If Wendell Had a Walrus, written by Lori Mortensen and illustrated by Matt Phelan is a quiet, pleasant surprise of a picture book. The premise for the first half of the book is in the title: Wendell sees a cloud that looks like a walrus, and starts wondering about real ones. This leads to some […]
This is a Moment
This is a Moment by Micah Player is a strange kind of concept book, half math/philosophy (about what a moment actually is), half common/defining moments in a kid’s life. There’s no central character, and no narrative. However, the book holds together and gives readers many chances to connect via the page by page sequence of […]
Piranhas Don’t Eat Bananas
Man, was this book fun. Aaron Blabey’s 2015 picture book Piranhas Don’t Eat Bananas features vivid, wonderfully ridiculous images. The piranhas in this book have bulging eyes, protruding lips, and underbites, like something out of Monty Python. (I want to know if he’s a Terry Gilliam fan.) The situation is pure picture book: it is […]
I Am the Spirit of Justice
This was an interesting book to read, because of the clashing reality of that reading experience. On one hand, I could see the book’s goals, and agreed with them. Celebrating and articulating the spirit of justice that moves through African American history from the Africa to today. The battles for national liberty (the American Revolution), […]
I Am NOT Your Hat!
Lisa Bentley’s 2025 picture book I Am NOT Your Hat! is a bright and vivid book. Burt is an oversized bird–an ostrich, by appearance–who likes to walk around wearing his much smaller bird-friend Dot on his head. Other birds praise Burt for his lovely hat, but Dot isn’t pleased at being considered Burt’s hat. There’s […]
What the Seal Saw
Sherry McMillan’s 2011 picture book What the Seal Saw is a quiet, unified pleasure. The pages with words on them all have four lines; in each case, the second and fourth line rhyme. In each quatrain, three of the lines are flat and even. The fourth line curves up and down like a wave, giving […]
Hedgehogs Don’t Wear Underwear
Marissa Valdez had me at “hedgehogs,” but hedgehogs and underwear? That’s kidlit gold. I was there. I was ready. Hedgehogs Don’t Wear Underwear (20225) is Valdez’s first picture book of her own, she’s illustrated a number of other books, and it shows. The images are vivid, and the presentation striking. Images change size, some words […]
Night Walk
I often talk with people about how to deal with tough topics with kids. “Deal with” is intentionally vague. It refers to what children’s books should and shouldn’t discuss, what they should and shouldn’t show, the level of specificity, and the tone. Jason Crockcroft’s 2024 Night Walk is an example of a picture book doing […]
Beautiful Oops!
Barney Saltzberg’s Beautiful Oops! (2010) really is beautiful. It is also kind–more on that in a moment. Beautiful Oops! is a book about making art. It is also an interactive book, where readers–or the kids being read to–play an active part in making that art…from mistakes. The book starts with “Oops!” and then follows with […]
Gifts from the Garbage Truck
Gifts from the Garbage Truck: A True Story About the Things We (Don’t) Throw Away (2024) is a very earnest picture book. A foreword by sanitation worker Nelson Molina sets the book up, giving personal and cultural background for Andrew Larson’s story about Molina. (Molina’s foreword is definitely aimed at adult readers, who will need […]