Review by New York Times Review
Screams. Tears. Meltdowns. New picture books let bad behavior fly, with a bit of advice. when I was A kid, picture books lumped bad behavior into one catchall, gurgling vat. Like a chemical waste plant, it was kept securely out of sight and never dredged. Judy forever patted the bunny. She never yanked its tail. Sal never threw her blueberries in a rage. The girl who rescues Corduroy from an extended limbo in Home Décor and Bedding never screams, "Don't look at me!" or slams a door. In Dr. Seuss there is subversion, but it's the work of Grinches, cats, kangaroos and Things. Even the reigning king of kids breaking bad - Max in "Where the Wild Things Are" - is offstage when he commits the scorched-earth yelling at his mother that lands him alone in his room, starving. Today, children have the advantage of a spate of new books that don hazmat suits and deep-dive with blinding headlamps into that strange, muddy tank of disagreeable behavior, taking an unflinching look at what's drifting in the depths: the screams, the tears, the zigzag moods, the mental short-circuiting - everything that makes the childless scowl in airplanes and shame parents by asking: "How did you ever leave the house?" My 2-year-old, Winter's, worst conduct thus far has been mistaking Avalon, her 1year-old sister, for a toadstool. Granted, there have been several telenovela falls on the floor in protest of shoe removal, and an incident where Winter started running, without a word, then returned to inform me she'd "stormed off." But reading some of these books aloud to her felt akin to handing her "The Anarchist Cookbook." Would they lead to knowledge and enchantment or unleash her inner Jabez Dawes? Yet we plunged in. THE BEWITCHING THE OUTLAW (Groundwood, 32 pp., $17.95; ages 4 to 8), a debut picture book written and illustrated by Nancy Vo, uses spare drawings resembling silent-era film reels to narrate a frontier town's terror at the hands of an outlaw known by "his trail of misdeeds." ("What are misdeeds?" is a question you'd better have a good answer to.) The desperado appears as a wizened, gun-toting shadow slung across railroad tracks and in the scared whispers of shopkeepers and children. When the outlaw vanishes, then returns years later as a humble stranger quietly performing acts of repentance, a confrontation ensues, illuminating the murky fog of real-world forgiveness. Vo's gorgeous black-and white drawings repeat and invert, revealing a stark world of night and day and night. The ground, painted over a collage of old newspaper clippings, appears strewn with illegible print. The shops sell strange potions. ("What's laudanum?" was a question that thankfully went unasked.) The most magical part of the book, illustrating Vo's innate sense of story, is the separate tale of a child's naughty behavior that is followed by connection and kindness. This narrative unfolds exclusively in the illustrations, going unmentioned by the text, revealing how the most wondrous acts can go unnoticed, unless you look closer. IN PEOPLE DON'T BITE PEOPLE (Atheneum, 40 pp., $17.99; ages 2 to 6), Written by Lisa Wheeler and illustrated by Molly Idle, that Class-? preschool felony is faced head-on with the snappy verve of a 1950s toothpaste jingle: "It's good to bite a carrot. It's good to bite a steak. It's bad to bite your sister! She's not a piece of cake." The drawings are bright and no-nonsense, quickly removing, like ripping off a Band-Aid, the stigma of biting. The message is outlined and repeated in tick-tack-toe squares with plenty of illustrations and humor, straightforward, with a hint of Mary Poppins's intolerance for nonsense. "IT'S my birthday. So Boo! I hate all of you!" a little girl says in I hate everyone (POW!, 32 pp., $17.99; ages 2 to 6), Written by Naomi Danis and illustrated by Cinta Arribas. We are dropped into her mind during her birthday party, where the situation goes pear-shaped. "Take off the silly hats. Stop smiling. Stop laughing," she says. And: "You said it was my party. Goo goo. Go away." In bright pink, red and purple paintings, amid the text - squeezed in all caps - the big clueless beaming adults, all of whom recall the figures of Fernando Botero, go about their business, oblivious or unconcerned by the little girl blurting: "I hate you! Don't sing!" The book reads like a version of Whitman's barbaric yawp. It's wildly alive with the girl's unchecked bursts of word and emotion. The way she grasps at and simultaneously rejects love, wanting to be both acknowledged and left alone, is universal and timeless. The book exposes the slipperiness of what we so much believe to be true coupled with the shortcomings of the English language - German comes off better with words like fernweh (wanting to be anywhere but where you are) and fuchsteufelswild (gutting rage). It ends with the exhausted admission, "Somehow even while I am busy hating you... I love you." Tolstoy was after this realization, too, and it took him 1,000 pages. ANOTHER GIRL'S UNTETHERED imagination is unleashed in the superb out, out, AWAY FROM HERE (Flying Eye, 32 pp., $16.95; ages 3 to 6), written by Rachel Woodworth and illustrated by Sang Miao. Her bad mood is a slow burn. She scowls as she brushes her teeth and cries as her parents ignore her, fussing over a baby. The illustrations are vivid and misshapen, with bleeding Gauguin reds and a hint of Rousseau's overstuffed jungles. Things reach a boiling point after the girl's parents are seen in silhouette screaming at each other - to Miao's credit she doesn't temper the terror of the moment - and our heroine, unable to take it anymore, runs through a wooden door and takes refuge in her imagination. She is befriended by a fox, its fur the identical red of her hair, and wanders a forest in which fish have wings and mountains rise "for climbing and conquering." These mountains merge with the world that she fled - becoming "homework" and "messy rooms" and "uneaten carrots" - allowing her to overcome them and return home, relieved and happy. As it turned out, I learned more from these books than Winter did. Of course, she's still a little young to fully understand most of them: As a brand-new scientist exploring her world, she tends to look at all human behavior with uniform acceptance and curiosity. Biting, anger, tantrums - they're just curious little flowers strewn on her sidewalk, which she picks up, examines, then moves on. I, on the other hand, realized I needed to loosen the lid on my futile hope that she is always my happy little girl. Which led me to another eureka moment: Many adult Americans would do well to meander into the children's section of their local bookstore and take a look at books on bad behavior, to reacquaint themselves with the full emotional spectrum of being a person - for their sake and for others'. Because if " I hate you but I want you to love me" doesn't remind you of anyone, then stop reading. It's my party. Go away. ? maris ha PESSLS new novel is "Neverworld Wake."
