Afikotective – written and illustrated by Amalia Hoffman
Kar-Ben Publishing, 2024

Every year there are new books about Passover/Pesach for children. Some have novel premises; others are contemporary versions of classics.  Amalia Hoffman’s Afikotective features a family of mice ensconced in a cozy home.  Mice have appeared in Passover books before (such as Matzah Belowstairs, Mouse in the Matzoh Factory, Pippa’s Passover Plate, or The Passover Mouse), so Hoffman’s are in good company.  The concept of hiding is intrinsic to the Passover seder. Customs vary among different Jewish communities, but often the middle matzah of three is hidden by an adult, to be found by a child, who will receive a reward. Only then can the seder be completed. Hoffman’s mice are rendered in sophisticated images that allude to fabric art, and they embody the home-based ritual which is central to the festival. 

In this family the grandparents hide the afikoman. The grandfather wears a large, Sephardic style kippah/yarmulke, and the grandmother sports cat-eye glasses and bold dangling earrings.  The bright orange of their outfits match!  One of the children at the table wears a bowtie and a deerstalker hat, signaling the detective role he will play.

He employs some obvious tools, like a magnifying glass and binoculars, but also a toy elephant with a super sensitive trunk.  The logic of his search technique will make perfect sense to young children, even when he encounters a few detours and needs to get out his toolbox.

Amalia explained her creative process to me.  She sketched and colored each picture, and then cut out the shapes and composed them on a board, painting them and scratching the surface to add texture. Curving parts of the mice gives an allusion of animation. Finally the images are photographed.  (The afikotective sniffer-leash and the word “YAY” were produced with yarn.)  Images are textured and layered to appear three-dimensional. The ingenuity and precision behind these heimish (homey) scenes is the result of loving attention to detail.

Children and mice are both small, but their stature does not minimize their important role in the celebration of Passover. In fact, adults are obligated to teach them the story of the Exodus, and for everyone to experience it as if he or she had actually been alive at the time. Young readers will undoubtedly feel affinity for the other species in this book.  They can even make a copy of the “Afikotective” badge included.  In her author’s note, Hoffman reveals the origin of this special identity in her own childhood.

A Garden Called Home – written by Jessica J. Lee, illustrated by Elaine Chen
Tundra Books, 2024

There is more than one layer to Jessica J. Lee and Elaine Chen’s new picture book.  Narrated from the point of view of a young girl, it begins with a simple statement about the season: “Winter is arriving.” She looks out the window, her eyes full of expectation.  But soon we learn that “Mama doesn’t like winter.”  Her mother, from the much warmer, and to her more hospitable, climate of Taiwan, is living with her daughter in a much colder country, where even warm jackets and steaming congee cannot seem to elevate her mood. “She never wants to go outside.” The girl and her mother go to visit family in her mother’s homeland, but the consoling trip is a temporary solution to her mother’s sadness. The girl invents her own solution, immersing herself in the environment of both countries and encouraging her mother to experience joy.

The mom’s reunion with her family is wonderful for her. The girl observes how her mother is suddenly outgoing, talking constantly to make up for the infrequency of her contact with people who matter to her. A busy food court meal shows the mom with eyes uplifted and her hands gesturing, while the girl herself seems baffled by change.  Much of the trip centers on the natural world, with the girl’s mother patiently explaining the unique plants and geographical features. One point of contact is becoming familiar with the vegetables that had been part of her mother’s diet as a child.  That knowledge takes root in her mind. She learns the names of each plant in Mandarin and repeats them.

The trip ends and they return home, but the girl is able to transform the way in which her mother views the world. Perhaps a more accurate metaphor than layers for this story would be the growing concentric circles of ripples on a pond, or maybe the inside of a tree trunk.  At first, the mom remains indoors, as she had before the trip.

Her daughter’s response is to pursue the study of nature they had begun abroad, and to bring her new knowledge home as a gift to her mother.  Her forays into the outside are alone, but she conveys the excitement surrounding them to her mother.  Fungi on maple trees, nutcracker birds living on whitebark pines, and seeds with thick shells waiting to sprout are all part of the same process.  With careful observation and systematic study, she constructs a picture and shares it: “I show Mama that nature here can be wondrous, too.”

