Megan Dowd Lambert
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Treasuring when "nothing happens"
I admit I was immediately skeptical when I received a copy of the picture book Peanut Goes for the Gold by Jonathan Van Ness of Queer Eye fame, with illustrations by Gillian Reid. Though I’ve watched and enjoyed the show with my teenage daughters, I have a healthy suspicion of celebrity-penned children’s books. My leeriness was coupled with an...
Review of Hello, Jimmy!
Hello, Jimmy! by Anna Walker; illus. by the author Primary Clarion 40 pp. g 2/21 978-0-358-19358-6 $17.99 e-book ed. 978-0-358-36090-2 $12.99 Jack doesn’t live with his dad full time, and lately when he stays with him, the house seems especially quiet. Although the text never uses the word depressed, this...
Review of The Great Whipplethorp Bug Collection
The Great Whipplethorp Bug Collection by Ben Brashares; illus. by Elizabeth Bergeland Primary Little, Brown 40 pp. g 4/21 978-0-316-53825-1 $18.99 When Chuck decides he’s “bored enough” to accept his dad’s suggestion to start unpacking boxes in their new home, he discovers he’s descended from a long line of explorers...
The Blue House
Caldecott terms and criteria stipulate that the Medal goes to a picture book published “during the preceding year.” Although the 2020 publication of Phoebe Wahl’s The Blue House satisfies this term, it feels like it’s been around for a long, long time — while also being utterly groundbreaking. Picture books...
A Girl Like Me
I’ve always loved how Nina Crews’s photocollages juxtapose photographic realism with compositional flights of fancy in ways that indulge children’s frequent interest in seeing other real kids in books, as well as their propensity for imaginative play. Crews’s art for Angela Johnson’s poetic text in A Girl Like Me capitalizes on...
Drawing Comfort from Shared Reading
I last saw my eldest son Rory (aged twenty-three) in person at Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. It was February, and he was performing in the opening event for the exhibit “Boston’s Apollo: Thomas McKeller and John Singer Sargent.” Rory’s role was to read McKeller’s letters as part of a...
Review of The Blue House
The Blue House by Phoebe Wahl; illus. by the author Primary Knopf 40 pp. g 8/20 978-1-9848-9336-9 $17.99 Library ed. 978-1-9848-9337-6 $20.99 e-book ed. 978-1-9848-9338-3 $10.99 Wahl’s picture book tells an affecting story about loss and starting over. In it, interdependent text and art channel a Molly Bang–like artistic style...
Review of Green on Green
Green on Green by Dianne White; illus. by Felicita Sala Preschool, Primary Beach Lane/Simon 48 pp. g 3/20 978-1-4814-6278-5 $17.99 e-book ed. 978-1-4814-6279-2 $10.99 Do we need another picture book about the seasons? When it’s this good, the answer is an emphatic yes. White’s text is written in eminently readable...
Review of A Girl like Me
A Girl like Me by Angela Johnson; illus. by Nina Crews Preschool, Primary Millbrook 40 pp. g 2/20 978-1-5415-5777-2 $19.99 e-book ed. 978-1-5415-7891-3 $18.99 It seems not even the sky’s the limit for the imaginative, adventurous, inventive girls depicted in this inspirational picture book. Johnson’s upbeat text, paired with Crews’s...
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