Philip C. Stead, author of the 2011 Caldecott winning A Sick Day for Amos McGee, brings his considerable talents to this fanciful story of a boy who goes in search of adventure. Sitting on his roof one night, Sebastian decides that there’s nothing very interesting to see on his street: It is definitely time for a change. What spells adventure more than a journey in a hot air balloon, especially one constructed from Grandma’s afghans and patchwork quilts?

Of course, as all intrepid travelers know, packing well is essential. After all, when you meet real bears, you want to be able to share a pickle sandwich together. And when your afghan has sprung a leak, it’s advisable to have knitting needles on hand so that three helpful sisters can help with repairs. And when the wind picks up, well, then everyone will want to pile in to see where the balloon will go next.

With its large format and appealing pastel and oil paintings, Sebastian and the Balloon is a perfect choice for story time—and for all young readers ready to undertake their own flights of imagination. As Sebastian knows, all it takes is to chart your course, check the breeze, cut the strings and float free.

Deborah Hopkinson lives near Portland, Oregon. Her most recent book for young readers is The Great Trouble.

If you ever find yourself wanting to explain to a child what the phrase “snowball effect” means, pick up a copy of David Mackintosh’s Lucky to aid your cause.

Mackintosh is an author-illustrator hailing from the U.K., who makes visually interesting and very funny picture books with busy, stylized collage illustrations. This new title playfully honors a child’s imagination with humor and heart.

The story is told from the point of view of a young boy, whose mother has promised him and his brother Leo a surprise. “Just wait and see,” she tells them when they ask what it is. The boys let their imagination go as the day wears on. Could it be curly fries? A new car? Separate rooms? Tickets to the amazing Yo-Yo Super Show at the town hall? When his brother declares that in all likelihood the parents won a family vacation to Hawaii in a contest, the boy is convinced. The news spreads at school—he even takes some classroom time to tell everyone about his trip—and the principal sings his praises. When he gets home to find that the surprise is pizza for dinner, he’s not only disappointed, but his family laughs about his confusion when Leo tells them. All’s well that ends well, however, when Leo adds some pineapple to the pizza—Hawaiian pizza, anyone?—and the good-natured family don leis, as if they’re actually lounging on Hawaiian shores.

There’s a lot of humor here (be sure to check out the placement of the dog door in the family’s home), and Mackintosh’s multimedia illustrations, with their relaxed lines and pops of color, are dynamic. Best of all, there’s honesty: “Sometimes grown-ups say things they don’t really mean,” the protagonist says. One senses that Leo knows this, too, but as the narrator notes in the final spread, Leo’s at least able to make the best of it. And the family may not be vacationing miles away from home, but they are enjoying one another’s company and their Hawaiian pizza in all their weird and wonderful glory.

Lucky, indeed.

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

Numerous legendary author-illustrators have likened picture books to film, as both mediums tell their stories through visible action. Some illustrators construct their stories in ways similar to film in even more creative and dramatic ways, as Raúl Colón does in his dynamic new picture book, Draw!

A young boy sits in his room, sketchbook nearby, while reading a giant book about Africa. By the next spread, we see he’s been inspired; his sketchbook is now in hand, and he’s drawing. In a series of drawings emanating from near the boy’s head, he imagines himself heading to a safari with his paints and easel in hand. We are treated to multiple spreads of the boy’s fantasy: He’s painting various safari animals, from elephants to zebras to majestic lions, and every scene pops with color and action. In the end, we’re drawn back (in more ways than one) to the boy’s room, and at the book’s close we see him sharing his drawings with his classmates.

Colón puts to good use perspective, compelling page turns and cinematic techniques. In one spread, we’re treated to two illustrations similar in many ways, yet one is suddenly closer to the reader. Another illustration is divided into panels, showing an encroaching, angry rhino. These successive pictures and dramatic cuts mimic film and make Draw! a magnetic tale.

One go-around on this safari, and you’ll want to immediately return.

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

This article was originally published in the October 2014 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

It’s one thing to learn your ABCs. It’s quite another when Oliver Jeffers is in charge. His new picture book, Once Upon an Alphabet, contains 26 very short stories, beginning with “An Astronaut” and ending with “Zeppelin.” Preschoolers and beginning readers will delight in these vignettes featuring everything from a lumberjack who repeatedly gets struck by lightning to, of all things, a puzzled parsnip.

