(++++) TERRORS OF OTHER WORLDS – AND THIS ONE

Bone, Book Six: Old Man’s Cave. By Jeff Smith. Graphix/Scholastic. $18.99.

Encyclopedia Horrifica. By Joshua Gee. Scholastic. $14.99.

      The amazing Bone series becomes a full-fledged epic of war and adventure in the sixth of its nine books, and the color work by Steve Hamaker complements Jeff Smith’s story and art to an even greater extent than it has before. The original nine-volume Bone tale was published as comics, in black and white, and the art was highly impressive then, with Smith paying particular attention to light and shadow – neatly complementing his story of good and evil and shifting or uncertain loyalties. In the reprint series from Scholastic’s Graphix division, with Hamaker providing color throughout, the art is less eerily atmospheric but far more striking, and often beautiful. But it is the story that will bring readers to Smith’s work, and that story continues to develop depth and resonance with every new book. The people of the Valley are unwillingly at war in Old Man’s Cave, as Rat Creatures swarm from their mountain lair to overrun human civilization and destroy the townspeople’s homes. Key characters are separated: Thorn, who has been revealed as a princess; Gran’ma Ben, now known to be the former queen of the land; Lucius, long the protector of both but now of questionable loyalty; and the Bones – white, puffy, doughlike characters whose unrealistic appearance contrasts strongly with the realistically drawn Valley people but whose looks matter less and less as they become more enmeshed in the Valley’s fate. And that fate seems increasingly dark: Stick-Eaters, holy knights and fighters, gather to help the old royal family, but a rogue Stick-Eater known as the Hooded One proves to be the chief representative of the Lord of the Locusts, from whom evil is flowing into the Valley. The Hooded One enlists the aid both of Kingdok, leader of the Rat Creatures, and of Roque Ja, the huge, vicious and amoral lionlike being who was the focus of Book Five. Much is revealed or confirmed in this book: the identity of the Hooded One; the reason Phoney Bone, scammer supreme, is tolerated by his cousins Smiley and Fone and is being sought by the Hooded One; and why the Red Dragon can offer Fone Bone help in dreams but not in reality. A tremendous climax – precipitated by an unexpected bit of humor involving Phoney – leads to an up-in-the-air ending that guarantees strong interest in the upcoming Book Seven, Ghost Circles.

      Ghosts are a feature of our world, too – at least many people believe they are – and they are but one of the phenomena explored in the profusely illustrated Encyclopedia Horrifica. There is one story here of ghosthunters visiting a suburban home where the husband has reported a variety of paranormal manifestations. Their exploration is described in detail, and its conclusion is uncertain: the husband acts as if he has seen a ghost, but his wife does not see anything, and many of the symptoms the man describes could be attributable to his body’s reaction to extreme stress. But what caused the stress? Also here is an exploration of the fictional Dracula invented by Bram Stoker and often used by Hollywood as a figure of horror – and the historical Romanian ruler Vlad Tepes, known as Dracula (“son of Dracul”) and famed for impaling his enemies on stakes. There is zombie-related information here, and data on werewolves, mummies, aliens and other creatures – real or imagined – that have stirred human imagination for many years and continue to do so today. Joshua Gee tries to lighten up the subject matter through flippant style (“the Kraken will send ya packin’”); but it is the strange real-world items here, scary or merely extremely interesting, that really make the book worthwhile. Examples: a graph showing that a sperm whale is longer than a school bus; a fossilized shark tooth, shown in its actual (really large) size; explanations of Close Encounters of the first through seventh (!) kinds; the tale of a real-life werewolf in 18^th-century France; and much more. An unusual merger of reality and fiction, Encyclopedia Horrifica is fascinating for its stories of horror tales that have been debunked; ones of uncertain provenance; and ones that turn out, on close examination, to contain more than a grain of truth.

(++++) WRONGS, RIGHTED

Sammy Keyes and the Wild Things. By Wendelin Van Draanen. Knopf. $15.99.

Prom Dates from Hell. By Rosemary Clement-Moore. Delacorte Press. $15.99.

      Today’s girl detectives have little in common with their progenitor (progenitress?), Nancy Drew – except, of course, pluck. Modern young female sleuths are far more with-it, more aware of the world around them, less involved in family mysteries and mysterious heirlooms and more in grand designs that can even lead them to go so far as to save the entire world. And not all are high-school students: one of the most famous is a middle-schooler. That would be Sammy Keyes, Wendelin Van Draanen’s popular character, whose 11^th adventure, Sammy Keyes and the Wild Things, has her taking on an ecological threat. During a camping trip that she hadn’t wanted to take, Sammy stumbles on a mystery (okay, Nancy Drew stumbled on them, too): an endangered condor is found injured. Sammy and two other girls from the camp take Marvin (their name for the bird) and decide to find out what happened to him. As they follow clues, they get lost; and they meet two boys from school who are out backpacking, and they all get lost; and then they find out that there is an evil poacher somewhere around. To learn this, they rely heavily on Sammy’s instincts: “I nod because he is right. But still, something feels wrong.” At one point, Sammy wonders, “Why wasn’t the truth more important than the blame?” – and this becomes her watchword here, as in her other mysteries, and it is a clue as well. Everything gets complicated in part because the lost group of five has only a single tent to sleep in, which means girls and boys stay together. One of the boys is the brother of nasty Heather Acosta, “the Gossip Grenade,” and Heather starts broadcasting to everyone that Sammy “slept with my brother,” and…well, suffice it to say that Sammy has personal issues as well as a mystery to solve. She and her friends end up “in a restricted place where condor poachers and men in evil-looking jets were meeting to engage in high-stakes activities that could get us all shot.” While the danger is real enough, Sammy finds her way through it, as always, her pluck preventing the plucking of the birds whose defender she has become.

      Maggie Quinn has more than birds to defend. She is a high-school student – a senior and honor student, in fact – and wants nothing more than to get through the last six weeks of the year and graduate. But there’s a problem: Maggie is on the school newspaper and is a yearbook photographer, so she has to pay considerable attention to…prom. Prom, that bane of so many high schoolers’ lives, that hellish creation where showoffs show off and so many are made miserable – but it’s not supposed to be quite this hellish or miserable. Rosemary Clement-Moore’s first novel for young readers takes everything a high-schooler fears and worries about involving prom into the Twilight Zone. There’s the head cheerleader and her followers, all of whom are named Jessica. There’s a chemistry experiment that seems to summon something called the Shadow. There are bad things happening to the school-ruling athletes. Maggie figures this much out: “The one thing I knew was this: If I was right, and someone had summoned some thing to bring down the Jocks and Jessicas, then regardless of the source, of the justness of the targets, the intent was Evil. With a capital E.” Maggie’s sleuthing takes on an amusingly otherworldly character, as when she finds out that one school baseball player has been offered a full college scholarship: “I tried to smile naturally while a chill spread through me. Anyone who has ever seen a movie – ever – knows that nothing dooms a character quicker than a bright future: pregnant wife, farm in Montana, baseball scholarship…” Although Maggie decides that “I sucked at being a superhero,” she manages to confront the minions of Hell with notable courage (instructing one, “Get out of my bathroom, you stinky son of a bitch”), hold back the demonic hordes, and save the senior class and maybe the world. And yet, by the end, she still has three weeks to go until graduation….

(+++) OF FAERIES AND FORTUNES

Wicked Lovely. By Melissa Marr. HarperTeen. $16.99.

Billy Creekmore. By Tracey Porter. Joanna Cotler/HarperCollins. $16.99.

