At age 14, Smita Agarwal and her family were forced to leave Mumbai after a horrifying incident of religious persecution. They immigrated to Ohio, and now, 20 years later, Smita has grown up to become a world-traveling journalist who writes about gender issues. As Thrity Umrigar’s Honor opens, Smita is asked to cover an assignment in Mumbai—“the one place she had spent her entire adult life avoiding.” Readers will find themselves completely immersed in the sights, sounds and smells of India, a place that Smita acknowledges can be “cosmopolitan, sophisticated, but also resolutely out of step with the world.”
Similar to her central character, bestselling author Umrigar grew up in Bombay (now Mumbai) and immigrated to the United States at age 21. Ever since, she’s been writing “to make sense of the world and to make sense of my own, often contradictory emotions and feelings.” In this spirit, Honor is a multifaceted examination of Smita’s love-hate relationship with her native country, a place that fills her heart yet is besieged with assaults on women. As one character comments, “We Indians are in the Dark Ages when it comes to the treatment of women.”
That issue is thoroughly explored through the lens of Smita’s assignment: the case of Meena, a Hindu woman suing her brothers after they killed her Muslim husband and then burned and disfigured her. Smita travels to Meena’s remote village and befriends the impoverished woman and her toddler daughter. She interviews the brothers, the police and the village chief, who emboldened Meena’s brothers to commit their atrocities. While Meena and Smita live in completely different worlds, Smita increasingly realizes the parallels in their lives and in the ways they have been treated as Indian women.
Throughout the novel, Smita is escorted by a wealthy single man named Mohan, who adores his country and is eager to reintroduce its glories to his charge. She is resistant, however, and their constant tug-of-war about India’s pros and cons results in a well-rounded portrait of a complicated country.
Suspense deepens as Smita and Meena await the court verdict, and there’s a horrifying aftermath that seems largely avoidable. Not surprisingly, romance develops between Smita and Mohan, and the blend of passion alongside brutality sometimes makes for an uneasy mix. Nonetheless, readers are likely to remain engaged with the story and its well-drawn characters.
Whether she’s writing about the bright lights of Mumbai or the poverty of village life, Umrigar excels at creating engaging situations and scenes. Readers will appreciate this novel’s deep understanding of the many complexities of Indian society.
Thrity Umrigar’s novel offers a well-rounded portrait of India, a place that can be “cosmopolitan, sophisticated, but also resolutely out of step with the world.”
As Christmas approaches, cuddle up with picture books that pack a surprising amount of holiday cheer into a mere 40 pages. They’re perfect for sharing with the little bundles of joy in your life: young readers!
★ Tiny Reindeer
Chris Naylor-Ballesteros’ Tiny Reindeer isn’t just small. In fact, he’s hoof-high to Santa’s “big, stamping, snorting reindeer.” Naylor-Ballesteros takes the tiny theme and runs with it, revealing entertaining new delights with every page turn.
Tiny Reindeer yearns to be useful, but clever vignettes depict him tangled in reins and harnesses, taking an unexpected bath in a water bowl and covered in tape and twine after attempting to wrap gifts. Then he stumbles upon a letter from a girl asking Santa for a little reindeer to go with her small sleigh, which was crafted for her by her grandfather. “He wanted to make a reindeer too,” she writes, “but couldn’t in the end so my sleigh won’t ever fly anywhere.”
Naylor-Ballesteros handles the death of a grandparent subtly and with touching sensitivity as Tiny Reindeer realizes this is his time to shine. Clad in a jaunty hat and scarf, he takes a flying leap into the back of Santa’s sleigh, parachutes down the girl’s chimney (using her letter as his chute) and then faces his most challenging obstacle yet: climbing the stairs.
During this busy time of year, it’s easy for children to feel overlooked or left out of adults’ hustle and bustle. Young readers will adore Tiny Reindeer’s determined attempts to fit in and stand out. Naylor-Ballesteros paces his story perfectly, and every player, including the girl, Tiny Reindeer and Santa himself, gets their moment in the spotlight. Tiny Reindeer is a wonderful addition to the Christmas picture book canon that reminds us of the special gifts we all have to offer, no matter how tiny we might be.
The Christmas Owl
A unique blend of fact and fiction, The Christmas Owl follows a little owl during an incredible true journey that took place in 2020.
After delivering a spruce tree from Oneonta, New York, workers erecting the Christmas tree display at New York City’s Rockefeller Center discovered a saw-whet owl, the smallest owl species in the northeastern United States, huddled in its branches. The public was enchanted by the tiny hitchhiker, who was transported to a wildlife rehabilitation center in upstate New York run by Ellen Kalish, where he was given the name Rockefeller—Rocky for short.
Co-authors Kalish and Gideon Sterer (The Midnight Fair) transform this incident into a magical holiday tale centered on Little Owl as she tries to learn the meaning of Christmas. Ramona Kaulitzki’s illustrations set a festive mood from the start as Little Owl flies out ahead of a group of animals—moose, rabbit, skunk and squirrel—galloping through falling snow. In the distance, a village nestles in the valley below, dotted with towering evergreen trees. One of the trees is Little Owl’s home, destined to be cut down and transported far away. Kaulitzki’s art is bathed in beautiful shades of deep blue, giving each page a wintry glow. Warm touches of yellow, including twinkling lights and the yellows of taxis, trucks and workers’ jackets, add to the effect.
The book focuses on Little Owl’s perspective every step of the way. Her wide eyes reflect wisdom and surprise simultaneously, whether she’s gazing around at a strange new urban landscape or looking up into Kalish’s kind, welcoming eyes at the wildlife center. Little Owl’s innocent confusion about Christmas, a new word she hears from both humans and her woodland friends, reflects many children’s sense of wonder about the season. As Kalish nurses Little Owl back to health, the owl ponders, “Could Christmas be caring? Could Christmas be kind?”
Fascinating back matter provides a nice contrast to the anthropomorphized tale. Kalish describes exactly what happened to the real Rocky, including her release into the wild to begin migrating south. The Christmas Owl is an intriguing fable that offers young readers much to contemplate, including the impact of human actions on the natural world.
Zee Grows a Tree
How do Christmas trees grow so big and tall, anyway? Zee Grows a Tree cleverly weaves the details into a fictional story that juxtaposes a child’s growth against that of a Douglas fir.
On the day that Zee Cooper is born, a seedling pokes up from the soil at her family’s tree farm. Her parents put it in a pot labeled “Zee’s Tree,” and their baby girl learns to love and nurture it as it grows alongside her, eventually inspiring her to want to become a botanist when she’s an adult.
Author Elizabeth Rusch excels at showing similarities between Zee and her tree. At age 4, Zee is shorter than the kids in her class. “Everyone grows at different rates,” Zee’s father tells her. She repeats his reassuring words as she measures her tree, which is also shorter than the other trees. Rusch adds touches of drama throughout, depicting Zee going to great lengths to protect her fir from extreme heat and cold. Rusch also incorporates brief factual notes about fir trees on various pages, as well as more extensive information at the end of the book.
Will Hillenbrand’s lively illustrations infuse each page of this quiet, measured story with action and emotion. As the tree thrives, Zee soars through the air in a tire swing, heads off on the school bus and bounces a soccer ball on her knee. Hillenbrand expertly portrays the strong bond that Zee feels with her tree, capturing the curiosity, concern and compassion on her face as she inspects the sapling. When she camps alongside it during a heat wave, her lantern casts a lovely glow as she reads aloud to her tree, her gray cat curled up at her knee, ice cubes spread around the tree’s trunk to ward off the effects of drought.
Although Zee Grows a Tree ends on a seasonal note (don’t worry, Zee’s tree stays firmly planted in the ground), this informative tale will be enjoyed by young naturalists at any time of year.
If you’ve been feeling down, take heart. Environmental icon Jane Goodall remains hopeful, so surely we readers can, too. Her wisdom, along with four additional books, fills this season with inspiration and empowerment.
★ The Book of Hope
Jane Goodall may well be Earth’s ultimate cheerleader. In The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times, she professes steadfast hope for both humanity and our planet that’s rooted in “action and engagement,” not simply wishful thinking. In straightforward, easy-to-digest prose, she writes that each one of us can make a difference, and that “the cumulative effect of thousands of ethical actions can help to save and improve our world for future generations.”
