Tag: writing

Fairies Have Problems, Too

Tiny Jenny: Little Fairy, Big Trouble – written and illustrated by Briony May Smith
Anne Schwartz Books, 2024

Briony May Smith‘s Jenny is a changeling, a fairy hatched from a wren’s egg, much to the family’s surprise. She has no wings, sort of like the reverse of Horton’s long-anticipated newborn in Horton Hatches the Egg. Like Hans Christian Andersen’s Thumbelina, she has to navigate her way through a dangerous world.  There are many lovely books about fairies who have a range of origins and play a variety of roles (see my reviews here and here and here).  The wrens name her Tiny Jenny and dedicate themselves to raising her, but perhaps not thinking through all the potential problems.

Wrens can fly, but wingless Jenny cannot. She manages pretty well, finding stems and brambles to eat, and even decorating her friend the hedgehog with leaves. Not every part of her day concerns survival.  One day, Jenny overhears some of her woodland friends, or least creatures she had thought were her friends, talking about her.  It isn’t pretty.  They find her most endearing traits to be annoying. When a wise owl uses his renowned quality to point out that she is not a wren, but a fairy, he also encourages her to go out and find some of her own kind to prove her true identity. She stumbles into a fairy ring, an action generally associated with bad results, at least for non-fairies.  She is pictured among a circle of oversized, from her point of view, mushrooms, as she looks up quizzically. All of a sudden Tiny Jenny finds herself surrounded by fairies. There are boy and girl fairies, ones in flowing dresses and others in trousers.  They move effortlessly because, unlike Jenny, they have wings. These fairies are not so nice. They prod her skeptically. Merletta, their queen, extends her hand to Jenny for the required kiss. Naturally, “Tiny Jenny stared at her blankly.” One fairy actually smirks at Jenny’s confusion, and her lack of wings.

The solution to her problem seems imminent, as Queen Merlette assures Jenny that she only needs wings in order to complete her fairy transformation.  Then come those ominous fairy tale words: “But first you must prove yourself worthy.” What follows is a kind of mild fairy hazing.  Jenny is relegated to the back of the line of fairies wielding wild garlic and bluebells. Disillusionment follows, as Jenny learns that fairies are not nearly as nice as wrens. Instead of foraging for food, they steal. Queen Merletta is a proto-dictator, calling out commands to “ATTACK.” When they inform Jenny that she has passed their test, she responds with the self-assurance rooted in the unconditional love of her wren parents. “No, I don’t want to be a fairy,…You’re mean, you’re bullies.” Jenny doesn’t care about getting wings anymore. Soon she is home, eating mushrooms, and sleeping in her nest, while reserving the right to occasionally be restive and annoying. There’s no place like home.

Up to the Highest Heights

A Year of Kites: Traditions Around the World – written by Monisha Bajaj, illustrated by Amber Ren
Bloomsbury Children’s Books, 2026

A Year of Kites is a wonderful picture book whose unusual subject matter is matched by its quality. Children, and adults, find the ideas of kites appealing. They start as paper, string, and other materials. With some human ingenuity they take flight, without passengers, all on their own.  Readers may be familiar with some cultural expressions of kites, but this book presents detailed information about much less familiar examples of these beautiful airborne structures. A simple premise introduces the story: “Kites have been flown for nearly 3,000 years by people all over the world.” Each subsequent two-page spread features a fictional child from one of these places, including India, Afghanistan, China, New Zealand, and many more. There are brief descriptions of the festivals that include kite flying, as well as invented personal details. (In New Zealand, Kaia includes a secret message for her grandmother on the inside of her kite.).

Some of the celebrations may complement those that are better known outside of their own cultures. The festival of Diwali may resonate with readers who have never heard of Uttarayan, marking the end of winter with colorful kites, particularly in Gujarat. Lunar New Year evokes images of Chinese kites, and the koi-shaped kites created in Japan are also popular. The sections on these holidays offer background information as a necessary context for the aesthetic appeal of these kites. The fact that Cape Town, South Africa, hosts the largest international event surrounding kites deserves the same level of attention.  There are even workshops that teach the craft, and prizes awarded for excellence.

