(+++) WHAT “FAMILY” MEANS

Madapple. By Christina Meldrum. Knopf. $16.99.

Love Me Tender. By Audrey Couloumbis. Random House. $16.99.

      An unusually well-written first novel whose complexities and peculiar structure will likely be off-putting to some of the teenagers at whom it is aimed – although they may well attract those teens’ parents – Christina Meldrum’s Madapple forces readers to confront questions about the meaning of family, the meaning of religion, and even (it is not too sweeping to say) the meaning of life. Told partly in the voice of Aslaug, heroine of the novel, and partly in the more mundane voices of other characters, the book is part murder mystery, part birth mystery, part courtroom drama, part exposition of the plant world, and part religious exploration. Meldrum’s background helps explain the odd mixture of elements: she received a bachelor’s degree in religious studies and political science, then went to Harvard Law School and became involved in international legal affairs before becoming a litigator. Still, her background could not have predicted how well she would weave together the threads of this decidedly unusual novel. Even the plot is difficult to describe. The book opens 20 years before the story’s main events, as a pregnant young Danish woman named Maren Hellig flees her family to live in the wilds of Maine. The thing is, Maren tells her older sister that, despite her pregnancy, she never had a lover – raising immediate and obvious issues of an Immaculate Conception, real or imagined, and Christ figures. But Meldrum does not take the book along an easy road. She has Maren raise her daughter, Aslaug, in isolation, teaching her ancient languages and explaining about the ins and outs of botany (the chapters’ titles are plant names). Then Maren suddenly dies; and Aslaug comes to live with her aunt, a preacher named Sara, and her cousins, facing predictable (and some unpredictable) difficulties of fitting in and familial ties. Then there is more death – and Aslaug is put on trial for murder, including an accusation of matricide. The story structure is intricate, and some readers will find its switching among time periods choppy; nor will the plant lore be universally appealing. The style can take some getting used to: “The preacher’s [eyes] are the yellow-green of wild leek – a color pearls would be if God were a child.” And Meldrum does construct a conclusion focusing directly on the book’s target age range, creating a sweetness-and-light ending that belies (and demeans) the seriousness of the discussions of major religious and philosophical questions throughout the rest of the book. Still, parents who like a challenging read, and advanced teenagers seeking something decidedly out of the ordinary, will find Madapple a sensitive puzzler of a tale and a book that is very difficult to put down.

      Love Me Tender also addresses the question of what makes a family, but Audrey Couloumbis’ quirkiness here is more conventional – and more humorous – than Meldrum’s deeper but dourer look at big questions. Couloumbis, whose Getting Near to Baby was a Newbury Honor book in 2000, writes breezily and with a sure hand, in a style that will appeal to the preteens at whom Love Me Tender is targeted. The book’s plot is of the almost-madcap type that conceals bigger issues. Thirteen-year-old Elvira lives in a family that bickers constantly; Elvira herself can’t stand her little sister, Kerrie, and often fights with her mother, Mel. Then Mel gets pregnant again – leading Elvira’s dad, a part-time Elvis impersonator, to storm off to Las Vegas and (Elvira fears) never come back. And then Mel gets a call telling her that her own mother, from whom she has long been estranged, is ill; and so the unlikely trio of Elvira, Mel and Kerrie finds itself on the road to Memphis, where Elvira will discover still more dysfunction – involving her grandmother and her Aunt Clare. Couloumbis manages to make the characters attractive if never really endearing, and she keeps the book tottering on the edge of both silliness and hyperemotionalism without having it fall into either. The balancing act is not completely successful – there are times when a reader may well think “enough already!” as yet another emotional upheaval occurs – but the underlying message about family love does come through the offbeat trappings of the story; and although it is not really a surprise when Elvira’s father does eventually rejoin the family, it is a welcome affirmation of the idea that love, even when it does not conquer all, makes up for quite a lot.

(+++) TWO-LANGUAGE TALES

Sweet Dreams/Dulces Sueños. By Pat Mora. Illustrated by Maribel Suárez. Rayo/HarperCollins. $12.99.

¿El Canguro Tiene Mamá? By Eric Carle. Traducción de Teresa Mlawer. Rayo/HarperCollins. $6.99.

Ana’s Story: A Journey of Hope. By Jenna Bush. HarperTeen. $9.99.

La Historia de Ana: Un Camino Lleno de Esperanza. By Jenna Bush. Translated by Bertha Ruiz de la Concha. HarperTeen. $9.99.

      The United States is already a de facto bilingual English-Spanish country in certain places, such as South Florida, southern California and parts of Texas. Major cities, such as New York, contain important Spanish-speaking areas as well. Although the question of whether bilingualism should be universally accepted, affecting everything from schooling to street signage, is a legitimate one, there is no doubt that it helps native English speakers in many parts of the U.S. if they can speak at least a little Spanish – and books that can help native Spanish speakers learn English serve a real need. The My Family/Mi Familia series is intended to bridge the language gap easily and pleasantly, in both directions, by making simple stories for ages 3-6 available in both languages – an English sentence immediately followed by the same one in Spanish. Sweet Dreams/Dulces Sueños is the second of this planned four-book series, and it works just as well as the first book by the same author and illustrator, Let’s Eat! ¡A Comer! The new book is a going-to-bed story in which Grandma/Abuelita puts three children to bed by giving them kisses and telling them about all the animals going to sleep, such as “Shh, shh, the squirrels are sleeping – Shh, shh…las ardillas están durmiendo.” This is a simple and unchallenging tale, simply told, with pleasant illustrations that can help young children drift off to dreamland in either of two languages, or both.

      Some Spanish-speaking families, or English speakers preferring a simple Spanish-only book, will enjoy Teresa Mlawer’s translation of Eric Carle’s Does a Kangaroo Have a Mother, Too? Published in English in 2000, the book asks simple questions about animal babies and mothers, answering yes – or, in this version, ¡Sí! – to each inquiry about whether this animal or that has a mother. Carle’s always-attractive illustrations are reproduced intact, and the Spanish translation follows the original English closely, all the way to the answer to Carle’s final question about whether all the mothers love their children: Todas las mamas quieren a sus hijitos – a reassuring sentiment in any language.

      There is not much that is reassuring in Jenna Bush’s Ana’s Story, which is now available in paperback and has been issued in both an English edition and a Spanish one. Here the Spanish version is especially welcome, since this is a story from Latin America and may speak especially strongly to Spanish speakers. By now, the tale is well known: Ana is a 17-year-old single mother who is HIV-positive after inheriting the deadly virus from her mother, who died when Ana was very young. Ana’s determination to live with HIV rather than die from it, and to give her daughter a better life than she herself has had, is the sort of heart-tugging true story that easily crosses language (and class) barriers. It was of course the author’s celebrity that first brought her book wide attention, and many of the questions thrown at her during her publicity tours had nothing to do with Ana’s Story. Stripped of its celebrity connection, the book remains a harrowing piece of nonfiction that, unfortunately, adds very little to the debate about HIV, poverty, and the scarcity of health resources in the poorer countries of the world. The book is short, with 290 wide-margin pages, many of them half-blank or filled with well-shot but often irrelevant photos by Mia Baxter. Bush presents an affecting narrative: the bickering relatives, uncaring judicial system and strong determination of Ana as a single mother add up to a story of woe and power. Unfortunately, it is more than a twice-told tale. Entrenched ruling elites, official corruption, indifference to the plight of the poor, lack of interest in or understanding of serious diseases, and diversion of resources (including foreign aid) to line the pockets of thuggish leaders are facts of life and death in countries throughout Latin America, Africa and Asia. The personal details of Ana’s life are well communicated, and the book’s simplistic style should help it reach out even to young readers, in both English and Spanish. But there is no tidy ending here, as Bush herself points out; and there are no suggestions that are likely to prevent other stories like Ana’s from being written again and again by other well-meaning celebrity and non-celebrity authors, year after year after year. Hope alone is not enough to relieve the systemic problems that create so many stories of so many people like Ana. Those problems are more than a pity – they are a disgrace.

