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Cat Acree

Children's & YAPicture Book

Animals on stage

Review by Cat Acree

Winter doldrums are wreaking havoc on the zoo animals of Springfield, turning once-chipper critters into grumps. “Owls did not give a hoot. / Pandas quit being cute. / Even penguins were surly. / The zoo gates closed early.” But just as the droopy-necked giraffes cannot droop anymore, a tiny hippo and baby kangaroo start hopping around—and in one turn of the page, all of the animals join in. What begins as a hop becomes a wild bee-bop party, and they decide to put on a zoo musical. That’s right, a ZooZical!

Author Judy Sierra (Mind Your Manners, B.B. Wolf) and illustrator Marc Brown (creator of the Arthur books and television show) proved to be a winning team with their previous fuzzy tale, the award-winning picture book Wild About Books. The combination of toe-tapping rhyme and tropical-colored illustrations in this follow-up will keep any child excited right through to the final scene. 

The townspeople brave the blustery weather to see the animals' performance, but just as the tuxedoed tiny hippo takes center stage, she finds herself frozen in fright! A colossal roar from a tiger gets her hippo-feet a-tapping, and the ZooZical is off—complete with tightrope-walking bears and flying-trapeze flamingoes.

Young readers and listeners will love the animal-adapted musical favorites, as creatures big and small turn familiar songs into zoo-tunes, such as “For he’s a jolly gorilla,” and “Oh my darling, Oh my darling, Oh my darling porcupine.” Kids will join the alligators to sing the alphabet, and sing along with the seals for, “The seals on the bus go round and round . . ." Top it all off with a Zoo Hokey Pokey and take a bow!

Created using gouache on gessoed wood, Brown's pictures feel textured and warm, which adds to the winter-busting jive. ZooZical is Where the Wild Things Are meets Dr. Seuss, with so much excitement it feels almost like Broadway.

Winter doldrums are wreaking havoc on the zoo animals of Springfield, turning once-chipper critters into grumps. “Owls did not give a hoot. / Pandas quit being cute. / Even penguins were surly. / The zoo gates closed early.” But just as the droopy-necked giraffes cannot droop anymore, a tiny hippo and baby kangaroo start hopping […]
YA FictionYA

Cleopatra’s daughter comes into her own

Review by Cat Acree

Many know the story of Cleopatra, but few know of her daughter, Cleopatra Selene, whose wholly dark life is captured in Vicky Alvear Shecter’s Cleopatra’s Moon. A daughter of Egypt and Rome, Cleopatra Selene faces the world after the fall of her parents, the collapse of her kingdom and her capture and confinement (along with her brothers) in the Emperor Octavianus’ palace. She grows up as a prisoner of Rome, but from the moment she leaves Egyptian soil, her mind never strays far from her chosen fate: to reclaim Egypt in place of her powerful queen mother.

Shecter’s first novel mixes fact and fiction but never shies away from the most tragic moments of Cleopatra Selene’s life. The world seems to fall apart around her as she loses all that she loves in her unfaltering quest to become the ruling force she is destined to be. After years trapped in the walls of Rome, she seeks followers of Isis to help her but discovers the gods are not on her side. Her next step is to forge an alliance to return her to her rightful place as queen, and her future hangs in the balance as she must decide between Marcellus, the son of her enemy, and Juba, the king of her dreams. Her choice just might break her heart.

While the book is mostly focused on Cleopatra Selene’s persistent efforts to reclaim her throne, one main question reappears throughout: Can a person choose his or her own fate? Cleopatra Selene and Juba have one main difference: She fights the Fates every step of the way while Stoic Juba accepts his lot and moves on with his life. While Cleopatra Selene is never able to come to a conclusion about her role in her own fate, Cleopatra’s Moon just might get some readers thinking.

Shecter’s novel has magic, romance and the mystique of Egyptian royalty, as well as the intrigue of fact vs. fiction. It also challenges its characters, and possibly its readers, to question life, destiny and ironclad beliefs. Cleopatra’s Moon might be a story of a queen, but it is also the story of a girl just figuring out where she stands in the world.

