In the seventeen years since The Time Warp Trio series was started and the nine years since my daughter first read it, it seems that is has become an animated television show! If you seek these books out, please be sure you find the originals as it is my understanding that there are some that are based on the television show, which is slightly different and not illustrated byLane Smith, Jon Scieszka's most frequent partner in crime. Also, it seems as though a new illustrator, Adam McCaulley, has taken over for Smith as the series progressed.

Joe, Fred and Sam (all boys) are the main characters of this series that, like the Magic Tree House books, involves a magic book (titled The Book) that takes them to various places and times. They go to ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome, medieval times and to the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. They hang with the Mayans in 1000 AD, aliens in 2095, Vikings, cowboys, samurais, neanderthals, pirates, George Washington, Marco Polo and Leonardo daVinci. However, my favorite is when they encounter the characters from the books on their reading list in book #7, Summer Reading is Killing Me.

The main difference between the Time Warp Trio and the Magic Tree House books is the emphasis on humor rather than history, altough the books are filled with factual, historical information just like the Magic Tree House books. If you have ever read The Stinky Cheese Man or the True Story of the Three Little Pigs by Scieszka and Smith, you will know what kind of humor I am talking about.

Summer Reading is Killing Me, is a love letter to Scieszka's favorite children's book authors and will be a delight for any relatively well read child and adult. When Joe slips his summer reading list for grades 1 - 8 into The Book, the boys encounter everyone from Frog and Toad to the Hoboken Chicken to Charlotte, who leaves a message for the boys in her web directing them to the library for help out of their mess. There, they are trapped along with all the other main characters from kid's books by a deranged Teddy Bear who wants to do away with all of them so that he and all the other villains from these books can be the main characters of every book, ensuring titles like Frankenstein in Wonderland, Encyclopedia Teddy Bear and Green Eggs and Dracula will end up on the shelves. In the end, a girl character none of the boys recognizes steps forward to make a speech about the importance of the stories. There is a very funny scene where Joe, Sam and Fred try to figure out which character and book she is from but can't. They realize they've never read a "girl's book" and thus will never know who she is, but they rescue her anyway after her lengthy speech puts the villains to sleep. The best part is, there is a summer reading list at the end of the book that includes all of the books mentioned in Summer Reading is Killing Me.

Jon Scieszka, who served as the first ever National Ambassador for Young People's Literature for 2008 and 2009 and Lane Smith are also the creators of these brilliant, hilarious picture books, many of which are now classics. Their most recent collaboration, and possibly my favorite, is Cowboy and Octopus, one long non sequitur that is the perfect companion to Mac Barnett and Adam Rex's paradigm busting picture book, Guess Again!

Short story collections for kids are very rare these days, and, while I haven't read very many in my life, I suspect that Joan Aiken has to be one of the most prolific and excellent writers of short stories for children in the 20th century. A Necklace of Raindrops came about when, in 1968, Aiken was to write stories from a list of 200 words for younger readers in America - much the way Theodore Geisel (Dr Seuss) got started writing what are now known as "easy to read" books for beginning readers. A Necklace of Raindrops also marked the beginning of a fruitful picture book collaboration with the children's book artist Jan Pienkowski.

A Necklace of Raindrops was reissued in 2001 with illustrations by Kevin Hawkes, who illustrated the remarkable picture book Weslandia by Paul Fleichsman, as well as all of Eva Ibbotsen's magical novels for children. The eight stories all involve magic of one kind or another, some very much like traditional fairy tales. The title story is about a father who rescues the North Wind one night and in turn receives a necklace for his daughter. Every year on her birthday the North Wind gives her a raindrop that provides her a new magical quality, such as staying dry in a rain storm, being able to swim the deepest river and the ability to make it rain by blowing her nose. A jealous friend leads the girl on a journey to Arabia and an encounter with the king. Another favorite story of mine is "The Baker's Cat," in which Mog, the water loving cat of the baker, is given warm milk with yeast in it to help him keep from catching cold after sitting in a puddle all morning. The yeast causes Mog to grow to the size of a house and throw the town into a panic. But, Mog redemeems himself by settling down for a nap in a riverbed and acting as a dam that saves the town from being flooded.

