(+++) HEROICS OF VARIOUS KINDS

Chasing the Jaguar. By Michele Domínguez Greene. Rayo/HarperTeen. $7.99.

The Mystery of the Martello Tower. By Jennifer Lanthier. Laura Geringer/HarperCollins. $16.99.

Football Hero. By Tim Green. HarperCollins. $16.99.

      The concepts of Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys for girl and boy readers, respectively, in the 8-12 age range, are alive and well, but the changes those popular series characters have undergone in being remade for the 21^st century render them well-nigh unrecognizable – except for the pattern of their successful solutions to spooky mysteries. Chasing the Jaguar, originally published in 2006 and now available in paperback, is the story of Martika Gálvez, who begins having strange dreams about jungles and jaguars shortly before her 15^th birthday. It turns out that Martika is of Mayan heritage, descended from a line of women with psychic powers – including her great aunt, Tia Tellin, a curandera (female shaman) and consultant to the Los Angeles police force. Martika is determined to learn more about her potential psychic inheritance from Tia Tellin and to be guided to her own destiny – but then she finds herself confronted by a mystery that she is not sure she is ready to solve. The daughter of Martika’s mother’s client is kidnapped, and Martika needs to try to use her emerging psychic powers to find the girl, Jennifer – if she can. Martika sees visions that she is not sure how to interpret, but she goes in search of their real-world equivalents anyway. She has dreams, too: “I felt like I was inside [Jennifer’s] mind, I could see what she was seeing.” And Martika starts discovering some other abilities -- potentially dangerous ones, including a fiery power that emerges when she gets angry. “Anger can be positive,” Tia Tellin tells her. “It can protect you and it can prompt you to take action. But it has a dark side as well. It can turn in on you and consume your life and your hope.” The dialogue does tend toward cliché, and the solution to the kidnapping is hardly surprising, but Martika has the potential to become an interesting blend of the modern world and ancient arcana as the series continues – which it surely will.

      The Mystery of the Martello Tower is the start of something, too. It is Jennifer Lanthier’s first novel, and its focus is siblings Hazel and Ned, home for summer vacation and wanting nothing more than a few months of warmth, laziness and sleeping late. No such luck: their father, an art dealer, suddenly disappears without saying goodbye; their babysitter leaves town; burglars break into their apartment; and suddenly they start seeing two menacing thugs everywhere. Something is afoot – but what sort of game is it, and who is moving the pieces? Hazel and Ned soon learn that the many odd occurrences are connected, and that their father’s disappearance has something to do with the mystery that surrounds the death of their mother years earlier. While Chasing the Jaguar looks to ancient powers to solve modern mysteries, Hazel and Ned and their friends look strictly to modern techniques, using Internet searches to focus on two men named Clive Pritchard and Paul Fazza, then figuring out that the men are thieves who favor anagrams in creating their crooked schemes. The young sleuths are properly skeptical of their computer-based techniques: “The Internet is one strange universe… There’s stuff here from five or six years ago and stuff from yesterday. And who knows how much of it is true?” But their instincts take them in the right direction – and when Hazel realizes that the Martello Tower, which is on an island, holds the key to much of what has been going on, the stage is set for Hazel and Ned to “save the police” (whose surveillance of the bad guys has gone awry) by making sure the crooks cannot escape. Eventually, the mystery of where the siblings’ father went is solved, too, as is the question about their mother’s death, and everything is buttoned up far more neatly than could ever happen outside a novel, in a way that preteen readers will enjoy – especially since the book’s structure leaves open the possibility of one or more sequels.

      Football Hero, although not exactly a sequel, is a successor of sorts to Tim Green’s Football Genius, his first novel for young readers. Green, a former player with the Atlanta Falcons and the author of a number of suspense novels for adults, has also been an NFL broadcast analyst and commentator. His specialty is showing football players in a highly positive light while providing an insider’s details of how the game works. – a potent combination for fans of the game. However, neither this book nor its predecessor will be of much interest to young readers who are not football devotees. Football Hero is decently paced and moderately well written, but the basic plot is nothing special and the characters are far too one-dimensional to be mistaken for real people. The book’s focus is on brothers Ty and Thane Lewis. Ty, who is 12, is delighted when the coach at his school recruits him for the football team – except that Ty’s guardian, Uncle Gus, needs Ty to help in the family cleaning business and won’t let Ty play. Thane, for his part, is in college and being actively recruited by the NFL. The crime-and-mystery connection here is that Uncle Gus is working on gambling plans with a local mobster named Lucy – and Lucy starts becoming very friendly to Ty, trying to use him to get inside information from Thane. It falls to Ty to figure out the scheme and undermine it, while saving his brother’s career. The level of unreality is striking but quite irrelevant, since the point of Football Hero is to take young readers inside a game they presumably love while giving them a bit of a mystery on which to focus as well. Of course, Ty outwits the bad guys and does get to play football after all; and of course, Ty ends up as the hero both of the crime investigation and of his school’s big game. The whole book is pure fantasy, but will be fun for young fantasy-football fans.

(++++) CREDITABLE CONCERTO CYCLES

Field: Piano Concertos Nos. 1-7; Divertissements Nos. 1 and 2; Rondeau; Nocturne No. 16; Quintetto. Míċeál O’Rourke, piano; London Mozart Players conducted by Matthias Bamert. Chandos. $34.99 (4 CDs).

Beethoven: Piano Concertos Nos. 1-5; Fantasia for Piano, Chorus and Orchestra. Anton Kuerti, piano; Toronto Symphony Orchestra and Toronto Mendelssohn Choir conducted by Sir Andrew Davis. CBC Records. $19.99 (3 CDs).

      Best known for creating the form of the Nocturne and somewhat known for a single one of his piano concertos (No. 2), John Field has long been on the fringes of mainstream musical performance. True, his output was uneven, as the cycle of his complete piano concertos shows. But he had a voice with some unique qualities, and may have been primarily disadvantaged by living in an age of transition, in which greater geniuses, such as Chopin, took his innovations farther than Field himself ever did. (It is perhaps not coincidental that Field, who lived from 1782 to 1837, seems to suffer much the same treatment as does his contemporary, Johann Nepomuk Hummel [1778-1837].) Míċeál O’Rourke’s Field compilation, which includes excellent support by Matthias Bamert and the London Mozart Players, is a rerelease of recordings made between 1994 and 1996. Both the performances and the sound have held up beautifully. O’Rourke has a fine understanding of the combination of classical poise and Romantic sensibility that together make up the Field “sound,” and he plays each concerto with individual attention, bringing out its unique elements. Nos. 1 and 3 (the latter probably Field’s earliest concerto, despite its numbering) are largely in the spirit of Mozart and, perhaps more to the point, of Muzio Clementi, with whom Field worked closely (Clementi probably helped with the scoring of No. 1). No. 2 is the first concerto to showcase Field’s more poetic side, and its rondo finale has delightful lilt. No. 4 contains one of Field’s few really interesting orchestral effects, with strings playing col legno while the piano is in its highest register (Field, like Chopin in his two concertos, uses the orchestra mainly for straightforward accompaniment). No. 5 is called “L’Incendie par l’orage” (“The Blazing Storm”) and is packed with effects portraying lightning, thunder and heavy rain – an impressive piece, if not one that wears particularly well. No. 6, the weakest of the mature concertos, uses an arrangement of Nocturne No. 6 for its slow movement and has a truncated finale, perhaps written in haste; its first movement, though, is filled with interesting melodies in a succession of short episodes. Concerto No. 7 is in two-movement form and includes forward-looking key changes (major to minor) and a slow section that was later published separately as a Nocturne. The four-CD Field set is filled out with some of the composer’s rarely heard chamber music, including a piano-and-strings version of Nocturne No. 16, a very effective Rondeau, and the lovely Divertissement No. 2, whose first part was later rewritten as Nocturne No. 7. Both on its own terms and as a chance to find out, through hearing Field, the ways in which he influenced later composers, this set of his concertos is a winner.