(++++) VOICES OF OLD AND OF TODAY

Vivaldi: Orlando Furioso. Anne Desler, mezzo-soprano; Nicki Kennedy, soprano; Marina De Lisa, mezzo-soprano; Lucia Sciannimanico, mezzo-soprano; Luca Dordolo, tenor; Thierry Gregoire, countertenor; Martin Kronthaler, bass-baritone; Cora de Camera Italiano and Modo Antiquo conducted by Federico Maria Sardelli. CPO. $50.99 (3 CDs).

Ay!! Amor: Songs of Love and Songs of Women from the Greater Mediterranean Basin. Françoise Atlan, vocal; Kiya Tabassian, setar; Ziya Tabassian, tombak, def, dayereh and percussion; Saeed Kamjoo, kamâncheh vielle and souroud. ATMA Classique. $16.99.

      The human voice does not have the range and power of the organ, or the delicacy and precision of the flute, but it is nevertheless the voice that is the benchmark against which much music is judged. There is a level at which people whose vocal abilities are modest at best – that is, most of us – are enraptured by those whose abilities are far greater…and we appreciate them in a different way from the way we admire a superb violinist or excellent pianist. Vivaldi, whose operas are going through a welcome period of rediscovery, was particularly aware of the effectiveness of wonderful singing, and he strove – within the strictures of the formats of the works of his era – to provide as much of it as possible. Orlando Furioso, based on Ludovico Ariosto’s 16^th-century epic poem and completed in 1713, is an especially fine example of Vivaldi’s vocal writing – although it is but one of three operas that the composer wrote from the same source (the others are Orlando finto pazzo [1714] and Orlando [1727]). As in Vivaldi’s other operas, and in accordance with practices of the time, the events of the story of Orlando Furioso are told in recitative – principally a narration of many of the exploits of the hero, Orlando, and the tale of the sorceress, Alcina. But the vocal and emotional heart of the opera is in the arias in which the characters express their emotions – arias that (again in accordance with period practices) were often reused by Vivaldi in other operas where similar emotion needed to be expressed. It just so happens that the arias as used in Orlando Furioso fit the story so well that the opera stands above many others in effectiveness. The reason is Vivaldi’s emphasis on the two mismatched couples, whose love comes into conflict with their duty. One matchup is between the Christian Orlando (Anne Desler) and the pagan princess Angelica (Nicki Kennedy), who is eventually removed from the action (and from interference with Orlando’s duties to God and country) when she saves the wounded Saracen knight, Medoro (Luca Dordolo), falls in love, and elopes with him. The other couple in difficulty consists of the female Christian warrior, Bradamante (Lucia Sciannimanico), and the Saracen, Ruggiero (Thierry Gregoire). It is Ruggiero who is taken captive by Alcina (Marina De Lisa) and must be freed, after which he converts to Christianity and he and Bradamante are married. Federico Maria Sardelli leads a performance that contains everything expected of a revival of an 18^th-century opera today: fine playing, a thorough understanding of appropriate performance practices, well-chosen tempos, and plenty of ornamentation in the vocal lines. The performance rises even higher because the singers bring emotional coloration as well as stylistic correctness to their arias, with Desler and Kennedy especially effective and Gregoire in fine countertenor voice. As a celebration of the human voice in Western classical music, Vivaldi’s Orlando Furioso is a major achievement. So is this performance of the opera.

      But although Italy is a Mediterranean nation and the vocal lines of Italian opera represent a pinnacle of a certain type, there are other, very distinct uses of the human voice in and around the Mediterranean, and some of those are explored at length in French-Moroccan singer Françoise Atlan’s CD featuring love songs, and other songs with a female focus, from a variety of cultures that are more or less in Italy’s geographic region – but are very far indeed from the sensibilities of Italian opera. These are mostly songs from the Persian, Iberian, French and Judeo-Spanish trouvère tradition, which dates to the 12^th century and continued until early in the 14^th. This is the world of, most famously, Chrétien de Troyes, but many other poet-composers contributed songs and melodies as well; and although the tradition itself died out long ago, Atlan and the ensemble Constantinople have revived it partly through their performances and partly through composition of new songs for this CD. There is, to Western ears, a decidedly exotic cast to everything here, even though much of the music is European in origin. A main reason is the use of such instruments as the setar and kamâncheh (a bowed string instrument that could never be mistaken for a violin). The mixed use of percussion is attractive here, and some of the songs flow with emotion, but the CD has something of a flavor of exoticism for its own sake; it gets a (+++) rating. Still, as an exploration of high skill in the use of the human voice for purposes very different from those of traditional Western singing, including opera, Ay!! Amor is a fascinating demonstration of just how many ways the vocal instrument within a skilled human being can be used.

(+++) OFF THE BEATEN PATH

Rued Langgaard: Symphony No. 1 in B minor. Danish National Symphony Orchestra/DR conducted by Thomas Dausgaard. Dacapo. $16.99 (SACD).

Haydn: Cello Concerto in C; Tchaikovsky: Pezzo capriccioso; Vaja Azarashvili: Concerto for Cello and Chamber Orchestra; Ginastera: Glosses of Themes of Pau Casals for String Orchestra and String Quintet; Chick Corea: “La Fiesta.” Marie-Elisabeth Hecker and Giorgi Kharadze, cellos; Kremerata Baltica. Profil. $16.99.

20^th Century Guitar—Ulrich Wedlich: Sonata for Guitar; Leo Brouwer: Concerto Elegiaco for Guitar and Orchestra; Carlo Domeniconi: Koyunbaba for Guitar. Friedemann Wuttke, guitar; New Moscow Chamber Orchestra conducted by Igor Zhukov. Profil. $16.99.

      Here are quite a few excellent performances of works that even sophisticated listeners may never seek out, simply because they are unfamiliar with the composers. Rued Langgaard (1893-1952) was a major figure in Danish composing in the early to middle 20^th century. Although he wrote a number of experimental works, he was a very conservative voice through much of his career. His frequent adherence to Romantic tonality and the orchestral approaches of Brahms, Bruckner and Wagner kept him out of step with the times for much of his life; but his works are well-wrought and often quite unusual – the shortest of his 16 numbered symphonies, No. 11, lasts only six minutes. The longest of those numbered symphonies is his first, which runs a full hour and was completed when the composer was just 17. Subtitled “Klippepastoraler” (“Mountain Pastorals”), it feels in part like an extended tone poem (think of Richard Strauss’ slightly later “Alpine Symphony”) and in part like a series of five interconnected tone poems. Thomas Dausgaard and the Danish National Symphony Orchestra/DR give it a strong and forthright performance that cannot conceal the fact that it is somewhat overinflated and overlong. The first and longest movement, subtitled “Surf and Glimpses of Sun,” would stand well on its own as a Lisztian portrait in music, but the symphony as a whole is really quite a lot to absorb, and with all its Sturm und Drang (more Sturm than Drang, actually), it is an impressive but not particularly involving work.

      To get listeners involved in a CD entitled Cello Fiesta! by the orchestra-in-residence of the Kronberg Academy and two young cellists from the academy’s Masters course, there are a couple of well-known pieces – which balance some less-known ones. Haydn’s familiar Cello Concerto and Tchaikovsky’s short and pleasant Pezzo capriccioso both get bright and upbeat readings before this CD moves on to its primary purpose of showcasing 20^th-century cello works. These include Georgian composer Vaja Azarashvili’s one-movement Concerto for Cello and Chamber Orchestra; Argentinian composer Alberto Ginastera’s Glosses of Themes of Pau Casals, written in 1976 in memory of the great cellist (and Ginastera’s good friend) Pablo Casals, and filled with striking contrasts and very unusual sonorities; and an arrangement for two cellos, strings and percussion of La Fiesta by jazz pianist and composer Chick Corea. There is no question that Marie-Elisabeth Hecker (winner of the 2005 International Rostropovich Cello Competition and soloist in the Haydn) and Giorgi Kharadze (the first student offered a Kronberg Academy scholarship, the soloist in the Tchaikovsky and Azarashvili, and cellist in the quintet for the Ginastera) are significant up-and-coming cello talents from whom we are likely to hear a great deal more over the years. Everything here is played very well, if not always very idiomatically: Hecker’s technique is a bit Romantic for the Haydn, and Kharadze has some rough spots as well as considerable eloquence.

