POETRY SPEAKS WHO I AM
Edited by Elise Paschen.
Jabberwocky/Sourcebooks. $19.99. (Ages 12 to 16)
A kind of sequel to “Hip Hop Speaks to Children,” this volume of verse is aimed at teenagers and is, not surprisingly, full of strong emotion, from Sylvia Plath’s “Mad Girl’s Love Song,” an incantatory poem in which the speaker is kissed “quite insane,” to Alan Dugan’s “How We Heard the Name,” where a river brings down “dead horses, dead men / and military debris, / indicative of war / or official acts upstream.” It’s a standout collection, packaged with a CD of the poems read aloud, many by the poets themselves.
SAVING THE BAGHDAD ZOO
A True Story of Hope and Heroes.
By Kelly Milner Halls with Maj. William Sumner.
Greenwillow/HarperCollins. $17.99. (Ages 8 and up)
During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, one of the many casualties in Baghdad was the city’s zoo. When United States troops arrived, they found only 32 of the original 500 animals alive, and most were starving. (The soldiers started by feeding them military-issue M.R.E.’s — Meals Ready to Eat.) The account of how the Iraqi zookeepers and Americans cooperated to bring the zoo back to life is hampered by cumbersome sidebars, but it’s a good story nonetheless.
MY GARDEN
Written and illustrated by Kevin Henkes.
Greenwillow/HarperCollins. $17.99. (Ages 2 to 7)
Even down to the endpapers (silvery outlines of sunflowers against blue), Henkes’s new book is a luminous wonder. A girl, her mother’s helper in a flourishing garden, imagines what her own garden would look like: “The flowers could change color just by my thinking about it. . . . The rabbits wouldn’t eat the lettuce because the rabbits would be chocolate, and I would eat them.” The imagery suggests the powers of the imagination, but it should also spur children to get outside among the flower beds.
NIBBLES
A Green Tale.
Written and illustrated by Charlotte Middleton.
Marshall Cavendish. $17.99. (Ages 4 to 8)
This eco-fable gets a lift from cheerful mixed-media illustrations and cute guinea pig characters (they seem to have real tufts of wiry fur and wear brightly patterned outfits). When dandelions, the guinea pigs’ favorite food, begin disappearing, munched to “nothing more than bitten-down stalks,” it’s up to Nibbles to rescue the last plant so new seeds can fly through the air, nearly 3-D, on a beautifully evocative spread.
SHAKE, RATTLE AND TURN THAT NOISE DOWN!
How Elvis Shook Up Music, Me and Mom.
Written and illustrated by Mark Alan Stamaty.
Knopf. $17.99. (Ages 5 to 8)
With characteristic wit, Stamaty has written a high-energy cartoon memoir about his discovery, in third grade, of Elvis and rock ’n’ roll. The art depicting the climactic encounter, thanks to a new radio, almost overflows the margins with bold type and portraits of other music greats who led the way. In the end, even the artist’s mother comes around.
THE INCORRIGIBLE CHILDREN OF ASHTON PLACE
The Mysterious Howling.
By Maryrose Wood. Illustrated by Jon Klassen.
Balzer & Bray/HarperCollins. $15.99. (Ages 8 to 12)
After Penelope, a plucky governess who’s just 15, arrives at Ashton Place, she wonders why the coachman seems to be watching her. Also, what’s that howling in the barn? She’s uncovered only one of those mysteries by the end of this first book in a new series. Plot twists out of Charlotte Brontë or Arthur Conan Doyle keep the action absorbing even while the narration is thoroughly tongue-in-cheek.
