INFODAD.COM: Family-Focused Reviews

(++++) HOP, SKIP AND JUMP

2009-07-02T08:49:00.000-04:00

Watch Me Hop! By Rebecca Young. Illustrations by Von Glitschka. Cartwheel Books/Scholastic. $12.99.

Wrapped-Up FoxTrot: A Treasury with the Final Daily Strips. By Bill Amend. Andrews McMeel. $16.99.

Mike Stellar: Nerves of Steel. By K.A. Holt. Random House. $15.99.

Lenticular animation, a new version of a technology as old as the 19^th century’s seminal zoopraxiscope and kinetoscope – precursors of modern movies – is making a comeback of sorts in kids’ books. The new version of the technology makes still pictures seem to move, often in remarkably lifelike ways and always in fascinating ones. The best version of the technology is a patented form developed by Rufus Butler Seder for museums and other public places. It has been used in several books published by Workman. But others have created versions of this still-but-animated design as well, such as the one in Watch Me Hop! This is a simple book in which animals all hop – or don’t hop, but do something else shown through the same apparent-motion technology. It’s a clever idea. At one point, Rebecca Young writes, “It’s hard to see me, then up I POP. I’m a GRASSHOPPER…watch me HOP!” But then, “I have a snout, and a tail like a SQUIGGLE. I don’t hop – I like to WRIGGLE!” And the picture shows a pig, which does indeed wriggle instead of hopping. Von Glitschka’s pictures here are in color – those in Seder’s books are black-and-white – and their movement is less extensive and can be harder to see than in Seder’s books (you have to hold the pages at the right angle). But this becomes part of the fun: first the animals don’t seem to move, and then suddenly they do, and the result is likely to be squeals of delight from the young children for whom the book is intended. There are eight animals in all here, from the small (frog) to the huge (elephant), each of them attractively displayed and moving interestingly – the kangaroo is particularly good.

You can skip the oversize FoxTrot “Treasury” volume, Wrapped-Up FoxTrot, if you already have Houston, You Have a Problem and And When She Opened the Closet, All the Clothes Were Polyester! Those two smaller-size collections of Bill Amend’s strip are reprinted here, with no changes except for color Sunday comics in Wrapped-Up FoxTrot. But if you don’t have the smaller collections and have any fondness at all for Amend’s wonderful and now-truncated strip, the new volume is a must-have. Heck, you could probably talk yourself into buying it for the silly cover alone: it looks like a package wrapped in bright purple wrapping paper emblazoned with the heads of FoxTrot characters and “torn” on the back enough to reveal the publisher’s name, the UPC code, and so on. That’s clever, and so is, or was, FoxTrot, which is now a Sunday-only strip and the merest shadow of its former self. Wrapped-Up FoxTrot includes the final daily strips, in which Amend subtly thanked his readers and the newspapers that carried his work for so long. Before that, it contains many, many examples of the reasons the daily strip is missed: a week in which the characters talk about their cartoonist getting sick, resulting in stick drawings, a sideways panel and an imitation of Pearls Before Swine; a week in which Jason makes his own King Kong film, with his brother, Peter, as the giant ape – but in a Donkey Kong costume; a week of crossword-puzzle hints, such as “computer havoc-wreaker” being not “virus” but, since this is the Fox household, “daddy”; a week of Jason’s Halloween costumes, including a full-body Snickers bar and a black hole to attract all the candy; and much more. The character comedy of FoxTrot comes through far more clearly in the daily strips than in the remaining Sunday-only ones. It is wonderful to have one final collection of those dailies – and sad that it is the last one.

FoxTrot always remained fully grounded on Earth, but Mike Stellar: Nerves of Steel jumps all over the place. In fact, the title character – Michael Newton Stellar, whose name is typical in a book with such other characters as Hubble Hawking and Mrs. Halebopp – jumps into space, toward Mars, through a wormhole and back, out of and back into a spacecraft, and…well, all over the place. This is K.A. Holt’s first book for young readers, and is cleverly constructed so that it can stand on its own or, if she and her publisher agree, become the first of a series. The book is clever in other ways, too. It is a story of a space-age family, but this is no lighthearted The Jetsons – although it starts pretty much that way and retains elements of humor throughout. Mike Stellar and his scientist parents get eight hours’ notice to move to Mars; that’s how things start. Coming along is his mom’s assistant, whose name is pronounced “Shoo-gah-bear,” certainly not “Sugar Bear.” But Mike’s sister, Nita, isn’t coming, because she is a member of “Earthlings for Earth,” and EFE members are considered faintly subversive because they want money spent on our home planet, not on colonization of others. Mike’s mom and dad don’t seem too upset about all this, though. And then there’s another scientist, Jim, with “an utterly bizarre girl” named Larc who has bright blue braces, bright blue eyes and a lot of knowledge about things that she really shouldn’t know but that Mike is curious about, too. What Holt does so well is give the book increasing depth as it moves along, even if the characterizations remain once-over-lightly. For instance, it turns out that Mike’s parents are under a cloud of suspicion because of the presumed loss of a previous spacecraft they designed. Mike’s best friend, nicknamed Stinky, is the brother of Hubble, who was aboard that earlier ship and was Nita’s boyfriend. Larc knows a little too much about that earlier voyage and about suspicious things involving the current one. Just who is a good guy and who is a bad guy, and why, becomes a hopeless muddle until everything is eventually (and neatly) sorted out. Through it all, Mike’s preoccupation with MonsterMetalMachines remains – and turns out to be important. And although there is no romance – the book is strictly for preteens – there is a bit of handholding between Mike and Larc that turns out to be very important indeed. The future-ish language is overdone (“drivedropper,” “electri-car,” “vis recorder”), but the plot follows the best time-tested SF approach by focusing on human relations more than technology. In fact, a sequel would be most welcome.

(+++) REALITIES AND ALMOST-REALITIES

2009-07-02T08:46:00.000-04:00

China: Land of Dragons and Emperors. By Adeline Yen Mah. Delacorte Press. $17.99.

The Other Half of Life. By Kim Ablon Whitney. Knopf. $16.99.

Kaleidoscope Eyes. By Jen Bryant. Knopf. $15.99.

Three sensitive women writers, three nations, three eras – it all adds up to three books that mix fictional and nonfictional elements and that young readers will enjoy even as they learn from them. China: Land of Dragons and Emperors, for ages 12 and up, is the most straightforward work, but so fascinating is China’s culture, and still so little known in the West, that Adeline Yen Mah’s book is filled with revelations as fascinating as many to be found in fiction. The 10 chapters here – supplemented by a timeline and a useful list of references for further information – trace China’s long history from a disunited group of petty states through a lengthy imperial period, through conquest and being conquered, into the modern era and the establishment of Communist rule over the mainland and Nationalist control of Taiwan. An apolitical book, China: Land of Dragons and Emperors takes no sides in modern (or many older) quarrels, presenting balanced portraits of historical figures and focusing much of the time on the rich tapestry of innovation that is Chinese history. Silk and gunpowder, paper and pigtails, the Great Wall and the reasons for the importance of the numbers eight and nine – all are here, and much more besides. Mah’s names for some Chinese dynasties are a clue to her style: the Ming was the “eunuchs’ dynasty” and the Qing the “crippled dynasty,” for example. In her focus on China’s many cultural achievements, Mah does tend to downplay the nation’s many-centuries-long periods of violence with such simple sentences as “Famine, banditry and strife continued.” And some of her more interesting statements could use a bit of additional explanation: “The Song paid tribute to the Liao and the Jin because it cost them less to pay them than to create an efficient army to fight them.” These are minor matters, though. The book is filled with fascinating snippets of history, lovely drawings and beautiful photographs, and its entire design – including the typesetting – is at once accessible and exotic. It is a fine introduction to a fascinating land and history.

The Other Half of Life, also for ages 12 and up, has a more modern focus: it is set in 1939 and based on the story of the St. Louis, a luxury liner that carried Jews away from Hitler’s Germany but that ended up being turned back by Cuba, Canada and the United States. Eventually, passengers were allowed to disembark in France, Holland, Belgium and Great Britain, but 254 of the 937 aboard nevertheless died in the Holocaust. With this story as her basis, Kim Ablon Whitney creates a piece of youth-oriented historical fiction focusing on 15-year-old Thomas, son of a Jewish father and Christian mother, who is traveling alone on a ship that is here called the St. Francis; and 14-year-old Priska, who is with her family. Also aboard are Nazi crew members and an upstanding captain (this part is fact) who insisted on treating the Jewish passengers just like everyone else. In the story as Whitney tells it, Priska determinedly remains optimistic, as when the Cubans claim that the passengers’ documentation is not good enough: “It’ll get sorted out with time. If the landing permits were no good, they wouldn’t have given them to us.” Thomas is more of a realist, and wonders about his friend’s attitude: “Before they had arrived in the Havana harbor, her outlook had seemed stubbornly optimistic. Now it seemed only foolhardy.” Together, the two observe the doings of a Nazi spy; Thomas plays chess; the ship’s children write a letter to President Roosevelt; and the two young friends are eventually forced apart, to very different destinies. The Other Half of Life is heartfelt, highlighting an event of some historical significance: the true tale of the St. Louis led to significant improvements in U.S. treatment of refugees. But the book is also highly melodramatic, squeezing the heartstrings in every way possible – and, in the end, rather too tightly.

Kaleidoscope Eyes deals with much more recent times, but ones that will likely seem just as remote to its intended readers, ages 9-13: the 1960s. Told as a series of poems in free verse – Jen Bryant is a poet as well as a writer of prose – the book is set in 1968 but looks back to the 17^th century. The factual basis of this work is the excavation of a sunken steamship in the mid-1800s by a father and son, added to the many legends of the notorious pirate, Captain Kidd. Bryant weaves these threads together in the tale of 13-year-old Lyza, who discovers three old maps in her late grandfather’s attic. Accompanying the maps is a letter specifically addressed to her – and it sends Lyza, with her friends Malcolm and Carolann, on a secret treasure hunt throughout their small town of Willowbank, New Jersey. The town is, unfortunately, becoming even smaller, as its young men go off to the Vietnam War; patriotism is offset by worries about the safety of the towns’ sons. The whole book is intended to give a kaleidoscopic view of its times, and Lyza’s possession of a kaleidoscope is a little too obviously symbolic. It comes up again and again, for instance at the Fourth of July celebration: “Carolann’s family arrives. They set their chairs/ and blankets next to us, and as we’re/ twirling sparklers and watching/ the first rockets/ and pinwheels go off, I wonder: What must they look like/ through Harry’s color-blind eyes? And what would/ he see inside my kaleidoscope?” There is no particular reason for this book to be told as a series of poems, and in fact some important elements – a letter about the maps’ authenticity, excerpts from the (fictional) log of Captain Kidd, and more – are entirely in prose. The lilting rhythms of some of the poems help move the story along, but the poetic structure often seems arbitrary. Still, the story has a number of exciting elements, and the idea of laying a portrait of the Vietnam War era over a mystery from 300 years earlier is an intriguing one. The characters in Kaleidoscope Eyes never really come alive as individuals, but the story – each of its parts introduced by lines from a song of the 1960s, the last of them of course using a “kaleidoscope eyes” quotation from the Beatles’ Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds – is unusual enough to keep middle-graders’ interest throughout.

(+++) DEATHS AND AFTERMATHS

2009-07-02T08:43:00.000-04:00

The Ride: A Shocking Murder and a Bereaved Father’s Journey from Rage to Redemption. By Brian MacQuarrie. Da Capo. $26.

Black Tooth Grin: The High Life, Good Times, and Tragic End of “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott. By Zac Crain. Da Capo. $15.95.

The search for meaning after a horrible death is frequently undertaken not only by those immediately affected but also by those who feel they were closely tied to the victim in some important way, even if not through an official relationship. The dead thus become symbols, standing for more than they did in life – and symbols become books like these two. The Ride is the more harrowing of the two and is better written, but is also more novelistic in its treatment of a nightmarish scenario. Its focus is what happened after the murder, in 1997, of 10-year-old Jeffrey Curley. The boy was lured into a car by two men, Salvatore Sicari and Charles Jaynes, who took him to the Boston Public Library and used a computer there to visit the Web site of the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA). Later, Jaynes tried to assault the boy sexually, gagging him with a gasoline-soaked rag when he resisted – eventually killing him and sexually assaulting his corpse. Even in bare prose, this is almost too awful a story to tell, and Brian MacQuarrie’s prose is far from bare. MacQuarrie, a longtime Boston Globe reporter and editor, makes it clear from the outset that his will be an interpretative book, filled with thoughts and feelings that an objective reporter could not know: Jeffrey’s father, Bob Curley, “tossed a glance toward the Boston skyline three miles away” just after waking up, MacQuarrie writes, and later “blocked out the jarring sound of heavy trucks bouncing in and out of gaping potholes.” These are likely things to do but not journalistically certain ones; they are the touches of a novelist. And such touches abound as MacQuarrie focuses more and more on Bob Curley’s remarkable emotional journey after his son’s murder – a journey that eventually turns him into a strong critic of the death penalty rather than the staunch advocate that any reader, and especially any parent, would likely expect him to be. As it progresses, The Ride becomes less the story of one family and one murder than a societally oriented look at the death penalty, tending to emphasize comments like one by state representative Tom McGee after a vote to reinstate the penalty in Massachusetts: “In the pit of my stomach, I had this feeling when you know something isn’t right.” MacQuarrie makes an effort to be fair, and his knowledge of the ins and outs of Boston and its surroundings – and the politics of Massachusetts – is everywhere apparent. And The Ride does tell a remarkable story, for if Bob Curley could become an activist against sexual predators instead of an advocate for the death of his son’s killer, then does that not tell us something about the inherent immorality of the death penalty? The problem is that no, it doesn’t. Bob Curley’s tremendously admirable conquering of the desire for vengeance reflects greatly on him but does not necessarily indicate anything about the way other relatives of murder victims feel or should feel. Curley and his wife, Barbara, did file a lawsuit against NAMBLA, claiming that it had incited Jeffrey’s murder, but they dropped the suit last year when the judge ruled that their sole witness who would testify to a link between NAMBLA and the killing was not competent to give testimony. But except for the lawsuit, Bob Curley’s reaction – after a period of tremendous anger – is an exceptionally positive one. That makes The Ride an uplifting book, but not a convincing one for death-penalty proponents, whose “pit of the stomach” feeling may well be that it is Sicari’s and Jaynes’ continued life after the hellish killing of Jeffrey Curley that they “know…isn’t right.”

The killer of “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott did not provoke any grand debates about whether or not he should continue to survive after committing murder: Nathan Gale’s rampage, in which he shot three people dead in addition to Abbott, ended abruptly when police officer James D. Niggemeyer killed Gale as the murderer held a hostage as a shield. Unlike The Ride, in which the killing occurs at the beginning, Zac Crain’s Black Tooth Grin puts Abbott’s murder near the end of what is essentially a chronological biography of the heavy-metal guitarist. There is a lot here about Abbott’s influences (Van Halen, KISS), his metal cover band (Pantera), his major-label albums (starting with Cowboys from Hell in 1990), the creation of Damageplan after Pantera’s messy breakup, and of course all the alcohol and drug stories that are de rigueur in books about the rock-and-roll world. In a sense, Abbott’s heavy metal was already fading when he died: punk was on the rise. But Black Tooth Grin is clearly aimed at the remaining fans of heavy metal in general and of Abbott in particular. Crain, senior editor at D Magazine and former music editor of the Dallas Observer, suggests that, despite the inevitable ups and downs of any career, Abbott pretty much went where he was always destined to go: “Darrell never changed. …He just wanted to play his guitar and live his life as loudly as possible. He just wanted to be himself, and being himself was more than enough to make him a star.” If so, it may have been enough to get him killed, too: Gale, an ex-Marine discharged from the Corps as a paranoid schizophrenic, apparently thought that Pantera had stolen lyrics from him – or possibly that Abbott and other band members were reading his mind. Black Tooth Grin is a book for a very limited audience – one that will gravitate to the 16 pages of black-and-white photos, the information that Abbott was killed exactly 24 years after John Lennon was shot to death, and the fact that Abbott was buried in a KISS coffin, and holding Eddie Van Halen’s Fender Stratocaster guitar.

