Alone Together

Alone Together
by Suzanne Bloom
32 pages; ages 2 - 5
Boyds Mills Press

Who can resist big white fluffy bear? Especially if you're very-talkative fox? I love the opening:
Where's Bear?
     Over there.
Alone?
     Sometimes, Bear likes to be alone.

Yes indeed, sometimes Bear does like to be alone contemplating his navel, spinning his top, enjoying the quiet. That's OK, because Fox is going to join bear so they can both be alone. Except...

... Fox is insatiably curious and wants to know why Bear is alone. Is he sad? mad? lonely? And would he mind terribly if Fox is alone with him? But Fox is .... Fox, and if Bear wanted some quiet alone time - well, let's just say that he should have found an empty page in another book.

What I love about this book: the art. the silliness of it. the universal desire for some quiet space, and the just-as-universal tendency to impose on that quiet space. But most of all, the bond of love between the friends.

Beyond the book: How can you share some quiet time with your friend? Maybe you could sit on a couch together reading books, or one person could read and another person draw. Think of other ways you can share a space but be alone with your own thoughts for awhile, and not be bothered by noise from other people (or TVs or radios or cell phones)

Today we're joining PPBF (perfect picture book Friday), an event in which bloggers share great picture books at Susanna Leonard Hill's site. She keeps an ever-growing list of Perfect Picture Books.  Review copy provided by publisher.

The Devil's Intern

Before I get into today's review, I have a winner to announce! Way back a week or so ago I hosted the last stop on the blog tour for Murphy, Gold Rush Dog. The lucky winner (chosen at random by pulling names from an empty chocolate tin) is Evelyn. Congratulations. And now for something completely different...

The Devil's Intern
by Donna Hosie
288 pages; ages 15 & up
Holiday House, 2014

A bit late for Day of the Dead, but still in keeping with the season.... this is a fun, snarky, satirical look at life - and life after death. Or, as the folks in Hell call it: death.

How can you pass up a story that begins:

"How did you die?"
     That's the first question you'll be asked in Hell. Four years ago it was certainly the first question I was asked.

Mitchell Johnson, seventeen years old, was hit by a bus. An inglorious end to his budding career as a rock star - or whatever he might have become. And that, he points out, is the problem: he never got a chance to live. If he could go back in time, he would change whatever it was that caused him to walk in front of that bus. He would cheat death and live to be an old man.Instead, he's in Hell, and working as the Devil's intern - which is actually a pretty cushy job considering the alternatives. He could be working in the kitchens or on any of the other levels.

Turns out, Hell is awash in bureaucratic red tape. And they are up to their knees in forms. Worst of all, the heating bills are breaking the budget and they are strapped for cash. Luckily the Devil has a credit card and a special arrangement with brokers on Wall Street: they get special privileges once they're dead in return for low-interest loans.

When Mitchell learns there is a special watch-like device that will allow people to travel through time, he decides to revisit his death site and straighten things out. But he needs a buddy to go along, because using the viciseometer - that's what the time device is called - has side effects that might strand you somewhere you don't want to be. Instead of one buddy, though, Mitchell ends up traveling with three friends and all - er, things get complicated.

Full disclosure: I liked the TV series "Dead like Me". I also like Gina Damico's trilogy about young reapers: Croak, Scorch, and Rogue. And the idea of civil servants buried in piles of paper work in the governmental offices of Hell tickles my funny bone. Review copy provided by publisher.

Poppy the Pirate Dog's New Shipmate

Poppy the Pirate Dog's New Shipmate
by Lizz Kessler; illus. by Mike Phillips
64 pages; ages 5-9
Candlewick Press, 2014

Ahoy, mateys! Welcome to the second installment in the tales of Poppy the Pirate Dog. This be a chapter book, with plenty of fine illustrations and very little actual pirate lore.

There are five short chapters. The first begins like this: "Poppy the Pirate Dog was bored. She was home alone. Again."

After a fun-filled summer featuring pirate ships and buried treasure, her people are heading back to school. As if that weren't enough, they're busy with after-school sports too!

Poppy needs a friend - and her people come up with a marvelous idea: get her a shipmate so she won't be so lonely. But what Poppy thinks an ideal shipmate is and what her family thinks - well, let's just say that those two ideas don't share anything in common.

George, the new shipmate, is cute. George gets to lie on the bed. George finds Poppy's buried treasure. George is a... cat!

But when George gets in trouble, Poppy walks the plank to rescue her new pain-in-the-tucas shipmate. What fun! This book deserves a staaarrrggghhh!

There is no Perfect Picture Book Friday round-up today, but there is a wonderful Halloweensie story contest happening over at Susanna Leonard Hill's blog. So head on over and read a few stories.
Review copy provided by publisher.