There are kids out there that like comics and like realism and have long been starved for illustrated stories of the past. Hand them this book, and then hand it to all the science fiction and fantasy enthusiasts too, because this is a book for everyone. Impossible to forget, undeniable in its delights.
Lisa Moore Ramée has taken the complexity of the real world, with all its police shootings and racism and destructive tendencies and made it personal for young readers. I don’t care what kid you hand this book to. Every single one of them will understand what’s going on here and, maybe, what’s going on in the wider world. The new required reading.
Meet the most necessary and least loved age range of children’s books.I have been carefully combing through every last easy book and early chapter book I could get my grubby little hands on and, with the help of my co-workers, I’ve come up with a good, if imperfect, list.
Children are forever being picked up and taken to new locations without their input or consent. In today’s book review, you can see a kid taking the initiative. A father/daughter tale unlike any other out there today.
Appealing to older and younger readers alike, Portis has outdone herself with the book’s design and art. A book for everybody. After all, who doesn’t like water? Hey, Portis! You made a really good book.
We’re almost halfway through the year, so why not take a gander at seventeen of the great graphic novels/comics for kids out so far (or about to come out)? I have read a LOT of 2019 comics so far. These are the ones that I’ve enjoyed the most. Let’s see if you agree (and if you can name any I haven’t seen yet that you absolutely adore).
Do you remember that scene in Orlando by Virginia Woolf where a bunch of witty people are in a room saying witty things and then Alexander Pope walks in and says three things so devastatingly witty that he just destroys everything? That’s what happens when Climbing Shadows gets paired alongside other collections of poetry. Smart. Honestly heartfelt. Utterly beautiful to look at. See the bar? Yeah. It just got raised.
“I am Fly. Maximillian Fly. I am a good creature. I am not bad, as some will tell you.” Considering that Maximillian is a human/cockroach hybrid of sorts, this is not particularly surprising news. Meet the dystopian/Steampunk/action adventure novel that’s like nothing you’ve ever read before.
Today I look at an infinitely gentle take on the feelings we lug around inside of ourselves and why we don’t have to always lug them on our own. Maybe Tomorrow? is, at its heart, about how to be a good friend. A seemingly simple lesson for a deeply complex world.
The ideal use of great writing without cheating. Filled with facts and backmatter, it also makes the subject interesting to kids. It’s beautiful to look at and while I would have made some changes, it stands as a pretty darn good look at a man, a plan, a crayon. Crayola.
Gather round me, ye children. I know we’re in May, but poetry can shine every day of the year if it wants to. This is all the new good stuff. You know you wanna know what’s worthy.
A book that effectively establishes normality, disrupts it with horror, and then assures the reader that normality can return. If Tsurumi’s previous picture book, Accident, was about taking responsibility for your mistakes, Crab Cake is about taking care of yourself when the mistake is not your own.
Kyle Lukoff discusses his trans boy picture book When Aidan Became a Brother and explains why, to make use of a Rudolph metaphor, “we’re all jerk reindeers AND misfit toys at the same time.”
There are books for kids that dare to be more thoughtful than pulse pounding. If chosen freely by a child, they can unlock something inside. Something that means more to the person reading than anyone else. The Line Tender carries this promise in its pages. It’s the right book for the right reader.
The Girl and the Wolf by Métis author Katherena Vermette and Cree- Métis artist Julie Flett, is an original fairytale in the purest sense of the term. Essentially, it takes a European idea and flips it on its head. A book that cracks the limitations of the fairy tale form wide open.
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