(++++) THE ONCE AND FUTURE BACKUP KING

2009-07-02T08:40:00.000-04:00

Seagate Replica. Windows Vista or XP with NTFS format. 250GB single-user version, $130; 500GB multi-user version, $200.

Seagate Technology makes quiet, efficient internal and external hard drives that are found in computers worldwide. It also makes tough business decisions: in May, it announced a 2.5% reduction in its workforce (about 1,100 people) in an attempt to save $125 million a year and be cash-flow and earnings positive in fiscal 2010. Tough balancing act: make ever-better products to generate ever-better financial results with ever-fewer people. Yet Seagate seems to have the technology and management to do just that. A case in point is its fascinating and super-efficient single-use product, the Seagate Replica external hard drive.

The reality of computer backups is that everyone advocates them, everyone believes in them, and far too few individuals and small businesses do them. The usual complaints: they are time-consuming; it is hard to set up the software to do them; they interfere with smooth computer operation; they are difficult to configure; even if you do get a backup made, a restoration is complex; they back up data files but not program files, meaning a restoration takes so many hours that you might as well just put the data on a new computer; and so on. All these complaints have some validity. What is wonderful about the Seagate Replica is that it pre-empts them all.

This is a small external drive – less than six by four inches, less than an inch thick, weighing about half a pound – that looks like a miniature of some Apple products even though it works only on Windows PCs. It is designed to do one thing and one thing only: back up your entire computer, which means not only the data but also the programs, settings and the operating system itself. The first backup takes two to three hours for an average computer; the process is completely silent and does not interfere with or slow down use of the computer for other purposes. Leaving the Seagate Replica plugged in results in constant incremental backups, or you can unplug it (it is powered through a USB port) and start it again when you want an updated backup. The best approach is to leave it plugged in permanently, if you can spare the USB port. In fact, if you can’t, it’s worth investing in a USB hub just to keep the Seagate Replica running. Why? Again, simplicity: this is the easiest-to-use backup drive currently available, and it is hard to see how its approach could be improved (although it will be interesting to see whether it will work with Windows 7 when the new operating system comes out later this year).

The Seagate Replica has considerable competition, including from Seagate itself: the Seagate FreeAgent Go has as much capacity as the multi-user Replica and is more flexible in letting users design their own backups. But that drive does not back up everything, and its software, although it works well, requires some setup – while the Replica software installs quickly and with minimal fuss. Other companies’ backup-oriented hardware, such as the Maxtor OneTouch line and drives from Clickfree, SimpleTech and Western Digital, will also do a good backup job. Online backup, through such services as Mozy, has its attractions as well – the most important being that your backup is stored remotely, so a disaster that destroys your entire home or business does not wipe out your backup as well as your computer itself.

But consider, once again, the matter of ease of use. There is no competitor out there offering the simple elegance of the Seagate Replica. This drive is designed to do a single thing – back up an entire PC or, in the case of the 500GB version (which comes with a dock), several PCs – and then restore everything, from the operating system up, in case of disaster. The restoration really works – the software boots directly off the CD drive and functions even if your C drive has crashed and must be replaced. A full restore can take as little as an hour or so, depending on how much needs to be rebuilt. And it really is a full restoration – no searching for original programs or re-downloading software. This is simplicity itself – an increasingly important goal in personal computing: witness the success of limited-function netbooks in a world that was until recently dominated by do-it-all laptops and desktops.

It is certainly possible to nitpick the Seagate Replica. The supplied USB cable is unusually short; you may need to use a different one. But any standard mini-USB cable works. If you get the 500GB version, the cable hardwired to the dock is two-headed to ensure that it gets enough power – a single USB port is not enough to run it on some laptops. That may make it harder to leave the drive permanently attached, since it could mean giving up two USB ports permanently. But USB hubs are inexpensive, and it is worth buying one, if you need to, for the sake of protecting a computer that may contain everything a household or small business needs to keep functioning. Think of the whole purchase – Seagate Replica plus, if needed, a longer cable and USB hub – as very inexpensive business-interruption (or household-interruption) insurance.

Ideally, a computer user will supplement the Seagate Replica with online storage of key data files: the argument in favor of keeping crucial material offsite is a compelling one. But the strongest argument of all is to make backups in the first place, and far too many computer users remain far too cavalier about this essential task. Whatever Seagate’s corporate circumstances may currently be, the company has proved one thing again and again: it knows how to make highly functional drives that do their jobs with a minimum of fuss. The Seagate Replica does only one such job – any Seagate or other hard drive, equipped with backup software from Symantec or other companies, can make a backup and do other things in addition. But the Seagate Replica does what it does with such ease, such simplicity and such a straightforward approach to such a critical task that it deserves to be anointed the king of the backup field for all users who have thought, until now, that backups are just too difficult or time-consuming. With the Seagate Replica, they are neither. Procrastinators are hereby declared out of excuses.

(++++) BEETHOVEN PLUS

2009-07-02T08:37:00.000-04:00

Beethoven: Symphonies Nos. 2 and 6. Royal Flemish Philharmonic conducted by Philippe Herreweghe. PentaTone. $19.99 (SACD).

Idil Biret Beethoven Edition, Volume 13: Symphony No. 3 (Liszt Piano Transcription). Idil Biret, piano. IBA. $8.99.

Idil Biret Concerto Edition, Volume 2: Tchaikovsky—Piano Concertos Nos. 1 and 3. Idil Biret, piano; Bilkent Symphony Orchestra conducted by Emil Tabakov. IBA. $8.99.

Philippe Herreweghe’s march through the Beethoven symphonies continues to be distinguished by some very fine playing and some rather unusual handling of this canonic music. In No. 2, Herreweghe and the Royal Flemish Philharmonic give the work a modicum of weight, but not too much – the work clearly sounds like a successor to No. 1 rather than an anticipation of the “Eroica.” Tempos are judicious – the second movement does not drag, and the third is a bit slower than in most performances – and instrumental balance is careful, with the result that the symphony has more structural interest than it often does while being handled in a fairly matter-of-fact way: Herreweghe makes no attempt to highlight forward-looking elements of the work, simply letting it flow naturally. But his concept of flow is different in No. 6, the “Pastoral.” Here the first movement is significantly quicker than usual – this is no stroll through the country but a fast walk. It takes some getting used to, but turns out to work surprisingly well, with a brightness and bounce that the movement does not always possess. And the contrast with the second movement, whose tempo is much more traditional and therefore seems particularly slow after the speedy opening, is pronounced and quite effective. Here as in No. 2, Herreweghe takes a straightforward interpretative approach: the storm of the third movement is not an overwhelming Romantic-era tempest but a rather moderate downpour. But he is at pains to bring out instrumental touches that other conductors downplay or miss, such as the bassoon in the third movement. These are attractively unusual performances that may not be the best first choice for someone just building a classical library, but that contrast very pleasantly with more run-of-the-mill readings. And the sound, as usual on PentaTone SACDs, is excellent.

The re-release of Idil Biret’s march through Liszt’s transcriptions of Beethoven’s symphonies continues, too, and Biret’s handling of the “Eroica” is in its own way as unusual as Herreweghe’s versions of Nos. 2 and 6. The 1986 recording, like others in this Biret series, is flawed by its inconsistent handling of repeats – in large part a function of the original release on vinyl, which has more time constraints than CDs. But leaving that element aside, Biret’s way with the “Eroica” is fascinating. She starts the opening movement so slowly that it seems there will be no forward momentum at all, but it turns out that this is merely Biret’s rather intellectual approach to the work being put on display: she is at pains to bring out all Beethoven’s lines (which Liszt reproduced with considerable care), even at the expense of some of this symphony’s drama. The second movement is also taken at a very slow pace -- it runs 20 minutes – but it actually comes across better than the first, as Biret expertly builds each section while keeping part of her attention on the overall structure. The third and fourth movements are, in contrast, comparatively light – a flaw not of Biret but of Beethoven, if it is a flaw at all. Biret handles the contrasts well in both, and the very end of the finale is a real triumph of virtuosity. But there is a certain coolness to Biret’s interpretation of these movements, as if she has given her all to the symphony’s emotional heart, the funeral march, and now falls back on a certain distancing – a characteristic that she brings to many of her performances of these Beethoven transcriptions. (Incidentally, listeners interested in owning the entire 19-CD Biret Beethoven series will be confused to see that this release is Volume 13 when the previous one was Volume 9. Volumes 10 through 12 will appear later.)

The performances in Biret’s Concerto Edition are considerably newer than her Beethoven transcriptions. The second volume in this series features Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in a 2004 rendition, and the one-movement No. 3 in a recording from 2007 (actually, No. 3 does have three movements, but only the first is usually played, since the second and third were revised and scored by pianist Sergey Taneyev after Tchaikovsky’s death). There is plenty of Biret’s virtuosity on display in these concertos, and her fondness for slow tempos that border on the ponderous is present as well – especially at the very start of No. 1. Equally clear here is Biret’s thoughtfulness: these are well-designed performances in which the contrast between the works’ episodic elements and their long lines is nicely highlighted. But both performances lack a couple of things. One is headlong emotion: Biret is so tightly in control, especially in No. 1, that the sheer intensity of the work tends to get lost. It is easy to appreciate Biret’s interpretation intellectually, but no one is going to be swept away by it. Secondly, the recording overemphasizes the piano through microphone placement and mixing that relegate the orchestra too far to the background. Even when the ensemble has the main theme, it is the piano’s subsidiary elements that are always heard most prominently. Emil Tabakov paces the Birkent Symphony Orchestra – of which he was music director at the time of these recordings – quite well, but the CD’s sonic design gives everyone but Biret insufficient weight. The CD gets a (+++) rating for Biret’s fine playing and carefully considered interpretations, but it will be of considerably more interest to fans of Biret than to fans of Tchaikovsky.

(++++) FAIRY-TALE AND EVERYDAY FUN

2009-06-25T08:45:00.000-04:00

Gone with the Wand. By Margie Palatini. Pictures by Brian Ajhar. Orchard Books/Scholastic. $16.99.

Princess Pig. By Eileen Spinelli. Illustrated by Tim Bowers. Knopf. $16.99.

The Sleepy Little Alphabet. By Judy Sierra. Illustrated by Melissa Sweet. Knopf. $16.99.

Scholastic First Picture Dictionary. By Geneviève de la Bretesche. Cartwheel Books/Scholastic. $15.99.

Some fairy tales teach. Some are pure enjoyment. Gone with the Wand is nothing but fun. Told by “Tooth Fairy Second Class, Edith B. Cuspid,” it is the sad (but not really sad) tale of Bernice Sparklestein, “once the best Fairy Godmother in the entire universe and beyond,” who has lost her wand-wielding ability (hence the book’s title). Edith and Bernice are BFFs, and when it comes to fairy-tale creatures, forever really means forever. So Edith tries to help Bernice get over the blues and come up with some new magical position to assume. The ideas, and the costumes Bernice dons as she tries out the various jobs, are hilarious – Brian Ajhar’s pictures are every bit as delightful as Margie Palatini’s story. Alas, fairy dusting, snowflake making, the sugarplum-fairy look – none proves quite right for Bernice. Edith sleeps on the problem and comes up with…well, let her tell it: “I woke up with a snort, a bit of embarrassing chin drool, and late for work, but – with one wonderful dream of a plan!” So Bernice and Edith make the tooth-fairy rounds together, and in so doing, Bernice finds her own idea (well, she thinks it’s her own) of how to be useful; and her expression and Edith’s are utterly delightful as they hatch the plan together. Gone with the Wand is exactly what a just-for-fun fairy tale should be, complete with (of course) a happy ending.

Princess Pig is a fairy tale, too, but this is one with a message. It’s all about an adorable pig who wakes up one day to find herself bedecked with a banner that says “Princess” (the local Pickle Princess’s sash blew off in the wind). Pig tells all her barnyard friends that she is now a princess, and when they object that she needs certain things – a crown, a necklace, a pleasant smell – she makes sure to get them. Eileen Spinelli’s story is wonderfully complemented by Tim Bowers’ pictures – the expressions of Pig and her animal friends as they look at each other are just right. It is Pony who repeatedly informs Pig that she is not really a princess, but Pig will have none of it – she sits on her royal throne (the seat of an old tractor), insists on royal food (a pie instead of slop), and even has a royal bath (complete with bubbles). Then Pig attracts visitors (who show up when she wants to sleep) and a famous painter (for whom she has to pose in the hot sun); and soon she starts to realize that there is something to be said for being just plain Pig, who can do things that are not appropriate for a princess (such as rolling in the mud and going to a “regular old party”). And so she returns, happier and wiser, to being “just a regular old pig” – and a good time is had by all. Which, of course, is the whole point.

There is a good time to be had in Judy Sierra’s The Sleepy Little Alphabet, too, but that is not the whole point of the book. It is, of course, an alphabet story – or, more precisely, “A Bedtime Story from Alphabet Town.” The capital letters – that is, the mothers and fathers – need to get the small letters (their kids) ready for bed, but the little letters aren’t ready to sleep just yet. Each letter has a reason for staying awake: “f is full of fidgety wiggles – g has got the googly giggles.” Melissa Sweet’s illustrations are, well, sweet, whether showing k refusing a good-night kiss or m being mopey. But eventually, it gets closer to bedtime, as “t tucks in her teddy bear – u takes off his underwear – v is very, very snoozy – w is wobbly-woozy.” By the end of the book, and the end of the alphabet, there are plenty of zzzzzz’s to go around, with a final two-page spread showing all the letters quietly sleeping (except for naughty n, who is about to start a pillow fight!). Both an alphabet book and a bedtime story, The Sleepy Little Alphabet is fun on two levels.

The only level on which Scholastic First Picture Dictionary operates is the educational one: the book is packed with more than 700 words and pictures, with everything arranged in six sections focusing on the body, the house, school, the city, the grocery store, and exploring nature. The pictures are super-detailed and make it easy to understand what words go with which illustrations. There are also occasional questions related to the pictures, to give young children’s minds a simple workout – for instance, “Which animals are shown with their babies?” (The answers are upside down, right below the questions). What is slightly disappointing about this book – resulting in a (+++) rating – is the complete lack of scale (a ball, a die and a rocking horse are all the same size) and some occasional oddities in picture selection, such as “book” showing a book open to a colorful two-page illustration of someone playing a xylophone, which seems more like an illustration for the instrument (which actually is shown in the “music” pages within the “at school” section). Scholastic First Picture Dictionary has been updated since the book’s original appearance in France in 2003, but some of the pictures seem a bit old-fashioned – the analog alarm clock, for example, and the incandescent light bulb. And there are some distinctly European illustrations – for example, both black currants and red currants are shown. Nevertheless, as an introduction to hundreds of items, from headbands to pebbles to lobsters, parachutes, leaves, grapes and leeks, Scholastic First Picture Dictionary is attractive, easy to read and easy to understand – a fine introduction to the world of humans and the world around us.

(+++) SUMMER SEANCES AND SUCH

2009-06-25T08:42:00.000-04:00

Gifted, Book 1: Out of Sight, Out of Mind. By Marilyn Kaye. Kingfisher. $7.99.

Gifted, Book 2: Better Late Than Never. By Marilyn Kaye. Kingfisher. $7.99.

Basic summer-reading-for-fun recipe for preteens and young teenagers: keep it light and maybe flirty, typecast characters so readers don’t need much brain power to figure out who behaves how, toss in some interpersonal drama, and if you really want to be trendy, add a dash of the supernatural. And there you have Gifted. Enough said.

Well, not quite enough. Marilyn Kaye handles the formula with skill, using language transparent in its simplicity to advance plots that move quickly enough so readers ages 10-14 will be able to breeze through the Gifted books with barely a pause for some suntan lotion and a beachfront or poolside hookup or two. The underlying idea here is a clever one: what if “gifted” students weren’t necessarily smart but were actually, you know, gifted with unusual powers? What if Meadowbrook Middle School had nine of them, and all were thrown together into a special class to learn about their powers and how to control them, even though – outside the class – they have little in common with each other and don’t even necessarily like each other very much? What happens if you add a mind reader to a speaker-to-the-dead to a girl who can see the future?

