(+++++) SIMPLY THE BEST

Celebrating Peanuts: 60 Years. By Charles M. Schulz. Andrews McMeel. $75.

     The best gift book of the year for comic-strip lovers – the best gift for yourself if you have been even the slightest bit charmed, enchanted, delighted and/or amused by Peanuts anytime since the strip’s debut on October 2, 1950 – Celebrating Peanuts: 60 Years is also Andrews McMeel’s best effort to date in capturing comics within a hardcover coffee-table book for reasons that seem to transcend the purely commercial. Yes, there are now similar Andrews McMeel hardcovers of The Far Side, Calvin and Hobbes and Dilbert, but they are, more than anything else, collections – sort of like the publisher’s oversize paperback “Treasury” volumes, several notches up in price. Not so Celebrating Peanuts: 60 Years, which is a genuine value-added “Treasury” about one of the most treasurable comic strips of all time.

     This book is not a biography of Charles M. (for Monroe) Schulz (1922-2000). It is not a full-fledged study of his art, or even of everything relating to Peanuts – for example, it does not discuss Schulz’s earlier strip, Li’l Folks, which metamorphosed into the far more famous one. Wisely, editors Paige Braddock and Alexis E. Fajardo, and contributors including Pixar Animation’s Pete Docter and Schulz’s widow, Jean, have ceded center stage and the limelight to Sparky – yes, “Sparky,” a nickname that Charles Schulz was given as a child, by his uncle, and that itself comes from a comic strip: Spark Plug was the highly popular racehorse in Billy DeBeck’s Barney Google.

     What Celebrating Peanuts: 60 Years is, then, is a decade-by-decade look at Peanuts, including many quotations from Schulz himself about his thoughts, his ideas and his characters – and many, many, many of the strips themselves in this handsome volume’s 534 pages. The introductions to each decade cite the strip’s many hallmarks: Schroeder’s first piano (1951); Charlie Brown’s first kite (1952); Snoopy’s first “happy dance” (1956); Lucy’s first appearance as a psychiatrist (1959) and her first booth (1961); Snoopy’s first time as the World War I Flying Ace (1965); Peppermint Patty’s introduction (1966); the naming of Woodstock (1970); the first appearance of Snoopy’s brother, Spike (1975); and many more elements. “The only way you can stay ahead of your imitators is to search out new territories,” Schulz says in one of the quotations here, and Celebrating Peanuts: 60 Years shows the innumerable ways he did just that. But it shows much more – for example, students of comic-strip art can see how much of the strip was made up of characters drawn from the side, a highly unusual approach that makes possible (among other things) the many famous drawings of Snoopy lying atop his doghouse. The wonderful thing about Celebrating Peanuts: 60 Years is its cross-generational and cross-expertise appeal: whether you first came to Peanuts decades ago or only through the reprints that many newspapers still run, whether you know nothing about cartooning or a great deal, you will find material in this book to enhance your knowledge, increase your delight and – not at all incidentally – tickle your funnybone.

     For one of the things that Celebrating Peanuts: 60 Years makes clearest is how wonderfully, gently, delightfully and consistently funny Peanuts was, day after day and decade after decade. The nature of the humor changed over time – again, the book shows this quite clearly – as the strip emerged from a “kids talking like small adults” mode (a common device when Peanuts started) to one in which the characters inhabit their own self-contained world, in which the humor is driven by interactions among fully defined personalities. Some characters themselves changed notably over the years: Sally went from being sweet and naïve to being far more pointed and a touch cynical. Other characters evolved in different ways: Snoopy’s fantasies became more complex and elaborate, and eventually even involved some of the children; but he had indulged in a rich fantasy life as far back as the 1950s. Charlie Brown evolved very slowly and subtly, remaining the glue that held the strip together (as Walt Kelly once described the role of the title character in his Pogo strip). All these changes emerge in the pages of Celebrating Peanuts: 60 Years, along with the essential gentleness and underlying humanity of this strip – two things that never changed and that help explain its extraordinary, worldwide, time-spanning success. Schulz’s rare forays into events of the day, such as a 1997 strip about the excesses of political correctness, stand out for their rarity – and, again, that rarity helps explain the timelessness of Peanuts. Indeed, it is the strips themselves that are the most eloquent argument for the amazing success of this truly great comic strip. The huge helping of Schulz’s work in Celebrating Peanuts: 60 Years is not all there is to the book, but it is most of what the book contains – and most of what makes the book such an utterly wonderful experience from start to finish.

     We miss you, Sparky. And we thank you.

(++++) DIVINE AND CONQUER

Tee Time in Berzerkistan: A “Doonesbury” Book. By G.B. Trudeau. Andrews McMeel. $16.99.

     The funny thing about Gary Trudeau’s Doonesbury is that it isn’t funny. Witty, sometimes. Wry, frequently. But although it is called a “comic” strip, there is little that is comic about it, except perhaps in the same sense as Dante’s “Divine Comedy,” which is comedic only from a deity’s point of view. Trudeau, of course, is the god of his own little world, which often closely resembles the one in which the rest of us live – but diverges from it whenever Trudeau wants to make a point, which is frequently.

     It is worth noting that Doonesbury is an idea strip, not a character strip, despite the huge number of characters in it. In this way, Trudeau – the preeminent political comic-strip creator of our time – differs significantly from Walt Kelly, whose Pogo was the greatest political strip of its time. Pogo is still delightfully readable today, because so much of it is character-driven and extremely funny, even though its political points have long since faded into obscurity. Doonesbury does not wear as well, because Trudeau selects the characters he will use in a given series of strips based on the point he wants to make in that series – the people are secondary to the argument. This makes Trudeau’s strips highly effective in the short term – and viscerally annoying to those whose ideas differ from his – but it guarantees that collections, such as Tee Time in Berzerkistan, will appeal primarily to Trudeau’s personal legion of dittoheads (and he would hate to be thought of as having followers in the manner that Rush Limbaugh has them, even though he does). The best characters in this collection are the most extreme, notably including Trff Bmzklfrpz, president-for-life of Greater Berzerkistan, a genocidal dictator looking for money from the United States and therefore a perfect choice to be represented by ever-present and ever-cynical Duke and his son, Earl, now set up as lobbyists. Duke lands the dictator for $50,000 a week after refusing to be naked and bleeding when meeting Bmzklfrpz (pronounced “Ptklm,” one of his lackeys explains), and after reacting with indifference to Bmzklfrpz’s announcement that he has taken Duke’s family hostage. Scenes like this work precisely because they are understandable within the world of realpolitik but also go far (or maybe not quite so far) beyond it – in much the same way that some of Scott Adams’ most effective Dilbert strips are ones in which he takes office politics just a bit beyond the pale (using an actual goat as the scapegoat for failed projects, for example).

     But the farther Trudeau gets from big-picture commentary, the less well his strips wear. Multiple strips focused on lobbyists working for John McCain’s presidential campaign are thoroughly boring and quite irrelevant – and make Trudeau’s pro-Democrat political bias abundantly obvious (not that he ever tries to conceal it). A Sunday strip based on an old commercial for a product called “Head On” is equally dated. So are strips in which perpetual student Zonker Harris objects to being asked questions relevant to course content because “Joe Kegger” and other “average people” would not be interested. But on the other hand, Trudeau’s strips relating to the war in Iraq retain staying power and considerable clout, because the characters he portrays could be any people in any war, just trying to get by and suffering wounds both physical and psychological. It’s too bad that Trudeau never brings that same sense of universality to everyday politics.

     Trudeau’s style has become so refined that it now differs little from day to day or collection to collection. There is one noteworthy development in Tee Time in Berzerkistan, though: Trudeau makes more references than usual to the fact that this is, after all, a comic strip. So in one “mailbag” strip, Mike Doonesbury – the titular title character, although he in fact plays very little role in the strip these days – digs down through piles of letters to find one from 1981 advising him not to marry J.J., from whom he was eventually divorced with a great deal of angst. And Mike’s daughter, Alex, improbably meets and falls for Toggle, a soldier from B.D.’s old unit who sustained a traumatic brain injury, leading B.D. to wonder, “What are the odds?” – and the omniscient occasional narrator of the strip to intone, above the next panel, “Pretty good, actually. It’s a comic strip.” Trudeau is starting to become not only self-aware but also self-referential. It will be interesting to see whether the result is any sense of new directions for Doonesbury, or if the self-references are just another device to help Trudeau continue making his points.

