Reviews of picture books are not usually appropriate for middle graders, the intended audience for YoungSaintLouis.com. However, “Presidents,” which looks like a picture book on the shelf in the intermediate section of the bookstore, is an exception.  That’s especially true in this year of presidential conventions, campaigning, and elections. 

The 64-page book is authored by James Barber, in association with the Smithsonian Institution.  That Smithsonian connection helps give the book its unique flavor. Most of the campaign memorabilia in the photographs and the artwork featured in the portraits and historical scenes comes from the Smithsonian collections. 

Besides the pictures, the brief  biographical sketches of each of the presidents are augmented with vignettes about events occurring during their terms of office.  It would be a great reference to have around in the living room as the presidential campaigns unfold on TV in front of us. And that’s especially true if you have middle graders in the house that you want to see engaged in reading about the historical background for today’s events.

The British Publisher, Dorling Kindersley, a company, which publishes other titles in the “Eyewitness Books” series, publishes  “Presidents”.  The copyright date is 2000.  The list price is $15.95, but the copy purchased for review was on sale for $10.95 at Waldenbooks.  I have found that when many adults pick it up, they can’t put it down without reading it through.
 
 

“Bud, Not Buddy” is a highly acclaimed second book by an African-American author who won multiple awards for his first book, "The Watsons go to Birmingham – 1963.”  Winner of both a Newbery Medal and a Corretta Scott King Award, “Bud, Not Buddy” is filled with humor, realistic characters, and a close look at that period in recent history called The Great Depression.

The author has a real grasp of how a 10-year-old looks at the goings-on of adults in the world around him.  The book was published in October 1999 by Delacorte Press and lists for $15.95 in hardback. 

Unlike the fantasy at the basis of the Harry Potter books, “Bud, Not Buddy” deals with the harsh realities of the world as it existed in 1936.  After losing his mother when he was six years old, Bud at age 10 feels forced to go out on his own.  He has grown tired of being passed from one foster home to another.  He has some inkling that his father is a bandleader, now in a city several hundred miles distant. 

The story contains some heavy concepts that many children would require some adult assistance to deal with.  These include loss of a mother, uncertainty of whom one’s father might be, homelessness, hunger, racial prejudice, the economic uncertainties of a society during a depression, police brutality, and strikebreaking tactics.  In spite of all of this, the book manages to be generally positive and uplifting for a young reader. 
 
 

Wise teachers and parents are seizing on the Harry Potter phenomenon to promote reading and writing in those children for whom they are responsible.  A book about the creator of the phenomenon, aimed at the young readers of Harry Potter, can be a valuable asset for teachers and parents to use along with the Potter books themselves. 

“R. K. Rowling, the Wizard Behind Harry Potter,” by Marc Shapiro, a paperback of 105 pages and costing $4.99, is just such an asset.  It is available in the intermediate section of local bookstores. 

Clearly, Shapiro, has cast his unauthorized biography of Joanne Kathleen (J. K.) Rowling to be inspirational for aspiring young authors who also might be devoted fans of Harry Potter.  Apparently, even  Rowlings has compared the hoopla surrounding her creation to the “Beatlemania” of a few decades ago. 

At least “Pottermania” is promoting something most teachers and parents can agree on as being socially desirable - more reading by young people.  Those in favor of a high level of print literacy for the next generation can’t afford to miss out on such a rarity. 

Admittedly, Shapiro is exploiting Rowling’s enormous success with Harry Potter by publishing his unauthorized biography. That doesn’t detract from its usefulness in motivating this generation of kids to read more and write more.  The book is highly readable and can be read aloud to kids who are having the Potter books read aloud to them. 

Similarly, it will be snapped up and read by those kids who can read the Potter books without adult assistance. 

My recommendation?  Read it aloud where called for. For kids who can read it by themselves, simply make it available. If you discuss it at some length with either group of kids, all the better. 
 

After "Harry Potter" 

The English publisher that started the "Harry Potter" publishing craze thinks it has another winner for young readers. 

Bloomsbury Press PLC is the publishing house that brought the super-popular "Harry Potter" series to market. Scholastic has the publishing rights in the United States. But, Bloomsbury is the one that first gave author J. K. Rowling her first contract. 

The first advance printing of a "Harry Potter" book in 1997 was 750 copies. 

Last month, the fourth Harry Potter book had a worldwide pre-publishing print order of 5.3 million copies, the biggest in publishing history.

Bloomsbury hopes it can make more publishing history with "Witch Child," by 51-year-old children's author Celia Rees. The "Witch Child" heroine is a 17-century girl haunted by her family's sorceress past. 

Of course, one of the major appeals of the "Harry Potter" is all the magic and wizardry associated with Harry's education at Hogwarts, the wizard's school.

"Witch Child" already was a hit this spring at a children's book fair in Italy. It has been sold to Candlewick Press in the U.S. and has publishers in at least seven other countries.

One problem: the target audience for "Witch Child" is girls 11-year-old and older. Whether the book can expand its reach like "Harry Potter" to both girls and boys as well as adults is still a question. 

"Witch Child" is due in bookstores in Britain this fall. Candlewick says it will be published in the U.S. by Halloween, 2001. 
 
 

“P. S. Longer Letter Later” is a girl’s book.  It is made up of the letters exchanged by two seventh grade girls.  They are longtime friends who have been separated when one family moved several hundred miles away. 

What appears to be unique about the book is that the two female authors, Paula Danziger and Ann M. Martin, each enter into the character of one of the two fictitious letter writers. The book developed as these two adults exchanged letters without knowing what the other one was going to say in response. 

They produced a 234-page book this way.  Scholastic, Inc. published it in 1998 as an Apple Signature Edition. It sells for $4.99.

The book has been very favorably reviewed and is already being presented in children’s literature courses as a good book for middle graders to read.  Since it is based on correspondence between two characters who occasionally introspectively analyze their own writing, it provides an excellent device to encourage its readers to engage in their own writing, whether it be letters or some other form of writing.