Author: Loree Burns

MYSTERY BOTTLE
By Kristen Balouch
Hyperion, 2006

At my local library the picture books are shelved in six chest-high bookshelves along the front edge of the children’s room. I love to walk through these stacks and look at the books standing open on top. The titles that end up in this coveted position are random … sometimes they are new books, sometimes they are old books. Oftentimes they are books I would never have found if they had not been placed on top of the stacks on the day of my visit. This week the book MYSTERY BOTTLE, written and illustrated by Kristen Balouch, caught my eye.

The cover of MYSTERY BOTTLE spoke to me. Breathy shades of green and blue and layers of story pulled me in … a boy and an old man together on a bicycle, a bottle corked with a map and filled with interesting people and places. And beneath all this fabulous art, another map, this one spattered with cities I have never seen: Mashhad, Roshkhvar, Bihud. I slipped the book into my library bag so that I could explore it at home. And what pleasant exploring it was! In eleven sentences–eleven sentences– Kristen Balouch paints a tale of separation and of the clever way one grandfather bridges it. This is the sort of picture book that inspires a writer to examine every narrative more closely, to consider every word more carefully, and to strive for more story, less words. Read this one for the pure pleasure of it.

STARS BENEATH YOUR BED, The Surprising Story of Dust
By April Pulley Sayre
Pictures by Ann Jonas
Greenwillow Books, 2005

I have a Ph.D. in biochemistry. (Why? Well, that’s a long story for another day.) Anyway, as a result of having these three letters at the end of my name, people assume I know a lot, particularly about science. But the sad fact is that while there are some small and obscure areas of science about which I know a great deal, there is far more that I don’t know. In fact, if I think about it all too much I realize I don’t know anything at all. Thank goodness for all the wonderful science books for children that I read. Otherwise I would be just plain clueless.

Take dust, for instance. All I knew about dust before yesterday was that it is fodder for the dust mites that my son is so allergic to. But then I read April Pulley Sayre’s STARS BENEATH YOUR BED and suddenly I have an appreciation for dust. Did everyone but me know that dust is responsible for colorful sunsets? And that dust nucleates raindrops? And that dust can stay in the air for hundreds and thousands of years? With April’s poetic language and Ann Jonas’ watercolor illustrations, STARS BENEATH YOUR BED introduces children to the wonders (yes, the wonders) of dust. Check it out.

Also, if you care about children’s literature and if you work in the industry (as a writer or an illustrator or a bookseller or a publisher or an editor or an educator or a librarian) you should visit the Children’s Media Professionals’ Forum, which April Sayre hosts on her website. CMP is a fantastic community of folks who care deeply about children’s books and other media. You should check it out, too.

THE FAMILY UNDER THE BRIDGE
By Natalie Savage Carlson
Pictures by Garth Williams
Harper & Row, 1958
Scholastic, 1986

I picked this book up at the library book sale a couple weeks ago. I had never heard of Natalie Savage Carlson or her book, but I have grown a little soft spot in my heart for France, where the book is set. And I am a fan of Garth Williams, the illustrator. And it was awarded a Newbery Honor medal in 1959. How could I not fork over fifty cents and take it home?

Clearly THE FAMILY UNDER THE BRIDGE is dated. And people who cringe at sticky, sweet children’s books will not like it at all. But as I am dated myself, and happen to have a high tolerance for historical sticky sweet, I adored it. Armand is a portly tramp living—happily—under a bridge beside the River Seine in Paris. He breathes delectable lunches outside Notre Dame and collects discarded foliage at the outdoor flower market, and pushes his baby-buggy full of belongings around the city. At night he returns to his “hidey-hole” under the bridge. It is not a life for everyone, but Armand is content. Until the day he finds a family of starlings (small children, actually—Armand calls them starlings) perched in his hidey-hole. Try as he might to ignore them, Armand is drawn in and the story that follows is delicious, vintage, children’s literature.

