Picks of the week, June 8

Friday, June 8, 2007

CHILDREN

The Snack Smasher and Other Reasons Why It's Not My Fault

Written by Andrea Perry; illustrated by Alan Snow, Atheneum Books for Young Readers, $16.99, ages 9-12.

Ever wonder what causes a puzzle piece to go missing or Dad's nose to let out such a snore? Maybe the answer isn't what but who. In this hilariously clever book of poems, Perry uncovers dastardly creatures who mess with kids' heads and others who are just up to no good.

There are creatures who ransack kids closets in search of puzzle pieces to swallow whole and others who sneak tubas inside dads' noses just so their children don't sleep. "There might be a lull,/ but don't rest too soon. .../ the Snorist has merely switched to his bassoon."

Still other troublemakers brazenly perch on desktops guzzling ink from pens when kids aren't looking, or frizz and fuss with kids' hair at night just in time for school pictures. Snow's loose inky drawings give these characters a wickedly messy appearance, while Perry's verses roll across the tongue like ink into an ink guzzler.

Final word: Kids will delight in these comical explanations for life's little annoyances.

Jennifer Miller

REGIONAL

The Cowboy Girl

By John Clayton. University of Nebraska Press, $21.95

This lively biography of Caroline Lockhart reveals an intrepid, trailblazing woman who, as one of the first female journalists, traveled solo everywhere pursuing stories.

Clayton writes that Lockhart was so "obsessed with cowboys and romanticizing the Old West" that she tried to "turn back the march of time and progress" in Montana and Wyoming. She wrote pulp Western novels, briefly worked as a stunt girl and published a newspaper in Cody where she incited community wrath for her stand against Prohibition and other divisive political activities. Always pursuing her dream of the Old West, Lockhart also bought a remote, hardscrabble ranch.

Final word: Although sometimes hampered by excessive detail, this is an absorbing story of a talented but difficult woman always torn by her conflicting ambitions of fame, power, domestic bliss and a country life.

Joan Hinkemeyer

HORROR

Kitty Takes a Holiday

By Carrie Vaughn. Warner, $6.99.

After her pack banished her from Denver in a previous installment, werewolf talk-show host Kitty Norville takes time off and moves to a cabin in the San Isabel National Forest in southern Colorado to write her memoirs. It quickly becomes apparent that some of the locals aren't too happy to have a werewolf in their midst because dead animals and witchcraft talismans turn up on her doorstep - and that's not all.

Cormac the werewolf hunter drops by with his cousin, who has been bitten by a werewolf himself. Cormac figures Kitty may be able to save him from going insane or killing himself. Oh, yeah . . . there's also something else in the neighborhood. It is looks like a werewolf, but it's not. And whatever it is, it makes a werewolf look like a household pet.

Final word: Boulder author Vaughn proves in this third book in a series that she has a rare talent for combining horror, romance and humor, while making readers believe in the unreal.

Mark Graham