Challenge: Spell the Month: August 2021: Under-Rated Picture Books

To complete this challenge for August, I had to reuse the ‘u’ of June. I have read surprisingly few books beginning with ‘U,’ and only two that I would want to recommend a second time to my readers, but if you’ll forgive me that one repeat, I have a whole new set of five- and four-star picture books about which you may forgotten. Let’s dive back into the older reviews!

Animal Homes ZXA: An Out of Order Alphabet Book by Barbara Gibbon. Mascot, 2017.

There’s so much to this book. This animal and alphabet primer groups the animals by their habitat, very basically defined in the text and illustrated, rather than alphabetizing them and highlights some more unusual animals rather than sticking only to the tried examples. By rearranging the letters, the book and the alphabet are less predictable, and those learning the alphabet can rely less on memorization of the sounds and have to put together more assuredly the shape of the letter and the sound it represents. Including unique animals (zebu, quokka) in the text helps to eliminate the same memorization technique. The illustrations include both lower and uppercase examples of the letters and beautiful animal portraits to associate with each letter. The endpapers are illustrated to show the animals and the letters that they represent reorganized alphabetically so as not to lose that element of instruction, which adds an element of familiarity and closure to the book.

*****

Up and Down by Oliver Jeffers. Philomel-Penguin Random, 2010. Intended audience: Ages 3-7.

Paired with Jeffers’ ever-delightful illustrations, in this book, the penguin wants to learn to fly. The boy tries to help, but nothing is working. As they are seeking expert advice, the penguin believes he has found his answer, and rushes off without his friend, without a word to him. The two become separated and worry about each other. As the penguin begins to worry about flying—and more importantly about landing—the two reunite, just in time for the boy to catch the penguin. This book is gentler than most. There’s no dialogue. I think that takes away some of the immediacy of friendship books like Mo Willems’. This one probably makes a better bedtime story for that though.

****

Grumpy Pants by Claire Messer. Albert Whitman, 2016.  Intended audience: Ages 4-8, Grades PreK-3.

This penguin is grumpy, and he doesn’t know why. He strips off his clothes piece by piece, thinking that one less piece will make him feel less grumpy, but it’s no good, even when he’s down to just his underpants. So he takes off his underpants, takes a deep breath, counts to three, and dives into the bathtub, where at last he is able to wash off the last of his grumpiness by splashing and making a bubble beard. He puts on his favorite clothes and feels even better and goes to sleep.

This would be a great book for little ones: bedtime, bath time, clothes primer, a reassurance that sometimes you get grumpy without any reason and that’s okay. Plus, it’s hard to feel grumpy while this penguin pulls off with his beak his very colorful clothes; this penguin dresses only a bit more conservatively than Dobby the house-elf.

I worried a little about showing the penguin sans clothes, but none of the parents said anything—and it’s more natural—isn’t it?—to see a penguin without clothes than in them, so I didn’t feel as if I was showing the kids anything too racy.

*****

A Unicorn Named Sparkle by Amy Young. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux-Macmillan, 2016.  Intended audience: Ages 2-6.

A little girl buys a unicorn for 25¢ and anxiously awaits its arrival, dreaming of riding him along rainbows with a necklace of flowers on his blue neck. What arrives is a goat with a single horn. He’s smelly. He’s not blue. He has fleas! He eats his flower necklace and his tutu. Lucy tries to defend her unicorn at first from those who say he’s just a goat, but eventually she calls to return the unicorn, but once he’s in the truck and bleating for her, she changes her mind, and realizes that she has grown to love Sparkle even though he is not what she was expecting. Lucy appears to be Black, making me love her even more because there is never once any issue made of her race and we need more books about Black characters where race is not an issue. I like this protagonist so much more than the Barbie from Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Brigette Barrager’s Uni the Unicorn.

****

Stack the Cats by Susie Ghahremani. Abrams Appleseed-Harry N. Abrams, 2018.

I really enjoyed this story about cats and math. It’s counting, addition, division, and subtraction. Three cats stack, but four and five cats endanger the pile, so six cats become two stacks of three each. After ten cats become just too many, the cats begin to go away. The illustrated cats are delightfully round fluffs with small mouths and a wide variety of colors and patterns. There’s a sort of singsong rhythm to the simple text. The story ends with an invitation to stack the cats creatively, to invent your own math solutions with the cats—of which by the last page there are more than ten—I count 21!

*****

This Beautiful Day by Richard Jackson and illustrated by Suzy Lee. Caitlyn Dlouhy-Atheneum-Simon & Schuster, 2017. Intended audience: Ages 4-8, Grades PreK-3.

This text is more musical and more poetic than most. The illustrations are beautiful, beginning almost grayscale, but adding a bit of blue, then more and more colors as the rain clears and the sun returns. This is the story of a family who doesn’t let a day of rain spoil their fun but who dance inside and outside of the house. The neighborhood joins them as the sun clears, and it seems as if there may be some magically flying umbrellas involved.  The text is less about what is happening in the illustrations, though, than about dancing and enjoying a gray day turned sunny and spent with friends and family.

*****

Click on the cover images to visit the publisher’s websites for more information and links to order.

These reviews are not endorsed by any of the authors or publishers or anyone else involved in the making of these books. They are independent, honest reviews by a reader.

Book Reviews: Favorite Black #OwnVoices Stories

Pulling together a list of books by and about people of Asian or Pacific Island heritage made me reexamine my favorites list, those books that I’ve marked as rating 5 stars on Goodreads.  I had as many books by and about Black people, but I find myself wishing that there was more Black joy in these titles.  Several of these are stories of resilience in the face of terrible circumstances, and I would like some more stories of Blackness that isn’t about Black pain and white violence, stories where Black children can overcome the sort of obstacles that white protagonists face: friendship problems, family problems, or stories of magical worlds.  Please drop me especially your middle grade, Black #ownvoices recommendations in the comments.

An addendum because my brain is click, click, clicking away this morning:

I am NOT saying that books about Black pain are unimportant, and they are far more important when written by Black people. While I call for more Black joy in books, we need too to hold space for Black creators to use their art to explore pain and to speak to us—all of us. White people like myself need to step into the shoes of Black creators, to let ourselves be made uncomfortable by what we’re being told. Black readers I’m guessing feel seen in some of these stories.

Picture Books (Ages 0-8)

Woke Baby by Mahogany L. Browne and illustrated by Theodore Taylor III. Roaring Brook-Macmillan, 2018. Intended audience: Ages 0-3.

Told in the second person, addressing the reader and the portrayed character both as “you,” this board book follows a young Black child from waking in the morning to sleeping and praises parts of their body and modes of the self-expression.  Browne and Taylor are both Black Americans.

The People Could Fly by Virginia Hamilton and illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon. Knopf-Random, 2004. Intended audience: Ages 4-8.

This is a retelling of an old tale.  It was originally part of a collection of Black folktales retold by Black American Hamilton.  This tale was taken from that collection and illustrated by the Dillons in a separate book.  Leo Dillon was the son of Trinidadian immigrants to the US.  In this an old man uses magic to remind a number of slaves of their lost ability to fly and in returning their wings allows them to escape slavery.  The ability to fly, the author’s note says, was often associated with the Gullah (Angolan) people.

Walking Home to Rosie Lee by A. LaFaye and illustrated by Keith D. Shepherd. Cinco Puntos, 2011.

Shepherd is a Black American, though LaFaye is not, and I considered not including this book for that reason.  This a moving story about a young, newly freed Black American, Gabe, searching America for his mother, Rosie Lee, from whom he was separated when both were slaves.

A Night Out with Mama by Quvenzhané Wallis and illustrated by Vanessa Brantley-Newton. Simon & Schuster, 2017. Intended audience: Ages 4-8, Grades PreK-3.

This is an autobiographical book by Black American actress Wallis about her night at the Academy Awards as a 10 year old, the youngest person ever nominated for an Academy Award.  This story is illustrated by Black American Brantley-Newton.

Middle Grade Books (Ages 8-12)

New Kid by Jerry Craft. HarperCollins, 2019.  Intended audience: Ages 8-12, Grades 3-7.

Craft is a Black American.  In this graphic novel, Jordan, a Black American from a predominantly Black neighborhood, attends a predominantly white school and faces the racism from the staff and his peers while navigating new friendships and discovering his place among these peers and his friends from his previous school.

Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy by Rey Terciero and Bre Indigo.  Adapted from a novel by Louisa May Alcott.  Little, Brown-Hachette, 2019.

Indigo is a Black American.  In this graphic novel retelling of Little Women, Black American Mr. March marries Mrs. March, bringing his daughter from his former marriage, Meg, with him.  Their children, Beth and Amy, are biracial.  They all live in Brooklyn.

Teen Books (Ages 13-19)

Pet by Akwaeke Emezi.  Make Me a World-Penguin Random, 2019.

Nigerian Emezi is of Igbo and Tamil descent.  This is the story of Jam, who awakens one of her mother’s paintings, bringing to her world a creature that she calls Pet, who has come to hunt a monster in Lucille. Jam is Black and lives in a predominately Black utopia called Lucille.

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas.  Balzer + Bray-HarperCollins, 2017.  Intended audience: Ages 14+

This book by Black American Thomas follows Starr, a Black American teenager who lives in a predominantly Black neighborhood but attends a predominantly white school and who witnesses a shooting of a Black American boy, a friend of hers, by a police officer when he is pulled over.

