Tag: books

The Fruit of Your Labor

Hello Baby, It’s Me, Alfie – written by Maggie Hutchings, illustrated by Dawn Lo
Tundra Books, 2026

A long time ago, 1938, or 1931 if you lived in France, Babar the Elephant learned of his triplets’ birth with the sound of a cannon. Since them, many more children’s books have appeared with the purpose, more explicit than in the work of Jean de Brunhoff, of preparing older siblings for the birth of a new baby.  Hello Baby, It’s Me, Alfie belongs in the top rank of these works.  Narrated from the point of view of Alfie, the soon-to-be big brother, Maggie Hutchings’ and Dawn Lo’s picture book is totally believable. It is also artistically distinguished, illustrated with vibrant colors reminiscent of Fauvist painting, rendered with pencil crayons and gouache. Hello Baby is funny, tender, and thematically consistent. Each page is full of carefully composed images placed at varying angles, adding up to fully realized home life, both indoors and outside. When Alfie promises that “my heart is pretty big. So I’m sure I’ll find space for you,” your own heart will resonate with empathy.

The consistent motif that defines the book is Alfie’s curiosity and love, framed by the famous fruit comparisons used to measure a baby-on-the-way.  Someone, probably his devoted parents, have explained the baby’s growth to Alfie, and he is constantly adjusting his expectations. The endpapers prepare us with big, splashy examples of children’s artwork. Fruit is a great subject when you are learning to draw. We enter Alfie’s kitchen, where his bearded and apron-wearing dad is cooking, while his Mom patiently explains that a baby is growing inside her. Alfie’s wide-eyed expression registers surprise, perhaps disbelief.

You know Alfie’s parents, or at least you have met them or seen them in our neighborhood. They are real people, Mom in her green maternity overalls and Dad holding an ultrasound image to show Alfie who is soon to arrive.  Alfie is excited to follow the fruit comparison. He is even wearing a tee shirt covered with bright red cherries as he notes his own height, and learns that the unborn sibling, at 12 weeks, is “as big as a perfect plum” It helps to be concrete when providing children with explanations, especially for events with monumental consequences.

There is a fine line between emotion and sentimentality; Hutchings and Lo succeed in evoking a strong response without veering into patronizing territory. When Alife lies against his mother’s belly and feels the baby kick, he interprets this prenatal action as a sign of love, reminding the now mango-sized creature that his older brother is full of love, as well. Alfie communicates essential information to his sibling, including the fact that sometimes fear is part of life. When his dog is frightened of thunderstorms, Alfie hugs him..  This statement is not random; he intuits how vulnerable this future baby, now the size of a mere cauliflower, might feel when he joins their family.

At Alfie’s fourth birthday party, the pictures highlight a lovely bit of formality, with his mother now wearing a black and white polka-dotted dress accented by a pearl necklace. Dad takes a photo portrait of the scene. If you are a parent, I know you may be thinking that Alfie doesn’t actually know what to expect. The addition of a baby is not, at least at first, going to be unmitigated joy for him. It will be difficult. Again, there is an allusion to past and future feelings. Alfie has painted a rainbow for the baby, but he ran out of the yellow needed to complete his creation.  “That’s what the crying was about.” Maybe. He is upset enough to need a reassuring embrace from his father.  His mother is now really large, but still almost beatifically calm. 

The book ends, not with the typical picture of a newborn, but with Alfie looking into the crib that his father has carefully assembled.  The inside of the dustcover is a prenatal growth chart measured by pictures of produce. I will summarize by returning to Babar, because the stunning visual quality of this book elevates it way above the level of handy didactic works on the same theme: “Truly it is not easy to bring up a family…But how nice the babies are! I wouldn’t know how to get along without them any more.” Words to live by, for Alfie and his growing family.

Chanukah 2025/5786

Hanukah Money – written by Sholem Aleichem, translated and adapted by Uri Shulevitz and Elizabeth Shub, illustrated by Uri Shulevitz
Greenwillow Books, 1978

This year’s celebration of Chanukah has been marked by a horrific tragedy. The slaughter of 15 people, with many more injured, is now inseparable from the religious and cultural festival this year, but it cannot destroy the meaning of the holiday.  The great Yiddish author Sholem Aleichem (1859-1916) often wrote about both suffering and resilience. In his short story “Hanukah Money,” translated and adapted, and illustrated by Uri Shulevitz (who died earlier this year), Sholem Aleichem relates the tale of two young brothers eager to receive the traditional gift of gelt while their family observes the holiday. (Everyone knows of Sholem Aleichem, and you can find more of my reviews of Shulevitz’s brilliant work here and here and here.)

