(+++) LEGENDS OF YORE AND OF TODAY

The Beautiful Stories of Life: Six Greek Myths, Retold. By Cynthia Rylant. Illustrations by Carson Ellis. Harcourt. $16.

Enemies & Allies: The Dark Knight Meets the Man of Steel. By Kevin J. Anderson. William Morrow. $26.99.

     Some tales stand the test of time – thousands of years. Other stand the test of time – dozens of years. It seems that in both cases, some sort of retelling and recasting is considered necessary in order to keep the stories relevant and interesting, as both these books try to do. Cynthia Rylant’s approach to the legends of Pandora, Persephone, Orpheus, Pygmalion, Narcissus and Psyche is an odd one: she starts (not ends) each tale with a moral or a summing-up of its message. “Pygmalion was a coward. …Perhaps it was not love that Pygmalion wanted so much as notice.” “There are those who fall in love with someone and something and are destroyed by the experience. …So it was with Narcissus.” “While heroism always involves the fight for something, the battle can take place within oneself as commonly as it can without” – this for the story of Psyche. The angles that Rylant takes on these tales sometimes help readers, including ones who already know the Greek myths, see the stories in a new light; but they equally often wrench the characters and actions in directions that do not quite fit. The story of Orpheus shows this most clearly. It has long been a tale of great love and great loss, and of music so beautiful that even the netherworld is moved by it. Not here: “There are some who cannot face reality,” Rylant writes at the start. “Orpheus was one of these, and the inability to accept and live the truth eventually destroyed his life.” Eurydice is not even named in Rylant’s retelling, and Orpheus’ fateful decision to turn around and look at his wife walking behind him from Hades is not the mistake of a lover but just a mistake: “She was still just within the doorway of darkness.” This is an oddly unpleasant version of the Orpheus tale; and although the other stories here are better handled, they too are somewhat strangely skewed. Psyche’s story is essentially a catfight between the mortal girl and the goddess Aphrodite. In Pandora’s tale, Hope does not remain within the famous box – it escapes with everything else, until Pandora puts it back inside; and Zeus comes across as wanting to destroy humanity – “”Hope would not survive in a world so filled with suffering,” Rylant says the wise god unwisely believed, “and he knew mankind could not survive without hope.” Rylant has certainly thought the Greek myths through, but her interpretations of them are somewhat on the odd side. And her words often stand in stark contrast to the very lovely, flowing illustrations of Carson Ellis, who apparently sees more gentleness and warmth in these tales than Rylant does.

     Fast-forward a couple of thousand years, to the legends of our own time, and you will find the comic-book characters Superman and Batman, who have long since outgrown their pulp origins to become stars of stage, screen and story – including Enemies & Allies, in which they co-star. Forget what you know about the characters from the comics – or the movies, for that matter. Kevin J. Anderson reimagines them here as Cold War crusaders in the 1950s. This is a time of fear of both nuclear weapons and aliens – and Superman is, of course, one of the latter. There is some cleverness to the setup and to the contrast between the brightly costumed hero of Metropolis and the darker denizen of Gotham City. Bruce Wayne’s attempts to analyze how Superman could possibly do the things he does are a high spot in the book – Wayne, remember, is an ordinary (if rich) human, relying on his wits and analytical abilities to fight crime, while Superman has all those otherworldly powers. Enemies & Allies is silly fun, with Superman trying to cope with his role as Earth’s protector and Batman copying his playboy image from Ian Fleming’s early James Bond books. Lex Luthor, Superman’s longtime arch-nemesis, is the primary bad guy here, conspiring with one of those dastardly Commies (Soviet general Anatoly Ceridov) to ratchet up international nuclear conflict so the U.S. will have to buy Luthor’s company’s atmospheric defense equipment. Holy Star Wars system, Batman (and Superman)! Sputnik, Area 51 and space scientist Wernher von Braun all figure into Anderson’s plot, which flails around quite a bit while making sure that well-known names from the Superman and Batman comics make appropriate appearances: Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen and Alfred the butler are all here. The best thing about Enemies & Allies is the ongoing suspicion that its author is not taking the whole thing overly seriously – that just as these comic-book heroes have recently been rethought in darker, more introspective ways, Anderson is now rethinking those new versions of Superman and Batman in a more straightforward, action-oriented manner. “President Eisenhower had entrusted him with the protection of America, and Kal-El took his job seriously. He needed to do more. Clark Kent asked for a few days off from the Daily Planet, ostensibly to visit his mother in Kansas. But he had other plans.” How can you not enjoy such superficiality, such childish naïveté? About the only thing missing from this comic-book view of the 1950s is…well, the illustrations of a comic book.

(+++) BOOKS BEFITTING A BETTER LIFE

Getting Past Your Breakup: How to Turn a Devastating Loss into the Best Thing That Ever Happened to You. By Susan J. Elliott. Da Capo. $14.95.

Gluten Free Every Day Cookbook: More Than 100 Easy and Delicious Recipes from the Gluten-Free Chef. By Robert M. Landolphi. Andrews McMeel. $16.99.

     The notion that you can spend less than $20 to solve major problems in your life and guarantee future happiness is absurd on the face of it, but that does not keep authors from trying to produce reasonably priced self-help books designed to be far more valuable than their price would indicate. Motivational speaker and grief counselor Susan J. Elliott combines both those roles in telling people who have suffered relationship devastation how to get through the stages of grief associated with romantic implosion – and how to pick themselves up afterwards and come out of their distress better than they ever were before. Like many self-proclaimed experts, Elliott has a harrowing tale of her own to tell, and she tells it early in the book, explaining how her own marriage shattered and how her fear of abandonment led her to try to put back together something that was irretrievably broken. She deserves considerable credit for getting her own life together – but that does not necessarily mean that her experience parallels that of others, or that her advice (given, of course, from her particular perspective) will work in very different situations. Elliott had children and suffered emotional (but not physical) abuse; readers should consider ways in which their situations are similar to and different from hers before accepting her advice at face value. Actually, Elliott’s comments on the stages of grief, although scarcely new, can be helpful to just about anyone who feels devastated by the end of an intimate relationship. She takes readers from “shock and disbelief,” through “review [and] relinquishment,” to “reorganization [and] acceptance,” dealing with such specific emotions as guilt, anger, ambivalence and depression. But Elliott’s main focus is rebuilding after a failed relationship, and this is where her approaches are a bit too one-size-fits-all. Journaling can be helpful, but not for everyone – some people struggle to write down their feelings. Some people believe affirmations help mold reality; others find them a silly sort of wishful thinking. Writing gratitude lists – pages about positive things in one’s life – can be liberating, thought-provoking or immensely frustrating. And so on – even therapy and support groups have their place for some people, but not others. And some of Elliott’s well-intentioned ideas, such as a “relationship inventory” to work through the issues involving your ex, will work well for organized, self-aware people but be overwhelming and even potentially traumatizing for others. The point is that Elliott has many good ideas that may be helpful for people whose approach to life gibes with hers. Ultimately, though, people have to find their own way out of a relationship, just as they found their own way into it. The extent to which Getting Past Your Breakup will help with your breakup will vary quite widely.

