With sparse, rhyming text, Lester L. Laminack perfectly captures a day in the life of a typical neighborhood cat in A Cat Like That, a fun read-aloud with engaging illustrations by Nicole Wong.
With sparse, rhyming text, Lester L. Laminack perfectly captures a day in the life of a typical neighborhood cat in A Cat Like That, a fun read-aloud with engaging illustrations by Nicole Wong.
In Gloria L. Huang’s fantastical, heartfelt coming-of-age tale Kaya of the Ocean, the protagonist’s gradual willingness to trust herself will resonate with readers on their own journey to self-confidence, magic-infused or otherwise.
In Gloria L. Huang’s fantastical, heartfelt coming-of-age tale Kaya of the Ocean, the protagonist’s gradual willingness to trust herself will resonate with readers on their own journey to self-confidence, magic-infused or otherwise.
Two-time Caldecott Honor recipient Marla Frazee brings her considerable talents to a timeless celebration of birth and life in In Every Life, a wonder of a picture book.
In an introductory note, Frazee shares the long history of her book’s inception. In 1998, she witnessed a call-and-response-style blessing for a new baby. She’s made a number of attempts to illustrate the blessing, but it took her more than 20 years to find the right way to finish the project. The book, dedicated to her first grandchild, is certainly worth the wait.
The book’s format is deceptively simple, with spreads alternating between text and gorgeous, wordless, full-bleed paintings created with a soft palette of pencil and gouache that’s resplendent with golds, blues, pinks and violets. Frazee’s prose lends a lyrical, comforting rhythm to the textual spreads, which contain a single phrase rendered in large type and interrupted by the gutter: “In every birth, / blessed is the wonder”; “In every smile, / blessed is the light.” Beneath each phrase are full-color spot-art depictions of families, with a single shade dominating each spread. In the “birth” spread, for instance, we see a diverse array of parents, grandparents and siblings welcoming newborns, all highlighted in pink tones.
As its title suggests, In Every Life plumbs deeper expressions of the mysteries of human experiences, including sadness, illness, pain and love. Frazee’s art has a classic, almost retro feel, and there is so much here for young readers to observe and discover. She doesn’t shy away from scenes that will be best shared with children by adults in a quiet, one-on-one setting, rather than in a group or storytime setting. Vignettes that accompany a line about sadness and comfort include a crestfallen child next to a soccer ball, a family mourning their pet and a young patient in a hospital bed. Yet there is light humor here, too: In a spread about hope, Frazee portrays two people with a kite checking the sky for a breeze, a child on the potty and a family preparing a turkey for roasting.
Frazee’s love both for her art and for life itself shines from each page of In Every Life. This gentle, luminous book is a treasure.
Two-time Caldecott Honor recipient Marla Frazee’s love for both her art and life itself shine from each page of this gentle, luminous treasure of a book.
When Caldecott Medalist Jerry Pinkney died in late 2021, he left behind an inspiring legacy, including the illustrations for more than 100 published books. It turns out that he also left behind an unfinished memoir about his boyhood during the late 1940s and ’50s, when he grew up on an all-Black block on East Earlham Street in Philadelphia.
According to a note from Pinkney’s editor, Andrea Spooner, Pinkney had not yet completed the dozens of graphite drawings he had intended to incorporate into Just Jerry: How Drawing Shaped My Life when he died. But he had finished the text and created many preparatory sketches as well as specific instructions for the book’s design. Fortunately for readers, Pinkney’s publisher chose to move forward with publication, using the available materials to achieve Pinkney’s goal of creating a visually immersive effect while also giving the book a lively, improvisatory feel. As it so happens, using sketchbook pages to illustrate a memoir about a young person’s growing identity as a visual artist is particularly apt: The narrator, like the art, is a work in progress.
Pinkney, who had five siblings, describes seizing any available area in his overstuffed childhood home for drawing, including a favorite spot under the piano. He recalls how visits to his New Jersey relatives inspired his lifelong love of nature, and how much he admired his father’s ability to build things with his hands. Pinkney also writes frankly about the obstacles in his path, including segregation at school and coping with a learning disability. (He was diagnosed with dyslexia as an adult.)
The most powerful aspects of Pinkney’s story involve the adults who recognized his innate artistic talents and gave them space to flourish. An elementary school teacher appointed Pinkney “class artist” to alleviate his difficulties with reading, and the owner of the newsstand where Pinkney found his first job allowed him to sell his drawings along with newspapers and introduced him to his first artistic mentor. Even Pinkney’s father, who worried about his son’s ability to make a living as an artist, encouraged his talents by letting him draw on the walls of his bedroom. Just Jerry is a moving and vivid reminder that a life in art can be made possible through hard work and dedication, and by giving talented young people the tools and support they need to succeed.