The boys’ mother is busy cooking latkes (potato pancakes). Their father recites the blessing on the candles. He understands the boys’ impatience, and rewards them with their small gift. While they spin their dreidels, their father and Uncle Bennie play checkers, discussing strategies of the game as if it had grave importance: “‘What’s to be done, what’s to be done, what’s to be done?’ intones father.” More relatives arrive and bring coins. The boys’ innocence, within their clearly impoverished home, reflects both their unawareness of material deprivation, and their joy in this occasional opportunity to delight in relative plenty.  Even counting the coins becomes a ritual and a game framed by playful language: “One chetvertak and one chetvertak makes two chetvertaks, and another chetvertak makes three chetvertaks, and two grivenniks is three chetvertaks…”

Shulevitz’s pictures, resembling sepia engravings, feature exaggeratedly comic figures. The children seem like small adults and the adults themselves have child-like limitations.  Some of the objects surrounding them are Hebrew prayer books, a wall of Jerusalem’s Tower of David, and a chanukyiah (menorah) displayed in the window.  When one brother dreams that the cook, Breineh, flies into the room, she is carrying a platter, not of latkes, but of paper bills. “Motl swallows rubles like pancakes,” before going back to sleep. Money is abstract and fungible, but available food fills an immediate need. The boys’ needs are briefly fulfilled in the unique customs of the Festival of Lights.

Let It Snow

The Snow Theater – written and illustrated by Ryoji Arai, translated from the Japanese by David Boyd
Enchanted Lion Books, 2025

The art of Ryoji Arai’s The Snow Theater demands strong adjectives: intense, stunning, original, but also: unpretentious, dream-like, and accessible. The reason for this contrast, aside from the artist’s incredible gifts, is the imagery’s blend of naiveté and sophistication, with splashes of color as well as carefully delineated figures. Arai’s pictures capture what it feels like to be a child, and specifically to be captivated by the experience of snow. Snow as theater is not at all artificial, from a child’s point of view. It is a gift, perhaps unanticipated, that then takes on different qualities, including joy. It is familiar, but can also be strange.

There are innumerable children’s picture books about snow, and many are excellent, beginning with the Ezra Jack Keats classic The Snowy Day (see some other examples here and here and here and here and here and here and here). The Snow Theater is not unique, but both its design and philosophy and language are distinctive enough to merit acclaim (it is translated by David Boyd, who has translated some of the Chirri and Chirra books, also published in English by Enchanted Lion). It opens indoors, where two boys are “keeping warm” and “looking at a book.” The first picture has the reader looking towards them from outside, where they are framed in the window, almost like residents of a dollhouse. Then, a two-page spread is divided into several more specific descriptions of their activity, and one larger scene of it result. At first they are sharing a picture book about butterflies in a cooperative spirit. Then, the friend of the boy who lives in the house “badly wants to borrow the book,” and the idyll is ruined. That adjective, “badly,” prepares you for the act of, perhaps accidental, aggression that results when the book is damaged.

Now the boy is devastated. Worse, the book is actually one of his father’s favorites, adding a dimension of anxiety to an already tense situation. Arai traces the arc of the boy’s feelings. They boy had wanted to share the book with his friend, not only because they both liked butterflies, but in order to communicate its special status in his family. Worried, he leaves the house and begins to ski through the snow. Suddenly, he finds himself looking into a miniature theatrical production. There are “snow people,” including ballerinas. They surround him physically, occupying his senses. Then the scale seems to change, as he sees “a large theater in front of him.” Yet the performers, who include singers, still appear to be tiny. “Everybody floated quietly to their places, like freshly fallen snow.” There are echoes of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker, with impressionistic colors. Snow people reflect the color of rainbows. Icicles are suspended from their limbs and odd pieces of scenery, like an Easter Island head, occupy the elaborate background.

