(++++) ONE EPIC TREK, TWO SMALL SEARCHES

Bone Handbook. By Jeff Smith. Graphix/Scholastic. $9.99.

Are You My Mother? By P.D. Eastman. Random House. $8.99.

Have You Seen My Dinosaur? By Jon Surgal. Illustrated by Joe Mathieu. Random House. $8.99.

     One of the greatest journeys ever told in comic-book (or graphic-novel) style is that of the Bone cousins – Fone Bone, Smiley Bone and Phoney Bone – through The Valley and into a huge war between the forces of good and evil. The nine-volume Bone series in Scholastic editions is outstanding – it looks even better with Steve Hamaker’s coloring than in Jeff Smith’s original, black-and-white, comic-book version – and Scholastic recently added a prequel focusing on young Rose, who was known in the main sequence as Gran’ma Ben. And now there is a handbook giving the back story of the entire Bone tale, with brief profiles of the major (and many minor) characters, short synopses of the primary nine-book story, interviews with both Smith and Hamaker, and background material at which the Bone saga itself only hints. There is also a bonus story set within the Bone universe – a slight tale, but an amusing one. This is not a book for newcomers to Bone, since it will spoil the reading of the main story by revealing a great deal of what happens and why. But it is an excellent companion volume for those who have read Bone, who love it, and who have wondered what influenced Smith in writing it and what happened before the main story began – how the stage was set for the earthshaking events that Bone chronicles. It is certainly interesting to know that Smith started drawing characters similar to the Bone cousins when he was 10 years old; that the appearance of Thorn, who will eventually inherit the throne at the end of the saga, is based on that of Smith’s wife and was the hardest character for Smith to draw; and that Smith’s fascination with Herman Melville not only determined Fone Bone’s love of Moby-Dick but also led to the name Bartleby for the baby Rat Creature who plays an important role in the story. These tidbits of information may be trivia, but to those fascinated by Bone and wanting to know as much as possible about the epic’s creator and the events and characters within the story, Bone Handbook will be a delight. And it even includes some Bone-related recipes, such as the “blank sandwich” (two pieces of bread, crusts cut off, within nothing between the slices).

     The journeys in two new Random House Beginner Books – the ones with the familiar logo of Dr. Seuss’ Cat in the Hat – are not as wide-ranging as that of Bone, but kids ages 5-8 will nevertheless find plenty to enjoy here. Are You My Mother? is a classic – the new edition marks its 50^th year – and is as charming as ever. It is simply the story of a baby bird whose mother leaves the nest to find food just before the baby hatches – so the baby, after breaking out of the egg, does not know what its mother looks like. The result is a story of amusing mistakes, as the baby bird asks a kitten, a hen, a dog and other animals whether they are his mother, and of course finds out that none of them fills the bill. The bird eventually meets a “snort” – a huge steam shovel – which picks him up and puts him back in the nest, where of course his mother finds him, safe and sound. P.D. Eastman’s easy-to-read prose and simple but expressive drawings are as enjoyable for the kids of 2010 as they were for the children of 1960, when the book first appeared.

     Have You Seen My Dinosaur? is brand new, but is cut from much the same cloth as Eastman’s book. Jon Surgal’s rhyming story about a little boy looking for his missing pet dinosaur is very well complemented by Joe Mathieu’s suitably silly illustrations. The visual joke here is that the dinosaur keeps appearing where readers see him, but just out of view of the boy and all the people he asks for help: his mother, a fisherman, the police, a zookeeper, and others. The story is sheer fun, as when the zookeeper tries to think of animals that the boy can find at the zoo: “Now let me see. What have we got?/ A lynx. Some minks. An ocelot./ Plus two gnu. A kinkajou./ Camels with one hump or two./ A big black bear from Baden-Baden./ A Scottish beastie from Culloden.” And all the animals are dancing in a chorus line – along with the dinosaur, bigger than any of them, but not seen by boy or zookeeper: “But no, we have no dinosaur./ There aren’t any, anymore.” But the boy knows that he has a dinosaur, and eventually comes up with someone to ask who, he is sure, has seen the missing dino. He’s right, too – and kids will enjoy being pulled into this story of a quest that never quite ends the way the boy would like it to, but remains an enjoyable exploration from start to finish.

(++++) TO BUILD, TO PLAY

The Solar Car Book. By the editors of Klutz. Klutz. $21.95.

The Only Coloring, Puzzle, Game, Dot-to-Dot Activity Book You’ll Ever Need. By the editors of Klutz. Klutz. $14.95.

     “Satan finds some mischief still/ For idle hands to do,” wrote Isaac Watts in the 18^th century. “We’ve got a better idea,” Klutz editors might reply in the 21^st. Kids with time on their hands can easily spend it in crafts projects or “directed doodling” (not that Klutz actually calls it that) – or in many other activities designed to prevent those idle hands and the minds controlling them from slipping into boredom or, worse, television. For kids ages eight and above, The Solar Car Book provides a wonderful and surprisingly simple project that parents can turn into a discussion of ecologically responsible ways to get around in the world (if they can find a way to do that without taking all the fun out of things). There are only a few parts needed to build this little light-powered vehicle, and as usual in Klutz books, all those parts are included. The car’s body is cardboard, bound right into the book – just take it out, attach the wheels, axles, wires and solar cell, and you’ve got a working model. In fact, Klutz challenges kids who “hate step-by-step instructions” just to look at a front-of-book photo and put the car together from it. But then, of course (and as usual for Klutz), the book gives step-by-step instructions, which make the assembly very clear and easy (there are even holes punched in all the places in the car body through which items need to be inserted). In fact, the instructions are so simple that this would be a mighty thin book if that were all it included. But that is not the Klutz way. There are also pages about solar power, how solar cars work vs. how regular ones with internal-combustion engines work, ways in which solar power is used in real-world vehicles (including airplanes), and how to make the solar car operate indoors (answer: attach a battery; instructions included, of course). Kids who build the car and read the book will not only have a neat little plaything (which doesn’t move terribly quickly, though – be forewarned) but also have a better understanding of energy in general, “green” energy, and the positive elements and natural limitations of using the sun to make things move.

     What kids will understand after going through The Only Coloring, Puzzle, Game, Dot-to-Dot Activity Book You’ll Ever Need is – well, to be honest, not much. This is a book for younger children (ages four and up), and it is designed purely for fun, not for any instructional purpose. But that won’t limit its value to families on rainy days, during car trips or at other “what do I do now?” times. Spiral bound so it easily opens flat or can be folded back on itself, the book features fold-in pages, connect-the-dots puzzles, construction projects such as cootie catchers, punch-through pages that create goosebumps and mosquito bites, an age-guessing puzzle, cutouts that turn buttons into “button noses,” and lots of other silly and simple (and simply silly) activities. The whole book is in black-and-white, which means there are opportunities to color absolutely everything with the five included twist-up crayons – including the page that says, “Don’t color this page” (you’re supposed to do something else first, then color it). There is nothing profound here at all, but there is lots of fun to be had. And if the fun in this book and The Solar Car Book seems vaguely familiar – well, you must be an adult with a good memory, or with kids who are widely spaced in age. Both these books are new editions of ones with the same titles that were issued by Klutz early in this decade. The new versions are redesigned and repackaged but are essentially the same as the earlier ones. That means that if you already had a child who enjoyed either of these books and now have another child in the right age range, you can be almost sure that he or she will have a great time with these reissues. And there’s nothing devilish, or idle, about that.

(+++) WHAT’S TO ENVY?

The Envy Chronicles, Book 2: Embrace the Night Eternal. By Joss Ware. Avon. $7.99.

The Envy Chronicles, Book 3: Abandon the Night. By Joss Ware. Avon. $7.99.

