15 minute read
EDITOR’S NOTE
PICTURE BOOKS | Summer Edward
The Favorites That Got Us Through the Year
I’ve never been fond of literary hit parades. They rarely reflect young readers’ preferences, and books possess endless intrinsic goods that no ‘Best of’ list can account for. Compiled by my predecessor Vicky Smith, our list of 100 picture books that got us through another fraught year isn’t a benchmark of good taste in reading. Rather, it’s a guidepost to the unprecedented future of children’s publishing, a mirror of the industry’s slowly growing inclusivity, and a gateway to the limitless, dynamic landscape of books for young readers. These are some of the gems that captured our imaginations and consoled our hearts in 2021.
This year marked a watershed for Black awareness and brought hopeful if precarious signs of racial progress— Juneteenth became a federal holiday, a historic guilty verdict was handed down in Derek Chauvin’s trial, and Blackauthored books flooded bestseller lists thanks to the #BlackoutBestsellerList social media campaign. Picture books bearing witness to the struggle and triumph of the African American experience made a strong showing. We Shall Overcome (Orchard/ Scholastic, Dec. 28), Bryan Collier’s celebration of an iconic civil rights anthem, emboldened by stirring paint-and-collage illustrations, thoughtfully traces the wide arc of African American history. In Kirkus Prize finalist Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre (Carolrhoda, Feb. 1), Carole Boston Weatherford unflinchingly chronicles the racially-motivated destruction of the Greenwood community, once known as “Black Wall Street”; the book’s capstone, however, is the cinematic, sepia-toned art of Floyd Cooper, who sadly died in July. Maxine Beneba Clarke’s When We Say Black Lives Matter (Candlewick, Sept. 7) is a soulful envisioning of Black lives steeped in dignity and regard; the facelessness of the characters may be unsatisfying, but the chalk-and-oil renderings of a maturing Black family feel almost sacramental in their simplicity. Other picture books provide space and pause for discussing complex and difficult emotions, a theme especially relevant during the stressful and heightened experience of life under lockdown. In Toni Yuli’s Ollie Feels Fine (Little Bigfoot/Sasquatch, Feb. 2), an octopus weathers roller-coaster emotions on a day when “So many things are happening!” (the year 2021 anyone?); readers learn that even seemingly unmanageable feelings are normal and mentionable, and the illustrations play with color symbolism to drive home the message. Jenny Mei Is Sad (Little, Brown, June 15) explores the kaleidoscope of emotions that accompany grief; Tracy Subisak’s touching portrait of the bond between a sad, small Asian girl and her supportive Black best friend reminds readers that friendship goes a long way in helping us buffer difficult times. (Read a Q&A with Subisak on Page 20.) The Longest Storm (minedition, Aug. 31) is a timely meditation on the complex psychology of human behavior in times of crisis; Dan Yaccarino’s layered account of a White family riding out a literal and emotional storm announces itself like a thunderclap.
Many readers needed a bit of fantasy escapism to buoy their spirits in the midst of so much uncertainty. Enter Moon Pops (Owlkids, Aug. 15), featuring quirky anthropomorphic animals and theatrical 3-D diorama illustrations; in Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award winner Heena Baek’s reimagining of a traditional Korean folktale, (translated from the Korean by Jieun Kiaer), stranger and stranger events unfold when the moon begins to melt on a sweltry summer night. In The Midnight Fair (Candlewick, Feb. 2), Gideon Sterer and Mariachiara Di Giorgio’s visually sumptuous and fully realized caper, animals emerge from the woods at night to enjoy an exhilarating romp in a deserted fairground. Éléonore Douspis concocts an imaginative parable with The Day the Rain Moved In (Groundwood, April 6) translated from the French by Shelley Tanaka; rain mysteriously starts falling inside a small White family’s home (despite the sunny weather outside), slowly transforming it into a jungle, much to their horror and embarrassment, until curious neighbors help them see the beauty and value in being different.
Other books filling out the list highlight the wonders and fragility of nature; important childhood milestones; and the power of creativity and self-expression; or encourage children to discover their potential. Whether sharing stories with a group or settling in for some bedtime reading, make the best of every moment with these books that beg to be savored and reread.
when we say black lives matter
colorful and detailed mural-esque illustrations make the historical flavor of the times accessible.