Sticky Burr , illustrated and written by John Lechner is one of the most exciting books to come across my path in a while! Aside from being a charmingly illustrated story that packs adventure, humor and a little nature lesson (in the form of the main character's journal) into the book's colorful pages, there is a map, a copy of the Burrwood Gazette (Summer issue) and sheet music for a delightful little song that my four year old son, after he asked me not to sing it while pounding away on the piano, sang to himself for the rest of the day. There is also the great Sticky Burr interactive website with an on going comic strip featuring Sticky and pals as well as a link to John Lechner's other day job at FableVision. As Art Director for the children's media company founded by the amazing illustrator and author Peter H Reynolds, Lechner, who was a puppeteer for many years, directs films and designs children's software and educational websites. The website for FableVision itself kept my son and me pretty busy for a while reading books, watching short animated movies and playing games. We also had the chance to read (although without the great color illustrations) Lechner's next picture book, due out from Candlewick Press this fall, The Clever Stick which reminds me a bit of a William Steig book in it's philosophical bent.

Sticky Burr should appeal to picture book lovers as young as two or three, depending on attention span. Like Susan Schade and Jon Buller's excellent Fog Mound Trilogy and Marissa Moss' engrossing Max Disaster series, both of which are written at a higher reading level in terms of plot complexity and vocabulary, Sticky Burr is part graphic novel and moves at a fast pace. The other part of Sticky Burr is the journal of Sticky Burr ("He's small! He's prickly! HE'S A HERO!" is Sticky's tagline) which includes entries like, "Insects I have Known," "All About Burrs," and "Sticky Situations" which are informative and entertaining. Although he has the heart and soul of an artist and is a lover, not a fighter, Sticky's appearance has serious comedic appeal for little kids. With his big round eyes, continually shocked expression and stubby little teeth, Sticky is just plain funny looking. His friend, Mossy with her eyelashes and hair bow is cute. Scurvy's uni-brow and fang-like tooth add to his menacing demeanor while Draffle, Sticky's dragonfly friend looks like a great pal .

The first adventure in Burrwood forest sets the scene for Sticky and company. We learn that Sticky likes to paint, write poetry and play his ukulele (which you can listen to a sample of at Sticky Burr the website. There is also an excellent animated short of Sticky as well. Mossy is a bit of a thrill seeker, but she also sees the importance in Sticky's pursuits and Scurvy is a trouble making meanie out to get Sticky. While admiring a view of the forest from the top of a tree, Sticky gets stuck on a squirrel's tail, then a bird's, and, when he finally shakes himself free, he falls through the sky to land on Draffle's back. Draffle goes zooming off through the forest, upsetting a wasp's nest and starting a great chase that ends in the mysterious Maze Tree. Once inside and lost, Sticky and Draffle manage to make their way home, save Oralee the Princess lightening bug as well as Sticky's village, which has been overrun by wild dogs. Like I said, a lot happens in this seemingly little book.

Native Australian Alison Lester is one of my top five favorite picture book illustrator/authors. Sadly, most of her picture books are not available in the United States, but if you are lucky your library will have a couple on the shelf. Of those available for purchase here, my favorites are Are We There Yet? : A Journey Around Australia, which is about a family's winter-long (which is summer down under) car trip driving around the perimeter of Australia and is only available in hardcover. Magic Beach is a poetic, sunny romp through a child's family vacation at a beach house. Imagine is the perfect rainy day book in which a sister and brother play dress-up while imagining themselves in various animal habitats that include the rain forest, the Australian outback, the African plains, the Arctic and a jurassic setting. Lester provides a list of the all the animals that appear in each detailed illustration in the back of the book. Both of these titles are available in paperback and I suggest you rush out and buy them for your children immediately.

With Horse Crazy, Lester brings us a superbly written series of stories for emerging readers that are beautifully illustrated, in a style very similar to her own, by Roland Harvey. In Australia, the series is titled Bonnie and Sam and there is a great website for the books including section devoted to all the horses who appear in the series. I was not one of those girls who loved horses as a child, so I am not familiar with the cannon of horse stories in children's literature. On a very basic level, I know that horses are noble, hard working, intelligent animals who can express varying levels of personality. In her books, Alison Lester does a magnificent job of bringing the characters of each horse she writes about to life. And they all are different characters. Even though the Horse Crazy book are slightly more than 60 pages long, I came away from both books feeling like I understood more about the nature of horses and the different kinds of work they do with and for humans and because of this I think these books will be interesting to children, whether they have a pre-existing love of horses or not.