Just Jerry is a moving and vivid reminder that young people can have successful lives in the arts if they receive the tools and support they need.
Run away to Granny’s house, where the fields are vast and grassy and the pecan tree is old and tall and perfect for climbing. But before we can do that, a girl named Nell must bury a seed in a pot. Before we can find out how high we can climb in that pecan tree, Nell must water a sprout. Before we can discover “a nest filled with eggs” and witness “three chicks hatching free,” Nell must ensure that her potted seedling gets plenty of sunlight. And before we can find treasures (“a long strip of bark / and a shell / and a stone / and a leaf flecked with holes”), Nell must plant her tree in the ground.
In Nell Plants a Tree, author Anne Wynter draws on many of the techniques that made her debut picture book, Everybody in the Red Brick Building, so successful. She leverages her eye for detail to highlight the loveliest moments of a child’s day spent playing in a field, finding the ideal spot for reading at Granny’s house and baking a delicious pie with the tree’s pecans. Wynter’s prose is spare, lighting like a little blue bird on the moments that matter, and it combines with Daniel Miyares’ recognizable ink and gouache artwork to skillfully elicit the feel of a lazy summer day.
Wynter’s text travels back and forth in time, as do Miyares’ illustrations. We see, for instance, Granny pouring lemonade for her grandchildren as they all gather on her porch, then we turn the page and find a young Nell giving her sprout a drink from a metal watering can. Nell’s and Granny’s dresses are similar shades of yellow, offering a hint that the young girl and the grandmother are the same person. This becomes clear as Nell’s tree grows along with her, her children and then her grandchildren.
Text and image couldn’t be better paired than they are here. The concept underlying Nell Plants a Tree is a tricky one that would be difficult for any writer and illustrator to pull off, yet Wynter and Miyares succeed handily. Generations of readers will be inspired by this sweet story to plant seeds of their own.
Author Anne Wynter’s prose lights like a little blue bird on moments that matter in this sweet, spare picture book.
Three teenagers fight back against sinister supernatural forces in their New England town in Rochelle Hassan’s debut YA novel, The Buried and the Bound, the first volume of a planned trilogy.
The world’s witches are born with specific gifts, and Lebanese American hedgewitch Aziza El-Amin’s gift—and responsibility—is maintaining boundaries, particularly magical ones. Her hometown of Blackthorn, Massachusetts, contains numerous borders between the real world and the magical realm of Elphame, so Aziza regularly patrols the city, closing any gaps and ensuring visitors from Elphame don’t harm the humans of Blackthorn.
While on patrol, Aziza arrives on the scene of a shocking magical attack, where she meets Leo, who has been searching for a way to break the curse placed on his family. Meanwhile, a lonely teen named Tristan grows desperate to escape his contract with a cruel, powerful hag, but he can’t seem to find a way out that doesn’t endanger his loved ones. The weakening boundary between Blackthorn and Elphame brings Aziza, Leo and Tristan together to solve these problems and more. Accustomed to her solitary patrols, Aziza is slow to trust but grudgingly admits that Leo and even eventually Tristan make her job as Blackthorn’s hedgewitch easier and less isolating.
In this story of friendship and family, classic folkloric creatures such as kelpies, hags and the Fair Folk collide with the mundanities of contemporary high school life, with a strong helping of romantic melodrama on the side. Dead parents, lost loves and desperate acts drive the plot and add a touch of gothic flair. The theme of generational trauma is skillfully woven throughout, as family secrets, shames and losses lurk in each protagonist’s past. Hassan imbues Aziza, Leo and Tristan with such rich personalities and backstories that the novel would feel crowded as a standalone tale. Knowing that each of their stories will unfold over a trilogy makes this first book’s unresolved narrative threads easier to accept.
As she brings a Lebanese immigrant family into the heart of a witches-in-New England tale, Hassan deftly highlights magic’s global presence. Although Aziza’s magical specialty is maintaining borders, her sprawling world of magic illustrates the rewards that await readers when fantasy reaches beyond white, Eurocentric inspirations and characters. Imaginative and urgently paced, The Buried and the Bound will be enjoyed by fans of Holly Black, S. Jae-Jones and Alix E. Harrow.
Classic folkloric creatures collide with the mundanities of contemporary high school life in this imaginative and urgently paced fantasy novel.
Two South Jersey boys find love in this beautifully wrought debut novel from New Jersey native James Acker.
