(++++) LEARNING LEVELS

Park Scientists: Gila Monsters, Geysers, and Grizzly Bears in America’s Own Backyard. By Mary Kay Carson. Photographs by Tom Uhlman. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. $18.99.

Biscuit Loves the Library. By Alyssa Satin Capucilli. Pictures by Pat Schories. Harper. $16.99.

Little Critter: Just a Kite. By Mercer Mayer. Harper. $16.99.

Pony Scouts: The Camping Trip. By Catherine Hapka. Pictures by Anne Kennedy. Harper. $16.99.

Justice League: I Am the Flash. By John Sazaklis. Pictures by Steven E. Gordon. Colors by Eric A. Gordon. Harper. $3.99.

Papá and Me. By Arthur Dorros. Pictures by Rudy Gutierrez. Rayo/HarperCollins. $6.99.

     Park Scientists is an unusual entry in the always-high-quality “Scientists in the Field” series: instead of being an extended portrait of a single scientist or scientific group, it is a compendium. Its three parts are about Yellowstone National Park, Saguaro National Park, and Great Smoky Mountains National Park. This may make the book an easier entry point for this fascinating series than are some of the more-in-depth ones with a single focus. In fact, within the three sections, there are six subsections, giving young readers a chance to find out what scientists do when studying water and heat – and bears – at Yellowstone; gila monsters and saguaro cacti at Saguaro; and salamanders and fireflies at Great Smoky Mountains. The individual stories are so interesting that kids may want to seek out further information elsewhere; but even if they do not, they will get a good, solid grounding in everyday scientific pursuits here, with straightforward and easy-to-follow prose from Mary Kay Carson complemented by loads of excellent photos by Tom Uhlman. Explanations of the difference between fumaroles and geysers, of how gila monsters live and why they are a protected species, of the reasons the saguaro forest today remains smaller than it was in 1935 – these subjects and many more are explored and shown pictorially, along with photos of the scientists and their helpers (many of them volunteers) going about their everyday work with dedication and a certain degree of relish. A nice element of Park Scientists is that one area of study, fireflies, is one to which readers may be able to relate immediately in their own lives, making charts such as the one showing the flash patterns of different types of fireflies into something more than dry laboratory material. In fact, there is nothing dry at all about this book, which shows both the mundane aspects of everyday science and the highly interesting subject matter that researchers methodically investigate.

     Much easier entry points – to reading in general – are provided in the “I Can Read!” series, which includes books with pleasantly familiar characters at five different reading levels. The earliest, “My First” books (“ideal for sharing with emergent readers”), offer a good opportunity for parents or older siblings to read along with not-yet-readers, who can pick up the words in their own time and at their own pace. Biscuit Loves the Library, featuring the adorable puppy on “Read to a Pet Day” at the local library, and Little Critter: Just a Kite, in which Mercer Mayer’s Little Critter has simple adventures and misadventures with family and kite-flying, are both fine examples of how the earliest-level books in this series work. Biscuit discovers books on various topics, upends a basket full of puppets, is intrigued by headphones used for “stories we can listen to,” and eventually is helped by the librarian to find an ideal book – about a dog that looks exactly like Biscuit. Mix together a little girl, a little puppy, a comfy chair, and other young readers with pets nearby, and all the fun of the library comes through with pleasant warmth. As for Little Critter, he practices for a kite-flying contest with a store-bought kite, but things go awry and the kite is broken – and the store has no more. So Grandpa makes a new kite, which Little Critter decorates himself. But, again, there is a problem: this time the string breaks and the kite flies away. Grandpa comes to the rescue again, and the unusual new kite he makes not only flies well but also brings Little Critter “a ribbon for the most unusual kite,” while bringing young readers an enjoyable family adventure.

     Later-level books in the “I Can Read!” series are more of a mixed bag. Two that get (+++) ratings are The Camping Trip, which is 10^th in the Pony Scouts series within this early-reading series, and I Am the Flash, which is strictly for devotees of DC Comics superheroes. These are Level 2 books, intended as “high-interest stories for developing readers,” but in fact their interest level will be somewhat limited – they are best for kids who have already formed attachments to the featured characters. The Camping Trip focuses on Meg’s first time camping, which she expects will be just like a sleepover – but discovers to be quite different, despite the presence of the ponies. The bathroom is a five-minute walk from the sleeping area, Meg cannot put up the tent properly, she is unprepared for bugs, she has not brought a flashlight, and so on. A “ghost pony” story scares everyone but turns out, of course, to be nothing worth being frightened about, and Meg snuggles in happily with her friends, and that is that. As for I Am the Flash, it is somewhat sillier than even the usual DC Comics offerings, largely because so much is compressed into it: the Flash’s entire origin story is told before the book turns to the meat of the tale, what there is of it, which involves a breakout from a singularly unconvincing jail by five super-villains who are captured with remarkable (indeed, ridiculous) ease by the Flash and other Justice League members. The plot of this paperback is thinner than the book itself, and the poses of heroes and villains alike are so stylized and overdone that they make it difficult to understand what will attract most kids to the book. Still, some kids will want to read it, and for those who do, it will provide a small amount of action featuring heroes that it is likely young readers will quickly outgrow, at least in a form as superficial as this.

     An equally easy book to read – and a more valuable one for its slice-of-everyday-life approach that involves no make-believe superheroes – is Arthur Dorros’ Papá and Me, originally published in 2008 and now available in paperback. Papá and Me shows a day of great but simple fun for a boy and his Papá, and includes some Spanish phrases (clearly understandable in context) in its English-language story.  Arthur Dorros’ tale follows the boy and his father as they have breakfast, go to the park, draw, race, and the boy learns that “I can do some things better than Papá, he can do some better than me.” Rudy Gutierrez’ pictures, which are all swirls and color blends, give the book a unique appearance and help propel it to a final hug that also includes the boy’s grandparents. There is much to learn here – about fathers and sons, about extended families, and about the warm way in which caring parents relate to their children in any culture. Although it is not part of any particular early-reading series, Papá and Me works very well as an easy book to read, as an introduction to Spanish words for children whose native language is English, and as a way for Spanish-speaking families to celebrate themselves bilingually.

(+++) FANTASIES ABOUNDING

The Islands of Chaldea. By Diana Wynne Jones. Completed by Ursula Jones. Greenwillow/HarperCollins. $17.99.

The Luck Uglies. By Paul Durham. Harper. $16.99.

Bloodwitch. By Amelia Atwater-Rhodes. Delacorte Press. $17.99.

The Lovely and the Lost. By Page Morgan. Delacorte Press. $18.99.

     Young fans of high fantasy can enter just about as many worlds as they wish and feel right at home. Worlds of wonder they may be, but although the specifics of the wonders differ, the progress of the stories follows predictable patterns that allow readers to slip into the books smoothly, slip out of them easily, and slide into others wherein still more strange-but-familiar characters and events take place. Among the most facile writers in this genre was Diana Wynne Jones (1934-2011), whose The Islands of Chaldea was completed by her sister, Ursula Jones. The title, with its echoes of the Biblical “Ur of the Chaldees,” portends something serious, but one thing setting Jones’ books apart from similar ones was her sense of humor and ability to lighten things up while keeping them firmly within the epic-fantasy realm. There is nothing particularly unusual in the plot here: young Aileen comes from a family of magicworkers but has yet to display gifts of her own; she and her accomplished, magically powerful Aunt Beck are sent by the High King on a quest through the islands of the book’s title; and lo and behold, thanks to the strength and self-confidence she finds during the mission, Aileen comes into her magical heritage at last – with the help of a mostly invisible cat called Plug-Ugly and a thoroughly visible and wise parrot named Green Greet. The combination of amusing incidents and serious business here (the latter involving a chance for Aileen to rescue her missing father) is deftly handled, and the book is a winning one for its tone more than for any particular intricacies of plot or characterization.

