Julie Danielson

While skateboarding through New York City, a boy pauses at the Museum of Modern Art and decides to head inside. Suddenly, his imagination kicks into gear: Figures from three legendary paintings step through their canvases to join him—the cubist figures from Picasso’s “Three Musicians,” the woman and lion from Rousseau’s “The Sleeping Gypsy,” and the abstract expressionistic body from Matisse’s “Icarus.” As a group, they leave the museum and roam the streets of the city, making memories at iconic stops like the Statue of Liberty’s crown. After the boy returns to the museum to say goodbye to his new friends, he stops to paint his own memories of the day on a building wall.

In a closing note for Imagine!, author and illustrator Raúl Colón writes about his experience growing up in New York without ever visiting the museums. (“My hardworking parents were taking care of many important issues to help keep the family above water and my fragile health in check.”) What, he wonders, would his life have been like if he’d seen such works of art when he was younger? This inviting, well-paced wordless story, rendered in Colón’s signature, highly textured watercolor and colored pencil illustrations, is his answer to that question. The boy’s adventure, springing from the deep wells of his imagination, is nearly breathless, and the story as a whole is truly inspiring.

A reverent, playful tribute to the power of imagination and art.

Horse Meets Dog, the debut picture book from TV writer Elliott Kalan (“Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Return” and “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart”) tells the story of two stubborn animals who refuse to acknowledge one another’s identities. Upon first meeting, Horse assumes Dog is a tiny baby horse, and Dog assumes Horse is a very big dog. Their confusion grows until they are (literally) running in circles, unable to see the world from the other’s point of view.

With speech-balloons and Tim Miller’s expressive, cartoonish illustrations, over-the-top humor is the name of the game here, and the lively back-and-forth discussions between the two characters make Horse Meets Dog a particularly good choice for storytime. In one instance, Horse tries to feed Dog a bottle of hay and mocks Dog’s tail, telling him his tail should hang down “like a gorgeous hair waterfall.” Even gift-giving attempts fail: Dog doesn’t understand the heavy saddle Horse gives him, and Horse is utterly baffled by the concept of fetching a ball.

The new friends never come to understand the error in their thinking, and the comic rimshot of an ending—a bird appears to tell them they are “two weird-looking birds”—leaves readers hoping an epiphany will follow.

This article was originally published in the November 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

It’s a snow day, and Alice’s father wakes to find her dressed in royal garb, declaring she is “KING Alice! The first!” King Alice is full of creative ideas for how to spend the unexpected day off, and whatever she says goes. While her mother tends to the baby, King Alice and her drowsy but willing father write and illustrate a story. Even though King Alice is bursting with ideas and hops from one game to another, she faithfully returns to their story—the one where, just like in real life, she calls the shots.

After a well-earned timeout breaks King Alice’s stride, father and daughter make amends and return to their bustling, chaotic story featuring pirates, unicorns and fairies. Though most of King Alice is filled with the lively pen-and-ink and watercolor illustrations that won Cordell a Caldecott Medal for Wolf in the Snow, the story within the story is rendered via Cordell’s children’s stash of art supplies, and his fluid, humorous dialogue keeps things moving at a brisk pace.

The bond between father and daughter is the heart of this sweet but never saccharine story. King Alice’s father goes all in, never turning down a game in the name of traditional gender roles—he spends most of the book in a tiara and toy earrings—which is refreshing to see. Long may King Alice reign.

This article was originally published in the October 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

In this wondrous meditation on the origins of life, readers see matter expand and time and space blossom. In spare free verse, Newbery Medal-winning author Marion Dane Bauer kicks off The Stuff of Stars with the “deep, deep dark.” There is only a speck in the vast blackness. But once our universe is born, the pages explode with vivid oranges, reds and blues. Caldecott Honor winner Ekua Holmes’ dazzling collage illustrations—rendered on handmade marbleized paper—feature deep, rich colors and remarkably kinetic lines. Holmes takes highly abstract concepts and makes them sing, swirl and spin on the pages. Bauer fills the text with animated, bustling verbs: After all, the creation of life itself takes great colliding, stretching, expanding and exploding.

Three spreads are devoted to the formation of Earth—a planet with “just the right tilt” to support life—where animals, including humans, eventually begin to thrive. Bauer then seamlessly weaves in the birth of a child, who also begins as a speck in the darkness. Here, the story’s second-person narration works to great effect, directly addressing the young reader: “You cried tears / that were once salty seas.”

