although the premise may not sound action-packed, in the hands of first-time author Pat Zietlow Miller and illustrator Anne Wilsdorf, this story of a big, lumpy vegetable becomes a delightfully fun, touching tale.

After the heroine, Sophie, chooses the squash at a farmers' market, Miller writes, "Her parents planned to serve it for supper, but Sophie had other ideas." Sophie soon decides to call her new "friend" Bernice, prompting her bemused mother to philosophize, "Well, we did hope she'd love vegetables."

After a honeymoon period of veggie love, a standoff ensues between Sophie and her parents. Sophie's mom explains (much to Sophie's horror): "Bernice is a squash, not a friend. If we don't eat her soon, she'll get mushy and gross. Let's bake her with marshmallows. Won't that taste yummy?"

Kids and adults alike will enjoy watching the desperate, thoughtful yet ultimately unsuccessful attempts by Sophie’s parents to remedy this culinary clash. Finally, after other children begin to make fun of the deteriorating squash, Sophie figures out the perfect solution as she attempts to cure Bernice of her splotches and "freckles."

Sophie's Squash is a story with a big heart and authentic emotions, also infused with gentle, droll humor with every turn of the page. Miller's words are spot on, while Wilsdorf's lively watercolor-and-ink illustrations bring the story to life with every character's multitude of expressions. This artistic team fully mines the humor of the situation. What's more, to their credit, they take Sophie's dilemma seriously, treating her squash devotion with the humorous respect it deserves.

Sophie's Squash is a charmer, but be forewarned: Your trips to the farmers' market may never be quite the same.

Girl meets squash. Girl decides to love squash like a favorite doll and take squash everywhere.

Although the premise may not sound action-packed, in the hands of first-time author Pat Zietlow Miller and illustrator Anne Wilsdorf, this story of a big, lumpy vegetable becomes a…

Children's & YA, Middle Grade

Children's & YA Middle Grade

A tall tale from deep in the bayou

Review by Alice Cary

by Alice Cary

Gather ’round, readers, and welcome to Sugar Man Swamp in the Texas bayou, home of an intriguing menagerie that includes raccoons, rattlesnakes, wild hogs (the Farrow Gang), alligators, possums, an elusive ivory-billed woodpecker and much more. King of this ecosystem is Sugar Man, a cousin of Bigfoot who stays hidden and sleeping, only emerging during a crisis.

And indeed, a crisis is afoot, as owner Sonny Boy Beaucoup plans to turn 2,000 acres of the swamp into the Gator World Wrestling Arena and Theme Park, presided over by champion gator wrestler Jaeger Stitch.

The swamp needs rescuing, and the heroes are an unlikely trio. There’s a pair of raccoons named Bingo and J’miah who serve as Swamp Scouts, watching over the area and warning Sugar Man when necessary. Then there’s 12-year-old Chap Brayburn, who has lived here all his life. His mother runs the Paradise Pies Cafe, known for heavenly fried sugar pies made from the swamp’s canebrake sugar. Chap’s grandfather, who knew the swamp inside and out, has just passed away, leaving Chap to try to fill his shoes as human guardian of this special place.

Newbery Honor-winning author Kathi Appelt weaves these characters together in a lovely symphony, giving both animal and human viewpoints in numerous chapters, many of which are quite short. The book is a breezy read, full of excitement, and Appelt’s folksy, tall-tale style makes the novel a great choice for a read-aloud.

The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp is a tour de force filled with thoughtful, admirable characters like Chap and his grandfather, and rollicking goofballs like the raccoon Swamp Scouts, who help save the day despite their tendency to get themselves in trouble. Underneath all the hijinks are real lessons to be learned about how different species live together and interact, about the importance of conservation and about the impact of development on a fragile ecosystem.

Readers will feel as though they’ve had a VIP tour of Sugar Man Swamp—the only thing missing is a taste of that famous fried sugar pie!

