Tag: fiction

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.

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.

In the Pocket

The Newest Gnome – written and illustrated by Lauren Soloy
Tundra Books, 2025

The Pocket is where the gnomes live, in Lauren Soloy’s remarkable universe of small creatures dedicated to choosing hats, telling stories, and generally explaining and appreciating the world. I was impressed with the first gnome book, The Hidden World of Gnomes, and I’m thrilled that Soloy and Tundra believed in them, and that they merited a second look (I’m also a fan of Soloy’s other work, as you can see here and here and here).  Although the gnome books are rooted in tradition and folklore, they are also new and singular.

When the book begins, the existing gnomes, including Cob Tiggy, Twiggy Dell, Minoletta, and Beatrix Nut, are about to welcome a newcomer to the Pocket.  These creatures, whose names evoke both Beatrix Potter and a kind of cosmopolitan flare (Minoletta, Hotchi-Mossy), need to meet in their mushroom circle to discuss the latest Pocket resident. When Grolly Maru arrives, they sense the need for reassurance, similar to Winnie the Pooh’s helpful and sustaining words: “Everything will be all right.”

After a good night’s sleep under the mushrooms, the gnomes will be prepared to teach Grolly Maru essential skills. As in Babar’s Celesteville, every inhabitant has a specific job and role to play. When Grolly Maru expresses concern that the changing moon may eventually disappear, does this reflect and anxious personality, or just a basic lack of familiarity with the environment?  It’s up to the reader to decide, but since Abel Potter shows Grolly Maru other round and spherical items from nature, it doesn’t matter.

The pictures feature gnomes interacting with one another, along with close-ups of objects that fill their lives: dandelions, yarrow, marbles, ants, and suggested exercises.  There is a recipe for Bonnie Plum’s baked apple with blackberries, which, considering the scale of gnome to ingredients requires both hardware and strength.  The gnomes are artisans, designing grass baskets: “It’s not as easy as it looks!” (Who would expect it to be easy?). Their overarching purpose is constant fidelity to the idea that each individual is unique, but that we are all part of something greater. Lauren Soloy’s artistic vision is fully realized, in a universe of beauty and comfort, populated by small beings with great wisdom.

Sisters You Won’t Forget

Stella & Marigold: Mermaids and Mix-Ups – written by. Annie Barrows, illustrated by Sophie Blackall
Chronicle Books, 2025

The second volume in Annie Barrows and Sophie Blackall’s series about an unforgettable pair of sisters continues their adventures, and the development of their relationship. Stella & Marigold established that their closeness, characterized by both unrelenting love and occasional friction, was as believably narrated as Beverly Cleary’s Ramona books (astute readers of my blog will recognize that its title derives from a quote in Ramona the Brave.) The outward similarities between the two series are not superficial, but rather are based on the way which both sets of books communicate how it feels to be a child, without a touch of condescension. Both also invite adults to identify with characters, whether by remembering their childhood or following along as Stella and Marigold’s parents, teachers, and grownup friends, who also propel the plot. (I reviewed the first Stella & Marigold book here.)

Each chapter may be read independently, but are interconnected. The book begins with a gift which the sisters receive from their Aunt Judy. Like many of her gifts, this one turns out to be a Trojan horse. A sparkly purple covered diary with high-pressure demand to record “Me and My Besties! Our Secrets, Our Faves, Our Fun!” sets Stella and Marigold on a series of attempts to find friends worthy to fill in the blanks. Even though this involves some distress, it eventually leads to an understanding of friendship and empathy, minus the high-stakes categories.

In “Snow, Snow, Snow!” Stella tries to win the friendship of a classmate by using mind control to ensure a snowstorm. When their teacher, Mr. Banagal, intends to dissuade the children by calling this “magical thinking,” Barrows reveals how differently adults and children sometimes interpret reality. His phrase has the opposite result. After all, what else could magical thinking be but “encouraging?” Adults will read this passage with recognition, but not a sense of superiority unless they don’t remember what it felt like to fruitfully “misinterpret” adult’s language. Barrows does employ a little bit of gentle humor at adults’ expense when Teacher Kaitlin carefully avoids direct praise of Marigold’s artwork, instead focusing on one quality:

“Wow, your picture is so detailed”…She always said things like that. Never, “Your picture is great…the best I ever saw.”