      The CD called 20^th Century Guitar does not make any attempt to lure in casual listeners with works that they may already know. All three pieces here are likely to be unfamiliar to most listeners, although their techniques and sounds are not especially out of the ordinary for works of their time. Ulrich Wedlich and Carlo Domeniconi offer pieces that partake both of classical music and of other forms. Wedlich’s sonata is one of those pieces that hover and meditate rather than moving toward any definite destination. Domeniconi’s Koyunbaba, named for a sainted hermit who lived in the south of Turkey, also sounds evanescent and intermittently magical. In contrast, Leo Brouwer’s Concerto Elegiaco, the only work here that uses an orchestra, offers strong and often fascinating sonic and rhythmic contrasts, with guitarist Friedemann Wuttke weaving in and out of a full string section and a large battery of percussion that includes kettle drums, tom tom, marimba and glockenspiel. Wuttke plays all these pieces with knowing style and an imaginative approach, but that does not necessarily mean that these works will be attractive additions to the collections of listeners who are not already enamored of classical guitar music.

(++++) FABLES OLD AND FABLES NEW

The Rabbit and the Turtle: Aesop’s Fables Retold and Illustrated by Eric Carle. Orchard Books/Scholastic. $16.99.

Wynken, Blynken, and Nod. By Eugene W. Field. Illustrated by Giselle Potter. Schwartz & Wade. $16.99.

Don’t Bump the Glump! and Other Fantasies. By Shel Silverstein. HarperCollins. $17.

Ella Sets Sail. By Carmela and Steven D’Amico. Arthur A. Levine/Scholastic. $16.99.

      The oldest of fables have life in them yet, and there are plenty of newer ones with manifest charms of their own, as this group of recent releases shows. The Rabbit and the Turtle is a new edition of Eric Carle tales that date back as far as 1976. The 11 stories here are much older, long-familiar ones: the little mouse that saves a powerful lion captured by thieving wolves, leading to the moral, “Friends come in all shapes and sizes”; the mice that decide to bell the cat but cannot figure out who will do so, with the moral, “An idea is not always enough”; and the famous title story, usually called “The Tortoise and the Hare,” with its moral, “Slow and steady wins the race.” Carle’s painted-tissue-paper collages fit the stories wonderfully well and provide both an updating and a high level of amusement. The turtle, for instance, wears a top hat; the rescued lion sports elegant business clothes, while the helpful mouse wears farmer-like overalls; in the story of the grasshopper and the ants, the frivolous grasshopper who fiddled while the ants saved is literally shown with a violin, with the ants in a house decorating a Christmas tree; and so on. Carle’s new approach to these old, old stories keeps them fresh – and a lot of fun.

      Wynken, Blynken, and Nod isn’t quite as old as Aesop’s tales –Eugene W. Field wrote the poem in 1889 – and it is not a story with a moral. But it remains a wonderful bedtime tale, and Giselle Potter’s anthropomorphic moon and almost-identical-triplet title characters keep the work thoroughly charming. A highlight is the two-page illustration of fish, among which appear the words, “The little stars were the herring fish/That lived in that beautiful sea.” This is intended as a tale about Holland – Field originally called it “Dutch Lullaby” – and Potter’s pictures of flowers and of the wooden shoe a-sail in the night sky maintain its legacy. Potter’s moon specifically resembles the one created by early filmmaker Georges Méliès for his famous 1902 silent film, A Trip to the Moon – which Potter cites as one of her inspirations. Families will find that her illustrations inspire young children to sweet and gentle dreams.

      Shel Silverstein’s pictures in Don’t Bump the Glump! are more of the wake-up type. This was Silverstein’s first poetry collection, initially published in 1964, and it wears very well indeed – and looks great in its handsome, full-color new edition. Here you will meet the Quick-Disguising Ginnit, which looks exactly like a man’s hat except for its tiny head and legs; the Zrbangdraldnk, which Silverstein will write about as soon as he figures out how to pronounce it; and the Terrible Feezus: “There is a terrible twenty-foot Feezus./ Shhh…I don’t think he sees us.” Also here are “the Pointy-Peaked Pavarius,/ A creature most gregarious,” and the “Skaverbacked Gritchen/ Who lives in my kitchen.” Silverstein’s drawings are as clever as his rhymes, and even if some of the animals devour readers (or threaten to), kids will love meeting the likes of the Slithergadee, the Skinny Zippity and the Gumplegutch.

      For a much gentler time with a much sweeter animal, kids can turn to Carmela and Steven D’Amico’s latest story of Ella the Elegant Elephant, Ella Sets Sail. This is a fantasy-adventure occasioned by Ella’s temporary loss of her lucky red hat after she lends it to a friend and a gust of wind carries it away. Ella ends up in a boat, trying to fish her hat out of the water; then using the hat as a sail when the wind picks up; then finding herself carried – without her hat – to an island she has never visited before. Poor Ella, suffering through so much bad luck despite her lucky hat – but of course she does get it back, and everything works out just fine. By the end of the book, Ella has realized how lucky she really is – a most pleasant finish to the latest D’Amico fantasy, drawn in a style reminiscent of the Babar books and those of H.A. Rey.

(+++) NEW CARTOONISTS ON THE BLOCK

Cow & Boy. By Mark Leiknes. Andrews McMeel. $12.99.

Watch Your Head. By Cory Thomas. Andrews McMeel. $12.99.

100% Whole Grin Rose Is Rose. By Don Wimmer. Andrews McMeel. $12.99.

      Somewhere among the diamonds-in-the-rough comic strips now getting into syndication there may be a polished gem or two. Here are three cartoonists who have at least a chance of moving into widespread popularity – if they continue to focus their strips and hone their skills.

      Cow & Boy is one of those gently surrealistic strips about a child and a talking animal – admittedly a strange talking animal, even though Mark Leiknes sets the strip on a farm. Billy, the boy, does not have deeply philosophical discussions with Cow, along the lines of Calvin and Hobbes, although Bill Watterson’s great strip was surely a model for Leiknes’. The cow-and-boy talks mostly involve bouncing ideas off each other and making gentle mischief. Cow tries to make a wish in a wishing well and ends up stuck, head down, in it. Cow loves Easter so much that she puts on big bunny ears and a cotton tail – and tries to make a chocolate Easter bunny by dipping a real rabbit in melted chocolate. Billy learns to ride a unicycle, in part because Cow provides “negative reinforcement on falling down” by putting him in a prickly patch. Billy’s friend Martin – who can also talk to Cow – gets pulled into schemes to build a treehouse (including a hot tub) and film a Bigfoot movie (with Martin ending up with hair superglued to his face). Cow wins second place at the county fair and trash-talks the first-place winner. Billy’s parents and older sister, Tracy, are peripheral characters who appear from time to time. The occasional attempts to introduce deeper subjects – nature vs. nurture, inflation –fall rather flat; this strip is better when Billy is writing a screenplay for a surefire hit movie, “Tornado Sharks,” and its sequel, “Tornado Sharks 2.” Billy himself is drawn rather oddly: he looks fine from every angle except the front – from that direction, his nose keeps changing shape. Leiknes seems to be continuously looking for just the right themes and just the right way to express them; this is a strip still in development.

      The same is true of Watch Your Head, one of the increasing number of comic strips targeting niche audiences – in this case, African-Americans. Set at Oliver Otis University, whose one white student is a Canadian admitted on a hockey scholarship even though the school doesn’t really have a team, Cory Thomas’ strip swings between satire of campus life and out-and-out strangeness. The central character – also named Cory – is a bookish freshman unsettled by dorm life, a cast of often-peculiar fellow students, and women. There’s nothing especially unusual there. But Cory also has to deal with a genius monkey who copies his tests and gets better grades, and an outer-space alien named V’rttrah who is sort of dating Cory’s roommate, Jason. Cory is attracted to the main female character, Robin, but she sees him as no more than a friend. Cory ends up on a date with a basketball player named Takoma, drawn so tall that most of her head is outside the comic-strip frame. Then there are such characters as Quincy, a prototypical “player,” and hostile Omar, roommate of Kevin, the hockey player. There are some references to “the full range of the black experience,” which includes such things as being closely watched by Security while shopping and being stopped for “driving while black” (even if you yourself are a policeman). By and large, though, the strip is less about social or racial consciousness than about the college experience – which it handles in ways that are sometimes moderately amusing but that rarely make strong points or provoke strong laughter. Thomas, like Leiknes, still seems to be feeling his way toward themes that will work consistently and well.