      The land of faerie offers riches and pleasures unmeasured and untold, but at what cost? The protagonists of these books find themselves pushed and pulled between their everyday world and another one that may be better, may be worse, or may simply be different. The pushing and pulling are especially clear in Wicked Lovely, for ages 12 and up – because Melissa Marr’s debut novel makes the allure and danger of faerie central to her story. That land and its inhabitants are a particular concern to Aislinn, the book’s heroine, because she, like her grandmother before her, has the Sight: she perceives the faeries who live among humans, even though most people cannot see these beings at all. Aislinn attempts to follow the basic rules of human-faerie interaction, or lack of interaction, by neither staring at nor speaking to the faeries who seem to be stalking her, and by trying not to attract their attention. But she has attracted it, in particular the attention of one named Keenan, who is the Summer King and has decided that Aislinn should become the Queen for whom he has searched for nigh unto a thousand years. Aislinn has other plans – mostly involving her friends, especially her best boy friend (but not yet boyfriend), Seth – but there is attraction as well as turmoil in becoming involved with faeries, and Aislinn soon finds that she does not know which way to turn. As her relationship with Seth deepens, she tells him, “I want to be here, with you, go to college. I don’t know what I want to be, but it’s not a faery. Definitely not a faery queen. I am, though; I know it. I just don’t know what to do now.” Telling this modern-but-old story through chapters introduced by faerie-related writing from the 19^th and early 20^th centuries, Marr makes readers feel the plight of a young girl trapped between two worlds – although she never makes the faerie world as frightening as it is supposed to be, or the real one as attractive. The eventual resolution is a trifle too pat – Aislinn gets to have things both ways – but the sense of wonder remains to the end.

      The otherworldliness of Billy Creekmore is of a different sort. The title character in this tale of great expectations is born at midnight on Friday, December 13, and is widely considered unlucky by the people of turn-of-the-20^th-century West Virginia. But Billy has gifts, including the gift of storytelling (the book is written in the first person), and his special abilities help carry him from an orphanage into the wider world. He is not really an orphan – his father is out there somewhere, sending him postcards periodically so Billy will not forget him. But Billy is certainly on his own, and through such chapters as “A Figure from My Past Pays a Visit, and I Learn More about My Mysterious Beginnings,” he gradually pieces together information on his family and background. He also learns that he need not end up as a child laborer in the mines of his home state, and certainly need not accept the inhumane conditions there: He joins the United Mine Workers, is involved in a battle with mine owners’ guards, flees town to search for his father, and joins the Charles Sparks Circus. But Billy’s father, when Billy eventually finds him, turns out to be far less than the boy hoped he would be, and Billy eventually learns to fend for himself – and heads back home. Intended for ages 10 and up and clearly modeled on the novels of Dickens, Billy Creekmore will be too preachy for many young readers and too melodramatic for others (but then, so is Dickens). Billy has pluck, and Tracey Porter’s mining-town settings have the feeling of reality that comes from an author’s careful research, but Billy finally seems more a manipulated type – manipulated as much by the author as by other characters in the book. Readers who find him instantly likable will enjoy this novel. But those who do not warm to Billy from the beginning will find little to make him more appealing later.

(++++) TWO 20TH CENTURIES

Stravinsky: Violin Concerto; Zvezdolikiy: Cantata for Male Chorus & Orchestra; Symphonies of Wind Instruments; The Rite of Spring. Robert Craft conducting Jennifer Frautschi, violin, with the Philharmonia Orchestra (Concerto); Gregg Smith Singers with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s (Zvezdolikiy); Twentieth Century Classics Ensemble (Symphonies); Philharmonia Orchestra (Rite). Naxos. $8.99.

Ma Sicong: Music for Violin and Piano, Volume 1: Dragon Lantern Dance; Mountain Song; Madrigal; Inner Mongolia Suite; Lullaby; Lantern Festival Dance; Amei Suite; Rondo No. 1; Tone Poem of Tibet. Hsiao-mei Ku, violin; Ning Lu, piano. Naxos. $8.99.

      The very different development of music in the Occidental and Oriental worlds – and some surprising parallels between them – emerge from two excellent Naxos series, of which one is ongoing and the other has just begun. The Robert Craft Collection continues to offer superb performances – definitive in their own way, as Stravinsky’s own readings were in his – of both familiar and less-familiar Stravinsky works. The latest CD in the series showcases a very well-played Violin Concerto, a notoriously difficult work in which the soloist rarely gets a chance to pause and stretch his or her fingers (there is no rest at all in the third movement and few chances for repose elsewhere). This 1931 work moves effectively from its opening-movement march, through two lyrical movements marked Aria I and Aria II, to a presto finale (designated Capriccio) that concludes in a burst of excitement in which both Jennifer Frautschi and the orchestra fully participate. In strong contrast is the little-known Zvezdolikiy (“The Star-Faced One”), a setting of a Symbolist poem of rather surrealistic piety. This work has little of what is nowadays considered the Stravinsky sound, being slow throughout and without strong rhythms. It is in part a homage to Debussy, whose music is quoted toward the end, and indeed sounds like a tribute.

      More often heard – although not necessarily in these versions – are Symphonies of Wind Instruments and The Rite of Spring. Robert Craft conducts the original and very difficult 1920 version of the Symphonies, which Stravinsky rewrote and simplified in 1947. The work is considerably more impressive in its earlier form, which was greeted with hostility at no fewer than six premieres (in London, Geneva, Paris, Philadelphia, Brussels and New York). The work’s complex structure includes nine motives repeated at intervals in one of three related tempos – but it is not necessary to understand the minutiae behind the composition (Craft’s booklet notes for this entire CD are, unfortunately for most listeners, nothing but minutiae) to appreciate its forcefulness and effective use of the most complex techniques of which wind players are capable.

      Of course, the most famous hostile premiere of a Stravinsky work was that accorded The Rite of Spring in Paris in 1913. In this recording, Craft conducts – with great fervor and superb attention to rhythmic intensity – the final, 1967 version of the work, incorporating into it changes from the original manuscript. The performance has nonstop vigor and intensity, and Craft’s attention to sonic detail brings out elements of the score that even listeners who have heard the work often may not have realized were there. This is actually the second Rite in Naxos’ Robert Craft Collection: in the other, Craft conducts the original version of the score in a pairing with The Nightingale. Both performances are excellent, and Stravinsky fanatics will surely want the two of them.

      Stravinsky is as important in 20^th-century Western music as Ma Sicong, who is far less known in the West, is in 20^th-century Chinese music. Ma (1912-1987) pioneered the use of folk music within classical style, and was especially well-regarded for his violin music. The first release in a new Naxos collection called Chinese Classics features nine of Ma’s works, played with great style by violinist Hsiao-mei Ku and pianist Ning Lu. Ku, a member of the Ciompi Quartet and Associate Professor of Violin at Duke University, not only understands this music viscerally but also commands the many techniques needed to play it effectively. Ma’s music melds surprisingly Western sounds and themes with ones that clearly come from China’s very different pitch and rhythm structure. Ku effectively varies the sound of her instrument to fit the various elements of these mostly short works, notably by giving it some of the sound of an erhu in pieces such as Dragon Lantern Dance. Like many works here, this one is tripartite in structure and based on folk tunes. Unlike others, it has, in passing, the distinct sound of Gershwin. Mountain Song is wistful and mostly lies high on the violin. Madrigal has simple, straightforward lines. The three-movement Inner Mongolia Suite starts with “Epic,” which has a cadenza-like opening that then switches to pastoral mood; next is a heart-on-its-sleeve movement called “Nostalgia”; and finally, “Dances beyond the Frontier” has strong, bouncy rhythms followed by a slower section. Lullaby, the earliest work offered here, was written in 1935. It is gently rocking and quiet throughout. Lantern Festival Dance has, surprisingly, the flavor of a hoedown.