Much to my delight, the first two pages in each book in the series are taken up with a wonderful map of the rural town of Currawong Creek where the stories are set. The map also includes a list of all the paddocks and horses in town. Sam and Bonnie are two best friends who share a love of horses above all else. Sam is the owner of a very intelligent dog named Pants, short for Smartie Pants and her father is Bill Cooper, the town police man. Bonnie, who claims she can speak a secret horse language, lives just outside the town with her parents Woo and Chester on Peppermint Plain, a ranch that is big enough to house a horse, but doesn't. When the girls are not with horses they are thinking about them, drawing pictures of them and making scrapbooks devoted to them. Because neither of them own a horse, they are very well acquainted with the horses in town since they volunteer to exercise all of them regularly.

Lester begins the book with the names and descriptions of all nine horses in the girls spend time with then tells the story of the new horse, Drover, and how she came to be Officer Cooper's police horse. Although she is fine horse when she is out of the paddock and being ridden by Officer Cooper, Drover is anxious and fidgety when she is in her paddock. She does not even let Sam and Bonnie get close enough to feed her a treat. Drover was born a brumby, a wild horse (each book has a glossary with definitions for Australian terms like "mate," "brumby," and "double-dinking") but was caught and tamed. One night a herd of brumbies gallops past Drover's paddock and one stops to look at her. The horse is the mirror image of Drover and her history is almost Drover's in reverse. Shadow, as she is called, was born on a farm but became a brumby when her mother escaped through a break in the fence. Scared of thunder and lightning, Shadow years for the safety of a paddock and an owner. When Shadow and Drover switch places, only Bonnie and Sam figure out what has happened. Secretly, they brush the tangles out of Shadow's mane, file down her hooves and have Bonnie's Aunt Birdy give her a few lessons in manners. Soon Shadow, or the New Drover as the girls call her, is working hard for Officer Cooper and enjoying the attentions of Sam and Bonnie. The story ends in a climax that involves a missing toddler, a train and the race to save her. There is even a chapter at the end titled, "One Year Later," in which the girls, double-dinking (riding two to a horse) on Shadow, are wandering through the mountains when they see the herd of brumbies. Drover leaves the group to nuzzle Shadow and the girls notice the black foal at her side.

The Silver Horse Switch was so great I went on to read The Circus Horse, book two in the series. Bonnie and Sam want to perform in the town talent show and spend hours practicing trick riding on Tricky, a very expensive horse who was once owned by the State Games Champion and is now owned (and unappreciated by) local spoiled brat, Michael. Michael lets Bonnie and Sam exercise Tricky who, like his black and white coat, can be either very good or very bad. Tricky loves Bonnie and she adores him and the girls decide to plan a routine for Bonnie and Tricky to perform in the talent show. Things go bad when, after hours and hours of practice, Michael informs the girls that animals are not allowed in the show for insurance reasons and that he intends to win for a second year in a row with his violin playing. However, Bonnie and Tricky get their chance to perform in front of the whole town when Circo Circus rolls into town and Bella Donna, the star trick rider, injures her ankle and desperately needs a replacement to fill in for her. The only thing is, it all has to be a secret and the audience must believe they are watching Bella Donna and Jet, not Bonnie and Tricky, perform in the center ring...

I

If Junie B Jones was a boy and had been written by Roald Dahl instead of Barbara Park, she would be Horrid Henry. The creation of Francesca Simon, an American who has spent most of her adult life in England, the first Horrid Henry book was published some fifteen years ago and there are currently has sixteen titles in the series, including my favorite (not out in the States yet) Horrid Henry's Nits. Tony Ross, who's illustrations are reminiscent of but less edgy than the work of Quentin Blake, current cover artist for Roald Dahl's works for children, bring Henry and his family and friends to life. Now, for the first time ever, Henry is crossing the pond and maybe he will give Junie B and Jack and Annie from the Magic Tree House series a run for their money. 