     The Luck Uglies has some animal amusement in it as well, such as an encounter with a small black monkey named Shortstraw that takes a shine to a little girl’s “Mona Monster.” Most of Paul Durham’s book, though, is darker and more serious, involving a place called Village Drowning where children play in cemeteries and on rooftops and worry about the possible return of dangerous creatures called Bog Noblins. The villagers used to be protected against those forest dwellers, now thought to be extinct, by the exiled secret society of the book’s title, but now that society is gone as well – perhaps. This is one of those books in which everyone knows who is good and who is evil, everyone knows what the rules and necessities of life are, and then the central character – a girl named Rye O’Chanter, in this case – starts to discover secrets and lies and hints that the true monsters are not the ones everyone “knows” to be monstrous. Some of the humor here is rather forced, as when a character known as Harmless (who isn’t) is being sought by one Constable Boil, who insists that Rye’s mother “produce the criminal sometimes known as Gray the Grim, or Gray the Ghastly, or Gray the Ghoul, or Gray the Gruesome… Son of Grimshaw the Black…brother of Lothaire the Loathsome.” Mostly, though, the story is serious, and told in entirely expected ways: “The girl has a right to know her history. …Haven’t we kept her in the dark long enough?” Much later, from the central villain: “You are but one man. …You live on borrowed time.” Filled with cliché but paced well enough to keep young readers interested, The Luck Uglies is another in a long series of coming-of-age tales set in different but recognizable alternative worlds.

     So is Bloodwitch, in which Amelia Atwater-Rhodes starts a new vampire series set in the Midnight empire, which her fans will immediately recognize. This series, Maeve’ra, is yet another entry in the eternal discovering-truth-and-finding-oneself genre.  The focus here is vampire-raised Vance Ehecatl, a “quetzal,” who was abandoned as a child by his family. They are shapeshifters – who hate vampires. Long protected by his vampire guardians, Vance is eventually forced to leave his home, and soon encounters another shapeshifter, Malachi Obsidian – whose revelations force Vance to start questioning what he has always considered to be the truth about his upbringing. The book’s title refers to what Malachi claims Vance to be: a possessor of rare, potentially destructive and very powerful magic that, of course, Vance himself knows nothing about. Those unfamiliar with Midnight will have some difficulty following the happenings in this novel, not because they themselves are complex but because of the language with which Atwater-Rhodes peppers the book: serpiente, pochtecatl, Obsidian guild, Azteca, Shantel, and so on. The vocabulary provides a feeling of depth, if scarcely reality, to the world of the novel, while Vance’s mistakes and successes move him toward both self-discovery and learning some of the secrets that have been kept from him. This is an entirely typical approach for a book that is both the first in a series and a tie-in to other novels: a lot is learned (but not too much), and a great deal is revealed (but scarcely everything that the reader will want to know). Atwater-Rhodes is an expert at creating books (and worlds) in the high-fantasy genre, and this one will not disappoint her fans, although it is not the best entry point for newcomers to the world of Midnight.

     The Lovely and the Lost is a second book, the sequel to The Beautiful and the Cursed, which began a series called Dispossessed. There are two primary protagonists here rather than one – sisters Ingrid and Gabby Waverly – but the book otherwise follows the expected pattern of quest, rescue, discovery, threat and resolution. Set in an alternative version of turn-of-the-20^th-century Paris rather than a completely invented world (and thus, by traditional definition, not exactly “high fantasy,” although it is close enough), The Lovely and the Lost takes place after Ingrid and Gabby have rescued their brother, Grayson (Ingrid’s twin), from a fallen angel, Axia. But this has not put a stop to the seething of the Parisian underworld of gargoyles and demons, which are after Ingrid’s blood – as are humans. The reason is that her blood has the power to command gargoyles, which no other human can do and which, of course, can be world-shaking and deadly in the wrong hands (or claws, as the case may be). Page Morgan’s gargoyles are frequently more interesting (and less stone-like) than her humans, but deft characterization is rarely a priority in epic fantasy, where the story tends to be what happens to the characters rather than anything occurring because of their individuality. The story arc here involves the sisters and Grayson learning to fend for themselves despite the protection offered to them by the Alliance – and also finding out whom they can trust and whom they cannot, in a typical twist for tales of this type. There is nothing amusing here, and it is particularly important not to find the dialogue funny: “‘You’re the one who wants to drain my sister’s blood?’ ‘Not all of it, my dear.’” Nor, for full enjoyment of the book, should readers find anything clichéd about such clichés as, “The problem, Ingrid was coming to realize, was that there were no hard and fast rules when it came to evil. It could change shape. Be one thing one moment and something else the next.” Morgan certainly plans to keep this series going – the next book will be called The Wondrous and the Wicked – and fans will know just what to expect in the way of uncertainties, entanglements and adventure as matters progress.

(++++) BEGINNINGS

Corelli: Church Sonatas, Opp. 1 and 3. The Avison Ensemble conducted by Pavlo Beznosiuk. Linn Records. $34.99 (2 SACDs).

Félicien David: Lalla-Roukh. Marianne Fiset, Emiliano Gonzalez Toro, Nathalie Paulin, Bernard Deletré, David Newman, Andrew Adelsberger; Opera Lafayette conducted by Ryan Brown. Naxos. $19.99 (2 CDs).

     Trends in music have to start somewhere, and while it may not always be possible to pinpoint the exact first time a particular approach or type of piece was composed, there is frequently a way to discover some of the most influential and very early examples of specific types of music. Corelli’s Op. 1 Church Sonatas are a case in point, Although not the first such set to be published – others had been issued for more than 70 years when Corelli’s appeared in 1681 – these 12 Corelli works became landmarks in Western classical music for their poise, balance, arrangement of movements, harmony, thematic creation and development, and just about all the other characteristics that collectively make music the communicative medium that it is. The first four published groups of works by Corelli alternate in style between Church Sonatas (Op. 1 and Op. 3) and Chamber Sonatas (Op. 2 and Op. 4), although in fact Corelli himself simply called the pieces Sonate a trè. The influence of these works on contemporary and later composers is difficult to overestimate and also difficult to understand from a modern viewpoint that looks back more than 300 years. Corelli essentially perfected forms that later composers drew on, modified, expanded and altered while always keeping one eye, figuratively, on the Corelli model. Corelli’s sense of instrumental elegance, his near-perfect balance among the three melodic instruments and continuo, his methods of connecting certain sonata movements and contrasting others – all these became part and parcel of later musical development and led, inevitably only with hindsight, to sonata-form works by Vivaldi, Bach and later composers. The Avison Ensemble’s excellent, highly idiomatic performances ensure that the music never sounds fusty or old-fashioned – quite the contrary. Pavlo Beznosiuk (who leads and plays violin), Caroline Balding (violin), Richard Tunnicliffe (cello), Paula Chateauneuf (archlute), and Roger Hamilton (harpsichord and organ) collaborate seamlessly in these works in a way that makes the music both elegant and exciting. The excellent SACD sound provides an aura of both intimacy and clarity to the sonatas, and the performances are so well paced and transparently balanced that it is hard to imagine better readings. Classical instrumental music does not really start with these Corelli works, but it certainly grew from them in important ways, and this recording deserves to be a foundation of many listeners’ collections.