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Click on the cover images for links to purchase and further information from the publishers or authors.

If you know or think that any of this information is incorrect, leave a note in the comments so that I can investigate and correct it.

These reviews are not endorsed by the authors, illustrators, publishers, or anyone involved with the printing of these books. They are independent, honest reviews by a reader.

Characters of Color in Books That I Read in 2020: Part 1: Picture and Beginning Chapter Books

I read 129 individual titles this year.  81 of those titles (62%) had a character of color in any capacity.  Only 17 of those had protagonists of color, a dismal 13% of my total books read and only 20% of the books that had any character of color.  What biographical information I was able to find for the authors and illustrators of the picture books that I read this year indicates too a disappointing lack of writers or illustrators of color among my sampling. Where I have found information on the authors or illustrators, I have included their information. I have marked writers and illustrators of color with an asterisk to give them a little more visibility in this review format.

Picture and Board Books (Ages 0-8)

Books with a POC as a protagonist

Don’t Feed the Coos by Jonathan Stutzman and illustrated by Heather Fox. Henry Holt-Macmillan, 2020. Intended audience: Ages 4-8. The protagonist of this book is a little darker-skinned girl with black hair and glasses. Stutzman and Fox are both white Americans.

How to Catch a Dragon by Adam Wallace and illustrated by Andy Elkerton. Wonderland-Sourcebooks, 2019. This one is narrated not by the creature that is being hunted but by one of the hunters, a Chinese boy, who lives with his family, a mother and grandmother.  The town’s children are diverse though the setting seems like a very traditionally built Chinese town. Wallace is a white Australian, and Elkerton is English.

Saturdays Are For Stella by Candy Wellins and illustrated by Charlie Eve Ryan. Page Street Kids-Page Street, 2020. Intended audience: Ages 4-8. The protagonist, George, and his little sister Stella are a biracial.  Their father is Black, and their mother is white.  His grandmother Stella is Black. Wellins and Ryan are both white Americans.

Amy Wu and the Perfect Bao by Kat Zhang and illustrated by Charlene Chua. Aladdin-Simon & Schuster, 2019. Intended audience: Ages 4-8, Grades PreK-3. Young Amy and her family celebrate their Chinese heritage by cooking bao together.  *Zhang is Asian American.  Chua grew up in Singapore and lives in Canada.

A diverse cast with no protagonist

Roanoke Baby by Paige Garrison. Baltimore: duopress-Workman, 2014. The people in these illustrations reflect the diversity of the city with Black, Latinx, Asian, and white characters. On the page on festivals (“Roanoke babies love FESTIVALS…”), Asian (mother in kimono), African (mother in traditional, brightly patterned garb), Arabic (in traditional headgear, man in white keffiyeh with black agal), Greek (traditional vest, tasseled cloth belt, pointed hat), and white characters mingle at a festival that seems to be an amalgamation of several of local festivals or perhaps just the popular Strawberry Festival.

Wonderful Me: I Love All of Me by Lorie Ann Grover and illustrated by Carolina Búzio.  Cartwheel-Scholastic, 2019.  Intended audience: Ages 0-3. Diverse toddlers are illustrated in this book that praises various body parts for all of the things that they can do.  Grover is a white American. *Carolina Búzio is Portuguese.

This Little Artist: An Art History Primer by Joan Holub and illustrated by Daniel Roode. New York: Little Simon-Simon & Schuster, 2019.  Intended audience: Ages 3-5, Grades PreK-K. I was a little disappointed that Holub focused her primer on primarily white European and American artists, with the exception of Mexican Frida Kahlo and Jean-Michel Basquiat, who is a Black American and is the subject of the primer’s last two-page spread (although these two share the cover). The final pages, which highlight 17 different artists and leave a final space for “? YOU!”, include a few more artists of other ethnicities, including Japanese Yayoi Kusama, Chinese American Jiangmei Wu, and Chinese Liu Bolin, Black American Faith Ringold, and Ghanaian El Anatsui.  Holub is a white American. Roode is an American of French heritage.

How Do You Hug a Porcupine? by Laurie Isop and illustrated by Gwen Millward.  Simon & Schuster, 2011.  Intended audience: Ages 4-8. In this book, a diverse group of children hug a variety of animals. Isop is a white American. Millward is British and raised and living in Wales.

Father Gander Nursery Rhymes: The Equal Rhymes Amendment by Douglas Larche and illustrated by Carolyn M. Blattel. Advocacy, 1986. In this reworking of nursery rhymes, equal representation is the point.  While more emphasis seems put in the text on gender equality, the illustrations show a mix of races as well.  I don’t have this book with me to check, but I seem to remember mostly white and Black characters being depicted. Larche and Blattel are both white Americans.

Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story by Kevin Noble Maillard and illustrated by Juana Martinez-Neal. Roaring Brook-Macmillan, 2019. Intended audience: Ages 3-6. The cast of characters who make the bread are diverse though the eldest does appear to be Native American.  This book celebrates Native American heritage, the similarities and differences across nations.  *Maillard is a member of the Seminole Nation, Mekusukey band.  Martinez-Neal is Peruvian-born and living in the US.

A Book of Love by Emma Randall.  Penguin Random, 2019.  Intended audience: Ages 3-7. The people illustrated are racially diverse.  One child is in a wheelchair and several characters on the final pages wear head-coverings. Randall is British.

An animal or nonhuman protagonist with a secondary character who is a POC with a speaking role

Love, Z by Jessie Sima. Simon & Schuster, 2018.  Intended audience: Ages 4-8, Grades PreK-3. The letter that the robot Z finds is from Beatrice. Searching for love in delicious food, Z visits a dark skinned and black haired baker. In visiting the school, Z encounters children with various skin tones. As a child, Beatrice holds hands with a darker skinned, black haired girl who makes her feel safe. Sima is a white American.

An animal or nonhuman protagonist with diverse background characters

Library Mouse: Home Sweet Home by Daniel Kirk. Abrams, 2013.  There is some racial diversity among the children seen entering the library, but the story focuses on two mice who are exploring homes from around the world and among different architectural styles. Kirk is a white American.

How to Catch a Unicorn by Adam Wallace and illustrated by Andy Elkerton. Wonderland-Sourcebooks, 2019. In this book in the series, the unicorn is the narrator and POV character.  The children who try to capture her are a diverse group. Wallace is a white Australian, and Elkerton is English.

A white protagonist with diverse background characters

Flibbertygibbety Words: Young Shakespeare Chases Inspiration by Donna Guthrie and illustrated by Åsa Gilland.  Page Street Kids-Macmillan, 2020. Though the protagonist, a young William Shakespeare, is white, I was very pleased to see racial diversity in the characters on these pages, that the illustrator did not fall prey to the myth of a white Elizabethan England (Juliet is Black as is the queen and a pair of fashionable twins, and at least one princess is biracial). Guthrie is a white American. Gilland is Swedish.

A Scarf for Keiko by Ann Malaspina and illustrated by Merrilee Liddiard.  Kar-Ben, 2019.  Intended audience: Ages 5-10, Grades K-4. The POV character for this story, Sam, is a Jewish Polish American.  He and his family are friends with the Saitos, a Japanese American family.  The Saitos are harassed for their heritage and are sent away to a Japanese internment camp.  Young Sam knits a scarf to send to his friend, Keiko.  Liddiard is a white American. Malaspina is Grecian American.

Dragons Love Tacos 2: The Sequel by Adam Rubin and illustrated by Daniel Salmieri.  Dial-Penguin Random, 2017. Intended audience: Ages 3-5. The boy who travels with the dragons and his dog back in time to save the tacos from the previous book’s party is white.  On the end pages there is another taco party.  The characters illustrated there are diverse and include Black people, an ancient Egyptian woman, and a character I believe to be Indian Mahatma Gandhi. Rubin and Salmieri are both white Americans.

How to Catch a Dinosaur by Adam Wallace and illustrated by Andy Elkerton. Wonderland-Sourcebooks, 2019. A white boy rounds up his friends, a diverse pack that includes a Black girl and a racially ambiguous, darker skinned boy to capture a dinosaur to win a bike at the science fair. Wallace is a white Australian, and Elkerton is English.

Beginning Chapter Books (Ages 5-8)

A white protagonist with a secondary character who is a POC with a speaking role

The Princess in Black, Books 2-8 by Shannon and Dean Hale and illustrated by LeUyen Pham.  Candlewick-Penguin Random, 2015-2020.  Intended audience: Ages 5-8. With the introduction of princesses from across the kingdoms in the second book, this series introduces Black princesses and Asian princesses, their bodily features and dress inspired by cultures from Asia, India, and Africa.  The Hales are white Americans. *Pham is Vietnamese.

Dragon Masters, Books 1-13 by Tracey West and illustrated by Graham Howells (Books 1-4), Damien Jones (Books 5-10), Nina De Polonia (Book 11), Sara Foresti (Book 12), Daniel Griffo (Books 13 and 15), Matt Loveridge (Book 14). Dragon Masters, Books 1-15. Branches-Scholastic, 2014-2020.  Intended audience: Ages 6-8. I consider Drake from the British-like Bracken the protagonist of this series, but his fellow dragon riders are diverse.  In Bracken with Drake live Egyptian-inspired Ana and Chinese-inspired Bo.  Petra who joins the dragon masters in Bracken in the fifth book seems to be a place inspired by Greece and she is portrayed as darker-skinned than the native inhabitants of Bracken.  Eko is Japanese-inspired.  The wizard Diego and Carlos live in a place that seems to be inspired by Spain or Portugal.  In the tenth book, the dragon masters encounter elephants in a place that seems inspired by the African savannah.  In the twelfth, they visit a dragon and his master Darma in a place that seems inspired by Thai culture maybe.  The dragon of the thirteenth book by its name, Naga, I would guess is meant to be from an area inspired by India.  West and Loveridge are white Americans.  Foresti is Italian.  Howells and Jones are Welsh. *De Polonia is Filipino.  Griffo is Argentinean.

