A Chip Off the Old Block: Just Like My Papa by Tony Buzzeo

ROAAAAAR! A WARNING ECHOES ACROSS THE PLAIN.

PAPA ROARS AGAIN. "MY PRIDE IS HERE. STAY AWAY.

I AM THE PROTECTOR AND KING!"

GROOOOOWL! KITO ADDS A WARNING.

"I AM HERE TOO. JUST LIKE MY PAPA."

Among his pride on the savanna, Kito's father is king, and little Kito is crown prince, trying to learn to be a king like his papa.

Just like Papa, he swishes his little black-tuffed tail to scare away the flies as masterfully as he can, but when a hyena steals closer through the tall grasses, he sinks low and lets Papa take care of business!

When the savanna sun grows hot, Papa sleeps under an acacia, and so does Kito. But kids just want to have fun, and soon he wakes up, ready for action.  He pounces onto Papa's rump.  Wheeeee!

WITH A SWIPE OF HIS PAW, PAPA SENDS KITO FLYING.

"ENOUGH, LITTLE KITO. I AM BUSY!"

Kito lies in the grass, pretending to be busy, just like Papa, until the suns sinks lower and it is time for the hunt.

PAPA STANDS UP AND GIVES HIS MANE A FEARSOME SHAKE.

Kito has no mane, but he shakes his head like Papa and follows, partly hidden in the grass as the lionesses of the pride lead them toward the herd of wildebeests to give chase. But the wildebeests are too fast for the huntresses this time, and the lions stop to catch their breath at the edge of their territory. But Papa stands tall and roars out a warning to all that he is king and protector of the pride. Kito growls to show that he is there, too.

Back under their acacia tree, Kito is ready to take his position of honor on Papa's rump.

PAPA SETTLES DOWN.

"COME HERE, MY BRAVE LITTLE HUNTER.

HELP ME BE KING!"

Just Like My Papa (Hyperion, 2015) is a tender, if idealized, picture of life on the African savanna which is reminiscent of Disney's The Lion King, (not too surprising, since Hyperion is the juvenile printing partner of Disney, Inc.) Nevertheless, author Buzzeo presents a reasonably accurate description of life in a lion pride for a young male and appends an informative author's note ("Information about the Pride") which offers fuller representation of  family roles in the group. Artist Mike Wonotka portrays the somewhat anthropomorphised relationship between father and son with gentle humor and affection and plenty of charm.

Pair this one with Buzzeo's and Wahnotka's fine companion book about a mother giraffe and her baby, Stay Close to Mama (read review here).

The World On Fire: Ocean of Fire:The Burning of Columbia, 1865 by T. Neill Anderson

Joseph LeConte didn't know what to make of Davis. His assistance on the trip to Columbus was admirable, but Joseph wasn't completely sure if he could trust him.

Joseph LeConte had traveled through the enemy lines to Augusta, Georgia, to bring his widowed sister Jane and her children to stay with them in Columbia, South Carolina, and when they arrived at the station as the train to Columbia was beginning to pull away, a Confederate officer named Charles Davis had stopped the train and helped them board. But now, weeks later, here was Davis approaching the LeConte house.

As he greeted him and invited him inside, Joseph wondered how Davis had found his house

"Oh, Dr. LeConte, you know I have my ways of finding things out," he said with a wink. "it is terribly important that you and your family leave Columbia at once," Davis said in a low voice. "The Yankees will likely arrive in the city tomorrow."

Nearby, Mary Ann, one of family's domestic slaves, crouched on the other side of the kitchen door, her hand over her mouth and her eyes wide.

"I've been in the Yankee camp all day," Davis continued, "and I know their plans." Davis was silent for a few moments. "I fear to tell you what scenes will be enacted in Columbia, Dr. LeConte. "Staying here can only bring sorrow."

Also listening to this conversation was seventeen-year-old Emma LeConte, hidden at the top of the stairs. She and her father were both wary of trusting Davis, who seemed to know the plans of both the Confederate and Yankee generals. But he had promised to assure the safety of their house and LeConte's brother's house, and prepared for the worst, the women moved into the basement, and hoped for the best, while Joseph LeConte set out for the Confederate lines with a wagonload of chemicals and medicines from the hospital, leaving only their servant Henry as the only man at the house.

"Henry," Mary Ann whispered to him, "What you think we gonna have to do when they come? I mean..., we gonna leave?"

"Ain't convinced we should," Henry said. "Them Yankees may be fightin' for us, but they ain't our friends."