These are the kind of books that parents will probably loathe but kids will love. Henry is a horrid child, and his parents can frequently be heard telling him not to be horrid in each of the four stories that make up the books in this series. Henry has a younger brother, Perfect Peter. All of the characters, the children anyway, have an adjective that precedes their name and starts with the same letter. There seem to be children for almost every letter in the alphabet in these books. There is Prissy Polly, Weepy William, Lisping Lilly, Singing Soraya and Vomiting Vera. Where Henry is unrealistically ill behaved, Peter is equally unrealistically well behaved. Naturally, Henry spends a lot of his horrid energy on tormenting Peter, who is a pretty easy mark. The first story in Horrid Henry is titled, "Henry's Perfect Day," in which he decides to be perfect, or like brother, anyway. Of course this delights his parents and aggravates his brother no end, which in turn gives Henry the strength he needs to continue on being a well behaved, helpful child. Chapter 3, in which Horrid Henry and Moaning Margaret dare each other to eat "GLOP," a disgusting concoction of assorted foods found about the kitchen, is pretty entertaining also. Who among us did not make a similar sort of mixture at some point in our childhoods? My favorite story, however, is in the book Horrid Henry and the Mega-Mean Time Machine. Henry and Peter are given the box from a new washing machine to play with and, when Henry's turn is up he refuses to turn it over to Peter, telling him it is a time machine that he is too young to use. Peter wants to turn the box into a play house with cut out windows and flower boxes but Henry convinces him otherwise by taking a solo trip to the future. Upon his return he tells Peter that boys in the future wear dresses and lipstick, every one eats vegetables and has tons of home work and they all speak the Ugg language. When Peter is dressed properly and transported to the future, Henry is there pretending to be Zog, his own great-great-great-great-great granddaughter and explains the familiar surroundings by telling Peter that he is so famous in the future that his house has become a museum and that is why nothing has changed.

Francesca Simon is a great writer with a real ear for children's dialogue and thought processes. While the characters can seem static and archetypal somtimes, Simon draws on a rich vein of everyday experiences - from eating in a fancy restaurant to reading a book or doing a school project- for her main characters to react to. Sometimes the stories just seem like more of the same thing - Henry being horrid in various ways. But, sometimes there are bright spots of inspiration, like when Peter decides to get revenge on Henry for always tricking him. Either way, these books will serve the purpose of getting kids to read and read often which is exactly what they need at this point in their budding careers as lovers of literature and seekers of knowledge. And, like Junie B Jones and the Magic Tree House, there will soon be enough of Horrid Henry books on the shelf to give emerging readers all the practice they need in reading chapter books. While parents may not be thrilled with Henry and his highjinks, he is definitely a step up from Dav Pilkey's Captain Underpants in terms of providing a more complex plot structure and vocabulary and less (none, in fact) potty humor.

Don't forget, your kids will be the ones reading these books, not you, so you don't really have to enjoy them as long as you feel like you can find a way to explain Henry's behavior in conjunction with your own family values - if that is a clarification your child even needs. I realize that children are influenced by their surroundings, be it television, movies, computer/video games and peers, but I remain skeptical with the idea that children are equally influenced as heavily by the books that they read. I believe that any child with a solid foundation in reality can read Horrid Henry and laugh at him, knowing the difference between right and wrong, and not be influenced to go out and smash a flower bed, scream in public or tease a sibling. Horrid Henry should be considered part of the fantasy genre, really. And what child doesn't fantasize about doing whatever s/he wants, whenever s/he wants to? Ok, I'll admit it, I actually kind of like Horrid Henry. He reminds me a bit of Edina and Patsy from the BBC comedy of the 1990s, Absolutely Fabulous, who said and did whatever they wanted and were complete hedonists. Horrid Henry (and Eddy & Pats) do whatever they want, whenever. I have always wanted to live that way, for a day anyway, and I am sure that children (who are told "no" several times a day) yearn for that as well.

I discovered Tony Johnston's The Spoon in the Bathroom Wall when I was cruising around cover illustrator Brett Helquist's fabulous site and am happy I did. My only complaint is that I wish there was some of Helquist's unique illustrations inside the book to go along with Johnston's animated, humorous writing.

A spoof on the King Arthur legend with a nod to T.H. White and his brilliant version of the tale, The Once and Future King in the dedication, Johnston's book is so much more than the story of a sword in a stone, or, in this case, a spoon in the bathroom wall. The book begins with a Langston Hughes poem:

    Dreams

Hold fast to dreams

For if dreams die

Life is a broken-winged bird

That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams

For when dreams go

Life is a barren field

Frozen with snow.

This is the glue that holds Martha Snapdragon and her father Luther together and keeps them going. Even though Luther can never remember the exact words of the poem, he and Martha tell each other to "hold fast," and this manages to get them through some dark days and tight spots. And things are dark. Luther Snapdragon is the janitor at Horace E Bloggins School and he and Martha, who is the star student there, live in the noisy, dank boiler room in the school's basement. The principal, Dr Klunk, (rhymes with junk), "rhymes with" being a frequent silly extra that Johnston throws into the story) is a power hungry egomaniac worthy of a Lemony Snicket novel who is always out to get Luther and Martha. Rufus Turk is the school bully who also has it in for Martha. One day when he is teasing her and calling her "Marthur," Dr Klunk passes by and joins in the teasing. The name sticks and a hero is born, but not without the help of the school's science teacher, Ferlin, and her magic bag of tricks.

