(++++) UNUSUAL PETS

Cowboy Boyd and Mighty Calliope. By Lisa Moser. Illustrations by Sebastiaan Van Doninck. Random House. $17.99.

                  

Sophie’s Squash. By Pat Zietlow Miller. Illustrated by Anne Wilsdorf. Schwartz & Wade. $16.99.

Squirrels on Skis. By J. Hamilton Ray. Illustrated by Pascal Lemaitre. Random House. $8.99.

     Somewhere out on the range, there’s a young cowpoke with a big hankerin’ fer some good solid work with his trusty….rhinoceros. Yup, that thar’s a big fat two-horned rhino with Cowboy Boyd. No way to know where it came from or what it’s doin’ out on the prairie, ’cause Cowboy Boyd don’t ever explain ’cept to say he raised her himself, and somehow no one in the book thinks to ask more. Maybe it don’t matter. Mighty Calliope, Cowboy Boyd calls his trusty steed, and yup, the Double R Ranch won’t ever be the same now that they’ve shown up. Slim, Hardtack and Rancher Rose don’t quite know what to make of it all when the mismatched pair ride in “looking for a place to call home.” But they’re game to give Boyd and Calliope a try. Fence mending? Well, Calliope sure can carry weight, but she’s so slow that a tortoise, laughing, passes her by. Herding stray cattle? Well, they herd strays all right, but one’s a prairie dog, one’s a jackrabbit and one’s a coyote. Nope, this just don’t seem to be workin’ real well. And then Calliope plows through the pasture fence and barn wall and bunkhouse door and makes such a mess of everythin’ that Cowboy Boyd’s explanation, “She just doesn’t know her own strength,” don’t help much. They gotta go, and Rancher Rose tells ’em so. And so they plan to head out in the mornin’ – but there’s a big storm that night, and all the cattle get out, and there’s bound to be a stampede if someone can’t round ’em up soon. But they’re so skittish that no one can control them. Until – well, pardner, let’s just say that Lisa Moser and Sebastiaan Van Doninck figure out how to make Calliope and Boyd the heroes of the moment, and everyone’s real happy at the end, includin’ Calliope, who’s last seen rollin’ in the dirt – along with that blamed tortoise, who looks to be havin’ one whale of a time.

     And if you think that is unusual, wait until you read Sophie’s Squash, an utterly delightful book that Pat Zietlow Miller says is based on a true story about her daughter. And what a story it is: Sophie is just an ordinary little girl, shopping at the farmers’ market with her parents, picking out a particularly nice-looking squash – until her parents plan to serve it for supper, at which point Sophie draws a face on the squash and names it Bernice. Her indulgent mom orders pizza for dinner, and soon Sophie and Bernice are inseparable, whether going to the library or turning somersaults in the garden. Sophie gives Bernice a bottle, a hug and a kiss every night, and refuses to consider baking her best friend – even with marshmallows – or playing with a truck or doll instead. Eventually, of course, nature takes its course and Bernice becomes blotchy (Sophie says she has freckles) and starts to get soft. So Sophie asks a farmer how to keep a squash healthy, listens carefully to his advice about fresh air and good dirt, then tucks her friend into some nice, soft soil and kisses her good night. And then, that night, it snows! Poor Sophie worries constantly about Bernice throughout the whole winter – never quite accepting Ace, the fish her father buys her, as a substitute. Come spring, Sophie is ready to find Bernice – but instead finds a small green shoot that, come summer, produces two tiny squash. “You look just like your mom!” says Sophie happily as she cuddles Bonnie and Baxter – a lovely and amusing ending to a story about a girl who really loves vegetables, and whose expressions, wonderfully rendered by Anne Wilsdorf, show her feelings as effectively as Miller’s words describe them.

     The squirrels in Squirrels on Skis aren’t pets, exactly – more like pests – but they are suitably cute ones in the pictures by the always-reliable Pascal Lemaitre. This is a rhyming Beginner Book and the first effort by J. Hamilton Ray, who benefits tremendously from Lemaitre’s contribution but still ends up with a (+++) book whose rhymes trip over themselves just a little too often. For example, “And each of them balanced/ on two little skis” scans very well, but “And all of them holding/ two tiny poles” is missing a syllable in the second line, which could easily have had the word “to” at the start as a filler. The story here is a touch over-complicated: the initial scenes of squirrels skiing into town are wonderful, but then the tale veers into one of a pest-control expert vs. someone who thinks it would be cruel to vacuum up the squirrels. And then it veers further as we meet a key character: “It was Sally Sue Breeze./ She could not have been shorter./ But everyone listened,/ ’cause she’s a reporter.” (Here the lines scan but the tenses don’t match.) The mayor gives her 24 hours to find out where the squirrels are getting their skis, and then the story veers even further, involving a scurrilous rabbit (who turns out to have a good heart), a closed popsicle-stick factory, and the eventual creation of a ski chalet just for squirrels. Ray manipulates the story too obviously – it doesn’t so much flow as jump from one place to another – but he does have a nice sense of silliness and absurdity, and that saves him from some of his own writing and plotting missteps. The Beginner Books, which famously trace their lineage to Dr. Seuss’ The Cat in the Hat, remain enjoyable entry-into-reading creations with, in most cases, enough of an offbeat touch to keep young readers intrigued. Squirrels on Skis is not at the pinnacle of this line, but it is a pleasant entry that kids will have fun reading on their own and, thanks to Lemaitre’s illustrations, will find particularly enjoyable just to look at.

(++++) THE COOLNESS CONUNDRUM

Babymouse: Queen of the World! By Jennifer L. Holm & Matthew Holm. Random House. $6.99.

                                        

Too Cool for This School. By Kristen Tracy. Delacorte Press. $16.99.

     The ultimate worry for many preteens and teenagers – how to fit in, specifically as part of the “cool” group – is at the heart of these two very different books. The very first Babymouse book, originally published in 2005 and now available in a new edition, takes on the issue straightforwardly for readers ages 7-10. It may be hard to remember back to this book for those who have followed the series for years – there are 17 of the books now, and the sister-and-brother team of Jennifer L. Holm and Matthew Holm shows no sign of slowing down. But there are reasons these small-size graphic novels became instantly popular, and rereading Babymouse: Queen of the World! shows why. The title character is befuddled enough but good-natured enough to grab readers’ attention and hold onto it; her minor oddities (curly whiskers, tendency to say “typical” when things do not go well, as they frequently do not) are nicely balanced by her all-too-human foibles (such as the “fitting in” theme of the first book); and the books’ structure, including Babymouse’s daydreams and her back-and-forth repartee with the sometimes-snarky narrator, is attractive and innovative. Like the title character in the Cathy comic strip, Babymouse perpetually dresses in outfits with a heart on them, a subtle indicator of the extent to which she wears her heart on her sleeve (well, in her case it’s her dress, but the meaning is still clear). In this first book, Babymouse really, really, really wants to be invited to a sleepover at the home of Felicia Furrypaws, soon to become Babymouse’s arch-enemy but in this book the coolest of the cool kids. Babymouse is willing to compromise her friendship with Wilson the Weasel and her own integrity (by giving her book report to Felicia to hand in as Felicia’s own) to wrangle an invitation – and of course, when she gets what she wants and goes to the party, she discovers that what she gave up is worth more than what she thought she wanted, and walks out. Babymouse imagines herself as “queen of the world” and eventually decides that she already is, in the ways that matter. The lesson is simple and straightforward, but the presentation so effectively avoids being preachy that readers will accept this little morality tale as a delightful adventure featuring a highly attractive central character – which is in fact how readers did accept the book when it first appeared.

