Speaking of Home: ANYTHING Deserves Celebration

 The prior post shared a picture book in which HOME travels with the family, in much the way a turtle carries its home on its back. If you missed it, I hope you will take a look, HERE. The bottom line in that heartfelt story is that HOME is where LOVE is. 

CHRONICLE BOOKS, 2025

ANYTHING is a story by Rebecca Stead (multiple award-winning author who captures the emotional landscape of children of many ages) and illustrated by Gracey Zhang, (also a multi-award-winning illustrator). It, too, explores what and where HOME is, and how to find it.

Change is never easy, and this is a story of change and longing. A family must move, but their beloved home does not come with them. Not even the blue footed-bathtub for Thursday night baths. What, then, will make this new place HOME?

Those who write picture book manuscripts and seek feedback from other writers and editors are sometimes (often) told that their story really begins several pages into the text. What that means is that the first lines and pages are backstory, setting the stage, but not revealing anything important about the problem or characters. Backstory matters, but if a story is well-told, the talents of storyteller and illustrator will combine to reveal this without having to state it in advance. 

This is Stead's first picture book, and I hope it will not be her last. A writer of longer text (novels for middle grades or teens or adults) must come to picture book writing as if to poetry. What is required is trust in the reader to fill in from images and experiences what is not delivered in words. Condensing the luxury of 40,000 words to under 400 words for the entire book is  daunting, to say the least. In this case, though, Stead demonstrates expertise and appreciation for the elegance and absence of words in the best of picture books. 

In brief, a young girl and her dad are in day one of a move to a new apartment. Dad is deeply aware of the stress of moving and of his child's struggle with change. The first line is:

"The cake was chocolate."

Yep. That's it.

But just look at what that does to the opening.

Interior opening spread: ANYTHING, Chronicle Books

The illustrations are mostly backline drawings, some sketchy and some darkened and overlaid to focus attention and give weight to the scene element or characters. Isolated items carry attention through color (cake, rainbow, imagined wishes). The ANYTHING of the title refers to Dad's effort to make a hard transition more welcoming. Blowing out the candle on the cake allows for wishes for ANYTHING. (Even three wishes for ANYTHING, no matter how hard those wishes might be!)

The ensuing pages reveal a child with an aching heart who keeps some wishes to herself, a dad who knows his child well and provides safe spaces to share the wishes and help build a new home together. This is a full-sized book with loads of white space and minimal art and text. All the better to focus readers on that art and those well-chosen words. 

I won't spoil the deeply loving relationship, challenges, and resolve of this new release, because words I'd use would never do justice to the minimalist-richness of a book that is bound to be in the running for awards and praise in this calendar year. Beyond that I see this as a classic for years to come, ideal for Father's Day, for moving day, for change and loss, for discussions of HOME and what matters most, and as mentor text for writers and illustrators everywhere. 

A delightful note is that the first person narrator is sketched at such an age and with medium length hair and generic clothing so that they could visually read as a boy or girl. The lack of color and detail in character images means that readers can assign their own skin tones and identifiers to the characters if they wish, although they tend toward Caucasian. 

May I challenge you to get this book and consider carefully what it means to write what matters, but ONLY what matters, and to draw WHAT MATTERS. Like poetry, picture books like this make it clear that words without pictures fail, pictures without words often fail (though there are certainly some unforgettably fabulous wordless picture books), and both require an attentive, invested reader. That human element, with the right words and the right images, simply SOARS!

GIRL POWER: In Fact and Fiction

 

Roaring Brook Press, 2022

Two wonderful recent picture books deserve the spotlight today. The first is a well-told, nonfiction account of a young girl-hero of mine, Mary Anning. While teaching I learned SOOOO much about various events and people who have only now, decades later, been appearing in widely distributed trade books. 

My students and I learned about Mary Anning in the ON MY OWN BIOGRAPHY SERIES from Scholastic. (Mary Anning, Fossil Hunter, by Sally M. Walker, 2000). Since then I've read multiple titles about this incredible (and BRAVE) girl/woman/scientist. Even with that background, I feet this latest picture book is a winner: DRAGON BONES:The Fantastic Fossil Discoveries of Mary Anning, is written by Sarah Glenn Marsh and illustrated by Maris Wicks.

In this case the author stays focused on Mary as a young girl, then (briefly) as a young adult. Her life preceding and following these pages is also intriguing and complex, as well as being a story of gender discrimination, the evolution of the theory of evolution, and also the power of the progress of science. But this youthful focus also reveals Mary as an energetic, self-directed , analytical, and entrepreneurial wonder! 

Although Mary and her father and brother were driven by financial need, that reality was less an anchor that locked a poor girl into a life of drudgery than it was a bridge and portal to a world of science. Others who examined her fossils saw them through the ideas of the familiar past, while she viewed them as fantastical treasures, ones connected to the both reality and storytelling, not unlike the constellations overhead. She connected the dots of her discoveries in ways that fostered original thinking and motivated her to search more, dig more, think more. She trusted  her mind and her trusty tools. Spare but effective text pairs with colorfully simple black-lined illustrations to make this version of Mary Anning's life story accessible and entertaining even for young ages. It would be a great addition to a collection of the many biographic titles about Mary Anning now available for comparison reading and to allow readers of any level of confidence to read and engage in discussions.

SCHOLASTIC, 2021

In contrast, LALA'S WORDS: A story of Planting Kindness, is written and illustrated by award-winning Gracey Zhang. It portrays a fictional young girl within a gritty urban setting, but one that adds a touch of magical realism at the end. 

The tagline, planting kindness, is absolutely suited. It could also have been tagged A Story of Urban Ecology, or A Modern Day Environmental Parable, or other references to the transformational power of kindness, yes, but also of accepting differences, of appreciating life in every form, and of fostering "green" resources to combat global warming, especially in urban islands. 

Lala doesn't think or voice any of those understandings, rather she instinctively recognizes LIFE in the stray, asphalt-defying, weedy  growths within a wire-fenced lot, not far from home. The black/white/gray illustrations give a rough-edged, unrefined impression of the mercilessly hot sidewalks, apartments, and the entire neighborhood in which Lala lives her lively days. Her splash of yellow on various pages is the only bright spot on most pages of bill-checking, mess-making, and dirtying up her dress. 

Lala does not water and speak to the plants with a goal in mind, but because they are alive and she recognizes their needs, physical and emotional. To be kept home and prevented from tending to them dims Lala's glow until readers might fear it could go out. It is only when those nurtured greens miss her and seek her out that the canopy they create provides protective shade above her neighborhood, allowing the temperature to drop as Lala's yellow glow spreads from person to person and home to home.

This is a joyful, heartfelt story told in brilliantly simple text and images. Countless kids will identify with Lala, teachers will welcome it for carpet-talks about respect and kindness, while older readers could use this story to launch study of transforming urban settings through green planting to combat social disparities in global warming.

Both books portray enthusiastic and compelling girls whose interests and energy made major changes in a wider world. Give these to girls you know who have that potential-- in other words, ALL girls!