Essays, Nonfiction

Nonfiction Essays

The psychology of seeing the unseen

Review by Alice Cary

by Alice Cary

What seems to be there, but isn’t?

As Dr. Oliver Sacks explains in Hallucinations, his latest collection of absorbing essays, “Hallucinations, beyond any other waking experience, can excite, bewilder, terrify, or inspire, leading to folklore and the myths (sublime, horrible, creative, and playful) which perhaps no individual and no culture can wholly dispense with.”

Hallucinations, which differ starkly from dreams and imagination, are often associated with wild visions induced by fever, madness or drugs. They come in much greater variety, however, and include hearing voices, music or noises, feeling things or smelling odors—none of which exist. This multitude of illusions has a grand litany of causes, including injury, illness, migraines, trauma, epilepsy and more.

As always, Sacks, the best-selling author of Awakenings and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, describes a fascinating cast of patients, starting with a blind, elderly woman named Rosalie, who suddenly began seeing a parade of people in colorful “Eastern” dress and animals, and later a group of somber men in dark suits, and finally, crowds of tiny people and children climbing up the sides of her wheelchair. These crowded, complex visions rolled before Rosalie’s unseeing eyes like a movie, sometimes amusing, and at other times boring or frightening. Sacks diagnosed Rosalie with a fairly rare condition called Charles Bonnet syndrome, which causes visually impaired people to hallucinate.

In addition to Rosalie, he shares stories about a patient who keeps hearing Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” play repeatedly, a Parkinson’s patient who watches a group of women trying on fur coats in her doctor’s waiting room, a man who feels peach-like fuzz covering everything he touches and a narcolepsy patient who sees the road rise and hit her in the face as she drives. Hallucinations, we learn, can range from terrifying to inspirational, from annoying to entertaining. One of Sacks’ elderly patients greatly looked forward to her visit each evening from “a gentleman visitor from out of town.”

In these 15 essays, Sacks clearly explains and categorizes an amazing assortment of hallucinations, trying to make sense of phenomena that seem to defy logic. He shares his own tale of a voice he heard when alone on a mountain and suffering from a dislocated knee. Just when he was tempted to lie down and sleep, a voice commanded, “You can’t rest here—you can’t rest anywhere. You’ve got to go on. Find a pace you can keep up and go on steadily.”

No doubt his many avid readers are deeply grateful that the good doctor followed the orders of this life-saving hallucination.

What seems to be there, but isn’t?

Children's & YA, Middle Grade

Children's & YA Middle Grade

Memories of an icy wonderland

Review by Alice Cary

by Alice Cary

Step back into the glorious days of childhood with Ellen Bryan Obed’s lovely, lyrical tribute, Twelve Kinds of Ice, a book whose 64 pages can be easily devoured in one sitting and enjoyed by both children and adults.

Who knew there were so many types of ice, starting with “The First Ice,” a fragile sheet that appeared in a barn bucket when Obed was a girl growing up on the family farm in Maine. “The Second Ice” was a bit thicker, becoming a plaything that could be held, admired, then shattered into shiny shards. In each short chapter, excitement builds as the author remembers how she, her siblings and friends began each season by skating on a neighbor’s field, then on a frozen stream, and later in the middle of a lake, accelerating “to silver speeds at which legs, clouds and sun, wind and cold, raced together.”

The icing on this icy cake was the family’s annual ice rink, known as “Bryan Gardens,” which was built with boards and filled with a garden hose. “It was our Boston Garden,” Obed writes, “our Maple Leaf Gardens, our Montreal Forum. . . . It had just about everything that the great arenas had except a roof. But Bryan Gardens had the sky, and to us, that was the best roof of all.”

Barbara McClintock’s enchanting illustrations bring this winter kingdom to life, her graceful lines showing the skaters’ wonderful whirls and spins atop the many kinds of ice. She catches the thrilling runs of skaters heading downhill, zigzagging through an apple orchard on the magical day that a heavy crust of ice on snow turns the world into a rink. McClintock’s final spread is a whimsical creation, showing how these dreamy thrills live on throughout the year, after all the ice has melted.