     The lesson is ultimately not that different in Kristen Tracy’s Too Cool for This School, but since this is a traditional novel and is aimed at older readers – ages 10 and up – the presentation is a great deal more complicated. Unlike Babymouse, who is unhappy with her life until she realizes how good it is, Lane Cisco, the protagonist of Tracy’s book, is more than satisfied with things until they get destabilized. The destabilizer is Lane’s visiting cousin from Alaska, Angelina “Mint” Taravel, whose offbeat, nonconforming style proves highly attractive to the rather straitlaced crowd at Rio Chama Middle School – including the boys that Lane and her best friend, Ava, like. Clearly something has to be done – doesn’t it? Ava certainly thinks so, and comes up with a plan to undermine Mint. But this puts Lane in a quandary: be mean and get back at Mint for being just too cool, or stick up for family and end up defending someone who is really getting in the way and is just plain weird? Unattractive choices – and that is the whole point. Luckily, Tracy presents them, and the whole situation at school and home, with enough humor to prevent things from dragging or getting too dismal. Take Lane’s reaction to the outfit Mint picks for the first day of school: “Angelina had chosen to wear her wolf T-shirt…. Inside out! She looked ridiculous. Was she trying to hide the fact that her T-shirt had a wolf on it? Because even inside out, you could clearly see the outline of that beast. I thought people might think she was trying to hide a stain. And then maybe these same people would think she didn’t have enough money to buy an unstained ugly shirt.” Clearly Lane thinks too much – and worries too much about acceptance and coolness. Later, while deciding whether to go ahead with the plan to ruin Mint, Lane tells her mom – who thinks, correctly, that Lane is being mean to Mint – that she has introduced Mint to a lot of people. “Which was basically true. Except my best friend and I had both decided to hate her openly.”  Still later, after Mint has thoroughly “trashed my life,” Lane explains, “Avoiding Angelina Mint Taravel became my only goal.” But then Lane has second thoughts – more like 22^nd thoughts by this time – and notices that “somewhere in [Mint’s] inability to blend she’d stolen that light that usually glowed above Ava. But was that light really supposed to glow all the time? Was it possible to share the light?” Uh-oh. Sounds as if a touch of maturity is rearing its ugly head. And so it is, notably in a conversation at the end of Mint’s visit, in which Lane admits to herself, “I never really wanted Mint to fit in. And so I never gave her a chance.” And then everyone sort of makes up with everyone else and sort of parts as friends and everything works out just fine in the end and – well, the sappy conclusion is not the best part of the book, but is probably inevitable given what has come before. Too Cool for This School is a (+++) novel that does not solve the eternal coolness problem or even really bring much insight to the issue, but it has enough quirkiness and enough heartfelt (if somewhat overdone) emotion so preteens and young teenagers will find themselves entertained, if not really enlightened.

(+++) PRETEEN APPEAL

Joshua Dread 2: The Nameless Hero. By Lee Bacon. Delacorte Press. $16.99.

The Five Ancestors: Out of the Ashes, Book 2—Lion. By Jeff Stone. Random House. $16.99.

Dragon Keepers #6: The Dragon at the North Pole. By Kate Klimo. Illustrated by John Shroades. Random House. $15.99.

     Reliable characterizations, familiar settings and uncomplicated plots – or plots complicated in ways that preteen readers will expect them to be complicated – are among the attractions of these series continuations. Lee Bacon’s Joshua Dread sequence starts with an offbeat idea: a young superhero whose parents are supervillains. Bacon doesn’t do a great deal beyond the obvious with the premise, but the premise itself is unusual enough to have made the first book something more than run-of-the-mill, and it sustains the second, The Nameless Hero, as well. This is one of those books in which readers will know something is special and even magical because of the way it is spelled: Joshua is invited to the “Gyfted & Talented” program for kids with superpowers. So are his best friends, Sophie and Milton – who, it turns out, are hand-picked to join Joshua and form the greatest superhero team of all time, ever. This would be wholly conventional if all they had to do was watch out for a major-league supervillain – which they do, since Phineas Vex is still alive and determined to destroy Joshua. But what makes The Nameless Hero intriguing is that Joshua just can’t let his supervillain parents know that the new superhero (who becomes a celebrity) is their son. How would they ever deal with the humiliation? Well, this isn’t that much of a plot twist, but it is enough of one to keep the book interesting. There aren’t many kid-superhero books with a narrative like this: “I drew in a nervous breath. I guess it was just an instinct that came with having supervillains in the family. Anytime something went horribly wrong in the world, the first thing I wondered was where my mom and dad were when it happened.” Actually, there is some hero-to-villain mobility here, just to keep readers involved, as when Joshua learns about “the X-Treme Team,” one of whose members, Multiplier, has become a villain after initially being a hero. There seems to be some fluidity in the whole superpower game, although it is never taken terribly seriously – or, for that matter, terribly humorously, although there is some humor here, as when Joshua comments of Multiplier, “suddenly he was back with a new look and a new career path.” The dialogue in this novel is often not as good as the narrative: “It is too easy.” “Lookie what we have here.” “It’s me you want. Not him.”  “Release your evil grip on those children, you fiend!” “Please – I don’t want to disintegrate!” (Actually, that last one is pretty good.)  As a whole, The Nameless Hero is a fine series continuation that readers who liked Joshua’s first appearance will certainly enjoy.

     The Five Ancestors is a longer-running series; two series, actually. There was a seven-book series set hundreds of years in the past, and now there is a contemporary series that moves some of the same themes – mainly the usual good vs. evil one – into the modern world. Lion, the second book in the modern series, continues the tale of Ryan Vanderhausen, mountain biker (in the first book) and road biker (in this one) and an all-around good guy being put upon by some all-around bad guys. Like the Joshua Dread books, Jeff Stone’s Out of the Ashes novels involve team efforts – typical for works aimed at preteens. Ryan has three friends here: Phoenix, Jake and Hú Dié – and all are heading to California for road-bike training with Ryan’s cousin, Peter. Unfortunately for the team, but fortunately for the story, Peter is kidnapped – right in the middle of Chinatown. And someone or something seems to be killing experienced cyclists, who are dropping dead at an alarming rate. And someone that the good guys would rather not ever see again finds them. And how are they going to handle everything – rescuing Peter and fending off evil – and still win the race? This plot summary makes the book seem sillier than it is, but in fact it is pretty silly, having none of the resonance of the original The Five Ancestors series and seeming rather warmed-over. The characters just aren’t particularly interesting or memorable, and the dangers they face (and overcome) do not have the frisson of magic and otherworldliness that the ones in the original series possessed. Indeed, the magical elements tend to sound rather silly in this context: “Dragons are complex creatures. They can mean many things.” The context itself is the problem: “He was wearing a tool belt with a huge buckle that read TEXAS ELECTRIC.” And this series is really for young readers who are highly interested in the intricacies of bike racing: “When you race BMX, your feet aren’t connected to the pedals, so you’re always hammering down with your legs, never pulling up.” For a certain niche of preteens, The Five Ancestors: Out of the Ashes, Book 2—Lion will be involving enough, but this middle book of the trilogy (no seven-book series this time) will be far from gripping for readers hoping for more of the fascinating elements from the original series.

     Dragons may be complex creatures in the world of The Five Ancestors, but they are more straightforward – and lighthearted – in Kate Klimo’s Dragon Keepers sequence. The sixth of the books, The Dragon at the North Pole, is about nothing less (and not much more) than Santa Claus. Dragon keepers Jesse and Daisy awake one morning to find their dragon, Emmy, missing, with a note saying she has gone to help Santa. But Santa isn’t really real, is he? Well, anything is possible in a world in which the dragon-keeping cousins merely have to don magic snowshoes to follow Emmy to the North Pole. So they do, not forgetting to pack cocoa and thermal gel pads. And yes, they encounter “the Claus,” who says of Emmy, “I have need of her dragon magic,” and who has a not-so-good influence on both Emmy and Daisy, leading Joshua to be “worried sick. Both Emmy and Daisy were suddenly strangers to him.” Something unsavory is clearly going on, and Joshua soon learns, courtesy of the disappearance of his emerald’s natural green color, that he is “in the presence of treachery. Something was rotten at the North Pole!” The Dragon Keepers books are written at a somewhat easier-to-read level than the Joshua Dread and Five Ancestors novels. Klimo makes sure to give Daisy and Jesse what they need, when they need it, and then to explain why they need it. For example, Jesse discovers a stream of mead at one point, explaining to Daisy that he knows what it is because “one of my parents’ friends in Doctors Without Borders was Norwegian,” and then he finds a tinderbox, and explains to Daisy that he knows what it is because “this kid I used to play with in Tanzania, he taught me how to use his.” It soon turns out that Jesse and Daisy are on a rescue mission, first to rescue Emmy and then, it turns out, to rescue the entire planet – which they find out is in danger from a Vortex Interceptor. They learn this thanks to rhyming songs sung to them by the aurora borealis. Well, it all doesn’t make much sense, but then it doesn’t have to, since the plot here is as consistent as any in the Dragon Keepers series. Jesse gets to ride on a “light mare” and escape a wolf attack, and there are Thunder Eggs (dragon eggs, which “rain down from the heavens”) and a confrontation with Beowulf (yes, that Beowulf) and, eventually, a very merry Christmas for all. No, the book does not hang together very well, and yes, it strains credulity a little too much, but the Dragon Keepers series was never meant to be taken entirely seriously, and fans of the earlier volumes will find that this one follows quite neatly in their footsteps.

