Caldecott Honor-winning author and illustrator Vera Brosgol’s new picture book, The Little Guys, charms with a story of a band of acorn-hatted creatures, a gang of inscrutable little guys who live on a small island. They may be small, but they live large. Tiny but strong, they are clever and fearless. Using their noggins, their numbers and their tight teamwork, they ford deep streams, cross dark forests, climb tall trees, lift heavy logs, dig deep burrows and even bounce on the belly of a big brown bear. They do this all to find food for the little guys. But one day, while hunting for their breakfast, they get carried away with their success and leave chaos in their wake.

Soon they have bullied all the residents of the forest and collected a tower of food. All the food is for them. There is nothing for anyone else. The little guys quite literally have everything—everything except one grape in the beak of a small red bird. When the little guys create a tower to grab it, the tower sways and they all tumble into the water. The little guys float along and finally climb out, but only with the help of the forest creatures whose food they’ve taken.

This incident wakes the little guys to the realization that they already have all they need. Together they are strong, they say, as they deliver the grape back to the small red bird. Brosgol’s story filled with bright, cartoonish illustrations will delight young readers and spur conversations about teamwork, greed and even the politics of power.

You won’t ever see an art note quite like the one in Rowboat Watkins’ delicious new picture book Most Marshmallows: “The pictures were built out of marshmallows, construction paper, cake sprinkles, cardboard, acorn tops, twisty ties, pencil and whatever else was needed.”

If you’ve ever wondered what life as a marshmallow is like, you’re in luck. It’s a lot like a human life, with the exception of things like birthday parties, and the days of most marshmallows are fairly rote. Marshmallows head to school—where they learn to be “squishy”—and then return to their marshmallow families, where they all have dinner together, sleep at night and “dream about nothing.” And repeat.

For the book’s picture, Watkins draws intricate faces and even clothing onto real marshmallows, and he builds the colorful world around them in remarkably inventive, highly textured mixed media illustrations. To see marshmallows with backpacks board a bus, and to read about the details of their daily lives, is utterly delightful. Expect peals of laughter from young readers.

But Watkins takes the silly story a step further by reminding readers that most doesn’t mean all. Some marshmallows “secretly know that all marshmallows can do anything,” he writes. And in six magnificent closing spreads, Watkins shows us the big aspirations of those marshmallows who dare to dream. Despite the key fact that marshmallows learn in school (in a morbidly funny spread involving a blackboard) that “fire is only for dragons,” we see a marshmallow knight with a thimble for a hat not only fight a dragon but breathe fire on the creature. Take that, marshmallow detractors. Watkins closes Most Marshmallows with two empowering words for you to discover for yourself when you pick up a copy of this thoroughly original story.

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 Hayley Barrett’s Babymoon, a new mother and father shut out the world in more ways than one (“SEE YOU SOON,” a sign on their front door declares) and delight in the newborn addition to their young family. In rhyming text that is marked by tenderness and flows as smooth as a lullaby, Barrett describes the delicate “dance of give-and-take” that is acclimating to a new baby. Her phrasing captures the boot camp that is early parenthood, marked as it is by fatigue and a “tentative and awkward grace”—but also by abundant love.

Newly-minted Caldecott honoree Juana Martinez-Neal depicts a brown-skinned family, the parents spelling out “Mami” and “Daddy” in board game tiles as they adjust to these “brand-new names.” She doesn’t shy from showing the parents’ fatigue. The mother gives her body over to the child as shown in one eloquent breastfeeding spread, yet she never lets the exhaustion trump the joy.

There are a lot of comforting curves in Martinez-Neal’s sure and gentle lines and velvety-soft illustrations. All the circles, including the one the family of three forms on the cover as the parents shelter the baby, communicate wholeness, commitment and love. Martinez-Neal also adds subtle humor to many spreads in the form of a dog and cat, who look warily at the babe who temporarily displaced them.

With heartfelt honesty, both Barrett and Martinez-Neal refrain from painting a saccharine portrait of new parenthood, and toddlers old enough to sit and listen to this story will delight in considering the ways in which their parents cared for them during their first years.

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.

