63. "Zany Zoo" by William Wise

William Wise's Zany Zoo contains a variety of clever (and a few clunky and/or not-so-clever) rhymes. Illustrated by Lynn Munsinger--who has also partnered ably with Helen Lester, as I've noted in previous reviews--the book made me laugh out loud in some places. Students in the upper levels of elementary school might appreciate the puns in the poems, along with the vivid images.

62. "Johnny Tremain" by Esther Forbes

Johnny Tremain was one of my first fictional crushes--along with Huck Finn and Nat from The Witch of Blackbird Pond--so I was curious to reread Esther Forbes' novel from an adult perspective.

And you know, I still kinda have a crush on Johnny, I think. And/or Rab, the older boy who takes Johnny under his wing and introduces him to the Patriot cause. And I still cried at the end of the book.

In some ways, the novel romanticizes the days leading up to the American Revolution. But I think Forbes also paints a fairly realistic picture of the ways in which Patriot leaders stirred the citizens of Boston to revolt against the British, and of how a sometimes lackadaisical British reaction allowed the colonists to organize and mobilize.

This is a riveting read, both for the strong characters and for the depiction of the birth of American independence. It gives me a renewed appreciation for the difficulty the Patriots faced, for their courage and determination, and for the fact that they managed to pull off a revolution against better armed (but less passionate) British troops. It also makes me want to read more about the American Revolution, a subject I haven't explored much as an adult.

61. "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" by Stieg Larsson

After a slow beginning (which may have been due more to my sporadic reading than the book itself), Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo turns into quite a page turner. I was up until 3 a.m. finishing it...although I'm usually up until around then anyway.

Swedish journalist Mikael Blomkvist, disgraced after being found guilty of libel, finds himself wooed by elderly industrialist Henrik Vanger. Vanger makes Blomkvist an offer he can't refuse: Spend a year researching Vanger's family, with the purpose of trying to learn the fate of Vanger's niece Harriet, who disappeared in 1966, for extremely lucrative pay, the chance to save the magazine Blomkvist helped found, and evidence that will ruin the man who sued him for libel. As Blomkvist begins to make headway on the old investigation, he hires punk hacker Lisbeth Salander as his research assistant. Together, they discover the Vanger family's dark secrets, which are far more horrifying and brutal than Henrik, or they, initially suspected.

Although the novel has been a runaway bestseller, I don't think it's for everyone. The characters inhabit a brutal world that includes serial murder, sadistic rape, and animal torture. Larsson writes of these horrors with a clinical detachment, and there's nothing gratuitous about the gore. Some of the characters emerge as admirable for their refusal to accept victimhood, regardless of what they experience. But some parts of the novel are still raw and difficult to read.*

I'm eager to read his next novel, The Girl Who Played with Fire, which I own, but I don't have money to buy the third in the trilogy yet. So I checked out the plots of both books on Wikipedia (I'm bad about that), and I'm still debating whether or not to wait until I can afford the last book before starting the middle one.

* I tend--and want--to think I have a pretty high tolerance for fictional violence, but that might not be true. I could only watch Pulp Fiction once. After reading Kiss the Girls, I swore off James Patterson forever, and I've also stopped reading Karin Slaughter. Maybe it's just certain types of explicit sexual violence that bother me, though, because I do like Cody McFadyen's books, and I've read nearly everything in print about the Black Dahlia murder. My own novel is quite violent, too; I had a lot of nightmares while I wrote it. So who knows?

60. "Black Widow Spiders"

This is a very informative and well-photographed children's book about black widows, their nearest relatives, their habits, and their mythology.

59. "Wump World" by Bill Peet

I love Bill Peet's illustrations in The Wump World, especially his depictions of the Wumps--peaceable grazing animals who look like a cross between cows and capybaras. But I'm not a big fan of allegories, so the plot itself annoyed me a bit. One day, an alien race called the Pollutians comes to the Wumps' world. As their name implies, they build huge cities, pollute the air, drive the Wumps underground, and trash the planet. Then they zoom off into space to find another planet to wreck. The Wumps emerge from their caves, sadly survey the destruction, and finally find a final oasis of greenery. The book ends on a sort of hopeful note--eventually the plants will take over and the cities will fall down--but also suggests that some of the destruction and defilement of Wump World is irreversible.

58. "Purple Mountain Majesties" by Barbara Younger

Purple Mountain Majesties tells the story of Katharine Lee Bates, author of "America the Beautiful," who was inspired to write the song after a brief visit to the top of Pikes Peak. This, of course, makes for relevant reading here where I live, in view of the peak, but Bates was on a cross-country train trip that included a visit to the Chicago World's Fair and plenty of other sightseeing.