(+++) THE PAST THROUGH TODAY

Ave Maria: Gregorian Chant. Seraphic Fire conducted by Patrick Dupré Quigley. SFM (Seraphic Fire Media). $16.99.

Robert DeGaetano: Piano Concerto No. 1; Chopin: Piano Concerto No. 1. Robert DeGaetano, piano; Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by John Yaffé. Navona. $19.99 (CD+DVD).

Sergio Cervetti: Wind Devil & Co.—DancElectronics. Navona. $16.99.

                     

     A famous collection of Robert Heinlein science fiction stories written between 1939 and the early 1960s is called The Past Through Tomorrow, and it presents a kind of “future history” based on imagined events that have not yet happened but that have clear relationships to ones that had happened at the time the stories were written. There is something of a “future history” feel to many contemporary CD releases, too, as composers and performers alike view and reinterpret the music of the past in light of contemporary understanding or in a deliberate attempt to go beyond musical approaches that have been tried before. At one end of the spectrum in observing and interpreting the past is the Seraphic Fire ensemble, which delves into works from as long ago as the 9^th century and attempts to present them with understanding, respect and beauty. Founder and artistic director Patrick Dupré Quigley usually succeeds admirably in the endeavor. Witness the group’s latest CD – on its own label – with its focus on chant and polyphony centered on the Virgin Mary. Views of Mary actually changed in significant ways between the 9^th century and the 16^th – the span of the music on this disc – so the fact that the works are not presented chronologically is a bit disappointing from a content standpoint. The performances, though, are not disappointing at all, and the way music changed over these many centuries is certainly clear here. The juxtapositions of settings of similar or identical texts are fascinating: Alma redemptoris mater from the 13^th century and the 16^th; Inviolata, integra et casta es from the 9^th century and in a setting by Josquin des Prez (1450-1621); Salve Regina as a 14^th-century plainchant and as set by Tomás Luis de Victoria (1548-1611); and so on. Those not already fascinated by music of this era – or, more accurately, these eras – may find a certain sameness to the sound, especially if they listen to the entire 55-minute CD straight through. Those who are devoted to this sort of devotional music, on the other hand, will hear exemplary performances with fine vocal balance and subtle interpretative emphases that make the CD a very impressive release.

     Pianist/composer Robert DeGaetano (born 1952) also reaches into the past, although not quite that distant a past – and he then brings listeners right into the present, albeit a present with significant influence from earlier times. In an unusual coupling of works, DeGaetano, who was a pianist before he was a composer, couples his performance of Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with his rendition of his own Piano Concerto No. 1. This is not quite as sacrilegious as it may seem – there have actually been a number of recent attempts to pair well-known repertoire works with less-known and/or modern ones, for a variety of reasons. In this case, the results are quite interesting, since DeGaetano’s reading of the Chopin is an impressive one. Both of Chopin’s piano concertos are very early works, created by him more out of necessity (to get his music before the public) than because he had any significant skill in orchestration or intense desire to develop some. The E minor concerto is large-scale, lasting more than 40 minutes, and mixes impressive and beautifully formed passages with some, particularly for the orchestra, that are rather mundane. DeGaetano says he first played the work when he was about 18 – the age at which Chopin wrote it – and certainly his interpretation on this disc bespeaks decades of familiarity with and love of the music. It is not a groundbreaking or particularly revelatory performance, but it is solid, thoughtful and very well played. DeGaetano’s own concerto pairs rather intriguingly with the Chopin. A stronger, less lyrical, more angular and less flowing work than Chopin’s, it is in four movements rather than three but is still a few minutes shorter than the older concerto. And not surprisingly, it is significantly more dissonant and rhythmically intense – although some of the dissonance, as DeGaetano himself points out, is the sound of apparent atonality caused by multiple tonal passages played together (in the mode of Charles Ives, although this work sounds nothing like Ives’). DeGaetano’s concerto is well put together and of course very well performed by the composer, who gets fine backup from the Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra under John Yaffé throughout the CD. Like his performance of the Chopin, DeGaetano’s creation of this concerto is effective without being particularly innovative – the work sounds good while it lasts but does not really stay with listeners afterwards, although it tends to reveal more subtleties with repeated hearings. Navona’s CD+DVD set includes one of those “making of” documentaries that enthusiasts alone will find worthwhile. Indeed, the whole production has the feeling of “for enthusiasts” about it. Hopefully those who are enthusiastic about DeGaetano as a pianist will use this opportunity to explore his compositional work.

     If DeGaetano’s Navona CD represents both the past and the present, the latest one from Sergio Cervetti is completely of today. There is some traditionally composed music here, but not much of it: these seven pieces scream “contemporary” in every way from their sound to their titles (which include In Closed Time, Night Trippers and 40 Second/42^nd Variations – although, to be fair, Cervetti also offers Requiem and Cantata No. 84, neither of which sounds anything like its title). The overall name that Cervetti gives the pieces, “DancElectronics,” also bespeaks an entirely up-to-the-minute orientation for these works, all of which were created for modern-dance companies. The “danceability” of the music varies quite a bit, with Wind Devil and Out of the Rolling Ocean being somewhat more clearly stageable than some of the other pieces. Without the visual element of the dancers, this music is something of a chore to hear – although in fairness, even some of the great Romantic ballets are also far less effective when the dancing is missing. There are some attractive rhythms here, some interesting sounds, and some sense of playfulness in a few of the works, but the totality here is more than an hour of music intended for a specific purpose and stripped of its reason for being when heard on a CD. Fanciers of electronic music – more than fanciers of modern dance – will find the disc appealing, although even they may well decide that the shorter pieces are more congenial than the longer ones.

(++++) FEARS CONQUERED

Lena’s Sleep Shop. By Anita Lobel. Knopf. $11.99.

Rico the Brave Sock Monkey. By Fiona Rempt. Illustrated by Noëlle Smit. Golden Books. $3.99.

Robots, Robots Everywhere! By Sue Fliess. Illustrated by Bob Staake. Golden Books. $3.99.

     Pick your fear and beat it here. In Anita Lobel’s utterly charming Lena’s Sleep Shop, the fear is not that of Lena but that of the sheep she counts every night as she falls asleep. Lena, you see, wants her parents to leave the curtains open because the moon is full and she wants to enjoy it. But the full moon scares the sheep, which think it is “a round monster in the window…ready for a sheep snack,” and therefore refuse to come out and do their nightly duty. Well, this is scarcely acceptable! Unable to reassure the frightened sheep, clever Lena comes up with a great solution: have them use the clothes in her closet to dress up, so the “monster” will not recognize them as sheep. Brilliant! But unfortunately, ineffective, since the dressed-up sheep – although no longer scared – are so clumsy that they keep bumping into each other, and Lena cannot count them in the nice orderly line that she is used to. Oh, dear. But then, how wonderful! The moon disappears behind a cloud, Lena tells the sheep they scared the monster away, and the sheep counting can proceed apace – Lena does “not even get to twelve” before she falls asleep. And the moon, peeking out from behind the cloud, whispers a fond good night to Lena and even to the silly sheep. Lobel makes the whole story an absolutely wonderful bedtime tale, written with relish and illustrated with equal helpings of silliness and joy.