     What grew from Félicien David’s 1862 opera Lalla-Roukh was a musical trend that held sway for quite some time, especially in France: the notion of exotic settings and characters, often of what was then considered an “Oriental” type, dominating the stage. Lalla-Roukh was scarcely the first opera premised on the exotic, but it was the one that captivated audiences in its time, being performed nearly 400 times before falling into obscurity at the turn of the 20^th century. It is a love story in which the title character, whose name is an endearment meaning “tulip-cheeked,” is on the way to an arranged marriage when she meets and falls in love with a bard – who turns out, at the opera’s conclusion, to be the king to whom she was betrothed in the first place, allowing everything to turn out happily for all. Ryan Brown and Opera Lafayette specialize in rediscovering and reviving works like this, and their new Naxos recording is a very fine one (although it unaccountably omits the hyphen in the opera’s title). David’s vocal casting was right in line with operatic expectations in the mid-19^th century, with paired soprano and tenor, a soprano confidante for the heroine, and lower male voices in support roles. The six soloists handle their highly tuneful material admirably, and Brown fully brings forth the “Oriental” elements of David’s clever scoring. The work’s Overture, which is still occasionally heard as a concert piece, sets the scene admirably, and its melodies as well as those heard throughout the opera are well-formed and thoroughly winning.  Lalla-Roukh is scarcely a great opera, and in many ways is very much of its time; most listeners who enjoy it will nevertheless give it a (+++) rating, since its melodies and construction do not seem particularly exotic or surprising with hindsight 150 years after its première. It is nevertheless an opera worth hearing, not only because it inspired a host of similar works that drew enthusiastic audiences for decades but also because it is, to put it simply, a very well-made, lyrical and thoroughly attractive work that – despite its dated and naïve elements – provides a refreshing change of pace from what nowadays passes for standard opera repertoire.

(++++) CRAFTSKIDSHIP

Straw Shooter Jets. By the editors of Klutz. Klutz. $16.99.

Air Power: Rocket Science Made Simple. By Pat Murphy and the scientists of Klutz Labs. Klutz. $16.99.

Tissue Paper Crafts. By April Chorba. Klutz. $19.99.

My Style Studio. By the editors of Klutz. Klutz. $21.99.

Make Your Own Washi Tape Stickers. By Anne Akers Johnson. Klutz. $16.99.

Felted Friends: Create Your Own Soft, Fuzzy Animals. By Kaitlyn Nichols. Klutz. $19.99.

     Although no longer going entirely its own way as an independent company, Klutz, which is now distributed by Scholastic, continues to produce books unlike any others – because they are not books but “books-plus” products, crafts projects in book form with clear instructions and all the materials needed to do the things those instructions describe. Whether created by committee (usually listed as “the editors of Klutz”) or by individual people under the Klutz aegis, these books are consistent winners, mostly for kids ages eight and up – although occasionally for older preteens and even young teenagers who enjoy staying in touch with hands-on crafts.  The latest Klutz crop – these offerings do seem to grow organically rather than simply being “published” – includes two “books-plus” likely to be particularly appealing to boys, two likely to attract girls, and one for slightly older preteens.

     Straw Shooter Jets and Air Power are both about making things that zoom, fly, dip and eventually crash (or land smoothly, if possible). The cover of Straw Shooter Jets invites kids to “make your own mini air force,” which in this case means using 14 custom straws (did you know “custom straws” existed?), 10 nose weights (for the planes’ noses, not the kids’), 30 “Fleet Sheets” of specific plane designs, and a stencil showing the exact shape that a plane needs to be in order to work with the straws and nose weights. There are two planes per “Fleet Sheet,” making 60 jets in all, and there are five different plane designs with names such as “Viper” and “Strawhawk.” But as usual with Klutz, there is more here than instructional material – Klutz shows kids where the ideas for these constructions came from (there are great photos of the real-world planes that inspired the crafts projects), and the book details all the capabilities of the projects. That means not only flying the planes for distance but also learning how to make them bank, loop, boomerang, corkscrew and more. Easy? Well, not always – the instructions are very clear and very well illustrated, but they do have to be followed quite carefully, and some of the more-advanced maneuvers require enough time for some trial-and-error experimentation. But one of the neat things about Klutz is that it does not make things too simple – just simple enough so kids who follow the directions will get the expected (and highly pleasing) outcomes shown. The best thing about a Klutz “books-plus” project is the sense of accomplishment that comes with it at no extra charge.

     The accomplishment in Air Power is the creation of four “rocket-powered” vehicles: a hot rod, hovercraft, helicopter and, yes, a rocket. This Klutz project pack says it exists “because rocket science is way too much fun to leave to scientists,” which is a pretty neat way to put things. The enclosed crafts items here are specific to the four projects: rocket fins and tube for the rocket, for example, and – for the hovercraft – cockpit, body, thrust vent and sticker sheet. Straw Shooter Jets offers multiple variations on a theme; Air Power presents four different themes, although all are related through their use of, well, air power. And that power comes from – balloons. Yes, the box attached to the back of the instruction book includes color-coded balloons in two sizes: the red ones are small and the others (blue, green and purple) are large. Matching the right-size balloon to the appropriate project is important; but, as always, Klutz clearly explains what to do and how to get things “rolling,” “floating,” “spinning” or “blasting.” There’s even a little science background here – another frequent feature in Klutz offerings. For example, there is some information on Sir Isaac Newton (shown, anachronistically but amusingly, holding a modern orange balloon), and there is an explanation of why rocket-engine functions resemble what happens when you fill a balloon with air and then let it go to fly away, out of control.  (“Go find the balloon. You’ll need it again later,” Klutz advises.) Here as in Straw Shooter Jets, the projects are fun, there is solid science behind them, and kids who take the time to follow the directions will be learning a bit about how things work while creating action items that are involving as well as amusing.

     Klutz also offers “books-plus” projects involving inaction items, things made to be put on display rather than to toss or fly about. These projects have such titles as Tissue Paper Crafts and My Style Studio. They are pretty much what they sound like: cute and stylish, respectively. Tissue Paper Crafts includes 100 sheets of tissue paper in multiple colors, a stencil to make multiple shapes, wire, string, bead eyes, a small tube of glue, and even a cute punch-out birdcage to hold any adorable little birdies that kids may choose to make to decorate a room or locker. The “Tips & Techniques” section that opens the instructions is particularly important here for anyone not accustomed to working with tissue paper, and the projects themselves vary significantly in difficulty, giving kids a chance to become accustomed to handling the materials before they try any of the more-complex undertakings. Most of the projects are flowers of one sort or another, but the book eventually shows how to make “pretty potted plants” and then several different birds – any of which looks cute in the little cage.  As for My Style Studio, this is a fashion instruction kit, providing figure art to trace, eight colored pencils, a drawing pencil, a pencil sharpener (a nice touch), an artist’s eraser, a fine-line pen and more. There are some interesting real-world connections here, for instance in the description of the basic model with “a longer neck, a shorter torso, and thinner limbs than you see on most people. Do you know anyone who looks like this? We don’t. But this is a book about fashion, not real life. Fashion designers like to exaggerate the long, lean lines of their looks.” In addition to the fashions themselves, kids can use the instructions here to create accessories, embellishments, custom fabrics, and more; and there are specific designs and colors for each of the four seasons. Intended for budding fashion designers, My Style Studio even suggests that “it’s time to create a label for your looks” after completing the instructions – a bit of exaggeration, to be sure, but one that kids who enjoy the way Klutz handles this topic may seriously consider.

     Designer clothes need designer labels, of course, so how about making some from washi tape? This is patterned paper tape that, like masking tape, sticks just about anywhere and peels off easily. Unlike typical masking tape, though, it is brightly colored and patterned, and Klutz provides more than 100 feet of it in Make Your Own Washi Tape Stickers. Of course, there is more: a fine-line felt-tip pen to use for tracing the abundance of art in the book, and peel-off backing paper onto which to trace the art. This project takes a little getting used to: you trace the art onto the backing paper, cover the traced shape with pieces of one or more of the six provided rolls of washi tape, cut the sticker out, peel it, and put it just about anywhere – binders, cards, windows, mirrors, lockers, and so on. There are a few tricks here, though, so following the instruction book carefully is important. For example, there are folds in the backing paper, and the placement of the tape is important: if the fold and tape run in the same direction, the sticker is more likely to tear when removed from the backing. The book shows how to prevent that – and also, typically for a Klutz offering, shows what to do if the sticker does tear. When the traced art is small, the ease or difficulty of peeling also depends on whether the folded section of backing paper runs inside the art. Illustrations show both the better and less-good way to do things, and paying close attention to the pictures is important to ensure that these projects are as enjoyable as they can be. Washi tape, which originated in Japan, will likely be less familiar to kids than many other Klutz crafts items, but Make Your Own Washi Tape Stickers is still quite appropriate for ages eight and up – it just requires a little more attentiveness than some other Klutz “books-plus” productions, and may have a slightly steeper learning curve.