The book is framed as a series of conversations between Goodall and Douglas Abrams, a truly engaging thinker and writer who took a similar approach in the first title in the Global Icons series, The Book of Joy, in which he facilitated conversations between the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Readers will be drawn into The Book of Hope as Abrams arrives at Goodall’s home in Tanzania for dinner, bearing a bottle of whiskey. Their subsequent chats span the globe; they talk at the Jane Goodall Institute in the Netherlands, and eventually, because of COVID-19 restrictions, they connect via Zoom as Goodall gives Abrams a virtual tour of her childhood home in Bournemouth, England.
Their discussions are focused yet wide-ranging as Goodall explains the four main sources of her hope: “the amazing human intellect, the resilience of nature, the power of youth, and the indomitable human spirit.” She admits that she briefly lost her way after her husband Derek Bryceson died in 1980, saying, “Grief can make one feel hopeless.” Abrams and Goodall’s talks deepen after he unexpectedly loses his father to lymphoma and, later, his college roommate to suicide. “We are going through dark times,” Goodall says early in the book. For this reason and many more, The Book of Hope is a gem of a gift.
The Lightmaker’s Manifesto
If you’re yearning to become a true change-maker, then turn to Karen Walrond’s extremely helpful The Lightmaker’s Manifesto: How to Work for Change Without Losing Your Joy for a profound nudge. Walrond definitely walks the walk, having ditched her career as a lawyer to become an activism coach. As an Afro-Caribbean American immigrant from Trinidad and Tobago, she says, “my work is underpinned by an ongoing desire to fight discrimination and foster interconnectedness through the sharing of stories and images of beauty.”
After a colleague tried to pressure Walrond to break the law, she found herself at a crisis point in her career and spent months trying to figure out what to do next. She proceeded in a structured, analytical way—a process that she shares in narrative form, as well as in a “Lightmaker’s Manual” section of prompts and exercises to help readers make their own decisions. She confesses early on, “In my not-so-distant past, I had come up with a pretty extensive list of reasons why an activist life wasn’t for me.” But when she realized that she loved to speak, write and take photos, she searched for a way to put all these talents to work.
She bookends her account by discussing the beginning and end of a trip to Kenya sponsored by the ONE Campaign to fight poverty and preventable disease, describing the joyful rewards of her new career. “We can do this, my friends,” she says in her encouraging and authentic way. “There’s no end to the light that we can make.”
★ The Matter of Black Lives
The Matter of Black Lives: Writing From The New Yorker, co-edited by New Yorker editor David Remnick and staff writer Jelani Cobb, is a standout among recent books about race, notable for its historical perspective and breadth as well as for the excellent writing of its many renowned contributors. The first entry, for example, James Baldwin’s 1962 “Letter From a Region in My Mind,” marked a turning point for The New Yorker’s coverage of racial matters. It is a riveting, astounding essay, describing in a highly personal way Baldwin’s meeting with Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam. In a foreword, Cobb notes, “Baldwin’s essay was, for many readers, a jolt, a concussive experience. . . . As an indictment of American bigotry and hypocrisy, tackling themes of violence, sex, history, and religion, the piece continues to resonate more than a half century later.”
The same can be said of so many of these essays. Journalist Calvin Trillin shares a fascinating 1964 account of a white man questioning Martin Luther King Jr.’s Christianity during a flight between Atlanta, Georgia, and Jackson, Mississippi. Some essays are simply pure pleasure, such as Andrea Lee’s 1983 piece “Quilts,” about her trip to see family in Ahoskie, North Carolina, and her desire to buy a handmade quilt.
The Matter of Black Lives is a treasure chest of essays guaranteed to provoke, dismay, delight and inspire.
Chicken Soup for the Soul: I’m Speaking Now
Sometimes it can be equally enlightening to read the words of the not-so-famous, like congressional staffer Jasmine J. Wyatt, who had a stark realization after an oral surgeon informed her that she had fractured her jaw after years of grinding her teeth. Wyatt mused that she had “morphed into a Black wallflower, gritting my teeth to keep from saying the wrong thing, at the wrong time. A silencing of myself over and over, until I thought I had nothing valuable left to say.” Thankfully, those days of silencing have lost their power over Wyatt and many others, as evidenced by Chicken Soup for the Soul: I’m Speaking Now: Black Women Share Their Truth in 101 Stories of Love, Courage and Hope, which is filled with short but commanding essays written by a variety of Black women sharing their personal experiences.
These essays—and a few poems—are grouped into categories such as “Family & Food for the Soul” and “Identity and Roots,” and each piece begins with a quotation from a well-known figure, including Michelle Obama, Misty Copeland and Audre Lorde. Some offerings are nuggets of love, such as journalist Rebekah Sager’s tribute to her father, who raised her single-handedly, his actions lighting the way for Sager to raise her son “with dignity, vision, empathy and grace.” Other pieces feature insightful yet amusing journeys of self-discovery, like Rachel Decoste’s account of moving to Dakar, Senegal, and on her first day there, suddenly belting out a song from The Lion King. “I was mad at myself for starting my journey to the Motherland with a Disney soundtrack. . . . How colonized was my mind that this was the first tune that came to my spirit?”
The many voices featured in I’m Speaking Now rise up like a powerful choir, offering melodies that will stay with you.
Shedding the Shackles
British textile artist Lynne Stein admits that when she plans vacations, instead of craving beaches or cuisine, she seeks out local craft traditions, hoping to get a firsthand look at Yoruba tribal beadwork or Middle Eastern metalwork. She eventually decided to investigate the narratives surrounding the craftwork of female artists in Indigenous and marginalized communities, and the result is Shedding the Shackles: Women’s Empowerment Through Craft, an around-the-world-tour that showcases a variety of talent, traditions and history and provides an enlightening look at the transformative powers of female creativity.
The book begins with short entries focusing on individual artists and specific craft techniques, such as the increasingly popular Boro and Sashiko forms of Japanese stitching. There’s a profile of English artist Lauren O’Farrell, who coined the term “yarnstorming,” a type of knitted street art that has become wonderfully widespread. Readers also learn about arpilleristas, Chilean women who create three-dimensional appliqued textiles to document their lives as well as to shed light on human rights abuses and violence, especially during the regime of Augusto Pinochet. Vibrant photographs accompany each entry, focusing on both the artists and their exquisite craftsmanship.
Stein includes longer discussions of female enterprises that are not only art but also a means of survival, such as Monkeybiz South Africa, founded in 2000 to empower underprivileged women as bead artists. Their funky 3D creations quickly became a worldwide hit and have been included in numerous international exhibitions.
After perusing these pages, readers may adjust their own vacation plans to allow time for learning about and appreciating local art traditions.
Four books guide readers in building a better world, with wisdom from Jane Goodall, activist Karen Walrond and many more.
The range of graphic novels and nonfiction for children gets better, more exciting and more popular with each passing year. Even the choosiest young reader won’t be able to resist the charms of these wonderful books.
Marshmallow & Jordan
For the reader who carefully arranges their stuffed animals at the head of their bed every morning—and knows each and every one of their names
Growing up in Indonesia, Jordan is a talented basketball player who lives for the sport. She’s even named after her dad’s favorite player. After an accident two years ago, Jordan is also a paraplegic and uses a wheelchair. Although she’s still the captain of her school’s team, an official rule means she’s not allowed to participate in games against other teams. In spite of her teammates’ sincere efforts to make her feel included, it’s just not the same.
Jordan’s life changes when she discovers an injured young white elephant at a park one day after basketball practice. She names him Marshmallow and, with help from her veterinarian mom, nurses him back to health. Jordan and Marshmallow become fast friends, but it’s soon clear that the connection between them runs much deeper. Marshmallow obviously needs Jordan’s help, but as it turns out, Jordan needs Marshmallow too.
As Jordan leans on Marshmallow, he helps her begin to swim, and eventually she discovers a new athletic passion: water polo. But a worsening drought threatens the local water supply and the use of water for recreational purposes like swimming. Could there be a connection between Marshmallow and the much-needed rain?
Marshmallow & Jordan is a practically perfect graphic novel. Jordan’s strong spirit and earnest emotional vulnerabilities make her an appealing and relatable hero, and Marshmallow is irresistibly adorable as his big blue eyes shine with emotion. Lush and lovely, Alina Chau’s delicate watercolor illustrations are rendered in warm pastel tones. The book’s text is fairly minimal, so her images pull a great deal of the narrative weight, making this an ideal choice for young readers still gaining verbal confidence and fluency who would benefit from the unique interplay of words and images that graphic novels offer.
This beautifully rendered tale, with its fluffy, marshmallow-sweet images, is all heart.