Many know the story of Cleopatra, but few know of her daughter, Cleopatra Selene, whose wholly dark life is captured in Vicky Alvear Shecter’s Cleopatra’s Moon. A daughter of Egypt and Rome, Cleopatra Selene faces the world after the fall of her parents, the collapse of her kingdom and her capture and confinement (along with […]
Children's & YAPicture Book

Summer fun feels “just right”

Review by Cat Acree

The little bear family from Karel Hayes’ charming picture book The Winter Visitors returns, but this time the lakeside cabin they visit isn’t a deserted retreat. The summer visitors—a human family of four—have arrived at the first sign of sunny weather. Their presence won’t deter the bear family, however; with a little bit of sneakiness, they still find ways to enjoy themselves.

The bears are quick learners. After watching the family in a sailboat, the bears don lifejackets one night and take a spin around the lake by moonlight. Soon they’re stealing blueberry pie, sneaking a peek at a fireworks display and—in a twist on “Goldilocks and the Three Bears”—taking naps in the cabin’s beds.

Like The Winter Visitors, The Summer Visitors is told almost entirely with pen-and-ink and watercolor drawings. Author-illustrator Hayes captures the sleepy sweetness of summer days, which slowly give way to changing leaves when the family must bid farewell to the little cottage. The soft drawings bring a dreamlike quality to the cottage, and the smiling bears and befuddled humans will delight children and parents alike.

The little bear family from Karel Hayes’ charming picture book The Winter Visitors returns, but this time the lakeside cabin they visit isn’t a deserted retreat. The summer visitors—a human family of four—have arrived at the first sign of sunny weather. Their presence won’t deter the bear family, however; with a little bit of sneakiness, […]
Children's & YAPicture Book

Safety in numbers

Review by Cat Acree

Seven junkyard hamsters have outgrown their little hole and must face the quest of a lifetime in the adorable new picture book A Place to Call Home. Terrified at being thrust into the world, the hamsters take cover in whatever holes they can find—in a glove, a shoe, a faucet, a teacup and even a paper towel tube. Then, declaring “OFF WE GO!” they blindly begin the search for a new home.

The hapless hamsters cross a sea (a puddle), climb mountains (a desk) and find a hole that won’t stop spinning (an old washing machine). Suddenly, the junkyard dog grabs one of the hamsters and trots away! Summoning all their courage, the crew charges to their brother’s rescue—one grabs a dog ear, one a leg, one a tail and one bellows, “I’VE GOT OUR BROTHER!” Just as they begin to celebrate, they notice a hole in the fence, where the world spreads before them in a full-color photograph of a great valley. “This place looks nice,” the littlest one says, and the safety of tiny holes is no longer so important.

Kids will tumble head-over-heels in love with the hamsters’ commentary, which ranges from scared stiff to fiercely courageous. Desperate cries and cheers for fellow brothers appear in dialogue bubbles, written by Alexis Deacon, whose Beegu and Jitterbug Jam were named New York Times Best Illustrated Children’s Books of the Year, and hand-lettered by Viviane Schwarz, whose There Are Cats in This Book was short-listed for the Kate Greenaway medal. The comic book-style panels transform the bumbles of roly-poly hamsters into an exciting escapade, and the brave scowls on the faces of the ink-and-watercolor creatures only make them cuter.

Sometimes the world seems impossibly big—especially if you’re only a few inches tall—and sometimes it is full of wonder and possibility. Every child, especially those facing big changes, will want to be part of this charming hamster brotherhood.

