Canadian author Aimee Reid and the incomparable illustrator Matt Phelan team up for an accessible introduction to the life of Fred Rogers for young readers. Although it is fictionalized, the book incorporates a factual biography of Rogers in the back, as well as notes from the author and illustrator and a select bibliography.

The story begins with an aspect of Fred Rogers’ life that many adult readers may not know: He was a sickly child who suffered from allergies and spent a lot of time inside and alone. In his own neighborhood, Rogers was bullied. Thanks to helpers, including his grandfather, Rogers gained confidence and a strong sense of values that became the underpinning of his groundbreaking television series, “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.” As the book tells us, “His grandpa told Fred that he liked him just the way he was. He said Fred was special and that, just by being himself, Fred made the day special, too.”

The book includes scenes of Rogers reaching out to other helpers in the community. Although one scene shows Rogers surrounded by a gathering of diverse children, this aspect of the book might have been strengthened by mentioning, for instance, African American police officer Officer Clemmons, who appeared on “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.”

Overall, however, Reid’s simple text and Phelan’s soft pencil and watercolor illustrations come together to capture the gentle force of nature that was Mister Rogers himself.

Channeling the abundant curiosity of a toddler, a rabbit consistently asks questions of his friend, a large and patient bear. The rabbit is of a more philosophical bent, asking “why?” of everything the bear does in this story, told entirely in dialogue.

The illustrations do the heavy lifting in this sparsely worded story, telling us what we need to know about the close bond between the two. Why, the rabbit wonders, must they look through a telescope to see the stars at night? Because they are so far away, the bear responds. The bear is also able to explain why she likes honey, why too much of it makes her ill, why birds fly south for the winter and more.

But when the rabbit sees a fallen bird, the bear is stumped, acknowledging the mysteries and frustrations of loss: “I don’t know why. Sometimes I just don’t know why!” When the bear sadly saunters off, the rabbit begs her to stay, and now it’s the bear’s turn to ask why. The rabbit’s response brings this gentle and graceful story full circle, cementing their friendship and serving as a subtle reminder that grief can be endured with a friend nearby.

This reassuring tale, rendered via watercolors on a lush, green palette, isn’t afraid to ask the hard questions (or in this case, one big question), suggesting that love can persist in the face of loss. Even young readers who have yet to experience loss will find resonance in this quiet story in which answers may not come easy—but steadfastness does.

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.

“Like a car seat for your brain” is how Blair Thornburgh describes skulls in her informational picture book of the same name. Written in a second person voice (“You probably don’t think much about skulls”), Skulls! introduces a young girl who starts to see those around her in eye-opening ways as an unknown narrator describes the purpose and functions of skulls in the human body.

In the book’s second full spread, the girl sees a crowd of people around her, and at the page turn she sees them just as they were but with their skulls exposed. Illustrator Scott Campbell’s funny and affectionate watercolor illustrations (the Grim Reaper with a juice box, a mummy with a guitar and a pirate’s bearded skull, chomping on a hot dog) keep matters from getting too grisly. Skulls are “not trying to be scary,” after all. “They can’t help the way they look.”

Thornburgh draws in the reader with the immediate and direct “you” by pointing out the many ways in which the reader benefits from having a skull and emphasizing the importance of taking care of it. Appended are “Cool Skull Facts!” that close with an enthusiastic command to declare love for one’s skull. (“Say it again: I love my skull!”) The purple-tone opening endpapers show the heads of various humans, and the closing ones show the same humans—but with skulls exposed.

Skulls may often be associated with death and mortality, but this life-affirming book is breezy and ebullient. You can say it again: Skulls were never more fun.

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.

Ultrabot is a massive, several-stories-tall robot who lives on Primrose Lane with its professor. An aerial view of the street in the book’s opening illustration proves that their warehouse of a home is an anomaly in the suburban neighborhood in which it sits, but author-illustrator Josh Schneider keeps the humor understated. For one, when Ultrabot learns from the professor that Becky Tingle from next door is coming over for a playdate, no one bats an eye—except for Ultrabot. “NEGATIVE,” it says.