Blackall’s pictures feature her ability to convey a character’s feelings with slight alterations of their features. (I reviewed another of her books here.) A range of crayon-box colors, and careful composition of images against white background, give every page of the book its own impact. Stella and Marigold sit across from one another at a table, as they collaborate on coping with the diary. Marigold desperately tries to get her father’s attention when he is absorbed in his work; his temporary rejection leaves her curled into a question mark, embodying her feelings about why his priorities would be so misplaced.

There are so many series about girls and their friendships; many of these are terrific. Stella & Marigold fits securely into the category of classic.

A Bridge to Somewhere

Late Today – written by Jungyoon Huh, illustrated by Myungae Lee, translated from the Korean by Aerin Park
Eerdmans Books for Young Readers, 2025

The opening endpapers of Late Today show an overcast sky. The following two pages feature the consequence, a bridge accompanied by the warning that “Morning rush hour traffic is congested all over Seoul,” with the report’s words alternating in word of the report alternating in level relative to the image.  The title page shows an adorable kitten with golden brown eyes that match the lid of the carton which has become her bed. Readers join the traffic jam and the rescue mission.

Jungyoon Huh’s minimalist text (ably translated by Aerin Park) conveys just exactly the amount of information needed.  Myungae Lee’s illustrations, rendered in colored pencils and oil pastels, combine black and white scenes, graphic novel panels, and earth and jewel tones against white background. They are beautiful in their simplicity, but also convey motion, sense impressions, and the imminent threat of losing a kitten on a traffic-clogged bridge.  The black font ranges in size, with some pages reminding me of the lettering used in Margaret Wise Brown and Leonard Weisgard’s The Noisy Book, and sequels. (The Winter Noisy Book is illustrated by Charles G. Shaw.)

Public transportation passengers, each in isolation, express their own thoughts about the danger, and their appropriate response to the kitten’s plight.  Parents and caregivers sharing the book with children will want to discuss all the implications of these natural, but possibly inadequate, emotions: “Why is no one helping out,” “Too heartbreaking to see. I’ll just look away,” and Oh no…what should I do?” One incredible two-page spread is a bird’s eye view of the vehicles, each one inadvertently threatening the tiny kitten weaving between them. The text is enclosed in a rectangle similar in size to the vehicles themselves, the words visualizing the ominous situation.

Cinematic techniques dedicate to full pages to a darkening storm, and another two to pelting raindrops.  Readers pause and take a deep breath. Then, a driver rescues the kitten, his or her hands cradling the animal in a gesture of human kindness. Someone has intervened at exactly the right moment. The cars and buses move. Everyone is relieved.  Being late is sometimes exactly right.

The Year Is a Circle

Lights at Night – written by Tasha Hilderman, illustrated by Maggie Zeng
Tundra Books 2025

There are two families observing the rhythms of the year in Lights at Night. One is human and the other canine, specifically foxes.  Dream-like images with changing shades of color include realistic details, both natural and cultural.  Children experience the wonder, but also the reassurance, of the four seasons and their special features, from football in autumn to storms in spring. While the fox family does not kindle holiday lights around the time of the winter solstice, they also appear to respond to the changes.  Tasha Hilderman’s soothing poetic text complements Maggie Zeng’s visual immersion in the excitement of one year. Children find joy, not boredom, in the repetition of familiar events.

A powerful storm is just unsettling enough to make the shelter of home more of a comfort.  Crayon drawn strikes of lightening emanate from a house, enclosed in a photograph, and also cross its border.  Inside, a strong of lights and beds configured as tents add the sense of drama that children like. Note the plush fox in a small sleeping bag. The fox family lacks the domestic props, but is just as attuned to the environmental changes. Of course, animals’ lives are more closely defined by the seasons. In spring, “new babies arrive with the stars.”

Campfires come in summer; riding the bus to school and harvesting wheat are tied to autumn. One of my favorite images in the book is a natural and unobtrusive celebration of multicultural holidays.  Christmas trees, Diwali lights, a Muslim family welcoming visitors, and a Kwanzaa lamp grace the neighborhood, along with a Jewish family’s observance of Chanukah. If you look closely, you will see that the correctly depicted nine branch chanukiyah (menorah) has its candle farthest to the left partly obscured by the window frame.  This is not an error, just a small visual element lending authenticity to the way in which someone placed the lights, which must be visible from the outside.

At the end of the book, the two children share an album and a box of crayons. The volume is open to the photo with lightning, enhanced by the children’s artwork. The actual fox looks up the moon.