If you know or think that I have misrepresented anyone—creator or character—please tell me so that I can correct my information.

To see more such lists for this and previous and future years and for older audiences, check out my “Representation Matters” page.

Book Reviews: 2020 Catch Up Picture Book Roundup

This year I didn’t read nearly as many picture books as previous years.  Because I missed some months entirely and other months read only a single book, I didn’t get to do my monthly picture book roundups. In fact, I only did January, March, June, and August.  So this last roundup of 2020 is every other month besides those four.  Hopefully… maybe… 2021 will see some normalcy return to this blog and elsewhere.

What Is Love?

Please Don’t Tell Cooper He’s a Dog by Michelle Lander Feinberg and illustrated by Anna Mosca.  SDP, 2020. Intended audience: Ages 2-8.

The illustrations are wonderfully whimsical and watercolor-like, and the story is so sweet.  I’ve cats and a pony rather than any dog, but I know I talk to them as though they’re human too (especially the cats).  This is a delightful little book, and I’d love to hear more about Cooper’s exploits in Europe. 

Cooper, a large dog (Bernese Mountain dog?), is adopted by a large, white family (five kids, mother, father), is treated as a family member, given a seat at the table, taken on skiing trips where he skis beside his humans, et al, and this encourages him to believe himself more human than dog.  Once called a dog, Cooper takes off to Europe on his own grand tour, buying himself a plane ticket or several.  He misses his family and returns home despite the slight to be treated again as a human member of the family. 

I think far too few pages were dedicated to Cooper’s adventures in Europe, and I sincerely hope that there might be and think that there is room for sequels of Cooper’s adventures abroad.  The book focuses more on the message that this dog Cooper—all dogs—should be treated as family than on international hijinks that I think would be a laugh as Cooper convinces European nationals to treat him as much as human as his family in America does do. This would be a sweet book, a funny book for any dog-loving family.

****

Wonderful Me: I Love All of Me by Lorie Ann Grover and illustrated by Carolina Búzio.  Cartwheel-Scholastic, 2019.  Intended audience: Ages 0-3.

Featuring diverse toddlers, the refrain of this book is “I love my,” and it exalts each body part for doing what it does, “legs that run” and a “licky tongue”—yes, it’s told in rhyme too.  The illustrations are bright, simple, and lightly patterned.  Of course it ends with the titular “I love all of me!”  There are many such books, extolling love for one’s body as it is, but this is one of the better ones that I have read, although definitely simple. I like that the focus is placed on the abilities of these body parts than on their looks so much.

****

Always More Love by Erin Guendelsberger and illustrated by Andotwin.  Wonderland-Sourcebooks, 2020.

The narrator and protagonist of this story is an anthropomorphized heart, the shape given a face and stick legs and arms.  It begins by stating that “I love you so much, but there’s more room in my heart.  How is that possible?” making it one of those stories that I find awkward to read to strangers.  The story asks too that the reader interact with the character on the page, for example, tickling it beneath its chin and shaking the book to make the following page change.  This would be a sweet, interactive story for a family though not the best for a story time inside a store or library.  The book alludes to Frozen at the very end by calling the heart’s love “an open door,” which I know that heart means more innocently than does Hans, but… I’m not sure that metaphor works anymore to mean what the authors wants it to mean.

**1/2

What Is a Family? by Cassandra Hames and illustrated by Nila Aye.  Cottage Door, 2019.

I was so pleased by this sweet little board book.  Rather than return it to the publisher, I tried to find it a home by placing it on our Valentine’s Day table, where it ought to have been all along.  I don’t remember whether or not I succeeded.  All the characters are anthropomorphized animals.  In this story, it is made clear that family need not be only blood relations, although most of the families shown, bar one, are all the same species.  “You’re bound by years and laughter and not a shared last name,” it states.  The story is lyrically told: “Love is your lighthouse, and your family is your sail.”  I just really enjoy the text of this story, and I don’t know why it didn’t receive a better reception. Cottage Door really is a marvelous press.

****

A Book of Love by Emma Randall.  Penguin Random, 2019.  Intended audience: Ages 3-7.

This book lists of different ways to show love through kindness beyond mere physical affection.  It’s cheesy, but it’s deliciously sweet cheese.  The illustrated people are racially diverse, and the illustrations in general are all brightly colored and fairly busy.  The characters expressing love exude showers of small hearts.  One child is in a wheelchair and several characters on the final pages wear head-coverings.

***1/2

Historical Fiction and Medieval Fantasy

A Scarf for Keiko by Ann Malaspina and illustrated by Merrilee Liddiard.  Kar-Ben, 2019.  Intended audience: Ages 5-10, Grades K-4.

I found this book by paging through the offerings on my Libby app in October.  Set in Los Angeles during World War 2 after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the engagement of the US against Japan, a white, Jewish, Polish American boy, Sam, the protagonist and POV character, witnesses the cruel intolerance and harassment leveled at his classmate Keiko and her Japanese American family.  The class has been learning to knit.  Keiko as she leaves for a Japanese internment camp leaves her bike for Sam and a pair of socks that she knitted for his brother Mike, a US soldier abroad.  Her kindness is Sam’s impetus to learn to knit.  He makes a scarf that he sends to Keiko in the internment camp. 

In the back of the book are several pages with more information about the prejudice towards Japanese Americans during World War 2 and about the internment camps. 

The focus on a white family’s sympathy for their Japanese American neighbors was an interesting perspective to take for this story, and at first I disliked that the story focuses more on Sam than it does Keiko, but in a second reading, prepared perhaps now, knowing that the protagonist is not Keiko, I minded that far less.  I actually appreciate the focus on a Jewish family that empathizes with the Japanese Americans.  This is a story I would really almost like explored in more detail than this picture book allows it.  But what an important story of history, of kindness, and of friendship!  This is one of a few stories for children that I have seen addresses this shameful history and probably the only picture book that I can think of that does so. 

I also appreciate the illustrations of a young boy pursuing what is now viewed as a fairly feminine craft.

****

Flibbertigibbety Words: Young Shakespeare Chases Inspiration by Donna Guthrie and illustrated by Åsa Gilland.  Page Street Kids-Macmillan, 2020.

This was posted on Page Street Kids’ Instagram newsfeed, read aloud by the author, briefly when it was first published in September.  A child Shakespeare chases across the pages lines recognizable from his plays, written in creative, flowing, colorful fonts, and William describes the lines with words and phrases that Shakespeare is credited with inventing, words like flibbertigibbety and zany and madcap and cold-hearted.  The illustrations and the characters that he encounters take inspiration from Shakespeare’s famous works, implying that the young Shakespeare of the story is inspired by these sights on this fictional, fanciful journey.  In the end, William captures the words with a pen and paper, writing them instead of chasing them through the streets.  The story is lyrically told with lots of repetition.  I was very pleased to see racial diversity in the characters on these pages, that the illustrator did not fall prey to the myth of a white Elizabethan England (Juliet is Black as is the queen and a pair of fashionable twins, and at least one princess is biracial).  I loosely call this historical fiction.  I believe it was billed as a biography.  Really it is neither.  It is a fun, imaginative story of finding inspiration, almost akin to Kobi Yamada‘s works, that happens to draw its inspiration from Shakespeare and his works.

****

The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins by Dr. Seuss.  Penguin Random, 1989.  First published Vanguard, 1938.  Intended audience: Ages 5-9.

Rare is the opportunity for picture books to be read aloud to me.  My housemate did me this honor in April.  I don’t remember why.  Perhaps it was a particularly bad day (in April that is likely), and she caught me paging through the Dr. Seuss collection that she owns. 

This is the medieval fantasy of this group.  The kingdom of Didd does not nor has ever existed, though its wanton enforcement of obsequiousness to a king or ruler or authority figure certainly existed and continues to exist.  

Bartholomew Cubbins does everything right, does everything that he can to be obsequious to the king, but his suddenly magical hat has other ideas, and King Derwin refuses to believe that Bartholomew is not intentionally disrespecting the king, despite Bartholomew’s actions and pleas.  Each time he takes off his hat, another appears on his head, and for the insult of wearing a hat in the presence of the king, for the insult of befuddling King Derwin’s milliner, wisest advisers, nephew, greatest bowman, magicians, and executioner, Bartholomew is sentenced to death by being pushed from the highest tower by the king’s conceited and spoiled nephew.  Bartholomew sheds more and more elaborate hats before finally the king, admiring the now magnificent hat on Bartholomew’s head, buys the hat and all the others besides from Bartholomew, making the cranberry farmer suddenly rich.

The punishment that the king’s nephew receives for speaking disrespectfully is a spanking, not something I condone, but certainly a lesser punishment than the arrest and execution that the poor and unconnected Bartholomew faces for a lesser offense of trying and failing to show respect to the king.

