More Bones: Scary Stories from Around the World

A haunted bell, made from the armor of a cruel baron who was murdered by the peasants of his village, which foretells disasters. A beautiful woman whose suitors are flee from her, screaming, when she is alone with them. A school of magic with a terrible price. An angry mermaid that grants wishes that turn back upon the fisherman who angered her.

You’ll find these and other frightening folk tales in More Bones: Scary Stories from Around the World by Arielle North Olson and Howard Schwartz. This book retells 22 stories from diverse places, such as Ireland, Germany, Egypt, Spain, Japan, China, and more.

This book is very much in the vein of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, though aimed at a slightly older audience, and with somewhat less frightening illustrations drawn by E. M. Gist. Also like that book, More Bones includes a bibliography listing the sources of the stories retold within. This is a nice feature, especially since the books are generally old enough to be in the public domain, like Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry by W. B. Yeats.

The stories are something of a mixed bag. Some of them are quite good, if simple, like “Youth Without Age” or “The Severed Head,” while others are fairly dull, like “The Haunted Violin.” There are more hits than misses, though.

Some of the artwork is close to being as frightening as that in Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, though I don’t like it quite as well. This may just be a result of nostalgia, though–the illustrations are good.

More Bones is a great book for someone who wants something a little more mature than Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, and the bibliography will provide plenty of additional stories, for those who are interested. Definitely pick it up if you’re interested in scary folk tales.

For those who prefer ebooks, More Bones is available for the Kindle, too.

Barbie and The Rockers: The Fan

Delia wins a contest to spend a weekend with Barbie and The Rockers, for her essay “What Music Means to Me.” Delia is to try out for a place at the Los Angeles High School of Music, and has been practicing hard with her violin. When she sees the glamorous lifestyle of The Rockers, though, she decides she’ll give up violin and learn to play guitar, so she can join the band. The Rockers show Delia that being in a rock band isn’t all fun, though–it’s a lot of hard work, too. So, Delia decides to keep practicing with her violin, and The Rockers promise her a seat at any of their concerts.

Barbie and The Rockers: The Fan, written by Teddy Slater and illustrated by Tom Tierney, features characters from the popular Barbie toys. My summary above makes the book sound like a pretty good book for kids, but it’s got some problems, too.

First, the book (like the toys, I suppose) implies that the kind of ‘glamorous’ clothing worn by the band is something that Delia (and, by proxy, all girls) should be envious of, and that they should feel that ordinary clothing is inadequate. It says that Delia “was dazzled by the glittering clothes and couldn’t help comparing them with her own skirt and sweater. She felt painfully plain–especially when Derek’s eyes lit up at the sight of Diva modeling one of the outfits.” But Delia is wearing a perfectly nice outfit. One might expect the book to give the lesson that it’s not necessary to dress in flashy clothing, and that it’s the person, not the clothes, that matters, but it doesn’t. The message from the book is that Delia is right to be ashamed of her (relatively) simple clothing, and that if girls want to attract the eyes of someone like Derek, they must also dress in fancy clothing. Bad lesson.

As for the lesson that it’s hard work being in a rock band: well, that’s true, but that’s all the lesson is. They just have Delia watch them spend a few hours trying to record an album, and she decides that it’s too much work, and that’s that. They mention that when Delia has a violin concert, they want tickets, because they’re fans of her, too, but that just comes out of the blue. The book doesn’t really push the message that Delia’s hard work practicing with the violin is also valuable, or anything like that. The book just says that being in a rock band and wearing expensive clothing is way better than anything else, but you have to spend time recording music in order to do it. And… that’s it.

The art is weird. The characters are often in very odd poses, with strange facial expressions. Delia has a pretty much continuous blush, and everyone tends to have an odd open-mouthed look, all the time. And their outfits and hair are just hilarious.

Barbie and The Rockers: The Fan isn’t wholly unsalvageable, but it misses plenty of opportunities for good lessons, and seems to teach very bad lessons. I can’t recommend this one.

The Berenstain Bears in the Freaky Funhouse

It’s summer, and Brother and Sister Bear, Cousin Fred, and Queenie McBear can’t agree on what to do. Luckily for them, the circus comes to town. In order to raise money for a new hospital wing, Ralph Ripoff has asked his friend, Captain Billy, to bring his circus to town, and share the profits with Dr. Gert Grizzly, for the hospital. But something seems crooked about this circus. Will the cubs uncover the truth about the circus and save the new hospital wing, or will they be sleeping with the fishes?

