Man, does Mary Lyn Ray know kids. I’m serious. This is someone who has a great memory of what it was like to be a kid, or pays attention to the kids she knows, or both. Some adults—climbers, geologists, craftsy sorts—notice rocks, but for the most part, they turn a blind eye. They pull into […]
Review of Color Zoo
Color Zoo by Lois Ehlert is a quietly impressive little book. I’m not the first to think so: it was a Caldecott Honor Book in 1990. Still, it is worth a few words because of just how well done it is. There’s little or no story here, but there’s no need for one. It’s a […]
Review of Harold and the Purple Crayon
The full title of this DVD is Harold and the Purple Crayon…and more stories to spark the imagination. I picked it up from my library because Crockett Johnson’s 1955 Harold and the Purple Crayon is a classic children’s book. More than that, it is a book that foregrounds drawing and the power of drawing. In […]
Review of Harold and the Purple Crayon book
Since I recently watched videos of several of the stories in the Harold and the Purple Crayon series (and learned there was more than one story), I decided to go back and reread the books, in order, starting with the only one I’d known before now (Harold and the Purple Crayon). I checked the 60th […]
Dear Duck, Please Come!
There’s a nice pacing to Sarah Mackenzie’s 2024 picture book Dear Duck, Please Come! There are just a few words to a few lines per page, carefully arranged near colorful and easily understood images (by Charles Santoso). It would be easy to guide a young reader through the book with a finger and a pause, […]
I Vote for The Cookie Vote
I recently stumbled across The Cookie Vote, a 2025 picture book by Margaret McNamara, Daniel Berstrom, and G. Brian Karas. If you remember Schoolhouse Rock fondly, and, specifically, “I’m Just a Bill,” then you’ll like The Cookie Vote. It tells the story of the kids in “Mr. Tiffin’s class,” and the process through which they […]
Pencil!
I just read Hye-Eun Kim’s 2021 picture book Pencil. Beautiful. Simply beautiful. If you like picture books, or know a kid who likes picture books, art, or drawing, you have to pick this book up. It is a wordless book, or, as the page of text at the back of the book says, a “silent […]
Recently I Got To See
There’s a great old theater in my town (the Mount Baker Theatre, built in 1927) that hosts a lot of traveling shows. I’ve seen Mary Chapin Carpenter sing there, and Margeret Cho do standup. Today I got to see a musical version of Ada Twist, Scientist. If you haven’t read the original picture book for […]
From Fifi to George
The Journey That Saved Curious George: The True Wartime Escape of Marget and H. A. Rey by Louise Borden (2005) is a strange and interesting book. It is a picture book, technically, but I’m not sure how much it will appeal to kids, but for some kids and some adults, it is a must have. […]
Hello Human/Hello Dog
Hello Human/Hello Dog (2025) is technically kind of a gimmicky book, but it is a good, sensible gimmick and it works. It works because it is two books in one, and they are books that need to go together. The full title of one book is Hello Dog: A Guide for Humans. The other’s title […]