Warm up some hot chocolate and cookies, light a fire and gather ’round on a cozy winter eve to read aloud Twelve Kinds of Ice. Then be sure to have everyone’s skates sharpened for your own outing.

Who knew there were so many types of…

Children's & YA, Middle Grade

Children's & YA Middle Grade

Little Minnie’s big voice

Review by Alice Cary

by Alice Cary

Sixth grade hasn’t started out well for Minnie McClary. She lives in a new town because her father lost his job as a lawyer. She worries about her Uncle Bill, who after losing his leg in a helicopter crash in Iraq, lives in their basement and builds a model helicopter, trying to make sense of his war experiences. And Minnie’s language arts class erupts in chaos every day, having already chased away four substitute teachers.

Minnie is a small girl with a big heart who fears that she may have already committed social suicide by shouting “Stop it” to her wild classmates. Surprisingly, everyone listened and stopped their shenanigans. After her outburst, however, Minnie quiets her voice, trying to blend into her new surroundings.

Life seems more promising when Miss Marks takes over Minnie’s class. Wearing blue jeans and message-spouting tee shirts (LIVE OUT LOUD), Miss Marks looks more like a teenager than a teacher. She asks her students to fill their daily journals with meaningful writing and questions about life. Her goal is to teach her charges to write and think, which worries parents whose focus is standardized tests scores.

Minnie soon finds her first friend at school: an Iraqi girl named Amira, who covers her head with a scarf. Unfortunately, bullies relentlessly tease Amira, drawing mean portraits and yanking her scarf off her head. Meanwhile, a group of concerned parents protest Miss Marks’ unorthodox teaching methods.

Valerie Hobbs has written a fast-paced story with a likeable heroine. As is the case with most sixth graders, Minnie struggles to figure out her own identity. Just in the nick of time, however, she finds her voice, coming to the defense of both her teacher and her friend.

Minnie McClary Speaks Her Mind is a thoughtful novel about learning to ask important questions, and stopping to think before jumping to misguided conclusions.

Children's & YA, Picture Book

Children's & YA Picture Book

The promise of spring

Review by Alice Cary

by Alice Cary

In a beautiful new collaboration, writer Julie Fogliano and illustrator Erin E. Stead capture the long, slow season of renewal. Instead of eye-popping flowers and gobs of glorious greens, this picture book begins: “First you have brown, / all around you have brown.” This is the way spring is, especially around my home in New England, where April and even May can be dreary, cold and brown.

There’s nothing at all dreary, however, in And Then It’s Spring, as a boy and his dog plant vegetable seeds and wait for them to grow. The story follows the days of endless waiting, worry and hope as the boy and his dog stand patiently in sun and rain, waiting for signs of life.

This delicate tale is also filled with immediate, easily accessible fun. A bevy of animals—including birds, a rabbit, a turtle and even bears—helps keep watch over the seeds’ progress. The woodblock and pencil drawings by Stead, a Caldecott Award-winning artist, are pitch perfect, full of quiet anticipation. In one scene, Stead shows the boy, his dog and a rabbit with their ears to the ground, while below are labyrinths of activity as ants, worms, mice and chipmunks travel through underground tunnels, and garden seeds sprout deep roots.

Finally, of course, after weeks of waiting, there comes that magic day: “but the brown isn’t around / and now you have green, / all around you have green.” The boy lazily swings in a tire swing over his garden, barefoot and with his face turned gleefully upward, being warmed by the lovely spring sun. The garden finally comes to life in this subtle ode to hope, patience and rebirth.

Children's & YA, Picture Book

Children's & YA Picture Book

A heartwarming tale in the snow

Review by Alice Cary

by Alice Cary

When Blue Met Egg is a delightful story about a spunky bluebird named Blue who lives in Central Park. When a snowball flies through the air and lands in Blue’s nest, Blue adopts the newcomer, mistaking it for an egg, and taking it everywhere for several wintry months.

