Rebecca Reads

In honor of the snow Chicago is “enjoying,” I found some Winter-related Caldecott-winning books this month at my local library.

While Mo Willems hasn’t been awarded the Caldecott Medal for his children’s picture books, he has been nominated a number of times. Do multiple Honors equal a Medal? I doubt he’d think so. Nevertheless, I think his simple illustrations are award-worthy and therefore worthy of my review.
Here’s a rundown of some of Willems’ books, along [...]

In addition to the board books I usually read my son, I’ve also been reading a number of picture books with him this month. Because he’s still only a year old, he doesn’t pay much attention past the first few pages, but I’m having fun revisiting some old classics. Now I know what he should [...]

While I loved the gorgeous illustrations in Brian Selznick’s Caldecott-winning novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret and I was entertained by the story, I found the writing amateur and the developing plot overdramatic. In the end, however, I liked this children’s novel, as “unbalanced” as it felt.