     Klutz does have some “books-plus” offerings that are somewhat more complicated and therefore are intended for older crafts fanciers. Felted Friends is one of them: a set of instructions for kids ages 10 and up to use in creating five “super-cute critters” that really are adorable and that are made with the included materials – natural wool roving, a needle-felting tool, a foam work surface, and the usual clear, step-by-step instructions. The five little “animal friends” are a cat, rabbit, squirrel, fox and mouse, the last of which can alternatively be a hedgehog. Felting is likely to be less familiar to most kids than drawing or using tissue paper, so the explanatory material here is particularly important; and it is, as usual with Klutz, quite well done, showing how loose wool is transformed into felt with a simple needle-containing tool that is held like a pencil. There are clear instructions on measuring and tearing wool, picking out just a pinch or a skinny strand, and making round or flat shapes – and putting the various techniques together to produce adorable little felt animals as cute as anything you will find in a gift shop. But they are self-produced, not mass produced, and that is really the whole point of Felted Friends and the other Klutz “books-plus” crafts projects: yes, you can buy many of the things Klutz shows how to make, but creating something with one’s own hands has benefits that go well beyond those of simply getting something at a store or online. Just deciding whether to give your felt kitten spots or stripes – and then making those details on your own – is a delightful experience, and Klutz makes it easy in this book, just as it makes it step-by-step simple to create straw-powered jets, balloon-powered vehicles, tissue-paper birds, high-fashion designs or washi-tape stickers in its other new offerings.

(++++) THEMES AND VARIATIONS

Little Gorilla Book and CD. By Ruth Bornstein. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. $10.99.

Cobweb Castle. By Jan Wahl. Drawings by Edward Gorey. Pomegranate. $14.95.

A Pet for Fly Guy. By Tedd Arnold. Orchard Books/Scholastic. $16.99.

Coloring for Grown-Ups: College Companion. By Ryan Hunter & Taige Jensen. Plume. $10.

     It can be a great deal of fun for young children to encounter books that take well-worn themes and do something new with them – including books published some time ago that still feel fresh and new today. Ruth Bornstein’s Little Gorilla, for example, dates to 1976 but has a timeless theme: everyone, no matter what size and no matter how old, needs love. The simple story takes place in a warm, soft jungle world, where animals one by one show their love for Little Gorilla until – well, something happens. Little Gorilla starts to grow...and grow…and grow. But even when he is big, all the jungle inhabitants come to him on his birthday, singing and dancing and wishing him a happy day. That is the whole story – short, simple, sweet and with a straightforward message. But there is a variation in the new version of it, because now a paperback copy of the book is neatly packaged with a CD containing not one but two complete readings of Little Gorilla – one with page-turn signals so kids can follow along, the other without them so children can enjoy the audio whether or not they themselves are following the book at the same time as the reader, Cheryl McMahon. Little Gorilla remains the same charmer that it has been for nearly 40 years, and the modern packaged-with-CD variation will make it more accessible and attractive to today’s preschoolers.

     The theme-and-variations approach of an even older book, Cobweb Castle (first published in 1968), lies in the entire plot, which is a very clever one indeed. Jan Wahl’s story is about a greengrocer named Flemming Flinders who, like many other people living a humdrum life, likes to think about adventure, magic and grand quests – Don Quixote being the prototypical example. Flinders finally decides to set out to seek adventure and fortune, especially fortune, and soon finds himself on a journey involving a wart-nosed witch, a beautiful princess, and the castle of the book’s title. But – and this is the underlying variation that makes Cobweb Castle so much fun – nothing that Flinders encounters is what he thinks it is. And readers know it, although Flinders remains quite oblivious. The “witch” is simply an elderly woman named Drukamella who talks to Flinders to get rid of him. Her advice brings him into contact with, lo and behold, a talking crow – but this is nothing magical: the crow “had escaped from a vaudeville theater,” and the bird’s owner (eventually mistakenly identified by Flinders as “the Ogre of the Woods”) is hunting for it. To repeat, nothing is what Flinders thinks it is: the castle itself is simply a stately house, the “princess” a young woman named Ingaborg whose family “just rented the place for the summer,” the princess’ parents not the beast-shaped creatures Flinders thinks they are but simply two people who raise basset hounds. “It was not turning out like a fairy-tale after all,” Flinders eventually realizes, finally returning to his work as a greengrocer and starting to dream, all over again. The strange, offbeat, rather silly story, which nevertheless has a point to make about following your dreams without taking them too literally, succeeds in the handsome new Pomegranate edition in large part because of the perfectly apt illustrations by Edward Gorey, whose work was almost always in highly detailed black-and-white but here is in elegant pastel colors that fit Cobweb Castle perfectly. Gorey does not opt for any grotesquerie here; instead, he makes the mundane marvelous, whether showing Flinders and the “princess” writing their names on sand or portraying Flinders in his hat and city clothes trying to sleep beneath dark, dry bushes underneath which mushrooms are growing. The expressive expressionlessness that is typical of Gorey characters fits this story very well indeed, and the changes that Wahl rings on fairy-tale tropes make the whole book an offbeat delight from start to finish.

     A much more straightforward delight with much more-forthright humor, A Pet for Fly Guy is nevertheless an amusing variation on the basic theme of Tedd Arnold’s long-running series about a boy named Buzz and his pet fly – because in this book, Fly Guy himself is on the hunt for a pet. The two run and chase and have their usual good time on the way to the park, where they watch other kids play with their pets: a bear, an octopus, a porcupine and other animals (clearly Buzz is not the only kid in this town with an out-of-the-ordinary pet!). Watching the various interactions upsets Fly Guy because he has, as he sadly states, “No petz.” So Buzz decides to find him one, and off they go to a pet shop where all the potential pets prove inappropriate for Fly Guy (especially the fly-eating frog). Buzz decides that Fly Guy should choose his own pet – which Fly Guy tries to do, with amusingly silly results as he considers a slimy worm, tangly spider and jumpy cricket. No pet seems right for Fly Guy – so he and Buzz decide to think through the whole pet issue, figuring out just what Fly Guy needs in a pet. And what happens? Everything Buzz brings up as a desirable quality in a pet (enjoying playing, doing tricks, being a good friend) turns out to be a quality that Buzz has. So Fly Guy asks Buzz to be his pet, just as Fly Guy himself is Buzz’s pet, and everything buzzes happily to a conclusion as the two “pets” walk off, each saying the other is “the best pet in the whole wide world.” A Pet for Fly Guy manages to fit right into the whole Fly Guy series while at the same time being a variation that stands just outside it.

