The Circle of Life Sequence Gets the Picture Book Treatment in Morning at Pride Rock

There have been many movie previews that have made an impression on me, but none can match the impact of the one for The Lion King, which was simply the opening sequence of the movie. I had never seen anything as eye-poppingly epic as the sight of hundreds of animals rushing toward Pride Rock to the tune of African chanting, stirring instrumentals and a powerful lead vocal describing the “Circle of Life.” This is the scene recreated in Teddy Slater’s Morning at Pride Rock, illustrated by Robin Cuddy and David Pacheco.

The illustrations in the book are magnificent, recalling the majesty of that opening scene. While the last picture is on a single page, the book otherwise consists of 14 two-page spreads, most of which feature a particular type of animal reacting to the summons to Pride Rock. A cheetah. A pair of rhinoceroses. An octet of meerkats. We have gracefully wading storks, lumbering elephants and soaring flamingos, stampeding zebras, scampering moneys and galloping gazelles. Giraffes and topi are the final animals to be highlighted. It would have been nice if all 11 species could have been represented in the picture showing the animals bowing before the new prince, but the up-close view of the animals that we get instead is enjoyable.

The focus of this book is mostly on the diversity of the creatures who answer to the lions. Counting the royal family, Zazu the hornbill and Rafiki the baboon, there are 14 distinct types of animals here, and each reacts to the presentation in a different way. While it doesn’t quite have the same epic scope as that part of the movie, it’s perfectly plain that something big is happening. The sense of urgency and excitement is apparent throughout the book. It’s also interesting to watch the progression of the sunrise, which so gorgeously shapes the backgrounds. At the beginning, the sky is a deep reddish orange color. The shade shifts slightly from page to page so that by the conclusion, we’re looking at a brilliant blue sky.

I thought that Morning at Pride Rock might simply use the lyrics to Circle of Life as its text, but instead, the narration featured in the colored strip that runs along the bottom of each page is unique to this book. Written in large italics, the words are limited to one sentence on most pages. Usually it’s only one line of text, but sometimes there are two. The writing is fairly simple but has a poetic ring to it, especially in the descriptions of the animals. The giraffes are “elegant,” the gazelles “graceful,” the cheetah “tawny.” Slater incorporates some good verbs as well; the elephants “trumpet” the news of Simba’s birth; the storks “plod.” Even though this is far from a wordy book, youngsters might be introduced to a new word or two.

Without the exceptional music and fluid movement across a vast expanse, it’s hard for a book to truly pack the punch of one of my favorite Disney scenes ever, but Morning at Pride Rock comes close.

Zazu's View Misses a Lot of Major Details

My first impression of The Lion King left me wondering whether it would bear any resemblance to a typical Disney movie. That first wordless scene felt so epic, I initially questioned whether there would even be much in the way of dialogue. But once the presentation of Simba was over, the characters began to talk, and one of the chattiest was Zazu, Mufasa’s deputy. In Zazu’s View, a picture book written by Justine Korman and illustrated by Josie Yee, the hornbill has the spotlight to himself.

Zazu’s View is really just a retelling of The Lion King from Zazu’s perspective. What that means is that his narrative tone is a tad self-important and also that he incorporates as much bird-related imagery as possible. He calls himself Mufasa’s “right-wing bird,” which really doesn’t make a lot of sense because the point is that he’s at Mufasa’s right hand. “Right-paw” would be more fitting. Still, he mentions his wings whenever he can and is obviously very proud of them. He also uses bird metaphors like Mufasa sending the hyenas “flying like a bunch of frightened hens.”

The illustrations capture key moments in the movie. The pictures are detailed and full of rich color, and in addition to the full-page illustrations, there are four two-page spreads. For the most part, the pictures are pretty dire. Only three illustrations are truly tranquil, with no hint of agitation on any of the characters, and two of those are cub presentation scenes. The book basically moves swiftly from one harrowing event to the next, leaving little time to take it easy. There is no “hakuna matata” here.

