It’s rare to experience the type of connection to a character that I had with Emma in I Lived Inside a Whale. I Lived Inside a Whale opens on the chaos of a party where everyone is having a blast, except for our irritated little narrator. Emma just wants a quiet spot to read, so she packs up and moves into the mouth of a whale (a reimagined space inside her bedroom). Her calm new home is the perfect place for reading—that is, until an interloper in the form of an excitable little boy slides in on a skateboard, and Emma’s solitude takes an unexpected turn. Written and illustrated by Xin Li, I Lived Inside a Whale is a touching and beautiful tale of finding refuge in stories, discovering unlikely allies and sharing one’s voice with the world.

Li’s evocative watercolor and pencil artwork echoes and expands upon Emma’s emotions. Clogged city streets, dour rain and constant noise reflect Emma’s feelings of needing to escape. An abundance of little details (stuffed animals, a warm reading light, a cup of tea, a perfect amount of books in disarray) makes her whale home enviably cozy. As Emma begins to share with others the wondrous stories and worlds inside her head, Li’s art becomes broadly imaginative: welcoming and expressive, it feels joyfully created and makes one happy. Little eyes will have fun whale-spotting while following along. A few classic storytime characters—such as those from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland—also make delightful cameos.

Li narrates with the matter-of-fact voice of a bookish little girl who takes her alone time very seriously. The first-person perspective has the advantage of letting one directly feel Emma’s exasperation, her carefulness and orderliness, and finally, her bliss when storytelling. I Lived Inside a Whale has a moment for every reader, making it perfect for storytime or bedtime or any time in between. We could all use a little vacation these days, and I Lived Inside a Whale is a great escape, no matter your age.

Somewhere in a big city, there are two different babies having two similar, yet different days. Across a “beep-beep street” and along “two bumpy sidewalks,” this baby and that baby wave at each other “at the very same time.” Both babies go on various adventures—giggling on their grown-ups’ laps, kissing their lovies, reading books, making music and pausing for the several inevitable diaper changes of the day—before going out to the park for a surprise play date that ends with a fun peek-a-boo.

This Baby. That Baby. by Cari Best and Rashin Kheiriyeh is a wonderful addition to your reading list and a great picture book to share with the parents and children in our community. Reminiscent of Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes by Mem Fox and Helen Oxenbury, this book celebrates all the ways two different babies experience the same expressions of love: playtime, a good book, snuggling and friendship. One, dressed in a blue onesie, sits on a mother’s lap, while the other wears a little red floppy hat to match a father’s red ball cap. Kheiriyeh’s simple, whimsical illustrations create a nursery atmosphere, which is alluded to by the opening and closing pages showing different mobiles that may hang above a baby’s crib. The rhyme scheme is lovely and balanced, making for an engaging read-aloud book that will be a go-to for any classroom, library or nursery.

Hello, This Baby. That Baby.: Welcome to the shelf!

A boy and his sister wander their quiet neighborhood and admire the life bursting into color around them. The boy’s sister tells him about the burgeoning flowers and trees they pass, dropping small seeds of curiosity that take root in the boy’s mind. 

As the season blooms into summer, the siblings tend to a garden. Though the boy loves to help his sister nurture and weed the vegetable patch, he also ponders the weeds themselves: Why are some plants cultivated, while others are yanked from the ground before they’re given a chance to thrive? 

Award-winning author (When You Can Swim) Jack Wong’s All That Grows is a delicate but powerful ode to curiosity and the delights to be found in the natural world. There is an eloquent simplicity to the story and its contained focus. Wong’s narrator, the unnamed boy, is quiet and thoughtful as he describes his surroundings and experiences in vivid, sensory ways: “Overnight, the trees go from bare to bursting with leaves, turning the streets into enormous green caverns.” In a way, the writing feels like a photographer’s macro lens, homing in on the tiny universes unfurling inside something bigger.

Wong’s illustrations parallel this idea as they zoom in and out of the book’s verdant, sun-dappled setting. The beautifully textured pastel drawings are realistic, but they also possess a subtle whimsy in their decidedly childlike perspective. Whether it’s the way everything seems to glow at the edges or the exclusion of adults (save one lone glimpse), the effect is potent. In some near-intangible way, Wong has evoked the soft haze of childhood summers where a small stand of trees might be seen as a huge forest, and a field of dandelions offers magical, unfettered possibility.

When a big, hairy spider moves into a new house, his plan is to hide and catch flies—but then a kind old woman named Betty reaches beneath the couch and feels his fuzz. She thinks he’s a kitten! Newly named Luigi doesn’t want to scare her, so he pretends to be a cat.

It turns out that cats have cushy lives—snacking on cereal, napping in beds, and playing with toys—and the longer Luigi pretends, the more he truly wants to be a kitten. He misses catching flies and his sticky web, but this is better! If he pretends hard enough, maybe Betty will never notice that he isn’t a cat.

However, when Betty’s friends come to visit and comment on how she adopted a spider, he knows the gig is up. But when Betty turns to him, it’s with open arms and a kind question: “Can you be yourself and still be my friend?”

Author Michelle Knudsen and illustrator Kevin Hawkes, the duo behind Library Lion, reunite for the first time in over a decade with Luigi, the Spider Who Wanted to Be a Kitten. Anybody who thinks spiders can’t be cute will be proven wrong with this charmingly illustrated story about identity and honesty.

With acrylics and pencil, Hawkes uses both shadows and Luigi’s long spider legs to expertly convey his kitten-ness, and read-alouds can be paired with easy challenges to kids to match Luigi’s actions: Can you make your hands look like kitten ears? Can you hold your leg back like a tail?

Luigi, the Spider Who Wanted to Be a Kitten warms the heart, highlighting how freeing the truth can be, as well as the fact that you can be more than one thing—so long as you’re happy.

Correction: The print version of this review featured the wrong illustrator’s name. The correct illustrator is Kevin Hawkes.