Jeffers (The Day the Crayons Quit) uses comical illustrations and sophisticated humor throughout, sometimes linking several stories. “An Enigma” asks how many elephants can fit inside an envelope, and readers must go to “N” for the answer. Kids will eat up Jeffers’ wacky wickedness, such as in “Half a House,” in which poor Helen lives in the remains of a house on the edge of a seaside cliff. (The rest collapsed during a hurricane.) One day, alas, Helen rolls out of the wrong side of the bed.

Jeffers knows how to catch the attention of his young audience while challenging their imagination, intellect and vocabulary. This whimsical exploration of letters and language begs to be read over and over again.

This article was originally published in the October 2014 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

In what has to be the best-named picture book of the year, Newbery Medalist Patricia MacLachlan brings readers the story of the young Henri Matisse and his childhood inspirations, with eye-catching illustrations from Hadley Hooper.

There are any number of ways MacLachlan could have described the creativity surrounding the boy Matisse, but the manner she chooses is thoroughly engaging. The text is essentially one very long conditional sentence: “If you were a boy named Henri Matisse . . .” It’s an inviting way to bring to life the creative presences of his childhood, while also prompting children to ponder the inspiration in their own lives.

Matisse was born into a “dreary town in northern France where the skies were gray / And the days were cold.” He longed for color and light and sun. Here, Hooper brings us lots of grays and shadows. On the next spread, it’s as if a light has been turned on and cast through a prism, as Matisse’s mother brought life and color to his world. She painted plates; she put out paints for mixing; and she let the boy arrange fruits and flowers. In this way, the book is not only a celebration of color and art and everyday objects that bring inspiration, but ultimately a celebration of motherhood. And it’s simply resplendent: the writing; Hooper’s relief prints, which reflect the varied and intriguing patterns, textures, shapes, colors and layers Matisse’s mother brought to his life; and the way the art and words work together to tell this tale.

Closing author and illustrator notes are followed by suggested reading for those who want to learn more. Well crafted on every level, this is one of the year’s most beautiful books.

This article was originally published in the October 2014 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Friends can come from the most unlikely places. In the case of Marla Frazee’s tender wordless story, The Farmer and the Clown, that place is from the back of a circus train in the middle of nowhere.

A surly, old farmer is working in his fields when a bright and colorful circus train flies by in the distance. The man is startled to see that, after hitting a bump in the train tracks, some sort of bundle falls from the train. He walks forward to find that the bundle is actually a child clown, dressed in yellow neck ruffles, a red clown suit and a pointy red hat.

The tiny clown runs to the man and gives him a giant hug. The farmer has no choice but to bring him in and take care of him. In one moving spread, the two wash their faces, the boy clearly feeling vulnerable and scared once he’s washed off his white face make-up. No worries: The farmer lets down his guard, too, and goes out of his way to make him feel at home. One gets the sense he’s not used to company, but he quickly warms up to the boy.

Frazee conveys much with her characters’ body language (the slumped shoulders and ponderous gait of the man and the sprightly energy of the kid), as well as her palette choices in these graceful pencil and gouache spreads. At first, browns and shadows dominate, making the red and yellow get-up of the boy stand out even more, and then more light appears as their friendship grows.

Just as the man starts to smile more, he must say goodbye to the clown when the train returns with his family. It’s a poignant and heartfelt farewell, but he keeps the boy’s hat as a memento. The final illustration communicates a great deal about how this man has changed, but I’ll leave that for you to discover if you pick up a copy of this warmhearted story of friendship.

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

Budding young naturalists will learn from—and love—Winter Is Coming by Tony Johnston. A quietly powerful picture book that explores the changing of the seasons and life in the woods, it’s also a story about the rewards that come from taking time to look closely at the world. The narrator is a resourceful young girl who visits her tree house each day, watching in solitude as the forest around her transitions from fall to winter. Armed with binoculars, sketchbook and pencils, she spies on animals as they hunt for food and prepare for the snowy season to come.

The book begins in September and moves through October and November, passing through all the phases of fall until the first sign of snow. The glories of autumn come alive on the page thanks to Jim LaMarche’s magnificent acrylic, colored pencil, and ink illustrations. Johnston’s understated yet poetic text is filled with arresting imagery. From her perch, the narrator sees a fox that “shines like a small red fire” and a lynx “the color of moon” with “Egypt eyes.” Her sense of wonder and reverence for nature will inspire explorers of all ages. Capturing the transitional quality that makes autumn such a magical time, Winter Is Coming pays tribute to the mysteries of nature while teaching readers about the importance—and pleasures—of simple observation.