Rising senior Sebastian “Bash the Flash” Villeda is a popular track star at Moorestown High School, which has allowed him to get away with being a jerk for years. Grieving the death of his mother, Bash won’t let anyone in—not his hardworking stepfather, his ex-girlfriend, Luce, or even Matty, his supposed best friend, whom Bash can’t stand hanging out with anymore. Bash is weary of his tough-guy facade, but he doesn’t know how to change it. He’d rather sprint away from his feelings than face them.
Enter Sandro Miceli, whose shot put is as good as Bash’s 200-meter dash. Cruelly nicknamed “the Italian Yeti” by his classmates because he’s tall and hirsute, Sandro also struggles with the deep-seated anger issues he’s developed due to the behavior of his oppressive, insensitive family. He is terrified that his homophobic father and brothers will find out that he’s gay, and he dreams of attending college out of state, where he’ll be able to love who he wants without his family knowing.
When Bash and Sandro connect at an end-of-summer party, all of that begins to change. During the year that follows, what starts as a genuine friendship leads to romance and forces the boys to explore aspects of themselves they both hoped never to confront.
The Long Run is a raw, emotional love story anchored in two journeys of self-discovery. Sandro knows who he is: an angry, neglected softy who can’t stand up to his family, which he describes as “a screaming match in a crowded restaurant personified.” Meanwhile, Bash only knows who he doesn’t want to be: a high-profile athlete who gets roped into fistfights with kids from the rival track team.
The most honest bond the two boys have is with each other, and Acker handles every aspect of their relationship with great care. His frank depictions of their sexual interactions are particularly well done, with awkwardness and enthusiasm that feel romantic yet realistic. There’s plenty of humor, too, including excellent banter that’s resplendent with New Jersey vernacular and slang.
The Long Run is a stunning novel about two boys who discover happiness and hope in the unlikeliest of places: each other.
Resplendent with authentic and often hilarious New Jersey vernacular, The Long Run is a raw, emotional love story anchored in two journeys of self-discovery.
It can be fun to speculate about nature versus nurture, to consider which of our quirks might be innate and which might have been shaped by where or with whom we grew up. While we’re at it, we can also ponder that well-known question of Shakespearean origin: What’s in a name?
But Shenanigan Swift, the clever and engaging hero of Beth Lincoln’s debut novel, The Swifts: A Dictionary of Scoundrels, has recently realized that such musings aren’t so enjoyable anymore. Although Shenanigan’s name earns her a pass when she’s feeling stubborn or has done something an eensy bit destructive (like putting the family cat in the empty coffin before the monthly rehearsal of her aunt’s funeral), it also makes her feel misunderstood when others insist on seeing her solely as an embodiment of her name instead of as an individual.
However, Shenanigan is far from the only Swift with a name that’s both prediction and label. For generations, the Swifts have used their family dictionary to randomly select names that somehow become destinies. Shenanigan’s older sisters are named Phenomena and Felicity, her uncle is Maelstrom, her ancestors include Calamitous and Godwottery (the latter meaning “overly elaborate gardening” or “old-fashioned and affected language”), and the Swift family matriarch is Arch-Aunt Schadenfreude. Hilariously, the aforementioned cat is simply “John the Cat.”
This weekend, Shenanigan will meet even more relatives with dictionary-dictated names, because the Swift family reunion is nigh. Far-flung folks will descend upon the stately yet decrepit Swift House, a 17th-century manor packed with secret doors, the occasional turret and a library that holds both books and booby traps. It’s the perfect setting for the keystone activity of every reunion: the hunt for Grand-Uncle Vile’s long-lost fortune, which Shenanigan is determined to find all by herself. Alas, Shenanigan’s plans are interrupted when someone shoves Arch-Aunt Schadenfreude down the stairs, and other murders soon follow. Amid the ensuing shock and chaos, Shenanigan and Phenomena team up to solve the crimes before anyone else is harmed.
Rife with delicious tension and charmingly dry wit, The Swifts explores and celebrates the wonders of wordplay and the complexity of identity while serving up a compelling murder mystery and a twisty treasure hunt. As Lincoln notes in her introduction, “The thing about language is that it can’t stay still. Restless and impatient, it races forward without waiting for our dictionaries to catch up.” Word nerds will emphatically agree—and they’ll be delighted to know that a sequel is in the works, too.
The Swifts celebrates the wonders of wordplay and the complexity of identity while serving up a compelling murder mystery and a twisty treasure hunt.
Thanks to her mom’s successful career at a global consulting firm, 17-year-old Eliza Lin is used to starting over, but she’s tired of becoming “attached to people only to grow apart” when she inevitably moves again. So when she has to post a personal essay to a student-run blog at her new school in Beijing, she tries to fly under the radar with a piece about how she met her lovely but totally fictional boyfriend.