The almost infinite possibilities of tomorrow are the theme of bestselling author Dave Eggers’ first picture book, Tomorrow Most Likely.

Though tomorrow may hold wonders galore, Eggers reminds young readers that it will most likely hold more of the same as well. You will, most likely, wake to the same cereal in the same bowl that you woke to yesterday. But you need not despair. There’s a whole wide world waiting to be explored just beyond your door.

And in Tomorrow Most Likely, that world is filled with wonderful things, like a mythical beast with the tail of a snake and the head of a bird or a whale waiting for you to hitch a ride on its back. Eggers and acclaimed illustrator Lane Smith juxtapose these more dazzling wonders with more muted ones, such as a striped stone or the smell of a flower you can’t quite name. In doing so, they remind readers—young and old alike—of the marvelous things that are often hidden in plain sight.

Though Eggers’ twist on the “day in the life” theme is inventive, what really makes this book shine is Smith’s gorgeous color palette, inventive use of textures and wonderfully subtle mixed-media accents. A visually stunning reminder that the realm of what’s possible is as wide or narrow as we imagine it to be, Tomorrow Most Likely is an absolute joy to read.

Author Jacqueline Véissid’s debut picture book Ruby’s Sword is the kind of simple family story that sometimes gets lost in the flurry of children’s publishing. But with its resolute young heroine and gorgeous, summery illustrations, this is a perfect example of a book young readers will want to curl up with and read again and again.

Argentinean artist Paola Zakimi shows little-sister Ruby wading through tall grass as she tries to catch up with her two older brothers. When Ruby flops down to rest on her own, the wind blows her way and reveals something special—sticks in the shapes of swords.

In Ruby’s hand, her “sword” vanquishes a fearsome dragon. But fighting dragons is best with companions, and the generous Ruby races to grant swords to her siblings. Sadly, her gift is not at first appreciated, and Ruby is once again left to her own devices. But soon, the magical world she begins to create becomes irresistible, and her two brothers return to join in. Together, the three children work to build a magnificent castle from the simplest of materials: a sheet from the clothesline, sticks, rocks and flowers.

Ruby’s Sword is a reminder of the importance of imaginative and collaborative play for young children. Perhaps this story will remind parents or grandparents of their own long-ago forts and imaginary adventures. If there’s no beautiful, bucolic meadow like the one Zakimi depicts nearby, don’t worry. When you’re fighting dragons, sometimes all you need is the corner of a backyard.

In Side by Side, Caldecott-winning author and illustrator Chris Raschka brings readers six portraits of dads with their kids. Most of the pairs are at play: In the first spread, we see a girl riding on the back of her father who’s on all fours and pretending to be a horse. Another reads “Mountain and climber” as a child climbs up his tall father’s body. Some spreads involve more relaxed camaraderie; in one labeled “bed and sleeper,” a child lays on his father’s lap while he quietly reads the newspaper. No matter the scene, each spread conveys a tight emotional bond between child and parent. 

Raschka’s simple text is rhythmic and soothing. Each father-child duo takes center stage on these cream-colored spreads without backgrounds. There is nothing extraneous—save one spread with some raindrops and another with a lake in which father and child fish—to distract from the joyous, imaginative play and affectionate closeness depicted in Raschka’s relaxed, gestural watercolors. The elegant opening and closing endpapers show a series of hats and shoes that children will enjoy matching to the right owners. 

We pause on a spread in the book’s center to see all the parents and children in a series of multi-colored grids with “side by side” repeated. The final father-child duo is afforded four spreads, and the book closes with the spare and lovely promise of a side-by-side closeness that will last forever.

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 a larger, bold font on the opening spread of Laura Purdie Salas’ engaging, informative piece of nonfiction, Snowman – Cold = Puddle, we read that “science + poetry = surprise!” This captures well what this exploration of spring has to offer—facts about the season coupled with short, math-like poems.

Divided into three sections—Early, Mid and Late Spring—we are treated to two poems on each spread. “Warmth + light = alarm clock” is followed by text explaining that hibernating animals wake when spring arrives. Salas surprises readers with some lengthier, more thought-provoking formulas: “Maple trees x buckets + boiling = sticky smile,” we read on the page showing a young boy enjoying pancakes, post sap collection.

