(+++) BITING OFF A BIT TOO MUCH TO CHEW

Mother of Sharks. By Melissa Cristina Márquez. Illustrated by Devin Elle Kurtz. Penguin Workshop. $19.99.

     An intermittently charming book that tries to be three things at once and as a result is never quite any one of them, Melissa Cristina Márquez’ Mother of Sharks strikes an uneasy balance among the real world, a fantasy world, and an advocacy position. Márquez is a marine biologist and wildlife educator, and would certainly be able to get young readers (ages 5-8) interested in the amazing world of sharks if she chose to make that her book’s focus. Certainly there are sharks here: illustrations of more than two dozen types decorate the inside front and inside back covers and their facing pages. And the mako shark, nurse shark, sixgill shark, and Greenland shark make cameo appearances in the book, likely whetting some young readers’ appetites for more information on these fascinating fish – and perhaps sending them to some of the back-of-the-book resources recommended by the author.

     So far, so good. But the sharks are just one of the topics here, and not the major one. The second element is autobiography and, by extension, advocacy. Márquez makes it clear that the book is in large part her own story, the tale of her “childhood memories of exploring the ocean at la Playita del Condado in San Juan, Puerto Rico.” Márquez uses that personal element as the basis for a diversity-and-inclusion plea, advocating for a greater Hispanic presence in STEM fields such as marine biology. That is the second Mother of Sharks topic, an adult-oriented one that fits at best uneasily with the scientific elements of marine biology in a book for young children.

     And then there is the third element, that of fantasy. In her attempt to sew the other two elements together and get very young readers interested in them, Márquez creates a kind of framing story in which a young girl (obviously Márquez herself) is swept into and under the waters for some firsthand exploration, after meeting a magical crab named Jaiba that introduces her not only to marine life but also to the title character of the book – who, no surprise, turns out to be the young girl’s adult alter ego. Jaiba is a pure deus ex machina, existing solely to give the author a way to bring child-Melissa and adult-Melissa together in a shared scientific and emotional experience that also is supposed to serve as an advocacy position. That is a lot of freight to load onto 48 pages that are dominated, as usual in books for this age range, by illustrations rather than words (and the Devin Elle Kurtz pictures are quite fine, actually providing the book with the majority of its continuity and much of its charm).

     It is perhaps not surprising that packing a short, young-child-focused book with so many themes and ideas results in a neither-here-nor-there work despite the obvious intention of it being both here and there. But it is a bit disappointing that Márquez is not quite sure how to balance her three themes or, if they cannot be balanced, to decide to which of them to grant prominence. The book’s title implies an autobiographical focus: this is the story of how the child that Márquez was became the “mother of sharks” that she now considers herself to be. But young readers are likely to be much more intrigued by the magical crab (despite Jaiba’s total lack of personality) or by the chance to learn about sharks (a squandered opportunity, since they appear here only in passing). Certainly the “you can do it!” element of the diversity advocacy comes through clearly enough, but that STEM focus is an adult concern: Márquez would more effectively bring young readers (of any appearance and background) into the world of marine biology by enticing them with fascinating elements of the water world and, specifically, the diversity of sharks rather than of STEM workers. It is left to the shark illustrations at the book’s front and back to suggest that there is a lot more to sharks than the book’s narrative ever reveals or even implies. Hopefully at least some readers will find the fantasy elements of Mother of Sharks intriguing enough so they decide to explore the science of shark study in much greater detail than Márquez hints at in this well-meaning but overly earnest attempt to knit multiple threads into a single tapestry.

(++++) PINNACLES OF PIANISM

Adolph von Henselt: Piano Concerto in F minor; Hans von Bronsart: Piano Concerto in F-sharp minor. Paul Wee, piano; Swedish Chamber Orchestra conducted by Michael Collins. BIS. $21.99 (SACD).

Ives: Piano Sonata No. 2, Concord, Mass., 1840-60; The St. Gaudens (“Black March”). Donald Berman, piano. AVIE. $19.99.