      Don Wimmer has his themes already, and has exactly the right characters with which to work them out. But he is missing opportunity after opportunity. Wimmer is now producing Rose Is Rose, a comic strip that has been around since 1984 and was until recently written and drawn by the wonderful Pat Brady. Unfortunately, Wimmer is making a hash of the once-excellent strip, recycling themes and characters remorselessly without bringing any new sense of style or wit to his work. There appears to be a problem with his model sheets: the characters are foreshortened, especially Rose herself – once a leggy, sexy-in-a-wholesome-way celebrator of life, she now looks chunky and squat and almost always appears in bulky pants. Brady’s delightful elements, from Rose’s son Pasquale’s guardian angel to Rose’s own biker alter ego, appear frequently but without specific purpose – Brady used them only in strips whose themes they enhanced, but Wimmer simply brings them in periodically to dress things up. Other Brady elements, such as the rainbows and hearts and other happy shapes used to reflect characters’ emotions, are scattered around 100% Whole Grin Rose Is Rose to even less purpose, appearing on many pages of the book as color overlays on the black-and-white strips. The only characters whose roles Wimmer has expanded on his own are two squirrels that are assuming an increasing role in the humans’ activities. But they are not especially interesting, and it is hard to warm up to them. Also, Wimmer has taken Brady’s occasional use of forced perspective and askew panels – always done to make a specific point – as simply a matter of appearance, tilting panels or drawing them on their sides for no content-related reason. This book gets a (++) rating for the traces of Brady’s gentle humor that remain in it – but Wimmer, a new cartoonist producing a much-loved older strip, needs to find a way to make Rose Is Rose his own soon if he is to pull it out of the mediocrity into which it has descended.

(+++) QUESTS OF YOUTH AND ADULTHOOD

The Dead & the Gone. By Susan Beth Pfeffer. Harcourt. $17.

Seekers #1: The Quest Begins. By Erin Hunter. HarperCollins. $16.99.

Warriors: Firestar’s Quest. By Erin Hunter. HarperTrophy. $7.99.

Warriors (Manga Book 3): Warrior’s Return. Created by Erin Hunter. Written by Dan Jolley. Art by James L. Barry. Tokyopop/HarperCollins. $6.99.

The Percheron Saga, Book Three: Goddess. By Fiona McIntosh. Eos. $14.95.

      Although the quest story is as old as The Odyssey and Gilgamesh, it is still a fertile form for authors, especially useful for exposing heroes to ever-changing dangers and having them go on inner find-yourself quests to parallel the outer ones. The Dead & the Gone is more inward that outward, and it is a book with a very unusual background, being Susan Beth Pfeffer’s second novel on the same subject. The first, Life As We Knew It, was based on the idea of a meteor striking Earth’s moon with enough force to knock the moon into a closer orbit – with disastrous consequences for Earth’s weather. The premise doesn’t stand up scientifically; but what Pfeffer really wanted was a way to get into a story of unanticipated disaster and the reaction to it of ordinary people. Life As We Knew It was the diary of 16-year-old (later 17-year-old) Miranda, living through the aftermath of catastrophe in a small town. The Dead & the Gone is another story of the aftermath of the same catastrophe – this time focusing on Alex Morales, who lives in a big city. This book is not so much a sequel to the other as a parallel novel. Life As We Knew It stood entirely on its own, and so does The Dead & the Gone, but readers will certainly get more of Pfeffer’s worldview and exploration of faith, family and courage by reading both books than by reading either one alone. Pfeffer does not take the easy descent-into-barbarism approach of many apocalyptic novels, preferring to create a world in which people remain basically good (with exceptions, of course), simply trying in their bewilderment and fear to survive as best they can. The book starts on May 18, as the earlier novel did, and runs through December 29; and Alex faces many of the same challenges as Miranda, despite the differences in the novels’ settings. A major one is disease, which claims many lives – almost including Alex’s own. Religious faith is a big part of what pulls Alex and some of his friends through, but most of what matters here is simple courage and the ability to face the challenges of each day anew, without any assurance of living until the end of it. In that respect, Pfeffer’s world is perhaps not all that different from our terrorism-bedeviled one today.

      Nor are the worlds of Erin Hunter so different from our human world, even though Hunter uses animals rather than people as epic heroes. Seekers opens a new series for Hunter, who is best known for her books about cat clans and the feline warriors, medicine cats and hunters who populate them. Seekers shifts the focus to bears, but its themes of power, searching and betrayal will be immediately familiar to fans of Hunter’s other books. In the new series, cubs of three different species – black (Lusa), polar (Kallik) and grizzly (Toklo) – are separated from their families and find themselves searching, initially separately, for food and security. Later joining, they travel toward the Northern Lights as escorts of a mysterious shapeshifting cub who may be destined to bring about the spiritual renewal of all bears. The self-discovery, battles and adventures will be appealing to young readers who already enjoy Hunter’s various Warriors series about cats.

      Those series themselves continue to appear in new forms. Warriors: Firestar’s Quest is now available in paperback. Billed as a “Super Edition” and structured as a story in itself rather than as part of a longer sequence, the book follows the legendary leader of ThunderClan after he discovers that his warrior ancestors have lied to him on a crucial matter. He must leave his home in the forest to discover the truth, entering into what proves to be a lengthy and complex quest indeed. The book runs more than 500 pages and will be of greatest interest to readers already thoroughly immersed in the various Warriors sagas. For those not yet so involved in them, their manga versions may be a good entry point – certainly for younger readers (the novels are intended for ages 10 and up, the manga books for ages 8-12). The third manga adaptation picks up where the second ended, with Graystripe and Millie finding Graystripe’s ancestral home destroyed. Injured by a truck, Graystripe is helped back to health by a truckstop cat named Diesel, and realizes – as Millie stands by him – that he has never told her how much he cares for her. By the time he does, they have taken a long journey together – at the end of which they find at least some of what they have been looking for.

     What adults look for in fantasy quests is somewhat different from what young readers seek; but except for the complexity of the plots and the names of the characters, the books for older and younger readers have much in common. Goddess is the concluding book in Fiona McIntosh’s Percheron Saga, which has been a long journey into and out of the desert surrounding the city-state around which the saga revolves. After establishing the main characters in Odalisque and setting up a conflict involving mortals and gods alike in Emissary, McIntosh deftly pulls the threads of the tale together in Goddess. And there are certainly plenty of threads, as one character explains to Zar Boaz: “My Zar, there is nothing comfortable about your life right now. The Galinseans are threatening to raze your city; a madman rebel has stolen your wife and child, and as there’s no ransom, presumably he’s after something far more sinister. You’ve got your mother acting regent in a palace under threat whilst you’re not sure whether the wife you risk your own life for has a lover who happens to be your own head of security, and, even more tangled, he’s your mother’s new consort!” That is a pretty good summary of where the plot stands a bit more than midway through Goddess. Getting from that point to the end requires a daring rescue, resignation to defeat (“this could be our last night of life and I would rather share it with someone than be alone”), the return of a frightening condition called “the drezden sickness,” a series of body changes by immortals, the awakening of stone giants, and more. Wonder follows wonder in a way wholly typical of tales of this type, with McIntosh reserving a variety of twists and turns for her conclusion – or rather multiple conclusions, for just as she ends one part of the tale, she takes up another until it, too, is finished. All this is quite skillfully done, but even in a trilogy as well-crafted as this, there remain many, many echoes of other quest stories told by this and other writers, and pre-echoes of similar quest tales yet to be written.

(+++) HISTORY AND MYSTERY

A Pocketful of History: Four Hundred Years of America—One State Quarter at a Time. By Jim Noles. Da Capo. $25.

The Venus Week: Discover the Powerful Secret of Your Cycle…at Any Age. By Rebecca Booth, M.D. Da Capo. $24.

