The Twenty-One Balloons (1948)--William Pène du Bois

I found my attention waning and wandering a lot as I read this whimsical fantasy about the 1883 volcanic explosion of Krakatoa. Maybe it's because the light, comical handling of that event seemed tasteless in the wake of last week's disaster in Japan (since, you know, the explosion of Krakatoa actually did cause tsunamis that killed thousands of people). Or maybe it was the lack of any real character development or a truly captivating plot.

The Twenty-One Balloons just isn't that type of book. But it is short, and there are lots of pictures (drawn by du Bois himself).

Basically it's a fanciful narrative told by Professor William Waterman Sherman, a retired schoolteacher who wants to get away from the bustle and bother of the world for a while by taking a nice, slow trip around the world in his hot-air balloon. He designs quite an elaborate little basket "house" for maximum comfort on his journey (and goes into quite a bit of detail describing all its attributes). Alas, he's only aloft for a few days when a seagull rips a big hole in his balloon, all his possessions fall into the sea, and he crash-lands on Krakatoa. Turns out the island is secretly inhabited by refined, English-speaking people in impeccably clean pastel clothing.

For a minute I really thought the book was going to turn into an 1880s version of that weird late-sixties TV show The Prisoner, but no. Instead there are lots and lots of descriptions of Krakatoan inventions and contraptions--complete with many Rube Goldberg-ish illustrations. And then the island blows up. Balloons, of course, save the day (at least for Sherman and the Krakatoans).

Up A Road Slowly (1967)--Irene Hunt

A rather flat coming-of-age story about a girl growing up in her spinster aunt's large country home. It's hard to imagine this one appealing to very many children, or even "young adults."

This is what it reminded me of. An elderly relative asks if you'd like to hear about her childhood, when she attended a one-room country schoolhouse. "Sure," you say, "that sounds interesting." You mean it, too. But then the elderly relative starts rambling on about the smelly mentally retarded girl she always had to sit next to, and how she and the other kids always tried to shun the stinky retard during recess, but later they all felt really bad about that because the poor dimwitted girl stepped on a rusty nail and died of tetanus. And then you sit there in awkward silence.

There's nothing wrong with historical fiction--however, this book tends to come across as merely outdated versus historical. Part of the problem: it's very hard to tell when exactly it takes place. 1930s maybe? 1940s? I'm unsure. And without a clear historical context, many of the lessons Julie learns--such as "a woman is never complete until she loves a man" (groan)--will probably strike most modern readers as simply odd vs. an accurate reflection of the times.

Strawberry Girl (1946)-- Lois Lenski

Strawberry Girl was still pretty popular when I was a kid, but I never read it, as I detested anything involving farms (no high-rise apartments with doormen? Not interested!). Reading the first few sentences, I regarded the southern dialect with great fear and loathing and wondered how I'd ever get through this book. Well, surprise! I actually enjoyed it quite a bit.

Unlike some authors (ahem, Monica Shannon), Lenski is able to present a vivid picture of life on a Florida farm--and work it into an actual plot! There are actually quite a few rather scandalous plot points: a teacher is severely beaten, the neighbor gets drunk and shoots the heads off all his chickens, a donkey is poisoned... of course, religious conversion solves everything in the end. Sigh.

Birdie, the story's heroine, is quite charming, though I think I would have found her really annoying when I was a kid--she's a little too good. I always preferred those flawed protagonists I could relate to (Ramona! Again! I will be bringing her up constantly, as I think she's pretty much the pinnacle of children's literature).

The View from Saturday (1997)--E.L. Konigsburg

Man oh man, I hated this book. Hated it. Didn't expect to--the same author wrote the thoroughly enjoyable From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. And in theory, the story of a group of intelligent, social-misfit kids finding each other and forming their own friendly circle sounds fine. But ugh, in practice it was totally insufferable. So much stilted dialogue. So much lazy writing (at least fifty inconsequential events, we're told, happened "Just. Like. That."). And symbolism so heavy-handed I think I was briefly knocked unconscious after getting hit over the head with it one too many times. (Example: at one of the kids' first gatherings, they sit down together and work on a jigsaw puzzle of a great big, warm and loving pink heart. Yes, really.)

Noah, the first kid introduced, was decently entertaining and rang pretty true as a 12-year-old. I'm afraid I can't say the same about any of his friends. (Nadia, whose schtick is never using contractions, was probably the most annoying and wooden, but believe me, she's got competition.) I have issues with "child genius" characters in general, though. They're such a cop-out. Authors who employ this type of character too often think they don't have to create an authentic child's voice; they can just make the little prodigy sound like a stiff adult, and if anyone questions this, they can say "oh, but she's really advanced for her age."

I was also turned off by the novel being centered around an Academic Bowl competition. Look, I'm no anti-intellectual…but seriously, who the hell cares about an Academic Bowl? Please do not expect this sort of event to have me on the edge of my seat with nail-biting suspense. Do not expect me to believe the cool middle school kids give a rat's ass who wins the Academic Bowl. And please do not expect me to find a scene in which the kids review flash cards with their teacher exciting.

