(2) K-3 This wordless picture book creatively and thoughtfully explores the life cycle of a pencil from tree to drawing implement. The story starts on a blank page with a pencil being sharpened. As the pages turn, the shavings morph into leaves, which sprout into an elaborate forest appropriately rendered with colored pencils and markers in bright colors and intricate lines. Readers looking closely will be able to find a range of birds and other forest animals hidden among the trees. Dramatic page layouts on stark white backgrounds heighten the tension when the trees are cut down, expelling the birds from their homes. Color also plays an important role in the story's unfolding as the vivid colors of the logs from the forest overtake the leaden shades of black, white, and gray of the city and factory, where the wood will become colored pencils. The art returns to full color when a child purchases one of the pencils in an art supply store and uses it to draw the forest back to life. The story poses meaningful questions about the origins of everyday objects and the sacrifices they require to produce, but the creative visual exploration leaves room for delight and inspiration as well. The book closes with well-considered prompts for deepening the experience of reading a wordless book.

Reviewer: Julie Roach | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2025

(1) K-3 Illustrated by Julie Paschkis. This picture-book biography of stained-glass artist Clara Driscoll (1861-1944) opens on a bucolic scene of the gardens and "the house on a hill" in Ohio where she grew up. In the foreground, apple blossoms, morning glories, daffodils, and a dragonfly foreshadow motifs in her iconic work—work attributed to Louis Tiffany until years after Driscoll's death. That idyllic setting was never far from her mind after she moved to New York City and began working for Tiffany's stained-glass window company. Nickel follows the path of Driscoll's career from selecting and cutting glass for windows, to being put in charge of "a new workshop of women," to her innovative design for her butterfly-and-primrose lamp. Paschkis's luminous, cheerful illustrations, rendered in pen-and-ink and gouache, appropriately resemble stained glass with their thick black lines, geometric shapes, and bright, rich colors with "dappled and streaked" effects. The engaging text provides an accessible overview of the labor-intensive stained glass–making process and insight into Driscoll as a person (e.g., she read nature poetry to her "Tiffany Girls" to inspire them). An author's note provides more information about Driscoll's life, her legacy, and the five design steps involved in producing her lamps; a selected biography and source notes are also appended. See Rubin's recent Dragonflies of Glass (rev. 5/25) for another portrait of this long-overlooked artist.

Reviewer: Kitty Flynn | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2025