     And speaking of variations outside the norm, Ryan Hunter and Taige Jensen have taken one of the most-traditional books for children, the coloring book, and created a variation that is distinctly not for kids. Coloring for Grown-Ups: College Companion looks like an ordinary coloring book, but its contents are decidedly not childlike. Immature, yes; for kids, no. One page, “Quad Bingo,” includes illustrated spaces designated “cool guy hat,” “covert drug use,” “unnecessary bathing suit,” “ill-advised party-related costume choice,” “inappropriate public makeout,” and more. Another shows an empty box called a “fantasy care package” for readers to draw in – and asks, “What cool stuff did you receive this weekend from your fantasy parents?” A “reinvent yourself” page shows “convincing new affectations” and says to draw the one you choose. A two-pager called “Color the Freshman 15!” includes suitable illustrations for such characters as “Night Crammer,” “Professor Pizza,” “Stressball,” “Snack Attack” and “Homesick Commando.” There is a “college diversity poster” to which artists can add more people to “help your school simulate an atmosphere of inclusiveness”; a “create your own college prank” page inviting readers to choose one word from each of four columns and then name and draw the resulting prank; even a “drowning in debt” page suggesting students draw themselves at an appropriate debt depth – the bottom of the “pool” is at the $200,000 level. Also here are instructions for making a student film with a “pretentious, one-word title,” plus a page matching specific degrees to real-world jobs – journalism to “freelance video blogger,” for example, and political science to “street performer.” The whole intended-to-be-funny enterprise has a whiff of mean-spiritedness and condescension about it. More than a whiff, actually – it gets a (+++) rating for some clever elements, but as a variation on the time-honored coloring book, it serves mainly to show that some classical book forms are best left alone.

(++++) RECIPES FOR FOOD AND LIFE

iRules: What Every Tech-Healthy Family Needs to Know about Selfies, Sexting, Gaming, and Growing Up. By Janell Burley Hofmann. Rodale. $17.99.

Almonds Every Which Way: More than 150 Healthy & Delicious Almond Milk, Almond Flour, and Almond Butter Recipes. By Brooke McLay. Da Capo. $18.99.

     A recipe sets down, in a few words, a series of ingredients, precepts and requirements that, based on a series of underlying assumptions (such as the use of heat as a catalyst), will eventually produce something more than the sum of the ingredients themselves. And the notion of a recipe has long applied to far more than cooking or baking: we talk of recipes for happiness, recipes for accumulating wealth, recipes for long life, and so on. Janell Burley Hofmann, a mother of five, does not describe the basis of iRules as a recipe – she calls it a contract – but if the three-page writeup itself smacks of contractual language and design, the rest of her almost-290-page book, in interpreting and expanding upon the basic material, constitutes a recipe for producing satisfactory family life in our technology-focused age. iRules is much longer than the typical recipe, but its final product will take years to cook, so some indulgence is called for. “I do believe the iRules model will bring balance, dialogue, and success to your family’s relationship with technology,” Hofmann writes. She then presents the 18-point contract she gave one Christmas to her 13-year-old son, Gregory, along with an iPhone – and then proceeds to expand upon and deconstruct that contract, provision by provision, explaining what each element of it is designed to accomplish. It is Hofmann’s contract’s first provision that sets the tone and creates the foundation for all the others: “It is my phone. I bought it. I pay for it. I am loaning it to you. Aren’t I the greatest?” A teenager willing to agree with that provision is fair game for accepting all the others, which involve ways to use the phone and not use it. In addition to the expected warnings against using the phone to lie, deceive or view porn, there are lots of little life lessons here: “Don’t take a zillion pictures and videos. There is no need to document everything. Live your experiences. They will be stored in your memory for eternity.” “Leave your phone home sometimes and feel safe and secure in that decision. It is not alive or an extension of you.” The final provision is a particularly sensible one: “You will mess up. I will take away your phone. We will sit down and talk about it.” That sort of plainspoken reassurance bespeaks a family relationship in which parents and children are already close enough, already willing enough to talk things out, so that the contract merely solidifies and specifies – it does not try to create a family culture of mutual respect and support. Thus, iRules makes sense only for families that have evolved along the lines of Hofmann’s own, long before parents make the decision to give a teenager a cell phone. Respect and mutuality not already present will not be mandated by Hofmann’s contract or any other, nor created by the presentation of a phone to a teenager. The foundation must be there already, and it must be a firm one – just as, in other recipes, there is an underlying if unstated assumption that when you turn on the oven, it will produce heat. Hofmann tries to put some of her eminently sensible rules in an “I was a teenager once myself” context, as when she headlines a box “Mom and Dad, Close Your Eyes” and explains, “During high school, I engaged in risky behaviors like sex and drinking. …But it was different. It wasn’t public. No one took pictures, never mind shared or posted them. It couldn’t follow me.” At the same time, she shows again and again that her family situation has very specific elements that other families may not possess: “I am lucky enough to say that on the summer days when [husband] Adam and I were working and the kids did not have camp, their grandparents were a great source of excitement and entertainment for our kids. …I think grandparents are sacred and get to make their own rules. As long as they closely resemble my rules, that is.” Hofmann’s recipe for managing technology with teenagers is well thought out and intelligently presented, but like any recipe, it requires you to have the ingredients already on hand before you start the preparation. If your family’s foundation resembles that of Hofmann’s family, iRules can help you whip up a tasty technological treat. Otherwise – well, it makes no sense to try vegan cooking if all you have in the house is bacon and steak.

     A much more traditional recipe book, albeit one with a narrow orientation, is Brooke McLay’s Almonds Every Which Way, a compendium of breakfast foods, smoothies, breads and muffins, snacks, sandwiches, soups, main courses and desserts that incorporate almond flour, almond butter, almond milk and, by the way, almonds themselves. Far too focused for the majority of cooks – for which reason it gets a (+++) rating – McLay’s book will be a delight for anyone who wants to spend a great deal of kitchen time with all things almond. The “homemade basics” – 35 pages of them – are themselves more than most cooks and bakers will ever produce. A number of them are delightful: five different types of almond milk, seven kinds of almond butter, and so on. However, it is the use of these basic ingredients in more-complex recipes that forms the heart of the book. You can make pumpkin-almond donut muffins, for example, or almond muffins in either Paleo or vegan style. There are almond butter breakfast sandwiches here, and Thai-style breakfast burritos. Among the drinks are almond white marshmallow hot cocoa, orange almond whippy, banana almond butter protein blast, and coconut-almond green smoothie – the names alone are deliciously evocative. Dinner recipes include almond-chicken satay, Spanish almond chicken, almond milk alfredo, even “stealthy healthy mac and cheese.” McLay does a particularly good job with the names of dishes, and the range of her ideas is exceptionally wide – although she also includes traditional almond-based foods, such as almond butter cookies. And she is careful to explain, before presenting a single recipe, what special equipment and specific ingredients the various recipes require. This is helpful – and also shows the limitations of Almonds Every Which Way. The fact is that very few individuals or families will ever use more than a small fraction of the recipes in this book: eating fads such as Paleo may catch on among some people, but there is not, at least so far, an Almonds Alone diet. Until there is, McLay’s book will be strictly a specialty item, akin to one about all the ways to prepare foods with, say, coconut milk. There is nothing wrong with a single-focus cookbook, and this is a good one for people who really love almonds. But if you only want to try an occasional almond-focused recipe, Almonds Every Which Way will be a case of almonds in a few too many ways.

(+++) GENRE GRABBERS

Incinerator. By Niall Leonard. Delacorte Press. $17.99.

Deception’s Princess. By Esther Friesner. Random House. $17.99.

Cool Beans: The Further Adventures of Beanboy. By Lisa Harkrader. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. $16.99.