The Stuff of Stars is out of this world.

This article was originally published in the September 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

In this inspiring companion book to the award-winning Trombone Shorty, published in 2015, Grammy-nominated jazz musician Troy Andrews, who performs as Trombone Shorty, re-visits his childhood in magical New Orleans.

As a child, Shorty played jazz with his group of friends in the Tremé neighborhood of the city. They called themselves the 5 O’Clock Band. Recalling his neighborhood and its culture with deep reverence, he describes an afternoon of getting “so lost in his own music” that he forgets to meet his band and is left pondering what precisely makes a good bandleader. As he strolls through the city streets, he talks to the friendly faces he passes—a musician, a chef and the chief of the neighborhood Mardi Gras Indian tribe—who give him advice on the subject. A love of tradition (knowing where the music comes from) and a dedication to the craft: These are the things that make a bandleader, he learns.

The use of repetition and the dialects local to his neighborhood (“WHERE Y’AT?” people call to Shorty) add flavor to the lengthy text. Andrews shares abundant details and leisurely paces the story, as if readers are walking along with him. Capturing the sights, sounds and smells of the Tremé neighborhood—the red beans and rice, the steamboats along the banks of the Mississippi River—both he and illustrator Bryan Collier bring this New Orleans neighborhood to vivid life. Collier’s kinetic and stylistic mixed-media illustrations use energetic lines and rich colors to bring the music and the people of this community to the page.

The 5 O’Clock Band is an unforgettable journey.

Julie Danielson features authors and illustrators at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast, a children’s literature blog.

Author-illustrator Ed Vere would like readers to know that there’s more than one way to be a boy, a lesson delivered via the story of Leonard the lion. A gentle, introspective soul, Leonard likes to spend time daydreaming, thinking, playing with words and humming. He especially loves it when his wordplay leads to poetry, and he’s thrilled when he makes a new friend in Marianne, a “poetic duck.” But when other, more aggressive lions discover the two have hit it off, they tell Leonard there’s only one way for a lion to be: fierce. Shouldn’t he be chomping ducks? Leonard is left feeling discouraged, but together, Leonard and Marianne collaborate on a poem about the value of thinking for oneself. They bravely recite their verses to the lions—with Marianne clutching Leonard’s leg in fear the whole time.

Vere’s palette is dominated by deep honey, rose and mustard hues, and he keeps the focus on the characters with outlines in thick, wide brushstrokes and simple backgrounds. How to Be a Lion may be a message-driven picture book, but it’s a welcome message: There’s an alternative to the tough-guy approach to masculinity. Leonard is sensitive and thoughtful, and as he tells the other lions, “Let nobody say / just one way is true.” Vere’s story is likely to linger in the minds of children.

This article was originally published in the July 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Julie Danielson features authors and illustrators at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast, a children’s literature blog.

BookPage Children’s Top Pick, June 2018

A boy named Julián and his abuela hop on the subway, where he sees three glamorous women dressed as mermaids. Julián is transfixed; he loves mermaids. In the three spreads that follow, we are swept up in Julián’s reverie: We see the subway car become an ocean and fill with colorful sea creatures. They sweep Julián along until he’s a mermaid himself.

Once home, the inspired Julián makes his own mermaid costume. The curtains become his dress, a fern becomes his hair and lipstick is applied. When Abuela enters the room, she takes it all in wordlessly, and Julián’s triumphant stance becomes one of a defeated boy, sure he’ll be shamed. Instead, Abuela brings Julián a string of pearls and takes him to the Coney Island Mermaid Parade, ushering him without judgment into a world of people like him. Julián parades exuberantly with his fellow mermaids, knowing that Abuela, always by his side, recognizes and accepts him for who he is.

Jessica Love’s vivid watercolor and gouache illustrations are made even brighter by her decision to paint on brown paper; the richly colored palette pops off the pages, and abundant character is conveyed via the subtlest of facial expressions and body language. Also subtle—and terrifically poignant—is the eloquent encouragement of Abuela’s spare words. A book for the ages, Julián Is a Mermaid is going to make a big splash.

Julie Danielson features authors and illustrators at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast, a children’s literature blog.

This article was originally published in the June 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.