To Eliza’s dismay, her essay goes viral overnight, landing her an internship offer from Craneswift, her favorite online publication—if she’ll keep writing about her relationship for them. Desperate to keep up the charade, Eliza forms a pact with her new neighbor and classmate Caz Song, who also happens to be a handsome up-and-coming actor. Together, they put on the performance of a lifetime. That is, until it starts to feel a little too real for Eliza.
In her second novel, author Ann Liang immerses readers in Eliza’s life, capturing facets of modern adolescence in a funny, clever and moving voice. Eliza wants to be a writer, and her narration is filled with thoughtful reflections on everyday teenage experiences. Though she tries to maintain emotional distance from her peers, she’s wonderfully open with the reader about her feelings of angst, confusion and even fear, making her a relatable character whose story resonates deeply.
Eliza’s viral essay sets off big changes in her relationships and her worldview. Her fabricated romance with Caz is a highlight, but Liang also explores Eliza’s connections with her family, her long-distance best friend and her new boss at Craneswift. Many characters experience nuanced arcs of their own, such as Zoe, Eliza’s BFF, who seems to be pulling away from their friendship, and Emily, Eliza’s little sister, who might be less mature than she initially appears. Liang never neglects the important roles these relationships play in Eliza’s life in favor of romance.
Ultimately, This Time It’s Real satisfies because all of the parts of Eliza’s life—romance, vocation, friendship and more—are inextricable from her changing understandings of home, love and identity. Though romance is a key element in Eliza’s story, the novel’s true focus is on Eliza as she learns to embrace honesty and vulnerability and rises to the challenge of becoming a fuller, braver version of herself.
Readers in search of a sweet romance with a meaningful coming-of-age story at its heart should look no further than This Time It’s Real.
Though romance is a key element in This Time It’s Real, the novel’s true focus is Eliza’s process of learning to embrace honesty and vulnerability and becoming a fuller, braver version of herself.
I read the entirety of award-winning poet and novelist Honorée Fanonne Jeffers’ masterwork, all 816 pages of it, on the tiny screen of my phone during a trip throughout Washington. I can’t think of any other epic book that would be worth that kind of reading experience, but The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois is special. While driving across the state, I regularly came across attempts to recognize and honor the Indigenous peoples who once populated that land, gestures that I don’t often see in the South where I live. For this reason, the long gaze of Jeffers’ novel felt like the answer to a prayer. It tells the full history of an American family—whose heritage is African, Creek and Scottish—and their centurieslong connection to a bit of Georgia land, as revealed by the research of one descendant, Ailey. It made me wish that all American lands could have their chance to tell their full stories, all the way back to the beginning.
It is rare that a book simultaneously checks the boxes of timely, important, in-depth and narratively gripping. But the 640 pages of journalist Patrick Radden Keefe’s Empire of Pain walk the line between an impressively researched tome and a page-turning, propulsive story. Keefe’s 2021 tour de force recounts the full, damning tale of the Sackler family, spanning three generations of this American dynasty and their dealings at Purdue Pharma, the pharmaceutical company that produces the opioid pain pill OxyContin. The Sacklers worked hard to keep their name from being associated with OxyContin, and Empire of Pain makes it clear why—from their invention of the concept of marketing prescription drugs, to their tactic of offering regional sales reps monetary incentives for getting more doctors to prescribe more of their drugs, to their outright lies about how their product would not lead to addiction. It is a harrowing story of one family’s catastrophic contributions to the opioid crisis, masterfully told by a top-notch writer.
“You have fished in the waters of history and arranged some fractured pieces into a picture . . . but your determination to make it truth does not mean it is so,” declares Ead, one of the heroines of The Priory of the Orange Tree. Reading Samantha Shannon’s 848-page novel can feel like arranging fractured pieces into a complete picture, as it depicts the intersecting journeys of four narrators from different corners of an exquisitely detailed fantasy world. Ead, Tané, Niclays and Loth each have deeply held beliefs about the nature of good and evil, and a crisis that could annihilate humanity is bringing those beliefs into conflict. I will admit that I picked up the book for its Sapphic love story, and that’s a good reason to read it. The romance was tender and gorgeous, unfolding slowly enough to surprise me even though I was looking for it. However, when the casualties become devastating, what keeps you going is the thrill of connecting fragments of history and mythology from each storyline, knowing you will “see soon enough whose truth is correct.”
