This meditation on the dark comes from retired astronaut Chris Hadfield, with assistance from author and journalist Kate Fillion. Hadfield was once commander of the International Space Station and was the first Canadian to walk in space.

In the book, we see Hadfield as a boy. He dreams of becoming an astronaut but fears the dark. The dark, in fact, attracts aliens in his mind’s eye. The young Hadfield lives with his family on an island, and everyone gathers on the night of July 20, 1969, to see the moon landing in the one home with a television. Outer space, Hadfield realizes that night as he watches history unfold, is the “darkest dark ever.” This is a pivotal moment, one in which he realizes he must master his fears. The alien-like shadows might still be there, but he has changed, now fully grasping, as put so eloquently by the authors, “the power and mystery and velvety black beauty of the dark.”

In that dark can live dreams, the kind that help you realize who you want to become. And of course, in his dreams, the boy is an astronaut floating in space. In a closing author’s note from Hadfield, he brings home his point: The dark can be for dreams—and best of all, “morning is for making them come true.”

The Fan Brothers render most of the book in a realistic style, though there are elements of mystery and even horror-lite—particularly in the aliens in the shadows, the ones young Hadfield fears. Since the book strikes an overtly inspirational tone, the creepiness is refreshing when the aliens appear, the spreads taking a turn for the bizarre, the fantastical. The illustrators depict these aliens in the dark as small, almost furry creatures with pupil-less, glowing eyes. Look closely: Even the trees at night by the boy’s home have leafy ears and eerie, yellow eyes.

This is a contemplative tale for children who love to read about outer space—and certainly those for whom the dark brings terrors. 

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

Wonderfall is a beautiful book about the various events that happen in the fall, including the beginning of the school year, Halloween, Thanksgiving and more. Author Michael Hall starts the top of each page with a word related to fall, tactfully adding “fall” to the end of the word (Beautifall, Thankfall), followed by a description of how it relates to the season. The story follows woodland animals, children and grown-ups as they experience the autumn season through parades, trick-or-treating and jumping in the leaves, among other fun seasonal experiences.

Hall’s bold digital illustrations combine acrylic paint with soft pastels, which may remind readers of the works of Eric Carle. The pages burst with the lush hues of fall, including bright green, burnt orange, red, yellow and stunning blue. The text is both minimal and large on each page, lending itself to beginning readers who are learning to sound out the words. Pre-readers will also enjoy pointing out the beautiful leaves, squirrels, acorns and other fall elements as they turn the pages. Parents will enjoy using this as a great transition between seasons. Bonus material at the book’s end includes a learning guide, which gives facts about the various animals in the story.  

Water Princess Gie Gie lives and plays in the vast beauty of Africa, a world where water is immeasurably precious and limited. Gie Gie and her mother must fetch water daily—a trip of many miles under the hot sun. They make the most of the strenuous journey, singing and dancing and reuniting with friends at the well. However, even after returning home, Gie Gie’s chore is not complete; the water must be boiled before drinking, clothes must be washed, a meal must be cooked for her family. With determined and vivid creativity, Gie Gie envisions making the water come to her. But this isn’t just the imaginings of a storybook character; The Water Princess is inspired by fashion model Georgie Badiel’s childhood in the arid climate of Burkina Faso. Today Badiel helps raise funds to build wells and plant trees in her former home.

Well-loved author and illustrator Peter H. Reynolds (The Dot) welcomes us to Africa with his recognizable, soft and energetic illustrations. Browns, oranges and yellows are warm and inviting, while simultaneously evoking the intense dusty, hot, water-scarce environment. Author Susan Verde (The Museum, You and Me) deftly narrates with a young girl’s honesty and imagination. Readers will find her voice poetic and precise. Alternatively weary and wise, Gie Gie will draw in young readers with her determination and liveliness.

A profoundly beautiful story in its own right, the real-world truth behind The Water Princess adds compelling depth and vitalness to Gie Gie’s story. Destined to make an impact, The Water Princess will entertain, educate and even inspire readers of all ages to join in Badiel’s mission. 

In this picture book debut from author Michelle Cuevas, illustrated by Caldecott Medalist Erin E. Stead, we meet the Uncorker of Ocean Bottles, who lives in a tall house on the shore with only his cat for company. We see he’s a bashful man—Stead paints his body language with beguiling precision—possessing slightly slumped shoulders, a thoughtful brow, a quiet demeanor and a kind face. His job is to keep his eye on the waves and gather bottles at sea, the ones containing messages. He then journeys as near or far as he must to deliver the letters. He longs for his own message in a bottle, addressed just to him, his own note from a friend. But “he had no name. He had no friends.”