Then the show ends. As in The Nutcracker, viewers wonder if the performance was a dream, or if the protagonist had really undertaken a mysterious journey. The kinetic, and ephemeral, experience of a snowstorm seems to have been the boy’s escape from emotional difficulty. He reaches across the snow to find his friend against a field of butterflies, only some of which are enclosed within a book. The boy’s father appears with the awaited resolution: “Let’s get you home.” A cup of hot cocoa by a warm stove brings back domestic security, but the song of the snow people is reprised in the boy’s memory.

Freedom from Hunger

Maddi’s Fridge – written by Lois Brandt, illustrated by Vin Vogel
Flashlight Press, 2014 (paperback edition, 2022. Reading app available:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/maddis-fridge/id6748969593)

Thanksgiving is associated with families sharing a plentiful amount of food, but not all Americans have access to this custom.  Freedom from hunger is a human right. Historically, it has been an American right, even if this ideal has not always been realized.  Norman Rockwell’s iconic paintings depict the Four Freedoms that President Roosevelt had a promoted during World War II as a reminder of the war’s purpose.  Maddi’s Fridge is a non-ideological picture book for children.

It does not discuss the social and economic programs needed to combat income inequality; that is not its purpose. Lois Brandt and Vin Vogel present the problem of hunger through the friendship of two girls, Sofia and Maddi. Sofia has always assumed that her well-stocked refrigerator is the norm. When she learns that her friend’s is virtually empty, Sofia needs to help her friend without betraying a secret.

Vogel’s illustrations are understated and appealing.  They convey a sense of community, even a modern version of Rockwell’s, as well as a touch of mid-twentieth century animation.

Sofia’s family is well-fed, with the inventory of her refrigerator even including dog food. Brandt enumerates each item for human consumption: chicken, yogurt, cheese, carrots, bread. In contrast, her friend Maddi’s refrigerator has barely enough to sustain her and her younger brother.  Brandt and Vogel show, in words and images, the asymmetry of the situation without elaborating on its cause.  Instead, Sofia’s dilemma is central to the story.  How can she help Maddi? Bringing foods for the two friends to share as they play outside will not address the problem.

Adults reading with their children may anticipate Sofia’s decision, but children will not necessarily predict the outcome.  Maddi’s Fridge presents an opportunity to discuss why breaking a promise of secrecy may be not only permissible, but crucial.  The book’s afterword provides further suggestions for filling empty fridges, on an individual and communal level.  The book’s relevance today is a sad statement about the refusal to ensure that all children are cared for, but it at least represents an intelligent and sensitive way to shed light on the problem.

Ready, Set, Anne

Anne: The Chapter Book Collection – adapted by Kallie George, illustrated by Abigail Halpin
Tundra Books, 2025

Anne Dares – adapted by Kallie George, illustrated by Abigail Halpin
Tundra Books, 2023

For fans of Kallie George and Abigail Halpin’s wonderful collaboration in bringing the work of Lucy Maud Montgomery to chapter book readers, Tundra has issued a boxed set of paperback editions.  As you will read on my earlier posts (see here and here and here and here), this series is both an accessible introduction to the original Anne of Green Gables, and each volume a  wonderful illustrated novel that stands on its own merits.  Abigail Halpin’s pictures offer her own perspective on the characters and setting, and Kallie George has succeeded in writing an homage to Montgomery’s vision, not a bland imitation.

In Anne Dares, the bold aspect of Anne Shirley’s personality propels her to take some risks.  These include the physically daring walking on the edge of a fence, as well as the courage to perform in her school’s recital. The fence-walking stunt even requires her to ignore the advice of kindred spirit Diana. Ever conscious of a dramatic situation, Anne assures her friend, “And if I do perish,…you can have my pearl-bead ring.

Her performance involves facing her apparent nemesis, Josie Pye, as well as Gilbert Blythe, the boy whose thoughtless teasing will prove to be a mere mask over his true feelings. Her new puff sleeved dress, a gift from her beloved father figure, Matthew, gives her some of the strength she needs in front of an audience.  The dress is both a cherished article of clothing, as well as a tangible proof of the love that now characterizes her home life, although her initial arrival had provoked skepticism.  On stage, at first “she thought she might faint.” Daring or not, she is still afraid. Fortunately, “she knew she must live up to those puffed sleeves.”  Montgomery’s heroine, re-imagined by Kallie George and Abigail Halpin, lives in two worlds, where undeniable difficulties and dreams of beauty are intertwined.

