Bummer of a summer movie

After posting last week about Judy Moody and the NOT Bummer Summer movie tie-in books, I went to see how Judy translated to the big screen. I had already read some less-than-stellar reviews of the movie, and the novelization based on the screenplay didn’t live up to the original nine books. Even these warnings did not prepare me for how bad a film it actually was. Judy Moody should have stayed in her books, as this was one bummer summer film.

The story line focuses on Judy’s efforts to avoid a boring summer by creating a contest with her friends: the “Judy Moody Mega-Rare NOT-BUMMER-Summer Dare.” Obsessed with earning “thrill points,” Judy misses opportunities to have fun and focuses instead on the negative: her best friends’ going out of town, her parents’ leaving her home with little brother Stink and Aunt Opal (a.k.a.“Aunt Awful”), and all of her dares going awry. While Judy’s mishaps are entertaining, a sub-plot involving Stink hunting Bigfoot seems a bit random, although it does play a crucial role in the movie’s chaotic, action-driven ending.

The director focuses too much on capturing outrageous reactions of the characters—or should I say caricatures? The overacting in this film verged on nauseating. Parris Mosteller’s portrayal of Judy’s younger brother, Stink, was particularly grating. Stink may be the little brother, but author Megan McDonald never makes him unlikeable in her books. In fact, McDonald started a separate series about him. But Mosteller’s almost nonexistent acting skills combined with his babyish speech (inconsistent with his character’s age) made me want to walk out of the theater.

Big-name draw Heather Graham is probably most believable (and that’s not saying much) in her role as the fun but irresponsible Aunt Opal. Exaggeration worked with her character, although at times it still came across as overacting. Steve Urkel—I mean, Jaleel White—was forgettable as teacher Mr. Todd. Jordana Beatty as Judy, while fairly spot-on in capturing the beloved character’s quirky nature, was actually hampered by the Judy Moody lingo. On paper, “mega-rare” and “TOADally” work well, but when you hear them spoken aloud, the lines are just groan-worthy.

Even though Megan McDonald was one of the screenwriters, this film did a poor job of representing what I love about the Judy Moody books: Judy’s a self-involved but relatively normal kid who says and does believable things. Kids relate to her. When the kids in my theater audience were not laughing during the film, I knew something was wrong. I quickly realized the film’s biggest problem: it talks down to its primary audience with characters so corny, overdrawn, and unrealistic that kids don’t find them funny. Moral of the story: don’t condescend to your audience. Judy Moody deserves more respect and so do her devoted fans. Roar!

—Cindy Ritter

In the What Were They Thinking? department…

Jean McElroy's Let's Count 123! (Simon and Schuster, May), a pleasant new board book that counts ten of the celebratory objects at a child’s birthday party (“1 cake / 2 candles / 3 party hats”), bills itself as “both chunky and lightweight!” The inside pages are not cardboard but paper-covered flat boxes (I think).

So, is the intent to lighten parents’ tote-bag loads? Or have there been many reported injuries of babies clunking themselves in the head with heavy board books? Is this new configuration meant to alleviate parents’ safety concerns? If so, they won’t: the inside boxy pages have wickedly sharp edges, a definite no-no in board book land. Let’s hope this is just the beta version, and that it’s back to the drawing board for “both chunky and lightweight!”

-- Martha V. Parravano

Can you Beliebe this?

Justin Bieber is stalking me.

First he was in my email (in a new Peta2 ad) and home snail mail (on the cover of Vanity Fair; my roommate exclaimed in dismay, "This is the last issue of my subscription?"). Then he was in the HB office with his memoir First Step 2 Forever -- "includes free poster!"

The final straw? The biographical graphic novel Fame: Justin Bieber by Blue Water Comics, which arrived as a PDF preview in my HB inbox. As a non-"Belieber," I can't help but feel it's a bit wasted on me. Now that I'm past my teenybopper heyday, here's what I want to know: where was Fame: Leonardo DiCaprio when I needed it?

(There's plenty more where that came from. The Fame series also includes bios of Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, Beyonce, and the casts of Glee and Twilight.)

-- Katie Bircher

Freaks and Zombies

Ripley’s Believe It or Not!: Enter If You Dare! is the seventh compendium of all things bizarre, freakish, and grotesque from around the world. You know the stuff: a sculpture of an Australian actress made with 24,000 peaches, an eighteen-inch-long fingernail, mice kebabs, a turtle with two heads and six legs, a man with 240 body piercings (he’s a retired bank manager, believe it or not). As silly as it all is, I have trouble putting the damn thing down every time I look at it, and I can think of a few ten-year-olds right off the bat who would spend hours soaking up the “information.”

In the same vein (pun intended) is A Zombie’s Guide to the Human Body: Tasty Tidbits from Head to Toe published by Scholastic. Professor Zombie adds his own editorial comments and zombie-centric visuals to basic information about body systems (skeletal, digestive, urinary, muscular, cardiovascular, etc.). Every page is littered with blood splatter, unidentifiable splotches of pus-like gore, drool stains, and zombie photos taped over images of living people. It’s gimmicky and distracting and not at all an essential purchase for libraries, but for a zombie-phile reluctant reader, it might be the perfect match of book and reader. The professor offers such nuggets as “SKULLS HARD! COVER UP BRAIN! SKULLS BAD!” and “BRAIN COMES IN 2 SERVINGS” and “FOR QUICK ENERGY TRY LIVER.” Bon appétit!