Monisha Bajaj’s text reflects the way that children connect information and personalized characters in learning.  Amber Wen’s softly colored images of children show an international cast as similar to one another in their expressions of delight, but distinctive in customs.  A culminating image brings together these citizens of the world (image) as they let loose their butterflies, fish, and geometric forms into the sky.

The Show Must Go On

Sparkles, No Sparkles – written and illustrated by Shannon McNeill
Tundra Books, 2024

Sparkles, No Sparkles has the same underlying premise as Shannon McNeill’s earlier picture book, Wheels, No Wheels. Children categorize objects and experiences somewhat differently than adults do.  While wheels are functional, sparkles are decorative. But you may need them to put on a show.  When some sparkle-free species decide they would like to enhance their appearance with sparkles, they appropriate them from a theater. An usher becomes involved, even though stopping animals from stealing props had not been part of his job.

Young readers will share the usher’s confusion, and frustration. After all, he’s right. “For real, animals. Don’t steal!” The animals claim to be only borrowing the sparkles. A frog wearing a cape, a dog bearing a crown, and a pigeon striding in boots, are all excited to be part of a show. The usher would like to break out of his role and participate, too, but, as is often the case, his boss would never allow this sign of freedom.

McNeill’s pictures are filled with subdued colors and jewel tones. The presence of sparkles is actually rather understated.  When the usher eventually gets his sparkles, he is reminiscent of a little boy in a Maurice Sendak book, making a gracious gesture as he breaks free of adult constraints.  The curtain rises, and the usher is part of a proud cast. A zebra, flamingo, and dog dance in line while the purple-caped frog croons into a microphone. “Look, and LOOK and LOOK at us! they demand, as children will.There is a moment of tension when the actual professionals realize that their props, sparkles included, are missing.  These items are still making the rounds, but eventually they return, in a blaze of sparkly fireworks.  Sparkles are an unlimited quantity in this ode to unbridled creativity.

Not a Hutch or Burrow

Welcome to the Rabbit Residence: A Seek-and-Find Story – written and illustrated by Haluka Nohana
Chronicle Books, 2026

Following her earlier book about animals having fun while living in detailed habitats, author and artist Haluka Nohana has now invited readers to a rabbit residence full of activity. Even early in the morning, there’s a lot going on, even if not everyone is awake. Each room is a complete picture in itself, but the sum total of the cutaway house is a collective delight. The endpapers introduce the rabbits residing in the house. There are bakers, a wizard, a painter, a dinosaur keeper, a band, and many other essential professions. There are quintuplets, not so unusual for rabbits, a clockmaker for an old-fashioned touch, and a sleepy rabbit holding a blanket. He must be too young to have a job.  There is a four-page fold-out spread with text and a full view of the house, and subsequent pictures describe the action, and the text suggests indirectly that reader might want to look for a particular rabbit pastime. “Composer Rabbit plays the piano. – plink, plonk.” Some of the onomatopoeia seems as if it might be taken directly from the original text in Japanese, which adds an intriguing note: “Meanwhile, Painter Rabbit is painting, peta, peta.” The sounds connected to rabbit tailoring are “choki, choki.”

It’s easy to make rabbits appear cute, but these are quite distinctive, even within that category.  They are rounded and fluffy, a bit similar to Moomins. Lots of accessories, as well as brushstrokes denoting movement, add to their strangely realistic appeal. A rabbit exercising seems to have fallen and is seeing stars.  A dinosaur with a long neck, maybe an apatosaurus, leans down into the room below to offer a plant to a clockmaker. There is some ambiguity in these scenes, including magic involving a genie rabbit, whose swirling body may or may not be related to the waft of fragrant steam emanating from the kitchen. A mildly dissonant picture shows an almost empty house, framed by the question, “Wait! Nobunny’s home! Where did all the rabbit residents go?” The rooms appear different without all the busy rabbits.  Books are strewn about the library.  A lone telescope has no astronomer, and the magician’s studio shows an empty hat and a cauldron at mid-stir. It turns out that this swanky building has a rooftop open for a party, with all the familiar tenants as well as the light of shooting stars.

