CET Writes

Image from  amazon.com As a matter of full disclosure, please be aware that I was gifted a free electronic copy of this book to review. Serena the Sailboat is a charming tale about a day’s adventure involving the protagonist and her friends Simon Seagull and Danny Dolphin. After parading through the harbor and bidding their friends a joyous farewell, the trio head out to sea for a day of fun in the sun; however, their outing turns perilous when a storm rolls in and Serena fears that the gale may breach her hull. Recognizing the power of their collective strength, the friends find a safe harbor where they can weather the storm together. In Serena the Sailboat , Laura Thomae Young crafts a sweet, gentle story in verse while Raina M. Tubba’s illustrations extend the fun sing-song rhyme of Young’s quatrains in a friendly style that will make a good read for pre-kindergarten children ages 3-5. Furthermore, fans of Eric Carle, Leo Lionni, and classics from the Little Golden Boo...

Image from amazon.com Transitioning gracefully from fact to myth and back again, Kellogg’s take on the remarkable life and Johnny Appleseed legend which grew up around John Chapman is an attractive introduction to one of America’s first folk heroes. Hewing close to reality with a linear but episodic narrative, the tale of the most famous nurseryman in the United States is simplified for young audiences and presents as fact not only verifiable details of Chapman’s life but also a handful of digressions into possible but improbable occurrences. Among these is his victory in an impromptu tree-chopping contest which reaches into nigh-surreality when aided by the wordless full-bleed opening showing a legion of woodsmen in an axe-wielding frenzy. Beyond such direct embellishment of the tale, Kellogg’s densely textured art creates a frontier that, if not quite Disney-fied, certainly contains vastly more smiling woodland creatures in picturesque vistas and far fewer instances of hardship...

The second of four children in a Ojibwa family on the shores of Lake Superior, eight-year-old Omakayas--Little Frog--despises her obnoxious little brother, idolizes her older sister, and adores the new baby. As the family progresses from their birchbark-clad shoreline summer wigwam to their winter village cabin, camping with cousins to make sugar and gather rice along the way, Erdrich primarily follows the protagonist’s struggles and adventures, both internal and external. The text, which is liberally peppered with Ojibwa words and phrases even going so far as to reintroduce the familiar moccasins as  makazins , thoughtfully includes a glossary with pronunciation guide after the last chapter as well as a map of the family’s travels printed on the endpages. The daily work of carving a living from the land is central to the action, including anecdotal descriptions of the tasks necessary to keep Omakayas’ family and clan going such as hide tanning, icefishing, maize farming, an...

Wilder’s  Little House in the Big Woods  is the first book of her series that has come to be known as the “Little House books.”  The story, which is a year in the life of the author who is four years old at the book’s opening, is set in 1871 and mainly occurs in a little log cabin on the edge of the Big Woods of Wisconsin where the protagonist lives with Ma, Pa, her older sister Mary, and her baby sister Carrie.  The intricate black and white line art of Garth Williams and  the green and white gingham endpages compliment the image of the simple beauty and dignity of pioneer life that the text works so hard to cultivate.  Nonetheless, the story is rather oddly told from a third person limited point of view that focuses on Laura.  Consequently, Wilder serves as both the narrator and main character yet she scrupulously avoids referring to her experiences in the first person, choosing to instead effect a childish sense of awe and wonder that an adu...

Although published in crisp black and white, former  Playboy  correspondent Silverstein’s classic collection of poems and drawings  Where the Sidewalk Ends  fairly explodes with colorful language of the kid-friendly sort. Taken by themselves, the poems range in length from a handful of lines up to three pages, and in breadth from a single amusing thought to a narrative arc or a song’s worth of lyrics. Common childhood themes of disobedience to parental and educational authority, trouble with siblings, chores and fanciful play are addressed in a characteristically irreverent manner, with frequent digressions into pure fantasy and fun. Never crossing over into the excessively precious or maudlin, Silverstein prefers to stick to a more self-conscious and unsentimental tone, gleefully exploring the macabre and outright disgusting topics frequented by children. On nearly every last opening, the text of the verses shares space with Silverstein’s expressive and loos...