     Robert M. Landolphi’s Gluten Free Every Day Cookbook does not attempt to be for everyone – its target audience, obviously, is people with gluten allergies and those who live with (and cook with or for) them. A great deal of attention is now being paid to gluten-free living – whether because the incidence of gluten allergies is increasing, because they are only now being more frequently recognized, or because the whole subject is faddish in some way, it is difficult to know for sure. Like Elliott in the relationship area, Landolphi has a personal connection to his subject: his wife was diagnosed with celiac disease (one of a number of wheat allergies) more than a decade ago, so he started experimenting with ways to make tasty gluten-free dishes. Landolphi arranges his book intelligently, starting with basics (flours, starches and such) and then moving into soups, main courses, side dishes, desserts and breads – offering, at the end, his perspective on the complexities of dining out (“nobody checked to see whether the chicken stock that rice was boiled in does or does not contain gluten”). The heart of this book is, of course, its recipes, and it helps to be a devoted chef to follow a number of them: despite the book’s subtitle, many are more delicious than they are easy. Cayenne-Dusted Chicken Nuggets, for example, require a food processor and overnight refrigeration after the first step. Corn, Potato, and Leek Chowder needs a heavy soup pot and includes cooking bacon, sautéing vegetables, simmering several ingredients and using a blender to purée three cups of the soup. Chocolate Cream Pie requires sugar, cornstarch and egg yolks whisked gradually together over medium heat in a heavy saucepan, then whisked constantly until the mixture boils, and also requires cooling at room temperature for 20 minutes plus refrigeration for one to two hours. None of these recipes will be daunting for somewhat experienced cooks who have plenty of time to spend in the kitchen, and Landolphi’s meals without gluten certainly have a great deal of variety and a number of pleasant flavor variations. People with gluten sensitivity will not feel they are sacrificing food quality or taste with these recipes. But if you are not an experienced chef and do not live with one, Landolphi’s book is more likely to be frustrating than helpful – there is little in it that can be easily thrown together in a minimal amount of time. Opt for Gluten Free Every Day Cookbook only if you really do have plenty of time for cooking every day, and if you truly enjoy putting together satisfying meals that require attentiveness to details of preparation and presentation.

(++++) SYMPHONIES, GROUPED AND INDIVIDUAL

Schumann: Symphonies 1-4. Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern conducted by Stanislaw Skrowaczewski. Oehms. $29.99 (2 CDs).

Schubert: Symphonies Nos. 1, 3 and 7 (“Unfinished”); Symphonies Nos. 2 and 4 (“Tragic”); Symphonies Nos. 5 and 6 (“Little C Major”). Bamberger Symphoniker conducted by Jonathan Nott. Tudor. $19.99 each (SACD).

Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 4; Overture 1812. Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern conducted by Christoph Poppen. Oehms. $16.99.

Szymanowski: Symphonies Nos. 1 and 4; Concert Overture, Op. 12; Study in B flat minor, Op. 4, No. 3. Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Antoni Wit. Naxos. $8.99.

     Two splendid new collections of Romantic symphonies, one complete and one nearly so, show that even well-known works can prove unusually effective and affecting when handled sensitively by top-notch conductors. Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, an excellent but somewhat underrated conductor, brings poise, sensitivity and an attractive muscularity to his cycle of the Schumann symphonies. Skrowaczewski seems genuinely to like this music, which can at times be as awkward as the name of the orchestra he conducts (the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern was formed in 2007 by combining the RSO Saarbrücken with the SWR Radio Orchestra Kaiserslautern). Skrowaczewski embraces Schumann’s symphonies wholeheartedly, giving most outer movements a lightness and flair that other conductors do not always provide; following tempo indications closely when that produces a better effect (the Allegro molto vivace of the first movement of No. 1 is really speedy, and very well done); and altering the tempo markings somewhat if that helps move the music along (the main portion of the first movement of No. 2 is marked Allegro ma non troppo, but it really drags at that pace, and Skrowaczewski wisely takes it faster). Not all listeners will agree with Skrowaczewski’s tempo choices – the finale of No. 1, for example, is marked Allegro animato e grazioso, and this performance emphasizes the “animato” at the expense of some of the “grazioso” – but everything here is well considered and, on its own terms, makes perfect sense. No. 1 is, after all, subtitled “Spring,” and it certainly does burst forth riotously (although its slow movement is taken at a true Larghetto pace – slower than in many other performances). No. 2 is classically proportioned, and Skrowaczewski brings out its structural lines effectively. No. 3, the “Rhenish,” is a little on the heavy side until its particularly sprightly finale, but the performance is well balanced and paced even if not quite as stately as it might be. And No. 4, heard (as it almost always is) in its revised version, manages not to sound muddy – as it frequently does – because Skrowaczewski brings out individual voices (especially brass) so carefully and lets Schumann’s melodic charm as well as the unusual aspects of this symphony’s structure come through clearly. As a whole, the cycle is both atypical of the way Schumann’s symphonies tend to be played – and excellent on its own terms.

     Three new SACDs from Jonathan Nott and his Bamberger Symphoniker – Nott has led the orchestra since 2000 – add up almost but not quite to a complete Schubert cycle. This release uses the less-common numbering of the symphonies – the “Unfinished” is usually designated No. 8 – and a recording of No. 9, the “Great C Major,” is not yet available. One hopes that it will be soon, because Nott and the Bamberg players have a wonderful feel for this music, which consists almost entirely of juvenilia (only No. 6 and the “Unfinished” were written after Schubert’s teenage years, No. 6 when he was 21 and the “Unfinished” four years later). Schubert’s handling of winds is especially felicitous in the early symphonies, and Nott focuses on the wind section in a refreshingly open and pleasant manner. But he pays considerable attention to the strings as well, and the symphonies come across with commendable lightness and excellent interplay among the instruments – aided by truly exceptional SACD sound. It is certainly possible to quarrel with some aspects of Nott’s interpretations: the finales of Nos. 5 and 6, for example, are taken quite slowly, and that of No. 6 is filled with unwarranted tempo variations. Still, everything here is played with great finesse and lovely instrumental balance. And among these performances, which date to 2003, is one very unusual element: inclusion of the 20 or so seconds of a Scherzo that Schubert completed and orchestrated for the “Unfinished.” This is barely a hint of where the composer was trying to go, and in fact there exists more of this movement, unorchestrated by Schubert but largely laid out by him – and completed by others in recent times. Still, this slight addition to the “Unfinished” shows the work in a different light from the one most people know, and makes Nott’s performance (which gives very considerable weight to the complex first movement) even more interesting. Indeed, all these readings will hold a listener’s interest from start to finish, with most of the symphonies’ mostly high spirits coming through particularly clearly.

     Returning to the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern: the orchestra’s principal conductor since it was formed has been Christoph Poppen, and his way with Tchaikovsky comes through clearly in two live performances of the Fourth Symphony (recorded in 2007) and the Overture 1812 (from 2008). This is certainly a respectable CD, worthy of a (+++) rating, but it is not an exceptional one. There is nothing at all wrong with either performance – in fact, Poppen’s handling of the string sections of Overture 1812 is unusually sensitive for this potboiler of a piece. But there is nothing especially revelatory in the interpretation of either work. The Overture 1812 is as exhilarating as ever, and the dramatic and dynamic contrasts of the symphony are very well handled: this is a really fine orchestra, with exceptional balance among sections. And Poppen manages to keep the symphony’s huge, discursive first movement from becoming episodic and spinning out of control. But there is nothing especially new or unusual in the interpretation of either work here – the CD is always pleasant, generally impressive in terms of the playing, but not truly distinctive.

     Listeners looking for distinctiveness in symphonies may want to turn to those of Karol Szymanowski, including the two performed by the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra under Antoni Wit on a new Naxos CD. However, Szymanowski’s music will certainly not appeal to everyone, and the particular combination of music on this CD gets a (+++) rating. The Concert Overture (1905), which clearly displays the influence of Wagner and Richard Strauss on the young composer, is a somewhat more interesting work than the similarly influenced Symphony No. 1 (1907), which Szymanowski later dubbed a “monster.” That is an overstatement – the work is not especially long (19 minutes; the Concert Overture runs 14) or especially monstrous in structure or harmony – but neither is it a very individualized piece; there is nothing especially compelling about it. Symphony No. 4, “Symphonie Concertante” (1932), is considerably more interesting, including a prominent piano part (well played here by Jan Krzystof Broja) and combining elements of symphonic structure with ones of a concerto. One thing that both these symphonies have in common is the use of solo violin and solo viola (Ewa Marczyk and Marek Marczyk, respectively). Another is the extent to which they seem to echo other composers: No. 4 has some of the flavor of Stravinsky. The CD concludes with one of Szymanowski’s most popular works, a piano study heard here in an orchestration by Grzegorz Fitelberg. The CD as a whole shows some new directions for the symphony in the 20^th century, but of the works here, only the Symphony No. 4 really showcases Szymanowski at his best.