The loyalties of the enigmatic, probable double agent spy Charles Davis were unknown, but his warnings were real. Columbia was the proverbial tinderbox--the state capital of South Carolina, the prime mover of the rebellion, and its business district was awash with harvested cotton bales, which the Confederates planned to burn to keep them from profiting their enemies. But Sherman's army swept in across the Congaree River and took the town before the Southern militia could burn all the bales. Buried near the river were huge quantities of armaments, and as the out-of-control and soon drunken Yankees began to loot the city, they ripped the bales open, letting the autumn winds scatter the cotton until the city looked like it had been hit by a snowstorm. Inevitably, fires began, especially as the looters spilled out barrels of alcohol into the streets from the stores and taverns. Soon most of the central city was ablaze.

In T. Neill Anderson's Horrors of History: Ocean of Fire: The Burning of Columbia, 1865 (Charlesbridge, 2014) the city is on fire, hospital and churches, the capital building itself, and the remaining residents see their houses first ransacked for food and valuables and then lost to the fire that lit the night sky with walls of flames. Based on first-person recollections, the accounts of both Joseph and Emma LeConte, as well as Reverend Anthony Porter, this novel shows both acts of malice and mercy from both sides. The LeConte and Porter houses survived the blaze, thanks to the protection of  the mysterious Davis and Union officer, Lieutenant McQueen, but were looted, as was even the modest cabin of Mary Ann and Henry, in a day of destruction that reduced the graceful city to ruins. There were heroes and villains on both sides, with the war-weary Union soldiers, under the relentless General Sherman, willing to do whatever they had to do to end the war, and the citizens of Columbia desperate to defend their homes and families. Some slaves left, eager to join the Union Army, and some were taken from their families against their will to serve the Yankees. Columbia's burning was only one chapter in the horrors of this particular bit of history.

Despite its impeccable eyewitness sources, Anderson's writing in this first book in the Horrors of History series lacks the pulse-quickening immediacy of his narrative in later titles in the series such as Horrors of History: People of the Plague: Philadelphia Flu Epidemic 1918 and Horrors of History: City of the Dead: Galveston Hurricane, 1900, burdened and bolstered as it is with many characters and shifting points of view from many voices.  Still, as a supplemental reading for American history students, it offers authentic primary sources and has a lot to say about the destructiveness of war. An appended epilogue recounts the later lives of the main characters and the eventual reconstruction of the city of Columbia.

Things That Go Bump In The Night: Milk and Cookies by Frank Asch.

Little Bear's family visit to Grandpa and Grandma Bear happily turns into an impromptu sleepover. Grandpa offers a bedtime snack of milk and cookies, but Little Bear sleepily turns it down and toddles off to the sofa-bed to sleep with his parents.

IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT BABY BEAR HEARD A NOISE. THEN HE SAW A RED LIGHT COMING FROM UNDER THE CELLAR DOOR.

HE PEEKED THROUGH THE KEYHOLE. WHAT HE SAW WAS LIKE A GIANT DRAGON WITH FLAMES SHOOTING FROM ITS MOUTH.

WHEN THE DRAGON SHUT ITS MOUTH, GRANDPA CAME UP.

Bewildered, Baby Bear hurries back to bed, but then he dreams the dragon comes upstairs, hungry!

Thinking fast, Baby Bear offers the dragon milk and cookies. Dragon eats them all, leaving not a one for him.

Baby Bear wakes up crying, and he tells Mama and Papa Bear what happened in his dream.

"WHATEVER GAVE YOU THE IDEA THERE WAS A DRAGON IN THE CELLAR?" ASKED PAPA.

And when Baby Bear recites what he saw through the keyhole, Papa Bear smiles and takes him downstairs for a closer look at Grandpa's furnace. Baby Bear understands, but he's still a little taken aback by his dream. What will wash away the traces of that disturbing dream?

Well, Grandpa and Grandma Bear come downstairs and they all share in a late night feast of... (what else?) Milk and Cookies (A Frank Asch Bear Book) (Aladdin Books, 2015). In a brand-new package, a new edition of this beloved Baby Bear book is a sweet treat for preschoolers to enjoy just as their parents did. Pair this one with what may be Asch's best Bear Book, in which Baby Bear outwits Papa in a tasty game of creative imagination,Sand Cake (A Frank Asch Bear Book).

Class Homecoming The Day the Crayons Came Back by Drew Daywalt

Remember the thrill of opening that new deluxe box of crayons, with names of colors you never knew existed? Remember those perfect points and clean wrappers? Remember trying to choose between Tomato Red, Fire Engine Red, or Brick Red? Remember the sadness when the first one got broken?  Did you ever wonder what happened to all those pristine crayons?

But those days are in the past for Duncan since that calamitous day, The Day the Crayons Quit. Who knew crayons were such a bunch of rivalrous prima donnas?

