Julie Danielson

Micha Archer’s spectacularly colorful collages in What’s New, Daniel? tell the story of a young boy’s day in the park. Daniel runs to meet his grandfather, who asks the boy, “What’s new?” Daniel responds literally: “Um, I don’t know yet.”

Daniel heads deeper into the park to retrieve some answers. What’s new with his favorite rock? What’s new with the redwing blackbirds, Mother Duck, Polliwog, Snake and other budding life in the lush and lively park that the boy and grandfather visit? With abundant curiosity, Daniel explores every nook and cranny of what is clearly one of his favorite places in the city. The answers Daniel receives prompt him to also consider what is new in his life. When Snake shares that it has shed its old skin, Daniel points out that he’s just lost a tooth. When Daniel learns that the polliwogs are all growing legs, Daniel enthusiastically shares, “My legs are growing too!” Archer, who clearly knows children well, then depicts Daniel showing them how strong his legs are: “Watch me run!” 

Archer presents a verdant park teeming with life, a pocket in a big and bustling city. Her vivid palette showcases nearly every shade of green—the true star of this show—but also warm yellows (the flowers Butterfly lands on), rich rust colors (the leaves of the oak tree in which Squirrel builds her nest), and the gleaming blues and teals of the sky, the water and even grandfather’s sweater. As in her previous books featuring Daniel (Daniel’s Good Day and Daniel Finds a Poem), Archer achieves impressive textures and details in the illustrations, creating artwork to pore over. 

What’s New, Daniel? not only captures an intergenerational bond but also celebrates the joy with which children take in the natural world. There are no screens in sight. Instead, Daniel revels in the shimmering water of the pond, the cattails sending seeds into the wind, the unfurling leaves on the fern, and the delicate wings of a butterfly, not to mention his own growing body. As Daniel puts it, with such unbridled cheer, “So many things are new!” 

“The best and worst thing in the world is other dogs,” muses the dachshund protagonist of A Pack of Your Own, written and illustrated by Maria Nilsson Thore and translated from Swedish by A.A. Prime. Wrapped in a fine robe, the dachshund stares out of an apartment window at other dogs, who seem to have so much fun in their packs. But those dogs turn the dachshund off with all their bottom-sniffing, running around on all fours, barking and peeing. This misfit—who walks on two feet, uses toilet paper, and wears a shower cap while bathing in a tub—assumes there must be something wrong with them: “I wish I could find someone like me. Someone who loves fancy hats, clever crosswords . . . or the aroma of coffee.”

Thore’s fine-lined illustrations utilize a subdued monochromatic palette, save for the caramel-colored dog and his rust-colored collar. She captures elegant details in the apartment the dachshund calls home, including the bathroom where they sit on the toilet, just like a human. When they bravely visit the dog park in an attempt to fit in, the other boisterous dogs are each visually distinctive and bursting with personality, their chaos captured in energetic yet careful compositions.

When a poodle who spots the dachshund wandering home alone decides to knock on the door and is invited in, readers know that life will change for the dachshund. The poodle is a bit wild and has a peculiar way of doing things, such as drinking coffee straight from the carafe while lying down across the back of the living room’s wingback chair. But they enjoy many of the same things as the dachshund, who comes to understand that friends don’t have to be “exactly like me!” Two spreads depict their budding camaraderie, and a smile grows across the dachshund’s face at having finally bonded with another dog. Every dog has its day, and this is the dachshund’s: the first day of an abiding friendship.

This home-and-back-again adventure tale belongs to Evergreen, a wide-eyed squirrel who lives deep in Buckthorn Forest. Evergreen has a long list of fears, including but not limited to germs, loud noises, heights, swimming and thunderstorms. When her mother asks her to travel through the forest to take soup to Granny Oak, Evergreen responds, “I can’t do it!” But her mother insists (”I know you are afraid, but I believe you can do it”), so Evergreen puts on her shawl and heads out. 

In an era of picture books that often contain sparse text, Evergreen stands out for its lengthy, detailed prose. Caldecott Medalist Matthew Cordell treats readers to an epic tale in six enumerated parts, filled with lively dialogue and hand-lettered onomatopoeia. “SKREEEE-EEE!” and “GRRROOOAAARRR!” go the forest creatures who frighten Evergreen on her journey. In one remarkably spine-tingling moment, a red-tailed hawk named Ember swoops down toward Evergreen, picks her up “with razor-sharp talons” and soars into the sky. Cordell offers a dramatic, close-up view of the scene as Evergreen and another animal run toward the reader, the hawk just behind them, its majestic wings exceeding the edges of the spread. 