(+++) COMBINATIONS AND JUXTAPOSITIONS

Grieg: Two-Piano Arrangements of Mozart’s Sonata in D Major, K. 448, and Fantasia for Two Pianos, K. 475; Old Norwegian Melody with Variations. Dena Piano Duo (Tina Margareta Nilssen and Heide Görtz). 2L. $29.99 (Blu-ray audio disc + SACD).

The Nordic Sound: Selections from 15 Recordings. 2L. $29.99 (Blu-ray audio disc + SACD).

Jewish Cabaret in Exile. New Budapest Orpheum conducted by Phillip V. Bohlman. Cedille. $16.99.

American Choral Premieres: Alan Hovhaness, Egon Cohen, Paul Nicholson, Paul French, Easley Blackwood, Robert Kreutz, William Ferris, William C. White, George Rochberg. William Ferris Chorale conducted by Paul French. Cedille. $16.99.

Weber: Concertino for Clarinet and Orchestra; Clarinet Concerto No. 2; Bottesini: Duetto; Debussy: Première Rhapsody; Tchaikovsky: Herbstlied. Richard Stoltzman, clarinet; Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Kirk Trevor; Richard Fredrickson, double bass. Navona. $16.99.

Jonathan Sachs: Incantations, Book V; Litanies; Ghost Horses; 5^th (S)eason; Sagittarius Rising; Sirian Blue. Navona. $16.99.

Xibus. Boston String Quartet. Navona. $16.99.

     The nearly complete demise of record stores, and with it the difficulty of idly browsing and perhaps stumbling across an unusual recording that you had not previously considered buying, puts releases like these at a distinct disadvantage. Unless you know to look for them, you are unlikely to find them, because their attraction lies as much in their packaging or the unusual way they assemble collections of works as it does in the performers and performances. The Norwegian label 2L, for example, offers very unusual packages (in a size that will not fit in all CD storage devices) that is designed specifically for Blu-ray aficionados. The Blu-ray format has not yet taken off in the video arena, even though it has defeated the alternative high-definition format, HD-DVD. But 2L believes Blu-ray’s time has come in the audio field, and each 2L package contains a super-high-quality Blu-ray audio disc plus an SACD of the same music that is, in truth, of equal quality when played on anything but the most ultra-high-fidelity Blu-ray-adapted system. Only if you have a strong commitment to Blu-ray and are willing to pay about $10 more than the typical cost of an SACD will you find 2L’s offerings of interest. And if you are intrigued, you must still consider the repertoire. The Dena Piano Duo plays exceptionally well, but how much interest is there likely to be in Edvard Grieg’s arrangements of two Mozart works for two pianos, K. 448 in D and K. 475 in C minor? The works are small gems in themselves, and Grieg’s treatment of them is certainly of some interest, but how much? Grieg did write one work of his own for two pianos, Old Norwegian Melody with Variations, and it too is very well played here, but it is unlikely to inspire many people to acquire this pricey offering. Actually, Blu-ray lovers may be more interested in 2L’s The Nordic Sound, one of those “compendium” releases that are by definition hodgepodges. This offering includes excerpts from 15 2L recordings, made at various churches and cathedrals in Norway. The sound is quite lovely throughout, and the performances are uniformly good – but they are not really the point. The idea here is to showcase just how good an audio recording can be in Blu-ray as well as SACD format, and this 2L offering certainly does that. If you want your sound at the service of specific repertoire, look elsewhere; but if you revel in sound for its own sake, the 2L releases are certainly worth a look – and a listen.

     A couple of new vocal offerings from Cedille, a Chicago label showcasing Chicago-based artists, are of high enough quality to be of interest outside Chicagoland. But they are highly specialized recordings, and unless their topics are ones a listener finds appealing or wants to explore, the quality of the performances will be largely irrelevant. Jewish Cabaret in Exile features music of the Jewish diaspora of the early and mid 20^th century, ranging from cabaret songs that reflect on the human condition to songs of the theater and movies. One composer represented here, Viktor Ullmann, was moderately well known in his time; he died in the Holocaust. Ullmann’s Three Yiddish Songs are a highlight of the CD. The rest of the composers here are generally unfamiliar names, but the point is not to focus on the people but to explore ways in which their music expresses such aspects of the diaspora as “the great ennui on the eve of exile,” “transformation of tradition” and “the poetics of exile,” to cite three of the CD’s seven sections.

     The vocal music sung by the William Ferris Chorale (founded by Ferris in 1971) will be equally unfamiliar to listeners, and that is by design, since the group’s new CD is called “American Choral Premieres.” Most of the works here are relatively short and fairly straightforward, appropriately but not outstandingly using the musical language of the time in which they were written. Standouts are Four Motets, by the prolific Alan Hovhaness, and George Rochberg’s heartfelt Behold, My Servant. Ferris’ own Lyrica Sacra and Who Am I? by Paul French – who now leads the chorale and for whom Ferris was a mentor – provide a sense of continuity in the music and performers. Everything here is well sung and has a religious flavor; the overall impression is of devout spiritual appeal without necessarily any strong adherence to a particular set of dogma or traditions.

     One way an interested listener might stumble upon two new Navona CDs is by searching for performances by clarinetist Richard Holtzman. On a disc called “Phoenix in Flight,” he offers sensitive, warm and beautifully played performances of two of the delightful clarinet-and-orchestra pieces by Carl Maria von Weber, plus three “fillers” that have some interest of their own. Giovanni Bottesini was considered “the Paganini of the double bass,” so it is a trifle odd to feature one of his works on a clarinet-focused CD, but in fact Stoltzman and Richard Fredrickson play the Duetto as equal partners, and the music benefits as a result. Debussy’s Première Rhapsody gives Stoltzman plenty of opportunity to show the warm side of his instrument, and so does Tchaikovsky’s Herbstlied, heard here in an arrangement made by Toru Takemitsu shortly before his death in 1996. Clarinet fanciers will enjoy Stoltzman’s top-quality playing both here and on a CD of some lesser music, by Jonathan Sachs. Sachs is known mostly for his film scores (Toy Story 2, Mr. Holland’s Opus, The X-Files: I Want to Believe and others), but he also works in traditional concert-hall forms, and this CD offers a bit of this and a bit of that. Stoltzman is featured in Litanies for clarinet, violin, cello and piano (1990, revised 2004), and in Ghost Horses for the same instruments plus three voices (1992). The Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra under Carl St. Clair plays Incantations: Book V (2002), and the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra under Kirk Trevor offers Sagittarius Rising (2004). The other two pieces here are the oddly titled 5^th (S)eason for two pianos (1993), played by Vicky Ray and Bridget Convey, and one of Sachs’ electronic experiments: Sirian Blue for tape (1978). The diversity of performers parallels the many styles of Sachs’ music, which never attains profundity (and does not really seem to seek it) but which is invariably well made and generally attractive to the ear.

     The same is a bit harder to say of Xibus, simply because this crossover CD will sound just fine to fans of some genres but is likely to seem odd to other listeners. The Boston String Quartet mixes elements of classically proficient playing with rock, pop and world music here, including some works with vocals (sung by Giorgia Fumanti and Fionnuala Gill) and one, Like It Is, with rock instrumentation performed by Common Thrill. Ranging from the sacred (Ave Maria) to the decidedly secular (Hey Jude), the CD offers fine performances and interesting (if rather disconnected) repertoire. But unless listeners specifically go looking for something by the Boston String Quartet, and then focus on crossover offerings, this is the sort of CD that it is all too easy to pass by.

(++++) ARTISTICALLY SPEAKING

Bettina Valentino and the Picasso Club. By Niki Daly. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. $15.95.

Georgia Rises: A Day in the Life of Georgia O’Keeffe. By Kathryn Lasky. Pictures by Ora Eitan. Melanie Kroupa Books/Farrar, Straus and Giroux. $16.95.