     Joss Ware gets big points for consistency. Beyond the Night, the first book in a series now being called The Envy Chronicles, was a post-apocalyptic zombie romance (that’s a romance including zombies, not involving zombies) featuring a man who developed strange paranormal powers during a 50-year suspension of time (and of belief) in a cave while the world collapsed. Much of the book focused on how he and a woman with her own horrible past would overcome their memories and the destruction of the world around them to find sensual and emotional relief with each other – which they eventually did.

     The second book in the series, Embrace the Night Eternal, is about another man who was in that cave, who developed different paranormal powers and who – in the new, post-apocalyptic world – encounters a different woman; and the two seek to overcome their memories and the destruction of the world around them to find sensual and emotional relief with each other. Which they eventually do.

     The third book, Abandon the Night, is about a third man who was in the cave, and about a third woman, and – by now, you get the idea. But you may wonder what “Envy” is all about. Given the usual meaning of the word, it is an unfortunate choice for a romance-series title; but the usual meaning is not what matters here. “Envy” is “NV” and used to be “LV.” That is, it is what people of the post-apocalypse call New Vegas, which used to be Las Vegas. The remains of this city – now conveniently close to the Pacific Ocean, California having disappeared beneath the waves – are the centerpiece of civilization in Ware’s world. This is one of several elements in these books that indicate the author may not intend them to be taken entirely seriously.

     The overt plotting, though, is serious (if formulaic) enough. The first book was filled with mysteries, not only about the individual characters’ survival and the world in which they must now live, but also about the gangas (as zombies are called here), the Strangers (apparent immortals who may or may not be aliens), and the partly known, partly unknown powers of the men who were trapped in that cave. The first book’s primary male “romantic lead” was Dr. Elliott Drake, who has the power to heal with his hands – but only if he takes the disease or injury into himself and suffers any consequences (including death), or passes the condition along to someone (or something) else. Jade (who chooses her name to try to obliterate memories of her previous one, Diana Kapiza) is the woman in this couple. She is a strong character and important provider of services to Envy, but is fighting horrid memories of captivity with a bounty hunter and the Immortals, who are in essence the fount of all evil (they appear to have been responsible for destroying the world). The couples of books two and three were actually introduced in the first book, but they were not front and center; so Ware makes them the core of the followup novels. Thus, Embrace the Night Eternal focuses on Simon Japp, whose violent past eventually comes back to haunt him even post-apocalyptically (and despite his determination to use his newfound paranormal powers for good); and on Sage Corrigan, a computer expert (a few computers have survived) whose knowledge is key to fighting back against the Strangers. Thrown together in a situation that requires them to pose as man and wife (the Apocalypse somehow not having significantly changed the importance of institutional marriage, at least for the good guys), Simon and Sage eventually and not surprisingly find themselves inevitably attracted to each other, and Simon’s paranormal power turns out to come in handy for highly personal matters as well as for battle.

     In Abandon the Night, the two primary people in focus are Quent (full name: Quentin Brummell Fielding III), who learned in the first book that his hated father was likely the driving force behind whatever the Immortals did to the world, and who is now determined to kill him; and Zoë Kapoor, who coupled avidly with Quent in the first book but develops a relationship with him only when it turns out they are both strongly driven in their post-apocalyptic lives by the desire for revenge (gangas killed Zoë’s family). Ware does a good job of making both her male and female characters independent and reasonably intelligent: Quent’s driven, intense determination plays nicely with Zoë’s expertise in archery and near fearlessness in destroying as many gangas as she can. These books being romances, though, the characters’ self-reliance goes only so far – to the point where they find they desperately need each other in order to “complete” themselves.

     At one point in their pretend-married adventure, when Simon and Sage need to be in bed together, Sage is more interested in him than he seems to be in her, and an amusingly awkward scene results, during which Sage “wasn’t sure whether to giggle or to roll her eyes.” Readers may end up with somewhat similar reactions. Ware keeps making it clear that this is serious stuff, end-of-the-world and near-end-of-humanity stuff, that she is writing. But amusing elements keep creeping in, unostentatiously enough so it is not quite certain whether Ware intends these books to be taken wholly seriously or not – or, to put it another way, whether she is being clever or is just style-challenged. One example from the first book: Elliott contemplating paranormal powers by thinking of the Pixar film, The Incredibles. And one from the second: “Her upper lip had a small freckle right on it, right at the fullest part, and every time he noticed it, the bottom dropped out of his stomach.” Ware’s books are easy reading, in any case, and the characters, while scarcely deep, are interesting enough to make readers care about what happens to them. The books’ plots are rather overstuffed, and some plot points are just plain silly (for example, Sage is a virgin until she and Simon get serious, and her virginity is not detected even when she is medically examined in a community focused on repopulating the planet as quickly as possible). But the destroyed-world background is effectively presented, and the mixture of adventure and romance is generally pretty well balanced. There is little to envy in Ware’s writing style, but The Envy Chronicles has the elements needed to become an enviable popular success.

(++++) POTBOILER POWER

Sullivan: Ivanhoe. Neal Davies, Stephen Gadd, James Rutherford, Peter Wedd, Peter Rose, Toby Spence, Matthew Brook, Leigh Melrose, Andrew Staples, Janice Watson, Catherine Wyn-Rogers, Geraldine McGreevy; Adrian Partington Singers and BBC National Orchestra of Wales conducted by David Lloyd-Jones. Chandos. $44.99 (3 CDs).

     The biggest surprise revealed in this recording of Sir Arthur Sullivan’s Ivanhoe is that it is not at all a bad opera. Fusty, stodgy and overstuffed it is, and unceasingly earnest in a way that is ultimately unconvincing. But it is very well made, with fine vocal writing and sensitive and at times excellent orchestration; and it attains, from time to time, a genuine sense of grandeur and spectacle, if scarcely of profundity.

     But then, Ivanhoe is a sort of command performance, and its source is one of the 19^th century’s more famous potboiler novels, by Sir Walter Scott. Scott wrote two dozen historical novels, essentially inventing a form that survives today. His works were over-plotted and made little attempt at characterization, essentially throwing numerous cardboard figures onto a vast canvas and having them enact scenes out of the past – a style that also, unfortunately, survives today. In the absence of strength of character, an opera librettist – Sullivan’s was Julian Sturgis (1848-1904) – needs to create an ensemble piece, and that is just what Ivanhoe is. The libretto is serviceable, and Sturgis appears to have been far more pliable in working with Sullivan than was the notoriously prickly W.S. Gilbert. The result is a work in which the music clearly dominates the words, with Sullivan adding more character to the characters than they would otherwise possess.

     It was none other than Queen Victoria who inspired Sullivan’s Ivanhoe. She knighted Sullivan in 1883, during the run of Iolanthe, specifically singling out his serious music – not his comic operas with Gilbert – as the reason for the honor (Gilbert was eventually knighted in the somewhat less straitlaced Edwardian era, after Victoria’s death). Sullivan tried to fulfill what he perceived as his duty to create true English national opera by doing Ivanhoe, which he dedicated to his queen. And certainly the opera is thoroughly English – perhaps more “early English,” as a character in Patience would have put it, but English through and through. This, despite the fact that in the time period of Scott’s novel and Sullivan’s opera, all the nobility spoke French (Richard the Lionheart spoke little English and lived in the south of France).