—Phoebe, Subscriptions
The Vanity Fair Diaries
There are many reasons that British journalist, writer and editor Tina Brown could land on one’s radar. She’s the founding editor-in-chief of The Daily Beast, the first female editor of The New Yorker and the author of two bestselling books on the royal family. But the achievement that cemented Brown’s reputation was her miraculous turnaround of Vanity Fair. Resurrected by Condé Nast in 1983, the new VF was floundering, so the 30-year-old Brown quickly engaged talent like Dominick Dunne, Gail Sheehy and Helmut Newton, and wooed advertisers like Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren. Controversial stories grabbed headlines; so did provocative covers (who can forget the shot of a nude, pregnant Demi Moore?). Brown loves gossip and has a sharp wit, which means her behind-the-scenes stories of the 1980s NYC glitterati alone could carry 500 pages of memoir. But she’s also honest about the mistakes she’s made and the challenge of balancing a family and career. The Vanity Fair Diaries will leave you hoping Brown chronicled her time at the New Yorker too.
The American Library Association’s Caldecott Medal is awarded each year to “the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children.” In 2008, it was won by this love letter to French inventor and film director George Mélies. To make a 544-page story short, it’s extraordinary, with 158 pencil drawings that will make you rethink everything you think you know about what picture books can be. The Invention of Hugo Cabret begins by inviting you to “picture yourself sitting in the darkness, like the beginning of a movie” and then captures your imagination via 21 wordless spreads. In many ways, Brian Selznick’s story is about small things that combine to form a creation greater than the sum of its parts, from a boy who lives in a train station and steals toys from the cantankerous owner of a toy booth to paragraphs filled with exquisitely yet economically observed details. Few picture books can be described as perfect, but this is one of them.
—Stephanie, Associate Editor
Correction, February 15, 2023: This article previously misspelled the name of Dominick Dunne.
February is the shortest month, but if you're looking for a long book to keep you company until March begins to roar, our editors have a few suggestions.
In A Flag for Juneteenth, Kim Taylor tells the story of Huldah, a Black girl who lives with her enslaved family on a plantation in Texas. It’s June 1865, and tomorrow is Huldah’s 10th birthday—but it’s also the day that Huldah will witness the historic reading of the proclamation that President Abraham Lincoln has freed all enslaved people. A self-taught textile artist, Taylor’s illustrations for the book are exquisitely detailed quilts that fill the story with a spirit of joy and freedom.
Tell us about Huldah and what’s happening in her life at the beginning of your book. Huldah is a mature, curious, insightful little girl. She has the very grown-up responsibility of caring for her baby sister while her parents work on the plantation. We meet Huldah the day before her 10th birthday, which falls on a Sunday. Sundays during this time were a day for rest and reconnecting with family and community. Huldah’s mom baked Huldah’s favorite, tea cakes, for her upcoming birthday, a luxury she may not have had time for during the week.
What did you research to write this book? I devoured everything I could read about Juneteenth, but that was only the beginning! I was curious about what life was like for enslaved people when they were not working and how they connected with their immediate and extended families. I was very interested in understanding how they built a sense of community despite such oppressive circumstances.
I Googled, listened to podcasts and read books about that time. I also looked at pictures of enslaved people, which helped me to imagine their personalities and lives. One picture of a little girl that I found on the Library of Congress website seemed to embody the spirit of my Huldah, and I kept her image in mind as I developed the character.
Many of the characters’ names in the story are symbolic. Will you tell us about some of these names and what they represent? I wanted my main character’s name to be unusual, a name that would be new to my readers. I envisioned this character to be a prophet, one who could bear witness to the announcement of the end of slavery as a legal institution and could also foretell of a future free of bondage. I Googled biblical female prophets and an image of a beautiful Black woman appeared on my screen. Her name was Huldah. As soon as I saw her, I knew that this would be the name of my main character.
“I remember telling a friend that I felt as though Huldah had become like a daughter to me. I felt a deep connection to her character.”
Eve, the name of Huldah’s baby sister, is also biblical. It is derived from a Hebrew word meaning “to breathe” or “to live.” In my story, Eve is an infant. She will have the opportunity to live her life without the legal burden of enslavement.
One other character in my story has a name. Mr. Menard is the oldest man on the plantation. He has the last name of Michel B. Menard, the founder of Galveston, Texas, where my story takes place. I thought that it was important to demonstrate that enslaved people were often given the last names of their enslavers to erase any connection to their own family lineage.
You’ve said that each of your quilts feels as though it is created “through [you], rather than by [you]” and that you feel a “deep connection with [your] ancestors during the creative process.” What was the journey of writing this book and creating its quilted illustrations like for you? I felt that I was being guided in some way while writing and creating the illustrations for this book. I saved the pictures that I discovered during my research and looked at them often when writing, trying to connect in some way.
I fell in love with Huldah very early on. Because the people in this book have no faces, I had to figure out how to give Huldah depth and to showcase her personality in other ways. I also needed to make her consistent and recognizable in every illustration. That is no easy task when working with fabric on such a small scale! I remember telling a friend that I felt as though Huldah had become like a daughter to me. I felt a deep connection to her character.