      The latest piece on this CD, Amei Suite, dates to 1981 and includes five short movements whose moods range mostly from thoughtful to gentle; it ends with a dance in irregular rhythms. Rondo No. 1 is light and scurrying, filled with speedy figurations and ending in the minor. The final and longest work on the CD is Tone Poem of Tibet, which includes three substantial movements. “Legend Telling” starts with rumbles in the piano and becomes serious and episodic; “Lamasery” is stoic and slow-paced, sounding as if its emotion is held firmly in check; and “Sword Dance,” which includes fast and lyrical sections, is a showpiece for multiple bow techniques – all of which Ku puts effectively on display. Ma’s music on this disc is, on the whole, pleasant and unpretentious, and stands (to Western ears) in strong contrast to the sort of 20^th-century classical fare that is more often played.

(++++) THE POWER OF POTTER

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. By J.K. Rowling. Arthur A. Levine/Scholastic. $34.99.

      For years, J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books have been beyond criticism. There is nothing imaginable that a reviewer could say that would induce previously reluctant people to buy them, or dissuade enthusiasts from doing so. They are a genuine cultural phenomenon.

      And they deserve to be. Claims of their efficacy in returning young people, especially boys, to the charms of books in general are likely to prove overstated: it is a characteristic of spectacular phenomena that their charm is not transferable. But simply getting more young people to read these books is a remarkable accomplishment, and one for which Rowling has not always received sufficient credit.

      What Rowling has done is to allow millions of young people to grow up along with her characters – and that fact undercuts the argument, currently being made in some quarters, that the seventh and final Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, is somehow “too adult” for young people. It is not too adult for the young people who have grown up reading the first six. They have progressed with Harry from being callow 11-year-olds (or whatever age they were when the first book appeared) to being very grown-up 21-year-olds (or whatever age they currently are). Rowling has escorted them through a decade of their lives and seven years of Harry’s, showing them progress and hope and heartache and joy and wonder, all in a thoroughly accessible style that has made some of the most difficult lessons more acceptable, if scarcely palatable.

      That style has come in for considerable criticism – all of which misses the point. Yes, it can be clunky and clichéd; no, it never has the resonance of the styles of the great fantasists of the 20^th century, including C.S. Lewis (whose seven-book Chronicles of Narnia was one of Rowling’s models) and J.R.R. Tolkien. So what? Lewis and, especially, Tolkien, can be very difficult reading, and Rowling simply is not. If her style is clever rather than profound, that is scarcely a mortal sin.

      As it happens, a newly completed Tolkien novel appeared earlier this year: The Children of Húrin, painstakingly assembled over a 30-year time frame by Tolkien’s son, Christopher. The tolling cadences of Tolkien’s prose resound through it in a way that Rowling’s words never do, and the Tolkienian feeling of spaciousness, of a hugely complex world of whose history this story is only a small part, is pervasive. Reading The Children of Húrin is an exercise in astonishment at the breadth and depth of Tolkien’s vision, and of wonderment at the magnificence of his language.

      And it would be a lousy book for most young people. It is a grand story but a cold one; a complex story whose characters’ motivations are entirely adult. Its resonance comes in part because it is a version of the Norse myth of Siegmund and Sieglinde – but one in which their love produces no Siegfried and scarcely any joy. It is dark and dour, shining brilliantly but without warmth.

      In contrast, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is warm and reader-connected. There is no ambiguity in its basic plot of good (Harry and friends) vs. evil (Voldemort and cohorts). But what Rowling does in this conclusion of Harry’s saga – and does very effectively – is to show that life is not as simple as good vs. evil, except in extreme cases. The revelations that flow quickly and furiously through this fast-moving novel shake Harry’s world as thoroughly as do the magical spells and violence directed at him. The more he and we find out about the complexities of Snape and Dumbledore (among others), the more we learn that people are not always what they seem to be, but that they have choices to make, and those choices, as well as their birthrights, make them into what they become. Harry – along with Hermione, Ron and many others – must make choices here that may, or may not, guarantee their survival.

      And this understanding of the consequences of choices is, in a real-world sense, a primary value that Rowling has brought to her millions of fans, and a major reason her Harry Potter saga is likely to survive to enchant many additional young readers in the future. Rowling is not an outstanding stylist or even, in many ways, a particularly accomplished plot creator. In those respects, simply among living British authors whose books appeal to young people and to adults as well, she compares poorly with Terry Pratchett (the lively and often outlandish Discworld novels) and Philip Pullman (the profound and elegant His Dark Materials trilogy). But people, young and old, do not read Rowling for literary style or structurally fascinating plots. They read her for the sheer pleasure of entering a world that is outré but not too outré, that is not ours but could almost be ours; one in which the virtues we instinctively know represent goodness – love being paramount among them, as Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows makes abundantly clear – may be under the most vicious attack, may lose out or even be destroyed at times, but are nevertheless the things that make us fully human. Perhaps they are the only such things. And this is why the Harry Potter books, although they can certainly be criticized and critically analyzed, remain beyond criticism for those who have followed Harry through all 4,000-plus pages: although magic pervades these novels, they are really about surviving and – with skill and luck – thriving in our own deeply interconnected, if decidedly non-magical world.

(++++) THE PICTURE’S THE THING

Scribble. By Deborah Freedman. Knopf. $15.99.

The Circus Is Coming. By Hilary Knight. Golden Books. $15.99.

      Here are a couple of books that are sheer visual pleasures. Deborah Freedman’s Scribble has a delightful story, too. It’s about big sister Emma, who loves to draw princesses and makes a picture of Sleeping Beauty…and little sister Lucie, who prefers to draw kitties, and whose “special SCRIBBLE KITTY” has a marvelous adventure with Emma’s princess. Using unusual perspective tricks – such as action that starts in boxes, then breaks through the lines and seems to come right out of the book at the reader – Freedman (whose own daughters are named Emma and Lucie) moves the central-character focus from the sisters to their drawings. Lucie scribbles on Emma’s picture, so Emma leaves to go tell, and Lucie draws triangle ears on her kitty (after previously omitting them), and the kitty decides to check out the princess, and soon the kitty on his yellow paper has wandered over to the pink paper on which the princess is drawn, dragging Lucie along. Now the scribble on the princess picture comes to represent the “Giant Thicket” preventing the princess from being rescued, and Scribble the cat starts to pull at it, even though Lucie repeatedly says she is “NOT HELPING.” Eventually Lucie relents, helps dismantle the thicket, and frees Scribble to kiss and awaken the princess – and when Emma returns, her princess picture is unscribbled and the kitty and the princess “all lived Happily Ever After. As drawings sometimes do.” This is a simply wonderful story, and the pictures are beyond wonderful, with Freedman – who is an architect – making her first picture book a showpiece for all the angles and curves that architects use when designing real-world buildings. It’s a tale of “scribbling rivalry” told throughout with joy and cleverness.

