Swine Lake

Written by: James Marshall

First line: One wintry afternoon a lean and mangy wolf found himself in an unfamiliar part of town.

Why you should read this book: A tongue-in-cheek children's story that takes the archetype of the big, bad wolf, huff and puff, and blows the whole thing down, this will entertain younger children and delight those with an ear for the absurd. As illustrated by the unmistakeable talent of Maurice Sendak, the down-on-his-luck wolf chances upon free box seats to an all-pig ballet and intends to devour the entire cast, but instead becomes caught up in the story and so enraptured that he sees it through to the end and floats home in a trance. The next day, he returns to the theater and leaps onto stage, as was his original intention, but rather than eating pigs, joins the ballet, dances the part of the monster, and then, the next day, finds a review of his stage debut in the paper and  keeps it in his pocket.

Why you shouldn't read this book: A traditionalist, you despise revisionist histories.

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Orbiter

Written by: Warren Ellis

First line: My first memory is of being held up in front of a tiny black-and-white TV set by my mother and being told, "Remember this."

Why you should read this book: In a seemingly catastrophic but eventually beautiful vision, Colleen Doran illustrates Ellis's tale of a future in which the manned space program has been scrapped in the wake of the incredible disappearance of an entire space shuttle, which reappears under equally mysterious circumstances a decade later, covered in a biological matrix and piloted by an insane astronaut. To determine where the Venture been, how it got there, how it got back, and what happened to the ship and its crew in the interim, the government assembles a team of passionate individuals, all of whom have had their dreams ripped away from them with the dismantling of the space program. If they can crack the ship's secrets and break through the mental blocks of the apparently catatonic pilot, they may be poised to usher the human race into the new age of space exploration.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You prefer not to look up at the night sky.

The Pig-Out Blues

Written by: Jan Greenberg

First line: "Jodie Firestone, your arms are thick as tree trunks," my mother said on her way to the icebox.

Why you should read this book: It's a sort of problematic YA novel in which a five-foot, one hundred twenty pound teenager labeled as fat, verbally abused and emotionally neglected by her mother, and seeks solace in her love of theater and her best friend's family. In a bid to please her mother, satisfy her peers, and win the role of Juliet in the school play, Jodie goes on a starvation diet, losing twenty pounds in one month, only to pass out from exhaustion at her audition. When she honestly examines her mother's psychology and her relationship with her mother, her desire to binge disappears and she becomes incredibly insightful.

Why you shouldn't read this book: The writing is strained, the story is dated, and there's something sort of artificial about the narrative's arc.

Yang the Youngest and His Terrible Ear

Written by: Lensey Namioka

First line: Yang the Eldest drew his bow across his violin strings, and a shower of sparkling notes fell over the room.

Why you should read this book: Yang the Eldest, like his parents before him, is a talented musician, a violin virtuoso; Yang the Second Eldest plays the viola; Yang the Third Eldest, the cello; and so it falls to Yang the Youngest to complete their string quartet by playing second violin, which he would do happily, were he not completely tone deaf and literally unable to differentiate one note from the next. Recently immigrated from China, Yang the Youngest's family loves him, but cannot accept his utter musical ineptitude, until the boy makes his first American friend, Matthew, whose own parents disdain his love of violin and don't understand why he doesn't spend more time improving his baseball skills. As it turns out, Yang the Youngest has a great talent for the Great American past time, and maybe, just maybe, he and Matthew can teach their parents a thing or two about direction a child's talents.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You're supposed to be practicing.

The Outspoken Princess and the Gentle Knight

Edited by: Jack Zipes

First line: Once every two weeks Polly went over to the other side of town to see her grandmother.

Why you should read this book: Zipes collections of fairy tales, common and unknown, are unsurpassed in their depth and perspective, and this work, suitable for young readers, is no exception, showcasing "modern" stories (here defined as those published after World War II) that tend to turn basic assumptions about the form on their heads. Without being overtly political, these tales show how fairy tale motifs unravel in a modern world where modern girls take the crosstown bus, drive fork lifts, and, sometimes, use men's desires to get what they need in order to save their people. There's not a bad story in this book, and the rich line drawings, rendered with both whimsy and gravity, add to the magic.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You believe every girl has to marry, the sooner the better, and her husband needs to be stronger and taller than she is.