Just like a human child, the robot is nervous that it may not be compatible with a new playmate. But things go swimmingly, and a friendship is forged. The book’s charms lie in its dry humor (and the use of a font called Joystick, used sparingly to render Ultrabot’s words), as well as the juxtaposition of words and images. “Becky showed Ultrabot how to draw a cat,” we read. While she does so on a human-size canvas, we see in a small insert on the recto that Ultrabot is capable of drawing a cat on nothing less than the surface of the moon, thanks to a powerful laser at his command. When Ultrabot decides it is “safe to share its toys with Becky,” we see that, as it jets through the upper atmosphere, Becky is nearby in a small plane, piloting it herself with a look of elation.

Ultrabot may be metal and larger than life, but its apprehension over making friends—and its happiness in having succeeded at doing so—is as human as ever.

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.

In an ode to one of literature’s luminaries, Mac Barnett plays off the title of Margaret Wise Brown’s The Important Book by asking readers: “What is important about Margaret Wise Brown?” 

Subverting the structure of traditional picture book biographies, Barnett writes in a distinctive, chummy and inviting second–person voice that directly addresses readers of The Important Thing About Margaret Wise Brown, often providing metatextual commentary: “Margaret Wise Brown lived for 42 years. This book is 42 pages long.” Barnett focuses on small, quirky details of Brown’s personality (she skinned a rabbit and wore its pelt, for instance), prompting readers to define for themselves what “important” even means when recounting a life. “The truth is never made of straight lines,” Barnett notes. 

Most importantly, he captures the respect Brown had for child readers, as well as the essence of her legacy, while simultaneously communicating his own manifesto on what he believes children’s books can and should be (“every good book is at least a little bit strange”). Casting the influential librarian Anne Carroll Moore as the book’s antagonist—she believed Brown’s books were “truck”—the book pivots at many turns. “This is a story about a rabbit,” we read on page eight, though the narrative thread always returns to Brown.

Sarah Jacoby’s velvety-soft illustrations feature not only Brown but also a group of bunnies reading in a library (a nod to Brown’s Goodnight Moon). Jacoby’s details delight; look closely at the epigraph spread to see faint outlines of watercolor bunnies. 

Could the absence of any backmatter be purposeful? After all, as Barnett shows through the details he selected from Brown’s life, “You can’t fit somebody’s life into 42 pages.” It’s a refreshing and important truth.

Colors pop and the imagination soars in How to Read a Book, a set of instructions and a delicious ode to the pleasures of reading from bestselling author and Newbery Medalist Kwame Alexander.

Likening a book to a clementine, he suggests that young readers “peel its gentle skin” and let the story unfurl. With language that beguiles each of the five senses, Alexander playfully and reverently pays tribute not only to books themselves but also to the magic of reading and its ability to give our souls “room to bloom.” Caldecott Honoree Melissa Sweet renders the illustrations via mixed-media collages that include handmade papers, found objects, excerpts from Felix Salten’s Bambi: A Life in the Woods and even a lid from a paint can. Sweet’s distinctive hand-lettered text, which itself becomes another part of the artwork, is a perfect complement to Alexander’s prose. 

A gatefold spread appearing at the midway point features shades of brilliant orange and opens into a book that has morphed into a three-decker bus with 18 windows. Alexander urges readers not to rush through their books (eyes need “time to taste,” after all), and once they set their sights on this visual feast, they’ll know exactly what he means.

“(You never reach) The End,” he writes at the book’s close. This is good news for readers who will want to head right back to the beginning and soak in this lovingly rendered testimonial more than once.

Newbery Medal winner Jerry Spinelli presents an all-American Fourth of July from the viewpoint of a young boy who’s so excited that he runs out to join the parade in his pajamas. Golden Kite Award-winning illustrator Larry Day brings Spinelli’s evocative story to life with his buoyant drawings, splashed with flag-waving red, white and blue.