      Hilary Knight is an old hand at children’s books – he has been illustrating them for more than 50 years – but The Circus Is Coming seems new even though it was originally published in 1978. A non-story storybook, it is no more or less than a circus parade come enchantingly to life in page after page of colorful, dynamic, action-packed pictures that fill every inch of the paper and spill off its sides. It starts with enthusiastic children and circus posters, then becomes a parade mixing the facts of grand circuses of the past with fanciful elaborations of them. The “Cats of the Wild” two-page spread, for instance, not only includes a wheeled cage containing tigers and a trainer but also has a lion riding behind the cage with a costumed girl on his back, plus girls in leopard costumes atop the cage, plus girls dressed as lionesses controlling the zebras that are pulling everything along. A two-page spread of clowns includes one riding a rocket, one parachuting down to street level while carrying two pigs, and a whole bunch of them stuffed into a car. Every page brings new wonders: tightropes and teeterboards, trained horses and bareback riders, orangutans playing music (on piano, harp, violins, flutes and recorder!) atop an elegant pink-and-purple float, and much more. This is a circus of fancy, not reality, including a pirate ship, movable salt-water tank complete with octopus and shark, baby bulldogs, a snake handler, giant rabbits, a tiny piano player – there are wonders everywhere. This is what a circus must look like to very young children – what it must have looked like to Knight himself and his brother Joey, whose fascination the book captures and whose pictures appear on one page (with pictures of other real-world Knight acquaintances scattered elsewhere). And there’s a super-cute touch at the end: a list of things to find in the pictures, so kids have an excuse –as if they’ll need one! – to go through the book all over again.

(++++) VISUAL EXTREMES

My Flag Book. By Sarah L. Thomson. Smithsonian/Collins. $5.99.

My Panda Book. By Stuart P. Levine. Smithsonian/Collins. $5.99.

The Hills Have Eyes: The Beginning. By Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray. Art by John Higgins. Fox Atomic/HarperCollins. $17.99.

      Board books for infants from newborns to age five must, by their very nature, have a strong visual orientation. Fact-based board books face an extra hurdle: they need to be accurate as well as interesting. The Smithsonian Institution’s collaboration with the Collins division of HarperCollins balances these elements very well in My Flag Book and My Panda Book. Both are sturdy and nicely illustrated, with super-simple stories and lots of bright, attractive pictures for kids to enjoy even before they can fully understand the words. My Flag Book features the U.S. flag’s colors, pattern (stars and stripes), plenty of pictures of young children with flags or saluting the flag, and a smattering of basic information: “Why do we fly the flag high on a pole? So everyone can see it.” My Panda Book is full of pictures of the pandas at the National Zoo (which is part of the Smithsonian). These animals – which even adults tend to find irresistibly cute – eat bamboo, play with a ball, wrestle and, of course, sleep, which is actually what they do best (and most of the time). Neither of these books requires any words at all for the youngest children – the pictures are interesting enough on their own. And both have simple narratives that should appeal to families as kids get a bit older and can understand them – that is, if the books have not by then been gummed to pieces by all the love they are likely to get.

      At the far other end of the visual spectrum from innocent little books for newborns and young children are the new hyper-violent graphic novels tied into horror movies, and aimed at young adults. These come from a different part of the same publisher, but they have, in their own way, as strong a visual orientation as the board books do in theirs. The Hills Have Eyes: The Beginning is a terrorfest professing to provide the back story for Wes Craven’s cult favorite, The Hills Have Eyes – whose sequel (called, of course, The Hills Have Eyes 2) is just out. The sheer audacity of the drawings here, and the attempt to tell a coherent tale about films whose sole reason for existence is to cause viewers to shudder and to give them some vicarious bloodletting thrills, earn the book a (+++) rating. But it is decidedly not for the squeamish, or for anyone who is not already a fan of Craven’s work. The basic plot of the Hills movies is a familiar horror-film staple: weirdly mutated semi-human creatures slaughter as many people as possible. The graphic novel spends most of its story explaining what these mutated creatures are, how they came into being (it’s the government’s fault), and how they were forced to become evil predatory killers and cannibals. None of the narrative makes much sense (atomic radiation causing, among other things, virgin births of mutant monsters?); but the pictures are the real reason for this book’s existence. And the graphic novel is certainly…err…graphic enough to interest fans of the “diseased cannibals and serial killers” (artist John Higgins’ description) and the hyper-horror genre they represent.

(+++) WHEN WORRYING MAKES SENSE

When to Worry: How to Tell if Your Teen Needs Help—and What to Do About It. By Lisa Boesky, Ph.D. AMACOM. $17.95.

      Just about every parent worries about just about every teenager. The physical, psychological, hormonal and emotional changes that come with adolescence uproot and disturb teenagers’ sense of themselves, their role in the family, their relationships with peers, their understanding of who they are and where (and with whom) they fit in, and much more. Turmoil comes with the territory – and parents, observing what is happening and trying to keep themselves and the rest of the family on a more-or-less even keel, inevitably worry.

      Much of the time, though, worry is counterproductive. Many of the upheavals of adolescence are entirely normal and to be expected. They are a necessary part of a person’s growth from childhood dependence to adult independence – the difficulty being that teens are in a halfway state in which neither parents nor the teens themselves fully comprehend just where things lie on the dependence-independence scale. And it is precisely because of the uncertainty of who and what a teenager is at any given time that some worries about teens are entirely reasonable. Lisa Boesky, a clinical psychologist specializing in troubled teens, aims in When to Worry to separate times of legitimate concern from ones in which worries, however natural, are unnecessary.

      She is mostly successful, thanks to an easy-to-follow format that lays out “worry signs” as bullet-point lists and also explains, in short paragraphs, what factors in a teen’s life may put him or her at risk in particular ways. Boesky starts by acknowledging that emotional, social, intellectual and other changes cause teens to behave in ways that are very different from the way they acted when younger – but that difference is not necessarily risk. She then considers a number of behaviors that may be worth worrying about and may require parental (and professional) intervention. Among them are being too moody, breaking rules or laws, obsessing, using alcohol and other drugs, being too concerned about food and body image, self-mutilation through cutting or burning, and losing touch with reality. To decide if a teen is too defiant, for example, look for signs that he/she gets angry and resentful at least four times a week; deliberately annoys others four or more times a week; talks back to or argues with adults two or more times a week; purposely refuses to follow rules two or more times a week; etc. Many of these sound like normal teen behaviors – and what if the teen gets angry four times in a single day? Does that count as one instance or four? Here is a weakness of Boesky’s book: the line between normal development and an out-of-control situation is always thin, and she does not make it much clearer for the distressed parents likely to consult this book (why two times or four times for some behaviors instead of, say, three?).

      But When to Worry can be very helpful if parents look at Boesky’s signs cumulatively rather than in isolation. In the defiance example, for instance, she points to such additional worry signs as aggression, property destruction, lying or stealing, and violating major rules. If enough of Boesky’s areas of concern seem applicable to your teenager, it makes sense to move on to her suggestions about what to do – although, again, not all the ideas will be practical for every family or in every situation. Thus, for defiance issues, she says to hold teens accountable (but how exactly does one remove a teen, who may be taller and heavier than his/her parent, from a situation such as attendance at church or a social function?); present a united front (but it is one thing to say parents should do this “even if you have different opinions,” and another to do it); have mental-health professionals, teachers and other adults “provide rewards and discipline for the same behaviors that parents are working on in the family home” (again, how can parents make this happen?); and so on. Boesky’s suggestions are well meant, well thought out and, in a perfect world, should go a long way toward moving teens back toward a path in which rebellion remains within societally acceptable limits. But of course the world is not perfect, and families whose teens are pushing things too far live in especially imperfect situations. This makes it particularly difficult to try to implement Boesky’s suggestions. But it must be said that her ideas are worth trying, even if parents can use them only part of the time or in some limited number of situations. When to Worry may be better at analyzing worrisome vs. merely irritating behavior than at providing families with strategies for handling highly troubled teens – but there are no easy solutions to the problems on which Boesky focuses, and her book can at the very least be a starting point for discussions with doctors, teachers, therapists and even, perhaps, with teenagers themselves.

(+++) FANTASY VARIANTS

The Sharing Knife, Volume Two: Legacy. By Lois McMaster Bujold. Eos. $25.95.