     What Sullivan did with Sturgis’ version of Scott’s novel was to create a work with three acts, each containing three scenes, hitting many of the high points of the original work. This is a very manly opera (to use a near-obsolete term), filled with posing and boasting and battles grand and small – it is set, after all, in the 12^th century. Low male voices predominate, and there are only three female characters, the result being a serious if rather pretentious sound in much of the vocal music. Yet Sullivan often manages better characterization in music than Scott did in words. King Richard (Neil Davies) is too good to be true, but the nobleness of his music is impressive, and the rough good humor with which he confronts (and, of course, bests) Friar Tuck (Matthew Brook) is a high point, if not exactly a lightening of the mood. The bad guys – Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert (James Rutherford) and Maurice de Bracy (Peter Wedd – a tenor!) – strut and stamp about and are unidimensionally evil, but Rutherford manages some effective lines and de Bracy seems genuinely surprised when King Richard pardons him. Less impressive is Ivanhoe himself (Toby Spence): he spends much of the opera wounded and weak, and never becomes a very interesting character (although this is true in Scott’s novel as well). Also unimpressive – one of the few irritating flaws in this production – are the multiple pronunciations of de Bracy’s name, which is sometimes “BRAY-cee,” sometimes “BRAH-cee,” and once even “Brassy.”

     The women, interestingly enough, have more personality than the men. Janice Watson as Lady Rowena is appropriately evanescent and seems, in her delicacy, a good match for Ivanhoe: they are just about equally colorless, although her “O moon” aria bespeaks some (well-buried) passion. Rebecca the Jewess (Geraldine McGreevy) threatens to take over every scene she is in: she is the one character with fire, intensity, self-awareness and a willingness to confront those who think themselves her betters (including de Bracy and Prince John [Stephen Gadd], who in a nice piece of casting also sings the role of the Grand Master of the Templars). Actually, to be fair, Rebecca is not the only woman with fire: Ulrica (Catherine Wyn-Rogers) uses it to burn down Torquilstone Castle – and, in a fine touch in both libretto and score, her words are written in something approximating Old English cadence, and the music reflects them.

     Familiarity with Ivanhoe the novel will be a big help in listening to Ivanhoe the opera, for those seeking the music’s full effect. Whether the added investment of time and effort is worthwhile is a matter of opinion. Sullivan’s work is scattered, a series of episodes rather than a story with a strong arc; and the “ensemble” nature of the opera allows listeners only intermittent identification with individual characters before it is time to move on to someone and something else. Certainly the singers and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, under the extremely able guidance of David Lloyd-Jones, give the music their all, and it is unlikely there will be a better Ivanhoe anytime soon. It is also unlikely that there needs to be one. This is not an endearing opera: unlike Sullivan’s collaborations with Gilbert, Ivanhoe never transcends the time in which it was written, and at its most effective remains rather pale. It is not at all a bad opera, but it would be overly charitable to call it a really good one.

(++++) SHORT, SWEET AND CUTE

Lisa McCue’s Fuzzytails ABC: A Foldout Alphabet Book. Random House. $8.99.

Lisa McCue’s Fuzzytails 123: A Touch-and-Feel Counting Book. Random House. $8.99.

Little Duck Says Quack! Photographs by Phoebe Dunn. Story by Judy Dunn. Random House. $8.99.

Little Puppy Says Woof! Photographs by Phoebe Dunn. Story by Judy Dunn. Random House. $8.99.

     It is the form of presentation more than the content that will attract young children to these books. The two Lisa McCue’s Fuzzytails volumes, for ages 2-5, have content that is ordinary on the face of if: the alphabet and the numbers 1-10 (someday, someone will do a counting book with the numbers -1 to 9; but it would need illustrations by Edward Gorey or Gahan Wilson). In the ABC book, McCue’s Fuzzytails Animal Friends hop, skip, dance, bound and gallop among the letters, with McCue providing suitably alliterative prose: “Iggy the iguana idly inches down his I.” “Our Ollie Octopus is oozing in and out of O.” “Tom Turtle totes a tall green T.” The large-size letters appear in bright colors, each supported by a cavorting animal friend; page backgrounds are otherwise white, so kids stay focused only on the animals and the alphabet. What makes this book special is that it is perforated at front and back, with each page connected to every other one. Detaching the pages at the perforations turns the whole book (minus its covers) into an alphabet wall hanging, with the letters and text (that is, the book’s contents) on one side and the animals and letters without text beaming brightly from the other. Making the book into a wall decoration is a clever way for parents to reinforce its learning message.

     There is a different sort of cleverness in McCue’s 123 book. Here, each page has something special for kids to see or touch – again, with the aim of reinforcing the counting lesson and making it fun. Among the “three bumpy gators,” for example, one has slightly rough, scaly-looking skin to feel. One of the “four merry winter mice” has soft white fur; the number 8 is bright and shining among eight penguins that slip and slide on the ice; and so on. As with the alphabet book, this counting volume is simple, attractive and just different enough to keep young children interested.

     The interest in two books from what Random House calls “The Phoebe Dunn Collection” lies mainly in the photos – plus some sounds, courtesy of big buttons that kids ages 4-6 will enjoy pushing. Dunn (1925-1990) was best known for her “Little Animals” books (The Little Pig, The Little Rabbit, The Little Lamb, and so on); her photos remain charming in these new, abridged board-book editions of The Little Duck (1976) and The Little Puppy (1984). The text by Judy Dunn, Phoebe’s Dunn’s daughter, is straightforward and pleasant. Little Duck shows the duckling hatching and growing up on a farm (there is a particularly nice photo of the duck sitting happily on the family dog); eventually the duck grows to full size and meets a female duck with which to swim. Little Puppy shows a boy named Tim adopting a dog he names Charlie and going through all the basics of life with a puppy: a visit to the vet, some mischief, swimming in the lake, playing in leaves and more. The puppy’s bark, heard when the button is pushed, is weaker and less impressive than the duck’s quack, but in both books, the sounds are just an added attraction to what are essentially simple and gentle stories of everyday life.

(++++) QUESTS FOR ALL AGES

That’s Life, Samara Brooks. By Daniel Ehrenhaft. Delacorte Press. $15.99.

The Rain Wilds Chronicles, Volume One: Dragon Keeper. By Robin Hobb. Eos. $26.99.

     The quest tale dates to time immemorial, or at the very least to the time of Gilgamesh, which was nearly 5,000 years ago. The question for modern writers is how to make this sort of long-form, even leisurely story attractive to readers at a time of instantaneous communication and super-fast travel. A notable answer in books for younger readers – such as That’s Life, Samara Brooks – is to make the quest highly personal, a journey to find out who you are as well as to get yourself (or someone else) from Point A to Point B. There is a dose of this approach in all quest stories, not excluding Gilgamesh itself. But making the personalization the main focus, rather than something of larger scope, is a relatively recent phenomenon. Quest tales also tend to take themselves very, very seriously – they are historically about grand things – but to make them more appealing today, especially for younger readers, a good dose of humor helps. Daniel Ehrenhaft mixes the ingredients in just about the right proportions in a story that starts when Samara Brooks sets up a casino in the school cafeteria and progresses through a search for aliens on Earth – such as, say, Samara herself. To say this is a highly unlikely series of events is understating the case, but Ehrenhaft’s book works (albeit not totally believably) by making Samara and her friends both likable and real. More than that: Ehrenhaft makes Samara intelligent, and her brains are a key component of the plot. When dealing blackjack, Samara casually notes that class president Lily Frederick, to whom she is giving the cards, “statistically…had a less-than-seventeen percent chance of winning.” Busted for gambling, Samara decides to prove scientifically that she is not a bad person, by showing how closely her DNA matches Lily’s. Yet Samara is not only smart but also a con artist: “A complex con had taken shape, and there was no slowing the momentum. It was a con that revolved around math and science” – and specifically around the school’s 30-year-old but still quite serviceable electron microscope. Well, things get rapidly odder in Samara’s quest to prove herself a good person, and along the way, Ehrenhaft brings in the Socratic method, the odd alien-related theories of Erich von Däniken, and lots of other material that does not usually appear in a middle-grade novel. Samara comes up with some decidedly odd findings, which lead her to track down former electron-microscope owner Dr. Archibald Chance, which brings up a discussion of a fundamentalist preacher who calls himself Dr. Willis, which turns into a talk about how “we examined a strand of my hair, to see what my DNA looks like, and there was this funny eye-shaped thingy in it.” And that gets into competing theories of intelligent design, alien life forms, the “universal mind,” and more. This is an unusually intellectual novel for its age group, and lest that seem a turnoff, it is also an unusually clever one, filled with twists and turns that readers will not see coming. And the book’s multiple perspectives – some chapters told by Samara, some by Lily, some by UFO-obsessed Nathan Brooks – also keep things interesting. So do such subheadings as “Wasted Truffles” and “A Hero, a Moron, or Both.” Eventually, Samara does find herself – and learn that she is not at all the person she has always thought herself to be. That’s Life, Samara Brooks is very much a quest for our time – and one that manages to be both thoughtful and entertaining.