Into the Woods

Camp Monster – written by Kate Messner, illustrated by Falynn Koch
Bloomsbury Children’s Books, 2026

Too many people, not enough yetis. At least that seems to be the problem when Tasha’s parents decide to re-launch the summer camp that had served their species.  Only by welcoming a more diverse group of monsters will they have a chance of success.  Tasha describes this dilemma in a letter to her Gramp Abominable. She is consumed with excitement about sharing the experience of his own youth, even with her mother’s ominous warning about humans lurking in the woods, ready to spoil their fun. Kate Messner and Falynn Koch’s graphic novel about a camp populated by yetis, goblins, vampires, and griffins describes everyone enjoying a harmonious time together.  Not really.

The prominently displayed Code of Conduct for arriving campers lists some familiar dos and don’ts, along with other prohibitions, such as “No turning your fellow campers into frogs or anything,” and the seemingly aspirational, “We treat one another with respect at Camp Monster.”  The swim instructor is a mermaid, which certainly sounds more promising than Ms. Sphinx, the cafeteria manager.  Imagine having to answer a riddle, with dangerous consequences, before you can eat. 

Interspersed with comic strip and word bubble pages are profiles of campers and letters home.  The expectation that everyone would get along turns out to be unrealistic, what with goblins creating a robotic monster out of spare parts, and Lupo undergoing weird metamorphoses.  Isabelle, an ogre with an artistic soul, has a countercultural preference for the feminine term, “ogress,” which “sounds much more elegant.”  She hates sleeping in a rustic cabin, but is convinced that the lead role in the camp musical will be awarded to her.

There are some restrictions on projects in Maker Space: no magic allowed. But the camp librarian, Manny, has a well-stocked literary treasure house of classics such as If You Give a Monster a Cookie, One Ogre, Two Ogre, Red Ogre, Blue Ogre, and The Very Hungry Cyclops, with remarkably familiar cover art.  When swimming lessons seem unfairly biased against the more aquatically challenged monsters, the instructor decides to accommodate everyone, defining success according to effort. 

There is a point at the center of all the fun.  Humans, or least evidence that suggests their presence in the woods, become a frightening possibility.  No one is sure, but where there are horse’s hoof prints and candy wrappers, can humans be far behind?  When the terrified campers decide to build a wall, and force the alleged humans to pay for its construction, Tasha the warm-hearted yeti points out that walls are “ineffective.” Some monsters have more common sense than others.  There are some surprises in the plot, and humor for both young readers and adults.  Summer camp can be a time for relaxation and growth, as well as fear mongering and terror.  At the end of the first session, there are some loose ends, but also campers who are eager to return.

One Person, One Character, One Goal

Little Monk Writes Rain – written and illustrated by Hsu-Kung Liu, translated by Rachel Wāng Yῠng-Hsín
Eerdmans Books for Young Readers, 2026

This exceptionally beautiful and gently philosophical picture book is about a Buddhist monk who has difficulty learning written language, with the exception of one Chinese character. He is singularly focused on writing the character for “rain,” and this limited but powerful ability persists throughout all the onslaughts, as well as the peaceful times, of his life. The book opens vertically, like a writing tablet.  Delicate watercolor and ink drawings reflect traditional art, without mere imitation.  When the book begins, the character is a young boy. Of course, character has two meanings here, an individual human and a symbol for written expression. 

He first appears at the monastery in a tiny woven basket; as he grows, he is integrated into the community of prayer and manual labor, as well as reading and writing. For better or worse, he is not completely isolated from the outside world.  A mention of casual cruelty makes this clear, because “Little Monk is not able to learn to read. And sometimes, other people laugh at him.” Those people are shown as children peering through a doorway. One has a bird on his head, an allusion to innocence, or perhaps of something worse. That oddly positioned bird may point do a different and less excusable deficiency, lack of empathy.