Ilario: The Lion’s Eye—A Story of the First History, Book One. By Mary Gentle. Eos. $14.95.

Dangerous Offspring. By Steph Swainston. Eos. $13.95.

      The vast majority of modern fantasy writing is formulaic, or at the very least bursting with borrowed elements – most often from the works of Tolkien. Yet within this genre, some writers manage to tweak their formulas in interesting ways, and – even more important – to make their writing stand out through well-modulated pacing and in-depth characterizations. None of these three books is especially unusual in plot terms, but all are well put together by top-notch stylists; and as a result, although the books are unlikely to attract people who are not already genre fans, they will be highly pleasing to fantasy aficionados – especially ones already familiar with these authors’ style.

      For more than 20 years, Lois McMaster Bujold has provided consistently high-quality fantasy stories with grand sweep and intriguing characters. The Sharing Knife, which began with Beguilement and now continues with Legacy, is very much in her particular tradition. A Romeo-and-Juliet story of sorts, it focuses on a soldier-sorcerer named Dag Redwing Hickory and a clever farm girl, Fawn Bluefield, who first beguiles and then marries him. Fawn’s family accepts the couple with some hesitation, but Dag’s people do not – even Dag’s mother and brother are opposed to the marriage – and Dag faces the possibility of exile from his clan. Set against Dag and Fawn’s personal story is the larger one of a magical attack that threatens all the people of the land – an attack that Dag must counter. Bujold interweaves the larger and smaller tales (which, of course, are really parts of the same story) with considerable skill and occasional sly humor: “Dag returned from the medicine tent reluctant to speak of the unsettling incident with the maker’s apprentice, but in any case, no one asked; instead, five persons took the chance to tell him that he needed to teach his wife to swim.” Bujold also does uncertainty well: “The dangerous moment, if that had been one, was past.” And she makes readers care about her central characters and appreciate the less-important ones around them. Legacy contains journeys, and it ends as a new one is about to begin. Bujold’s fans will eagerly anticipate the next book.

      Ilario: The Lion’s Eye is filled with journeys, too – they are an integral part of fantasy novels not only since Tolkien but also from much earlier times. This first book of an alternative-history cycle stands out for its portrayal of the title character, who is an artist of dual sex. This goes beyond ordinary hermaphroditism: at one point in the book, he marries a woman and is then forced to explain to her that he is pregnant. Unlike Lois McMaster Bujold, Mary Gentle does not play such scenes for any sort of amusement, using them to deepen readers’ concerns about characters who might otherwise seem outré. Ilario may be odd in some important ways, but is quite recognizable in others, notably in yearning for freedom and life – there are those seeking to take his. The background of this tale involves a version of the hegemony battles between Rome and Carthage; with that and with Ilario’s travels and advancing pregnancy, there is a lot going on here, setting the stage for The Stone Golem, the upcoming second book in this series.

      Dangerous Offspring is not officially part of a series, but it draws on Steph Swainston’s prior books about the Fourlands, The Year of Our War and No Present Like Time. The focus of the new book, as of the earlier ones, is an immortal named Jant. These are books in which immortality is far from an unalloyed blessing: Jant has lived for centuries, during which he has been viciously attacked by deadly insects, has been subjected to the politics of the immortals (which are every bit as convoluted and potentially destructive as those of mere mortals), and has turned for survival to a highly addictive substance called cat. In Dangerous Offspring, Jant confronts a troubling plan by San, the Emperor; at one point is nearly torn apart by a creature called the Vermiform, which seems to have elements both of worms and of Jack-and-the-beanstalk-style vines; and spends time with unusual philosophical musings: “The traits of genius often coincide with madness, but that isn’t strange, because if genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains, then you tell me what madness is.” Swainston’s unusual style and ability to conjure up creatures that are peculiar even by the standards of modern fantasy produce in Dangerous Offspring a story both offbeat and well-written – a treat for fans of her earlier books.

(++++) MANNHEIM AND MORE

Franz Xaver Richter: Grandes Symphonies, Nos. 1-6 (Set 1). Helsinki Baroque Orchestra conducted by Aapo Häkkinen. Naxos. $8.99.

Virtuoso Cello Showpieces: Buxton Orr: A Carmen Fantasy; Franz Danzi: Variations on a Theme from Mozart’s ‘Don Giovanni’; Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Figaro Variations from Rossini’s ‘Barber of Seville’; Gaspar Cassadó: Lamento de Boabdil; Antonín Dvořák: Rondo in G Minor…Silent Woods (Klid)…Sonatina in G Major. Maria Kliegel, cello; Nina Tichman, piano. Naxos. $8.99.

      The once-famous composers of the Mannheim School are scarcely household names anymore: Johann and Carl Stamitz, Franz Ignaz Beck, Anton Filtz, Christian Cannabich, Carl Toeschi, Joseph Martin Kraus, et al. But in their time – the mid-18^th century – they were at the forefront of what was then modern music, creating works so clearly distinguishable from the Baroque pieces of Bach and Telemann that they helped usher in the new, Classical age. And the Mannheim court orchestra – largely during the years in which Johann Stamitz led it – was responsible for changes in instrumental use that persist to this day: crescendos for the whole ensemble (compared with the Baroque contrast of piano with forte) and the Grand Pause (everyone stops playing, then resumes vigorously after a brief, total silence), to name just two. Franz Xaver Richter was a Mannheim composer, but not one totally committed to the orchestra’s approach, which he thought often favored style over substance (example: the “Mannheim Rocket,” rapidly ascending broken chords starting in the lowest bass range and ascending to the very top notes of which the ensemble is capable). Richter’s two sets of Grandes Symphonies predate his involvement with Mannheim and show him accepting the Baroque approach to composition (notably through his well-mannered use of counterpoint) while also reaching out toward some of the newer elements that would coalesce in the years of Mannheim’s greatness (such as greater emotional content of slow movements and harder-driving fast ones). The Helsinki Baroque Orchestra handles these six works with great verve, on period instruments with which the players seem thoroughly comfortable. Aapo Häkkinen paces the symphonies well, keeping the minuet tempos danceable and letting the Presto movements fly by without getting out of control. Published in 1744 and written a few years earlier, Richter’s symphonies more closely resemble the old-fashioned sinfonia than the newer Haydn-style symphony, and they are not particularly distinguishable from each other. But all are well made, well played and well worth hearing.

      Haydn himself had an important connection with Mannheim, from which he adopted a number of his symphonic techniques: it was the Mannheim orchestra that commissioned Haydn’s “Paris” symphonies (Nos. 82-87) and first played them.

      For a Mannheim connection of a different sort, listen to Franz Danzi’s Variations on a Theme from Mozart’s ‘Don Giovanni’ on the new virtuoso-cello CD from Maria Kliegel (accompanied in fine style by Nina Tichman). Danzi, a Mannheim cellist, originally wrote this piece for cello and orchestra. It is based on the charming attempted-seduction aria, Là ci darem la mano, and gives the cellist plenty of opportunities to be soulful as well as virtuosic.

      The rest of the works that Kliegel plays date to later times. There is more by Dvořák on this CD than by anyone else: two brief but expansive pieces predating the Cello Concerto, and Oscar Hartwieg’s cello-and-piano arrangement of the op. 100 Sonatina, written for violin and piano in 1893, during the composer’s stay in America. The Dvořák works are more substantive than the rest of the pieces Kliegel offers here, but no more enjoyable to hear. Buxton Orr’s Carmen Fantasy is too long for an encore (14 minutes), but it has plenty of encore-like moments. It includes a number of the best-known tunes from Bizet’s opera and repeatedly introduces the “Fate” motif that Bizet uses so effectively. The works by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco and Gaspar Cassadó are more clearly encore-like and stand in strong contrast to each other, the former based on the famed first-act Largo al factotum and introducing some interesting non-Rossinian harmonies, and the latter using the cello’s expressive powers to reflect on the sorrow of the last Moorish king of Spain as he was sent into exile in 1492. Kliegel is fully engaged with everything she plays on this disc, giving enough weight to the somewhat deeper pieces and enough lightness to the more superficial ones. The result is a treat for anyone looking for string encores that, unlike those for violin, are something less than familiar.