A Garden Called Home begins with a tough premise.  The girl’s responsibility for her mother’s emotional renewal could have ended in sadness. Instead, her fascination with the environment, her persistence in expressing that experience, and her mother’s hidden strength, allow their life together to bloom.

Guts for Glory: The Story of Civil War Soldier Rosetta Wakeman – written and illustrated by Joanna Lapati
Eerdmans Books for Young Readers, 2024

A young woman is determined to serve in the army during wartime. She disguises herself as a man and fulfills her dream. This story is the stuff of both history and folklore.  In Joanna Lapati’s unusual picture book, the example of this choice is Rosetta Wakeman, who created the male identity of Lyons Wakeman, donned a uniform, passed a cursory physical, and became a soldier in the Union Army during the Civil War. What dream was she fulfilling?  The book assumes the perspective of Rosetta herself; Lapati does not attempt to impose ideological commitments that may or may not have motivated the transformation.  Instead, readers are immersed in Rosetta’s consciousness, as she joins the 153^rd New York State Volunteers and confronts the enemy in battle.

The glimpses into Rosetta’s state of mind are brief.  Third-person narration is interspersed with brief selections from her letters home.  She assiduously avoids taking off her uniform. She sends her pay home to her family, directing them to use it for food and clothing. When her comrades in training become “a little rowdy,” Rosetta asserts in one letter: “I haven’t been punished Since I have been in service. I never got to fighting but once…” Lapati’s text reflects the terse and incomplete mode of expression that Rosetta adopts in her letters.  Readers may imagine what that “but once,” represents, whether Rosetta is being honest, evasive, or just sticking to the minimal information she deems necessary.  Her story is about the daily life of a soldier, not the larger vision behind the Civil War, nor the limitations of gender roles.

Lapati’s artwork is exceptional. As she explains in an afterword, she has recreated the style of 19^th century wood engravings, using scratchboard. There is more detail about the process, which reinforces the sense of her commitment to accuracy and to designing a complete and immersive production.  Rosetta is depicted sitting on the ground while writing a letter, her eyes covered by the brim of her military cap. We see her in a line of soldiers, ready to raise and aim her weapon. We observe her taking her oath of allegiance to the United States of America, where she is revealingly, but not too revealingly, the shortest man in the group.  While the book does not glorify war, it certainly does not apologize for Rosetta’s chosen identity as a fighter. 

A sense of ambiguity follows on this deliberate reticence.  Was Rosetta’s life one of defiance of restrictions on women? Would she today have identified as transgender? Did she assume that slavery was the underlying reason for her enlistment, or was it secondary to some personal desire?  Extensive backmatter gives more information about Rosetta’s life, which sadly ended when she died, not in combat, but of dysentery. Ultimately, readers learn about one woman’s unusual, but not unique, decision, but also consider the many intersecting ways in which she fit into history.

The Three Little Mittens – written by Linda Bailey, illustrated by Natalia Shaloshvili
Tundra Books, 2023

The Three Little Mittens opens up several questions about being the odd one out.  First, and most literally, “What’s the use of single mitten?” More generally, we’re asked to consider, “Why do you have to match?” Finally, can an assortment of mismatched items find a home together and even encourage others to do the same? Children’s picture books have always been a welcome location for exploring these issues, and for questioning rigid categories that separate people, animals, or other beings from one another.  Humorous childlike thoughts and joyful pictures align the book with other classics, including Leo Lionni’s Little Blue and Little Yellow, Margaret and H.A. Rey’s Spotty, and both Antoinette and Gaston, by Kelly DiPucchio and Christian Robinson. 

The connections are subtle.  The mittens depicted here are not subject to the same type of prejudice. They judge each other, conforming to unreasonable outside standards of who has value.  When Stripes gets detached from her partner, a common hazard for mittens, she suffers a kind of existential panic, but insisting “I know I’m just one…but there must be some reason why I’m here.” But instead of reassurance, she suffers rejection, as Dotty and Other Dotty hold hands and walk away from her. With just three squiggles per mitten, Natalia Shaloshvili captures the pink mittens haughtiness, and the bereft mood of one Stripes, matching Linda Bailey‘s playful text.