     Many adult readers, though, seem to prefer quests of a more old-fashioned type, at least in genre fantasy books such as Dragon Keeper. Robin Hobb’s book is well written, but makes no attempt whatsoever to break out of any Tolkienian conventions of the lengthy (474-page), sprawling quest story. In fact, Hobb does not even break out of her prior world here, returning to the basic setting of her Liveship Traders and Tawny Man trilogies for a kind of postscript to the tale of the dragon Tintaglia, with whose help the Traders held off the invasion of the Chalcedeans. Tintaglia’s reward was a promise that the Traders would help Tintaglia try to restore her species through a migration up the Rain Wild River. But this attempt has misfired, with newly hatched dragons often dying or, at most, surviving in earthbound form – easy prey for humans who seek their flesh for its supposed healing powers. Hence the quest at the heart of Dragon Keeper: the dragons want to move farther up the river to their ancient, ill-remembered homeland of Kelsingra, so the Traders bring together the typical-in-fantasy motley group of young people to escort the dragons and ensure their safe arrival. The two women at the center of the story, each on a quest of her own, are 16-year-old forest girl Thymara and dragon expert Alise. It is their personalities, their knowledge of dragons and their sense of self that will be tested the most in this journey. Thymara is deformed and, by the usual standards of Traders, should not have been allowed to live, as her mother told her father at one point after a years-earlier encounter with a Trader: “He saw her claws, Jerup, black and curved like a toad’s. She is only eleven, and already she is scaled like a woman of thirty. He saw the webbing of her toes. He knew she had been marked from birth and it offended him that you had – kept her.” But of course, Thymara, when challenged on “the Rain Wild folly,” as one character calls it, turns out to be more than she appears to be. So does Alise, previously trapped in a loveless marriage but coming into her own after spending years studying dragons. Dragon Keeper is a solid (+++) book, nicely paced and filled with enough adventure and interpersonal drama to satisfy genre fans and make them look forward to the next novel in this series. As a quest, it is unexceptional; as a story, it neither breaks nor bends modern genre conventions. But for those very reasons, it will be attractive to adult fans of old-fashioned heroic/magical fantasy.

(+++) TASTY TIDBITS

Chocolate or Vanilla? Quick Quizzes for BFFs. By Lizzie Mack. Scholastic. $5.99.

Sweet or Spicy? More Quick Quizzes for BFFs. By Lizzie Mack. Scholastic. $5.99.

Bites: Scary Stories to Sink Your Teeth Into. Edited by Lois Metzger. Scholastic. $4.99.

     Middle schoolers who don’t take any of these three paperbacks too seriously can have a lot of fun with them. Lizzie Mack’s two books pose a series of pop quizzes to be given out to BFFs to evaluate their personalities and compare them with your own. There are four copies of each quiz, but only two copies of the one “For You and Your Best Friend Only” or “For BFFs’ Eyes Only” at the end of each book. There are two or three options for most questions, plus a few in fill-in-the-blank form. In Chocolate or Vanilla? – for example – a food quiz asks “eat in or take out,” “pizza or mac and cheese,” and whether you would rather eat “50 lbs of french fries or 50 lbs of potato chips.” A personality quiz asks “quiet or loud,” “splash through the puddles or walk carefully around them,” and whether you would prefer to “go bungee jumping or knit a sweater.” Among this book’s fill-in questions are which movies or books have made you cry; what your pet peeve is; which celebrity is “an all-time hottie”; and – on a somewhat more serious note – how many kids of your own you eventually want to have. In Sweet or Spicy? are such either/or questions as “kitten or puppy,” “penguin or polar bear” and “Komodo dragon or killer whale” (those three in a section called “Girl’s Best Friend”); and there are such “gross-out” questions as whether you would rather lie down in “snail slime or bird droppings” and whether you would prefer “strong body odor or scabs on your face.” There are some slightly more meaningful questions scattered through these two books – about school, growing up, family, even “the best qualities of a friend.” But by and large, the books are intended as light and lively amusements for girls to share with each other – something to giggle over, not something intended to make or break lifelong friendships.

     Bites is to be read, not filled out, and is aimed at both boys and girls; but it too handles potentially serious – or even horrific – subjects with a mostly lighter touch. The seven stories here are about the usual array of supernatural creatures: vampires, ghosts, werewolves. But the treatments are quite different. One story – “I, Blooder” by Peter Lerangis – reads like the first draft of an outline for a novel or screenplay, going all over the place and being filled with dead ends (so to speak) and potential plot points that never go anywhere. Kevin Emerson’s “The Coffin Deliveries” cannot quite decide whether it wants to be a funny vampire story or a scary one, finally opting for amusing – but not too amusing. On the other hand, “Ghost Dog” by Ellen Wittlinger has a genuine twist that is scary even if you see it coming. And “Perpetual Pest,” by Neal Shusterman and Terry Black, has some scary moments of the “ewww” kind. The other stories are “Going Old School in the Age of Obama,” a mildly amusing vampire tale by Christopher Paul Curtis; “Anasazi Breakdown,” an obvious but slightly chilling ghost/metamorphosis story by Douglas Rees; and “Where Wolves Never Wander,” Joshua Gee’s slight twist to the werewolf genre. None of these stories takes long to read and none will likely stay long with readers after they finish it. But for a short nibble of fear, or at least mild scariness, at least some young readers will enjoy sinking their teeth into Bites.

(++++) PIANISM PLUS PUZZLES

Idil Biret Archive Edition, Volume 2: Chopin—Mazurkas Op. 17, No. 4 and Op. 56, No.1; Scriabin—Piano Sonata No. 10; Prokofiev—Piano Sonatas Nos. 2 and 7. Idil Biret, piano. IBA. $8.99.

Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel: Piano Music. Heather Schmidt, piano. Naxos. $8.99.

     Excellent performances of some fairly well-known music and much that is virtually unknown are offered here in recordings that, despite the distinction of the playing and the highly interesting repertoire, raise some questions that they leave unanswered. The second volume in the Idil Biret Archive Edition, taken from 1970s recordings made for the short-lived label Finnadar, was recorded in what was at the time an unusual way: Biret played through all the works and they were recorded immediately onto a master disc that was then used to produce vinyl discs for distribution. This was, in effect, using a studio to create the atmosphere of a live recording, since nothing could be added to or subtracted from the performance; and it was considered quite an accomplishment at a time when studio recordings were made on tape, which could then be edited (physically, not electronically) so any miscues or elements that were not quite as the performer wanted them could be changed. But this occurred at the expense of quality: in analog recordings, it meant “going down a generation,” thus losing some of the presence of the audio. In the digital era, none of this is relevant; and at a time when live recording is commonplace and done with a quality as high as that of studio performances, the whole situation smacks of ancient history after only three decades. Still, the circumstances of the recording are an interesting footnote to some outstanding performances. Biret clearly had strong feelings about the validity and interest of the works played here, and equally strong views on how to interpret them. Thus, she not only gives a fine rendition of Chopin’s Mazurka, Op. 17, No.4, which is a well-regarded work, but also delivers a highly convincing performance of Op. 56, No. 1, which is usually considered weaker. In the Scriabin, she shows herself highly aware both of the composer’s coloristic effects and of his debt to Romanticism – and her performance flows beautifully throughout. In the two Prokofiev sonatas, in contrast, Biret is all angularity and bite, treating every movement (four in Sonata No. 2, three in Sonata No. 7) as an individual work to be shaped and delivered within its own context. The sonatas do not lose cohesion because of this approach – instead, they become multifaceted. It is obvious that Biret, a cerebral pianist (sometimes too much so), carefully thought through her approach to these works before attacking them for this recording. And her intensity does at times feel like an attack – not on the music but on its complexities. But there is a puzzle here: whence the recording of Prokofiev’s Sonata No. 7? It was not on the Finnadar disc from which the rest of this CD was taken, or indeed on any Finnadar record, and the IBA release does not make it clear just when the recording took place or under what circumstances it was originally made available.