(+++) PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

The Book of the Maidservant. By Rebecca Barnhouse. Random House. $16.99.

War Games. By Audrey Couloumbis & Akila Couloumbis. Random House. $16.99.

Horse Diaries #3: Koda. By Patricia Hermes. Illustrated by Ruth Sanderson. Random House. $5.99.

Powerless. By Matthew Cody. Knopf. $15.99.

Today I Will: A Year of Quotes, Notes, and Letters to Myself. By Eileen and Jerry Spinelli. Illustrated by Julia Rothman. Knopf. $15.99.

     Books given and received at this time of year can give young readers gateways to yesterday, to alternative versions of today, or even to tomorrow. The Book of the Maidservant, the first novel by medieval historian Rebecca Barnhouse, is a fictionalized retelling of the autobiographical 15^th-century Book of Margery Kempe. Barnhouse’s novel is the tale of a serving girl on an unwanted and difficult pilgrimage. The central character is not Dame Margery but her servant, Johanna, who must accompany Margery and other pilgrims on a long journey to Rome – and, at the end of each day’s forced march, cook and clean and fetch for everyone in the group. This was the way of the world in medieval times: a single-minded focus by the avowedly pious on Jesus and his sufferings, but little if any attention to the sufferings of the lower classes in the everyday world. Barnhouse tells Johanna’s story in modern language, keeping it simple, in accord with what would be expected from a pious but uneducated serving girl: “I miss Cook and Cicilly. I miss my sister.” But there is pathos here beneath the matter-of-fact narrative, as Johanna both accepts and bemoans her fate – and proves to have the inner strength, when she turns out to need it, to find her own way to Rome after her mistress abandons her and the other pilgrims in their group. Eventually Johanna escapes from the overbearing Dame Margery and starts to make a life of her own, although still (of course) within her own class and within the strictures set upon all women of her time. Modern readers ages 10-13 will likely find the historically accurate all-pervasive religious references in The Book of the Maidservant somewhat tedious, but they are true to the age in which the book is set. Johanna’s name, though, is invented: Dame Margery never mentions it in her autobiography – which she did not write but dictated, since she herself was illiterate.

     Also set in the past, but a more recent one, War Games is the story of 12-year-old Petros during World War II. The book is based on coauthor Akila Couloumbis’ boyhood; his wife, Audrey, has written several books that, like this one, are intended for ages 8-12. The tale is of Nazi-occupied Greece – not a venue often found in books about this war – and about the transformation of neighbors to enemies and family games to matters of deadly earnest. The events in the book and the attitudes expressed by the Nazis are not really anything new: “It felt as if the man didn’t see Petros and his family as people but as male goats, not useful for very long.” The setting is unusual, though, and the contrast between the extremely serious business of war and resistance and the lighthearted one of games – which turn out to have their own serious uses – is well done. The language is effective, too: “Papa made several more stops, where the vegetables and eggs were greeted like bread with honey.” But for all its heartfelt emotion, War Games tends a bit too much toward the obvious, even including a symbolic kite that eventually “flew proudly for several days, irritating only those who wore a German uniform.” The book is well-meaning in the extreme but perhaps, in the final analysis, a little too earnest.

     The Horse Diaries books are also intended for ages 8-12, and they are set at various times. The third of these books – each told from a different horse’s point of view – takes place in 1846 and is a story of the pioneers’ journey along the Oregon Trail. Koda, a bay quarter horse, is used to running free with his human friend, Jasmine – until Jasmine and her family become part of a wagon train heading west from Independence, Missouri. These books rely entirely on horses having human feelings and human ways of expressing themselves: “The first thing [Jasmine] showed me was the place where she lived – her house, she called it… And then she showed me a barn and creatures called cows and another creature called a dog.” Later, as the wagon train moves toward the west, “I have to say, I didn’t like it one little bit. Every day was the same. …One night, after many, many days of flat plains, with nothing but waving grass and scorching sun, we crossed into Nebraska…” Koda’s eventual heroism brings the book to its climax in a story that mixes snippets of history with a story that will be of interest mostly to young horse lovers.

     History of a different sort – comic-book style – is the foundation of Matthew Cody’s debut novel, Powerless. Set more or less in the present – let’s say an alternative present – it has an intriguing premise: Noble’s Green, Pennsylvania, is “the safest town on Earth” because it is inhabited by a secret group of six super-powered preteen kids. “There was definitely something a little strange about the kids of Noble’s Green.” Well, yes – sounds like a perfect setup for a book intended, as this one is, for ages 10 and up (but not too far up). In fact, though, the real hero is “powerless” Daniel, who turns out to have abilities that pass the test of time in a way that the superkids’ do not. For as soon as the super-powered young people become teenagers – when they turn 13 – their powers vanish, along with their memory of them. Why? Finding that out turns out to be Daniel’s own special power – one he developed before moving to Noble’s Green and one that does not disappear. Much of the underlying meaning of the book is obvious – true power comes from within, and all that – and some of the writing is cliché-ridden: “Getting beaten up he could handle, but the whole girl thing, it was just too gruesome.” But Cody has a number of intriguing ideas going for him here – maybe even a few too many, with competing super-strong kids, a mysterious comet, an old comic-book series, a hidden cave holding secrets, even something called Witch Fire. And then there is Daniel’s fascination with Sherlock Holmes – whence his detective skill and his connection with elderly Holmes aficionado Herman Plunkett, who drew the comics that hold a clue that points to the Shroud that is part of the mystery…well, you see where this goes. Not exactly where it goes – Cody keeps the twists twisting and the turns turning – but the general direction is pretty clear pretty early on. Cody clearly enjoys comic-book language as well as comic-book setups: “Imagine the following scenario, Daniel. One day, for whatever reason, some of the children of this town start doing incredible things, magical things. Some can fly, some are strong, some are fast. Now imagine that another child realizes that he has a power, too. Only this isn’t a nice, shiny power like his friends’. He can’t fly, he can’t run super-fast; all he can do – is steal other powers. He’s like a leech, this one.” But who is the leech? That is the ultimate mystery, eventually solved through teamwork activated by Daniel’s deductive powers, thus showing that the apparently powerless is not powerless after all. Fans of classic comic-book stories will especially enjoy this alternative-present tale – and will enjoy rather than be bothered by its familiar elements.

     All these journeys to the past and sort-of-present, though, do little to prepare young readers for next year and the years beyond. Those are the times on which prolific authors Eileen and Jerry Spinelli – a wife-and-husband team, like Audrey and Akila Couloumbis – set their sights in Today I Will. The book, with its bound-in ribbon placeholder, looks at first like a diary or journal, but in fact it is the Spinellis who supply A Year of Quotes, Notes, and Letters to Myself. There are quotations and brief comments by the authors for every day of every year – yes, even February 29 for leap years, which of course gets remarks devoted to its unique position in the calendar. Some other days, and not always the expected ones, also get comments devoted specifically to their uniqueness. February 4, for example, is Rosa Parks’ birthday, so the authors include a comment from a Parks biography and some thoughts inspired by her example (“Doing the wrong thing is often easier than doing the right thing”). Most days, though, get quotations and comments that could fit any day. June 16, for instance: “At one time or another everyone is afraid. What counts is how we handle our fear…” Each page opens with a quotation, continues with a discussion, and ends with a promise for a reader to make to himself or herself – August 2: “I am a firefly. There is a light within me. Today I will turn it on and brighten a darkness.” Intended for ages 10 and up, Today I Will has enough sweetness for somewhat younger readers and perhaps too much for young teenagers. The self-promises are often good ones: “Today I will set aside a half hour to extinguish my ego and experience the world without myself at the center” (October 8). But only readers who are already predisposed to this sort of self-awareness (and, to an extent, self-abnegation) will likely want to follow the Spinellis’ ideas throughout the new year.

