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Read 16 hours ago and current, but nothing has been published for 18 months.
A Dog and Boy Love Story By Henry Cole (Scholastic Press, 2022) Breathe out. Slowly. Every time I open this book, I feel love. Forever Home is a tender, heart-tugging wordless book masterfully told by Henry Cole’s detailed ink pen drawings. The story begins before the title page, a practice I love in books. Let’s dig right in. Immediately we see distress in a dog as it sits atop a stoop, a lockbox…
Written by Alison Hughes Illustrated by Ninon Pelletier (Orca Book Publishers, 2019) This is one of those books that may soothe children and adults alike. (Honestly, I think adults will embrace the message more.) We all experience silence. We all need it. Some people, however, are not as comfortable in the quieter moments. The Silence Slips In is a book that anticipates quiet and wholeheartedly…
By Mies Van Hout (Lemniscaat, 2013) I love when I discover a book that’s more than a decade old in a first-run bookstore. So often, shelf life is so short. It’s a fast read. Fourteen words, including the title. But, reading is not a race—except when I read Green Eggs and Ham . This is a book I have paged through many times, sometimes lingering on every page, sometimes letting just a few stand out.…
By Jon Agee (Dial Books for Young Readers, 2018) Sometimes I read a picture book and I’m not sure what it’s really about. I mean, I can figure out what’s happening on the page and take it at face value but, the events are so odd, that there must be a deeper, bigger meaning. The good thing is this kind of picture book is way more fun than a similarly elusive meaning in a poem. Even better, when I…
By Oliver Jeffers (HarperCollins, 2024) I have been a fan of Oliver Jeffers’ picture books since I discovered The Incredible Book Eating Boy which I read to countless classes and parent groups. (It’s one of the first picture books I blogged about .) That book celebrates an unorthodox love of books and a hunger for knowledge. (Yes, the title should be taken literally.) Since then, Jeffers has…
By Loren Long (Roaring Brook Press, 2024) This story began from a curious mind. As author-illustrator Loren Long explains at the end of the book, an old yellow school bus “surrounded by goats” rests in a field he passes by while on his regular jogs. How did it wind up there? What was its history? Here’s a window into Long’s imagined chronology of the bus’s roles, its users varying over time: ·…
By Thea Lu (Eerdmans Books for Young Readers, 2024) There are homebodies and there are those with constant wanderlust. Here and There celebrates both. The double-page spread format of picture books allows author and illustrator Thea Lu to chronicle the parallel lives of two people, on the surface starkly different, but more similar in terms of how they think and feel. Dan, the homebody…
By Mac Barnett Illustrated by Kate Berube (Candlewick Press, 2022) I checked this book out of my local library based on the writer’s name and the cover image. Mac Barnett is a clever, sparkly writer of children’s books like Sam and Dave Dig a Hole and Count the Monkeys . I figured I could use some amusement. But this isn’t that kind of book. (More on the cover in a bit.) The book focuses on a…
Written by Adib Khorram Illustrated by Michelle Tran (Dial Books for Young Readers, 2024) This is a curious book, for the wrong reasons. The title doesn’t match the text, at least not to my satisfaction. I checked out the book, thinking it would be about poor sportsmanship—yes, winners can be bad sports. I figured it would include a comeuppance, an occasion when the main character must deal with…
By Dan Yaccarino (Harper, 2016) This is a simple picture book with a valuable purpose: to help young readers understand the enduring love of stories. Writer and illustrator Dan Yaccarino takes us on a journey of story, through time. It begins with people from the Stone Age, cavemen gathered around a fire, a man speaking with his hands in the air, his audience captivated. There is nothing like a…