Just sticking with mittens would have made the story seem more of a parable. When a Little Girl appears, the mittens, and the reader, begin to experience other possibilities.  Her features are formed of the same flexible line as those of the mittens, but she also has beautiful dark curls, a jaunty hat, and a playful dog.  Most importantly, she in addition to her pink pair of mittens, a blue one peeks out of her pocket. Maybe there is hope for Stripes after all. When one mitten falls off the girl’s hand, a new relationship begins.  It starts, from Dotty’s point of view, as a last resort, but soon the two single mittens tentatively form a partnership.

While Lionni’s green and yellow geometric forms effortlessly play together, Shaloshvili conveys a great deal of ambiguity in each simple picture.  Their stick-like limbs swing in motion, and their bodies sometimes shed a bit of fuzz.  The white space on each page is not only snow, but a spacious background for their drama. More characters appear when the Little Girl goes indoors and opens her cardboard box, full of highly individual mittens who are not abandoned, but given a new life. There are such unforgettably warm collectibles as Pom-Pom, Big Dino (only big compared to the other mittens), and the decorative Furry Cuffs. The Lost Mitten Box is, just by being placed in a container, a curated collection, but only minimally. The mittens all get to come out in play according to a fair system devised by the Little Girl: …over time, all of the mittens would get a turn.”

     The finale is a range of possibilities, all representing “FREEDOM.” Children and mittens play together. Their lives are full of wonder.  It was easy to resolve the questions about the potential uses of a single mitten, the necessity of matching, and the viability of existence.

My Collection of Collections – written and illustrated by Nina Chakrabarti
Laurence King Publishing, 2017

How many objects constitutes a collection? Do the collected items have to be objects, or can they be words, thoughts, or memories?  Does the collection have to be assembled deliberately? Nina Chakrabarti more than answers these, and other, relevant questions in her picture book,  My Collection of Collections. The authors credited on the cover are Chakrabati herself and, with a space provided for adding a name, the reader of this book. 

Not only perfect for any child, or adult, contemplating starting a collection or curating one, it’s equally appealing on aesthetic grounds.  The book is interactive, including stickers, and suggestions for expanding on existing drawings.  Most important, it considers the universal urge to accumulate, categorize, and sometimes display whatever element is appealing to an individual. Some are well known: stamps, dinosaurs, mugs, shoes.  Some are fading in popularity: stamps again. Maybe it’s time for a revival!  Some are deliberate, others accidental.  Unlike other hobbies, no special skills are absolutely necessary, although a particular collector might develop a great deal of knowledge and eventually build and arrange her collection with greater expertise.

The pictures are whimsical, affectionate, funny, and as carefully composed as the collections themselves.   A page of sugar packets features graphic design in different languages, fonts, and styles.  A white coffee cup releases red steam, a red bird flies under a flag proclaiming “ZUCCHERO,” and a cylinder of brown sugar is broken in the middle and spills sweet stuff.  Chakrabarti provides helpful suggestions in the form of obvious qualities one may have missed, such as “COLLECTIONS can BE EDIBLE,” and “COLLECTIONS are a WAY of UNDERSTANDING THE WORLD we LIVE in…” Don’t forget that “COLLECTIONS CAN BE ECLECTIC,” such as one attributed to “RAFI, AGED 11-½ .” He has good taste, as evidence by his agate slice, origami crane, and ammonite fossil.

Learning the names of different collecting categories has always exercised some fascination.  Philatelists collect stamps, while falerists favor medals. A Wunderkammer is a cabinet of assorted curiosities.  In fact, the book itself fits this definition.  Curiosity, in the broader sense, is the underlying message. In addition to objects, collections may gather dreams, words, and secrets. A two-page spread of the random evidence of life that turns up in a railway lost and found suggest an imaginative activity: “Invent a story using all the lost items.” 

Whether you own a matchbook decorated with a hedgehog whose quills are matches, or a bunch of blue elements that might have something in common in addition to their color, My Collection of Collections should get you started.  Space and time are the only limits.    