(+++) NOT ALWAYS WHAT THEY SEEM

Katman. By Kevin C. Pyle. Henry Holt. $12.99.

The Time Travelers’ Handbook. By Lottie Stride. Illustrated by Dusan Pavlic. Feiwel and Friends. $9.99.

The 39 Clues, Book 6: In Too Deep. By Jude Watson. Scholastic. $12.99.

     The adage, “don’t judge a book by its cover,” became a cliché precisely because it was so often true. And it still is. The cover of Kevin C. Pyle’s Katman makes it look like yet another graphic novel filled with superheroic (or supervillainous) types: a gigantic orange catlike being, snarling and reaching toward the reader, looms over a rundown part of town through which a solitary figure is walking. But Katman is more than its cover, and better, and will likely be a disappointment to anyone who buys it expecting traditional graphic-novel fare. It turns out that the title character is the creation of a punk girl named Jess, who defines herself and the headbangers she hangs out with by saying one is sadistic, one is autistic and she is artistic. Katman, the powerful manga shapeshifter, has no place in Jess’s real life – but 15-year-old Kit does, and this story is really about quiet real-world heroism and how it contrasts with the comic-book sort. The real and imaginary worlds are connected through cats, as Kit (whose name is obviously appropriate) finds himself dragged, almost against his will, into the lives of the stray cats that abound in his less-than-well-to-do neighborhood – eventually stealing to get food for some of them, then going to work and being paid in cat food to continue helping them, and still later becoming involved in the life of a prototypical “cat lady” who has little use for people but dotes on the felines that roam at will throughout her house. The story of Kit and Jess is gritty and sometimes unpleasant, with solutions to problems occurring at best in piecemeal fashion – unlike the solutions in superhero comics and many graphic novels. Katman is darker and less pleasant to read than you might expect from the cover – but it also has more depth than you might think it would have.

     The cover of The Time Travelers’ Handbook makes it look as if this is a book about – well, about traveling through time. A young boy clutching an odd-looking instrument is seen in the middle of one of those clichéd “time swirls” that traditionally indicate time travel, while the cover’s margins bear such statements as “Tackle a T. Rex” and “Operate a Guillotine.” In fact, though, this is a book of history disguised as fiction. The subtitle even uses the word “history,” but still does not make it clear just what the book is about: “A Wild, Wacky, and Wooly Adventure through History!” Inside, though, there is plenty of historically accurate information. Each entry starts with the “time travel handset” showing a different date: 700 BC for silk making in ancient China, 1588 for the defeat of the Spanish Armada, 40,000 BC for mammoth hunting, and so on. Then, in two to six pages, Lottie Stride’s text and Dusan Pavlic’s clear and rather old-fashioned illustrations come together to explain where (or rather when) you are and what you need to do. Dangers of the past are described but not dwelled on: the risks faced by London chimney sweeps (1847), what happens during an attack on a medieval castle (1282), even the chance of being hit by rotten produce while acting in one of Shakespeare’s plays (1599). The historical information is presented in once-over-lightly fashion: fighting with the samurai (1287), building a Viking longship (832), making an Egyptian mummy (1550 BC), and much more. And there are projects for 21^st-century kids to try, such as writing in hieroglyphs (based on the way they were written in 1450 BC) and making your own cave paintings (along the lines of those from 17,000 BC). The Time Travelers’ Handbook is not exactly history and not exactly crafts, but a bit of a melding of the two – think of it as a kind of “history lite” with activities.

     And speaking of marches through history: they continue for Amy and Dan Cahill in the sixth volume of The 39 Clues, which centers on a family whose various competing branches seem to be related to just about everyone famous who ever lived. In this case, you can judge the book by its cover, since the layout of all the books in this multimedia series is the same – including six game cards bound into the inside front cover each time. The by-now-familiar plot of The 39 Clues has to do with a race to get information that will make the one who eventually finds and assembles the clues the most powerful person in the world. Fourteen-year-old Amy and 11-year-old Dan travel the world (money is no object here, or not much of one) in their search, tossing out informational tidbits to readers along the way: “Did you know that Australia has more deadly creatures than anywhere else in the world? Look at this snake – it’s called a taipan. Its venom can kill, like, two thousand sheep. Or maybe it was two hundred. Anyway, if you get bit by one of these babies, you have to, like, get airlifted to a hospital for antivenom or else die a horrifying death right there.” The problem with Jude Watson’s writing in Book Six (the books are written by different authors) is that he is lazy. Is it 200 or 2,000? It’s unfair to offer a fact and then muddle it on the basis that an 11-year-old is explaining it. An author can get away with “get bit” instead of “get bitten,” but not with writing “antivenom” when the correct word is “antivenin.” Still, fans of The 39 Clues are unlikely to care about such niceties at this point – and anyone who has stayed with the series (including its online component) until now will have to read this book in order to keep up with the sequence of frights, discoveries and near-misses. This book includes a confrontation between Amy and Dan about their parents’ fate, the young protagonists’ loss of an enemy-turned-ally, and a promise that the next book, The Viper’s Nest, will finally reveal just which branch of the far-flung Cahill clan Amy and Dan belong to. That should be enough to keep fans of The 39 Clues coming back for more – which at this stage of the 10-book series, is the whole point.

(++++) THE SYMPHONIST OF BALTIMORE

Asger Hamerik: Symphonies Nos. 1-7; Requiem. Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra (Nos. 1-6) and Danish National Symphony Orchestra and Choir with Randi Stene, mezzo-soprano (No. 7; Requiem) conducted by Thomas Dausgaard. Dacapo. $49.99 (4 SACDs).

     He was born in Frederiksberg, Denmark, near Copenhagen, as Asger Hammerich. He started using Hamerik, the less German-sounding version of his name, as part of Denmark’s nationalistic upsurge after the Second Schleswig War (also called the Danish-Prussian War) of 1864. He was the best-known Danish composer of his time after Niels W. Gade, and traveled even more extensively than Gade did. But where Asger Hamerik (1843-1923) really flourished was in the United States – specifically in Baltimore, Maryland, where he was head of the Peabody Institute of Music from 1871 to 1898. In that remarkable 27-year period, which firmly established the Peabody as a preeminent force in American musical education, Hamerik created all seven of his symphonies as well as the Requiem that was his own favorite work. (Baltimore was important to the genesis of the Requiem: Hamerik was not Catholic but was a close friend of the city’s Cardinal Gibbons.)

     Little known today outside Denmark – and not especially well known even there – Hamerik is one Romantic-era composer whose small output (about 40 opus numbers) is well worth reconsideration. He studied with Berlioz and was heavily influenced by him; he also studied with Gade, and adopted some of that composer’s Sturm und Drang and lyricism; and he studied as well with composer J.P.E. Hartmann and conductor Hans von Bülow, the latter becoming a lifelong friend. All these influences and more permeate Hamerik’s seven numbered symphonies (an early one in C minor, written before No. 1, is lost) – from a first work that sounds a great deal like Gade to later ones that occupy some of the sonic and harmonic territory of Bruckner and Mahler, although without their length (none of Hamerik’s symphonies lasts more than three-quarters of an hour).

     Hamerik gave his symphonies singularly pleasant titles that, by and large, accurately reflect their moods – and that are reminiscent of the symphonic titles of Sweden’s Hans Berwald. In fact, each composer wrote a “Symphonie Sérieuse” in G minor (Berwald’s No. 1 of 1843, Hamerik’s No. 5 of 1889-91). Hamerik called No. 1 “Symphonie Poétique,” No. 2 “Symphonie Tragique,” No. 3 “Symphonie Lyrique,” No. 4 “Symphonie Majestueuse,” No. 6 (for strings only) “Symphonie Spirituelle,” and No. 7 “Choral Symphony” (it includes a solo mezzo-soprano as well as the chorus). His Requiem, written between Symphonies Nos. 3 and 4, calls for a contralto solo – but Randi Stene manages this part as well as that in Symphony No. 7 quite admirably under Thomas Dausgaard’s baton.

