To Fly (ages 6 months-3 years) by Lucia Scuderi is a jewel of a book with a gently humorous story but few words, making it an excellent choice for both very young children and beginning readers. A mother crow tries to teach her newly hatched chicks to fly, prompting all sorts of endearing expressions and action. Each time a bird flies, the page folds out and up to show the avian aviator's efforts. There's also one large fold-out page showing the entire family in flight.

Alice Cary reviews books from her home in Groton, Massachusetts.

Complied by Paul Janeczko, Very Best (almost) Friends is a wonderful book of poems for friends of all ages. The poems in this treasury are as varied as a circle of friends. Some of the poems are humorous, while others tug at the heart. This collection, written by some of today's best-known poets and authors, was chosen with a meticulous eye and ear. Open this book and find gems like "Friendship" by Walter Dean Myers. In this poem he describes the special thread that makes two friends. There is also the funny "Another Poem to Send to Your Worst Enemy" by Colin McNaughton. In this poem one friend is calling the other names like "flat-foot-duck-toed-knocked-kneed-sweat"! Also included: "Finding a Way" by Myra Cohn Livingston, "Jim" by Gwendolyn Brooks, and "To You" by Karla Kushkin.

Other poets featured include Charlotte Zolotow, John Ciardi, Betsy Hearne, Nikki Grimes, Jeane Steig, and Judith Viorst.

The addition of Christine Davenier's lively watercolor illustrations alongside each poem brings an overall beauty to the book. A powerful book for the ear and eye, Very Best (almost) Friends makes a perfect gift for that special little — or big — friend in your life.

A Band of Angels by award-winning author Deborah Hopkinson skillfully weaves the story of the Jubilee Singers of Nashville's Fisk College within the context of family lore. A loving narrator, Aunt Beth, tells an attentive niece how her great-grandmother Ella led the Jubilee Singers to perform the old sorrow songs, the songs of slavery, to audiences all over the world. Through seven years of travel, the young group earned enough money to salvage the ailing Fisk College, now Fisk University.

Hopkinson claims her story is fiction, though she explains in "A Note About the Story" at the end of the text that it is based on the life of Ella Shephard Moore. A Band of Angels is a strong story of determination, survival, the rewards of hard work and dedication. Hopkinson tells us that though none of the original Jubilee Singers graduated from college, their years of singing and traveling made that success possible for thousands that followed them at Fisk.

Aunt Beth is based on Fisk Special Collections librarian Beth Howse, who is a pianist, the great-granddaughter of Ella Shephard, and Jubilee Singer herself. Mrs. Howse praises Hopkinson's portrayal of Ella Shephard's story and is proud that the story of her great-grandmother now belongs to a very special body of children's literature that brings history alive for young children.

Illustrator Raul Colon supports the text with warm, glowing, textured paintings. The full-page illustrations are beautiful, reminiscent of old, sepia-toned photographs. Portraits and short biographical sketches of each of the original Jubilee singers are included. Also included is a list of the old Jubilee songs, including "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" from which the book's title is taken. Aunt Beth reminds her niece, and the reader, that "they called them spirituals, or jubilee songs, because the word jubilee means a time of hope and freedom." Although February is Black History Month, the theme of A Band of Angels is important all year long. It is a refreshing story that eloquently illustrates the power of dreams, hard work, determination, and hope.

“I wake up with my head down,” says D. He overslept because no one woke him up, and now Dad says they have to hustle. He walks to school feeling “scrunchy” as a cloud hovers above his head. “It can still be a good day,” he says. “Any day can be good if you try.” But D faces one disappointment after another: It’s gym day, and he forgot to wear his gym uniform, so he can’t play kickball. In writing class, he gets the laptop with the sticky space bar. When he calls out the correct answer in math class, the teacher criticizes him for not raising his hand instead of praising him for having the right answer. When he accidentally makes a mess that leads to a meltdown during show and tell, D must go to the principal’s office. Once there, his day takes an unexpected turn.

Keep Your Head Up is the debut picture book by journalist Aliya King Neil, with illustrations by Coretta Scott King Award winner Charly Palmer. Throughout this touching portrait of a child doing his best to manage a difficult day, D’s feelings of frustration and discouragement are palpable and create a sense of rising tension. Palmer’s illustrations feature thick, textured brushstrokes, and his impressionistic style enhances the emotional narrative. Pops of blue and pink complement D’s deep brown skin.