Cuevas writes with a gentle pace and vivid, evocative language: The man, she tells us, sometimes “felt loneliness as sharp as fish scales,” and he longs to see his own name “winking” from a page, because a letter can “hold the treasure of a clam-hugged pearl.”

Using woodblock prints, oil pastels and pencils on a particularly warm palette, Stead fills this quaint, seaside town with townsfolk (each so distinctive they could each have their own story) who are seemingly oblivious to the anonymous sender of a party invitation the man finds in a bottle. He asks them, one by one, if they know to whom it belongs, but he finds no answers. When he shows up to the party to apologize to whomever it was intended, there they all stand to greet him, ready to celebrate. Clearly, the Uncorker is already a friend to many, whether he realizes it or not. He decides to stay at this party that astute readers will realize was thrown just for him.

This sweet-tempered story of kindness (if the entire world operated as these townsfolk do, it’d be a much better place) is as quiet and unassuming as its protagonist. Don’t let it slip by you. It’s utterly enchanting. 

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

In this playful picture book, Brendan Wenzel explores the world through the eyes of many, thereby reminding readers how our perspective shapes what we see, how we feel about it and how we react.

A long, brown, fluffy cat strolls through the world. We, as human readers, see it one way on the page. It looks like . . . well, a cat. It has whiskers, ears, paws and a collar with a bell. Yep, no doubt about it. It’s a feline.

But in succeeding spreads, we see a very different cat as Wenzel plays freely with shape, color, scale and perspective. A fox sees a significantly plumper (and moderately terrified) creature. A mouse sees a cat that looks not unlike a demon. A flea sees a massive field of fur and fluff. The fish spread takes the cake, as the tiny creature looks with a frown through the glass side of a tank to see large yellow eyes and mammoth white whiskers. The cat is all face and all fear.

Wenzel structures the story in a way that recalls, in particular, Eric Carle’s Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? The phrase “Yes, they all saw a cat” appears intermittently, giving the book a pleasing rhythm, and at the book’s close, we see a vision of the cat as if all the creatures are looking at once—right before a list of each creature whose eyes fell upon the cat. It’s a mish-mash of color, spots and stripes, smiling happily at the reader. Cue the happy squeals of delighted children.

This may be a primer in the power of perception with young children being its sweet spot, but it’s also a treat for all ages. Thought provoking, entertaining and smart, it’s one of the best picture books you’ll see this year. 

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

From about 1838 to 1857, Stephen Bishop was an underground guide in Mammoth Cave, Kentucky. With carefully chosen wording, rich historical detail and luminous images, author Heather Henson and Caldecott Honor recipient Bryan Collier bring Stephen’s story to light.

Stephen guides the reader through tunnels and quagmires of the cave and his own life. He tells us he can neither read nor write—it’s against the law to teach him these skills because he’s a slave: “Because I am bought and sold, same as an ox or a mule.” But Stephen has a yearning to learn, and he does, in a law-abiding manner. By the light of a candle, deep below the ground, when the visitors write their names on the cave’s ceiling, Stephen is watching and learning. In time, he writes his own name, too, along with the names of his wife and son.

Stephen hints at other secrets of Mammoth Cave. He tells of the men who discovered the cave and tracked bear beneath the earth. He makes his own discoveries of eyeless fish and albino crayfish. He finds a deerskin moccasin in the passageways below and wonders about his own legacy. Today, though Stephen no longer walks the cave, his name remains there for visitors to see, if only they look carefully.

This sensitive portrayal hints that every man and woman who walked this earth, free or slave, has a story worth telling.

Billie B. Little is the Founding Director of Discovery Center at Murfree Spring, a hands-on museum in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

This deceptively simple picture book about stories and storytelling packs a museum’s worth of culture and history into the scenery. I Am a Story shows us all the different ways words have moved us, and it’s an exhilarating trip.

Author-illustrator Dan Yaccarino opens with a scene of primitive people gathered around a fire while one of them points skyward; we can see that he’s describing the signs of the zodiac. The book ends with the same scene, only contemporized—a family on a camping trip, with the dad pointing out the constellations we know by those same signs. There are parallels like this throughout—stone tablets one era, iPads the next—and a red bird that appears in virtually every scene, now perched above the curtain at a Shakespeare play, then a tiny brooch on the lapel of a smiling librarian.