     Dausgaard, a fine and fluent conductor, is a strong advocate for Hamerik’s music, which he paces very well and from which he extracts all the emotion that the composer included – without adding anything extraneous. Hamerik’s first six symphonies all follow the classical four-movement model (the slow movement placed sometimes second, sometimes third). No. 7 is a three-movement work whose text was written by Hamerik and his wife, Margaret, daughter of a Tennessee landowner; it was originally called “Life, Death and Immortality,” and the words have a strong spiritual cast without being directly religious.

     Every work in Dacapo’s four-SACD Hamerik cycle is worth hearing – even the weakest symphony, No. 1 (in which the strings are so dominant in presenting and developing themes that the rest of the orchestra takes on a subsidiary role), has a magically transformative moment as the main section of the finale gives way to the coda. The symphonies are uniformly well scored, and Hamerik clearly knew how to get the sound he wanted from an orchestra. No. 4, the most outgoing of the works and the most popular during Hamerik’s lifetime, is a particularly fine example of a skilled composer taking rather unpromising thematic material and building a strikingly effective work around it. No. 5 has an especially affecting and emotionally satisfying slow movement. Several of the symphonies make substantial use of an idée fixe, about which Hamerik learned from Berlioz. The solo and choral forces in both No. 7 and the Requiem are very skillfully deployed. There is always a sense here of music with something to communicate – with the composer using an economy of means and strength of orchestration to do so.

     So why has Hamerik’s music fallen into obscurity? That too is clear from listening to this excellent set. Hamerik was more an absorber than an innovator. Although his music does have a unique sound, it is essentially mainstream European Romantic music with a touch of Nordic flair: for all his years in the United States, Hamerik never attempted to use American tunes or rhythms, as Dvořák did during his much shorter stay in the New World. What Hamerik learned from his mentors, especially from Berlioz, is clear enough so that Hamerik’s own work sounds a bit old-fashioned. There is surely nothing wrong with the frequent use of an idée fixe as a structural device, but Berlioz did so in 1830 and Hamerik was still doing so – admittedly in a somewhat different way – into the 1890s. Also, some of the well-wrought touches of Hamerik’s Requiem, such as the brass fanfares announcing Judgment Day, tie directly to the Berlioz Requiem of 1837 – 50 years before Hamerik’s. So even though Hamerik developed his musical ideas differently from the way the composers who influenced him developed theirs, Hamerik’s pieces seem more like modest extensions of what came before than like genuinely new works of art.

     Yet for all that, this Baltimore-based Nordic symphonist does not deserve his obscurity. Musicians may carp about Hamerik’s borrowings and the similarities of his music to that of other composers, but listeners coming to Hamerik’s music without preconditions or specific expectations will find in these symphonies and this Requiem a great deal of highly involving music, well performed and emotionally satisfying – and worth hearing repeatedly, not being consigned to oblivion.

(++++) BATTLE OF THE CUTIES

Why Dogs Are Better Than Cats. By Bradley Trevor Greive. Photographs by Rachael Hale. Andrews McMeel. $19.99.

Pure Cute. By Beverly West and Jason Bergund. Andrews McMeel. $9.99.

     If you are looking for a perfect gift book for a dog lover – or a contentious cat lover – or someone who loves both dogs and cats, albeit for different reasons – or someone who enjoys Bradley Trevor Greive’s small-size books, in which animal photos are coupled with strangely apt observations on the human condition – or someone who likes to pick fights (gently, though) over trivia – or someone who enjoys silly reasoning that appears, on its face, to be perfectly logical – you really ought to take a look at Why Dogs Are Better Than Cats. Between Greive’s tongue-in-cheek narration and Rachael Hale’s excellent photography, this handsome, oversize hardcover volume is just the thing for pet lovers – and is just provocative enough to start some good-natured (well, hopefully good-natured) holiday arguments. The thing about Greive is that he manages to give backhanded compliments with a certain amount of elegance, acting as if the whole dogs-vs.-cats subject is one of tremendous importance even while making it clear that, you know, it’s not. So he delivers chapter titles such as “Dogs Are Social, Cats Are Sociopaths,” and “Cats Are Not without Their Charms,” in the latter of which he comments, “Despite their fabled curiosity, cars are completely uninterested in the needs of others and, so long as their basic desires are met, are content to keep their own company and pursue their own pleasures. As such, they are not really a pet according to any reasonable definition – they are more akin to a kinetic sculpture with sadistic tendencies.” Of course, to get the full effect of the writing, you have to see it adjacent to Hale’s wonderful photo of a dark gray cat sitting atop a pedestal and looking straight out of the page. “Cats operate as largely independent life-forms within the climate controlled ecosystem of your home,” Greive writes in a chapter called “The Downside of Dogs.” But dogs “can be needy and when left alone too long, they may become anxious and fret.” Besides, “even a happy dog makes more mess than an unhappy cat.” On the other hand, Greive points out, “caring for a dog is not a hobby or a part-time responsibility – it’s a real relationship.” And having made this serious comment – which is really the heart of the book – he then footnotes it to make sure everyone keeps things light: “This is somewhat true of cats, as well. The relationship may be weirdly one-sided and kind of embarrassing but you still have to turn up.” (The footnotes are uniformly delightful. Of how many books is it possible to say that?) The delightful photos take the sting out of the few words that do sting (“Cats don’t know what we want, and they don’t care”). Hale captures all the expressions that make dogs precious to “dog people,” all the beauty and aloofness and intensity that endear cats to “cat people,” and throws in a couple of elephant, pig, turtle and ostrich pictures for good measure (in a chapter about all the animals that did not turn out to be man’s best friend). Why Dogs Are Better Than Cats is really a marvelous book, allowing readers (or lucky gift recipients) to focus for a while on an age-old “which is better?” question that has no importance whatsoever and is, for that very reason, worth contemplating for a while.

     Much more in line with Greive’s usual small-size gift books – although not involving him at all – is Pure Cute by the wife-and-husband team of Beverly West and Jason Bergund. This is a stocking stuffer, plain and simple, with photos of adorable baby animals accompanied by indulgent (if rather treacly) prose. This is really a picture book above all: a tiny, super-fluffy puppy held upright in a hand that is almost as large as the puppy itself; a sleeping kitten; a thoughtful-looking koala; two baby bunnies snacking on a leaf, one eating from one side and the other from the other side; five identical ducklings, all in a row; side-by-side guinea pigs; and so on. Sometimes the words go directly with the photos – the guinea-pig page is opposite one that says, “Two is cuter than one.” At other times, the photos inspire a slightly wry comment: opposite a picture of a dog looking hopefully at treats that are inside a tightly covered container are the words, “Indulge yourself. Cute has no calories.” And sometimes there are observations that would be nothing special without the photos: “Life is much cuter when you’ve got friends” goes with a really sweet picture of three kittens lying next to and on top of an obviously very tolerant dog. Pure Cute makes no claim to profundity and is not the sort of book you are likely to pick up again and again (unlike Why Dogs Are Better Than Cats, which is worth a second and third look). Indeed, Pure Cute is purely…well, cute. That may not be much, but it’s certainly something – indeed, something worth having, and not only in a gift-giving season traditionally devoted more to excess than to the benign power of cuteness.

(++++) FROM ASTONISHMENT TO ZELAZNY

The Collected Stories of Roger Zelazny: Volume 1—Threshold; Volume 2—Power & Light; Volume 3—This Mortal Mountain; Volume 4—Last Exit to Babylon. Edited by David G. Grubbs, Christopher S. Kovacs and Ann Crimmins. NESFA Press. $29 each.

     Roger Zelazny would have been one of the Grand Old Men of the SF genre if he had lived long enough: he died of colorectal cancer at age 58 in 1995. Old he may not have been, but grand he most certainly was. Although best known for The Chronicles of Amber (10 novels and a batch of short stories), Zelazny was in fact a very wide-ranging and deep-thinking writer with a specific philosophical and authorial bent. Myth was his specialty: he mined numerous mythic traditions (Greco-Roman, Norse, Hindu, Native American and others) for stories filled with gods or people becoming gods – a sort of casual supernaturalism that is uniquely his. Other elements of his work were less unusual – the frequent conflict between sons and (usually absent) fathers or father figures, for example – but Zelazny always gave his own twist even to these more-familiar themes.