What happens is actually pretty predictable: everything gets tangled, confused and mixed up. But the “occult powers” gimmick keeps these books from being merely conflict-at-middle-school lightweights. Oh, they’re still lightweight, but with differences here and there. Out of Sight, Out of Mind focuses on Amanda Beeson, who is beautiful and popular and (what else?) the Queen Bee of the school. Her talent, if you can call it that, is jumping mentally into other people’s bodies: she’s a body snatcher. This is not necessarily a good thing, as Amanda discovers when she wakes up one morning to find that the face in her mirror belongs to Tracey Devon – an unpopular utter nobody with whom Amanda would not deign to associate. But now she is Tracey, and can’t wait not to be her anymore. “She’d thought of a way to occupy her time and actually do a good deed while she was here. (Not that good deeds were a habit with her, but she figured she might be rewarded for it by positive forces and get out of Tracey’s body even sooner.)” But nope, it doesn’t work like that, and soon enough, another of the Gifted, Jenna Kelly, figures out that the apparent Tracey is really “Little Miss I’m-Too-Cool-for-Words Amanda Beeson,” and things become even more complicated when it turns out that Tracey too is Gifted – she has the ability to become invisible. So where exactly is she while Amanda is in her body? And will Amanda learn empathy from temporarily being the sort of person she has always scorned? And what’s the deal with Serena Hancock, the new student teacher foisted on the Gifted class that has been firmly under the icy auspices of the woman known as Madame? All will eventually be revealed – well, not all, but enough to whet readers’ appetites for another volume in this series.

And that volume is Better Late Than Never, where the focus turns to Jenna, the one who figured out that Amanda was in Tracey’s body. Jenna is the streetwise, hard-shelled rebel among the Gifted (Tracey, of course, is the mousy girl; and then there are future-seeing space cadet Emily Sanders, talk-to-the-dead handsome hottie Ken Preston, and so on). Actually, the focus here is on both Jenna and Tracey, who are evolving a friendship despite Tracey being ignored by almost everyone even when she is not invisible, and Jenna being the child of an absent father and a mother who is in and out of rehab. Emily’s prediction of a tall, handsome stranger entering Jenna’s life leads Jenna to wonder if maybe her father is about to come back: “An image flashed across her mind: a family, made up of a mother and a father and a daughter, living in a real house, having a normal life… [But] she was not optimistic by nature, and she wasn’t going to start looking on the bright side of everything now.” The pattern of these books is pretty clear by this second volume: the teens, despite their psychic powers, are going to turn out to be just plain folks with everyday worries and problems, and are going to learn to handle life partly by figuring out how to cope with their powers and partly by learning how to lean on each other. But their underlying personalities will keep peeking through – as when Amanda again takes over someone’s body in this book (on purpose this time). The phrase “if she’d known then what she knew now – about people and feelings” is applied here to one character, but is likely to be applicable to all the Gifted as the series continues, as it will after summer is over: the third volume is due out in October.

(+++) DOWN WITH MEDICINES!

2009-06-25T08:39:00.000-04:00

The Depression Cure: The 6-Step Program to Beat Depression without Drugs. By Stephan S. Ilardi, Ph.D. Da Capo. $25.

Eating for Autism: The 10-Step Nutrition Plan to Help Treat Your Child’s Autism, Asperger’s, or ADHD. By Elizabeth Strickland, M.S., R.D., L.D. Da Capo. $17.95.

The medical miracles of the 20^th century, which vastly extended the lifetimes of millions, have become passé in the 21^st, with a groundswell of people proclaiming that medications are not the answer to many diseases and chronic conditions – that, indeed, they may make matters worse rather than better. Most of the “evidence” for these positions is anecdotal rather than scientifically valid, and that is scarcely a surprise: the placebo effect shows that people given sugar pills (or their equivalent) frequently get better, largely because they believe they are getting effective medication and, equally important, are being closely observed and cared for. Opponents of medication – call them pharmaskeptics – turn their attention in particular to chronic, difficult conditions that can be mitigated but not cured by traditional medical treatment. These include mental illnesses and behavioral problems, among others.

Many promoters of treating medical conditions without medicine are charlatans. Their claims are often transparently loopy, as in the laetrile-from-peach-pits-cures-cancer assertion a few years ago. Today, scammers and well-meaning but misguided pharmaskeptics are more likely to promote “nutraceuticals” and products with impressive-sounding chemical names that they claim (typically in ads filled with anecdotal testimonials) are available only for a limited time or in a limited way, but without a prescription – taking advantage, in the United States, of a major loophole in regulation that allows dietary supplements to be marketed without the proof of efficacy required of prescription medications.

But – and it is a very large “but” – not all advocates of non-drug treatment of serious conditions are hucksters, and not all such treatments are valueless. There is compelling evidence that certain forms of nutrients and certain lifestyle elements, such as regular exercise, have a strong correlation to health – think of folate enrichment being used as a way to prevent serious birth defects. And both Stephen Ilardi, an associate professor of clinical psychology at the University of Kansas, and Elizabeth Strickland, a registered dietitian and specialist in nutrition therapy, have the credentials and experience to back up their assertions about non-medication approaches to serious conditions. This does not mean their ideas will work for everyone all the time; indeed, the word “cure” in the title of Ilardi’s book is an overstatement compared with the more modest “help treat” in Strickland’s. But if you approach these books as sources of potential alternative – or supplementary – treatment plans, you can pick up a lot of valuable information and perhaps ameliorate, if not cure, some serious problems.

Ilardi, however, does not see his approach as a supplement to drug treatment for depression, but as a replacement for it. Using patient success stories – that is, lots of anecdotes – he says that depression can be defeated by focusing on lifestyle elements that have fallen by the wayside for many people in our industrialized age. His primary dietary recommendation is to consume substantial amounts of omega-3 fatty acids, found mainly in fish; and there is indeed scientific evidence of these compounds’ benefits (although not specifically relating to depression). His other ideas are in the social and behavioral spheres: exercise to stimulate serotonin and other brain chemicals; do things you enjoy so your mind does not turn to negative thoughts; keep your circadian rhythms regular by ensuring sufficient exposure to sunlight; maintain a strong social support network; and develop healthful sleep habits. These ideas are unexceptionable and certainly have value for anyone, not only for people with depression. But for people who are depressed – certainly those with a clinical diagnosis, not ones merely “feeling blue” – they constitute a somewhat naïve prescription. Depression causes withdrawal from social situations; it makes sleep difficult; it makes it difficult to get moving at all, much less in the active way required for exercise; and it prevents sufferers from engaging in enjoyable activities or even identifying activities that would be enjoyable. This “black dog,” as Winston Churchill called his depression, is a controlling factor in life. Ilardi is aware, at least to an extent, that his prescription has flaws – “increasing social connection is easier said than done,” he writes at one point. But his upbeat ideas about overcoming difficulties are themselves much easier to suggest than to implement. In the case of social connection, for example, they include educating friends about your depression, asking them for help, maintaining video or Internet friendships, reaching out through church and volunteer groups, caring for animals, and so on – all fine ideas, but none practical for someone who is truly depressed. Indeed, Ilardi’s comment that “all of us are born to connect, hardwired to live in the company of those who know and love us,” is likely to make an isolated, indrawn depressive feel even more hopeless. Ilardi’s book is useful in many ways – his appendices, a “depression scale” and symptom tracking chart, are a particularly good idea – and his chapter “When Roadblocks Emerge” acknowledges that his book will not work for everyone, “at least not right away.” But still, Ilardi’s unrelenting certainty that depressives can be cured through lifestyle changes flies in the face of the realities of life – and disease – that many depressives, and those who care for or about them, encounter day in and day out. Churchill, after all, attempted to ward off his “black dog” with compulsive overwork and excessive drinking, but even though those approaches worked for him – to a remarkable degree – it would scarcely be responsible to recommend them to others. Similarly, Ilardi’s far more benign ideas, as useful as they can be, are far from a panacea.

Nor does Strickland have the answer to autism, Asperger’s and related conditions – but she may have an answer for some people, some of the time. This group of conditions – not everyone calls them “diseases” – remains poorly understood. Their behavioral components vary, as do their onset and their progression before and during treatment. Treatment options also vary; none is fully satisfactory. A nutritional component makes intuitive sense: certain foods, such as refined sugar, are known to cause behavioral changes in many children, so it makes sense that they would do so in children with autism, Asperger’s or ADHD as well – and perhaps to a greater extent, since the sensory response of children with these conditions often seems to be exaggerated. Therefore, it is sensible to limit affected children’s exposure to substances that may worsen the behavioral manifestations of their conditions. This also promotes healthful eating in general, and that is certainly a good thing. Strickland talks about artificial colors and flavors, preservatives and sweeteners, trans fats and pesticides, and all the other modern bugaboos of the healthful-eating movement; but she is to be commended for doing so as a clinician, not an advocate trying to score political points. She is too quick to accept anything labeled “organic” as inherently superior, and she is naïve about parents’ stress levels and time availability in suggesting that a child get three small meals and two to three snacks a day – that is, food every three hours – and that the focus of eating be on whole grains, legumes, oatmeal, starchy vegetables and so on. This is a Puritan-ethic approach to food and is likely to increase the tension of parents already pressured by having a child with, say, ADHD – especially if they have more than one child. Still, Strickland mitigates the absolutism of her prescription by providing dozens of appealing recipes, from spaghetti and meatballs to chocolate chip muffins. She emphasizes cooking without gluten or casein – more substances that may affect some children, if not all. And she provides loads of tabular material (probably too much for most people to absorb) on foods’ protein and fiber content and calcium levels, recommended daily intakes of various food-based or supplementary nutrients, and more. She sprinkles the text with stories – those anecdotes again – of children whose conditions improved when their nutrition was modified. And she writes throughout in a straight, no-nonsense style, even when saying such things as, “Pyridoxine and Pyridoxal 5-phosphate (P5P) are not the same thing. …Some healthcare practitioners believe that autistic children may have difficulty converting pyridoxine to P5P, so they suggest using supplemental P5P or a combination of pyridoxine and P5P supplements.” Strickland’s treatment of issues such as this one is detailed to the point of nitpicking, but of course parents seeking help for a child with autism, ADHD or a related condition will want all the assistance they can get. The main thing missing in Strickland’s book is a certain level of humility. An acknowledgment that nutritional changes are not necessarily the answer to the conditions she studies would be welcome; so would a statement that she understands the additional difficulties her approach asks already frazzled parents to assume as they try to cope with children’s conditions that produce more than enough stress on their own.

(++++) A MOUSE (OR TWO) IN (OR OUT OF) THE HOUSE

2009-06-25T08:36:00.000-04:00

Microsoft Mobile Memory Mouse 8000. Windows Vista, XP or NT/SP 4, or Macintosh OS X v.10.2-10.4X. Microsoft. $99.95.

Microsoft Wireless Notebook Presenter Mouse 8000. Windows Vista or XP/SP 2. Microsoft. $79.95.

The interoperability of computer input devices is one of those technological wonders of which everyone is dimly aware but which few users sufficiently appreciate. Just imagine computer hardware as chaotic as cell phones, which require their own mutually exclusive chargers, and you will have a sense of gratitude for the fact that you can switch out a keyboard or mouse pretty much whenever you like for a different one made by the same or another company, and get identical or better functionality. (In fact, the major cell-phone manufacturers are moving toward the computer-hardware model by agreeing to make all their chargers interoperable within the next few years – to which users will say in enthusiastic chorus, the sooner the better.)

The ability to switch a device such as a mouse whenever your needs change can help extend your computer’s life, enabling it to do functions you did not need when you first acquired it; or you can simply make a switch for fun, out of boredom with your previous mouse, or for any other reason. The simplicity of switching has spawned hundreds of inexpensive mice, some even available for free through rebate programs or as retailers’ loss leaders. More interestingly, it has also spawned some outstanding higher-end mice with neatly tailored functions – such as two of the many notebook-focused mice from the hardware division of Microsoft Corporation.

Think about it: a mouse designed specifically for use with laptop/notebook computers. That in itself is a significant development. These mice need to be smaller and more readily portable than standard-size ones, but not so small that people with large hands will find them cumbersome to use. They need to be easy to transport – both the ones considered here come with their own carrying cases – and simple to use in a variety of different circumstances; hence a wireless design is significantly better than a wired one (who knows on what sort of surface, of what size, a traveler is going to be working with a computer and mouse?). The days of mice requiring mouse pads for traction are long gone, but not all mice work equally well in less-than-ideal settings. These two, using wireless laser technology, are just fine on airplane tray tables, in coffee shops, at airport lounges, even in gate areas of airports and train stations – where accommodations may be spartan at best.

Yet the design concepts of the two mice are ultimately quite different, symptomatic of the ability to create specialized and targeted input devices for a wide variety of purposes. The Microsoft Mobile Memory Mouse 8000, which runs on both PCs and Macs, has a particularly neat recharging system, using the same type of magnetic connector found in Apple products. It also has a Bluetooth transceiver with built-in 1-GB flash memory – a wonderful accessory for travelers, since it allows you to bring all the data you are likely to need for presentations or reports in the same place as the transceiver that wirelessly connects the mouse to your computer in the first place. This not only means one thing fewer to carry and potentially forget – it also makes the chance of losing your data much smaller, since the likelihood of leaving behind the transceiver that lets you connect the mouse (and that fits into the case with the mouse itself) is not very high. The mouse is powered by a single AAA battery that is rechargeable – a nice touch, since travelers do not need to be caught in an unfamiliar location with a dead battery, and do not want to be burdened by carrying spares. The mouse even has a neat built-in battery status light that warns you when power is low and you need to recharge. And it has an on-off switch – why don’t more mice have those? – to extend battery life as much as possible. However, left-handed users will be disappointed: the mouse is optimized for righties, although using it left-handed (with a little bit of contortion) is certainly possible.

The Microsoft Wireless Notebook Presenter Mouse 8000, although it costs less than the Microsoft Mobile Memory Mouse 8000, is even more full-featured – if and only if you have compelling needs for PowerPoint presentations and mouse-controlled media. If you do not have those needs, it is woefully over-engineered. Actually, the Microsoft Wireless Notebook Presenter Mouse 8000 is engineered to integrate particularly well with PCs running Windows Vista (although it works on ones powered by XP as well); this is not a Mac-compatible mouse, and its feature set clearly shows why. The mouse has 12 – count them, 12 – buttons. In addition to all the usual mouse functions, this unit has forward, back and blank-screen controls on the bottom for use in PowerPoint presentations; it has a button that turns the mouse into a laser pointer; and there is even a Digital Ink feature so you can draw on screen. It’s a media-center control as well, with play, pause, volume control, and next- and previous-track buttons (some of the buttons are multifunctional, for both PowerPoint and media use). Yes, it has an on-off switch; and its symmetrical design makes it equally suitable for right- and left-handed users. But this is a specialty product and needs to be seen as one: there is no value to paying for PowerPoint and media functions you will not use. Also, this mouse runs on two AAA non-rechargeable batteries – an irritation, because its really cool clear hardshell carrying case has room only for the mouse and transceiver, not for spare batteries.

Both these mice have certain features that will be useful to and appreciated by all users, such as four-way scrolling (side to side as well as up and down) and a magnifier (by default, a right-side button – but all the buttons on both these mice can easily be reassigned, which is another very nice and highly useful part of the design). Both come with three-year warranties. And either one will be an excellent addition to your mobile computing – and easy to replace with a different mouse if your needs change. Microsoft is a software company, not a hardware firm, but it is interesting to see just how good a job its comparatively small hardware division does at creating products that make it easier and more comfortable to use computers powered by Microsoft software – or even ones run by software created by Microsoft’s competitors.

(++++) LESS-KNOWN WORKS THROUGH THE CENTURIES

2009-06-25T08:33:00.000-04:00

Bruch: Violin Concertos Nos. 2 and 3. Maxim Fedotov, violin; Russian Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Dmitry Yablonsky. Naxos. $8.99.

Franz Xaver Richter: Grandes Symphonies, Nos. 7-12 (Set 2). Helsinki Baroque Orchestra conducted by Aapo Häkkinen. Naxos. $8.99.