Fortunately, Ember just needs Evergreen’s help to remove some painful thorns after an unlucky encounter with a bramble. “I . . . can do it,” Evergreen whispers, a self-directed pep talk that becomes her refrain throughout the story. With each creature she meets, Evergreen faces one of her fears with courage (and deep breaths and trembling hands), and she prevails every time—even when she meets “the Bear,” whose identity is a gratifying surprise. 

Cordell’s world building is immensely satisfying, and Evergreen is packed with entertaining textual and visual details. Evergreen delivers Mama’s “magic soup” in an empty acorn with a screw-on cap; her tattered shawl is red like another well-known woodland food delivery courier; and earth tone borders that look like tree branches frame many vignettes. Cordell drops a number of hints to a sequel, including a delightful map beneath the dust jacket and another delivery request from Evergreen’s mother toward the story’s conclusion. Readers would be so lucky. 

This exquisite etiological story, originally published in a wordless format by David Álvarez in Mexico in 2017, blends multiple Mesoamerican tales to tell a story of how the sun came to be. 

“At the start of things, the elders say,” begins award-winning author David Bowles’ text, which was composed for this edition, “the universe was hushed and still.” Teal-gray Rabbit perches atop the moon, which takes the form of a round jug and provides the sky’s only light aside from the minuscule stars. In order to keep the moon “forever a-glow,” Rabbit crosses the world to secure more aguamiel, nectar that “brims in the heart of the first and holy maguey,” an agave plant. 

But clever Opossum wants to taste the aguamiel, so he uses his walking stick to crack open the moon and siphon off some of the nectar. Later, ashamed that the moon has been depleted of the substance that made it glow, Opossum journeys deep into the earth to fill another jug with fire and, in the process, burns the tip of his tail. Afterward, with a “blazing sun” in the sky, Rabbit and Opossum become the “Guardians of Light.” 

Bowles’ spare, evocative text flows like poetry: “Rabbit made her way down the Great Ceiba’s trunk and trekked across the sea-ringed world.” He seamlessly captures the nuances of the traditional tales from which this story draws, which are discussed in a detailed note that closes the book. 

Álvarez’s compositions are sophisticated and uncluttered as he arranges visual elements with elegance and balance. Most of the spreads feature a pitch-black background punctuated by gleaming pinpoint stars. Layered atop are the subdued, earth-toned colors of beautifully crafted, gently stylized figures so remarkably textured that you can almost count the number of hairs on Rabbit’s body. 

Ancient Night is wondrous, sparkling and easily one of the best picture books of 2023. 

Carter Higgins delivers another superb concept book in Some of These Are Snails, a natural companion to her elegant 2021 creation, Circle Under Berry. Higgins invites readers to linger over these pages as they classify, sort and organize simple shapes in bright colors. 

The book opens with a double-page spread dominated by two circles: one green, one yellow, with simple embellishments that transform the green into a turtle, the yellow into a snail. “Turtle is a circle,” we read, then, “circle is a snail.” The next spread features six green and orange circles on the verso, while the recto repeats the images of the turtle and the snail, then introduces a yellow square. “Circle circle square” rests below these three shapes. In the spread that follows, the yellow square becomes an elephant; next to it, a square, now blue, is an owl. 

As we continue to turn the pages, Higgins’ text encourages readers to sort by color and shape, and to ascertain how these classifications overlap. We see nine variously colored circles arranged in a three-by-three square; a square whale; triangle birds and mice; a series of circles grouped by both size and color; and more. Occasionally, Higgins addresses readers directly: “can you sort by color? can you sort by size?” then, striking a playful note, “can you sort by shape or find the animal with eyes?” Perhaps the most sophisticated puzzle of all features six animal shapes and asks, “what is one? what is some? where is all and where is none?”

Though the text includes sparse punctuation and no capitalization, it’s satisfyingly rhythmic and filled with pleasing rhymes, both true and slant. It absolutely begs to be shared aloud. Meanwhile, Higgins renders the shapes and the creatures built from those shapes with vibrant collage illustrations. The figures rest on copious white space and evoke the palette and textures of the work of Eric Carle. It all makes for an utterly delightful, visually rich package that will have readers engaging in the types of classification work that form the basis of math skills and enhance memory and problem-solving abilities, too. Best of all, they’ll learn to see the world and its patterns in eye-opening ways. Some of These Are Snails is a must-have for every young reader’s bookshelf.