[Many Calling Caldecott posts this season will begin with the Horn Book Magazine review of the featured book (or books), followed by the post's author's critique.] Black Gold by Laura Obuobi; illus. by London Ladd Primary Harper/HarperCollins 40 pp. 10/22 9780063015760 $18.99 Reminiscent of creation myths collected in Virginia Hamilton’s In...
Black Gold by Laura Obuobi; illus. by London Ladd Primary Harper/HarperCollins 40 pp. 10/22 9780063015760 $18.99 Reminiscent of creation myths collected in Virginia Hamilton’s In the Beginning (1988), Obuobi’s tale tells how the universe created a Black child. “When the Universe decided to create you, / she drew you from...
The Star That Always Stays by Anna Rose Johnson Intermediate, Middle School Holiday 224 pp. g7/22 978-0-8234-5040-4 $17.99e-book ed. 978-0-8234-5289-7 $10.99 In her debut novel, Johnson (Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians) combines family history with an homage to such classics as Anne of...
From the November/December 2022 issue of The Horn Book Magazine. I Rise by Marie Arnold Middle School, High School Versify/HarperCollins 320 pp. g8/22 978-0-358-44904-1 $18.99e-book ed. 978-0-358-44895-2 $9.99 Everyone in Harlem is asking: how much? How much longer do they have to wait for change? How much...
Magnolia Flower by Zora Neale Hurston; adapted by Ibram X. Kendi; illus. by Loveis Wise Primary Harper/HarperCollins 40 pp. g 9/22 978-0-06-309831-2 $19.99 Kendi’s (Stamped, rev. 5/20) adaptation of a short story by Hurston softens (or leaves out) the original’s violence, adds elements that are explained in a historical...
If You Read This by Kereen Getten Intermediate Delacorte 176 pp. g8/22 978-0-593-17400-5 $16.99e-book ed. 978-0-593-17401-2 $9.99 Before her death three years earlier, Brie’s mother had planned a surprise twelfth-birthday adventure for Brie and her father at Brim’s Island, Brie’s grandfather’s house “built into the...
Indigo Dreaming by Dinah Johnson ; illus. by Anna Cunha Preschool, Primary Harper/HarperCollins 40 pp. g10/22 978-0-06-308020-1 $18.99 Johnson’s “love song to the Sea Islands [and] my African friends” opens with a young Black girl running along the beach at “day-clean,” the Gullah/Geechee phrase for dawn....
Berry Song by Michaela Goade; illus. by the authorPrimary Little, Brown 40 pp. g7/22 978-0-316-49417-5 $18.99In Goade’s (Caldecott Medalist for We Are Water Protectors, rev. 7/20) latest picture book, set “on an island at the edge of a wide, wild, sea,” a Tlingit grandmother teaches her granddaughter “how to live...
The Summer of Bitter and Sweet by Jen FergusonHigh School Heartdrum/HarperCollins 384 pp. g5/22 978-0-06-308616-6 $17.99e-book ed. 978-0-06-308618-0 $12.99Lou is preparing to spend the summer scooping ice cream at her uncles’ seasonal shop, Michif Creamery, to save money for university in the fall. Unfortunately, things don’t go as planned. She...