Jump to navigation Jump to main content
Book reviews for children by library staff and guest contributors
This picture book about the life cycle of a sunflower is beautiful in its simplicity. Each spread has just a few words - starting with "a seed falls" - accompanied by vibrant illustrations that take the reader from seed to flower and back to seed. A surprise fold out page halfway through mimics the height of a sunflower, and the back matter includes more details about the different parts of a sunflower seed and its plant, as well as what the seed needs to sprout.
This books delivers exactly what it promises - a history of the color blue from lapis lazuli stones used by ancient Egyptians, to blue dye pressed from a snail's foot in Mexico, to crushed and dried indigo plants in West Africa and finally a Nobel Prize winning chemical clue created in 1905. Along the way we learn more nuance about the color's complicated history - how blue was used and viewed, the value assigned to it, and the meaning given to it by people all over the world, even today in the language that we use.
This adorable picture book series is about feeling like you are one thing when you may look like another. Kitty is sweet and little and fluffy and pink and feels like a unicorn. Nobody else thinks Kitty looks like a unicorn and this makes Kitty very sad. Until she meets a unicorn who thinks they look like a kitty! And so begins a friendship of mutual respect, understanding, and support about recognizing each other for who they are and seeing each other for what they want to be.
Also in this series:
Elena lives in Utuado, Puerto Rico with her Abuela, her Papi, and her younger brother Benito in the shade of a mango tree where she picks fruit for a snack and listens to the coquí frogs each night:
CO-QUÍ, CO-QUÍ, CO-QUÍ
As far as Violet was concerned,
only one person in her class raced like the wind.
Only one had a leaping laugh.
Only one made Violet's heart skip.
“All of us do things we wish we hadn’t done,” reads the first line of The Best of Iggy. Especially when we are 9 years old. Some things really aren’t so bad… we just wish we hadn’t gotten caught. Some things aren’t so bad… buuuuut we probably shouldn’t have taken things quite so far. But some things. Some things we just really really wish we hadn’t done. Iggy does all of these things, with all the hilarity you might expect. (This is a snort-laugh out loud while reading in public sort of book - be warned!) But also with the humility and remorse that comes after.
From the Jacqueline Woodson and Rafael López, creators of The Day You Begin, comes a new story about using your imagination to soar. Stuck inside on a rainy day, two siblings are told by their grandmother to use their minds, to "close your eyes and take a deep breath, and believe in a thing." No longer stuck in their apartment, they soar over the city, each season escaping from their boredom, their arguments, and their loneliness, just as their ancestors who also flew with their beautiful and brilliant minds.
I get some of the best book suggestions from the people who come into the library. I was helping a lady the other day who had a charge on her account for a lost book. Don't worry - she had just put it in the book return. She knew it was overdue, but her little one loved the book so much that they just couldn't stop reading it. With a recommendation like that - I just had to read it myself.
After reading Sometime Cake I understand why they had trouble returning it!
Caldecott medalist Michaela Goade's new picture book is a gorgeously illustrated tale of family and land that warmed my heart and felt so cozy.
On an island at the edge of the sea, a young girl learns from her grandmother how to live on the land, picking berries of all kinds from the forest:
It is summer and it is HOT in the city. In this incredibly illustrated new picture book by Doug Salati, you can feel the summer heat, sweltering pavement, and oppressive crowds. Past the fire engines, construction crews, and chaotic skateboarders mom and her little dog walk until her hot dog has had ENOUGH. “THAT’S IT!” And lays down in the middle of the crosswalk. Throughout the illustrations, readers will notice little dog’s mom growing grumpier and grumpier as errands progress and doggy drags his feet.
