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Thinking outside the barrel. (The Other Stuff).

Article Excerpt
Spring fever has hit the Horn Book offices. Instead of the usual high-spirited arguments about the quality of this or that new book, the staff suddenly seems intent on making nice:

"What's your favorite new book?"

"Oh, I have so many! What's your favorite?"

"You go first!"

"No, no, really. You go first, dear."

"How nice of you to let me go-first!"

Obstinate opinions are out; congenial compliance is in. So it should come as no surprise that when I approached the editors about writing this issue's "Other Stuff" column, they advised me to "write something nice." This was problematic because, as a rule, this column doesn't do nice. The purpose of this feature is to introduce books that haven't been reviewed in the pages of The Horn Book Magazine, focusing instead on titles found only in the latest Horn Book Guide. Since the Guide reviews virtually every new children's and young adult book released in hardcover, past columns have dealt with celebrity picture books, the Hank the Cowdog series, movie adaptations, and other volumes that basically have a lot in common with those proverbial fish in a barrel.

But, as I tried to explain to the editors, I've received thousands of fan letters praising my previous not-so-nice columns. (Actually, I've only gotten two. And they were both from the same person. But I've read and re-read them thousands of times.) Then I whined about how unfair it was to make me write only nice things just when Kenny Rogers released Christmas in Canaan (HarperCollins), a cornpone novel soaked in syrup. When will I ever have another chance to use my snarky "You gotta know when to fold 'em, Kenny" line? The editors wouldn't budge, so finally I caved, but I warned them, "I don't see how I'm going to make a column about good books very funny!"

(Their response, "Well, why start now?" makes me wonder how nice they really are.)

So, switching modes from cranky to nice, here's an overview of some of the honest-to-gosh good books that are reviewed in the current issue of The Horn Book Guide. Let's start--slowly--with Eric Carle's picture book "Slowly, Slowly, Slowly," Said the Sloth (Philomel). A simple, repetitive text and tissue-paper collages relate the story of a sloth whom the other jungle animals criticize for being "lazy" and "boring." But the mellow sloth defends his (upside-down) position by explaining, "That's just the way I am." This unaffected celebration of being oneself is delivered in a gentle volume that's perfect for bedtime reading.

Cynthia Rylant offers another elemental tale in The Ticky-Tacky Doll (Harcourt). Reading a book with a big ol' doll on the cover while waiting for an oil change at the auto repair shop wasn't one of my smarter moves, but I'll get over it. What I won't forget is the timeless quality of this story about a little girl who is distraught over leaving her scrap doll behind when she starts school--a problem solved when her grandmother...

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