Still, Duncan has moved on. Those days of solving quarrels between persnickety crayons are all behind him--or so he thought, until he started to get postcards and letters from the long scattered gang. The first one, from a scarcely remembered color, came in the a short note.

Dear Duncan,
Not sure if you remember me--Maroon Crayon? You only colored with me once, to draw a scab. You lost me two years ago in the couch and your dad sat on me and broke me in half.
           --M.C.

Soon the cards and letters are pouring in. One comes from the Ritz Motel.

Dear Duncan,
No one likes peas. Or anything pea green.
I'm off to see the world. I'm changing my name.
Sincerely,
Esteban (The Crayon Formerly Known as Pea Green)

Hi, Duncan!
It's me, Neon Red Crayon. Remember the great vacation with your family? Remember dropping me in the pool when you left? Clearly you do not, because I'm still there!
--Your left-behind friend, Neon Red Crayon

And then there's one that leaves Duncan slightly nauseated.

Dear Duncan,
I'm sure you wouldn't recognize me after the horrors I have been through. Have you ever been eaten by a dog and puked up on the living room rug? And Duncan, it's not pretty at all. I'm more carpet fuzz than crayon.
--Your Indigestible Friend, Tan (or possibly Burnt Sienna) Crayon

One by one the missing crayons report in--Glow-in-The-Dark Crayon, missing since Halloween, Turquoise, left in Duncan's pocket and melted to an unfortunate sock with him in the dryer, and Big, Chunky Toddler Crayon, with the point bitten off by Duncan's baby brother, who, as BCC pointedly pronounces, is no Picasso!4 The gang's mostly all home, except for one, that is. Esteban's last post card reports that he's done globe-trotting, but not sure how long before he will arrive back.

"There ARE pyramids in New Jersey, right?

It's hard to top yourself, but Drew Daywalt's and Oliver Jeffers' sequel to their best-selling opener, The Day the Crayons Came Home is a red-letter (Neon Red, that is) winner, a book that kids and any adults lucky enough to get to read aloud will want to repeat often. With slyly sophisticated wit, augmented by the award-winning Oliver Jeffers'creations, anthropomorphic crayons, each one a comic character in its own right, this one is one of those once-in-a-blue moon picture books that every kid should share. "A masterwork of humor and design," says School Library Journal's starred review.

A Walk On The Wild Side: The Nonsense Book by Eric Carle

COULD A LEOPARD

CHANGE HIS SPOT

TO A TIGER-ISH STRIPE?

PROBABLY NOT.

In the latest work of that dean of picture book art, Eric Carle, readers are given license to park their rational brain outside and enter an especially colorful world of the absurd. Within the slim conceit of a cockamamie circus midway, nothing is what is to be expected.

"LET'S TRADE HATS," THE RIDER SAID.

BUT "NEIGH NEIGH!" SAID THE HORSE.

"LET'S TRADE HEADS INSTEAD!"

And so they do, laughing at the inane sight of themselves as a horse-headed man and a human-headed horse. A mama Kanga sports a human Roo in her pouch, a train's smokestack puffs out fluffy white sheep instead of smoke, and a man sees a surprised ape staring back at him from the trick mirror.

In his latest, The Nonsense Show (Philomel Books, 2015), Eric Carle dishes out a preposterous plenty of balderdash in a bit of a delightfully bizarre departure from his usual story books, letting his silly side go for the surreal, a setting in which it is perfectly reasonable when a magician pulls a boy out of his hat

But not to worry: Eric Carle's signature tissue-paper collage technique is in full display here, in a peerless illustrative style that is a fantasy feast for the eye. "Carle hits it out of the nonsense park," says Booklist.

Lift Off: The Plan by Alison Paul

plan . . .

Everything begins with a plan... and inside a prairie farm girl's notebook are pasted objects--a blueprint for a Curtiss Jenny bi-wing, a postage stamp with the plane's image, a colored-pencil sketch of the girl at the controls and her dog behind her, a torn-out picture of Saturn and a map of the solar system with a red arrow from Earth to Saturn drawn in... A dream, or a plan?

Alison Paul's wish-fulfillment-fantasy, her forthcoming The Plan (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015) is a bit of a tour de force, a story in which little is said, but much is told.

With a text made up of only twenty words, beginning with plan, and progressing by the change of one letter per page to move the girl's plan from dream to completion--planet, plant, pants, through past, paint, and plain, and back to plan again, the plot moves with the help of Caldecott-winning artist Barbara Lehman's stylized but evocative line drawings.  The reader follows the girl doing her chores with her dog, digging potatoes, and hanging wet wash on the clothesline, until a key falls from her Pa's pants' pocket. Sneaking behind Pa, busy washing dishes at the sink, the two pals slip into a room where the girl uses the key to open a locked drawer and the dog pulls a photo album from the shelf.