That, I think, is the book’s biggest drawback. Because Zazu was not a part of it, the story completely excises Simba’s sojourn with Timon and Pumbaa. The warthog and meerkat show up on the last page, but that is their first appearance, and they are never mentioned by name – nor, for that matter, is Rafiki, the baboon who serves as the mystic of the Pridelands. We don’t get the names of the hyenas either, but that makes sense and doesn’t detract from their role in the story. Still, the fact of the matter is that there are big chunks of the story in which Zazu is not involved, so it feels incomplete. One page Simba’s gone, the next he’s back, and oh, yeah, he and Nala get married even though the last time they saw each other, when they were cubs, that thought totally grossed them out. There’s no transition.

It would have been interesting if this book had given a little something extra that Zazu saw while the attention in the movie was elsewhere, but it really doesn’t. The limited perspective takes scenes away but doesn’t add anything. Hence, while it’s a nice idea to give him his own book, Zazu’s View is just too narrow to make for a truly satisfying adaptation of the movie.

Doug Swieteck Steps Out of the Shadows in the Luminous Okay For Now

In Gary Schmidt’s The Wednesday Wars, the young narrator, Holling, receives an extraordinary opportunity that he shares with two other boys. One of them is class troublemaker Doug Swieteck, and his inclusion in this invitation has an even greater impact on him than on the main character and his best friend. That much is plain just from Holling’s observation. But it isn’t until Okay For Now, Schmidt’s equally remarkable sequel, that we get to hear Doug speak for himself and come to understand just how profoundly this incident moved him.

At the beginning of Okay For Now, Doug and his family relocate to Marysville, still in New York but a bit of a distance away from the big city. They move into a ramshackle house Doug refers to as The Dump, and at first glance, he sees nothing in town that looks too promising. It’s the summer before eighth grade, and Doug is hot and miserable, keenly aware of being an outsider in a boring town with judgmental residents. At home, he has to deal with his older brother, a whirling dervish of destruction, and his father, who seems like an adult version of his brother. His oldest brother, Lucas, is off fighting in the Vietnam War, though Doug can’t say he misses him much, since Lucas wasn’t any nicer to him than the other men of the family. Doug’s mother, however, is another matter. She speaks very little throughout the novel, as she is cowed by the fear of an abusive husband, but she clearly is a woman of warmth and compassion, and Doug adores her.

In Wednesday Wars, the central relationship of the book is between Holling and his teacher, Mrs. Baker. Several mentors come into Doug’s life in his eighth grade year, but his core relationship is with Lil Spicer, a spunky classmate he meets on his first day in town. It is she who leads him to the library where he will discover the artwork of John James Audubon and befriend Mr. Powell, a librarian who gives him art lessons. It is she who gets him a job working as a delivery boy for her father’s deli, which leads to several more acquaintanceships, most importantly with Mrs. Windermere, an eccentric playwright, and the Daughertys, who hire Doug to babysit regularly for their five rambunctious children. It is she who becomes his truest refuge in the tumultuous year to follow.

Doug makes no secret of his devotion to his mother, but he is even more effusive in his praise of Lil and can scarcely mention her without remarking on her dazzling green eyes – a trait she shares, incidentally, with Lily, the virtuous mother of Harry Potter – or her stunning smile or the warmth of her hand when she reaches over to squeeze his in encouragement. My favorite of his many descriptions comes toward the end of the book, in the chapter named after the Brown Pelican print that hangs in the office of Principal Peattie, a condescending man who speaks of himself in the third person and is prejudiced against Doug because of the rumors circulating about his brother. “You know how pretty someone can be when she opens up a book?” Doug asks us. “Especially if she has brown hair the color of the pelican’s feathers?”

Just as a series of Shakespeare’s plays provides a good deal of scaffolding for Wednesday Wars, the birds of Audobon give this book structure and focus. Doug is startled to find himself so drawn to those birds, and he recoils at Mr. Powell’s initial attempts to encourage him to artistically capture them. But they become incredibly important to him. Each is a bird featured in a magnificent collection of Audobon paintings housed at the library – a hefty volume that is incomplete because the town council has seen fit to sell individual prints from the book to collectors. Restoring those birds to their proper place in the library becomes Doug’s overarching mission for the year. Having this concrete goal, as well as the perpetual project of becoming more adept at drawing the birds, is very good for Doug. Moreover, studying the birds at length helps him to work through some of his own issues.

