Happy Tuesday, kidlit friends! Last week, Kelly wrote a fantastic write-up about an Illinois school district banning a book award judged by students. I thought about that and how fantastic these awards can be for discovering new books and getting kids excited about reading this week. My daughter’s school district is currently participating in a similar award, and I checked out a bunch of books on the list to read together. Last night she chose one on the list—Honeybee Rescue—for bedtime reading, and we read it five times in a row! It’s not a book I would normally have chosen for her. While she has been reading more nonfiction lately, she still prefers fiction, and she’s never shown any interest in bees. If her school district hadn’t participated in this award, she probably never would’ve read it.
Anyway, I know I’m preaching to the choir, but wow are book bans endlessly ludicrous and detrimental to kids.
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Today, I review books with fun wordplay and two great new releases.
Bookish Goods
Bookish Outdoor Signs by CurioObscurio
If you’re adding any decor to your yard this summer, these bookish signs would be fun! This isn’t a listed option, but I would probably have mine customized to say “Where the wild things are.” $50+
New Releases
Sourgrass by Hope Lim, illustrated by Shahrzad Maydani
This is such a sweet and beautiful picture book about friendship, moving away, and pen-pals. Sofia and May are best friends and neighbors. They love playing together in the field of sourgrass just beyond their yards. Then May moves away, and the field becomes quiet. The two write letters back and forth between one another, and when the sourgrass blooms the following spring, Sofia plays in it and remembers her best friends. The illustrations are so luminous in this.
Shark Princess: Surfin’ Sharks by Nidhi Chanani
My daughter and I are both huge fans of the Shark Princess early reader graphic novel series. This is the third book in the series, though they can all be read out of order. Mack is participating in a shark surfing contest and aims to win. Kitani looks forward to watching and cheering her best friend on. When it turns out there are sharks better at surfing than Mack, he despairs. But Kitani and some other sharks know something Mack doesn’t—winning isn’t everything. Back matter includes a search-and-find, underwater volcano facts, and a drawing tutorial.
For a more comprehensive list of new releases, check out our New Books newsletter.
Riot Recommendations
Several fun wordplay-themed children’s books have been released this month, so I thought I would round them up for review, as well as a forthcoming one.
Was it a Cat I Saw? by Laura Bontje, illustrated by Emma Lidia Squillari
This palindrome-filled picture book also celebrates friendship. Hannah speaks only in palindromes. When a new kid asks for her help in finding his lost cat Otto, she happily agrees. A cat with a palindrome name, just like Hannah! The two weave in and out of the neighborhood in their search for the missing cat. When they finally find the cat, however, they realize they’re lost! Thankfully, Hannah’s felicity with palindromes reminds her of a way to find home. All the palindromes in the book are in bold. Laura and I are critique buddies and friends, and I’m so happy that everyone can read her debut now!
The Book That Almost Rhymed by Omar Abed, illustrated by Hatem Aly
This funny picture book celebrates rhymes, storytelling, and siblings. Big brother is writing the perfect rhyming story, but little sister keeps interjecting with her spins on the story that don’t rhyme! The brother gets more and more annoyed as the story gets out of hand. A knight doesn’t fight armadillos! Why would a knight and a detective be on a pirate ship!? However, it turns out little sister knows exactly how the rhyming game works. This would be great to read in classrooms studying rhyming words.
Taro Gomi’s Big Book of Words by Taro Gomi
This is a whimsical vocabulary primer for toddlers and preschoolers full of diagrams, comic-style explorations of a word, funny faces, and more. I love the randomness of the words Gomi chooses. This isn’t the typical vocabulary primer that lists colors, feelings, shapes, etc. Gomi chooses many other words to explore in addition to those basic concepts—like different types of flowers, the parts of a cow, all the ways the word ‘fish’ can mean something different—which gives this book a sense of joy and playfulness. It’s pretty long, too, at 64 pages.
Colossal Words for Kids by Colette Hiller, illustrated by Tor Freeman
Even though this middle grade vocabulary booster doesn’t release until May, it’s such a perfect addition to this list I had to include it. It’s a very clever collection of poems, accompanied by silly illustrations, that define big words. While entries are listed in alphabetical order, they can be read in any order. Hiller opens with “acquiesce,” ends with “zest,” and includes many other words like “garrulous,” “effervescent,” “meander,” “volatile,” and more, 75 in total. I spent a delightful hour or so reading the poems, which so brilliantly define the words.
Please enjoy this iridescent glob of bubbles from a science experiment we conducted the other day. While bubbles pop on the patio when it’s dry, they collect in great heaps when the patio is wet. A great introduction to surface tension. Yay for science and bubbles!
If you’d like to read more of my kidlit reviews, I’m on Instagram @BabyLibrarians, Twitter @AReaderlyMom, Bluesky @AReaderlyMom.bsky.social, and blog irregularly at Baby Librarians. You can also read my Book Riot posts. If you’d like to drop me a line, my email is kingsbury.margaret@gmail.com.
All the best,
Margaret Kingsbury