The Little Books of the Little Brontës – written by Sara O’Leary, illustrated by Briony May Smith
Tundra Books, 2023

You probably hope that the children in your life will grow up to read the Brontë sisters’ novels and poetry.  In the meantime, here is a book that offers the perfect introduction to their very early formation as authors. Sara O’Leary (I’ve reviewed other work by her here and here and here) and Briony May Smith don’t take the path of presenting their subjects as young people and then following the main steps of their lives as leading up to accomplishment and fame. Instead, the find one attractive and significant element that predicted Jane Eyre, Villette, Wuthering Heights, and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. The young Brontës miniaturized their limitless imagination in the form of tiny books, which they wrote and bound themselves.  The scale of this endeavor is so appealing to children that it allows them to enter the distant world of 19^th century Yorkshire as if it were a familiar and comforting place. The pictures are stunningly delicate and dramatic; the text speaks directly to young readers with elegant simplicity.

First, lift the dust cover to see a kind of facsimile of a book that would have found its way to the hands a child long ago.  Inside, O’Leary invites readers to look through a window and meet Charlotte and Anne seated at a table. Charlotte is creating a small volume while her little sister looks on with anticipation. Anne’s face reflects her response to an artist at work, as Charlotte writes, paints, and stitches. She has created an alternative life for his sister, one with a mother to replace the one who has died, as well as a visit to London and a voyage at sea.  Every object in the pictures is carefully composed and arranged in its relation to others, but, to children, the linking of words and items is invisible.  They are reading and viewing a story about dreaming of a different life.

O’Leary segues to “the real world,” where Charlotte, Emily, Anne, and their brother, Branwell, sit at dinner with their father. Smith’s  picture is a bird’s-eye view of a silent meal tinged with a sense of loss. Still, there is plenty of food and even a dog to feed under the table.  Every gesture and image in the book signals to readers that the Brontës’ world is not their own, but nor is it out of reach.  The children’s lives are both wild and domestic, with the lessons and visitors indoors, and the natural world as an unlimited space. 

The Brontë children never stop reading.  O’Leary enumerates the books they devour: novels, poetry, history, dictionaries, the Bible. Everyone knows that adults who write usually started as children who read, but this picture book doesn’t belabor the logic of that point.  We see the children peeling potatoes and reading, acting out stories in the dark, and using the ordinary props of childhood as a theater for their invented world. Dolls, toy soldiers, and blocks are integrated into the words that they string together on the page, both literally and figuratively. They grow up to be creators. Although the dimensions of their work have enlarged, the original seed of their visions has not changed.

The book concludes with an illustrated guide to making miniature books, a thoughtful author’s note in which O’Leary admits that she has “long been obsessed with miniature things,” a graphically beautiful timeline, and a list of sources.  (The small picture of the Haworth parsonage caused me to look twice, because it so resembles Madeline’s old house in Paris in Ludwig Bemelmans’s books. Even if the homage is inadvertent, it reiterates Briony May Smith’s undeniable place in a long chain of classic illustrators.). The Little Books of the Little Brontës is both artistically exceptional and completely accessible.  Its vivid picture of a bookish childhood demands multiple readings with your children.

Need a House? Call Ms. Mouse! -written by George Mendoza, illustrated by Doris Susan Smith
The New York Review Children’s Collection, 2023 (reprint of original edition, 1981)

The cover of Need a House? Call Ms. Mouse! features Henriette, a female mouse architect hard at work on her drawing board.  The floor around her is littered with drawings, tape, scissors, trash, and other items associated with her work, including coffee.  Her bulletin board displays many of the homes she has designed, from treehouse to spaceship.  Anyone in need of a home would call her. Fantastic imagination meets incredible fidelity to detail in this introduction for children to a fascinating profession.

I have always found picture books with illustrated houses or dollhouses, including cutaway scenes, to be particularly appealing.  (see, for example, books by Marianne Dubuc or Rumer Godden). The idea of both viewing and imaginatively inhabiting a miniature universe is well-represented in children’s books. George Mendoza and Doris Susan Smith enhanced it, or perhaps professionalized it, in this “portfolio.:  Owls requesting a tower, otters a lodge, moles a tunnel, and bears a cave, are all enumerated on the opening page.  If you don’t see a species represented, maybe you should call Ms. Mouse and inquire.