Doug frequently asks the reader some variation of “You know how that feels?” He wants us to be able to put ourselves into his situation, just as he puts himself into the situation of the birds in the paintings. It turns out that he is a deeply empathetic soul, with a great concern for the lonely, the weak, the disenfranchised, the frightened. He sees these qualities in many of the birds he studies; they seem to him fellow victims of an unfair fate. But gradually, he begins to see other things as well, like nobility, compassion, devotion and courage. As he looks at these birds in a new light, he begins to imagine new possibilities for himself as well.

Doug has a wonderfully earthy pre-teen voice. It’s more direct and less pensive than Holling’s, and I didn’t really get the sense, as I did in the first book, that he was looking back on this year from several years in the future. His gruff, matter-of-fact tone reminds me of LOST’s Frank Lapidus; his style can perhaps best be summed up in his assessment of his English class’s poetry unit: “Why can’t poets just say what they want to say and then shut up?” His words, especially toward the beginning, often have a harsh edge. He liberally applies the word “stupid,” particularly if he’s describing Marysville. “Terrific,” he often grumbles, allowing that sarcastic thought a line to itself on the page. “So what?” comes up a lot, as does “I’m not lying”; this is a kid who is used to being on the defensive. He also frequently refers to himself as a chump – or, conversely, protests that he is not a chump.

Although Doug’s mind is often an angsty place to be, it has an undeniable beauty of its own, and his repetitive turns of phrase come to feel enjoyably familiar rather than annoyingly redundant. He is at his most poetic when he draws comparisons between the birds and himself, his family members and Lil, though his rambling run-on sentences, many of which describe moments of unexpected happiness, also offer a refreshing break from his typically terse style. It feels as though he’s releasing a whole lot of pent-up emotion. For instance: “You know how good an orange Dreamsicle tastes on a blue fall day when you’re full of grilled chicken and your mother is laughing a real laugh like she used to and once you look over and your father is holding her hand like they haven’t in a long long long time?”

One of Doug’s frequent observations is that when things seem to be going well, they always take a turn for the worse. His eighth grade year is full of ups and downs, and while many of Holling’s low points in the previous book are comically disastrous, Doug’s tend to veer more toward the tragic. It’s hard for him to imagine a truly happy life for himself. When he does dare to dream, most of his visions involve baseball player Joe Pepitone, his personal hero. In the first book, baseball provides a harsh lesson for Holling in just how much those we look up to can let us down. The lesson Doug gets is quite the opposite – that sometimes, when you least expect it, people may step up to the plate. Good things can happen, even to a guy who’s always been stuck with his brothers’ discarded leftovers and judged by their misdeeds, and the statistics that he studies so intently don’t necessarily determine what is going to happen next. Life is full of surprises, and some of them are wonderful.

As in Wednesday Wars, the historical context is of the utmost importance to this novel. The Vietnam War rages on, and eventually Lucas returns from it, changed almost beyond recognition, which in turn sparks a massive change in the Swieteck family dynamics. Through Lucas and Doug’s gym teacher, a former drill sergeant, Schmidt delves into the war’s effect upon those who lived through it as soldiers. Meanwhile, Doug’s favorite teacher, the enthusiastic and kind-hearted Mr. Ferris, is ecstatic over the impending moon landing. Schmidt also sneaks in some sly jokes as he has teachers contemplate the future. Between Mr. Ferris and Mr. Powell, I found this book to be quite science-oriented, while faith plays a prominent role in the first book. This also seems to be a reflection of the differences between the two young narrators, one more philosophical, the other more down-to-earth. The differing perspectives deepen each other rather than detracting.

I loved The Wednesday Wars. Okay For Now is similar in some ways and very distinct in others, and I honestly can’t say which of the two I liked better. Each is equally exquisite, and I am excited to hear that Schmidt plans one more companion novel. Although there is minimal overlap between the two stories, read the first book first, as some of the events here will make a greater impact that way (and a couple of the events in the first will be spoiled for you if you read out of order). Then crack open the cover of this book and let yourself get lost in it. Doug Swieteck may be just “okay for now,” but his story is nothing short of exceptional.