There is a playful nature to many of these formulas/poems: “BIG beaver + BIG beaver = little beaver,” one poem reads, while another adds seven instances of “goose” to “sky,” and the words on the page in the form of an arrow. Metaphors are also used to great effect. Scout honeybees, diving in and out of their hive, are likened to airports; frogs at night make up a “symphony;” and “sky – day” (or night) equals ‘stories.’” These innovative poem-equations bring a new awareness and a refreshing way to look at nature.

Micha Archer’s highly textured and tactile illustrations, filled with mesmerizing patterns and vivid colors, show animals in nature, as well as children exploring in the wild. The book closes with an enticing question for readers, inviting them to explore: “You + the world = ? . . . That’s an equation only you can solve!”

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 Deborah Hopkinson’s How I Became a Spy, readers will find an action-packed story centered on a diary complete with coded messages, mysterious strangers and a new friendship.

During London’s “Little Blitz” of 1944, 13-year-old Bertie volunteers as a civil defense messenger, which means he has the dangerous job of riding his bicycle during air raids in order to deliver messages to and from bomb sites and command centers. After Bertie finds the diary that an American girl drops after they collide in the darkness of wartime London, Bertie’s rescue-trained pup finds an unresponsive woman in a nearby alley. However, she has disappeared without a trace when Bertie brings the team back to save her.

Bertie is able to track down the American girl who dropped the diary, and together with his Jewish friend David, who came to England before the war began to escape the Nazis, they become a formidable cipher-busting trio.

Historical accuracy is compounded by the quotes that begin most chapters citing spy instructions from Britain’s Special Operations Executive Manual, and other chapters begin with quotes from Sherlock Holmes, who serves as the children’s inspiration for solving the mysteries of the diary. An engrossing tour through wartime London.

A pencil and an eraser―could there be a more perfect pair?

But in author and illustrator Max Amato’s raucously fun debut picture book, Perfect, an epic battle ensues between a rectangular pink eraser and a bright yellow pencil. Eraser throws down the gauntlet on the very first page, making it clear he likes things “perfectly clean,”  with absolutely no squiggles or smudges. He basks amidst a spread of stark white pages, smugly stating, “No pencil can mess with me.” Eraser has met his match, however, as Pencil promptly taunts Eraser by drawing a goofy but spot-on caricature. Then the chase is on, where Amato fills the pages with drawings, smudges and glorious scatterings of eraser crumbs.

With spare text and simple but memorable illustrations, Amato has created an imaginative tale about what can happen when opposites collide. Using a combination of photographs and hand-drawn images, he effectively anthropomorphizes Pencil and Eraser, making great use of Pencil’s cavalcade of marks and Eraser’s endless attempts at cleanup. The faces of these warriors convey a full range of emotion―especially that of indomitable Eraser, who becomes awash in fury and chagrin when he finds himself lost in a forest of trees drawn by Pencil that soon turn the book’s pages into a smothering sea of black.

In the end, Eraser finds an ingenious way to escape Pencil’s endless sea of pencil marks. But when all is said and done, Eraser ultimately realizes he misses Pencil, and a friendship is born. Yes, these two may drive each other bananas, but Eraser concludes that a perfectly clean page without any challenge turns out to be boring and lonely.

Full of an abundance of heart, non-stop action and delightfully clever illustrations, Perfect is sure to be a beloved hit.

Caldecott-winning illustrator Christian Robinson makes his authorial debut in this wordless tale made for twisting and turning in young readers’ hands. As a girl sleeps in her bedroom, a mysterious portal to another plane of existence appears in the darkness.

In his illustrations, Robinson plays with perspective in thrilling ways: The girl, a big smile on her face, hangs upside down out of the portal as she goes through it, using her bed sheets to lower herself down. Copious amounts of white space take the stage as she walks up and down gravity-defying stairs, ventures down a red hill filled with multicolored dots and crosses a rainbow-colored conveyor belt. Eventually, she sees that other children are there making mischief and playing with their other-dimensional twins. The girl takes this whole trip joyfully and, once home, goes back to sleep with a smile. 