—Sharon Verbeten
Another Kind
For the reader who has always felt a little out of place—except within the pages of a great book
Inside a hidden government-run facility called the Playroom, six creatures known as Irregularities are living out their childhoods quietly tucked away from society. There’s Omar, who’s half yeti; Sylvie, a will-o’-the-wisp; Newt, a lizard boy; Jaali, who can transform into a Nandi bear; Clarice, a selkie; and Maggie, who might be the daughter of Cthulhu. When the group’s secrecy is compromised and their safety endangered, government agents decide to move them to a more secure location.
Along the way, the powerful youngsters end up fending for themselves in a totally unfamiliar world filled with ordinary people who are totally unfamiliar with them. To survive, they must hide their unusual features and abilities—and avoid detection by dangerous forces that are hot on their trail. When the merry misfits meet other Irregularities and uncover rumors about a place called the Sanctuary, a place where they’ll all be safe, they’re determined to find it and make it their new home.
Trevor Bream’s narrative touches subtly on weighty themes, including gender identity, bullying and feelings of abandonment. At every turn, the story emphasizes the importance of self-acceptance and a sense of belonging within a community—empowering notions for young humans to consider.
Illustrator Cait May’s art is gorgeous. Just as Bream grounds their supernatural characters in emotional realism, May’s linework anchors this fantastical story in a detailed, realistic aesthetic. There’s a lightheartedness in her use of color that’s perfectly suited for a tale that never loses sight of its young characters’ optimism and hopefulness.
Another Kind is a magical graphic novel that movingly demonstrates the power of being different.
—Justin Barisich
★ The Secret Garden on 81st Street
For the reader who knows that if you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden
Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden receives a contemporary update in this thoughtful graphic novel.
Mary Lennox is a loner, and she likes it that way. She doesn’t have friends in her everyday life, but she makes up for it by immersing herself in technology, especially via her cell phone and online video games. Her parents, who both work in Silicon Valley, aren’t home much, which doesn’t help Mary’s isolation. When they’re killed in a tragic accident, Mary must go live with her uncle, whom she barely knows.
Uncle Archie keeps his New York City mansion tech-free, and Mary has an understandably hard time adjusting to his rules. But with help from her cousin, Colin, and her new friend Dickon, Mary begins to restore the rooftop garden at her uncle’s house. Gradually, Mary starts to acclimate to—and then thrive in—New York, working through her grief and forming meaningful connections along the way.
Adapting a beloved classic to a new form and setting is no small task, and it’s clear that author Ivy Noelle Weir and illustrator Amber Padilla did not take the challenge lightly. Their love for Burnett’s original novel shines through on every page and makes The Secret Garden on 81st Street a truly heartwarming experience. Padilla’s playful, cartoonlike style lends itself wonderfully to expressing the happiness and contentment that Mary slowly finds. Weir’s prose is refreshing and modern, with just enough nods to Burnett’s best-known lines to preserve the story’s classic roots.
Best of all, Weir revisits many of the themes of Burnett’s novel through a contemporary lens, approaching each character’s journey with sensitivity. Colin stays in his room all the time because of anxiety, while Uncle Archie is grieving the loss of his husband, Masahiro. These updates blend perfectly with some of the most powerful elements from the original story, such as the slow transformation of the garden and the ways that nature and human connection have the ability to heal us.
The Secret Garden on 81st Street is a beautiful and respectful new vision of a long-treasured tale.
—Hannah Lamb
Salt Magic
For the reader who would be more that willing to pay the hero’s price for a thrilling, out-of-this-world adventure
Hope Larson (A Wrinkle in Time: The Graphic Novel) teams up again with illustrator Rebecca Mock, her partner on Compass South, to create Salt Magic, an absorbing and fast-paced historical fantasy adventure.
There’s a hint of The Wizard of Oz to Salt Magic, which begins in our world, then launches its hero on a quest into a new, magical world before she finally returns home again. Twelve-year-old Vonceil is the youngest of five children on an Oklahoma farm in 1919. She is a determined and appealing character whose boredom and angst simmer on every page, perfectly conveyed through her many evocative facial expressions and especially her piercing eyes.
As the story opens, Vonceil’s beloved brother Elber has finally returned from World War I after two long years away. Physically and mentally, he’s a changed man, and he seems to have no time for the fun he used to share with his littlest sister. Vonceil feels more alone than ever when Elber marries his sweetheart, Amelia, a local girl. Before long, however, a mysterious, wealthy woman in white named Greda appears in their small town. Greda was Elber’s nurse and lover in Paris, and she is so enraged to learn that Elber has married someone else that she curses his family’s farm, turning all of their precious fresh water into salt water.
Vonceil feels responsible for Greda’s curse, having hoped that Elder would have a fabulous romance with someone from France and resented Amelia for marrying him instead. When she realizes that Greda is a salt witch, she sets out in the dark of night to try to make things right. So begins a fantastical journey that leads Vonceil to uncover not only Greda’s secrets but also numerous revelations about her own ancestors, culminating in a dangerous bargain to save the family farm and Elber’s life.
Mock’s illustrations make every enchanting, dangerous moment pop. Even a close-up of a seemingly simple handshake between Vonceil and Greta conveys the importance of their dire agreement. Other scenes expertly dramatize the desolate landscape Vonceil traverses, the inescapable power of the all-important salt crystals she discovers and the many strange creatures she encounters along the way.
Salt Magic is a feast of a tale that treats readers to an epic battle between evil forces and a courageous, persistent young hero.
—Alice Cary
Other Boys
For the reader who needs to hear that they are never as alone as they sometimes might feel
Damian Alexander’s debut graphic memoir, Other Boys, is a powerfully compelling portrait of a boy learning to understand and accept himself.
Damian has always felt different. He and his brother live with their grandmother in a small apartment, because when they were very young, their father murdered their mother. Damian has also always enjoyed things that he thinks boys shouldn’t like, such as dolls, flowers and tea parties. He’s repeatedly been told that he’s too “girly” to fit in with boys, but girls often excluded him from playing with them because he’s a boy. His struggle to understand where he belongs has followed him all the way to middle school.
As he starts seventh grade at a new school, Damian has decided that the best way to avoid being bullied is to give his classmates absolutely nothing to bully him about. Damian is not merely planning to speak only when spoken to or to keep his voice to a whisper; he’s not going to speak at all. To anyone. But his silence doesn’t go unnoticed, and his grandmother arranges for him to see a therapist. With the therapist’s help, Damian begins to understand that he isn’t weird, strange or wrong. Meanwhile, he’s also discovering that not all boys are bullies, and some are even, well, pretty cute. The only way that Damian will find his place is by staying true to himself and finally speaking up.
As he narrates in the voice of his seventh-grade self, Alexander skillfully uses flashbacks to fill in his personal history. His bright color palette balances the book’s darker elements, and his figures’ slightly enlarged faces keep readers focused on the emotion of each panel. Other Boys will be a life-changing read for any young person who is questioning their identity or searching for where they belong.
“I suppose I prefer being in the thick of it,” American heiress Nanée Gold explains when asked why she hasn’t fled the dangers of Nazi-occupied France. She’s a flamboyant, daring character who flies a Vega Gull airplane and entertains friends with her beloved dog, Dagobert, who barks ferociously whenever he hears the name “Hitler.”
In The Postmistress of Paris, Meg Waite Clayton fictionalizes the fascinating story of Mary Jayne Gold, a wealthy American socialite who spent the early years of World War II helping to finance and shelter 2,000 Jewish and anti-Nazi refugees near Marseille, France, and aiding in their escapes over the Pyrenees. Gold worked with American journalist Varian Fry as part of the Emergency Rescue Committee, obtaining fake passports and planning escape routes to Spain and Portugal for luminaries such as Marc Chagall and Hannah Arendt. Clayton is well versed in this era, having written bestsellers The Race for Paris, about two female American journalists in 1944 France, andThe Last Train to London, about the Kindertransport rescue.
Clayton excels at creating fictional worlds, weaving historical details with lively dialogue and rich scene-setting details. Readers meet Nanée in 1938 as she flies into Paris on a freezing cold night, quickly swaps out her wool stockings for silk and throws on several strings of pearls. She’s headed to a surrealist art exhibition, where she sees the works of Salvador Dalí and plays party games with André Breton. Danger is at the doorstep, but life is a joyful whirlwind for Nanée—until the Nazis invade Paris, abruptly forcing her to escape to the countryside near Marseille, where she rents a villa to house her artist friends.
Nanée falls in love with fictional Jewish German photographer Edouard Moss, a widower with a young daughter named Luki. Much of the novel focuses on Nanée’s attempts to rescue Edouard from a French labor camp, reunite him with his daughter and get the pair out of the country. While Clayton superbly crafts banter, parlor games, romance and philosophical discussions among her cast of talented, intellectual characters, her writing is at its sharpest whenever Nanée faces great danger—which is often. Tension builds throughout the novel, culminating in a grueling, dangerous escape attempt that’s full of surprises. Fans of Kate Quinn and Kristin Hannah will want to dive right into The Postmistress of Paris.