As Martha struggles to make it through the day she notices a saying etched into the school's brick wall: The King is Coming - And It's About Time. This is followed by the appearance of a bejeweled wooden spoon named X-Cauliflower, sticking out of the boy's bathroom wall and another cryptic message: Whoso pulleth this spoon from this wall is the rightwise King of all Bloggins. How Marthur gets the spoon out of the wall and the obstacles she has to overcome to do it make for a great story that any reader, boy or girl, will enjoy. And, if you're lucky, they may even become interested in the real Legend of King Arthur! And, when your kids read this book, be sure to ask them if they caught the spoof of Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd's classic, Goodnight Moon, at the start of chapter xii that begins, "In the science room there was a telephone. And a red baboon. And a picture of - George Washington. And there were three antbears sitting in chairs..."

If your reader likes this book, you might suggest:

When The Ink Drinker was first published in translation in from the original French in 1998, it appeared as a beautiful little hardcover with vibrant illustrations. The rest of the series, A Straw for Two, The City of Ink Drinkers and Little Red Ink Drinker, appeared in succession to make a quartet. Sadly, only The Ink Drinker is still available, but it arrives in a very reasonable paperback edition, packaged now as a Random House "Stepping Stones" book, bridge between easy beginning reader books and higher level chapter books like the ubiquitous Magic Tree House and Junie B. Jones series.

The narrator, Odilon, who's name we don't learn until the second book, is the very unhappy child of a bookstore owner. He is unhappy because he hates to read, hates books, and he is surrounded by them at home and at work. It is summer vacation and he is is working in his father's store. Because he likes the sound of paper being torn, his father won't let him do anything involving books. The only job left is to watch for shoplifters. However, when he sees one he always looks the other way. It pleases him to know there is one less book in the store. His attitude towards books takes a sharp turn when he spots a new customer he has never seen before. He has a gray complexion and bristly eyebrows and looks as if he is floating!

This is Draculink (Dracul-ink, or the much better sounding Draculivre as he is called in the French edition, "livre" being the French word for book.) Odilon watches from his hiding place as Draculink takes a straw from his pocket, inserts it in a closed book and begins drinking! When Draculink is finished he puts the book back on the shelf and where Odilon finds it, the pages completely blank. Intrigued, Odilon follows him to through the city to his mausoleum, a round room encircled by shelves packed with books, Draculink's pantry. He is discovered and confronts Draculink, asking him why he drinks ink and not blood. Draculink tells him that he has had a liver condition for over seventy-two years and ink is the only food he can digest without difficulty. And, it must be ink from the printed page, not bottled ink, which he says is as "l bland as salt-free food."

Draculink bites Odilon, writing his name on his arm with his teeth. The last chapter of the book sees Odilon joyously returning to his father's bookstore and drinking ink, reveling in the stories that he absorbs as he slurps, for, when you drink ink you simultaneously live the story. The second book, A Straw For Two, finds a lonely Odilon wanting someone to share his ink with. He even invents a Y shaped straw that allows two people to drink from the same book. Happily, he finds Carmilla, niece of Draculink. In the third book, The City of Ink Drinkers, the trio is looking for a new home that is safe and full of books and find the Library of the World. In the fourth and final book, my favorite, Little Red Ink Drinker, Odilon and Carmilla find themselves sucked into the story of Little Red Ridinghood.

The new series, Elliot's Park is by Patrick Carman, author of the popular Land of Elyon books written at the fourth grade reading level and the new Atherton series written at a slightly higher reading level. With this series, he is trying his hand at writing a series for the second grade reading level. The first book in the series, Saving Mister Nibbles, is followed by Haunted Hike and The Walnut Cup, which comes out in April of this year. Unlike Pee-Wee and Lexi in Johanna Hurwitz's Park Pals Adventure series, the squirrels of Elliot's park are anthropomorphiz. They wear clothes, have furniture in their homes and, above all else, have quirky personality traits like your standard kid's television characters. There is even a "Cast of Characters" section at the back of the book that details the differences and traits of the squirrels and other animals in the book. There are also some nifty things like a trail mix recipe, a guide on how to write your own park story and instructions for making a "tree constellation."