Picture Books

Review: My Wilderness by Claudia McGehee

| Tasha

My Wilderness by Claudia McGehee

My Wilderness: An Alaskan Adventure by Claudia McGehee

This nonfiction picture book tells the story of Rocky and his father, painter Rockwell Kent, who spent a winter in 1918-1919 on Fox Island, just off the coast of Alaska. Rocky was nine years old at the time. He and his father repaired an old shed and turned it into their cabin. While his father spent time painting, Rocky drew a bit and explored the island a lot. He saw wildlife in the woods, collected shells and stones and the beach. Evenings were spent in the cabin, eating dinner and sharing stories. When the winter came, days filled with different activities like taking snow baths, making snow houses. They took trips to a larger island in their dory, rowing when the weather was good. They faced one large storm when returning home, barely making it to land. All too soon, their time in the wilderness was done. It was a time that Rocky always felt was the best in his life.

McGehee takes readers along on an epic journey to Alaska. The mountains are huge, the water freezing, the woods thick and the animals are everywhere. Told from the point of view of Rocky, the book allows young readers to see Alaska through his eyes and marvel along with him at the wonder of nature. As he walks the woods and explores the shore, he dreams that there may be monsters or pirates around, but looking again he always sees something that fits into the natural scene. The days are filled with exploration and evenings spent together, one gets the sense that there was more than enough adventure to fill their days.

The illustrations are done on scratchboard giving the feel almost of woodcut prints on the page. The result is a very organic feel with thick lines and an interplay of bright colors and deep black. The more natural feel works very well with this Alaskan subject matter, creating an old fashioned feel that enhances the book as well. McGehee captures nature with an ease that makes one want to enter the deep green woods alongside Rocky.

Explore the Alaskan wilderness in all of its wonder in this historical picture book. Appropriate for ages 5-7.

Reviewed from library copy.

Review: Float by Daniel Miyares

| Tasha

Float by Daniel Miyares

Float by Daniel Miyares (InfoSoup)

This wordless picture book has a boy creating a boat from newspapers that he then takes outside. The sky is dark with rain clouds and the boy protects the paper boat from the sudden downpour with his rain slicker. Then he floats the boat in a quiet puddle. When he lets it into the fast flowing water in the gutter, it scoots away from him, across the road, and down into the sewer. The boy goes to a bridge and sees the limp newspaper page come out of the drainpipe into the pond. It is all droopy and limp, just like the disappointed boy. He heads home, gets dried off, has some cocoa, and then it is back to the  newspapers, this time to make something for the sunny day outside.

Beautifully paced with luminous illustrations, this wordless picture book is filled with simple pleasures. From experiencing the joy of a good rainstorm to having a paper boat that floats so gracefully, the joy is tangible in the early part of the book. Then with the boat racing away from the boy, the pace quickens and the pages turn faster. Readers will know what is going to happen, but hope and hope that it won’t. But it does. The ending of being warm and dry again, with an adult helping and caring for him, makes for a book that celebrates the freedom of playing alone outside but also the importance of having a loving home to return to.

The illustrations are particularly fine. Gray and misty, they embrace the rain and the weather. The boy is a dart of bright yellow on each page, the boat a mix of pastel blues and pinks that sets it apart as well. There is a strong sense of movement on the page from the falling rain to the rushing water. The endpages of the book have folding instructions for both a boat and a paper plane.

A book about playing outside and the joy of nature, this wordless picture book is perfect for rainy days. Just make sure you have plenty of newspaper around. Appropriate for ages 3-5.

Reviewed from copy received from Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers.

Review: The Specific Ocean by Kyo Maclear

| Tasha

Specific Ocean by Kyo Maclear

The Specific Ocean by Kyo Maclear, illustrated by Katty Maurey

Released on August 1, 2015.

A girl does not want to leaver her friends behind in the city and head off for summer vacation. There’s nothing to do in the little house near the ocean that she used to call The Specific Ocean instead of the Pacific. She starts out with a moping schedule and refuses to head to the water. The next day though, she does go down with her family and the water is cold but it also has warm spots. The next day, she races her brother down to the beach. They spend time floating in the waves, walking along the shoreline, and sitting on the rocks to watch the waves. The girl decides that she wants to have some of the ocean to call her own and to bring home, but that won’t work. So she has to figure out how to take the feeling of it home with her, deep inside.

