Roundup of children's books
Updated 1:55 pm, Wednesday, June 27, 2012
The engaging novel is narrated by 11-year-old Ella, who is sent from her home in Santa Rosa to spend the summer in Albuquerque with her paternal grandmother, whom she does not know, while her mother undergoes a stem-cell transplant in Seattle to battle her leukemia. Her parents divorced when she was an infant, and her absentee dad, who leads fishing expeditions, cannot take her because he'll be away on river trips.
Ella feels exiled to "Broken Family Camp" with her imperious, strict-grammarian grandmother, Violet Von Stern, whom she refers to as "the GM," for General Major. ("Her voice had been so cold, like the air of a forgotten basement.")
As Ella navigates this unfamiliar familial territory, she pieces together facts about her father's past - why he and his mother are estranged, how his astronomer father died - while sleuthing to discover who stole the GM's most prized possession: a rare, valuable copy of 17th century astronomer Kepler's "Dream," in which he imagined human moon exploration three centuries before it happened. Could it be the annoying antiquarian bookseller staying in the guest room? One of his geeky teen-boy assistants?
Meanwhile, Ella writes upbeat updates to her mom while coping with the fear that her mom might actually die, and deals with feelings of abandonment by her father and her initial rejection by Rosie, the caretaker's daughter, who is her age and could be a valuable companion for both play and detective work. All these threads are held together with a light touch and the genuine voice of a regular kid facing issues as big as death and her parents' divorce ("I guess one day they just looked up at each other and decided they hated each other's guts.") and as small as learning to ride a horse. There's also a sly nod to Menlo Park's beloved Kepler's bookshop, when Ella encounters the name and wonders who Kepler was: "Scientist? Inventor? Bookstore owner?"
Two fun picture books get summer off to a good start. Dragons Love Tacos, by Adam Rubin and illustrated by Daniel Salmieri (Dial; 32 pages; $16.99; ages 4-8) is a heaping helping of silly as we learn just how much dragons love tacos but hate spicy salsa. It causes their ears to smoke and makes them breathe fire, which can burn your house down.
Little kids will relate to the anti-spicy bias and chuckle over Salmieri's watercolor and gouache cartoon illustrations showing literally boatloads of tacos and all sizes of dragons enjoying their favorite food at pool parties, costume parties and, well, taco parties.
Squid and Octopus: Friends for Always, by Tao Nyeu (Dial; 40 pages; $16.99; ages 3-5) celebrates the friendship of two undersea pals with a lot in common and a few differences in four brief stories. In "The Quarrel," they dispute which is best for the tips of their tentacles: mittens or socks.
"The Dream" is Squid's superhero fantasy. A discarded cowboy boot is mistaken for headgear and other things in "The Hat." And the risk of good and bad fortune is resolved in "The Fortune Cookie" with an affirmation that friends can weather anything together. Fanciful silk screens in a palette of teal blue, green, orange and yellow give kids lots to look at on each spread.