      Explore the world? Explore yourself? You can do both with these books. A Pocketful of History uses the quarters that almost everyone in the U.S. has in his or her pocket or purse – the state-themed ones that have been issued since 1999 – to tell a story that Jim Noles says is “not so much about who we are or what we are but instead [is] a polyglot reflection on how we think of ourselves.” Whether these quarters can bear the weight of a more-than-300-page discussion is by no means clear; this is a book that you should pick up and look through before deciding whether to buy it. What Noles, an Alabama attorney who says he is not a coin collector, has done is to take each quarter’s design and explain what it means and, in most cases, how and why it was chosen. The result is an extended guide to decision-making processes and design choices that range from the obvious to the rather peculiar. West Virginia, for example, does not celebrate its creation through a split-up of Virginia during the Civil War, but instead shows the impressive New River Gorge Bridge – whose history dates back only to 1977. Hawaii, the last state to be admitted to the United States, shows (on a coin not yet available) the likeness of its famous King Kamehameha, who died 140 years before Hawaii joined the Union. Wisconsin showcases its primary agricultural products – milk, cheese and corn – but Idaho, whose name is nearly synonymous with potatoes, shows a peregrine falcon. Anyone who has been collecting the 50 state quarters (which will be augmented by quarters from the District of Columbia and several territories – none of them discussed by Noles) and who wants a guidebook to go along with the coin set should at least consider A Pocketful of History. But it is unlikely to be the type of book to which readers will return again and again while showing off their collections of coins that are, after all, intentionally quite commonplace.

      The Venus Week is a much more personal book, in which obstetrician-gynecologist Rebecca Booth discusses a phenomenon that many women have noticed in their daily lives: there is about one week per month during which most women look and feel better than at any other time that month. Booth explains that this is the time – the week before ovulation – when both estrogen and testosterone production peaks, so women feel their best and also feel the strongest sexual desire. From an evolutionary perspective, this makes perfect sense: the most likely time for conception coincides with the time when women feel physically best and are most likely to invite sexual attention. The “Venus Zenith,” according to Booth, occurs during a woman’s 20s and 30s – and again this makes sense, since those are the prime reproductive years. But what Booth does in The Venus Week is more than analysis, and a reader’s reaction to that “more” will determine whether the book is highly useful or just another self-help book based on a somewhat unusual premise. Booth gives several ways to identify The Venus Week – for instance, by keeping a journal of your menstrual cycle, checking basal body temperature and using an ovulation-predictor kit (widely available at drugstores). She advises women to become familiar with the times they have clearer skin, fuller and softer hair, more-flexible muscles, fewer food cravings, and greater energy and focus. To make this feel-good time last as long as possible and produce the greatest improvement in how a woman looks and feels all month, Booth offers a variety of prescriptions, from regular exercise (she specifies at least 22 minutes a day) to eating breakfast daily to eliminating trans fats, taking in more calcium and vitamin D, and adding some cinnamon to foods or beverages. She also offers relaxation techniques. None of her recommendations is at all unusual, and all have value. They may even accomplish their stated purpose of helping women feel less “at the mercy” of their hormones and more in control of their bodies. If Booth’s “Venus Week Plan” encourages some women to eat better and improve their lifestyles, that is just fine. But other women will find essentially the same advice in many other places – books, magazines, newspapers articles and health-oriented Web sites. The Venus Week simply offers a framework to get women to behave in more healthful ways. If this rationale isn’t for you, there are plenty of others that are equally good and that you may find more appealing.

(++++) AMERICAN EXPERIENCES

Ives: Orchestral Sets Nos. 1-3. Malmö Symphony Orchestra and Chamber Chorus conducted by James Sinclair. Naxos. $8.99.

Copland: The Tender Land (Suite); Piano Concerto; Old American Songs, Volumes 1 and 2. Benjamin Pasternack, piano; St. Charles Singers and Elgin Symphony Orchestra conducted by Robert Hanson. Naxos. $8.99.

Corigliano: The Red Violin Caprices; Sonata for Violin and Piano; Thomson: Three Portraits (1944-7); Five Ladies (1983); Eight Portraits (1928-40). Philippe Quint, violin; William Wolfram, piano. Naxos. $8.99.

      These releases from the Naxos “American Classics” line showcase some important works, and some lesser ones, by some very different composers – and, even within a single composer’s works, show some very different approaches. The most significant of the three CDs features all three of Ives’ Orchestral Sets in their first-ever complete recording – which is also the first recording of Version 1 of the first Set and the first recording and performance of the third Set. Strange and important works, these, combining the serious and the popular in Ives’ unique way, and handled quite well by American Ives specialist James Sinclair and the decidedly non-American musicians in Malmö, Sweden – proving that Ives is nowadays playable (and played) around the world, not just in the U.S. Orchestral Set No. 1 is his well-known Three Places in New England, but it is not familiar in the version heard here, which lacks the opening chord heard in the more commonly performed second version and which also simplifies (for players and listeners alike) the textural complexities of the third movement, “The Housatonic at Stockbridge.” Listeners familiar with the second version may find this one a bit pale, but in fact its sonic world has a validity of its own, and some of its musical lines are distinctly easier for the ear to follow. Orchestral Set No. 2 is interesting for a first-movement tune reminiscent of Stephen Foster (the movement was originally called “An Elegy to Stephen Foster” before Ives gave it its permanent name, “An Elegy to Our Forefathers”). Also, this set is the only one with a choral element – part of an unusual mixture (well, just about everything in Ives is unusual) of the Latin Te Deum (intoned by the chorus) with the hymn The Sweet By and By (heard only instrumentally, without voices). The third set is an assemblage and realization, not a completed work. Its serenely atmospheric third movement is particularly interesting – but that is the movement of which the fewest sketches exist, so it is hard to know how closely the realization (by Nors Josephson) reflects what Ives would have done. The first two movements, edited by David Gray Porter, exist in fuller form (especially the first); and if this final Orchestral Set should not be thought of as fully by Ives, it could clearly not have been laid out, even as sketches, by anyone else.

Ives was far from the only American composer to include more-serious and more-popular elements in his music. In fact, Aaron Copland’s output would fall rather neatly into the “popular” and “serious” categories if Copland had not continually blurred the boundaries. The Tender Land, one of his two operas, was clearly conceived within a “serious” form, but Copland himself thought it came across as something closer to a musical – a more “popular” form. The opera itself, a period piece set during the Depression, was never much of a success, but Copland’s three-movement Suite packs some emotional punch and includes a middle-movement “Party Scene” reminiscent of Rodeo and Billy the Kid. The Piano Concerto is also in an overtly “serious” form, and this two-movement 1926 work does open with a sophisticated slow movement – but its longer second movement is full of Jazz Era bounce and high spirits. And the two sets of Old American Songs – 10 songs in all – are quite clearly in “popular” mode, including folk and minstrel tunes and even children’s songs (“I Bought Me a Cat” and “The Little Horses”). Originally written for voice and piano, the songs were transcribed by Copland for voice and orchestra but are heard on this CD in chorus-and-orchestra arrangements by other composers – and remain quite effective in this form. All the performers on this recording are sensitive to and involved in the music, with Benjamin Pasternack especially good in the Piano Concerto.

      Perhaps the popular/serious divide is a more widespread characteristic of American composers than is generally acknowledged, because some of it also appears in the new CD of music by John Corigliano and Virgil Thomson. Corigliano’s Oscar-winning score for the 1997 film The Red Violin (in the “popular” mode) continues to inspire the composer, who not only made a serious violin concerto out of it but also created a set of caprices – actually a theme and five variations, here recorded for the first time. The variations’ moods range from folklike to strictly Paganinian, and Philippe Quint plays them all with evident relish. Quint, with pianist William Wolfram, also does a fine job with the entirely serious Sonata for Violin and Piano, which is early Corigliano (dating to 1963, when the composer was 25) and which shows strong command of traditional forms and good balance between the instruments.

      Virgil Thomson’s music makes an interesting pairing with Corigliano’s: Thomson’s short “portrait” pieces for solo violin or violin and piano also partake of a combination of seriousness and levity. Three Portraits dates to 1940 as a solo piano work and was arranged for violin and piano by Samuel Dushkin in 1947 – with Dushkin cleverly giving the third piece, “In a Bird Cage: A Portrait of Lies Deharme” to solo violin. The portraiture here and in the other works on this CD is rarely of famous people, although the longest piece in Five Ladies (still lasting only three minutes) is of Alice Toklas, well known for her relationship with Gertrude Stein – while the fourth of the Eight Portraits for solo violin is of Stein herself, but is whimsically called “Miss Gertrude Stein as a young girl.” Most of the portraits are witty, pleasant and lighthearted, although the last and longest of the Eight Portraits, “Ruth Smallens,” is a more emotional four-minute work. Whether played by Quint and Wolfram or by Quint alone, all these short pieces show a pleasantly effective blend of music that is serious with the more popularly tinged variety.