Robinson uses simple shapes—the oval of the portal, the triangle of the girl’s dress, the small squares of the stairs—to tell this multilayered, mind-blowing and truly out-of-this-world adventure. Was the girl dreaming? A small twist on the final page will leave readers wondering.

The end pages of author and illustrator Andrea Tsurumi’s new picture book Crab Cake give readers a hint of the gratifyingly offbeat nature of this story: we see jellyfish, floating deep in the ocean, with cakes at their centers. We are then launched into a detailed undersea world that is “home to many incredible creatures.” We see manta ray, scallop, pufferfish, moray eel and many other aquatic animals, and Crab is busy making cakes. Tsurumi plays up the understated humor in expressive cartoon-like illustrations complete with speech balloons for dialogue. Quiet, studious Crab is especially entertaining, always with a cake at the ready. In one very funny spread, an open-mouthed shark follows a line of four fish, and the puzzled fish in the front is greeted with a cupcake baked by Crab.

The tone shifts dramatically, accompanied by a slowly darkening palette, when one evening there is a “BIG SPLASH!” A barge unloads a massive pile of trash into the water, and in one stark, dark and wordless spread, we see the pile of junk up-close. The confounded sea creatures freeze, but Crab bakes another cake, thereby jolting them out of their shock and into action. After all, theirs is an abundant, busy world under the surface of the water, and they’d like to keep it that way. Working together, they lug the trash back up to a boat dock next to a sign that reads, “COME GET YOUR JUNK!” Cue the befuddled humans.

Crab Cake’s environmental message, though never heavy-handed, comes across loud and clear in this altogether entertaining and informative story of a community that bands together to make a difference.

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.

What Is Given from the Heart is a fitting title for the last picture book written by Patricia C. McKissack, who passed away in 2017. Along with her husband, Fred, McKissack helped to shine a light not only on African American history, but on the ties that bind families and communities together. McKissack’s award-winning books include Mirandy and Brother Wind, a Caldecott Honor- and Coretta Scott King Award-winning novel, and The Dark-Thirty: Southern Tales of the Supernatural, also a Coretta Scott King and Newbery Honor winner.

Generosity of spirit defined McKissack as a writer and a person. And that compassion shines through in this picture book about a widow and her young son, James Otis, who are struggling to survive. When Reverend Dennis announces that 7-year-old Sarah and her mother have lost everything in a fire, James Otis struggles with his mother’s request that he can find “a li’l bit of something” to give the girl. At first, the 9-year-old boy isn’t quite sure what he can bear to part with; the solution he devises makes his mother proud and brings Sarah joy. The story ends when James Otis and his mother receive an unexpected gift themselves—a confirmation that they are also seen and loved by their community.

First-time illustrator April Harrison’s illustrations make this quiet, heartfelt story come alive. Harrison is a fine artist whose work has been featured in museums, galleries and private collections. (Whoopi Goldberg owns one of her paintings!) McKissack would have been delighted by this work, and readers will treasure this special book for a long time to come.

Award-winning author and illustrator Julia Sarcone-Roach, There Are No Bears in This Bakery is the tale of Muffin the cat, the self-appointed neighborhood watch or “the whiskers of the neighborhood.”

Against a mouth-watering backdrop of sprinkled donuts, fruit tarts and eclairs, Muffin begins the bakery night shift, listening for every squeak, crunch, snip or flap. But soon a new sound, a disturbing and unfamiliar growl, draws Muffin out to investigate.

The alley is empty, but the bakery window is cracked open “like a crooked smile.” Muffin slips back in and sees the biggest mouse he has ever encountered. But it’s not a big mouse: Seated on the floor of the bakery is a very small bear with a very rumbly tummy.

Muffin tackles the problem at once, breaking out some goodies for the appreciative bear. Then loud snuffling sounds announce something else in the darkness—a huge creature that “smelled like a dumpster on a hot day.” Muffin’s eyes stretch to the size of saucers, and then everything goes dark.

What happens next? You’ll have to gift this book to a lucky child or yourself to find out. Sarcone-Roach’s melding of charming artwork and engaging story are wonderfully done, and the fun-filled, lyrical language will make rereading a pleasure.