(2) Illustrated by Diana Ejaita. James introduces young readers to the life and work of Myra Viola Wilds (1875-1935), a Black woman who became a renowned dress designer and dressmaker, and then an acclaimed poet. Wilds's life unfolds via James's loose quatrains, often using off-rhymes, that sketch her story in broad strokes -- her beginnings in rural Kentucky, her success as a dressmaker and the subsequent loss of her sight, and her creativity then taking the form of writing poetry. The language of James's poems echoes Wilds's own, with a focus on the thoughts and dreams that empowered her. Bold and color-drenched illustrations propel the story forward, through expansive images echoing the vivid collage work of Matisse, with the added texture of chalk or fabric or paint. A central figure -- a woman in profile cut from black or brown paper -- is the focus, but details of birds, flowers, and geometric swirls add dimension. An endnote provides further biographical information; an archival photograph of Wilds and her poem "Dewdrops" conclude the book.

Reviewer: | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2025

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Sophie Diao. This lively picture book takes readers on an exploration of the Park to Playa Trail through Los Angeles. Each vignette opens with “My park to playa is...” and describes a different spot on the path where community members enjoy nature and the city together, observing wildlife, celebrating a birthday, and stargazing. Layered digital illustrations feature diverse groups of people and beautiful landscapes throughout the day. An author’s note and “Critters and curiosities” list encourage exploration of nature in readers’ own cities.

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(2) K-3 Illustrated by Hannah Salyer. In Ms. Lee's class, students sit in darkness with their heads down on their desks, eyes closed, listening to recorded sounds of the rainforest. They imagine themselves as veeries, "sort of like robins but smaller." Their teacher narrates the birds' journey, starting in Brazil and ending in the class's home of Wisconsin. One child, drawn into the lesson, narrates the quiet text, but Fleischman also provides glimpses into other students' thoughts as they find parallels between the veeries' story and their own lives. (The veery feels "jumpy and can't sit still"; one child thinks, "That's just what my mom said about me last night.") They learn about the birds' flight patterns, biology, and eating habits, as well as weather influences, human-made dangers, and threats from predators: "Schoolkids have bullies. Veeries have raptors. Except raptors eat you." Students and teachers alike will be inspired by Ms. Lee and her compassionate approach to fostering curiosity and empathy through nature. Salyer, who gracefully depicts the birds soaring, captures both their movement and students' imaginations with beguiling patterns in a palette of rich azure, warm teal, and eye-popping copper tones. In one striking spread, illustrating the veery's night vision, a bird's eye overlaps with a child's, eyes closed, who thinks: "I have big, dark eyes, too." Appended with notes about tracking migrations, paying attention to birds in one's own neighborhood, and more.

Reviewer: Julie Danielson | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2025

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Krystal Quiles. This picture book follows a day in the life of a churro vendor in New York City, as narrated by her young daughter. Pastel-hued gouache and acrylic illustrations sprinkled with small starbursts highlight the sweet and beautiful aspects of this career, but the text does not over-glamorize, mentioning Mamá’s soreness and the anxieties the family feels about selling enough churros. The book ends in happy, delicious collaboration with a fellow vendor. Concurrently published in Spanish as El carrito de churros.

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(3) K-3 Petite Poems series. Illustrated by Paige Pettibon. This picture book rendition of a pithy poem by nineteenth-century Muskogee Creek Renaissance man Alexander Lawrence Posey contemplates autumn using one stanza of non-rhyming lines. "In the dreamy silence / of the afternoon,” the narrator observes sights and sounds of the season. Pettibon's (Salish) quiet, lambent illustrations, rendered in digital marker and graphite, depict a Native child reveling in the splendor of the outdoors as the summer’s end gives way to fall. Like the period of the year it describes—charming and crisp.

Reviewer: Summer Edward

(2) PS Cleanly designed double-page spreads feature large-size type on the left and simply composed cut-paper and digital illustrations (resembling a child’s craft project) on the right. À la Tullet’s innovative, interactive picture book Press Here (rev. 7/11), listeners are instructed to tap a fir tree composed of overlapping green triangles “to add some lights.” A page-turn shows those lights on the tree. Clap to turn the lights on, knock twice to add ornaments, and so on. Garland, candy canes, and a star tree-topper complete the effect. “Turn the page to turn out the light.” This offering captures the fun of tree decorating.

Reviewer: Kitty Flynn | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2023

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Kevin Howdeshell & Kristen Howdeshell. A red-haired child introduces the picture book's topic forcefully with a large word balloon before the title page: "What? YOU'VE NEVER SEEN ANIMALS IN PANTS?!?" Twenty-three very short and funny poems cover a wide variety of animals and the many types of pants they might wear. For example, the "downward dog" wears yoga pants while the polar bears wear snow pants, of course. The poems are both silly and clever, as in "Deep Thoughts," where the speaker wonders, "If a snake yanked a sock to his face... / would we say 'pant' in that case?" The vibrant Photoshop illustrations are filled with textures and patterns, resembling a combination of collage and stamped art. The palette features orange, teal, yellow, and green, with lively postures and expressions on each of the dozens of animals' faces. A final poem goes on for four pages with animals waiting and waiting for the tailor who is working on their pants, concluding, "The good news? / He's fast for a sloth." At the end, the red-haired child is back hinting at a sequel: "What? YOU'VE NEVER SEEN ANIMALS IN HATS?!?"