      Anton Kuerti’s Beethoven cycle is also a reissue – the performances date to 1986 – and also quite well done. Furthermore, it is well priced and neatly packaged, with an unusual three-CD holder. As a musical offering, though, it gets a (+++) rating, largely because there are so many fine performances of Beethoven’s piano concertos available, and Kuerti’s brings nothing especially distinguished to the table. This is in no way to fault his playing, which is excellent; nor is it a criticism of Sir Andrew Davis and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra – the accompaniment is first-rate throughout. But these are straightforward performances that, although they rarely make missteps, also rarely take the sorts of chances that might reveal something new about the music. There are a number of brief uses of rubato in the concertos, for example (No. 1 is especially rife with them), but they appear to be to no particular purpose except to extend one nicely played section slightly at the expense of another that is also nicely played. Kuerti’s tone is suitably light for the first two concertos and appropriately intense for No. 5, but there is little interpretative nuance in any of the performances – they are well done but never really catch fire. Surprisingly, though, Kuerti comes into his own in the Fantasia for Piano, Chorus and Orchestra, taking the quasi-improvisational first section very quickly and giving the whole piece the flavor of an encore to the concerto cycle (the fantasia was in fact written by Beethoven as a sort of encore to a very extended concert of his works). The excitement of the fantasia – to which the chorus also brings considerable intensity (although it would have been nice if the booklet had included the text) – shows how well Kuerti and Davis were capable of doing Beethoven in the mid-1980s. But that level of passion is largely missing from the well-controlled concerto performances.

(+++) VISITS TO THE LESS KNOWN

Rachmaninoff: The Isle of the Dead; Youth Symphony; Symphony No. 1. BBC Philharmonic conducted by Gianandrea Noseda. Chandos. $18.99.

František Ignác Antonín Tůma: Partitas, Sonatas and Sinfonias. Concerto Italiano conducted by Rinaldo Alessandrini. Naïve. $16.99.

Mendelssohn: Prelude in B minor; Rondo capriccioso; “Auf Flügeln des Gesanges”; Three Etudes; Five Songs without Words; Scherzo in E minor; Variations sérieuses; Two Caprices; “Suleika”; Scherzo from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Bertrand Chamayou, piano. Naïve. $16.99.

Tchaikovsky: Valse-Scherzo; Valse sentimentale; Ravel: Tzigane; Chausson: Poème; Kreisler: Liebesfreud; Caprice viennois; Sarasate: Caprice basque; Rodion Shchedrin: In the Style of Albéniz; Franz Waxman: Carmen Fantasy. Yossif Ivanov, violin; Itamar Golan, piano. Ambroisie. $16.99.

      Little of the music on these four new CDs represents the best of which the composers were capable. But listeners who have become jaded by the too-frequent performance of some composers’ acknowledged masterworks will enjoy the lesser pieces here; and those who have tired of hearing the same composers over and over again will enjoy encountering one of whom they likely have never heard.

      Rachmaninoff’s first attempt at a symphony produced in 1891 a single movement in D minor that is distinguished for its propulsive motion and the clear influence of Tchaikovsky, but not much else. Four years later, the composer completed his first symphony – also in D minor – to much better effect, although it too is a largely derivative work. One would not necessarily expect the BBC Philharmonic under Gianandrea Noseda to play Rachmaninoff particularly idiomatically – this composer seems to have written for the unique lushness of Russian orchestras – but in fact these are excellent performances, full of drive, passion and understanding. The Isle of the Dead, the best work on the CD and the latest (1909), also gets top-notch atmospheric treatment in a recording that lavishes attention on details of the composer’s dark and moody tone poem. The symphonic works here do not show Rachmaninoff at his best, but these fine performances show the works themselves at their best.

      The music of František Ignác Antonín Tůma (1704-1774) is virtually unknown today, and it is unlikely that the new CD by Concerto Italiano under Rinaldo Alessandrini will make this Czech composer a household name. But the two partitas, two sinfonias and three sonatas presented here show a composer with a fine sense of form and considerable skill in balancing the instruments of a chamber ensemble. The pieces break no new ground – Tůma was actually better known in his time for his sacred works than for his instrumental pieces – but they will interest listeners who would like to hear music by some of the less-known composers of Haydn’s and Mozart’s era.

      The Mendelssohn CD featuring Bertrand Chamayou mixes familiar and less-familiar works in the pleasant form of a “recital of encores.” There is nothing of great length here (average track length is less than four minutes) and nothing of great profundity. Liszt’s transcriptions of the two songs Auf Flügeln des Gesanges and Suleika are interesting to hear in close proximity to some of Mendelssohn’s own “Songs without Words,” and Rachmaninoff’s transcription of the Scherzo from A Midsummer Night’s Dream is an appropriately light and fleet-footed way to conclude the CD. Chamayou plays everything with a deft touch and understated virtuosity: he does a good job of not overwhelming these slight pieces with prodigious technique. The CD will in fact be of greatest interest to fans of the pianist, since the music itself, however pleasant, is less than compelling.

      Much the same can be said of the CD entitled “Con Passione” by violinist Yossif Ivanov and pianist Itamar Golan. The title explains the selection of pieces (again, mostly short ones) and the intended appeal of the CD; and indeed, Ivanov and Golan play the works quite passionately enough. The music, some familiar and some much less so, is mostly surface-level and pleasing to listen to, emphasizing violin virtuosity rather than any emotional profundity (although the two Tchaikovsky works and Chausson’s well-known Poème certainly tug a bit at the heartstrings). In a sense, both this CD and the Mendelssohn disc by Chamayou are “classical easy listening,” requiring minimal attention as they produce enjoyable sounds that make a more interesting background for everyday life than, say, the sounds of a TV set. This in no way minimizes the quality of the individual pieces on either CD; but in these two assemblages, with little to connect the mostly short works in musical terms, it is hard to see the discs as inviting the sort of serious attention that more-substantial recordings demand.

(++++) PICTURE-ESQUE STORIES

Coraline. By Neil Gaiman. Adapted and illustrated by P. Craig Russell. HarperCollins. $17.99.

Warriors: Cats of the Clans. By Erin Hunter. Illustrated by Wayne McLoughlin. HarperCollins. $15.99.

      Both Neil Gaiman’s Coraline and Erin Hunter’s Warriors series are so well imagined – Gaiman’s work especially so – that readers can easily envision their characters and events. But both these illustrated works – one a graphic novel, the other a character guide – add significantly to the original Gaiman and Hunter writings through their elegance and excellent visualizations. This is especially surprising in the case of Coraline, a genuinely spooky story of a girl who goes through a mysterious door and finds her way to a world controlled by her “other mother,” a deeply sinister creature of uncertain provenance. Gaiman is an excellent wordsmith, and it is hard to imagine that the frights that he calls up in readers’ minds could be equaled by a specific set of illustrations. But P. Craig Russell gets to the heart of Coraline, whether showing the scarily gnarled hands of the “other mother” or her absurd (and quite frightening) button eyes. Whether portraying the ghosts of young children, who help Coraline and are helped by her, or the misshapen rats that carry out the bidding of the “other mother,” or the grublike monster that chases the young girl around a cellar as she tries to escape, Russell gets the appearances right. He gets the settings right, too, notably when Gaiman explains how, as Coraline tries to get away from the house of the “other mother,” the landscape becomes less and less realistic and the trees progressively less treelike. Coraline’s eventual escape – and the final horror she must confront in her own world – are as well imagined as is the mysterious cat who helps her (and is helped by her in turn) in the world of the “other mother.” One caution for families: like Gaiman’s book, Russell’s graphic novel is recommended for ages eight and up – but in both cases, the story will be too intense for younger readers. Ten-and-up is a more realistic age range for this chilling tale.

      The age range suggested for Warriors: Cats of the Clans is 10 and up already, although most of this guide to Hunter’s heroes and villains is far less intense than anything in Coraline. Wayne McLoughlin’s illustrations are especially welcome in this book, whose framing story involves an ancestor cat telling the tales of the clans to three kittens who were recent victims of battles. A difficulty with Hunter’s novels is that there are so many characters that it can be hard to keep them straight; and not all of them are much beyond one-dimensionality. In this book, the major characters (and some of the less-major ones) really come to life, with McLoughlin giving each cat a different physical appearance and a different facial expression as well. Firestar, for example, has far-seeing eyes and an amazingly alert appearance, while Sandstorm is not only sand-colored but also cool and intense in gaze. Warriors: Cats of the Clans includes detailed forest and lake maps and discussions of each clan as a whole, in addition to pages about individual cats. There are also explanations of “Cats Outside the Clans,” and some discussion – within the pages profiling individual cats – of the battles among the clans and the uneasy relationships between clan cats and “kittypets.” Although certainly not comprehensive – Hunter has created far too many characters for any short book to encompass them all – McLoughlin’s work provides an excellent introduction to the Warriors world. Even readers who already know the stories will find these pictures and capsule descriptions both entertaining and helpful.

