(2) PS Illustrated by Kenard Pak. In this quiet cumulative story, everyone -- and everything -- wakens, one by one. Who has woken the girl, the cat, the dog, the rabbit, the tree, the air, and the cloud? The reader and protagonist seek answers together, prodded by Hopkinson's hushed prose and direct address and Pak's full-bleed illustrations that switch between placing the reader in the protagonist's point of view and offering an omniscient perspective. Pak renders nighttime digitally in shades of purple and black with deep green landscapes and glowing accents that spotlight the sleep-depriving suspects. Throughout, words and art harmoniously convey nighttime magic. When Hopkinson writes, "Now a sweet ribbon of breath curls around you too," Pak depicts the girl grasping a wispy, textured "breath" of air. Drama builds with the refrain, "Was it you?" on cleverly designed spreads interspersed between the nocturnal scenes. Moonlight begins as a small corner of yellow in the bottom right of an otherwise solid purple spread, then progressively expands up and toward the verso on the next five pages, until finally, yellow moonlight overtakes the purple darkness. And then, in reverse order of their awakening, everyone returns to sleep as moonlight follows the girl upstairs and literally blankets her and her cat. In the final illustration, an all-yellow double-page spread reads, "Who has woken the moon?" A memorable celebration of nighttime activity and moonlit slumber.

Reviewer: | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2024

(2) PS Illustrated by Kenard Pak. When she wakes to discover that it blizzarded the night before, Lina isn't deterred from her plans to walk to see her grandmother (in Arabic, sitti). Outside, the bright sun's reflection makes it difficult to see, so Lina focuses on her sense of hearing. She makes mental notes of how certain sounds can be ways to "hear snow": boots "crunching snow into tiny waffles" ("Snyak, snyek, snyuk") or the scraping noises of shovels digging out sidewalks ("Scraaape, scrip, scraaape, scrip"). Lina arrives at her grandmother's building, and they begin to fill and roll grape leaves together; although Sitti is losing her eyesight, she remains an adept teacher. While Lina wonders if she had even known about the blizzard, Sitti tells her that sometimes "no noise is the sound that means it's snowing." From the snowflake composed of grape leaves on the title page to the cookbook-like diagram of how to roll a grape leaf, digitally rendered illustrations emphasize not just the beauty of pristine snow from multiple visual perspectives but also the significance of Lina's ethnic Arab heritage. While grandmothers and grape leaves are common tropes in Arab American literature, the emphasis on sensory exploration forges new ways to think about intergenerational, intercultural connections.

Reviewer: Julie Hakim Azzam | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2020

(2) YA Illustrated by Kenard Pak. In a poetry collection that's as much structure as style and theme, Lowry considers two events: the bombings of Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima. In the book's first section, poems about the author's connections to Pearl Harbor (she was born in Hawaii and lived there before the war) are interspersed with others commemorating some of the sailors who served on the USS Arizona. (The presence of an appended bibliography seems to indicate that these sailors and their experiences are not fictional, but there's no statement to that effect.) The second section, about Hiroshima, takes a similar tack, with poems inspired by Lowry's postwar childhood in Tokyo included among others devoted to the experiences of those in Japan on August 6th, 1945. "She was a young girl with / a singed uniform, and / a lifetime / of nightmares." A third section brings together the surprising link, discovered almost fifty years after the war, between the little Lois of the first section and a certain Koichi Seii introduced in the second. (We all learned about it at the 1994 Newbery-Caldecott Banquet.) There's a lot of scaffolding for such a slim book, but the poems themselves, a mix of free verse and (sometimes questionable) rhyme, are agreeably spare; the best are the triolets that close each section: "We could not be friends. Not then. Not yet. / Until the cloud dispersed and cleared, / we needed time to mend, forget. / We could not be friends. Not then. Not yet..." Modest pencil sketches throughout reflect and enhance the elegiac mood.

