Author and illustrator, Yumi Heo has died after battling cancer. She was the creator of over 30 books for children. I am most familiar with her picture books which had a style and feel that were distinctively her own. One of my favorites is Sometimes I’m Bombaloo, which captured the complex emotions of childhood perfectly.
Publisher’s Weekly has a full obituary for her.
When the Moon Was Ours by Anna-Marie McLemore (InfoSoup)
Best friends, Miel and Sam each have secrets that they wear both outside and inside themselves. Sam was the first person to approach Miel when she was dumped from the town’s water tower the day it was knocked down. She is a girl whose past is tied to the water, whose skirt hem is always damp. She fears pumpkins and was taken in by Aracely, a woman who can rescue people from their own heartache. Miel also has roses that grow out of one of her wrists, marking her a danger to her family. Sam has lived as a boy, serving as the son his mother never had even though his anatomy is that of a girl. At some point, he was expected to return to being a girl but Sam doesn’t know if he will ever be ready. Meanwhile the four sisters in town seek to control Miel and her roses and restore their power, but first they must discover the secret that will make her do their bidding.
Oh my word, this is a beautiful book. It is written in prose that is wildly lush, almost aromatic, so vivid that it remains in your head after you read it. From descriptions of pumpkins as a world of their own to the beautiful danger of the four redheaded sisters to the delicacy of the eggs and herbs that remove heartbreak from a person, each description is its own painting of magic. It creates a world that is ours and yet not, a world of moons and honey, roses and water, stained glass and blood.
To this beautiful and intense writing you add an understanding of the transgender experience and a willingness to write of sexuality and desire and lust for someone who is deciding how they will transition and what their terms will be. It is a book that captures that in-between moment, allows us to linger there with Miel and Sam as their love is just blooming and they are allowing themselves to explore each other in new ways.
Gorgeous, breathtaking and wise, this is one of the most magical and transcendent books I have ever experienced. Bravo for the courage it took to write this and the love that is expressed on each and every page. Appropriate for ages 14-17.
Reviewed from library copy.
The ACLU has just had its best fund raising month ever, so I know that others are concerned with civil rights being attacked just as much as I am. Happily, there are beautiful picture books on civil rights to share with the children in our lives:
The Amazing Age of John Roy Lynch by Chris Barton, illustrated by Don Tate
The Beatitudes: From Slavery to Civil Rights by Carole Boston Weatherford, illustrated by Tim Ladwig
The Case for Loving: The Fight for Interracial Marriage by Selina Alko, illustrations by Sean Qualls and Selina Alko
Lillian’s Right to Vote by Jonah Winter, illustrated by Shane W. Evans
Seeds of Freedom: The Peaceful Integration of Huntsville, Alabama by Hester Bass, illustrated by E. B. Lewis
Separate Is Never Equal: Sylvia Mendez & Her Family’s Fight for Desegregation by Duncan Tonatiuh
Sit-In: How Four Friends Stood Up by Sitting Down by Andrea Davis Pinkney, illlustrated by Brian Pinkney
Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer:The Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement by Carole Bostone Weatherford, illustrated by Ekua Holmes
We Troubled the Waters by Ntozake Shange, illustrated by Rod Brown
When Thunder Comes: Poems for Civil Rights Leaders by J. Patrick Lewis, illustrated by Jim Burke, R. Gregory Christie, Tonya Engel, John Parra, and Meilo So
While my “10 Great” series so far has focused only on picture books, I want to share some great books for older children as well. Here are some wonderful books about bullies and bullying to share in classrooms and families:
Better Nate Than Ever by Tim Federle
Cartwheeling in Thunderstorms by Katherine Rundell
Friends for Life by Andrew Norriss
Garvey’s Choice by Nikki Grimes
Maxi’s Secrets by Lynn Plourde
My Heart Is Laughing by Rose Lagercrantz, illustrated by Eva Eriksson
Pack of Dorks by Beth Vrabel
Wolf Hollow by Lauren Wolk
Wonder by R.J. Palacio
Words in the Dust by Trent Reedy
I Am a Story by Dan Yaccarino (InfoSoup)
This picture book celebrates stories in all of their forms from the past through to the present. Beginning with oral storytelling around fires, the book then moves to cave paintings, clay tablets and hieroglyphics. Formats change to papyrus and paper, tapestries to printed books. Libraries evolve from private to public and books with their stories travel the world. They are censored sometimes and even burned, but they survive. They are inspiring, portable and immortal.