(+++) FACING FEARS

Overcoming School Anxiety: How to Help Your Child Deal with Separation, Tests, Homework, Bullies, Math Phobia, and Other Worries. By Diane Peters Mayer. AMACOM. $16.

Helen Keller: The World in Her Heart. By Lesa Cline-Ransome. Illustrated by James Ransome. HarperCollins. $16.99.

      School has already started in some parts of the United States, and will start soon in others – which means an upsurge in anxiety for many children and not a few parents. A book that can talk families through the different forms of anxiety, showing how to handle all of them, would therefore be most welcome. Overcoming School Anxiety wants to be that book, and even though it isn’t quite as comprehensive or universally applicable as psychotherapist Diane Peters Mayer believes, it can certainly be a valuable starting point for many worried children and parents. Mayer begins by discussing anxiety and the reasons for it, ranging from hereditary and biological factors to childhood experiences and parenting techniques. This material provides a useful foundation for families that are unfamiliar with anxiety (if there are any); but Mayer’s discussions of specific school-related issues are more useful. These range from “school refusal,” which is an outright unwillingness (or psychological inability) to go to school and which may be indicative of separation anxiety disorder, to in-school issues such as test anxiety and bullying. After describing each type of difficulty, Mayer offers a “clinic” with suggestions on what to do. Most of these start with listening carefully to your child describe what he or she is feeling, empathizing and providing comfort – and then move on to looking for ways to ameliorate the situation. The value of these solutions varies. For school refusal, they range from talking to your child about reasons he or she must attend school, and asking for his or her input on the problem (solid, pragmatic ideas), to modeling good stress management and life-coping skills (an excellent concept that may be difficult or impossible to implement). For homework anxiety, Mayer suggests setting up a comfortable, special area in which to do homework, creating a flexible homework schedule, limiting TV and computer time, and making “reading and learning an important family pursuit that is fun and exciting” (that last one, although a very worthwhile idea, may be a big challenge in time-pressed, two-working-parent families). The point is that Mayer’s solutions are not one-size-fits-all – they may or may not work in your particular family arrangement. But they are all, at least in the abstract, good ideas that will surely work in some situations – and useful as jumping-off points even for parents who may not find them helpful in the form in which Mayer presents them.

      One thing that may help some children overcome their anxieties is reading about children whose circumstances were far more difficult – and that can be one way to use Lesa Cline-Ransome’s book on Helen Keller, which is intended for ages 5-9 (a common age range for school anxieties). Certainly few children have as much to overcome as Keller, who was left deaf and blind after an illness (possibly scarlet fever or meningitis) before she was two. The story of how she was taught to observe the world, understand it and communicate about it has inspired many generations, and Cline-Ransome’s focus on Keller’s teacher, Annie Sullivan, makes this book particularly useful for children worried about their own relationships with teachers. But no form of anxiety is necessary to appreciate Cline-Ransome’s telling of the story, or the lovely, warm paintings that James Ransome (Lesa’s husband) provides to illustrate scenes of Keller’s life and learning. This is a heartwarming and uplifting tale, however and whenever it is told, and this new picture book is sure to touch many people in both their hearts and their minds.

(+++) DEATH-DEFYING MAGIC

The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel II: The Magician. By Michael Scott. Delacorte Press. $16.99.

The Legend of Asahiel, Book Three: The Divine Talisman. By Eldon Thompson. Eos. $25.95.

      There is a lot of chasing hither and thither in the second book of the planned six-book series, The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel. The real Flamel, a highly esteemed alchemist, lived from 1330 to 1418. Michael Scott’s idea is that Flamel succeeded in finding the Philosopher’s Stone, which provides eternal life, and therefore made himself immortal. Scott embellishes this basic concept by suggesting that the Stone was within a volume called The Book of Abraham the Mage, which Flamel has kept throughout the ages and continues to protect. Now, in the modern world, the sinister Dr. John Dee – once a spy for Queen Elizabeth I – is determined to get his hands on the book for his own nefarious purposes; but according to a prophecy, young fraternal twins Sophie and John Newman have the power to help Flamel protect the book, and the world, from Dr. Dee’s evil machinations. This story was set up in the first book of the series, The Alchemyst. Now, in The Magician, Sophie and Josh roam the world from California to France as they try to protect the book’s secrets and evade none other than Niccolò Machiavelli, who is working for Dr. Dee and the forces of the Dark Elders. The mixing of historical figures with modern youths is not surprising in a work intended for ages 12 and up, but after a while, the Machiavelli angle gets a little tiresome (Joan of Arc shows up here, too, and a statue of Mars awakens, and much more). Also in The Magician is Flamel’s wife, Perenelle, who is locked up in (of all places) Alcatraz, where she is aging a year every day, as is Flamel himself (a side effect of each day without the book, on whose deciphering Dr. Dee and the forces of evil are working assiduously). Flamel needs to teach Sophie elemental fire magic to give her the power to protect him, Perenelle, and indeed the entire world. Readers who avoid taking this whole chase-adventure too seriously will have fun, but Scott seems determined to make the entire thing more portentous than it is – with the result that it constantly spills over into melodrama, and rather formulaic melodrama at that: “And the first prophecy of the Codex has come to pass,” Dr. Dee intones. “We have found the two that are one.” Best not to laugh at any of this – but it does seem unintentionally funny on more than one occasion.

      There is nothing remotely amusing about The Legend of Asahiel, a trilogy that concludes with The Divine Talisman and that is also, in its own way, about the conquest of death and the consequences of that victory. Eldon Thompson, a novelist and screenwriter, writes for adults and is very serious indeed: Torin, king of the region called Alson, sacrifices his life to protect his people, the Pentanians, from the evil, demonic Illysp. Torin leaves behind his best friend and his former bride, who lead the surviving forces – but who lose their greatest weapon, the crimson sword (the sword provided the title of the first book, which was followed by The Obsidian Key). And where does the conquest of death come in? Torin is reanimated – but far from being an inspiration to his people, he becomes their greatest enemy, for he is possessed by one of the Illysp and turns against the very ones he gave his life to save. Like most modern epic fantasies, The Divine Talisman is a curious mixture of the trappings of ancient heroism and the language of everyday modern Earth: “Time to move out, General.” “Mother’s mercy.” “With all due respect, sir, it seemed a terrible risk.” “I only want her to be happy.” “You don’t know what you want, or who.” Readers enthralled by the unraveling of riddles that leads to the trilogy’s climax will likely ignore (or not care about) the means of expression, but others may wish that the descriptions of wondrous events had been presented in less mundane language – and with less ultimate predictability about the story’s eventual outcome.

(+++) BLACK EXPERIENCES

Mixing It Up: Taking on the Media Bullies and Other Reflections. By Ishmael Reed. Da Capo. $15.95.

A Thousand Never Evers. By Shana Burg. Delacorte Press. $15.99.

      Anyone who thinks the presidential candidacy of Barack Obama represents a moderating of racial tensions in the United States has only to pick up Ishmael Reed’s latest book of essays to find the same old stuff. The essays are well written and punchy, and they raise legitimate and often important (although equally often trivial) points; but if Obama’s candidacy helps moderate voices like Reed’s, the nation and all its people may in the long run be better off. These Reed pieces originally appeared in The New York Times, Playboy and elsewhere, and they range from a fine profile of jazz saxophonist Sonny Rollins to a rather tired complaint about gentrification destroying a historically black area (New York City’s Harlem). Reed starts the book with a 41-page (!) introduction, which includes such gems as: “Police plant evidence as they probably did in the O.J. case,” and a complaint that too many “talking heads rallied around the lacrosse defendants” from Duke University, who were falsely accused of raping a black stripper, while those young men “acted like angels during their encounter” with the woman (the sarcasm drips off the page). Reed’s selectivity in the service of his biases is impressive – never mind, for example, that the Duke lacrosse case originally involved a rush to judgment against the white athletes, turned out to be totally unfounded, and resulted in the disbarring and imprisonment of the district attorney who brought the unjustified prosecution. When Reed finally gets into the essays themselves, he uses a March 2006 CNN story about prostitution in Chicago to argue that “black social problems and criminality are played up while white problems are minimized.” Separately, in regard to a 2004 story, he attacks the same cable network by asking, “When was the last time you saw a black male author on CNN and I don’t mean a tough-love artist who preaches that the problems of blacks are internal, or a black man who wrote books as a way of financing his drug habit.” (He omits the question mark.) Elsewhere, Reed argues that “through terror and negotiation the Confederates got…back” everything they lost in the War Between the States (their name for what is elsewhere called the Civil War). He eventually gets to an item called “Going Old South on Obama,” in which he repeats his previous statement about Bill Clinton being “a black president as a result of his mimicking a black style,” talks again about “the Confederate Restoration,” and tosses out the notion that “flogging blacks was [Thomas] Jefferson’s idea of recreation.” For those who believe little has changed or is likely to change in race relations in the United States, Reed’s book will be like salve to the soul (strange salve, though). That Reed writes so well while wearing such blinders indicates that although his viewpoint is very limited, he seems to see clearly what he sees at all.