Charles-Valentin Alkan: Symphonie pour piano seul, Op. 39, Nos. 4-7; Les Mois (“The Months”), Op. 74. Igor Do Amaral, piano. MSR Classics. $14.95.

     The unending pursuit of unattainable perfection has been the lodestar of pianists for centuries, the definitions and musical means always changing but the reaching-out never ending. Today’s pianists continue the impossible quest – and some of them nowadays do so by rediscovering and reviving the music of composers and composer/pianists who themselves sought the heights but, at least in the judgment of posterity, never quite attained them. As the piano evolved to something close to its modern form during the mid-19^th century, the prior performance excellence of Mozart, Beethoven and Hummel tended to disappear into the rearview mirror as the likes of Carl Czerny, Johann Peter Pixis, Henri Herz, and Sigismond Thalberg took center stage – along with, of course, Franz Liszt, whose combination of personal magnetism and astonishing technique captivated audiences, capturing the very essence of pianistic perfection and remaining its touchstone to this day. But there were other astonishments as well, most now forgotten but many deserving of renewed exploration. It falls to a modern pianist of the first water, Paul Wee, to revive two major works by two minor but still notable composers: the piano concertos by Adolph von Henselt (1814-1889) and Hans von Bronsart (1830-1913). Wee’s recording on the BIS label, in which he is paired with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra under Michael Collins, practically defines tour de force in its drama, sweep and intensity. Both these concertos are large-scale despite relatively modest total lengths (each lasts just under half an hour, making them much shorter than, say, the two by Brahms); both are emotionally sweeping in a thoroughly Romantic idiom; and both put avowedly excessive demands on the soloist – demands to which Wee, who is something of a phenomenon, appears to have no difficulty rising. The Henselt concerto – given its première in 1844 by no less than Clara Schumann, then published in 1847 – had an influence well beyond its own time period: one of Henselt’s students, Nikolai Zverev, became the teacher of Rachmaninoff, who directly quoted from Henselt’s work while also adapting and further extending its broad lines. Wee accepts the grand gestures and alternating drama and lyricism of the Henselt at face value, knowing not to overdo or over-emphasize its admittedly over-the-top elements – simply presenting them with their superb flow is more than enough to turn the recording into a fascinatingly engaging listening experience. The Bronsart concerto – whose composer was the soloist in the première of Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 2 – dates to 1873 and features a gorgeous slow movement and a finale in tarantella rhythm that is repeatedly and often amusingly punctuated by unexpected fanfares. Wee is wonderfully aware of both the soulful and the amusing elements of the work, delivering a bang-up performance that shows how both these display pieces, if scarcely proffering great emotional depth, make for exceptional pianistic expressiveness melded with plenty of keyboard fireworks. Wee’s recording, which also features first-rate accompaniment by Collins and the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, is nothing less than exhilarating.