The Berenstain Bears in the Freaky Funhouse by Stan and Jan Berenstain is a children’s chapter book starring the Berenstain Bears. Unlike the picture books, which feature full-page, full-color illustrations, this book features mostly smaller, black-and-white illustrations, plus a few full-page, black-and-white illustrations.

The art is pretty good, even without any color. The expressions on the bears’ faces are, as usual for a Berenstain Bears book, odd, but this time the strange expressions are evil grins on the bad guys’ faces, so that’s fine. There are plenty of great illustrations of the circus, including the crooked games. Seeing Cousin Fred struggle to lift the weighted bottle is great.

The story is pretty good. The mystery of exactly who is cheating whom, and how the cubs will save the hospital wing, is very nice, for a children’s book, but the bears’ acting as the authors’ voices is, as usual, annoying. It’s inconsistent, too: here, Cousin Fred insists that video games will rot your brain, and he’d rather do anything than play games, but in The Berenstain Bears Count Their Blessings, we learn that Cousin Fred has a large video game collection, which Brother Bear is jealous of. Of course, in that book, Mama complains about Brother’s desire for video games, so we get an anti-gaming message, either way.

It’s also a bit irritating when Mama insists that she will not tolerate cubs gossiping about grown-ups, and then she and Papa immediately proceed to do exactly that. I’d initially thought that it was going to be a lesson for Papa, that grown-ups, too, shouldn’t talk about others behind their backs, but, no, it was just a lesson that kids should never question adults. Later, when a whole group of the adults are gossiping about Dr. Gert and Ralph, and Sister interjects with a comment, Mama again scolds her for gossiping. It’s just hypocrisy, frankly.

But there are some good lessons in there, too. Always read things before you sign them, for one. Be wary of anyone that claims they’re doing evil for good reasons, for another. Don’t trust carnival games, too.

The Berenstain Bears in the Freaky Funhouse is a fun book. I spent about twenty minutes reading it, so it might provide an hour or two of good entertainment for a child, especially given the interesting illustrations. Definitely a good book for fans of the Berenstain Bears.

The Girl in the Painting

Carla is the new girl at school, and somehow she’s been voted to be in the auction for the Fall Ball. The rumor is that it must be a joke being played on her by Troy Lester and his friends, and Carla agrees. After all, she’s no prize, or so she imagines. But when Troy bids on her–and wins–at the auction, she’s not sure what to do.

Though my last experience with romance novels was somewhat less than satisfactory, I thought I’d give them another shot, though I didn’t want to commit too much time to being so fair-minded. So, I read The Girl in the Painting by Eve Bunting, a “Fastback Romance.” Despite being bound as a single book, it’s really more of a short story–a little more than five thousand words, I guess.

The story was written in 1978, and I don’t know if it’s just me, or that time marches on, but the way the girls were talking about being sold in the auction, and fetching a good price, was distinctly creepy to me. It was also weird that Carla skipped a class to go home and do housework while she tried to decide what to do. Okay, sure, I might clean a room when I’ve got something on my mind, too, but frankly, after all the talk of selling the girls, it just struck me as having unfortunate implications.

These things aside, though, the story isn’t bad. Bunting manages to fit in a little moral ambiguity in the 37 pages of The Girl in the Painting: as it turns out, initially, Troy did have Carla voted into the auction as a joke, but he came to see that she was an interesting person, and ‘bought’ her because he really wanted to go to the ball with her. There’s complication, provided by Lorraine, and the resolution is fairly satisfying.

One further note, regarding the cover. The two people on the cover don’t match Carla and Troy (who I suppose they’re meant to be) at all. Neither is wearing glasses, and, frankly, there’s no way the girl on the cover could be mistaken for being unattractive. I suppose they wanted the cover to be appealing, to sell the book, but it’s a shame, given that the message of the book is that it’s what’s below the surface that counts.

The Girl in the Painting is a decent, quick read, if you can find it, though I wouldn’t go out of my way to get a copy. It reminds me of the short stories that filled the anthologies we used in English classes in middle school–not a bad thing, but nothing worth writing home about, either.

My Visit to the Dinosaurs

What were the dinosaurs like? What did they eat? How do we know about them?

In My Visit to the Dinosaurs by Aliki, a Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out Science Book, children can learn about the different kinds of dinosaurs, with information both about the dinosaurs themselves, and how we come to know about them, through fossils.