     You might expect the puzzle in Heather Schmidt’s new CD of music by Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel to involve the question of why so much fine music – some of it pleasant, some of it strong and genuinely interesting – is so little known. But that is not an issue, really, for Felix Mendelssohn’s older sister (1805-1947) was known to have musical talent nearly at the level of her brother’s, but was entirely shaped by her family (including, to some extent, by Felix himself) into the expected 19^th-century-female role of housewife. She performed only once in public and had no chance to publish any of her works until the year before her death – an event that precipitated Felix’s own death just a few months later. What Schmidt’s outstanding playing on this CD shows is that Fanny’s music was at the very least finely honed in “salon” mode, and at most was comparable to Felix’s (he sometimes passed off a work of hers as his own) – and moved in some potentially interesting directions that Fanny never had the chance to follow far. The puzzle in this CD, and it is an unfortunate one, is why the works on the disc are presented in this chosen order. Really, there is no order to them, and for a composer as under-represented in concerts and recordings as Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel, a chronological (or at least musically logical) CD sequence would seem to be de rigueur. What listeners actually get, unless they care to take the time to do a major rearrangement of the CD’s tracks, is Allegro molto in C minor (1846), Notturno in G minor (1838), Sonata in C minor (1824), Lied in E-flat major (1846), Sonata in G minor (1843), Adagio in E-flat major (1840-3), Andante con moto in E major (1846), Sonata o Capriccio (1824), Allegro molto agitato in D minor (1823), and Schluss (1823). This jumping about the decades does Fanny’s music a disservice, because she clearly progressed significantly between 1823 (when she was just 18) and 1846 – the later works show greater passion, clearer structure and more carefully modulated emotion. The Sonata in G minor is a high point, and shows how far Fanny might have gone if her talent had been encouraged. It is both lyrical and dramatic, requiring strong technique as well as emotional understanding – an impressive work by any standards. Other standouts here are the intense Allegro molto in C minor, the lovely Notturno in G minor and the wistful Lied in E-flat major – but in fact, every piece that Schmidt plays has something of interest in it. If the arrangement of the CD is at best puzzling, the power and quality of the music are not. It is long past time for more of Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel’s approximately 500 works to be heard.

(++++) AS ROMANTIC AS YOU CAN GET

Tchaikovsky: Swan Lake. Russian National Orchestra conducted by Mikhail Pletnev. Ondine. $21.99 (2 CDs).

Brahms: Symphonies Nos. 1 and 2. London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Vladimir Jurowski. LPO. $17.99 (2 CDs).

     Nowadays it takes a certain amount of courage to record the heart of the Romantic repertoire. Yes, this is music that audiences love, and yes, there will always be people interested in buying recordings of the gorgeously sweeping works of the Romantic era – sometimes in a second, third or fourth performance, if ones they already own have started to pall. Nevertheless, recording the Romantic canon is more difficult than programming it in concert, where it can be used to draw audiences in and help support an orchestra – and sometimes, depending on how well a concert program is put together, can encourage attendees to open their minds and ears to less-familiar works. In a recording, though, the question inevitably arises: why? What does yet another version of a Tchaikovsky ballet or two Brahms symphonies have to offer that justifies the time and expense of releasing the umpteenth recorded version? Happily, the answer in the case of Mikhail Pletnev’s Swan Lake is apparent from the gorgeously played, unusually intense opening: outstanding orchestral sound, tremendous warmth, genuine understanding of the score, and a truly wonderful melding of Tchaikovsky’s strictly balletic (and thus often repetitious) elements with his symphonic and operatic ones. The composer took several parts of Swan Lake from earlier, discarded or unsuccessful works, notably the operas The Voyevoda and Undine, and it is in part these sections’ provenance that lends Swan Lake its gloomy cast and strong underlying emotionalism (although, from a strictly musical standpoint, this first of the composer’s ballets is less thoroughly symphonic in structure than his next one, Sleeping Beauty). In any case, Pletnev – whose Russian National Orchestra continues to be a marvel of precise and sensitive playing, especially in the Russian repertoire – makes of the ballet a huge two-and-a-half-hour arc of love, mystery, enchantment, doom and dubious triumph. In some ways, this exemplary performance is better than a staging of the ballet itself, because the stage work’s design creates a rather static first and third act, confining most of the action to the second and fourth. In Pletnev’s recording, there is beauty, sweep and drama throughout. So thoroughly do Pletnev and the orchestra emphasize the forward-moving unity of Swan Lake that it is difficult to choose any particular sections as outstanding. For example, the pas d’action in the second act, in which Prince Siegfried and swan maiden Odette fall in love, is gorgeously played, from the introduction on harp through the violin and cello solos; but the third act’s much lighter Hungarian, Spanish, Neapolitan and Polish dances are, in their own way, equally delightful, and serve to lighten the mood of what is essentially a dark, dark score. Pletnev and his orchestra have thoroughly plumbed the depths of Swan Lake and made this complete recording one that listeners are likely to want to own even if they already possess other fine renditions of the ballet.

     The “why?” of Brahms’ first and second symphonies on LPO is a harder question to answer musically, although there is a pretty good business justification for the release on the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s own label. These are live performances from May and September 2008, and the cost of recording and releasing them – without needing to bring in the orchestra and conductor for additional rehearsals and studio time – is not significant, compared with the possibility of bringing in added revenue from performances that would otherwise disappear into the musical ether. They are fine performances, too, but they are not really outstanding, and there is little in either of them to make a listener think of this two-CD set as a must-have; the release therefore gets a (+++) rating. Vladimir Jurowski has some good ideas – he takes the repeats in both symphonies’ first movements, for example – but there is nothing revelatory in these interpretations. Symphony No. 2 is the better of the two. The first movement is not as expansive and warm as it could be, but the other three are finely honed, clearly delineated and very well played. The finale, its main section taken at a speedier-than-usual tempo, is thoroughly joyous and a delight to hear, although it does feel a trifle rushed at times. As for Symphony No. 1, it comes across as somewhat lacking in grandeur. The first movement, even with the repeat, does not seem impressively large, and the second is rather ordinary. And Jurowski does not seem to know quite what to do with the finale: the broad introductory section does not build particularly effectively, and some wholly uncalled-for rubato at the very end undermines the strength of the material leading up to the coda. These are certainly worthy performances, and the orchestra plays very well indeed – the brass section in the finale of the second symphony is particularly good. But listeners who already have any of the many fine recordings of these Romantic-era staples have little reason to add this two-CD set to their collections.

(++++) CONNECTING FICTION TO REALITY

Imagination and Innovation: The Story of Weston Woods. By John Cech. Scholastic. $50.

Nothing but the Truth: A Documentary Novel. By Avi. Scholastic. $6.99.