TRASH ACTION
By Ann Love and Jane Drake
Illustrated by Mark Thurman
Tundra Books, 2006

I recently saw the documentary “Dolphins” at an IMAX theatre. It was breathtaking. After the movie, however, I had a disturbing discussion with my friend Luther (I’ve changed his name). It went something like this:

Me: That was breathtaking!
Luther: Yes, except for the heavy-handed environmental message.
Me: Are you kidding?
Luther: No.
Me: Luther, are you telling me that the three minutes of that hour-long documentary in which the commentator discussed the effects of plastic pollution on marine life felt “heavy-handed” to you?
Luther: Yes.
Me: Are you kidding?
Luther: Nope. I’m sick of hearing how humans are the worst thing to ever happen to this planet. It just isn’t true.
Me: Are you kidding? (I’m not very articulate when I get my dander up.)

The discussion went on, but I will spare you the details. It will suffice to say that Luther and I will never, ever, ever be on the same page in the book of environmentalism. The topic has officially been added to the list of things he and I should not discuss together (religion and politics are also on this list). But I like Luther, and I couldn’t help wishing he had been exposed to a book like TRASH ACTION as a kid. Perhaps he would have enjoyed “Dolphins” more.

TRASH ACTION, written by Ann Love and Jane Drake, is intended for children four to eight. In straightforward prose, the authors introduce kids to the concept of an ecological footprint and the idea that their actions affect the planet. Interspersed throughout the book are cartoons and stories which help readers to get a broad picture of the trash issue. From recycling to composting to NIMBY (Not in My Back Yard) to litter in space, the authors bring an important topic to a young audience in a way they can understand … and then challenge them to act on what they have learned.

Realistically, this is a book that will work best in a classroom or small group setting, I think. But there are so many opportunities for it to be useful. As a parent, it armed me with information and stories I could use to help my own kids to understand not only why these issues are important to me, but how they can help me to do something proactive. As the author of a children’s book with an underlying environmental message, the book is one I will recommend to all my youngest readers. And I will recommend it, of course, to my friend Luther. Perhaps it is not too late for him…

STONES IN WATER
By Donna Jo Napoli
Scholastic, 1997

I told my friend Jane, librarian extraordinaire, that I needed another boy book. You know, something meaty that I could sink my teeth into and that would also interest my sons. She came back with STONES IN WATER.

Wow.

This is a powerful book. It is set during World War II, and certainly would catch the attention of my two boys … although I think it is best for slightly older kids. Perhaps ten? Twelve? I won’t read it to my eight-year-olds quite yet. But I will read it to them someday. And I will read it to my daughter, too. And when I do I think all three of them will begin to understand that war is ugly and that people—real people, young people, little boy and little girl people—die in them. This is a hard thing for children to know.

STONES IN WATER is the story of Roberto, an Italian boy, who is cruelly swept into the heart of World War II. There are many, many heartbreaking moments in this book. But there are triumphant ones, too. Like the moment when Roberto, who has run away from a German work camp and is trying desperately to survive another day in the Russian wilderness as he makes his way home, comes across pet canaries in an abandoned village.

“Roberto picked up the heavy bag of birdseed under the cage. He opened the cage door and scattered seeds all around the bottom. He hooked the door so that it stayed open. Then he scattered seeds around the house, on every surface. He filled all the containers he could find with snow and left them in front of the windows where the sun might melt them. He and the boy went outside. “Good luck,” he called back into the room. Then he closed the front door to the house tight behind them.”

Wow.

Don’t miss this one. Just don’t.

BEARS ON WHEELS
By Stan and Jan Berenstain
Random House, 1969

Fire the cannons! Strike up the trumpets! Release the confetti!

A celebration is underway in the Burns household. My daughter, my baby, my how-did-it-happen-so-quickly big girl can read. That’s right, she can read. And her first book was the Berenstain classic BEARS ON WHEELS. (She bought it at the library book sale with her very own quarter.)

Reading is a big deal around here. We all do it and we do it in a very open way. We read out loud together, we read quietly together, we trade books, we have favorites, we have worsts, we delight in movies based on books, we refuse to see movies because the book was just too good. We debate books, we argue books, we share books, we shrug our shoulders and whisper whatever! when someone doesn’t like our book. (Okay, maybe I am the only one who does that.) All of this has made the littlest Burns feel left out sometimes. But those days are over now. She has joined us in the world of words.

