CRICK, CRACK, CROW! Meet a Brilliant Bird!

 So, enough with the bird books already.... Like THIS and THIS and THIS.

PEACHTREE BOOKS, 2024

Is that what you're thinking? Please stay with me while i celebrate one fabulous picture book featuring the antics (and brilliance) of a crow. CRICK, CRACK, CROW! is written by Janet Lord and illustrated by Julie Paschkis. 

From the endpapers to the cover art throughout each interior spread, crows reach readers as both familiar and extraordinary. In addition to the silhouettes of crows posing mid-act in one of their countless antics, this bright-eyed  young crow explores anything and everything it encounters. The humor is portrayed through delightful images and lively, patterned, rhyming leadlines for each episode and incident. 

Crows can be annoying to many folks, including other birds and even squirrels and pets (and you'll see why), but this fella is undoubtedly as appealing as he is entertaining. Amid the multiple scenes in which crow's clever pursuits reveal the talents and intentions of birds that have been scientifically proven to be among the most intelligent of creatures other than humans and other primates. Even that exclusion might be challenged in certain circumstances. That challenge can be addressed in any of the back-matter references provided, all of which are kid-friendly and authenticated for accuracy. 

Do yourself a favor and check out this homage to the wit and willful wiliness of this particular crow, crows as a species, and some truly impressive writing and illustrations. Enjoy!

Girl Power and PHYSICS Forces!

 I have always enjoyed PHYSICS, and that was long before I took my first class to study it. Physics describes and explains and makes measurable the forces around us that keep us (and the universe) in motion and balance. I grew ups playing ping pong, pool, slinky, swimming, and all the other things that kids (who are lucky) can do. In each case FORCES were at work and I was figuring them out in the moment: gravity, buoyancy, spring, and more.

SOURCEBOOK EXPLORE, 2024

This new nonfiction picture book is an ideal resource for so many readers of many ages, from littles to adults. THE AMAZING POWER OF GIRLS: Meet the Universe's Most Powerful and Invisible Forces, with words by Maria Marianayagam and pictures by Skylar White. It's written in a quick-paced, clear-eyed way, framing the basic forces of physics (as above, and more) with examples and descriptions while offering parallel ways in which girls demonstrate and apply such force in their roles in the world. The overall premise suggests a lively science/STEM classroom of club space led by an engaging and inviting female teacher/leader and attended by a diverse, attentive, and clever batch of girls/young women. The application shifts take them from that dedicated space into the community and real ways that they have force and power without being forceful or threatening. That's unless you are threatened by empowered young women.

Some of the other forces explored include magnetism, nuclear power, tension, and friction. You can imagine the countless ways in which those forces, in terms of physics, can also reference women of any age in a world that sometimes tries to force them into or out of roles. The  overall text is lightly applied with elaboration in the illustrations, including simplified indicators of physics forces, including vectors, spirals, and more. Diversity displayed is extensive, suggesting identities, interests, adaptations, and potentials. The author note also indicates the importance of encouragement, with the author pointing out that her own engineer-father always provided opportunities for her to explore and engage with science and math throughout her life. 

STEM has taken center stage in many aspects of publishing and educational approaches, but this is a grand example that directing aspects of science principles and challenges at girls and young women is a natural and valuable approach with lighthearted sincerity and appeal.

Well worth reading and sharing!

GEOGRAPHY! (No APP Needed!)

From my childhood (eons ago), I clearly recall my first weeks in fourth grade for a very particular reason. Same school, same group of classmates, same old-same old. Except for one very important thing. In fourth grade we were each assigned a copy of our own text books, signed out to each of us for an entire year. Up until then, our work/lessons were done through copying board work, writing on smelly-mimeo-sheets, or other ephemeral sources to support learning. We had used books-- reading, math, spelling, etc.-- but they were kept in stacks on side shelves and NEVER kept in our desks or (gasp!) taken home. Handing out and returning books for lessons was a prestigious job!

But now, as fourth graders, we were trusted with "our own" books, sort of: to keep in our desks, to take home at the end of the day! Granted, they were ancient and in varying degrees of terrible condition, which was carefully documented in annually updated notes on a card inside the front cover. We signed our names on that card and would be held accountable if the end-of-year condition of the book was worse than it was when we received it. Whew, no pressure!

Even so, they were "ours" for the year. My favorite of those books was GEOGRAPHY! That was the title. No doubt it had a subtext, or perhaps it did not. After all, we were only fourth graders. But I spent night after night at home, stretched out on my stomach with that GEOGRAPHY book open to any particular page, using colored pencils and the insides of paper grocery bags to replicate as accurately s possible whichever map intrigued me on that day. I labeled, and matched colors to the degree of exactness possible using a twelve pack of dull color pencils. Maps were amazing. 