Seven junkyard hamsters have outgrown their little hole and must face the quest of a lifetime in the adorable new picture book A Place to Call Home. Terrified at being thrust into the world, the hamsters take cover in whatever holes they can find—in a glove, a shoe, a faucet, a teacup and even a […]
FictionHistorical Fiction

Conquistadora

Review by Cat Acree

Esmeralda Santiago captured readers’ hearts in 1994 with her memoir, When I Was Puerto Rican, and was heralded for her proud account of her Nuyorican upbringing and her deep connection to the little Caribbean island. After a novel and two more memoirs, Santiago returns to Puerto Rico in Conquistadora, a historical novel that tells the story of the island itself.

Conquistadora begins at the very beginning—or at least the beginning for one woman—with Ana Larragoity Cubillas as a bright-eyed and curious child in search of adventure in 1800s Spain. Ana grows into a tough, stout woman, and after she falls in love with her best friend Elena, she arranges marriages for both of them to a set of twins. She coerces the husbands to plan their future in Puerto Rico and hopes they will claim their wealth on a sugar plantation, La Hacienda los Gemelos. However, Puerto Rico greets Ana and her new family with stifling heat, disease epidemics and desolation. Much like the Spanish dream of Puerto Rico as a colony, Ana’s own life loses its mystique as her success on La Hacienda becomes “erected on corpses.” Her devotion to sugar is far greater than her connection to her husband, to Elena or even to her own son. In time, it seems as though Ana’s plantation is cursed, though she cannot deny it is where she belongs.

The novel spans nearly her entire life, through child-rearing, ruined marriages and many deaths, leading to an open-ended conclusion, as though to suggest the story of Puerto Rico has just begun.

Styled much like a romance novel from the Civil War era (which in timing it parallels), but told with a stoniness that separates it from more romantic, sweeping novels, Conquistadora is simple in its purpose: to tell the story of those who lived and died in Puerto Rico. Readers may not sympathize with Ana, the book’s hardened hero, but her unflinching devotion to her dream of living with the valor and beauty of her conqueror ancestors is compelling.

Woven together with Ana’s tale are the lives of all those around her, and they are each given time for their own perspective—Elena, the twins, her second husband and business partner, her son, even the slaves, one at a time. The result is a broad and multidimensional account of the little island of Puerto Rico.

Esmeralda Santiago captured readers’ hearts in 1994 with her memoir, When I Was Puerto Rican, and was heralded for her proud account of her Nuyorican upbringing and her deep connection to the little Caribbean island. After a novel and two more memoirs, Santiago returns to Puerto Rico in Conquistadora, a historical novel that tells the […]
Fiction

Robopocalypse

Review by Cat Acree

Our cars can parallel park themselves. Our vacuums can zoom independently around the carpet. Add a few advancements in artificial intelligence and the setting in Robopocalypse is not so different from today. That is what makes Daniel H. Wilson’s debut novel so jarring.

Robopocalypse begins at the end, several years after Zero Hour, the moment when all the robots in the world turned against humanity. The New War has been won and the robot behind it all—Archos—has been defeated. Readers meet Cormac Wallace, whose crew of guerrillas finds a solid black cube buried deep underground. Within the cube is a special file kept by Archos that includes security footage, recorded conversations and stored video, all documenting the humans Archos had considered “heroes.” As one of those heroes, Cormac takes it upon himself to write their stories. The result is a truly entertaining, gruesome and humbling novel, with each chapter memorializing the humans and robots that were most pivotal in the rise and fall of the New War. The seemingly unrelated heroes, scattered across the globe and described with an intensity that suggests that each is more important than the last, give shape to Robopocalypse as their minute rebellions come together for the singular cause of survival.

Wilson, despite his Ph.D. in robotics, allows nearly no time for jargon as the apocalyptic pacing burns through the story. The chapters feature children, an old Japanese man, soldiers in the Middle East and old-world warriors in Oklahoma, and each voice allows new humor and horror, instantly banning any chance for a moment’s rest. There’s a reason Steven Spielberg has a movie version of the novel in the works: Wilson’s debut is one of a kind.

