BOOKS FOR KIDS

HUG

By Jez Alborough

Candlewick: 32 pp., $14.99

With a cheerful chimp nearly as sweet as Curious George and a text of only three words, Jez Alborough celebrates the pleasure of giving and receiving good hugs, as well as the joy inherent in finding just the right word. “HUG,” says a tiny chimp as he watches two lizards embrace and two pythons entwine. “HUG,” he explains to a mother elephant and her baby who notice the chimp’s forlorn expression. They decide to help him find what he’s looking for and ride past an affectionate lion family, two giraffes and two hippos. But the disappointed chimp simply dissolves into tears--to the consternation of all the jungle animals. Suddenly the chimp’s mother appears. “BOBO” she shouts: “MUMMY,” answers the chimp, and readers quickly realize that it’s not just a hug the chimp wants, but a hug from his very own mother. Like a wordless book, the story unfolds through a series of expressive pictures rather than language. Alborough makes clear the chimp’s distress as he tries to communicate with only the repeated word “HUG,” and the elation the animals gain from their shared affection.

(Ages 2 and up)

*

ONLY PASSING THROUGH

The Story of Sojourner Truth

By Anne Rockwell

Illustrated by Gregory Christie

Alfred A. Knopf: 40 pp., $16.95

Though writing in the third person, Anne Rockwell here gives Sojourner Truth an authentic, resonant voice. Ably tailoring her account to a young audience, the author opens her story as 9-year-old Isabella is being sold at a slave auction in Kingston, N.Y., in 1806. The narrative follows the heroine through her transformation into “Sojourner Truth,” an itinerant preacher against the evils of slavery. After being denied the freedom that her master had promised her in 1826, the young woman escapes to the home of a nearby couple who abhor slavery; they then buy Isabella from her deceitful master and free her. Rockwell documents some remarkable incidents and demonstrates how far ahead of her time Isabella was: When her son is illegally sold to a plantation owner in another state, Isabella takes the perpetrator to court and wins the boy’s freedom. “No one had ever heard of such a thing. Slaves didn’t do such things. Women didn’t do such things. But Isabella did.” The author dramatically builds up to and convincingly recounts the pivotal moment when Isabella changes her name and vows to travel the country as “a voice for all the silent slaves still in bondage.” Rockwell’s vibrant story telling, powerful content and moving author’s note will likely send readers off to further reading about this extraordinary heroine. Gregory Christie contributes stylized paintings that suggest a complex interior life for Sojourner. The artwork skillfully approaches the abstract-twisting traditional perspective in a way that illuminates Sojourner’s groundbreaking vision and voice. (Ages 7 to 10)

*

CASEY AT THE BAT

By Ernest Lawrence Thayer

Illustrated by Christopher Bing

Handprint: 32 pp., $17.95

Debut children’s book illustrator Christopher Bing hits a home run with this handsome faux scrapbook treatment of Ernest Lawrence Thayer’s immortal poem. The original verses about baseball star Casey and the ill-fated Mudville nine appeared in the San Francisco Examiner on June 3, 1988, and Bing captures the spirit of the age with pen-and-ink illustrations that look like carefully preserved newspaper clippings, complete with slightly torn and yellowed edges. He uses cross-hatching and careful shading to create the pages of The Mudville Sunday Monitor, which keenly resembles the newspaper engravings of the day. Columns of type (in historically accurate printers’ fonts, as an afterward points out) run beneath each illustration to bolster the conceit. Bing also scatters other “scrapbook” items throughout, from game tickets (a bargain at 20 cents) to old-fashioned baseball cards and stereopticon images--many of them carefully keyed to the text. Full-color currency, for instance, accompanies “They thought if only Casey could but get a whack at that--/We’d put up even money now with Casey at the bat,” while an ad for Brown’s Bronchial Troches appears with the couplet “Then from 5,000 throats and more there rose a lusty yell;/It rumbled through the valley; it rattled in the dell.” Endpapers reveal more items to delight baseball fans and history buffs, from Thayer’s newspaper obituary to a fake bookplate wreathed with baseball motifs. Though Casey and the Mudville nine strike out in the end, this exceptionally clever picture book is most definitely a winner. (All ages)

*

THE STERKARM HANDSHAKE

By Susan Price

HarperCollins: 428 pp., $17.95

Susan Price’s gripping time-travel adventure, a 1999 Carnegie Medal finalist, cleverly imagines a startling collision of 21st-century technology and 16th-century mores. A British corporation called FUP has built a time machine, planning to mine pre-industrialized land for gold and oil and eventually turn it into a resort. But the Sterkarms, one of the warring families inhabiting the Scottish and English border “16th side,” won’t cooperate; they keep robbing FUP survey teams. Tensions escalate when FUP’s power-hungry boss, Windsor, kidnaps Per, the only son of a Sterkarm lord. Making matters even more complicated, Per and Andrea, an FUP employee sent back in time to live with the Sterkarms, have fallen in love. Both parties question her loyalty, and she faces the impossible task of choosing with whom to side. While Price builds the drama well, her story lags at certain points; adults should know there’s some sexual banter. These caveats aside, Price does a masterly job of blending fact and fiction, straddling two time periods and rotating through several characters’ points of view. Readers will be engrossed, unable to rest until they know how the author resolves the seemingly insoluble conflicts. (Ages 12 and up)

*

THE GIFT OF THE CROCODILE

A Cinderella Story

By Judy Sierra

Illustrated by Reynold Ruffins

Simon & Schuster: 40 pp., $17

Setting this colorful story in the Spice Islands, Judy Sierra incorporates motifs found in Cinderella folktales from various parts of the world as well as elements of Diamonds and Toads-type fables. Overworked by her conniving stepmother and stepsister, Damura on day loses her tattered sarong in the river. When a crocodile responds to her please for help, Damura remembers her mother’s advice to treat wild creatures with respect. She talks politely with Grandmother Crocodile, who fetches for her “a silver sarong that sparkled like the night sky.” Damura’s deceitful stepsister soon pretends she has lost a sarong, too, in hopes of receiving an equally lovely new one, but the crocodile gives her a sarong that turns into a filthy rag swarming with leeches. Later, when the prince invites all the young women to dance for him at the palace, the crocodile produces a sarong of pure gold for Damura, plus slippers to match. A few departures from the standard Cinderella story will keep readers on their toes. Sierra’s confident delivery finds its match in Reynold Ruffins’ primitivist acrylic art, which captures the lush vegetation, sparkling multi-toned waters and the people’s patterned clothing while retaining an essential calm and spareness. Strategic use of spot art and small silhouettes in addition to full-page and full-spread compositions create a visual syncopation. Even with an abundance of available Cinderella stories, this version is memorably vivid. (Ages 4 to 8)