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.

Two children encounter an abandoned house deep in the woods in this contemplative, enchanting story about memory and the places in between then and now.

Writing in rhythmic, fluid verse, Julie Fogliano brings us the inner thoughts of two children who discover a house at the top of a hill, “a house that was once painted blue.” The tone of A House That Once Was is one of mystery and wonder as the children tiptoe toward the house and creep inside. Fogliano’s attentive, evocative writing captures the spectral in-between state of the house and its effect on the children. A door is “closed, but not quite”; the children are “whispering mostly but not really speaking” as they enter; the person who once lived there is “gone but . . . still everywhere.” The children explore what remains in the home and, putting abundant imagination to use, what it tells them about who once lived there. In a series of six spreads, they imagine who that occupant could have been.

Lane Smith’s highly textured illustrations feature faded hues (with subtle pops of color) and more gestural shapes in the interior house spreads. The natural world outside of the home, as well as the spreads showing the imagined occupants, are more vividly colored and showcase bolder lines, as if the memories are sharper than the current moment. (A tiny note on the copyright page indicates that these “present-day” and “imagined” scenes are rendered in two different mediums.)

This is a story that will captivate its readers—much like the house captivates these curious children.

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

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

George is an endearing hound with an important job. He rises early, helps with farm chores and keeps the sneaky cows from escaping into the cornfields. Every day is a good day for George.

But when Farmer Fritz trades his work boots for flip-flops and moves to the beach, everything changes. A glum-looking George is left alone to tend the farm.

The farm has been sold to the Gladstones—city folks. George makes the best of things when the family moves in, but they don’t have a clue of how to run a farm.

George helps Mr. Gladstone get the tractor working, but the machine takes off, breaking the fence and setting the cows loose. George herds them back where they belong. Then the Gladstone’s son, Owen, loses his little sister, Olive. After a sniff of her blue hair ribbon, off they go. George is a good hound dog, after all.

Olive is found and George thinks he’s earned a nap, but then Mrs. Gladstone stumbles and spills red paint on his head. Now all the family has different names for George: Rusty, Rover, Dusty and Red.

George spends his days herding Olive and he teaches the Gladstones everything about running the farm. Still, the family can’t figure out his name. 

Jeffrey Ebbeler’s hilarious, action-packed drawings carry George the Hero Hound, and the intrepid hero is bound to leave readers asking for more.

In this warm story about a cold place (a “sleepy coastal town far in the north”), a boy named Seb misses the sun, which is altogether absent during the winter. Seb loves to find treasures on the shore, like washed-up bottles, and he wants to bring the sun to his town, if only briefly.

Seb formulates a plan and gathers supplies from his neighbors, and he and his pet walrus row out to sea. After attaching some rope, yarn and fishing line to a bucket, Seb hurls it across the water, well past the edges of the page and into the next spread. Not seeing any immediate results, Seb falls asleep in the boat and wakes to his bucket filled with sunlight. He carefully pours it into the empty bottles he’s collected at the beach and returns home to distribute his little vessels of sunshine to all of his neighbors.

It would be hard to keep such a dark, shadowy palette interesting, but author-illustrator Jami Gigot uses a light touch (so to speak)—Northern lights, white snows and the lights of the town illuminate the pages. Gigot’s detailed drawings of Seb’s neighbors at work are the heart of the tale. Readers grow to care for them as Seb does. His impressive bucket toss on the water provides a funny, hyperbolic moment of charm in an otherwise dark story. How this considerate boy catches the sunlight is a mystery to readers, Gigot leaves to our imagination the moment in which the bucket lands. But what matters is that Seb cared enough about his community to do so.

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