Our cars can parallel park themselves. Our vacuums can zoom independently around the carpet. Add a few advancements in artificial intelligence and the setting in Robopocalypse is not so different from today. That is what makes Daniel H. Wilson’s debut novel so jarring. Robopocalypse begins at the end, several years after Zero Hour, the moment […]
Children's & YAYA FictionYA

Wrapped

Review by Cat Acree

It’s Pride and Prejudice meets The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. Seventeen-year-old debutante Agnes Wilkins should probably be focusing on preparing herself for marriage, but the call of adventure is just a bit too strong. A good thing, since without her wits (and a little help from an attractive young man), Napoleon just might gain the power to raise an army from the dead and take Britain down once and for all.

Set in history but wildly fictional, Wrapped opens at a fashionable “unwrapping party” hosted by Agnes’ premiere suitor, Lord Showalter, and featuring an Egyptian mummy. The guests are allowed to cut the mummy’s linens and keep whatever treasures they find. An urgent message reveals that there has been a mix-up at the museum, and the mummy must be returned—but not before Agnes conceals her own discovery, an iron jackal’s head. In a matter of minutes, somebody turns up dead, and Agnes begins the adventure of her life.

In the days following, all those who first began unwrapping the mummy fall victim to a serial burglar, and when Agnes seeks help to understand her discovered artifact, the truth she uncovers goes deeper than a mummy’s curse. Suddenly Agnes is racing to expose an international plot, accompanied by Caedmon, a frustrating and handsome young man. But in 1815 London, where all rendezvous require an escort and a young lady’s ultimate achievement is a marrying a wealthy husband, Agnes finds the rest of the world is working against her.

Author Jennifer Bradbury delivers a true tip-of-the-hat to Austen’s pluckiest of heroines with the adventurous Agnes. What young reader doesn’t love to be reminded that sometimes other people should mind their own business? Wrapped keeps readers on their toes with the story of a crafty young woman who finds love both nauseating and romantic, and who finds a brand-new destiny in an irresistible mystery.

 

Discover a heroine worthy of both Jane Austen and Indiana Jones.
FictionWomen's Fiction

Miss New India

Review by Cat Acree

Many stories set in rapidly transforming India feature heroes and heroines with Whitmanesque contradictions—characters who are struggling to maintain their connections to the past while coping with their nation’s surge to the future. In the spirit of Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger, Bharati Mukherjee’s Miss New India features a young Indian woman trapped between her provincial lower-income life and the career promised to her in Bangalore, a city obsessed with its own growth and inevitable Americanization.

Mukherjee, an award-winning American writer born in India, introduces readers to Anjali Bose, a rebellious 19-year-old who flees an arranged marriage in search of her own future in the booming metropolis at the cusp of its digital age. With help from her secretly gay American teacher, Anjali finds refuge in the remains of the once-great Bagehot House, a boarding house which holds the memories of a colonized India and the wounds Britain once inflicted on the nation. The girls who lease rooms there are the new women of India, competent and eternally hopeful. Unfortunately, Anjali’s promised call center job does not live up to its expectations, and her search for a suitor never wanes, even when her own career begins to crumple.

Miss New India is a brilliant, seismic coming-of-age story that encourages hope in the “Photoshop world” of today’s India, a country buoyed by incredible promise, but still burdened by false hopes.

Many stories set in rapidly transforming India feature heroes and heroines with Whitmanesque contradictions—characters who are struggling to maintain their connections to the past while coping with their nation’s surge to the future. In the spirit of Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger, Bharati Mukherjee’s Miss New India features a young Indian woman trapped between her […]
Children's & YAPicture Book

Hide and Sheep

Review by Cat Acree

Sheep are supposed to be easy to herd, but not for Farmer McFitt, whose slumbers have allowed 10 mischievous sheep to escape and scatter all across town. If he doesn’t wake up in time to catch them, he’ll never get the sheep sheared and their wool knitted. The biggest problem is that wherever the sheep go, one of them disappears! At the zoo, 10 sheep meet a kangaroo, and later, at the circus, only nine take bows from high wires. Their numbers dwindle as they play baseball (or rather, eat the field), see a movie (eat too much popcorn), visit the library (eat the books) and so much more.