(++++) MORE THAN THEY SEEM TO BE

Every Which Way but Dead. By Kim Harrison. HarperTorch. $7.99.

A Fistful of Charms. By Kim Harrison. HarperTorch. $7.99.

For a Few Demons More. By Kim Harrison. Eos. $21.95.

      She’s smart and clever, savvy and sassy, quick to turn a phrase and unravel a plot strand, able to juggle multiple lives with surprising aplomb, and possessed of a wicked sense of humor. That’s the author, Kim Harrison – although the description fits her central character, Rachel Mariana Morgan, just as well.

      Harrison is creator of one of the most interesting, offbeat and well-put-together fantasy series around, in which male macho is transformed into what might be called female “macha” in both good and bad ways. Lest that seem far-fetched, note the books’ titles: except for the first, Dead Witch Walking, every one is a takeoff on the title of a Clint Eastwood movie – The Good, the Bad, and the Undead, plus the three newer titles here considered. These are sexy books as well as violent ones – and Harrison does the buildup to sex, as well as the buildup to violence, as well as she handles the performance. That is the sign of a classy writer.

      “Classy” seems an odd adjective for someone creating a series of novels about witches, werewolves, vampires, elves, demons and other otherworldly creatures, but Harrison simply refuses to play by the rules of any stereotypes of the characters she portrays. Her vampires, for example, like line dancing and shop at Home Depot. And her tales are not set in an exotic European locale but in, of all places, Cincinnati.

      Nor are these simple stories of good and evil. The best thing Harrison does is give her characters – even the minor ones – a level of complexity rarely seen in fantasy. There is genuine, often terrifying evil in Harrison’s world, but there is real human connection as well; and if Rachel, her heroine, is smart and bold and able to hold her own in a fight as well as a bedroom tussle, she is also significantly flawed and very, very vulnerable. Rachel is an “earth witch” who gains significant new power – and puts herself and those around her in significant peril – when she learns additional ways of tapping magical forces. She cares deeply about the dangers she creates for others. Yet again and again, Rachel – whose primary issue is trust – does something that has unforeseen negative consequences (usually from the best of motives; occasionally for self-preservation); and again and again, when she must tell someone she is close to about the mess she has made, she wonders not how to tell but what to tell. She is truthful, ultimately, to everyone except herself. The result is an endlessly fascinating series of adventures that are worth far more of a reader’s time than the typical detective or horror-fantasy novel (this series crosses those boundaries, and others).

      It is best to enter the series at the beginning, but Harrison is a good enough writer to provide background and recap in each book – so a new reader can understand most of what is going on, if not all the nuances. The distinction between living and undead vampires is important, for example, and Harrison repeatedly shows why and finds ways to make the explanation part of the story. She also gives Rachel enough self-awareness to pull some of the books’ more extreme complexities back from soap opera – usually with a touch of wry humor. In Every Which Way but Dead, for example, a woman nicknamed Skimmer, the former roommate and lover of Rachel’s current roommate – a powerful living vampire who is not Rachel’s lover – unexpectedly turns up. A scene of high tension and high comedy ensues, leading Rachel to remark: “Skimmer forced a smile. Her crisp mien was wearing thin, but she was holding up well considering she had left her home and master to rekindle a relationship with her high school girlfriend who was rooming with the woman who had put her new boss behind bars. Join us next time for Days of the Undead when Rachel learns her long lost brother is really a crown prince from outer space. My life was so screwed up.”

      In EWWBD, the screwups revolve around the departure of Rachel’s human boyfriend, Nick, whom she genuinely loves but whom she has unintentionally turned into her familiar – a painful, potentially deadly process. And Rachel is trying to avoid “Big Al,” as she calls the demon Algaliarept (a truly terrifying presence), to whom she has ended up owing herself but not her soul. In A Fistful of Charms, Nick returns, and some mysteries involving him are cleared up even as new ones emerge, and Rachel must try to protect Nick from those who are determined to destroy him and possess his knowledge – but she must also keep a low profile to stay out of the demon’s clutches. And speaking of demons, Harrison’s new hardcover in this series, For a Few Demons More, gives Algaliarept powers that even the demon never had before – and brings back from prison a monstrous master vampire whose viciousness had made Rachel so determined to get him off the streets that she had bound herself to the demon in the first place. All this occurs while a serial killer is running loose – and while Rachel holds what may be the key to stopping the murderer or may be an item that unleashes even worse violence.

      Every one of these stories of the Hollows – the area of Cincinnati where Rachel and her cohorts live – is well paced, well written and exciting in the extreme. Rachel is a marvelous character, but so are many others: Harrison even makes four-inch-tall winged pixies seem solid, believable and very far from frail. It is remarkable how much Harrison makes readers care about these characters – their fears, foibles, insecurities, power trips, struggles and genuinely human emotions (even when the characters themselves are not, or not quite, human). These characters are far more than types; these books are far more than standard adventure tales. If Harrison keeps writing at the level she has attained in her first five novels about the Hollows, she will have created a classic series. Indeed, maybe she already has.

(++++) OUT OF THIS WORLD

Astronauts and Other Space Heroes. By Sarah L. Thomson. Smithsonian/Collins. $16.99.

Our Solar System. By Seymour Simon. Smithsonian/Collins. $19.99.

      Striking design, excellent visuals and interesting information combine in these two books to create winning collaborations between the publisher and the Smithsonian Institution. Astronauts and Other Space Heroes, for ages 8-12, opens with a photo of Buzz Aldrin on the moon, then sweeps back in time to the imaginary space journeys of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, then forward to rocket scientists, animal astronauts and human space travelers. There’s a real sense of history throughout the book, thanks not only to the accuracy of dates involving space exploration (each person and event has a “Time Line” attached) but also to brief “at the same time” notes that help explain the context of space-related events. There is some blandness to the narrative – for example, in the late 1950s, “the United States and the Soviet Union were enemies, and Americans didn’t like to think that the Soviets had gotten ahead of them when it came to space.” Or, in discussing Wernher von Braun, creator of the V-2 rocket used by the Nazis, Sarah L. Thomson writes, “The V-2s were built by prisoners from concentration camps, who were starved and abused. Many of them died.” Still, Astronauts and Other Space Heroes is not a political tract or a general history lesson, and is designed – quite handsomely, by Jacob Packaged Goods LLC – to focus on heroism and scientific accomplishment, not the seamier sides of space-related events. So the brief stories of moon walkers, of entertainment figures interested in space (Gene Roddenberry and George Lucas), of tremendous triumph (the first landing on the moon) and tragedy (the Challenger and Columbia disasters), come together very effectively, giving a glossy once-over look at all that has been accomplished and all the frontiers that remain to be explored. Web links for further Smithsonian Institution information are a helpful added touch in a book that effectively conveys the drama and hopefulness inherent in voyages beyond our planet.