Henry VIII, King of England (and other composers): Motets from a Royal Choirbook. Alamire consort singers; QuintEssential sackbut and cornet ensemble; Andrew Lawrence-King, gothic harp; David Skinner, director. Obsidian. $18.99.

Many concertgoers are not even aware that Max Bruch wrote more than one violin concerto, so popular is the first of his three, in G minor. But Bruch did write three violin concertos, the second and third both in D minor, and although neither of the later works has the verve and combination of beauty and tight structure of No. 1 – which was Bruch’s first major work – both the later concertos are quite worthy of occasional performance. And both are undeniably by Bruch, containing his signature sweet themes and rhapsodic handling of traditional forms. The first concerto was dedicated to Joseph Joachim, who in 1867 helped Bruch shape it into the form in which we know it today. The second, which dates to 1878, is dedicated to another great violinist of Bruch’s time, Pablo de Sarasate, and has many of the same expansive elements as No. 1, although its extended finale does seem to go on rather longer than its thematic interest allows. The third concerto dates to 1891 and is the longest of the three, featuring an opening movement that is practically Tchaikovskian in scale and a concluding rondo in the form of a perpetuum mobile. Maxim Fedotov makes a good case for both these works, playing them with sensitivity and, in No. 3, with a sense of grandly heroic scale. And Dmitry Yablonsky and the Russian Philharmonic Orchestra provide fine accompaniment. It is hard to be more than lukewarm about the concertos themselves – this is one case in which less-known works actually deserve to be less known – but it is even harder to justify their nearly complete exclusion from concert programs. Both have lovely elements and ample virtuosic opportunities, and if they do not seem quite as creative as the G minor concerto, that simply means that Bruch set such a high standard for himself that even he could not surpass it.

Pretty much all the music of Franz Xaver Richter is little known nowadays, but he was a fine composer and, in his day, a well respected one as a member of the Mannheim court orchestra. Yet Richter did not wholeheartedly adopt the techniques of the Mannheim school, believing that some of them glorified form over substance – for example, the famous “Mannheim Rocket,” rapidly ascending broken chords starting in the lowest bass range and ascending to the ensemble’s very top notes. Instead, Richter sought to balance elements of Baroque style with some that were considered quite modern in the mid-18^th century. Thus, his 12 Grandes Symphonies of 1744 – actually written before he joined the court at Mannheim – show considerable contrapuntal skill while also bringing more emotion to their slow movements and greater intensity to their outer ones than would have been the norm in compositions only a few years earlier. This is not to say that these are profound symphonies – they are in fact closer to the sinfonia style than to anything Haydnesque – but they are well structured and show some compositional creativity. Among the six works of Set 2 – two in C major, one in A major, one in B-flat major, one in E minor and one in G minor – are two symphonies in four movements and four in three. But one of the three-movement works (the G minor) has a finale that lasts less than a minute and is over practically before a listener gets used to it. Both the four-movement works end with minuets (which of course were generally placed in the middle, usually in third position, by Haydn), and the E minor symphony has an interesting fugue as its second movement. The pleasures of these works are in their details rather than their overall scope; the pleasures of listening to them on this new Naxos CD have a great deal to do with the verve with which the Helsinki Baroque Orchestra plays them on period instruments. Aapo Häkkinen paces the symphonies well, with suitable contrast among the movements, resulting in a disc that is worth hearing repeatedly by a composer who is not heard very much at all.

And speaking of original instruments: a CD called Henry’s Music features some that are so authentic-sounding that the music itself seems almost to come from a different world. King Henry VIII was intelligent, cultured and musically skilled – modern views of him merely as a tyrant with six wives (and founder of the Church of England) are, to put it politely, seriously skewed. The highlights of Obsidian’s new CD are nine works written by Henry himself, plus six previously unrecorded motets taken from a famous and beautiful Royal Choirbook owned by the British Museum. Henry’s works express typical courtly sentiments of the 16^th century with grace and delicacy, while the six Royal Choirbook motets present Latin texts that are beautifully harmonized and elegant. Nor are Henry’s works and those from the choirbook the only pieces here: there are 21 works in all, including ones by Robert Fayrfax, John Taverner and Philippe Verdelot – famous names in their day if not in ours. The mixture of Latin, French and English verses, the wide variety of the works’ lengths (from less than a minute to more than 16), the wonderful accompaniments on some unfamiliar instruments, and the overall harmonic beauty of these pieces, add up to a highly unusual listening experience and a fine tribute to a monarch whose court was perhaps the most musical of its time.

(++++) FINE PERFORMERS, SO-SO MUSIC

2009-06-25T08:31:00.000-04:00

Korngold: Violin Concerto; Overture to a Drama; Much Ado About Nothing—Concert Suite. Philippe Quint, violin; Orquesta Sinfónica de Mineria conducted by Carlos Miguel Prieto. Naxos. $8.99.

Prokofiev: On Guard for Peace; The Queen of Spades—Symphonic Suite arranged and elaborated by Michael Berkeley. Irina Tchistjakova, mezzo-soprano and narrator; Niall Docherty, boy soprano; Royal Scottish National Orchestra Junior Chorus, Royal Scottish National Orchestra Chorus and Royal Scottish National Orchestra conducted by Neeme Järvi. Chandos. $18.99.

Harold Schiffman: Symphony No. 2, “Music for Győr”; Ninnerella Variata; Variations on “Branchwater”; Blood Mountain Suite; Overture to a Comedy. Katalin Koltai, guitar; Győr Symphony Orchestra conducted by Mátyás Antal. North/South Recordings. $12.99.

Marilyn J. Ziffrin: Moods; Sonata for Piano; Elizabeth Bell: Arecibo Sonata; Rami Levin: Passages; Rain Worthington: Hourglass; Tangents; Dark Dreams; Always Almost. Max Lifchitz, piano. North/South Recordings. $12.99.

Well-played, largely unknown music can be wonderful to discover in recorded form – CDs provide an opportunity to hear pieces rarely, if ever, programmed in concert halls. But other works, no matter how well played, tend to fall a bit flat on CD, no matter how often you listen to them. None of the music on these four CDs could charitably be called “great,” but two of the recordings are worthy of discovery for at least some adventurous listeners – although the other two repay one’s attention less well.

Erich Wolfgang Kongold (1897-1957) is best known as a film composer, and his works certainly have the sort of immediate melodic appeal and Romantic-era emotionalism that helped him fit well into Hollywood. His Violin Concerto, in fact, is built around a number of his film tunes. But despite this less-than-exalted provenance, it is an effective, interesting work and a genuine showpiece – if a rather superficial one – for an accomplished violinist such as Philippe Quint. Quint plays with enthusiasm and élan, never trying to elevate the music to heights that it does not seek or achieve, but making it quite effective within its limited emotional range. The Orquesta Sinfónica de Mineria plays well, if not particularly distinctively, under its music director, Carlos Miguel Prieto, both in the concerto and in Korngold’s early Overture to a Drama, which shows good command of sonata form but is not in fact especially dramatic – although it is an impressive work for a 14-year-old. Korngold’s Much Ado About Nothing suite is considerably more interesting, progressing in five movements from a fine scene-setter of an Overture to a witty and virtuosic concluding Hornpipe. The most interesting movement, called “Dogberry and Verges,” is a funeral march right out of Mahler – who was impressed with the young Korngold and clearly influenced him.

The music on the new Chandos Prokofiev CD is decidedly lesser stuff in the composer’s output, but may be worth exploring for those familiar with Prokofiev’s better-known (and better) works. On Guard for Peace, the composer’s final choral work, is strictly a political composition in Socialist Realist style. The 10-movement oratorio is accessible, bombastic, appropriately celebratory of the Soviet Union’s military strength and eternal vigilance, and easily forgettable – a well-put-together propaganda piece. As for The Queen of Spades, it is only more-or-less Prokofiev. The suite heard here is based on film music that Prokofiev created in 1936 but that he stopped writing when Stalin’s regime halted production of the movie. British composer Michael Berkeley took the relatively paltry remains of Prokofiev’s work, expanded and orchestrated them, and produced a half-hour suite that sounds, basically, like fairly undistinguished film music. Prokofiev would probably have done better himself had he been given the chance; but this is all we are ever likely to hear of this particular music. Neeme Järvi leads the Royal Scottish forces with skill in both these works, but neither piece is much more than a curiosity – the CD gets a (+++) rating and will be of interest mostly to those seeking completeness in their Prokofiev collections.

Two new releases from North/South Recordings get (+++) ratings, too. Both offer solid performances of not-very-memorable music from composers who do not have a great deal to say but have some skill in saying it. The works of Harold Schiffman, a student of Roger Sessions, have interesting parts but are less than convincing when taken as a whole. His second symphony, written last year, was inspired by the Hungarian city of Győr and is well played by that city’s orchestra under Mátyás Antal, but it is more pedantic than loving. Blood Mountain Suite, also from 2008, is a transcription of an earlier song cycle and is affecting without profundity. The remaining three works on this CD are earlier: Ninnerella Variata (Varied Lullaby) dates to 1956 and shows a good command of orchestral color; Variations on Branchwater (1987), for guitar and orchestra, has little of the U.S. South about it even though it was inspired by that region’s fondness for “Bourbon and branch,” but it has some effective writing and pits the guitar (well played by Katalin Koltai) nicely against the ensemble; and Overture to a Comedy (1987), written for a never-completed comic opera, is pleasant and light enough, if scarcely bubbly.

Pianist Max Lifchitz performs sensitively on his CD of works by American women composers, but none of the featured pieces is especially distinctive. Marilyn J. Ziffrin’s Moods (2005) and Sonata for Piano (2006) are well structured but not very distinguished. Elizabeth Bell’s Arecibo Sonata (1968, revised 2005) is more interesting, with some challenges both for the pianist and for listeners. Rami Levin’s Passages (2002), designed as a work expressing mixed emotions, has effective elements but as a whole is a bit scattered. The four pieces by Rain Worthington, written between 1991 and 2001, also explore varying emotions, mostly superficially but with some melodic skill. All the works on this CD are pleasant rather than intense; there is an overall mildness to the recording that makes it interesting enough on a first hearing but that is unlikely to bring listeners back to it repeatedly.

(++++) YELPS AND GRRRS

2009-06-18T08:51:00.001-04:00

A Small Surprise. By Louise Yates. Knopf. $16.99.

Grizzly Dad. By Joanna Harrison. David Fickling Books. $16.99.

It’s not easy being little, but Louise Yates makes it much more fun for children ages 2-6 with A Small Surprise – which is actually full of surprises. The first one is that the book starts on the inside front covers, not (as usual) after the title page. Those inside covers show a very small bunny walking past a circus poster filled with pictures of HUGE circus animals bearing such labels as “tallest,” “fiercest” and “seriously savage.” On the poster is a notice that jobs are available, but “small animals need not apply.” But this is one determined (and adorable) bunny. He admits that he is “too small to wipe [his] own nose” or “tie [his] own shoes” – matters with which the huge animals, looking a bit puzzled, help him out. The bunny needs help with eating and even with walking! But then he points out that his small size lets him easily disappear and reappear – which he does several times, as the big animals try vainly to find him. (The funniest scene has him disappearing by jumping into the huge snake, which promptly coughs him up into a hat.) This disappearance-reappearance act, the bunny points out, makes him MAGIC! And the huge animals agree – and that is the end of the book, but not of the story. For just as Yates started things on the inside front covers, she ends them on the inside back covers, where the bunny has removed the “jobs available” notice, inserted his own picture into the middle of the poster of all the animals, and is changing the wording – for example, from “magnificent menagerie” to “magical menagerie” and from “biggest tallest longest largest” to “smallest bravest most interesting.” This bunny may be small on the outside, but within, he’s a giant – and that’s a wonderful (and subtle) message for children who may be worried that they too look small and insignificant to the rest of the world.

On the other side of the size equation, Grizzly Dad is about just what the title says: a father who woke up in a “Grrrrizzly mood” and “grrroaned” and “grrrizzled” all morning until he went back to bed “just like a bear with a sore head.” His son explains that he went to check on him, “but it wasn’t Dad in bed at all…it was a GREAT BIG GRIZZLY BEAR!” Joanna Harrison manages to make the bear’s appearance startling but not scary – in fact, the father-turned-bear seems as befuddled as his son by the transformation. What is interesting here – and will appeal to the book’s target age range of 4-7 – is how quickly son and father accept and adapt to the “beary” unusual occurrence. The father cannot talk anymore, only grunt, but his son tells him not to worry and promises to take care of him. “So I wiped his eyes, combed his hair, brushed his teeth (he was a bit SMELLY) and gave him breakfast,” explains the boy – who, however, is put off by his bear father’s bad table manners, and yells at him for “making a horrible MESS!!!” And then – well, with no logical progression whatsoever (kids will love that), the bear is driving a convertible and taking the boy for a ride to town, where they go to the movies and the park before returning home for honey sandwiches and relaxation. And of course a “GREAT BIG BEAR HUG” climaxes the story, after which Dad stops being a bear, and he and the boy start cleaning up the huge mess they managed to make around the house. A story just amusing enough and just tender enough to engage kids while providing a decidedly soft-pedaled lesson about seeing past parents’ occasional grumpiness, Grizzly Dad will readily grunt its way into plenty of cub-sized hearts.

(++++) FROM COMICS TO CARTOONS

2009-06-18T08:48:00.001-04:00

Freedom’s Just Another Word for People Finding Out You’re Useless: A “Dilbert” Book. By Scott Adams. Andrews McMeel. $12.99.

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs—The Junior Novel; Buck the Amazing Dino Hunter!; The Movie Storybook; My Three Dads; Sid-napped!; All in the Family; Momma Mix-Up; Made You Look! HarperEntertainment. $5.99 (Novel); $4.99 (Buck; Made); $7.99 (Storybook); $3.99 each (Dads; Sid). HarperTrophy. $3.99 each (Family; Momma).

Some comic-strip characters seem ideally suited to the multi-panel drawings-on-a-page mode. Scott Adams’ Dilbert is a perfect example: it could certainly be turned into an animated cartoon (and has been), but a lot of the fun of the strip resides in observing its relationship to the real business world and then imagining (rather than being told or shown) how the characters sound, move and interact with each other. How does Dilbert’s “hee hee” (at an inappropriate time) actually sound? When Wally betrays an effective employee named Jesus (“pronounced Hay-soos”) in return for 40 shares of stock, and is hit with a “Fzeeet,” what exactly does that sound like? It’s more fun to imagine than to know how the Pointy Haired Boss’s voice sounds when he complains to Wally, “You said I was stealing credit for a good idea, you lying liar!!!” And what about that “foop!” with which Admiral B-tang-B’tang demonstrates the reason his firm is the only “company in the galaxy willing to form a strategic alliance” with Dilbert’s? The latest Dilbert collection – No. 32, if you’re counting – features Dogbert as head of “Deus ex Machina Services”; a guy with “the stink of failure,” which follows him around and rubs off on Dilbert after they shake hands; Wally’s participation in “a program to cure uselessness,” in which the other students are a glass hammer and a bag of nothing; an idea that is “dumber than snake mittens,” created by a guy who asks Dilbert, “What do you have against snake mittens?”; the Dogbert Rumor Control Service (“$10 for each false rumor and $1,000 for any rumor I decide is true”); Dilbert losing his moral compass and therefore being promoted to “vice president of making employees feel miserable and helpless”; and many other instances of utterly absurd events that frequently seem more real than the ones that actually happen in corporations every day. Somehow the three-panel format (eight panels on Sundays) seems absolutely right for Adams’ brand of surreal humor.