A critical contribution to discussions of equal access and
of systemic racism.(photos, sources, source notes) (Informational picture book. 8-11)
CAUTION! ROAD SIGNS AHEAD
Buzzeo, Toni Illus. by Chi Birmingham Rise x Penguin Workshop (84 pp.) $17.99 | March 2, 2021 978-0-593-22432-8
Thirty-five road signs explained to toddlers in an extra-thick board book.
Those ubiquitous universal symbols that decorate our streets and highways can be a mystery to kids buckled into their car seats. Explanations written in simple, direct language aim to demystify them. On the inside front cover and its recto page, a four-sentence introduction explains that signs “are a code to let drivers know how to stay safe.” Bright orange text with key words printed in white stands out against the black background. The signs are organized into five increasingly specialized categories: “Everyday,” “Neighborhood,” “Highway,” “Caution,” and “Nature.” All but eight signs are wordless symbols. A full spread is devoted to each one, with the sign on the right and a brief description in a clean black type on a gray page to the left. To adult ears these definitions seem obvious and even redundant, but explanations like “Yield / Let other cars go first!” are admirably successful at translating abstract concepts into concrete terms. Pages cut in the shapes of the signs both add playful variety and ensure small fingers can turn the thick pages. Clean graphics keep the focus on the signs. The final spread offers thumbnail drawings of all the signs by category.
Around the neighborhood or on a road trip, pre-reading passengers will be ready to understand the signs along the
way. (Board book. 1-5)
WHEN WE SAY BLACK LIVES MATTER
Clarke, Maxine Beneba Candlewick (32 pp.) $14.99 | Sept. 14, 2021 978-1-5362-2238-8
The author of The Patchwork Bike (illustrated by Van Thanh Rudd, 2016) writes to children about the meaning of the phrase Black Lives Matter.
Pastel illustrations, also by Clarke, on dark, textured paper are paired with oversized, contrasting text addressed to “Little one.” In the visuals, a family that begins as a couple expecting a baby grows into a family with a child and then becomes part of a community in protest, marching for Black lives, before a final page shows a jubilant Black boy in a cap and gown. The adult narrator explains that “when we say Black Lives Matter, / we’re saying Black people are wonderful-strong.” Other meanings of the rallying cry, when it is called out, screamed, sung, laughed, and known, include a demand for respect, a defiant joy, a channeling of ancestors, an acknowledgment of trouble, and knowing one’s worth. Clarke’s text is poignant and mesmerizing, with design elements that raise the text to an artistic level, shaping it around the art and highlighting active and emotional words in color: enough, dancing, radiant, precious. The art is truly outstanding, gripping the heart from the very first spread and not letting go. With colored shapes and stained-glass motifs, these Black figures feel real and weighty. Within this deep dive are tragedy, fear, anger, and mourning alongside hope, comfort, strength, and triumph. This slim book contains a necessary and healing exploration of our current moment that will remain relevant for decades to come.
An astonishing work of art and a crucial addition to every
bookshelf. (Picture book. 4-10)
WE SHALL OVERCOME
Collier, Bryan. Orchard/Scholastic (40 pp.) $18.99 | Dec. 28, 2021 978-1-338-54037-6
Award-winning illustrator Collier sets images of the present and the past against the text of a beloved song. Lyrics of “We Shall Overcome,” a song associated with the 1960s-era civil rights movement, are printed in orange capital letters against a strip of brown background along the bottom of each spread. The pictures tell stories, juxtaposing present-day scenes and children in full color against significant events and sites of past struggle in black and white. Endmatter explains the significance of said sites and scenes for those who may not know: the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, Rosa Parks sitting down on a bus, children integrating schools. The opening spreads feature a school-age Black child rising and getting ready for the day with a smile; the middle spreads show the child arriving at school and learning with a multiracial group of peers, a Black teacher at the head of the class. Final spreads show the child walking by a street being painted with Black Lives Matter in yellow, then small crowds standing together and painting a mural together. Collier uses collage with a multitude of faces and layers to place the times and movements in relationship, creating a powerful opportunity for comparison, reflection, and discussion about the past and present. The opening and closing spreads with the smiling child offer the hopeful message Collier reinforces in his note.
This thoughtful work of art comes together with beauty
and meaning. (historical note, illustrator’s note) (Picture book. 3-10)
the day the rain moved in
MILO IMAGINES THE WORLD
de la Peña, Matt Illus. by Christian Robinson Putnam (40 pp.) $18.99 | Feb. 2, 2021 978-0-399-54908-3
A subway ride marked by anxious people-watching builds up to Milo’s most important moment of the month.