Hide and Sheep is a rhyming read-aloud counting book with hilarious adventures from the moment the sheep pole-vault the farmer’s gate. Author Andrea Beaty includes plenty of humor that will appeal to adults, and illustrator Bill Mayer makes the scenes come alive with vintage pop art-style pen-and-ink artwork. One of the best treats in the book is a sheep visit to an art museum, where the walls are lined with Bill Mayer sheep-ified originals: Dali wilted sheepskin clocks, Monet lily pads and a wooly van Gogh self-portrait.

Hide and Sheep, prankish and droll, is the perfect book to read (perhaps even twice) just before bedtime. Counting these lively sheep is sure to make even the rowdiest little ones drift off to sleep, just like Farmer McFitt.

 

 

Sheep are supposed to be easy to herd, but not for Farmer McFitt, whose slumbers have allowed 10 mischievous sheep to escape and scatter all across town. If he doesn’t wake up in time to catch them, he’ll never get the sheep sheared and their wool knitted. The biggest problem is that wherever the sheep […]
YA FictionYA

The phone call that changes everything

Review by Cat Acree

It’s been said that there’s only a certain amount of luck in the world, and some people have more of it than others. For high school junior Nick Brandt, his wealth of luck is his birthright. He has it all—good grades, a best friend who could be an honorary brother and a perfect relationship with his parents. Not only that, but Nick is well on his way to finally getting the girl of his dreams, Eden Reiss.

Until that one little phone call.

Unfortunately, Nick doesn’t have the foresight to just let it ring, and on a random Tuesday, his life changes forever with a simple lift of a receiver. Nick does not want change, because he’s a lucky one, and change is an intruder come to disrupt his pristine world. But that one phone call sends Nick’s dad into silence as secrets about his life are slowly revealed, and Nick is positive that a) things will never be the same again and b) his lucky life was false to begin with. As Nick fumbles around and redefines “angst” for teenagers everywhere, he must discover what it really means to be The Lucky Kind.

Alyssa B. Sheinmel, author of The Beautiful Between, has captured the sinfully annoying whine of a teenager who can’t stand someone messing with his perfect life. Nick might kick and scream the entire way, seemingly regressing from a junior hotshot to a toddler in mere pages, but in the end, teen readers will be touched by the unexpected friendship and change of heart that will help him put his life back together again.

It’s been said that there’s only a certain amount of luck in the world, and some people have more of it than others. For high school junior Nick Brandt, his wealth of luck is his birthright. He has it all—good grades, a best friend who could be an honorary brother and a perfect relationship with […]
RomanceParanormal Romance

Savage Nature

Review by Cat Acree

Deep in the Louisiana bayou, something creeps . . . and it lies just beneath Saria Boudreaux’s skin. She knows the ins and outs of the swamp, and not even a gator could ever scare her. But after the discovery of a number of dead bodies, it seems Saria is next on the killer’s list. The bodies seem to have been killed by both a man and a big cat—specifically, a leopard. Saria has seen shape-shifting leopards before, and it seems the killer knows her shape-shifting secret.

Fellow shifter Drake Donovan is brought in by the land’s owner to sort out the mess, but the five-family lair has no apparent loyalties, order or leader. Saria has been prey once, but Drake will need her help to navigate the labyrinthine swamp, and so he must team up with her to solve the case. The heat between them is inevitable, but they will need the cooperation of all the shifters—who are all driven crazy by the leopard beneath Saria’s skin—in order to solve the mystery.

The much-anticipated fifth installment in Christine Feehan’s Leopard series, Savage Nature is preternaturally sexy. The tension is as thick as the Louisiana swamp itself, not to mention just as hot. The connection between Drake and Saria goes far deeper than physical attraction, as their leopards have an ancient, irresistible gravitational pull toward one another. Winner of eight PEARL awards and author of more than 30 novels, Feehan knows just how to deliver a dangerously sexy story.