Meg Waite Clayton superbly crafts banter, romance and philosophical discussions, but her writing is at its sharpest when Nanée faces danger—which is often.
History fans have big treats in store this year, including groundbreaking books on American history and baseball, plus visual extravaganzas devoted to legendary women and design innovations. There are even lessons in how to survive a sea monster attack—because you just never know.
Relics
Relics: A History of the World Told in 133 Objects is my idea of the perfect coffee-table gift book. Billed as “four billion years in the palm of your hand,” it’s small enough not to be cumbersome, weighty enough to be substantial and full of colorful photos and intriguing text. Open it to any random page and get lost in the images of tiny relics and their histories, ranging from a 4.5-billion-year-old asteroid fragment to a tiny piece of Winston Churchill’s faux leopard-skin hand muff. (Poor circulation in his later years caused Churchill’s hands to get cold.) The book is part of the Mini Museum project, intended to share a collection of hand-held bits of wonders from around the world—a whole exhibition, Polly Pocket-style.
Young and old will be enticed by the variety of natural, historical and cultural tidbits, including a specimen of petrified lightning from the Sahara, a piece of a Martian meteorite, coal from the Titanic and a morsel of Prince Charles and Princess Diana’s wedding cake. Enjoy at your leisure, with no museum crowds invading your space.
★ Original Sisters
Award-winning artist Anita Kunz certainly made the most of her COVID-19 lockdown: She began researching and painting portraits of more than 150 extraordinary women from ancient times to the present, many whose stories have been lost to history or whose glory has been stolen by men. The result, Original Sisters: Portraits of Tenacity and Courage, brings these heroines to life in wonderfully bold portraits, each accompanied by a paragraphsummarizing her notable life. These portraits are so vivid that readers will feel as though they are meeting these women face-to-face—and believe me, you will feel their power.
You’ll recognize many women’s names, like Temple Grandin, Nina Simone and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, but others may be new, such as Amanirenas, the partially blind African warrior queen who defeated Augustus Caesar. Patricia Bath, the first Black female ophthalmologist, invented a medical device to remove cataracts. Mabel Ping-Hua Lee was a Chinese American suffragist who led a parade on horseback in New York City to advocate for voting rights. A wonderful gift for friends, family or yourself, Original Sisters is an inspiring springboard for further study of these noteworthy souls.
★ The 1619 Project
For any lover of American history or letters, The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story is a visionary work that casts a sweeping, introspective gaze over what many have aptly termed the country’s original sin: the moment in 1619, one year before the Mayflower arrived, when a ship docked at the colony of Virginia to deliver 20 to 30 enslaved people from Africa. While many books have addressed enslavement and its repercussions, few, if any, have done so in such an imaginative, all-encompassing way, incorporating history, journalism, fiction, poetry and photography to show the cataclysmic repercussions of that pivotal moment.
A superb expansion of the New York Times Magazine’s “1619 Project” issue, this book contains 18 essays as well as 36 poems and stories that examine how slavery and its legacy of racial injustice have shaped the U.S. over the last 400 years. Each piece was curated by MacArthur “genius grant” winner Nikole Hannah-Jones, who pitched the original “1619 Project” to the Times and won the Pulitzer Prize for her contribution to it. The book’s many talented contributors include Ibram X. Kendi, Terry McMillan, Khalil Gibran Muhammad, ZZ Packer, Darryl Pinckney, Claudia Rankine, Jason Reynolds, Bryan Stevenson and Jesmyn Ward. Seven essays are new, and existing essays have been substantially revised and expanded to include additional details. Black-and-white portraits have also been added—both historical and present-day images—as another way of allowing readers to look history in the eye.
A new concluding essay from Hannah-Jones explores economic justice, and her wonderful preface is a special standout. It’s a powerful, personal essay in which she notes that she is “the daughter and granddaughter of people born onto a repurposed slave-labor camp in the deepest South, people who could not have imagined their progeny would one day rise to a position to bring forth such a project.”
The sheer breadth of this book is refreshing and illuminating, challenging each and every reader to confront America’s past, present and future.
As Hannah-Jones writes in The 1619 Project, “Slavery was mentioned briefly in the chapter on this nation’s most deadly war, and then Black people disappeared again for a full century, until magically reappearing as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., gave a speech about a dream.” What happened in between? Make Good the Promises: Reclaiming Reconstruction and Its Legacies, edited by Kinshasha Holman Conwill and Paul Gardullo, attempts to fill in those gaps, leading readers through Black history from 1865 to today.
Presented by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, the book has a beautifully rendered and highly accessible narrative that’s also methodically organized, with helpful timelines, colorful illustrations and photographs. The book does a particularly good job of laying out the long view of events and their consequences while shining a light on more recent incidents, such as #SayHerName, George Floyd’s murder and the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Make Good the Promises is a distressing yet essential, enlightening read.
How to Slay a Dragon
Medieval historian Cait Stevenson admits that she has sometimes “trampled over scholarly conventions in ways that will leave other medievalists curled up in agony.” But armed with her passion for the Middle Ages, she has carved out a unique niche for herself, straddling the worlds of scholarly and popular history. Her fervor is contagious in How to Slay a Dragon: A Fantasy Hero’s Guide to the Real Middle Ages.
In a tongue-in-cheek but firmly historical way, Stevenson addresses the stereotypical events that happen in popular media set in and inspired by the Middle Ages, like saving a princess, digging for treasure, slaying a dragon and defeating barbarian hordes. Her writing is informative yet humorous (there’s a chapter titled “How to Not Get Eaten”), so even if you’re not a gamer or “Game of Thrones” fan, you’ll find yourself riveted. In a section on bathing, she notes, “Twelfth-century abbess and prophet Hildegard of Bingen went so far as to suggest that natural hot springs were heated by the underground fires of purgatory, cleansing bathers’ souls as well as their bodies.” Stevenson may not be able to tell you where to find real dragons, but readers will have a blast getting ready for their quests.
★ The Baseball 100
Major League Baseball fans, you just won the lottery. In The Baseball 100, noted sports writer Joe Posnanski presents 880 pages of sheer baseball bliss, discussing the history of the game by examining the lives, obstacles and achievements of his nominations for the 100 greatest players of all time, including MLB stars and players from the Negro Leagues. It’s a true masterwork, and his writing is so good that it’s likely to engross even those who know nothing about the sport.
Avid baseball fans will easily become absorbed in these pages, and when they reemerge, they’ll be all too ready to debate Posnanski’s rankings. He’s prepared for this, writing, “I stand firmly behind them, and I expect you to come hard at me with vigorous disagreements. What fun would it be otherwise?” In fact, the author even teases, “I have a list of more than 100 players who could have made this list. I think I’ll save them in case the Baseball 100 ever needs a volume 2.” Perhaps he’d better start writing now.
Patented
At over 1,000 pages, Patented: 1,000 Design Patents is thicker than an old phone book but much more fun to thumb through. Architectural designer Thomas Rinaldi frequently found himself getting lost in “odd internet searches” of design patents, eventually realizing that he was uncovering “a design historian’s El Dorado, a proverbial rabbit hole of unfathomable depth.” He sifted through more than 750,000 patents issued from 1900 to the present to come up with this collection of visual treats.
The patents are presented chronologically, with line drawings and key information such as the date and designer’s name. It’s an interesting mix of many universally owned, everyday objects—ranging from teapots to barbecue grills, from salt and pepper shakers to the Fitbit—along with patents for much larger things, such as Pizza Huts and Boeing airplanes, unusual entries like the Mars Rover and famous designs like Eames chairs.
For some, this will become a trusted reference, but Patented will also appeal to historians, engineers and kids interested in how things used to look, plus anyone passionate about design, innovation and technology. One could even turn the pages and play a “name that item” game. Some are a cinch to guess, while others, like a 1930 “ozonizing apparatus,” will likely leave you stumped. Once you start browsing, however, you may find yourself hooked.
History fans have big treats in store this year, including groundbreaking gift books on American history and baseball, plus visual extravaganzas devoted to legendary women and design innovations.
Pull up a chair and dig into a four-course feast of picture books! These books offer innovative depictions of what it means to express gratitude, to share a meal and to be both welcoming and welcomed.