Yaccarino takes huge concepts and boils them down into a focused tale of the story. He uses simple language, inviting readers to think deeply about the power of story and how it transforms us all. While a lot of the book is about formats and changes as the technology changed, some of it is about the emotional tug of stories and how they move people.
The simple text is accompanied by vivid pictures alive with bright colors that range from tangerine to lemon to deep plums and chocolate browns. The illustrations are stylized and clever, using blocks of color that shout from the pages.
A cheerful picture book about the power and necessity of story. Appropriate for ages 2-4.
Reviewed from copy received from HarperCollins.
There is something powerful about quiet and silence. It’s another important thing for children to learn, that silence is not frightening but offers space to think and dream. May you find time today for your own quiet time.
Before Morning by Joyce Sidman, illustrated by Beth Krommes
An Egg Is Quiet by Dianna Aston, illustrated by Sylvia Long.
Leave Me Alone by Vera Brosgol
May the Stars Drip Down by Jeremy Chatelain, illustrated by Nikki McClure
The Night World by Mordicai Gerstein
The Quiet Book by Deborah Underwood, illustrated by Renata Liwska
The Sound of Silence by Katrina Goldsaito, illustrated by Julia Kuo
Tiptoe Tapirs by Hanmin Kim
Waiting by Kevin Henkes
The White Cat and the Monk by Jo Ellen Bogart, illustrated by Sydney Smith
Gertie’s Leap to Greatness by Kate Beasley (InfoSoup)
Gertie doesn’t know her mother at all, since she left Gertie and her father behind. Gertie lives with her aunt and father, who is often gone working on an oil rig. But when a For Sale sign goes up on her mother’s home and she expects to leave town soon, Gertie discovers that she wants to prove to her mother that she should never have left. So Gertie goes on a mission to become the best fifth-grader in the universe. When school starts though, there is a new student in her class, Mary Sue Spivey, who seems to be a lot more likely to be the best. She gets perfect grades, their teacher loves her, and even Gertie’s best friend befriends Mary Sue. When tryouts for the play come though, Gertie is selected as the lead, but can she actually become the perfect fifth grader and get her mother to witness it?
Beasley has created a story filled with characters who are vastly human. Gertie herself struggles with success, has trouble keeping her strong personality under wraps, sets herself immense goals through her missions, and yet has a huge heart and a desire to do the right thing. That right thing though is often warped under her reasoning into something that many people might see as overtly wrong.
The book has plenty of twists and turns, all based on Gertie herself and what she is creating around her. Sometimes that is good things and other times it is pure trouble. She also discovers that young people can be “fickle” and uses that word to keep herself from being too overly concerned when they turn against her and also too caught up in when they like her again.
Ideal for children who enjoyed Clementine, this book has humor, pizzazz and one great heroine. Appropriate for ages 7-10.
Reviewed from e-galley received from Edelweiss and Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
As I look at our nation and what this election showed us, I see a tolerance for bullying that is concerning and frightening. Yet, it gives me great joy to see that we are teaching our children to reject bullies through the picture books they read. Here are some great picture books to share:
The Artist and Me by Shane Peacock, illustrated by Sophie Casson
Bully by Laura Vaccaro Seeger
Bully by Patricia Polacco
Goggles by Ezra Jack Keats
I Am Jazz by Jessica Herthel & Jazz Jennings, illustrated by Shelagh McNicholas
I’m Number One by Michael Rosen, illustrated by Bob Graham
Jacob’s New Dress by Sarah and Ian Hoffman, illustrated by Chris Case
Red by Jan De Kinder
The Ugly Duckling by Jerry Pinkney
Willow Finds a Way by Lana Button
I seem to have shared a lot less on my Twitter, Pinterest, and Tumblr accounts this week.
CHILDREN’S BOOKS
8 Wonderfully Wordless Picture Books to Add to Your Family Library http://ow.ly/OUxV305P2wu
Books to Bring to a Baby Shower https://youthlitreviews.com/2016/11/09/books-to-bring-to-a-baby-shower/ … via @youthlitreviews
Morpurgo wins J M Barrie Award | The Bookseller http://buff.ly/2fVIG0a #kidlit
I’ve been spending time trying to put positive thoughts out into the world. Check out the first two in my series of lists of Great Children’s Books that speak to core values that we can all agree we need more of in our world. The series will continue into the future:
10 Best Picture Books on Kindness
10 Great Picture Books on Compassion
Waking Brain Cells 