Books for Kids

CAN YOU SEE WHAT I SEE?

Picture Puzzles to Search and Solve

By Walter Wick

Scholastic/Cartwheel:

38 pp., $13.95

Walter Wick (“Walter Wick’s Optical Tricks” and the “I Spy” series) unleashes his boundless imagination to devise a dozen playful picture puzzles, each with a distinct theme. The large-scale photographs feature a carefully choreographed assortment of contemporary and vintage toys and other kid-pleasing paraphernalia. Alongside the images, deceptively simple verse instructs youngsters to spot specific items. The author cleverly tweaks the game at the end of each rhyme, inviting readers (sometimes rather cryptically) to enter a puzzle within a puzzle: They must either follow a maze, match two sets of objects, find differences in seemingly similar images or spot an optical illusion. Several of Wick’s graphic compositions stand out as particularly novel: one photo set in a wood shop reveals freshly carved animal figures, sprinkled with wood shavings; another assembles hundreds of miniature animals, beads and other objects used in making play jewelry, all of them translucent and sparkling against a white background. Even sharp-eyed readers will find some of Wick’s puzzles quite challenging to complete. These pages are nearly guaranteed to keep kids happily occupied for hours and coming back for return visits. (All ages)

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ONCE UPON A FARM

By Marie Bradby

Illustrated by Ted Rand

Scholastic/Orchard: 32 pp., $16.95

With the gentle cadence befitting a simpler time, Marie Bradby (“More Than Anything Else”) harvests a bounty of bucolic imagery for this poetic look at a family farm. A boy relates the challenges, never-ending work and sweet rewards that come with working the land. On each spread, minimalist stanzas (“A plow/some grain/pray for rain./A sow/a shed/may all be fed”) precede a more personal statement (“Mama cooks the corn cakes,/Daddy says the prayer./Sorghum, ham, and jelly--it’s been a good year”). By book’s end, the boy sadly shares the information that encroaching suburban sprawl and development mean the end of his farm home and way of life. Throughout, Ted Rand (“Sailing Home”) alternates between sunny full-page watercolor portraits showing the boy and his family, whom he depicts as African Americans, and smaller airy vignettes providing a good sense of the comfortable rhythms of the proceedings. His parting illustration of a lone bulldozer razing tall trees brings home Brady’s message in a quietly dramatic style. (Ages 4-7)

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SHADOWS

By April Pulley Sayre

Illustrated by Harvey Stevenson

Henry Holt: 32 pp., $16.95

From the beach to the ball field and back again, a boy and girl search for shadows on a sunny summer day in April Pulley Sayre’s (“The Hungry Hummingbird”) warm-hearted ode to friendship and the simple pleasures of the season: “Searching for shadows/we run, hop!/stare ... /at lots of shadows / here / and / there.” Harvey Stevenson’s (“As the Crow Flies”) thickly applied acrylics, steeped in the glow of amber light, picture the friends--one dark-skinned, one light--as they push their bicycles aside and run toward the ocean. The rhythms emulate the narrator’s observations, from the darting motions in nature (“Dragonfly shadows zip and pop./Running horse shadows never stop”) to the humor to be found at the ball field (“A man keeps a shadow under his hat”), while the artwork zeros in on the winged dragonfly and pulls back to create depth on the baseball diamond. In a roundly satisfying conclusion, the end of the day finds the friends at rest under a tree, making twin shadows with their toe-touching feet: “I think I like these shadows best.” (Ages 3-7)

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DAUGHTER OF VENICE

By Donna Jo Napoli

Random/Wendy Lamb:

276 pp., $16.95

Donna Jo Napoli returns to the locale of “Stones in Water” and “For the Love of Venice,” this time for a costume drama set in the late 16th century. At 14, Donata Mocenigo and her twin sister watch carefully as their noble parents set about finding a husband for their older sister. Venetian economics dictate that one daughter of a noble family will surely wed, but only with luck will a second daughter be married; the remaining daughters either enter convents or care for a married brother’s children. Eschewing a traditional romance, Napoli forges a plot with contemporary elements. Donata wants to see Venice and receive the same education as her brothers; she studies the family business and embraces what facts she can uncover about Venetian history and politics. Obtaining a working-class boy’s clothes, she disguises herself and sets out on furtive daytime explorations of her beloved city. Soon she is befriended by an attractive young Jewish boy, who helps her find a morning job as a copyist (even though she can’t read or write); with help from her sisters, her escapades go unnoticed by her parents. Enjoying the tour of historical Venice and the taste of its complex society and government, readers may not mind Donata’s seeming immunity to the mores and prejudices of her day, not even when, to avoid an arranged marriage, she anonymously and falsely denounces herself as a convert to Judaism and still earns herself a happy ending. (Ages 10-up)

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HEY YOU! C’MERE

A Poetry Slam

By Elizabeth Swados

Illustrated by Joe Cepeda

Scholastic/Levine: 48 pp., $15.95

Everyone’s a poet, according to this exhortative poetry reading and street-theater combo: “You’ve got a poem in your pocket,/A poem on your tongue, did you know that?/You can be the poet and you can be the poem too./Yesssss!” To prove it, seven young poets roam their city block on a summer day, using ordinary situations as material for syncopated storytelling. The players’ portraits and names appear in the table of contents, so that each one is identifiable during their improv. Ratchit, a bold prankster, repeats a tough kid’s threat (“Hey you, c’mere,/Whatsa matter witcha”), while his friend Jacob describes a timid reaction to bullying in “A Good Cry.” Mattie mimics her mother’s phone voice--”Yeah, uh huh, uh huh”--in a song. While Doria creates a nonsense riff on “Silly Names” (“Mr. Grub T. Mudstuck, Diane Doobey Doo,/Fineas Figmuff and Tina Tutoo ...”), Ratchit sneaks off to play a joke on the group; after his ghostly noises inspire his friends’ frightened poem, “Monsters,” Ratchit laughs, then composes a reiterative “Sorry.” Elizabeth Swados, author of the musical play “Runaways,” crafts an upbeat series of poems and dramatic asides. Using a crackling-hot palette of orange, summer green and blue-violet, Joe Cepeda (“What a Truly Cool World”) limns a vibrant cityscape and brings out the strong personalities of the multiracial group. The slangy words and upbeat visuals suggest that poetry happens in casual conversation and friendship. (Ages 6-12)