The bright colors and bold, modern style of the illustrations are cheering, and it’s amazing how many visual references Yaccarino pulls into this story: Japanese artist Hokusai’s iconic wave print; bookmobiles and Little Free Libraries, as well as libraries that travel by camel, donkey and elephant; the radio broadcast War of the Worlds; and Georges Méliès’ groundbreaking film A Trip to the Moon.

I Am a Story shows us in spare, elegant visual terms, that something as simple as a story is endlessly variable and everlasting. A powerful two-page spread simply reads, “I was censored, banned, and burned, but did not die.”

Read it, and then keep reading: Stories are all around you!

If you have ever observed pill bugs, regionally known as potato bugs or rollie pollies, you know what delightful creatives they are. Hank the pill bug stars in his adventure of a typical day, one that enchants with the ordinary rendered extraordinary. 

Hank’s Big Day, written by Evan Kuhlman and illustrated by Chuck Groenink, begins with a smiling bug with big dark eyes and a waving leg, who peers at readers from around the corner of his rock house. Throughout Hank’s day, he gleefully shimmies, nibbles, creeps, climbs and, of course, curls up. Hank’s best friend is an aviator hat-wearing human girl named Amelia, who idolizes Amelia Earhart. The world of imaginative play is explored with utmost delight as Amelia takes off on a flying adventure accompanied by her pill bug friend. On their pretend travels, they cross the Atlantic Ocean, wave to the queen in England and eat in a Paris café. They land safely back home and part ways, happy to have shared a wonderful day together.

Rendered in muted, natural colors, Groenink’s line drawings realistically display Hank’s bug’s-eye perspective. When Hank rides on Amelia’s hat, readers see an amazing, expansive view that encompasses Hank’s whole world. After Hank’s time with Amelia, he repeats his trek through the backyard, this time in reverse. The lighting in the pictures skillfully shows the passing of time.

This charming, positive book revels in unusual friendships and the value of imagination.

“A name. An age. A price. People like you. Like me. For sale!”

This is how Ashley Bryan opens the author’s note of his latest picture book. Years ago, Bryan acquired a collection of documents pertaining to slaves, dating from the 1820s to the 1860s. His inspiration for Freedom Over Me comes from an 1828 document in which 11 slaves were listed for sale by a woman named Mrs. Mary Fairchilds.

No ages are listed in Bryan’s source material, but for the profiles of the 11 slaves that constitute this book, he assigns ages to them, fleshing out their lives via free-verse poems. After opening the book from Mary’s point of view, Bryan brings readers a profile of each slave, followed by another poem about what he or she aspires to and dreams of. Peggy, for instance, is 48 years old, was sold on the block with her mother, was named “Peggy” by the men who took her from Africa and now cooks for the Fairchilds. In “Peggy Dreams,” we read that her parents named her Mariama and that the other slaves call her “Herb Doctor” for the healing root and herb poultices of which she is so knowledgeable. 

Bryan brings the slaves’ innermost pain to detailed life in these poems, and the effect is quite moving. The poems are accompanied by brightly colored pen, ink and watercolor portraits of the slaves, many of which look like stained glass. 

This is a compelling, powerful view of slavery from a virtuoso of the picture book form.

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

This article was originally published in the September 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

The child of books sits on a raft, legs dangling in the water—an ocean composed of lines from classical literature and lullabies. Buoyed on this torrent of tales, the dauntless child leads a boy, her traveling companion, around the globe, through forests and mountains. A metaphor for reading, an entertaining adventure, an intriguing work of art—whatever your interpretation, A Child of Books was written for the child of books in all of us.

Boldly drawn, cleverly detailed and colorful, this is an engaging collaboration between two talented artists. Bestselling author-illustrator Oliver Jeffers is well known for his quirky and delightful picture books, and museum-featured artist Sam Winston makes a memorable literary debut with his typographical landscapes. 

A Child of Books is an “I spy” journey for book lovers, and readers could get lost in the captivating interchange of carefully chosen literary excerpts and original art. Winston and Jeffers insert humor in the details, choosing passages to echo each illustration. Forest-themed tales shape tree branches. Overlapping lines of adventures create a dark, forbidding cave. Lines about legendary monsters come to life as a threatening beast.

This delightful treasure hunt through children’s literature will have you digging through your bookshelves, hunting for forgotten phrases and making room among the tomes for this book.

This article was originally published in the September 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Ross Collins hits the sweet spot of picture books with a story of clever rhymes starring a disgruntled little rodent and a huge squatter of a polar bear who has, sadly enough, taken over Mouse’s chair.