God, the teacher. I haven't even mentioned her yet. So, all through the book, there's a big mystery dangling over our heads regarding the supposedly unorthodox method she used to pick the members of her winning Academic Bowl team. The mystical, turban-wearing father of the Indian kid on the team tells her he knows how she chose them, and the teacher is just astounded anyone could have possibly figured it out. Then, at long last, the big secret is revealed…

…and it turns out…

…she picked the four most studious, courteous students in her class. Oh my God!! Talk about a shocking twist!! Who would have ever guessed that?!?! It's gonna take me a week, at least, to wrap my mind around that one.

Roller Skates (1937)--Ruth Sawyer

This one's a bit of a head-scratcher. For the most part, I really liked it (and I think I would have as a child, too), but every once in a while the story veered way off into crazy territory and left me asking "WTF?" I think I'm just going to pretend those parts* didn't exist.

Anyway. Roller skates are a symbol of freedom in this children's novel set in New York City at the turn of the century. Ten-year-old Lucinda--a tomboyish, Anne of Green Gables-esque chatterbox--comes from a relatively well-to-do family and has always led a sheltered existence, carefully shepherded around by her nurse or governess. This year, however, her parents have gone to Italy and have arranged for her to stay with family friends who believe a young girl should be allowed much more independence. Thrilled to spend a year as an "orphan," Lucinda straps on her skates daily and explores the city, befriending all sorts of people from different social classes and ethnic backgrounds along the way. She's soon--much to the chagrin of her more conservative relatives--engaging in activities such as sharing a back-alley picnic with an Italian kid and a local bum.

Oh, and she also has an awesome-sounding homemade puppet theater she uses to put on elaborate shows. Love that!

*SPOILER ALERT:
Most glaring example? One day, on her way home from school, Lucinda decides to visit one of her friends, an Asian lady she calls "Princess Zayda" (OK, she also calls her a "heathen Chinee," but let's ignore that for now). So: la, la, la, Lucinda scampers up the stairs, enters the lady's apartment…and FINDS HER EFFING DEAD ON THE FLOOR, BLEEDING ALL OVER THE PLACE WITH A SWORD IN HER GUT. Lucinda runs off to a trusted adult in a neighboring apartment and tells him what she saw. He replies that he doesn't want to get a little girl involved with the law and a trial and all that messy business, so why doesn't she just go home and not mention this to anybody? So that's what she does. Of course, the trauma of having witnessed such a thing bothers her from time to time, but not enough for her to ever say anything about it to anyone. Seriously. W? T? F?

The Voyages of Dr. Dolittle (1923)--Hugh Lofting

These days, the 1923 winner is mostly notorious for its egregious racial slurs and ethnocentrism. And yep, the unabridged version is indeed pretty cringe-inducing. When the Doctor's pet monkey disguises himself in women's clothing, everyone on the streets thinks he's a "well-dressed Negress!" Ha ha ha! A large section of the book deals with Dolittle and his entourage exploring an island where the native "Red Indians" are so bumbling and backward they've never seen or heard of fire. Oh, those silly natives! And then there's the Doctor's good friend Bumpo, a barefoot African caricature who's trying to adopt the ways of nice educated Europeans, but just can't help feeling a little bit cannibalistic now and then. Oh, Bumpo, you crazy but lovable n-word, you!

You get the idea.

However, I actually won't denounce Lofting's picaresque talk-to-the-animals tale completely. Despite his unfortunate handling of all non-white characters, he does seem to be genuinely trying to make a noble point about the importance of getting along peacefully with those who are different. It's just that he only succeeds in making that point metaphorically--through the animal stories. As seen through the eyes of narrator Tommy Stubbins (the Doctor's young apprentice and quasi adopted son), Dolittle is a Jesus-y figure, performing a laundry list of seeming miracles and facilitating amazing new understandings between animals and humans.

At times, what with his condemnation of bullfighting and his adamant stance against keeping wild animals in captivity, Dolittle's a regular Peter Singer, ahead of his time. For a man who regularly converses with his pet pig, though, he sure eats a lot of sausage. (I guess those ground-up pigs died of old age?)

Maniac Magee (1991)--Jerry Spinelli

I really enjoyed this one! A book with many lengthy descriptions of baseball and football plays, clearly targeted toward a young male audience, would not normally be my thing. But Spinelli's style won me over immediately. The story of a runaway orphan kid searching for a home on the streets of a fictional Pennsylvania city--and becoming an inscrutable neighborhood legend in the process--is written in an appealing narrative voice that struck me as very Modern Mark Twain. Part realism, part tall-tale, part playground mythology. The language is inventive, evocative, and musical--it draws you right in.

Crispin: The Cross of Lead (2003)-- Avi

What?!? This was the best children's book of 2003?! The style is so, so, so clunky that the book was really hard to get through with all the eye-rolling I was forced to do. The book tries to evoke a feeling of the past with long-winded descriptions and bizarre sentence structure:

"....[H]e reached over and took up his sack and rummaged through it. From it he took three balls, each made of stitched leather. To my surprise he tossed the balls in the air. Instead of falling on the ground, they stayed in the air and rotated at his will, with only the smallest touch and encouragement of his fingers."