     Knowing where you belong and staying there is not a formula for a novel for young readers – the formula is more about not knowing where you belong and finding out. But the know-it-and-stick-with-it approach is a formula for authors of novels for young readers: staying firmly within a particular genre makes it possible not only to create a well-targeted novel but also to spin out sequels and even entire series. Thus, Incinerator, a hard-boiled and intense mystery-adventure for ages 14 and up, is a sequel to Crusher, which introduced young boxer and dogged investigator Finn Maguire. Incinerator contains multiple references to the earlier book but is reasonably easy to read on its own. Here, having solved the mystery of the bludgeoning death of his father in the earlier book, Finn encounters even more violence, sexuality, betrayal and brutality, the pace and intensity of Incinerator making up for the lack of a direct family connection in the story. Finn, who is 17, is now running a boxing gym with his former coach and old friend, Delroy, but things go quickly awry when Finn’s lawyer, Nicky, disappears with all Finn’s money. That puts Finn in debt to loan sharks with truly vicious enforcers – and forces Finn to try to find Nicky and get his money back so he can repay his debts. Multiple mysteries soon emerge as Finn investigates Nicky’s other clients and turns up the typical-for-this-genre web of lies, betrayals and, of course, violence. In fact, there is so much violence in the book that even some 14-and-up readers may find it a bit much – as when Finn discovers one bad guy, a victim of other bad guys, disemboweled. Finn’s revenge on those who have hurt him and his friends – yes, some of his friends get hurt or killed, as again is typical of this genre – is extreme, to the point of his killing someone without even quite realizing that he has done so (although the dead man most certainly deserves it, and Finn later wishes he could bring him back to life and kill him again). Niall Leonard is primarily a screenwriter – Crusher was his first novel in what is called the “young adult” space – and his abilities certainly show in the breakneck pace of Incinerator and the edge-of-cliff (here, edge-of-building-roof) scenes with which he moves the plot along. That plot is complex but not too complex, keeping readers guessing but not mystifying them too deeply: there is little subtlety to anything in Incinerator, just as there is little to Finn – although since this is a British thriller rather than an American one, U.S. readers may pull up short when encountering some of the slang (“lags,” “nobble,” “postie,” “HGV,” “optics,” “blag” and so on). This slam-bang adventure is very much in the Mickey Spillane tradition (“I didn’t need the same standard of proof as the cops”) rather than that of, say Dashiell Hammett; and, in fact, young readers who find Finn congenial, if scarcely appetizing, may want to move on to the Mike Hammer books after finishing this one.

     Deception’s Princess is for slightly younger readers, ages 12 and up, and is in the fantasy-adventure genre rather than the mystery-thriller one. It is actually the seventh book in a series that probably can continue indefinitely, since each book stands on its own and their only “series” connection lies in the way Esther Friesner creates them. The sequence is called The Princesses of Myth, and each focuses on an inevitably strong-willed young woman for whom there is some historical evidence but whose specific personality and adventures are largely unknown and are therefore fertile ground in which Friesner can grow her novels. Reading these books will make teens, particularly teenage girls, think that there were no obedient, placid, satisfied-with-life princesses at all in antiquity: every single one was determined to become more than she was born to be, and every single one possessed elements of heroism and dynamism. That makes The Princesses of Myth into a sort of anti-Disney series (although even Disney’s cartoon heroines long since developed some backbone and self-awareness). Deception’s Princess actually features a character, Maeve, who bears some resemblance to a recent Disney heroine, Merida from the movie Brave, although it is unlikely that Friesner had that in mind. Maeve is drawn by Friesner from bits and pieces of Irish myth and history in the century or so after the time of Christ. Very little is known of Ireland in that time and even less of Maeve, or whatever person or persons the legends about her were based upon. So Friesner mixes a bit of Maeve’s personality as reported in the 12^th-century work in which she is mentioned with a touch of what is known about life in ancient Ireland, then presents a story in modern English dialogue that is sprinkled with Irish terms and names – whose pronunciation is explained at the back of the book. Friesner portrays Maeve as the youngest of six daughters, a girl both beautiful and rich, and one who is desirable for those qualities as well as for the kingdom she will bring to her husband, since her father is High King and has no male heir. But 16-year-old Maeve is unsatisfied with her role in life and determined to escape it and prove herself to be – well, whatever she wants to be or become, a highly modern notion that Friesner has no problem slipping in, because the anachronism itself is what will interest the target readers of this genre. Maeve’s approach to getting what she wants is a combination of court political skill with old-fashioned misbehavior, giving herself a reputation that she does not deserve but that keeps her free of marital entanglements. As the book progresses, she loses her desirability as marriage material, faces a typical-for-the-genre conflict between family and the call of her own heart, and eventually attains the freedom to be herself, with the question of what that means never answered or even really asked: being free is enough – and what a modern notion that is. Deception’s Princess has the pluses and minuses of Friesner’s other books in this series, with pacing and dialogue that will appeal to teens of today who value freedom from the bonds of family and tradition above all.

     The intended audience is still younger in Cool Beans: The Further Adventures of Beanboy, which is aimed at preteens and is the sequel to Lisa Harkrader’s The Adventures of Beanboy. Like the earlier book, this followup has illustrations that are important to its story, although not absolutely integral to it; and here as before, the book is never quite sure whether it wants to be an illustrated tale or a graphic novel. The cast of characters returns here, including comic-book fan and would-be comic-book creator Tucker MacBean; his divorced parents; his special-needs brother, Beecher; his close friend and onetime middle-school bully, a girl named Sam; and, for a change, a different middle-school bully, Wesley Banks. The plot here, as in the earlier book, is fairly complex, involving Art Club and dodgeball and the loss of a bulletin board and a helmet and a bunch of friends who are defined by what they do rather than by who they are: “I’ve always believed that every person is born with some kind of talent. Like I was born a comic book artist. And Noah was born with all those giant brain cells. And even somebody like the Kaleys, they were born knowing how to boss people around. …But whatever talent Dillon Zawicki was born with, he did a good job of keeping it a secret.” But of course Dillon does have talent, and in fact so does everybody in an essentially good-humored, feel-good book this this one, which fits neatly into the “camaraderie and team spirit” genre for middle-school readers. The chapters are sprinkled with scenes from “Tucker MacBean’s Top Secret Undercover Beanboy Comic Book,” and the plot progresses entirely predictably until it reaches its climax with an inevitable one-on-one confrontation between Tucker and Wesley in which heart (and art) triumph over brawn (and bullying). Because this is a feel-good book, the eventual outcome is never in doubt; the interest is in how things will get to that point and what sorts of friendships will be made, or cemented, along the way. By the end of Cool Beans, everything is just swell for everybody, or almost everybody, and the only real question is whether Harkrader intends to continue to yet another sequel in the same genre, with the same cast of characters.

(++++) SPEAKING THROUGH SOLOISTS

Shostakovich: Cello Concertos Nos. 1 and 2. Truls Mørk, cello; Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Vasily Petrenko. Ondine. $16.99.

Christos Hatzis: Departures—Concerto for Flute and String Orchestra (2011); Overscript—Concerto for Flute and Chamber Orchestra (1993/2012). Patrick Gallois, flute; Thessaloniki State Symphony Orchestra conducted by Alexandre Myrat. Naxos. $9.99.

Ernst Toch: String Trio (1936); Adagio elegiaco (1950); Cello Sonata (1929); Divertimento (1925); Violin Sonata No. 1 (1913). Spectrum Concerts Berlin. Naxos. $9.99.

John Cage: Music for Two (1984/1987); Three Dances for prepared pianos (1945). Pestova/Meyer Piano Duo (Xenia Pestova and Pascal Meyer). Naxos. $9.99.

Haskell Small: The Rothko Room—Journeys in Silence (2010); Visions of Childhood (2011); A Glimpse of Silence (2013). Haskell Small, piano. MSR Classics. $12.95.

Schumann: Fantasie in C; Bruckner: Fantasie in G; Zemlinsky: Fantasien über Gedichte von Richard Dehmel; Brahms: Fantasien. Stanislav Khristenko, piano. Steinway & Sons. $17.99.