     Zelazny was showered with all the awards typically given to outstanding SF writers, including six Hugos and three Nebulas (he was nominated for these pinnacle-of-the-genre awards a total of 28 times). And now he is receiving a posthumous award: a set of all his short fiction, being published in handsome hardcover volumes by NESFA Press, a small but scrappy outfit whose collections of SF are inevitably well-made and very classy. The Collected Stories of Roger Zelazny will eventually run to six volumes – he wrote a lot of short pieces – and will take up something in the neighborhood of 3,500 pages. The first four volumes are now available, and they are an absolute must-have for Zelazny fans, superb gifts for readers who know Zelazny only casually, and a revelation for those who (for whatever reason) know him not at all.

     In fact, the phrase Collected Stories is something of a misnomer for this massive undertaking, because the set also includes poems, some nonfiction, and occasional comments by Zelazny about his writings. The editors have thoughtfully included publication and award-related information on the title page of each item, and there are many notes to explain Zelazny’s numerous allusions and, in some cases, his vocabulary. All this is exemplary; less so is the organization of the books, which are only vaguely chronological and not clearly organized along any particular principle. This has the advantage of making any single volume a wonderful standalone gift (to one’s self if not to others), but the disadvantage of making it impossible to follow Zelazny’s stylistic development. Not that Zelazny himself made that easy: the exact provenance of his short works is not always easy to determine, and in many ways his style remained remarkably consistent from his earlier works of the mid-1960s until his death (one odd exception: Zelazny was a longtime pipe and cigarette smoker, but stopped smoking in the 1980s – at which point his characters, many of whom had been heavy smokers in his earlier works, also quit).

     Indeed, it is Zelazny’s consistent quality and consistent style that are among his hallmarks. Mixing bits of ancient myths with deliberate anachronisms, poetic sensibilities with hard-boiled dialogue, Zelazny created a series of mythic worlds of his own, using science-fiction settings primarily as backdrops for works that were essentially fantasy. The four Collected Stories volumes include tributes to this and other elements of Zelazny the writer and Zelazny the man from such fellow authors as Robert Silverberg, Walter Jon Williams, Neil Gaiman and Joe Haldeman. But more importantly, they contain a wonderful mixture of material that invites serendipity. The justly famous “A Rose for Ecclesiastes” is the first entry in Volume 1, which also includes “The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth” – and previously uncollected items such as “Circe Has Her Problems” and “Moonless in Byzantium.” Volume 2 includes, for example, “Death and the Executioner,” which became part of the novel Lord of Light, and “Auto-Da-Fé” – and four mid-1960s stories never before published at all. Volume 3 has “Here There Be Dragons” and “Angel, Dark Angel,” plus “Add Infinite Item” and “Tomorrow Stuff” and other previously uncollected or unpublished works. Volume 4 contains all three novellas from My Name Is Legion, several short works from various series, and previously uncollected essays such as “The Balance Between Art and Commerce” and “Amber and the Amberites.” Taken together, these four volumes – never mind the two yet to come – give readers tremendous insight into Zelazny’s worlds, thought patterns, interests, mythmaking and stylistic approach. More importantly, whether they are taken together or separately, they give a huge amount of sheer reading pleasure, brought to you by one of the most interesting stylists and most unusual thinkers that the SF field has yet produced.

(+++) TALES OF OLD AND OF TODAY

The Random House Book of Bible Stories. Retold by Mary Pope Osborne and Natalie Pope Boyce. Illustrated by Michael Welply. Random House. $24.99.

Scholastic Book of World Records 2010. By Jenifer Corr Morse. Scholastic. $10.99.

     Timeless Bible tales, sanitized for young readers, can make a fine seasonal gift for families that want to emphasize the religious elements of the winter holiday season (elements that stretch back to long before Christ). The Random House Book of Bible Stories is a sort of “greatest hits” summation of well-known Old and New Testament tales, most of them being exactly the ones parents will expect to find: “Adam and Eve,” “Cain and Abel,” “Noah and the Ark,” “Jacob and Esau,” “Moses and the Burning Bush,” “The Birth of Jesus,” “The Sermon on the Mount,” and so on. Inconveniently crass elements of the Bible are, as usual, left out: “The Destruction of Sodom,” for instance, excludes Lot’s offer of his virgin daughters to the unruly crowd if the people will spare his guests. Michael Welply’s illustrations are exactly what families will anticipate: an Egyptian flailing at frogs brought on as a plague (although the amphibians, truth to tell, look quite inoffensive); Moses in a Hollywood-style pose as he parts the Red Sea; Jesus always looking humble and holy; and so forth. Mary Pope Osborne and Natalie Pope Boyce, who are sisters, tell the stories in simple modern language: “A woman named Hannah was happily married to a good man. But both of them were very sorrowful about one thing – they had never had a child.” There is no blood here and nothing overtly descriptive of suffering, not even in the tale of David and Goliath or of Jesus’ crucifixion. Intended for ages 8-10, The Random House Book of Bible Stories seems rather tame for preteens, unless it is their very first exposure to the Bible and its stories. The book may make a good gift for younger children – perhaps ages 4-6 – if parents will read it to and with them and explain some of what is here glossed over or left out. It will be parents, after all, who will be their kids’ best religious teachers.

     On the other hand, kids themselves will quickly gravitate to Scholastic Book of World Records 2010, which has the sort of high-impact modern book design that is intended to grab young readers immediately. But if Bible stories, even when indifferently told, have tremendous staying power, the information in Scholastic Book of World Records 2010 is far more transient. True, some of the records listed here will likely stand indefinitely: the giant spider crab will remain the world’s largest crustacean, the whale shark the biggest fish, and the Komodo dragon the world’s largest lizard. But even the records that are subject to change do not seem interesting enough to bring young readers back to the book again and again. As of the publication of this volume, the NBA player with the highest salary is Kevin Garnett; the country with the most cell-phone accounts is Italy; the world’s largest restaurant is Damascus Gate in Syria; the world’s tallest apartment building is Q1 in Australia. These are interesting tidbits of information, presented with striking photos of the record holders and with graphics comparing the top five finishers in each category: the world’s fastest plane, for example, is the X-43A, followed by the X-15, Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird, MiG-25R Foxbat-B, and X-2. A short paragraph gives details about each record holder: the world’s busiest subway system, for example, is Tokyo’s, which carries 3.1 billion passengers a year to 282 stations, using more than 2,500 cars; the system opened in 1927; and so on. All this is interesting but scarcely compelling – a statement that describes Scholastic Book of World Records 2010 as a whole. There is something pleasant about paging through a book of records instead of searching for the same information on the Internet; and the presentation of Scholastic’s annual volume is certainly striking enough to motivate some young readers to check it out. But this is not really a reference book, and it cannot be as up to date as a Web search; so although it makes a nice gift item, it is one that is unlikely to see much use after any initial enthusiasm for its format and presentation wears off.

(+++) DRAMAS OF THE PAST

They Dared Return: The True Story of Jewish Spies Behind the Lines in Nazi Germany. By Patrick K. O’Donnell. Da Capo. $26.

The Last Founding Father: James Monroe and a Nation’s Call to Greatness. By Harlow Giles Unger. Da Capo. $26.