      There is more hopefulness and less bitterness in A Thousand Never Evers, a book for ages 10 and up, than in all of Reed; and if that makes Shana Burg’s novel naïve by Reed’s standards, it also makes it a call for Americans today to look to their better natures instead of constantly dwelling on the worst they and their nation have had to offer. Set in Mississippi in 1963, Burg’s book focuses on junior-high-school student Addie Ann Pickett, who lands in big trouble in the Jim Crow South when she and her brother, Elias, make the mistake of laughing when they shouldn’t. Such a small thing – but not at that time. And Addie’s Uncle Bump gets into trouble of his own, hauled into court on charges of destroying the town’s new integrated garden and due to be judged by an all-white jury. Uncle Bump is eventually exonerated, leading Addie to say, “I reckon things in Kuckachoo might be starting to change, because up till now, even if a Negro man had all the evidence on his side, he’d usually end up in jail or worse.” Yet Addie is no Pollyanna, and A Thousand Never Evers is not a purely optimistic book: “Of course, setting an innocent Negro free isn’t the same as locking up a guilty white man.” And Burg herself points out in an afterword that “discrimination against African Americans and other minority groups still exists” and that “many public schools that were desegregated by law are still segregated.” Yet Burg’s statement that “you’re never ever too young to speak up for justice” has a ring and a challenge to it that Reed’s unending (although better written) complaints about the unfairness of being black in America never match.

(++++) SONGSTER AND SYMPHONIST

Ives: Songs, Volumes 1 and 2. Janna Baty, Lielle Berman, Heather Buck, Jennifer Casey Cabot, Michael Cavalieri, Robert Gardner, Ian Howell, Sara Jakubiak, Sumi Kittelberger, Tamara Mumford, Mary Phillips, David Pittsinger, Matthew Plenk, Kenneth Tarver and Leah Wool, vocalists; Biava String Quartet (Volume 1); Frederick Teardo, organ; Eric Trudel, Laura Garritson, J.J. Penna and Douglas Dickson, piano. Naxos. $8.99 each.

Hovhaness: Fanfare for the New Atlantis; Concerto No. 2 for Guitar and Strings; Symphony No. 63, “Loon Lake.” Javier Calderón, guitar; Royal Scottish National Orchestra conducted by Stewart Robertson. Naxos. $8.99.

      If there is one musical form through which it is possible to follow Charles Ives’ career, it is the song: he began writing songs in his teens and continued throughout his compositional life, into the 1920s. His collection, 114 Songs, represents the greater part of his output but not all of it: he wrote a total of some 200. An ambitious six-volume set of all Ives’ songs is in the process of being released by Naxos, and it is a very welcome addition to the Ives discography despite some production idiosyncrasies. The principal one of those is the arrangement of the songs: they are given in alphabetical order, which is about as arbitrary as one can get and which makes no musical sense whatsoever. Because there are so many songs per CD – 29 in Volume 1, 26 in Volume 2 – a listener who wants to hear them in, say, compositional order, is going to have a lot of track rearranging to do. It is true that the alphabetical arrangement results in some highly interesting juxtapositions – Chanson de Florian of 1898 immediately followed by Charlie Rutlage of 1920 in Volume 1, for example – but the main thing this setup produces is confusion. Still, listeners interested in completeness and in hearing a wide variety of young performers bring a wide variety of interpretative nuances to Ives’ vocal output will get a great deal of pleasure from these Naxos CDs. All vocal ranges are amply represented, even including countertenor: Ian Howell, who sings At Sea (1921) and A Christmas Carol (1894) in Volume 1. Here you will find Ives at his most piquant (‘1,2,3’ and Ann Street) and his most extended and heartfelt (General William Booth Enters into Heaven). You will hear his earliest works (those most steeped in the European lieder tradition), such as Far from my Heav’nly Home (1893) and several songs in German, as well as his latest and most complex pieces, such as Aeschylus and Sophocles (1923). By turns expansive and compressed, spun-out and exhilarating, the songs are sometimes misses, sometimes marvels, and always worth hearing for anyone interested in plumbing Ives’ considerable depths.

      The form with which Alan Hovhaness is most closely identified is not vocal but instrumental: he was an amazingly prolific symphonist, with some 70 symphonies to his credit (67 of them numbered) out of a total of more than 400 works (not counting at least an equal number of early pieces that he burned in the 1930s and 1940s so as to start his composing career anew). Symphony No. 63, “Loon Lake,” partakes of some of the nostalgia that Ives evinced in his musical sketches of New England – Hovhaness’ work recalls the New Hampshire countryside of his youth – but the musical language is quite different. Written in 1988, the two-movement symphony is expansive and pastoral in orientation, and the performance by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra under Stewart Robertson gives it plenty of room to breathe. The other works on this CD show different sides of Hovhaness’ legacy. Fanfare for the New Atlantis (1975) is a full-orchestral imagination of the rebirth of the legendary sunken island nation. Concerto No. 2 for Guitar and Strings dates to 1985, six years after Hovhaness wrote his first guitar concerto, and is cast in four-movement form with emphasis on frequent rhythmic changes and dance-style music – a surprising focus for a classical composition of the mid-1980s. It gets its world premiere recording on this CD, and is played with considerable enthusiasm by Javier Calderón, with an especially bouncy finale. Hovhaness’ music is always hard to pin down, deriving in part from his Armenian and Scottish heritage and in part from his studies of the ancient music of India, Hawaii, Japan, and Korea – all the while attempting to maintain melodic flow and an emotional connection to the audience. Indeed, Hovhaness sometimes seems to pack too many expectations into his works; but heard on an individual basis, as on this CD, they reflect well on his complex vision.

(+++) A TRIO OF LESS-KNOWN OPERAS

Rossini: L’Inganno felice. Kenneth Tarver, Corinna Mologni, Lorenzo Regazzo, Marco Vinco, Simon Bailey; Czech Chamber Soloists, Brno, conducted by Alberto Zedda. Naxos. $17.99 (2 CDs).

Britten: Owen Wingrave. Peter Coleman-Wright, Alan Opie, James Gilchrist, Elizabeth Connell, Janice Watson, Sarah Fox, Pamela Helen Stephen, Robin Leggate; Tiffin Boys’ Choir and City of London Sinfonia conducted by Richard Hickox. Chandos. $34.99 (2 CDs).

Wolf-Ferrari: La vedova scaltra. Anne-Lise Sollied, Maurizio Muraro, Emanuele D’Aguanno, Mark Milhofer, Riccardo Zanellato; Orchestra and Chorus of the Teatro La Fenice, Venice, conducted by Karl Martin. Naxos. $39.99 (DVD).

      Explorers of the byways of opera will enjoy any or all of these new releases, although none of the works rises to the heights that some of these composers’ other operas attain. Rossini’s L’Inganno felice (“The Fortunate Deception”), his fourth opera, dates to the astonishingly productive year of 1812, when no fewer than six operas flowed from his creative mind (and speedy pen). Rossini called this one-act opera a farce, but it is actually a fairly serious work, its buffo elements less important than its romantic and melodramatic ones. The story takes place 10 years after a duke, believing false rumors that his wife was unfaithful to him, has allowed her to be set adrift on the sea. Rescued by a local miner, she has lived with him for a decade as his niece, without revealing her identity, but does declare it when her husband – accompanied by the villains who spread the false rumors and sundered her from him – turns up in town. The plot involves her being reunited with her husband, who has loved her all the time, while the evildoers are caught and punished. It is a flimsy story that nevertheless made the opera very popular in Rossini’s time; yet it creaks too much to make L’Inganno felice a work worthy of frequent revival today. The music is perkier than the libretto, which consists mostly of give-and-take among the characters that English speakers will have difficulty following: Naxos makes the libretto available online, but only in Italian. The work is well sung and well played in this new recording, but it remains minor Rossini.