      For a view of some places that humans may someday explore, Our Solar System by the redoubtable Seymour Simon offers simplicity and scientific accuracy for readers ages 5-9. Tables on the inside front and back covers give at-a-glance comparisons of the eight planets of the solar system (yes, eight – Pluto is excluded, in line with the latest scientific thinking, which Simon elucidates in his usual easy-to-understand style). Within the book, gorgeous Smithsonian Institution photos and illustrations are coupled with straightforward explanations about the nature of the sun and planets. Simon is sometimes careful to explain big numbers in terms that young readers can understand: “If Earth were the size of a basketball, the sun would be as big as a basketball court.” But in other cases, sometimes even on the same page, he simply throws out huge numbers that neither children nor adults can truly comprehend: “The sun uses about four million tons of hydrogen every second. Still, the sun has enough hydrogen to continue shining for another five to six billion years.” On balance, though, Simon explains complex subjects very well indeed: the greenhouse effect on Venus; the Great Red Spot on Jupiter, which “has not changed position and has kept the same oval shape for centuries”; the rings of Uranus, “made of chunks of an unknown black material”; the storms of Neptune, the largest of which “is big enough to swallow the entire earth.” From the sun at the solar system’s center to the asteroids, comets and meteoroids throughout it, the phenomena of which we earthlings are a small part all get brief, informative treatment – just enough, perhaps, to send interested young readers to the Web sites mentioned at the back so they can learn more.

(++++) DINO SCIENCE, DINO FUN

Uneversaurus. By Professor Potts. David Fickling Books. $16.99.

Harry and the Dinosaurs Go to School. By Ian Whybrow. Illustrations by Adrian Reynolds. Random House. $15.99.

      The title of Uneversaurus takes some getting used to (‘you never saw us,” see?), and it takes a while for Aidan Potts (writing as “Professor Potts”) to get to the subject on which he wants to focus. But once Potts gets there, he serves up an utterly entrancing look at a major dinosaur puzzle that few books for young people ever discuss: what color were dinosaurs? To scientists, this is a far-from-trivial question; it is also an unanswerable one. The fossilization process preserves many things, as Potts explains in this book’s first pages. Scientists can use clues from their findings to show what dinosaurs must have looked like – for example, “bumps and grooves on the bones are clues to show where the muscles were, and the joints reveal how they moved.” But there is simply no way to know what colors dinosaurs sported. Skin color does not survive fossilization, and nothing that does survive gives even a hint of it. So scientists are reduced to guesswork – educated guesswork, perhaps, but the young readers of this book can probably make guesses just as good as some of those made by scientists. Potts shows how: look at living animals that seem similar to dinosaurs (which, as he says, include modern reptiles – but also, as he does not say, could include birds, which would open up a host of colorful possibilities); understand what survival benefits different colorations provide (various forms of camouflage, for example); consider the world as it was when dinosaurs lived, to think about what colors would have fit in; and so on. Potts manages to communicate some fairly complex scientific concepts without ever becoming didactic: he tosses in cartoonish dinos here and there to lighten things up, and shows by example why certain colors would not have worked (for instance, there was much less snow when dinosaurs lived, so a white dino, one of which Potts draws, would stand out too brightly to survive). Potts includes fascinating speculation on whether male and female dinosaurs were differently colored, whether some might have been chameleonlike, whether their colors faded as they aged, and more. One of the best things about this book is that there are no right or wrong answers to its puzzles – Potts specifically encourages young readers to guess, which means to think about the question, which means to use their minds, not merely absorb information.

      For a more traditional young people’s book about dinosaurs, try the latest from Ian Whybrow and Adrian Reynolds, Harry and the Dinosaurs Go to School. This series entry gets a solid (+++) rating for tackling some basic issues about the first day of school entertainingly, while keeping Harry and his beloved bucket of make-believe-but-real-to-him dinosaurs in the center of the tale. The story is simple enough: Harry is a little scared about the first day of school, so his dinos are scared, too, and Harry takes them along – but leaves them outside his classroom. Then Harry notices another little boy who is even more scared – he will not talk at all. Thanks to the dinosaurs (whose real, scientific names Harry always uses – that is one of the charms of this series), Harry makes friends with the silent boy, who eventually does indeed have something to say. It’s something dinosaur-like, of course. The gentle humor of this series, and the attractively low-key presentation of its messages, make Harry and his dinosaurs a real treat for young children – even if the dinos’ accurate names are in no way reflected in their highly fanciful (and decidedly non-threatening) appearance.

(+++) BEACH READING FOR ALL AGES

So Inn Love. By Catherine Clark. HarperTeen. $5.99.

Summerhouse Time. By Eileen Spinelli. Illustrated by Joanne Lew-Vriethoff. Knopf. $12.99.

Babymouse #6: Camp Babymouse. By Jennifer L. Holm & Matthew Holm. Random House. $5.99.

      These three books could be a case study in changing expectations where summer-reading-for-fun is concerned. Teens, especially teenage girls looking for an uncomplicated, un-deep approach to summer romance, should enjoy So Inn Love, which takes place at the Tides Inn in Rhode Island. Catherine Clark, author of a number of “beach reads” for ages 14 and up, here serves up a typical teen tale of a first job, first love and first heartbreak…with none of it too serious. Elizabeth (Liza) McKenzie is in her first year working at the prestigious Tides Inn, but just about everyone else has worked there before, and so there is cliquishness to cope with, and a girl Liza knows who is “snobbing” her, and some problems with Liza’s own self-transformation from the more conventional girl she has been in the past (she now has a tattoo – temporary – and a pierced belly button, and in general does not conform to the strict rules and appearance code of the Tides Inn). There are the expected flirtations and misunderstandings, some interesting encounters with a writer’s-blocked writer, a big blowup involving a wedding, and a satisfactory conclusion involving another wedding. It’s all fluff, all forgettable and all summertime fun.

      For ages 8-12, summer books are less fraught with overflowing emotion and more filled with small joys and worries involving family and friends. At least that is the case in books such as Summerhouse Time. Written in verse by Eileen Spinelli, with charming and often slightly silly illustrations by Joanne Lew-Vriethoff, this is a story in which 11-year-old Sophie and her extended family spend August in a pink beach cottage, with everything that “beach” implies – swimming and taffy and sand and sharing secrets. The mild drama here – and it is very mild – comes from Sophie’s discovery that things seem different this summer: Colleen, her teenage cousin, doesn’t want to share a room with her and is grumpy and withdrawn; her aunt and uncle are arguing a lot; and although Sophie has a crush on a boy, she has no one to share it with – which takes some of the fun out of it. Much of the charm of the book comes from its depictions of ordinary scenes: “It rains after dinner./ The aunts turn the kitchen/ into a beauty shop./ They do each other’s hair./ Mom paints Tammy’s toenails/ Strawberry Pink./ Dad and Uncle Joe play Scrabble with Cooper./ Cooper wins!” Or: “Grandpop says/ he’s not one/ for churches./ Grandmom says/ they used to fight/ about that/ when they were younger./ Now/ Grandmom/ goes to church/ by herself.” The easy flow of the free verse is lulling, and although Sophie learns that “life is never perfect,/ even at the summerhouse,” the book’s ending is upbeat, with a hopeful look ahead toward next year’s beach-cottage trip.

      Still-younger readers, ages 7-10, can get some summertime fun from the latest Babymouse installment, Camp Babymouse. It is full of the expected Babymouse things: fantasizing, talking with (and back to) the book’s narrator, and making all sorts of mistakes – which in this case lead Babymouse to keep getting demerits for her cabin at Camp Wild Whiskers. Babymouse is as endearing and messy-whiskered as ever, and her daydreams (she turns into Babykong in one and scares Bigfoot in another) have, as usual, better outcomes than her real life – in which she fails to make her bed, sets part of the forest on fire, and more. Optimistic and plucky as ever, Babymouse does show her mettle by rescuing herself and another camper when they get lost one night. But she remains pretty hapless, if not hopeless, most of the rest of the time. Camp Babymouse doesn’t have quite as much zing as the best books in this series – Jennifer L. Holm and her brother, Matthew Holm, make this one a little too formulaic – but it’s an enjoyable summertime adventure for young readers who like the central character and just want a pleasant way to pass a little bit of time.

