Here We All Are (26 Fairmount Avenue)

Good for Tomie dePaola! Few of us get to go back to childhood and explain just what in the world we were thinking when we did things like (a) licking a bedpost to see if it tasted like maple syrup (Tomie's mom told him his furniture was "genuine maple"), (b) wearing lipstick and pretending to be Mae West, or (c) refusing to go to the bathroom for days (Tomie was pretty distressed to have his mom trapped in the hospital after delivering his brand-new baby sister). But award-winning author-illustrator dePaola elaborates on all of this and more in a charming--and winningly evenhanded--tell-all memoir, recounted in an artfully convincing 5-year-old's voice.

The sequel to the 2000 Newbery Honor winner 26 Fairmount Avenue, Here We All Are has Tomie, his 9-year-old brother, Buddy, and Mom and Dad settling into the new house on Fairmount as Tomie continues kindergarten with Miss Immick. Part Linus Van Pelt, part Calvin (minus Hobbes), the budding performer Tomie proves to be as endearing--and sometimes aggravating--as you'd expect a 5-year-old to be. In this second installment of the 26 Fairmount series, Tomie enrolls in tap classes at Miss Leah's Dancing School, upstages Peter Rabbit in a school play while hamming it up as Flopsy, and faces off against his hilariously terrifying Italian grandmother, Nana Fall-River. (Ages 7 to 10) --Paul Hughes