In a brilliant blend of text and endearing drawings, There’s a Bear on My Chair introduces Mouse, a sweater-sporting little guy who longs to sit in his customary spot. Although he admires some of Bear’s qualities—such as his stylish hair and his “fine taste in leisure wear”—Mouse simply cannot support Bear’s taking over his chair. Something must be done. Despite Mouse’s best efforts to lure Bear from his chair, nothing works. He tempts him with a golden pear, jumps out of a box in his underwear and finally loses his temper—all to no avail. Bear stays put.

Only when Mouse gives up and leaves the premises does Bear take notice. He lumbers off the chair and travels far along a snowy peak to his igloo home. There he finds someone (guess who?) snoozing on his bed.

The winning personalities of the two creatures and Mouse’s determination to regain his favorite chair will have little ones begging to hear this laugh-out-loud romp over and over again.

Billie B. Little is the Founding Director of Discovery Center at Murfree Spring, a hands-on museum in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

It’s ambitious and refreshing for an author to write a book for young readers about the silence that lies between the sounds of our loud, media-driven world (known in Japan as ma). Journalist and producer Katrina Goldsaito has done so in The Sound of Silence, illustrated by Julia Kuo.

Young Yoshio lives in Tokyo, a bustling, noisy city. To him, “Tokyo was like a symphony hall!” He loves to roam the streets and take it all in. He likes to hear his boots squish in puddles; he likes to hear his own giggling; and he loves to hear the koto player on the street. When he asks if she has a favorite sound, the musician tells Yoshio that the most beautiful sound is that of silence. That does it for the boy: Once the musician has sung its praises, he is determined to find the silence in his day.

And he tries valiantly: He looks for silence in a bamboo grove, beautifully illustrated by Kuo; as he walks home from school; during dinner at home; during his bath; and more. Giving it one last shot at bedtime, he fails when his eyes get heavy and he falls fast asleep. The boy is disappointed. All he heard all day was noise and more noise, especially since he was hyper-attuned to it. But when he gets to school early the next day and sits there alone, he discovers the silence and, furthermore, discovers that it was always with him: “It was between and underneath every sound.”

Kuo’s pen drawings, scanned into Photoshop, feature fluid lines and the detailed, graceful landscapes of Tokyo. Her busier, more crowded scenes parallel moments in the text where the boy hears noise and struggles to find the silence he seeks. The striking cover, with its pop of color in the middle, seems to show the boy post-discovery, walking along as if he has finally figured out how to find the rejuvenating silence even in the middle of a crowd. An afterword encourages readers to be collectors of sounds.

Meditative and thought-provoking, this one is a keeper.

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

Young and old readers alike will rejoice in the publication of Return, the final volume of Aaron Becker’s trilogy of award-winning wordless picture books. As with Journey and Quest, the series’ ongoing premise continues, as a lonely, bored young heroine draws a door on her bedroom wall with her magic red crayon, escaping into a realm of immense castles populated by a familiar friendly king, a boy with a magic purple crayon and, alas, ominous soldiers giving chase.

What’s new is that this time the girl’s father follows his daughter through her magic door. An artist or architect, he’s been holed up in his upstairs home studio, seemingly frustrated at his drafting table and ignoring his child. A small rounded door rests near a bookcase―likely an entry into imaginary realms that he’s unable to access.

By the time this bearded, booted dad chases after his daughter, she’s not exactly thrilled to see him. All that changes, however, when soldiers attack the king, leading the girl and father to narrowly escape aboard a magical flying creature and then a magic submarine, eventually landing in a cave filled with prehistoric paintings. These paintings provide clues for dad and daughter to collaborate to defeat their attackers in an epic, colorful battle.

Becker’s watercolor, pen and ink illustrations highlight the importance of color, contrasting beige scenes in the family home with bold, brilliant bursts of gold, blue, purple and red in the otherworldly realm. As always, Becker’s imaginary worlds are visual feasts, intricate enough to invite repeated visits from fans of all ages. In contrast, his characters’ faces are purposely plain, inviting readers to assign their own interpretations.

The final illustration is lovely, showing a return to reality, but a reality suggesting that dad and daughter continue to enjoy their newfound magic. Similarly, Return is a crowning capstone to a special trilogy that parents and children will want to share time and time again. It is a marvelous yet beautifully quiet commentary on so many important things: relationships, imagination, ingenuity and creativity.