The Book of Sea Monsters

Written by: Nigel Suckling

First line: There are literally hundreds of plausible monster sightings on record; but some stand out in particular, because of the glaring honesty of the witnesses, the strangeness of the tale or simply the impact of that tale on the public imagination.

Why you should read this book: While it's basically an excuse for the fantasy artist Bob Eggleton to showcase a bunch of rich and detailed oil paintings of dragons in the water, the text does a lovely job not only of summarizing the myths and legends about sea monsters that have been passed down through centuries, but also of producing modern documentation that will leave the reader halfway to believing in modern monsters, hiding in the unexplored places of the modern world. The pictures in this coffee-table-sized book are insanely beautiful, even as they bring to life all sorts of horrors, and the evidence of real life water beasts is sort of compelling, in a cryptozoological way. A fun gift for any lovers of fantasy art, ancient myths, of the real life study of things that probably don't exist.

Why you shouldn't read this book: Already scared to swim in the ocean.

Meeting the Dog Girls

Written by: Gay Terry

First line: There is no beginning, no end to the line, just women waiting.

Why you should read this book: The magical realism in this collection of speculative fiction turns its nose up at the merely implausible and flirts with surrealism each times it turns the corner: babies float from the sky, marshmallow fail to plug the hole in a man's heart, time loses all meaning. The worlds summoned here are full of the underprivileged —the offspring of coal country, the children of war, the poor of the inner city—wondering how to overcome their circumstances, and the borders between life and death, which are tangible, but permeable. Besides the eponymous Dog Girls, there are ghosts, aliens, thieves, spell casters, birds, statues, and fabric, all with surprising qualities, woven into tales that, if not always perfectly satisfying in the end, are all provocative.

Why you shouldn't read this book: Painfully bad editing. Rife with spelling mistakes. The writer apparently doesn't know the difference between "lose" and "loose" or "its" and "it's" or else doesn't care, and the editor, if such a person had anything to do with this book's publication, was apparently too afraid of witches to suggest any changes.

Junie B. Jones and a Little Monkey Business*

Written by: Barbara Park

First line: My name is Junie B. Jones.

Why you should read this book: Junie B. does not understand figures of speech, and when her grandmother tells her that her new baby brother is a real little monkey, Junie B. takes it literally, resulting in her particular brand of mayhem. Before the day is out, she will shake down her two best friends and end up in the principal's office. Could anything be better than a real monkey brother?

Why you shouldn't read this book: You're afraid your rambunctious five-year-old might have problems being dethroned.

*I'm not going to review this whole series. I'm just not. I'll probably read the whole thing to my stepdaughter, but I can't write 36 reviews of this ridiculousness. These are great books for early readers and they are humorous enough to not make adult want to vomit, but seriously: this kid is a menace.

Junie B. Jones and the Stupid Smelly Bus

Written by: Barbara Park

First line: My name is Junie B. Jones.

Why you should read this book: An exuberant and unrestrained kindergarten kid with absolutely no filter navigates the first day of school, taking an instant dislike to the experience of riding the school bus. At the end of the day, she determines to use all of her five-year-old's skills to avoid the return trip home, enjoying herself immensely while driving all the adults involved to distraction. This is a perfect book for reluctant readers, who will identify with Junie B.s' constant sense of entitlement and betrayal.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You don't find shenanigans funny.

The Heart of Cool

Written by: Jamie McEwan

First line: When Bobby North came to his new school, he found that he was the smallest guy in his class.

Why you should read this book: For a leveled easy reader, this is one of the deepest, and yes, coolest stories I've ever seen. A polar bear named Bobby seeks to emulate a moose named Harry, the coolest kid in school, and manages to actually master the art of being cool so well that he no longer needs to try, until his utter coolness leads him to make an uncool mistake. The distinctively humorous illustrations of Sandra Boynton add a little tongue-in-cheek flair to a thoughtful story.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You're too cool to care.