(+++) THE URGE TO COMPLETENESS

Kenneth Leighton: Orchestral Works, Volume I: Symphony for Strings; Concerto for Organ, String Orchestra and Timpani; Concerto for String Orchestra. John Scott, organ; BBC National Orchestra of Wales conducted by Richard Hickox. Chandos. $18.99.

Aulis Sallinen: Symphonies Nos. 3 and 5. Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz conducted by Ari Rasilainen. CPO. $16.99.

Debussy: Complete Works for Piano, Volume 3. Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, piano. Chandos. $18.99.

      Not every composer deserves to have his (or her) complete works performed, much less recorded; and it is a safe bet that the vast majority of listeners will be interested in hearing only a percentage of the works by even the greatest composers: there is little demand for Mozart’s Apollo et Hyacinthus or L'oca del Cairo. Yet more and more composers are getting the “complete” treatment nowadays – with the result that some good, interesting, little-known music is now available, but can be very hard to find among all the lesser compositions being performed and recorded. Surely there are people interested in the works of postwar British composer Kenneth Leighton and modern Finnish composer Aulis Sallinen. But how many will be interested enough to buy all Leighton’s orchestral works or CPO’s entire “Sallinen Edition,” in which the sixth CD has now been released?

      Leighton (1929-1988) was in fact a substantial composer, with a fine sense of counterpoint and the ability to create interesting effects from sometimes-unusual combinations of instruments, as in his Concerto for Organ, String Orchestra and Timpani (1970). Leighton’s music tends to be introspective and rather severe (although it became more lyrical in his last years, which are not represented on this CD). Leighton was also a fine pianist, and his understanding of the keyboard clearly extended to the organ as well. The other works on this Chandos CD are earlier and somewhat more brittle: Symphony for Strings dates to 1948-9 (it is Leighton’s Op. 3) and Concerto for String Orchestra to 1960-1. One of the attractions of these works, and indeed of Leighton’s music in general, is the avoidance of dogmatic approaches and gestures for their own sake – even when the music is dour, it is organically so. Richard Hickox and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales are clearly comfortable and familiar with this music, which is especially popular in Britain, and these performances are top-notch.

      Ari Rasilainen seems equally comfortable conducting Sallinen’s music, although Sallinen (born 1935) may be more of an acquired taste than Leighton. Sallinen has written eight symphonies, the first dating to 1971 and the most recent to 2001, and he is adept at writing for large and diverse forces (he has also composed six operas). The Symphony No. 3 (1975), Sallinen’s first in multiple movements, showcases his technique of motivic repetition that leads eventually to transformation of themes. This approach takes some getting used to – it is not at all the way most listeners are accustomed to hearing symphonies structured – but it is certainly effective. The Symphony No. 5 (1985-7) is called “Washington Mosaics” – it was commissioned by the Washington National Symphony Orchestra and its then-music director, Mstislav Rostropovich – and its technique is a more extreme version of that in the earlier symphony. No. 5 repeats a large number of thematic snippets again and again, much in the way that individual mosaic tiles are applied; over time, the themes build to a work of surprising richness – although one that is perhaps more clever than heartfelt.

      It seems easier to justify “completeness” in the case of an acknowledged compositional master such as Debussy than in the case of fine but less-well-known composers. But the third Chandos volume of Debussy’s piano works, although it is quite well played by Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, is not an unalloyed pleasure. It bears repeating that even the greatest composers created some (often many) less-than-great works, and there are several on this CD. The longest and best-known pieces here are Children’s Corner and Suite Bergamasque, and Bavouzet’s sure and idiomatic performances are certainly worth having. But most of the pieces on the rest of the disc are trifles, from the under-a-minute-long Morceau de Concours to the only slightly longer The Little Nigar and Page d’Album. Some of these short works are certainly interesting, such as the atmospheric Nocturne and Hommage à Haydn (not a composer to whom one would necessarily expect Debussy to pay homage). But the overall feeling of the CD is of a couple of significant piano pieces with a great deal of filler material – certainly of interest to those who love Debussy’s music and who therefore hunger for completeness, but not by any means a “must have” addition to most collections.

(++++) WELL-KNOWN STORIES’ LESS-KNOWN SIDES

The Day the World Exploded: The Earthshaking Catastrophe at Krakatoa. By Simon Winchester. Adapted by Dwight Jon Zimmerman. HarperCollins. $22.99.

As Good as Anybody: Martin Luther King Jr. and Abraham Joshua Heschel’s Amazing March Toward Freedom. By Richard Michelson. Illustrated by Raul Colón. Knopf. $16.99.

      Dwight Jon Zimmerman’s adaptation for ages 10-14 of Simon Winchester’s nonfiction book Krakatoa shows why Winchester’s work for adults became a bestseller. The monumental explosion of the volcanic island of Krakatoa in 1883 is an event about which much has been written, but the focus is usually on the explosion itself, which generated the loudest sound ever made in human history and spawned tsunamis that killed more than 30,000 people. Winchester’s work goes much further, as does Zimmerman’s profusely illustrated adaptation of it. The Day the World Exploded puts the eruption of Krakatoa in fascinating human, historical, religious and technological context. This means explaining the Dutch East Indies Company, through which Holland controlled the Indies, in which Krakatoa lay. It means discussing the area’s most valuable export, which was pepper. It means looking at the continental shelves that meet along what is known as Wallace’s Line – and explaining who Wallace was. It means looking at the way Dutch settlers lived in the Indies, the tourism that occurred there, and the Islamic leaders who used the eruption of Krakatoa – evidence, they said, of Allah’s anger – as the impetus for a rebellion against the Dutch that eventually led to the creation of the Republic of Indonesia. It means looking not only at the physical effects of the eruption, which were frightening enough, but also at its psychological effects: the recently invented telegraph spread news of the disaster faster than it had ever been possible to disseminate information before, leading to near-real-time awareness of the interconnectedness of people and events all over Earth. The Day the World Exploded weaves these threads together with considerable skill, and the well-chosen illustrations – notably including 19^th-century prints and photographs – give a strong sense of reality to an event that might otherwise appear only as a dry, remote piece of history.

      In more recent history, there has been plenty of attention focused on the life and works of Martin Luther King Jr., but As Good as Anybody tells young readers – ages 6-10 – a much less well-known part of King’s story. This is a tale not only of King himself but also of the man who, at King’s funeral in 1968, told the crowd, “His mission was sacred.” That man, Abraham Joshua Heschel, is introduced halfway through Richard Michelson’s book, after background material on King and his determination to stage a protest march in Alabama, from Selma to Montgomery. Heschel was a Polish Jew and a poet who became a rabbi, like his father, in the years just before Hitler rose to power in Germany. He escaped the Nazis by coming to America, but his family stayed behind in Poland and was killed. Heschel made marches of his own in his adopted country, incurring the ire of many of the same groups that opposed King. On March 21, 1965, the two prayed together and then led the Selma-to-Montgomery march side by side. Michelson’s straightforward language and Raul Colón’s sensitive illustrations bring the time and the people alive for today’s young readers, and Michelson’s page of text after the main story sums up what happened later. Like The Day the World Exploded, Michelson’s As Good as Anybody brings an earlier day into sharper focus in a way that shows the continued importance in the 21^st century of these historical events.

(++++) QUICK TAKES ON ADVENTURES

Nurk: The Strange, Surprising Adventures of a (Somewhat) Brave Shrew. By Ursula Vernon. Harcourt. $15.

The Dragon’s Child. By Jenny Nimmo. Illustrated by Alan Marks. Orchard Books/Scholastic. $5.99.

Mo’s Mischief: Best Mom Ever; Four Troublemakers; Pesky Monkeys; Teacher’s Pet. By Hongying Yang. HarperTrophy. $3.99 each.

Roscoe Riley Rules: #1, Never Glue Your Friends to Chairs; #2, Never Swipe a Bully’s Bear; #3, Don’t Swap Your Sweater for a Dog. By Katherine Applegate. Illustrated by Brian Biggs. HarperTrophy. $3.99 each.