It opens to snapshots of her mother and father, intrepid pilots in the past, (which explains the biplane by the chicken coop, tethered now by vines), barnstorming the plains in their Jenny, The Mighty Comet, her mother's wings, license, and photos of her parents in their helmets, goggles, and boots, holding her as a baby. Her dad follows her upstairs, finds his daughter wearing her mother's goggles and helmet, and.... now her plan becomes his.

He pulls out the old sign, See The Mighty Comet, adds a few words including a invitation to see the flight on Tuesday at the field, paints and repairs the plane, presents the wings pin to his daughter, and not without some pain the three pick flowers and place them on the her mother's grave. Then they prepare a picnic, pack their bags for a trip, put on their pilots' gear, and are soon soaring over the plains to the waves and cheers of the people below.

Barbara Lehman's artwork is both cozy, with  the farmhouse kitchen sink and its little pump, the pots and pans hanging in a row, and masterful, in its iconic flat, geometric landscape, with its squared-off plots laid out across the prairie plains, the rectangles and triangles of the farm building, "all neat and square."  Lehman's interiors are likewise divided into geometric shapes, the parallel floor boards and wainscoting, the human figures, shown full frontal or profile, done in flat coloring book-style illustrations, balanced on the page. But juxtaposed behind them all is that open sky, blue and inviting, that seamlessly goes on and on, and the little plane that promises to lift them up and away to the final page as the plane flies through the starlit night. Where? Among the stars, to Saturn, someday? A place where the geometry is anything but square? Perhaps.

A completely satisfying picture book in which text and illustrations combine to become more than they seem, a story of life and death and dreams and flying machines repurposed.

Life, Happiness, and the Pursuit of Liberty! Liberty on the Loose in the White House by Mary Therese Grabowski

The Johnson family vacation to Washington D.C. had been planned for over a year. America's brother Sam hoped to see big monuments, while her dad was excited about the airplane museums. America's mom, a librarian, wanted to visit historical places with documents. And the family dog Liberty, famous for exploring, wanted to run around.

America looked at Liberty and said, "Wait till we wake up tomorrow. I'm going to show you the White House, where the president lives! They even have a dog of their own."

But when the Johnsons arrive at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, there's a sign posted on the gate:

NO ANIMALS

And before the family can decide what to do, Liberty takes the situation into her own, er, paws, slips her leash, and dashes right through the door of the White House.

One of the guards speaks quickly into his walkie-talkie.

"Pooch on the loose! I repeat, pooch on the loose in the White House! Close all exits at once!"

"Over here!" yelled Dad, "Liberty is running toward the Oval Office, the office that the president works in!"

But before the guards and the Johnsons can grab Liberty, she squeezes through the partly open door and disappears inside the Oval Office. And just as a guard offers to fetch their dog, the door opens wide to reveal a smiling president, holding Liberty.

"Nice to meet all of you," he laughed. "And who is this?" asked the president, looking down at the tail-wagging pooch.

America speaks up.

"She's Liberty!"

"She certainly is," chuckled the president. "Liberty just gave meaning to the words of the Declaration of Independence--life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

Or at least the pursuit of Liberty, in the case of Mary Grabowski's Liberty on the Loose in the White House (Page Publishing, 2015). An unusual way to tour the White House, this lighthearted little holiday vacation story offers young readers a chance to learn a some facts about the White House, while enjoying a family adventure in which their exuberant pooch, perhaps the first dog to sneak into the White House, fittingly leaves the White House Gift Shop sporting a souvenir sweater that reads "First Dog." Information about the White House casually revealed in the narration is appended in "America's Quick Questions." This book is especially recommended for primary students studying the nation's capital and for families preparing for their own visits.

Sleepover Shuteye Song: Pete The Cat and the Bedtime Blues by Kimberly and James Dean

It's a cowabunga day on their surfboards for Pete the Cat and his buddies, but as the sun sinks over the breakers, they are having too much fun to call it a day. To keep their groove goin', they decide to have a far-out sleepover party at Pete's house.

But after scarfing up the pizza and partying hearty, Pete's eyelids are even more droopy than usual. He climbs into his stripey PJs and tells his friends it's time to catch some zzzzzs.

"GOODNIGHT, GUS.

GOODNIGHT, GATOR.

GOODNIGHT, TOAD."

But it seems that Pete is the only one in a shuteye groove.

CLAP! CLAP! CLAP!

"WHO DID THAT?" SAID PETE.

"IT WAS ME!" SAID GRUMPY TOAD.

