There are so many fine books published for children each year that it is hard to pick just a few to review -- but here are three recently published titles that have caught readers attention.

Author John Grogan’s New York Times #1 bestselling canine memoir Marley & Me has now been adapted for young children in the fictional picture book entitled Bad Dog, Marley!, warmly illustrated by Richard Cowdrey.

Bad Dog, Marley! is the heartwarming story of how one rambunctious (alright, downright naughty!) dog shows a family that loving someone, flaws and all, can reap huge rewards. In this adaptation, Marley lives with a family that includes parents, little girl and baby boy. We follow Marley as he grows from pint-sized pup to large-scale pooch. Young children will enjoy Marley’s many misadventures as he nearly disappears in the toilet, crashes through a screen door, and climbs on the microwave to reach a chocolate cake on top of the refrigerator. After snacking on the family couch and causing a snowstorm of cushion feathers, Mom decides the dog must go.  However, Marley redeems himself in the end by saving the baby who himself climbs up on the fridge.

A warm and lovable story that children will want to hear again and again.

Hardcover
Publisher: Harper Collins
Pub. Date:  2007
Age Range:  3 to 6

Gallop! by Rufus Butler Seder is a first book of motion for kids unlike any seen before.  Employing a patented new technique called Scanimation, each page brings animals to life with artwork that literally moves. It shows a horse in full gallop, a turtle swimming up the page, a dog running, cat springing, eagle soaring, butterfly fluttering, and other creatures in appropriate motion.

Seder, a Boston-based inventor, artist and filmmaker, became fascinated by antique optical toys and the magical days of the kinetoscope (a mechanical device, the precursor of modern motion pictures). Here, his patented technique features a hidden tab on each page that slides an acetate layer printed with vertical black lines over an encoded detailed image of the horse, turtle, etc, and the layers interaction creates the illusion of motion. The black and white images are paired with a sparse but delightful rhyming text that may cause children to act out the motions themselves and is easy enough for beginning readers.

Children have been heard to comment that this book is "alive" -- adults too will be amazed by this ground-breaking technology.

Hardcover
Publisher: Workman Publishing Co. Inc. Pub. Date:  2007
Age Range: 3 to 8 (actually all ages!)

In The Underneath by Kathi Appelt, already hailed as "an instant classic" and "one of the most beautifully written books", three distinct but entwined stories are told:  the tale of an abandoned pregnant cat who finds friendship and shelter with a bloodhound; the bloodhound Ranger’s story as the abused and neglected pet of Gar Face, an alcoholic recluse trapper living in the Texas bayou where he fled to escape an abusive Father; and the story of Grandmother Moccasin, a shape-shifting water snake who has lain dormant in a jar for a thousand years buried beneath a pine tree.

The title refers to the space underneath Gar’s porch where Ranger urges the calico cat to stay with her kittens and never venture out from or Gar will use them as alligator bait. Kittens being curious creatures, however, one does venture forth and sets off a chain of events that blends together the three stories of love, hate, betrayal, the fragility of happiness and the importance of making good on promises.

This book will not be for all readers. The story is often complex and the overlapping character storylines may be difficult for the younger end of the age range. However, the book is beautifully written and while dealing with such subjects as parental and animal abuse, mythology, bullying and the like, many characters who make seemingly wrong choices based on hate or revenge are ultimately presented with chances to redeem themselves through love.

Hardcover
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing
Pub. Date:  May 2008
Age Range:  8 to 12