      Owen Wingrave, for its part, is minor Britten, having been written for British television (although its first performance, in November 1970, predated its initial BBC broadcast by six months). Based – like The Turn of the Screw – on a Henry James story, Owen Wingrave is less atmospheric and less psychologically complex than the earlier work and comes closer to being a straightforward musical statement of Britten’s pacifism. James’ tale is a ghost story, whose focus is a mysterious room in which a father who had killed his son is himself found dead, without any apparent wound. This part of the tale shows up at the start of Britten’s second act, and it is obvious musically and dramatically that death in the haunted room will be Owen’s fate as well. Indeed, the whole opera is rather obvious, its sole dramatic premise being that Owen – last of a family of warriors – disdains war and wishes he could make it a crime. Everyone else in the opera is, not very believably, arrayed against Owen, with Britten intending him as a lonely outcast in the mode of Billy Budd or Peter Grimes. But Owen, although well sung in this new recording by Peter Coleman-Wright, comes across as more petulant than anything else, simply declaring his pacifism and then sticking to it even when accused of cowardice, an assault on his family’s values, and so on. The Chandos recording, with its book including the libretto and its discussion of the opera’s place in Britten’s oeuvre (Britten wrote it in response to the Vietnam War), gives Owen Wingrave its due, but the work never seems as heartfelt or vibrant as several other Britten operas.

      Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari’s La vedrova scaltra, on the other hand, is a genuine discovery – it has never been on DVD before – and a most pleasant surprise. The title of this 1931 work translates as “The Cunning Widow,” and Wolf-Ferrari’s work bears more than a passing resemblance to Franz Lehár’s 1905 operetta The Merry Widow in making its heroine a young widow, Rosaura, who tests potential suitors to find her true love. One of a series of Wolf-Ferrari’s operatic adaptations of the witty farces of Renaissance playwright Carlo Goldoni, La vedrova scaltra features the widow (well sung and acted by Anne-Lise Sollied) disguising herself to meet, in turn, suitors from England, France, Spain and Italy, in order to determine which is the most sincere. There is a serious undercurrent to La vedrova scaltra that is missing in Lehár’s much more famous work, and Wolf-Ferrari’s music amuses without genuinely sparkling – there is nothing in La vedrova scaltra that audiences are likely to be humming after the final curtain. But Wolf-Ferrari gets Goldoni’s tone right, providing a lens of hopefulness and skepticism through which the audience sees the mating dance of the principal characters. And the four suitors, typecast though they certainly are, have some amusing moments as they put forth their countries’ personalities while wooing Rosaura. The staging is expert, the singing very fine, and the conducting nicely balanced and well paced. None of this turns La vedrova scaltra into a major opera, but it is certainly a minor find, worthy of occasional revivals and – in Naxos’ high-quality DVD presentation – very much worth viewing as well as hearing.

(++++) ALONG THE LEARNING PATH

Dr. Seuss Beginner Concept Cards: Opposites. Cartwheel Books/Scholastic. $10.99.

Dr. Seuss Beginner Counting Cards. Cartwheel Books/Scholastic. $10.99.

What Are Clouds Made Of? And Other Questions about the World Around Us. By Geraldine Taylor. Illustrated by Amy Schimler. Cartwheel Books/Scholastic. $10.99.

Planet Earth: Animals of Africa. By Lisa L. Ryan-Herndon. Scholastic. $3.99.

Planet Earth: Animals and Their Prey. By Tracey West. Scholastic. $5.99.

      There are so many wonderful books to help kids learn about themselves and the world around them – and so many more coming out all the time, in so many clever formats! The Dr. Seuss Beginner Cards, decks of oversize cards using illustrations from Dr. Seuss books to help kids enjoy themselves as they learn a variety of basic concepts, are winners from start to finish. “Start” was the first two sets, about the alphabet and about colors and shapes. “Finish,” at least for the moment (although more cards sets are planned), includes a pair of flip-top boxes (with hidden magnetic closures) that teach young children about opposites and numbers. Opposites includes 12 cards with words on both sides – opposite words on opposite sides, of course. For example, “Pup is UP” shows a Seussian puppy rising into the air above one side of a see-saw made from a board and a rock; “Pup is DOWN” shows the pup landing back on one side of the board. Like all the Seuss card sets, this one comes with an instruction sheet that sometimes seems quite unnecessary (“Learning can be fun when you and your child play with these cards”) but that at other times explain the cards’ purpose in useful ways (the cards teach a child “to understand words that represent different spatial relationships and other abstract concepts”). Counting includes 12 cards that cover the numbers one through 10, the math signs for plus, minus and equal, and simple math problems showing what happens when you add one or take one away. The instructional elements in both card sets are as basic as they come – and the illustrations make them far more enjoyable than they often are when kids go to school (teachers, take note!).

      There is learning of a different sort in What Are Clouds Made Of? This is a very clever collection of actual questions asked by young children about themselves and the world – with the answers hidden under flaps or behind illustrations that are fully revealed with a child pulls a tab. Geraldine Taylor picks very good questions to include, but it is the book’s design and the illustrations by Amy Schimler that really make this work outstanding. For example, “How does a baby bird get out of its egg?” is printed next to an egg that rests in a nest. To get the answer, a child pulls on a tab (indicated by an arrow), and the egg opens up – revealing the words, “It cracks the shell with the tip of its beak, called an egg tooth.” The kids’ questions included here show a more sophisticated thirst for knowledge than books for children often acknowledge. “How did the water in the ocean get there?” “Why can’t it be sunny every day?” “Why do flowers smell nice?” (The answer to this one involves opening up a flower petal, which turns into a full flower.) “What do worms eat?” “Can fish hear things?” Parents may find they themselves have wondered about some of these questions – and been unable to answer them. The result is a wonderful book of discovery for the whole family.

      The Planet Earth books, a collaboration between Scholastic and the British Broadcasting Corporation, go into more depth about the world we live in. How much depth depends on each book’s format. Animals of Africa is a “Level 3: Growing Reader” book, at the top of the four-level scale of the Scholastic Readers series (which runs from Pre-1 to 3). Intended for kids in first to third grade, it uses top-notch BBC photos to show habitats of Africa and some of the animals that live in each one – from the Walia Ibex, a type of goat that lives in highland meadows, to the desert-dwelling Augrabies Flat Lizard. There are well-known species, too, such as elephants, lions and hyenas, with brief information on where each one lives and how it interacts with its environment. Older children interested in the same sort of material will find greater detail in Animals and Their Prey, which looks at a variety of habitats throughout Earth and discusses some specific animals that live in them: wolverine, mako shark, Siberian tiger, Mexican free-tailed bat and more. There is nothing comprehensive about this book, but its superlative photos and clear, easy-to-read text will certainly give kids more appreciation of the biodiversity of our planet and the interconnectedness of the many species that inhabit it – our own included.

(++++) BEACH BEAUTIES

My Beach Book; My Shell Book. By Ellen Kirk. Collins. $5.99 each.

Extreme Coral Reef! Q&A. By Melissa Stewart. Collins. $6.99.

American Flag Q&A. By Sarah L. Thomson. Collins. $6.99.

      Sturdy beach-oriented board books for children up to age five, My Beach Book and My Shell Book combine simple, easy-to-understand text with wonderfully vivid photos. Created in collaboration with the Smithsonian Institution, these books are fun as summer pastimes, as goes-down-easily education, and as memory books that kids will enjoy during colder weather as they look back at a happy summer. My Beach Book includes such questions and answers as “What keeps crashing onto the beach? Waves!” – with a photo of a boy running along the edge of the ocean. And: “What crawls across the beach? A crab!” – showing the animal in a closer view than most kids will likely get. My Shell Book features shells that are far more perfect than any likely to be found on a beach used by humans. But shells that kids do find can always be compared with these. For example, “What is fan-shaped with stripes and ridges? A scallop shell!” – letting kids see whether the broken shells they are more likely to discover resemble the perfect specimen shown here. Or: “What has an oval shape and colored bands? A clam shell!” – and since these are sometimes found in near-perfect condition, a child may see one that really does resemble the one in the photo.