"I DON'T WANT TO GO TO BED.

I WANT TO CLAP INSTEAD."

The rest of his guests are also in the mood to pull an all-nighter. Gus the Platypus wants to drum and jam the night away, and Gator has the midnight munchies. But Pete is not in the mood for food!

What's a host to do? Pete has an idea. Perhaps an absorbing bedtime story will divert his guests. He pulls out a book, Pete the Cat and the Ten Little Monsters, and his pals pop into their sleeping bags to listen. Now, if only Pete can stay awake long enough to finish the book!

Kimberly and James Dean's brand-new Pete title, Pete the Cat and the Bedtime Blues (Harper, 2015) has their popular cool cat dealing with a ticklish social problem, getting his rowdy buddies to cool it so he can get his beauty sleep. A particularly eye-pleasing palette of cool nighttime blues, right down to Pete's blue sleepytime wear, gives this story plenty of eye appeal, a new Pete tale that is indeed the cat's pajamas!

Pair this one with the irresistible MerryMakers Pete the Cat Bedtime Blues Plush Doll, 14.5", dressed for snoozing in his blue-striped PJs and perfect for a role as a Christmas Eve dreamland lovey pal.

AUTHOR, AUTHOR! Inside This Book (Are Three Books) by Barry Saltzberg

They say everyone has a story to tell, and in Barry Saltzberg's latest, Inside This Book: (are three books). (Abrams Appleseed Books, 2015), Mom sets off a session of private publishing when she gives her three kids homemade blank books to work with, sized by seniority from oldest to youngest.

Eldest sibling Seymour explains.

INSIDE THIS BOOK IS A BOOK I MADE, CALLED....INSIDE THIS BOOK.

MY MOM MADE US BOOKS WITH BLANK PAGES.

After getting through the necessary explanations, Seymour launches into a boy-pleasing fantasy of "funny little orange things" growing long striped proboscises that proceed to try (unsuccessfully) to eat him. THE END.

Sister Fiona has a different muse.

"I AM AN ARTIST AND A POET!" she declares.

I PLAY WITH WORDS ALL THE TIME.

And Fiona shows off her poetic license with a charming bit of synecdoche* in a rhyme in which she describes her dog Fleabee as "a wagging tail and a cold nose."

Little Wilbur isn't old enough to share Seymour's artistry or Fiona's linguistic chops, but he gets into the spirit of the thing, dictating the text with his own portraits of his family and (what else?) a dinosaur in action:

"THIS IS ME.

THIS IS A DISASTER AND MY FAMILY!"

The kids are so proud of their venture that they agree to nest all three books inside one cover, and Abrams Appleseed obliges in this three-for-one new entry in the rapidly expanding group of books about books forthcoming in the past few years--Patrick McDonnell's A Perfectly Messed-Up Story, Kobi Yamada's What Do You Do With an Idea? B. J. Novak's The Book with No Pictures, Drew Daywalt's The Day the Crayons Quit, and Richard Byrnes' This book just ate my dog!--all of which lend themselves beautifully to classroom units on books, authorship, illustrating, and publishing.

"Saltzberg's clever conceit makes the metaphorical literal—and palpable—for very young readers. An absolutely nifty invitation to children to create and share their own wee books," proclaims Kirkus Reviews.


*  a figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole or the whole for a part,

Be Careful What You Wish For! NEED by Joelle Charbonneau

PLEASE ENTER YOUR NAME AND CLICK THE BOX TO CONFIRM YOU ARE A STUDENT CURRENTLY ENROLLED IN NOTTAWA HIGH SCHOOL.

WHAT DO YOU NEED?

When her buddy Nate shows Kaylee the new social media site, there is only one thing she wants to request--a new kidney for the transplant that will save her brother DJ's life. Since other kids are getting new iPhones and home gym sets, requesting a date for New Year's Eve, and Nate has asked for an A on his physics final, she knows her own request is different. But she is surprised when she logs back on finds that her need has been confirmed and is pending.

But when she wakes in the night to the sound of a shovel striking something hard in her backyard, she finds a symbolic grave with a cardboard "coffin" inside with her brother's name inscribed on it. What does it mean? Kaylee and Nate realize that there is something more sinister going on than a trivial bit of wish-fulfillment fantasy going on with NEED.

Still, the numbers of users continue to grow to a majority of Nottawa's students, with fulfillment numbers increasing more slowly. The first members were asked only to submit a few friends' email addresses, but as the numbers increase, the members are asked to post a phone photo proving their requirement has been met. And what is required begins to become more and more bizarre.

Gina is asked to write this note and slip it under the door at an unfamiliar address:

Thanks for last night. I know we have to wait for the right time to be together. I'll pray it comes soon.