     Splendid pianism does not of course require orchestral accompaniment. Nor does pianistic compositional creativity need any instrument other than the piano itself to offer a fascinating experience for both performers and listeners. And certainly there is no better proof of that than the “Concord” sonata by Charles Ives – which remains, many decades after its creation, so far ahead of its time that it seems music will never quite catch up to it. How many decades ahead of its time the work may be is part of the complexity of its genesis and an underlying consideration of the new AVIE recording featuring pianist Donald Berman – who, not coincidentally, is also president of the Charles Ives Society. Berman has studied and re-studied the “Concord,” including extensively with John Kirkpatrick, who gave the work’s première performance and himself recorded it twice, communicating extensively with Ives for many years about revisions to the piece. Berman made his own edition for this recording, incorporating much of what Kirkpatrick did and some things that Ives himself did but that do not appear in any of the printed versions of the score. How exactly these elements, some considerably more evident than others, affect the sonata will be of greater interest to Berman’s fellow scholars than to a “mere” listening audience; but there is nothing “mere” about being a member of any group experiencing this complex, difficult, endlessly fascinating, programmatic yet purely musical work. It helps to know something about the 19^th-century Transcendentalist movement to understand some of the nuances of the sonata, at least from a programmatic standpoint; but the music itself is so complex and captivating that even those who know nothing about Emerson, Hawthorne, the Alcotts or Thoreau – the four subjects of the work’s movements – can be pulled into the ebb, flow and emotional (and technical) difficulties of the music without quite knowing why. The “Concord” sonata is an experience, not merely a piano piece, and Ives was well aware of this – some performances, for example, include Ives’ optional flute and/or viola, and the work features polytonality, sound clusters, un-metered rhythms and other avant-garde techniques that, however, never interrupt its flow or turn it into a display-for-its-own sake piece. Editions and performance techniques for the sonata vary so widely that comparisons among performers’ versions are irrelevant and largely impossible. Suffice it to say that Berman plays the work with firm technique, considerable understanding of its nuances, pacing that seems intuitively right (his performance is one of the quicker recordings), and no shrinking whatsoever from the rhythmic and interpretative difficulties in which the sonata abounds. And Berman pairs it interestingly with The St. Gaudens (“Black March”), a work better known in orchestral guise from the version Ives used in Three Places in New England. Berman makes a less-than-obvious Transcendentalist connection between this work and the “Concord” sonata; but here as with the sonata itself, the underlying philosophical musings matter less than the effects of the music, which are considerable. Transcendentalism took itself very seriously indeed, and Ives and Berman clearly do so too, but it is worth noting that the philosophy was not without its detractors: notably, Gilbert and Sullivan’s Patience hilariously undermines the pretenses of its British version and those who practiced (or claimed to practice) it – “The meaning doesn’t matter if it’s only idle chatter of a Transcendental kind,” wrote Gilbert. The meaning of the “Concord” sonata, though, does matter, and does not require acceptance of the foundational philosophy. It does, however, require opening one’s ears to sounds, expressions and techniques that are often extremely complex but that at some level bespeak a degree of simplicity and understanding communicated with almost magical skill by the composer and by sensitive interpreters such as Berman.

     Sensitivity is also a prerequisite for understanding and effectively performing the frequently amazing piano works of Charles-Valentin Alkan, the one 19^th-century pianist to whom even Liszt was said to have deferred. Reclusive and mysterious to the point of mysticism – one of the only two photos of Alkan shows him standing, facing away from the camera, holding a furled umbrella, his face completely unseeable – Alkan produced music that he knew full well was unplayable, including works calling for notes that did not yet exist on piano keyboards. Nowadays some of the most-accomplished pianists can indeed play Alkan’s works, and a few of his pieces have achieved something approaching fame. However, for the young virtuoso Igor Do Amaral (born 1989), it is a very-little-known Alkan composition that is the highlight of Volume 1 of what is planned as a multi-CD Alkan cycle on the MSR Classics label. Les Mois (“The Months”) is a set of 12 pieces in which not a single movement actually mentions any month of the year – this indirection is the sort of thing in which Alkan reveled. Instead, the pieces have descriptive titles, and it is left up to listeners to figure out to which specific months or seasons those designations and their accompanying music refer. The opening Une nuit d’Hiver (“A Winter Night”) is clear enough, if unspecific to a particular month, but what of movements labeled Promenade sur l'Eau (“A Walk on the Water”), Le Mourant (“The Dying”), and the concluding L’Opera? Each piece in Les Mois is a small gem, encapsulating a feeling if not a specific season or time period, and Amaral gets fully into the spirit of the individual elements and the cycle as a whole, exploring elements of seriousness and levity, intensity and gentleness, with understanding and unfailing skill. The performance certainly whets the appetite for more Alkan from Amaral – but this is a (+++) disc, because the other work on it receives a reading that can most charitably be described as odd. This is one of Alkan’s most-famous pieces, Symphonie pour Piano Seul, which includes four of the 12 Études dans Touts les Tons Mineurs, Op. 39. Here Amaral’s performance is curiously wrongheaded: it is extremely slow throughout, turning a work that usually takes up 25 to 30 minutes into one lasting 40. If the draggy tempos somehow revealed nuances of construction or communication absent from other performances, the pacing would be justifiable; but the opposite is in fact the case. The expansive opening Allegro moderato here becomes a very, very slow movement, close to an Adagio, while the following Marcia funebre simply comes apart – it is a cortège without rhythm, too disconnected to have any sense of the funereal – and the normally speedy Finale lacks all drama and intensity. It is clear from Les Mois that Amaral has the technique needed to present Alkan’s music effectively, which means that his approach to the Symphonie pour Piano Seul is a purposeful one, not a failing of ability. It is, unfortunately, impossible to discern what Amaral’s purpose here may be. Nevertheless, despite the disappointment of this reading, the high quality of Amaral’s handling of Les Mois is a hopeful sign for his future forays into some of the most interesting and interestingly difficult piano music ever written.