ALFRED A. KNOPF, 2024

With that elaborate personal introduction, I'm excited to share this new nonfiction picture book: THE SHAPE OF THINGS: How Mapmakers Picture Our World. It's written by Dean Robbins and illustrated by Matt Travares, and I wondered if either of them had ever discovered a love of maps as kids.

Jumping to the author and illustrator notes on back pages, I learned that Robbins was intrigued by the history of maps.Travares admits he had given very little thought to maps until getting this assignment. In the righteous tradition of picture book production, both have done loads of research and become fans of the subject matter as it worked its way toward becoming a bound object. I commend them both for their results, collaboratively launching countless young map-lovers into the world.The scope of this fact-packed but minimal text opens with endpapers revealing (we later learn) one of the most ancient relics of an Egyptian map on papyrus. The closing end pages show a map on a digital screen display on the dashboard of an automobile. 

Between those covers are luminous images and lyrical accounts of the history, processes, tools, impacts, and remaining evidence of maps from the earliest  examples carved into massive rocks or ivory artifacts, through  stick-charts depicting ocean currents, right through to satellite images of our actual planet earth. One of my earliest learning memories from that GEOGRAPHY book and map transcription is the fact that boundaries are arbitrary and the glorious country and river colors were simply visual aids, not indicators of any other sigificance, not reflecting the physical world they portray in any way other than SHAPE.. 

This "Big Blue Marble" on which we reside and survive only vaguely resembles those earlier attempts, but time, technology, tools, and tenacity produced efforts explained in main text and noted on that timeline on closing pages. It's impressive evidence that I'm not the only one who is curious about, intrigued by, the shape of things on this planet we occupy. I hope you'll feel the same.

The Dictionary Story - A Cover to Cover Masterpiece

 I recently received a review copy of this new book. It arrived without my request or order, and with no promise of a review of any kind. When a package with books arrives it is always exciting, but a surprise such as this one was doubly so. Candlewick Press picture books  are reliably outstanding, and this new title rises above even those high expectations. The intricacy and entertainment value of every single word and detail is amazing. Just look at the fantastic packaging approach they used:

Candlewick Press, 2024 Front Book Jacket

Candlewick Press, 2024

 THE DICTIONARY STORY is a masterful co-creation by Oliver Jeffries and Sam Winston. As eager as I was to read this new arrival, the wrapping intrigued  me, too. I'm not giving away the added surprise UNDER that book jacket on the front and back of the hard case. It gets its own very special treatment and I urge readers to discover it.

Once I had carefully opened the wrapping, I sat with it for a long time. The wrapper was not, as I first assumed, a reproduction of a random dictionary page, or even an intentionally selected page. Instead, it's a wholly original page, offering alphabetical listings and original definitions that are "sorta-kinda" real but pack lots of layers and hints about what this book really offers. 

I grew up in an era when dictionaries were ubiquitous- every home had one, classrooms had class-sets. They were typically dog-eared and even bedraggled, but the words awaited us there. I was NOT someone who wanted to read a dictionary from cover to cover, despite my love of and curiosity about words. I was more pragmatic, saving my words-on-the-page hours for actual reading with brief interruptions to search out meanings as need arose. 

That, it seems, is a pattern not really appreciated by the dictionary itself, at least not by this one. This dictionary voices its increasing awareness of the injustice of HAVING all the words but never telling a story, told through a close third person voice. She understands that all the other books on the shelves know what they are, but her dissatisfaction is the utter waste of being the keeper of words without offering a single story. That wry, tongue-in-(book)gutter humor means she experiments with  an A-to-Z story development. If you guess that an alligator and a zebra may be involved, you'll be right, but hold your smugness, please. That is likely the ONLY thing you'll predict correctly, other than predicting that this is a book filled with countless surprises and rich satisfaction. It is also a book that may intrigue kids enough to have them begging for a dictionary of their own to examine and imagine and use to launch language fun. 

The hand-lettered text combines with visually accurate/realistic dictionary pages containing  examples of ACTUAL alphabetized definitions and other listings that contain those slightly twisted versions of entries that are reflective of some aspects of the tale that come to life on the page. Young kids who have absorbed the importance of not damaging the pages of ANY book will both gasp and giggle when alligator bursts right through the displayed page instead of remaining as text on the prior page. That process does more than visually rip a hole in the page. It results in lines and words sliding and folding and otherwise losing their grip on reality or even the page.

