Valentine's Day Origami

Booklist (December 15, 2012 (Vol. 109, No. 8))


Grades 3-6. Far from generic greeting cards and predesigned e-messages, this inviting title in the Holiday Origami series encourages young people to create an original I-love-you offering. The clear step-by step instructions are illustrated with bright color photos and diagrams on every well-designed double-page spread. After a brief history of the origin and traditions of Valentine’s Day, the origami instructions start off simply, with pictures and directions on exactly how and when to fold and crease. First, there are two spreads with 9 steps that show how to make an origami heart. Later, 13 steps over four pages show how to make a red rose. Nine steps make a heart box. The joy of creating and giving friendship bracelets is a great climax. Back matter includes a glossary and a list of suggested websites. Other titles in the series focus on origami for Easter, Halloween, and Thanksgiving. Fun for sharing at home and school.

The Price of Freedom

Kirkus Reviews starred (December 1, 2012)


In a collective act of protest and heroism, an Ohio community successfully defied the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act. In 1856, John Price and two other Kentucky slaves crossed the Ohio River to freedom in Oberlin. Like many other runaways, Price stayed there. Two years later, when slave hunters tracked him down and captured him, the citizens of the town banded together to defend him. The Fradins recount the confrontation, known as the Oberlin-Wellington Rescue, with its manifold legal and moral repercussions in a minute-by-minute and hour-by-hour narration. Words and illustrations combine in a fast-paced, breathless, cinematic flurry that stars genuine action heroes armed with rifles and large doses of courage and principle. Velasquez uses mixed media and oil paints to portray his characters as living and acting, never posing. Many illustrations are framed by wood strips, an effective period touch. How wonderful, too, that a double-page photograph of the Rescuers, as the Oberlin citizens came to be known, concludes the saga. Judith Fradin and her late husband, Dennis, were frequent collaborators; his Bound for the North Star (2000) is also about runaway slaves. History made immediate and meaningful. (author's note, bibliography, further reading, websites) (Informational picture book. 8-12)

Goldilocks and Just One Bear

Booklist (November 1, 2012 (Online))


Preschool-Grade 3. With lots of wordplay and wry, lively pictures, this fractured fairy tale is also a hilarious sequel to the Goldilocks story. Of course, the parody is for older readers, but even young preschoolers will get some of the twists and turns on the story they know, and they will love the mayhem caused by a big, klutzy creature. A bear gets lost in the city, and, disoriented by the bright lights and terrible racket, he takes shelter in an apartment in Snooty Towers. No one is home. He tries the food: too soggy, too crunchy. He wants porridge, but he settles for a toast sandwich. When he tries to rest, he ends up sitting on the cat and then bursting the beanbag chair. Then the family returns and finds the mess. The little one screams, “Somebody has been eating my toast and they’ve eaten it all up!” The bear thinks the mommy person looks familiar. It turns out it’s Goldilocks, living happily ever after. The playful, mixed-media art in colored pencil, paint, and collage extends the wordplay fun with the scenes of the bear lost in the crowded streets and passing by the Ugly Sister Beauty Parlor, Coffee Beanstalk, and Little Piggy Bank. Great for sharing.

Doug Unplugged

Booklist (January 1, 2013 (Vol. 109, No. 9))


Preschool-Grade 1. Yaccarino’s gentle humor, whimsy, and panache is on full display in this picture book celebrating the difference between virtual and real-life learning. Young Doug is a robot who is plugged in by his parents every morning so that he can absorb as many facts as possible. Happy downloading, his dad calls as he heads to work, leaving Doug to learn all about cities. What looks like it might be a tale of parental pressure on young students instead turns into a cheerful story of discovery. Doug has no sooner downloaded vital statistics about pigeons when he sees a live one on the windowsill. Bot follows bird, and the fun begins. Yaccarino’s illustrations are deceptively simple in their generous use of primary colors and bold lines; they invest the story with tangible vibrancy. The expression of sheer joy as Doug, all wide-mouthed enthusiasm, scatters a flock of pigeons or plays with a new friend is enough to convince any reader that unscripted learning is still the most satisfying way to plug into the world around us.

