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 […]
The Flying Circus
I picked up Patrizia Levi‘s 2024 picture book The Flying Circus for one reason: it was new. I had heard nothing about it, and didn’t know Levi’s work. I will say this: I will definitely look for Levi’s work in the future, and for books illustrated by Laura Barella. The Flying Circus is a stylish […]
Meeting Miss Rumphius
Miss Rumphius is a 1982 picture book, written and illustrated by Barbara Cooney. Cooney won Caldecott Medals in 1980 (for Ox-Cart Man) and in 1959 (for Chanticleer and the Fox), Like those earlier books, Miss Rumphius feels like it belongs to another age in many ways. It is wordy for a modern picture book, and […]
Hanukkah Pajamakkahs
I recently read Hanukkah Pajamakkahs, a 2024 picture book by Dara Henry. I picked it up because I’ve been intentionally casting my picture book net wide, looking for and at books in different categories, or books that tackle different challenges. In this case, I was curious about picture books that include an element of religious […]
Wild about Wild About Books
It is easy to see why Wild About Books won an E.B. White Read Aloud Award. Judy Sierra’s 2004 picture book has a perfect picture book premise: a librarian driving a bookmobile accidentally drives it into the zoo. Once she’s parked there, librarian Molly McGrew sets up shop like usual, opening the bookmobile to the […]
Today I “read”…
Today I “read” Unspoken, a 2012 picture book by Henry Cole. I use the quotation marks around “read” because it is a wordless picture book: except for a few words that appear within one image, Cole tells the entire story with just drawings. And he does a great job of it. Unspoken will not be […]