Here's a "Once upon a time"-sort of tale most of us old folks didn't grow up with! Brave new world indeed! Meet Princess Li who lives somewhere "far away in the East" in a gorgeous palace with her King-ly father. Being admired for her great beauty...
Welcome to Gong Gong and Mei Mei’s backyard where movement flows. The elderly Gong Gong “sends good energy through [his] body” with a martial art called tai chi. His feisty young granddaughter Mei Mei hears “martial art” and instantly thinks karate – “HI-YAH”s included –...
Our favorite Tyrannosaurus is back. In spite of all the kindness he revealed in You Look Yummy, his bad rep seems to have caught up with him: He’s busy being “mean and fierce, nasty and selfish.” But is he really? Just as he's raising his usual threatening ruckus,...
More than a full century before Brown v. Board of Education (1954), Little Rock Nine (1957), Ruby Bridges (1960), and the Civil Rights Movement, 4-year-old Sarah Roberts entered the Otis School in Boston to begin her education in 1847. Her student days ended quickly when a...
One of my favorite new artists – Japanese Canadian Kellen Hatanaka – debuts his first bookish collaboration with first-time author Jon-Erik Lappano and, together, the talented duo plant some mighty magical seeds. Surrounded (choked?) by the crowded urban sprawl of an overgrown city, Tokyo and his family – including his clever and...
Choose Your Days is so many good and meaningful things. But most of all, it's a gift. When Corky is born, Old Bear –bespectacled, wise, never far – appears by her side. As the "keeper of time and keys," he tells her, "Choose your days, make them...
They might be “baddies” by day, but by evening, all the familiar villains (witches, wolves, giants, dragons, trolls, and so on) who make fairy tales so exciting shed their evil ways: “All day long they must be vile; / now, at night, they chat and...
The story here is rather straightforward: a young boy is looking forward to a beach day with his family, but an incoming storm threatens to waylay the weekend plans. What makes this latest from author/illustrator Akiko Miyakoshi – her second translated title from one of Japan's award-winning children’s book creators published by...
When the usual bedtime fare doesn’t induce slumber, why not try an after-bedtime tale? Every parent will instantly recognize the angelic-toddler-turned-truculent-terror for whom sleep is just not a priority. Tonight, adorable, tiara-wearing Nina can’t sleep, not when there’s a party going on in her own house....
Although JFK’s tenure was only 1,036 days, his legacy hasn’t tarnished much. In this volume of the Presidential Powerhouses series, Rowell diverges from too many children’s titles that lionize the youngest-ever POTUS to offer a finely balanced biographical overview. While JFK’s achievements are many – the...
The wife-and-husband team of Anna Kang and Christopher Weyant make a splash with their third gleeful collaboration. Meet Monty, a frog who has a secret to share with the reader: he is afraid of the water. Though he has managed to stay dry since his...
*STARRED REVIEW Hippo doesn’t know it yet, but Bird is exactly the friend he needs. Despite Hippo’s insistent rejections (grunts, sighs, definitive cries of “Go away!”), Bird doesn’t give up. Just look! He can be a stylish hat, provide umbrella-like shelter, even stand in for a “hippopota-mustache”! Yet...
Here’s a ‘did you know …?’-fact about the Smithsonian Museums … they’re all free, all the time. That’s not the case in many museums around the country, so the Smithsonian created Museum Day Live!, an annual event in which participating museums across the country open...
Grimm’s familiar tale gets a Southwestern rendering in Caldecott Honor-winner Eric A. Kimmel’s retelling, with “the best tortillas” as the golden standard. Señora Gonzalez boasts that her daughter Rosalia’s tortillas “are so light, they float like clouds.” The town’s richest man, Don Ignacio, summons Rosalia...
A little girl answers her bunny’s question of “What’s your favourite thing in the world?” in a sweetly revealing letter. She chronicles their day together, listing everything she likes to do with her furry buddy, from choosing socks to appreciating how her bunny cools her...
As diverse and unique as each of us are, some traits are shared by everyone. Christopher Silas Neal (Over and Under the Snow, 2011) makes his solo debut here, channeling a boy who is learning to accept and appreciate his own emotions, and, in the...
Outstanding International Books: Presenting the 2016 USBBY Selections As the domestic publishing industry continues to respond to the resounding battle cry of “We Need Diverse Books,” the United States Board on Books for Young People (USBBY) has been working assiduously for over a decade to promote...
Perhaps "fractured fairy tale" isn't the most inviting descriptor, but the growing genre of parodied, subverted new versions of familiar stories can be fabulously enticing, not to mention downright inventive and – oxymoronic as it sounds – incredibly original. Thanks to Canada's marvelous indie Kids Can...
*STARRED REVIEW For Samira, learning about skeletons proves to be downright mortifying. Samira insists that neither she nor her best friend, Frida, could possibly have anything so terrible inside of them. But after their teacher confirms the awful truth, suddenly Samira can’t help but visualize being...
Ready for an adventure with big bad beasts in a battle to the death against the fiercest elements? What? Not tonight? How about something a bit more ...