     The fear of Rico the Brave Sock Monkey is – well, nothing, at least at first. Frequent Dutch children’s-book collaborators Fiona Rempt and Noëlle Smit talk about and show the noisy factory where Rico is born: “The factory looked like a haunted house, but the little sock monkey was not afraid.” Rico is boxed and put in a truck, driven all night to a toy store, put on display by one lady and selected by another, and wrapped in tissue paper, “and still he wasn’t afraid.” Rico hears strange sounds on his first trip outdoors while awake – the illustration is particularly attractive here – and he eventually becomes the inseparable playmate of a little boy who takes him everywhere and does absolutely everything with him (baths included). Although the boy grows older and older, he keeps Rico with him until, one day, in a moment that will surely make some families think of Pixar’s Toy Story 3, the boy puts Rico in a closet, and “for the first time in his life, Rico was a bit scared. He was afraid of being alone.” And indeed, Rico stays alone “for a long, long time,” until a delightfully crafted happy ending has the boy, now all grown up, retrieving Rico from the closet “at last” and giving him to the boy’s – that is to say, the man’s – own child, proclaiming Rico “the bravest monkey in the whole world” and presenting him with “a new best friend.” Sweet and heartwarming without overdoing the treacle, Rico the Brave Sock Monkey is a lovely book to read with a young child, or for an early reader to discover on his or her own.

     Like the stories of the silly sheep and Rico the sock monkey, Robots, Robots Everywhere! is intended for ages 2-5. But this is a simpler book than the other two, not only emotionally – no fear here at all – but also in Sue Fliess’ narrative, which comes in the form of an easy-to-read, attractive poem: “Up in space, beneath the seas,/ Robots make discoveries.” And: “Working robots drill and grind./ Rescue robots seek and find.” Bob Staake’s illustrations are a big part of the fun here: he gives all the robots (as well as the humans with whom they interact) considerable personality, not to mention a very wide variety of shapes (check out the ones making doughnuts, including the robot manager with a key sticking out of his back). If anyone does still have a residual fear of robots – the very first ones, in Karel Čapek’s 1920 play R.U.R, were frightening in a Frankenstein’s-monster sort of way – this book will certainly dispel the worries, since the robots here are as helpful, talented, useful and of course amusing as anyone could wish. About the only annoyance is the lightbulb nose of the robot on the very last page, which is so bright it is keeping the two kids with whom it shares a room awake (while the robot itself sleeps peacefully). This is one of those purely-for-fun books with bright writing, bright color and the occasional brightly shining robot nose – a winning combination.

(+++) BEYOND THE DREADED LMO

How to Prepare a Standout College Application. By Alison Cooper Chisholm and Anna Ivey. Jossey-Bass. $16.95.

     One hundred hours. That is how much time Alison Cooper Chisholm and Anna Ivey say students should allot to preparing college applications, assuming they are applying to eight to 12 colleges – a typical number. Chisholm and Ivey, former university admissions officers who now work at Ivey College Consulting in Cambridge, Massachusetts, do not say what percentage of the 100 hours should be spent reading How to Prepare a Standout College Application, but count on some significant number of hours, because there is a lot of detailed, step-by-step information here.

     There is also an underlying premise that should be acknowledged by readers even though the authors do not bring it up. The whole point of the book is to provide, as the extended and asterisked subtitle puts it, “Expert Advice That Takes You from LMO* (*Like Many Others) to Admit,” which is a touch confusing as well as a touch ungrammatical (why not “admission”?). But following the advice will make you LMO who follow it, because the approach is quite formulaic. Intelligently formulaic, yes, but still, an admissions officer who receives multiple essays using this book’s recommendations will know it. All the submissions will begin, “A few important things to know about me before you read my application are….” They will continue, “As a student, I….” And then they will say, “Outside the classroom….” And next – a certain giveaway – there will appear, “Close friends and family describe me as….”

     These happen to be darned good elements to include in a submission, but including them with slavish devotion to the book’s format creates the risk of being found LMO who have read the book. Some creativity in presentation is called for; caveat lector (look it up!).

     In fact, the balance between formula and creativity is a major element in college applications, and Chisholm and Ivey try to show how best to strike it in all the elements of the application process. For example, they suggest creating a template for multiple applications that “will result in an answer that follows a predetermined pattern for answering the question, but the details you fill in will vary from school to school.” This prevents the application process from either taking even more than 100 hours or from becoming too much of a formula through the creation of a single generic application in which a find-and-replace word-processing tool simply substitutes the names of different schools (a sure recipe for seeming LMO). Chisholm and Ivey even suggest three separate types of template – “Week in the Life,” “Burning Qualities” and “Gets Me Where I’m Going” – to help applicants pick the approach they find most congenial.

     Not that the application process itself is a congenial one. Chisholm and Ivey do not pretend that it is. One reason their book is both long and dense is that there is so much to do in order to stand out, during a review that may be very quick even when it is thoughtful, from the thousands of other applicants who are also trying to stand out enough to catch admissions officers’ attention. The admissions process becomes a family affair, and the authors offer occasional “parent tip” boxes to suggest ways in which the whole family can help. Some of these involve what to do, such as trying to “make the family schedule fit the college admissions timeline” rather than the other way around; others say things not to do: do not be a coauthor of the application; and do not become an administrative assistant by typing everything up, since the application process should help students develop skills they will need after admission.

     Most of the book, though, is aimed firmly at students, and wow, can it seem overwhelming! Even something as simple, on the surface, as the comment that “your application should tell your story,” leads to an admonition to “think like an admissions officer” and then discover your story – and tell it by attention to demographics in the first sentence, words rather than numbers in the second, impact in the third, and so on. Oh – and that is just in the first draft. How to Prepare a Standout College Application is simply packed with detailed, highly useful advice from start to finish, including some that students may find surprising. For example, many who have faced hardship make that the topic of their self-revealing presentation; but while that can make sense in some circumstances, Chisholm and Ivey point out that “no matter how admirable it is that you overcame adversity x, that experience alone doesn’t make you qualified for a selective college. You still need to demonstrate that you have the knowledge and skills to excel at high-level academic work.” This neatly deflates the sense of entitlement that some students have because they have indeed lived through hardships greater than those faced by most other applicants.

     The level of detail in this book is impressive throughout – even to the point of suggesting what sort of E-mail address to use on an application (one that is “worthy of a serious candidate for admission to a top US college,” not one that tries to be “cute, clever, or political”). But because of the detail, the book may well be as off-putting in its way as the application process itself is in its. The authors suggest keeping How to Prepare a Standout College Application always at hand throughout the application marathon, so you can refer to it whenever you need to, and that is good if somewhat self-serving advice (not to mention potentially inconvenient: the book runs 340 oversize pages). Even if you do keep it close by, though, you will do well – whether you are a student or a student’s parent – to read through it with some attentiveness at least once before plunging into the entire application morass. And that means upping the estimated time investment for college applications to, say, 110 hours. Maybe even 120.

(+++) SPECIALIZED SENSITIVITY

Greenhorn. By Anna Olswanger. Illustrations by Miriam Nerlove. Junebug Books. $17.95.

     A lovely, sensitive little story – not a novel or novella, but a novelette, and barely that – with wide-ranging themes but so narrow a focus that it will have only limited appeal, Greenhorn is the latest of many, many books seeking to capture the Jewish experience of the Holocaust before the very last people who remember it firsthand are gone forever. A lightly fictionalized account of the childhood of real-world people – again, like many similar books – Greenhorn is tender and thoughtful, encapsulating in its microcosmic scope the macrocosmic experiences of an entire people who had been singled out in horrific ways because of their beliefs.

     For Jews, particularly Jews in New York who will understand the many local references (“Daniel snored like the BMT train”), Greenhorn will be a bittersweet journey to a time nearly 70 years ago, when the wounds of the Holocaust – unhealed even today for many – were fresh. It is the simple tale of a boy named Daniel who comes to a yeshiva in New York City in 1946, carrying a small box that he will not stop holding, and of another boy, a stutterer named Aaron, who narrates the book – and who befriends Daniel and tries to protect him from the taunts and bullying of some of the crasser students.

