Two picture books and a middle-grade novel use mysterious ants, the plight of a sea turtle, and the lure of the “invisible” world to draw young readers into their stories.
“Isabel and the Invisible World”
By Alan Lightman
Illustrated by Ramona Kaulitzki
MIT Kids Press 2023, 44 pages
$18.99
Age: 4-6
For any child, the notion of an “invisible world” is a rich one, filled with fears, fantasies, possibilities, wishes, dreams and dreads. For me, the power to become invisible always topped the list of wishes I kept handy in case I encountered a genie, magic fish, sand fairy or other wish-granting creatures that typically inhabit children’s stories.
So it didn’t surprise me, reading Alan Lightman’s “Isabel and the Invisible World,” to learn that the only thing Isabel wants for her sixth birthday is “to see invisible things.” What did come as a surprise, though – especially considering the team who produced this book – is how disappointing the result was: Isabel’s special birthday gift is a prism, which allows her to see the colors that make up the light spectrum.
“Isabel and the Invisible World” is basically a science lesson packaged as a picture book. It is fine as far as that goes – the science is clearly and simply laid out – but once the prism has been explained and demonstrated, the story fizzles out. Which is a shame, considering all the possibilities – the different layers of theme and imagination – that might at least have been hinted at.
Lightman (who seems determined to write about light) is a summer resident of Harpswell, an MIT professor and the author of “Einstein’s Dreams,” an acclaimed novel about physics. His first picture book, the delightful “Ada and the Galaxies” (reviewed in these pages), was co-authored with a children’s book writer. Though it too had a scientific thrust (learning about the stars) it featured interesting characters in authentic (Maine) settings propelled by an actual story line. One can’t help feeling that “Isabel and the Invisible World” might also have benefited from the touch of a children’s writer.
Bestselling illustrator Ramona Kaulitzki’ s art for this book is also somewhat disappointing, given the potential. Granted, the task of illustrating the “invisible” is challenging, but at one point Kaulizki simply gives up and draws white lines to depict radio waves. And her choice to use a muted color palette, when the bright rainbow spectrum was virtually begging to be used, is puzzling, to say the least.
All told, the book is a worthy endeavor, but it suffers because it could have been so much more.
“One Turtle’s Last Straw: The Real Life Rescue That Sparked a Sea Change”
By Elisa Boxer
Crown Books for Young Readers, 2022
$18.99, 40 pages
Ages: 4-8
“One Turtle’s Last Straw,” while also science-oriented, has a storyline and a clear underlying message. Subtitled “The Real-Life Rescue That Sparked a Sea Change,” it follows the story of an endangered olive ridley sea turtle who was saved from a near-death encounter with a simple plastic straw.
The story opens with a fictional boy unwittingly committing “one casual act” (as the author describes it in an afterword) that has dire consequences: he tosses a soda cup into the trash. Unbeknownst to him, the soda straw ends up in a storm drain and, eventually, the ocean. There it is accidentally ingested by a turtle and becomes deeply embedded in his nose.
The poor turtle has already barely escaped drowning in a trawler net. Now, with the straw protruding from his nose, he glides through the sea off Costa Rica – a sea filled with colorful coral, bright fish, and plastic trash – until he is captured by a turtle research team. They carefully – and painfully – remove the four-inch straw and set him free.
The graphic YouTube video of this rescue in 2015 went viral and inspired Elisa Boxer to write the story behind it. The illustrations here, by Marta Alvarez Miguens and based on this video, are less gory than the reality but make the turtle’s suffering clear.
The story closes with another fictional scene: a girl at a restaurant ordering a drink and – remembering the turtle video – telling the server, “I’ll skip the straw.”
Seen by over 150 million viewers, the turtle’s plight helped galvanize efforts to protect the oceans – especially from single-use plastics like straws, which often end up in the sea. Boxer, a Maine native and Scarborough resident, has written a half-dozen non-fiction books for children, most of them about “people finding the courage to create change.” She includes many resources at the end of this book for anyone interested in becoming part of the solution instead of part of the problem. It’s a tale that will capture the heart and attention of any age reader.
“The Natural Genius of Ants”
By Betty Culley
Crown Books for Young Readers, 2022, 229 pages
$16.99
Age: 8-12
Mercer resident Betty Culley likes to ground her books in science. “Down to Earth,” was about rocks, meteorites and dowsing, although it veered uncomfortably into the supernatural. “The Natural Genius of Ants” stays firmly rooted in reality and is full of ant factoids (did you know they take 250 naps a day?), but it has very little to do with ants. Culley uses a summer project – creating an ant farm – as a framework around which to build the story of two over-protective children, 10-year-old Harvard, and his new friend Neveah, a thoughtful young girl and budding poet. This is really a story about the power of friends, home, community, roots, and most importantly, forgiveness.
Harvard’s dad Marshall has returned to his childhood home in Kettle Hole, Maine, as his marriage and professional life are unraveling, bringing Harvard and his little brother with him. Neveah’s dad Vern, a widower and Marshall’s oldest friend and Kettle Hole neighbor, is saddled with crushing debt from his wife’s illness.
The two kids both see their main “job” as taking care of their fathers. It’s no surprise they quickly become friends. There is no romance, but Cully deftly hints at Harvard’s changing awareness of her as a girl: noting the length of her eyelashes, the way her hair falls over her eyes “like a curtain at the end of a play.”
Harvard hopes the ant farm project will take his father’s mind off the terrible Mistake (as it’s referred to) that he made as a doctor, which resulted in the death of an infant. Marshall has been unable to go back to work or even leave their apartment. Harvard overhears his mother telling Marshall, “Your guilt is crushing me,” and he knows instinctively that what his father – their whole family – really needs is for him to be able to forgive himself. For her part, Neveah keeps track of her father’s income and expenses, all the while hiding from him just how bad her asthma has gotten and that her (expensive) inhalers have long since expired.
Culley’s greatest skill, once again, is in capturing the flavor and rhythms of small-town Maine life, as embodied here by Vern and Marshall. Vern refuses to take state “handouts” and is cobbling together a living as a farrier, maple sugar producer, snow plower, you name it – often bartering his skills instead of charging for them. Marshall is helping out his proud friend by renting his house from him. And while he feels welcomed back by people he hasn’t seen in decades, the threat of gossip about why he’s come home is always looming in the background. Kettle Hole itself is a typical small town: It’s “one block long” and the highlight of its year (and the book’s plot) is “Old Home Day,” an event designed to remind residents past and present of their roots.
The relationships between the characters are also lovingly rendered: Harvard tolerating his annoying little brother because he knows he badly misses their mom; his repressed anger at his mother, who should know that “there are four people in this family”; the love of science and word play (ant puns are rampant) that he shares with her; his protecting his father from finding out some ants have died (while his father is doing the same for him); his efforts to get his father to smile again; and his determination to help him find a way to forgive himself and move forward.
Finally, while there’s much to be said for having a diverse cast of characters in children’s books, doing so can be challenging when writing about rural Maine; unfortunately Culley’s choice to make Harvard’s mother (a parasitologist) be Dominican feels like an arbitrary box-checking exercise rather than adding a new dimension to the story. That quibble aside, the only real flaw in this sweet tale is that its plot and pacing are so gentle, not to say languid, that it risks letting young readers, used to today’s fast-paced media, become antsy. Pun intended. It’s a pun Harvard would thoroughly approve of.
Amy MacDonald is a children’s book author from Portland. She may be reached at AmyM781@gmail.com.
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