Reviewer: Roger Sutton | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2020

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Kenard Park. "On special Saturdays, Maud goes to Grand-Maud's house and doesn't go home until Sunday," begins this warm story about a young girl's weekend visits to her grandmother's city apartment. In matching plaid flannel nightgowns that go "all the way to the floor," Maud and Grand-Maud eat breakfast for supper ("No matter what you like to eat for breakfast, it somehow always tastes better at suppertime") and watch a movie ("as long as it is in black and white") before nestling down in adjacent twin beds. Maud's bed is special "not just because Maud always has good dreams when she sleeps in it, though she always does" but because under the bed is an old wooden chest, full of treasures from Grand-Maud. Some are from a store (watercolor paints or a toy) and others handmade by Grand-Maud (a sweater). But best of all are the ones from when Grand-Maud was a little girl. For these are the treasures (a rock shaped like a heart, an old photograph, a book) that give Maud insight into her grandmother's life and provide room to dream about the day when she might have a granddaughter of her own. Pak's watercolor, pencil, collage, ink, and digital illustrations use touches of periwinkle and rose-red against a muted background to reflect the warmth and safety of Grand-Maud's home and the tender intergenerational bond that is the very heart of this story.

Reviewer: Emmie Stuart | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2020

(2) PS Illustrated by Kenard Pak. In a book intended to get the wheels of one's mind turning, Holt presents a series of questions children might pose. These vary in tone: playful (thoughts about belly buttons and breakfast cereal); scientific (questions about insects and galaxies); empathetic (does your teddy bear have feelings?); and metaphysical (could the ocean be merely a giant water bottle?). There are also absorbing linguistic queries, including one that plays with homophones: "Do tires get tired?" Many of the questions will generate laughs--for one, the notion that a sandwich gets mad when you bite it--and all of them would make effective writing prompts in elementary classrooms. Pak plays with perspective in his velvety, soft-focus illustrations; we get both indoor and outdoor aerial views, as well as views from the ground when, say, the text wonders if grasshoppers need hopping lessons. All the images are full-bleed; no borders can contain all the astonishment in a book that is an imaginative exploration of the word wonder. "I wonder why I wonder so much," a child asks toward the book's close, answered by "because you are wonderful." A tribute to the inquisitiveness of children, one that understands that the questions alone can be thrilling.

Reviewer: Julie Danielson | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2020

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Kenard Pak. A hungry stray cat spares the life of a snake in exchange for the promise of three wishes. Cat is skeptical but nevertheless wishes for food, shelter, and a friend. These wishes come true--and then some--but Cat doesn't immediately recognize his good fortune. Spare, occasionally onomatopoeic text and softly rendered but slyly funny watercolor and digital illustrations (which suggest Cat's new friend wished for him) make for a satisfying original fable.

Reviewer: Katie Bircher

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Kenard Pak. A young girl watches animals near her pond settling in for the night, while imaginative rhyming verses describe the creatures' dreams (e.g., Little Snake envisions himself as the tail of a high-flying kite). Then the girl's own dream features a friendly visit from all the animals. Pastel-colored watercolor and digital illustrations of the lush green setting enhance the whimsical dreams.

Reviewer: Martha Sibert

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Kenard Pak. What creatures do flowers attract, and what purpose do animals and insects serve in the life cycle of flowering plants? It's all about pollination. Short rhymed couplets and wide, striking floral habitat illustrations are combined with straightforward information on an array of variously colored, patterned, scented, and shaped flowers, with a bit about their pollinators. Observation tips and additional facts are included.

Reviewer: Paula M. Cairo

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Kenard Pak. Backyard bird songs are highlighted in onomatopoetic ("chiddik, chiddik"; "caw! caw!") rhyming text. The star of the gently repetitive story, though, is the brooding robin. She makes no sound that might draw predators to her nest while incubating eggs. Spare illustrations depict various bird species, and two inquisitive children are observers throughout. Appended questions are addressed to the robin, who answers in the first person.

Reviewer: Paula M. Cairo