     The mystery of the box’s contents is the only real tension in a book that is essentially an exploration of the varied reactions of young European Jewish boys just after World War II to schooling and life in the New World. Too brief to delve into the experience in detail, Greenhorn relies on small, nicely formed scenes to reveal character: boys offering to play Chinese checkers with Daniel or let him read a Captain Marvel joke book; the school bully repeatedly calling Aaron Gravel Mouth; Daniel, who rarely speaks, being thought rather simple-minded until he reads a passage in Aramaic, Yiddish and Hebrew; and the line, “Friends don’t keep secrets from each other,” which inevitably becomes the book’s climactic saying.

     It is all terribly earnest, terribly well-meaning and terribly meaningful to the cloistered community at which it is aimed. Greenhorn is an inward-focused book for Jews who just cannot get enough of Holocaust and post-Holocaust stories, for New York Jews still feeling close ties to their city’s post-World War II history, for now-elderly Jews wanting a chapbook to help communicate the feelings and events of a still-overwhelming time to today’s children – who are far more likely, outside the Orthodox communities, to be focused on electronics and reality shows than on kids’ behavior in the mid-1940s. Anna Olswanger succeeds, in fewer than three dozen pages, in bringing a small slice of a now-long-ago time to life, and Miriam Nerlove’s illustrations complement the text very well indeed. The book reaches out solely to a small, insular community, but within that community will surely be found to be heartfelt, attentive and warm.

(++++) BARE-BONES MAHLER

Mahler: Symphony No. 4, arranged by Erwin Stein; Debussy: Prélude à l-après-midi d’un faune. Sónia Grané, soprano; Royal Academy of Music Soloists Ensemble conducted by Trevor Pinnock. Linn Records. $22.99.

Mahler: Des Knaben Wunderhorn. Maarten Konigsberger, baritone; Ed Spanjaard, piano. Quintone. $19.99.

     Despite the gigantism of Mahler’s orchestras, his scoring always has a certain chamber-music quality to it. He uses the numerous instruments not only or even primarily to create vast swells of sound in the Richard Strauss manner but to allow him to extract subtleties from specific parts of the orchestra and even from individual instruments within sections. As a result, Erwin Stein’s 1920 arrangement of Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 for 14 instruments and solo soprano has a certain logic and rightness to it (although only 13 instrumental players are listed in Trevor Pinnock’s performance). The arrangement was made for Arnold Schoenberg’s short-lived “Society for Private Musical Performances,” which presented distinctive works by contemporary composers including both Mahler and Strauss as well as Ravel, Reger, Bartók and others. Harmonium, piano, and a few strings and winds comprised the society’s ensemble; hence Stein’s approach to the Mahler Fourth. Not surprisingly – indeed, intentionally – the arrangement lays forth the skeleton of the work and effectively displays its inner logic, even while giving short shrift to the big climaxes of the first and third movements, which sound wan. The tradeoff is scarcely perfect but is quite fascinating, especially in Pinnock’s poised and carefully balanced reading, which pays particular attention to details that sometimes get lost in full-orchestra performances – such as the scordatura violin in the second movement. Soprano Sónia Grané is a significant plus, too, singing with very little vibrato and just the sort of wild-eyed, childlike wonder that is appropriate for Das himmlisches leben in the finale. Although much of Mahler’s brilliant orchestral color is indubitably missing here, what takes its place is a kind of stark beauty that is revelatory of the scaffolding on which Mahler erected this last of his symphonies tied to the poetry collection Des Knaben Wunderhorn. More than a curiosity although less than the sort of work to which Mahler lovers will want to return frequently, Stein’s sensitively scaled arrangement brings forth elements of Mahler that are always there but that tend to disappear beneath the excellence of his orchestrations. And coupling the symphony with Debussy’s Afternoon of a Faun makes for a highly intriguing CD: it turns out that Mahler and Debussy share more sensibilities than might at first be evident, for all that Mahler was scarcely an Impressionist (and Debussy hated being called one). The delicacy with which Debussy’s well-known work proceeds turns out to have more in common with the feelings underlying Mahler’s third and fourth movements than might be expected – indeed, more than would likely be noticed were it not for Stein’s small-ensemble arrangement.

     The Wunderhorn symphonies draw on a larger corpus of songs that Mahler set in brilliant orchestral arrangements – and those in turn are part of a still larger collection compiled by Achim von Arnim and Clemens Brentano, a collection that ran to 723 songs when published in 1808. Mahler set 24 of the songs in all, his orchestrations so skillful that it is easy to forget that his original settings were in the traditional lied mode for voice and piano. Indeed, the piano versions of the songs sound rather pale to anyone who knows the orchestral ones, even when the piano is as skillfully played as it is by Ed Spanjaard. Also, the voice-and-piano songs place a particularly high burden on the singer, who – as in many other lieder – must use all his powers of communicativeness in a way that is quite different from the one required in the orchestral versions, where the instruments carry much of the emotional freight. Unfortunately, Maarten Konigsberger falls down on this level, resulting in a (+++) CD despite the quality of Konigsberger’s voice and Spanjaard’s accompaniment. The Wunderhorn songs can be sung in any order, but there is little attention paid here to putting them together in a logical sequence – the songs cover many moods, here thrown off more or less at random. And Konigsberger’s emoting tends to be overdone, with his voice rising uncomfortably toward falsetto again and again and his attempts at seriousness simply falling flat, as in Lied des Verfolgten im Turm (the final song here – a decidedly odd placement). In addition to overindulging in some of the songs’ emotions, Konigsberger downplays the effects of other pieces, being, for example, entirely too matter-of-fact in the eerie and deliberately overdone Revelge. It is nice to hear a few of the less frequently recorded songs, such as Aus! Aus! and Selbstgefühl, but most of the songs here have often been recorded to better effect than this. Unlike the Stein arrangement of Mahler’s Fourth, the voice-and-piano versions of the Wunderhorn songs are Mahler’s own, and predate the orchestral versions. But they sound like reductions from the orchestral form of the songs, and while that can give them the same clarity and precision as Stein’s version of the symphony, in the case of this recording the songs, despite their manifold beauties, merely seem pale.

(++++) THE ROMANTIC TEMPERAMENT

Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsodies for Orchestra, Nos. 1-6. Orchester Wiener Akademie conducted by Martin Haselböck. CPO. $16.99.

Mendelssohn: Symphonies Nos. 4 (“Italian”) and 5 (“Reformation”). Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Charles Munch. United Classics. $12.99.

Ferdinand Ries: Piano Sonatas and Sonatinas, Volume 6—Sonatina for Piano Duet in C Major, Op. 6; Sonata for Piano Duet in B-flat Major, Op. 47; Sonata for Piano Duet in A Major, Op. 160. Susan Kagan and Vassily Primakov, piano. Naxos. $9.99.

     Grand sweep, intense and often overdone emotion, and a certain sprawl beyond the limits of formal structure are generally considered characteristics of the Romantic repertoire – and indeed are present in many works of the era. However, the notion that Romantic music is somehow unsubtle, inevitably wearing its heart on its sleeve, is an overstatement that is often (although admittedly not always) unfair to composers of the time. These are thoughts engendered by Martin Haselböck’s poised, elegant and very musicianly performances of the six orchestrated Hungarian Rhapsodies by Liszt (the orchestrations being by Franz Doppler and the composer, apparently working in tag-team manner). These are among Liszt’s flashiest orchestral works, and they have considerable surface-level charm that is often the only impression they leave behind after a performance. Not so here. Orchester Wiener Akademie performs the pieces on original 19^th-century instruments or modern copies – with a few older, 18^th-century instruments thrown in for good measure – and this is one reason the Hungarian Rhapsodies here have a more-mellow sound then in modern-instrument performances. But Haselböck’s way with the music is an even bigger reason. He takes these pieces seriously, studiously avoiding the ebullience that is so much in evidence in most performances and tending to select tempos, even in the friss sections, that are slower and more stately than usual. The result is that, for example, the “Carnival in Pest” (No. 6 of the orchestrated rhapsodies) is celebratory without being raucous, while “Héroïde élégiaque" (No. 5) does have heroic as well as elegiac moments. In truth, Haselböck’s approach takes some getting used to, particularly in the famously exuberant No. 2 – a certain intensity and forthright oomph is missing, not only here but elsewhere in the set, and the fact that it is clearly missing by design does not stop a listener from periodically mourning its absence. But the fact is that Haselböck clearly believes that the Hungarian Rhapsodies are serious music, not light-musical throwaways intended for pop concerts; and in that he is clearly correct, based on Liszt’s own intentions for these works. It is unlikely that this CPO recording will be most people’s first choice for a full set of the orchestral rhapsodies, but when the surface-level brightness of many other readings starts to fade, this one will remain front-and-center and even, indeed, gain considerable stature.