     Lives formed by war do not always move easily into peace – assuming they even survive the conflict. They Dared Return is the nonfictional side of a story woefully but typically overdramatized by Quentin Tarantino in the film Inglourious Basterds. Patrick O’Donnell’s book is the World War II tale of five Jews who, having reached safety in the United States, joined the Office of Strategic Services (precursor of the CIA) and returned to Nazi-occupied Europe to ferret out information that could help end the war with an Allied victory. On one level, O’Donnell’s book is like many other previously untold tales of that war, filled with narrow escapes, captures, astonishing acts of “greatest generation” heroism, and intricate retellings of events that were all in a day’s work for everyday heroes of the time – but seem in retrospect to be instances of astonishing bravery. On another level, They Dared Return is about what really matters to people, in time of war and afterwards – for, astonishingly, all five OSS volunteers profiled here survived the war. But how they survived it was very different, as O’Donnell points out after their story is told. One, Alfred Rosenthal, “sadly couldn’t put the war behind him and passed away during the 1950s.” But another, the book’s primary focus, Frederick Mayer, is still alive at age 89 and “still chops wood every day, mows the lawn, and serves food to the poor every week.” His is the kind of quiet heroism that revives a reader’s faith that there is something good in humanity – even as O’Donnell’s stories of Nazi torture and atrocities make one wonder. The actual events of the book will come as no surprise to anyone who has read the many, many volumes of heroism under fire in World War II: “Staying in the uniform of a German officer for the next three weeks, Mayer began talking to different people in Innsbruck, establishing contacts among the nascent anti-Nazi resistance in the area.” Mayer told one Nazi official, after Hitler’s death, “‘I will make you and your staff my prisoners and guarantee your lives. …I had no authority to take anyone prisoner or guarantee their safety, I just thought it was a good idea,’ Meyer modestly recalled sixty-three years later.” It is ultimately this postwar modesty that stays with the reader as much as the hair-raising events, narrow escapes and constant dangers of the war itself. Yes, They Dared Return is just another in a long line of real-life World War II adventures; but it is also a story of survival in peace, when all one faces is time and the inexorable march of mortality.

     It was a much earlier war – the American Revolution – that was formative for the nation’s fifth president, James Monroe (1758-1831). Born into colonial America, Monroe fought in the Revolution (he needed three months to recuperate from a wound) and afterwards rose to become Secretary of State and Secretary of War under James Madison – helping lead the young country through the War of 1812. Monroe served two terms as President (1817-1825) and led the United States into its first sustained period of peace, thanks in part to the Monroe Doctrine (1823). Harlow Giles Unger correctly points out that Monroe brought peace by establishing or strengthening the country’s ability to make war: he built a strong army and significantly expanded the navy. He also rescued the nation from economic calamity, partly through a government spending program that sounds, in retrospect, remarkably modern: Monroe convinced Congress to establish a national bank that let the federal government borrow money to build an extensive transportation network (of roads and canals). His plans were so successful that Monroe did something that is not modern at all: he convinced Congress to abolish all internal taxes. Unger argues in The Last Founding Father that the praise lavished on Presidents Adams and Jefferson is misplaced, with Adams’ decision to go to war against France and Jefferson’s embargo on international trade standing as disastrous decisions that nearly ruined a fledgling nation militarily and economically. Monroe, in Unger’s view, was the restorer of peace and prosperity and the establisher of a period of expansion in which the United States truly solidified itself as a nation and a power to be reckoned with. In this narrative, Monroe becomes president only in the last 80 pages; the first 260-plus show him developing to the point from which his lasting accomplishments (which included the acquisition of Florida) would be launched. The result is that Monroe emerges as more than “just” a president: he comes across as a multifaceted human being. Unger’s writing style can be a bit stolid: “By the end of June, the American embargo had combined with an embargo by Napoleon on British goods in Europe to bring British industrial production and foreign trade to a near halt.” But there are many quotations here from Monroe himself, as well as from other figures of the period, and they go a long way toward making both Monroe and this period of United States history come alive.

(++++) YOUTHFUL FERVOR FOR BRUCKNER

Bruckner: Symphony No. 7. Orchestre Métropolitain du Grand Montréal conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin. ATMA Classique. $16.99 (SACD).

Bruckner: Symphony No. 8. Orchestre Métropolitain du Grand Montréal conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin. ATMA Classique. $16.99 (2 CDs).

Bruckner: Symphony No. 9. Orchestre Métropolitain du Grand Montréal conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin. ATMA Classique. $16.99 (SACD).

     Bruckner did not seriously start composing symphonies until he was in his 40s (although the “study symphony” sometimes called No. 00 dates to 1863, when he was 39). His works, especially the later ones, are long, heavy and can be ponderous; they are also uniquely structured with thematic groups, developed in forms that differ significantly from those of other symphonies of Bruckner’s time, and filled with pauses that Bruckner likely heard as changes of the “registration” of the orchestra – akin to the pauses that are inevitable when playing the organ, an instrument on which Bruckner had considerable skill. For all these reasons and others, Bruckner’s symphonies have long been thought of as the province of mature conductors, who have lived with and through music long enough to fit Bruckner into an overall context while still exploring the unique elements of his symphonic style. It is therefore a shock, and a mighty pleasant one, to hear Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s versions of Bruckner’s last three symphonies – because here is a young conductor (born in 1975) who refuses to believe there is any reason not to conduct Bruckner with intensity, youthfulness and even a certain impulsiveness.

     The results are highly impressive. For one thing, Orchestre Métropolitain du Grand Montréal is not a traditional 100-piece (that is, Bruckner-size) orchestra: it has only about 60 players, the exact number depending on each work’s individual requirements. Thus, this orchestra brings a level of clarity to Bruckner – an audibility of inner voices and of individual sections within what is usually a grand swell of sound – that is both unusual and revelatory. The brass section occasionally falls a bit short of the fullness needed for truly effective Bruckner, but everyone in the orchestra plays gamely throughout. Nézet-Séguin has been the orchestra’s music director since 2000 and clearly knows just how much he can demand of the players – and they deliver for him with such enthusiasm that the comparative thinness in some of the grand climaxes is more than compensated for in softer sections that bring forth Bruckner’s considerable but rarely emphasized debt to Schubert. Nézet-Séguin’s Bruckner flows, not through excessive tempos – his are generally middle-of-the-road for this music – but through a focused rhythmic quality that keeps individual sections moving along smartly until Bruckner purposely stops, inserts one of his famous full-orchestra rests, and resumes in a different mood.

     The ATMA releases are, to be sure, a bit puzzling. Nos. 7 and 9 are single discs, both released in SACD format. No. 8, the most recent performance, is a two-CD (not SACD) set – the second CD containing the finale of No. 8 plus a “bonus” of the slow movement of No. 7 from the earlier recording. Also, No. 7 is a live recording; the other two symphonies were recorded in the studio. Actually, considering how different the provenance of these discs is, there is a remarkable consistency to their sound, to the sound of the orchestra and to Nézet-Séguin’s interpretations – testimony to this conductor having genuinely thought about Bruckner’s music before mounting the podium to lead it.

     Since these performances are most effective when taken as a whole, it is unfair to single out particular elements for their quality. No. 7, in particular, comes through as a fully unified work that gives no sense of meandering but moves inexorably from movement to movement. In No. 8, it is worth highlighting Nézet-Séguin’s way with the very difficult Adagio, a 30-minute movement that can easily become soporific if the conductor does not pay attention to its underlying structure and keep it moving ahead even when its pace is glacial. Nézet-Séguin’s careful attention to details of orchestration pays particular rewards here. In No. 9, the pizzicati of the Scherzo are unusually clear (although there are some unnecessary accelerandos), and the extended Adagio – another 30-minute movement – climbs episodically but fervently from one height to the next, so that it is genuinely dismaying when it ends questioningly, as if to prepare for the finale that Bruckner never finished. In all, these three performances show Nézet-Séguin to be a conductor to reckon with: he has thoroughly considered Buckner’s music and its meaning; and he brings to it a maturity that, clichéd though the phrase may be, is beyond his years. A complete Bruckner cycle from Nézet-Séguin would likely be a most interesting one, especially since the earlier symphonies are even more strongly Schubertian than the last three and would give Nézet-Séguin additional opportunities to bring out Bruckner’s considerable lyrical flow. Already, Nézet-Séguin has established himself as a Brucknerian to watch – and to hear with pleasure.

(++++) SOME GOREY, SOME GORGEOUS

Edward Gorey: The New Poster Book. Pomegranate. $19.95.

Elegant Enigmas: The Art of Edward Gorey. Text by Karen Wilkin. Pomegranate. $29.95.

The Blue Aspic. By Edward Gorey. Pomegranate. $14.95.

Sierra Club Holiday Cards: Backyard Birds in Winter. Pomegranate. $15.

Dard Hunter Design Holiday Cards. Pomegranate. $15.

Dard Hunter Folio Notecards. Pomegranate. $9.95.

Gustav Klimt Thank You Notes. Pomegranate. $8.95.