Birds Raise an Unusual Youngster in Flap Your Wings

I’m very familiar with the P. D. Eastman classic Are You My Mother?, and a while back I stumbled upon The Best Nest, which features a female bird who looks a lot like the mother bird in that book, this time with a mate in tow. Now I’ve found yet another Eastman book featuring a pair of birds. They already have a cozy nest for themselves, and it seems they are preparing to welcome a youngster into their home. Then an extra-large egg mysteriously appears in their nest...

Eastman does not introduce Mr. and Mrs. Bird right off the bat in Flap Your Wings. Instead, he first shows us the egg, then a boy who discovers the egg while out on a walk. When no one lays claim to it, the boy, in an effort to be helpful, puts the egg into the nest in a nearby tree. One wonders what would have happened if the boy had simply left the egg alone. Would one of its parents eventually retrieved it? Or would it have been abandoned, meaning that the boy actually saved the unborn creature’s life? That’s unclear, so it’s hard to say whether there’s a lesson in there about whether or not one should intervene in such cases. My initial thought was that the boy should have left well enough alone, but I’m not sure the book entirely supports that idea. After all, the birds turn out to be very good parents.

It’s after the boy goes away that we meet them, both bright blue birds with pale yellow stomachs, differentiated from each other by the fact that Mrs. Bird wears a red handkerchief. They both know that this is not their egg, but they feel a duty to keep it warm until it hatches and then raise whatever comes out of it. Little do they expect that it will hatch an alligator!  This enormous baby comes with a set of sharp teeth and a monstrous appetite, so the birds spend the next few weeks tirelessly collecting food, with Mrs. Bird generally finding things like butterflies and berries and Mr. Bird hunting down icky stuff like spiders and centipedes. But how long can a bird’s nest sustain such a big reptile?

This reminded me a bit of the classic Disney short Lambert the Sheepish Lion. In that story, a mother sheep accidentally receives a baby lion from the stork, but she raises him as her own and he eventually becomes a valued member of the flock. In this case, it’s Mr. Bird who is really insistent that they keep the egg and then raise it. Mrs. Bird is more noncommittal. Nonetheless, both of them work hard to provide for their unconventional child’s needs. Then, when he outgrows the nest, they gently encourage him to take flight. There’s just one problem, of course; he doesn’t have any wings!

Flap Your Wings is a fun book, full of vibrant color and amusing expressions as the birds try to figure out how to deal with this unexpected change in their family life. It’s a Beginner Book, written at the same basic level as the other Eastman books mentioned above, with a few short sentences per page. It’s funny to watch the birds feeding this alligator bugs and satisfying to see how much trouble they go to for a youngster of a completely different species. While I’m not sure the story hangs together quite as well as Eastman’s other bird books, the premise is cute, and the pictures are a hoot. Ultimately a celebration of both nature and nurture, Flap Your Wings is silly but charming.

Mark Bittner, Bird Man of San Francisco, Stars in The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill

Because January 21 is Squirrel Appreciation Day, I had squirrels on my mind all day yesterday, but I wrapped up my evening with The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, a documentary about more colorful creatures, at least in terms of plumage. It’s an odd sight to see parrots soaring over the streets of San Francisco as though they belong there; I just don’t think of wild birds in America boasting that kind of spectacular color. These are immigrants for the most part, but they feel welcome in the California sunshine, and that is due, in no small measure, to the efforts of Mark Bittner, the man who oversaw their care and feeding for several years.

Mark, an articulate, eccentric man who, at the time of this film, hadn’t paid rent in more than a decade, thrives on the generosity of his friends and neighbors, and in turn, he passes the goodwill on to his feathered companions. He gets to know the unique markings and other distinguishing characteristics of each bird; they become like family, even though he insists that they are not “his” birds. Few of them ever see the inside of a cage. His aim is to keep them free, and he imprisons them only for the purposes of rehabilitation - though he does amusingly recount his experience with Mingus, a parrot who, atypically, seems to crave captivity.

