It’s a special day: Ana’s abuela is moving in with Ana and Mami, and will take care of Ana while Mami works. Until now, neighbor señora Mimí—along with her baby, Nelson, and dog, Pancho—has been taking Ana to school every morning and picking her up each afternoon. “Now anda, little one,” señora Mimí prompts, “Vamos.... We’re almost out of time.” Not until a classmate’s chance remark—“No more señora Mimí to tell you what to do every day!”—does Ana realize that in gaining Abuela, she will lose the babysitter’s daily presence. In conversational prose (“I hadn’t really thought about that”), Medina (Evelyn Del Rey Is Moving Away), observes Ana as she begins to grasp the complexity of the transition: “I won’t be able to tell señora Mimí the best parts of my day or the things I’d do over.” Via digitally created spreads, Cicchese (The Kitten Story) peers into the faces of Ana and señora Mimí as they acknowledge the change. In this compassionate work, a relationship whose nuances Ana hadn’t truly considered holds the key to her consolation as the two make new plans together. Protagonists cue as Latinx; background characters are portrayed with various abilities and skin tones. Ages 5–7. Agent (for author and illustrator): Jennifer Rofé, Andrea Brown Literary. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 06/07/2024 | Details & Permalink

When Daisy’s family attends the fair she loves, held during her favorite month—October—Daisy’s sister Mary wins a stuffed koala and brother Benjy earns a whistle. Daisy, meanwhile, garners a peculiar fish in a plastic bag, with “too many fins and scales like leaves, a head too big for his tail.” Digitally finished pen, ink, and watercolor spreads by Marwan (Where Butterflies Fill the Sky) have a dreamy, Kandinsky-esque feel, with bright reds fading into pinks and greens, lavenders and mauves. Mary calls the fish weird, but Daisy doesn’t mention her own jealousy of Mary’s koala. “Don’t worry,” she tells the fish, whom she calls October. “You are the best fish.” But October rapidly outgrows one glass bowl, then a larger one. He’s soon in the bathtub, and Daisy has to find another, better place for her charge. Daisy is faithful to her unprepossessing prize, and Arden (the Small Spaces series), making a picture book debut, fittingly rewards this loyalty throughout an unexpected series of events that focuses on bonds and transformations established through tending. The family is portrayed with light brown skin; background characters are shown with various skin tones. Ages 4–8. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 06/07/2024 | Details & Permalink

In this witty canine romp, a new dog named Toby “introduces” himself to the neighborhood by lifting a leg against a brick wall, a light pole, and a mailbox (“He introduced himself a lot, actually”). In a loose, sketchbook style, Heder (Sal Boat) lovingly captures the established neighborhood dogs that Toby longs to befriend—a basset hound, a bulldog, and more. Written in graffiti-style text, readers can see the messages the dogs leave for each other on walls and sidewalks. (“My Tummy feels Bad –Merlin” is accompanied by “Merlin, eat grass!”) After checking out “the local postings,” still-excluded Toby finds a tennis ball: “It smelled like puddles and raccoons and fit in nicely with his collection.” But the ball belongs to the basset hound, Pancake, and the whole neighborhood soon gets involved. Suspense builds at length as Toby leaves an apologetic message whose meaning is altered by the rain, deepening confusion until his instincts save the day. Heder’s charming canine portraits, especially of doggy actions, make this emotive new-arrival story a pup lover’s treat. Human characters are portrayed with various skin tones. Ages 4–8. Agent: Stephen Barr, Writers House. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 06/07/2024 | Details & Permalink

In this Old MacDonald origin story from Underwood (Walter Had a Best Friend) and Pham (Bear Came Along), the opening sequence shows a middle-aged man, portrayed with brown skin, happily dusting his apartment: “There was once a man who loved his tidy home and who didn’t like animals.” Naturally, a sleek cat appears on his doorstep. In digital artwork with a deliciously retro feel, vignettes show him holding his hands over his head to scare it off. But the cat refuses to leave, and the two find much in common: “The man liked to eat dinner at precisely 6 p.m. So did the cat.” Willing to make an exception for a single kitty, he muses “Maybe THIS cat isn’t so bad.” But when additional felines, a dog or two, and a wealth of farm animals arrive, and determine to stay, the neighbors start to complain. The solution leads to a familiar tune about a man whose new residence houses many animals (their names, illustrations hint, begin with E, I, and O). It’s a light tale that garners plenty of smiles, as well as an amiable look at one individual’s learning to let go of preconceptions. Ages 4–8. Author’s agent: Erin Murphy, Erin Murphy Literary. Illustrator’s agent: Holly McGhee, Pippin Properties. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 06/07/2024 | Details & Permalink

Newbery Honoree Hiranandani’s picture book debut is a moving ode to family connection from the perspective of a grandfather who’s perceived as both “the greatest” and “a simple, ordinary” person. The elderly man loves Sundays, when his three grandchildren come to visit—the pages highlight their interactions, the grandfather’s self-perception, and the grandchildren’s openhearted enthusiasm about their grandfather’s artmaking, storytelling, and cooking. “Hardly the next Picasso,” he says in the face of his grandchildren’s appreciation; “thousands of storytellers mold the language better,” and “many chefs have prepared better feasts.” As time passes, the quartet engages in the everyday as well as the seasonal—at Passover, the children see their grandfather as an important leader, while he knows that “he’s only leading the Seder the way his father taught him.” As the family builds a sukkah in autumn, the man wonders whether he should tell his grandchildren that he’s “just a regular old person,” then considers the nature of love’s reflection. Velvety watercolor and gouache illustrations by Stamper (Amazing Abe) capture the pale-skinned Jewish family’s warmth in this demonstrative work about the expansive strength of ordinary love. Ages 4–8. Author’s agent: Sara Crowe, Sara Crowe Literary. Illustrator’s agent: Lori Kilkelly, LK Literary. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 06/07/2024 | Details & Permalink

