“Around the World in a Hundred Years,” by Jean Fritz (Putnam Juvenile, 128 pages, $8.99)
This sometimes bitingly incisive and always reader-friendly history book makes history more immediate than this week’s “American Idol” episode. Fritz adds details that illustrate the fearfulness of European explorers eager for but terrified of venturing down Africa’s unknown western coast.
Fritz slips in references to earlier periods, including the fourth-century burning of Greek libraries – which housed most of geographer Ptolemy’s treatises – by early Christians who wanted to eradicate all scientific documents not based on the Bible.
Her account equally credits world exploration triumphs to Portugal and Italy along with Spain, though who discovered and accomplished what tends to overlap or blur. This book offers an inviting refresher course for older readers too. Ages 10-12.
“Monkey Town: The Summer of the Scopes Trial,” by Ronald Kidd (Simon & Schuster, 272 pages, $15.95)
Nobody initially grasps the enormous impact of the 1925 trial pitting William Jennings Bryan’s pro-creationism attack against Clarence Darrow’s defense of teacher John Scopes evolutionary theory classes. The narrator is a schoolgirl with a crush on Scopes and a father who sees the trial as a terrific publicity gimmick for tiny Dayton, Tenn.
As the town becomes the epicenter of a battle pitting creationists against Darwinists, it fills with zealots, hangers-on and national reporters. The latter include H.L. Mencken, whose acerbic dispatches represent Dayton residents as comically naive, and worse.
This is another novel, like Fritz’s book, that provokes comparisons between this millennium and its predecessors. Ages 11 and up.
“The Catlady,” by Dick King-Smith (Knopf, 80 pages, $22.95)
The prolific author who introduced the world to the wildly popular shepherd pig Babe returns with an affectionate tale about an elderly woman who cares for 16 cats.
Muriel Ponsobory knows her neighbors think she’s a few beers short of a six-pack but enjoys her felines too much to worry about her reputation.
She finds it wiser to avoid discussing the discovery that many of her cats seem to be reincarnations of friends, family members (including her parents) and Queen Victoria, who returns as a portly ginger kitten with impressive jowls.
The aging Muriel takes in another, human stray who proves to be a godsend, a quiet, competent caretaker whose practical outlook is a bit at odds with Muriel’s convictions. A charming, sweet book that might be just the thing for a bereaved cat-lover. Ages 7-10.
“Played,” by Dana Davidson (Jump at the Sun, 240 pages, $16.99)
The root of all evil isn’t money – it’s peer pressure, at least in high school social circles. Young Ian has the wit to be appalled upon discovering his initiation requirement for the school’s elite fraternity: He must woo and bed an unattractive girl named Kylie. And get her to fall in love with him.
This unprincipled task goes awry when Ian, who is hyper-aware of the school’s caste system, succeeds but finds himself in love with Kylie. Her humiliation at his hands – first, unknowingly and then after she’s discovered the initiation rite – is excruciating.
Remember when high school students defined hell as eating lunch at the geeks’ table? Start reading, kids. Ages 12 and up.
Staff writer Claire Martin can be reached at 303-820-1477 or cmartin@denverpost.com.
