Good Reads

Tots to Teens's latest picks for a rockin' bookshelf are highlighted in StarMag's Reads Monthly pullout.

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Cat's Meow

TOTS TO TEEN BY DAPHNE LEE

I WILL highlight outstanding children’s and Young Adult books in StarMag’s Reads Monthly pullout (on the last Sunday of) every month. This Sunday, I’ve chosen the first book in a new series about an amateur detective, a fascinating adventure into the world of magic and illusion, and a graphic novel that charts the life of a young girl who aspires to be a ballerina.

Ottoline and the Yellow Cat by Chris Riddell (Macmillan Children’s Books, 176 pages, ISBN: 978-1405050579) sees young Ottoline Brown and her small and hairy friend, Mr Munroe, investigate a mystery involving lost pets and high-profile theft. Ottoline lives in an apartment block that resembles a pepperpot. Left to her own devices by her globe-trotting parents, she spends her time splashing in puddles and “collecting things”. Mr Munroe, who comes from a bog in Norway, is shaggy but resists grooming.

Together they keep their eyes open for diversions of any sort. With the recent spate of burglaries and pet-nappings in the Big City, Ottoline and Mr Munroe go undercover to expose the Yellow Cat, a criminal mastermind intent on ruining the city’s most powerful inhabitants. Riddell’s text is spare and simple, and trips gracefully off the tongue, making this book ideal for read-aloud sessions, especially as the detailed illustrations, pen-drawn, with scarlet accents, are conducive to cosy discussions as parents and children snuggle. 

I know that you can’t judge a book by its cover, but if there’s one book I’d like to own just for its jacket, it’s Jeanne Willis’ Shamanka (Publisher: Walker Books, 416 pages, ISBN: 978-1844286492). Beautifully coloured to resemble snakeskin, with a glossy, embossed title, it’s both visually delightful and immensely strokeable. Happily, the contents are as mesmerising.

Sam Khaan, a young girl who believes her mother is dead and her father lost, lives with a cruel aunt and a pet orang utan. Locked in the attic as punishment one day, Sam comes across a book with a snakeskin cover. It appears to be a witch doctor’s notebook. Shortly after, Sam dreams of a witch doctor who poses his son three questions: What is magic? What is illusion? What is real? Convinced that the book belongs to her father, who was the son of a witch-doctor, Sam goes in search of the truth about her parents, and discovers that magic, illusion and reality are all part of her existence, past and present.

I love ballet and have a collection of fiction and non-fiction titles about the artform, including classics by Jean Estoril and Lorna Hill. To Dance: A Ballerina’s Graphic Novel by Siena Cherson Siegel and Mark Siegel (Simon & Schuster/Richard Jackson Books, 64 pages, ISBN: 978-1416926870) is based on Siena Cherson Siegel’s career in dance.

Siegel took her first lesson at age six while her family was still living in Puerto Rico. She continued her dance education after they moved to the United States and was accepted into the prestigious American School of Ballet where she performed in ballets by the late, great George Balanchine, who was the school’s co-founder and, at the time, artistic director of its ballet company, the New York City Ballet.

A serious injury ended Siegel’s stage career at 18. However, unable to give up her deep love for ballet, she later danced again. Siegel describes the life of a young dancer with the honesty and passion that only someone who has lived the dream and reality of ballet can. Her husband, Mark Siegel’s illustrations reflect the grace and poetry of dance, but also its harsher, crueler side. Balletomanes, aspiring dancers, as well as full-fledged ballerinas cannot fail but be touched and inspired by this story. To Dance is on the American Library Association’s recent top 10 list of the best graphic novels for Young Adults.