(++++) DISCOVERED, REDISCOVERED, UNCOVERED

Bruckner from the Archives, Volume 2: Mass No. 2 in E minor; Symphony No. “0” in D minor; Symphony No. 2. Choir of St. Hedwig’s Cathedral, Berlin, and Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Karl Foster (Mass); Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam conducted by Eduard van Beinum (Symphony No. “0”); Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Georg Ludwig Jochum (Symphony No. 2). Ariadne. $24.99 (2 CDs).

Hugo Kauder: Symphony No. 1; Hans Erich Apostel: Variations on a Theme by Haydn; Adolf Busch: Variations on an Original Theme. The Orchestra Now conducted by Leon Botstein. AVIE. $19.99.

     The second of six planned Bruckner from the Archives releases in connection with the Bruckner bicentennial maintains the promise and the quality of the first, continuing to move through the composer’s 11 symphonies by presenting first releases of very fine readings from a time before Bruckner became ubiquitous in concerts and recordings – and tended to become somewhat straitlaced and pedantic much of the time. As Bruckner’s popularity grew, there came to be an acknowledged “Bruckner sound” and standardized approach that conductors might tweak around the edges but generally adhered to when it came to matters of editions to use, repeats to take or not take, sectional balance, and overall sonority of the symphonies. As a result, it is salutary to hear some performances (nicely restored and remastered for this series by executive producer Lani Spahr) that predate the formalizing of Brucknerian expectations and, as a result, shed some light on the factors that eventually brought the composer to the prominence he enjoys today. Both symphonies on Ariadne’s second archival release are live performances, No. “0” from 1955 and No. 2 from 1962; Mass No. 2, recorded in 1956, was released on vinyl but never on CD until now. This work, completed in 1866, receives a finely balanced and very well-played reading under the leadership of Karl Forster, the choral sound massed without being clotted and the words sung with understanding and even fervor. Aural quality aside – it is fine for its era – the performance stands up quite well beside much-more-recent ones. The reading of the “nullified” symphony of 1869 also proves quite worthwhile. The work, admittedly flawed, is better – when seen and heard retrospectively – than Bruckner himself thought it was. The extensive use of brass looks forward to later works; the Scherzo is appealing in rhythm and its Trio pleasantly rustic (Bruckner never wrote a bad Scherzo); and the chorale-like elements heard from time to time recall and draw on the composer’s Mass settings either directly or indirectly. The weaknesses of No. “0,” notably the rather disorganized opening of the first movement and the comparatively lightweight Andante, are real but not overwhelming, and Eduard van Beinum does a fine job of minimizing them if not exactly papering them over. The excellence of the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam comes through to fine effect here, and van Beinum’s willingness to handle Bruckner within the context of other 19^th-century symphonists – notably through his tempo choices for the third and fourth movements – gives this spirited reading a very pleasant freshness. Georg Ludwig Jochum’s handling of Symphony No. 2 also comes across as thoughtful, engaged and pleasantly direct. The Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra does especially well putting forth the varying moods of the symphony, and while it does not have the heft of the Concertgebouw, the ensemble features fine balance of its sections and easy responsiveness to the conductor. The primary issue with this performance is the edition used: the matter of the many Bruckner editions is not really central to these archival recordings – scholarship is far more settled (or at least more dogmatic) today than it was in the 1950s and 1960s – but in this case, Jochum uses a Haas edition now deemed to be something of an inauthentic hodgepodge, and on top of that follows some but not all of Haas’ recommendations as to cuts and repeats. This will be a matter of interest more to scholars than to audiences in general, however, because what is genuinely striking about the performance is the verve and intensity that Jochum brings to the symphony, giving it a feeling of consistency and elegance that later conductors’ readings did not always capture. Bruckner from the Archives is emerging as not only a fine tribute to the composer but also a fascinating opportunity to hear some first-rate performances created before there was a generally accepted approach to Bruckner’s music – performances responsible for moving musicians and listeners alike toward the very high respect in which Bruckner is now held.

