Megan Dowd Lambert
42 Articles
Last 30 days
Last 6 months
Last 12 months
Last 24 months
Specific Dates
From:
To:
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...
The Shortest Day
Soon after I was assigned The Shortest Day for Calling Caldecott, I heard author Susan Cooper and illustrator Carson Ellis speak about their collaboration at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art. Scrawled in my notes from that day is the sentence, “This isn’t a poem about merry feudal...
Review of Front Desk audiobook
Front Desk by Kelly Yang; read by Sunny Lu Intermediate Listening Library Rev. 7/18 6 CDs 6.5 hrs. 978-1-9848-4609-9 $50.00 Yang’s vivacious protagonist, ten-year-old Chinese immigrant Mia Tang, is winningly voiced by narrator Lu. Mia’s trials and tribulations, at school and at the California motel where she lives and works...
Review of If I Was the Sunshine
If I Was the Sunshine by Julie Fogliano; illus. by Loren Long Preschool Atheneum 48 pp. 5/19 978-1-4814-7243-2 $17.99 e-book ed. 978-1-4814-7244-9 $10.99 Fogliano and Long present a big, handsome picture book with a poetic text and lush full-bleed acrylic illustrations, highlighting the natural world and relationships within it. The...