     It is inevitable that any cellist performing the Shostakovich concertos will be compared with Mstislav Rostropovich, for whom they were written and who gave the first performances of both, in 1959 and 1966, respectively (the Second actually received its première on Shostakovich’s 60^th birthday, September 25). But if cellists will inevitably stand in the shadow of Rostropovich when it comes to these works, that does not mean they are doomed to second-class status in their performances. Quite the opposite, in fact, when it comes to a cellist as fine as Truls Mørk and, equally importantly, a conductor as superbly involved in Shostakovich interpretation as Vasily Petrenko. Yevgeny Mravinsky conducted the First Concerto at its debut, and Yevgeny Svetlanov led the Second, and while both were outstanding Soviet-era conductors, Petrenko is something else: a conductor whose considerations and reconsiderations of the music of Shostakovich continually shed new light on the composer’s works. And so the collaboration of Petrenko with Mørk on a new Ondine CD is an outstanding one. Mørk certainly has the necessary technique and emotional sensitivity to make these large, complex works comprehensible and emotionally trenchant; Petrenko, for his part, has a visceral understanding of this music as well as tremendous sensitivity to its nuances. The Oslo Philharmonic is not really an ideal orchestra for these lush but highly angular scores – its overall sound, although well-balanced, is somewhat bland – but Petrenko brings forth the various sectional elements to excellent effect, and throughout both concertos, Mørk weaves the cello lines in and out of the orchestral palette with tremendous skill and admirable sure-handedness. Rostropovich’s own performances of these concertos remain available – several different ones, in fact – and they have tremendous historical value as well as musical validity. But these works transcend any individual soloist and speak to and through other first-rate performers with a different and equally compelling voice. Mørk and Petrenko make them their own, and the result is highly satisfying even for dyed-in-the-wool admirers of Rostropovich’s versions.

     Satisfying in a very different way is a Naxos recording of flute concertos by Canadian composer Christos Hatzis (born 1953). Like many contemporary composers, Hatzis draws influences from a variety of sources beyond traditional classical models – in his case, all filtered through the lens of Christian spirituality. Thus, Departures, which is a memorial both on a personal level for Hatzis as well as to the victims of the 2011 tsunami at Fukushima, Japan, incorporates blues and Japanese music as well as some incongruous burlesque touches that, in Hatzis’ accretive style, work better than would otherwise be expected. Overscript is an even more complex work, managing the highly unusual technical feat of incorporating Bach’s entire G minor flute concerto, BWV 1056/I – in fragmented form – within Hatzis’ composition, so that Overscript becomes a musical commentary on music. An overarching element of these Hatzis works is that they sound, descriptively, as if they are over-clever and more of an intellectual exercise than an emotionally communicative one – but in fact they lie very well on the flute and other instruments and are considerably more emotive than a description of their derivative elements indicates. Patrick Gallois is a very effective advocate of this music, and the other soloists in Overscript – Dimitrios Kalpaxidis on oboe, Georgios Politis on bassoon and Marilena Liakopoulou on harpsichord – also show a well-wrought combination of understanding of the Baroque and comprehension of Hatzis’ intentions in reinterpreting Bach. The Thessaloniki State Symphony Orchestra under Alexandre Myrat may not be a world-class ensemble, but it is sturdy and serviceable and commands a string section quite strong enough to put these concertos across effectively. Both these works are world première recordings, and they will likely whet many listeners’ appetites for more music by Hatzis, a composer who is scarcely unusual in the multiplicity of his influences but is decidedly out of the ordinary in how he combines those elements and uses them to evoke expressions for a modern audience.

     A Naxos recording of chamber music by Ernst Toch (1887-1964) shows a composer whose expressive success varies by work and also by the period in which each work was created. Spectrum Concerts Berlin here offers pieces as early as 1913 and as late as 1950, and the changes in Toch’s style among these works are quite apparent. Violin Sonata No. 1 is effectively structured and decidedly in 19^th-century mode, with little originality in design or communication and a serviceable but scarcely original approach to its thematic material. Divertimento and the Cello Sonata are more-advanced works, the former very brief and pointed (its three movements last only seven minutes) and the latter pleasant, with elements of elegance and a generally effective use of the cello’s range and expressive ability. This sonata, however, is not as emotive as the String Trio, the most effectively communicative music on this CD: it is a work of strength, passion and dedication, in straightforward three-movement form but with a level of intensity and personal involvement largely missing in the earlier-composed works on this disc. The short Allegro elegiaco is expressive as well, but in a heart-on-its-sleeve way that is somewhat overdone and that belies the sincerity it intends to project as a memorial to Holocaust victims. Toch’s music is well-made and shows considerable understanding of the solo instruments and ensembles for which he created it, but it is not particularly distinctive and does not have characteristics that would lead a listener unfamiliar with it to identify it as indelibly “Toch-ian.” As a result, this CD gets a (+++) rating despite the very high-quality performances that the musicians lavish on these works.

     The performances are also quite fine on another (+++) CD from Naxos, and here the music is certainly distinctive in its own way, but it is a way that wears extremely thin quite quickly. John Cage (1912-1992) remains a controversial figure even today, as well as a highly influential one. His focuses were many, ranging from a study of the relationship between performers and audience (as in his famous 4’33”, in which the performer sits quietly and listens to the audience), to reproducing the sounds and effects of the Balinese gamelan on Western instruments, to making instruments do things and produce sounds that they were never intended to create. Music for Two and Three Dances for prepared piano are fair samples of Cage’s approach, and both would be highly interesting to see in a live performance – Cage’s works always had a significant theatrical element to them. But as heard on an audio CD, they are long, overdone and, after only a short time, distinctly boring. Music for Two includes bowed piano techniques as well as the strongly percussive ones that Cage favored, and goes on (and on) for nearly half an hour. Three Dances for prepared piano has much of the gamelan flavor that Cage fancied and requires the performers to “prepare” the pianos in such a way that they make sounds – bangs, yowls, screeches, percussive explosions and more – of which they are quite capable but that fly in the face of the instrument’s primary reason for existence. There is, by design, nothing melodious, harmonically significant or rhythmically graspable in these works: Cage became a darling of the avant-garde in his time and afterwards by denying the basic elements of musical structure that had served as building blocks for more than 300 years. More than two decades after Cage’s death, his work remains divisive and debatable, a basic question being to what extent it can even be called music. He will continue to be celebrated for his iconoclasm and his willingness to stretch instruments’ sounds and listeners’ perceptions, but even when performers throw themselves (to some extent, literally) into his works, as do Xenia Pestova and Pascal Meyer, the result is something far less than compelling.

     Silence – the absence of sound – was important to Cage, although in that respect his preoccupations were nothing new: even Haydn thought it crucial to get the silences right when composing. Total silence is, of course, the opposite of sound and thus in a sense the opposite of music even while being a part of it. And the concept of silence can be interestingly interpreted with music, which is what Haskell Small (born 1948) tries to do in The Rothko Room and A Glimpse of Silence. Small has a particular fascination with silence as interpreted through music: he is a fine and wide-ranging pianist, and one work with which he is particularly associated is the more-than-hour-long Música Callada ("Quiet Music") by Catalan composer Frederic Mompou (1893-1987). With Small’s new MSR Classics CD, devoted entirely to world première recordings of his own music, it is easy to see the silence/sound dichotomy to which Small is attracted. Parts of The Rothko Room, which as a whole is a narrative of the life of Rothko (1903-1970), are tumultuous, while others make their points quietly or without sound altogether. The extended single-movement work falls into four distinct parts, each loosely related to one of the four Rothko paintings on display at the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. A combination of impressionism in the Mussorgsky tradition with an attempt to paint a musical portrait of Rothko’s life, this is an ambitious work that will be most meaningful for those who know the specific Rothko paintings that inspired Small or, at the very least, are familiar with Rothko’s biography. A Glimpse of Silence, a shorter and more-straightforward piece, has an overall feeling of quiet and mysticism, with a predominant mood of serenity. Visions of Childhood is the most immediately appealing work on this disc. Like Schumann’s Kinderszenen, to which it traces its heritage, Small’s work is a series of brief scenes in which an adult looks back at a largely idealized picture of childhood. Small’s 10 scenes take only 15 minutes to perform, and several really do zip by – in under a minute. The once-upon-a-time approach is set up through the first piece, “A Long Time Ago,” and continues with lighthearted elements (“Frolicking,” “School’s Out!”) and some thoughtful ones (“Feeling Lonely,” “Lullaby”). The juxtapositions are generally quite well managed – the concluding “Lullaby,” for example, is preceded by “Roller Coaster” – and Visions of Childhood as a whole has a pleasantly nostalgic feel. Small’s music, especially insofar as it echoes some New Age-y elements of ethereality, will not be to all tastes, but this (+++) CD is a fair introduction to the composer/pianist’s thinking in recent years and in particular to his interest in having his works encompass large themes, including that of silence, within musical structures that verge on the miniature.