The danger to Bartholomew builds the tension of the story.  It seems that he will be killed, without any sign of his hat forfeiting its newly found magical ability, until the sudden reversal of the king’s attitude, a change brought on by Bartholomew’s sudden wealth (of a good hat).

Dr. Seuss certainly had a way of squeezing social commentary and lessons into his stories.  This one seems to be about the ridiculousness of laws demanding fawning to a single authority.  But it might also praise capitalism and invention.  I think it rewards individuality but also rewards wealth.  It is the king’s offer to buy the final grandiose hat that ends the magic, allows Bartholomew to bare his head, and rewards the king with a fine, new hat and rewards Bartholomew with gold.

The story is illustrated in hues of gray with Bartholomew’s hats the only splashes of red on each page.

****

These reviews are not endorsed by any of the authors or publishers or anyone else involved in the making of these books. They are independent, honest reviews by a reader.

Click the covers for links to purchase and more information about each title.

Book Reviews: June 2020 Picture Book Roundup: Visiting Another’s Bookshelves

Roanoke Baby by Paige Garrison. Baltimore: duopress-Workman, 2014.

Roanoke Baby is definitely a local and a niche market book, although most of the text would be very easily adaptable to any city in the way that the series from Good Night Books do or even more so as do the regional books put out by Sourcebooks, (except perhaps that [Roanoke babies] “live under a big, shiny STAR,” the Star referencing a giant, lit statue that looms over the city from atop one of its nearest mountains). The text itself is simple with sentences continuing on multiple page spreads, alleviating some of the repetition that could have made this story flounder. I am especially fond of the final page, which gives suggestions for several pages to help readers make the story more interactive: “Can you find the American flag in the picture?” “How many people do you see in these pictures?” “What colors do you see here?” “Can you find a square and a triangle?” The people in these illustrations reflect the diversity of the city with Black, Latinx, Asian, and white characters. On the page on festivals (“Roanoke babies love FESTIVALS…”), Asian (mother in kimono), African (mother in traditional, brightly patterned garb), Arabic (in traditional headgear, man in white keffiyeh with black agal), Greek (traditional vest, tasseled cloth belt, pointed hat), and white characters mingle at a festival that seems to be an amalgamation of several of local festivals or perhaps just the popular Strawberry Festival.

***

This Little Artist: An Art History Primer by Joan Holub and illustrated by Daniel Roode. New York: Little Simon-Simon & Schuster, 2019.  Intended audience: Ages 3-5, Grades PreK-K.

This book offers a very brief introduction to a few well-known artists, both modern and older from around the world. Knowing a bit of art history, I got a bit of a laugh at the wholesome, brief descriptions of these characters, particularly the bitter and vindictive Michelangelo shown here with a bright U of a smile. The descriptions focus more on what the artists created than on their biographies. The left side of the page spread is a simpler description of the artists’ works, beginning with “This little artist.” The right side of the page spread is a little bit more detailed and gives the artists’ full names. I was a little disappointed that Holub focused her primer on primarily white European and American artists, with the exception of Mexican Frida Kahlo and Jean-Michel Basquiat, who is Black and is the subject of the primer’s last two-page spread (although these two share the cover). The final pages, which highlight 17 different artists and leave a final space for “? YOU!”, include a few more artists of other ethnicities, including Yayoi Kusama, Jiangmei Wu, and Liu Bolin, as well as Faith Ringold, El Anatsui. The artists featured cover an impressive range of styles and mediums, particularly including the final 17. Many of these last 17 I was unfamiliar with and so learned from this primer myself. Of course, I have always laughed and said that my knowledge of art history ends around 1600, which is when my mind reached its saturation in my AP class (although I can pride myself on saying that I knew every of the 10 artists featured on the 2-page spreads and would struggle most with recognizing Basquiat, who I learned of only fairly recently, I am ashamed to say, when Radiant Child won the 2017 Caldecott award).

***

Maybe by Kobi Yamada and illustrated by Gabriella Barouch. Seattle: Compendium, 2019.

I wasn’t as impressed by this book as I had hoped to be. I have enjoyed Yamada’s What Do You Do series, and I love cover illustration of this book by Barouch. But this book falls flat by just not adding much to the plethora of books out now that express a child’s future potential and the necessity of their existence on Earth. I do enjoy that the central character here, though white (pale skin, darker hair mostly hidden beneath a cap, freckles, pale brown eyes), is fairly gender neutral. The shoes to me suggest a more female presentation, but I know too that that’s society’s gender binary intruding on my imagination. I enjoyed the imaginative scenes with which the character interacts, and I love the sentiment that “the world has been waiting for centuries for someone exactly like you. One thing is for sure, you are here. And because you are here… anything is possible” is linked with the invention of wings for the child’s pet pig, making a visual pun of the phrase of “when pigs fly,” a cliche suggesting that something is impossible, and the illustration suggesting then the impossible is made possible through imagination and invention.

****

These reviews are not endorsed by any of the authors or publishers or anyone else involved in the making of these books. They are independent, honest reviews by a reader.

Characters of Color in Books That I Read in 2019: Part 2: Picture Books

A friend and I talking about Black creators in the publishing world on Facebook prompted me to go back through my list of rated picture books on Goodreads. I looked for books by and about Black characters for that age. I found remarkably few.

I am calling myself out.  *And I am still learning.  I have been reading that the preferred terminology is Black, capital B, Black being a more inclusive term, rather than African American, and African American only if told that that is the person’s preferred term, and that the two terms are not synonymous.  So I am editing this piece on June 14 to reflect this.  I apologize for being ill-informed before.  Please correct me if I am wrong.

I found among the picture books that I had rated 5-stars only ‪Mahogany L. Browne‘s board book, Woke Baby, illustrated by Theodore Taylor III, and‬ a picture book, ‪Quvenzhané Wallis‘ A Night Out with Mama‬, illustrated by Vanessa Brantley-Newton.

Looking further into my 4-star reads I found Sean Qualls illustrated The Case for Loving, the story of the couple that helped lift the ban on interracial marriage in the US. Edwidge Danticat, a black Haitian-American, wrote Mama’s Nightingale about the injustice of the detention of immigrants found to have overstayed their visas or entered without paperwork. Keith D. Shepherd illustrated Walking Home to Rosie Lee, which is about a freed boy looking for his mother in Reconstruction American.

I am highlighting these creators so that you might know their names too and look for them.

The following list is a compilation of picture books about characters of color.

I began these lists in 2016 to call myself to seek out more characters of color, to highlight the disparity of publications about white characters versus characters of color as highlighted by SLJ in 2015 and again in 2018 (those illustrations based off stats from this website), and to bring extra attention here to those works that do include characters of color.

I read 141 books altogether in 2019. These numbers include books for any age. 69 of those included a character of color, 49% of the total, very nearly half (28% in 2018, 27% in 2017, 26% in 2016, 23% in 2015). 26 of those included a character of color as a protagonist, 18% of the total and 38% of the books with a character of color at all (7% of the total in 2018, 14% in 2017, 9% in 2016). Those numbers are far better then than any year for which I have done this survey of my own reading, but I know I need to work to make them higher.

Picture books give me less information generally than do novels when trying to determine whether or not a character is a person of color or how that person would identify themselves, but I’ve done my best. I have also done my best this year to highlight creators of color based on biographies I found online.

Picture and Board Books (Ages 0-8)

Books with a POC as a protagonist 

I Will Be Fierce by Bea Birdsong and illustrated by Nidhi Chanani. Roaring Brook-Macmillan, 2019.  The protagonist and her family seem to be either Indian or Pakistani, as do most of the families in their apartment building, who are not shown, but whose names are on the mailboxes. Her classmates are diverse. One of the teachers seems to be a woman of color as well. *Chanani is Indian-American.

Woke Baby by Mahogany L. Browne and illustrated by Theodore Taylor III. Roaring Brook-Macmillan, 2018.  A darker skinned infant wakes in a crib and the text follows the child through all the day in this lyrical celebration of its body and its power. The family is Black. *Browne and Taylor are both Black.

When Grandma Gives You a Lemon Tree by Jamie L. B. Deenihan and illustrated by Lorraine Rocha. Sterling, 2019. The protagonist, a little girl, and her family are darker skinned, probably Black. They live in a large city with diverse citizens.

The People Could Fly by Virginia Hamilton and illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon. Knopf-Random, 2004.  This story was originally published by Hamilton in a collection of African American folktales. Told during a time of American enslavement, this is a tale about African people who had wings that fell off during the horrors of the Passage and the old man who spoke magic words to help a group of people on an American plantation fly away from their enslavement. In the author’s note, Hamilton notes that the power to fly is associated with the Gullah (Angolan) people. *Hamilton was Black and Leo Dillon was the son of Trinidadian immigrants to the US. 

Julián Is a Mermaid by Jessica Love. Candlewick, 2018.  Julián is Afro-Latinx. Julián and his abuela speak in Spanish and English in the text. I think every character depicted even the crowd and street scenes is darker skinned.

Harrison Dwight, Ballerina and Knight by Rachael MacFarlane and illustrated by Spencer Laudiero. Macmillan. 2019.  Harrison appears to be biracial (his father has brown hair and a darker skin tone than his mother, who is blonde), and characters throughout the book have various skin tones and hair colors, including some of the characters in the city scenes and at the science fair, the winner of which appears to be Black as does the friend of Harrison’s that is moving away and the boy shown crying at a sad book while reading in bed. There is also a darker skinned ballerina.