Judy Irving, a filmmaker and neighbor of Mark’s, found his story intriguing enough that she decided to document some of his experiences. Hence, we get a lot of up-close and personal shots of the parrots as Mark gives us their life stories as he sees them. “Boy, he sure does a lot of anthropomorphizing!” my dad commented, and perhaps that’s true; he’s constantly telling us what the birds are thinking and feeling, with such certainty that one might wonder whether he thinks he has a direct pipeline to their minds. Still, most of his assumptions struck me as fairly reasonable, considering the circumstances he describes.

The footage of the birds is quite lovely, and it’s interesting to hear Mark talk about them and try to help us see them as individuals. Unfortunately, I still found it pretty tough to tell the birds apart. He’s had years to get to know these creatures; it’s a little harder for us to manage in an hour and a half, and with only the benefit of sight. Additionally, there’s little narrative structure to the movie. Certain parrots have some semblance of a story arc, and there is a major conflict toward the end, but it seems to come out of nowhere, much too suddenly to feel like a major plot element. Rather, the film feels largely plotless. Which is, I suppose, somewhat typical of documentaries, but I think Irving could have done a better job of weaving her film together in a more linear and compelling fashion.

There are those who won’t like this movie because of its acceptance of the presence of an invasive species amongst indigenous wildlife. Others will protest Mark’s lack of traditional employment, while still others will simply wish for better editing. While I don’t object to the main ideals presented in the movie, I confess my attention wandered. Rarely did I find my eyes glued to the screen. These are beautiful birds, and if a flock of parrots decided to settle here in Erie, Pennsylvania, I would certainly want to go see them. But the movie doesn’t use them to their full advantage.

I do recommend The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill to anyone who loves birds. The primary focus is on the parrots, which are fascinating in themselves, but there are side trips dealing with lorikeets, quails and all sorts of other birds, some domesticated, most wild. Chances are you’ll learn something and that you’ll find yourself falling in love with these bright green birds as well. But I think the movie could use a more detached narrator to give it a bit more structure. Have a look at this unique slice of life; just don’t expect another March of the Penguins.

An Evergreen Is Ever Useful in Who Would Like a Christmas Tree?

Last weekend was Halloween. Our house is still decked out with pumpkins, black cats and bats. But I heard my first carol on a commercial last night, and the grocery store down the street is selling artificial trees. The Christmas season has unofficially begun. One of my favorite ways to ring in this part of the year is to peruse Christmas picture books. This season’s first for me is Who Would Like a Christmas Tree?: A Tree for All Seasons, written by Ellen Bryan Obed and illustrated by Anne Hunter, both of whom have first-hand experience with Christmas tree farms. This is a nice book to ease me into Christmas mode, since it focuses on a Christmassy object, but mostly in non-Christmassy situations.

Obed and Hunter follow the same basic format through the book. “Who would like a Christmas tree in January? is the opening inquiry. Turn the page, and you’ll see the response, once again in bold print: “We would like a Christmas tree in January.” Each month gets two pages in which the volunteers explain, in fairly lengthy paragraphs, why they would like a Christmas tree in that particular month. First it’s the black-capped chickadees, then the field mice, then the white-tailed deer and so on.

Each month offers insights into the habits of that particular animal (or, in one case, plant), and the accompanying illustrations show the changing of the seasons. Some descriptions make references to Christmas despite their distance from the actual holiday; for instance, the monarch butterflies, who would like a tree in August, indicate that they “feed on flowers and rest like delicate black and orange ornaments on the milkweeds and Christmas trees.” In October, the fox, first mentioned in association with the mice, gets a month to himself. Throughout the first 11 months of the year, we see the trees serving a variety of important purposes before finally coming to rest, on the last page, in the living room of a happy family.

Like Ann Purmell’s Christmas Tree Farm, this is a book whose aim is mostly educational. Children can learn about various types of wildlife and how evergreens fit into that picture. In a two-page segment in the back, children can read what tree farmers do during each month of the year to prepare for December. This section shows how much work is involved in operating a tree farm and mentions that the trees shown in the book are Balsam Firs and Fraser Firs. The writing is pretty dry; it’s mostly a collection of facts, with the familiar refrain and the fairly detailed pictures to help keep kids’ interest. My favorite illustration shows a trio of bright-eyed chickadees searching for seeds among fir branches.

