A Refreshing Breeze of Good Work in the Early Chapter Books

RANT

I have read too many early chapter books in which nothing happens. The writing can be beautiful, poetic, exquisite; the books can have fantastic, complicated, 3-dimensional 7-year-old heroes and heroines; and the books can be utter bores. It seems as though a number of good authors have decided that because children like very simple picture books when they are young, they will like very simple chapter books when they start reading on their own. It is a logical conclusion, but it doesn't work. Early chapter books should have simple sentences, so beginning readers can read them, but the story doesn't have to be dull. Picture books are perhaps the ONLY works of fiction that don't need plot, but for all other forms, for adults, and for kids, plot is pretty essential.

A REFRESHING BREEZE

Fortunately there are some authors out there writing page-turning, hilarious, heart-felt early chapter books, and most recently the best one has come from an author famous for her picture books.

Doreen Cronin

Doreen Cronin is best known for her picture book Click Clack Moo which was a Caldecott Honor Book in 2001, but my personal favorites of her many picture books are the books in her Diary series: Diary of a Worm, Diary of a Spider, and the truly hilarious Diary of a Fly.   She has now taken her excellent sense of humor and put it in chapter form with the exceptional The Trouble with Chickens.

The Trouble with Chickens is a crime noir where J.J. Tully, a hard-boiled, retired search-and-rescue dog agrees to help track down a missing chicken. There is adventure, a villain, an impossible escape, and more laughs than I ever would have expected. The last time I read a crime noir this good it was Michael Chabon's Yiddish Policemen's Union, and that won the Nebula Award for Best Novel, the Locus Award for Best SF Novel, the Hugo Award for Best Novel, and the Sidewise Award for Alternate History for Best Novel. It was shortlisted for the British Science Fiction Association Award for Best Novel and the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Novel.^[1] As of December 2008^[update], a film adaptation is in pre-production, to be written and directed by the Coen brothers. My point is, I can pick 'em, and I pick The Trouble with Chickens as the best crime novel for grades 3-7 EVER WRITTEN.

Robert Paul Weston

In 2009 Robert Paul Weston made an incredible early chapter book debut with Zorgamazoo. Zorgamazoo is a fantasy adventure novel for grades 3-7 that rhymes. THE ENTIRE BOOK IS WRITTEN IN RHYME! It is funny and fun, and when you are done your will not think in simple sentences but rather in iambic pentameter. 

 Publisher Marketing:

Are You a Believer in Fanciful Things? In Pirates and Dragons and Creatures and Kings?
Then sit yourself down in a comfortable seat, with maybe some cocoa and something to eat, and I'll spin you the tale of Katrina Katrell, a girl full of courage (and daring, as well!), who down in the subway, under the ground, saw something fantastical roaming around . . .
What was it she saw? I'd rather not say. (Who's ever heard of a Zorgle, anyway?)
But if you are curious, clever and brave, if intrepid adventure is something you crave, then open this book and I'll leave it to you to uncover the secret of ZORGAMAZOO!

Ursula K. Le Guin

Ursula K. Le Guin is a lion in the science fiction world, and she also happens to have written one of my favorite series for kids, Catwings. Catwings is a series of little chapter books about cats with wings. The stories are not funny -  in fact they can be heart-breaking - but they are all exciting, with happy endings and fantastic, classic illustrations that you remember forever. The books are for grades 1-5, though in truth the sentences are more complicated than most 1st graders could read on their own.  Each little book retails for $4.99, but personally I'd recommend buying the set (while it is still in print).

Watch out Vampyres, the Wolves are on the prowl!