Where Are You From? by Yamile Saied Méndez and illustrated by Jamie Kim. HarperCollins, 2019.  The family of the protagonist, a little girl, is from somewhere in the Pampas, a region in South America that stretches across Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil. This book provides a heartfelt answer full of love to the annoying question “But where are you from?”. * Méndez is Argentine-American. Kim is South Korean and immigrated to the US at 18.

A diverse cast with no protagonist

Sunny Day: A Celebration of Sesame Street by Joe Raposo and illustrated by Christian Robinson, Selina Alko, Brigette Barrager, Roger Bradford, Vanessa Brantley-Newton, Ziyue Chen, Joey Chou, Pat Cummings, Mike Curato, Leo Espinosa, Tom Lichtenheld, Rafael López, Emily Winfield Martin, Joe Mathieu, Kenard Pak, Greg Pizzoli, Sean Qualls, and Dan Santat. Random, 2019.  This book, each page spread illustrated by a different person, celebrates the power and history of Sesame Street. Most illustrators who use human characters (and almost all of them do) use diverse human characters. These include a woman in possibly a chador and several girls in hijabs. *Robinson, Brantley-Newton, Cummings, and Qualls are Black. Chen is from Singapore. Chou was born in Taiwan. Espinosa is Columbian. López is Mexican and splits his time between Mexico and the US now. Santat’s family is from Thailand.

Love Makes a Family by Sophie Beer. Dial-Penguin Random, 2018.  Beer’s book is about all the different kinds of families and these include interracial and darker skinned families, families that I would guess are Black, Arabic with the mother wearing a hijab, and Latinx.

I Am Enough by Grace Byers and illustrated by Keturah A. Bobo. Balzer + Bray-HarperCollins, 2018.  I Am Enough features a Black girl on its cover, but its story is about the inherent worth of every girl, including Black girls (with natural hair it should be noted) and with more than one shade of brown skin, one girl wears a hijab and is likely Arabic, one looks to be possibly of East Asian descent, and one looks possibly Latina. *Byers is Caymanian-American and biracial. Bobo is Black.

How to Trap a Leprechaun by Sue Fliess and illustrated by Emma Randall. Sky Pony-Skyhorse, 2017.  Of the four characters represented, two are white, one is dark skinned, probably Black, and the fourth has skin toned somewhere in the middle, possibly also Black or possibly meant to be maybe Latina. But all four children seem more props to the plot of explaining the legend of the leprechaun and how to trap one than full characters.

We’re Different, We’re the Same by Bobbi Jane Kates and illustrated by Joe Mathieu. Random, 1992.  This book is about diversity. Put out by Sesame Street, the puppets’ bodies are compared to those of illustrated humans. The human characters are from many backgrounds, including Black, Asian, and white. The illustrations focus more on differences in physical appearances while the text seems to focus on differences in physical abilities.

All You Need Is Love by John Lennon and illustrated by Marc Rosenthal. Little Simon-Simon & Schuster, 2019.  This book illustrates the Beatles song of the same name. The illustrations start in a forest following a bear that wanders towards a city and finds a boy playing with a toy truck who has light brown skin and dark hair. The citizens of the city that the two go to are a diverse group, including a woman wearing a headscarf. A few of the citizens look to possibly be of Asian descent.

An animal or nonhuman protagonist with a secondary character who is a POC with a speaking role

Merry Christmas, Little Elliot by Mike Curato. Henry Holt-Macmillan, 2018.  Elliot and Mouse search across New York City for the spirit of Christmas but are unsuccessful. They find a letter to Santa that has gone astray and travel to the suburbs to answer it, meeting a new friend, Noelle, who is darker skinned. The New Yorkers in the group scenes have different skin tones.

A Friend Like Him by Suzanne Francis and illustrated by Dominic Carola and Ryan Feltman. Disney, 2019.  This book was released by Disney in conjunction with the new, live-action Aladdin. Aladdin and the people of Agrabah are depicted as Arabic. Jinni is the protagonist, though, I would say, and though he disguises himself at Aladdin’s request as human, appearing then in the guise of Will Smith, who is Black, the character is a jinni and not human.

Corduroy by Don Freeman.  Penguin, 1968.  Corduroy is the protagonist of this story, but he is returned to his pristine condition and loved by a Black girl, Lisa.

The Duchess and Guy: A Rescue-to-Royalty Puppy Love Story by Nancy Furstinger and illustrated by Julia Bereciartu. Houghton Mifflin, 2019.  The dog, Guy, is the protagonist of this story, but he is loved by Meghan Markle, now Duchess of Sussex and married to a prince, is biracial; her mother is Black; her father is white. 

Daniel Chooses to Be Kind by Rachel Kalban and illustrated by Jason Fruchter.  Simon Spotlight-Simon & Schuster, 2017.  Daniel Tiger is the protagonist. Daniel is made king for a day by the white monarch, King Friday. In fulfilling his kingly duties, Daniel visits Baker Aker, who is darker skinned, and helps him with his rolls. He also visits Music Man Stan, who is darker skinned than Aker with a black afro hairstyle. Daniel helps Music Man Stan when his sheet music is caught in the wind. Daniel also cheers up Miss Elaina, a young dark skinned girl with textured hair. Miss Elaina as the daughter of Music Man Stan and Lady Elaine, who is white with blond hair, is biracial.

Love, Z by Jessie Sima. Simon & Schuster, 2018.  The letter that the robot Z finds is from Beatrice. Searching for love in delicious food, Z visits a dark skinned and black haired baker. In visiting the school, Z encounters children with various skin tones. As a child, Beatrice holds hands with a darker skinned, black haired girl who makes her feel safe.

An animal or nonhuman protagonist with diverse background characters

We Don’t Eat Our Classmates by Ryan T. Higgins. Hyperion-Disney, 2018. Penelope Rex, a young T. rex, is the protagonist, but her classmates are a diverse group including a hijabi and a boy in a yarmulke as well as children with varied skin tones.

A white protagonist with diverse background characters

Cookies for Santa: The Story of How Santa’s Favorite Cookie Saved Christmas. Illustrated by Johanna Tarkela. America’s Test Kitchen Kids-Sourcebooks Explore-Sourcebooks, 2019.  Santa and Santa’s family and the elves and the family that finds the cookbook are all white, but the family in lieu of getting the cookbook back to Santa in time for Christmas, broadcast the recipe and ask families across the country to bake cookies in Santa’s stead. (I cannot find a read-aloud online to check the illustrations for myself and the book is not currently on the shelves as it is not the season, so I am going from memory.)

Clifford the Small Red Puppy by Norman Bridwell. Cartwheel-Scholastic, 1972. One of the police officers who come to investigate the disturbance that is Clifford is darker skinned with gray, curly hair. Every other character in the book appears white.

Juno Valentine and the Fantastic Fashion Adventure by Eva Chen and illustrated by Derek Desierto. Feiwel & Friends-Macmillan, 2019..  Juno herself appears to be white. One of her friends has a skin tone near hers and blonde hair. Two have a tone that is darker. And one has a skin tone darker than any of the others’. In the story, Juno becomes famous women throughout history, many of whom are women of color. In the place of such women, Juno interacts with a few characters of color, including a few servants (slaves more likely) serving Cleopatra, possibly of Egyptian heritage. As Misty Copeland, Juno encounters ballerinas with a range of skin tones and hair colors. *Chen’s parents are from Taipei and Shanghai.  Derek Desierto is Canadian-Filipino.

No More Monsters Under Your Bed! by Jordan Chouteau and illustrated by Anat Even Or. JIMMY Patterson-Little, Brown-Hatchette, 2019..  The unnamed boy appears white. The first child that the boy shares his magic pin with appears to be a Black girl with natural, curly hair. *Or was born in Tel-Aviv.

We Are the Gardeners by Joanna Gaines and illustrated by Julianna Swaney. Thomas Nelson-HarperCollins, 2019.  *Gaines’ mother is Korean and her father is half-Lebanese/half-German.  She and her family are the protagonists of this story, which is really more nonfiction than fiction.

Elle the Entrepreneur by Andrea B. Newman. Petite, 2016.  The second family to whom Elle reaches out are darker skinned with black hair and gray or brown eyes. They do not hire Elle because setting the table is already one of the chores that their children do.

We’re All Wonders by R. J. Palacio. Alfred A. Knopf-Penguin Random, 2017.  The protagonist is actually pictured as having white—no, white—skin. The protagonist claims that he doesn’t look “ordinary […] like other kids.” The other kids he imagines are a diverse group include skin tones across the spectrum and a girl who wears something akin to a hijab. This diverse group is among those that “sometimes […] stare […] point or laugh [and] even say mean things behind [his] back.” The friend that he makes at the end is darker skinned, but this boy is never given any dialogue or narrative role. *Palacio’s parents were Columbian immigrants to the US.

Dear Girl, by Amy Krouse and Paris Rosenthal and illustrated by Holly Hatam. HarperCollins, 2017.  The protagonist is a white skinned girl with black hair. A dark skinned girl with a black afro is seen thanking her birthmark for making her unique. Another dark skinned girl offers a hug. Another plays soccer and one with a lighter brown skin tone and brown hair paints.

