Hitting shelves next week are a picture book about chaos and the common cold, a motivating middle grade book in prose, and a nonfiction YA title that tackles the gender gap in education.
Animal Ark: Celebrating Our Wild World in Poetry and Pictures by Kwame Alexander with Mary Rand Hess and Deanna Nikaido, photos by Joel Sartore. National Geographic Children’s Books, $15.99; ISBN 978-1-4263-2767-4. Sartore, founder of the Photo Ark project – which aims to photograph every animal in captivity amid threats facing many creatures across the globe – teams up with Newbery Medalist Alexander and collaborating writers Hess and Nikaido to provide an up-close look at dozens of animals, in poetry and photographs.
The Playbook: 52 Rules to Aim, Shoot, and Score in This Game Called Life by Kwame Alexander, photos by Thai Neave. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $14.99; ISBN 978-0-544-57097-9. Newbery Medalist Alexander (The Crossover) uses basketball as a metaphor for growth on and off the court in this stirring collection of 52 motivational poems-as-rules, grouped into four thematic sections (Grit, Motivation, Passion, and Teamwork and Resilience) that correspond to the quarters of the game.
Addie Bell’s Shortcut to Growing Up by Jessica Brody. Delacorte, $16.99; ISBN 978-0-399-55510-7. Readers eager to become full-fledged teens may have second thoughts after reading what happens to 12-year-old Addie Bell in this middle grade novel when her wish to be 16 is granted.
You Don’t Want a Unicorn! by Ame Dyckman, illus. by Liz Climo. Little, Brown, $16.99; ISBN 978-0-316-34347-3. Unicorns: splendiferous magical delight or mythological menace? Dyckman (Horrible Bear!) suggests the latter in this cautionary picture book tale.
We Are Okay by Nina LaCour. Dutton, $17.99; ISBN 978-0-525-42589-2. Over the winter holidays, college freshman Marin opts to remain in an empty dorm in New York rather than go home to California. The reasons she decides to stay gently unfold one layer at a time, in an introspective novel that powerfully explores Marin’s solitude and conflicted emotions, against the backdrop of a stormy, icy winter. The book earned a starred review from PW.
Bob, Not Bob!: *To Be Read as Though You Have the Worst Cold Ever by Liz Garton Scanlon and Audrey Vernick, illus. by Matthew Cordell. Disney-Hyperion, $17.99; ISBN 978-1-4847-2302-9. In this picture book, Louie gets a terrible cold, his calls for “Mom” come out sounding like “Bob” (the family dog), and chaos ensues. The book earned a starred review from PW.
Not Quite Narwhal by Jessie Sima. Simon & Schuster, $17.99; ISBN 978-1-4814-6909-8. In this picture book, protagonist Kelp has a narwhal-like horn, but it’s kind of short, and he has trouble swimming like the other narwhals. On land, he discovers why: he’s a unicorn.
A Perfect Day by Lane Smith. Roaring Brook, $17.99; ISBN 978-1-62672-536-2. Smith (There Is a Tribe of Kids) takes readers to a house in the countryside in a neatly constructed story that reveals how simple pleasures create a “perfect day” for several animals in this picture book.
The Land of Nod by Robert Louis Stevenson, illus. by Robert Hunter. Flying Eye (Consortium, dist.), $16.95; ISBN 978-1-911171-04-1. In his first picture book for children, British illustrator Hunter illuminates Stevenson’s 1885 poem. The book earned a starred review from PW.
Girl Rising: Changing the World One Girl at a Time by Tanya Lee Stone with Girl Rising. Random/Lamb, $22.99; ISBN 978-0-553-51146-8. In this nonfiction title geared towards teens, Stone (Courage Has No Color) delivers a frank, hard-hitting exploration of why some 62 million girls worldwide don’t attend school, collaborating with the team behind the 2013 documentary Girl Rising, which spurred a global campaign devoted to creating educational opportunities for girls.
Dance by Matthew Van Fleet. S&S/Wiseman, $19.99; ISBN 978-1-4814-8707-8. In this interactive book, a baby chick teaches a collection of various animals how to dance.
American Street by Ibi Zoboi. HarperCollins/Balzer + Bray, $17.99; ISBN 978-0-06-247304-2. Zoboi’s debut, set in current-day Detroit (but based on the author’s experience as a Haitian immigrant in 1980s Bushwick, Brooklyn), unflinchingly tackles contemporary issues of immigration, assimilation, violence, and drug dealing. The book earned a starred review from PW.
For more children’s and YA titles on sale throughout the month of February, check out PW’s full On-Sale Calendar.