Suddenly, “for some unknown reason,” it begins to rain incessantly. Joining an older monk indoors, the little monk learns to write the character for rain. After introduction of the character, whenever it appears in the book, it is simply left standing without any guide to pronunciation.  The reader may choose to read the character as “rain,” or to research how to pronounce it and attempt to do so. This seems a deliberate feature of the book, given that the nature of language, at least as people use it every day, is as framed by “some unknown reason” as the rain itself.

As in a fairy tale, the hero persists against adversity. Every day he performs his work tasks, but also writes the one character he has been able to master. Over the years, he grows up, becoming “Big Monk,” but his inner character remains unchanged. Then the environment suffers a reversal, and a drought threatens the world.  The monks take responsibility for leading others in prayers to end the drought. They are well-equipped and organized, “taking their Buddhist beads and prayer books to help folks appeal to the heavens.” There is no sense of superiority in their actions. Meanwhile, Big Monk also prepares, by gathering together his impressive collection of calligraphy, all consisting of the one character for rain..

A vertical two pace spread is a magnificent scene washed in red and gold, of a plaza where ordinary “folks” pray while important men and “splendid altars” dazzle. “Even the Emperor is here.” When the monks arrive, they also appear important to the reader, wearing their crown-like broad hats and bearing their sacred scrolls. But their clothes are “shabby.” In folklore, many times the high and mighty are brought low by their sense of self-importance. At first the monks are unable to respond, feeling faint and weakened by the intense heat. But, seeing the distinguished shifu, for all their knowledge, reduced to angry and petty squabbling, they gather to pray. Big Monk cannot read the prayers, but opens his basket of rain characters and is “flooded with memories.”

Now the monk has a biography. He remembers a conversation overheard long ago. He learned that he was an orphan who had been brought to the monastery. At the age of five, he began to learn writing. His teacher, originally a child, grew old, and the died. The cruelty mentioned earlier in the book intensifies in his memories, as he is “pelted with rocks.” All his thoughts of the past, and all his distinctive qualities, together form a response. He offers his sheets of writing to the heavens and the rain begins. An “ecstatic” crowd of people personifies the rain, elevated above the rain drops with joy.

Little Monk Writes Rain does not use the word “dyslexia.” An afterword, as thoughtful in tone as the rest of the book, explains that some people have difficulties learning to read. Hsu-Kung Liu presents thoughts and questions about the relationship between pictures, words, and the stories that they record. He reminds readers that sometimes “one word means everything.” Of course, those readers may be either children or adults. This remarkable book is a work of art, and a bridge to understanding life itself.

Instructional Jam

How Not to Make a Jelly Sandwich – written and illustrated by Ross Burach
Scholastic Press, 2026

There are an endless number of projects that demand instructions for adult readers. For children, some of these may seem quite pointless. Ross Burach’s How Not to Make a Jelly Sandwich gets right to the point, providing clear guidelines for the preparation of a culinary favorite. There is not even any peanut butter here, just jelly, apparently grape or maybe strawberry. There is a determined little girl, and some animals to help.

Starting from the beginning, she draws plans on an architect’s planning board. Nothing will be taken for granted. There are only “five simple steps,” cutting out grownup nonsense about specialized qualities of the ingredients. She begins with a trip to the supermarket, where she purchases scuba diving equipment and bread, distributing the latter to some ducks in a pond. The series of detours in making a sandwich are a kind of parody of self-important instructional literature. For kids, they are just funny.

The next step is bathing a dog (other children’s authors have also handled the pet-bathing conundrum), followed by directing a medieval pageant. It may seem like a digression, but the dog’s tail will become a jam knife. Here is where spectacle becomes part of the sandwich preparation, involving placing bread and jelly on the tips of the knights’ lances. Since cultivating the right attitude is often considered essential, the girl uses positive reinforcement with hamsters, who will employ their unicycles to cut the sandwich in half. Seemingly useless activities often have an ultimate goal, especially to children.

The reward for all of these focused series of actions is a jelly-sandwich eating event, including everyone who has helped, or temporarily hindered, the sandwich construction. Returning to the title, with its “Not” inserted between “How” and “to,” according to the author information on the back cover, the author is having ironic fun with a typical school assignment. How much room for creativity is available when listing instructions on demand? Backmatter offers some more unorthodox suggestions for sandwich prep, and children will undoubtedly come up with more.