Owl at Home  is one of Harper & Row’s many titles in the  I Can Read!  series.  The inside cover explains the series’ system for promoting independent reading in young children, and the title page is followed by a table of contents that enumerates the book’s chapters.  Young children will enjoy the protagonists’ childlike innocence in this episodic narrative of loosely connected adventures in which he demonstrates his faulty understanding of physics by welcoming winter as a house guest, becoming frightened by his own feet, making tear-water tea, striving to be in two places at once, and discouraging the moon from following him home.  Readers will delight in predicting the outcomes of Owl’s mishaps and recognizing the flaws in his logic.  Lobel’s heavily shaded, representational, cartoonish line art provides a depth and richness that complements and extends the text, facilitating the reader’s comprehension of Owl’s logical fallacies.  Furt...

The Space Race  is one title among many in the  World History Series .  This book is an illustrated informational book that explores the history of rocketry and explains America’s race against the Soviet Union to be the first to land a man on the moon.  The books illustrations are largely comprised of photographs through which readers can understand the scope and depth of the concept.   The Space Race  pairs nicely with a study of President John F. Kennedy’s persuasive speeches, especially  “The Decision to Go to the Moon.”     CHRISTINA E. TAYLOR The Space Race [World History Series] b y by  Nathan Aaseng Middle School     Lucent Books 110 pp.  Published 2015  ISBN 978-1560068099 $28.70

Civil Rights  is an informational book in the  Examining Issues Through Political Cartoons  series. Beginning with a lengthy preface detailing the history of African-American civil rights from the early 19th to the late 20th century, it then features four chapters which proceed roughly chronologically beginning in the 1960s. Each chapter contains a preface to its topic and one or more  political cartoons  accompanied by analyses for each. With cartoons chosen to represent opinions across the political spectrum, this book presents the contemporary controversy while maintaining an authorial voice at once evenhanded but free of false equivalence. As a brief but engaging introduction to historical and current issues in civil rights, this book could serve well as background to teaching  Martin Luther King Jr. 's " I Have a Dream " speech.  CHRISTINA E. TAYLOR Civil Rights [Examining Issues Through Political Cartoons series]  Ed...

Women in Ancient Greece  is another title in  The Other Half of History  series.  Macdonald addresses how women of the era lived, were viewed by their contemporaries in life and in myth, as well as their struggles and accomplishments. Broken up into easily accessible sections ranging from an overview to religion, the informational text is complemented and extended by sidebars, maps, captioned photographs of figurative art and sculpture, and quotations from contemporary poets, authors, playwrights, and philosophers.  This text would make a nice supplement to a study of background information for Greek mythology, Greek tragedies, and  Homer ’s  Odyssey  or  Iliad  by providing historical information. Women in Ancient Greece [The Other Half of History series] b y Fiona Macdonald  Middle Grade  Peter Bedrick Books 48 pp.  Published 1999  ISBN 978-0-8722-6568-4 $17.95 

By exploring developments in various fields of study and interest,  The Renaissance —part of the  See Through History  series—presents a broad overview of the events, institutions and technology which shaped its titular era. Proceeding from a brief explanation of the fall of the western Roman Empire and the ensuing Middle Ages, this work addresses a new topic with every opening, breaking each subject down into bold-headed sections, each with a handful of sentences written in a broad informational style. Illustrations are plentiful, and include both representational scenes and contemporary art and maps. Four of the chapters include a full-page illustration of a building with a transparent overlay which reveals the inner structure when the page is turned. Although it is of necessity highly focused on the European experience of the era, and lacks a great deal of analytical depth and detail, this book would make a good introduction to the era for students about to read Mac...

Based wherever possible on the classic rhymes as collected by Peter and Iona Opie, dePaola opens his own collection with the tale of Old Mother Goose and her hapless son Jack. Thereafter, longer tentpole tales are spaced regularly throughout, separated from one another by shorter stories, with some taking up a page with text and illustration while other tiny verses are arranged several to a page, sometimes spanning openings with similarly-themed illustrations. dePaola’s illustrations are filled with simple, muted hues with a distinct lack of shadow which, in combination with a use of line, promotes the human scale of the narratives -- fuzzy even at its sharpest -- and creates an atmosphere of gentleness which would seem to suit the familiar and often archaic lines even when they veer into the horrific. The young reader will be drawn in by the friendly, engaging, and expressive images, and is likely to construct expectations of the stories before beginning to read them. However, rea...