Picture books build bridges in many ways – between children and the adults who share children’s books with them, between children and the life-long pleasures of literature, and (my favorite of all) between children and art appreciation. Two new children’s books on shelves—Lizi Boyd’s I Wrote You a Note and Jacqueline Ayer’s The Paper-Flower Tree—are all about characters who build bridges themselves – and in more ways than one.
Let’s start with Lizi Boyd’s newest, a book dedicated to ...
Dave Roman courtesy of Dave Roman.
It’s a good time, many say a golden age, for graphic novels and comics. The proliferation of such high-quality graphic novels also means that there are publishers out there creating such books specifically for younger readers. (Take TOON Books, for instance. Here is my 2014 Kirkus chat with the Editorial Director, Françoise Mouly, about bringing comics to the easy-reader format.)
While First Second Books publishes graphic novels for readers of all ages, they’ve also got a track record thus far ...
Well, maybe not exactly planes, trains, and automobiles. But you know those children who get really fired up reading books about things that go vroom? There’s a reason you can throw a rock and hit a children’s book about transportation: they are loved by many a child. Today, I’ve got three new ones worth your time, one an arrival from overseas.
I want to start with James Kwan’s How It Feels to Be a Boat, on shelves next month. “Quirky” ...
This week, I read two brand-new picture books I really like, both from authors and illustrators overseas (Wales, England, and Australia) – Bob Graham’s Home in the Rain and Nicola Davies’ King of the Sky, illustrated by Laura Carlin. “It rained and rained and rained,” begins one. “Didn’t it rain!” begins the other. A steady rain even hit the roof above my head as these two stories unfolded for me. They are, in part, about driving, relentless rain ...
Hope Anita Smith
In 2009, award-winning author and poet Hope Anita Smith wrote and illustrated Mother Poems, a set of original poems about the loss of one pre-teen girl’s mother and her metamorphosis into a “motherless shell.” It was a book the Kirkus review called “undeniably visceral,” this personal set of poems from Smith.
Now, with Father’s Day just around the bend, Smith returns with a joyful set of original poetry My Daddy Rules the World: Poems about Dads, illustrated (as ...
Picture books are a greatly underestimated art form, too often dismissed, in the words of Maurice Sendak, as trifles for the kiddies. I’m about to teach a Summer graduate course, all about picture books, for the University of Tennessee, and I plan to kick it off with the usual request of my students: please try to go beyond merely “cute” to describe the picture books you’ll read this summer.
That’s because a good children’s book is way more than that ...
I’ve always found it difficult to answer the what’s-your-favorite-color question, as the answer depends entirely on my mood. (I like deep blues for more contemplative times, but I need sunny yellow to help wake me in the mornings.)
Perhaps it’s even harder for artists to pick a favorite color. Is it like asking them to pick a favorite child? I don’t know. But the fifteen picture book illustrators in What’s Your Favorite Color?—another “Eric Carle and Friends” book from ...
Deborah Heiligman photographed by Matt Peyton.
Earlier this year, I was in somewhat of a reading slump, but then Deborah Heiligman’s Vincent and Theo: The Van Gogh Brothers cured it. Now I’m in somewhat of a reading slump, because nothing else I pick up can quite top it. (To be clear, this is a good problem for a book-lover to have.)
Vincent and Theo is the award-winning author’s extensively researched, loving tribute to the relationship between Vincent Van Gogh, one of the world’s most famous painters ...