Thankful
“Every year when the first snow falls, we make thankful chains to last us through December,” explains the narrator of Thankful. She is stretched out on her bedroom floor, surrounded by a halo of colorful construction paper, hard at work transforming it into a paper chain. As she lists the things for which she is thankful, readers glimpse scenes of her life with her parents, new sibling and pet dog, at her school and with her friends.
Author Elaine Vickers’ text is wonderfully evocative. The girl’s list includes concrete and sensory observations, such as gratitude for “the spot under the covers where someone has just been sleeping” and “a cloth on my forehead when I feel sick.” In a humorous beach scene, the girl reflects that she is thankful “for wind and sand—but not at the same time.”
Readers will be entranced by Samantha Cotterill’s outstanding and unique art. To create her illustrations, Cotterill creates miniature 3D interiors, populates them with cutout characters, then photographs each diorama. She includes charming details, including real lights in various rooms and shining car headlights, along with construction paper chains so realistic in appearance that you’ll feel you could almost touch them. Colorful and original, Thankful will spark young readers to create their own thankful chains—and may inspire them to try their hand at making diorama art, too.
★ Let Me Fix You a Plate
The excitement of family gatherings is at the heart of Let Me Fix You a Plate: A Tale of Two Kitchens, inspired by author-illustrator Elizabeth Lilly’s annual childhood trips to see her grandparents. The book follows a girl, her two sisters and their parents as they pile into a car and drive first to West Virginia to their Mamaw and Papaw, then continue to Florida to visit their Abuela and Abuelo, before they finally return to their own home.
Lilly’s energetic illustrations capture these comings and goings, as well as the abundant details the narrator observes in her grandparents’ homes. At Mamaw and Papaw’s house, she sees a shelf of decorative plates and coffee mugs with tractors on them, eats sausage and toast with blackberry jam and helps make banana pudding. Abuela and Abuelo’s house is filled with aunts, uncles and cousins and the sounds of Spanish and salsa music. The girl picks oranges from a tree in the yard and helps make arepas.
Throughout, Lilly’s precise prose contributes to a strong sense of place. “Morning mountain fog wrinkles and rolls,” observes the girl on her first morning in West Virginia, while in Florida, “the hot sticky air hugs us close.” Lilly’s line drawings initially seem simple, almost sketchlike, but they expertly convey the actions and emotions of every character, whether it’s Mamaw bending down to offer her granddaughter a bite of breakfast or a roomful of aunts and uncles dancing while Abuelo plays guitar. Like a warm hug from a beloved family member, Let Me Fix You a Plate is a cozy squeeze that leaves you grinning and a little bit breathless.
Saturday at the Food Pantry
“Everybody needs help sometimes” is the message at the heart of Saturday at the Food Pantry, which depicts a girl named Molly’s first trip to a food pantry with her mom.
Molly and her mom have been eating chili for two weeks; when Molly’s mom opens the refrigerator, we see that it’s nearly empty. In bed that night, Molly’s stomach growls with hunger. Molly is excited to visit a food pantry for the first time, but she isn’t sure what to expect. As she and her mom wait in line, Molly is happy to see that Caitlin, a classmate, is also waiting with her grandmother. Molly greets her enthusiastically, but Caitlin ignores her. “I don’t want anyone to know Gran and I need help,” Caitlin explains later.
Molly’s cheerfulness saves the day, and the girls’ interactions contribute to a normalizing and destigmatizing representation of their experience. Molly asks her mom questions that reveal how the food pantry differs from a grocery store. Mom must check in before she begins shopping, for instance, and there are limits on how many items customers can have. “Take one bundle” reads a sign in the banana basket.
Author Diane O’Neil captures her characters’ trepidations head-on. Mom smiles “just a little, not like when they played at the park” at the volunteer who signs her in, and Molly is confused and sad when her mom tells her to put a box of cookies back because “the people in charge … want us to take sensible stuff.” Gradually, however, the occasion transforms into a positive experience for all.
Food insecurity can be a sensitive topic, and O’Neil—who went to a food pantry when she was a child—handles the issue in a reassuring, informative way. A helpful end note from the CEO of the Greater Chicago Food Depository explains that millions of people in the United States need help just like Molly and her mom, and provides readers resources to find it.
Illustrator Brizida Magro is a wizard of texture, whether depicting Molly’s wavy hair or the wonderful array of patterns in coats, sweaters and pants. Her ability to capture facial expressions and convey complex emotions is also noteworthy; it adds to the book’s emotional depth and makes the eventual smiles all the more impactful. The pantry shoppers’ diversity of skin tone, age and ability underscores how food insecurity can affect anyone. Saturday at the Food Pantry brims with sincerity and a helpful and hopeful spirit.
A Hundred Thousand Welcomes
“In one place or another, at one time or another, in one way or another, every single one of us will find ourselves in search of acceptance, help, protection, welcome,” writes Mary Lee Donovan in her introduction to A Hundred Thousand Welcomes, illustrated by Lian Cho.
With poetic text that reads like an invocation, the book is a fascinating around-the-world tour that explores the concept of welcome. On each page, a household from a different culture entertains guests. Many pages include the corresponding word for “welcome” in that culture’s language, including words and phrases in Indonesian, Arabic, Mandarin Chinese and Lakota Sioux. Back matter from Cho and Donovan explains the inspiration that sparked their collaboration and offers more information about the many languages spoken throughout the world and a detailed pronunciation guide to all of the words in the book.
Cho’s art is a multicultural feast of families and friends enjoying each other’s company. There’s a German chalet where kids play in the snow, a Bengali family greeting visitors who arrive in a small, colorful vehicle and more. The disparate scenes culminate in two shining spreads. In the first, people of all ages and nationalities share a meal at a table that’s so long, it can only fit on the page thanks to a breathtaking gatefold. In the next, an equally long line of kids sit atop a brick wall, chatting with each other and gazing up at a night sky full of stars as one child turns around and waves at the reader.
Although many picture books celebrate the fellowship of friendship and the love that flows during family gatherings, A Hundred Thousand Welcomes encourages readers to go one step further, to ready their own welcome mats and invite neighbors and strangers alike into their homes and hearts.
Four picture books offer innovative depictions of what it means to express gratitude, to share a meal and to be both welcoming and welcomed.
“The Arctic had a way of reminding you that your life was unimportant, expendable, and easily extinguished,” writes Nathaniel Ian Miller in his stellar first novel. He knows this harsh environment all too well, having lived there as part of the annual Arctic Circle artist and scientist expeditionary program. During his residency, he happened upon a century-old hut where a hermit once lived on an otherwise uninhabited fjord. Although biographical details of the man are sparse, the discovery inspired Miller to write a fictional account of his life. The result, The Memoirs of Stockholm Sven, seems so authentic in both detail and slightly archaic narrative voice that it’s easy to forget it’s not an actual memoir.
Growing up in Stockholm, Sven Ormson is determined to escape an unhappy life of “menial drudgery.” He dreams of polar exploration and reads not only famous, heroic accounts but also all of the “terminally dull voyage narratives” he can get his hands on. At age 32, he sets out for Spitsbergen, a Norwegian archipelagic isle in the Arctic Circle, where he begins working in a dangerous, soul-sucking mine. Before long, a horrific accident leaves him not only disfigured but also “resolved to spend [his] life alone” as an Arctic trapper. And he’s hardly a gifted trapper.
Thus begins a truly walloping tale of solitude and survival told in visceral detail, a combination of Miller’s wild imagination and his beautifully precise prose. By design, the novel is so full of lengthy descriptions that a certain amount of perseverance is required of the reader. But Sven is an insightful yet comically ironic narrator, and there is often great excitement in his story, including “ice bear” attacks, near starvation, northern lights and the haunting sounds of calving glaciers.
The arctic landscape is mostly barren, but Sven encounters a parade of quirky yet meaningful characters who appear, disappear and sometimes reappear in his life. He also offers a surprising amount of social commentary, touching on corporate greed, the plight of workers, the tragedy and senselessness of war, the rewards of canine-human relationships, the necessity of intellectual pursuits and more.
Although The Memoirs of Stockholm Sven is a vastly different book from Peter Heller’s The Guide, these two novels may appeal to the same audience: readers who love exquisite nature writing and crave no-holds-barred, extreme outdoor adventures. Miller goes one step further, however, by imbuing his novel with an unforgettable narrator who asks essential questions of human connection, a remarkable achievement for a novel ostensibly about solitude. What makes a family? What makes a devoted friend? What makes a great life?
Like the arctic landscape itself, The Memoirs of Stockholm Sven is beautifully stark and unimaginably rich, a book that will long be remembered by its lucky readers.
