A Labor Day Weekend Throwback

 When I considered which of many newer picture books I might feature this Labor Day, I realized that there are many super-suitable prior posts that I'd rather spotlight. 

For starters, HERE is a post that celebrates those "essential workers", many of whom may not be able to take a day off while the rest of us enjoy a holiday and long weekend. If you click, you will note that the post begins with a time marker for when it was written- thirteen days into social isolation in March, 2020, when the phrase "essential workers" first became ubiquitous. This rave review of multi-award-winning MARVELOUS CORNELIUS includes quotations from Martin Luther King, Jr., and none other than Janet Jackson!

Let's not forget the labor/efforts of sports figures, writers, artists, musicians, and other creatives. Consider the following prior posts that feature books about workers/creators and those who researched and shared their stories. Try any of these: BETH ANDERSON, OLYMPIC ACCOMPLISHMENTS, LOUISE BORGEOIS, DAVE THE POTTER, GAUDI, and the co-authored A GIRL CAN BUILD ANYTHING.

So, I feel no guilt about taking this throwback approach to my LABOR DAY post for 2023. I'm excited to imagine you might spend a bit of your free time to click on one or more of the links above to read about some of the remarkable people who are featured in or work to make those picture books.  My own work on this post and twelve-plus years of earlier posts  have been a labor of love. Over time, I've gathered additional readers to this blog, so the links above may be new to those of you who joined in more recently. Whatever you do with your time today, I I hope you will pause long enough to reflect on those who work on this day, or on any other day, to make your/our lives better. Including your own.The dignity and value of work, of labor, of collaborative effort are of infinite value in all of our lives. For some of my earliest reflections about the nature of LABOR DAY, including several terrific picture books, start your CLICKS HERE.

And happy LABOR DAY to you all. Stay safe!

A GIRL CAN BUILD ANYTHING: You'd Better Believe It!

Penguin/Random House/Viking, 2023

  A GIRL CAN BUILD ANYTHING is co-authored by a power-duo of writers who know kids well and write for them superbly,  e.E. Charlton-Trujillo and Pat Zietlow Miller .  Illustrator Keisha Morris provides the perfect complement to the well-paced and inspiring text with intensely colorful and engagingly constructive  scenes, if you'll pardon the obvious pun. Images from envisioning possibilities to bringing dreams to the real world are action-based but reveal powerful emotional strengths as well..

"Girls" are shown to be young, teen, and adult, working in collaboration to innovate, renovate, design and build every manner of useful and creative items and structures. Tools of the trade (there I go again) are pictured and named within natural language and sequential images to provide models of success... and failure. 

Some of my favorite lines in the book follow such a failure:

"Take a breath.

Take a break.

Then...

try again.

Because failure

isn't final. 

It's where new

ideas are made."

A circle of girls, viewed from above, surrounds those words, joined as if in a familiar mantra of determination and persistence. Around the perimeter of their faces and enfolded arms are the tools they have used, will use, will master to make those dreams and ideas reality. 

In their present lives and in their own futures. 

As designers, collaborators, dreamers, and builders of better communities, structures, and a new world. 

Highly recommended for ALL readers. Girls of course, but equally valuable for youth of all identities.

Check out past reviews of some amazing women builders in posts HERE, HERE, and HERE.