CITY SUMMER, COUNTRY SUMMER: An Intimate Look At Ordinary Life

One of the more challenging things to help young writers learn is the power of writing "small moments". Early writers want to share adventures and magical tales, rockets and dragons. Those are fantastic topics and need more encouragement than they sometimes are given. Even so, few children are as emotionally affected by dragons as they are by small moments in their personal lives. Moments of joy or worry or loss or celebration. Reading and writing those stories from their own experiences provide insights and inner processing of the emotional landscape of daily life. 

During BLACK HISTORY MONTH, and beyond, many of the picture books that so wonderfully reveal major moments in our American history focus on "big" events and eras in our shared experiences. I've reviewed many of those, HERE, HERE, and HERE, for example. There is value in providing accessible stories that too often were untold or even denied. The BIG parts of history need to be shared and understood. 

KOKILA, 2025

 CITY SUMMER, COUNTRY SUMMER, written by Kiese Laymon and illustrated by Alexis Franklin, reveals a ubiquitous history of small summer moments with heart and joy. The faces on the cover only hint at the experiences of the boys portrayed, two local brothers in Mississippi and one New York City boy, all spending the summer next door to each other with relatives. 

Mississippi native Mildred D. Taylor's award-winning middle grade novels explored this multi-generational pattern often. After the Great Migration into Northern States, families would send children South during summers to visit and learn from extended family. This may not be the first picture book to examine this cultural pattern through a  contemporary Black lens, but I have not found others. 

The voice is a slightly reflective first person approach to the process of meeting, measuring, befriending, puzzling, and recognizing "safeness" in the others. Not safety, but safeness. A recognition of themselves in the others, for saying both "I love you" and "I am afraid" to the others without risking the spoken words. The vibrant colors, the glowing skin, the dense but nearly monstrous garden, the perspective of overhead smiling adult faces, hands spraying their bodies with water, the slides down a hillside all say what words dare not. 

Don't come to this thinking it is some kind of City Mouse/Country Mouse parallel, or that it is a series of "summer fun" antics, fun for the sake of fun. There are shadows of both, in this tentatively tender relationship story. But those elements only serve the bigger picture of young folks with dark skin who have lived in a world in which caution is an essential skill. The story and their adventures reveal the process of  exploring trust in a potentially hurtful world. 

Please read this. Experience the lively scenes and read the text several times. Find and feel the  layers of simple statements and underlying emotions and hopes. You will come away enriched.

And, perhaps, awakened.

Teacher friends who read this book will recognize wonderful mentor text for writing small moments.

A LEAP DAY Duo: Two Fun New Titles

 It's time for one of those "quick looks" at recent picture book offerings.

Clarion Books

First up, DOWN THE HOLE, written by Scott Slater and illustrated by Adam Ming. Down the Hole taps into classic animal relationships, especially the predator/prey cycle of life that keeps our world in balance but places one species in the "bad guy" role and the prey becomes the "underguy". That automatically casts the prey as the hero of any story, at least most stories. Turning such a tale into something original isn't always easy, since this plot  appears over millennia and across cultures globally. When the "underguy" manages to outwit the "bad guy", readers/audiences are satisfied. 

In this case, the combatants are Fox (with hints of past success diminishing this particular community of rabbits in the past) and the underground "menu", the bunnies . Outwitting that fox, who, on the cover, lurks above ground, begins when Fox  invites a bunny to come up and "help" a friendly fox.

The leader bunny demonstrates bright dialogue, alert to the past and aware of the current intentions. Meanwhile bunny leader (wearing collar and tie) and his rabbit crew devise a way to eliminate the problem, not just at the moment but permanently. 

The text includes some fun word-play, sly hints and twists (with the bunny proving to be every bit as sly as the fox), and a delightful view of the benefits of cooperation. Even so, I might have rated four stars for all that, since it covers such familiar ground. But the illustrations elevate my opinion by providing extra layers of visual narrative elements, especially in the life underground extending beyond the bunny warren (residents like mice or moles or groundhogs). These images include one particular underground dweller who might tip that predator/prey scale.

The art itself is genuine bonus. Colorful and fun, yes. But also very effective at elaborating on the appeal of this tale. The illustration note in back describes  creating digitally on PROCREATE combined with hand-painted textures and icons in acrylic guache on fancy watercolor paper. The combination media and techniques give a nearly collage-like effect at times, always adding to the impact of the humor, reactions, and depth, despite the somewhat cartoonish images. The spreads  suggest movement, attitude, anticipation, suspense, and foreshadowing.