Okay, technically speaking, she is pre-reading. There is a great deal of picture-scrutinizing before she begins. Her first choice—by far—is to guess what the words say. But when she has guessed herself into a corner she sighs, places that pudgy finger with the glitter pink nail polish under the first letter, and sounds out a word. Soon the words form a sentence, and the sentence paints a picture, and that picture matches the drawing on the page. (“One bear. One wheel.”) In that moment my little one realizes she can read … and we both nearly burst.

Hip, Hip, Hooray! What a day!

FEVER 1793
By Laurie Halse Anderson
Aladdin, 2002

Last week I was browsing at the library and saw Laurie Halse Anderson’s FEVER 1793 on the sixth grade Summer Reading shelves. Since I had just finished AN AMERICAN PLAGUE, a non-fiction account of the same event, I picked it up. How would this fictionalized account of the yellow fever epidemic compare to the non-fiction version I had recently praised here?

FEVER 1793 held up. It is a great read, and Anderson packs a tremendous amount of historical detail into her novel. Somehow she slips in the strange theories that people had about the cause of the epidemic, the flight of most high-ranking government officials, the bravery of the Free African Society, the takeover of a Bush Hill mansion in order to create a hospital for the sick and dying, and hundreds of other historical facts … and none of it slows the narrative.

I was utterly wrapped up in the story of Mattie Cook, Anderson’s young protagonist, who is trapped in fever-stricken Philadelphia. Mattie’s story personalized the plague in a way that was hard to shake. What would I have done if my mother came down with the plague and sent me away to the country? Would I go? Would I refuse to leave? And if I didn’t make it to the country, but returned home to find my mother missing, what would I do? Could I survive on my own? Could I find a way to help myself … and possibly some of the people suffering around me? These are the tough questions that Mattie has to face as she comes of age in the midst of a deadly plague. How can you not want to know what happens?

* * *

And that, my friends, concludes Mosquito Week here on my reading blog. Heaven only knows what I will come up with next.

Happy reading!

MOSQUITO BITE
By Alexandra Siy and Dennis Kunkel
Charlesbridge, 2005

Adults often dismiss children’s books, and I will never understand why. Children’s books rock! And I am not just saying this because I write children’s books. I truly believe that books written for children and young adults have a lot to offer adults. This is especially true in the non-fiction arena. Take for example mosquitoes. Why would anyone wanting to know just a little bit about these pesky creatures bother with a 250-page tome written for adults? Who really wants to know that much about mosquitoes? Okay, I am sure someone, somewhere needs all that information. But this week I just needed some basic mosquito biology to help me formulate a stance on the mosquito spraying going on in my state. And so I turned to the children’s section of my library. That is where I found MOSQUITO BITE, a well-informed and fascinating account of the life cycle of the common mosquito. It is written for middle-school aged children and it told me everything I wanted to know in 32-pages and in language I could understand.

MOSQUITO BITE opens with an inviting backyard scene: a group of kids playing hide-and-seek on a hot summer night. In black and white photographs we see a young girl seeking and a young boy hiding. A colorized inset photograph on the first page tells us straightaway that all is not as idyllic as it seems. Just as a blade of grass (when viewed at two hundred times its actual size with a scanning electron microscope, as it is in the inset) is not smooth, so a pleasant summer evening is not all fun and games. The old tractor tire the boy is hiding behind is filled with stagnant water, the perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes. And the boy, hot and sweaty and panting, is a perfect target for the female mosquito. As the hide-and-seek game unfolds, so does the mosquito drama. Through dazzling photomicrographs we see the female mosquito up close and in all her horrible completeness: massive eyes, hairy wings, bristly antennae and one nasty, knife-wielding proboscis. Pretty cool stuff. Scary, but cool. You should check it out.

Children’s books DO rock!