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [June 17, 2018]
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
It's the young narrator's birthday, and she is a hot mess of emotions: "I hate you. Don't sing! Take off the silly hats. Stop smiling. Stop laughing." She insists that no one look at her-then dumps a bowl of snacks on her head to get attention. She complains about the sound of popping balloons, and then pops them herself. What's wrong? Aside from a hit of existential dread ("How old am I now? I am always too little. Unless I am too big"), she doesn't know-and Danis (Walk with Me) wisely withholds an explanation from readers, who have undoubtedly experienced similar Sturm und Drang. Arribas's stylish illustrations combine big solid shapes with thick, markerlike textures and tones and overlays (sometimes off-register) of reds and blues on crisp white fields. The bold, sophisticated artwork captures a child's sensibility and authentic rage, while at the same time reassuring readers there will be a light at the end of the tunnel. And sure enough, an adult intervenes, the girl realizes the contradictory nature of her own feelings ("Somehow even while I am busy hating you... Deep down... I love you!") and she's ready to hear everyone sing "Happy Birthday." Whew. Ages 4-6. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 2-It is her birthday, but this child is in quite a mood! A young girl is cranky and annoyed about all that is going on around her, even though it is her party. She hates balloons, people, and the dark-and is not afraid to say it. She is simply in the mood for a fight. But her struggle is internal as well, for as much as she says she doesn't want attention, she really does, and as much as she tells people to go away, she really wants them to stay. Her abrupt and bristly behavior is really a rough shell around her soft and loving center. The narrative is a little jarring and unanticipated at first, but as the story goes on, it is apparent that the young protagonist is just having a bad day. Tired, hungry, and overstimulated, she is having a difficult time managing her emotions, a feeling that many young readers may relate to. The wonderful thing is that the adults around her reassure her that they love her unconditionally, a positive message throughout the book. The big, blocky illustrations are done in shades of red, pink, and blue on a stark white background, creating a nice contrast much like the contrast of behaviors in the book. -VERDICT This is a title that parents and teachers will put pull out when a little one is in need of some breathing room or a little extra empathy and TLC.-Amy Shepherd, St. Anne's Episcopal School, Middleton, DE © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
It's my birthday. So boo! I hate all of you." The birthday girl unleashes what seems like a (hilariously) gratuitous torrent of rage, but as pages turn, her underlying insecurity peeks through (How old am I now? I am always too little). A brazen, totally-going-there picture book, with gangbusters red-and-purple art featuring people who are lumpy and incomplete, as if courtesy of a child's hand. (c) Copyright 2018. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A little girl experiences big feelings on her birthday.The protagonist's gender is implied by her dress and her bobbed hairstyle, and the first-person text immediately immerses readers in her negativity: "It's my birthday. So boo! I hate all of you." A scowling, up-close portrait of the pink-faced, dark-haired girl depicts her wearing a party hat and sticking her tongue out at the reader while clutching a stuffed toy. She's yelling on the next spread in the middle of a crowd of people, who all have the same pink skin. It's her party, and she'll yell if she wants to, is the gist of the story from this point until the last few pages. Throughout, everyone else is remarkably patient and unbothered by her bad behavior, and the text eschews verbal responses or omniscient narration. Expressive, gestural illustrations adopt a low visual perspective to emulate a child's point of view and end up stealing the show. But even their success can't smooth over the narrative gap when, on a pair of facing pages, the girl suddenly and resolutely changes her tune. "Go away!" she shouts on the verso; "No! Stay! Can you stay even if I hate you?" she says on the recto, reducing the book to spectacle rather than story. While perhaps true to life, this lightning-fast shift is unsatisfying, as it asks readers to accept her change of heart as passively as the long-suffering partygoers accepted her hatred.Not for everyone. (Picture book. 3-6) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