In delicate digitally finished multimedia drawings, Morstad (A Rose, a Bridge, and a Wild Black Horse) meditates on faces—as seen in crowds, clouds, and elsewhere (“Even a potato/ has eyes!”). Each detail draws the viewer in: “The soft and smooth/ or crinkly skin,/ the just-so nose,// the delicate/ scratchy hairs/ and all those/ one-of-a-kind-marks.” Images blend the real and the dreamlike, sometimes in black-and-white, sometimes in gently tinted wash. On one page, a group of people examines a huge sculpture of a head; on another, a starry constellation makes up a visage (“A face is a poem/ with all the parts put together,/ adding up to someone/ you love”). A grid of thumbnail-like portraits depicts beings young and old from arrayed angles—gazing up two nostrils, looking closely at a pair of lips. Other pages imagine faces traded (“to see through someone else’s eyes”) and survey expressions and imaginative features. “A face is to love,” concludes this untethered session of wondering, a look at the way bodies and countenances can change and endure. Individuals are portrayed with various abilities and skin tones. Ages 3–7. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 06/07/2024 | Details & Permalink

The round-headed, toylike protagonists of this meta fable each live on one side of the book’s opposing pages. Residing on the verso, Bookie is a bespectacled bibliophile portrayed with brown skin and a brimmed hat; on the recto, pale-skinned Cookie is an avid baker who sports a chef’s toque. Once best friends, they now find themselves stewing on their respective sides. Gómez (A Place for Rain), working in single-plane digital and paper collage artwork, explains why: their get-togethers are “always in the right-hand page of the book,” and Bookie is fed up with having to cross the volume’s gutter. “My page is nice too, but you have never been there,” Bookie says; “I just like my page,” Cookie responds. “I don’t like what I don’t know.” The figurative and literal breach is bridged when Bookie hits on a clever, cookie-fueled plan—one that even propels the duo to together explore the world “outside their pages.” It’s a gentle illustration of how close friendships can require adjustments as well as give and take. Ages 3–7. Agent: Rebecca Sherman, Writers House. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 06/07/2024 | Details & Permalink

In a family of five siblings, this book’s narrator—the second-oldest—describes how “we can split anything.” Divvying things up is easy when it comes to broccoli (“Hey, you first” one child offers), more difficult with cotton candy (“Hey, me first”), and sometimes requires savvy, as when each place at the table yields a slightly different portion. The siblings, cued as Korean, share “all kinds of things”: a bathroom, hand-me-down wellies, and the breeze from a lone fan at night. But when the narrator tumbles while riding the family scooter, she experiences a handful of precious solo experiences that lead to a moment of collective sibling empathy—and a slice of a cake that’s clearly for sharing. Kim employs pencil and watercolor textures in sweetly amusing spreads that show how a wealth of items are allotted, in this moving work about divisions and connections. An author’s note concludes. Ages 4–9. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 05/31/2024 | Details & Permalink

Unicorns, cake sprinkles, and song mark this playtime-driven portrait of best-friend-dom, told in a wry second-person voice. Light comedy accompanies Skeers’s descriptions of imbalanced dynamics between the story’s BFFs. One friend, portrayed with brown skin, is oblivious to their own self-centered actions, while the other, shown with pink skin, tends to roll with the punches (“A friend will dress up in your homemade unicorn costume.... Even when your friend is the back half”). When the oblivious bestie “accidentally-on-purpose” blows out the candles on their bud’s birthday cake, there’s an understandable rupture between them. A subsequent apology seems driven, not by empathy or regret, but by the offending party’s desire for a playmate, a conclusion that is used to signify the “magical” connection between best friends in a work that strains to be jubilant. Ages 4–8. (June)

Reviewed on 05/31/2024 | Details & Permalink

Baking serves as social communication in this emotionally aware picture book. When Arun doesn’t know how to help a friend, he expresses empathy through culinary creations. After pal Lilya loses a coat button, Arun gifts “gingerbread men with shiny buttons down their fronts.” For George, whose wheelchair gets a flat before a basketball game, the young baker whips up pinwheel cookies. When another friend’s dog gets sick, the protagonist attempts “his biggest bake yet—a bake sale to raise money for the animal hospital.” But things don’t go as planned, leaving him despondent until the community offers support using Arun’s language of sweet treats. Echoing Marmaras’s straightforward text, which describes cakes as having “fallen from the sky,” desserts galore tumble across pages in Duffy’s airbrush-textured visuals, while scenes emphasize the emotional via expressive depictions of children of varied abilities and skin tones. The overall effect is a “sweet” ode to the way kindness inspires kindness. Ages 4–8. (July)

Reviewed on 05/31/2024 | Details & Permalink