     Stature and grandeur were clearly on the mind of Charles Munch (1891-1968) when he recorded Mendelssohn’s “Italian” and “Reformation” symphonies in 1958 and 1957, respectively – the versions just re-released by United Classics. These symphonies, especially No. 4, tend to get fleet, often lighthearted interpretations – yes, even the “Reformation,” whose underlying topic is as serious as they come, even though Mendelssohn did not here create a deeply intense work (perhaps one reason he was never satisfied with the symphony). To Munch, these are  big works, not in length – neither reaches the half-hour mark – but in seriousness of purpose, and he uses the full force of the Boston Symphony Orchestra to give them as grand a scale as they can have. This is partly because of performance standards of the 1950s – which, among other things, eschewed exposition repeats, an unfortunate circumstance – and partly because of Munch’s own predilections. These are heartfelt readings that largely make up in elegance what they lack in intimacy. Munch’s approach is more successful in No. 5, to which he brings a sense of purposeful loftiness, than in No. 4, which tends to be overweighted and insufficiently fleet of foot, particularly in the finale. The playing is quite good, as is the digital remastering, but as a whole this is a (+++) CD that will be of greatest interest to listeners unfamiliar with Munch’s approach to the Romantic repertoire and to his handling of the Boston Symphony – and to ones who are familiar with both and will welcome a chance to hear them on CD.

     There has been little familiarity in recent times with the work of Ferdinand Ries, who is generally considered “proto-Romantic” even though his career and compositions reached well into the Romantic era, with his Sonata for Piano Duet in A Major, Op. 160, dating to exactly the same time as Mendelssohn’s Symphonies Nos. 4 and 5. Ries in fact grafted Romantic  approaches and techniques onto what was essentially a Classical formal style, albeit one heavily influenced  by Beethoven, the association with whom provides Ries with more fame than does his own music. Susan Kagan recorded all the Ries solo-piano sonatas for Naxos on five notable CDs, and now adds, as a sort of appendix, the three Ries sonatas for piano duet – one piano, four hands. She and Vassily Primakov perform than with élan, and they are certainly attractive to the point of being a must-have for those who bought the earlier Naxos CDs. But in strictly musical terms, there is less here than meets the eye (or the ear). The Sonatina for Piano Duet in C Major, Op. 6 is not a particularly early work, despite its opus number (Ries’ numbering is extremely confusing); it is more of a teaching sonata, somewhat along the lines of Mozart’s K. 545, and runs through four nicely formed and technically unchallenging movements in less than eight minutes. The Sonata for Piano Duet in B-flat Major, Op. 47 is an earlier piece, with particularly well-balanced parts for the two pianists, and with no real attempt at depth: the slow movement is quite short and functions mainly as an interlude. The most interesting work here by far is Op. 160, which shows both Ries’ considerable strengths and his never-conquered weaknesses. The first two movements are very large indeed – the first is longer than the entire Op. 47 and twice the length of Op. 6 – and show Ries at his most intense and expressive, with improvisatory elements and other distinct signs of Romantic temperament. But the third movement does not fit with the first two. Ries simply changes gears and presents a bright, high-spirited finale that does not so much sweep away the emotions of the first two movements as ignore them. It is well done and, on its own, a pleasure to hear, but Op. 160 as a whole ends up as a disappointment, the potential of the first two movements being ignored by a finale that feels tacked-on. This is a (++++) CD for those who found the first five volumes of this Naxos series congenial and who want to hear some very fine piano-duet playing, but musically it is a (+++) disc that shows why Ries never really attained the status of a first-rank composer.

(++++) MEMORY AND BEYOND

The Ocean at the End of the Lane. By Neil Gaiman. William Morrow. $25.99.

     Deaths unlock the past and its mysteries in Neil Gaiman’s elegantly written new fairytale for adults – decidedly for adults. The Ocean at the End of the Lane is the fictional memoir of an unnamed middle-aged protagonist, and “unnamed” is important, since the characters whose names are given are quite different in type and in kind from those whose names are not. The narrator has returned to Sussex, where he lived as a child, to attend the funeral of an equally unnamed family member (there are hints that it is his father); and he finds himself wandering through childhood haunts – and haunting they do turn out to be. The story moves back, back, from the human death that sets it in motion to the death when the narrator was age seven of his beloved kitten, run over by a car driven by a lodger who then, for reasons not directly related to the kitten’s death, himself commits suicide.

     Three deaths in 17 pages, and Gaiman is just getting started. There is also what many children would consider a fate worse than death in those first pages, a seventh birthday party to which no one comes – not one single person – although the narrator, a lonely child, is not deeply affected, taking the “boxed set of Narnia books” he receives as a gift upstairs to soothe and guide himself: “Books were safer than other people anyway.” But maybe not this book.

     As an adult, the narrator – about whom, really, we learn remarkably little everyday information – does something relating somehow to art, and has no romantic attachments or, apparently, attachments of other sorts. “Memories were waiting at the edges of things, beckoning to me,” says the narrator early in the book, and The Ocean at the End of the Lane is about the memories of childhood, the things that happened and the ones that could not possibly have happened but nevertheless did. The narrator’s move from the mundane realities of adult life and a ceremony marking its end to a childhood fraught with possibility, beauty and terror happens so quickly and so subtly that readers will find themselves pulled in deeply – as into, yes, an ocean – almost before they realize that the tides have hold of them.

     The “ocean” of the title is, on a mundane level, merely a duck pond, but it is indeed oceanic, not only through the magic with which the narrator is connected because of the girl who labels it “ocean,” 11-year-old Lettie Hempstock – whose name we do know, rather emphatically, and that is significant – but also in the sense of the oceanic depths unlocked within and around the narrator by his returning memories of his seven-year-old self and his onetime friend and guide. Where Lettie guides him is an important element of the book, as is how she does so. And the where and how become significant facets of a story in which Gaiman guides his readers and pulls them into the depths.

     There is love in this little story – and it is little, quite easy to read in a single sitting and probably inevitably to be read that way, so involving does it quickly become. There is faith, too, the faith of childhood and the lost faith of the adult, perhaps recapturable to at least some extent through a visit to one’s past. There is something redemptive to the story as well, although not redemptive in any religious sense. The sense here is that we are all of us children inside, really, and that that is a good thing, a thing to be treasured, a thing that explains much about how the world works and where we all fit within it.

     There is also danger here, old and magical danger in which a seven-year-old believes implicitly but which an adult, even one containing a seven-year-old’s sensibilities, must resolutely deny. Indeed, the gulf between childhood and the adult world is the underlying theme of this story – or one of the themes – because the narrator’s family’s unawareness of the danger is part of what makes the tale frightening. And it is frightening, on an existential level that laps over from the world of magic into that of space, time, black holes and the frontiers of scientific knowledge – which, when you come right down to it, have a great deal that is magical about them. “The reality I knew was a thin layer of icing on a great dark birthday cake writhing with grubs and nightmares and hunger,” the narrator comes to realize, and thoughtful readers will realize this with him. It is not a particularly comforting realization.