Lynn is asked to photograph the first page of her father's army medical record. Yvonne is asked to fill out a fake order form for seventeen peanut chocolate chip cookies at the bakery where she works. Bryan is asked to pick up a box of cookies hidden in the library and deliver them to Amanda's doorstep. Sameena requests that the neighbors dogs stop barking so that her homework will pass her father's inspection, and Sydney's task is to make sure the dogs never bark again. And Ethan is asked to dig a mock grave and post a photo to NEED.

Then Sameena awakens to see blood and clumps of dog fur staining her neighbor's snowy yard, and Amanda dies of anaphylaxis after eating one of the peanut-containing cookies from the surprise birthday gift. Nate and Kaylee now know that NEED has a sinister purpose, not money, but gaining more and more control over its now dwindling number of members, all of whom are now becoming aware of the results of their deeds. "Be careful what you wish for," goes the old adage, "because you might get it."

Joelle Charbonneau's newest suspense novel, NEED (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015), is quite the thriller, written in short chapters, each featuring the different characters drawn into a network whose sinister purpose is unknown. Friends Kaylee and Nate set out to unravel the tangled web of needs and deeds, with an explosive and page-turning final section in which some characters act selflessly, some become murderers, and one does both. What seemed paranoia to Kaylee at first turns out to be a real conspiracy that will keep readers on the edge of their seats to the very end.

Hair-raising tension aside, however, Charbonneau's ultimate prime movers of this plot remain murky, a ruthless government agency using high school students as psychological lab rats and a virtual "mad scientist" in the form of the school guidance counselor who manipulates the teens she knows all too well to document how far their selfish greed will induce them to go. Some readers will buy into the familiar conspiracy premise, and some may find it nebulous and unmotivated in the exposition. Still, Charbonneau knows how to build tension in pithy plotting and spare storytelling style, with a nerdy but courageous heroine, not unlike her popular dystopian series, The Testing Trilogy. (see reviews here).

All the Norse Knowledge You Need! The Unofficial Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard Companion by Peter Aperlo

GET YER PROGRAMS HERE!
YA CAN'T TELL THE PLAYERS WITHOUT THE PROGRAM!

Apparently the Norsemen of old had a lot of time to make up stories about the Viking gods, heroes, giants, and other mythological creatures during those l-o-o-n-g winter nights, because their well-populated pantheon makes the ancient Greeks and Roman tales look  pretty paltry.

With the release of Rick Riordan's already best-selling first novel in his new series, Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard, Book 1: The Sword of Summer (Disney Hyperion, 2015), adventure-loving young adult readers are going to need to bone up on their Norse gods and goddesses, elves, dwarves, giants, and monster lore, and Peter Aperlo's just published The Unofficial Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard Companion: The Norse Heroes, Monsters and Myths Behind the Hit Series (Ulysses Press, 2015) is to perfect guide to have handy as they follow Magnus Chase, former homeless Boston orphan, who discovers that he is the demigod son of the god Frey with the mission of averting the end of the world and becomes a genuine hero of Asgard all in one day. All the many players who populate Magnus' story, plus many more, are identified in this small, handy volume.

Peter Aperlo's Unoffical Guide offers a fascinating and illustrated rundown of Norse history and social mores, a generous sampling of some of the more famous Norse myths, and an extensive Who's Who biographical dictionary of the Scandinavian pantheon of deities, mortals, heroes, monsters, and otherwise villainous characters that is sure to be indispensable in reading Riordan's first book and his proposed series. Aperlo offers a bonus pronunciation guide to Old Norse vowels and some links to further reading into the world of Viking archaeology. All this in an inexpensive paperback or even cheaper e-book that young readers can keep at hand, especially since the sequel, Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard, Book 2: The Hammer of Thor is forthcoming in 2016. And with Riordan's Disney connection through the publisher of this series, there are surely prospects for a movie or so, with the Boston setting offering plenty of colorful location shots for the action.

Who knew that a ride on one of Boston's famous Swan Boats could secretly be a Viking cruise? How wicked is that?

Don't Call It Beantown, or Hotel Valhalla, Where "All the Heroes Are Just Dying to Get In": The Sword of Summer-- Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard by Rick Riordan

"Yo!" I caught the sleeve of Uncle Randolph's coat. "Rewind to the part about a Norse God being my pappy."

We'd stopped at one of the Longfellow Bridge's main towers--a cone of granite rising fifty feet above us. People said the towers looked like giant salt and pepper shakers, but I'd always thought they looked like Daleks from Doctor Who. (So I'm a nerd. Sue me. And, yes, even homeless kids watch TV sometimes--on public library computers, in shelter rec rooms....)