For a child interested in the background of Christmas tree production, I recommend this and Christmas Tree Farm together. As a story, it’s only mildly engaging, but as a learning tool, Who Would Like a Christmas Tree? is useful.

A Robin Comes to Roost in Annie and Snowball and the Cozy Nest

A few years ago, I discovered Cynthia Rylant, and I quickly discovered that she is one of the most prolific children's book authors in the business. She seems to be constantly publishing something. One reason she writes so often is that she has several different series to juggle, and some have even spawned spin-off series. In the case of Henry and Mudge, the easy reader chronicles of a young boy and his enormous dog, there are two spin-offs: Puppy Mudge, designed for very early readers, and Annie and Snowball, which aims at the same grade level as Henry and Mudge but is geared more toward girls.

Annie and Snowball and the Cozy Nest is the fifth book in this series. It stars Henry's cousin Annie and her fluffy white rabbit Snowball. Of course, because Annie now lives next-door to Henry, the stories in this series tend to involve all four pretty heavily. Annie's dad and Henry's parents also make occasional appearances. This particular volume has a springtime focus. In four short sections, Rylant lets a simple story unfold. There is a robin building a next on Annie's porch, in a secluded spot that can only be seen easily from the swing. Everyone, especially Annie and Henry, is excited to watch the bird's progress, and when five blue eggs appear inside, anticipation increases. Babies are on the way! But oh, what a long time to wait!

Like the other books in this series, this one is designed for independent readers who are still mastering the skill, so there's a bit of complexity to the writing but it's still pretty basic. Rylant sneaks some facts into the story, sometimes with some comical help from illustrator Sucie Stevenson. For instance, there's a silly picture of an elephant in a nest that is dreamed up by Annie, who figures Mudge could furnish enough fur to house an elephant. But Rylant paranthetically points out that elephants don't really build nests. Annie's dad, meanwhile, informs his daughter that she mustn't touch the eggs, though she is welcome to observe them.

There are a couple of small issues I had with the book. First off, it begins with Henry's birthday party, but Rylant only makes brief mention of this as a happy thing occurring in the spring. It seems like a bit of a letdown to show Henry and Annie at his party with a pile of gifts on the floor and cake on the table and not to linger there long enough even to open one present or take one bite of cake. I'm trying to remember if there is a book about Henry's birthday that takes place after the point in the Henry and Mudge series when Annie moves next door. Maybe this is a sly attempt to make this book a jumping-off point into the previous series.

The other slight complaint I have is that when the robins are finally born, they don't look like newborn robins. They're basically just smaller, fuzzier versions of their mother. I've seen baby robins, and when they first hatch, they're not cute and fuzzy. They're gangly and mostly unfeathered, and their beaks are freakishly enormous. Stevenson's depiction isn't very true-to-life.

Otherwise, though, this is a nice installment in a charming series. As usual, ungainly Mudge provides a few laughs, and the children reading Annie and Snowball and the Cozy Nest can learn a lesson in the value of patience right along with Annie and Henry.

Pictures Speak Louder Than Words in Patrick McDonnell's South

My mom and I went to the mall with a friend recently, and as we were leaving a flock of geese flew overhead in a graceful formation. "Goodbye!" our friend called out, waving toward the sky. "See you next year!" Yes, the time for migration is upon us, summer having slipped by all too quickly. It's the perfect occasion to read Patrick McDonnell's South, the simple, nearly-wordless story of a songbird that sleeps through his flock's take-off. What's a poor bird to do? Find a friend like Mooch.

Mooch is the altruistic feline at the heart of McDonnell's comic strip Mutts. The strip, which has run since the early '90s and was a favorite of Charles Schulz, frequently emphasizes the virtues of kindness and cooperation. One wouldn't expect a cat to come upon a little lost songbird and commit to spending as long as it takes accompanying him on a journey to find his flock, but that is exactly what Mooch does, and fans of the strip won't be all that surprised to see this particular cat make such a magnanimous gesture. Mooch has an especially generous nature.

