parades

A Bunch of Board Books

| Tasha

Here are some great recently-released board books to embrace this summer:

Antiracist Baby by Ibram X. Kendi

Antiracist Baby by Ibram X. Kendi, illustrations by Ashley Lukashevsky (9780593110416)

To raise an antiracist baby, you must understand that’s it’s all about showing them that society can transform. This is not a space to be neutral, but one to be an activist. This board book explores what it takes to raise a child who is not racist in our society. First, see all skin colors, don’t be artificially color-blind. Second, talk about race. Third, politics are the problem, not people. Fourth, there is nothing wrong with people, no matter their race, sex, gender, orientation or faith. Fifth, celebrate differences. This book continues through number none which is believing that we can overcome racism. With bright illustrations, this book takes a firm stand of hope and optimism as long as hard work is done and children are raised to see themselves as part of the solution.

Reviewed from e-galley provided by Kokila. 

Pride 1 2 3 by Michael Joosten

Pride 1 2 3 by Michael Joosten, illustrated by Wednesday Holmes (9781534464995)

Join in the happiness of a pride parade in this counting board book. There is one parade in June with two DJs playing music. Three families, four activists, five motorcycles. Six floats go by with seven divas posing. Eight signs are held high with nine people standing together in unity. The final ten are people waving a variety of pride flags. Incredibly inclusive, this board book welcomes everyone to pride parades and celebrations with open arms. The illustrations are bold and bright, featuring all sorts of characters and families who are part of the LGBTQIA+ family.

Reviewed from e-galley provided by Little Simon. 

Wake Up, Let's Play by Marit Tornqvist

Wake Up, Let’s Play by Marit Tornqvist (9781782506263)

This dreamy board book invites children to join in the fun that two friends find together. They play all sorts of things, like birthday party and restaurant. They build sandcastles and play stormy seas in the bath. Busy towns with wooden tracks fill the room, and sometimes art wanders onto the walls. They play through snow and even into the night. Then it’s time to figure out what to play tomorrow! Told in very simple sentences, this board book has marvelous illustrations that are quirky and fantastical. At the same time, these are exactly the games that small children play, so it is rooted in reality. A marvel of a little book.

Reviewed from e-galley provided by Floris Books.

Review: Our Celebración! by Susan Middleton Elya

| Tasha

Our Celebración! by Susan Middleton Elya

Our Celebración! by Susan Middleton Elya, illustrated by Ana Aranda (9781620142714)

A community heads to a celebration together in this vibrant picture book that offers a mix of Spanish and English. The celebration features a large parade with fantastic floats, marching bands, fire engines and much more. There is plenty of delicious food to try and refreshing drinks to sip. When the rain begins, the fun doesn’t stop, though everyone celebrates when the sunshine returns bringing with it a celebratory rainbow.

Elya does a marvelous job of offering Spanish words for children to learn. Almost all of them can be figured out from the context in the poem. I appreciate that she uses the Spanish words for many of the rhymes, rather than burying them in the center of the lines. This makes them all the more enjoyable to read aloud and great fun to figure out. The book will also welcome Spanish-speaking children and allow them to decode the English as well. It is a cleverly built picture book.

Aranda’s illustrations are filled with brilliant colors of sunshine yellow, deep purples, bright blues, and hot pinks. They show a diverse community celebrating together with big smiles, lots of fun and whimsical parade participants.

A bright and busy picture book that dynamically includes Spanish and English. Appropriate for ages 2-4.

Reviewed from library copy.

 

Review: Tippy and the Night Parade by Lilli Carre

| Tasha

tippy and the night parade

Tippy and the Night Parade by Lilli Carre

Released February 11, 2014.

In the morning when she wakes up, Tippy’s room is a complete mess.  But all Tippy remembers is falling asleep, how did this all happen?  The next night, she goes to bed as usual after cleaning up her room.  And then readers get to see exactly what happens when Tippy goes sleepwalking along a pier, across the garden, hopping on lily pads, lost in the fog and trees, down a hole, into the desert, up a mountain and back down to her window.  Just to wake up the next morning again without knowing what happened.

Carre lets her images tell the majority of the story in her debut graphic novel.  And the images are a smart mix of modern with a vintage flair.  They have a flatness to them that adds a quirky quality to the book.  They also have a great sense of humor as the parade builds in length and more animals are included.  My particular favorite is the rotund bear.  And what a parade it is, sharp-eyed readers will enjoy looking at the mess in her room and matching the animals that had joined her walk back home.

Funny and quirky, this parade is one worth marching along with.  Appropriate for ages 4-6.

Reviewed from copy received from Toon Books.

Review: Balloons Over Broadway by Melissa Sweet

| Tasha

balloons over broadway

Balloons over Broadway: The True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy’s Parade by Melissa Sweet

For over 80 years, there have been huge balloons in the Macy’s Parade.  We have Tony Sarg to thank for that.  Even when Tony was a small boy, he was inventing things.  He figured out a way to feed the chickens in the morning without having to get out of bed.  He wanted to be a marionette puppeteer, but was born in a time when marionettes were not being used anymore.  So he figured out how to build them and started performing on Broadway with his marionettes.  From there, he got a job designing the holiday windows for Macy’s where he did puppets that moved through gears and pulleys.  After that, he started working on parades.  He first built balloons that were held by stiff sticks, but they needed to be higher so more people could see.  So out of necessity and through tremendous creativity, he figured out how to make balloons fly high but still be controlled and seem lifelike.  We are all lucky enough to still be able to see the work of Sarg every Thanksgiving in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. 

This book is all about dreaming big and then figuring out a way to make those huge dreams come to life.  Sarg’s life is also about following your own personal bliss and making a living doing what you love.  It is a tribute to creativity and imagination on a grand scale.  Sweet has created a book that celebrates all of this and remains a biography of a real man too.

Her art is a tremendous part of the book’s success.  Through a mix of painting and collage, she brings Sarg’s world to life.  Fabrics, different paper, objects and maps all find their way into the illustrations, creating new textures, dimension and color.  They are illustrations that celebrate on almost every page, filled with bright colors and ingenuity.

Highly recommended, this book should be added to everyone’s must read list for Thanksgiving titles, but don’t keep it just for that time of year.  It is also a great book to discuss creativity and unusual jobs!  Appropriate for ages 6-8.

Reviewed from library copy.

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