Dear Boy, by Paris and Jason Rosenthal and illustrated by Holly Hatam. HarperCollins, 2019. The protagonist is an unnaturally white skinned boy with black hair but the friends who cheer him on are diverse. The inclusion of characters with more naturally white skin (more of a sawdust than milk) make me wonder if the boy’s white skin, skin so white as to match the uncolored page is meant to be an absence of skin tone rather than a white, but other characters are also represented as unnaturally white skinned too.

Greta and the Giants by Zoë Tucker and illustrated by Zoe Persico. Frances Lincoln Children’s-Quarto, 2019.  Greta Thunberg is of course Swedish, but in this fantastic reimagining of her fight against disinterested governments and greedy big businesses, the second child to join her protest is a darker skinned boy. And the growing crowd of protesters is diverse.

As always, if you know I have misrepresented anyone, please tell me so that I can correct my information.

Book Reviews: November 2019 Picture Book Roundup: Sing Along

Snow Blows White

The Soundtrack Series: Let It Go by the Disney Book Group. Disney, 2019. Intended audience: Ages 3-5.

You probably almost all know this book by heart already. This is the lyrics and illustrations to match the original animation of “Let It Go” from Disney’s Frozen. Nothing really spectacular here, but if you need the lyrics for, say, a sing-along story time, it is a helpful book to have on hand. The book comes with a CD of the single. According to the description, the CD is a karaoke, instrumental version, and a sing-along version of the song. It’s a good song, but I’m not sure that the picture book is a necessary publication. I was surprised how few of my littles at story time did sing along with the book and I (we were a cappella). I had one who definitely knew the chorus, but that was all the backup that I got.

***

Reindeers Are Better Than People by the Walt Disney Company. Disney, 2015. Intended audience: Ages 3-5.

I had sort of hoped that this would be the lyrics to the song like the Soundtrack Series: Let It Go—only because I was doing a sing-along story time. It was not. I still sang the song for the kids, and I only missed a line. I pulled it up on my iPod and let Jonathan Groff sing us through it once too. It’s such a delightful, short song. Instead of lyrics, this is a very brief introduction to the characters of Frozen, seemingly narrated by Kristoff (I would guess because of his “thing with the reindeer”), two sentences or for each of the main adventurers. The kids at story time laughed at and seemed to very much enjoy the characters that they knew with reindeer antlers.

***

 

Anna, Elsa, and the Secret River by Andria Warmflash Rosenbaum and illustrated by Denise Shimabukuro and Elena Naggi. Disney, 2019. Intended audience: Ages 3-5.

This is a new adventure for children Anna and Elsa. Note: I have not yet seen the new film, but I don’t believe that this particular adventure is portrayed in the film. Anna convinces Elsa to chase after a magical river that might provide answers to why Elsa is born with magic mentioned in a lullaby. The sisters use their senses to search for the river, but the sun begins to rise before they find it. As soon as they decide to return to the castle, they wake in their beds, but was the adventure a dream or did they really venture out of the castle and into the woods? The illustrations in this are beautiful, and Rosenbaum does a good job capturing the personalities of the two sisters as I understand them from the first Frozen film. The introduction to the senses—sight, smell, hearing—was a nice touch too.

****

The Crayons’ Christmas by Drew Daywalt and illustrated by Oliver Jeffers.  Penguin Workshop-Penguin Random, 2019.

In previous Crayons books the crayons have written to Duncan.  Now the crayons are the recipients, receiving letters and postcards and gifts from friends and family in a sweet celebration of reaching out to loved ones at the holidays.  The book has the same offbeat humor and insightful comments on our use of colors that the previous books did.  Many of the characters are from previous books, their adventures expanded here, and I think the book made less sense as a standalone for that reason.  The concept of the crayons and their letters was not well explained in this book (I’m giving it five stars anyway but suggest reading The Day the Crayons Came Home first; meet Esteban).

I grew up with my mother’s love of the interactive picture book, The Jolly Postman by Allan Ahlberg.  This book reminded me of that with its letters and postcards and gifts in envelopes attached to the page while the envelopes’ contents remained separate, able to be taken from the book and read.  This book includes ornaments to hang on a Christmas tree, games, and a gluten-free cookie recipe to try in addition to letters and postcards.  There was also a Hanukkah greeting and paper dreidel to make!  Reading it could easily be spread out over a day or several days if one stops to interact with all the contents.

I had a small audience for this one, but they did better with this story than they have with the length of any of the other Crayons books.  I struggled to balance the book and the separate pieces.  If you’re reading it aloud, make sure you have somewhere to lay the book down to hold up the envelopes’ contents.

*****

 

Jack Frost vs. the Abominable Snowman by Craig Manning and illustrated by Alan Brown. Wonderland-Sourcebooks, 2019. Intended audience: Ages 4-7.

I am excited to have an introduction to choose your own adventure style stories for such a young audience, although the Choose Your Path series name is more fitting. The endings for this story cannot change; there is only one. A reader can however choose which character to follow through the story. There is a lesson here about not having to be locked into one way of reading. When I let my story time children choose their path, they did miss one adventure with Abe the Abominable Snowman, so if they read it a second time, there might be a surprise for them. The instructions to turn to this or that page were included in the rhyming text, and sometimes that felt awkward, but reading it aloud without any prep time, it was nice to have a catchy way to explain to the audience how we could choose between following either of the two racers.

***

Cookies for Santa: The Story of How Santa’s Favorite Cookie Saved Christmas. Illustrated by Johanna Tarkela. America’s Test Kitchen Kids-Sourcebooks Explore-Sourcebooks, 2019. Intended audience: Ages 4-7.

This was a pretty long book for story time, and required me to skip a bit of the text—though, again, I didn’t get to prep. With more time before reading, I might have been able to trim it more effectively. I barreled through to the ending, but the kids’ attentions were wandering. This is yet one more picture book trying to begin a new Christmastime tradition (like Elf on the Shelf, like Santa’s Magic Key), though this is my favorite of the traditions that picture books have yet tried to begin—and may already be a tradition for many. This tradition is to make a particular type of cookie: Chocolate Krinkle Cookies.

The Kringle family cookbook, which Santa uses every year to make cookies for his helpers and family, is missing. Santa cannot get the recipe right without. He has no cookies to share as he usually does. His helpers and family feel unappreciated and become uncooperative, not helping him prepare for Christmas any longer.

Meanwhile in a library, Abigail who reads cookbooks for fun, finds the Kringle cookbook. She brings it home, and the odd ingredients in the cookbook confuse her family.

In a televised address, Santa confesses to feeling like he should cancel Christmas because he is so upset that he lost the cookbook. Abigail and her family realize what they have, and rush to the America’s Test Kitchen studio to get help with the recipe, not having time to mail the book back to Santa in time for Christmas. The cooks there figure out substitutes for all of the magical ingredients. They televise the recipe and encourage the world to bake the cookies that Santa could not and leave them for him.

On his rounds, Santa finds the cookies left for him, and cheers up considerably. Abigail and her family leave the book for him in addition to the cookies.

In addition to being long, I didn’t really like any character in this story. Santa is not jolly. He, the elves, reindeer, and Mrs. Claus are too focused on the gifts that come with the season. The insertion of America’s Test Kitchen was clunky and clearly an advertisement for the company. I think reading aloud I actually left out the trademarked brand, and I think that the text ought to have done too.

The story I think would have been better without the inclusion of Abigail and her family and without the inclusion of America’s Test Kitchen, perhaps instead a story about Santa losing his cookbook and his family and friends reminding him of the Christmas spirit. The idea that the world gets to give back to Santa is sweet, though.

I could never decide whether I was imagining that the stack of these books smelled a touch like peppermint and chocolate, though they are not advertised as scented.

Kirkus suggests a chance that Abigail and William’s mom might be Asian, but I’m not sure that I see the same.

The book does include the recipe in the backmatter.

**

Cookiesaurus Christmas by Amy Fellner Dominy and Nate Evans and illustrated by AG Ford. Hyperion-Disney, 2018. Intended audience: Ages 3-5.

I did not realize that Cookiesaurus was a series until I began to research for this review, though this is only the second in the series. Cookiesaurus, whose pleas and excuses make up the text of the story, wants to be the cookie left out for Santa. He knocks other cookies off the plate, making several messes and hurting his friends. Near the end, he realizes that his friends have been hurt by his actions and apologizes and helps the cookies back onto the plate. As a reward, he is chosen to top the Christmas tree. The style of writing reminds me of Mo Willems’ Pigeon books.

***

Making the World a Kinder Place

Stir, Crack, Whisk, Bake: A Little Book about Little Cakes. America’s Test Kitchen Kids-Sourcebook Explore-Sourcebooks, 2019.

This is an interactive book on the line of Don’t Touch the Button! and Press Here. My audience member was shy and nervous about participating. The text reads like instructions for an app game, especially “Use your finger to drag each [ingredient] to the counter.” The end result of these interactive instructions is a batch of cupcakes for a “special day.”  This is a way to “bake” together with a little one without the mess, but the result is only “cupcakes.” I can’t eat “cupcakes.” I can see where a family might use this one though, to make a little feel as though they had been included in the baking process.

***

Sunny Day: A Celebration of Sesame Street by Joe Raposo and illustrated by Christian Robinson, Selina Alko, Brigette Barrager, Roger Bradford, Vanessa Brantley-Newton, Ziyue Chen, Joey Chu, Pat Cummings, Mike Curato, Leo Espinosa, Tom Lichtenhelf, Rafael López, Emily Winfield Martin, Joe Mathieu, Kenard Pak, Greg Pizzoli, Sean Qualls, and Dan Santat. Random, 2019. Intended audience: Ages 4-8.