Ms. Mouse is not the only person responsible for the work you will meet in this book. There are decorators, designers, and builders, according to her signboard.  On the endpapers, a rabbit and mouse unfurl a sheet of paper, a weasel helps to sort and fold fabric, a hedgehog is busy landscaping the garden, and a gopher smoking a cigarette hoists a big bag of tools.  For those who are unaccustomed to seeing characters smoking in children’s books, many of the classics do include them, but they are often fathers smoking pipes. The difference between pipe and cigarette here is one of class. The gopher is not identified as a father or father surrogate, but a laborer. 

Each one of the pictures bears sustained attention! The cat’s “modern villa” has a minimalist, Japanese-inspired design with an open roof, bonsai trees and futons for sleeping. The rabbit’s warren is cozy, as expected, with rustic wood furniture and an attic stuffed with produce. The bear’s lair is neatly stocked with kitchenware, a woodstove, and a duvet cover with bumblebees.  Although the description may sound ironic, the book really does not have that tone.  Ms. Mouse, along with her team, has custom-designed a home, not just a house, for each customer.  “Bear…is so pleased with her new cozy cave that she barely goes mountain climbing anymore.” Why would she? Spider loves music; Henrietta has included a recording studio for his work-from-home days. Owl’s wisdom-infused dwelling has a globe and a telescope mounted on the deck, so he stargaze to his heart’s content.

Children are small, and they are often drawn to the miniaturized scale of dollhouses, trains, or any other reproductions of real life that allow imaginative play.  For adults who have not lost that part of childhood, or for anyone who appreciates the artistry of detail, this book is a delight.

The Extraordinary Dreidel: A Hanukkah Story from Israel -written by Devorah Omer, illustrated by Aviel Basil, translated from the Hebrew by Shira Atik
Green Bean Books, 2023

The dreidel in this delightful picture book is not actually magical; it is the incredible skill of Gil and Nurit’s Uncle Chaim that confers its extraordinary qualities.  Oversized and impractical for spinning in the traditional game, it contains a secret compartment, large enough to contain a stamp collection, doll clothes, or any number of other items potentially treasured by children.  The outsized dreidel and the miniaturized scene of family attachment at the story’s end are like charming bookends.  In between is the excitement of children embracing a familiar experience with a significant difference.

Devorah Omer’s text uses minimal words to convey the core of the story.  The dreidel is “as big as a soccer ball” and Nurit expresses admiration for her brother’s crowdsourcing plans with “I bet your friends will have some great ideas.” Aviel Basil’s images of family are both comforting and funny.  Ima (mom) packs Gil’s lunch while Abba (dad) absentmindedly brushes his teeth, toothpaste foaming over his dark beard.

Each scene features complementary earth tones: ochre, green, black and gold, but drawings in blue and white outline form the background. There are some whimsical touches, like a boy with green hair and a bunch of toys tossed into flight with incredible momentum.  Basil’s technique highlights the way children may experience events: a colorful picture of family and friends around a deep gold chanukiyah (Hanukkah menorah) with green candles and orange flames takes precedence over the lightly sketched floor, window, and bureau in the background.

The final scene of the dreidel with its multipurpose compartment uses surprisingly different characters to express the love of family associated with the Festival of Lights. You won’t even miss spinning the dreidel when you seem what’s inside. 

Dim Sum Palace – written and illustrated by X. Fang
Tundra Books, 2023

There is a difference between an homage and an imitation. Even a book that celebrates a great author and artist, there may be an almost infinite number of ways to reinterpret the work of an icon.  In X. Fang’s Dim Sum Palace, a little girl looks forward to a meal at the eponymous restaurant, and can hardly fall asleep.  When her mother wishes goodnight to her “little dumpling,” readers are warned; we are in the territory of wishes and dreams, fears and delight. Liddy has one foot in a batter of Chinese dumplings, and the other (figuratively speaking), in the cake whipped up by bakers in Maurice Sendak’s In the Night Kitchen.