Maclear has written a book about the process of change and the time that it takes to allow new experiences in. Time in the book moves slowly forward, allowing the girl the chance to change her mind in a natural way. Then the connection with nature becomes a delight, a way to spend the long days of vacation. The ocean becomes not just a source of activity for her, but a source of personal peace and joy. That process is honored here, that feeling of being connected to the world as a whole and wanting to keep that feeling with you every day. The prose in this book is exceptional. Maclear writes in first person and allows the girl’s voice to be poetic but still childlike and simple.

Maurey’s illustrations are filled with an inner glow that is helped by the pastel palette that is used. The sun shines on the page, the water beckons. The book has that dreamlike quality that many good vacations do, especially those filled with salt water and sand.

This quiet picture book speaks to those who don’t like change but is ultimately about nature and its power in our lives. Appropriate for ages 4-6.

Reviewed from copy received from Kids Can Press.

Review: I’m Trying to Love Spiders by Bethany Barton

| Tasha

Im Trying to Love Spiders by Bethany Barton

I’m Trying to Love Spiders by Bethany Barton (InfoSoup)

Using a great premise, this nonfiction picture book offers up lots of information on spiders. Told in first person, the narrator says that they are working to love spiders, but it just doesn’t seem to be working. They try looking more closely at them, but that doesn’t work and ends up with a spider squished on the page with the reader’s help. The next attempt goes a little better, focusing on the spiders’ eyes, webs and how they are able to walk up walls. Even the attempt to gently pet a spider ends up squished. But when a cloud of bugs invades the book, there’s only one thing that can help! Spiders to the rescue!

Barton takes the subject of arachnophobia and turns it into a clever look at spiders. The premise of the book is very engaging and gets even more so when the reader is called upon to use their own hand to squish or pet the spiders on the page. The facts shared are engaging and fascinating. They are selected to be interesting even to those struggling to love spiders. Even better, the book encourages children to take a closer look at things that scare them and shows how to approach changing your attitude.

Barton’s art has a wonderful loose quality to it that works particularly well with the zany interactions here. Her spiders are rather cute, fuzzy and googly eyed and very easy to love. Her humor is great, integrated into both her text and her illustrations. I particularly enjoyed what a human spider web made from our hair would look like as a house.

Inventive, funny and engaging, this nonfiction picture book will have you petting spiders in no time. Just be really careful not to smash them! Appropriate for ages 4-6.

Reviewed from library copy.

Review: The Princess and the Pony by Kate Beaton

| Tasha

Princess and the Pony by Kate Beaton

The Princess and the Pony by Kate Beaton (InfoSoup)

Princess Pinecone is the smallest warrior in a kingdom of warriors. For her birthday, she wanted something other than the cozy sweaters that she usually got. After all, warriors want something that make them feel like champions, not cozy sweaters. So Princess Pinecone asked for a real warrior horse, a grand steed. Unfortunately, what she got was a round little pony who ate what it shouldn’t and then farted too much. The day of a great warrior battle was approaching and Princess Pinecone just asked her pony to do its best. Everyone was fighting with one another and Princess Pinecone stayed at the edge waiting for her opportunity to join in. When Otto, a huge warrior, charged right at her, he was stopped by the cuteness of her pony. One by one all of the fierce warriors stopped to look at her pony, to pet it and hug it. Otto admitted that warriors rarely get to show their cuddly side. And that’s how Princess Pinecone found a use for all of her cozy sweaters and appreciation for her cutest of ponies.

The author of the online comic Hark! A Vagrant has released her first picture book and it’s stellar. First, let’s just applaud a picture book that has a tough heroine at its center, one who uses spitballs, wants to battle, and is looking for a real steed to ride. Second, the book also has other strong female characters, women warriors on the page who are already living the life that the princess seeks. Third, they are also different races. It’s lovely and done without fanfare. Then you also have the fact that the princess is feminine and cute herself. She does not have to reject that part of her to be a warrior. And finally of course you have the cute pony that manages to win a battle in its own way. This book is all about being yourself, whoever you are and the magic that happens when you do just that.