Juggling. He is describing juggling. I suppose this passage is meant to convey Crispin's wonder at such an amazing feat, but it really just makes him sound like a pompous ass. The plot was rather interesting at first (although an enticing anti-religion theme kind of fizzled out disappointingly), but I ultimately didn't care what happened because I seriously loathed Crispin's narrative voice (and consequently Crispin).

The Cat Who Went to Heaven (1931)-- Elizabeth Coatsworth

This book was not what I expected at all--it's all about Buddhism, not St. Peter, pearly gates, and whatnot. A brief synopsis: a poor artist and his housekeeper get a cat. A bigwig from the local temple asks the artist to paint a picture of the Buddha's death, which is a big honor and could lead to some serious cash. The artist thinks a lot about Buddha and paints lots of animals in the scene, but not the cat, because apparently Buddha has an issue with a long ago feline not paying the proper respect and cats are thus not allowed in heaven. However, the artist paints the cat into the picture anyway, because it indicates that it really wants to be in the scene and is apparently pious, as it declines to pee on the work in progress or claw it to shreds. The cat is so happy to be in the painting that it immediately dies of joy overload. Then the temple bigwig takes the painting and burns it because there's a cat in it and Buddha hates cats, dammit! The end.

The Cat Who Went to Heaven holds up pretty well; I would never have guessed it was written so long ago. What I find puzzling is that this was considered a book for children. What is a kid supposed to get out of it? I have no idea. Today, this reads like a fable about the creative process that would beloved by the dangly-earringed members of an Artist's Way discussion group.

Dear Mr. Henshaw (1984)--Beverly Cleary

This one takes about 90 minutes, tops, to read in its entirety. The rundown: in 2nd grade, a boy named Leigh Boggs writes a letter to his favorite author. He continues to write to Mr. Henshaw throughout elementary school, and also begins keeping a journal. The letters and journal entries chronicle Leigh's struggles with his peers at school and his coming to terms with his parents' divorce; they also show his evolution from a little kid penciling an awkward letter to a budding young writer discovering his own voice.

A decent little read, but honestly, it's no Ramona and Her Father or Ramona Quimby, Age 8. (Can you tell I'm bitter these two Cleary masterpieces were dubbed mere Newbery Honor Books?)

The Witch of Blackbird Pond (1959)--Elizabeth George Speare

So, I started off with an old favorite--or at least one I remember liking a lot when I was ten or so.

I particularly remembered this part, toward the beginning: our heroine, Katherine "Kit" Tyler, is confronted by a New Englander about the evils of slavery. Her reaction? Total bewilderment. It's 1687, slavery is normal to her, and she's never even remotely considered the rightness or wrongness of it before. This made an impression on me as a kid, because not many historical fiction authors for children allow their protagonists to hold any misguided or prejudicial ideas whatsoever. And that always bugged me, because I knew mustache-twirling villains weren't the only ones who accepted slavery, child labor, sexism, segregation, etc. in the past. I appreciated a book that respected my intelligence enough to show that.

After rereading it as an adult, I'd still say The Witch of Blackbird Pond does a pretty admirable job of handling the 17th century subject matter without sugar-coating too much. 16-year-old Kit grew up on her wealthy grandfather's plantation in Barbados; after falling on some hard times, she goes to live with Puritan relatives in Connecticut. She's a stranger in a strange land--dressed in silk instead of homespun, used to reading and lounging instead of grinding cornmeal and carding wool. We're given a pretty balanced portrayal of the Puritans. Pluses: their work ethic, familial closeness, literacy, and resourcefulness. Minuses: their church services each last about 5,000 hours, they don't have much of a sense of humor, and--oh, yeah--they're convinced anyone who's different is a witch deserving of exile or possibly execution.

I will say the ending of this book is way, way too pat. Everything works out perfectly for everyone! They're all happy! Yay!! It's not at all plausible. I'm not saying I would have preferred to see the main characters end up swinging from the gallows…but something showing the lasting effects of a witch hunt on the community would have been a lot more interesting.

The Higher Power of Lucky (2007)--Susan Patron

This book owes a great debt to Beverly Cleary's Ramona series, and that's just fine by me. Lucky's basically a somewhat grittier Southwestern Ramona with more backstory. The plot is not terribly innovative (how many kids' books have had a "running away because of a big misunderstanding" storyline?), but the details keep you reading. The characters well-defined with just the right amount of quirk.

Dobry (1935)--Monica Shannon

Well, I sure picked a clunker to begin with. While I didn't hate this book, I found little in it that would be appealing to actual children; it's more like the kind of book that adults find charming and then foist upon children, who would much rather read a story in which something exciting happens. For while Dobry and his grandfather are filled with Zorba-the-Greek-ish zest for living, very little actually happens. They go to the mill to grind flour once, and there's much excitement about a gypsy bear that massages the village men's backs by walking on them (I have questions). And that's about it for action.

My main complaint about this book is that it's billed as being about Bulgarian peasant life, except we learn very little about it, except that the men wear large sashes and everyone's really into that bear.