     The winter holidays are a wonderful time to immerse yourself in art, from the stolid to the offbeat to the commercial. In the “offbeat” arena is the art of Edward Gorey (1925-2000), which remains difficult to categorize nearly a decade after Gorey’s death. Gorey was a master of what may be called the amusingly macabre, although even that description does not quite fit everything he created. Gorey fans who hope to make other Gorey fans – not always easy to do, since his highly detailed art is at the service of some very strange storytelling indeed – might want to consider giving Edward Gorey: The New Poster Book as a seasonal gift. This wonderful oversize collection of 30 Gorey illustrations, 18 of them in color, includes such delights as “The Gashlycrumb Tinies,” a group of adorable (if sober-faced) youngsters standing beneath a huge umbrella held by Death (or a reasonable facsimile thereof); a Gorey version of a “Little Nemo in Slumberland” scene, captioned “Donald imagined things,” showing a small boy sitting up in bed, gazing quizzically at a gigantic green prehistoric-looking dragon-and-eel-like thing that is staring at him; a crow (or raven?) warning “Beware of this and that” as two children perch, facing in opposite directions, on a very angular bicycle that looks like a Salvador Dali creation; and much more. Gently weird and gently amusing, these posters make a wonderful introduction to Gorey’s visual delights.

     For something more in-depth, read Karen Wilkin’s text in the very handsome Elegant Enigmas: The Art of Edward Gorey, a book packed both with Gorey’s crosshatched-ink art and with understanding of it. Wilkin, a friend of Gorey and an expert in his work, offers insights into the artist’s life and times as well as a sampling of illustrations that Gorey made for other writers, for theatrical productions and even as costume designs. Some material here has not been published before (the book originated as an accompaniment to the first retrospective of Gorey’s work, held this year at the Brandywine River Museum in Pennsylvania). The sketches, doodles, typewritten manuscripts and other offbeat features neatly complement the many finished drawings (more than 175 of them), and the book as a whole makes a marvelous tribute to an artist whose work always smelled faintly of Edwardian drawing rooms, with a whiff of the macabre throughout – but without ever reveling in horror or gore. How Gorey managed to make tragedy somehow amusing remains an unanswered question even after a cover-to-cover perusal of Elegant Enigmas (whose title, by the way, is a wonderfully apt description of Gorey’s works).

     For a full if not-quite-fatal plunge into Gorey’s world, nothing beats immersion directly into one of his books, and The Blue Aspic, originally released in 1968, is a gem of its kind (incidentally showing, on the cover, what certainly seems to be a severed head immersed in blue aspic). As so often in Gorey’s work, the title has nothing to do with the story (well, except for that cover picture): this is a tale straight out of the overdramatized world of opera, and it is about opera, starting with a mysterious murder that elevates a singer to world-class status and ending with a murder-suicide and having a variety of deaths and other unpleasantnesses in between. Yet none of this is frightening and none of it wallows in grotesquerie – Gorey’s illustrations here, perhaps inevitably, are reminiscent of the work he did in creating the animated opening for the PBS series, Mystery. The tremendous attention to detail in the drawings, and the apparent inattention to writing and plot (there are many implications but no solutions here), combine in Gorey’s inimitable manner and will delight those willing to submit themselves to his oddly skewed and oddly endearing work.

     But even though Christmas and other winter holidays occur at the darkest time of the year, Gorey may be too dark for many people – and there are plenty of more-cheerful ways to mark the season. Cards are one of the delightful traditions that do just that, and there are some truly merry and bright ones available this year. One standout among the many beautifully made ones from Pomegranate is Backyard Birds in Winter, a Sierra Club offering of 20 cards printed with soy-based ink on recycled paper, with each of the four designs showing a bird whose plumage is set off beautifully against a winter scene: Eastern bluebird, Northern cardinal (two different views) and black-capped chickadee. The cardinal is a tradition of its own on winter-holiday cards, but the star of this show is the Eastern bluebird, whose white, gold and blue feathers look simply gorgeous against the red of highbush cranberries touched by a coating of ice. Each card has the entirely appropriate “Season’s Greetings” message inside.

     For holiday art with the same printed message but of a different visual type, the Dard Hunter Design Holiday Cards offer four lovely studies in seasonal reds and greens, coupled with intricate black-and-white designs. William Joseph “Dard” Hunter (1883-1966) created stained-glass and other windows, title pages for books, and more, and the simplicity and elegance of these 20 cards (five each of four designs) clearly reflect the Arts and Crafts movement of which Hunter was a part. Although far from the best-known name among the many artists whose work graces Pomegranate’s holiday cards, Hunter offers great charm and highly attractive designs that are overtly secular but also hint at the sacred messages that permeate the season. In fact, Hunter’s designs transcend any specific season (although their floral components speak always of spring) – witness the lovely Dard Hunter Folio Notecards, which are blank inside and make a beautiful gift anytime. Pomegranate’s folio of 10 cards includes five each of two 1906 Hunter designs for stained-glass windows. In one, purple is the predominant color, along with a closely related blue and some green; in the other, red, green and yellow splashes of color appear in an attractive open-work black-and-white design. These cards are for any occasion, and make any occasion a little more special.

     And for an occasion where the main message is “thanks,” gift-givers should consider the set of 10 thank-you cards featuring a design from a frieze created by Gustav Klimt (1862-1918). These cards are just the right size for a quick thank-you message (3½ x 5 inches), and their multicolored swirls and other geometric shapes nicely complement any special occasion – and compliment any recipient. Pomegranate actually offers thank-you cards for just about any artistic taste – there are even some featuring Edward Gorey’s work, specifically an illustration of a cat on a unicycle – and all Pomegranate cards are well-made and attractive. So if Klimt is not to your taste, you can surely find something that is. But do take a look at Klimt’s elegance of style and lovely color blends. You may consider these cards just the right way to say thanks, or may find the box of them just the right gift to present to someone who could well turn around and send back one of the cards to thank you for being so thoughtful!

(++++) PARTICIPATORY PLEASURES

The Big Fat Cow That Goes Kapow. By Andy Griffiths. Illustrated by Terry Denton. Feiwel and Friends. $14.99.

Baking Kids Love. By Sur La Table with Cindy Mushet. Photography by Maren Caruso. Andrews McMeel. $20.

Draw Star Wars: The Clone Wars. By the editors of Klutz and Bonnie Burton. Klutz. $16.95.

     There is so much for parents to do at this time of year that kids can sometimes get left behind, except of course when it is time for eating food and opening presents. Here, though, are three delightful ways for kids to take part in adventures of their own – or ones they can share. For young readers, ages 4-8, The Big Fat Cow That Goes Kapow will be exactly the sort of book they want to read by themselves. Andy Griffiths, an Australian children’s-book author who has clearly figured out how to channel Seussian cadences, here produces 10 very simple rhymed stories that are an absolute hoot to read. “Big Fat Cows,” which is more or less the title story, starts things off just perfectly: “It’s raining big fat cows today. How many cows? It’s hard to say. A big cow here. A fat cow there. Big fat cows are EVERYWHERE!” Abetted by wonderfully funny drawings by Terry Denton, who often collaborates with him, Griffiths lurches delightfully all over the place – from cows in space to one that really does explode (twice, in fact). And then there are the tales of “Noel the Mole,” “Klaus the Mouse,” “Willy the Worm” (who has trouble at squirm school), “Keith, Ed, and Daisy” (who make unusual choices in clothing), “Lumpy-head Fred,” “Brave Dave,” “Ruth’s Super Scooter,” “Mike’s Bike” (which has a VERY BIG SPIKE), and “Somewhere Less Spiky” (that is, away from Mikey). The jaunty rhythms will keep even reluctant readers interested in taking part in the book: “And that’s the whole story of the mole called Noel – he’s a hole-dwelling, coal-eating, rock-and-roll mole!” And the pictures go wonderfully well with the words – in fact taking over altogether for several pages in the “Mike’s Bike” tale. The Big Fat Cow That Goes Kapow is a great way to get kids to read, instead of insisting that you read to them (although it’s really fun for adults to read the book out loud, too).