I have one more entry to complete Mosquito Week. Stay tuned …

AN AMERICAN PLAGUE, The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793
By Jim Murphy
Clarion, 2003

Last week on the 11 o’clock news I saw footage of planes flying over parts of Massachusetts spraying for mosquitoes. I couldn’t help but wince at the sight. I am one of those people who hates the thought of my neighborhood being blanketed with airborne pesticides. Even if they are designed to have minimal impact on “non-target species”, even if they are a synthetic derivative of a compound normally found in garden plants, even if their dissemination will decrease adult mosquito populations and, therefore, decrease the risk of certain diseases. I still worry … about my kids, about the deer and the wild turkeys that roam in the woods behind my house, and most of all about the damned mosquitoes that survive the spraying and go on to spawn a new generation of perhaps- more-spray-resistant young mosquitoes. Reading AN AMERICAN PLAGUE did nothing to dampen these concerns.

As the subtitle claims, this book is terrifying. With a dexterous use of firsthand accounts, Murphy brings readers the sights, sounds and smells of Philadelphia in August of 1793, when a yellow fever epidemic gripped the city. Talk about history coming alive! Philadelphia’s sons and daughters leaped from the pages … some as heroes, others as cowards, some as survivors, others as victims … each compelling and urgent. This is riveting non-fiction and it is no wonder at all that the cover of this book sports so much silver and gold (a Newbery Honor medal, the National Book Award finalist medallion, and a Sibert medal!). Bravo, Jim Murphy.

This startling quote is taken from the last chapter:

“… despite years of research, there is still no cure for yellow fever. While modern medicines can lessen the impact the disease has on the human body, once a person has yellow fever, he or she will have to endure most of the horrible symptoms that Philadelphia’s people suffered in 1793.”

I won’t even describe the horrible symptoms to you. You will just have to get Jim Murphy’s book and read all about it yourself. Be forewarned, though … when you have finished the book you will start to worry about mosquitoes, the diseases they carry, and how little control we actually have over these bloodthirsty buggers. When this happens I invite you to come back here and worry with me. Believe it or not, it is mosquito week here. Stay tuned …

NUMBER THE STARS
By Lois Lowry
Houghton Mifflin, 1989

Okay, folks, it is library book sale week. That means everyone in my house is hoarding petty cash and dreaming of spectacular bargain book finds. (Will they have the long-sought after CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS AND THE PERILOUS PLOT OF PROFESSOR POOPYPANTS? Will we luck out and find that illustrated, hardcover edition of THE HOBBIT? Oh, remember the year we found that practically new, lap-sized edition of CHARLOTTE’S WEB?) It also means we are trying to finish reading the spectacular stack of bargain books we bought last year. And I submit to you now that any stack of books containing a copy of Lois Lowry’s NUMBER THE STARS—bargain bought or otherwise—is, indeed, spectacular.

I listened to this book on tape two years ago and bought my tattered copy shortly afterward, at last year’s library book sale. I was anxious to read it to my kids, but my boys were hesitant. They are into judging books by covers; covers that feature a girl, as this one does, are not cool. But NUMBER THE STARS is set during the German occupation of Denmark during World War II. This has a certain appeal for eight year-old boys and they agreed to give it a try. They were hooked from the moment early in Chapter 1 when a German soldier stepped onto a Danish sidewalk and shouted “Halte!” at ten year-old Annemarie Johansen and her friend Ellen Rosen, who were racing each other home from school.

“Annemarie stared up. There were two of them. That meant two helmets, two sets of cold eyes glaring at her, and four tall shiny boots planted firmly on the sidewalk, blocking her path to home. And it meant two rifles, gripped in the hands of the soldiers.”

The looks on my sons’ faces at this moment were the same looks I imagine Annemarie and Ellen must have worn. I saw fear and shock and a sprinkle of carefully concealed outrage. I was left, yet again, in awe of the power of the written word. Although I tried hard to read the book with an eye toward craft (Lowry is a master and I am but a student), I was swept up in the story. More than once I cried. And my sweet, innocent boys were caught up in a history they can barely understand. For days after we finished the book there were questions, difficult ones, about German soldiers and Danish Jews and the Resistance and friendship and risk. They were tough conversations and I am sure my answers fed their shock and fear. How could an honest conversation about such topics do anything else? But as we talked, shock and fear were overshadowed by outrage, and for this I am grateful.

Thank you, Lois Lowry, for giving the world such a beautiful and important book.

Best,
Loree