The text of this book is the lyrics of the theme song that opens episodes of Sesame Street. Each illustrator gets a single page spread. The book celebrates diversity. As a bookseller, I enjoyed the challenge of identifying each illustrator and have yet to convince myself that I have solved the puzzle. I believe the illustrators are listed in the order that they appear, but I would have to double-check that. The text works best, I think, as a sing-along, but there was a verse that neither I nor the young parents at my story time remembered.

***

People in Your Neighborhood by Jeff Moss and Sesame Street. Sterling, 2019. Intended audience: Ages 3-7.

I remembered this song only after looking it up, and I did not find this exact version of the song. I was able to sing the chorus for story time but not the verses. The book does come with a CD, but reading a book intended for sale to another, I did not use it for story time. The book introduces children to several professions including postman and fireman. The book suggests that putting on the clothes of such a profession makes one such a professional.

This book has been available at Barnes & Noble for several months now, at least since November when it was a required story time read, but it appears that it will be getting a wider release in February 2020.

***

Greta and the Giants by Zoë Tucker and illustrated by Zoe Persico. Frances Lincoln Children’s-Quarto, 2019. Intended audience: Ages 4-7.

Greta Thunberg, Time’s Person of the Year 2019, is in another picture book. This one makes fantastic her battle against the giant corporations—here literal giants. Greta lives in a forest. The forest animals come to Greta to ask for her help because the Giants are destroying their home. Greta makes a sign and stands in the Giants’ way. They bowl past her, but other human inhabitants of the forest watch, and slowly begin to join her protest until the Giants are forced to pay attention to the crowd. In this story, the Giants mend their ways and begin to live more sustainably, making the forest better for all those who live in it. The giants are portrayed as being greedy and busy but blind to their destruction rather than heartless. I really like the illustrations in this one. I like the hope in this one even if I believe it to be misplaced.  Greta is portrayed though as more magical than she is, given the ability to speak to animals, and that is a dangerous line to walk, but then, this is clearly a fantasy if the antagonists are literal giants so a heroine who can talk to animals is not unusual in such a story.

*****

These reviews are not endorsed by any of the authors or publishers or anyone else involved in the making of these books. They are independent, honest reviews by a reader.

People of Color in Books That I Read in 2018: Part 2: Picture Books

This review is SO FAR OVERDUE! I was prompted to look for it again as 2019 comes towards a close and I began to think about doing a recap of the representation of people of color across the books that I read THIS year. That being said, I want to get this information out to those seeking it. All the lists like this one that I have done can be found here.  There are lists that include novels too.

Looking at 2018’s numbers, 28% percent of the books that I read included a person of color in any capacity—which is 1% more than 2017’s numbers. However, only 12 books that I read in 2018 included a person of color as the protagonist, a dismal 7% of my total books read, less than half as many as in 2017. That’s terrible. That’s on me. I did not this year seek out as many picture books to read independently as I have done in other years. Only 1 of the 12 books with a person of color as the protagonist was a book mandated for story time. I was not this year running independent, reader’s choice story times.

Picture and Board Books (Ages 0-8)

I did not complete every month’s picture book review in 2018, and now it seems too late, so this is the first time some of these stories are mentioned on this blog. Where possible, I have included links to my full reviews.

Books with a POC as a protagonist

Mae Among the Stars by Roda Ahmed and illustrated by Stasia Burrington. 2018.  This is a biography of Mae Jemison, the first black woman to travel in space. Mae is told by her white teacher seek a more practical career than astronaut, but her parents tell her it’s possible, and she succeeds.

The Case for Loving: The Fight for Interracial Marriage by Selina Alko and illustrated by Selina Alko and Sean Qualls. 2015.  This is an introduction to the story of Richard and Mildred Loving, a Virginian couple whose court case legalized interracial marriage in the USA.

Two Problems for Sophia by Jim Averbeck and illustrated by Yasmeen Ismail. 2018.  Sophia’s giraffe is causing a lot of trouble for her family. Every character’s skin is a different shade, from Grand-mama’s darker skin to Sophia’s father’s light. I’d guess that Sophia herself is biracial.

Feminist Baby Finds Her Voice! by Loryn Brantz. 2018.  I thought that the primary character of Feminist Baby was white but looking online I realize that her family is interracial. One of the babies with whom she “stand up tall” is darker skinned than she is.

Goodnight Football by Michael Dahl and illustrated by Christina E. Forshay. 2014.  There are many crowd scenes that allow Dahl to show off the hues of humanity. An African American family is featured. 

Mama’s Nightingale: A Story of Immigration and Separation by Edwidge Danticat and illustrated by Leslie Staub. 2015.  Saya’s mother immigrated to America from Haiti without papers and is taken to an immigration detention center and separated from her family. Saya’s family are all darker skinned. The judge is a dark skinned woman too.

Cece Loves Science by Kimberly Derting and Shelli R. Johannes and illustrated by Vashti Harrison. 2018.  The protagonist, Cece, is I think biracial and darker skinned, her mother darker skinned and her father light skinned with dark hair. Isaac, her best friend, is light skinned with black hair, possibly Asian.

Santa’s Husband by Daniel Kibblesmith and illustrated by A. P. Quach. 2017.  Santa is a black man, living with his white husband, who helps him around the house and with his business. This book is shelved in the adult humor section at Barnes & Noble, but it is a picture book, and I think could be read and enjoyed by children.

Drawn Together by Minh Lê and illustrated by Dan Santat.  2018.  A boy struggles to connect with his grandfather who only speaks Thai. The two end up communicating by drawing together.

Word Collector by Peter H. Reynolds. 2018.  The protagonist Jerome has darker skin and pink hair. The background characters are of varying hues. One girl, whom he thanks, wears a hijab.

A diverse cast with no protagonist

I Am Enough by Grace Byers and illustrated by Keturah A. Bobo. 2018.  The girls represented in this story are mostly dark skinned. A few look like they could be of Asian descent. A few are lighter skinned. One wears a hijab.

Love by Matt de la Peña and illustrated by Loren Long. 2018.  Latinx and African American and Asian America and white and biracial families are all represented. One girl wears a hijab and a long dress while relaxing in the grass.

First Explorers, Book 5: Astronauts by Christiane Engel. 2017.  Some of the astronauts in this little, lift the flap board book about the profession are darker skinned.

Salam Alaikum: A Message of Peace by Harris J and illustrated by Ward Jenkins. 2017.  A diverse cast illustrates this picture book version of Muslim, British singer Harris J’s song of the same title, the chorus of which is Arabic for “peace be upon you.” 

The Peace Book by Todd Parr. 2017.  Todd Parr often illustrates his humans with no likeness to the colors of human skin: green and blue for example. There is a snake charmer in a turban and a woman in what I think is meant to be a niqab. The story, about sharing and caring for the Earth, implies that more than one group of people are meant to be represented.

The Forever Tree by Tereasa Surratt and Donna Lucas. 2018.  The grandfather who first finds the tree for humanity is lighter skinned. But among the first families to discover the tree are people with darker skin and black hair. Among those who save the tree are people of darker and lighter skin too.

Animal or nonhuman protagonist with a secondary character who is a POC with a speaking role

Merry Christmas, Little Elliot by Mike Curato. 2018.  Elliot and Mouse search across New York City for the spirit of Christmas but are unsuccessful. They find a letter to Santa that has gone astray and travel to the suburbs to answer it, meeting a new friend, Noelle, who is darker skinned. The New Yorkers in the group scenes have different skin tones.

Corduroy Takes a Bow by Viola Davis based on characters by Don Freeman. 2018.  The family from Corduroy visit a children’s theater production. Corduroy is the protagonist, but Lisa and her family are dark skinned, usually interpreted as African American. It looks as though the actress playing Mother Goose might have a darker skin tone than the other actors on stage too.

Neck & Neck by Elise Parsley. 2018.  The zoo patrons have different skin tones. The boy who holds the giraffe balloon has darker skin and dark hair. The protagonist is definitely Leopold the giraffe.

A white protagonist with a secondary character who is POC with a speaking role

Fancy Nancy: Oodles of Kittens by Jane O’Connor and illustrated by Robin Preiss Glasser. 2018.  Nancy and her best friend Bree each bond with a kitten. Bree is more of a secondary than a background character in this picture book.

Interstellar Cinderella by Deborah Underwood and illustrated by Meg Hunt. 2015.  The prince in this Cinderella retelling is darker skinned.

Animal or nonhuman protagonist with diverse background characters

The Big Umbrella by Amy June Bates. 2018.  The umbrella really is the protagonist. Characters of different skin tones are all represented. A woman wears a hijab. This is a story about acceptance and sharing space, sharing kindness.

We Don’t Eat Our Classmates by Ryan T. Higgins. 2018.  Penelope Rex, a T-Rex, is the protagonist but her delicious classmates are a diverse bunch, including a hijabi and a yarmulke-wearing Jewish boy.

How to Catch a Snowman by Adam Wallace and Andy Elkerton. 2018.  One of the three children trying to catch this snowman is African American. I would say though that the snowman, who appears to also be the narrator of the story, is the protagonist.

