RUMBLE and ROAR: Sound Around the World

 There's no denying that writing picture books with text that rhymes, effectively, is a challenge for most. It often is even for those with a talent for it. I've heard this advice to writers repeatedly- 

Do not use rhyme unless there is NO BETTER WAY to write it, and then do it VERY WELL. 

Sue Fliess is among those with a talent for writing in rhyme, and many of her books are favorites of little readers and their adult families and teachers. You can click on her name and check out her many titles, new and old. PLEASE wait to finish reading here first. You could spend hours at her website, and I don't want you to miss what I have to say about this latest offering. 

MILLBROOK PRESS, 2022

RUMBLE AND ROAR: Sound Around the World is delightfully written by Sue Fliess, offering a ral treat for the ear. It's illustrated with equal vim, vitality, and visual appeal by Khoa Le.

The tightly written, perfectly rhymed, onomatopoetic words reveal children and families in fully developed settings around the world, reveling in the adventure of engaging with nature using all their senses. The precise and mouth-popping word choices lend themselves to the eye-popping experiences each group encounters, in a tropical setting, on an African savannah or wooded mountainside, near a crashing waterfall or on a whispery-quiet night. 

The unfolding of an apparent single day, from rising to shining to reclining in sleep, makes it a terrific bedtime story. It will also be welcomed into classrooms for lessons on language or to consider various geographic regions and climates and biomes, and in homes for exciting and dreamy lap time stories. 

This is the second title in what I hope will be an extensive series by this talented pair of creators. I reviewed the first , FLASH AND GLEAM: LIGHT IN OUR WORLD here. In both picture books the characters and family configurations are as diverse as the global settings. Both also offer accurate and helpful information about their topics (LIGHT and SOUnd, respectively) in a few pages of accessible and clearly-explained back matter. These are books that should be made available in multiple copies, to shelve with poetry, science, and storytelling. In each case the main text is fewer than a hundred words, with the illustrations unveiling intriguing story-potentials on every spread. 

Take a look, read each out loud, share them with kids, and then tell someone about what perfect gifts they would make for classroom teachers and library story times. 

Shining a Light on Global Connections

Millbrook Press/Lerner 2020

FLASH AND GLEAM: LIGHT IN OUR WORLD is a picture book/poem written by Sue Fliess and brilliantly illustrated by Khoa Le. Fliess is a prolific and masterful writer-in-rhyme whose extended poem incorporates light-inspired vocabulary in lines and phrases that feel as if they were born to land exactly where they are in the text. Le is the Vietnamese artist who seems to have discovered light-transferring tools while creating the glowing and sweeping art in these pages. 
The subtitle encompasses the important role and magic of light within our physical and social world within a global perspective. Four diverse families from four cultures and distant corners of the world experience light from sunrise to bedtime in ways that celebrate distinctions and the universality of family life. 
This is an exemplary case in which the art and book design effectively reveal and pace  many patterns and themes (daily routines, holidays, mundane and special family time) with color tones, moods, perspectives, and expressions portrayed in parallel narrow panels, powerful double-page spreads, facing images, and sequential revelations that draw audiences into each scene and relationship. 
The back matter offers a double-page spread with basic science information about light (incorporating key vocabulary and concepts) and information about the central role of light within various cultural celebrations. "Fun fact" bubbles are splashed across those two pages. Each fact featured could spark (see what I did there?) further investigation. 
This book is a fine example of one rich with language, images, and concepts that subtlety offers an appreciation of our universal human connections, for young people and for those who read to them.

Opinion is based on eBook edition viewed via publisher with no promise of a review.