-- Kitty Flynn

Outside the lines

Lefty press Reach & Teach has published Sometimes the Spoon Runs Away with Another Spoon, a coloring book by Jacinta Bunnell and Nathaniel Kusinitz. The "tea, trains and tiaras for everyone!" message throughout is winningly lighthearted, even if such jokes as "Marriage is so gay" (illustrated with a wedding cake topped by two brides) are overcomplicated for the little kids the coloring book is ostensibly aimed at. Recalling similarly aimed titles published in the 1970s by alternative presses like Lollipop Power, Sometimes the Spoon goes further than A Train for Jane or even Heather Has Two Mommies in its playful questioning of gender roles: while princesses building rocket ships has been more normalized than this book seems to think, Grumpy in Snow White's heels does provide an edge. I'm not sure the pictures, droll but too fine-lined for crayons, beg to be colored, but I suspect that's not completely the point anyway.

-- Roger Sutton

The Prez's picture book

Although President Obama's Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters (Knopf) came in too late for review in the Horn Book Magazine, I thought I might offer a few comments here.

Like most celebrity picture books (by which I mean picture books written by people famous for doing something other than writing books for children) the book has a Message. With a conceit of self-esteem building for his daughters, Obama's book asks a series of questions such as "Have I told you that you are creative?" and "Have I told you that you have your own song?" Each question is amplified by a thumbnail portrait of a famous American: Georgia O'Keeffe exemplifies creativity; Billie Holiday "sang beautiful blues to the world." It's a gallery of the usual suspects -- others include Martin Luther King, Jr., Helen Keller, Jackie Robinson, and George Washington -- with only the unexpected choice of architect Maya Lin ("Have I told you how important it is to honor others' sacrifice?") adding much surprise. The inclusion of Jane Addams, Cesar Chavez and Sitting Bull may limit the audience to left-leaners, although the radical ideals of these Americans are only described in the gentlest of ways ("Cesar picketed, prayed, and talked"). The writing is sometimes windily portentous ("we watched [Neil Armstrong's] lunar landing leaps, which made us brave enough to take our own, big bold strides") but I guess that is how Presidents think they are supposed to talk. No-nonsense facts about each subject are at the back of the book.

Loren Long's acrylic pictures have genuine warmth, however generalized, with portraits of the American heroes facing small, neat figures of (presumably) Malia and Sasha joined, as the book goes on, by each of the profiled subjects as he or she might have appeared as a child. It's a clever idea and beautifully executed. The Thomas Hart Benton style Long frequently employs is here well-suited to the subject.

I think it would be hard to read the book out loud without sounding pompous, particularly in the closing pages ("Have I told you that they are all a part of you? Have I told you that you are one of them, and that you are the future?") but those who could read aloud Susan Jeffers' "Chief Seattle" book without blushing might not have any trouble. The question, as always, is: would this book have been published had it been written by someone else? The answer, as it usually is, is probably not, but the pictures do give the book some claim to legitimacy (something Long managed once before when he illustrated a not-bad picture book by Madonna, Mr. Peabody's Apples). I can see kids asking for this and making claim to a favorite page or hero. I can also see parents wanting to read it to children for all the wrong reasons -- because it builds self-esteem or instills good values -- but we can only hope that the kids will either set them straight or vote with their feet.

--Roger Sutton

Rocker Moms v. Soccer Moms

“B is for Boombox”; “F is for Flames”; “M is for Mohawk.”
-- from Alternative ABCs by 13th Floor

Okay. I know I’m not the intended audience for this book, as a parent or as a children’s book reviewer. I’m not young, hip, or edgy -- quite the opposite on all counts. But AMMO Books sent this no-baby-appeal board book to the Horn Book, so it’s fair game, I say.

Alternative ABCs is an unfocused grab-bag mash-up of anything that smells even remotely counterculture-y or anti-establishment. We've got the twenty-six letters represented by such things as Earth Day and hot rods, skulls and tattoo ink, quarter pipes and vegetarians. (Hey! I’m a vegetarian! Maybe they are talking to me.) Adding to the noise, the often unreadable text and chaotic graphic design completely overwhelm each double-page spread.

This hipster baby shower gift (if hipster parents-to-be have showers) has me looking more affectionately at the previously maligned Baby Goes Beep board book -- at least that baby's got kid appeal. Also, I’m reminded of Candlewick’s 2009 Art for Baby, which while taking a gimmicky highbrow approach to the concept book still has the right stuff to engage the youngest book lover. Alternative ABCs offers nothing for infants and toddlers beyond a lot of attitude and thick, sturdy, chewable pages.

On their website, the publisher admits as much: “This is the board book that Soccer Moms run from and Rocker Moms gravitate to.” Come on, AMMO Books, give Rocker Moms a bit more credit. Why wouldn’t they want to stimulate their babies’ interest in books as much as anyone in mom jeans?

-- Kitty Flynn