      For older kids, ages 5-8, the Smithsonian-Collins partnership has produced a different sort of ocean-related book. It is not quite as successful as the board books, and gets a (+++) rating – because it goes overboard in seeking to be hip, with the result that it looks overdone and seems to be trying too hard. Packed with fine photos and filled with fascinating facts, Extreme Coral Reef! Q&A seems to feel it must constantly do more for readers by referring them to Web sites, urging them to planet-aiding activities, and including an interview with a zoologist. Every element of the book is worthwhile, but the visual impression of the work is of something thrown together rather haphazardly, as if to toss out tons of information in multiple ways in the hope that some of it will stick to young readers’ brains. The information itself, though, is solid, explaining how coral reefs form, what different sorts of creatures are visible there at day and at night, and how some coral-reef residents help each other: clown fish, for example, protect themselves by hiding among anemone tentacles, and in return chase away some of the butterfly fish that feed on anemones. Incidentally, one oddity in the book is that the plural of “fish” is constantly given as “fishes,” which is not entirely wrong but sounds distinctly strange: “parrot fishes,” “clown fishes,” "butterfly fishes,” “other fishes know…”

      Away from the beach but still in the Smithsonian-Collins collaboration is American Flag Q&A, which has both the virtues and the irritations of the coral-reef book, is aimed at the same age range, and also gets a (+++) rating. Again, the quality of the information is sterling, but the presentation is somewhat tarnished. Here kids can learn flag terminology (“Fly—the side of the flag that is farthest from the flagstaff”); what flags the colonists flew during the American Revolution (ones with pine trees, rattlesnakes – symbols of independence – and even a “liberty” design); and why people wrongly believe that the Stars and Stripes was flown in battle (largely because of an error made in a famous painting). There is information here on the flag that inspired “The Star-Spangled Banner” and the one called “Old Glory,” on flags that fly in odd places (Mt. Everest, the Moon), and more – plenty of material to make the book attractive in and of itself. The various Web sites and other bonuses offered will be helpful for kids who need to do in-depth reports on the U.S. flag or simply want to study it in greater detail, but the book stands on its own quite well.

(+++) QUESTING ONWARD

The Keys to the Kingdom, Book 6: Superior Saturday. By Garth Nix. Scholastic. $17.99.

Phoenix Rising, Book Two: Elissa’s Odyssey. By Erica Verrillo. Random House. $16.99.

      Arthur Penhaligon has moved through the days of mystery, darkness, pirates, war and fear to a day of sorcery in Super Saturday, the sixth of the seven books in the much- altered retelling of Arthurian legend called The Keys to the Kingdom. Like all the later books in this series, Superior Saturday represents a poor entry point for new readers – with its casual references to Denizens, Nithlings, Trustees and more. But it is a fine continuation of a complex story, as Arthur confronts the most powerful sorcerer within the House. This is more-or-less literally a house, albeit a mystical one – it has levels, of which the Upper House seems to be impossible to enter, while “the weather was broken in the Middle House.” And in it are wonders galore, not only the ones introduced before but also some new ones brought forth for the first time in this book, such as the four Drasils, which are huge trees that “hold up the Incomparable Gardens and [are] always growing.” This is surely a reference to the distinctly non-Arthurian Norse legend of Yggdrasil, the world-ash; yet it is also part of the world Nix has created for Arthur, which in truth does not fit the old Arthurian legends – or any others – particularly closely. What this Arthur is searching for is the Will of the Architect, which despite being distinctly magical is intimately bound up with letters and “long threads of type.” In Superior Saturday, Arthur is sufficiently self-aware as Rightful Heir of the Architect so that he can survive the most intense challenges yet – Nix has done a good job of ramping up the difficulties Arthur faces in each book. Arthur ends up in an ongoing discussion with the Will, which is in the form of a not-quite-fully-fledged raven and which, surprisingly, ends up devising schemes that Arthur finds helpful even though it says, “I’m not so good with plans.” Arthur’s eventual claiming of the Sixth Key is coupled with what may be disaster and is certainly a lead-in to the upcoming and presumably conclusive Lord Sunday.

      There is one book to go in the Phoenix Rising trilogy as well, now that Elissa’s adventures have moved into the second volume, Elissa’s Odyssey. In the first book, Elissa’s Quest, the 13-year-old heroine, her mother dead and her father’s identity kept from her by her caretaker, lived as a healer’s apprentice while concealing her gift of speaking to animals. Elissa, not surprisingly in a coming-of-age tale, dreamed of more excitement in life and of finding her father. Then she left home with a royal guest who unexpectedly showed up one day, and found herself to be a pawn – or perhaps more than a pawn, as readers surely suspected – in a battle for the kingdom. She discovered that she could be the key to the Prophecy of the Phoenix, one of many things that everyone in Elissa’s world except Elissa herself seemed to know about. That mysteries-everywhere approach was a weakness in Erica Verrillo’s first book, which was her first book, and it continues to be a major element of the plot in Elissa’s Odyssey, in which the young girl – who now knows that she is a princess (likely to the surprise of no readers) – finds that her talking-to-animals ability is growing stronger and changing in strange ways. Now she not only can talk to creatures but also can control things in the natural world. She knows who her father is (Lord Falk) and has found a true friend with a Gift of her own (Maya), although the friends become separated; and Elissa now undertakes a voyage – hence the “Odyssey” part of the title – in which she meets still others with special Gifts who may, collectively, represent pieces of the puzzle of the mysterious Prophecy. Most of the plot elements here are very familiar ones, involving family and friendship and treachery and elements of self-discovery. But Verrillo does a good job of keeping them together and keeping her narrative moving, and preteens looking for a series with a strong young woman at its center will enjoy the continuation of this one.

(+++) FLUFF HAPPENS

The Other Boy. By Hailey Abbott. HarperTeen. $8.99.

Forbidden Boy. By Hailey Abbott. HarperTeen. $8.99.

Save the Date. By Tamara Summers. HarperTeen. $5.99.

Picture Perfect. By Catherine Clark. HarperTeen. $5.99.

Banana Splitsville. By Catherine Clark. HarperTeen. $5.99.

Rocky Road Trip. By Catherine Clark. HarperTeen. $5.99.

      It’s a mistake to dismiss frothy summer romance novels out of hand. They may not have significant literary quality (or pretensions), but they do keep teens – well, teen girls, anyway – reading during the summer, and so they help preserve the entire book-publishing industry through a season in which not much else really happens. And if that convoluted attempt to find value in these dime-a-dozen novels (which, however, cost a lot more than that) isn’t convincing, consider the fact that they are simply fun – and what’s wrong with some summer fun?

      Hailey Abbott is one of many authors who have the teen romance formula down pat. She has written four Summer Boys novels and a variety of others that are also about – well, summer and boys. Two new ones are The Other Boy and Forbidden Boy. The first of these, set in California’s Napa Valley, is about Maddy and David, who are working together on a tasting room at a vineyard in which their dads are partners; and there are the usual telephonic misunderstandings, “rosy shadows of dusk” and, despite confusion involving another boy, Maddy and David end up with “their bodies pressed together from shoulder to hip, their legs entwined” (clothed, though). As for Forbidden Boy, it involves a beachfront property from which Julianne’s parents are being forced off by their obnoxious neighbors – but Julianne is only dimly aware of this, because she is so focused on a hottie named Remi…who turns out to be the son of those awful people. But Remi (whose full name is Remington) turns out to have some tricks up his sleeve, with the result that “she and Remi…saved her home together and built something incredibly special in the process.” And a good time was had by all.

      There are good times as well – plus wedding bells – in Tamara Summers’ Save the Date, which is filled with hideous bridesmaid dresses, five crazy older sisters, and a wedding planner whose son turns out to be unbelievably hot. The younger sister at the center of the book is named Jakarta but insists on being called Jack, and she gets to travel around with Leo the hottie, and eventually, of course, “Leo runs his hands along the curves of my waist and kisses the side of my neck as I lead him to the bed,” and everything is just perfect at fadeout – and Jack finds herself thinking that weddings may not be quite so intolerable after all, at least sometime in the future.