(++++) M IS FOR MARVELOUS

M Is for Magic. By Neil Gaiman. HarperCollins. $16.99.

InterWorld. By Neil Gaiman and Michael Reaves. HarperCollins. $16.99.

      Neil Gaiman is something of a marvel. Whether writing in short form or long, alone or in partnership, he puts an indelible stamp of mystery, intrigue and the most unexpected sort of heart-tugging emotion into his work. For example, his Good Omens, written with Terry Pratchett, is a classic of sorts, with two top-notch stylists and plotters complementing each other rather than (as could easily have happened) rubbing each other the wrong way. Gaiman has a way of getting the most from words, from collaborators, and from concepts – and that includes in his stories for children.

      But beware: what Gaiman considers appropriate for kids may not be quite what parents want them reading. His novel Coraline had enough genuine chills to be a dark adult fantasy, but was recommended for ages eight and up. These two new books target ages 10 and up, but there are plenty of 10-year-olds who will not be psychologically ready for them. Some 12-year-olds, too – and maybe even some older readers.

      The more “adult” of the books is the short-story collection, M Is for Magic, which pays tribute to the dark fantasies of Ray Bradbury in a number of ways. The title mirrors those of such Bradbury books as R Is for Rocket and S Is for Space (although the content does not – there’s virtually no SF here); and one story, the spookily atmospheric “October in the Chair,” is dedicated to Bradbury. Other tales here are worthy of the same dedication: “Troll Bridge,” about life and loss from a perspective far too adult for most young readers; “Don’t Ask Jack,” a short chiller left deliberately open-ended; and “The Price,” a truly scary cat story. Other standouts among these 11 stories are the picaresque “Sunbird,” the sort-of-science-fictional “How to Talk to Girls at Parties,” and the tremendously involving and genuinely strange “The Witch’s Headstone” (about a boy raised by the dead). Gaiman does humor, too, in the tall tale of “How to Sell the Ponti Bridge,” the gently offbeat “Chivalry,” and the wonderful telescoping of detective stories and nursery rhymes, “The Case of the Four and Twenty Blackbirds.” The free-verse “Instructions,” which ends the book, is also a fairy tale – or, rather, a guide to any reader who might find himself or herself caught in one. All these stories have been published before, and some have been collected before, but that in no way diminishes their power – or the expressive range that Gaiman shows in every one of them.

      The range is somewhat more limited in the novel InterWorld, and that is not necessarily a bad thing – certainly not for those who enjoy Gaiman’s forays into SF, for that is what this book is. It’s the story of a boy who has a habit of getting lost, and who at one point gets so lost that he finds himself in a parallel world, where there is another one of him; and it turns out that there are lots of other versions of him, and they must all band together to fight unspeakably evil forces whose triumph could meant the end of all the worlds. This is not a particularly unusual SF plot, but Gaiman’s trademark creation of amused sympathy for characters gives it more depth than many similarly plotted books possess. And Michael Reaves, who is not only an SF writer himself but also an experienced writer for TV and films, contributes fast pacing and cinematic cuts from scene to scene that keep InterWorld moving at a fast pace – even as the character sketches by Gaiman (who has done his own share of TV and movie work) provide an expansive view of young Joey Harker and all the other Joey Harker approximations with whom he interacts. (In truth, it is pure guesswork as to who contributed what to the book; but this scenario makes sense based on the style of Gaiman’s and Reaves’ other work. And if it’s wrong, that just means that their cross-pollination has been even more effective.) The underlying plot of InterWorld has to do with science, magic, and the balance between them, within our world and across an infinitude of worlds. It’s a big subject, which Gaiman and Reaves make manageable by keeping the focus on Joey, a non-hero who, of course, turns out to be quite a hero indeed. There is high adventure here, and there is also some thoughtfulness – all of it mixed with skill and authorial panache. And because of the story’s design, it would be easy for Gaiman and Reaves to craft a sequel, or several, if InterWorld proves popular.

(+++) TV OR NOT TV?

Not Remotely Controlled: Notes on Television. By Lee Siegel. Basic Books. $15.95.

      Does television matter anymore? Yes, it is pervasive, but younger TV viewers have taken the fine art of using it as background to new heights, often doing homework and sending text messages (and maybe doing other things as well) while the TV is on. In the days when Marshall McLuhan designated TV a “cool medium” (in contrast to radio, a “hot medium”), the method of interaction (or lack thereof) between the tube and the audience seemed highly significant, tied into the type of shared experience that millions had at any given time and thus to the direction in which society (American society, anyway) seemed to be going.

      But the “shared experience” value of TV has diminished to the point of vanishing. There are no longer only three networks; there are few programs that huge numbers of people watch at the same time, as opposed to on a recorded basis with commercials (and often portions of the shows) skipped – the Super Bowl and the finales of “Friends” and “The Sopranos” are very much exceptions, not the rule. And yet there are some critics, such as Lee Siegel, who persist in taking the medium very seriously indeed. Siegel has done so in Harper’s, Time, The Atlantic Monthly, and The New Republic – from the last of which the essays in this book come. Not Remotely Controlled collects some of Siegel’s work written between 2003 and 2006, on such subjects as cop shows, sitcoms, drama, cartoons, documentaries, news and so-called reality shows.

      The essays are most interesting when they raise major societal concerns from an underlying assumption that TV doesn’t just matter – it continues to have huge importance in society. “The funny thing about television is that it distracts you as you watch it,” writes Siegel in an essay that is purportedly about SpongeBob SquarePants but that barely mentions the anarchic cartoon character. “It doesn’t hold your attention, it eases it. …Television stills your mind and lets it roam, as if the mind were a crying infant that the television took in its glowing arms and soothed so that it could sleep and dream.” This is excellent writing – and profoundly wrong in terms of how many people, especially younger people, use TV today. But accept Siegel’s worldview for a while and he gets into interesting territory, such as “the extent to which television cultivates distraction into a new kind of discipline.”

      Siegel’s well-turned phrases and somewhat academic overview of TV are the best part of this book. “CSI” and “Law & Order,” he writes, are “a kind of medical porn” on one level, but also “offer the illusion of control after great painful upheaval.” Morning news shows “are often studies in orchestrated humility and rigged self-effacement.” As for reality shows, “Only in America could reality become a trend.” But the book bogs down when it focuses on the minutiae of individual programs at specific points in time – and since Siegel is, after all, a columnist, that is what the book does for most of its length. One essay opens, “Brokaw is leaving. Rather is leaving. Jennings is obviously about to leave.” How dated can you get? (Well, it made sense in December 2004.) Another opens, “After weeks of the media pandering to the Christian right in re Ashley, Terri, and John Paul, there suddenly comes Revelations.” (This was clear in April 2005.) And then there are the serious analyses of such shows as “The New Kojak,” “Weeds” and “Stump the Schwab,” and such documentaries as “The Children of Leningradsky” and “The Staircase.” If you don’t remember the programs Siegel discusses – and care about them and their possible (or possibly overstated) societal implications – then very little in this book will have meaning for you. Whether it should matter is a different issue. Siegel’s determination to take television seriously, even when wrongheaded, is a worthwhile attempt to come to terms with what TV does and means in our society today. And his writing is stylish and often pointed, even if readers who don’t recall details of trivial TV programming from the last five years will often be unable to get the points.