Iron Man: Teen Novelization; The Junior Novel; A New Hero; I Am Ironman! By Dan Jolley (Teen); Stephen Sullivan (Junior); Marco Valdo (Hero); Lisa Rao (I Am). HarperEntertainment: $6.99 (Teen); $4.99 (Junior); $3.99 (Hero). HarperTrophy: $3.99 (I Am).

Kung Fu Panda: The Junior Novel; Master of Disaster; Meet the Masters. By Susan Korman (Junior); Scout Driggs (Disaster); Catherine Hapka (Masters). HarperEntertainment: $4.99 (Junior); $3.99 (Disaster). HarperTrophy: $3.99 (Masters).

Transformers Animated: How to Draw; Attack of the Dinobots!; Robot Roll Call. By Sadie Chesterfield (Draw); Aaron Rosenberg (Attack); Jennifer Frantz (Roll). HarperEntertainment: $5.99 (Draw); $3.99 (Attack). HarperTrophy: $3.99 (Roll).

      Preteens will find plenty of excitement, of many kinds, in these short books. Nurk is the best of them: this first novel by Ursula Vernon starts with a quiet young shrew finding a book whose inside cover has a drawing of a severed head – the book turns out to be his grandmother’s journal – and progresses through the adventure that has literally fallen into Nurk’s lap (he holds the journal in his lap while reading it). Nurk builds a snail-shell boat (depicted in one of the book’s numerous charming illustrations); helps out the waterlogged Princess of Dragonflies, who is not at all frightened of the only thing with which Nurk can threaten her when he fears she may be dangerous (his clean socks); and continues through a series of adventures into which Nurk does not quite fit: “There was probably a line between being kind and babbling, and Nurk was afraid he’d crossed it a few ums back.” Nurk, of course, finds courage he had not known he possessed, and also learns – quite charmingly and with only a modicum of peril – the truth of his grandmother’s comment, “The world is a very odd place, and not always in a good way.” And: “A true adventurer needs a keen wit, a stout heart, and a strong bladder.” Kids ages 8-12, especially younger ones in that age range, will be delighted.

      Jenny Nimmo’s The Dragon’s Child will be almost as much fun for ages 7-10 – it is presented cutely in a new paperback cut in sort-of-dragon shape, but is the same story originally published in 1977. Here it is a young dragon, Dando, who must find himself – by learning to fly so he can join his family, which is leaving for a land that will be safer for dragons. Captured by humans when he cannot fly away, Dando is befriended by a slave girl and helped to escape and follow his destiny by the girl, an orphaned bird, and the son of those who took Dando captive. It is a slight tale but a well-told one, worth a (+++) rating.

      The four Mo’s Mischief books are slight, too, and they too are for ages 7-10 and deserving of (+++) ratings. Hongying Yang’s books are bestsellers in China, where 19 have been published, but there is not much exotic about the basic plots – they are simple stories in chapter-book form about a boy named Mo Shen Ma who gets into trouble wherever he goes. The plots are pretty thin. Best Mom Ever is about Mo’s mother, Honeybunch, and some of her odd (to Mo and his dad) habits, such as her love of “a fruit called a durian. Now, a durian is one hundred times stinkier than stinky tofu. It is a strangely shaped tropical fruit about the size of a basketball with a very hard shell.” Four Troublemakers focuses on the misadventures of Mo and his best friends, Hippo, Penguin and Monkey. Pesky Monkeys is about the animals, not Mo’s friend, and features a summer vacation in which Mo teaches his grandparents’ pig to skateboard and learns that monkeys can be even more mischievous than he is. And Teacher’s Pet is about Mo’s attempts to get the goody-goody girl in class into trouble with their teacher. Mo’s plans are simple, and they backfire amusingly, so kids who like one book about him will likely enjoy the others as well.

      Mo is in many ways an imported version of Roscoe Riley: both basically good but somewhat mischievous kids who get into more trouble than they ever really anticipated. The Roscoe Riley Rules books, also for ages 7-10, get the same (+++) rating as the Mo’s Mischief books, and in fact many young readers will like both series in much the same way. Just as Mo can’t help getting into mischief, Roscoe can’t help breaking his own rules – in the first book, by making really sure his classmates sit really still for a big performance; in the second, by getting back at the class bully – who, Roscoe is sure, has stolen Roscoe’s stuffed pig; in the third, by trying desperately to get a pet in time to win a trophy in a pet-trick contest. Brian Biggs’ entertainingly old-fashioned illustrations nicely complement Katherine Applegate’s amusing, easy-to-read stories.

      The various new Iron Man books get (+++) ratings for kids who enjoyed the recent film, which was based on a comic book. None of these four books is in comic or graphic-novel form, though. The Teen Novelization is simply the story of the movie – not the original comic, which was set in an earlier time – in which billionaire inventor and arms merchant Tony Stark is captured, invents high-tech armor so he can escape, then decides to become a good guy. The Junior Novel is the same story, told more simply and for younger readers, and including some movie stills as illustrations. A New Hero is for preschoolers, ages 3-7, and is mostly about the climactic battle between Iron Man and Iron Monger. I Am Iron Man! is in the “I Can Read!” series at Level 2, which means it is for developing readers (ages 4-8). The focus here is on the creation of the Iron Man suit and its use for good. There are plenty of angles on the Iron Man tale in these books – something for young movie fans of many ages.

      Similarly, new books have been designed as tie-ins to the animated Kung Fu Panda movie, about a panda named Po who is chosen as Dragon Warrior and must prove himself even though the Furious Five masters dismiss him as lazy and obsessed with food; and the cartoon TV show Transformers Animated, based loosely on the movie that was based loosely on the toys that change into a variety of different shapes through twisting, turning, pushing, pulling and otherwise rearranging their parts. Among the Kung Fu Panda offerings, The Junior Novel tells the story of the film, includes a few stills from it, and is intended for ages 8-12; Master of Disaster, for ages 3-7, focuses on the way Master Shifu uses food rather than traditional methods to train Po in martial arts; and Meet the Masters, an “I Can Read!” book at Level 2 (ages 4-8), introduces the Furious Five and shows how Po was selected as Dragon Warrior. For Transformers Animated, the How to Draw book, aimed at ages 9-12 but quite appropriate for younger artists as well, shows the relative sizes of the TV show’s cast of characters and gives straightforward lessons in how to draw them and some of the vehicles into which they can change themselves. Attack of the Dinobots! is for ages 4-7 and is based on one series episode featuring huge more-or-less-dinosaur-shaped bad-guy robots. And Robot Roll Call, another Level 2 “I Can Read!” book for ages 4-8, introduces the heroic Autobots, their main opponents, and the humans – a robot scientist and his daughter – with whom they interact. None of the books based on Iron Man, Kung Fu Panda or Transformers Animated is particularly distinguished or distinctive, but that is not the purpose of any of them – they are simply attachments to video entertainment, allowing kids who enjoy a film or TV show to carry around a little bit of it and have an adventure in reading. Given their modest ambitions, all these little books get (+++) ratings for families interested in what they have to offer: there is not much there, but what is there is just fine.

(+++) SHORT AND SOMETIMES SWEET

Thank You for Being You. By Bradley Trevor Greive. Andrews McMeel. $9.99.

Unknown Worlds! By Revilo (Oliver Christianson). Andrews McMeel. $12.99.

Nuts for Racing: A StockcarToons Book. By Mike Smith. Andrews McMeel. $9.99.

Flanders’ Book of Faith. By Matt Groening. Harper. $9.95.

      Small gift-size books, whether hardcover or paperback, can be fun in a variety of ways, as these new examples show. Thank You for Being You is the latest entry from the cuteness factory of Bradley Trevor Greive (he doesn’t call it that, but that’s what it is). The book successfully follows the BTG formula of combining remarkable animal photography with clever verbiage that speaks directly to humans. In this case, the theme is friendship, and the idea is that this book would be a fine gift for a very close friend whom you have never gotten around to thanking enough for his or her value to you – a sort of extended greeting card. It’s a nice one, too, thanks to Greive’s usual skill at matching photos and words. “Now, I don’t want to appear needy” accompanies a wonderful picture of a baby monkey clutching a duckling. “Thank you for all the little things you have done to make me smile” goes with a close-up of a fish that does seem to be smiling. “Thank you for getting me revved up and excited about all the possibilities life has to offer” appears under a photo of a dog apparently driving a toy car, with a cat hanging onto the car’s side. Yes, the charms of the book are of a treacly sort, but if you want to get sentimental about a good friend, this is a fine way to do it.