Parallels to Judith Viorst’s classic depiction of another boy and his “no good, very bad day” are obvious, but Neil never plays D’s troubles for laughs. Instead, she explores how the supportive adults in D’s life, including his parents and Miss King, the school principal, empower him to make positive decisions when it’s not easy to do so.

Reading Keep Your Head Up would be an excellent way to begin a conversation about how to process the highs and lows of life. It’s a simple and powerful reminder to not let bad days get us down.

Author-illustrator Phoebe Wahl’s fourth picture book, Little Witch Hazel: A Year in the Forest, has a charming woodsy setting that readers will find enchanting.

Four vignettes follow Little Witch Hazel, a minuscule witch who wears a pointy red hat and lives in Mosswood Forest. With a determined spirit, Hazel tends to her fellow inhabitants of the forest in any way that she can, be that inspecting the source of a mysterious wailing tree stump, caring for an abandoned bird egg or taking some well-deserved time to unwind with her friends on a hot summer day.

Each story unfolds in a different season and opens with a title page depicting Hazel dressed for the weather and surrounded by the season’s flora—daffodils in spring, acorns in the fall and so on. Hazel’s can-do attitude and willingness to pitch in make her an appealing heroine. Using earthy shades of brown, green, red and blue, Wahl expertly captures Mosswood Forest and populates it with all sorts of quirky creatures whose interactions make a wonderful backdrop for Hazel’s adventures.

These sweet stories are an ode to the calm and peaceful magic of nature. Little Witch Hazel will make you feel as if you have journeyed deep into Mosswood Forest alongside Hazel and her friends. It will also make you long to seek out your own forest, to be immersed in nature and to discover (or rediscover) your own kinship to it, so that you too can enjoy what Hazel finds there: serenity, connection and fulfillment.

Mr. Watson and Mr. Nelson live together in a “big, honking house with a teeny-tiny yard in a big, honking city.” Though Mr. Watson only acquires three chickens, before the couple knows it, there are 456 chickens in their home.

As author Jarrett Dapier's perfectly paced storyline and illustrator Andrea Tsurumi’s colorful, clean-lined artwork show, Mr. Watson’s Chickens take over the house, and the snowball effect of nearly 500 chickens in one small abode is very funny. Tiny chicks stage a play in the breadbox, chickens in bathing suits practice synchronized swimming in the bathtub, and there’s even a musically inclined chicken named Aunt Agnes who belts out a lively song (“Shooby-doo, wonky-pow, bawka-bawka in da chow-chow.”) at all hours. A cross-sectional view in one dynamic spread makes it clear that the home is “teeming with birds.”

Mr. Nelson eventually gives Mr. Watson an ultimatum: Either the chickens go, or he does. The two set off for the county fair to find new homes for the chickens, but chaos ensues when Mr. Watson trips, knocking over the cages and scattering chickens everywhere. Eventually there’s a happy ending for all the birds, especially Aunt Agnes, who finds a place in the spotlight.

Dapier’s prose is full of tenderness and spunk. When Mr. Nelson tells Mr. Watson he might leave, Dapier writes that Mr. Watson knows “his heart would be a broken egg” without Mr. Nelson. Depictions of gay couples are still uncommon in children's literature, particularly in picture books, so the depiction of Mr. Watson and Mr. Nelson's lovingly quirky and (mostly) harmonious relationship is commendable, as is the inclusion of a cheesemonger at the fair who is referred to by a nonbinary pronoun.

Tsurumi’s illustrations playfully extend the story. At the county fair, all chickens but one (Aunt Agnes, of course) are accounted for. The page turn reveals a Where’s Waldo?-esque spread of the fair from an aerial perspective. But good luck spotting Aunt Agnes, as Tsurumi fills the spread with decoy chickens—chicken-shaped balloons, an information kiosk topped with a giant chicken, a person in a chicken costume handing out flyers, even a sand chicken in the sandbox. Choices like these make Mr Watson’s Chickens an enjoyable and exuberant read.

This is one of the year’s most entertaining and bighearted picture books. You might even say it’s in fine feather.

In The Welcome Chair, friends and acclaimed decadeslong mainstays of children’s literature Rosemary Wells and Jerry Pinkney team up to tell a moving, memorable and quintessentially American story.

Inspired by Wells’ own ancestral history, the tale begins in the early 1800s as a young Bavarian boy named Sam sets off to achieve his dreams in the United States. A carpenter’s apprentice, Sam builds a lovely rocking chair that is handed down from family to family. As the years pass, each owner adds their own legacy to the chair, carving the word for welcome in their language at the top of its back panel. The story of the chair becomes the story of its people. There’s a Civil War soldier who fights against slavery, a determined Irish immigrant, a pair of nuns from the Dominican Republic, a compassionate doctor who works for the Red Cross, an infant orphaned by an earthquake in Haiti and more.

