Classics, Nonfiction, and Children's Literature
Dear Baobab by Cheryl Foggo and illustrated by Qin Leng (Second Story Press, 2011) tells the story of young Maiko, who has recently moved to a city from his home in Africa. He missed his 2,000-year-old tree but finds comfort in a small spruce tree in front of his home. Maiko must deal with being
Square Cat by Elizabeth Schoonmaker (Aladdin, 2011) is about Eula, a square cat, who finds life frustrating since she can’t do what cats are supposed to do. Her friends try to help her fit in, and ultimately Eula and her friends realize that it’s fun to be different. There is lots of white space to make the
I read Lois Lowry’s The Giver (1993, winner of the Newbery Medal 1994) when it was first published (I was a teenager), but the related books to it, Gathering Blue (2000) and Messenger (2004), were both written after my childhood days, so I hadn’t read them before. My book club recently decided to read Messenger,
I grew up with Anne of Green Gables, which I reread frequently. For some reason, I don’t recall branching out and reading the other Lucy Maud Montgomery novels. As I was reading some longer, denser books recently, I felt the need for a reading break and took the chance to read two stand-alone novels by
Delia has recently been orphaned and finds herself among a truly odd assortment of characters when she arrives at Oddfellow Bluebeard’s orphanage. Each child at Oddfellow’s Orphange has something that sets them apart from the others, from the boy with an onion head, to the girl with blue tattoos all over her body, to a
King Jack and the Dragon by Peter Bently and illustrated by Helen Oxenbury (Dial Books, 2011) fits in my self-imposed description of a perfect picture book: the text and the pictures are both required to tell the full story. Jack, Zack, and Jack’s baby brother Caspar are knights fighting dragons, planning to spend all night in their
A Few Blocks by Cybele Young (Groundwood Books, 2011) tells the story of two kids walking a few blocks to school. Walking to school seems like it would be a boring premise, but Ferdie and Viola’s imagination sees them through. Each time the two kids enter their imaginative world, they leave the black-and-white everyday scene behind and
Doodleday by Ross Collins (Albert Whitman & Company, 2011) is about an imaginative day gone completely wrong, despite a young boy’s best efforts to make it right. Before his mom left, Harvey was warned not to draw because it was “Doodleday.” Of course, not knowing what Doodleday is, Harvey drew anyway, only to find that his crayon
Perfect Square by Michael Hall (Greenwillow, 2011) is a book my son (currently 4) and I discovered a few months ago before the Cybils even began. Whenever he sees it on a shelf in the library he calls out in excitement, “Look, Mommy! The Perfect Square book!” (And somehow, we keep seeing it everywhere!) In Perfect Square, a
A visit to the beach gets a bit confused in When a Dragon Moves In by Jodi Moore and illustrated by Howard McWilliam (Flashlight Press, 2011). This book is a warning for all those children who make perfect sandcastles, for a dragon is certain to move into it! As the little boy plays in the sand, the dragon
An un-pictured artist has been working on a simple painting of a barn and animals in Blue Chicken by Deborah Freedman (Viking, 2011). The almost-finished painting, however, has a creative chicken that decides to help finish the painting once the artist is away. Climbing out of the picture, she only succeeds in making a big
My Bear Griz by Suzanne McGinness (Frances Lincoln, 2011) captures Billy’s friendship with his bear Griz, who is, of course, a grizzly bear. My Bear Griz is a wonderfully oversized book with just a few words on each page. This just makes it plain fun for examining the pictures, which are watercolor and pen, as well as
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