     Anyone who has ever oohed and aahed at the animated flights of fancy based on works by Maurice Sendak, William Steig, Mo Willems, Jane Yolen and many other top children’s authors has almost certainly been oohing and aahing at the work of Weston Woods, the leading producer of films adapted from children’s picture books. Named for the house where founder Morton Schindel started it – a home in the woods of Weston, Connecticut – the studio started producing animated films more than 50 years ago: the first public screening of its productions occurred in 1956 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Imagination and Innovation is a particularly apt title for a book about Weston Woods, because those two words have been hallmarks of the studio’s work from its inception. John Cech’s book gives plenty of examples. Just one: to animate Harold’s Fairy Tale by Crockett Johnson – one of those marvelous stories of Harold and his purple crayon – “Harold’s pictures had to be first drawn in their entirety. Animation cels of Harold drawing were then photographed in reverse order, with the purple line being erased from the background at regular intervals.” This is pre-computer animation, the same type of painstakingly detailed work made famous by Walt Disney Studios during its founder’s lifetime. But Weston Woods is by no means a relic of the past, although Schindel remains highly aware of history – one of the many photos in this book shows his collection of 19^th century magic-lantern projectors, precursors of modern film projection equipment. Despite its start in a small Connecticut town, this was, almost from the start, a genuinely international organization, frequently filming in Turkey, Poland and what was then Czechoslovakia – even the Soviet Union before its collapse. Weston Woods was eventually sold to Scholastic (in 1996), so it is scarcely a surprise that Scholastic would put out a book about the studio’s history. Yet Cech – Professor of English at the University of Florida and a onetime member of the advisory board of the Weston Woods Foundation – makes this not a self-serving tome but a child-centric one. It is packed with stills and storyboards from Weston Woods productions, some of which will likely be familiar to 21^st century kids although many will not. There are stories here about Weston Woods’ puppeteers and animators, its packaging and distribution innovations, and the many authors and storytellers with whom the studio has worked over a period of decades. Imagination and Innovation is a book written for adults, showing how children’s literature – from the well known to the unknown – can be brought effectively to life outside the pages of books. And Cech’s book has plenty in it for kids, too, thanks to the numerous fascinating illustrations and the stories about productions based on books that kids can still read and enjoy today – such as the studio’s very first film adaptation, Millions of Cats.

     Avi’s self-described “documentary novel,” Nothing but the Truth – now available in paperback – connects fiction with the real world in a different way. It is a story that didn’t happen but that closely tracks so many other stories that did happen that it seems as if it could have happened. It’s filled with misunderstandings, media misinterpretations, things being blown out of proportion, and a plethora of less-than-honorable occurrences that ultimately victimize those who are the most well-meaning. A cautionary tale? Not really – Avi is too good a writer to make the book so one-dimensional – but this is certainly a novel to make readers think. It starts with a would-be high-school track star named Philip Malloy, a bit of a smart aleck, trying to get himself thrown out of an English class he dislikes (and in which he is not doing well, thereby rendering himself ineligible for the track team) by humming along while the tune of The Star-Spangled Banner is played as part of the school’s morning routine. Disciplined by the rather old-fashioned but well-liked (and tenured) teacher, Margaret Narwin, Philip soon finds his “cause” – he didn’t know he had one – taken up by everyone from his parents to the news media. The result is a cause célèbre involving a student’s right to sing the national anthem if he so desires. Never mind that that is not what Philip wants – the story quickly spins out of his control, and everybody’s. Some elements of Avi’s book, originally published in 1991, are outdated – no one sends telegrams of complaint anymore – but since American society has become increasingly litigious and people’s sociopolitical positions have hardened to the point of calcification, the underlying themes of Nothing but the Truth hit even closer to home today than they did nearly two decades ago. Avi has a longstanding habit of respecting his readers’ intelligence, and the eventual outcome of this novel does so with considerable irony. No one gets what he or she wants: Philip does not get onto the track team (for very logical reasons, explained by the coach); Ms. Narwin becomes a victim; the school district gets considerable unwanted attention, reflected in very realistic worries about funding; Philip’s parents are dissatisfied with the way things turn out; even the reporter following the story finds that the news cycle has, inopportunely for him, moved on to other issues. The nation and its anthem survive, apparently unscathed, but there is plenty of life wreckage to go around. And there is a final twist to the story that is worthy of O. Henry – further evidence, if any should be needed, of Avi’s ability to twist things in ways that surprise as well as illuminate. The new paperback edition of Nothing but the Truth includes some useful civics questions and some suggestions for “think pieces” to explore the book further – fine additions that, one would hope, will encourage forward-looking teachers to assign this novel (which deservedly was a Newbery Honor book) and discuss it fully, frankly and with the thoughtfulness it deserves.

(++++) GIRLS, GLOSS AND GLITTER

Glossy Bands. By the editors of Klutz. Klutz. $19.95.

Fingerprint Fabulous. By the editors of Klutz. Klutz. $14.95.

     Crafts books are a Klutz specialty – you could call them Klutz Krafts for their distinctive appearance: spiral bound, lighthearted, packaged with the materials needed to do the projects, and filled with photos of smiling kids wearing or playing with what they have made. The primary target audience for Klutz Krafts books is tween and preteen girls, and these two new volumes fit right into the pattern: Glossy Bands is aimed at ages eight and up, Fingerprint Fabulous at ages six and up. Glossy Bands shows how to make bracelets from a bottle – but, of course, not just any bottle. There are four bracelet-making bottles included with the book, containing enough special gel to make 14 bracelets, according to Klutz. But you can’t actually be a small-k klutz when doing these projects if you want to get to 14. The bracelets all start with a row of dots. Klutz provides the rows in the book – and includes transparent plastic rectangles called design strips to place on top of the rows. Then you squeeze little bits of colored gel onto a design strip to match the size of the dots. Little bits. The gel spreads after it is squeezed, so it is very easy to make the dots too big. Nothing wrong with that, but you won’t get 14 bracelets that way. In any case, bracelets can be made simply from a row of dots, or they can be swirled with the included swirling stick (which is more or less just a blunt toothpick), or they can be wavy or zig-zag, and the dots themselves can be anything from a single solid color to multiple colors in a flower shape (not easy – but the flower instructions appear late in the book, by which time kids will hopefully be adept at the craft). One ingredient not included with Glossy Bands, but absolutely essential for making them, is patience. Rushing will not work – the bands just won’t look good – and when finished, the bands cannot be worn for 24 hours (give them 30 hours to be on the safe side). Kids who get the hang of making these bands will really enjoy doing so: the four colors (pink, green, purple and blue) are attractive, the bands are comfortable, and it’s just plain neat to wear something you have made yourself from start to finish. And if you use up too much of the gel to get 14 bands out of the amount included, you can always 1) make shorter bands and wear them as rings instead of bracelets; and 2) order more gel from www.klutz.com.

     Kids already have the main ingredient they need for Fingerprint Fabulous. This is a crafts book of thumbprint art – fingers not included. What is included is ink for making prints, glitter glue for drawing lines, sequins to brighten things up, and a marking pen to connect the fingerprints and turn them into little cartoony pictures. Klutz starts with the basics here, showing how to make three different sorts of fingerprints (whole, edge and smudge) and providing a blank space so kids can experiment with fingerprint-making before trying out any of the suggested shapes. Then it’s time to make amusing-looking, smiling bugs (the dragonfly wearing glasses is a hoot), sweets, puppies and kittens, sea creatures and many more adorable things. The key to all this, as kids will quickly realize, is that fingerprints alone are not enough to make the creatures and characters. The sequins help dress things up and make them sparkly, but it is the marking pen that is really crucial here – just a few lines drawn between, among, around and through the fingerprints turn them into objects as diverse as a party dress, a singing trio (with bouncer), a dragon and a cheerleading squad. A page of fingerprint hairdos is especially enjoyable for kids who like to do a little more drawing. And just when you think Klutz has done as much as possible with this particular craft, two pages of tear-out cards appear (two cards per page) so kids can share their fingerprint art with each other – or maybe even send it by snail mail to friends or relatives. Fingerprint Fabulous is fun, not too challenging, and a nice way to relax and indulge some creativity – a good cure for that “there’s nothing to do” boredom to which kids are notoriously susceptible. (Aside to adults: you’ll enjoy it, too!)