As the subway train pulls away from the station, Milo, holding his drawing pad and pencil, sits beside his big sister, who holds her cellphone. Both kids present Black. Milo is “a shookup soda” of excitement, confusion, and worry. “To keep himself from bursting,” Milo observes the people around him on the train and imagines the lives they go home to, drawing scenes of their lives in his notebook. He imagines one pale-skinned man with a five o’clock shadow going home to a rat-infested apartment building, eating alone. He imagines a young White boy in a suit going home to a castle in a horse-drawn carriage. But when Milo gets off the train, he is surprised to find that White boy heading to the same destination as him. His surprise leads him to rethink his assessment of the people on the train, expanding his ideas of who people might be. With the same combination of wide-eyed observation and suspenseful buildup to a socially conscious revelation that readers cherished in this duo’s award-winning Last Stop on Market Street (2015), this picture book offers a child’s view of the impacts of incarceration on families. De la Peña’s descriptive language and Robinson’s innocent, endearing art make for another winning package. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A memorable, thought-provoking story poised to make a
difference for many. (Picture book. 4-10)
THE NIGHT WALK
Dorléans, Marie Floris (32 pp.) $17.95 | April 20, 2021 978-1-78250-639-3
Roused from sleep, two siblings head out into the night, walking in darkness with their parents to an undisclosed destination. “Let’s go, so we get there on time,” their mother urges. The family walks enshrouded in blue night, through the “sleeping village,” past a big hotel lit up “like a chandelier,” into cow-dotted countryside, finally reaching thick woods. Watercolor-and–graphite pencil illustrations depict an enveloping nocturnal world through saturations of indigo. Young readers’ hearts will quicken, feeling embraced by night made real with breathtaking, full-bleed washes of blue that stretch across double-page spreads. This wondrous darkness gleams with reassuring lights (from lamps, windows, flashlights, glinting stars, a woozy moon) while meticulous pencil work provides specificity. A sweater’s cables claim readers’ attention, as do blades of grass, pine needles, fronds of fern, and a lacework of leaves in a magical night sky perforated by stars. Equally evocative sentences (in taut translations from French) appear in clear, white lettering, engaging the senses: “We threaded through the whispering forest. The earth was damp, the bark smelled comforting.” Keeping pace with this family, readers wonder where they’re headed and why they must start to hurry near the book’s conclusion. Urgency, exhilaration, and anticipation make the walk’s conclusion, a luminous, lemony daybreak, all the more powerful. All family members have pale skin and dark hair.
A gift—here night isn’t scary; the unknown is exhilarat-
ing and the ending sunny and clear. (Picture book. 4-10)
THE DAY THE RAIN MOVED IN
Douspis, Éléonore Trans. by Shelley Tanaka Groundwood (32 pp.) $18.95 | April 6, 2021 978-1-77306-481-9
What do you do when it starts raining inside your house? Uninvited, the rain moves inside the house. Huddled and wet, Pauline and Louis watch the rain fall. Their family tries to stop the rain, but nothing works. Outside in the sunshine, the children go to school, hiding their secret from their joyful classmates. Back at home, a seedling sprouts through the kitchen floor. Soon the house is bursting with plants and animals. The siblings watch as their father opens the door to their curious classmates, who marvel at the “unlikely new playground” inside their house. Eventually, the life inside outgrows the house itself, with sky-reaching branches shooting through the walls and roof. Finally, the rain stops, and sunlight fills the transformed house. Translated from French, the sparse, poetic text is at once specific and open to interpretation. This quietly resilient story, a subtle metaphor for experiencing and processing grief, depression, or trauma, invites reading and rereading as small visual and textual elements are discovered and examined. The relationship between inside and outside hinted at in the text is compellingly explored in the illustrations. Colorful accents create balance and focus against the sparse neutral brown and gray backgrounds of the house’s interior and the desertlike outside world. Pauline and Louis, along with the rest of their family, have straight black hair and rosy-tan skin. The schoolchildren are diverse in appearance. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Visually and textually poetic, this contemplative story
continues to grow through repeated visits. (Picture book. 4-9)
OLU & GRETA
Ejaita, Diana Rise x Penguin Workshop (32 pp.) $17.99 | Jan. 18, 2022 978-0-593-38490-9
A tale of two cousins who find ways to be together despite the distance between them.