From that point on, Alligator's appetite and adventures lead it through the dictionary, disrupting entries and any assumptions about what is actually on those pages, launching other characters and subplots that are partially meta-aware of what is happening but thoroughly affected by Alligator's story and their place in it. If this is sounding like an increasingly chaotic story, you're r right... and wrong. It has the escalating tensions that kids adore, while losing control within boundaries that even Alligator feels a need to impose. It will have kids begging for multiple re-reading, singing along, and arguing about who gets to have the book next to look more closely for hidden details and connections.

Older readers (including adults) will discover one or two of the cleverly constructed/contrived definitions that adhere to reality until they veer a degree or two off-kilter. If you're like me, that leads to wanting to read every single entry on every page- something I never would consider with an actual dictionary. I read the entire page of that cover wrapper, which had me grinning from first to last word, then noticing that reading only the entry words themselves in the order listed offers even more content. 

The creators have indicated in many interviews that this was a project of love and commitment, that they chose to take as much time as needed t get every aspect right. I appreciate each and every minute they devoted to their work. I believe you will, too. I also see this as one of those books that will become a timeless classic, used across many ages, for many purposes, and by many readers. My caution to all is to always adhere to the greatest truth in books with so many magnificent layers. When introducing this to any of the above audiences, please remember- it's a PICTURE BOOK, meant to be ENJOYED. Use it THAT WAY first, then return to it for as many hours or days or months of exploration that it invites. It is priceless on the first reading, and invaluable as en example of the depths that picture books can achieve. But that first, fantastic reading should always be honored. Oh, but don't ignore the endpages!

Note: I didn't include even one example of an interior image, or quote one twisted-entry example. To hear about those directly from this talented pair of creators, click HERE for an audio discussion between the creative pair  that was featured on NPR recently. I admired the headline written for that piece and chose not to "borrow it", but it says it all: "A Kids' Book That Defies Definition".

REMEMBRANCE DAY: September 11Memories/Histories

 On this Infamous date, September 11, many reading this post will have an instantaneous memory of where you were and what/how your reactions unfolded on that morning. For an entire generation, this momentous day is only known as history. Anyone too young at the time to realize what was happening, or born in the last twenty-three years, has learned of the events indirectly, through the consequences of that day's direct and indirect results- decades of distant wars, hyper-patriotism and polarization in politics, an extended recession and family struggles, as well as other shifts, perhaps less directly related. 

There has been no lack of movies and books and documentaries about the time surrounding 9/11 events and subsequent changes in American society. Some are objective, some present points of view that can make hate or anger even worse. Among the objective accounts are books for children. I'll use this day to link to some titles that contain healing and other positive developments from such a horrific time. It's of particular interest to me that many involve trees in various ways.  Prior posts include THIS VERY TREE, HERE, THE TREE OF LIFE, HERE, LEAFY LANDMARKS: Travels With Trees HERE, and WITNESS TREES: Historic Moments and the Trees Who Watched Them Happen, HERE.

CAPSTONE BOOKS, 2016

But here's a  book directly about the events of 9/11 and below this I share a resource related to this particular series of events that day. It reveals the in-the-moment decisions of everyday folks who lacked answers but not heart. Folks who traded safe havens for a sea rescue for desperate people rushing to the harbor. SAVED BY THE BOATS: The Heroic Sea Evacuation of September 11, is written by Julie Gassman and illustrated by Steve Moors. At the time of its release It somehow missed my radar entirely. 

For me, at least, time continues to shift this potent memory deeper onto the history shelves. But I encountered a short documentary video about the boat rescues that day. With SO MANY things to absorb and process, the boat rescue operation had receded in my memory, overwhelmed by other horrific images: falling towers, clouds of ashy debris, and ensuing painful days and weeks and months of personal stories and global changes. This video brought it all back.

It is an aspect of that day, those times, of the people we really are, that compels me to to dip back a few years to share this book, but also to urge you to watch this short (11-12 minutes) documentary, featuring the actual people involved and narrated by Tom Hanks. Watching brought me right back to that day, those feelings, and such powerful emotions keep events like these steeped in meaning. When relegated to historic status, young people need ways to find empathetic connection, which they can get by viewing this video. Please watch, and then find as many others to share it with as possible. As the subtitle says, resilience is at the heart of our hopes for survival as humans, and as a planet. Even the most unthinkable disasters can be responded to with action and hope:

Here's the video link:  BOATLIFT: AN UNTOLD TALE OF 9/11 RESILIENCE

Help make this DAY OF REMEMBRANCE only one day among many, and demonstrate HOPE. And think back to that time itself, and the years before, when we as a society sought out our common ground rather than our differences.

