Olive and her best friend, a stuffed owl named Hoot, are adventurers—or at least Hoot is. But when their latest escapade becomes more windy and rainy and woodsy than they’d planned, Hoot’s intrepidness fails, and it’s up to Olive to get them home again. Captivating and endearing, Jonathan D. Voss’ Brave Enough for Two gives readers a gentle and timeless message: It’s one thing to be bold and daring and seek adventure, but the friend who takes your hand when your own courage falters is also brave.

Voss is well-acquainted with best-friend tales, having illustrated Sally Walker’s picture book biography Winnie: The True Story of the Bear Who Inspired Winnie-the-Pooh. While Brave Enough for Two is his first book as both author and illustrator, Voss writes with vast talent, lyricism and gentleness. With compassionate and slightly off-beat dialogue, Olive and Hoot’s world feels like a neighborhood next door to Pooh’s Hundred Acre Wood.

Using unique perspectives such as a bird’s-eye view of a balloon ride and the catawampus angle of a capsizing basket boat, Voss skillfully captures big dreams, vast skies, frightening storms and the relief of returning home. Soft colors, sidebar sketches and full-spread adventure illustrations make every page turn unique and inviting.

Brave Enough for Two is an instant classic, as is its enduring message of friendship and pluck. Any journey, big or small, is better with a friend by your side. But perhaps the biggest, grandest adventure of all is friendship.

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

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.

Fans of Robert McCloskey’s classic book Make Way for Ducklings will delight in the sly humor of Ellen Yeomans’ new picture book featuring two ducks who are just trying to muddle their way through one of their great challenges—figuring out how to be a duck.

This Duck and That Duck live near the Big Puddle. They’re alone, even though, as This Duck proclaims, “At a time like this there should be Other Ducks. . . . If there were Other Ducks, we would waddle in a line.”

Nevertheless, as spring turns to summer, the pair does manage to figure out swimming (“It’s like waddling but in the water”), and to their surprise, they finally find some other ducks when they peer into the water below. Young readers will be eager to explain just why these reflected ducks simply won’t get in line. Inevitably, autumn appears, and This Duck and That Duck get the itch to fly south, wherever that is. Spring finds them back at the Big Puddle, but this time, miraculously, there is a line.

Illustrator Chris Sheban’s watercolor ducks are wonderfully expressive and a perfect match for Yeomans’ appealing text. If you’re looking for a picture book for the small ones in your own Big Puddle, line right up for The Other Ducks.

When a bright yellow chick named Pip hatches, the first thing this inquisitive soul spots is Pup, a beagle snoozing in the farmyard, and thus an unlikely alliance ensues in Eugene Yelchin’s charming picture book Pip & Pup.

It’s not easy to tell a story without words, but Yelchin is a master―the myriad expressions of his illustrations depicting this lovable pair speak volumes. Although his art seems childlike, as if drawn by crayon, every animal’s face leaps to life. An astonished Pip uses his wings like binoculars to first spot Pup, and soon there’s a frantic Pip, who runs away in terror with Pup in eager pursuit. Pip makes a chaotic run through the barnyard, finally attempting to hide back in his newly hatched shell.

Yelchin works more of his magic with that eggshell, having Pip use its pieces as both a rain hat and rowboat during a frightening thunderstorm. Pip rows over to whimpering Pup, offering a rain hat as comfort, establishing their relationship. But as in all friendships, there are ups and downs. Before long, trouble rears its head when Pup accidentally crushes the shell to bits. Can their new friendship be saved?

Russian-born Yelchin, who won a Newbery Honor for Breaking Stalin’s Nose, knows that actions often speak louder than words. Pip & Pup is a wonderful story about how unexpected friendships evolve―and survive. This story is perfect for a quick but quiet burst of adventure before bedtime.

In her new book dedicated to “weather watchers” everywhere, author and paper artist Elly MacKay illustrates some folksy phrases related to climate, opening the book with a note about how people once looked to nature for clues about the weather. A family acts as the narrative thread that pulls all these sayings together, as they head out in their boat to fish, camp and enjoy their time outdoors, as depicted by MacKay’s appealing 3-D paper vignettes.