     Each of these books offers young readers splendid information on art – but the two come at it from entirely different perspectives, just as two artists would see the same landscape entirely differently. Bettina Valentino and the Picasso Club is a novel so funny that readers will find themselves laughing out loud at some of the antics of the title character and her family and friends – but beneath that amusement are some very serious lessons about what art is, how it is made, and in what ways it appeals to (or fails to appeal to) different sorts of people. The story seems simple: Bettina gets a new, free-spirited art teacher at Bayside Preparatory School and finds her own artistic impulses growing by leaps and bounds as a result. But the plot is barely the point here. Bettina herself is quite a character: “I like art that jumps off the wall and hits you in the eye like a wound-up ninja.” Her old art teacher used to insist she use more pink in her paintings, leading Bettina to create her mantra: “Pink shtinks!” Bettina’s dad drives a falling-apart 1962 Rolls-Royce convertible; her mother is “a fashion designer and is always practicing her French, in case she ever gets to go to Paris to do a show.” This is one girl who comes by her iconoclasm genetically; her best friend, Carmen-Daisy, “calls me an artyfartyfashionloony,” which seems about right. And then – wham! Into Bettina’s life comes Mr. Popart, who walks barefoot to soak up the energy of the Earth and teaches about everything except using more pink. He talks about Paul Klee’s comment on “taking a line for a walk,” about Damien Hirst’s preserved carcasses, and about Picasso – one artist Bettina adores. And Mr. Popart doesn’t just talk: he has the kids create wall art (graffiti, if you prefer), then turns up one day standing on his head to show what the dada movement was all about, and much more. Niki Daly, an excellent picture-book author who here writes his first chapter book, sprinkles wonderful illustrations throughout the story, and manages to make it a fairly complex one, too, because Bayside is in need of serious repair, and one family may contribute a lot of money, but that family (daughter and parents) strongly opposes Mr. Popart and his freewheeling manner, and the head of the school is caught in the middle, which means so is Mr. Popart, and there happens to be an art contest for the students coming up, and…well, there is a lot here, and Daly juggles it all expertly, bringing the book to an entirely satisfactory conclusion – and likely bringing readers more information on art than they would expect to find in such an apparently lighthearted apparent romp.

     Kathryn Lasky’s Georgia Rises is a more overtly serious book, a sensitive portrait of an artist in her 70s struggling to make her body cooperate so she can greet the day as she wishes and draw from it the inspiration that she has received from the natural world for many years. Using many of Georgia O’Keeffe’s own words and the ideas for a number of her paintings – but compressing the action and thinking into a single day – Lasky helps young readers share the sensibilities of an artist: “A bone gleaming white sits as pretty as angel wings just ahead.” “The sky is finally lavender, so pale it’s almost transparent, like the eyelids of babies.” “Soon the stars will climb into the huge blackness of the night and arrange themselves in figures.” Aided by lovely, unsentimentalized pictures by Ora Eitan, Lasky shows how art transcends and transforms the artist, and how O’Keeffe uses the light and the found objects around her desert home to create striking visual impressions, such as her famous flowers “so big that people will have to look” at them. This is a beautiful book for readers already interested in O’Keeffe’s style or ready to experience it, and the biography and selected bibliography at the end will open additional doors of wonder and experience to budding young artists.

(++++) REAL ADVENTURES

Extreme Scientists: Exploring Nature’s Mysteries from Perilous Places. By Donna M. Jackson. Houghton Mifflin. $18.

ER Vets: Life in an Animal Emergency Room. By Donna M. Jackson. Sandpiper. $8.99.

     Donna M. Jackson keeps finding ways in which the real world is every bit as exciting, dangerous and occasionally heartbreaking as anything on TV or in the movies. Both the new Extreme Scientists and the paperback edition of ER Vets (originally published in 2005) show people doing important jobs in difficult, complex and sometimes very scary conditions. Extreme Scientists uses skillful writing and wonderfully selected pictures to profile three people whom Jackson calls “Hurricane Hunter,” “Cave Woman” and “Skywalker.” The first of these, Paul Flaherty, goes outdoors when everyone else is advised to stay in and find a safe place because of a dangerous storm. Flaherty, a meteorologist, is a hurricane tracker – one of those brave people who fly into the eye of huge storms to obtain information that forecasters use to track the storms’ strength and direction, keeping people in their path safe. Flaherty “doesn’t consider himself a thrill-seeker,” but simply someone fascinated by the weather – but he has had his share of close calls, and Jackson also tells of hurricane hunters who have lost their lives. “Cave Woman” is Hazel Barton, who has a tattoo of a partial map of South Dakota’s Wind Cave on one arm and who spends her time studying microbes that live in caves – which includes discovering new ones. As a microbiologist, she is a scientist first and foremost, but she has also been seen in an IMAX movie called Journey into Amazing Caves – she descended both into an ice crevasse in Greenland and into waters beneath Mexico’s rainforests. “Skywalker” is Stephen Sillett, who studies organisms that live in forest canopies – which means he climbs huge redwood trees. Not everything living in the tree canopy is tiny – one photo in this section shows a salamander that Sillett discovered 207 feet above the ground. “The first step’s the most dangerous” in climbing a redwood, Jackson explains, because the tree trunk may have no branches for hundreds of feet. Learning how Sillett, Barton and Flaherty overcome the dangers of their jobs, and how their field work complements their more-mundane laboratory work, makes an utterly fascinating volume – one exciting enough so that many young readers will surely want to check out the publications, DVDs and Web sites that Jackson lists at the end of the book.

     ER Vets tells a more everyday story, and one that readers are more likely to experience, but in its own way it is every bit as breathtaking – and even more heart-tugging – than the tales in Extreme Scientists. An animal emergency room is a world where abbreviations save the doctors time and help them save lives, a world of HBC (hit by car), BDLC (big dog attacked little cat), CHF (congestive heart failure) and FLUTD (feline lower urinary tract disease) – and a world of hedgehogs, rabbits, birds and snakes as well as cats and dogs. Filled with photos taken at the James L. Voss Veterinary Teaching Hospital at Colorado State University, ER Vets shows the tremendous attention and care given by veterinarians to all the animals brought to them at times of crisis – including ones that can be saved and ones that cannot. Even people who do not care for reptiles will be moved by the story of a pet snake named Lucy that could not be revived after it escaped into the dashboard while being carried in a car – and the temperature that night dropped too low for Lucy’s body to handle it. In fact, Jackson’s chapter called “Death of a Pet,” which follows the Lucy story, will be especially helpful to parents trying to support and comfort children when an animal is dying or has passed away. But most of ER Vets is about happier circumstances, as animals that would die without prompt and efficient care recover thanks to veterinarians’ skill. Amid the stories of injured animals rescued and restored to their families are well-done explanations of things that pet lovers should know in order to decide whether to get an animal to a vet – the four pages called “Is It an Emergency?” are especially helpful. ER Vets is ultimately an uplifting and hopeful book, acknowledging that some injured animals cannot be saved but showing that many can be healed and restored to normal lives through the skill of some very dedicated professionals.

(++++) BEHAVIORAL CUTENESS

Milo’s Special Words. By Charise Mericle Harper. Robin Corey Books. $10.99.

Oh No! Time to Go! A Book of Goodbyes. By Rebecca Doughty. Schwartz & Wade. $15.99.

Oops-a-Daisy! By David Algrim. Illustrated by Rosalind Beardshaw. Golden Books. $5.99.

     Kids from the toddler stage through kindergarten or first grade can have fun while learning some basic lessons in manners and proper behavior from any or all of these three books. Milo’s Special Words is the most enjoyably offbeat, although it does pose a potential problem for parents at the end. This is the story of a little boy who wants some milk and demands it from his mother, who is dealing with laundry and does not respond even when Milo asks repeatedly and then screams “MILK!” very loudly. Milo’s sister, Lucy, suggests that Milo use “the special word…that will make Mommy move,” so Milo tries saying “floopindoodle” and “shazam” and other words – but of course nothing works until he says “please.” What makes Milo’s Special Words so much fun is the way Charise Mericle Harper tells the story through wheels and flaps, not just straight narrative. Turn one wheel to see Mommy placing clothes in the laundry basket. Turn another to see each word Milo tries before choosing the right one. Open a flap to see Milo figure out that “please” will work, then fold another flap out to see Mommy rush off to get the milk that Milo wants. And so it goes, with Milo also learning to say “thank you” – a pleasant little lesson. But parents need to watch out – and have an explanation of the limits of politeness ready – before the end of the book. For Milo, now that he has discovered the power of “please,” starts using it to ask for several items revealed in both words and pictures on another of those turning wheels: birthday cake, a magic wand, a pony and a rocket. “Now what will Mommy do?” asks Harper at the end of the book. Have your answer prepared – Harper does not provide one.