     It is not Schumann’s Kinderszenen but his Fantasie in C, Op. 17 that anchors the new (++++) Steinway & Sons CD featuring Stanislav Khristenko: his performance of this work helped lead Khristenko to First Prize at the Cleveland International Piano Competition last year. Schumann’s Fantasie is an emotionally charged piece with deliberate echoes of and quotations from Beethoven (it was intended to help raise funds for a monument to Beethoven in his birthplace, Bonn). It is difficult to sustain for its half-hour length, but Khristenko has taken its measure and manages a fine balance between its technical complexity and its emotional heart. Similarly, Brahms’ late and complex Fantasien, Op. 116, look back to Beethoven in their use of small motivic fragments as building blocks of grander structures – and here, too, Khristenko approaches the work with sensitivity as well as the necessary virtuosity in its three Capriccio segments. The Fantasien are seven miniatures that collectively produce an impact well beyond their individual elements, and Khristenko manages to communicate this through attention focused on the individual pieces’ characteristics while never losing sight of Brahms’ overall structure. This is a particularly impressive performance for a 29-year-old pianist: Schumann’s Fantasie was written when the composer was 26, and many of its sentiments are those of a young and somewhat headstrong man; but the Brahms Fantasien is a work of that composer’s late life, and what Brahms’ communicates here is a level of complexity that also sums up many of his pianistic techniques and emotional concerns. It says much for Khristenko’s skill that he can make both these very different works so effective, each in its own way. And the two other pieces on this CD are fascinating discoveries. Bruckner’s Fantasie is a brief, quiet and lyrical work that shows a little-noticed side of the composer. And Alexander Zemlinsky’s Fantasien über Gedichte von Richard Dehmel is fascinating. This is a set of four movements inspired by works written by the same poet whose Verklärte Nacht led to Schoenberg’s masterful 1899 string sextet. Zemlinsky’s piano work was written a year earlier and in more distinctly Romantic (indeed, Brahmsian) style. The music itself is poetic, limpid and often quiet, and Khristenko performs it with the combination of skill and sensitivity that he displays throughout this highly impressive debut CD.

(++++) TRADITIONS, FANCIFUL AND REAL

The Worst Princess. By Anna Kemp. Illustrations by Sara Ogilvie. Random House. $16.99.

I Pledge Allegiance. By Pat Mora & Libby Martinez. Illustrated by Patrice Barton. Knopf. $16.99.

Abuelo. By Arthur Dorros. Illustrated by Raúl Colón. Harper. $17.99.

     It can be fun to play games with well-worn notions – and fun in a very different way to explore them. The Worst Princess is very much on the “enjoyment” side of things, taking the specific well-worn notion of a princess being rescued by a prince and living happily ever after – and turning it upside-down. This princess is initially quite willing to go along with fairy-tale traditions, and she waits and waits for her prince to come – but when he finally does, he turns out to be, in her own word, a “twit,” and she soon finds that her adventurous spirit cannot handle being confined in the traditional princely castle, wearing the traditional rescued-princess gowns, and doing what the prince says: “Just smile a lot and twist your curls./ Dragon-bashing’s not for girls.” Well, maybe not, but this princess has her own ideas about dragons, and bashing is not among them. Sure enough, a dragon does show up, but instead of screaming for help, the princess forms an alliance with the fire-breather – after all, neither of them thinks much of the prince: “The dragon sniffed, then with two snorts,/ set alight the princely shorts!” And leaving the prince with his bottom aflame – well, actually sitting in a convenient pond, facing a sword-wielding, crown-wearing frog – princess and dragon race off together, “making mischief left and right/ for royal twits and naughty knights,” and then having a nice spot of tea before their next adventure. The whole turned-on-its-head approach of Anna Kemp’s story, with its delightfully apt versifying, is well complemented by Sara Ogilvie’s wonderfully silly illustrations, and although The Worst Princess will not by itself undo the attraction of fairy tales – and does not really intend to – it is certainly a salutary alternative to the more insipid notions of “proper” role models for princes and princesses alike. And dragons, for that matter.

     A far more serious look at a tradition, in this case a real-world one in the United States, I Pledge Allegiance is an age-appropriate look at what citizenship means, and stands as a loving tribute by Pat Mora and her daughter, Libby Martinez, to Libby’s real-life great-aunt, around whose experience the book is built. A Mexican immigrant who became a U.S. citizen in her 70s, Libby’s great-aunt explained that the American flag made her feel “safe and warm,” and that is just what she says in this slightly fictionalized story to a little girl named, yes, Libby. In the book, Libby calls her great-aunt “Lobo,” meaning “wolf,” and it is a nickname of endearment – created in the real world, the authors explain, because Libby’s real-world great-aunt used to refer to the children as her lobitos (little wolves). The sense of endearment and close family connections pervades I Pledge Allegiance, which on the surface is the story of an elderly woman preparing to become a U.S. citizen, with little Libby helping by herself learning the Pledge of Allegiance and memorizing it. There are legitimate concerns today about immigration issues – indeed, such concerns are as old as the United States itself – but this is a wholly apolitical book, and one whose focus on old-fashioned patriotism and love of country should appeal to families of all political viewpoints. The Pledge of Allegiance was far simpler when written in 1892 by Baptist minister and socialist Francis Bellamy (1855-1931) – it was a reaction to the decline in patriotic feeling as memories of the Civil War faded, and it simply said, “I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” Mora and Martinez note at the end of their book that the pledge has been modified four times (more accurately, written once and modified three times), but they avoid any explanation of the changes and the controversy associated with them – for instance, the addition of “under God” in 1954 as a response to the perceived systemic atheism of Communism. What the authors want in I Pledge Allegiance – and what they get, thanks partly to the warmly humanizing illustrations of Patrice Barton and mostly to their memories of Libby’s real-life great-aunt – is to show why life in the United States is still so meaningful and important to so many people whose birth was elsewhere.

     Lobo does not forget her Mexican roots just because of her new citizenship, and the importance of heritage is made even clearer in Abuelo, another family-focused book whose fictional story is based on a real one. In this case, the setting is Argentina, with Arthur Dorros recounting a tale based on the life of one of his friends and the friend’s abuelo gaucho (grandfather cowboy). In the book itself, in well-written prose seasoned with Spanish words that are clearly explained and do not slow down the reading for English-only speakers, Dorros recounts the story of a young boy, now older and remembering “when I was little” (the book’s first words, reminiscent of “once upon a time” in fairy tales). The boy recalls long rides with his abuelo, daytime mountain climbing, rainy days, clear nights filled with starshine, even an encounter with a mountain lion. The events are everyday ones – everyday on the Argentine pampas, in any case – and are lovingly shown in Raúl Colón’s atmospheric illustrations. And the story’s meaning only becomes clear later in the book, as the boy remembers moving away from the place where his abuelo lived – to the city, with a whole new set of challenges, which he is able to meet in part because of what he learned on horseback from his abuelo. “Little by little, I began to know the city. It was wide in different ways, like La Pampa.” The transition from countryside to city is in some ways very different from the experience of moving to an entire new nation, but its challenges are in other ways similar, and retaining family traditions and meanings is a very important way of coping with the new and difficult times brought by any major transition. The sensitivity with which the story of Abuelo is told and illustrated should resonate with any family that has to handle major life changes and needs to look at its own foundational beliefs and relationships in order to build a new life under new circumstances.