Spring figures predominantly in the clever new collection from Bobbi Katz, Once Around the Sun, illustrated by LeUyen Pham, which follows a brother and sister through the months of the year. January finds them sledding, until your nose is a dull cold pain and your big toe starts to complain about the hole in your sock. In April we see the children running through daffodils to visit their grandmother: April is when your blue slicker collects beads of misty drizzle and the walk to Grandma’s house is a skip-splash-dance! And when you get there, Grandma tells you how each spring she falls in love with the world all over again and you understand. Each month brings with it a new activity and a new poem, until Earth starts to loop around the distant sun again. This book would make a great read-aloud, a title to return to again and again throughout the year. Deborah Hopkinson’s new book, a Junior Library Guild selection entitled Up Before Daybreak: Cotton and People in America, will be published this month.
Valiant Women is a vital and engrossing attempt to correct the record and rightfully celebrate the achievements of female veterans of World War II.