      And then there is Catherine Clark, whose teen romances seem to roll along effortlessly with just the right mixture of fun, frolic and troubles that can, with sufficient sensitivity, be overcome. Picture Perfect takes readers to the Outer Banks of North Carolina with a girl named Emily, who wants to take lots of pictures of the area’s natural beauty but soon finds a guy she encounters to be even more photogenic than the beach. And eventually Emily and Spencer end up being stuck together one night and “talking, kissing, talking, kissing, occasionally snuggling,” and so it goes. It goes similarly in Banana Splitsville, originally published in 2000 as Truth or Dairy, in which high school senior Courtney decides to be without a boyfriend because her guy has broken up with her as he heads off to college. She will focus on working at a café called Truth or Dairy – or so she thinks, until a guy named Grant Superior (yes, that’s the name) starts intruding on her consciousness, and eventually Courtney realizes she has gotten “too wrapped up in a dumb self-imposed regulation which didn’t take into account the fact I’d get to know someone like Grant this year.” Oh – and there’s even a reference here to “sexually satisfied grandparents.” And then there’s the sequel: Rocky Road Trip, originally published in 2001 as Wurst Case Scenario. Here, Courtney and Grant both go to college (different schools), and try to handle a long-distance relationship plus all the life changes that occur in the high-school-to-college transition, and get into a huge fight that may lead to Grant failing and never getting to open Superior Animal Hospital, his dream. And so, even though “this working-things-out thing is so tedious,” and she and Grant “got into this competition of whose slip-up/kiss error was worse, mine or his,” Courtney eventually decides – after sort of breaking up with Grant – that she sort of wants to get back together with him, leaving things just open enough so readers can think about what will be happening next summer.

(++++) BIG MUSIC FROM SMALL ENSEMBLES

Handel: Water Music; Music for the Royal Fireworks. L’Arte dell’Arco conducted by Federico Guglielmo. CPO. $16.99 (SACD).

Rebel: Les Élémens; Rameau: Castor et Pollux—Suite. L’Orfeo Barockorchester conducted by Michi Gaigg. Phoenix Edition. $16.99 (SACD).

Haydn: Horn Concerto No. 1; Harpsichord Concerto in D; Double Concerto for Violin and Harpsichord (Fortepiano); Trumpet Concerto. Dmitri Babanov, horn; Harald Hoeren, harpsichord and fortepiano; Ariadne Daskalakis, violin; Jürgen Schuster, trumpet; Cologne Chamber Orchestra conducted by Helmut Müller-Brühl. Naxos. $8.99.

      Although original-instrument performances have become more common in recent years, there is still something revelatory about hearing well-known works played on original instruments (or modern copies), using the performance styles for which those works were written. This is true even when a piece’s provenance is somewhat confused, as is the case with Handel’s Water Music and Music for the Royal Fireworks, two highly popular occasional works that go against the grain of most of Handel’s music (he rarely wrote purely instrumental works, preferring vocal forms) and that exist in several equally “authentic” versions: Music for the Royal Fireworks, for example, was originally performed without any strings at all, but Handel had wanted them and created a string version later. What is interesting about the performances by L’Arte dell’Arco under Federico Guglielmo is that they follow contemporary performance practices in terms of tuning (A=415 hz) and tempi, attempt to re-create the “right” movement sequence for the Water Music (again, there are several versions of it), but use a particularly small ensemble for what were certainly big outdoor pieces in their original incarnations. There is nothing large or full about the sound of this 26-piece ensemble, and that requires some adjustment on the part of listeners, especially those accustomed to the big, bright sound typically associated with Music for the Royal Fireworks. It is an adjustment worth making: the greater subtleties of these performances more than make up for the lack of sheer oomph and huge percussion forces. Just hearing the way the natural horns cut through and blend with the rest of the ensemble (which includes theorbo and recorder) is a delightful experience that makes these so-familiar pieces sound new again. And the excellent SACD sound (compatible with standard CD players) helps keep all the musical lines clean and crisp, producing performances that uplift as well as entertain.

      The new SACD of music by Jean-Féry Rebel and Jean-Philippe Rameau has equally fine sound, used to equally good advantage in music by two of Handel’s French contemporaries. Rameau is by far the more famous of these two composers, and the extended suite from his Castor et Pollux shows him in top form, evoking emotion effectively while producing well-balanced pieces with real lilt to them – including some highly danceable faster sections (the brief Air des Athlètes sounds as if it would require considerable athleticism even today). In some ways, though, Rebel’s Les Élémens is more interesting than Rameau’s suite, because its first and longest section is a six-minute portrayal of Chaos that starts with an extraordinary dissonant chord containing all the tones from the initial key. This sort of experimentation was not unheard of in the 18^th century – in fact, Heinrich Ignaz Biber had practiced something like it in the 17^th century in his sonata La battalia (1673) and other works. Nevertheless, Rebel’s willingness to assault the ears of his refined audience remains surprising and is highly effective even today, long after audiences have heard the “Tristan chord” and every other sort of dissonance. The remainder of Les Élémens is equally well wrought if not so overtly intense, with effective tone painting of earth (bass), water (flutes), air (portrayed by long-held notes contrasted with cadences) and fire (fast violin runs). The 25-member L’Orfeo Barockorchester under Michi Gaigg plays with careful attention to performance practice of this music’s time (here, A=392 hz) and also with great spirit, making both Rebel and Rameau come thoroughly alive for today’s audiences.

      The CD of Haydn concertos by the Cologne Chamber Orchestra conducted by Helmut Müller-Brühl is not quite up to the standards set by the other two discs, although everything on it is played very well and the music has a pleasant familiarity. The main problem here, and the reason the CD gets a (+++) rating rather than a higher one, is some confusion about what performance practice for these works ought to be. This ensemble used to play on period instruments (under the name Capella Clementina), but then switched to modern ones so as better to accommodate the requirements of modern concert halls. That is an understandable decision, whether one agrees with it or not. Certainly Müller-Brühl understands how Haydn would have been played in his own time, and attempts to perform these works in accordance with that understanding. But in a recording, any advantage of using modern instruments disappears, and the CD has a bright and forthright sound that is somewhat too much for these intimate concertos. The Horn Concerto, in particular, suffers from Dmitri Babanov’s very full tone on his modern instrument – the horn and orchestra seem out of balance. The Harpsichord and Trumpet Concertos, in contrast, work well. But the Double Concerto, intended for violin and harpsichord (and so described throughout the CD), is for some reason played on violin and fortepiano – a hard-to-understand decision that significantly changes the music’s balance and overall sound. These are attractive works and are nicely played here, but it is hard to escape the feeling that they would sound better with a little more attention to the way Haydn intended them to be performed.

(+++) PROMOTING THE NEW

Per Nørgård: String Quartets Nos. 7-10. Kroger Quartet. Dacapo. $16.99.

John Tavener: Piano Music—Zodiacs (1997); Ypakoë (1997); Palin (1977); Mandoodles (1982); Pratirūpa (2003); In Memory of Two Cats (1986). Ralph van Raat, piano. Naxos. $8.99.

Steven Stucky: Four Album Leaves (2002); Three Little Variations for David (2001); Witold Lutoslawski: Sonata for Piano (1934); Esa-Pekka Salonen: Yta II (1985); Three Preludes (2005); Dichotomie (1999-2000). Gloria Cheng, piano. Telarc. $18.98.

Jean-François Zygel: Improvisations. Jean-François Zygel, piano and celesta; Philippe Berrod, clarinet and bass clarinet; Thomas Bloch, glass harmonica; Johnny Rasse and Jean Boucault, bird songs. Naïve. $16.99.

Ron Nelson: Wind Music. Keystone Wind Ensemble conducted by Jack Stamp. Klavier. $16.99.

The Quest: Wind Music by Bruce Broughton, William Walton, Frank Ticheli, Masao Yabe, Fisher Tull and Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky. UNLV Wind Orchestra conducted by Thomas G. Leslie. Klavier. $16.99.

Robert Ian Winstin: Taliban Dances; Three Pieces for Piano; Normandy: June 6, 1944; Piano Attacks; Le Voyage Dans La Lune. Galyna Hornostai, violin; Yuri Kornilov, trumpet; Kiev Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Robert Ian Winstin. ERM Media. $14.99.

Masterworks of the New Era, Volume 12. Kiev Philharmonic, Prague Radio Symphony and Czech Philharmonic conducted by Robert Ian Winstin. ERM Media. $32.99 (4 CDs).

Michael Nyman: Six Celan Songs; The Ballad of Kastriot Rexhepi. Hilary Summers, Sarah Leonard and Michael Nyman Band conducted by Michael Nyman. MN Records. $16.99.