A hundred feet below us, the Charles River glistened steel gray, mottled with snow and ice, like the skin of a massive python.

"Don't you see?" Randolph said. "So many people over the centuries have known. This area wasn't just visited by the Vikings. It was sacred to them. Magnus, the Norse explorers came here searching for the axis of the worlds, the very trunk of the tree Yggdrasil. They found it--"

"We're out of time, Magnus. Extend your hand over the water. The sword is there. Call it. DO IT."

But, of course, it's not as simple as all that. The Summer Sword, sunk in a Viking longboat in the Charles River for a thousand years does rise, barnacled and rusted, but there is the little matter of a fight to the death with the fire demon Surt first, one in which Magnus and the sword take on the demon in a fight to the death. Surt is vanquished, but unfortunately not before he kills Magnus.

Don't you just hate it when the hero dies before you get to page 50?

Fortunately, Magnus and his magic sword are swooped up by a circling valkyrie named Samirah and hauled off to what appears to be the poshest hotel in downtown Boston, the Hotel Valhalla. Inside, the hotel is a whole Norse paradise, where heroes go to live forever. There Magnus is reborn, better than ever, and besides, the food is great, and as he puts it, "the rooms don't suck." Of course, being a hero comes at a price, and Magnus is soon given his own quest--finding the island of Lyngvi, which rises from the sea (somewhere just outside Boston Bay, BTW, in case you were thinking of taking the whale watch cruise) once every thousand years, the island where Fenris Wolf has long been shackled.

Now Fenris is your average ravening wolf, except that he cannot be killed and is currently bound only with Gleipnir, a magical silken rope, maybe just a little century or two past its expiration date. It seems that Magnus and his summer sword named Jack are chosen to subdue and rebind him in the latest enchanted rope, Andskiti, And what happens if Magnus fails to rebind him? Well, just Ragnarok, the final battle between Odin and his heroes and Loki and his giants which will be an apolcalyptic battle, the End of the World. Nobody wants that.

If the plotline of Rick Riordan's new first book in series, Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard, Book 1: The Sword of Summer (Hyperion Books, 2015), sounds strangely similar to his earlier best-selling Percy Jackson and the Olympians, The Heroes of Olympus and The Kane Chronicles, that's because it is, a fact which will not surprise or deter Riordan's followers in the least. And yes, there's also a cameo by Magnus' cousin, Annabeth Chase, frienemy of Riordin's Percy Jackson. Small world, huh?

Like the Riordan's other heroes, Magnus is a demigod, this time the son of the Norse god Frey and a mortal woman, whose unlikely death in the heart of Boston at the fangs of a pack of wolves, results in Magnus' homeless status and his reasonable distrust of everyone. Like the previous series, Magnus is helped throughout his quest by his own band of brothers, Hearthstone the elf, master of rune magic, Blitzen, the high-fashion dwarf, and Samithra, a.k.a. Sam, the defrocked Valkyrie, not to mention several friendly warrior types recruited at the Hotel Valhalla for major battles.

Aso like Riordan's other heroes, Magnus is a dark, courageous, but occasionally snarky teen who gets his value system from his saintly mortal mother and his godly powers from his mythological father. The dialogue is a witty mashup of hip teenspeak and Asgardian lingo, with smartoff chapter headings like "Freya Is Pretty! She Has Cats!" and "Gunilla Gets Blowtorched and It's Not Funny. Okay, It's a Little Bit Funny." And what's not to like about a novel that ends with a Viking funeral for Gunilla and her two slain valkyries that involves swiping a winterized Swan Boat and setting it afire in the Frog Pond in the Boston Public Garden? Well, okay, I do have a bone to pick with Viking mores: how come female Valkyries aren't immortal and the heroes in Asgard get to die every day and return to life in time for the dinner buffet? If that's not gender bias, what is?

But aside from that caveat, this one is a real Rick Riordan romp through up-dated but classical Norse mythology. And for those who, unlike the author, are not highly familiar with the hyper-complex Norse Nine Worlds, there is a glossary of names and terms appended which the reader will refer to endlessly to keep up with the many mythic characters and terms encountered on this quest. Also added are the cited runes, and a description of the Nine Worlds contained within the Tree of Life, Yggdrasil, which are also essential as Magnus and Company hip-hop through the various realms, all located metaphorically, as we now know, in Boston, Massachusetts. which is, of course, why the Puritan founding fathers called their town "the Hub of the Universe."

The second book of the Gods of Asgard series, Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard, Book 2: The Hammer of Thor is forthcoming in the fall of 2016.

Zen Socks by Jon J. Muth

Leo and Molly sat on the porch of their new home.