The illustrations took a little over a year to create. It was an enormous undertaking and very emotional. When I was finished with all of the illustrations, I was amazed that I had actually achieved it! I don’t think that I could have done it if I did not know on some level that my ancestors were watching over me and guiding me throughout this journey.
Tell us about your quilting journey and how you began to make story quilts. When I was young, I loved to color, paint and lose myself in arts and crafts projects. I liked to make clothes for my dolls using my mother’s scarves. When I was about 8 or 9 years old, I discovered my mother’s Singer sewing machine, and I wanted to learn to use it. My mom didn’t sew but encouraged me to try it out. I taught myself how to work it and began trying to make clothes for my dolls. Throughout my childhood, I used art as a vehicle to relax or to create something that I needed, such as pillows or simple paintings for a new apartment.
“I love exploring different colors and texture combinations when I am just beginning a new quilt. There are so many different possibilities!”
It wasn’t until I discovered story quilting that I began to use art as a vehicle to process deep emotion. When Barack Obama was elected to be our 44th president, I had feelings that I found difficult to verbally express. I wanted to create something to mark the historic event but felt it important to use an art form that had some connection to my ancestors. I thought about my West African ancestors and how women there are master weavers and textile artists. I thought about enslaved African and African American women and how they used quilting not only to keep their families warm but also to tell stories about family memories and ancestral history. I decided to try my hand at this art form and fell in love immediately.
How has your artistic process changed or evolved since you began quilting? At the beginning of my journey, I worried about making mistakes but quickly came to the realization that art quilting is very forgiving. Many things that I saw as mistakes enhanced my pieces and made them more visually interesting.
I decided early on that I would teach myself something new for each quilt. I researched techniques online and bought many books about art quilting to help me to learn the basics. I have become a better artist over the years because of this decision. I am more mindful now about fabric color and texture and how they work together to set the mood of a piece. It’s all been trial and error though. I did not go to art school, so it’s been a wondrous learning journey!
What is your favorite part of the process of creating a quilt? I love exploring different colors and texture combinations when I am just beginning a new quilt. There are so many different possibilities! There is no need to commit to anything in that early planning stage because nothing is sewn down yet. I am free to move fabrics around and discover what feels right for that unique piece.
“I felt it was critical to highlight the beauty and resilience of African and African American people during their enslavement, as well as to showcase the importance of strong family and community ties.”
I would love to hear about how you composed these illustrations. How did you choose the fabrics? Do any of them have special significance? When planning the illustrations, I tried to keep the text in mind and made decisions about what aspects needed to be enhanced. For example, the first page describes tea cakes, a traditional cookie that enslaved people made using simple pantry ingredients. I thought it was important to help readers visualize a tea cake, so I set out to create them using one of the brown fabrics from my stash that had some color variations. Tea cakes were not fancy, but they were delicious and smelled amazing, so I used hand-embroidered lettering to show the movement of the scent wafting through the air. Embroidery was the new thing I taught myself for this project.
I chose fabrics that I felt would have matched the period. Nothing flashy or too modern. I did want to depict a difference in how my characters were dressed before and after the announcement about freedom. Some of the clothing was inspired by my love of African fabric and styles.
What is your favorite illustration in the book? I love them all for one reason or another, but my favorite is the illustration of Huldah high up in her favorite tree, catching a sunbeam. It is such a visually stunning illustration. I love how big the sun is in comparison to Huldah. She bravely faces the sun head-on, taking some of its strength and wisdom back home with her in her little jar. In my imagination, the sun represents life and freedom, and that jar is her heart. I fell in love with nature at a very young age, camping every summer in New York’s Bear Mountain and the Catskills. Nature always felt so big to me, yet I was never overwhelmed by it. Instead, I always felt at home and peaceful, just like Huldah.
What aspect of A Flag for Juneteenth are you most proud of? I am very proud to tell the story of Juneteenth in a way that I hope will encourage children to want to learn more about this historic event. I felt it was critical to highlight the beauty and resilience of African and African American people during their enslavement, as well as to showcase the importance of strong family and community ties. I am also incredibly proud to have illustrated this book with an art form that was used by my ancestors to tell their own stories.
Photo of Kim Taylor courtesy of Erskine Isaac for Ivisionphoto.
The author-illustrator of A Flag for Juneteenth, a picture book illustrated with quilted artwork, describes feeling guided by her ancestors as she created her extraordinary first book.