THE LITTLE RED CHAIR: One Girl's Treasure...

 The back story about this new picture book is mentioned in the author's note that follows the main text, but author Cathy Stefan Ogren discussed it further in this terrific interview about story origins and the deep connection to her friends and family, HERE. Beth Anderson shared her website platform with Cathy for her insights into finding and writing the HEART of this wonderful new fiction picture book. Other comments, reviews, and insights about Cathy and this book can be read in sites from her blog tour, with links offered HERE. My reactions to this delightful new story, born from real experiences, follow. 

SLEEPING BEAR PRESS, 2024

THE LITTLE RED CHAIR is written by Cathy Stefanec Ogren and illustrated by Alexandra Thompson. I found this story delightful because the text achieves such a prefect balance of personification of the little upholstered chair without fully anthropomorphizing it. It doesn't speak or dance or have agency, at least none that can be witnessed in the "real" world in which it exists. Readers, though, gain access to its inner wishes, dreams, and worries. The author gives the chair a voice, including the repetitive "Squeakity-squee" of its wheels. Just as with human language, context and inflection can make the same 'words" or "Squeakily-Squees" carry entirely different emotional value, and that is true as the chair reveals its reactions throughout.  The illustrations manage to achieve a similar delicate balance, using angles, perspectives, and relationships in space to underscore those emotional twists and turns. Brilliantly and tenderly done.

(For anyone exploring personification in writing, adults or teachers leading students, this is superb mentor text.)

With that note aside, here's my look at the story itself.

The cover indicates this story's opening, setting a bedraggled, frayed little upholstered chair in a drab store window on a dreary day. What hope could there be for a better life, unless that little girl has a huge heart. She does. Her insistence on taking it home is conveyed with minimal text and glowing expressions. The chair and girl begin a bond built by time, shared experiences, and mutual need. But, as with many things in young lives, the girl, Mia, grows up but the chair does not. Until one day Mia leaves for college, but she continues to hold the little red chair close, even though it's once renewed and spruced up condition has become worn and drab. 

Readers will fear (at least THIS reader feared) that the household would discard the chair, leaving it to find a new family. That would not necessarily be an unhappy ending, and makes a fine circle story. The good/bad news is that chair survives a down-sizing move, but only to the new residence's attic. There, again, racers can access the inner feelings of the chair throughout seasons and passing time, until... 

No spoilers, but THIS circle story is even more gratifying in the best ways. Though this is a relatively simple story and one told with familiar White characters, the concept of a generational circle story about a beloved childhood companion is universal in every sense, with an emotional arc that will resonate around the world. The muted but expressive illustrations and details set it in very specific conditions that enrich the account, but the basics invite multiple retellings among readers, inserting their own tales of discovery, recovery, connection, growth, and reconnection over time. As mentioned above, the text and illustrations offer outstanding mentor opportunities for others to pursue personal, "small moments" stories from their own lives, even ones not spanning a lifetime of change. 

I can't close these notes without mentioning the back matter, in which the author reveals the full story from her own life that inspired this book, as well as a very informative note about small-scale furnishings, appliances, and vehicles that were used by traveling salesmen to provide actual examples of their inventory without lugging full-sized objects across country. These were called "Salesman's Samples", and you may have seen a few if you watch PBS ANTIQUES ROAD SHOW or other programs about such stores and objects. 

With that in mind, I felt a special appeal from the front and back endpapers, which appear as a closeup of the faded, frayed, tufted surface from THE LITTLE RED CHAIR at the start and after it shared its life with Mia and her family. The details are so well rendered that I longed to reach out and smooth the surface, to reassure the chair that love is never lost, that something better was waiting. I hope you'll enjoy it as much as I did, and consider revealing some of your own or family stories with young readers when you share this book with them.

LISTENING TO TREES: Art, Nature, and Purpose

I know, and I admit it...  I adore picture books. The ones I write about here I generally RAVE about. But I hope you've noticed, I also provide specifics about WHY any particular book is so wonderful. Aspects of any two (or twenty) picture books may be similar, but they are distinct to each title, as are the many variables that potentially earn my praise here. In fact, the very nature of picture book formats and range of topics and styles and illustration and text choices means that possible combinations of wonderful-ness are approaching infinity! 

That, my reader friends, is why I deal with such a limited number of picture book recommendations here, selected from among the enormous numbers of new titles released each year. I aim for the best of the best. I do offer analysis and patterns or elements that draw me to each offering, but that still means it is my opinion. Just trust me when I say that a rave about any book I profile here is utterly sincere. 