"Look," said Leo, "It's going to happen again!"

"Yep," said Molly. "It's almost time."

"What's his name again?" asked Leo. "Mr. Quietpuddle?"

"Stillwater," said Molly.

Of course, their neighbor is Stillwater, the philosophical giant panda, wearing striped socks instead of the Zen Shorts (Caldecott Honor Book) of an earlier book, this time acting as mentor to the new kids on the block, Molly and Leo.

"Hi, Stillwater. This is our cat, Moss!" says Molly.

Moss hops into the basket of Stillwater's bike and the three head off for a spin, Molly just has to tell Stillwater about her ballet lessons, bubbling on about how she's going to be a top star, featured in glamorous, sparkly posters and adored by the public. Stillwater listens in bemused silence and then launches into the Zen parable of Banzo's Sword, in which the gungho young Jiro wants instant results in his swordsmanship. When Master Banzo tells him it will take thirty years of study, he is not willing to wait.

"I want to master the art now!" Jiro insisted.

"I see," said Banzo, "in that case you will have to work for seventy years!"

"I understand," said Molly. "I am not being patient. I will practice as long as it takes."

A few days later, it's Leo's turn to learn a lesson, as he and Stillwater agree to play with his robots.

"I'll be all the good guys, "said Leo, choosing all the best figures, "and you will be the bad guy," he says, taking charge.

"I love being the bad guy," Stillwater announced."

And to illustrate his role, he grabs the biggest cookies with the biggest chocolate chunks off the snack plate. Leo gets the message.

Then Stillwater and the kids happily head for a walk on the beach, but they are saddened to see the beach littered with starfish, left high and dry in the outgoing tide. They rush down and start tossing the beached starfish back into the water, but the task seems endless.

"There are too many," says Leo. "This won't make any difference."

Molly picked up one starfish and threw it back into the water.

"It will for him!" she said.

Caldecott-winning author-illustrator John J. Muth's Zen Socks (Scholastic Press, 2015) brings back his celebrated character in another story of Zen Panda Stillwater and his new young friends. Gentle wisdom bolstered by standout illustrations make this new one a winner as well for Muth, whose stunning draftsmanship and judicial use of colors give his illustrations impact and balance, just like his themes. For a Halloween-themed Stillwater story, pair this one with Muth's Zen Ghosts, (see review here).

Compromised: Santa; by Nicola Mar

"I'm so--so sorry, June. I shouldn't have left you," Alice cries. She is hugging me and I push her away.

Only a few bruises have become visible. "How could they do this, June?" Alice cries with me. But these are not questions that can be answered.

"You must tell the police," she demands. "I can't let you ignore this."

"No, Alice, promise me you won't do anything," I beg. "Please. If this gets out, I might as well kill myself. My life will be over."

She shakes her head. "Why would you want to let them get away with this? How many other girls do you think there have been? They will do this again if you don't say something."

I know she's right, but the only person I can think about is Mama.

June knows she is lucky to have a popular friend like Alice. Overweight, shy, and virtually invisible in her high school, June agrees to sneak out for a late-night party with Alice.

At first it is fun. A couple of drinks and some banter with the crowd in the kitchen make her feel less self-conscious, one of the group. But as the alcohol takes effect, June begins to feel nauseated and disoriented. She looks around for Alice, but someone tells her she's left, and she suddenly feels terribly alone.

Feeling she's going to throw up, June frantically looks for a bathroom in the strange house, and finding it, she rushes inside. The toilet is almost overflowing, and June leans against the wall and sinks to the floor. The next thing she remembers is being sexually assaulted by some of the football players, boys she scarcely knows.

When she comes to, her face in the filthy floor, June only thinks of escape. She stumbles out of the house and walks home, managing to get into her house without waking her mother . But the worst is yet to come. One of the boys has taken photographs of her lying unconscious on the bathroom floor and begins to post them on the internet. Soon quiet, studious June finds herself a pariah, beginning a downward spiral which leads to attempts at suicide.

It is a old, familiar story, one as old as mankind, yet repeated with each new generation, and in her novel Santa; author Nicola Mar spares none of the wrenching details of this experience nor its aftermath, the shame and depression that lead June to two suicide attempts. The author's narration of June's attack and the desperate days afterward is strong, honest, and affecting, although many readers will be disappointed in her contrived, deus ex machina conclusion, filled with dream sequences populated by bright lights, an angel named Santa, and... yes, a rainbow. Still, forewarned is forearmed, and Mar's novel may well serve as a cautionary tale for young adult readers--beware, and be there for each other.

A portion of the proceeds of this book are directed to Mar's organization, Project Semicolon.