In this nostalgic story, readers will taste the smoky hot dogs, quake at the earth-shaking boom of the first firework, smell the burnt-toast odor in the night air and finally fall asleep to the creak of a red wagon as a father carries the tired spectator home. It’s been quite a day.

If you were lucky enough to have an Independence Day celebration like the one Spinelli describes, you’ll never forget it. And if you haven’t had an equally memorable Fourth of July, it’s not too late to create your own version. Put on an apron, bake a cherry crumble pie, stuff some deviled eggs, grab your family and head to the park for games, a picnic and the coup de resistance—the fireworks.

Spinelli charms us with his child’s-eye view of the Fourth, and Day’s colorful, panoramic illustrations add a necessary punch of brilliance. Kudos to this author-illustrator team for creating a sweet and fun-filled (if somewhat sentimental) depiction of a uniquely American holiday.

A direct descendant of Maurice Sendak’s Pierre, Michael Sussman’s Duckworth, the Difficult Child tells the story of a boy swallowed by a massive cobra. The book’s memorable opening line sets the stage for readers, just before we see the snake slide out of the boy’s wardrobe: “Duckworth was building a castle out of toothpicks when he heard a hissing sound.” Duckworth’s anxious parents are no help; they’re too busy reading a parenting self-help book to listen to their son and, instead, put him to work, per their book’s instructions, on household chores. After the cobra swallows him whole, the parents assume Duckworth is in a costume and carry on with their day.

Sussman’s sendup of modern parenting (he is a clinical psychologist), dedicated to “difficult children everywhere,” is well paired with illustrator Júlia Sardà, who is capable of pulling off a quirky Gorey-esque vibe. She brings distant, angular lines and cool colors to Duckworth’s home and even to his parents, which are effectively juxtaposed with the curving, sensual lines and vivid orange of the mammoth snake. Sardà does offbeat well; she paints a ping pong table in the middle of the family’s front yard. The book also features a smaller, playful font size when Duckworth speaks to his family from inside the cobra.

The parents, who are far from intuitive (“according to this book” and “the book says,” they consistently tell their son), are actually the difficult ones in this eccentric story. There’s an understated humor to Duckworth’s ability to tolerate them and his necessity for self-sufficiency. After all, in the end, Duckworth saves himself.

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.

In his expansive picture book tribute, You Are Home: An Ode to the National Parks, Ezra Jack Keats Award-winning author-illustrator Evan Turk (The Storyteller) honors “the beauty, the monumental history, and the togetherness with loved ones and nature” that constitute visits to the national parks of the United States.

Via full-bleed spreads that include labels of each landscape depicted, spare free verse written in the second person and cinematic, richly colored pastel artwork, we traverse the country, visiting the Rocky Mountains, the Grand Canyon, the Great Smoky Mountains and more. Turk’s magnificent, lush illustrations, with deft use of light and shadow, depict not only grandiose mountains and vistas (Yosemite appears in a stunning double-gatefold spread) but also the creatures therein (a bobcat in Yosemite, fireflies in the Smokies) and the families who visit. The “you” of the title, a repeated refrain throughout the book, refers to park visitors but also to the herds of elk, wildflowers “painting the warming hillsides” and “every river, star, and stone.”

In a spread paying tribute to the indigenous peoples of North America, Turk acknowledges that their ancestors “lived on these lands before the stars and stripes took them as their own,” pointedly adding that these people are “still home.” Detailed backmatter, which includes a map of the parks and more information about them, delves further into the fact that many Native American nations were forcibly removed from their homelands in order to create the parks we visit today. It all adds up to an informative and breathtaking exploration of U.S. national parks.

In her debut as both illustrator and author, Madeline Kloepper depicts the story of a reluctant city kid facing the prospect of a family camping trip with a huge amount of skepticism and reluctance. The narrator, clearly attached to her diverse, urban neighborhood, can’t imagine enjoying herself without electricity, street musicians, fountains or sculptures. “It’s not like there’s anything out here,” she gripes.