(+++) WHAT ANIMALS TEACH

A Very Big Bunny. By Marisabina Russo. Schwartz & Wade. $17.99.

Our Farm: By the Animals of Farm Sanctuary. Poems by Maya Gottfried. Paintings by Robert Rahway Zakanitch. Knopf. $17.99.

     Animals of all sorts are often used to teach children ages 4-8 lessons about human life. In different ways, both these books intend to do just that. A Very Big Bunny is mistitled – it would better be called “Big Bunny, Small Bunny,” since that is really what it is about. True, Marisabina Russo’s book starts as the story of Amelia, “the biggest bunny in her class,” who is always last in line (because the class lines up by size) and is continually teased by other girls because of her size – and is lonely. But what really makes the story work is the arrival in class of Susannah, the smallest bunny in the group, who is ostracized and teased by the same girls who have been making fun of Amelia – and is kept away from the same games at recess. But unlike Amelia, who stands and sulks at the fence, Susannah is more outgoing. She repeatedly approaches Amelia with questions and makes attempts at friendship – and eventually breaks through to the big bunny in a way that surprises and delights the bunnies themselves and their teacher. The final scene of the book, showing a solution to the seesaw problem that seemed unsolvable for both bunnies who wanted to play on it (one too big for the ride and one too small), is a particularly neat twist. But the book’s focus is not solely on the big bunny, and its lesson is clearly intended for big and small alike. And a nicely taught lesson it is.

     The lesson intended to be taught by Our Farm is a little harder to figure out. The book is essentially a promotion of Farm Sanctuary, a national group that maintains farms for neglected and abused animals in the states of New York and California and that lobbies for legislation to promote better treatment of farm animals. But those are very adult concerns. What the book offers children is beautiful, realistic but interpretative line drawings and paintings by Robert Rahway Zakanitch, showing the appearance of farm animals in loving detail: pig and piglet, chicken and rooster, ram, calf and more. But the atmospheric poetry of Maya Gottfried, who volunteered at the Farm Sanctuary in New York, is not a perfect fit for Zakanitch’s illustrations – even though they were inspired by it and by photos that Gottfried took. The reason is that the poems unrealistically attribute human hopes, thoughts and feelings to the animals. There is, for example, this from a donkey named Bonnie: “here/ my mane swept by wind/ here/ my ears filled with quiet.” And this from a turkey called Whisper: “We are so graceful,/ like/ a/ ballet/ class.” And, from a goat named Clarabell: “Daisies, they call to me./ Trees sing my name.” Lovely sentiments, these, but surely not the thoughts of the realistic-looking animals portrayed in the pictures. True, this approach mostly avoids outright advocacy of Farm Sanctuary’s cause – that is mainly reserved for “A Note for Grown-ups” at the end – although one poem does have a sheep named Hilda saying, “Thank you to the kind hearts and hands/ that brought me to my home.” Also true, the poems themselves are often lovely, or at least cute – the two haikus by rabbits seem particularly apt. Nevertheless, Our Farm is a somewhat uneasy mixture of realism and flights of fancy – best to leaf through it before buying it, to decide whether it will have something to teach your family.

(++++) SAME TIME, DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS

Khachaturian: Concerto for Cello and Orchestra; Concerto-Rhapsody for Cello and Orchestra. Dmitry Yablonsky, cello; Moscow City Symphony Orchestra conducted by Maxim Fedotov. Naxos. $8.99.

Schuman: Symphony No. 8; Night Journey—Choreographic Poem for Fifteen Instruments; Ives/Schuman—Variations on “America.” Seattle Symphony conducted by Gerard Schwarz. Naxos. $8.99.

     On one side of the Iron Curtain in the 1960s, Aram Khachaturian was producing his intense and eloquent Concerto-Rhapsody for Cello and Orchestra (1963). On the other side, William Schuman was creating his equally personal, equally (but differently) intense Symphony No. 8 (1962) and flashily orchestrating Charles Ives’ 1891 Variations on “America” for organ (1964). The relationships among the works, tonally and harmonically if not in style, are more apparent in hindsight than they were four decades ago. But their equal, if different, musical effectiveness ought to have been apparent from the start.

     Khachaturian’s Concerto-Rhapsody gets a big, warm and highly involving performance from cellist Dmitry Yablonsky (frequently a conductor) in partnership with conductor Maxim Fedotov (frequently a violinist) and the Moscow City Symphony Orchestra. Not surprisingly with two soloist-quality string players interpreting it, the work sounds especially fine in the interplay between Yablonsky and the orchestra’s string section. But the brass and percussion – which Khachaturian uses effectively for fanfares and rhythmic propulsion – are fine as well. The single-movement work, which lasts long enough to be considered a full-fledged concerto, features long lines and thematic material that lies well on the cello, along with the Eastern inflections that are a Khachaturian trademark. This is a work of sweep and elegance, both cohesive and expansive, and a real workout for the cello soloist (it was written for Mstislav Rostropovich). The Concerto-Rhapsody is paired on Naxos’ new CD with the earlier Cello Concerto (1946), an even larger work that is filled with atmospheric themes and strong rhythms but that lacks the immediate appeal of its later cousin. Even when as well played as it is here, the concerto is missing a clear emotional focus: the first movement has portentous and forceful elements, the second is sensuous and the third is lively, but somehow they do not add up to a cohesive whole. Yablonsky and Fedotov tackle the concerto with enthusiasm and highlight its many excellently structured passages and fine instrumental touches, such as the handoff of the third movement’s opening theme from oboe to the solo cello. And the concerto will grow on listeners – it seems more of a thought-through whole after several hearings than after one. Still, it never quite packs the emotional punch of the Concerto-Rhapsody.

     Schuman’s eighth symphony, first heard at the opening of New York City’s Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in 1962, is emotionally involving in its own way, especially in the first two of its three movements. Schuman uses a large orchestra – with plenty of percussion – not only to generate sheer volumes of sound (lots of fff) but also to create textures that range from the ominous to those of chamber music, as in the long lines of violins, oboe and trumpet in the first movement and the harmonic and rhythmic complexities of the second, which follows it without pause. The finale is appended a bit uneasily to the first two movements: its playful themes and interesting orchestral effects (pizzicato strings against glockenspiel, vibraphone, xylophone and piano!) do not seem to follow naturally from what has gone before, although they are certainly interesting in their own right. Gerard Schwarz leads the Seattle Symphony effectively throughout the symphony, doing an especially good job of bringing out the strong brass writing. But Schwarz is less convincing in Schuman’s orchestration of Ives, which also traces its origin to the opening season of Lincoln Center: Schuman suggested it at that time to fellow composer Henry Cowell, Ives’ artistic executor. Schuman’s orchestration is far flashier than Ives’ highly creative original set of organ variations – Schuman sometimes comes very close to the point of deliberate near-vulgarity. This work is a great crowd pleaser, one of two superb mid-20^th-century encores or concert openers (the other being Leonard Bernstein’s Candide overture). But Schwarz is a bit too fastidious in this performance. All the elements are there, but most of the tempos drag a bit (until the very end), and Schuman’s clever instrumental effects, such as castanets, are not brought to the fore as much as they can be. The piece is still fun, but it could use a bit more raucousness than Schwarz gives it.

     Also on the Schuman CD is Night Journey, a 1947 ballet that Schuman wrote for Martha Graham, based on the story of Oedipus’ mother/wife Jocasta, and adapted in 1981 for small ensemble. It is pretty much what one would expect from a score on this subject: dark, pensive, dissonant and unsettled, with an increasing sense of violence as it progresses. It is not top-notch Schuman, but it has moments of somber power, and Schwarz and the Seattle players give the music the intensity that is its due.