This one is good, but I don’t like it as well as the other two books in this series that I’ve reviewed, Ducks Don’t Get Wet and What Makes Day and Night. The illustrations are nice, but the book is more like a collection of trivia than the other two. Still, it’s quite a good book for kids.

I’d recommend My Visit to the Dinosaurs especially for kids interested in dinosaurs, but anyone might find it interesting. It’s a solid children’s picture book, well worth reading.

Ducks Don’t Get Wet

What do different kinds of ducks eat? Why do ducks fly south for the winter? Are ducks very good swimmers? And, when they do swim, why don’t ducks get wet?

The curious child will learn plenty about ducks from Ducks Don’t Get Wet, a Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out Science Book by Augusta Goldin, illustrated by Leonard Kessler.

Like What Makes Day and Night, Ducks Don’t Get Wet is interesting and informative, and the illustrations, though sometimes a little odd, go well with the text. Also like What Makes Day and Night, Ducks Don’t Get Wet includes some experiments children can do at home to help them understand why ducks, as the book says, don’t get wet.

There’s a newer edition than mine with illustrations by Helen K. Davie. It looks to have much more realistic illustrations, compared to Kessler’s version, but it seems a shame to miss the strangeness of Kessler’s illustrations. Either version should be good, though.

Ducks Don’t Get Wet is another wonderful book in the Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out Science Books series, and a great choice for children. It’s educational and fun–you can’t go wrong!

What Makes Day and Night

Why is it sometimes night, and other times day? Why does the sun seem to move across the sky? Does the moon have day and night?

These questions (and a few more) are answered in a clear and understandable fashion by the excellent children’s picture book What Makes Day and Night by Franklyn M. Branley, illustrated by Arthur Dorros.

What Makes Day and Night is a Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out Science Book, which explains that the Earth is round, and rotates once a day, causing the apparent movement of the sun across the sky, and therefore causing day and night. This explanation is accompanied by great illustrations, as well as a beautiful photograph of Earth, taken from the Apollo 17 spacecraft, which help make these basic science facts accessible to the young reader.

I’d highly recommend What Makes Day and Night for young children. It encourages curiosity and a rational view of the world, excellent accomplishments for any children’s book.

How to be a Grouch

Ever wondered how to be a grouch, like Oscar from Sesame Street? Well, with the help of How to be a Grouch by Caroll Spinney, you can learn from the best–Oscar himself!

How to be a Grouch is a guide to everything the prospective grouch needs to know: what to eat; where to go on vacation; how to start your day so you can be grouchy right from the get-go; and plenty of other useful information, like grouchy modes of transportation and how to recognize different kinds of grouches.

The illustrations in How to be a Grouch are hilarious and excellent, and the book is full of funny grouchy things, like the Grouch Trashplane or the suggested foods, like hot beef stew with chocolate gravy in a melon–quite a (disgusting) mouthful!

How to be a Grouch is a wonderful book not just for fans of Sesame Street, but for anyone who’d like a funny and beautifully illustrated children’s picture book.

The Big Snow

Some animals leave for warmer climates when winter approaches, while others store up food or prepare in other ways. When a big snow comes and covers up all the food, the animals must rely on the kindness of an old man and woman who feed them to help them through the harsh winter.

The Big Snow by Berta and Elmer Hader is a children’s picture book which receive the Caldecott Medal in 1949. It tells of how different animals prepare for the coming winter, and how they survive after a big snow.

The art is charming. Some pages are black-and-white, done in pencil, while others contain watercolors. The penciled illustrations are quite detailed, and the watercolors are lovely, too.

Although the animals are ultimately secure, I think it’s a little sad that all their preparation was for naught. It makes the deer, who believed that there would be food for all, growing plentifully, seem quite foolish. Then again, they are just animals.

The Big Snow is an excellent children’s book, featuring many creatures, beautifully illustrated. Definitely recommended.

Passage

Brett is working as an English teacher in Vanuatu when the news comes of the plauge in America. His Bislama isn’t so good, but the word is that in America, people are eating one another.

“Passage” by Lavie Tidhar is a slice of life, with a (distant, unseen) zombie plague. At a little over a thousand words, there’s not much time for plot or development–we just see a series of glimpses into Brett’s life as he deals with his changing situation.

It’s a little unsatisfying, but the message is clear: even with a zombie apocalypse in America, life goes on. After all, what can you do?