The book is pretty text-heavy for beginning readers, but the picture-book format doesn't allow for as much depth as a conventional early-reader biography, so I'm not sure who the target audience is (something we talk about a lot in intro composition courses). But that said, it's an interesting read about a woman who made a lasting contribution to the music and lore of the United States.

57. "Flat Stanley" by Jeff Brown

Flat Stanley is a fun story about a boy who's squished flat when a bulletin board falls on him while he's asleep. With a half-inch thickness, Stanley can fit into a mailing envelope to travel to California. He lets his brother attach a string to him and flies like a kite. He hatches an ingenious plot that takes advantage of his flatness to help catch art thieves.

This was a favorite book of mine when I first learned to read, and its appeal hasn't diminished with time.

56. "Snakes: Long, Longer, Longest" by Jerry Pallotta and Van Wallach

Snakes: Long, Longer, Longest is a fun introduction to various kinds of snakes--longest, shortest, heaviest, lightest, fastest, slowest, and much more. The images seem to be collaged photos and are sort of trippy, for lack of a better word. The authors use "poisonous" and "venomous" interchangeably, which is a pet peeve of mine, but there's a lot of interesting information here for children interested in snakes.

55. "Don't Laugh at Me" by Steve Seskin and Allen Shamblin

Apparently the picture book Don't Laugh at Me is based on a folk song about how people are all different and all have shortcomings. It's a request to be treated as human, not to be laughed at or bullied. Glin Dibley's images are both colorful and heart-rending.

54. "The Other Dog" by Madeleine L'Engle

A poodle named Touche narrates this story about "The Other Dog" who comes to live with Touche and her people. The other dog is the baby daughter of L'Engle and her husband, Hugh Franklin. Touche describes her superiority to this other dog, Jo, and the grudging acceptance that eventually turns to love. Illustrated by Christine Davenier, this is a fun read for any dog lover!

53. "Tacky in Trouble" by Helen Lester

Helen Lester and gifted illustrator Lynn Munsinger chronicle the further adventures of Tacky the penguin in Tacky in Trouble. The loud, Hawaiian-shirt-wearing penguin gets bored with his iceberg and goes surfing to the tropics, where he encounters a grouchy elephant named Rocky. In his inimitable fashion, Tacky brightens up Rocky's life, and in the meantime, the other penguins realize how much they miss him.

52. "Baby Animals" by Daniel Gilpin

I can't find a link to this book, but it's filled with beautiful and adorable photographs of baby animals, as well as information about how various animals give birth, parent, learn, and grow. It's targeted to children, but with the size and amount of text, it seems intended more to be read aloud than for early readers to attempt it themselves.

51. "Sharks" by Seymour Simon

Sharks by Seymour Simon provides shark facts in a format targeted to kids--probably kids who are already interested in sharks (although what kid isn't?), because, apart from some obvious attempts to connect with kids, the text is fairly dry. It's also quite informative, however, and I learned some things I didn't know, such as the fact that sharks have six senses (and no, ESP isn't the sixth), and that great white sharks are warm-bodied but cold-blooded. (I caught part of a PBS special on sharks the other night, and the "warm-bodied" term was mentioned, but I misunderstood and thought they are warm-blooded. The book clarifies the difference.)

The photographs (taken by various photographers) are a treat. Images feature an array of sharks engaging in behavior from feeding to cruising to giving birth to emerging from tube-like eggs.

50. "Sam and the Tigers" by Julius Lester

Julius Lester's Sam and the Tigers is a re-imagining of the story of Little Black Sambo, written and illustrated by black men who sought to reclaim the tale while removing the racist overtones. Sam, dressed in his fine clothes, encounters several tigers on the way to school. He convinces each tiger not to eat him by giving away his clothing, piece by piece. Eventually the tigers encounter each other, however, and their jealousy gives Sam the opportunity to outwit them and get his finery back.

Jerry Pinkney's illustrations add complexity and magic to the book. In fact, I wasn't sold on the story at first (and I didn't realize it was a re-telling of Sambo), but I was so hooked by the illustrations that I had to keep reading. The trees have faces, and Anansi even makes a cameo. Lester's Southern black voice, combined with Pinkney's delightful illustrations, are extremely effective, and I'm eager to check out their re-imaginings of some of the Uncle Remus stories.

49. "The Cat in the Hat Comes Back" by Dr. Seuss

Having confessed that I'm not a huge fan of the original Cat in the Hat, I was curious to read Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat Comes Back and see if I liked it any better.