But it’s hard to imagine the animated characters of the Ice Age movies being as funny in comic-strip form as they are (intermittently, to be sure) in movies. The latest film in this franchise, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, has predictably spawned a passel of movie tie-in books, and “spawned” seems the right word for a film that is largely about various creatures (mammoths and dinosaurs) having babies. Like other movie tie-ins, these work at the (+++) level for families that want souvenirs of the film because the kids enjoy it so much, but get no rating at all for anyone else. Even with all the stills from the movie, and drawings of the characters, included in these books, it is hard to imagine them enticing kids to see the film. The characters just don’t live very well on the page – unlike Dilbert and his cohorts, the Ice Age denizens are all about motion. The Junior Novel, by Susan Korman, is for the oldest potential fans of the new film, ages 8-12, and includes eight pages of not-exceptionally-interesting movie stills. Buck the Amazing Dino Hunter! by Annie Auerbach – for ages 7-10 – is about a new character in Dawn of the Dinosaurs, a swashbuckling weasel; here, the film stills are rendered in black and white, which makes them less striking. The Movie Storybook, by Layla Rose, although intended for younger kids (ages 3-7), is really the best souvenir item from this film: it is an oversize, full-color volume packed with stills and containing just enough text to explain the rather thin plot. And then, for super-fans of the film, there are various books for preschoolers and kindergartners in which the focus is on only one element of the movie. My Three Dads (by A.J. Wilde) focuses on Mannie the mammoth, Sid the sloth and Diego the sabertooth, while Sid-napped! (by Ray Santos) is about a plot element in which Sid gets carried off by a mother dinosaur. All in the Family and Momma Mix-Up (both by Sierra Harimann) are Level 2 books in the I Can Read! series: both have plenty of pictures and only a few well-chosen, simple words in large type. And Made You Look! (by Nicole Congleton) is a find-the-differences book, with slight alterations of various scenes from the film (and answers in the back). Even for fans of Dawn of the Dinosaurs, the books do lose something in translation from motion picture to still drawings on a page, but kids with happy memories of the movie will have fun recalling their favorite scenes through these souvenirs.

(++++) VISIONS OF THE DARK

2009-06-18T08:45:00.002-04:00

Moribito II: Guardian of the Darkness. By Nahoko Uehashi. Arthur A. Levine/Scholastic. $17.99.

A Taste for Red. By Lewis Harris. Clarion. $16.

The Strain. By Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan. William Morrow. $26.99.

The second of Nahoko Uehashi’s 10 Moribito novels to be released in the United States, Guardian of the Darkness retains the intensity and the appealing blend of Eastern settings and Western fantasy traditions that made the first book, Guardian of the Spirit, such a pleasure to read. But this volume is less of a progressive adventure and more of an attempt to recapture and understand the past; it moves at a less headlong pace, but delves into the inner life of the protagonist, Balsa, in ways that the first book did not. This does not mean that Guardian of the Darkness lacks action and adventure – Balsa is, after all, a fighter and a female bodyguard. But it does mean that there is a level of thoughtfulness here that enriches the story and takes it beyond traditional young-adult novels – and beyond the TV series based on Uehashi’s work. Indeed, every section of this book refers to darkness: “Into the Darkness,” “The Advancing Darkness,” “The People of Darkness,” “Facing the Darkness” and, as an epilogue, “Beyond the Darkness.” This is no mere conceit – there are dark forces aplenty as Balsa makes her way back to her native land, Kanbal, only to discover that the evil King Rogsam, who tried unsuccessfully to kill her in the earlier book, has now laid a different sort of trap for her. The king had sent eight assassins after Balsa and her now-dead mentor, Jiguro; now he has framed both Jiguro and Balsa for the assassins’ deaths, putting the young guard’s life in peril. Nor is this all: a conspiracy touching on the mysterious Guardians of the Darkness imperils the existence of Kanbal itself. Having returned to Kanbal seeking reconciliation with her past – her meeting with Aunt Yuka, who has not seen her in two dozen years and believes her dead, is particularly affecting – Balsa instead finds herself in the midst of conflicting clan loyalties, at odds with Jiguro’s kin, enveloped in myths and legends of her homeland, and pursued always by Rogsam’s enmity. It is only, finally, through allowing herself to endure a real-yet-unreal battle with Jiguro’s own shade that Balsa can begin to come to terms with herself, her life and her calling. In lesser hands, this climactic scene could easily deteriorate into melodrama, if not silliness; but Uehashi, having established a world in which such a thing is possible, follows the sequence through to its logical conclusion, resulting in a powerful and affecting end for this story.

A Taste for Red moves toward what might be called the lighter side of darkness – at first. Lewis Harris’ first novel seems like a fairly standard vampire (or vampire-wannabe) story: Svetlana Grimm starts sixth grade at a new school after her parents move, and tries to cope with the kids and social pressures there while also handling her own oddities – such as sleeping under her bed every night, eating only red foods, and occasionally hearing other people’s thoughts. Svetlana is sure she is a vampire, but she isn’t sure how or why. And her suspicions and uncertainties only become heightened when she encounters the science teacher, Ms. Larch, who also seems able to read people’s thoughts – including Svetlana’s. So far, so good – but what Harris does next is to darken the story considerably. What if Svetlana isn’t a vampire? What if she and Ms. Larch aren’t potential companions but potential enemies? What if some but not all the oddities in Svetlana’s life are relevant to who or what she is? And this is where A Taste for Red starts to get really interesting, and a great deal more serious. Instead of the romanticized version of vampires that is all too common in books today (especially ones for young readers), Harris’ novel takes a strong turn toward the dark and distinctly unpleasant side. There is no overt gore or anything exceptionally scary here – the book is for preteens, after all – but there is an increasing sense, as A Taste for Red progresses, that a vampire is not what Svetlana wants to turn out to be. The trouble is that she also does not much want to be what she finds out that she actually is. How she discovers that, what she does with the knowledge, and where circumstances lead her, are the elements of a story that gets steadily more interesting as it becomes more intense, and that moves toward its conclusion (and the likelihood of a sequel) with impeccable logic.

Logic is frequently missing, but melodrama is plentiful, in another vampire story – this one decidedly for adults. The Strain, the first book of a planned trilogy, is about (yawn) a vampire war against humans. Guillermo del Toro, director of the outstanding film Pan’s Labyrinth, ought to be too good for this sort of potboiler, which perhaps is more heavily influenced by Chuck Hogan, author of Prince of Thieves and other dramatic but formulaic novels. “Dramatic but formulaic” certainly describes The Strain. There is the airplane that arrives at its destination, then falls into a sinister silence requiring intervention by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There is the elderly Jewish professor who has waited his whole life, even through the Holocaust, to confront the evil that he knows will appear. There is the dedicated CDC doctor trained to confront biological threats, but not the virus that creates vampires. There is description like this, involving the old professor, Abraham Setrakian: “His malformed hands began to ache. What he saw before him was not an omen – it was an incursion. It was the act itself. The thing he had been waiting for. That he had been preparing for. All his life until now.” There is dialogue like this, when Setrakian meets the CDC physician, Dr. Eph Goodweather (yes, Goodweather): “‘There is much you will need to let go of, Dr. Goodweather,’ said Setrakian. ‘I understand that you believe you are taking a risk in trusting the word of an old stranger. But, in a sense, I am taking a thousandfold greater risk entrusting this responsibility to you. What we are discussing here is nothing less than the fate of the human race…’” Oh, ho hum. Give the authors credit for fast pacing and a pretty good sense of the horrific, and The Strain still gets a (++) or (+++) rating, depending on how often you have read this sort of thing before and how tolerant you are of reading it again. Even many fans of horror novels (and films) will give the book the lower rating, though, because the dialogue is so often so laughably predictable. “‘Don’t demonize the sick,’ said Nora. ‘But now…now the sick are demons. Now the infected are active vectors of the disease, and have to be stopped. Killed. Destroyed.’” Well, with verbiage like that, with vampires that “turned feral” and “backed up on [their] haunches,” with the entirely typical use of silver (not just bullets – needles work, too) and fire as weapons, it is inevitable that the action will lead to the lair of “This Thing. The Master.” And so it does, but of course the Master escapes (so there can be two more books), and the scene promises to shift – at least from time to time – away from New York City, where The Strain takes place, to other environs. The Strain is immensely uncreative but is entertaining in its own frenetic way – sort of like a not-very-thoughtful vampire movie, which is perhaps what the authors want this book and its planned successors to become.

(+++) AFTER THE POETICS

2009-06-18T08:43:00.001-04:00

Paris Spleen: Little Poems in Prose. By Charles Baudelaire. Translated by Keith Waldrop. Wesleyan University Press. $22.95.

So Long As Men Can Breathe: The Untold Story of Shakespeare’s Sonnets. By Clinton Heylin. Da Capo. $24.

What do you do for an encore after you produce poetry that shakes up, enrages and captivates the public and quickly becomes both controversial and wildly influential? If you are Charles Baudelaire, you follow up The Flowers of Evil with a series of poetic observations and commentaries on Parisian life – but instead of casting them in the form of poetry, you write them as “Little Poems in Prose.” That is what Baudelaire did in Le Spleen de Paris, now newly and very poetically translated by Keith Waldrop as Paris Spleen. This makes a fine companion book to Waldrop’s 2006 translation of The Flowers of Evil, also published by Wesleyan University Press. But the thin volume – 116 pages – does not quite have the richness or the power of Baudelaire’s earlier work. “These nervous pleasantries are not without danger, and sometime quite costly. But what’s an eternity of damnation to one who has found in such an instant infinite satisfaction?” So asks Baudelaire (as here translated) in a brief story in which the narrator deliberately overdoes a practical joke in such a way as to ruin a glazier’s livelihood. It is a story that Poe could have written, complete with its parenthetical paragraph in which the narrator attempts to explain his motivation for what is essentially a cruel and vicious impulse. And Poe did write something like this, in The Imp of the Perverse, and wrote it much better. Nor is this the only time in Paris Spleen in which Baudelaire seems to deliver something a touch warmed-over. “A Hemisphere in a Head of Hair,” which lasts less than a page, begins, “Allow me long – longer – to inhale the odor of your hair, to bury my face in it, like a thirsty man at a spring, and to shake it out like a scented hanky, flinging its memories into the air.” This is mere tepid Romanticism. “An Heroic Death” is more not-quite-Poe: “This Prince was neither better nor worse than others, but an excessive sensibility rendered him, in many cases, crueler and more despotic than the rest. …Caring little for men or for morals, himself a true artist, he considered Ennui his only foe, and the bizarre efforts he took to flee or to vanquish this universal tyrant would certainly have made a serious historian classify him as ‘monster’ – if, in his domain, it had been permitted to write anything not for enjoyment (or astonishment, enjoyment in a particularly delicate form).” There are some felicitous turns of phrase in Paris Spleen, and the angry intensity and sexuality of The Flowers of Evil sometimes peek through, but not even the lovely flow of Waldrop’s translation can conceal the fact that this book does not present Baudelaire at his best.

Shakespeare had plenty of encores – magnificent ones – to his sequence of 154 sonnets, but Clinton Heylin’s curious So Long as Men Can Breathe pays little attention to the playwright’s later work or, in a sense, to the sonnets themselves. This is not a book about Shakespeare, about poetry, about sonnets or about love (the sonnets’ primary focus). It is a book about publishing, both legal and illegal, written by a biographer of Bob Dylan and Orson Welles who happens also to be a scholar of the history of Shakespeare’s time. Perhaps Heylin’s multifaceted interests explain the direction he takes here. The great questions raised by the sonnets, including to whom they were dedicated and why Shakespeare seems to have tried exceptionally hard to conceal the identity of the person (or people) to whom they were addressed, come into Heylin’s book only in passing. He is less interested in what the sonnets say than in how they came to be printed, pirated, passed from hand to hand, altered, collected, sold, analyzed and considered and reconsidered again and again. The sonnets were first published on May 20, 1609, by George Eld and Thomas Thorpe, a pair of disreputable characters whose edition may or may not have been authorized. Heylin does a fine job exploring the hurlyburly of the 17^th-century publishing netherworld, including changes that may have been made for the benefit of the publishers but that scholars have assumed for centuries to be elements of Shakespeare’s own intentions. Much of what Heylin discusses is speculative – much of everything that tries to figure out what Shakespeare “really” meant is speculative – but Heylin moves with rather too much enthusiasm into the back-and-forth of unceasing argument and counterargument, returning again and again to questions of how the method of publication of the sonnets may have influenced readers’ acceptance of their sequencing and meaning. At one point, Heylin writes of “the tortured relationship” in the sonnet sequence: “A sense of futility infuses the entire infatuation. The gulf in age, status, and feelings is stated almost ad nauseum [sic].” But he seems more comfortable tossing out the names of people whose claims and counterclaims may flow from piracy in the poems’ publishing history: “The rebuttal to Vickers’s views came soon enough, and from a not entirely unexpected quarter. Duncan-Jones was given two and a half columns in the TLS, a fortnight after Love’s review appeared, to mount her counteroffensive, [which included a claim that] Thorpe had no reason to ‘risk the wrath of’ Shakespeare by publishing something under his name that was not by him – i.e., exactly what Jaggard, Pavier, and Eld had previously done without the slightest repercussion.” It must be said that the rogues’ gallery of publishing pirates – “bookleggers,” Heylin calls them – contains some entertaining characters, and Heylin’s generally bright style makes many of the characters’ adventures and misadventures enjoyable to follow. But in all this, the genius of the sonnets’ poetry, their importance as literature, and their place within Shakespeare’s life and work, all tend to get lost. So Long as Men Can Breathe takes readers through many a byway of the past 400 years, while studiously avoiding the main roads that lead to the sparkle, wit and grace of Shakespeare’s language and poetic sentiments.

(++++) ROMANTICS AND BEYOND

2009-06-18T08:40:00.001-04:00

Schubert: Complete Overtures, Volume 2—Overture in D major; Overtures in the Italian Style in D major and C major; Rosamunde, D. 644, from “Die Zauberharfe”; Die Zwillingsbrüder; Overture in E minor; Rosamunde, D. 732, from “Alfonso und Estrella”; Die Verschworenen—Der häusliche Krieg; Fierrabras. Prague Sinfonia conducted by Christian Benda. Naxos. $8.99.

Dvořák: Symphony No. 7; The Golden Spinning Wheel. Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra Amsterdam conducted by Yakov Kreizberg. PentaTone. $19.99 (SACD).

Sacred Songs of the Romantic Period: Music of Dvořák, Wolf, Mendelssohn and Reger. Susanne Bernhard, soprano; Maria Graf, harp; Harald Feller, organ. Oehms. $16.99.

Johann Strauss Sr. Edition, Volume 14. Slovak Sinfonietta Žilina conducted by Christian Pollack. Marco Polo. $9.99.

Johann Strauss Jr. Waltz Arrangements: Wine, Women and Song by Alban Berg; Roses from the South, Lagunenwalzer, Emperor Waltz by Arnold Schoenberg; Treasure Waltz by Anton Webern. Linos Ensemble. Capriccio. $16.99.

Schubert’s stage works had little success, but his overtures to them – and the overtures that he wrote for concert purposes – remain tuneful delights, with especially prominent woodwind parts and the sort of encapsulation of emotion that is a hallmark of the Romantic era. The second volume of Naxos’ recordings of all the Schubert overtures contains some well-known pieces – the two overtures “in the Italian style” and the Rosamunde overture taken from Die Zauberharfe – amid a number of unfamiliar works. The Rosamunde overture on which Schubert eventually settled flows far more pleasantly and naturally than does his original choice, which came from his opera Alfonso und Estrella. However, Christian Benda pushes the Prague Sinfonia very hard in the overture’s lovely main theme – one of the few tempo miscalculations here. The Overture in the Italian Style in D major is a particular delight on this CD – it out-Rossinis Rossini in its thematic variety and use of the orchestra. The overture to Fierrabras (misspelled “Fierabras” on the CD) is another highly effective work that deserves to be heard more often. The remaining pieces here, if not quite so inherently interesting, all have their moments of charm, and the orchestra plays everything with clarity and enthusiasm.

The orchestra plays well for Yakov Kreizberg, too, as he continues his rather curious Dvořák cycle. What makes it odd is that Kreizberg seems to lavish more attention on the filler pieces than on the symphonies. His earlier recording, of Symphony No. 6, was truly awful: lumbering, uneven in tempo and utterly dull. But it was paired with a lovely rendition of The Water Goblin. Kreizberg does much better with Symphony No. 7, allowing it for the most part to flow naturally and without silly gimmicks or unneeded tempo changes. The Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra Amsterdam certainly does its part, presenting beautifully rounded tones and full- throated brass. It is only at the very end of the symphony that Kreizberg overdoes things with a ritard-accelerando-ritard that undercuts a mostly effective performance. On the other hand, The Golden Spinning Wheel is excellent throughout. All the Dvořák tone poems, which he wrote late in life, are based on very gory Czech fairytales, but all unfold to some of the composer’s warmest and most beautiful music. The Golden Spinning Wheel moves from episode to episode with real spirit, its martial sections strongly contrasted with its romantic ones, and its overall effect is quite marvelous. It sounds great, too – as does the symphony – thanks to PentaTone’s always outstanding SACD sound.