Like the arctic landscape itself, The Memoirs of Stockholm Sven is beautifully stark and unimaginably rich, a book that will long be remembered by its lucky readers.
Here are some of our favorite new poetry books for children, selections that are bound to unleash the inner poet in even the youngest writers.
A PLAY ON WORDS Readers of all ages will get a kick out of Bob Raczka’s clever Lemonade: And Other Poems Squeezed from a Single Word. The premise of these short, fun verses is to take a single word (such as lemonade, pepperoni or playground), and make a short poem using only the letters in that word. So, for example, a poem called “Television” consists of the lines: “set is on / i sit.”
This book will appeal to both poetry and puzzle lovers, no doubt motivating them to choose their own words and write some poems.
LEARNING WITH VERSE Over the last few years I have particularly liked books that combine poetry with nonfiction, such as Tracie Vaughn Zimmer’s Cousins of Clouds: Elephant Poems. This book is a visual and literary feast, with eye-catching mixed-media illustrations by Megan Halsey and Sean Addy.
Each page contains this duo’s illustrations, along with one of Zimmer’s imaginative poems and a short sidebar filled with interesting elephant facts, such as the recent discovery that elephants can communicate over extremely long distances with low tones that people can’t hear, and that they can feel these tones through their feet.
Many interesting topics are addressed, including elephants’ ivory tusks, their excellent memory and the term “white elephant.” The book’s title comes from the first page, in which we learn that some cultures once believed that elephants could control the weather. This blend of poetry, nonfiction and art is literature and learning at its best.
Similarly, Amy Gibson’s Around the World on Eighty Legs contains a menagerie of animal poems, organized by continent. The book begins with a world map showing how the poems and animals are grouped, and ends with an alphabetical glossary that sums up each animal with a few defining features. Daniel Salmieri’s watercolor, gouache and colored-pencil illustrations are lighthearted and fun, filled with animals that bear many amusing facial expressions.
There’s a nice blend of familiar and exotic animals, too, from the kangaroo to the cassowary, covered nicely with Gibson’s fun, never-pedantic poems. Here, for example, are a few lines about yaks:
The yakkity yakkity yak— Why is it the yak never answers you back? To a yak, nothing’s worse than to have to converse— The yakkity yakkity yak.
TELLING TALES Animal lovers will also enjoy Lee Wardlaw’s Won Ton: A Cat Tale Told in Haiku. The book opens with a short note explaining that these verses are a form of Japanese poetry called senryu, very similar to haiku.
Wardlaw’s book is wonderfully innovative, telling a story through a series of senryu that are compelling yet quite accessible to young readers. The tale is told from the cat’s point of view, who starts out in a shelter and gets picked to go home with a family in a poem called “The Choosing.” Next, in “The Naming,” the cat hears his new moniker and proclaims:
Won Ton? How can I be soup? Some day, I’ll tell you my real name. Maybe.
This is a touching tale, made even more dramatic by Eugene Yelchin’s sublime illustrations, which vary on every page, adding drama, emotion, fun and beauty.
I have long been a fan of Kristine O’Connell George’s poetry collections, and her latest, Emma Dilemma: Big Sister Poems, is a real winner. Fourth-grader Jessica both loves and loathes her little sister Emma, and this is the essence of her “Emma Dilemma.”
Jessica voices her wide-ranging emotions through a series of poems that are spot-on for real situations and feelings, getting right at the heart of what it means to be a sister, chronicling both its delights and demons. Nancy Carpenter’s lively illustrations manage to capture every bit of the fun and fury.
There is drama here, too, when Emma tries to join Jessica and her friend in their treehouse and falls, breaking her arm, prompting guilt in Jessica that she should have been closer paying attention to Emma. Kids of all ages will be both moved and entertained by this engaging poem-story.
POEMS WITH A THEME Lee Bennett Hopkins is another kingpin of children’s poetry, having assembled many wonderful collections over the years. His latest, I Am the Book, is a collection of poems—including one of his own—all about books and the pleasures of reading. These are fun, animated poems, such as this verse from Beverly McLoughland’s “When I Read”:
When I read, I like to dive In the sea of words and swim Feet kicking fast across the page Splashing words against my skin.
The energy is enhanced with acrylics by an illustrator named Yayo, whose vibrant colors enliven every page. In the illustration for this poem, for instance, a streamlined diver plunges into a bright blue sea, which rests on top of a gigantic book, all atop a sandy yellow background.
More creative illustrations are waiting in Peaceful Pieces: Poems and Quilts about Peace by Anna Grossnickle Hines, a follow-up to her lovely A Year in Poems and Quilts. Hines’ illustrations are photographs of her own amazing, handmade quilts. And phenomenal they are, with wonderful backgrounds and vibrant colors, patterns and textures, and people, too, such as a boy in a kayak or a curly-haired girl holding a butterfly.
Hines’ poems are just as wonderful and varied as her quilts, discussing peace in its many forms, whether between a hamster and a snake, siblings, schoolmates, armies or countries. There’s plenty of food for thought here, including a spread dedicated to eight peacemakers, ranging from Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. to child peacemakers Samantha Smith and Mattie Stepanek.
Hines ends her book with a few pages explaining who these peacemakers are, and also discusses how she created her quilts. She relates the long history of quilt-making, storytelling and artistic and community collaboration. This is indeed a treasure trove of beauty and inspiration.
Here are some of our favorite new poetry books for children, selections that are bound to unleash the inner poet in even the youngest writers.
A PLAY ON WORDS Readers of all ages will get a kick out of Bob Raczka’s clever Lemonade: And Other Poems…
To commemorate Black History Month, here are four excellent new picture books—two biographies, plus two fictionalized accounts of escaping to freedom on the Underground Railroad.
Most children today are well-versed in Martin Luther King Jr.’s tremendous struggles and accomplishments. A beautiful new picture book, Coretta Scott, focuses on his wife. The text is a poem by award-winning poet, playwright and author Ntozake Shange, accompanied by glorious artwork from Kadir Nelson. Shange’s poem provides a lyrical yet focused look at Coretta Scott’s life and spirit, with lines like: “over years / learning and freedom / took hold of Coretta’s soul / till she knew in her being / that the Good Lord intended freedom for the Negro.” An additional page of biographical explanation and a photograph at the end fill in additional details. Nelson’s oil paintings are rich and vibrant, portraying not only the story but the passion, dignity and difficulty of Coretta Scott King’s life. Coretta Scott is a masterful encapsulation of an important life—perfect for young children as well as elementary students.
Another fascinating but largely unknown story is told in The Last Black King of the Kentucky Derby about jockey Jimmy Winkfield, who lived from 1882 to 1974. Crystal Hubbard’s detailed, well-paced text, illustrated by Robert McGuire, starts with a foreword about horse racing, which in this country began with many slaves as jockeys. Winkfield was born into a family of sharecroppers in Kentucky, the youngest of 17 children. He went on to win back-to-back Kentucky Derbies in 1901 and 1902, and narrowly missed winning a third in 1903. Hubbard’s crisp writing makes each of these races come alive. She explains how black jockeys were forced out of racing for a while, and how Winkfield then trained and raced horses in Poland and Russia for many years. When Winkfield returned for a Kentucky Derby banquet in 1961, he and his daughter were not allowed to enter through the front door. Hubbard’s picture book biography is a superb addition to any library for young readers.
The journey north I Want To Be Free is a thoughtful, inspiring story about two young runaway slaves, written in poem-like text by Joseph Slate, author of the popular Miss Bindergarten books. The story is based on a Buddhist tale as told in Rudyard Kipling’s novel, Kim, but Slate’s version is set in America during the days of slavery. The tale starts with a young slave announcing, “Before I die, I want to be free. / But the Big Man says, ‘You belong to me.’ ”
The slave manages to escape and avoid the slave hunters and their dogs, but cannot remove the iron shackle on his leg. During his escape, he risks his life to save a young boy whose mother has died—and who eventually helps him remove the shackle. Caldecott-winning artist E.B. Lewis’ watercolors are dark and powerful, setting the mood for this amazing journey. I Want To Be Free is not only a riveting picture book about slavery and freedom, but also a transcending parable about the magical rewards of helping others in the face of danger.
Most Loved in All the World is another riveting, heartbreaking story about slavery. The narrator is a young girl, the daughter of a slave who toils in the cotton fields and returns from the Big House with whip marks across her back.