     Oh No! Time to Go! is about a boy who loves saying hello to friends and relatives but hates saying goodbye. Rebecca Doughty reviews many ways of saying it is time to part, from “toodle-oo” and “kiss-kiss” to “take it easy,” “later, gator,” hand expressions without words, and even a dog’s growl at other dogs. An especially sad goodbye comes near the end of this simply written and simply illustrated book, when the boy’s next-door friend and her family move away: “Don’t be a stranger! Promise you’ll write!/ We watched the van roll out of sight.” But then a new family moves in, with the promise of a new friend to be made, and the boy realizes, as will readers, that goodbye can be the gateway to a new hello – a pleasant message, nicely conveyed.

     Oops-a-Daisy! is a board book that parents of toddlers will find wryly amusing even as toddlers themselves enjoy it. David Algrim’s story – abetted by Rosalind Beardshaw’s illustrations, many on flaps that open and close easily – follows what parents will recognize as an all-too-typical day in a toddler’s life. Daddy asks his little girl to hold her cup of milk with two hands; lift the flap and find out that she did not – the dog is lapping up the spilled milk. Mommy asks her little boy if he needs to use the potty – lift the flap and “Oops-a-Daisy! That’s okay. You can go on the potty next time.” There are unlaced shoes, spilled paint and melting ice cream here, plus super-understanding parents who smile throughout the day and never say anything harsher than “Oops-a-Daisy!” That’s not a bad lesson for adults as well as children – and it is charmingly communicated.

(+++) DOGGED PERSISTENCE

Planet of the Dogs. By Robert J. McCarty. Illustrated by Stella Mustanoja McCarty. Barking Planet Productions. $14.95.

Castle in the Mist: Planet of the Dogs, Volume 2. By Robert J. McCarty. Illustrated by Stella Mustanoja McCarty. Barking Planet Productions. $14.95.

Snow Valley Heroes: A Christmas Tale—Planet of the Dogs, Volume 3. By Robert J. McCarty. Illustrated by Stella Mustanoja McCarty. Barking Planet Productions. $14.95.

     The first thing to realize about the Planet of the Dogs series is that it is only incidentally about the planet of the dogs. It is mostly about the planet of the humans – an alternative Earth, locked somewhere in what seems to be the Middle Ages, where there are weapons and conflicts but no guns. The second thing to realize is that the age targeting of the series is a little uncertain: the books are recommended for ages 6-12, but many children at the lower end of that range will have trouble reading them on their own (the books are primarily text, although the few illustrations are lovingly done), while many children at the upper end of the age range will find them a little simplistic and (especially in the first volume) a little preachy as well. Of course, since what the books preach is peace, love and loyalty, it is impossible to fault their message; and their mixture of adventure with fairy tale and a few touches of humor is welcome as well.

     “Dogs have no worries on their planet because there are no dangers there,” writes Robert J. McCarty in setting up the basic premise of this series. The dogs’ planet is on the opposite side of the sun, and dogs learn through their dreams about what is happening on Earth, the planet of people (but, initially, no dogs at all). The dogs’ planet is a kind of benevolent-monarchy-cum-socialist-utopia: the queen, Miss Merrie, “usually spent little time doing the work of a queen, because there really wasn’t much for her to do. When the road to Shaggy Corners needed repairs, the dogs all worked together and made it happen. When new puppies were born and needed extra care, there were always many volunteers eager to help feed them and give them a bath.” And so on. Nice place – and helpful, too. The dogs bring two children, Daisy and Bean, to the dog planet through dreams, and Miss Merrie explains that “we have become worried [about Earth] because too many people have forgotten about love.” So three dogs named Lucy, Robbie and Buddy come to Earth in body, not just dreams – apparently magically. They bring “our great power of smell, our ability to work together, our loyalty, and our greatest power of all, the power of love.”

     This sort of narrative could become a bit treacly if it continued in this vein, but fortunately there are some amusing elements of the story (such as place names on the dogs’ planet: Waggy Valley, Poodletown, Muttville, etc.) and some adventures and conflicts in the dogs’ and children’s futures. In Planet of the Dogs, the adventures initially involve people’s skepticism about the dogs’ existence and powers; then there is a threat to Green Valley from Stone City invaders, and the dogs help head it off. In Castle in the Mist, things turn more to straight fantasy-adventure (this book can actually be read on its own: the background of the dogs is clear from the narrative). Here there is a stereotypical villain: Prince Ukko, who opposes peace and thinks it is “like a disease that could spread,” interfering with his warlike lifestyle and the comfort of his army. The dogs keep a close eye on the prince and his Black Hawk tribe: “The dogs were always watching the castle. With their sense of smell, their keen eyes and ears and their ability to hide in the forest, they could see the Black Hawk soldiers without being seen. …Prince Ukko was now deeply troubled by the very presence of the dogs as well as their howling.” A kidnapping through which Prince Ukko hopes to further his nefarious aims is thwarted with the dogs’ help, and eventually the prince decides he “will not fight the dogs anymore” and leaves the area with a couple of dogs of his own.

     The conflict is of a different but related sort in Snow Valley Heroes, which can also be read as a separate book – the husband-and-wife creators of this series have done a good job of keeping the volumes both interrelated and readable as standalones. Their third volume is primarily a seasonal book of the “saving Christmas” variety, with the bad King of the North, whose “eyes were cold and fierce,” threatening the holiday by stealing two of Santa’s reindeer. When that is not enough, he escalates things: “We will bring Santa here to the Ice Castle. With Santa our prisoner, there will be no Christmas.” Of course, the dogs make sure – in their peaceful and loving way – that the king’s plans go awry and that the king pledges, “I will never again do harm to any of you.” And he too ends up bonding with a dog: “The King named him Prince and took him everywhere.” The naïve charm of this and the other books in the series will be a special joy for dog lovers (of course!), but even cat people (and bird people and reptile people and families without pets) will find something to celebrate in stories in which the good guys repeatedly triumph not by being stronger or inherently better than the bad guys but simply by being more peaceful and loving.

(++++) NEW VIEWS OF OLD MUSIC

Jean-Féry Rebel: La Terpsicore; Les Caractères de la Danse; Caprice; Les Plaisirs champêtres; La Fantaisie; Les Élémens. Arion conducted by Daniel Cuiller. EarlyMusic.com. $16.99.

Ludovico Roncalli: Capricci Armonici—Sonatas Nos. 1-3, 5, 7-8. Richard Savino, baroque guitar. Dorian Sono Luminus. $16.99.

Adio Espaňa: Romances, Villancicos, & Improvisations from Spain circa 1500. The Baltimore Consort (Mary Anne Ballard, viols; Mark Cudek, guitars, viols and wind instruments; Larry Lipkis, viols and wind instruments; Mindy Rosenfeld, flutes and fifes and wind instruments; Ronn McFarlane, lute). Dorian Sono Luminus. $16.99.

Albinoni: Concerto for Recorder and Strings, op. 9, no. 2; Chen Yi: The Ancient Chinese Beauty; Mozart: Andante for Recorder and Strings, K. 315; Nino Rota: Concerto for Strings; Artem Vassiliev: Valere lubere (To say goodbye); Vivaldi: Concerto for Recorder and Strings, RV 443; Peter Heidrich: From “Happy Birthday Variations.” Michala Petri, recorder; Kremerata Baltica. OUR Recordings. $16.99.