Dvořák also assumes a prominent place on a CD called “Sacred Songs of the Romantic Period.” Eleven of his German-language religious songs, the Biblische Lieder, op. 99, are sung with great feeling by soprano Susanne Bernhard, who is accompanied by harpist Maria Graf in arrangements made by organist Harald Feller. The harp also accompanies two of the three songs by Max Reger on this CD. The rest of the music is accompanied by Feller on the organ – a particularly interesting choice for the two Mendelssohn songs, which were originally written for piano but which Mendelssohn said could optionally be played on organ. They certainly sound more churchlike that way; so does the third Reger song. The only pieces here that seem a touch out of place are five songs by Hugo Wolf, which do not have quite the same overtly sacred simplicity as the other works on the CD. Still, they too are beautifully sung, and the disc as a whole provides some interesting contrasts between the earlier Romantic-era songs and those of the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries.

Of course, not all Romantic music was heavy – not by a long shot. The 14^th volume in Marco Polo’s wonderful Johann Strauss Sr. series shows once again that the elder Strauss had found the secret to elevating light music to a real art form – albeit not with the elegance that his sons Johann Jr. and Josef would later bring to it. The eight waltzes and a polka on the new CD are all charming, beautifully balanced and unendingly tuneful. Adelaiden-Walzer, the waltz Egerien-Tänze, and Die Tanzmeister – cleverly named to solidify Strauss’ relationship with the dance-masters who taught people to swirl to his music – are especially well crafted, and the Beliebten Annen-Polka is so bright and lovely that it only makes sense for it to be labeled “beloved.” The other waltzes here are not quite as captivating, although each has at least one section of great beauty: Die Wettrenner, Die Debutanten, Stadt- und Landleben, Die Fantasten and Musik-Verein-Tänze. The Slovak Sinfonietta Žilina under Christian Pollack – who has made a specialty of this kind of music – plays with so much lightness of spirit that it brings the days of old Vienna to life once again.

But those days were long gone by 1921, the postwar year in which three famous (some would say notorious) members of the new Viennese school of composition turned their attention to five waltzes by Johann Strauss Jr. Considering how far into atonality Berg, Schoenberg and Webern were even then pushing music, it is remarkable to find them focusing their skills on lilting, very strongly tonal dance works written as many as 52 years earlier. It is even more remarkable to hear the respect with which they treated Strauss’ music – stripping it of opulence, to be sure, but retaining (especially in the three waltzes arranged by Schoenberg) its emotional underpinnings and genuine loveliness. Four of the five arrangements use the same musical forces: string quartet, harmonium (a pump organ that sounds a bit like an accordion), and string quartet. The fifth, the Emperor Waltz, retains the piano and strings but replaces the harmonium with a flute and clarinet. The Linos Ensemble plays the works with zest, bringing out the passages in which the arrangers somewhat re-harmonized the music (notably Berg in Wine, Women and Song) while making sure that the strong three-quarter-time beat remains apparent throughout. There is some feeling of looking through the wrong end of the telescope about these arrangements, which can certainly be considered curiosities but should not be dismissed as such. Berg, Schoenberg and Webern – Schoenberg most of all – believed they were building on Romantic ideals even as they moved beyond them. Their Strauss waltz arrangements show that they could appreciate the musical structure and rhythmic vitality of Strauss’ music even as they ultimately rejected the era in which it was written.

(++++) TAKING CHANCES WITH CONCERTOS

2009-06-18T08:37:00.001-04:00

Beethoven: Piano Concertos Nos. 2 and 3. François-Frédéric Guy, piano; Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France conducted by Philippe Jordan. Naïve. $16.99.

Khachaturian: Violin Concerto; Concerto-Rhapsody for Violin and Orchestra. Nicolas Koeckert, violin; Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by José Serebrier. Naxos. $8.99.

Copland: Clarinet Concerto; William Thomas McKinley: Clarinet Duet Book II; Concerto for Two Clarinets and Orchestra. Kim Ellis and Richard Stoltzman, clarinets; Slovak National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Kirk Trevor. Navona. $16.99.

Joseph Bertolozzi: Bridge Music. Delos. $12.99.

François-Frédéric Guy and Philippe Jordan have completed their cycle of Beethoven’s piano concertos with a third CD on which they take some risks, and some liberties, with tempo and balance; and this time, for the most part, the risks pay off. No. 2, actually the first of the five numbered concertos that Beethoven wrote (in addition to an early E-flat concerto and a piano arrangement of the Violin Concerto), is not quite as light and fleet here as it can be, but it bubbles along pleasantly, and some of the orchestral touches – notably the strings in the Adagio – nicely complement Guy’s piano, highlighting elements of the accompaniment that are not always brought through clearly. No. 3 has sounded both darker and more magisterial in other recordings than it does here, and some of the balance emphases try too hard to be unusual (such as the timpani just before the end of the finale). But this is a generally subtle and well-integrated performance in which the music flows naturally and the back-and-forth between C minor (the work’s nominal key) and C major is handled fluently. Guy and Jordan deserve credit for taking a fresh look at these standards of the repertoire, and even if not all their approaches prove effective, their CD is very much worth hearing for its attempt to rethink the concertos without being in any way false to their composer or the time in which they were written.

Nicolas Koeckert’s excellent playing in Khachaturian’s Violin Concerto is the main attraction of his new CD with José Serebrier and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. This is a passionate and warm reading of the concerto, especially strong in the first two movements. Where Koeckert and Serebrier take the most chances is in the finale, which they handle more soberly and with less freewheeling virtuosity than it usually receives. This lends weight to the concerto as a whole, but it prevents the final movement from feeling like a joyous release after the somewhat heavier material that has gone before (although this is scarcely a profound concerto). This is a well-thought-out interpretation even if not a wholly convincing one. As for the Concerto-Rhapsody, which is long enough to be a concerto of its own, it comes across rather less well. Khachaturian wrote three works with this title, one each for violin, cello and piano, and intended them to be mixtures of subtle emotionality and brilliant display. The brilliance is missing in most of Koeckert’s performance, though – not because he lacks the technical ability but because he seems to be holding it in check in order to bring forth the work’s long lines and rather surface-level feelings. As a result, the Concerto-Rhapsody often seems to drag, not because of tempo but because it wades through so much emotion. This is a valid approach to the work but not, in the end, as effective as one in which the brighter and dimmer sections are contrasted more strongly.

Copland’s Clarinet Concerto, a staple of 20^th-century clarinet repertoire, gets a fine performance from Kim Ellis, principal clarinetist of the Symphony of Southeast Texas, with a particularly strong first movement in which the lyrical elements of jazz – effectively communicated by the composer despite the lack of percussion – come through with particular sensitivity. Ellis also does quite well with the jazz elements contained in the cadenza that links the concerto’s two movements – she says she loves this music, and her affection shines through. Ellis, along with fellow clarinetist Richard Stoltzman, also shows an affinity for jazz in the two dual-clarinet works of William Thomas McKinley on this CD. McKinley is an accomplished jazz pianist as well as a composer, and he has written three solo-clarinet concertos as well as a clarinet sonata. He has worked and recorded with Stoltzman before, and Ellis says it was McKinley who suggested that she and Stoltzman work together on this CD. What matters, though, is the music; and although Ellis and Stoltzman take something of a risk in weighting this CD toward McKinley rather than the better-known Copland (who was McKinley’s teacher at Tanglewood), the approach pays off handsomely. McKinley, now 70, retains a healthy dose of youthful exuberance in the two works here, but there is also considerable tenderness and a call for substantial clarinet virtuosity. The six-movement Clarinet Duet Book II features fascinating intertwining of the instruments, while the two-clarinet concerto (which has a rather off-kilter waltz rather than a traditional slow movement at its center) showcases brightness more than deep emotion.

It is hard to say what sort of emotion Joseph Bertolozzi wants to evoke in his Bridge Music, which is essentially a concerto for the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Mid-Hudson Bridge that crosses the Hudson River between Poughkeepsie and Highland, New York. What Bertolozzi does is look at the bridge as a huge musical instrument, then use parts of it to create sounds that he arranges into a 10-movement suite: “Bridge Funk,” “The River That Flows Both Ways,” “Steel Works” and “Rivet Gun” are among the movements’ titles. As it happens, the bridge’s designer, Ralph Modjeski, was a pianist and classmate of Ignacy Jan Paderewski before he became an engineer, so this bridge actually has a musical connection. But whether this work succeeds as music – or as any sort of art – is debatable, and will no doubt be debated. Bertolozzi, who was born in Poughkeepsie 50 years ago, apparently has an emotional attachment to this bridge, but whether Bridge Music is ultimately more than a gimmick will be a matter of opinion. Bertolozzi clearly approaches the bridge in a musical way – the CD includes s 10-minute audio tour of the structure’s various sounds – and there is enough seriousness to this project to earn it a (+++) rating. But as for what it is, aside from an attention-getter – that is something that listeners must decide for themselves.

(++++) OLD PLOTS NICELY REPACKAGED

2009-06-11T08:46:00.000-04:00

Pit Dragon Chronicles, Book Four: Dragon’s Heart. By Jane Yolen. Harcourt. $17.

The Reformed Vampire Support Group. By Catherine Jinks. Harcourt. $17.

Ghost Huntress, Book 1: The Awakening. By Marley Gibson. Graphia. $8.99.

Fans of Jane Yolen’s Pit Dragon Chronicles will be delighted that the trilogy has now turned into a tetralogy. Yolen didn’t plan it this way: the first three books were complete on their own, and this followup volume comes more than five years after the third, A Sending of Dragons (the first was called Dragon’s Blood; the second, Heart’s Blood). Yolen does such a good job of re-immersing readers in the world of Jakkin and Akki (who have been in hiding for a year and presumed dead) that readers of the first three books will feel an immediate thrill of familiarity. This is all well and good, since Yolen herself dedicates the book in part to “all my fans who wrote demanding a fourth volume.” They clearly demanded continuity, too: Dragon’s Heart is not the place to enter this saga. Yolen knows this: she not only explains what happens at the end of A Sending of Dragons in a preface to the new work but also reprints that book’s last couple of pages. Continuation is everything here, and Yolen handles it commendably. So the question of whether Dragon’s Heart is as good as its predecessors is really irrelevant: it is certainly as well written, it carries forward the story of the three previous books, and it does what it is designed to do by giving fans of those earlier volumes an idea of “what happened next.” What happened is that teenage Jakkin and Akki have now discovered dragon-like powers within, such as a telepathic bond between themselves and with dragons – plus the ability to stay out in the terrible cold of Dark-After. Interestingly, Yolen refuses to take the easy way out by having the teens’ telepathic bond tie them more closely together: much of Dragon’s Heart turns on the two becoming estranged from each other because they see the value of their powers differently. Each becomes involved in potentially life-threatening situations, and both learn more about themselves through handling danger. “We don’t always know a hero when we see him,” says the old bonder Likkarn at one point. “And sometimes, too late to tell him, we recognize what splendid things he’s done.” He is not speaking of Jakkin or Akki, but he might as well be: it is only after they face themselves, their bond with the dragons and the realities and dangers confronting their planet that the full depth of their heroism – and its meaning for the future of their world – can become clear.

While Yolen continues and expands on a plot she previously established, Catherine Jinks decides to take some old notions about vampires and twist them every which way. The result is a delightfully offbeat book about the sordid “realities” of vampire life and the many errors that non-vampires make when thinking about vampiric folk. For instance, “The garlic myth was triggered hundreds of years ago, when a nameless vampire joked about not attacking some woman because she smelled of garlic. I mean, how could anyone be terrified of a culinary herb?” So wonders Nina Harrison, fanged at 15, unaged since 1973 and thoroughly miserable as she subsists on her diet of one fresh guinea pig a day. Another myth disproved: “People often think that vampires live in decrepit old castles, or mausoleums, or sprawling mansions full of stained glass and wood paneling. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Perhaps it would be, if all the vampires in the world were millionaires. But since the ones I know are just ordinary working stiffs (so to speak), their dwellings tend to be on the modest side.” For her part, Nina lives with – her parents. Jinks cleverly sets up a story about the ennui permeating the decidedly non-glamorous vampire world – and then upends things (and gets her plot really moving) by having one member of the vampire group destroyed. Yes, although other ideas may merely be myths, vampires can indeed be staked, and do indeed crumble to ashes if that happens. And when it does, Nina and her friend Dave (a vampiric former punk rocker) find themselves trying to solve a mystery and keep all the vampires alive. Well, not exactly alive, since they are all dead, but…in existence. The story becomes satisfyingly complex while never losing a certain amount of deadpan (sorry about that) humor. And throwing a werewolf into the mix certainly doesn’t hurt. This is an offbeat tale from start to finish, and one handled with considerable narrative skill. It’s fun, too.

Marley Gibson doesn’t so much redo an old plot as take it at face value, which is why the first of her Ghost Huntress books gets a (+++) rating. This is a fairly straightforward story of a sensitive-to-the-paranormal teen named Kendall who moves with her parents from Chicago to a small town in Georgia and finds she can’t sleep because it’s too quiet. So Kendall’s dad buys her a white-noise machine – but instead of finding it restful, she finds it freaking her out, because she hears a voice coming through the machine. And it’s not her imagination – she’s able to record it and play it back. “Okay. I’ve got to be calm. I can’t lose my cool every time I encounter a spirit – or a suspected spirit. I am Kendall Moorhead. Psychic. Intuitive. Sensitive. Ghost huntress. No more wigging out.” That’s Gibson’s basic style for Kendall – a slight tinge of humor, chopped-up sentences, and a touch of sort-of-slang here and there. Kendall finds it remarkably easy to communicate with the spirit once she establishes initial contact, but there is nothing especially surprising in the methods of communication – cold spots, a pendulum whose motion changes, tightness in the chest, that sort of thing. Kendall’s enthusiasm can actually get a little irritating: “Man, I’m champing at the bit here. I wish the floaty lady would just appear and talk to me, like how Patrick Swayze blabbers with Whoopi Goldberg in Ghost. I know this isn’t a movie, but I wish it were.” Hmm…maybe that’s the author’s wish peeping through, but there isn’t really enough inventiveness in The Awakening to make a movie (well, not a good one, anyway). Still, there are some interesting exploring-my-gift passages here, combined with some very ordinary conflicts with parents: “You don’t have any abilities, Kendall,” says her mom. “You’re making it all up just to get attention.” Part of the problem here is that Gibson makes Kendall so determinedly normal, except for her psychic abilities. “Adrenaline is flowing through my body like an intravenous drug. This is a high like I’ve never experienced – not that I’ve ever done drugs or anything, but you know what I mean.” Making Kendall more interesting in future books would make the Ghost Huntress series more interesting, too.

(++++) OFFBEAT PEOPLE AND PLACES

2009-06-11T08:43:00.000-04:00

The Touchstone Trilogy, Book Three: Winter Wood. By Steve Augarde. David Fickling Books. $17.99.

The Beef Princess of Practical County. By Michelle Houts. Delacorte Press. $16.99.

Love, Stargirl. By Jerry Spinelli. Knopf. $8.99.