Newcomer Lindsay Ward combines this charming story with funky illustrations created from cut-paper collages and sketches, taking readers on a bird’s-eye tour of New York City. Blue and Egg travel to Columbus Circle, the subway, an art museum, the opera, the top of a skyscraper and to a telescope pointed at the Statue of Liberty. A wonderful fold-out section features Blue and Egg perched atop the Brooklyn Bridge.

Look closely at these illustrations and you’ll see bits of newspaper in Blue’s nest, skyscrapers fashioned from test answer forms, crossword puzzles and graph paper in the Central Park snow, maps in the East River. The beauty of Ward’s style is that these fragments are a seamless part of each illustration: present, but not overpowering the art. Blue’s nest appears so cozy that you can practically feel its softness, while the snow appears to fall from the sky in a panoramic skyscraper scene.

Ward moves the story along with gentle humor, as Blue unsuccessfully tries to share a hot dog with Egg, or reads The Golden Egg to her friend. Finally, Blue tries to feed Egg soup as Egg begins to melt, but (as with the hot dog) it doesn’t go well.

When Blue Met Egg is about hope, friendship and undying optimism. When Egg melts, Blue panics, but ultimately finds happiness: She discovers a pink flower in Egg’s melted snowball puddle, and exclaims, “Egg, you’ve bloomed!” Blue always sees a glass as half full, which is a sweet, lasting message for young readers.

Children's & YA, Picture Book

Children's & YA Picture Book

A barnyard full of color

Review by Alice Cary

by Alice Cary

Imagine that you’re a chicken who lives in a picture book, and your book is almost finished, but not quite.

That’s the lively recipe for disaster in Deborah Freedman’s clever new picture book, Blue Chicken. The stage is set on the first pages: “The chickens are white, their coop is brown . . . and this day is perfect for painting the barn.”

One chicken does what any curious chicken (or child) would do: He decides to help. Freedman’s illustrations are full of fun as the helpful chicken climbs on top of a pot of blue paint and peers over the rim. On the next page, the pot overturns, sending blue paint everywhere. The paint explosion grows, seeming to spill off each page. Young readers will adore watching the white chicken turn blue, and seeing a yellow cat and yellow chicks frolic in the mess, splashing amidst the chaos. Soon, a red wheelbarrow and a cow are also covered in blue.

The entire barnyard begins to blame the curious chicken, who succinctly says, “Sincerely sorry.” Spying a jar filled with water and paintbrushes, he decides to try to undo his mess. Of course, much more splattering fun ensues, but the water does the trick, turning everything back as it was, leaving the sky a perfect shade of pale blue. Indeed, the chicken has helped!

Freedman’s spare text is the perfect accompaniment for this ruckus, making it a book that a wide range of young readers will pore over time and time again, taking in the humor and paint-splattered fun on every page.

In an artful accompaniment throughout the book, readers catch glimpses of the artist who is creating this picture book. She happens to be painting her own backyard barn. Meanwhile, our roving chicken has also gotten into a new pot of barnyard red paint. . . .

While the artist is away, the chickens will indeed play, and Deborah Freedman has captured their antics in this book overflowing with joyful fun.

Imagine that you’re a chicken who lives in a picture book, and your book is almost finished, but not quite.

That’s the lively recipe for disaster in Deborah Freedman’s clever new picture book, Blue Chicken. The stage is set on the first pages: “The chickens are…

Children's & YA, Picture Book

Children's & YA Picture Book

Pigs-gone-wild birthday rumpus

Review by Alice Cary

by Alice Cary

In the world of children’s literature, Maurice Sendak, the beloved creator of Where the Wild Things Are, is a giant, and fans have been waiting 30 years for him to both write and illustrate another book. The wait is finally over with Bumble-Ardy, a riotous birthday tale that began as a character Sendak first developed in 1971 for an animated short on “Sesame Street.” Over the years, Sendak transformed the character from a boy into a pig—a poor, poor pig who is about to turn nine and has never had a birthday party.