The title of Diane and Christyan Fox’s clever new picture book, The Cat, the Dog, Little Red, the Exploding Eggs, the Wolf, and Grandma is quite a mouthful. Add impish characters that nearly fly across the page, and humor clearly awaits.

A particularly punctilious Cat sits reading “Little Red Riding Hood” to smart-alecky Dog who won’t be still. We all know Little Red wears a red cape. So, naturally, Dog wonders about her special powers. Is her superpower kindness? Does she hypnotize bad guys into being nice? Dog gets excited when Wolf—the bag guy—enters the story. He hopes Little Red will use kindness rays on him or maybe exploding eggs. Dog says he would notice right away if a wolf tried to dress up like his grandma. Little Red is not too bright.

Cat becomes more and more perturbed with Dog’s interruptions. When she gets to her favorite part of the story, she yells, “All the better to eat you up!” and chases Dog around the room.

Luckily, Red Riding Hood’s father arrives, chopping off the wolf’s head. “They all lived happily ever after,” Cat reads.

Dog suspects that Wolf didn’t end up so happy. He asks Cat, “Are you absolutely sure this is a children’s book?” Finally, Cat gives up on reading to Dog.

Less a story than a conversation, the language and the lively drawings of Cat and Dog’s antics will amuse children and give adult readers a break from the mundanity of more saccharine bedtime stories.

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

Quite appropriately, The Memory of an Elephant is a large picture book, measuring 11 by 14 inches. It’s a big, unusual book in every way, featuring not only a story about an old, distinguished elephant named Marcel, but a compendium of assorted facts about everything from musical instruments and classic modern furniture to a variety of gourmet desserts.

That's because Marcel is writing “an enormous, illustrated encyclopedia―everything he’s learned throughout his long and exceptional life.” The book’s language and Marcel’s panache are reminiscent of the old-world style of Babar, although the books themselves are quite different.

When Marcel wakes up one morning, his monumental writing task is interrupted when he finds a mountain of presents waiting in his living room. It’s Marcel’s birthday, and quite the celebration is in store.

The Memory of an Elephant can be enjoyed on several different levels. Very young children will appreciate the story of Marcel’s big birthday bash. Fact-loving kids will devour the catalog-like pages filled with intriguing nuggets about Marcel’s passions, such as the world's tallest buildings, computer history, fashion facts, sailing history, plants and birds. There are plenty of fascinating elephant facts as well.

There’s even a recipe for “La Crepe Marcelette,” and young connoisseurs will learn some delicious definitions for things like crème caramel, brioche, dôme au chocolat and floating island. French author Sophie Strady and illustrator Jean-Franςois Martin have created a distinctive treat that’s certainly ripe for feasting.

Grief isn’t an easy thing, nor is it something that provides easy answers. Stian Hole’s Anna’s Heaven, an introspective picture book aimed at older children and originally published in Norway, isn’t afraid to ask the big questions.

Readers know they’re in for an intense read at the opening endpapers, which show nails raining down from the sky. (No worries. The final endpapers depict sweet strawberries.) The first spread introduces us to a young girl named Anna. Her father stands at a distance, holding flowers and dressed in black. He is restless, as church bells chime all around, and Anna knows he is this agitated when “he is not looking forward to something.”

Only the copyright page summary uses the phrase “after the death of her mother.” Readers are otherwise expected to put two and two together as the story progresses to figure out the reason for Anna and her father's grief. One spread shows her mother’s things, all boxed up, and other symbols communicate the loss and discomfort they feel. There are fragile, dying flowers, broken mugs and even her mother’s shadow looming in the sky. These photo-collage illustrations are surreal and visually arresting.

Things become even clearer toward the book’s close when Anna ponders questions about heaven, God and her mother’s absence. She and her father imagine God as a peacock, an octopus with many arms, a gardener weeding in Paradise and a librarian with a handy encyclopedia. (“It can’t be easy for him to remember everything,” Anna’s father says.) Anna’s questions, as she considers nothing short of life after death, are powerful and honest: “Why can’t he invent something to turn bad into good?”