     Baking Kids Love invites participation of a different kind. Here, the cookware-store chain Sur La Table and Cindy Mushet, a professional pastry chef and baking teacher, have gotten together dozens of really delicious baked-goods recipes that kids can handle with adult supervision – or, for older children, on their own. Cookies, pies, cakes, quick breads and more permeate the pages of this spiral-bound, lie-flat book, which is easy enough for first-time bakers (it even explains how to measure ingredients and grease pans) but offers plenty of creativity for more-advanced young bakers. Sprinkled throughout are wonderful photos of kids enjoying the results of the recipes, plus quotations that are almost, if not quite, as much fun as eating all these delicious things: “When I bite into one [of the chocolate-chip cookies], I’m in cookie heaven, surrounded by more cookies that have little halos and wings, sitting on clouds.” Meringue crispies, chocolate toffee bars, jumbleberry pie, vanilla scones, pumpkin gingerbread, chocolate-caramel cheesecake, cinnamon rolls, chocolate chunk bread pudding – just the names of the foods are mouth-watering (and these are only some of the recipes). Interspersed with the step-by-step directions are sections called “playing around,” showing how much fun you can have by varying elements of recipes. Baking Kids Love is a book adults will love, too – not only for the delicious results but also for the chance to take part in some truly yummy projects with some sure-to-be-delighted children.

     For kids who express their artistry outside the kitchen, the new Klutz invitation to Draw Star Wars: The Clone Wars offers plenty of guidance and, like a good recipe book, plenty of opportunities for experimentation, too. Klutz – now part of the Scholastic family – has long specialized in well-made “books-plus” offerings, in which the book itself is only part of the package. This time, the guidance on character drawing comes packaged with blank paper, tracing paper and just the right tools to follow instructions and eventually go beyond them: mechanical pencil, marker, colored pencils (actually six colors in three pencils), and eraser. As with a cookbook, Draw Star Wars: The Clone Wars starts with the basics about how to draw (including how to sit) and what not to do when creating art. Tracing, overlines, stick figures, building-block shapes and more elements of drawing are applied to characters from this part of the Star Wars saga. Young artists find out how to create Anakin, R2-D2, Chancellor Palpatine, Jabba the Hutt, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda and other characters (20 in all), as well as the opposing armies (“good guys” clone troopers and “bad guys” battle droids), a variety of weapons, and more. Star Wars: The Clone Wars may not be among the best stories in the Star Wars series, which now dates back more than 30 years; but young, artistically inclined fans of this installment will find the new Klutz how-to-draw guide a wonderful invitation to take part in the adventure and make it their own.

(+++) SOMEWHAT SCARY STUFF

The Good Neighbors, Book Two: Kith. By Holly Black & Ted Naifeh. Graphix/Scholastic. $16.99.

The Vampire Is Just Not That Into You. By Vlad Mezrich. Scholastic. $7.99.

The Solomon Effect. By C.S. Graham. Harper. $7.99.

     The second book in The Good Neighbors graphic-novel trilogy, Kith, continues the themes of reality, illusion and identity confusion that filled the first, Kin. The focus continues to be on Rue Silver, who is half human (through her father) and half faerie (through her mother) – and there is nothing ethereal about the faeries in these books: they are human-sized, powerful and inimical (or at best indifferent) to the human race. The idea that Rue does not quite know where she fits, and must find out, is a tried-and-true one, but it has a twist here because Rue does not much like either of her choices. Her mother was allowed to marry her father only on condition that he was never unfaithful to her – but he was, after falling in love, and in this book finds himself torn between human and faerie-centered emotions, which he tells Rue are not the same. Rue finds her mother in this installment and tries to save her from her grandfather, Aubrey – but is it really “saving,” and does her mother really belong with her father or with the faeries? While these uncertainties abound – handled in spare, direct text by Spiderwick Chronicles coauthor Holly Black and in dark, gloomy and sometimes frightening art by Ted Naifeh – Rue is also dealing with unexpected changes in her peer group, with her boyfriend’s apparent drifting away, with her own attraction to someone else, and with unanswerable questions, the central one being, “Are you sure you know whose side you’re on?” Rue is not sure: “I used to try really hard not to worry. Now I’m worried all the time.” And what she learns about herself does not help her decide what to do: “What makes us betray the people we love? Now I know. Nothing makes us. We just do.” By the end of this episode, Aubrey has engineered a faerie-focused success that Rue feels should horrify her – but doesn’t. And that ends the book with a question mark that will remain unresolved until the trilogy’s finale.

     There is little that is light in The Good Neighbors, and little that is dark in The Vampire Is Just Not That Into You, a “dating guide” written by a team of nine like-minded satirists under the pen name “Vlad Mezrich” (yuck). At a time when vampires are hot – as publishing phenomena, not just within the books themselves – this amusingly overdone little book makes a nice corrective to the oh-so-serious emotional intensity of the Twilight series and other works that would be bodice rippers (or bodice piercers, maybe?) if today’s teens and young adults still wore bodices. The book contains a flow chart to help a would-be vampire dater decide if he is “goth, emo, gamer, or vampire.” It offers appropriate things to say at awkward moments: “Of course I understand that killing my brother was an accident. Don’t worry about it – things like this are bound to happen.” There are comments by smitten teens such as “Abigail, 16” and “Willa, 18,” and by vampires such as “Gregor, 498” and “Theo, 112.” There are multiple-choice quizzes, advice on “coaxing him out of the crypt,” suggestions on how to celebrate the holidays together, and what to do if it turns out after all that the vampire really just isn’t that into you (“what to do when your relationship has one foot in the grave”). There are even suggestions for places to contact if you can’t get over the heartbreak of losing him, such as the Vampire Depression Hotline. The Vampire Is Just Not That Into You is silly, juvenile and overdone – but then, so are plenty of the “vampires are wonderful” stories out there these days. And those books, unlike this one, are meant to be taken seriously.

     It is hard to tell how seriously to take The Solomon Effect, C.S. Graham’s fast-paced followup to The Archangel Project. Like The Vampire Is Just Not That Into You, this is a team-written book, although here it is a team of two: husband and wife Steven Harris and Candice Proctor. Their earlier thriller turned on the concept of “remote viewing,” the ability to see things from a distance – specific things, if guided by a handler who knows how to get the remote viewer to focus in the right place. Psychology graduate student and Iraq War veteran October “Tobie” Guinness has remote-viewing ability; she works with a CIA rogue agent, Jax Alexander (the CIA abounds with rogues -- in books, anyway). Yes, the protagonists are types; and yes, the plot of The Archangel Project was formulaic (vast conspiracy to stop Tobie and Jax after Tobie remotely views secret documents that that could lead to war, assassination or both). The Solomon Effect is formulaic, too, involving a nefarious Nazi plot that comes to light through discovery of a sunken U-boat off the Russian coast that carried a cargo that could bring on the Apocalypse. Calling this an apocalyptic novel is therefore redundant. And of course Tobie and Jax are threatened by enemies in high places as well as by those who would benefit from allowing an unimaginable (well, not so unimaginable) catastrophe to occur. What is interesting about The Solomon Effect is the sneaking suspicion that the authors are not taking it entirely at face value. They lapse frequently into genre clichés, for example, but seem to know when they are doing so. Sample dialogue: “What part of ‘life is never easy’ did you miss?” “You never know; we might get lucky.” On the same page: “Things are not going as well as we’d expected. …We haven’t been able to contact our man in Berlin to ascertain just what went wrong.” Elsewhere: “You of all people should know I don’t give anything away.” And “I’m not an easy man to kill.” Add chapter headings that sometimes function as datelines (“Jaffa, Israel: Thursday 29 October 11:54 p.m. local time”) and you have all the trappings of thoroughly mediocre adventure fiction – but somehow The Solomon Effect is better than that, perhaps because it seems to watch itself from outside, making readers aware that the authors know exactly what they are doing. Consider it, perhaps, a display of authorial remote viewing. In any case, the book can certainly be read simply as an apocalyptic thriller, enjoyed and immediately forgotten. But it is more fun if you assume its use of multiple clichés is intentional – thus making it possible to get extra enjoyment out of some of the story’s twists and turns, such as the crucial importance of Googling a 93-year-old doctor who has contributed a certain article to Scientific American.