BOOKS FOR KIDS

SITTING BULL AND HIS WORLD

By Albert Marrin

Dutton: 246 pp., $25

Through Albert Marrin’s (“Terror of the Spanish Main”) gripping and complex portrait of Sitting Bull (1831-1890), the author demonstrates the Lakota Sioux leader’s importance in understanding American life today. As the prologue states: “Through his experiences we can gain a larger perspective on such continuing problems as racism, violence, and human rights.” Marrin skillfully describes the customs, morals and spiritual beliefs that shaped Sitting Bull into a wise man with strong “medicine” or magical power and a courageous fighter for what he believed in; the author asserts, “Above all, he was a patriot who insisted that Native Americans must be free to choose their way of life.” Rather than characterizing one side as evil and the other as good, Marrin laudably sketches the gray area that grew out of cultural differences between whites and Native Americans that seemed to make conflict inevitable (e.g., whites measured success by ownership and property while Native Americans believed that “people could not own the land any more than they could own the air they breathed, the rain that fell, or the sun’s warming rays”). Readers will come away with a palpable sense of the injustice of America’s Indian wars; Marrin’s picture of Sitting Bull and thorough look at the West offer powerful insights into this painful episode in our nation’s history. (Ages 11 and up)

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PICTURE THIS. . .

By Alison Jay

Dutton: 40 pp., $15.99

Nostalgic images of a country landscape disguise this picture book’s visual complexity. At first glance, nothing seems out of the ordinary. British author-artist Alison Jay provides a set of gorgeous illustrations in the American primitive style, each labeled with a quaint word such as “tortoise” or “umbrella.” However, the author has more than a spelling lesson in mind. The sequence begins with the lowercase word “clock” and a picture of the face of a grandfather clock, a pairing that looks easy until “Hickory Dickory Dock” enthusiasts notice the hour (almost one o’clock) and the gray mouse atop the timepiece. Decorative images surround the clock face, alluding to the four seasons and to forthcoming pictures of, for instance, a “snail” and “cat.” Later in the volume, a yellow tabby refers back to the opening image of the cat pictured on the clock and also directs readers’ attention to new objects, including a fire engine-red “airplane” loop-de-looping in the summer sky. Meanwhile, other visual allusions (to Jack and Jill, for example, and the Tortoise and the Hare) draw on nursery lore. The concluding winter scene, captioned simply “snowman,” again recalls the clock and reactivates the book’s cycle. Jay sets all the scenes in a seaside orchard among rolling hills; her luxurious palette includes custard colors--avocado green, robin’s egg blue, vanilla white and peachy gold--and the paintings have the crackled surface of antique porcelain. Fans of such brainteasers as David Wiesner’s “Tuesday” and Joan Steiner’s “Look-Alikes” will be charmed by this pictorial puzzler. (Ages 2 to 5)

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THE SOCCER MOM FROM OUTER SPACE

By Barney Saltzberg

Crown: 32 pp., $15.95

Readers surely will get a kick out of Barney Saltzberg’s (‘The Flying Garbanzos”) hyperbolic portrait of an uncommonly spirited soccer mom. The night before Lena’s first soccer game, her father announces that it is time she heard the story of a boy named Ruben and his mother, Mrs. Drinkwater. When Lena says, “Hey!... This is about you and Grandma!” her father wryly responds that it is “a story about another boy named Ruben Drinkwater and his mom!” In the tale that follows, Mrs. Drinkwater wails “like a human siren” at Ruben’s first soccer game--playing for the Atomic Pickles--and generally starts acting “as if she came from outer space.” At subsequent games, she wears a hat shaped like a pickle and then an oversize pickle costume, complete with a cheerleader’s skirt and pompoms. But when Mrs. Drinkwater accedes to Ruben’s plea to “act like the other parents,” he is unprepared for the results. Whimsical illustrations compound the fun, as in an image of Ruben using a periscope to spy on his mother from his bathtub in hopes of determining if she really is an alien, and in the parting shot of Lena’s parents (and her dog) arriving at her inaugural game for the Galactic Grapes, the three of them dressed as... guess what? This soccer sortie scores high in hilarity. (Ages 5 to 8)

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BUZZ

By Janet S. Wong

Illustrated by Margaret Chodos-Irvine

Harcourt: 32 pp., $15

Janet S. Wong turns from the nearly surreal, hypnotic world of “Night Garden” to this wide-eyed, cheerful tale offering a boy’s view of a busy weekday morning. From the opening spreads, an industrious bee acts as the guiding spirit and its buzz as the leitmotif: The boy translates its hum to the “BUZZZbuzzzBUZZZbuzz” of his parents’ snores, an alarm clock, a coffee grinder, a doorbell and his toy airplane’s ill-fated flight over the breakfast table; bold type emphasizes the onomatopoeia. It’s a hectic household, but Wong’s story emphasizes the boy’s reassuring routine in her insistent staccato prose: “BUZZZ I run to the front door when Grandma comes and I kiss Grandma hello and I kiss Mommy good-bye so she can fly BUZZ outside like a busy bee.” In her first children’s book, Margaret Chodos-Irvine combines the appealing blocky shapes of cut-paper collage with the delicacy of woodcuts on backgrounds such as the parents’ clothing and the wallpaper. She knowingly shows a boy managing his world, whether it is in the image of his small body’s outsize shadow filling the door of his parents’ bedroom as he shouts “Wake Up!” or in the boy aping his father as he shaves (using a toy car as his razor). This joyful book will strike a resonant chord, especially for the many children with two working parents. (Ages 3 to 7)

Los Angeles Times Children’s Bestsellers

July 9, 2000

1. HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER’S STONE by J.K. Rowling (Arthur A. Levine: $5.99 paper) Unhappy at home, a young boy discovers that he is a magician with great powers. (Ages 9-12)

2. HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS by J.K. Rowling (Arthur A. Levine Books: $17.95) Harry risks his life to solve a mystery at the Hogwarts School. (Ages 9-12)

3. HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN by J.K. Rowling (Scholastic: $19.95) Sirius Black, an escaped convict, is on the loose, and he’s after Harry. (Ages 9-12)

4. GIRL BOSS: RUNNING THE SHOW LIKE THE BIG CHICKS by Stacy Kravetz (Girl Press: $15.95 paper) A hip primer on how young girls can start their own business, from nail polish companies to video production. (Ages 9-14)

5.HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER’S STONE by J.K. Rowling (Scholastic: $16.95) Unhappy at home, a young boy discovers that he is a magician with great powers. (Ages 9-12)

6. A WIZARD OF EARTHSEA by Ursula K. LeGuin (Bantam: $6.99 paper) A young, restless boy named Sparrowhawk becomes a wizard’s apprentice in a fantasy realm. (Ages 9-12)

7. HOLES by Louis Sachar (Yearling: $5.99 paper) In the Texas desert, a boy in a juvenile detention camp is forced to dig holes in search of a Wild West outlaw’s hidden treasure. (Ages 9-12)

8. THE BFG by Roald Dahl (Puffin: $5.99 paper) The story of the Big Friendly Giant, who blows dreams into children’s bedrooms. (Ages 9-12)

9. CLICK, CLACK, MOO: COWS THAT TYPE by Doreen Cronin (Simon & Schuster: $15) The literacy rate in Farmer Brown’s barn goes up when the animals discover an old typewriter. (Ages 4-8)

10. HOW DO DINOSAURS SAY GOODNIGHT? by Jane Yolen and Mark Teague (Scholastic: $15.95) Good little dinosaurs teach youngsters how to go to bed when Mommy and Daddy say so. (Ages 4-8)

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Rankings are based on a Times poll of Southland bookstores.