     Bruckner from the Archives digs into the past to rescue many previously unknown or long-unheard recordings of music that has since become much more familiar. But sometimes the music itself, and its composers, are in need of rescue, or at least rediscovery. That is the case with the three composers represented on a new AVIE recording featuring The Orchestra Now under conductor Leon Botstein. All three are 20^th-century composers whose lives were forever changed by Nazism. Hugo Kauder (1888-1972) wrote five symphonies, the first of which was, interestingly enough, dedicated to Alma Mahler. Kauder, a Moravian composer who fled Vienna for New York, actually took a somewhat Mahlerian approach to his Symphony No. 1, at least in terms of harmonies and the intense drama that emerges repeatedly (if irregularly). However, the work is more traditional in length than Mahler’s symphonies (it runs 40 minutes) and is emotionally on the superficial side; and its finale (Ruhig, streng gemessen – “calm, strictly measured”) is something of an anticlimax. It is, however, very well-made structurally, and makes strongly assured use of the orchestra, albeit without any particularly innovative treatment of the sections. Botstein conducts it with strength and conviction, and it is certainly an interesting rediscovery even if it does not wear very well. Next on the disc is Variations on a Theme by Haydn by Hans Erich Apostel (1901-1972), a German-born Austrian who managed to live out his life in Vienna even though the Nazis condemned his music. This piece could actually be called “Variations on Variations on a Theme by Haydn,” not only to distinguish it from Brahms’ famous work (whose theme is not by Haydn, although Brahms thought it was) but also because the theme Apostel chooses comes from the second movement of Haydn’s Symphony No. 103 (“Drum Roll”) – and that movement itself is a set of variations. In any case, Apostel’s dissonance and insistence on twelvetone and atonal construction, while they allow for some very far-reaching variations indeed, do not result in a particularly attractive work. The statement of the theme, with its lilt and careful orchestral balance, contrasts strongly with nine variations that do not so much pull the theme here and there as pull it apart without bothering to reassemble it. Apostel was clearly more attuned to the artistic concepts and fads of his own time than to Haydn’s: one variation is even labeled Nachtstück, in Kubins Manier, referring to symbolist/expressionist artist Alfred Kubin (1877-1959). Apostel’s piece is scarcely “degenerate” (the Nazis’ condemnatory word) by modern standards, but it is largely an affectation rather than anything heard or felt more deeply. The third piece on this CD uses the variation form to rather better effect. Variations on an Original Theme by Adolf Busch (1891-1962), written for piano four hands, is heard here in a well-wrought arrangement by Busch’s grandson, pianist Peter Serkin (1947-2020). Busch, who, like Kauder, ended up in the United States after fleeing Nazism, was best known as a violinist. His compositional language, unlike Apostel’s, is unashamedly Romantic, and Serkin’s arrangement takes full advantage of that sensibility in producing a warmth and emotional directness that is quite winning. Botstein makes a fine advocate for all three of these works, and his orchestra – essentially a graduate training ensemble for young musicians – plays everything here with suitable but not overdone intensity. It would be overstating the case to say that any of these pieces is a misplaced and now recovered masterwork, but the quality of the performances and the chance to hear some interestingly unfamiliar and mostly well-crafted material make this a solid (+++) disc, even if most listeners are unlikely to return to rehear the music with any great frequency.

