If you look closely at the endpapers of Sidewalk Flowers, the new book from JonArno Lawson, illustrated by Sydney Smith, you get a sense of the beauty within. The endpapers are filled with the tiny, intricate drawings of flowers and birds. Keep going, and you fall into the story of a young girl, walking the city streets with her father, who finds beauty in unexpected places.
This story, I should add right off the bat, is wordless. Lawson, an award-winning ...
To every publishing house (turn turn turn), there is a season. And in children’s literature, we’re approaching the spring season, during which we see a lot of new picture books about Ms. Mother Nature, her delightful bounty, and the four seasons here on our planet as it spins on its axis. I’m going to round up a few of those books today, ones that grabbed my attention in one way or another.
I’ll start with my favorite of the lot ...
A.F. Harrold photographed by Naomi Woddis
Imaginary friends who have legit feelings of their own are getting a good amount of ink these days. They are no longer the passive creatures of children’s books of yore. The book currently sporting the 2015 Caldecott sticker, in fact, is all about an imaginary creature who sets out to find his own kid. No waiting around for him, thanks very much. He takes matters into his own hands.
Rudger—one of the characters in author and poet A. F. Harrold’s ...
The United States Board on Books for Young People (USBBY) releases annually their Outstanding International Books lists, and just last week they celebrated their 10th list. These bibliographies, which highlight children’s books originally published in other countries that are then brought to American shores, are wonderful resources for those wanting to share books across borders with children here in the States. This year’s list, which can be found here, includes 42 of the best imports published in 2014, ranging from ...
The ALA Youth Media Awards were announced this week, and I’m still coming down from that high. It’s always very exciting—if you’re someone who follows picture books closely—to hear the Caldecott winner, as well as to find out which picture books win in other categories.
As the week calms down and I look at new picture books coming out in February, there’s one new story that catches my eye. It’s still so early in the year and my head swims ...
Carson Ellis photographed by Autumn de Wilde
In Home—Carson Ellis’ new picture book, on shelves in a few weeks—readers are invited to explore the many kinds of dwellings in which creatures of many types make themselves comfortable. Home can be an apartment, a palace, or a wigwam. It can be a shoe (if you’ve nursery rhymes on the mind), underwater, or the elaborate home of a god. The possibilities are endless, and Carson delves into it with wonder in this beautifully designed book.
It’s a book ...
Author-illustrator and graphic designer Michael Hall creates children’s books with bright colors; playful shapes; and sentences, for the most part, that beginning readers can handle. A “simple and engaging approach,” as he puts it at his website, is what he’s going for, and boy, does this deceptively simple approach work. I’ve enjoyed his picture books over the years—especially sharing them with children (many of them make great story-time reads)—and his newest picture book, Red: A Crayon’s Story, is ...
It takes a lot to successfully create a picture book for very young readers—rather, listeners, since I’m talking about primarily the preschool set here, whose stories will be read to them by someone older. They’ll want eye-catching art; a story that resonates with the main concerns of a toddler’s or preschooler’s life; and, most importantly, writing and illustrations that don’t condescend. Today, I want to write about three new picture books that do all of these things—and do them well ...