First came The Various, then Celandine, and now Winter Wood, in which 11-year-old Midge Walters must undertake a quest to Celandine in order to save the Various – a well-knit structure not only for this trilogy but also for its titles. The Various, a tribe of fairies that only Midge can see, will perish unless Midge recovers an object called the Orbis, which was last seen in the possession of Midge’s great-great-aunt, Celandine. The names are gently evocative, and the characters’ thinking equally expressive, as when Tadgemole of the Various says the tribe wants “to be gone from here, maid. We must find what we have lost, and so return to our own.” It is the quality of Steve Augarde’s language, more than anything inherent in his plot, that sets Winter Wood and its predecessors above other coming-of-age fantasies for preteens. The books are, quite simply, beautiful to read. Midge knows nothing about the Orbis until Tadgemole mentions it, but “then came a picture, a memory. She sat by water – a pool or fountain – and held some object in her hand, felt the cool weight of it, the smooth curve of the metal against her palm. …‘I…remember it.’” And so Midge, not even knowing whether Celandine still lives – she would be “a hundred fourseasons” if she does – sets off to find her relative…and does so quite quickly. For another charm of Augarde’s trilogy is that he does not spin things out unnecessarily. The book is barely one-fifth old – it runs more than 500 pages – when Midge and Celandine meet, but this is only the start of Midge’s adventure. For Celandine eventually remembers, in fits and starts, that she did indeed receive the Orbis, but she cannot remember what she did with it, and although “Midge had suffered so many setbacks in this quest that she had almost grown used to it,” this is a very great disappointment indeed. But, again, at this point we are but halfway through the book. Augarde piles adventure upon adventure, character upon character, event upon event, and deepens the relationship between Midge and the Various through it all, as clues lead in unexpected directions and treachery within the Various hampers the search for the Orbis – which, it turns out, is not all that must be found. Winter Wood is an unusually thoughtful fantasy, a particularly well-written one, and a most satisfying conclusion to its trilogy.

The setting of The Beef Princess of Practical County will be just as exotic as that of Winter Wood for many readers: this is a story about competitive livestock showing in the American heartland. It is also a coming-of-age tale, and one told with both warmth and humor. The central character is 12-year-old Libby Ryan, a ranch girl who understands that animals are raised for meat but is having a lot of trouble reconciling that fact with her increasing closeness to two young steers, Piggy and Mule – which Libby has raised on her own. After a showing at the Practical County Fair, Piggy and Mule will be auctioned off, and Libby is far from sure how she feels about that. Nor is she sure why she has entered the Beef Princess beauty pageant, a decision that puts her in direct competition with the nasty Darling sisters. Well, actually, Libby does know why she entered – her mother pressured her – but she is not quite sure what to do now that she is a contestant. Michelle Houts’ first novel has a ring of authenticity and some nicely drawn characters, but it also tries just a little too hard to make its points – not only by naming the nasty characters Darling (and giving them the first names Precious, Lil and Ohma) but also by having Libby’s hometown called Nowhere, Indiana (Libby actually lives “fourteen and a half miles from Nowhere”). Yet even though Houts lays things on a bit too thickly at times, her novel gets a (+++) rating for its endearing protagonist – for whom it is impossible not to root.

Jerry Spinelli’s Love, Stargirl gets a (+++) rating, too. First published in 2007 and now available in paperback, this companion book to Spinelli’s original Stargirl will be immediately endearing to fans of that earlier book – but there is nothing much really new in it. Yes, it takes place a year after Stargirl has moved to Pennsylvania, and yes, Stargirl has made some new friends (from a quirky five-year-old to a man who spends his time by his wife’s grave – “even in death, Grace was all he needed”). But the things that Stargirl fans will like the most about this book are exactly the ones that make it not quite as good as the original. Stargirl’s circumstances may be different, but she is just the same as she always was, complete with ukulele and rat. The book is written as “the world’s longest letter” to Leo, starting on January 1 and continuing to the following year’s January 2. This is a tale of small discoveries and small adventures, of Stargirl’s ever-so-slightly-skewed perceptions, of friendship and neighborliness and perhaps just a little bit about growing up. It is charming in its way – perhaps even a touch too much so – and those who love Stargirl just as she was in Spinelli’s original Stargirl will be delighted to have even more of her. It is, though, essentially more of the same.

(+++) MANGA AND MORE

2009-06-11T08:40:00.000-04:00

Xtreme Art Ultimate Book of Trace-and-Draw Manga. By Christopher Hart. Watson-Guptill. $21.95.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen—The Junior Novel; The Last Prime; Operation Autobot; When Robots Attack!; I Am Optimus Prime; Rise of the Decepticons; Coloring and Activity Book and Crayons; The Reusable Sticker Book. HarperEntertainment. $5.99 (Novel); $4.99 each (Prime; Coloring); $3.99 each (Autobot; Attack!); $6.99 (Sticker). HarperTrophy. $3.99 each (Optimus; Rise).

The continuing popularity of manga and its animated cousin, anime, is clear from the appearance of innumerable movies now being made for American and worldwide audiences. No longer Japanese phenomena, manga and anime have become true globe-spanning styles, at once distinct from other forms of cartooning and animation and related closely enough so that readers and viewers can immediately comprehend and enjoy them. And part of that enjoyment is in drawing these stylized characters yourself – which young fans will find surprisingly easy to do under the guidance of Christopher Hart in the awkwardly titled but very well designed Xtreme Art Ultimate Book of Trace-and-Draw Manga. The book is in three parts – manga, manga chibi and manga monsters – and explains the basics of each style before showing how to draw specific characters. Anyone who wants to draw manga, or simply understand its appeal more clearly, will find material of interest here – the different shapes of eyes for children, teenagers and adults, for example, or the creation of “monsters” (few of which are really monstrous) by starting with the body shapes of real-world creatures and modifying them (often with bits and pieces of other real-world creatures – a worm with crab claws or a creature with a cat’s body and rabbit ears). Much of the attractiveness of manga is in the characters’ eyes, but some of it is in the proportions: in standard manga characters, the head is about one-fourth of the body, while in super-cute manga chibi, the head is fully half the body’s size. Hairstyles are also important in manga, and Hart shows how to shape them clearly. The drawings here are simple and stylized, sometimes too much so: “Undercover Agent” looks just plain silly in a dress-like trench coat, and calling the adorable Bubble Baby and Cooboo “monsters” is stretching things to the breaking point. Still, the book’s basic structure is sound: each character is presented in four quarter-page drawings that start with its basic shapes and then add touches to give it personality; then the facing page shows the finished, shaded character. Comparisons of character types are especially good here, for instance when Hart draws the same girl in manga style and then as a manga chibi – and points out exactly how the two differ. Younger artists will have some trouble moving from the four quarter-page drawings to the finished one – there are often quite a few additions required – but more-experienced artists should find the book easy to follow, and even younger aspiring cartoonists will find at least some characters here that they can create (although not as adeptly as Hart does). Xtreme Art Ultimate Book of Trace-and-Draw Manga is an attractive introductory book for manga fans – and artists who get good at the basics should be able to move beyond Hart’s characters and create their own.

Lest there be any doubt of the persistent popularity of manga and anime, one need only head for the local multiplex to find the latest summer movies made in this style. Just a couple of years after the film Transformers (2007) – loosely based on a 1984 TV series and more directly based on a popular line of toys – comes the inevitable sequel, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. And with it come the equally inevitable movie tie-in books, which slice and dice the plot well enough to earn (+++) ratings for families that simply must have some sort of souvenir, but which will be of no interest at all to people who have not seen the film. None of these books is likely to pull people into the theater, but none will disappoint people who have been there already and who really, really liked what they saw. The Junior Novel, by Dan Jolley, aims at the oldest group targeted by the film – ages 8-12 – and gives the story of the not-quite-beaten-yet Decepticons in the most detail; it also includes eight pages of Transformer pictures. The Last Prime, by Tracey West, is an even shorter novelization; it is aimed at ages 7-10 and contains black-and-white drawings rather than color pictures of Transformers. Operation Autobot (by Susan Korman) and When Robots Attack! (by Ray Santos) are picture books for ages 3-7, with big and bright drawings that tell most of the movie’s story and a few words (including the inevitable bam! and AAAAH!) to communicate the action. For roughly the same age range, I Am Optimus Prime and Rise of the Decepticons (both by Jennifer Frantz) are Level 2 books in the I Can Read! series: each gives only part of the movie’s plot, using big, bold drawings and a minimal number of simple words. Families that really want to immerse kids in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen can even go beyond these books to some novelty items that will appeal to Transformer-fascinated preschoolers. The Coloring and Activity Book and Crayons (by Devan Aptekar) includes a variety of puzzles (with answers at the back of the book) and a number of movie scenes in black-and-white that kids can color with the three clever crayons packaged in plastic on the book’s front page – each crayon offers two colors, one at either end. But of course coloring books lose kids’ interest after the pictures are finished, so some families may prefer The Reusable Sticker Book (by Lucy Rosen), which includes two pages of reusable stickers that can be used to fill in a series of stills from the film. Nothing in any of these tie-ins is educational – or pretends to be – but if there is a Transformer devotee in your house, the various movie-spinoff books can be a recipe for summer fun that extends beyond the movie theater.

(+++) DARK SIDES OF CELEBRITY

2009-06-11T08:37:00.000-04:00

Airhead, Book 2: Being Nikki. By Meg Cabot. Point/Scholastic. $16.99.

A Day in the Life: One Family, the Beautiful People, & the End of the Sixties. By Robert Greenfield. Da Capo. $24.95.

One of these books is aimed at teenagers, the other at adults; one is fiction, the other nonfiction. But both are astonishingly similar in their single-minded fixation on celebrity – not in the sense of being famous for accomplishing something meaningful, but in terms of being famous for being famous. Certainly that is the premise of Being Nikki, the followup novel to Airhead, in which brainy but plain Emerson Watts went to a major store opening to look after her little sister, Frida, and a bizarre and never-explained accident caused Em’s soul to migrate into the body of teen supermodel Nikki Howard, who was on site as part of the store-opening festivities. This setup made no sense, and Meg Cabot – author of The Princess Diaries and other books that also made no sense but possessed the same quality of transformation – wisely got past it as quickly as possible so she could explore the implications of being in the wrong body. In Being Nikki, those implications get darker and more complex, as Nikki’s mother is missing (and Em feels she needs to find out what happened to her); Stark Enterprises, the company in whose new store the bizarre brain switch occurred, begins to look more and more like one of those fount-of-all-evil corporations with nefarious motives galore; and Christopher Maloney, on whom Em had a crush, like, forever, is now coming on strongly to Nikki (or is to Em in Nikki’s body?). While trying to unravel these mysteries of the heart and head, Em/Nikki also has a few things to do with her body – she is a teenage supermodel, after all – and she starts to wonder what Nikki did with the body when it was 100% hers, since a number of girls seem to think Em/Nikki is or was after their boyfriends. This is what passes for introspection in the book: Christopher had “never said he’d loved me back when I had that snaggletooth and didn’t look like the goddess that I did now. I mean, I was still the same person on the inside then that I was now.” And this: “Getting paid thousands of dollars to stand in a pair of leather pants under some hot lights for a few hours wasn’t that big a sacrifice. You do tend to lose your perspective pretty quickly after a while.” By the end of Being Nikki, it turns out that the real Nikki isn’t dead, as Em had thought she was, and that opens up a whole new set of completely unbelievable possibilities, some of which will be explored in the next book in the series, Runaway.

The thing is, celebrity lives proceed in ways that are completely unbelievable to the mere mortals who follow celebs' every move so attentively. Cabot gets that right, and so does Robert Greenfield in his biography of Tommy Weber and Susan “Puss” Coriat. Never heard of them? They’re old news – very old news – and for that reason alone, A Day in the Life is less than wholly enthralling. Tommy and Puss were wealthy, privileged Brits cutting a swath through Swinging London in the 1960s. Upper crust, enamored of drugs and free love but not of responsibility, they moved among the folk heroes of the day (Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Keith Richards – who called Weber “Tommy the Tumbling Dice”) in a typical swirl of celebrities feeding off each other. Married in 1964 after a widely followed celebrity romance, they produced two sons and much heartbreak for each other and those around them. Puss died in 1971, Tommy not until 2006; their story is one of failed (or lacking) aspirations, pie-in-the-sky planning, wasted inheritance and (more arguably) wasted talent, and eventual descent into familiar elements of celebrity hell, including wildly extravagant spending and drug smuggling as well as drug use. Greenfield tries to generate some sympathy for Puss and Tommy (whose birth name was Thomas Ejnar Arkner) by focusing on their difficult, neglectful childhoods. But it really doesn’t work – they come across as spoiled “poor little rich kids” who should probably never have had children of their own but whose own children seem to have overcome their parents’ legacy and to be doing all right (one, Jake Weber of NBC’s Medium, is promoting Greenfield’s book). This is a sad story but scarcely a tragic one, and Greenfield fills the book with so many “celebrity moments” – Tommy or Puss with one famous or formerly famous person or another – that A Day in the Life comes across as just the sort of voyeurism it pretends to decry. Greenfield eventually concludes with a cascade of clichés: “Born to privilege, Puss and Tommy threw away opportunities that others never had. …[T]he best anyone can offer is the hope they have both found the kind of peace in death that they never knew in life.” This is a (++) book trying hard to be more important than it is, although generous readers may give it (+++) for its accurate portrayal of some of the less-than-“groovy” aspects of the Swinging Sixties.

(++++) SPARKLING REISSUES

2009-06-11T08:34:00.000-04:00

Tchaikovsky: Orchestral Suites Nos. 1-4; Romeo and Juliet; Francesca da Rimini; Capriccio Italien. Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart and Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields conducted by Sir Neville Marriner. Phoenix Edition. $16.99 (3 CDs).

Prokofiev: Piano Concertos Nos. 1-5. Boris Berman, piano (Nos. 1, 4, 5); Horacio Gutiérrez, piano (nos. 2, 3). Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra conducted by Neeme Järvi. Chandos. $18.99 (2 CDs).

Stravinsky: The Rake’s Progress. Jayne West, Jon Garrison, Arthur Woodley, John Cheek, Shirley Love, Wendy White; Gregg Smith Singers and Orchestra of St. Luke’s conducted by Robert Craft. Naxos. $17.99 (2 CDs).

Here are three well-priced multi-CD sets that sound at least as good in these newly reissued forms as the performances did when originally released. Sir Neville Marriner’s version of the four Tchaikovsky orchestral suites – all composed between the Fourth and Fifth Symphonies, a time when Tchaikovsky also wrote his Manfred Symphony – is the oldest recording here, dating back to 1987. But it still sounds quite fine, and even though Marriner is not conducting his usual Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields in the suites, he elicits fine sound and excellent responsiveness from the Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart. Marriner and his Academy are together for the three overtures on the third CD in the set, which were recorded in 1991 and 1992. All the performances are very well paced and nicely scaled – the largest and most symphonic movement in the suites, the final Tema con variazoni of No. 3, is as big, loud and brassy as anyone could wish, while the much more modest proportions of the “Mozartiana” suite, No. 4, come across in a performance with fine balance and pleasant flow. Suites Nos. 1 and 2 are the least often heard of the four, but Marriner does not give them short shrift, and in fact uncovers considerable beauty in No. 1 and a fine sense of bounce and drive in No. 2. Romeo and Juliet, Francesca da Rimini and Capriccio Italien all resound with enthusiasm, with the last of them making a very upbeat, encore-like finale to the set. The only real negative here is a set of booklet notes that is truly execrable, featuring inaccuracies, poor translation and omission of any discussion at all of Romeo and Juliet or Capriccio Italien. Luckily, information on these familiar pieces is readily available elsewhere.

It is the controlling hand of Neeme Järvi – conducting the wonderful Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra rather than the Gothenberg Symphony with which he is more closely associated – that provides the continuity in the set of Prokofiev piano concertos, which feature equally virtuosic performances by two different pianists. Boris Berman’s three contributions date to 1989, Horacio Gutiérrez’ two to 1990. This was a period in which Järvi was quite intensely involved with the Gothenberg ensemble, which he led from 1982 to 2004; but he clearly rose to the occasion of directing the Royal Concertgebouw, a stronger and better-balanced orchestra with especially excellent brass. Both Berman and Gutiérrez are easily equal to the challenges of Prokofiev – or rather, both make it seem easy to surmount these works’ considerable difficulties. And both seem to relish the many purely virtuosic displays of these concertos while also enjoying a bit of respite in the slower and more delicate passages (of which, admittedly, there are not many). Berman’s readings may be very slightly more idiomatic and a touch more attuned to Prokofiev’s frequent sarcastic passages than those of Gutiérrez, but both pianists clearly understand this music deeply and play it with considerable flair.