Island: A Story of the Galapagos

Kirkus Reviews starred (July 1, 2012)


A beautifully made picture book presents the story of the Galpagos Islands for young readers. It's not easy to present the story of island formation, species colonization and evolution in a picture book, but Chin succeeds admirably, challenging intelligent young readers with sophisticated concepts, but presenting them in a way that will allow readers not only to understand them, but to marvel at them, as well. As in Chin's previous volumes, Redwoods (2009) and Coral Reefs (2011), gorgeous watercolor illustrations lure readers into the scientific story. Chin is careful to point out in his author's note the necessity of speculation and educated guesses, given how far in the past the story takes place. But the work is top-notch narrative nonfiction, based on the best current scientific research. An eye-catching variety of horizontal panels, thumbnails and full-bleed pages makes science visual. Especially effective is the discussion of how species change over time: The finches' beaks become larger, tortoises' shells change shape, and cormorants' wings shrink. In the epilogue, after millions of years of evolution, a ship appears, and a man comes ashore, pen and notebook in hand. It's Charles Darwin, as explained in the backmatter, where his theory of evolution by natural selection is explained and further information on the Galpagos Islands and their indigenous species is presented. Another superb contribution to scientific literature by Chin. (Informational picture book. 8-12)

Castle: How It Works

Booklist starred (December 1, 2012 (Vol. 109, No. 7))


Grades K-3. Let’s face it. Macaulay wrote the book on castles: his Caldecott Honor winner Castle (1977), later reenvisioned as part of Built to Last (2010). Now he revisits the topic with a younger audience and a new purpose in mind, recalling in an introductory note that as a kid, he didn’t like reading, but he found that pictures made it more fun. Actually, with lines like “Archers will greet you with flaming arrows,” the text here is fun, too. As the narrative begins, a castle stands on a hill, while would-be attackers skulk on another hill in the foreground. Short sentences offer plenty of intriguing information about the castle, its inhabitants, and their many means of defense. Readers are occasionally addressed informally, “Are you friend or foe?” Pretty soon, the attackers make their move. Despite their alarming weapons (battering rams, catapults), it’s clear that in the end, the defenders will prevail. The format is slightly larger than a typical book for beginning readers, giving a bit more scope for the illustrations: strong line drawings with color washes. The use of different perspectives and cross sections is particularly fine. A promising start for Macaulay’s new My Readers series of nonfiction.

Bear Has a Story to Tell

Kirkus Reviews (May 15, 2012)


Within a gentle tale of hibernation and renewal, the Steads' second collaboration (after Caldecott-winning A Sick Day for Amos McGee) explores a second, internal theme: the nature of the storytelling narrative itself. Increasingly sleepy, Bear pads through the fall landscape with "a story to tell" before winter's sleep. Mouse, Duck, Frog and Mole are well into their own winter preparations and cannot listen. Months later, when the reunited friends gather beneath a full moon, Bear can't remember his story. Helpfully, his friends suggest a protagonist ("Maybe your story is about a bear"), a plot ("Maybe your story is about the busy time just before winter"), and supporting characters (themselves). Thus, Bear begins his story as this one ends: The first line of his story is both the last line of the book and its first. Erin Stead's pictures quietly appeal: Pencil line and shading define basic features of animals and trees, while washes and smudges of paint suggest seasonal colors, Bear's rotund mass, and the brushy cobalt expanse of starlit skies. Sharing an affinity with Jerry Pinkney yet evoking the sparer 1960s work of Evaline Ness and Nonny Hogrogian, Stead's compositions exude an ineffable, less-is-more charm. The Steads' work adopts a folkloric approach to cooperative relationships; the affectionately rendered animals that stand in for humans convey a nurturing respect for child readers. (Picture book. 3-7)