Actually, I liked it less. The rhymes seemed so awkward that I had to flip back to the cover to double-check that Seuss himself was the author. (I'm willing to concede that the rhymes weren't helped by the fact that I was listening to Five Finger Death Punch as I read, but I still think the text is unusually unwieldy, especially for Seuss.) My honest impression is that he wasn't particularly excited about writing this book but had to because of the popularity of the original. I could be wrong, of course. And I would imagine that anyone--child or adult--who enjoyed the first book would also like this one, in which the cat introduces a whole alphabet's worth of smaller cats in the quest to rid the house of a pink spot.

48. "Hooway for Wodney Wat" by Helen Lester

I'm a big fan of Helen Lester's picture books, which are brilliantly illustrated by Lynn Munsinger. Hooway for Wodney Wat is no exception--it's a cute, fun tale about a rat who's the brunt of his classmates' mockery because he can't pronounce his R's. But his liability turns to an asset when bossy, mean Camilla Capybara joins the class, and Wodney's chosen to be Simon in an afternoon game of "Simon Says."

47. "In Search of the Old Ones" by David Roberts

David Roberts provides a comprehensive, cogent introduction to the Anasazi in In Search of the Old Ones: Exploring the Anasazi World of the Southwest. Combining history and academic discourse with travelogue, the book discusses the development of our knowledge of the Anasazi, the puzzle of their disappearance, ethical issues surrounding excavations and archaeological work, and their connections to today's Pueblo tribes.

Roberts interviews professional archaeologists, descendants of the ranchers who first excavated Anasazi sites a century ago, park rangers, Pueblo tribe spokespeople and archaeologists, and self-taught Anasazi aficionados. He visits prominent sites such as Mesa Verde and Chaco Canyon and also, both on his own and with others, explores the back-country canyons of the Four Corners area for unexploited dwellings, rock art, and other traces of Anasazi life. Roberts, clearly an accomplished mountaineer and climber, describes amazing scenery and incredible experiences but remains vague about where many of the sites he discusses are located. This stems in part from promises to guides who showed him certain sites and in part to his own scruples--with which I doubt most readers would disagree, particularly after reading about how weather, careless archaeologists, and fortune-seeking "pot-hunters" have devastated some important sites.

Roberts presents varying theories, such as why the Anasazi disappeared, clearly and fairly. While he sometimes makes his own perspective known, he nonetheless gives credence and voice to others who hold different views. I've come away from this work with much more knowledge about Anasazi history, development, and art, as well as a desire to see some of these sites for myself--and the resolution to take a road trip to Mesa Verde this spring.

46. "The Mysteries of Harris Burdick" by Chris Van Allsberg

In The Mysteries of Harris Burdick, Chris Van Allsberg presents illustrations, each with a title and one-sentence caption, created by a mysterious man named Harris Burdick. After submitting this sample portfolio to a publisher in 1954, Burdick vanished, never to be heard from again.

The images, captions, and titles are meant to inspire children to develop stories. A website features many of these stories and honors Peter Wenders, the now-deceased publisher who shared them with Van Allsberg.

Some of the illustrations are particularly intriguing and evocative. I might try writing stories myself based on a few of these at some point.

45. "Danny and the Dinosaur" by Syd Hoff

In Syd Hoff's Danny and the Dinosaur, Danny visits a museum and wishes aloud that the dinosaurs were alive, because he wants to play with them. A voice responds; one of the dinosaurs has come to life. A fun-filled day follows as the dinosaur gives commuters a ride on his tail, takes Danny to the zoo, and plays hide-and-seek with Danny's friends.

There isn't much else to this story--no conflict, no plot tension. The words are simple, though, and the imaginative elements of having a talking dinosaur as friend for a day should appeal to most kids.

44. "Fire Cat" by Esther Averill

The Fire Cat by Esther Averill is a sweet story about a cat named Pickles who longs for great things. However, he lives in a barrel in an apartment yard, and all he can find to do is chase smaller cats up a tree. One day, he becomes caught in the tree, and his friend Mrs. Goodkind (a name that could be straight out of Pilgrim's Progress) calls the firefighters to rescue him.

She tells Joe the firefighter that Pickles wants to do great things, and Joe takes him back to the fire station to live. Pickles learns to slide down the fire pole, ride the truck, and climb the ladder. The chief gives him a little hat and appoints him an honorary firefighter. Pickles' life comes full circle when a tiny cat becomes stranded far beyond human reach in the same tree from which he was rescued, and only Pickles can save her (and return her to the grateful Mrs. Goodkind, of course).

The illustrations are a bit funky. The cats are cute, but the people are blocky and awkward. (Mrs. Goodkind looks like my idea of a transgendered Eastern European woman.) And some of the perspectives are awkward. Still, as I said, this is a cute story that should appeal to children who love animals.