Candlewick Press

Next up is another picture book that takes a lively and appealing story, then elevates it to memorable through the talents of the creator. THE CONCRETE GARDEN, written and illustrated by BOB GRAHAM, is not a classic animal tale, nor is the art style similar. This is a realistic contemporary story inspired by the period in which pandemic isolation was lifting locally, allowing kids and adults to emerge from the restrictions imposed by viruses and winter conditions. In this case, an intensely populated urban apartment complex releases a swarm of cabin-fever kids and their masked adults to swarm onto an outdoor concrete space. From the fifteenth floor alone a cadre of kids, diverse in age and identities and pursuits launch themselves into the open air for the best antidote to confinement, PLAY! 

This provides a perfect launch for the brilliant emergence of masterpiece via improvised changes and creative additions, collaboration and accidents, as well as attention and appreciation. As above, this would be worthy choice if it ended there. But, it is elevated in this case not only by the appealingly child-friendly and clever art, but also by pushing the story to its easily imagined next days. Yes, chalk on concrete has a surprising lifespan if conditions are good, but when it rains... it pours.

In this case, I won't spoil the author/illustrator's clever extended thinking, but he certainly must be in touch with his inner child. Not only does he explore domino-effect expressive art options that rain provides, but continues by setting the stage to suggest a future use for material fragments of the project. I found myself wondering about potential uses for those fragments long after closing the cover of this book. That's a wonderful impact for this story, but also an example of making picture books as layered and dense with positive elements as possible.

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.

Happiness Is... Finish the Phrase!

 II recently mailed out numerous greetings to friends and family, each somehow conveying "Happy Easter!'. That called to mind the word HAPPY and an upcoming picture book that resonates with my own experiences and those of many young people who have blessed my life across the years. Telling/wishing someone to be/feel HAPPY is a kind thought, but is generally without power to make it so. Feeling HAPPY is often most noticeable in its absence. For those who tend toward a happy frame of mind, a "NOT HAPPY day, or, worse yet, an UNHAPPY DAY is immediately noticeable and distressing. For those whose baseline demeanor is more neutral or situation specific, not feeling HAPPY can be a more familiar condition, more tolerable. 

Then there are some whose self-awareness of emotions trigger reflection and concern, an urge to change up the situation. If anything less than HAPPY, especially when surrounded by others displaying happiness or even wishing them HAPPY... that state of mind and heart can be even more uncomfortable. Such can be the case around holidays.

BEAMING BOOKS, May, 2023

LOOKING FOR HAPPY is written by Ty Chapman and illustrated by Keenon Ferrell. It is not a holiday book, but certainly is one to celebrate. Everything about the art and text of this book radiates emotional storytelling. The front cover with its shades of blue background reveals the struggle of the narrator-young person whose daily life is typically joyous but who experiences a day of struggle. The back cover transforms to vibrancy, with brilliant rose and amber backgrounds, and shows this same narrator channeling their chance discovery of music, resolving the burden they carry throughout the text. Both the illustrations and text invite the reader into this personal account of a day of disconnection.

The word "sad" is never used. After an opening spread revealing that the narrator is usually light and breezy with dancing feet (a hint of their eventual resolution), the problem of the day is felt through dragging feet, a noisy brain, and a chest full of rocks. The following spreads allow this self-aware character to initiate efforts to remove these uncomfortable sensations through reading, watching funny programs, and playing with friends. All are  powerful choices, yet ineffective on this weighty, noisy, achy day. When Grandma proposes a walk to the park, even lively nature encounters fail to relieve this weighty day. Only when a chance encounter with music breaks through the gloom does the instrumental lilt weave its attraction. Soon the power of song has those leaden feet dancing, that noisy mind wrapping itself around melody and lyrics. 

The author's effective but  limited text wraps itself directly around this character's inner sensations and self-aware discomfort with the status of their mood. Portraying simple but often effective strategies to shake off such discomfort demonstrates agency and independence, as does their willingness to go along with Grandma's suggestion despite doubting it will help. Readers will identify with the inner journey and also root for success from start to finish. Illustrations both underpin the emotional progressions and expand the straightforward text with recognizable and familiar details of daily life. Color choices throughout are worth examining closely and could serve as mentor examples in art instruction.

The overall impact is not in the least didactic but instead unfolds like a brief and dramatic play, keeping readers attention throughout and inviting them to join in a celebratory dance and song at the end. In fact, if I were still in a classroom or had young folks in my home I'd incorporate this picture book not only for its full-hearted entertainment value, but to spark discussion and brainstorming for ways our best selves (like this character on the opening pages) can note and call on the aspects of the world through which we express happiness, holding those practices in mind for use when a day just gets us down.

LOOKING FOR HAPPY will release on May 2 and can be preordered now, HERE or wherever you purchase books. A copy was was provided to me by then publisher, BEAMING BOOKS, without a promise of review.