Reviewer: Susan Dove Lempke | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2023

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Cozbi A. Cabrera. Chef Edna Lewis (1916–2006) brought Southern cooking to the forefront of American cuisine. Growing up in Freetown, Virginia, a place founded by her grandfather and other formerly enslaved people, Edna helped Mama Daisy make meals. With fresh fish in spring, summer garden vegetables, sweet potatoes in fall, and biscuits year-round, Edna and her mother fed their family and community. When she was fifteen, Edna moved to New York, working odd jobs such as typing and answering phones to help support her family. Her work as a seamstress was what got her noticed, however, and she was soon designing and sewing clothes for celebrities. As her star rose in the social circles of New York, she began to host and cater parties using Mama Daisy's recipes, and her food became as famous as her dress designs. She eventually opened her own Manhattan restaurant, where socialites wondered which culinary school in Paris she'd attended. "Her Paris was Freetown, the flavors of home passed down from one generation to the next." Noel make s frequent use of fragmented sentences to punctuate the methodical effort of Edna's work ("Ironing. Cleaning. Cooking. Sending the money she earned back home"). Cabrera's vivid paintings are equally at home depicting the glamour of New York society and the closeness of Freetown's community. Appended with an author's note, additional resources, and a recipe for biscuits.

Reviewer: Eboni Njoku | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2023

(2) K-3 Petite Poems series. Illustrated by Tatyana Feeney. In this entry in a series that illustrates existing poems, Feeney takes on Sandburg's 1916 poem, written from the point of view of a pumpkin. On double-page spreads with striking backgrounds, children gather pumpkins and celebrate Halloween. Cheerful hues dominate at first ("I light the prairie cornfields") and give way to Halloween night-appropriate shades of black ("Children join hands...Singing ghost songs / And love to the harvest moon"), but orange and the titular yellow are always present and help emphasize the holiday's festive atmosphere. The poem's full text and discussion of it, plus background on Sandburg, are appended.

Reviewer: Shoshana Flax | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2023

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Tara Anand. Singh tells the real-life story of how, at age twenty-one and despite coming from an underprivileged background, Rasila Vadher became the first woman forest guard in Gir Forest National Park & Wildlife Sanctuary, established in Gujarat, India, to protect Asiatic lions. Narrated in first-person prose that captures Vadher’s lion-hearted spirit and the risky but rewarding nature of her work, the book describes how pivotal (and painful) events in her childhood thrust her into the role of family breadwinner, stoked her passion for protecting the large, powerful cats, and prepared her to challenge gender bias. Back matter lists intriguing facts about Asiatic lions and acquaints readers with the Lion Queens -- an all-woman forest patrol whose members Vadher trained. Minimalist digital illustrations in tropical monsoon colors create a sense of openness that echoes Vadher’s mindset. Pair with Reynolds’s The Lion Queens of India (rev. 1/21).

Reviewer: Summer Edward

(2) PS Illustrated by Penelope Dullaghan. It's the day before Christmas, and Bunny is searching for the perfect tree, one that is just her size. Along the way she meets various friends who each add a different request, sending Bunny farther and farther from home. Suspense builds as listeners wonder if Bunny will ever find the sought-after tree, while repetition in the text (each friend asks, "What are you looking for?") will support new readers. The narrative is poetic and rhythmic, with occasional ear-pleasing alliteration. Illustrations in a muted, wintry palette nicely complement the story.

Reviewer: | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2022

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Amy June Bates. A young Henriette Wyeth and her father, N. C. Wyeth, set off across the fields of their rural Pennsylvania home to paint together. They leave behind the busyness of life with Henriette's four younger siblings for the experience of "sensing deeply." On their walk, her father models "looking. Seeing. Smelling the air, and the earth, and the turpentine, and also that flower." This biographical narrative slice of Henriette Wyeth's life is a portrait of the childhood of an important American artist, a connection between her and the Brandywine school of artists (including her father), and a glimpse at the perceptions of an artistic child. The prose is full of sensory description that captures Wyeth's observations of her world. In wide double-page spreads, Bates re-creates the lush hillsides of Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, crisscrossed with split rail fences and dotted with wildflowers. Layers of blue and gray clouds bleed off the pages. Back matter provides more information about Wyeth and the ways she inspired both author and illustrator. The book will likely encourage young readers to look closely at the world around them for their own inspiration.

Reviewer: Maeve Visser Knoth

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Julia Breckenreid. This picture book biography describes how Dorothy and Herbert Vogel, a librarian and a postal clerk, assembled an enormous art collection in their New York City apartment, then donated it to the National Gallery of Art. The mid-century-style illustrations convey the movement and energy of life in the 1960s; they also depict the Vogels' home, crowded with artwork, animals, and (famous) friends. Throughout, look for the many nods to notable creators and pieces of art from the time. An appended spread includes definitions of relevant artistic movements (e.g., "conceptual art"; "minimalism") and notes from the author, illustrator, and Dorothy Vogel herself.

Reviewer: Rachel L. Kerns