Some of the sayings are more well-known (“Red sky at night, sailor’s delight”), while others are obscure (“Cats leap about and chase their tails, to warn of thunderstorms and gales”). But Red Sky at Night closes with a spread explaining each saying. MacKay’s carefully constructed dioramas steal the show: These are illustrations rendered via paper and ink, which are then staged, like a series of small theaters, and then lit and photographed. The lines of her cut-paper illustrations are delicate, and the colors are warm and inviting. She captures the natural world with eloquence, even when the threatening clouds cause the family to sail home.

Though slight in story, this transfixing picture book will teach something new to cloud-watchers everywhere.

Julie Danielson conducts interviews and features of authors and illustrators at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast, a children's literature blog primarily focused on illustration and picture books.

Author Katherine Applegate is perhaps best known as the author of the acclaimed Newbery Medal winner, The One and Only Ivan. In her latest book, she teams up with talented illustrator Jennifer Black Reinhardt to create a celebration of childhood bursting with humor, warmth and love.

The spare text pairs well with Reinhardt’s delightful ink and watercolor illustrations. The story begins with just three words: “Before the cake,” accompanied by the illustration of a rather frazzled-looking mom baking for her 1-year old.

While the refrain “before” appears throughout the story, Reinhardt’s illustrations depict different characters and families, enabling readers to embrace a diversity of children, experiences and milestones. Whether it’s attempting to knit, roller skate, bake or make art, children see that “Each recipe we undertake can rise or fall, can burn or bake.” In this way, like recent popular picture books such as Cynthia Rylant’s Life, or Matt de Peña’s Love, Sometimes You Fly aims to inspire, encourage and illuminate through stunning art and a simple yet profound text.

At the end, Applegate’s spare, rhyming narrative returns to birthday cakes as a marker of milestones, but with an emphasis not on superficial accomplishments, but of the wonder and joy of life-long learning: “What matters most is what you take from all you learn . . . before the cake.” While young readers will be drawn in by the vibrant, often humorous illustrations, Sometimes You Fly will also make a thoughtful gift for expectant parents, graduates and anyone who seeks to spread their wings in a new adventure.

With her purple skin and oversize eyes, Moon may not look like a typical girl. But with her stuffed backpack, piles of schoolbooks and a perpetually lengthy to-do list that includes homework, soccer practice, trumpet lessons and math tutoring, she’s as overscheduled as most American kids. Moon wonders what it would feel like to be free, but she can’t find that answer in any of her textbooks. One night, after seeing a shooting star zip by her bedroom window, Moon heads outside, hoping to glimpse more, and meets a white wolf.

In her first book as both author and illustrator, Alison Oliver introduces readers to a new world that’s “Strange. Exciting. Wild.” As Moon rides atop the back of her new friend, the pair glows against the inky, nighttime backdrop of Oliver’s mixed-media artwork. In the forest, Moon learns how to pounce, play and howl alongside the wolf’s pack. She also learns how to be still, how to listen and how to feel, and she becomes mindful of something she had lost—happiness.

When Moon hears her mother’s call to return home, she takes all she’s learned with her and shares her “wolfy ways” with her classmates. In an age of media saturation, overscheduled commitments and less time for play, her story is a breath of fresh air in more ways than one. Moon reminds us all that sometimes the best use of time is simply doing nothing.

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

A “perfectly normal” boy named Norman has his world rocked when he marvelously grows a set of pretty, multicolored wings in Tom Percival’s book Perfectly Norman.

Norman begins his day in an ordinary fashion, playing with his dog and friends and enjoying ice cream, when suddenly he sprouts a pair of huge, glorious wings. He does the expected thing and tests them out, soaring, swooping and having the greatest fun. However, when Norman returns to earth, he decides to hide his extraordinary wings because they are not normal. Donning a winter coat, Norman tucks his wings inside to keep them secret. He suffers from the heat and sits on the sidelines while other children run and play. Even after he’s bullied for wearing the coat, Norman steadfastly keeps his spectacular wings hidden.

As Norman realizes the coat makes him miserable, not the wings, he shyly sheds the jacket and begins to soar through the sky again. Norman’s acceptance of his wings allows others with the same “problem” to embrace their differences and zoom along with him.

When he is earthbound, Norman is highlighted in bright yellow against a grayed-out background—but when he is flying, the world is portrayed in all the colors of the rainbow. Through Norman’s struggles to accept his wings, Percival highlights how our differences make us who we are. Best of all, Norman realizes he’s perfectly Norman, which is just right.

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