Immediately engaging, Jerry Pinkney’s middle-grade memoir, Just Jerry (Little Brown Books for Young Readers, January 2023) draws you in instantly on the small neighborhood streets of Philly in 1950. You also might find refuge under the piano bench, where young Jerry hid to draw in peace. (Well, as much peace as he could find in

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Fairy Tale Comics, edited by Chris Duffy (First Second, 2013) collects a variety of drawing styles and author’s voices into this anthology of 17 different favorite fairy tales. Most of the tales are retellings that young children will be familiar with. A few are more unfamiliar, coming from traditions other than the Brothers Grimm. This

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The Line by Paula Bossio (Kids Can Press, 2013) is a wordless picture book that offers a unique look at how we can all be creative. In this book, a young girl notices a line and starts playing with it. She shakes it and watches it move; she forms it into a wild animal; she

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Draw-A-Saurus by  James Silvani (Ten Speed Press, September 2014) is the perfect book for a kid who loves two things: Drawing Dinosaurs I know one such kid, so I was delighted to come across this book. With clear step-by-step instructions, the author/illustrator shows the process for drawing realistically proportioned dinosaurs of all kinds. There is

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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

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