Mama makes her daughter a quilt and whispers what it means: “A log cabin means a place is safe. This star is the brightest in the sky; it’s for you to follow. The moss should only be growin’ on the side of the tree in the direction you are headed.” Her mama adds that the little girl on the quilt is happy because she’s the “most loved in all the world.” Mama then takes the girl out in the night and hands her over to people who will lead her to freedom, but stays behind herself so she can help others escape. Author Tonya Cherie Hegamin offers a fact-filled note at the end of the book about mothers, slavery, freedom, quilting and the Underground Railroad, and includes a list of suggestions for further reading. This excellent book also showcases strong artwork (acrylic paint and textile collage) by artist Cozbi A. Cabrera, well known for making handcrafted cloth dolls. Her art conveys not only the details of this Underground Railroad story, but the beauty and handwork of the quilting, so central to this story.
Alice Cary writes from Groton, Massachusetts.
To commemorate Black History Month, here are four excellent new picture books—two biographies, plus two fictionalized accounts of escaping to freedom on the Underground Railroad.
Most children today are well-versed in Martin Luther King Jr.’s tremendous struggles and accomplishments. A beautiful new picture book, Coretta Scott,…
Books are my favorite gifts to give and receive. It’s always been that way and will no doubt remain that way (despite my continued love affair with my Kindle, a holiday gift last year). Here are some great new books to give to the children in your life.
Old favorites I’ll start with a holiday classic that’s good for all ages: Jan Brett’s delightful Snowy Treasury. Here in one handy edition is a collection of four of Brett’s wonderful picture books: Gingerbread Baby, The Mitten, The Hat and The Three Snow Bears. Brett’s meticulous illustrations have long been a favorite in our house, and the stories in this volume transport readers to the snowy kingdoms of a Swiss forest, a Ukrainian woodland, Denmark and the Arctic. Put Snowy Treasury out within easy reach and you’ll see everyone from adults to preschoolers snuggle in for a warm, cozy read—preferably next to a crackling fire.
Yet another treasure—literally—is a new, unabridged edition of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, featuring woodcuts by John Lawrence, acclaimed author and illustrator of books such as This Little Chick. This large-format edition with large print makes Stevenson’s swashbuckling story easily accessible for a new generation of readers. With a yo-ho-ho to Long John Silver, Lawrence’s many woodcuts and their soft pastel hues are a fine accompaniment to Stevenson’s exciting tale.
Special treats Such excitement may well work up an appetite, so consider giving your favorite little chef a copy of Paula Deen’s Cookbook for the Lunch-Box Set with Martha Nesbit, illustrated by Susan Mitchell. My 10-year-old daughters and I will definitely be trying this out soon. The colorful, spiral-bound book is well written with clear, numbered directions for young cooks. It’s also attractively laid out, with labeled illustrations at the beginning of each recipe showing not only what ingredients are needed, but also what kitchen tools are required. The varied chapters include such themes as bake sales, sleepovers, family cooking night and a Christmas cooking party. My girls and I will soon be trying Stained Glass Cookies, Oreo Truffles and Cheese Bread. The recipes are kid-friendly, yet packed with Deen’s down-home style.
How about treating someone special to a few of Julie Andrews’ favorite things? She and her daughter, Emma Walton Hamilton, have collaborated on Julie Andrews’ Collection of Poems, Songs, and Lullabies. This collection would make a great present for everyone from newborns to elementary school children, the latter of which will enjoy the wide variety here, as well as the lovely watercolors throughout by award-winning artist James McCullen.
You’ll find classics from the likes of Kenneth Grahame and Robert Frost, along with lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and Ira Gershwin. As Andrews explains: “I feel that many lyrics are poems in themselves. For me, it’s so hard to separate the two that I chose to make this collection embrace both.”
A pair of pop-ups Leave it to Mo Willems to do something different. This award-winning author/illustrator has created a “Pop-Out” book called Big Frog Can’t Fit In with paper engineering by Bruce Foster. Though there are few words, this story about an oversized frog who needs the help of her friends is funny, ingenious and guaranteed to be loved by the seven-and-under set—all typical of Willems’ work. (Be sure to note the book’s odd shape when you see it.) It’s hard to beat Mo Willems when it comes to creating laughs with simple illustrations and text.
Matthew Reinhart’s A Pop-Up Book of Nursery Rhymes is another small book that packs a lot of pop-up punch. Each spread has one big pop-up, such as the cow jumping over a grinning moon, along with two smaller pop-ups, much like little books that unfold on each page. This beautifully executed little gem is perfect for a short bedtime treat.
Interactive adventures Where was My Little Red Fire Truck when my son was a preschooler? Oh, how he would have adored this book! Stephen T. Johnson, the creator of My Little Red Toolbox, has produced another delight in which children can fill up the fire truck’s gas tank, check the tire pressure, drive and more. The book has built-in, removable tools (made of sturdy cardboard) so that all of these tasks can be taken care of by your busy young firefighter. He or she will love being on the job!
Preschoolers will also revel in Dinosaur Park, with illustrations by Steve Weston. This Jurassic play set includes nine press-out dinosaurs, four different play scenes, plus a field guide perfect for young dino fans. Open it if you dare! On a more graceful note, elementary-age dancers will enjoy Kate Castle’s The Ballerina’s Handbook. This compact volume contains letters, postcards, flaps and an insightful tour through the ballet world, from a beginning class through a professional company on tour. There are many clever sidebars, too, on such topics as healthy food and makeup tips for dancers, a glossary of terms and a short list of legendary dancers.
Finally, older elementary students can explore the world with Philip Steele’s A Mariner’s Tale. The highly interesting and illustrated text discusses the early days of exploration and includes 3-D artwork, pull-out flaps, a model caravel ship and a secret mariner’s chest with a compass and telescope to construct. Readers can sail along with the world’s most famous explorers, from the Phoenician sea traders to the Vikings and Columbus. This fun package is perfect for whetting the appetites of young Marco Polos!
A book that truly stands out (and up!) Is someone on your holiday wish list begging for a pet? Try the next best thing. Eye-Popping 3-D Pets: Phantogram Animals You Can Practically Pet, by Barry Rothstein and Betsy Rothstein, is a gift guaranteed to have tremendous appeal. Who can resist popping on a pair of 3-D glasses? (And thoughtfully, the book comes with not one but two pairs.)
The book’s subtitle is absolutely correct—these glasses really do make viewers feel as though they are petting the animals. Rothstein uses a special process known as phantogram 3-D, which makes the images appear to stand up. What’s more, the book is large, so some of the animals are actually life-size. Eye-Popping 3-D Pets begins with a two-page guide to how the phenomenon works and ends with an interesting spread about another type of 3-D (stereo).
The 28 pets covered include cats, dogs, guinea pigs, rabbits, potbellied pigs, fish, frogs, rosy boas, corn snakes, tarantulas and more. Each spread also contains basic information on taking care of these pets, so the book is not only fun, but a helpful guide should your family ever get the real thing. Just be forewarned: the three hairy tarantulas contained in these pages will look like they’re crawling in your living room. No screams allowed!
Alice Cary explores the world of children’s books from her home in Groton, Massachusetts.
Books are my favorite gifts to give and receive. It’s always been that way and will no doubt remain that way (despite my continued love affair with my Kindle, a holiday gift last year). Here are some great new books to give to the children…
Clever and delightful—those are the best words to describe Mirror Mirror, a new collection by noted poet Marilyn Singer. In her latest book, Singer has created her own new form of poetry, which she calls a “reverso,” a poem that reads the same backward and forward. “When you read a reverso down, it is one poem,” Singer explains. “When you read it up, with changes allowed only in punctuation, capitalization, and line breaks, it is a different poem.” She focuses on fairy tales, such as “In the Hood,” which first gives Little Red Riding Hood’s perspective, and then, when read the other way, tells the wolf’s side of the story. “Cinderella’s Double Life” tells her tale before and after the ball, while “Mirror Mirror” is a poem by both Snow White and her Wicked Stepmother.
Josée Masse’s accompanying art continues the double view in striking fashion, by dividing each scene in two. Older preschoolers will enjoy these poems, as well as elementary students, who are likely to want to write their own reversos.
For the fun of it
The theme of different points of view continues in Our Farm: By the Animals of Farm Sanctuary. Maya Gottfried wrote these poems in the voices of various animals, such as “It’s Good to Be a Kid,” by baby goats Ari and Alicia. These are humorous, short poems—good for preschoolers and young elementary students. The farm animals from the sanctuary in Watkins Glen, New York, come to life with the soft, up-close artwork of artist Robert Rahway Zakanitch. His pleasing style brings to mind the artwork of children’s illustrator Jane Dyer.