Beaton’s illustrations add so much to the appeal of this book. I love that the pony is a zany cute with eyes that sometimes don’t look in the same direction and a penchant for farting. Round and sturdy, it is impossibly cute. The warriors are also wonderful in their own ways, wearing different types of armor with missing teeth and green hair, they are individuals to the core. And yes, there’s even ice cream at the battle, adding the sense of merriment throughout.

Funny and intelligent, this picture book will have any warrior princess clamoring for more. Appropriate for ages 4-6.

Reviewed from library copy.

Review: The House That Jane Built by Tanya Lee Stone

| Tasha

House That Jane Built by Tanya Lee Stone

The House That Jane Built: A Story about Jane Addams by Tanya Lee Stone, illustrated by Kathryn Brown

Jane Addams was a girl born into comfort and wealth, but even as a child she noticed that not everyone lived like that. In a time when most women were not educated, Addams went to Seminary. When traveling with her friends in Europe she saw real poverty and then also saw a unique solution in London that she brought home with her. In Chicago, she started the first settlement house, a huge house that worked to help the poor right in the most destitute part of town. Hull House helped the poor find jobs and offered them resources. Addams also created a public bath which helped convince the city that more public baths were needed. She also found a way to have children play safely by creating the first public playground. Children were often home alone as their parents worked long hours, so she created before and after school programs for them to attend and even had evening classes for older students who had to work during the day. By the 1920s, Hull House as serving 9000 people a week! It had grown to several buildings and was the precursor to community centers.

Jane Addams was a remarkable woman. While this picture book biography looks specifically at Hull House, she also was active in the peace movement and labeled by the FBI as “the most dangerous woman in America.” In 1931, she became the first American woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. She wrote hundreds of articles and eleven books, she worked for women’s suffrage, and was a founding member of both the ACLU and the NAACP. At the turn of the century she was one of the most famous women in the world. The beauty of her story is that she saw a need and met it with her own tenacity and resources. She asked others to contribute, but did not step back and just fund the efforts, instead keeping on working and living right in that part of Chicago. Her story is a message of hope and a tale of a life well lived in service to others.

Brown’s illustrations depict the neighborhood around Hull House in all of its gritty color. Laundry flies in the breeze, litter fills the alleys, and children are in patched clothes and often barefoot. Through both the illustrations and the text, readers will see the kindness of Jane Addams shining on the page. Her gentleness shows as does her determination to make a difference.

This biography is a glimpse of an incredible woman whose legacy lives on in the United States and will serve as inspiration for those children looking to make a difference in the world around them. Appropriate for ages 6-9.

Reviewed from copy received from Henry Holt and Co.

Review: The Tea Party in the Woods by Akiko Miyakoshi

| Tasha

Tea Party in the Woods by Akiko Miyakoshi

The Tea Party in the Woods by Akiko Miyakoshi

Released August 1, 2015.

Snow has fallen and Kikko wants to help her father clear her grandmother’s walk. He has already left but forgot to take the pie for her grandmother, so Kikko follows his footprints through the snow. She can see him ahead of her when she falls and crushes the pie. Still, she picks it all back up and continues on her way. But her father is heading into a huge building that Kikko has never seen before. As she approaches, she looks in the window and sees that the man she has been following is actually a bear in a coat. A little lamb comes up to her and asks her inside to join the tea party. Kikko is the only human there in a room filled with forest creatures. She quickly is welcomed to their tea party and spends a splendid time with them. When the time comes to continue on her way to her grandmother’s house, the animals replace the crushed pie with one made from different pieces of their own pies. Kikko is soon at her grandmother’s house where they are clearly delighted with the unusual pie.

Miyakoshi has created a story that is pure magic. She takes the traditional Little Riding Hood story of a girl heading through the woods to her grandmother’s house and turns it upside down in a most pleasant and unusual way. Once readers see that she is with wild animals, they will expect the story to take a darker turn. Instead they will discover a book that gets ever friendlier and more welcoming, a book filled with the warmth of new-found friends.