White protagonists with a person of color as a background character

Juno Valentine and the Magical Shoes by Eva Chen and illustrated by Derek Desierto. 2018.  Juno herself may be white, though I am not entirely certain, but some of the women throughout history whom she becomes are not, included are Egyptian Cleopatra, Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, and African Americans Serena Williams and Misty Copeland. Unfortunately because Juno becomes these women by stepping into their shoes, none of them are depicted as themselves. The ballerinas on the page around Juno as Misty have a variety of skin tones, and Egyptian are depicted serving Juno as Cleopatra.

Princesses Save the World by Savannah Guthrie and Allison Oppenheim and illustrated by Eva Byrne. 2018.  The two princesses whose kingdoms are in peril are both dark skinned. The princesses who convene at the Pineapple Kingdom’s palace to devise a solution to their problems seem to be from all over the world. 

Prince & Knight by Daniel Haack and illustrated by Stevie Lewis. 2018.  The prince on his search for a bride—a partner—visits other kingdoms; the royal families of some are darker skinned. His knight appears also to have a darker complexion than does the prince, though whether that is his less-pampered life of knight errantry or genetic I am not certain.

I Am Neil Armstrong by Brad Meltzer and illustrated by Chris Eliopoulos. 2018.  Neil Armstrong is of course himself white, but he meets with Katherine Johnson in the books, who is African American, and in the museum there is an African American boy.

The Magician’s Hat by Malcolm Mitchell and illustrated by Joanne Lew-Vriethoff. 2018.  The magician is white but the library audience is diverse.

Fancy Nancy by Jane O’Connor and illustrated by Robin Preiss Glasser. 2005.  At the restaurant there is an African American family.

Fancy Nancy and the Posh Puppy by Jane O’Connor and illustrated by Robin Preiss Glasser. 2007.  In this, Nancy plays with other children and their dogs. One of those girls is Bree, who is African American, but in this Bree is not yet named, though her dog is. To be fair, neither of Nancy’s friends are named.

Fancy Nancy and the Wedding of the Century by Jane O’Connor and illustrated by Robin Preiss Glasser. 2014.  Nancy has never been to a wedding, but Bree has, and it is from Bree’s questions and experiences that Nancy imagines the wedding before arriving at the cabin. But Bree is only in two pages of this book.

How to Scare a Ghost by Jean Reagan and illustrated by Lee Wildish. 2018.  The main kids portrayed are white but at least one of the trick-or-treaters and one of the families offering candy Halloween night are African American.

Are You Scared, Darth Vader? by Adam Rex. 2018.  In the Star Wars films, Darth Vader is portrayed as white, though in this picture book, he is completely masked and cloaked in black. The kids sent by the narrator to ask him questions and climb all about him are a diverse bunch.

Builder Brothers: Big Plans by Drew Scott and Jonathan Scott and illustrated by Kim Smith. 2018.  Not all of the adults at the Scott family’s outdoor barbeque are white. The woman in the hardware store is African American.

A First Introduction to Audrey Hepburn by Maria Isabel Sánchez Vegara and illustrated by Amaia Arrazola. 2018.  This biography of Audrey Hepburn includes her in her later life traveling the world to visit and help more impoverished countries in Africa and India. The book portrays her enjoying her time with the children in these countries, playing soccer with the kids in Africa and sitting quietly beside a pond with kids in India.

I have one more book to note: Moon by Alison Oliver (2018). I want to be the first to admit that I may have this one totally wrong. The girl, Moon, is purple. She has classmates who are darker skinned than herself. I want to include this on the list of books that include a person of color but I don’t know where to put it.

Do you think or know that I misrepresented or misinterpreted any of these?  Please comment below.  Let me know.

Book Reviews: October 2019 Picture Book Roundup: Monsters, Monster Trucks, Female Icons, and Daniel Tiger

Elbow Grease vs. Motozilla by John Cena and illustrated by Howard McWilliam. Penguin Random, 2019. Intended audience: Ages 3-7.

I didn’t enjoy this one as much as the first Elbow Grease, though I’m not sure that I could put my finger on why if you asked me to do; perhaps it just isn’t living up to my expectation now that I have a more favorable expectation for Cena’s books. In the first, Elbow Grease learned the worth of his personality and how to use his skills, and his brothers learned to respect Elbow Grease. Now Elbow Grease is craving some of the adulation that his brothers receive. He decides that they need to defeat the biggest, baddest new truck in the monster truck world, and he devises a plan for he and his brothers with the help of a contraption made by their female mechanic Mel to work together to take down the monster. I don’t know. The plot and the lessons both fell more flat in this one for me, though the length was better, shorter. I really do think that this is just a case of my expectations being too inflated from the success of the previous book.

***

No More Monsters Under Your Bed! by Jordan Chouteau and illustrated by Anat Even Or. JIMMY Patterson-Little, Brown-Hatchette, 2019.

This book relied too heavily on its gimmick—a patch that according to the tale turns you invisible to monsters—in much the same way that Santa’s Magic Key was an explanation of why a person was giving you a key or The Elf on the Shelf is an explanation of why someone wants to give you a creepy elf plush. It begins by introducing a boy who is scared of monsters and then describing all the different types of monsters that scare him. His parents give him a patch which when pressed turns him invisible to monsters, which erases his fear. Becoming bored without anyone to scare, the monsters move on, and the boy passes on his patch to another friend, who passes it to another, and so on, until it reaches the reader, I suppose, who gets the patch by buying the book. This isn’t really teaching a reason to not fear so much as it is preaching a belief in a token.  It is though I suppose a lesson in sharing tools that have helped you.

**

Juno Valentine and the Fantastic Fashion Adventure by Eva Chen and illustrated by Derek Desierto. Feiwel & Friends-Macmillan, 2019.  Intended audience: Ages 4-6.

I did I think like this one just a bit better than the first of Eva Chen’s books. Chen has changed the rules of her magical closet. Now, Juno does not become the women whose clothing she obtains but rather interacts with famous historical women, who gift her clothing and advice on her quest to capture her brother who has trespassed in the magical closet—and it isn’t until I am writing this now that I have to wonder about the implications of a boy intruding on a woman’s private space, a space held open for interactions with other women. Does his interaction with the space change the space and how? Certainly now the conversations that Juno has with the other women have become conversations about her brother, how Juno can catch up to her brother. It does pass the Bechdel test, though the conversations with named women are either about catching Finn or about Juno’s clothes. In her wanders through the closet, Juno gains not only the means to apprehend her brother but a unique outfit for school photo day, which earns her the title “Most Likely to Be Herself and No One Else,” a little ironic since she is quite literally borrowing the fashions of the others.  Her class is a diverse group that includes children of many hues, a child in a wheelchair, and a child wearing what appears to be a patka, a head covering for Sikh boys.  Her teacher, Miss Dahlia, is a black woman, a thing that is more rare in a picture book than you would expect and than it ought to be.  I read an ARC.  The book is out now.

**

Peek-a-Flap: Boo by Rosa Von Federer and illustrated by Gaby Zermeño. Cottage Door, 2017.  Intended audience: Ages 2+.

I was pleasantly surprised by this little board book which has suggestions for celebrating the Halloween holiday, labels to make it a primer, and facts about the holiday—a few of which even I did not know. I still love how sturdy these Cottage Door Press board books seem. Most other flaps are cardstock, but these are the layered cardboard that make up board book covers and pages. The illustrations are bright.  This is a Halloween book that is more about how humans celebrate with costumes and candy than centering any of the monsters.

****

Daniel Tiger

 

Big Enough to Help adapted by Becky Friedman and illustrated by Jason Fruchter. Simon Spotlight-Simon & Schuster, 2015.  Intended audience: Grades PreK-1, Ages 3-6.

Daniel isn’t big enough to do everything, but there are many things that he can do, and there are some things that he has to do be small to do, like play in his new playhouse. “Everyone is big enough to do something” is the refrain of this book.  Reading this aloud, I avoided the ending catchphrase, which is unfamiliar to me, and any singing (on all three of these).

***

Daniel’s First Fireworks adapted by Becky Friedman and illustrated by Jason Fruchter. Simon Spotlight-Simon & Schuster, 2016.  Intended audience: Grades PreK-2, Ages 3-7.

Daniel helps his little sister overcome her fear of the fireflies, which she has never seen, by holding her hand and showing no fear himself. She holds his hand as does his dad as the fireworks start, and they are louder than Daniel thought that they would be.  This is a sweet story about encountering new things and helping others experience new things that might be frightening.

***

Daniel Chooses to Be Kind adapted by Rachel Kalban and illustrated by Jason Fruchter. Simon Spotlight-Simon & Schuster, 2017.  Intended audience: Grades PreK-2, Ages 3-7.

Daniel asks King Friday what it is like to be king, and Friday declares him king for the day. He gives Daniel a list of things that he needs to bring to the castle at the end of the day. It’s never quite clear what King Friday intended to do with these items. After acquiring them, Daniel gives them all away in the course of the day to cheer up or help his friends. He never acquires replacements for the items that he gives away, which seemed a little odd honestly.  Though Daniel visits shops, he doesn’t seem to pay.  There’s seems to be some economy run on trade of services.  I really don’t remember much of Mister Roger’s Neighborhood anymore, and I have never seen Daniel’s Tiger’s Neighborhood.

***

These reviews are not endorsed by any of the authors or publishers or anyone else involved in the making of these books. They are independent, honest reviews by a reader.