(++++) FANTASIES, LIGHT AND DARK

The Person Controller. By David Baddiel. Illustrated by Jim Field. HarperCollins. $9.99.

Into the Sideways World. By Ross Welford. HarperCollins. $9.99.

     Adventure books for preteen readers, ages 9-12, almost always follow a predictable pattern, but as with Robert Frost’s two roads diverging in a wood, what makes all the difference is how they follow it. Experienced and facile British authors David Baddiel and Ross Welford both get the tropes of this genre right: protagonists (one male and one female) in the target age range, dysfunctional families of one sort or another, typical school worries and fellow students (bullies always included), and so forth. But while Baddiel plays the form and plays with it, producing a lighthearted and lightheaded romp, Welford takes things very much more seriously in a determined search for a meaningful and uplifting message.

     The Person Controller is about something that looks like a video game controller but is actually paired to a bracelet and allows the controller user to control the actions of the bracelet wearer. What is more, those activities are as outlandish as the ones in video games, which means they are often outright impossible: the controller user simply thinks of a specific game and the bracelet wearer can then be made to do the things that characters do in that specific game (and can even be transformed in appearance to fit into the world of that game). The 11-year-old protagonists, twins Fred and Ellie Stone, share a grossly overweight father and a TV-obsessed mother who are even more oblivious to their activities than parents usually are in books like this. Fred and Ellie are video game fanatics, with Ellie a better player but Fred being better at making the avatars look really cool. These complementary talents turn out to be useful, each in its own way, when Fred and Ellie come into possession of a decidedly unusual controller thanks to the self-proclaimed Mystery Man who appears on their school’s not-very-good laptop. Many adventures and misadventures follow, often involving Morris and Isla Fawcett, the school bullies and the children of the headmaster. They too have differing but complementary talents, if you can call them that: Isla is the brains of the duo and Morris is the brawn (and notably lacking in brains). The most interesting characters in the book are not Fred and Ellie or Morris and Isla – all of them are thoroughly formulaic – but the Mystery Man and the controller. Except that Baddiel does not even try to explain either of them. Who exactly is the Mystery Man, what is he trying to accomplish, where does he come from, why is he visible only on the school’s laptop and not elsewhere, what is his motivation, where does his magic originate? The questions are endless, but the answers are an endless string of zeroes, since Baddiel never answers a single one. As for the controller, how (within the realm of fantasy) does it take over people’s bodies and get them to do things that people’s bodies are not meant to do and in fact could not possibly do without, you know, ripping apart and shattering into their component elements? Is there a purpose of some sort to the controller, and if so, what is it? And why exactly does it start running out of non-renewable power at the most inconvenient possible time? Again, there are no answers here – but in a book lacking even a modicum of seriousness, this is not as big a deal as it might otherwise be. Suffice it to say that after things go very badly for Fred and Ellie, they eventually go very well, and even Morris and Isla learn a lesson (to some extent), and the various subsidiary characters all go their suitably subsidiary ways – except for the Mystery Man, who for some reason is left decidedly (but amusingly) unhappy at the book’s conclusion. The Person Controller never tries to be more than lighthearted fun, with the result that it never is more than lighthearted fun, but that is just fine for preteens who would like to spend some reading time having, you guessed it, lighthearted fun.