Michael Nyman: Nyman Brass. Wingates Band conducted by Andrew Berryman. MN Records. $16.99.

      Given the fact that modern classical and (for want of a better term) “classical crossover” music is infrequently performed in concert halls and is familiar to only a small number of listeners – and of positive interest to some smaller percentage of that number – it is a tribute to the dedication of specialized and special-interest labels that so much of it is available in recorded form, with more coming out all the time. Here, a look at some recent releases:

      Dacapo, which promotes music by Danish composers and performances by Danish musicians, offers the four most recent quartets by Per Nørgård (born 1932) in top-notch performances by the Kroger Quartet (Alexander Ollgaard and Maj Kullberg, violins; Sanna Ripatti, viola; Jakob Kullberg, cello). Written between 1993 and 2005, these quartets vary significantly in form and structure. No. 7, originally written for a bicentenary of the Danish Royal Library, has been revised several times and in its current form is dedicated to the Kroger Quartet; No. 8 is based on music from one of Nørgård’s chamber operas; No. 9 was written for the 2001 Santa Fe Chamber Music festival; and No. 10 was written specifically for the Kroger players and features interesting juxtapositions of violin and viola chords against a repeated pizzicato theme in the cello.

      Naxos, whose huge catalogue includes a wide variety of modern works, showcases Dutch pianist Ralph van Raat in six pieces by John Tavener (born 1944). Tavener’s piano music emphasizes the instrument as percussion and extends its sound into that of bells and “sound clouds.” The pieces here range from Tavener’s first piano work, Palin, to Pratirūpa (Sanskrit for “reflection”), a huge work that runs 30 minutes and is intended to reflect Tavener’s highly personal spirituality: he joined the Russian Orthodox Church in 1977 but also uses Greek Orthodox and Byzantine melodies extensively. The final piece on the CD, In Memory of Two Cats, offers bell-like sounds and is a welcome respite in its two-minute duration.

      All the works played by Gloria Cheng on her new Telarc CD – and performed with great style – are welcome in their own way, being world premiere recordings. The most substantial piece by far is Lutoslawski’s Piano Sonata, one of his few early works to have survived the destruction of Warsaw by Nazi forces in 1944. Written when the composer was 21, this large-scale work follows the three-movement classical model and shows distinct influences of Debussy and Stravinsky, but already showcases the composer’s individual voice. The seven short movements in the two pieces by Steven Stucky (born 1949) are character sketches, ranging from the contemplative and serene to the distinctly amused and amusing. The works by Esa-Pekka Salonen (born 1958) show this well-known conductor to be a fine composer as well – in fact, he is now focusing more on composition than on leading orchestras. Yta II (the title means “surface”) is the second of three pieces written for specific performers, the others being for alto flute and cello and this one being for Cheng; Dichotomie, also written for Cheng, is in two contrasting movements; and the Three Preludes are brief and well contrasted. The first, interestingly, is marked “Libellula Meccanica,” in parallel both with the first movement of Dichotomie, marked “Mécanisme,” and with the second of Stucky’s album leaves, which is marked “Meccanico.”

      The piano is just one instrument favored by Jean-François Zygel, who also employs the celesta and who works in many forms – this is one of those “classical crossover” discs. The 13 tracks on Zygel’s CD show numerous facets of his improvisational technique, sounding mostly jazzy but also impressionistic, with occasional tone painting (Carillons) and even the intended sound of an exotic land (Bali). Zygel is a music educator and TV performer as well as a pianist. His improvisations show a mind with varied interests and no easily pinned down musical style.

      Two new CDs on the Klavier label feature mostly modern music for wind band – although there are some arrangements of older classical pieces as well. The eight pieces on the Ron Nelson CD were written as long ago as 1958 (Mayflower Overture) and as recently as 2006 (Pastorale: Autumn Rune). These are mostly upbeat works and are more audience-friendly than much modern music, although the most optimistic piece – Fanfare for the New Millennium – turned out to be somewhat too hopeful, in light of all that has happened in the world in recent years. Everything is well played, with a nice turn by Keith Young on alto saxophone in Danza Capriccio. The CD includes a lengthy interview with Nelson (born 1929) discussing his music – although those who are unfamiliar with it might wish for more playing and less talking.

      The other Klavier CD, called The Quest and featuring the University of Nevada at Las Vegas Wind Orchestra, includes half a dozen works in a wide variety of styles, written at very different times. Two well-known composers are represented through arrangements -- of three dances from Tchaikovsky’s Maid of Orleans and of Walton’s The Quest. The remaining music here is far less known, but is mostly well constructed and easy for an audience to listen to – and some people will find Bruce Broughton’s Silverado Overture familiar, since it is based on Broughton’s score for the 1985 film.

      Klavier offers modern works in the context of its commitment to wind music in general. Other labels were specifically founded to showcase a single type of music, a single composer, and/or a single performer. ERM Media is a 25-year-old label devoted to conductor and composer Robert Ian Winstin, both of whose roles are showcased in two recent releases. Winstin is both composer and conductor on the CD called Taliban Dances – an ironic title for both the CD and Winstin’s violin concerto, since the Taliban tolerate no dancing. Alternating between seriousness and levity, with very difficult violin parts that climax at the very end with ever-faster tempos and bits of both the Dies Irae and the song “Dixie,” the concerto is disjointed but at least intermittently effective. The other works on the CD are more in the nature of character studies. Three Pieces for Piano includes a waltz, a romantic interlude and a scherzo. Normandy: June 6, 1944 commemorates D-Day with the effective but not-very-original pairing of trumpet and orchestra. Piano Attacks gets five movements into a minute and a half (played by Winstin himself, and very well). And Le Voyage Dans La Lune is suitably otherworldly.

      Masterworks of the New Era, Volume 12 is a four-CD compilation of a large number of disparate works, conducted by Winstin and featuring three different orchestras. It is hard to determine the intended audience for this release, since the pieces played are so different in style, approach, length, orchestration and just about everything else. Most of the composers are very little known: Scott Brickman, Michael Sidney Timpson, Guilherme Schroeter, Richard Bagdazian, Ven Olac and many others. And listeners who do know one or two of these composers may not want a four-CD set including so many with whom they are not familiar. Or perhaps that is the point: to lure listeners who have mild familiarity with at least a work or two here, persuading them to sample pieces by many other composers of today. It is hard to see how this works, but presumably Winstin is on to something, since there have been 11 previous releases in this series.

      Another label devoted to a specific person is MN Records, designed to produce and showcase the music of Michael Nyman (born 1944) – usually performed by him and musicians with whom he works regularly. That is exactly what occurs in the CD combining Six Celan Songs (1990) with The Ballad of Kastriot Rexhepi (2001). The earlier work uses six poems in which Paul Celan attempts to come to terms with the near-impossibility of writing poetry after the Holocaust; Nyman tries to use music to invent an imaginary emotional world against which to set Celan’s words. The later piece is the musical part of a collaboration with visual artist Mary Kelly, and deals with an 18-month-old Kosovan boy who was left for dead, found and renamed by Serbs, then reunited with his parents six months later. Even in the absence of visuals, Nyman works to paint a scene of the horrors of war and the impossibility of maintaining everyday family relationships when fighting rages on all sides.

      Nyman Brass is a bit of a departure for MN Records: although it does present Nyman’s music, it does not feature him or musicians with whom he usually performs. Fifteen of the CD’s 17 tracks are arrangements for brass of Nyman’s music for two films, The Ogre (1996) and The Libertine (2005). The remaining two tracks are arrangements of In Re Don Giovanni and of an excerpt from Nyman’s music for Peter Greenaway’s 1982 film, The Draughtsman’s Contract, in which Nyman used Henry Purcell’s music as an important source. All these works are typical Nyman – his repeated rhythms and thematic material help create a distinctive sound world, both in his film music and in his other works. What is interesting is hearing Nyman in brass-band arrangements: just as hearing Tchaikovsky arranged for wind band (on the Klavier CD The Quest) is both odd and exhilarating for the new perspective it provides on the music, so hearing Nyman’s works arranged for brass band gives them an edginess and fullness that they do not otherwise have. True, Nyman’s music is nowhere near as familiar as Tchaikovsky’s, so the comparison of the arrangements is far from precise. But what is interesting is that Nyman’s music comes through as strongly as it does in brass-band arrangements – whether listeners are familiar with the original orchestrations or not.