Sendak tells the story in narration reminiscent of Edward Gorey’s wonderful black humor, explaining that Bumble-Ardy’s parents “frowned on fun” and didn’t celebrate birthdays. Then, things got even worse. When Bumble turned eight, his family “gorged and gained weight. / And got ate.”

Luckily, Aunt Adeline, a cosmopolitan working pig, adopts the orphaned Bumble. June 10 approaches, which is Bumble’s (and Sendak’s) birthday, so Bumble decides to throw himself a party while his aunt heads to work.

A riot of fun ensues, with costumed pigs guzzling Aunt Adeline’s brine. Eventually, Bumble’s aunt returns home, shouting at the revelers to scram. Meanwhile, Sendak fans have been treated to page after page of the master’s wild, wonderful illustrations.

Let’s hear it for Maurice Sendak and these delightful party animals!

Children's & YA, Middle Grade

Children's & YA Middle Grade

Four girls and one special doll

Review by Alice Cary

by Alice Cary

Grab a tall glass of lemonade and curl up for a wonderful journey through history with Kirby Larson's The Friendship Doll.

Meet Miss Kanagawa. Made by a master dollmaker, she has human hair, a silk kimono, a hand-painted face and skin made from crushed oyster shells. She was one of 58 "Friendship Dolls" that arrived in the United States in 1927, a gift from millions of Japanese schoolchildren who collected change to finance the dolls' creation and journey. That same year, America sent 12,739 dolls to Japan.

Today, these dolls have ended up in a variety of different places, such as the Smithsonian Institution. However, 12 of the 58 Friendship Dolls are unaccounted for, or missing, including Miss Kanagawa.

Larson saw a photograph of one of these magnificent 33-inch dolls while researching her Newbery Honor-winning novel, Hattie Big-Sky. She eventually felt these dolls "speak" to her, and in her novel, the author deftly allows Miss Kanagawa to occasionally "speak" (very quietly, practically imperceptibly) to certain people the doll encounters through the years.

Larson has created a series of stories, featuring four different girls, to trace Miss Kanagawa’s fictional path from 1927 through the Great Depression to the present day. Readers first meet young Bunny Harden, who belongs to a wealthy New York City family that helps welcome the dolls to America. Bunny learns an important lesson about compassion when she seethes over the fact that her classmate, Belle Roosevelt, has been chosen to give a welcoming speech for the dolls at City Hall, and not her.

The next chapter introduces Lois Brown, who is invited by her great-aunt to accompany her to the Chicago World’ Fair in 1933. Enamored with aviators like Charles Lindbergh, Amelia Earhart and Bessie Coleman, Lois can't wait to ride the amazing Sky Ride. Instead, she decides to use her money to buy a special souvenir for a friend whose family is experiencing hard times. All the while, readers take an exciting tour of the fair, where Miss Kanagawa is spotted on display.

Next is an extremely touching tale set in 1937 Kentucky, when young Willie Mae Marcum is sent to live in the house of a crotchety old woman for a month, reading aloud to keep her company. (This woman bought Miss Kanagawa at an auction, and Willie Mae spots the doll in her room.)

Finally, we meet Lucy Turner, whose mother has died, and who travels from Oklahoma to California with her father as he looks for work from 1939 to 1941. This is a fascinating look at "Okie" migration, as Lucy and her Dad end up living in a tent in a Farm Security Association (FSA) Camp in Oregon. It's also an intriguing glimpse of what happened after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, when many of these Friendship Dolls suddenly became objects of derision.

In the present-day chapter, we see Lucy as an elderly, ailing grandmother who momentarily comes to life when her grandson unearths Miss Kanagawa from her attic.