     Into the Sideways World, although cut from the same formulaic cloth, is a different matter altogether. Here the protagonists are 12 years old. They are the narrator, Wilhelmina (Willa) Shafto, and a school friend named Emanuel (Manny) Weaver. They live in a dour, violence-haunted world – presumably ours in the near future – in which World War III may erupt at any moment (or may have already started through skirmishes everywhere), and pollution and climate change and people treating other people horribly are just about all that ever happens. Manny, a foster child who has been bumped from family to family, and Willa, whose parents are constantly bickering and whose older sister is boy-obsessed but otherwise pretty much a nonentity, instantly strike up a friendship when Manny starts attending Willa’s school. Together they decide to explore a local mystery involving an animal being called a “cog” (a sort of cat-dog) that may or may not be real. Manny proves to be a “sensitive,” attuned to elements of the world that others cannot feel – although Maudie Lawson, the elderly former hippie who helps out around the Shaftos’ decrepit “leisure park,” has some sort of mystical connection to otherness as well. Anyway, in pursuit of the cog, Willa and Manny enter a suitably mysterious cave under a suitably full moon at suitably high tide, and soon emerge in a different part of the multiverse: a world just like ours (although time is out of joint between the two Earths), but one in which everything is perfect. It is a world where WWW stands for World Without War, not World Wide Web; and even though there are no computers, cellphones or many other appurtenances of everyday “our world” life, there is perfect peace and harmony, with flying cars and no fossil fuels and no military or armed police forces and plenty of everything for everyone. There are also small differences in addition to the huge ones, notably that in the usual world, Willa has misaligned teeth and never knew her brother, who died shortly after birth; while in the sideways world, Mina (as her otherworldly self is called) has perfect teeth and an older brother whose name, Alex, is the same as the name of Willa’s sister in the usual world. After Manny and Willa, helped by the cog for no apparent or ever-explained reason, find their way into and then out of the sideways world, they decide to go back there to get proof that the sideways world exists because that means their world can also become peaceful and abundant and have no problems with energy or sustenance or anything else (even the ocean in the sideways world is a bluer blue because it is so much healthier). Welford throws various complications into the story and brings in a variety of minor characters, but never loses sight of where he wants the plot to go. The whole difference between the worlds turns out to involve President John F. Kennedy, a quote from whom opens the book. This is a rather odd linchpin for a British novel, but it does provide some connective tissue between the worlds. Manny actually wants to stay in the sideways world, but when he realizes why that cannot be, his reuniting with Willa and the way they return to their original world makes for the most intense and action-packed portion of the book. That sequence also contains the only smidgen of negativity involving the sideways world, in the form of a comment by brother Alex: “No one ever breaks the rules here. Everything is ordered, everything works, and it’s wonderful. Perfect, even. But, you know, sometimes perfect is a bit, well…” And Willa chimes in, “Boring?” And Alex “laughs as if he’s happier to let me say it than actually utter the word itself.” Anyway, after a hair-raising escapade that gets Willa and Manny back to their original world, a bunch of new deus ex machina elements tie up the plot as it turns out that the government knows all about interdimensional “grey holes” but is benevolently covering things up; and anyway, now that Willa and Manny have gone through one and returned with actual proof that the sideways world exists, it is possible to use that information to start turning the real world into a perfect one analogous to the sideways one because…well, just because. Some lip service is paid at the book’s end to the notion that it will be difficult to make the transition to a World Without War, but Welford is determined to emphasize the possibility so strongly as to make it seem a likelihood. For all the care with which it is created, Into the Sideways World is a (+++) book, being so incredibly earnest all the time that it will scarcely please preteen readers hoping for any dose of levity or even a modest sense of reality, understanding of human nature, or willingness to contemplate something somewhere between awfulness and perfection. Read purely as escapist fantasy, the book could be enjoyable. But Welford’s unceasing determination to make it more than escapism turns it into somewhat heavy-handed sermonizing – an adult’s wish fulfillment that seems to be born of despair, not tied to a genuine sense of wonder and possibility.