      Nothing sentimental about Unknown Worlds! – which is subtitled “A Collection of Paranormal Cartoons.” Cartoonist Revilo (“Oliver” spelled backwards) goes where no man or woman has gone before, or would probably want to. His best single-panel cartoons are really funny: “The Urban Wolfman,” skulking along in embarrassment while carrying a pooper scooper; a vampire asking a pharmacist for SPF 40,000 sunscreen; a witch bemoaning the fact that her brew “never tastes the same when you cook with frozen newt.” But other cartoons fall rather flat: a severed head on a pole saying “Frankly, I’d rather be in Cleveland”; a “car pool” into which automobiles have driven themselves; “Little Known Facts About the Yeti,” such as that they “actually smell quite good.” There’s fun here, but it’s not all fun.

      The amount of fun in Nuts for Racing is directly proportional to the NASCAR involvement of the reader. Mike Smith’s book is strictly for the speedway crowd. For every panel that will make sense to the casual reader – an arrow pointing to “lug nuts” on a car’s wheel and another pointing to “mixed nuts,” the unruly fans tossing cans onto the racetrack – there are half a dozen or more that will be meaningless if you don’t know the players. One labels the Talladega Superspeedway “the second largest oval in NASCAR” after the huge open mouth of a caricature labeled “Stewart” (driver Tony Stewart, a frequent Smith target). Several are about there being “something that’s just not right” about Toyota in NASCAR. There’s one about the movie Crash with the comment that it must have to do with Kyle Busch’s aggressive driving, and one about a fan’s disappointment that the film Sideways did not turn out to be “about racing at Bristol.” There are plenty of in-jokes here and not many for-anyone jokes.

      The same is true for Flanders’ Book of Faith, which is only for fans of The Simpsons who enjoy watching Matt Groening poke fun at Homer’s faith-is-everything neighbor, Ned Flanders. This book, the eighth release in The Simpsons Library of Wisdom, contains the Flanders Family Tree, a series of Ned’s answers (or refusals to answer) kids’ questions about religion, a page on “Maude Flanders, late mate and mother of Ned’s little kididdles,” plenty on those “kididdles” themselves (Rod and Todd), and so on. A few pages are really funny, such as “A Comic Book of Virtues,” in which Ned’s kids hold him as strictly to Scripture as he tries to hold everyone else; and “Neddy No-No’s: Words Forbidden in the Flanders Home,” such as woodpecker, organ, peephole, erect, cockapoo and Lake Titicaca. There’s also a very amusing “Homer Simpson’s Dream Church,” which includes a Holy Water Slide, Baptism Wave Pool and “Costumed Church Mascot: Howie, the Holy Mackerel.” A mild level of enjoyment of The Simpsons is all you need to have fun with the best of these pages; for many of the others, though, near-fanaticism is a near-necessity.

(+++) USES OF THE PAST

Travel Pictures. By Heinrich Heine. Translated by Peter Wortsman. Archipelago Books. $17.

Harpoon: Into the Heart of Whaling. By Andrew Darby. Da Capo. $25.

George Washington on Leadership. By Richard Brookhiser. Basic Books. $26.

      The interplay of subjectivity and objectivity – a longtime concern of philosophers, and as great an issue for the 21^st century as for earlier ones – pervades all of these very different works by authors with journalistic backgrounds. Heinrich Heine (1797-1856), best known as a poet whose works inspired musical settings by Brahms, Mendelssohn, Schubert, Schumann and others, was also a journalist and essayist. It was his “The Harz Journey” (1826) that first made him famous, and it wears well even 180-plus years later and in translation. Its vignettes are interesting, its observations acute, its gently satirical observations of life put forward amusingly and without bitterness: “Immortality! You lovely notion! Who first thought you up? Was it some Nuremberg hick who sat on his doorstep on a warm summer night, with a white nightcap on his noggin and a white clay pipe in his mouth, musing right cozily: Wouldn’t it be nice if he could vegetate on like this into sweet eternity without his dear little pipe and his dear little breath ever going out?” Keen observation of his surroundings, coupled with Heine’s awareness that by observing them he is putting them through his own subjective awareness, make for a still-fascinating essay that is never quite matched by the remaining three parts of Travel Pictures, “The North Sea,” “The Baths of Lucca” and “The City of Lucca.” For example, the last of these, which dates to 1831, shares with “The Harz Journey” a wealth of pithy observations and personal remarks; but having read similar comments in the earlier work, the reader may find the newer ones a bit pale here. Still, Heine’s prose, which is not well known outside Germany, has a pleasantly modern feeling to it (at least in Peter Wortsman’s translation), and his observations about people, more than those about places, remain quite insightful.

      If a reader has to think about Heine’s relevance to the modern world, he or she need not do so about whaling, Andrew Darby’s subject in Harpoon. The Australian journalist has clearly studied whaling’s history in some depth, and his discussion of the evolving methods of killing the giant marine mammals is well-informed. He never manages the intensity and objectivity of Herman Melville in Moby-Dick, but that is exactly Darby’s point: he is not interested in objectivity, does not even truly believe it possible any more than Heine does. Darby is first and foremost an environmentalist, and his species-by-species discussion of whales is ultimately designed to raise readers’ consciousness about the animals and enlist them in the fight to end commercial whaling altogether. Whether or not this is a laudable goal – most people in most Western countries appear to agree that it is – it does call into question Darby’s selection and presentation of facts about the whaling industry. He even quotes long-ago hunters who found themselves troubled by the brutality of human attacks on whales; and while there is no reason to disbelieve the quoted remarks, there is reason to wonder whether they were typical of attitudes in those times or represented only a small percentage of opinion. Darby’s passion is clear – his title must have been carefully conceived, since he would in fact like to send a “harpoon into the heart of whaling” -- and although even Moby-Dick itself finds its way into his chapter-heading quotations, most of them reflect his point of view: “…We are dealing with special creatures with remarkably developed brains. They could have taught us much if we had only listened.” “Man has been both blind and ignorant in the pursuit of the whale.” Instead of learning from the past where whaling is concerned, Darby seems to suggest, we have failed to learn from it, with the result that even now there are countries – Iceland, Japan, Norway and others – that launch their whaling ships and continue to pursue the seagoing mammals.

      If Darby’s concerns with the past focus on global issues of the present, those of Richard Brookhiser – also a journalist and historian – focus more narrowly on the United States. His George Washington on Leadership is the latest in a years-long series of books by numerous authors, purporting to find secrets of success for today in the thinking of well-known leaders of yesterday. This always involves some twisting both of words and of history: Washington’s famed military successes are only marginally related to modern business issues, or even to military matters in our time. So Brookhiser’s chapter titles can be a bit fanciful: “Start-ups,” “Small Stuff,” “Sex…and Drugs,” “Bringing Out the Best,” and so on. Still, Brookhiser – who has also written about Alexander Hamilton, the Adamses and other Founders – does a good job of mining Washington’s life for nuggets of wisdom and experience that can translate into modern-day value. Washington did cope with unexpected setbacks in resourceful ways, whether by creating the first mass inoculation against smallpox or by fighting back politically after being condemned for his role in the French and Indian War. And it is certainly possible, as Brookhiser suggests, that some elements of Washington’s personality perceived as flaws (even by his contemporaries) in fact indicated subtlety of mind. Thus, Brookhiser comments on Washington’s reserve at public functions: “Thomas Jefferson thought Washington was just a bad talker. …But Washington had good reason to keep his own counsel [when] he was surrounded by quarrels and contending ambitions. …On many of the issues of the day, Washington had to have a policy. If he had not yet formed one, he needed to keep his options open. If he had formed one, he had to avoid picking needless fights (there were enough unavoidable fights already).” Perhaps it is inevitable during a presidential election year, but even though Brookhiser writes about the applicability of Washington’s talents to the business world, it seems again and again as if the first president of the United States had abilities that would most readily translate into virtues for those who wish to succeed him – if they would only listen more and talk less.