Deep in the Louisiana bayou, something creeps . . . and it lies just beneath Saria Boudreaux’s skin. She knows the ins and outs of the swamp, and not even a gator could ever scare her. But after the discovery of a number of dead bodies, it seems Saria is next on the killer’s list. […]
Children's & YAPicture Book

Swinging along on a colorful trip

Review by Cat Acree

The world feels completely free when one little girl climbs aboard a swing and suddenly finds herself flying in a world of colors, as though the different hues were a bright galaxy from her imagination. With each pass through the air, the lanky girl with bony ankles experiences a brand new color, until she finally leaps off the swing, soaring effortlessly for what is only a few seconds but feels infinite.

In her first-person narration, the girl invites readers to “Look at me, follow me into the curl of a breeze,” and her entire body seems to become that curl, along with the wispy wings of the bluebirds who have answered her call. Never once does Tricia Tusa’s delightful new picture book Follow Me really come back to earth, and at the end of her flight, the girl twirls (never walks) her way through purple and green until reaching her doorstep.

Tusa, who has illustrated more than 50 books, tips a hat to Robert Louis Stevenson’s “The Swing” by allowing a child to slip into unhindered imagination. For someone with light synesthesia (such as myself), who thinks of people and music in colors, Follow Me’s smudgy, earthy palette is particularly satisfying in blurring the connections between colors and objects. The imperfect illustrations feel lovingly hand-done and personal, a look that Tusa achieved through an etching process, pressing one color at a time.

The poetic meanderings of Follow Me capture one little swinging girl as she takes in the colors of the sky, soaring across “that easy sway of blue.” Busy children might want more action in the story, but thoughtful kids will recognize the adventure that comes from a cloud-nine relationship between you and the world around you.

The world feels completely free when one little girl climbs aboard a swing and suddenly finds herself flying in a world of colors, as though the different hues were a bright galaxy from her imagination. With each pass through the air, the lanky girl with bony ankles experiences a brand new color, until she finally […]
Fiction

The Realm of Hungry Spirits

Review by Cat Acree

PEN/Faulkner Award finalist Lorraine López, author of the critically acclaimed The Gifted Gabaldón Sisters, has a talent for crafting characters so fleshed out that they could be your sister, your neighbor, your best friend. The Realm of Hungry Spirits introduces Marina Lucero to the list of fierce Latina heroines whom López has brought to life, and Marina’s humor and begrudging kindness are what make her so very unforgettable.

Marina has one goal, and it is for peace—peace of mind and peace in her house. The daughter of a meditating, womanizing father and a mother who deserted her for a Carmelite convent, Marina feels a close connection to the spiritual realm, but for some reason it eludes her. It doesn’t help that her little home is the go-to for the brokenhearted, the beaten and the world-weary men and women of the San Fernando Valley. She’s Marina, not “Maria” and not some kind of spiritual guide, but she finds it nearly impossible to keep people out of her house. In a way, Marina fails in her search for a spiritual center, instead discovering what she really believes in: the lives of others.

The characters in The Realm of Hungry Spirits, while permanently connected to one another, battle tooth and nail over just about everything: women against machismo, family against family. Each person attempts to apply his or her own solutions, and the book’s religious and spiritual wingspan is seemingly unlimited, touching on Buddhism, Christianity and Latino mythology reminiscent of stories by Sandra Cisneros. Were it not for López’s humor in the face of unflinching pain and humanity, the novel could come across as angry—or even hopeless. Fortunately, Marina’s world, despite all its flaws and chaos, is as tight as a woven water basket, and it not only gives new life to the broken but also feeds her own hungry spirit.

PEN/Faulkner Award finalist Lorraine López, author of the critically acclaimed The Gifted Gabaldón Sisters, has a talent for crafting characters so fleshed out that they could be your sister, your neighbor, your best friend. The Realm of Hungry Spirits introduces Marina Lucero to the list of fierce Latina heroines whom López has brought to life, […]

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