Starring Cecilia

The Curious Life of Cecilia Payne – written by Laura Alary, illustrated by Yas Imamura
Eerdmans Books for Young Readers, 2026

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin: her name has the ring of poetry.  Before she married Russian scientist Sergei Gaposchkin, she was Cecilia Payne, a brilliant and curious young woman born in the U.K., who later emigrated to the U.S. to pursue studies at Harvard.  In Laura Alary and Yas Imamura’s picture book biography (I previously reviewed an Imamura book here), Cecilia Payne’s intellectual gifts and incredible persistence pave the way to her unlikely success as an astrophysicist in an era when women confronted almost insurmountable obstacles.  The adjective of the title refers both to Payne’s inquiring mind, and to the way that her distinguished career evolved.

The book begins with a significant statement: “When she was eight years old, Cecilia Payne discovered she was a scientist.” Alary asserts that Cecilia knew this essential fact, not merely an aspiration, about herself.  Yet she begins at ground level, only later pursuing the stars. At first, Cecilia notices a bee orchid, a flower that, according to her mother, did not grow in England.  The scientific method begins to form in her mind, like the bee enclosed in this flower.  She continues to examine the flower, but also promises herself that she will not allow herself to become discouraged by resistance to her ideas.

The qualities that drew Cecilia to the study of nature contrast with the social expectations surrounding her.  When other children see “twinkling diamonds” in the heavens, she is compelled to determine the actual substance and origin of these beautiful visions.Fortunately, a teacher promotes Cecilia’s scientific literacy, but she encounters setbacks when her family moves to London, where, in a new school,  she is isolated by her singular love of knowledge. Imamura’s picture captures both this potentially destructive social deficit, as well as Cecilia’s healthy response. Seated at her desk, she is the only girl looking, not distracted, but intently focused. A group of girls observe her drawing natural objects, but their apparent disapproval cannot dissuade Cecilia from her purpose.

If childhood disdain is difficult, the adult version can be even worse. Arriving at Cambridge University, Payne is thrilled to be in the midst of possibilities.  Knowledge is not limited to what is immediately visible.  Against a background of male profiles, Imamura envisions a young woman who believes herself to be part of this world, but problems will emerge. Soon she be observing the skies with a telescope, but on the planet earth, men make the rules.  Forced to sit by herself in a lecture hall filled with arrogant male scholars, Payne’s determination is forged even further by adversity. Imamura’s quiet depiction of this scene is free of overt drama, but clearly sends a message about the reality that Payne will repeatedly confront.

Arriving at Harvard, Payne finds both the proverbial room of one’s own, and the support of other women scientists, but also, a thick layer of disdain beneath the hypocritical veneer of hypocrisy.  Imamura’s vision of this phenomenon is perfect. Attempting to explain to her male colleagues her revolutionary hypothesis about the true substance of stars, she is subjected to Harvard mansplaining. One distinguished perpetrator smokes his pipe and looks away, as if her ideas don’t even merit attention. Another stares into a book, while a third, gesturing with his hands for emphasis, informs her that she is wrong. In a later scene of understated triumph, Payne engages with her students, encouraging their questions and treating them with respect.

There are many excellent picture books about women in the sciences (for example, I have previously reviewed biographies of Emmy Noether, Lise Meitner, and Rosalind Franklin).  Brilliance and determination are not always enough to assure fairness.  The detailed backmatter of The Curious Life of Cecilia Payne  offers clarification about her life, times, and successful career, with Imamura’s beautiful illustrations complementing the information, as it does everywhere in this outstanding and inspiring book. 

More Books for Purim

Today I Am a Hamantasch: A Poem for Purim – written and illustrated by Varda Livney
PJ Library, 2026

Purim Possibilities – written by Barbara Kimmel, illustrated by Irina Avgustinovich
PJ Library, 2026

In addition to the Purim board book I reviewed last week, here are two more Purim board books, all from PJ Library; these emphasize the flexibility of who you are on the holiday of Purim. Today I Am a Hamantasch is small, square, scaled to young children’s hands. They may have different ideas for Purim costumes, changing their minds several times before their final decision.