Fang was this year’s Dilys Edwards Founder’s Award winner at the Society of Illustrators’ Original Art Exhibition.  The award honors “the most promising new talent” in the field of children’s book illustration.  There are several qualities that must have drawn the jury’s attention to Fang’s work.  Her mix of ingredients from traditional Chinese techniques to Sendak’s edgy humor, give the book a distinctive appeal.  Sendak refused to romanticize the terrors of childhood; Fang also captures a child’s apprehensions, but adds some tenderness to the mix. 

Before entering Liddy’s world, don‘t forget to lift the dust jacket for a step aside into the more grounded world of restaurants and their inviting menus, complete with bilingual lettering and a pretend phone number.  The endpapers are a delicately composed assembly of many different dishes. The world of dream imagery begins in specific daily experience, such as pan-fried bun, sticky rice wrapped in lotus leaf, and radish cake. 

Liddy’s dream leads her to the night kitchen, where a male and female chef, in contrast to Sendak’s Three Stooges culinary artists, are making dim sum and an array of other sweets. While Sendak’s bakers seem frenetic in their preparation of a “Mickey-cake,” Fang’s counterparts are calm and focused, carefully folding dough with a sense of pride.  In Sendak’s book, the process of baking becomes an act of aggression. Fang’s chefs are completely unaware that Liddy, in her eagerness to taste the dumplings, has fallen into a bowl. Nevertheless, Liddy also becomes potentially edible.

When a maternal empress is served a dumpling stuffed with Liddy, the regal figure may be hungry, but she is obviously concerned with the little girl who has ended up on her plate.  Cradling Liddy in her palm like a tiny doll, she replaces the girl in her bed. The story begins with one mother expressing love for her child, and approaches its conclusion with another one also caring for a curious and impatient little girl who can’t wait for dim sum.  Liddy’s eventual feast in a busy and diverse family restaurant is worth the wait, for her and for the reader.

The Mona Lisa Vanishes: A Legendary Painter, a Shocking Heist, and the Birth of a Global Celebrity – written by Nicholas Day with art by Brett Helquist
Random House Studio, 2023

This is one of the most intelligent books for middle-grade readers that I have read recently.  (It is equally appropriate for young adults and grownups.) When have you last found even a passing reference to the poet Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918) in a children’s book?  He happens to be one of my favorite of the modernists, and he also played an indirect but important role in one of the most important art thefts in history.  In fact, according to the mixed perspective of Cubism, where a painter can present an image from several different angles simultaneously, Apollinaire may have been front-and-center or off on the sidelines. 

It’s far more likely that young readers have encountered Picasso, as well as Leonardo da Vinci, or at least a reproduction or a parody or an animated version of one of their most famous images.  In The Mona Lisa Vanishes, Nicholas Day narrates the true story of an outrageous and puzzling crime.  Da Vinci’s now most famous painting, but much less iconic at the time, was stolen from the Louvre in August of 1911. The crime remained unsolved until 1913, on the eve of the World War that would forever change everything.  In parallel chapters, Day introduces Da Vinci himself, and describes the improbable circumstances under which he agreed to paint a young woman named Lisa Gherardini, the wife of Florentine merchant Francesco del Giocondo.  No one, including the great Renaissance man himself, is romanticized in the book, but nor are they used as sources of easy humor. There is plenty of humor in the story, but it is all rooted in human gifts and foibles and in the sometimes random events that affect people’s lives.

Not only does The Mona Lisa Vanishes tell a detective story, it also delivers a sophisticated yet accessible discussion of how fake news becomes more believable to the public than confusing facts.  Day also illuminates Renaissance and modern art, changes in the nature of museums in over time, the economically marginal existence of artists, and the development of modern forensics.  If the book sounds too ambitious, it is not.  Readers, young and older, will not be able to put it down!  Brett Helquist’s art depicts the main characters with gentle caricature. Chapters open with graphics in repeating patterns, while some sections of the story are preceded by black-and-white signage resembling the titles in silent movies.

It’s wonderful to contemplate how Day developed his idea, as well as the conviction that others would share his enthusiasm.  The book is not a dystopian fantasy, a traditional biography of a well-known figure, or a straightforward investigation of one historical event. All of those subjects are wonderful possibilities for children’s books. This one is different.  The concept may seem as enigmatic as the Mona Lisa’s smile, but the resulting work is a richly rewarding tour.