Olu lives in Lagos, Nigeria, and Greta lives in Milan, Italy. The narrator emphasizes that since they reside on different continents, they can’t get to each other by walking or skating, by parade or dancing, or several other means. While they could travel by car, boat, or plane, for now, they visit each other virtually and imagine what they might do together when they can meet in person. Ejaita created the illustrations on black paper with colored pencils and digital techniques, and because the characters’ faces and features are drawn on the unillustrated space on each page, Olu and Greta are literally black, with fine white lines that define their features. Perhaps this signals that just as the presence of the color black is ubiquitous in these visuals, Black people can and do live everywhere, countering the notion that people of African descent are monolithic. On nearly every spread, Greta and Olu engage in the same or similar activities, emphasizing that they have a close relationship despite living far apart. Some of Ejaita’s illustrations show the pencil lines, making them highly textured and almost tactile. Along with the dominant black backgrounds, Ejaita, herself of Nigerian and Italian heritage, uses a limited color palette for each spread, giving the book a retro look. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A compelling bicontinental story of kinfolk, uniquely
illustrated by an artist who’s lived the experience. (Picture book. 4-7)
TEN LITTLE DUMPLINGS
Fan, Larissa Illus. by Cindy Wume Tundra Books (48 pp.) $17.99 | Jan. 5, 2021 978-0-7352-6619-3
A girl with 10 brothers claims her place in both the family narrative and
the world at large.
Amid a pastoral Taiwanese setting, this picture book opens with a male-centered viewpoint touting the super specialness of a family blessed with 10 sons, whom their parents call “little dumplings,” because dumplings are “auspicious, / Bringing prosperity and success.” (Dumplings’ oval shape intentionally resembles yuanbao—gold or silver ingots that were real currency in imperial China for over two millennia, a fact not, alas, shared in the author’s note. The brothers’ similar sizes also conjure the “Ten Brothers” legend in Chinese popular culture, which is.) Seemingly larger than life, these 10 brothers lack individuality when portrayed as a unit, doing “everything together” and becoming “ten fine men”—a desirable outcome that nonetheless hints at an in-group mentality that can marginalize those who do not conform. Readers need to look closely to find the girl Wume cleverly hides in each double-page spread: She dons the iconic school-uniform hat and is part of the action even when obscured. Then the perspective shifts: First writing herself into the story by forming 女 (female) with a calligraphy brush, she eventually, deftly reframes the narrative to assert: “I was there too.… // I listened. // I studied. // I learned.” Eventually, she becomes a mother and celebrates her personal fortune for having a “wonderful girl”—her very own “little dumpling.” (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Stepping out of the shadows: a gentle, persuasive #own-
voices take on a hitherto-untold perspective. (Picture book. 5-7)
AMIRA’S PICTURE DAY
Faruqi, Reem Illus. by Fahmida Azim Holiday House (40 pp.) $17.99 | April 13, 2021 978-0-8234-4019-1
Amira and her brother scan the sky, looking for the sliver-thin crescent moon that will tell them that Eid is the next day.
With her hands decorated, goody bags ready for kids at the masjid (Faruqi uses the Arabic term for mosque throughout), new Eid clothes, and the knowledge that she will be missing school to celebrate Eid, Amira is excited! But then she notices the flyer on the fridge and remembers tomorrow is Picture Day. She doesn’t want to miss her class picture! But the next day, “seeing the masjid, Amira’s sadness floated away. Her mouth popped open. She could hardly recognize it.” She’s happy during Eid prayers and when greeting friends and family—until she remembers Picture Day. But maybe there’s a way she can do both? Faruqi effectively builds up the excitement to celebrate Eid and balances it with Amira’s distress at missing Picture Day—readers will see that both are important. The characters and interactions at the masjid are real, reinforcing a community celebrating Eid, and so are Amira’s interactions with her classmates. Azim’s illustrations pair well with Faruqi’s words, focusing on facial expression as well as body language to highlight the mixed emotions: excitement, sadness, surprise. There is much diversity among the people at the masjid, including hijab styles, other attire, and racial presentation. Amira’s blue, mirror-bedecked shalwar kameez stands out. Her family is of South Asian heritage.
Sweet and sympathetic. (author’s note, more about Eid,
glossary) (Picture book. 4-8)
