Publications about books for children and young adults
With Lolly under the weather, I will hop in and present this perfect story of maternal love and toddler curiosity. It’s a simple, funny, never-cloying story of one absolutely adorable elephant and her mother. While out on a walk, joined trunk to tail, Little Elephant asks questions. “If you want to ask me a question, [...]
Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett; illus. by Jon Klassen Primary Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins 40 pp. 1/12 978-0-06-195338-5 $16.99 g When young Annabelle (see p. 5) finds a small box containing yarn of every color, she does what any self-respecting knitter would do: she knits herself a sweater. Then she knits a sweater for her dog. [...]
After a rousing discussion, we turn to a book, set in the 1920s and 1930s with African Americans moving from the South to the cities of the North told in poetry. I love the strong, emotional poetry but it is the images that have stayed with me since I reviewed it more than a year [...]
Intricate, water-colored paper cuts make for an old-fashioned delight in Katherine Paterson’s reimagining of Saint Francis of Assisi’s Canticle of the Creatures. I was initially struck by the use of black—an unusual choice in a picture book. The black allows the intricacies of the Scherenschnitte (the name for this type of paper cutting) to pop. [...]
Underground is one of those books I was taken by the first time I read it, perched at the Roaring Brook booth at ALA this summer. It’s a quiet book, but one that is worth some closer attention. The Underground of the title is the Underground Railroad and the story is written for very young [...]
The No. 1 Car Spotter by Atinuke; illus. by Warwick Johnson Cadwell Primary, Intermediate Kane Miller 112 pp. 9/11 Paper ed. 978-1-61067-051-7 $5.99 Oluwalase Babatunde Benson, called No. 1, is the best car spotter in his African village. His unnamed country has cities and towns with skyscrapers, hotels, offices, tap water, electricity, and televisions, but [...]
In the interest of transparency: I love the art of Brian Karas, from his early reader books to poetry and everything in between. I have never met him, though I have been tempted to friend him on Facebook, which places me in the near-stalker camp. I still talk about last year’s Clever Jack Takes the Cake, [...]
The bookseller at my local store was frantically restocking after the grand opening weekend and was making room to face out Jon Klassen’s wickedly funny I Want My Hat Back. After I commented on the book, she said, “I’ve read a lot about this book, but I have not had time to read it yet.” [...]
Swirl by Swirl is one of the most beautiful books of the year. I can’t get enough of it. Krommes’ colored scratchboard illustrations invite the reader to slow down and quietly enter the world that she and poet Joyce Sidman have created, a world of spirals in nature. Each page is perfectly designed with special [...]
Bailey by Harry Bliss; illus. by the author Primary Scholastic 32 pp. 8/11 978-0-545-23344-6 $16.99 Bailey loves school, where he is by far the most popular student. Then again, he is the only dog at Champlain Elementary School. No one can resist a dog who hangs his head out the school bus window, willing the [...]