The child in the book is actually a rotating cast of animals: bunny, mouse, cat. She begins as the iconic three-cornered pastry, and then becomes a tree. The sequence seems random. There are cut-out holes on several pages through which the reader can see the animals changing costumes. Queen Esther, of course, is lovely in her pink dress, crown, and proud six-pointed star scepter. There is an interlude, where the bunny decides to just be herself, wearing overalls. Then back to the costumes. The mermaid, again, is a not derived from the Purim story, but the grogger, a noisemaker activated every time the villain, Haman’s, name is mentioned, is key to the Megillat Esther. Back to a cupcake, and to a kitten happy to be herself. If you feel dizzy reading it, that’s to be expected. Purim as a day when norms are reversed, but, finally, the holiday ends and “we’ll all be back to normal.” That’s a relief, maybe.

Purim Possibilities also emphasizes the freedom of temporary change. It begins with a lively scene of the Megillat Esther reading, with the scroll unrolled and held at each end by a young girl. Then we experience the same series of choices, but this time the protagonist is identifiably human. She may impersonate a train engineer, a robot, a superhero, or a baker. Then again, Queen Esther is as heroic as may be imagined, fearless in her glittery outfit. Artistic creativity is part of the story, with colored pencils available to sketch the costumes. Finally, the young artist decides on an eclectic combination of elements. Sometimes you don’t have to make a choice. The book concludes with a selection of outfits as reusable stickers, to be removed from a closet and placed on the girl. Anything seems possible in these two books.

Seasons of Words

Poems for Every Season: A Year of Haiku, Sonnets, and More – written by Bette Westera, illustrated by Henriette Boerendans, translated from the Dutch by David Colmer
Eerdmans Books for Young Readers, 2026

Poems for Every Season is tranquil, beautiful, and also, thorough. There are many excellent illustrated anthologies of poetry for young people (here, for example), and also manuals for how to compose specific types of poetry. Often these how-to books are also anthologies with representative examples of verse forms. Bette Westera, Henriette Boerendans, and translator David Colmer have produced an exceptional book of wonder, for those who are drawn to poetry as well as readers who are tentative about exploring it.

The book’s endpapers open with a flock of birds. Boerendans’s woodcuts embed poems in the world of nature, and the birds seem to be inviting readers to enter this environment, where poems and pictures are more than the sum of their parts. (A brief and useful preface explains how the author and translator have adapted the choice of verse forms to reflect differences between Dutch and English.). Each section begins with the name of the season in large font, placed vertically down the side of one page.

The seasonal page and poem are followed by a page identifying the month, in larger font. This is one of several interesting artistic choices which are not obvious. Do months require more attention than seasons? The variety ensures that reader experience each page and poem as something new.

The animals and plants that share the space of the book each belong where they are placed, but not necessarily in a literal way. For September, a crow sits among apples, both red and gold. The image suggests Asian block prints. On the facing page, two squirrels, facing in opposite directions, seem alert. They may notice the apples, or be looking for other food. The poem is a quatrain. As Westera explains, this form could refer to any poem with four lines, or to a more specific set of rules about rhyme. The tone is informative, but minimally prescriptive. The work of Persian poet Omar Khayyam moved the four lines in the direction of a changed rhyme in the third one. No previous knowledge is assumed. In fact, the famed poet is introduced with the phrase, “He was called Omar Khayyam.”

Each season begins with haiku. Every month has a poem in a different verse form. Following the twelve months and their poems, there is a section read by turning the book vertically. There are three columns of text and pictures, which are actually the same ones that appeared earlier, encouraging access to the description of the form that accompanies each poem here. Instructions for how to write in each form are not provided as a formula or a graphic, but they may certainly be used that way by aspiring poets.

You may be thinking that this format alludes to the way that we read documents digitally, sometimes keeping different windows open. You would be right. The windows here, though, are different! They look outwards at the natural world, inwards at the imagination, and describe the technique of how poems function. Yes, there are similarities to text and hypertext. You have to read this book to believe the incredibly imaginative the synthesis that results.