NEAL PORTER BOOKS, 2024

If you've listened so far (or read along), I feel confident you will also be an avid fan of this new picture book biography. If that category itself makes you raise an eyebrow, wondering about how authentic a rave can be about a biography, I beg you to read on. LISTENING TO TREES: George Nakashima, Woodworker is written by Holly Thompson with pictures by Toshiki Nakamura. 

Stay with me now...

This is an elegant, simple but not simplistic blend of subtle illustrations, poetic lines that launch each double-spread, and lyrical informative text about a creative artisan of distinction. George Nakashima's life lovingly unfolds from his early Pacific Northwoods experiences, revealing his deep appreciation of natural and cultural influences and appeals, leading  to his growing skill and innovation in working with wood in original ways. 

His career choices included architecture, but he chose furniture making, which allowed him to work with unique materials and principles while controlling every aspect of a creation directly. His reputation rapidly grew and he received global acclaim.

The mid-section of his life story includes his family's imprisonment in Japanese internment camps during WWII, his use of his skills to make life there more livable using  random wood scraps, and his decision to accept a move to Pennsylvania- to farm! 

But the decisions he made after arriving did not involve farming. Instead he used the surrounding natural materials, including tree-falls and ways in which those materials inspired him to create works of art that  functioned not only as furniture but as foundations and inspirations for peaceful interactions.

Back matter includes an author note, photo and text examples of Nakashima working, segments about trees and their usable elements, photos of exemplary furniture he made, and more. 

The poetry on each gently-evocative  spread sets the tone for the developments explored on those pages. The entire production and design made me believe that this book would please its subject, as it pleased Nakashima's daughter, who offers an introductory note.

So, chime in and let me know if this appeals to you, too. Do you appreciate the beauty of nature? Do you recognize aesthetic cultural patterns that resonate with your eye and heart? Does poetry call you? Does a talented life inspire you to be more creative and productive?  Are subtle and evocative illustrations the kind you explore and bask in? Other elements of this work that call your name? Whatever your "hook", let this one lure you in and enjoy it fully, as I did.

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THE TREE OF LIFE: Hope Is Priceless, Timeless

I am a fan of books about nature, especially trees. Okay, books about birds, too, and families, and inspiring people... and animals. It's easy to see why I resist naming favorites among anything, especially books. There are so many wonderful things to read about and learn about. Click any of the above to see that my comments about such books reveal my admiration and appreciation for the talent that created the books but also of the subject being addressed or the story being told.

ROCKY POND BOOKS, 2024

This, then is a book that hits my heart across many waves of "favorites". THE TREE OF LIFE: How a Holocaust Sapling Inspired the World is written by Elisa Boxer and illustrated by Arianna Rozentsveig. It is a storytelling masterpiece, but it's a story from actual events. About an actual tree, and its offspring. About the power of community to serve as family when family is being destroyed. About the continuity of life... and of HOPE. 

The center of this account is a tree, a maple sapling. With subdued and subtle illustrations and text that tells enough, but not too much, encounter life within the walls of a concentration camp during the Holocaust, one of the few camps that allowed a small group of children to continue living, if you could call it that. It portrays the history with a  balance between visible struggle and hardship with aspects that are softened, somehow familiar, with smiles of excitement and hope. When it comes to the prisoners in these camps, modern readers sometimes question: why didn't they rebel or resist? First, those efforts did occur, but nearly all accounts of such were suppressed and denied. In fact, though, this is a story of resistance, offering details that involve helping a sapling grow while helping young children learn about their heritage's celebrate their holidays, and hold tight to their identities. 

And, hold tight to hope. 

Few survived that horror, but those few who did kept that tree, and their hope, alive. When relief eventually reached the few who remained, a five foot tall tree was waiting with them. It became a symbol of LIFE, of HOPE, of WITNESS to the truth of history. That surviving tree became an honored landmark, but it also provided seeds and cuttings to grow into more trees of hope. One of those offspring trees concludes this account in an unlikely place, but one that also witnessed death and celebrates hope. 

A book with this much power and depth could seem an unlikely choice for a picture book, but that assumption would be wrong. The target age here is wide, and welcoming. Readers (or listeners) of many ages will bring to it their own experiences, their own thoughts and feelings about trees, and communities, and hope. And they will take from it what each needs, regardless of age or background. And all will savor the rich illustrations and powerful but accessible text.

In the ongoing public discussions about education, about "what kids need", about grit or resilience or test scores, the truth is that young people need many things, and most of all they need good books and good stories. In this case, this nonfiction treatment of a powerful symbol of LIFE and HOPE is a work of art, and of heart.