In the end, it’s the child comforting the father in a very moving moment, when we see him for the first time with a smile on his face as she strokes his cheek. They may still be filled with questions about the mystery of death, but readers know that, together, father and daughter will be OK.

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

Mac Barnett, author of the Caldecott Honor-winning picture book Extra Yarn, turns a popular children’s game into a high-wire act in his latest offering. In many picture books featuring people and animals, the animal world serves as the background. In Telephone, the opening spread features a wordless panorama in which children playing outside offer a clue of what’s to come for the many birds sitting on the telephone lines high above.

The game begins as a mother pigeon carrying a steaming dish says to a young baseball-playing cardinal, “Tell Peter: Fly home for dinner.” The cardinal then tells an aviator Canada goose, “Tell Peter: Hit pop flies and homers.” Each subsequent spread continues with different birds, from an ostrich and pelican to a turkey and toucan, and with increasingly humorous variations of the original call to Peter.

Jen Corace, illustrator of the Little series (Little Pea, Little Hoot and Little Oink), adds to the hilarity with watercolor, gouache and pencil artwork that displays each bird’s colorful personality and message.

When a panicking golden bird relates a dire message to a sophisticated owl, this last—and, of course, wise—bird knows exactly what to tell Peter. The final spread comes full circle, showing different human families having dinner and one small bird flying back home. Whether read at home or during storytime, this fun tale is sure to produce laughs and creative spinoffs.

This article was originally published in the September 2014 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Size matters. Or does it? And aren’t things like “big” and “small” relative concepts anyway? You bet they are, as husband-and-wife author-illustrator team Anna Kang and Christopher Weyant make clear in their debut children’s book, the spare and thought-provoking You Are (Not) Small.

A furry, purple bear-like creature refuses to accept the “small” label give to him by a larger, orange creature. “I am not small. You are big,” he tells him. The orange creature calls over his similarly sized friends and declares that he’s not big, compared to them. “You are small,” the orange creature reiterates. An argument ensues, broken up only by the arrival (by way of a loud, sudden stomp) of two, humongous furry feet in the middle of one spread. “BOOM!” Along come tiny, pink creatures, parachuting down the massive beast’s body, thereby putting a serious kink in the creatures’ attempts to define scale. (And the mostly mute pink creatures add a lot of humor to this lighthearted tale—not to mention one of them gets the very last laugh on the book’s final page.)

It’s Relativism 101 for children, and it works. Very young children firmly entrenched in the ego stage of psychological development need a story this elemental and uncluttered to drive home the notion that “it’s true for me” doesn’t make something true for everyone. Kang and Weyant pull this off without belaboring the point, and Weyant’s loose and cheerful cartoon illustrations, rendered in ink and watercolors, make it all accessible and much fun. His palette is soft and warm, and his bulbous-nosed creatures, outlined in a thick black line, are endearing. The sunny yellow endpapers are an indication that the low-key strife within the pages of the book will resolve itself quickly.

It’s big fun.

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

These days it seems dogs are everywhere. We have dog detectives (Spencer Quinn’s delightful Chet and Bernie mystery series for adults), lost dogs (Chris Raschka’s Caldecott-winning A Ball for Daisy) and even, apparently, dogs with blogs. So, do kids (and adults) need another dog book? The answer, as any dog lover will tell you, is a resounding yes, especially when the book is created by the talented David Ezra Stein, who won a Caldecott Honor for Interrupting Chicken.

The hero of I’m My Own Dog is a cocky, independent and supremely confident creature (not unlike many 5-year-olds, come to think of it), who is totally the boss of his own life. “If someone told me, ‘Sit!’ I wouldn’t do it. Even if they said, ‘I’ll give you a bone.’”

One day, though, our intrepid hero finds an itchy spot on his back he simply cannot reach on his own. Fortunately he finds a fellow at the park willing to scratch it for him. When “the little guy” follows him home, the dog takes pity on him. He gets a leash to lead his new friend around, and takes him to the park to show him things like squirrels and how to throw a stick. (Dog lovers, is this starting to sound familiar?)

Dogs, notes Stein, “make an excellent metaphor for a story about independence and love.” And as I’m My Own Dog reminds us delightfully once again, dogs also make excellent best friends.

Deborah Hopkinson lives near Portland, Oregon. Her most recent book for young readers is The Great Trouble.