South is printed on creamy paper and features full-color illustrations that focus on autumnal hues, then wintry. Bluish-black Mooch offers his paw, and a yellow wing accepts. Together they traverse a landscape of browning grass, fallen leaves, barren trees and, eventually, snow. One image of them trekking among stands of birches as a fawn looks on is especially serene. We get the sense that this is a very young bird; until he finally reunites with those who left him behind, he never makes any attempt to fly. I suspect he lacks confidence as a solo flier.

So he walks, and the progress is slow but steady. Poor Mooch can't even get a nap in, since his charge feels abandoned yet again when he tries to catch some Zs. But you won't hear any complaints from this steadfast cat, nor does his face betray any annoyance. He has a job to do, and he will see it through to the end. He knows a cozy spot waits for him by the fireplace back at home; rest can wait until then.

This is a lovely book for children and parents to "read" together. Of course, it isn't so much reading as studying the illustrations, which only occasionally contain a demonstrative word like "WEEP WEEP WEEP," which emanates from the songbird in particularly helpless moments. There is no true dialogue, and certainly no narration. That's for the reader to furnish, if he or she so desires. Picture books can be wonderful exercises in storytelling, with the structure of the tale already laid out and nothing left to add but the words. Then again, McDonnell's sparse book is complete as is, so it may be preferable to simply enjoy the pages together as a finished product.

However one chooses to peruse these pages, South is a beautiful little book, an ode to the unchanging patterns of life and the richness added when one embarks upon the journey with a friend.

Swordbird Is No Martin the Warrior, But Fan's Heart is in the Right Place

"Have you ever heard of the book Swordbird?" my aunt Nancy, aka The Book Lady, asked me over the phone shortly before my birthday. As is so often the case with books she brings up, I hadn't, so she informed me that it was written by an 11-year-old and was making all kinds of waves. "I'm not crazy about it," she confided, "but then I'm not too into fantasy. You might like it." She told me the audio book was on its way.

I try not to be a bitter person, but it seems I always am afflicted with just a touch of resentment whenever I hear about wunderkind Christopher Paolini and his amazing fantasy novel - make that trilogy. I wanted so badly to be a teenage novelist; how did he manage it? So while I didn't enjoy Eragon all that much, I am suspicious that my impression of it may have been tainted by jealousy. I tried not to fall into that trap with Nancy Yi Fan's novel. I'll admit I had little flares now and then when I reflected on the fact that someone half my age had accomplished something so impressive, but for the most part, the altruistic undertone of the novel helped me to center myself on nobler thoughts.

While I love movies, I don't generally "read" audio books because I find it hard to absorb what is happening with no visual cues and limited ability to go back and re-read or pause when I am interrupted. Just like I find it hard to catch everything in a telephone conversation, and when I miss something I usually just have to fake my way through or I'd be on the phone forever. So I was afraid I might not have much success in getting the real gist of the book with this form of reading. On my first attempt - admittedly late at night - I fell asleep. But then I found a project to occupy my fingers for four hours one morning, and I got through the book in one sitting.

It's read by Colleen Delany; the name doesn't mean anything to me, but she has a clear and pleasant voice. Because the vast majority of characters in the book are male, a man's voice might have sounded a little more natural, but the author is a girl, after all, and I suppose birds have rather higher voices anyway, so I have no objection to the narration. One nice aspect of the audio book is that we get an interview at the end with Fan and the president of HarperCollins, to whom she rather audaciously sent the manuscript after its completion. Listening to Fan talk couldn't help but elevate my opinion of the book, since her motivation for writing it was so pure. A lover of birds and a striver for peace, Fan decided to combine these two passions in a response to the horrors of September 11th, spurred on by a dream she had about warring cardinals and blue jays and a glorious white bird who eradicated the conflict.