When Sandro and Bash connect at a party before the beginning of their senior year of high school, they’re surprised by an honest, genuine friendship that grows into something deeper. The Long Run is a frank, funny and beautifully written story about two South Jersey boys finding happiness and hope in the unlikeliest of places: each other. In this original essay, author James Acker reflects on the personal experiences that did—and didn’t—inspire his first book.
I’m 10 and I’m freezing. I’m sitting on top of the rotted wooden playhouse in the biggest tree in Gavin’s backyard. He’s already jumped and the rope’s been returned to me and he’s screaming: Jump! Jump! I jumped, you jump! That was the rule! And I know I’ll be fine because Gavin is fine but he’s always been luckier than me. Jump! Jump! You’ll regret it if you don’t! But I know I won’t jump because I know other ways down. I’ve got something to prove, but it’s not worth the broken ankle. Jump! Don’t you wanna say you did?
I’m 13 and I’m freezing. I’m wandering around an abandoned house on Main Street with boys I won’t be friends with much longer. The house is old and no one’s lived there for years and it was easy enough to break into. I know we shouldn’t be there, but something keeps me wandering. Jump! Jump! You’ll regret it if you don’t! RJ finds a kid’s growth chart inside the closet of what must’ve been a child’s bedroom. It’s in crayon and faded and she only grew to 4 and a half feet. I decide it’s the saddest thing I’ve ever seen and RJ puts his foot through it. The boys tear the house apart, and today, I am one of the boys. I want to destroy. Jump! Jump! I want the story. Don’t you wanna say you did?
I’m 16 and I’m freezing. I’m in my driveway at 3 in the morning, throwing out bedsheets because my wrestling diet has gotten away from me again. I remind myself that shame is part of growing up. I remind myself that all of this will be useful to me one day. I remind myself that new bedsheets will cost more than new laxatives, and I remind myself that Steph from bio said I was looking real sexy lately. Jump! And if I keep looking sexy and I keep making weight, maybe I’ll start making better memories. I’ll finally start enjoying myself. My high school experience. My childhood. Jump, James! If I leave with the right memories, I’ll have done my job. You’ll regret it if you don’t! If I leave with the right stories, this will all have been worth it. Don’t you wanna say you did?
It’s hard not to think that I’m only writing coming-of-age stories because I don’t like my own. My childhood felt like “Supermarket Sweep”: Fill your shopping cart with whatever you can find. Experience what you can while you can. You’ll sort through it all after time runs out. Jump. I’ve spent a lot of my 20s sorting out my shopping cart. My debut novel is dropping right before I turn 30, and I’ve begun to wonder if my stories are all that interesting. Did I receive store-brand trauma? Was there anything unique in all that crying? Should I have stopped my sweep and considered what I was grabbing before moving on to the next aisle?
“As an adult, I can look at my childhood with a warm, detached fondness. But if I could speak to myself at that age again, I would ask him to live in the moment. Not for the moment.”
The Long Run began as an attempt at capturing what my life felt like in high school. The desire to get this story out had been a long time coming, and I expected all the right anecdotes to present themselves in a polite single-file line. I’d spent a childhood collecting these memories. Where else were they supposed to go? The sweep was over. The buzzer had rung. Now was the time to prove that it had all been worth it. The stories meant something, so why was I staring at an empty page? Every idea for a chapter stayed a bullet point. None of my anecdotes would fill in their blanks. I had nothing.
So I wrote something else. I couldn’t write a memoir, so I wrote what could have happened. I used everything in my shopping cart, everyone I’d met and everything I did, and I wrote a different story. A familiar story. I filled my little New Jersey suburb with different boys in familiar houses. Different names with familiar struggles. I wrote about kids I wished I’d been friends with. Parties I wish I hadn’t skipped, meals I wish I’d eaten, conversations I wish I’d had. And if I couldn’t put myself on the page, I’d split that angry, crying boy into Sandro and Bash. Two parts of myself that never agreed. A lover and a fighter. An asshole and a crybaby. I wrote the love story I never got between two boys I always knew. If I couldn’t agree on my story, I could at least tell theirs.
As an adult, I can look at my childhood with a warm, detached fondness. But if I could speak to myself at that age again, I would ask him to live in the moment. Not for the moment. That kid did so much just for the story, just to say he’d done it, and today I’m left with shreds. Wonderful shreds, but incomplete stories. Sparks of a feeling, never the full picture.
Writing The Long Run felt like filling in those blanks. Connecting the dots between those snapshots of childhood. A morning on a rooftop. A night in a driveway. Flashbulbs of memories, finally put down to paper. It felt like a lifetime of collection finally coming together. Even if some memories didn’t make the cut, those moments still mattered. They were still useful. Every story mattered. And I’ll spend the rest of my career as a writer trying to put them all together.