When vampires, or excuse me vampyres overtook pirates (with the exception of the Vampirates series) I thought it would just be a phase. In 2008 I thought the vampires were heading into extinction with zombies coming in to take up the mantle. I was wrong. Don't get me wrong, the zombies came, and are still around, as are the faeries (gotta be cool, spelling it f-a-i-r-y would be a sure sign you hadn't been a book store for five years or more - but that said I've never been cool so from this moment on I'm going back to the fairy spelling). Vampyres are still around, and, these days, so are the wolves. Apparently the actor who played Isabella's werewolf boyfriend in the Twilight movie was hotter than her vampire true love. At least that is what I was told, I didn't see the film, and I haven't read the books. I know, shame on me. But don't worry, I've made up for my lack of Twilight reading by setting my eyes on numerous other vampire and mythical creature books. And lately I've fallen in love with the wolf.

To be clear, Dust City's fabulous wolven creatures are NOT werewolves. Dust City goes the fairyland route with humans, goblins, ravens, donkeys, wolves, and fairies occupying the same dirty sprawling metropolis. Except in Dust City the fairies have been killed, and what's left of their fairy dust is a rare drug, bought and sold on the black market, and highly addictive. Dust City practically opens up with a description of a saliva filled wolf kiss; this is not a book for the faint of heart, but it is a great book! My 12-year-old neighbor LOVED it, as did her mother. It has not yet become a top seller at the bookstore, but give it time, with word of mouth I am certain this title will spread all over our small town like the latest cold. It's a Blade Runner fairy tale, and is perhaps the most creative book that came out in 2010.

Red Moon Rising does have werewolves, and vampyres, and humans. All races have formed an uneasy alliance where they live and work next to each other, but not happily. Vampyres and humans are the elites, and the wolves are the poor & downtrodden. Essentially the story unfolds in a time of a civil rights battle and Dante (Danny), our 1/2 vampyre and 1/2 wolf hero would have a much easier time of it if his wolf side would disappear. Of course, that doesn't happen. In Red Moon Rising, author Peter Moore has created a world of with vampyres, werewolves, night-time high schools, lesbian best friends, first kisses, and equal rights rallies that is utterly familiar. In a somewhat disturbing way I think this book about werewolves gives one a better sense of the civil rights movement than most history tomes. Perhaps that is because most people don't read history tomes.

Second looks bring greater pleasures

The Legend of the Golden Snail came out in October of 2010. We brought it into the book store right away because well, it was by Graeme Base. Graeme Base is the Australian author of many books, including Animalia a fabulous books with intricate, complex illustrations that kids (and adults) can stare at for hours. But when I first read The Legend of the Golden Snail I was dissapointed, the illustrations, though vivid, were not intricate. With Legend of the Golden Sanil Graeme Base had created a completely different kind or book, a story book, and I was expecting an art book. So I shelved it and didn't give it a second thought. 
Then Oscar recieved The Legend of the Golden Snail as a Christmas present from his Grandparents, and after reading the book to him on a near nightly basis I have to say that my first impression was blind. I can't read Animalia with Oscar, it doesn't have any cars in it and at two-years-old he isn't yet ready to play the visual games that the pictures inspire. He is, however, ready to hear a story about a boy re-living his favorite tale in a quest find the golden snail. And what a quest it is!

Wilbur, the protaganist sets sail for the ends of the earth to find the golden snail, and on the way he waters a butterfly bush, frees a monster from it's net, and saves numerous lantern fish. He then encounters some difficulties and is saved by butterflies, a monster, and numerious lantern fish. He finds the golden snail, and takes it home, to it's ocean in the sky. The ocean in the sky is amazing, full of fun fish hidden in the clouds, like pencil dolphins. Oscar doesn't recognize all the cloud fish yet, but give him time, he will.

Yesterday I took Oscar and his friend Amaya to the park, on the play structure there was a wheel. So Oscar Amaya and I set sail for the ends of the earth, and on the way we watered a butterfly bush, cut a tangled monster free, and saved the latern fish, and then of course they all saved us. It was quite fun, and it was great imaginative play, even for Amaya who had never read the book. Although I didn't realize it at first, I now recognize that The Legend of the Golden Snail is fantastic story book.