In the book, we meet several representatives from each of these two groups, which used to be friendly with each other. We're also introduced to the fierce hawk Turnatt, who has built a fearsome fortress and intends to add the red and blue birds to his already considerable slave force. These beaten-down songbirds know their best hope lies in conveying to the warring tribes that it was Turnatt who stole the food each group blames the other for taking and that he poses a threat to the entire forest. A brave young robin volunteers to attempt a rendez-vous, but this meeting is only the beginning...

I found the blurb on the back of the audio book to be a bit misleading, as it caused me to conclude that Swordbird was primarily about the conflict between the cardinals and the blue jays. In truth, reconciliation between those groups comes a fourth of the way into the novel, so it's just as much about banding together to fight a common foe as it is about eschewing hostilities altogether. There is a crucial difference, of course; Turnatt is an evil dictator who cannot be made a friend through diplomacy, and the thuggish crows and ravens who work for him are little better. Still, I was a little surprised at how violent the book occasionally becomes. Even when bundled with the comedy of an epic food fight, a lot of feathers get singed, so to speak.

I was reminded a lot of Redwall, Brian Jacques' epic fantasy series featuring a wide variety of woodland creatures, each with certain personality traits and dialects tied in with their species; ancient writings; definite delineation of good against evil and lots of food. All those elements are in Swordbird, which is much shorter and not quite as engaging but still pretty darn impressive, especially for an 11-year-old. The mythology Fan creates for her world recalls not only Jacques but Richard Adams, whose Watership Down was so richly steeped in his invented rabbit religious traditions. Each chapter of Swordbird begins with a quote from some significant text, usually The Ancient Scriptures, studied by most songbirds, or The Book of Heresy, with which Turnatt is obsessed. Though there seems to be a certain blandness that creeps into the book now and then, her descriptions are often very rich indeed, and little of the dialogue comes across as clunky.

Ultimately, Fan weaves a compelling tale whose intent is not only to entertain but to uplift, to inspire people into seeking peace and unity. She's already working on a related novel, and I wish her the best of luck. Swordbird is not quite up there with Redwall, but Fan has many years of writing ahead of her to get there.

Stellaluna Explores the Beautiful Mystery of Friendship

Ever since the day when I visited my great-aunt's house as a toddler and witnessed a bat frantically flapping from a little-used room when she opened the door, I've had a fascination for the maligned nocturnal creatures. So I couldn't help but be drawn to Janell Cannon's celebrated Stellaluna, which tells of a little fruit bat who loses her way after she and her mother are attacked by an owl and ends up in the care of a bird, who insists that she behave like the rest of her children, denying her innate batty ways.

Because bats tend to rank with spiders, snakes and other creepy-crawlies as creatures that generally don't receive much public approval, it may seem a strange choice to write a story about one. But Cannon is drawn to these misunderstood mammals, and her vibrant illustrations actually manage to make Stellaluna even more lovable-looking than the birds she comes to think of as siblings. We see her wings as the graceful apparatus they are, and we gulp along with her when she cowers under the mother bird's glare, clinging to the nest by her thumbs and promising not to teach her nest mates any more bad habits.

Every page of text features a tiny pen-and-ink drawing of a bat going out into the world and meeting various other creatures. I have my suspicions as to the identity of this bat but will keep them to myself since they reveal a key plot point if I am correct. The main illustrations, however, are in full glorious color, detailed and expressive with pale brown bats and birds standing out against deep blue skies.

The story turns out to be one of tolerance, of learning that it's okay to be different, that you are the way you are for a reason. It's very much an Ugly Duckling story except that while the mother bird is harsh toward Stellaluna, her pseudo-siblings are kind, even wanting to emulate their new friend's strange habits. The story is told in fairly simple but lyrical prose ideal for a bedtime read-aloud; school-age children won't find too many troublesome words to trip over, and the lesson on bat biology in the back enhances the book's educational value.

"How can we be so different and feel so much alike?" one of the birds wonders late in the book. "I think this is quite a mystery," another chirps. It's no mystery why children have flocked to this gentle story despite the fact that bats are not generally seen as residents of the realm of cute and cuddly. Cannon helps us to see that all creatures are beautiful. If children can be taught to respect the differences of those with feathers, fur and wings, can a more understanding approach to their fellow humans be far behind?