Author photo of James Acker courtesy of Bernadette Bridges.
The debut author set out to write a memoir, but when his high school experiences refused to coalesce into prose, he had to find a new way to tell his story.
In June 1994, the small town of Henley, Ohio, was devastated by a tornado, a flash flood and its first and only murder—still unsolved—all in the span of one week now known as “the long stretch of bad days.” Thirty-ish years later, aspiring journalist Lydia Chass learns that she is one history credit shy of meeting graduation requirements, due to an error by her guidance counselor, who has substance abuse issues. So Lydia’s principal makes her a deal: In exchange for keeping quiet about the counselor, Lydia will use her podcast to tell the story of that week in June and earn her missing credit.
Lydia needs access to the unsavory parts of Henley, so she recruits Bristal Jamison to be her co-host. Bristal and her family have a reputation in Henley for criminality, but despite her bad-girl persona, Bristal is determined to become the first person in her family to graduate high school. When Lydia and Bristal’s inquiry reveals that a teenage girl also went missing during the long stretch of bad days, their investigation shakes loose a killer.
A Long Stretch of Bad Days reads like a clever buddy-cop mystery, but the buddy cops are a pair of determined teen girls with something to prove. Lydia’s father is a defense attorney whose advocacy on behalf of violent criminals often draws Henley’s ire, and Lydia is sick of constantly projecting a nice, polite image to people who seem to actively hate her. Meanwhile, Bristal chafes at Henley’s assumptions about girls in her family (that they’re usually pregnant before graduation, and that they never marry their children’s fathers). Together, Lydia and Bristal form an excellent team, with Bristal bringing necessary comic relief to Lydia’s seriousness.
Author Mindy McGinnis often explores feminist themes in her fiction, and here she explores the societal expectations faced by young women in small-town America. As Lydia exposes Henley’s underbelly, she is constantly reminded not to ruffle any feathers and not to portray anyone too negatively. Henley’s hermetic hold means that most of its residents can trace their lineage back to the town’s founders. No one moves away; instead, generations upon generations live within Henley’s boundaries and hide its secrets, perpetuating a cycle of protecting one’s own at the expense of outsiders.
Despite the serious subjects at its core, A Long Stretch of Bad Days uses humor and poignant emotion to build a well-crafted murder mystery that is hard to put down and even harder to forget.
A Long Stretch of Bad Days reads like a clever buddy-cop mystery, but the buddy cops are a pair of determined teen girls with something to prove.
Canadian author Kathy Stinson and illustrator Lauren Soloy’s A Tulip in Winter is a vibrant biography of folk artist Maud Lewis from two creators familiar with the Nova Scotian landscape that Lewis called home.
Although Lewis had a happy childhood, she was also “teased . . . for how she looked, her crooked walk, and how small she was.” Lewis’ hands grew stiff from a condition her doctors could not explain, revealed in the book’s back matter to be severe rheumatoid arthritis. The condition prevented her from playing the piano, so her mother gave her a paintbrush and launched Lewis’ life in art: “Red on white made its own kind of music,” the girl eagerly discovered.
A Tulip in Winter touches on the many challenges in Lewis’ life: She struggled to find employment, and after her parents’ deaths, she moved in with her aunt, who discouraged her niece’s art. Eventually, Lewis moved into a small, plain house owned by a fish peddler named Everett and soon filled the house with color, painting floral and other natural motifs on the stairs, walls, tea canisters, dustpans and more. “Everett was strong in body. Maud was strong in spirit. They got along the way certain colours do,” Stinson writes. The book’s final spread acknowledges the fame Lewis achieved after her death: “So small was her house that it is now nestled inside the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia.”
Stinson emphasizes that the foundation of Lewis’ distinctive art was her ability to notice things, even when she was unable to leave her home. Her admiration and respect for Lewis permeate every page, while Soloy’s thick-lined, brightly colored illustrations capture the essence of Lewis’ joyous art. Full-bleed spreads bring Lewis’ childhood to life with period details such as horse-drawn carriages and historical clothing, and many spreads are overlaid in white-lined drawings of the things Lewis observes in nature, including flowers, birds, trees, ocean waves and more. The book’s seamless blend of text and art provides a superb introduction to the work of a woman who found “beauty in the everyday.”
This vibrant biography of folk artist Maud Lewis is a superb introduction to the work of a woman who found “beauty in the everyday.”
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.
This wondrous, sparkling story conveys how Rabbit and Opossum became “Guardians of Light,” providing the moon with its glow and the sun its fire.
Randy Ribay explores several generations and their different relationships to Filipino American identity and culture in his expansive family saga, Everything We Never Had.