The illustrations are done with touches of color brightening the charcoal and pencil illustrations. Kikko is set apart immediately with her bright yellow hair and red hat and mittens. She is a burst of color against the white and the darkness. The illustrations of the animals are particularly effective. They are realistic and yet the animals are dressed in human attire, making it a lovely and whimsical book.

Gentle and friendly, this twist on Little Red Riding Hood is enchanting. Appropriate for ages 4-6.

Reviewed from copy received from Kids Can Press.

Review: The Wren and the Sparrow by J Patrick Lewis

| Tasha

Wren and the Sparrow by J Patrick Lewis

The Wren and the Sparrow by J. Patrick Lewis, illustrated by Yevgenia Nayberg (InfoSoup)

This Holocaust story tells of an old man who weaved carpets on a loom and spent his evening singing to a hurdy-gurdy. His student, the Sparrow, learned at his side. The town in Poland was dark and dismal, all of its trees harvested for kindling. Food and clothes were rationed and even the music was starting to disappear. One day music was removed from the village as soldiers arrived to gather all of the musical instruments and take them away. Everyone had to give up their instruments, but the old man sang one final song before he put his hurdy-gurdy on the pile. And he would not stop singing, even as he was dragged away. That night, the Sparrow returned and took the hurdy-gurdy from the pile and hid it away. Then she too disappeared. It was found years later with a note that spoke of the bravery of both the Wren and the Sparrow and the importance of music in keeping spirits alive in dark times.

Based on the musicians who played in the Lodz Ghetto, a place that housed 230,000 Jewish people in 1940. Only 1000 survived the Holocaust that followed. Music was a part of their life and that celebration of music as a way of expressing feelings that could not be voiced is very clear in this picture book. Lewis writes with intense beauty in this book, the strong feelings showing in his sentences such as “The town shriveled up like a rose without rain.” And the image of “the gift of music soon dwindled to a sigh.” The entire book sings with prose like this, adding its own music to the story.

The illustrations by Nayberg, a native of Ukraine, show the darkness of the times. The illustrations swim with the colors of war, khaki ground and the gray of despair. When the instrument and music are present though, there is a glow and a warmth that shines in the illustration visually capturing the impact of the music on people around.

This allegorical tale captures the impact of the Nazi regime in Poland and elsewhere, offering a lesson about the power of music to carry hope in the darkest of times. Appropriate for ages 5-7.

Reviewed from copy received from Kar-Ben.

Review: The Night World by Mordicai Gerstein

| Tasha

Night World by Mordicai Gerstein

The Night World by Mordicai Gerstein (InfoSoup)

In the middle of the night darkness, a boy is woken by his cat who clearly wants to go outside. She leads him out of his room, through the dark house where everyone is asleep, even the fish. Then the cat speaks, saying that it is coming and it’s almost here. The two go outside where the grass is dewy, the air is warm, and the sky is filled stars. He can only see shadows everywhere. Some seem to be flowers and others seem to be animals who are also out at night, a deer, an owl, a porcupine and more. The birds start to call about it almost being here and slowly through the trees comes a glow. Dawn arrives. The animals depart off to sleep. And color floods away the shadows as the day shines into a glorious morning.

Gerstein has written a radiant picture book. He combines a mystery of what the cat is talking about that lengthens and deepens as the story unfolds. As the boy stands outside in the summer moments before dawn, there is a feeling of safety thanks to the animals gathered around him to witness the dawn too. There is immense pleasure is seeing the sun rise and that is captured vividly on these pages. From the hush and quiet splendor of the darkness to the dazzle of the day, this picture book is a perfect way to celebrate nature and each new start.

The illustrations are paramount here and they are immensely lovely. The dark pages in particular which are lit by the barest of lights, the deep blacks and greys of night are allowed to show their richness. The eyes of boy and cat light the darkness alone until outside where the stars in the sky join them as well, shining high above them. And the dawn that breaks so slowly over the horizon, first a glow and then becoming a full day with clouds, pastel colors and light.

A celebration of dawn, this picture book may just have early birds waking up to see the light break over their own dewy yards. Appropriate for ages 3-5.

Reviewed from library copy.