(3) 4-6 Illustrated by Mariko Ando. In Canada during WWII, Esther and Michiko are best friends. But when Esther receives a fancy princess doll and Michi doesn't, the friendship sours. Then Michi is sent to an internment camp, and Esther tries to help from afar. Schwartz deftly shows how a once-simple friendship can be complicated by class and race. Black-and-white illustrations depict important moments with depth and detail.

Reviewer: Mariko Turk

(2) 4-6 Thirteen-year-old narrator Yen, her siblings, and her mother live a difficult life in rural Vietnam just after the fall of Saigon. Following a devastating flood in their village, they escape Vietnam and experience a range of obstacles, from corrupt police to prejudice; aboard a refugee boat to Malaysia, they witness sickness, death, and piracy. The descriptive narrative is straightforward with a strong sense of immediacy. An afterword reveals the story's autobiographical roots. Glos.

Reviewer: Julie Hakim Azzam | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2019

(3) PS Illustrated by Christina Leist. A sweet family beach-day story uses repeating onomatopoeic phrasing to add rhythm to the spare rhyming text. "I hear the breeze, / whishery-whish, whishery-whish, / and see a bird, / fishery-fish, fishery-fish." The sandy-soft illustrations carry much of the plot line and match the simplicity of the preschool-pitched text.

Reviewer: Kari Allen

(2) 4-6 Illustrated by Kathryn E. Shoemaker. Marianne is evacuated in World War II's Kindertransport in this graphic novel based on the author's novel Remember Me. Limited-palette, charcoal-hued illustrations capture the melancholy nature of the story and Marianne's isolation from home and family; this tone is further underscored by the tight layout of the panels and the angle of the proverbial camera lens.

Reviewer: Jonathan Hunt | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2017

(3) PS Illustrated by Christina Leist. In Bike, a young child and his mother go for an autumn bike ride while Dad stays with the baby. In Skis, it's Dad's turn to take the boy downhill skiing while Mom and baby watch. Both books feature simple experiences; softly colored, cartoony illustrations; the briefest of texts; and lots of rhyming onomatopoeia to hold preschoolers' interests. Review covers these titles: On My Bike and On My Skis.

Reviewer: Martha V. Parravano

(3) PS Illustrated by Christina Leist. In Bike, a young child and his mother go for an autumn bike ride while Dad stays with the baby. In Skis, it's Dad's turn to take the boy downhill skiing while Mom and baby watch. Both books feature simple experiences; softly colored, cartoony illustrations; the briefest of texts; and lots of rhyming onomatopoeia to hold preschoolers' interests. Review covers these titles: On My Bike and On My Skis.

Reviewer: Martha V. Parravano

(4) K-3 Translated by Talleen Hacikyan. After young Pikiq of the Far North finds a box in the snow containing art supplies, he uses the snow as his canvas. The next morning, he wakes to find his world full of surreal, color-drenched scenes (e.g., a sleeping giant overgrown with grass); apparently, it was all a dream. This French picture book's illustrations are individually gorgeous but lack narrative significance.

Reviewer: Nell Beram

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Rae Maté. The Crocs are hard at work...sort of. Each gag spotlights crocodiles doing a job ("Crocs guarantee they'll never fail, / delivering each piece of mail") and then abdicating ("And, to make their work more fun... / Crocs hide the mail from everyone!"). Each punch line will surprise and please readers. Bold, brushstroke-heavy art celebrates the harmless misbehavior.

Reviewer: Nell Beram

(4) K-3 Illustrated by Pulak Biswas. After a flood kills her parents, Chandra lives with her cruel uncle. One day, she hears the music of her mother's flute, and magical things start happening. Another flood hits, and Chandra's swept away, only to find the magic flute--and a loving family. Though Biswas's black and color-washed illustrations are murky, they portray both the anguish and hope in Gilmore's mystical story.

Reviewer: Katrina Hedeen

(4) K-3 Illustrated by Marc Mongeau. In the first half of these sixteen poems, parents attempt to rouse their sleepy children with playful threats of monsters and eyeball bugs. In the second half, it's the parents who need waking, as their kids threaten them with various disasters. Creative line arrangements and rhymes distract from the sometimes uneven meter. The illustrations evoke the bizarreness of dreamland.

Reviewer: Shoshana Flax

(4) PS Illustrated by Sima Elizabeth Shefrin. The world of fairy tales is woven into one child's nighttime routine of bathtime, storytime, and bedtime. Colorful, textured cut-paper collages depict fairy-tale toys--and their stories--coming to life through a girl's fully absorbed imaginative play in the bathtub. Though the meditative, poetic text can be hard to follow (and the cursive font hard to read), there are some enchanting moments.

Reviewer: Sethany Rancier Alongi

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Philippe Béha. City life is the focus of this collection of spirited poems. Subjects include subway trips, fender benders, street performers, and graffiti, among others. Most of the brief rhyming poems are upbeat, but a few tackle more mature topics like the loss of a firefighter in 9/11. Cubist-inspired illustrations rendered in crayon-bright colors suit the verse well.

Reviewer: Carolyn Shute

(4) PS Illustrated by Christina Leist. A child and grownup go for a stroll. Dogs are barking, bugs are hopping--the world is full of sounds: "On my walk, / my summer walk, / I hear a horse, / clippity-clop, clippity-clop." When it starts raining, they hear all the noises again in reverse order. Though the story is slight, the out-and-back journey is comfortingly portrayed. Unfussy illustrations complement the text.

Reviewer: Pearl Higgins

(4) K-3 Illustrated by Stefan Czernecki. This book tells a fictional anecdote about young Emiliano Zapata, who gains a social conscience in boyhood after a gang steals his family's horse. Emiliano goes after them and discovers they became bandidos because, growing up, they "never had enough tortillas to eat." Czernecki's bold black-and-white drawings have some visual appeal, but they unfortunately play into the pistol-toting, sombrero-wearing, Mexican stereotype.

Reviewer: Tim Wadham

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Philippe Béha. Poor King Boyan: his human head sports the ears of a goat. Barber after barber note this fact, to Boyan's dismay, until young Igor calmly accepts the king's anatomical anomaly in stride. Eventually the secret gets out, but the king, released from his self-consciousness by Igor's attitude, no longer cares. Sophisticated collages accompany this engaging tale of self-acceptance.

Reviewer: Amy Lois Cohn