Although The Welcome Chair has a fairly high word count for a picture book, Wells’ straightforward narration keeps the story moving. Every line is considered and earnest, and the text is full of vivid descriptions. Pinkney’s illustrations are mesmerizing and iconic, covering every page with tiny, intriguing details. There’s a sketchy feel to his linework that gives the images dimension and a historical feel that’s both inviting and thoughtful. When paired with a soft, muted color palette, the effect evokes the way we often imagine history looks. Pinkney’s ability to capture the specifics of time and place while maintaining the story’s legendary spirit is a true gift; I cannot imagine an illustrator better suited for this story.

The kind of book that deserves to become a modern classic, The Welcome Chair pulls together themes of family, hard work, compassion, kindness and community in an honest and loving way. The book ends with what feels like a pause instead of a stop, because the chair’s story—like our stories—will continue. Who else will sit in the chair and rock their baby to sleep? Who may read or do their homework, curled up on its seat? What kind of futures might we imagine while perching on its sturdy frame? A tribute to America’s history as a nation of immigrants, The Welcome Chair truly welcomes all.

Author-illustrator Julie Morstad explores the complex and abstract notion of time in Time Is a Flower, a thought-provoking picture book. She gets the most conventional definition out of the way first: “Time is the tock tick tock of the clock and numbers and words on a calendar.” But Morstad is more interested in the enigmatic and often evolving ways in which children experience time. “But what else is time?” she asks readers directly.

Answers to this question come to vivid life through metaphors that highlight nature and its underlying laws. Time is a seed that becomes a flower, then the flower begins to fade and its petals fall off “one by one, or all at once!” Time is also a growing tree, a delicate web carefully crafted by an “elegant spider” and a butterfly that was once a caterpillar. It’s a spinning planet that brings night for one child but day for another. The book also explores other temporal joys and frustrations, such as our growing and changing faces and bodies, the power of memories and photographs, the tempos of music and dance, and quiet moments spent with people we love.

Morstad’s crisp, fine-lined illustrations convey a hushed and wondrous tone. Her spreads are uncluttered and spacious, with grayscale pencil drawings of children and colors that pop off the page. The book’s notably large trim size and generous 56-page length are fitting: Time is an immense notion that contains multitudes.

Near the end of the book, Morstad briefly poses two questions that have stumped physicists for millennia: “Is time a line? Or maybe a circle?” Rather than venturing an answer, her humorous resolution is a reminder that sometimes life’s immediate pleasures trump its unanswerable metaphysical quandaries.

With realism and a strong thread of empowerment, author Kao Kalia Yang shares a story based on events she experienced as a child living at Thailand’s Ban Vinai Refugee Camp in From the Tops of the Trees.

Yang captures the rhythms of camp life from the start. Her family sits in the shade of a large tree that provides “a great umbrella of cool.” She and her cousins play while the adults sew and discuss the war that forced them to cross a treacherous river to reach safety. “They are scared to return to the old country. They are scared to go to a new country,” Kalia reflects.

Yang hints delicately at the difficulties of camp life in a way that’s well suited for young readers. After she hears the adults talking about war, Kalia’s father reassures her that she’s safe. “Your hands and your feet will travel far to find peace,” he tells her. When she wonders why she must live behind a gate and whether “all of the world [is] a refugee camp,” he puts her on his back and climbs a tree to give her a glimpse of the wide world that awaits her.

Illustrator Rachel Wada uses linework to direct the reader’s attention, bringing some elements into sharp focus and allowing others to recede into the background. While many of the book’s scenes are full of joy, Wada’s earth-tone palette conveys the limitations of the camp’s environment, which is devoid of the lively colors readers are used to seeing on the pages of many picture books.

The spreads in which Kalia and her father climb the tree and gaze far out past the borders of the camp to see mountains in the distance “at the place where the sky meets the earth” are wonderful. Readers will feel as though they’re climbing alongside father and daughter and sharing their awe-inspiring view of the vast freedoms the world has to offer.

The author’s note makes Yang’s powerful story even more impactful. She includes a photograph taken by her mother that shows her in her father’s arms among the treetops. She also describes the lives she and her family went on to lead beyond the confines of the camp’s walls. Rooted in one family’s specific experience, From the Tops of the Trees offers an inspiring and universal vision of hope.