     In such works as Coraline and The Graveyard Book, Gaiman has again and again pulled back the shroud that keeps the perceptions of childhood separate from those of adults. Both those books, like The Ocean at the End of the Lane, draw deeply on myth and fairytale and the world of maybe. Maybe the duck pond really is an ocean. Maybe Lettie’s family really can see atoms, manipulate bacteria, make the moon full every night, remember the Big Bang. Maybe the narrator’s loneliness and fear in childhood (he tells us that he always slept with a light on and the door open) make him vulnerable to terrors that are not really there – or maybe they enable him to see and experience things that a less-sensitive child, or an adult, would miss. Certainly we know from the references to the Narnia books and to Lewis Carroll that the narrator is, or was, someone prone to losing himself, or perhaps finding himself, in fantasy, to finding it more appealing and somehow more “real” than reality. But this begs the question of where the one leaves off and the other begins – a question to which Gaiman returns again and again, in this book as in many others. The Ocean at the End of the Lane is by and large a serious story, its occasional glimmers of amusement coming across as somewhat unnecessary stylistic sparkles, for all their inherent attractiveness. It is ultimately a book about loss – but not so much the loss experienced through a funeral as the deeper and more profound loss, more profound because largely unacknowledged, of the ability to reach out and touch the extraordinary. That ability is what childhood has and adulthood lacks, Gaiman tells us – here and elsewhere. And it is a heartrending circumstance, made all the more so by our adult inability to perceive it. Unless, of course, we join Gaiman on a journey to reconnect with the child whom we all carry inside.

(++++) GO, NATE!

Big Nate: Game On! By Lincoln Peirce. Andrews McMeel. $9.99.

     What makes Lincoln Peirce’s Big Nate – the 11-to-12-year-old central character of the eponymous comic strip – so much fun to read about is that he is at the same time completely self-unaware and surprisingly endearing. Nate, a sixth-grader and budding cartoonist (as Peirce says he himself was at the same point in his life), worries as much about being in a “smack-talking slump” as he does about playing basketball; gets as much satisfaction from being hit by a pitch and thus breaking up the opposing team’s perfect game as he would if his team could actually play baseball well; panics when he cannot find his lucky socks before practice; finds himself on a team called the Doormats; needs to shovel snow so he can find the ball during spring training; and has a series of run-ins with always-unseen Chester, the ultimate bully, who apparently weighs 600 pounds and has nicknames such as “the hammer” (“because he beat up the wood shop teacher”).

     A lot of these incidents may be vaguely reminiscent of classic Peanuts strips, including the important unseen character and the desperate-loser teams; and certainly Peirce (pronounced “purse”) is aware of Charles Schulz’ classic productions – as is every modern cartoonist. But despite occasional vague references to the Schulz ethos, Big Nate has a very different sensibility. For one thing, there are plenty of adults in the strip – ranging from the helpful ones (the primary sports coach) to the crazily intense ones (“Coach John,” fat and loud and always screaming at the “ladies” on the boys’ teams) to the purely inept ones (Nate’s father, who in one strip turns Nate’s baseball uniform pink by washing the whites with a red sweatshirt – making readers, if not Nate, grateful for the fact that Big Nate: Game On! is in full color throughout).

     Basketball, baseball and soccer – the three sports in which Nate participates in this book – all bring out his overly generous opinion of himself; his worries and peculiarities (such as his fear of cats); and his proclivities where his teammates are concerned (he feels constant rivalry for the super-nice Artur, so when he yells “Let’s Go” to each of his soccer teammates by name, Peirce uses very small letters when Nate is “encouraging” Artur and very large ones for everyone else). Nate is generally good-natured – one of his redeeming qualities. But things tend to go wrong for him when he isn’t, as when Artur scores the winning soccer goal through luck (a ball bounces off his head) and Nate later complains about Artur’s never-ending luck to the coach – not knowing that Artur is nearby, hears everything and is truly hurt because “I thought we were friends.” Or then there is Nate’s determination to prevent other teams from scoring when he is goalkeeper, leading to him calling himself “Mister Zero,” leading to his friends complimenting him on the nickname “because you can apply it to so many parts of your life.”

     In reality, though, Nate is not a zero – just a rather mixed-up almost-teenager whose hormones have not fully kicked in yet (although they are getting there) and whose sense of his own importance is somewhat overdone. Peirce takes that overdoneness and overdoes its presentation just enough so that even when his team loses – and even when Nate is to blame for the loss – readers will consistently find that Nate himself is a winner.

(++++) THE QUALITY OF SOLOISTS

Brahms: Sonatas Nos. 1-3 for Violin and Piano. Sergey Khachatryan, violin; Lusine Khachatryan, piano. Naïve. $16.99.

Nielsen: Concerto for Flute and Orchestra; Griffes: Poem for Flute and Orchestra; Reinecke: Concerto for Flute and Orchestra; Chaminade: Concertino for Flute and Orchestra; Tchaikovsky: Largo and Allegro for Flute and Strings; Poulenc: Flute Sonata; Rimsky-Korsakov: The Flight of the Bumblebee. Sharon Bezaly, flute; Residentie Orkest Den Haag conducted by Neeme Järvi. BIS. $21.99 (SACD).

Hindemith: Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by C.M. von Weber; Concerto for Violin and Orchestra; Concert Music for String Orchestra and Brass Instruments. Midori, violin; NDR Sinfonieorchester conducted by Christoph Eschenbach. Ondine. $16.99.

     A performance in which two high-quality virtuosi tackle the Brahms Violin Sonatas can be fraught with peril if the players use the opportunity to showcase themselves and compete for attention. Or it can be fraught with pure pleasure if the performers cooperate fully and subsume their individual personalities into a totality that is even greater than the sum of its parts – as brother and sister Sergey and Lusine Khachatryan do in their new recording for Naïve. These are readings of great warmth, great skill and considerable understanding, the virtuosity of the players being a given and therefore not the central element of the very high-quality music-making. From the opening of the first sonata, marked Vivace ma non troppo and played here with more focus on the non troppo than the vivace, the blend of sound and easy, conversational back-and-forth of thematic material produce readings that are tightly integrated and emotionally compelling from start to finish. The Khachatryans see the first sonata as expansive, even leisurely, spinning out its beauties to fine effect throughout. The second sonata, least frequently played of the three, here gets its full due, especially in the amabile sense of the first-movement Allegro amabile – this is a warm and loving performance that lets the music ebb and flow unrushed and with close attention to detail. Most impressive of all is the third sonata, the one with the widest scope and largest variety of moods. Here the Khachatryans carefully explore the depths of the Adagio, remain quite cognizant of the con sentimento marking of the third movement (Un poco presto e con sentimento), and conclude with a Presto agitato that, although it certainly is agitated, brings with it a feeling of accomplishment and the end of a remarkable emotional journey. The excellence with which both performers handle their parts – which includes the ease with which each backs off when the other needs to move into the forefront – produces a wholly effective, frequently compelling reading of all three sonatas.

     The new BIS disc featuring flautist Sharon Bezaly is effective, too, although it is more scattered than focused – the inevitable result of mixing Nielsen, Tchaikovsky and Poulenc with Charles Tomlinson Griffes, Carl Reinecke and Cécile Chaminade. The SACD’s avowed purpose is to showcase Bezaly’s talents, and that it does very well indeed, although not all the music is at an equally high level. For example, Reinecke’s work, the longest here, is nicely constructed but not particularly consequential, while Nielsen’s has some attractively elusive qualities that Bezaly brings out with considerable skll, and Poulenc’s is atmospheric and works quite well in an orchestration by Lennox Berkeley. The brief Tchaikovsky offering, in an adaptation by Ernest Sauter, is pleasant, and Flight of the Bumblebee is a very short and inevitably amusing encore in an arrangement by Kalevi Aho. The infrequently heard pieces by Griffes and Chaminade are pleasant surprises: both use the flute well and idiomatically, nicely exploring the instrument’s capabilities and nuances without stretching the performer too much. From start to finish, Bezaly receives supple and well-balanced support from the Residentie Orkest Den Haag under Neeme Järvi. There is no particular rhyme or reason for the inclusion of these specific works here, much less in the specific order in which they appear on the disc. But they do create collectively an attractive portrait of Bezaly as performer as well as a pleasant mini-survey of writing for the flute in the Romantic era and beyond, with Poulenc’s late sonata (1956-57) bringing the instrumentation into modern times.

