The best of new children's books The best of new children's books (December 07, 2005)

by Debbie Duncan

The season's best new books for children and young adults offer good, old-fashioned storytelling and humor, along with page turners that will make teens think. Remember, there is no better gift for a child than a book. Read and enjoy!

"Baby Brains Superstar" by Simon James; Candlewick; $16; ages 2 to 8.

Baby Brains, whose mother played classical music for him in utero, is a musical prodigy. Naturally, his parents send him to music school. He masters several instruments, but he loves the electric guitar best.

Soon he wins a talent contest and is asked to be the opening act for "the biggest outdoor music concert of all time." He writes a new song, has a new outfit made and gets his (one) hair cut. But when his big moment comes, he turns into, well, a baby.

Cheerful watercolors help tell this story that will have little ones laughing along with their parents.

"The Jade Stone: A Chinese Folktale" adapted by Caryn Yacowitz, illustrated by Ju-Hong Chen; Pelican; $15.95; ages 3 to 8.

Palo Alto author Caryn Yacowitz's celebrated book that retells a Chinese folktale has just been reissued with a gorgeous new cover.

It's the story of Chan Lo, a stone carver who listens to the stones tell him what they want to be. The Great Emperor orders Chan Lo to carve a perfect piece of jade into a dragon, "a dragon of wind and fire" for the emperor.

But the sounds coming from the stone are gentle sounds of water, not dragon sounds. Chan Lo wants to please the emperor, but he also must remain true to his art. He carves three carp "swimming playfully in the reeds in the pool of the Celestial Palace."

The emperor is so angry that he has Chan Lo thrown into the dungeon. Before Chan Lo can be punished further, the emperor himself listens to the jade stone.

Artistic integrity -- and Chan Lo -- are the real winners of this charming picture book.

"Nacho and Lolita" by Pam Munoz Ryan, illustrated by Claudia Rueda; Scholastic; $17; ages 4 to 9.

Here is a new, gloriously illustrated story about the famed swallows of San Juan Capistrano. It's an old story, too, as the author based it on a folktale she heard from her Mexican grandmother.

Nacho is a rare bird with colorful feathers and a gift of song, but no avian pals. He takes up residence at the dry, dusty mission. When the swallows arrive in March after their annual migration, he sings for them and helps them build their summer nests.

He also falls in love with a swallow named Lolita. Alas, he's too big to join her and the others when they fly to South America for the winter. Lolita tells him they may not return to the mission again because the water has been drying up, and with it the flowers they need to attract insects.

Nacho can't let that happen!

He uses his magical feathers to transform the landscape into a floral paradise before his loved one's return and ensure that the swallows will always come back to San Juan Capistrano.

The illustrator is a Colombian native who herself migrated to Stanford while meticulously researching missions, swallows, and Juaneo Indians. Her colored pencil drawings are stunning in both color and detail.

There is also a Spanish-language paperback edition of this book, called "Nacho y Lolita."

"Regarding the Trees: A Splintered Saga Rooted in Secrets" by Kate Klise, illustrated by M. Sarah Klise; Harcourt; $15; ages 8 to 12.

The latest in the "Regarding the Sink" series is another page-turner sure to elicit giggles from young readers.

Like its predecessors, it's a pun-filled, fun-filled tale told in letters, faxes, notes, newspaper spreads, phone messages, blackboard assignments, postcards and drawings, as well as a wedding-video transcript and minutes from an old Geyser Creek club called the Maids of May.

Italian lessons are thrown in for flavor. The multiple plots, misunderstandings and plot twists all relate to trees, beginning with the middle school's weeping willow tree, which Principal Walter Russ thinks needs trimming.

He enlists the help of Geyser Creek's old friend Florence Waters, who mistakes his tree proposal for a marriage proposal. Flo's friend Chef Angelo sets up an Italian restaurant in the former school cafeteria and tries to take customers from Angel Fisch, owner of Geyser Creek Café.

This sets off a gender war that spreads to Sam N.'s sixth-grade class. All's well that ends well, with a May Day wedding -- weddings, actually -- under the willow tree.

"The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy" by Jeanne Birdsall; Knopf; $16; ages 8 to 12.

This year's winner of the National Book Award for Young People's Literature is a wonderfully old-fashioned story set in contemporary Massachusetts.

Four sisters travel with their widowed professor father to the country for a three-week summer holiday. Each girl has a distinct personality: responsible Rosalind, 12; Skye, 11, athletic and headstrong; Jane, 10, the writer and romantic; and shy 4-year-old Batty, who wears butterfly wings wherever she goes.

Rounding out this appealing, spunky family is a dog named Hound. Like the girls, he's not very obedient.

The cozy cottage they rent is on the edge of an estate inhabited by a snooty Mrs. Tipton and her 11-year-old son, Jeffrey, who would rather go on adventures with the Penderwicks or play the piano than head off to military school.

Filled with memorable characters, scenes, family traditions and gentle humor, this book begs to be read aloud -- or under the covers.

"Inexcusable" by Chris Lynch; Ginee Seo/Atheneum; $17; ages 13 and up.

Keir, the 18-year-old narrator of this fine and important book for teens, has a gazillion excuses for his destructive behavior.

He's a good guy, after all, whose two "brainy, insightful older sisters" support him. He'd rather "stay at home on a Saturday night to play a board game with his dad than go to a party." He wants everyone to like him.

A guy like that couldn't rape the girl he's had a crush on since kindergarten, could he?

You bet, especially when alcohol is involved. Told in chapters that alternate between the minutes just after the date-rape and Keir's version of the incidents that led up to it, "Inexcusable" sucks the reader into Keir's head and his conscience for an unforgettable story. Debbie Duncan reviews children's books for the Weekly. Her previous reviews can be seen at www.debbieduncan.com/picks.html.

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