Sharp and smart. Kind and caustic. Occasionally acidic, but in a nice way, today’s review is of the kind of book that wakes up dreamy readers and forces the darned kids to think a little. Precisely what we would have all been waiting for, had we but known to want it.
Right now, in the Spring, when the world seems scary, this may be the comforting book about what’s beyond our back doors that we all need right now.
I don’t think it’s ridiculous at all to suggest that this book pretty much has it all. For the animal lovers, a cute and smart colt. For the mystery lovers, a true tale that lays out the clues, the detectives, and the surprising solution. And for lovers of science, this is a superb recounting of how people learn more about the natural world around them.
Behold a story that runs, caterwauls, spies, sneaks, rides, and generally has a wonderful time. This is a book I can’t show my colleagues at work because my 8-year-old won’t let it out of her sight. A fairly high bit of praise, if I do say so myself.
I’ve read snail picture books before, but few have plumbed their humor quite as well as Tabor has in “Snail Crossing”. Less a story of persistence than a lesson in karma, this may well be the first snail-adjacent picture book that has ever made me AND my kids laugh out loud for long periods of time. I can think of not better praise than that.
I’ve no doubt that there will be plenty of folks out there that take one look at its simple cover, flip through, scoff, and set it down. More fool they. If you want a book that gives your children raw, unblemished poetry in a form they CAN’T understand and love NOT understanding, this is the book for them.
“You have the most to learn from the perspectives that are hardest to find in the world.” For today’s cover reveal, American Hmong author Kao Kalia Yang discusses the story behind her remarkable and beautiful upcoming picture book The Most Beautiful Thing, and how intersectionality informs her writing.
No series of rote facts, Overground Railroad puts you in the shoes of the ordinary people that had to leave everything and everyone they knew in search of a better life. Historical events like The Great Migration are vague. This book hands young readers not just specifics. It hands them people they can get to know and care about.
Great writing for kids, when you encounter it, reminds you that there is always a new way to look at this old, familiar world of ours. If you buy only one bee book for the rest of your life, make it this one.
Today’s list consists of all the 2020 comics I’ve seen so far that made me inordinately happy. Please note that a lot of these aren’t out quite yet. Consider them something to look forward to then.
Hand this to the kid that yearns for that freedom. For wide-open spaces and mysterious figures hiding in the shadows and snot nosed brothers and lots and lots of puppies. Hand it to someone who needs their own mountain. Even if it’s just a literary one.
Sometimes you don’t know what you’ve been missing until it’s arrived. I didn’t know I needed a graphic novel for kids on period parity. And now, here we are.
Whenever I have a chance to get my hands on a new Frances Hardinge book, it’s only because I want one thing: to be told a story I’ve never heard before. Deeplight fulfills that wish and a lot more besides. My sole regret is that I only get to read it for the first time once.
Kids will love this book. Yeah, it’s a visual/literary masterpiece of picture book art and writing but that means bupkiss if you hand it to a kid, or read it aloud to a group, and they’re bored to tears. Precisely because Fogliano knows how to talk on a kid’s level, precisely because Tamaki has made her art so visually appealing.
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