Larson's intriguing tales are lively and readable, forming a cohesive saga, all the while imparting riveting historical details.

For more information about these dolls and their many stories, visit the Friendship Doll page.

Grab a tall glass of lemonade and curl up for a wonderful journey through history with Kirby Larson's The Friendship Doll.

Meet Miss Kanagawa. Made by a master dollmaker, she has human hair, a silk kimono, a hand-painted face and skin made from crushed oyster shells.…

Children's & YA, Middle Grade

Children's & YA Middle Grade

A change in luck

Review by Alice Cary

by Alice Cary

The Luck of the Buttons is a marvelous romp through the town of Goodhue, Iowa, in 1929, led by a plucky heroine named Tugs Esther Button. The Button family has long been known for their bad luck, but Tugs is determined to break that losing streak.

This is a fun, exciting story that readers will tear through, written by award-winning author Anne Ylvisaker (pronounced ILL-vi-soccer). She explains the Buttons' lack of good fortune this way:

“While other parents sent their children off to school with a kiss and told them to do their best, the Buttons just said, ‘Don't get hit by the tater truck.’ Which would be nonsense to any other family, but Leonard Button, one of the Swisher Buttons, had indeed looked the wrong way when crossing Main Street some years ago. While he had survived, he hadn't eaten a potato, mashed or otherwise, since.”

Happily, Tugs' luck seems to be rapidly changing. A wealthy, kind girl named Aggie befriends her, and the girls win the July 4th three-legged race. What's more, Tugs wins an essay contest and also a raffle for a brand new Brownie camera. How's that for defying the tater truck?

Ylvisaker throws in a bit of intrigue in the form of a stranger named Harvey Moore, who claims he's going to revive the defunct local newspaper, the Goodhue Gazette. Tugs feels there's something sneaky about this smooth-talking fellow, and her natural curiosity leads her to unravel his conniving plan.

The Luck of the Buttons is a fast-paced novel about a slower, but endlessly fascinating era. Tugs may be "old fashioned," but she's got a modern sensibility, and through her own intelligence and determination, this young woman finds herself and turns her luck around.

Children's & YA, Picture Book

Children's & YA Picture Book

Showing them who’s boss

Review by Alice Cary

by Alice Cary

The first lines of this clever book say it all: "From the moment the baby arrived, it was obvious that he was the boss. He put Mom and Dad on a round-the-clock schedule, with no time off. And then he set up his office right smack-dab in the middle of the house."

Wearing a suit and tie, this hard-nosed boss baby has three strands of hair and rules with an iron fist from his bouncy seat. With his multitude of expressions, he looks like a fuming, tantruming, smirking and bellowing Donald Trump.

Nonetheless, his adoring young parents desperately try to please him, despite the fact that "He conducted meetings. Lots and lots of meetings, many in the middle of the night."

Award-winning author and illustrator Marla Frazee obviously knows and loves babies—she also penned Walk On: A Guide for Babies of All Ages and illustrated a multitude of other books, including The Seven Silly Eaters and the Clementine chapter books. If you haven't already, put her in your "authors to watch" file, because every one of her books overflows with heart and humor, while the characters she illustrates are full of energy, honesty and soul.

Frazee’s latest creation, The Boss Baby, is the perfect book for any household with a new baby or one on the way, because every word and illustration is spot on. With this book in hand, I recently met my beautiful one-month-old great-niece for the first time, and our family repeatedly referred to The Boss Baby’s many droll lines. Although, for the record, I must say that my great-niece is a much kinder boss than the little fellow in this book!

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Alice Cary

Sit. Stay. Good train.

A story with food for thought

A tall tale from deep in the bayou

The psychology of seeing the unseen

Memories of an icy wonderland

Little Minnie’s big voice

The promise of spring

A heartwarming tale in the snow

A barnyard full of color

Pigs-gone-wild birthday rumpus

Four girls and one special doll

A change in luck

Showing them who’s boss

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