     Some of the oldest instrumental music in the Western canon sounds fresh and thoroughly delightful in a handful of top-notch new recordings. The Canadian baroque orchestra Arion plays period instruments as if they are the most natural things in the world to handle, and Daniel Cuiller directs the ensemble with a gentle and knowing hand in six ballet suites by Jean-Féry Rebel (1666-1747). These range from his first, Caprice (1711), to his last and by far most famous, Les Élêmens (1737). Every dance form of the time is expertly handled by Rebel: gigue, menuet, courante, bourée, rigaudon and more. And the Arion players never lose sight of the fact that this is dance music and was collected into a series of movements to be danced by performers. The rhythms are clear, the pace modest or sprightly as appropriate, and the small complement of instruments (13 strings including theorbo, six winds, and harpsichord) is beautifully blended. Les Élêmens is a special joy in this recording: the famous opening movement, Le Chaos, which Rebel begins with a single chord containing all notes of the octave – that is, a tone cluster – really does sound as if order emerges from chaos, and the tone painting later in the work (slurred bass notes for Earth, flute cascades for Water, sustained piccolo notes that become trills for Air, and bravura violin passages for Fire) emerges with perfect clarity and a wonderful sense of drama.

     The guitar sonatas of Ludovico Roncalli (1654-1713) are slightly earlier than Rebel’s dance music, dating to 1692, and they too are dances – gathered into suites of a type familiar from Bach’s famous ones for solo instruments. Richard Savino plays six of these sonatas with understanding and a fine grasp of period style: No. 1 in G, No. 2 in E minor, No. 3 in B minor, No. 5 in A minor, No. 7 in D minor and No. 8 in C. Although this is Italian music, its textures are as French as those of Rebel, and the sonatas – some of the last works of their time for five-course baroque guitar – sound especially good on the instrument for which they were written (Savino play a copy by José Espejo of a Stradivarius original). These are not really neglected works – classical guitarists often perform them on modern instruments – but they sound altogether different and a great deal more intimate (especially those in minor keys) when played as Savino performs them.

     The music on the CD called Adio Espaňa is even older than that of Rebel and Roncalli, dating to the mid-16^th century or even earlier. Once again, the value of using original instruments or replicas for this music becomes abundantly clear, as The Baltimore Consort’s viols, crumhorns, baroque recorders and flutes, and other period instruments bring out the nuances of these short pieces with beauty and style. The knowing contributions of Brazilian singer José Lemos add to the effective communication of the vocal selections, and this unfamiliar music – much of it anonymous, the balance by such composers as Pedro Guerrero, Juan del Encina and Diego Pisador – proves to be a heady combination of light dances, traditional romances, heroic ballads and even some fascinating improvisations.

     A new CD commemorating the 50^th birthday of Michala Petri, released by the company founded in 2006 by Petri and her husband, Danish guitarist and lutenist Lars Hannibal, contains only a few older works: concertos by Albinoni and Vivaldi, both played stylishly by Petri with excellent backup from Kremerata Baltica. What is particularly interesting on this CD is to hear how the recorder, which largely fell out of favor as the transverse flute gained prominence after the baroque era, continued to hold its own in a limited way (as evidenced by the lovely Mozart Andante, K. 315) and then regained its niche as 20^th-century composers began looking toward its special sound as a way to create new works that would go beyond those of the Romantic era. For Chen Yi (born 1953), this means using the recorder to recall ancient times; for Artem Vassiliev (born 1974), it means intermingling the wind instrument’s sounds with those of strings. Also on this CD are a well-constructed Concerto for Strings by Nino Rota, best known for the music he wrote for Fellini films; and excerpts from Happy Birthday Variations by Peter Heidrich (born 1935) – the only musical indication that this is a “tribute” CD rather than simply a collection of interesting and well-played music. In fact, unlike many other “tribute” recordings, this one truly showcases high-quality music-making, giving Petri a chance to display her considerable skill rather than simply be the celebrity in focus for the day. That makes this one “happy birthday” CD for which listeners will need no excuse to be happy.

(++++) VOCAL ENJOYMENTS

Strauss: Das Spitzentuch der Königin. Jessica Glatte and Elke Kottmair, sopranos; Nadja Stefanoff and Gritt Gnauck, mezzo-sopranos; Ralf Simon, Markus Liske and Hardy Brachmann, tenors; Chor and Orchester der Staatsoperette Dresden conducted by Ernst Theis. CPO. $33.99 (2 CDs).

Schumann: Liederkreis; Frauenliebe und –leben; Die Löwenbraut; Der Nussbaum; Er ist’s; Loreley; Widmung. Marie-Nicole Lemieux, contralto; Daniel Blumenthal, piano. Naïve. $16.99.

Gilles Vigneault and Bruno Fecteau: La Grand Messe. Suzie LeBlanc, soprano; Daniel Taylor, countertenor; Antoine Bélanger, tenor; Olivier Laquerre, bass-baritone; Le Chœur de l’OSQ and L’Orchestre Symphonique de Québec conducted by Richard Lee. CBC Records. $16.99.

     Johann Strauss Jr.’s rarely performed Das Spitzentuch der Königin (“The Queen’s Lace Handkerchief”) neatly encompasses almost everything that is right and almost everything that is wrong in Strauss operettas. The music is simply marvelous, and most of it will be quite familiar even to first-time listeners, since Strauss created one of his most famous waltzes – Roses from the South – entirely from tunes from this operetta. The story, however, is weird, filled with contemporary (and now long-outdated) political references, and mixing real historical characters (notably the writer Miguel de Cervantes, of Don Quixote fame) with made-up ones and some crucial ones who do not even have names (the queen and king are identified only by their titles). The story is set in Portugal, where Cervantes decides to get the weak-willed king out from under the thumb of his prime minister, who has deliberately turned the king into a libertine. The king and his queen are estranged because of their disastrous wedding night, during which he fell asleep before they could enjoy a delicious truffle pastry together. The queen becomes infatuated with Cervantes and writes him a note on her handkerchief; the bit of lace then gets lost and passed from hand to hand at various points. Cervantes is imprisoned, released, declared a mere fool because of the physiognomy of his head, and disguises himself as an English ambassador, an innkeeper and a robber. Cervantes’ betrothed, Donna Irene, does the physiognomy exam while disguised as a doctor; she also dresses up as a lady bullfighter. The queen disguises herself as the innkeeper’s daughter. The prime minister and his main henchman are eventually humiliated by being dressed in a bull’s costume. And…well, it is all ridiculous, perhaps enjoyably so for those fluent in German (CPO again falls far short of best practices by providing a plot summary but no libretto). But the dramatic absurdity only serves to highlight the wonderful music that pervades the operetta. Among the especially delightful pieces are the Trüffel-Couplets sung by the king (here handled as a trouser role by Nadja Stefanoff); a newly rediscovered and quite delightful Trio for the king, queen (Jessica Glatte) and Donna Irene (Elke Kottmair); Cervantes’ (Ralf Simon’s) Romanze; the couplets sung by the prime minister (Hardy Brachmann); and the queen’s wistful song in the third act, Siebzehn Jahre. Lovely singing, excellent choral work and enthusiastic orchestral playing – all under Ernst Theis, a conductor who expertly keeps thing moving smartly along – add up to a wonderful performance of some genuinely lovely music put at the service of an indisputably outdated and creaky plot.

     There is nothing outdated about the emotions of Schumann’s songs, and it is a real pleasure to hear them sung by a contralto with the fluidity and grace of Marie-Nicole Lemieux. The two wonderful 1840 cycles, Liederkreis and Frauenliebe und –leben, sound especially good here, with Lemieux’ rich, full voice thoroughly exploring the emotions underlying the former cycle and the narrative connection of the latter. Lemieux is evocative and thoroughly Romantic in Liederkreis, with Daniel Blumenthal’s sensitive piano work ably backing up the emotionalism of Joseph von Eichendorff’s dozen poems. For Adelbert von Chamisso’s poetry in Frauenliebe und –leben, singer and pianist alike effectively evoke the many emotional stages of a woman’s life. The five individual songs that complete the CD also show Lemieux exploring emotions with intensity and passion; the disc as a whole showcases the singer’s versatility as well as her depth.