Allan Ahlberg and his late wife Janet are beloved for their Jolly Postman series, and Allan has a new title that will be immediately captivating to young poetry readers: Everybody Was a Baby Once. The humorous artwork of Bruce Ingman seals the deal, making this a book that will make children laugh out loud. Ingman’s art is simple, yet funny and full of action and expression. The poems include such hilarious selections as “Dirty Bill” (“I’m Dirty Bill from Vinegar Hill, / Never had a bath and never will”). These short verses are full of old-fashioned fun and reflect the British heritage of their author, but children from around the world will enjoy poems like “Soccer Sonnet,” which includes the line “Little Jack Horner / Scored straight from a corner.”
The fun continues in Name That Dog! Puppy Poems from A to Z. Peggy Archer has named each poem after a dog, such as a long-haired cocker spaniel named “Elvis,” who “wiggles and jiggles and dances around. He swings to the music with a rock ’n’ roll sound.” You’ll also meet “Houdini,” a mini-pinscher who escapes from his collars; “Melody,” a basset hound who sings; and a giant Saint Bernard named “Rex” (first initial: T). Stephanie Buscema’s artwork aptly defines the shining personality of each puppy. Buscema has worked for Marvel Comics, DC Comics and Disney, and her background is reflected in her lively, colorful illustrations, which are vibrant and sure to draw children in. Name That Dog! is a crowd-pleasing canine chorus.
Digging deep
Don’t be fooled by the cover of Can You Dig It?. With its big purple dinosaur, this volume looks like it might be yet another dinosaur book. Rest assured that it is not. Robert Weinstock has done a brilliant job of both writing and illustrating this clever book of verse. His wordsmithing is extraordinarily fun, with lines like these:
My great aunt was LuAnn Abrue,
The pal-e-on-tol-o-gist who,
Was famed for finding fossil poo,
Like giant T.rex number two.
With these poems about dinosaurs, archaeologists, Neanderthals and more, kids will be smiling, but adults may chuckle even more. Weinstock’s cartoon-style illustrations are eye-catchingly fun.
Over the years I’ve seen many poetry books by Douglas Florian, and I always find his gift of language and sense of nature to be particularly sensitive. That’s certainly the case with Poetrees, which is filled with odes to trees. Students will enjoy and learn from Florian’s short poems about trees like banyans, sequoias, Japanese cedars and dragon trees. There’s a glossary in the back, explaining, for instance, that monkey trees are originally from South America, and how they got their name. Florian’s evocative illustrations are made with gouache, colored pencils, watercolors, rubber stamps, oil pastels and collage on primed paper bags. This paper bag background gives the illustrations a unique textured look and added depth.
Nature’s wonders
Lee Bennett Hopkins has been creating anthologies of poetry for years, and I particularly like his latest collaboration with Caldecott Award-winning illustrator David Diaz, Sharing the Seasons: A Book of Poems. Diaz’s bold, bright colors and stylized, luminescent mixed media illustrations give this anthology a contemporary, edgy feel.
The poems are arranged by season, with an opening quote introducing each section, such as Longfellow’s “Spring in all the world! /And all things are made new!” Poets include Carl Sandburg, Marilyn Singer, Rebecca Kai Dotlich and more. The poetry is easily accessible, but not always predictable, such as Beverly McLoughland’s fun “Don’t You Dare,” which begins:
Stop! cried Robin,
Don’t you dare begin it!
Another tweety rhyme
With a redbreast in it!
One of my very favorites of this season’s poetry books is the beautifully illustrated and organized Ubiquitous: Celebrating Nature’s Survivors. It’s a unique book that includes poetry, biology and ecology lessons, along with spectacular artwork. Author Joyce Sidman notes that 99 percent of all species that have ever existed are now extinct, and in this book she pays tribute to a variety of species that continue to thrive, such as bacteria, mollusks, lichen, sharks, beetles, ants, diatoms and humans. Each spread contains a short but comprehensive biological discussion of the species, a gorgeous illustration and a poetic tribute.
Sidman’s poems are fun and innovative. For instance, the text of the shark poem is laid out in the shape of a shark. Some are traditional, while “Tail Tale” is a free verse monologue humorously told by a squirrel. Becky Prange’s illustrations are arresting, informative and gorgeously filled with color. The book’s endpapers are a timeline showing when various forms of life appeared on Earth. Ubiquitous is a brilliant book that mixes art, poetry and science in imaginative ways, and is an excellent choice for home, schools and libraries.
A colossal poem Emma’s Poem: The Voice of the Statue of Liberty is not a book of poetry; instead, it’s a picture book about one of the most famous poems in America. Writer Linda Glaser has created a lovely biography of Emma Lazarus, who in 1883 wrote a poem called “The New Colossus” that is engraved on a plaque at the base of the Statue of Liberty. Her poem has become immortal, as though the Statue of Liberty itself were speaking, saying: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
Glaser’s text is interesting and informative, making history come alive in storybook fashion. Claire A. Nivola’s watercolor and gouache illustrations are rich in color and historical detail, propelling the story forward while showing the lifestyles of the day.
Lazarus was born in 1849 to a wealthy Jewish family in New York City. This book explains how she began helping immigrants at Ward’s Island in New York Harbor, and how she began writing about immigrants for newspapers and in poems. Lazarus wrote “The New Colossus” when she was 34 years old. She died four years later of Hodgkin’s Disease, before the Statue of Liberty was erected—although she wrote her poem to help raise money for its pedestal. Emma’s Poem is a superb book for elementary-age children interested in our nation’s history and values.
Alice Cary writes from her home in Groton, Massachusetts.
Clever and delightful—those are the best words to describe Mirror Mirror, a new collection by noted poet Marilyn Singer. In her latest book, Singer has created her own new form of poetry, which she calls a “reverso,” a poem that reads the same backward and…
In my house, it seems, daddies can do no wrong—especially in the eyes of my 11-year-old twin daughters. (The same cannot always be said for dear old mom!) In honor of Father’s Day, here are four new picture books that salute proud papas everywhere.
Young children will enjoy the gentle rhymes of Sherry North’s Because I Am Your Daddy, illustrated by Marcellus Hall. This follow-up to Because You Are My Baby begins: “If I were a pilot, I would fly you to your school. / Your friends would all look up and say, ‘Your daddy is so cool!’ ”
The rhymes continue with the father voicing many “If I were” thoughts about being a baseball player, paleontologist, park ranger, movie director and all sorts of exciting professions. With each imagined activity, daddy, daughter and her dolly have an exciting adventure. This poem of mutual admiration ends with: “And if I were a wizard, I would make your dreams come true. / Because I am your daddy, I would do anything for you.”
Daddy/daughter bedtime reading doesn’t get any cozier. The text is accompanied by Hall’s fun and stylishly retro watercolors. His airline pilot and robot look like they could have come from the 1960s, while his use of color is lovely, especially in a northern sky night scene.
What's in a name Acclaimed children’s author Jane Yolen wrote the delightful tribute My Father Knows the Names of Things in honor of her late husband, David Stemple. The encyclopedic dad in this book knows the names of many wonderful things, including mosses, insects, fish, cows, stars, cats and candies.
Stéphane Jorisch’s illustrations (watercolor, gouache, pen and ink) are whimsically delightful, making the father/child explorations great fun. The explorers wade through hugely tall sunflowers, head for the clouds in a biplane and explore the planets from an amusement park ride. Everything is fun and full of expression in Jorisch’s world—even a row of colorful birds in a cage.
Standing tall Daddy Devotion is also alive and well in My Father is Taller Than a Tree, by another award-winning children’s author, Joseph Bruchac. This rhyming text features a variety of boys with their dads: old, young, white, black, Hispanic, Asian and even a blind dad. Wendy Anderson Halperin’s pastel illustrations show fathers and their sons enjoying splendid times together—playing the piano, walking on the beach, reading, playing chess, painting a doghouse. These tender scenes conclude with a panorama of sons and their dads, and this lovely line: “When I grow up and have a kid / we’ll do all the things that Dad and I did.”
Saluting stepfathers, too Finally, blended families will adore Dad and Pop: An Ode to Fathers and Stepfathers. Writer Kelly Bennett celebrates how both a father and a stepfather can be equally fun and loving in very different ways. For instance, both father and stepfather bike (one on a bicycle, one on a motorcycle) and both love music (one goes for the symphony while the other rocks out). Paul Meisel’s colorful, energetic illustrations show dads with their daughters enjoying all sorts of entertaining outings together.
In my house, it seems, daddies can do no wrong—especially in the eyes of my 11-year-old twin daughters. (The same cannot always be said for dear old mom!) In honor of Father’s Day, here are four new picture books that salute proud papas everywhere.
Young children…
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