     Yet nothing on the Bezaly disc sounds as craggily modern as the works of Hindemith on a new Ondine release, even though the latest Hindemith piece (Symphonic Metamorphosis) dates to 1943, while the Violin Concerto was written in 1939 and the Concert Music in 1930. Hindemith has a density and forward-looking sound in his music even though he never fully adopted the approach of the Second Viennese School. The soloist on this CD, violinist Midori, handles the concerto with sureness and sensitivity, exploring its solo part – which can sometimes sound awkward – with clarity and concentration. The concerto comes across as more fully formed in this performance than it does in some others, the differences in its three movements being as clear as the similarities among them. Christoph Eschenbach is an erratic conductor, but he takes to Hindemith’s music and to the NDR Sinfonieorchester very well, accompanying Midori with care and a fine sense of style – and also producing very effective readings of the other two works heard here. Eschenbach sometimes rises to the occasion in live performance, as these live recordings indicate: his interpretations are pointed, well-crafted and thoughtful, with particularly good orchestral balance and some real flair in the orchestra’s fine brass section in the Concert Music. Hindemith, like Max Reger at a slightly earlier time, is a composer whose works can seem turgid and difficult to approach. But Eschenbach here makes them understandable and clear – complex and at times academic, to be sure, but well-thought-out and particularly strong in their use of and contrast among the various orchestral sections. Hindemith can be a difficult composer to like, but Eschenbach certainly shows him as one to admire.

(+++) EXPLORATIONS

Marcel Tyberg: Symphony No. 2; Piano Sonata No. 2. Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by JoAnn Falletta; Fabio Bidini, piano. Naxos. $9.99.

Pierre-Alexandre Monsigny: Le Roi et le fermier. Thomas Michael Allen, William Sharp, Dominique Labelle, Thomas Dolié, Jeffrey Thompson, Delores Ziegler, Yulia Van Doren, David Newman, Tony Boutté; Opera Lafayette Orchestra conducted by Ryan Brown. Naxos. $9.99.

Cimarosa: Opera Overtures, Volume 3—Le astuzie femminili Nos. 1 and 2; Artemisia, regina di Caria; Il mercato di Malmantile; Cajo Mario; I due baroni di Roccazzura; Le stravaganze d’amore; I nemici generosi; L’eroe cinese. Sinfonia Finlandia Jyväskylä conducted by Patrick Gallois. Naxos. $9.99.

     Uncovering little-known music can be a worthwhile and pleasant endeavor even if the music itself turns out not to be of absolute top quality. JoAnn Falletta and the Buffalo Philharmonic are in the forefront of discovering and rediscovering quite a bit of “misplaced” music, and particularly that of Marcel Tyberg (1893-1944), who died during the Holocaust but whose music remained in the hands of a Buffalo family that eventually brought it to Falletta’s attention. This was fortuitous, since Falletta has both the passion and the wherewithal to devote time and energy to bringing Tyberg’s work into the concert hall and onto recordings. Having previously recorded his Third Symphony for Naxos, she now turns to his Second, a work from 1927 that in parts sounds remarkably like the symphonies of Bruckner, for better or worse. The striding opening of the symphony’s first movement, much of its third-movement Scherzo, and some parts of its finale clearly resemble the work of Bruckner, who had died in 1896 – although there is no indication that these are deliberate homages. Tyberg was no innovator: he used the orchestra effectively and brought sensitivity to his emotional expression, but his work tends to sound like a memoir of an age gone by rather than a product of a unique voice. The bucolic and rhapsodic elements of his Second Symphony coexist rather well, and the first three movements certainly seem to build toward an effective final argument. But the finale is odd, a Preludium und Fuge that harks back more than adequately to Baroque models but does not fit very well with what has gone before – and then includes an unexpected scherzo section that seems out of place. Even when as well-played as it is here, Tyberg’s Second is more of an intriguing work than a thoroughly convincing one. As for the second of his two piano sonatas, which dates to 1934, it is a large-scale piece (lasting more than half an hour) that alternates urgency and lyricism within, once again, what is essentially a 19^th-century framework, here with hints of Wagnerian rather than Brucknerian influence. An intermezzo-like section within the Scherzo is a highlight, and here the finale is genuinely climactic, thanks in part to the intense concentration that Fabio Bidini brings to the entire performance. Tyberg’s music is certainly worth reviving, although it would be overstating things to describe it as in any sense groundbreaking.

     On the other hand, Le Roi et le fermier, a 1762 opera by the long-lived Pierre-Alexandre Monsigny (1729-1817), did break some new ground in its time; and just as Tyberg has a strong advocate in Falletta, so Monsigny and other neglected composers of early French opera have strong and effective proponents in Ryan Brown and the singers of Opera Lafayette. Le Roi et le fermier is a comedy, with serious overtones, about a Sherwood Forest encounter between a king and a farmer. It mixes a certain amount of social consciousness and mild questioning of class stratification with more-straightforward comic incidents that involve mistaken identities and standard punishment for a standard stage villain. What is not standard is the music, which in parts looks ahead toward the Romantic era, notably in a storm scene that concludes the first act and helps bridge the way to a very different setting for Act II. There are a number of interesting elements in the opera, such as separate songs praising country living by the farmer and his beloved – followed by an aria in which the king, who at this point is thought to be only a member of the king’s court, sings of a ruler attaining happiness by giving to his subjects all that is expected of him. The opera contains some well-considered stage business – a gunshot, a hunt that is well-portrayed in Monsigny’s music – and a number of engaging arias, all of which the Opera Lafayette performers deliver with enthusiasm and skill. It is easy to see why the attractive tunes and subtly subversive libretto of Le Roi et le fermier made it popular in its time. If its theme of royalty and country folk is dated today, its bubbly music is certainly not, and the well-played and nicely sung Opera Lafayette performance – the troupe’s ninth recording for Naxos – gives Monsigny his due, and will undoubtedly encourage listeners to wonder what other gems of early French opera remain to be brought to the modern stage by this fine ensemble.

     Naxos has an unusually strong commitment to out-of-the-ordinary musical sequences – not only Tyberg’s music and the productions of Opera Lafayette, but also a series such as the opera overtures of Domenico Cimarosa (1749-1801). And the Cimarosa releases to date are unusual even among Naxos projects, since each of the them has been performed by a different orchestra and conductor. The first volume offered the Nicolaus Esterházy Sinfonia under Alessandro Amoretti; the second, the Toronto Chamber Orchestra under Kevin Mallon; and the third comes from Sinfonia Finlandia Jyväskylä conducted by Patrick Gallois. These are all fine chamber groups with skillful conductors, and Naxos may plan to have even more such ensembles participate in this project, since Cimarosa wrote more than 65 operas and sometimes created more than one overture for the same work (as is the case with Le astuzie femminili on the new CD). Unfortunately, the good playing, skilled conducting and generally top-notch ensemble work of the performers cannot conceal the fact that Cimarosa’s overtures tend to blend together. Rossini is sometimes accused of writing nearly indistinguishable overtures, but that is generally untrue – especially given the fact that many of his overtures include themes from the operas they introduce. The charge makes far more sense when leveled at Cimarosa, whose overtures were all pure curtain-raisers, unrelated to the music of the operas to which they were attached – and Cimarosa, like Rossini, was not above using the same overture for several stage works or cannibalizing one overture in creating another. The result of all this is that the pleasant overtures heard on this CD, like the ones on the two prior discs, are just that – pleasant. But they are not particularly distinguished musically or from each other, for all that they are very well-constructed and handle the orchestra with sure skill (although not a great deal of innovation). The careful listener will detect differences of form and structure among the pieces – and any listener will notice the difference in length, with pieces on the current CD ranging from four minutes to 12. But whether an opera is comic or serious, whether it is relatively early Cimarosa or relatively late, its overture tends to sound a great deal like every other one. There is certainly a recognizable “Cimarosa sound,” but this composer’s overtures offer insufficient variety to make this Naxos series an enjoyable acquisition for anyone but listeners who particularly enjoy well-formed short-form 18^th-century orchestral pieces.