     Lemieux is a native of Quebec, and Gilles Vigneault (born 1928) is one of that Canadian province’s major musical figures. But while Lemieux, though Schumann, reaches out to the world, Vigneault seems focused more inwardly, partly in a religious sense (he is Catholic) and partly geographically (La Grand Messe was commissioned by the Quebec Festival of Sacred Music, and the performers are from the province). Vigneault goes beyond the traditional bounds of the Mass to open his work with an Ouverture and Introït before the Kyrie, and close it with Communion and Ite missa est after the Agnus Dei. The additional movements do add some variety to a form that is by its nature highly stylized, but they do not bring any significant additional depth or profundity to the old words. Vigneault worked with Bruno Fecteau, his longtime musical director, on scoring and arranging the texts, and the result is an interesting amalgam of Latin, French and Inuit. La Grand Messe is quite well performed, but somehow seems more clever than profound, as if it seeks through variety to communicate multiculturally even though the words at its heart are longstanding ones of a very specific belief structure. The fine performance and unusual elements of the composition garner this CD a (+++) rating, but this Mass appeals more as a well-thought-out work than as a heartfelt and deeply spiritual one.

(++++) KLISE KUTUPS

43 Old Cemetery Road, Book One: Dying to Meet You. By Kate Klise. Illustrated by M. Sarah Klise. Harcourt. $15.

Regarding the Bees: A Lesson, in Letters, on Honey, Dating, and Other Sticky Subjects. By Kate Klise. Illustrated by M. Sarah Klise. Sandpiper. $5.99.

     Bad puns, convoluted plots, and a storytelling style that brings the epistolary novel firmly into the era of instant messaging – those are the ingredients of books by Kate and M. Sarah Klise. And the sisters have just started a new series that, while not as madcap as their Regarding the… books, promises to have plenty of its own twists, turns and corkscrew motions. 43 Old Cemetery Road is the address of a decrepit house in Ghastly, Illinois, that is rented for the summer by faded and writer’s-blocked author Ignatius B. Grumply (I.B. Grumply, that is) while owners Les and Diane Hope are on a ghost-debunking tour of Europe (“less hope” and “dying hope,” see?). The Hopes have left behind their 11-year-old son, who of course is named Seymour (“see more hope”), a cat named Shadow, and Olive C. Spence, the woman who built 43 Old Cemetery Road and just happens to have died 97 years before the story begins. So much for debunking ghosts. Other characters here are a real-estate agent who needs a sale and is therefore named Anita Sale, and a private detective named Frank N. Beans because – well, just because. The story is told in letters, occasional drawings and some on-screen computer messages, with everything done in different type styles; and there are occasional issues of The Ghastly Times, the local newspaper, included as well (the paper’s editor is Cliff Hanger, the town’s chief librarian is named M. Balm, one ad is placed by Shirley U. Jest, and so on – you get the idea). The basic plot has Grumply attempting to write No. 13 in his Bartholomew Brown “Ghost Tamer” series so he can retire some of the considerable debt he has built up, while trying to cope with the presence of Seymour (who he did not realize was in the house) and Olive (in whom he does not believe, until he does). Grumply grumpily complains to his lawyer, E. Gadds, who is in charge of the dried-up writer’s relationship with his editor, Paige Turner, and the whole scenario becomes a fine mess until eventually Seymour and Olive help Grumply sort everything out – and, not incidentally, free Olive from the circumstances that led her to haunt her old house in the first place. And this is but the first in a series so filled with charm and silliness that it has the potential to go on for many further books.

     And that would put it in the same league as the Regarding the… series, which includes the new paperback edition of Regarding the Bees. Originally published in 2007, this book fits neatly with Regarding the Fountain, Regarding the Sink, Regarding the Trees and Regarding the Bathrooms in its disregard for conventional storytelling in favor of lighthearted absurdity that just happens to include snippets of honest-to-goodness accurate information (about apiculture, in Bees). Drawings, postcards, phone-message pads and lots of old-fashioned “snail mail” letters are the media for this tale of a seventh-grade correspondence course being taught by Florence Waters (Flo Waters, and yes, she originally showed up in Regarding the Fountain) as her students prepare to take the BEES – a standardized test known as the Basic Education Evaluation. There’s a spelling bee here, too; two of them, in fact, one actually being a bee, and the other involving a contest with the Yellow Jackets – whose teacher is Polly Nader (“pollinator”) and whose names are “Moe” Skitto, P. Daddy Longlegs and Horace Fly. Let’s see, what else? There is the HIVE Prize (for a “Highly Innovative and Victorious Educator”); there are marital problems for the acting principal and his pregnant wife; there are romantic entanglements within the seventh grade itself; and there are lots of genuine and fascinating facts about bees – and even a bit about Shakespeare’s Hamlet, which of course contains the famous line, “To be or not to be.” The great thing about all the Klise sisters’ books is that descriptions of their contents make them seem completely incoherent, but everything actually fits beautifully together – like a jigsaw puzzle – for readers. So by all means visit Ghastly, Illinois and/or Geyser Creek, Missouri – or, better, both. The sites…err, sights…are definitely worth seeing.

(++++) IN ITS OWN WORDS, MORE OR LESS

Good Book: The Bizarre, Hilarious, Disturbing, Marvelous, and Inspiring Things I Learned When I Read Every Single Word of the Bible. By David Plotz. Harper. $26.99.

     The Yiddish word “plotz” means “to burst,” usually from strong emotion, and there are times during Good Book when a reader will wonder whether David Plotz will plotz at what he finds in the Old Testament. He doesn’t, and neither will readers, but Plotz’s plodding through everything from Genesis to 2 Chronicles produces plenty that surprises him and much that will likely surprise readers, too.

     Plotz professes himself a committed but essentially secular Jew who had never read the Bible until he undertook a year-long project to do so, originally for Slate, of which he is editor. He started the project, he says, after reading a bit of the Bible that he found appalling: the rape of Dinah in Genesis, in which Jacob’s daughter is raped by a prince who subsequently wants to marry her; and Jacob’s sons say they will accept the union if the prince and all his people are circumcised; and the prince agrees; and while the prince and his subjects are recovering from the pain of the procedure, Jacob’s sons sneak into their city and murder every man, steal their possessions and enslave their women and children. This is tribalism at its ugliest and bloodiest, and Plotz was surprised to find evidence of it, again and again and again, throughout the Bible. He was equally surprised to find a capricious, vicious, inconstant and inconsistent God, a God demanding a hereditary priesthood, a God favoring clever schemers over his own elsewhere-established order, a God who generally could not be trusted, and emphatically not (most of the time) a god of the meek, the mild or even of justice.

     Plotz’s surprise is a touch, well, surprising. He must have been thoroughly insulated from the Bible, and discussions of it, for a great many years, if he truly considered the book internally consistent and a portrait of a firm but loving God. Even lay readers have little trouble finding weirdness and swept-under-the-rug inconsistency in the Bible, including some that Plotz, for all his line-by-line reading, manages to miss. Novelist and Los Angeles Times columnist Jonathan Kirsch, for example, included in his The Harlot By the Side of the Road not only the Dinah story and several other tales that shocked Plotz, but also one extremely peculiar episode that Plotz overlooks: Exodus 4:24-26, in which God tries unsuccessfully to kill either Moses or Moses’ son, and is held off when Moses’ wife, Zipporah, does an impromptu circumcision of her son and throws the foreskin at God’s feet.

     Yet it is Plotz’s sense of nearly childlike wonder, coupled with his apparently unlimited capacity for surprise, that makes Plotz’s Good Book so attractive. Again and again, he is amazed to learn what is actually in the Bible. Leviticus 13: “The author has an obsession with leprosy.” Deuteronomy 26: “This is a very boring chapter.” Joshua 24: “Sometimes, the most fascinating parts of the Bible are the bits that have been left out.” Plotz summarizes every book at the start of his chapter about it, and also gives each one a cute subtitle. Judges: “The Meathead and the Left-Handed Assassin.” 1 Samuel: “The Bible’s Bill Clinton” (that one is a stretch, even for Plotz). Jeremiah: “The Prophet and the Lustful She-Camel.”