These Penguins Are Not All Alike

Welcome to the Penguin Cruise: A Seek-and-Find Adventure – written and illustrated by Haluka Nohana
Chronicle Books, 2025

These penguins do not even all dress alike. They are mechanics, explorers, athletes, musicians, and artists. Aboard their adventurous cruise, they have as many different professions as the residents of Celesteville in Babar the King. When the book begins, Chibi the Penguin and his family are about to board ship for a cruise. The magnificent vessel, which opens from the center as a four-page spread, contains every activity possible enroute to a mysterious location. Cutaway images of the ship invite readers inside, as in Richard Scarry’s works or the European wimmelbooks that inspired him and continue to be fascinating to children (see more here).

Look-and-find is a subcategory of these books. Searching for objects and people is entertaining and educational, but the pictures alone just reflect a view of the world as crowded with endlessly interesting experiences. The penguin theme adds a specific dimension. Wearing a variety of outfits over their simple black and white, these creatures read books, watch movies, prepare and eat meals, and pilot a massive ship.

Then the essential Gold Mermaid statuette disappears, offering Haluka Nohana the opportunity to quote Walt Whitman as the Oceano Penguino’s officer is alerted to her disappearance: “O Captain! My Captain!” A stop on Turtle Isle allows passengers to relax on terra firma, and also to search for a mermaid. Subtle overlapping among the pictures, with small differences, calls for careful reading and viewing. The film-watching penguins change in number and position an empty bed has sleeping occupants, the captain is assisted by a crew member. The Fire Dragon adds a magical touch as he interacts with passengers. What exactly is he doing on the cruise?

At the end of the book there is an additional inventory of items to find. But even once located, trips on the Oceano Penguino have not been exhausted. Leaping dolphins, penguin dance parties, and the elusive Phantom Thief Lupenguin merit many turns of the page, with or without mermaids.

Not Just Any Store

Our Corner Grocery Store – written by Joanne Schwartz, illustrated by Laura Beingessner
Tundra Books, 2025

Tundra Books has reissued Joanne Schwartz’s and Laura Beingessner’s classic  picture book, about family and community. Originally published in 2009, this ode from a child’s perspective to her loving grandparents and their unpretentious shop seems instantly familiar. Anna Maria describes her Nonno Domenico and Nonna Rosa’s corner establishment, where the provide every food needed by residents of the town. At the same time, Schwartz’s words and Beingessner’s images almost startle with their simplicity.  The place where Anna Maria helps out is practical and magical. 

Even Anna Maria’s inventory has a poetic sound: “On one side we have the apples, oranges, pears, bananas and strawberries.  On the other side are tomatoes and cucumbers, broccoli and green beans.” (image) Clear organization and aesthetically pleasing display are a testament to the store’s importance.  Anna Maria and Nonno Domenico collaborate on ensuring that everything is in order. Even standing on a crate, Anna Maria does not reach her grandfather’s height, but they are coequal partners in quality control.

Detail defines Beingessner’s illustrations, along with careful composition and bright colors.  Anna Maria is precise in her descriptions. She traces her steps: “There are only two short aisles in our corner grocery store. When I come inside, I have to close the boor before I can get to the counter.” An adult might minimize the need to establish scale this way, but to a child it matters. The bottom of the page with text sets out several small items, including a box of paints and a slice of pizza.  On the facing page, the store becomes a cutaway doll house, with each room individually constructed. You will want to look at this page for a long time, noticing the floral upholstery on the armchair, Nonna in her green dress making coffee, and the incredible array of miniature products juxtaposed on their shelf. 

Children use metaphor without self-consciousness.  To Anna Maria, baguettes resemble swords and cornbread “looks like big, flat stones.” When her friend Charlie visits, both children become artists, drawing with chalk on the sidewalk in a kind of meta reference to the illustrator’s work. (image).  A pirate and a girl seem to be self-portraits, proudly signed by the painters. Of course, the neighborhood children are valued customers, treated with respect by the proprietors.