The magic in The Not-So Great Outdoors is the juxtaposition of the narrator’s words against Kloepper’s richly imagined wild landscapes, replete with running streams, plants, songbirds and, of course, bears. As the story proceeds, we see the girl, who is part of a mixed-race family, beginning to open up and see the wonders before her. There may not be city lights, but there are stars. And while there are no playgrounds, there are logs to cross and caves to explore.

The Not-So Great Outdoors is also a reminder of the simple pleasures of family camping—toasting marshmallows, going for walks, cooking on a camp stove and fishing. The book is clearly a labor of love for Kloepper, and with its simple, tongue-in-cheek text and gorgeous artwork, it’s the perfect picture book to help prepare those (perhaps reluctant) future campers in your life.

When a talking tiger walks into a family’s campground seeking shelter, one young boy finds companionship and the courage to face the challenges of growing older. Introspective and intriguingly illustrated by John Rocco, Susan Choi’s Camp Tiger leaves readers with a sense of quiet wonderment.

Choi writes the way a child talks, narrating everything the boy sees, does and knows with delightful metaphors and meticulous descriptions. In this candid way, Choi gives voice to the questions and uncertainties that come with growing up.

Rocco illustrates with bold, vibrant colors that seem to deepen and grow more luminous as the pages turn. From vast, idyllic vistas to the cool greens and blues of a shady campsite, Rocco’s use of light and shadow gives readers a tangible sense of place. But while the scenery is sublime, what elevates this camping story is the tiger itself. Beautifully detailed and expressive in the daylight, the tiger shines in the moonlight, magnificent and near-mythic.

More contemplative than straightforward, Camp Tiger’s message may need some unwinding for the youngest readers who will have many questions: Is the tiger real? Why weren’t the people afraid of him? Where does the tiger go at the end? But whether you read Camp Tiger as an allegory for growing up or as the story of a child’s fanciful imagination, one thing is clear: There are lessons to learn from the tigers in the shadows.

When a picture book begins with the dramatic opening line “On Friday, Llama will destroy the world,” it gets your attention. Jonathan Stutzman’s Llama Destroys the World is so ridiculous and hilarious that it works.

While the wide-eyed, self-assured Llama might have an end-of-the-week mission, much gets in his way—namely cake and LOTS of it. From that fateful moment on, the apple cart of Llama’s world is upset, leading to Heather Fox’s illustrations of big burps, tight-fitting (and eventually ripped) pants, silly Llama dances, amazing bologna sandwiches, well-dressed turtles and, well, black holes.

It’s all a playful, zany distraction for Llama as well as for young readers, who will remain glued to the fantastical illustrations and the impending sense of doom in llama’s unconventional world.

Will the black hole consume everything? Will there be another bologna sandwich? What will happen to the turtles with top hats? Will the universe right itself?

This is a super silly, amazingly original, best-when-read-aloud picture book. Thankfully, Llama really does rule the world here. This is a fine debut by this married author-illustrator team.

A young girl named Jamie digs sand and shells on a rock-strewn, sandy beach, completely immersed in the rhythm of her own creative world in Hum and Swish, a reflective picture book from author-illustrator Matt Myers.

“Jamie and the sea are friends. Jamie hums. The waves swish,” writes Myers. As Jamie’s unique rock and shell creations take shape―some resembling people, others resembling increasingly elaborate creatures―a parade of passersby and even her parents cheerily inquire about what she’s making, much to Jamie’s increasing ire. She’s not sure, and no one seems to understand that until a woman sets up her easel nearby. When Jamie asks what she’s making, the woman says, “I don’t know yet,” and both continue to work side by side, quietly enjoying each other’s presence until each proudly completes and shares her masterpiece.

Myers’ understated storyline and moody ocean scenes perfectly complement Jamie’s introspective world and her desire to follow her own artistic instincts. The story’s natural simplicity and Myers’ intriguing illustrations make for a kid-pleasing examination of both the joy and marvelous uncertainty of the artistic process.