Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

 

Over at the Horn Book’s Calling Caldecott today, we take a look at the impact that illustrator Jerry Pinkney has had on the legacy of the Caldecott Award.

Head here to read more.

Over at the Horn Book’s Calling Caldecott, we pay tribute to the one, the only Jerry Pinkney, who died yesterday at the age of 81.

Head here for more, and please come share your own memories.

Photo taken in 2015 at the National Museum of Wildlife Art.

“Hello! I’m just looking.
There’s nothing wrong with just looking …”
(Click spread to enlarge)

 
I absolutely cannot read Helen Yoon’s very entertaining Off-Limits (Candlewick, November 2021) without thinking of Patricia Lee Gauch’s lecture, “The Picture Book as an Act of Mischief” (which you can read here at the Horn Book). “In a picture book, mischief is a badge of honor,” Gauch said. “Mischief affects everything in a book.”

Mischief. Controlled chaos. That’s what we have here, not to mention a story that will utterly please a particular kind of person — that is, people who looooove office supplies. (You know who you are.)

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“At first, we can see Grandpa’s footprints in the snow, but before long, the wind blows them away. All the same, we can follow the words he’s lost in the snow.
Grandma can see them now, too.”
(Click to enlarge and see spread in its entirety)

 
“My grandfather’s name is Kaj, and my grandmother’s name is Gerda. I go to see them a lot.” Thus opens Betina Birkjærs Coffee, Rabbit, Snowdrop, Lost (Enchanted Lion), illustrated by Anna Margrethe Kjærgaard and translated by Sinéad Quirke Køngerskov. This Danish import, originally published in 2019 and coming to U.S. shelves in December, tells a tenderly crafted (and seamlessly translated) story about dementia as if affects an intergenerational relationship.

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“… amber eyes”
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You all remember Kate Gardner’s Lovely Beasts: The Surprising Truth (2018), illustrated by Heidi Smith. Right? (It even won Heidi the 2019 Bull-Bransom Award from the National Museum of Wildlife Art.) Gardner is back with a book about foxes and, delightfully, it is filled with photography. How to Find A Fox (Running Press Kids, September 2021) features photographs by wildlife photographer Ossi Saarinen, and it is one of this year’s best picture books.

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Here are some spreads from a lovely import, written by Joy Cowley and illustrated by Giselle Clarkson, each from New Zealand. The Tiny Woman’s Coat (Gecko Press, October 2021) tells the story of a miniature woman who, with the help of Mother Nature and its inhabitants, builds herself a coat to keep warm.

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“Child, you are awake!
Breathe in, then breathe out, hermosa creatura.”
(Click spread to enlarge)

 
Bright Star (Neal Porter Books, September 2021), written and illustrated by Yuyi Morales, nearly thrums with tenderness. In this story, a fawn is born in the desert (pictured above). “You are ALIVE! You are a bright star inside our hearts,” we read on the spread that follows; it is the fawn’s mother who seems to be narrating.

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I love the empowering opening spreads, pictured below, of Darren Lebeuf’s My City Speaks (Kids Can Press, September 2021), illustrated by Ashley Barron. A child and father head out for a day in the city: “This is our city,” we read, but then: “But this is my city.” The child, visually impaired and walking with a cane, moves through the beloved city, exploring and appreciating its movement, its sounds, all that grows in it, its smells, its tastes, its textures — and its buzzing, vibrant voice.

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(Click cover to enlarge)

 
Dr. Jess Wade’s debut picture book — Nano: The Spectacular Science of the Very (Very) Small (Candlewick, September 2021), illustrated by Melissa Castrillón — is an exploration of the building blocks of all things (atoms, elements); how those small things are used in the field of nanotechnology; and how nanomaterials of today can result in a more environmentally-friendly world. Wade is an award-winning physicist, activist, and science communicator, living in the UK. She works very hard (please read this Q&A) to ensure that the contributions of underrepresented researchers, especially women scientists, are not overlooked.

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Tom Gauld’s The Little Wooden Robot and the Log Princess (Neal Porter Books, August 2021) is the kind of story that feels like a classic — like a book you perhaps read twenty years ago — yet also feels fresh and new and compelling.

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