They order their sandwiches with specific requests, “’Provolone, please,’ someone calls. ‘Mortadella and Havarti for me,’ somebody else says.” Observing the cold cuts and cheese passing through the slicing machine is part of the process.   Soon, separate components are transformed by Nonno into an unforgettable sandwich. It’s almost a theatrical production, and even the cat is intrigued.

Every picture in the book stands alone as a work of art, and also advances the building of characters.  The delicious smells filling the store attract customers, who ask Nonno what dish Nonna is cooking. He recites the recipe, and then completes his expression of love, raising his fingers to his lips and kissing them. A visual timeline of the stuffed mushrooms’ creation appears on the facing page.  The entire book is delizioso.

Lunch Matters

I Like Cheese! (A Kat and Mouse Book)– written and illustrated by Salina Yoon
Bloomsbury Children’s Books, 2025

Sharing and comparing lunch may be important for children, or for cats and mice playing the role of children.  In Salina Yoon’s universe, animals are particularly sensitive and believable stand-ins for humans. (for example, a penguin and an octopus or an elephant). In this brightly colored graphic novel, Kat and Mouse compare lunches; one of them has seemingly higher culinary standards than the other. Will this affect their friendship? 

While I can’t call it an homage to Russell Hoban and Lillian Hoban’s Bread and Jam for Frances, it’s impossible to read Yoon’s book without that classic in mind.  Debbi Michiko Florence wrote her own version of lunchtime differences in Jasmine Toguchi, Mochi Queen.  In Yoon’s wonderful picture book about beginning school, Bear’s Big Day, the title character is unable to touch his lunchbox because of anxiety over the new experience.

When they meet for lunch, Mouse simply brings “only the best food there is!” Mouse brings that food—cheese—in a no-frills lunchbox, while Kat’s stupendous meal overflows from a family-sized basket.  Every day she brings a different creation, from a sub sandwich that takes up two pages, as well as another two with its name surrounded by Broadway lights. Nevertheless, Mouse is completely secure in his choice, even describing its subtlety, “sweet and savory, but still mild, with a hint of nuttiness – a true delight!”

While there is no overt competitiveness damaging their friendship, gradually Kat becomes curious. Then, Mouse starts to question his own uninterrupted happiness with cheese. Could he actually be boring? Kat even suggests a trial separation.  Not surprisingly for adults, this drastic experiment is unnecessary. Young readers will be reassured about different tastes coexisting, and even strengthening friendship. (as is also the point of It Is Okay by Ye Guo).  Yoon always succeeds in leavening her appealing books with an unobtrusive message. If eating alone leaves you gloomy, and bluer than blue cheese itself, it may be time to reconsider what matters.

Invitation to a Voyage

Journey of the Humpbacks – written by Juliana Muñoz Toro, illustrated by Dipacho, translated from the Spanish by Lawrence Schimel
Eerdmans Books for Young Readers, 2025

Although this fabulous informational book about humpback whales has not relation to Baudelaire’s poem, “L’invitation au voyage,” I could not help thinking of its title and famous refrain when I turned the first page.  The author states her purpose: “This is an invitation for us to go on a journey. We don’t need a backpack or shoes. Just our eyes wide open.” Every book fits this description. By framing the experience of reading this way, Juliana Muñoz Toro raises expectations and meets them. Baudelaire invites readers to encounter a world where “Là, tout n’est qu’ordre et beauté,/Luxe, calme et volupté,” (“There, there is nothing but order and beauty,/Richness, calm and beauty.”) Instead of dream world, Muñoz Toro, and illustrator Dipacho, extend an invitation to the natural order and beauty of the environment.  Science books for young readers need not omit a sense of wonder.

I won’t try to summarize the wealth of information in this book about the often misunderstood sea mammal, the humpback whale, otherwise known as Megaptera novaiangliae. Did you know that its Latin name means “giant-winged New Englanders?” Probably not, even though you may associate whales with New England, where this one was originally sighted by Europeans.  To orient you on your journey, Dipacho’s elegant graphics, paired with captions, text boxes, and color judiciously added to black-and-white.  Some of the questions even present the answer upside down, adding the sense of a game.  To help you envision scale, a parade of Emperor Penguins sits atop the huge creature, whose principal features are carefully labeled.