     Sometimes the subtitles reveal holes in Plotz’s approach to the Bible. The one about Isaiah (“The Jesus Preview”) shows that he sees the book as a unified totality, when longstanding Biblical scholarship – some of which Plotz says he has read, although apparently he missed this element – subdivides Isaiah into three parts, and it is the material from Deutero-Isaiah (particularly) and Trito-Isaiah that Christians interpret as prophesying the coming of Jesus.

     Plotz likes to put his Biblical ignorance “out there” in amusing ways, but he tends to be unaware of shortcomings in his own thinking about the Bible through which he is marching. Midway through Good Book, Plotz visits Israel to see some of the sites (and sights) mentioned in the Bible, and comments that “wishful thinking is the foundation of Bible tourism.” It does not seem to occur to him that wishful thinking can be seen as the foundation of the Bible itself, and indeed of religion in general: things must have a purpose, our tribe must be better than those others, God must back us and grant us strength, and all the rest of it.

     Despite the shortcomings of Plotz’s deliberately naïve approach, or perhaps because of them, Good Book is an amusing, entertaining read that actually does a good job of explaining “the messy Bible” (as Plotz calls it), including many of its self-contradictions, tribalisms, acts of viciousness, and of course implausibilities. It is fun to read Plotz’s dismissal of Zephaniah, a minor prophet (“that term doesn’t do justice to the dinkiness, the negligibility, the puniness of Zephaniah”) – and then, on the next page, to read about the first appearance of Satan in the Bible (in Zechariah) and find out that the word simply means “accuser” or “adversary” and that Satan “appears to be more like God’s lawyer” than anything else. Plotz’s final chapter (“Should You Read the Bible?”) comes across as a touch argumentative and even holier-than-thou, but he makes up for it with an appendix of Bible lists that includes the 12 best pickup lines, 11 best miracles, 13 “spectacular murders,” eight “trippiest and most important dreams,” and more.

     Good Book both parallels and stands at the opposite extreme from the intense, erudite (but still breezy), analysis-packed studies by Bart D. Ehrman (Lost Christianities, Misquoting Jesus, Lost Scriptures and other books). Ehrman focuses on the New Testament and can read it (and the Old Testament as well) in the original languages. Plotz, in contrast, is an English-language-only Everyman, picking his way through multiple translations of the Bible and trying not only to reconcile the book’s contents but also the different ways translators present them. The result is that Good Book is more interesting than instructive, more of a “how about that?” book than a deeply thoughtful one. But it is a fascinating and often very funny excursion through one of the world’s most influential texts. It may upset readers who think they “know” the Bible because of what they have been taught about it, but that is part of its point: what you think you know about this particular book is likely to be a sanitized version of what is really there. So by all means read Good Book, and then the Good Book itself if you think Plotz has gotten a good deal of it good and wrong.

(++++) TALL TALES FOR THE YOUNGER AND OLDER SET

Paula Bunyan. By Phyllis Root. Pictures by Kevin O’Malley. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. $16.95.

Diogenes. By M.D. Usher. Pictures by Michael Chesworth. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. $16.95.

Gemma Doyle Trilogy #3: The Sweet Far Thing. By Libba Bray. Delacorte Press. $10.99.

     Retelling old stories for new audiences is an essential part of the continuity of myths and fairy tales. When this sort of recasting of a tale is done cleverly enough, the result is plenty of fun in and of itself – and a chance for ideas that date to much earlier times to survive and thrive in a very different age. Both Phyllis Root’s playful handling of the Paul Bunyan legend and M.D. Usher’s canine remake of the story of the Greek philosopher Diogenes do a wonderful job of giving some old ideas an updated twist, while still preserving much of their original flavor.

     Paula Bunyan is, we are told, Paul’s “little” sister, who could beat Paul half the time in wrestling and “always outran him.” Like Paul, she sets off for the North Woods and has a series of adventures there. No Babe (the big blue ox) for Paula, though: instead, she teaches some wolves how to sing in three-part harmony (Paula is an enthusiastic and very loud singer), and she scares the daylights out of a seven-foot-tall black bear that becomes her companion and foot warmer after she shares with it “a little northern pike, about a hundred-pounder,” that she has just caught. The funniest part of this tall tale – not only in the narrative but also in Kevin O’Malley’s delightful illustrations – involves Paula and the bear encountering some mighty big and nasty mosquitoes that carry the bear off (until Paula saves him). Then comes the modern twist – an ecological one – as Paula becomes “sadder than a forest full of weeping willows” when she discovers that men have been cutting down a bunch of North Woods trees. Paula solves that problem by luring some of those pesky stinging insects to the men – “medium-sized mosquitoes, not much bigger than chickens” – and then she replants trees where the lumberjacks cut them down. It’s a nice story, nicely told and illustrated.

     Diogenes is a more serious narrative, but with funnier pictures. This is how the story of Diogenes of Sinope (412-323 B.C.) might have gone if Diogenes had been a dog. It is a very clever retelling by an author who really knows his subject – Usher is a classics professor at the University of Vermont, and discusses the historical Diogenes in an excellent afterword. The book itself is more of a romp, as Michael Chesworth makes Diogenes the dog a scruffy mutt with a strong sense of self and a determination to be his own master – so he grabs a walking stick and his dog dish and heads (walking upright on his two back legs) for Athens. The Athenian street scenes are highly amusing, as are the directional signs (one points downward to Hades) and the portrayal of Alexander the Great (who has the huge muscles and cleft chin of a traditional cartoon hero). The funny pictures help the seriousness of the underlying message go down more easily, as Diogenes learns to need as little as possible and make do with even less; begs for food when hungry and sleeps outdoors when tired; rolls in hot sand to get used to the heat of summer; deliberately makes requests of statues to become accustomed to being refused; and teaches the Athenians that his simple life really lets him “live like a king.” The famous episode of Diogenes walking about with a lantern looking for an honest man (or a good man, as Usher has it here) is included; and the historical Diogenes’ capture by pirates and sale as a slave is here transformed to the dog being caught by the dogcatcher and stuck in the pound until he attaches himself to a new master. This is a wonderful retelling of a story with which modern children are highly unlikely to be familiar – and one which still has plenty of resonance today.

     For older readers, ages 12 and up, authors tend to find it better to create new stories and new myths than to recycle old ones. And the new tales tend to be long, complex to the point of convolution, and just exotic enough so that teens can identify with the characters while realizing how different they are from real people. Libba Bray’s Gemma Doyle Trilogy handles all these elements well, if rather formulaically. Its conclusion, The Sweet Far Thing, originally published in 2007, is now available in paperback in all its 819-page glory (not counting the Reader’s Guide at the end). This book gets a (+++) rating for the way Bray interweaves, through 75 chapters, all the tales she has told in A Great and Terrible Beauty and Rebel Angels into this finale. The first book began in 1895, with 16-year-old Gemma shipped away from her life in India to Spence Academy in England, where secrets seemed to lie within every room. Gemma was distressed by recurring visions that kept coming true and by finding herself followed by a mysterious young Indian man. In the second book, readers learned more about Kartik, and Gemma became fast friends with Ann and Felicity, as the beauties and dangers of the magical place known as “the realms” became clearer. In the trilogy’s often meandering conclusion, everything points toward the girls’ debut season, and change is coming to the realms as well. Gemma has bound powerful magic to herself, and become enmeshed in the struggle between the Order (the group to which her mother once belonged) and the Rakshana. While Gemma’s friends focus on more mundane matters – Felicity must behave herself or lose her inheritance, while Ann may have to give up her dream of a life on the stage – Gemma must deal with darker matters. Many involve Pippa, the three girls’ friend, whom they meet again in the realms but who may face great danger – or be a great danger. Other mysteries involve Gemma herself, who (in true coming-of-age style) must figure out where she stands, who she is, and what sort of person (mundane and magical) she will become. The Sweet Far Thing wraps up the trilogy satisfactorily, both in magic and in the everyday world, and fans of the first two novels will surely be just as enraptured by the third. But although the story itself is new rather than a recasting of an older one, tales of this type have been so frequently told and retold that some readers will suspect, rightly, that they have seen their share of books like this one before.