There is flair of a different kind in Robert Craft’s handling of Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress. This 1993 recording is as significant in its way as Stravinsky’s own Metropolitan Opera version of 40 years earlier. Craft was intensely involved with the creation of this opera – he provides some fascinating biographical and autobiographical details in his booklet notes – and he is at least as strong a conductor as Stravinsky himself, wonderfully bringing forth the composer’s irregular rhythms and his sensitive instrumentation. All the solo performers fit their roles very well indeed, with tenor Jon Garrison as Tom Rakewell especially well contrasted with soprano Jayne West as Anne Trulove; with bass-baritone John Cheek bringing just the right mixture of appeal and menace to Nick Shadow; and with mezzo-soprano Wendy White unusually affecting as Baba the Turk. The Gregg Smith Singers are a big reason for this performance’s success – they are as enthusiastic as they are attuned to the music. And the Orchestra of St. Luke’s has a textural transparency that helps Stravinsky’s musical lines come through with wonderful clarity and in excellent balance with the voices – although there is no libretto provided, the singing is so easy to hear and understand that none is necessary (and the summary of the action is excellent). This latest entry in the Naxos Robert Craft Collection confirms yet again, if further confirmation is needed, that Craft is the pre-eminent post-Stravinsky conductor of the music of the man with whom he worked intimately for more than 20 years.

(++++) KEYBOARDS, ALONE AND PAIRED

2009-06-11T08:31:00.000-04:00

Ives: Variations on “America”; Adeste Fidelis; Fugues in E flat major and C minor; Copland: Preamble (For a Solemn Occasion); Cowell: Hymn and Fuguing Tune No. 14; William Grant Still: Reverie; Barber: Prelude and Fugue; Wondrous Love; Stephen Paulus: Triptych. Iain Quinn, organ. Chandos. $18.99.

Scriabin: Poèmes, Valses et Danses. Xiayin Wang, piano. Naxos. $8.99.

George Onslow: Sonatas Nos. 1 and 2; Reger: From “Six Burlesques,” Nos. 4-6; Wagner: Polonaise in D; Liszt: Grand Valse di Bravura; Grieg: From “Norwegian Dances,” Nos. 2-3; Balakirev: Suite for Piano Four-Hands. Elizabeth Buccheri and Richard Boldrey, piano duettists. Cedille. $11.99.

Debussy: Sonata for Violin and Piano; Schubert: Fantasie in C for Violin and Piano; Bartók: First Rhapsody; Jörg Widmann: Étude V for Solo Violin; Astor Piazzolla: Le Grand Tango. Sinn Yang, violin; Marco Grisanti, piano; Harald Oeler, accordion. Oehms. $16.99.

Léon de Saint-Lubin: Grand Duo Concertant; Fantasie sur un theme de Lucia di Lammermoor; Thème original et Étude de S. Thalberg; Adagio religioso; Potpourri on themes from Auber’s “La Fiancée”; Salonstücke, Op. 47, Nos. 1 and 2. Anastasia Khitruk, violin; Elizaveta Kopelman, piano. Naxos. $8.99.

There is no instrument with a greater range than that of the modern keyboard: 11 octaves on a piano and potentially even more on an organ. Indeed, Iain Quinn takes full advantage of the 61-note manual compass and 32-note pedal compass of the organ of England’s Coventry Cathedral for his fascinating CD of some very American music. Quinn has made an excellent selection of better-known works and little-known ones, including some recording premieres. He has a real way with the music of Charles Ives, presenting Variations on “America” with great flair, and including the two ad lib bitonal interludes that Ives added to the piece two decades after he originally wrote it. The other Ives works here, all early ones, have their own charms, with the surprising end of the Fugue in E flat major being particularly characteristic. Quinn brings his fine sense of style and proportion to all the organ works on this CD, from Barber’s well-structured, rather Romantic prelude and fugue to Cowell’s fairly bouncy fugal work, from William Grant Still’s effective miniature Reverie to Barber’s serious but not overly solemn Wondrous Love variations. The CD is particularly nicely laid out, opening with Copland’s Preamble, created in connection with the Declaration of Human Rights, and ending with Stephen Paulus’ Triptych, inspired by hymn texts and written in 2000 for the 150^th anniversary of the House of Hope Presbyterian Church in St. Paul, Minnesota.

The layout of Xiayin Wang’s CD of Scriabin piano music is interesting, too: it opens with two waltzes written when the composer was 14, in 1886, and ends with two dances he completed shortly before his death in 1915. Between these bookends are a polonaise, a fantasy, several poèmes and a few other types of piano works. Most are quite brief: the Fantaisie in B minor, the longest piece on the CD, runs less than 10 minutes, with several other works running only a little more than a minute. Scriabin was not essentially a miniaturist, so this CD presents a somewhat skewed view of his compositions, but it is certainly very well played, and it does show some of the ways in which his style evolved from the Chopinesque to the mystical. Wang is a sensitive pianist as well as a technically adept one, and she brings a great deal of style and color to what is essentially a very personal recital.

There is style and color as well in the two-piano works performed by Elizabeth Buccheri and Richard Boldrey and recently reissued by Cedille. Originally recorded in 1978 and 1985, these pieces sound very good indeed in remastered form, with George Onslow’s two sonatas (in E minor and F minor) being especially interesting. The “big names” on the CD, Wagner and Liszt, are represented by pleasant display pieces, but much of the charm here lies elsewhere, notably in Balakirev’s three-movement Suite for Piano Four-Hands. Cedille is a Chicago-focused company, and Buccheri and Boldrey were faculty members at that city’s North Park University when they began performing together. The music on this CD, though, has nothing provincial about it, although it does lean somewhat in the direction of salon pieces – especially in the selections by Reger and Grieg.

The piano assumes the role of accompaniment in the works by Debussy, Schubert, Bartók and others performed by violinist Sinn Yang. Yet the keyboard’s range still comes through very effectively on this CD, which – like the piano disc by Xiayin Wang – comes across as a personal recital. Yang handles the standard-repertoire works here skillfully but a trifle perfunctorily: there is not as much stylistic difference among Schubert’s classicism, Debussy’s impressionism and Bartók’s folkloric modernism as there might be, although pianist Marco Grisanti offers very strong backup in all the works. Where Yang clearly comes into her own is in Jörg Widmann’s solo-violin work, written in homage to Paganini’s Caprice No. 6 – this is all flash and dash, and Yang clearly enjoys tossing it off. And Astor Piazzolla’s Le Grand Tango is a real delight in this arrangement for violin and accordion, prepared by Harald Oeler and played by him with great enthusiasm and a fine sense of rhythm.

The new CD of music by Léon de Saint-Lubin (1805-1850) is also for violin and piano, but here the focus is clearly on the composer rather than on the personal preferences of the performers. Saint-Lubin was a famed virtuoso in his time, and wrote in all the accepted forms of the day: fantasies and variations on opera tunes, potpourris, large-scale chamber works and salon pieces aplenty. The Grand Duo Concertant, the most substantial work here, is well structured and musically effective, if not particularly original; the remaining pieces are pleasant to hear and filled with virtuoso opportunities for the violin and, to a lesser extent, the piano. Anastasia Khitruk and Elizaveta Kopelman pace the works well and toss the themes back and forth with aplomb. There is no profundity on this CD, but there is plenty of enjoyment.

(++++) CARTOONING WITH A PURPOSE

2009-06-04T08:47:00.000-04:00

Being a Pig Is Nice: A Child’s-Eye View of Manners. By Sally Lloyd-Jones. Drawn by Dan Krall. Schwartz & Wade. $16.99.

Ocean’s Child. By Christine Ford and Trish Holland. Illustrated by David Diaz. Golden Books. $15.99.

The Amazing Spider-Man: The Lizard’s Legacy; Clash with the Rhino; Spider-Man versus Electro; Spider-Man versus Kraven. HarperFestival: $4.99 (Lizard); $3.99 (Rhino). HarperTrophy: $3.99 each (Electro; Kraven).

The drawings add immeasurably to the appeal of all these books – but wow, are they different! Dan Krall’s pictures for Being a Pig Is Nice clearly show the influence of Cartoon Network, where Krall has worked on a number of shows. In fact, the little girl who roams through the book, thinking of all the great animals she could be so she wouldn’t have to deal with etiquette, looks a lot like the annoying sister, Dee Dee, on Dexter’s Laboratory, which is one show in which Krall has participated. Unlike that program, though, Being a Pig Is Nice is a “message” book – albeit a decidedly soft-pedaled one. The message, of course, is that it’s good to have manners; and Sally Lloyd-Jones makes that clear not by preaching but by having the girl discover it for herself. Krall’s hilarious pictures show a scrubbed, dressed-up pig being looked down upon as Very Rude because “you have to get muddy or you get in trouble.” But then the girl realizes that “when you’re a pig you smell and that’s not nice.” So how about being a snail, which has to “dawdle and crawl and trail behind and not keep up with the others”? But then you are slimy – again, not nice. And so it goes with the elephant that has to “squirt and splatter everyone and be very naughty in your bath,” and the monkey that must eat with fingers, “sit up crooked, elbows in [mom’s] face, fingers up your nose,” and so on. Each time the girl thinks of all the neat, unmannerly things she could be and do, she finds a flaw in her own idea – but what about being a monster? Now there’s a thought – which leads to a rather monstrous definition of manners that will have kids laughing at the end of the book (but that parents won’t want them to emulate!).

The pictures in Ocean’s Child, a sweet and loving bedtime book, are also a key to the work’s attractiveness; but their purpose is to lull, not excite. David Diaz makes his pictures flow with gentle curves and lines that mimic the restfulness of ocean waves, as the text by Christine Ford and Trish Holland has a pregnant mother and her young child, in the far north, paddling a canoe and saying goodnight to all the animals of the Arctic: walrus, dolphin, whale, polar bear and more. Each goodnight ends with the same refrain: “To Ocean’s children we say good night. Good night, little puffin [or other animal], good night.” And at the end, after the orca, seal, otter and albatross babies have drifted off to sleep, the mother enfolds her child “in a sea of her own quiet dreams” and lets the waves rock her gently to sleep. Rhythmically restful and illustrated with impressionistic beauty, Ocean’s Child is a lovely nighttime tale for young children in any climate.

You would expect the illustrations to be the main point of interest in a comic book, or in comic-book spinoffs – be they graphic novels, novelizations, easy readers, what-have-you – and in fact the pictures are the main thing in three of the four new books based on the adventures of Marvel’s redoubtable Spider-Man. The exception is The Lizard’s Legacy, in which John Sazaklis’ rather mundane illustrations take a back seat to Mark W. McVeigh’s story of the chaos caused when Dr. Curtis Connors is accidentally transformed into the evil Lizard. This novella is little troubled by the things that made Marvel superheroes distinctive from those of DC Comics (Superman, Batman, etc.): “superheroes with super problems” and “with great power comes great responsibility.” There is a slight family angle to the Lizard’s tale – Dr. Connors’ transformation endangers his son, Billy – but by and large, this is a straightforward bang-up adventure, worth a (+++) rating for Spider-Man fans ages 7-10. The three other new Spider-Man books also get (+++) ratings for their intended audiences. Clash with the Rhino, by Jennifer Christie, is for ages 3-7, with ample and simple illustrations by Andie Tong. The battles with Electro and Kraven are Level 2 books in the “I Can Read!” series. Both are written by Susan Hill; Electro’s illustrations are credited to MADA Design and Kraven’s to Tong. With their few words, very fast-paced stories and big, bright pictures, these short books will appeal to kids ages 4-8 who are already committed Spidey fans.

(++++) TWO CATS AND A PICKLE

2009-06-04T08:44:00.000-04:00

Sugar Would Not Eat It. By Emily Jenkins. Illustrated by Giselle Potter. Schwartz & Wade. $16.99.

Catmagic. By Holly Webb. Scholastic. $5.99.

Magic Pickle and the Garden of Evil. By Scott Morse. Graphix/Scholastic. $5.99.

Cats are not human. This is not big news, and should not be news at all. But sometimes people treat cats as if they are human – and that can be amusing, troubling or, as in the case of Sugar Would Not Eat It, instructive. Emily Jenkins’ book is about a charming little kitten – adorably rendered by Giselle Potter – who turns up on the steps in front of Leo’s building the day after Leo’s birthday. Leo happily adopts the kitten, takes her up to his family’s apartment, and names her Sugar. The kitten plays and naps and then is hungry, so Leo generously offers her the last piece of his birthday cake – but Sugar won’t eat it. Concerned, Leo asks advice of a number of adults in the neighborhood, none of whom appears to have any familiarity whatsoever with kittens or what they eat (this requires a larger-than-usual suspension of disbelief, but that may not be difficult for children ages 4-8 – the book’s target age range). One man says he was always told to eat in order to grow up big and strong, so Leo tries telling Sugar that – to no avail. Another man says his mother used to talk about how long it took her to make food – so Leo tries explaining that to Sugar, who still won’t eat the cake. A woman says she was not allowed to leave the table until she ate, so Leo tries telling that to Sugar – without effect. Nothing works (of course!); Leo gets frustrated; all the unhelpful adults warn Leo not to “give in” to Sugar’s refusal to eat the cake; the kitten gets sad; Leo gets sad, too, and starts to cry; and then, hungry himself, he gets himself some milk and a chicken sandwich. And guess what? Of course, Sugar leaps onto the counter, indulges in milk and chicken, purrs happily, and falls asleep in Leo’s lap. The book’s ending makes it clear that Leo still has a lot to learn about living with a kitten – but at least he has found out about feeding one. And Sugar has stayed adorable throughout.

The cats in Catmagic go beyond adorable into, well, magical. Holly Webb’s novel, first published last year and now available in paperback, is actually about lots of magical animals, starting with a dog that warns Lottie which way to go while the girl is being chased by some other girls who are just bored enough to be nasty. Lottie is spending the summer with Uncle Jack and cousin Danny, because Lottie’s mother has to go to Paris on a job assignment. Jack runs Grace’s Pet Shop, which is filled with all sorts of animals – including a passel of kittens. And everything in the shop, it turns out, is magical…for those who are sensitive to the magic. Lottie, it turns out, certainly is, and this proves quite a relief to Jack and Danny, who are pleased to have someone with whom to share the secret that all the shop’s animals can – talk. And plot and plan and make well-controlled mischief, too. Besides, as Uncle Jack explains, “There isn’t really a line between people who have magic and people who don’t. Sometimes you just need to look deep down.” And Lottie does just that, finding unexpected depths in herself – and in a stray kitten she rescues from the same girl bullies who had come after her. Enter a witch named Ariadne, looking for a new familiar so her old one can retire, and strange things are bound to happen – and so they do, things both strange and wonderful. Animal lovers will especially enjoy this book, which often manages to be funny and heartwarming at the same time – and which has already spawned a sequel, not surprisingly called Dogmagic.

The magic is altogether sillier in Scott Morse’s series of sort-of-graphic-novels about Magic Pickle and his sidekick, Jo Jo Wigman. The pugnacious pickle, also known as Weapon Kosher, fights members of the Brotherhood of Evil Produce through his spectacular powers and unending groaners of puns. Morse’s newest pickle book, Magic Pickle and the Garden of Evil, gets a (+++) rating as a formulaic bit of fun. It reintroduces such characters as Squish Squash, Chili Chili Bang Bang and – in particular – the Romaine Gladiator, a previously vanquished lettuce-head who reemerges thanks to some super-grow food that Jo Jo wins from the Magic Pickle by beating him at checkers (hey, this doesn’t have to make sense). The evil lettuce and the Phantom Carrot, who has escaped from Magic Pickle’s prison in Capital Dill, make all sorts of trouble with a fused-prong fork that brings a bit of monstrous greenery to life, until – well, let’s just say the solution to this problem is very, very bunny. Funny. Whatever. Magic Pickle’s antics come through nicely in Morse’s books, which are part narrative with pictures and part comic strip (or graphic novel, if you prefer). And Morse does great sound effects: not many authors would dare to come up with “SHA – ZORRRKKK!!” Nor should they. But here, it works, because the whole premise is just prickly…err, pickly enough.