If you come to the book with some basic knowledge of humpback whales, you will still learn a great deal. Nothing is necessarily obvious, including the basic fact that every part of the environment is related to one another. “Nothing that happens in the water does so in isolation.”  “Lunch time” involves a nutrients provided by algae, sardines, and krill.

The pictures are meticulously accurate, but also personify the whales a bit, with their balletic movements that seem almost joyful.  Referring to the segments of their day as “nap time, “ “time for adventures,” and, of course, “time to breathe,” sets a tone of familiarity, but also awe: “The breathing of humpback whales is long and deliberate, as if they were meditating.” Note the phrase “as if.” 

When people appear, they are comically observant, watching the whales and taking notes of what they see. Here Dipacho presents richer colors than in the extensive factual scenes, as he brings humans into the picture.  They are important and provide perspective, but they don’t compromise the whales’ starring role. In fact, a wonderful two-page spread categorizing the baleen whale family (image) identifies the humpback, with a touch of humor, as “the protagonist of this book.”  Another concise and complete section on the whale’s reproductive life is, again, accurate and also performative.

Steps numbered in sequence give the facts and also allow the reader to draw her own conclusions. “She alone will take care of her offspring.” The “Have You Wondered” section reveals how a calf learns to identify its mother.  The book’s backmatter declares that it was created by “a team of people who love whales.” By this point, you will not have any doubt of that essential fact.

Listen Carefully

Sound: Discovering the Vibrations We Hear – written and illustrated by Olga Fadeeva, translated from the Russian by Lena Traer
Eerdmans Books for Young Readers, 2025

Imagine for a moment that you are about to pick up a children’s book explaining the physics of sound. How do we hear and transmit noises? Then being to page through it, noticing that the illustrations, in acrylic paint and water, would be worth the proverbial price of admission. Then, as you begin to read, you realize that the ambitions behind this project go way beyond the scope of what you had anticipated. Author and artist Olga Fadeeva has produced an information-rich picture book that moves among physics, biology, history both distant and recent, spoken and signed languages, culture from music to architecture, and technology. That list is still incomplete.

Sound requires careful attention and rewards it on every level.  Opening the book, we see a mother cradling a baby; this is the setting for how we first experience sound. Then, we enter a kitchen, the familiar setting for objects emitting noises, so ordinary that we might ignore them: a boiling teakettle, a clock, a phone, a pot of soup. There is no division between the informational and artistic components of this picture, or in any other section of the book.  Aware of how attention is naturally segmented, Fadeeva places her intriguing introductory premise in a rhombus that is actually in inside of an open window. The metaphor is perfect. A window is opening onto the meaning of sound.

Some pages use different sizes and colors of font, and have captions, as well as words that are sound effects framing the text. There are carefully employed graphics, such as a line indicating the intensity of decibels, or the organs of hearing and speaking labeled and described. The progression among topics is not frenetic; every idea is clearly linked to the ones preceding and following.  While Fadeeva cannot anticipate every question about sound, there are many common sources of wonder that are clarified. How do bats hear? What are some common birdcalls?  What is distinctive about underwater sounds?

There are other angles from which to explore sound and Fadeeva credits young readers with the curiosity to include them. She actively engages them with invitations to consider different contexts.  What was sound like in prehistory? How did the audience hear in the amphitheaters of the ancient world? (images). Medieval music makes an appearance, visualized with the excitement of charging knights and the lovely concert of flute, timbrel, bagpipe, and lute. Musical notation has its own pages. Even if children have never read music, they will be drawn in by the basic premise: “How can you write down music on a page – and turn it back into sound?” Glamorous performers and intricate pages of notes give the effect of collage. Pages on recording sound includes images of antique devices, and the question of “How do you fill the world with sound?” is followed by a concise but detailed answer superimposed on a dial telephone. Even the cord is covered with words.

The concluding endpapers feature brightly colored pictures and instructions for experiments.  Even after this incredible excursion into the world of sound, children may still want to fill a plastic bottle with buttons or beans, and create an orchestra.  Sound is an intricate and engaging performance for children and adult audiences.