(++++) BAROQUE AND BEYOND

Biber: Mensa Sonora; Battalia. Baroque Band conducted by Garry Clarke. Cedille. $16.99.

Spohr: Concertantes Nos. 1 and 2 for Two Violins; Violin Duet in G, op. 3, no. 3. Henning Kraggerud and Øyvind Bjorå, violins; Oslo Camerata and Barratt Due Chamber Orchestra conducted by Stephan Barratt-Due. Naxos. $8.99.

     Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber (1644-1704) was one of the best violinists and most creative composers of his time, famed for his use of scordatura in his Mystery Sonatas and elsewhere. But he was, after all, a Baroque composer, dependent on the largesse of the nobility for his commissions and livelihood, and therefore needed to produce a certain number of works “to order,” as it were. Mensa Sonora is one of them – it was written as background music for elaborate dinners, and therefore falls into the same “occasional music” category as, say, Handel’s Water Music. But Biber, like Handel some time later, was not content merely to complete his assignment. He wrote something of genuine creativity and real musical interest, even knowing that little of it would probably be audible during the meals at which it would be played. But everything is of course quite easy to hear – and excellently so – in the Baroque Band’s performance. This Chicago-based original-instrument ensemble, founded in 2007 by its leader, Baroque violinist Garry Clarke, delivers a big sound for Biber’s music despite using only 15 players (including continuo). In fact, it is a bigger sound than Mensa Sonora usually gets, since it is generally performed one instrument to a part. The additional performers – and this is still a small ensemble – give the 39 pieces (arranged in “Pars I” through “Pars VI”) a fair amount of heft and a lot of rhythmic vitality. There are a few standouts, often in the extremely short numbers: the half-minute “Balletto” in Pars IV, for example, and the equally short concluding “Sonatina” in Pars VI. But it is the cumulative effect of the performance that is most impressive here, showing Biber’s ability in multiple dance forms as well as in miniature sonatas and sonatinas. And he was skilled in program music, too, as Battalia shows. This work is best known for its extraordinary second movement, in which eight folk songs in different keys are played simultaneously – multiple tonalities in 1673! But that is only one-tenth of this nine-minute work, which also features such unusual performance techniques as intense plucking and the use of paper against the strings of the bass. The battle of the work’s title lasts only 45 seconds, the balance of the music being given over to preparations and, after the fight, a lament for the wounded. Here Clarke and the Baroque Band show just how effectively a 17^th-century composer, using only strings, could paint a tonal picture while also extending performers’ techniques and expanding listeners’ auditory perceptions.

     Louis Spohr and Biber barely occupied the same century – Biber died in 1704 and Spohr was born in 1784 – but Spohr retained a healthy respect for the Baroque and at times incorporated the approaches of earlier music into his own (perhaps explaining why his works, much admired in their own time, fell into disfavor as Romanticism flowered). The two-violin Concertante No. 1 (A major, 1808) and Concertante No. 2 (B minor, 1833) are particularly striking examples of Spohr’s indebtedness to the earlier era. The violins are not in competition in these works – instead, they support each other. Both works are in the traditional three movements of a concerto (and are wrongly identified as concertos on the front of the new Naxos CD), but Spohr likely gave them the more apt “Concertante” designation to highlight their relatively light weight and their instrumental resemblance to pieces of the Baroque era. Interestingly, though, the first concerto is more backward-looking than the second, which harmonically and stylistically looks into the future and features one effect in which the two soloists, both playing in double stops, sound like a string quartet. The all-Norwegian performances of these works, under the auspices of Oslo’s Barratt Due Institute of Music, are well-balanced and thoroughly effective ones, led by violinist and institute director Stephan Barratt-Due (whose name has a hyphen, which the institute does not use). As a kind of encore, the soloists offer one of Spohr’s duets for violin teacher and pupil – although in this particular one, the two performers appear as equals, intertwining with poise and elegance.

(++++) GETTING CREATIVE

The Klutz Book of Animation. By John Cassidy & Nicholas Berger. Klutz. $19.95.

Doodle Journal: My Life in Scribbles. By Karen Phillips. Klutz. $16.95.

     Klutz books are great encouragers of hands-on activities, but even books that help show young readers how to do things with their hands need to connect to our digital age – and The Klutz Book of Animation does just that. Nowadays it just isn’t enough to put together a wonderful instruction book about stop-motion clay animation and package it with a smiling blob of plasticine (yes, smiling – it has googly eyes and a smile on its wrapper). You also need to show kids what their videos (not films anymore) can look like – so the book connects to a special Web site, www.klutz.com/ani, where those videos are on display. This is a good thing, because without the videos, kids might have to watch really good, bad old movies featuring the classic animation of Ray Harryhausen – or maybe the thoroughly modern and delightful Wallace & Gromit cartoons – to see what stop-motion animation is all about; and there is simply no way that beginners can match what Harryhausen and W&G’s Nick Park have come up with. Kids can aspire to those heights, though, and aspiration is a lot of what Klutz crafts books are about. So The Klutz Book of Animation provides all the basic tools that kids will need to make their own animated videos – plus some not-so-basic ones, including free downloads of software and sound effects. Stop-motion animation takes patience, so kids who have trouble staying focused on projects will likely get frustrated by the careful, step-by-step requirements of this approach. But other budding filmmakers (or video makers) will find it fascinating to re-create the animations shown online by Klutz – and then move on to develop their own. All the simple and some beyond-simple techniques are here, very clearly explained: “onion skin” to show the prior position of an animated object, making it easy to keep moves in line; shot angles; tracking; morphing; pixilation; and much more. And the book, in typical Klutz fashion, insists on not taking itself seriously all the time: it includes such extras as punch-out mouths and disco costumes, plus a “ratoscope” to demonstrate one animation principle by making rats seem to crawl. The Klutz Book of Animation gives would-be Hollywood (or Bollywood) moguls enough behind-the-scenes information to get them started on a rewarding career – or at least help them understand what is really going on when they watch some of their favorite animated productions.

     But who needs something as elaborate as animation to develop creativity? Sometimes all that is required is a bunch of paper and a nice pen, like the one attached to the front of Klutz’s Doodle Journal. This book is, of course, a journal, spiral bound to open flat. It is crammed with all sorts of material designed to encourage note-taking, life-chronicling and – of course – doodling. The margins here (and some entire pages) are filled with swirls and words and splats and colorful something-or-others that may inspire kids to imitation or to doing something entirely different (either approach is just fine). Many pages have very faint bits of drawing visible. For instance, a brightly colored girl is walking off the left page, but her long and curly hair is very pale and barely visible – suitable for coloring, tracing or ignoring completely while making her hair look entirely different from the way the pale lines make it appear. There are quotations sprinkled around the book, too, such as “it is better to play than do nothing – Confucius” and “I have never let schooling interfere with my education – Mark Twain.” Because there is no such thing as a mistake when doodling, there are pages about mistakes and “random scribbles” to be completed, changed, or simply labeled. One of the cleverest things in the book is “groodling,” which is group doodling: pages are divided in three parts and set up to flip, so three people can draw three different parts of a character and then create flip books that mix up the top, center and bottom parts. Another clever idea here is a page devoted to action – but “action scenes are hard to draw. Fortunately, this one is happening in the dark of night, so all you have to do is fill the space with sounds.” Among the suggested noises are “prooompf,” “klop” and “ga-boing.” There are a few traditional journal-like pages here, such as ones with questions: “If you and your friends were in a band, what kind of music would you play?” But even these tie into doodles: for example, you draw yourself and friends playing instruments. Doodle Journal is, in sum, an exercise in creative thinking – abetted by the encouragement and sense of humor in which Klutz specializes.