Author: Margaret Kingsbury

I buy this book (or the We Are Little Feminists Box Set) as a gift for every baby shower I’m invited to. This particular board book in the series depicts photographs of disabled children and parents out and about — hiking, playing, running, exploring, and more. It shows a variety of disabilities and a variety of mobility aids. The prose is short and full of energy. Also check out We Are Little Feminists: How We Eat, which shows feeding tubes and other eating aids.

This Halloween board book releases on July 18th, and it’s so cute! Each page shows a kid who is a wheelchair user in a different Halloween costume that uses the wheelchair as part of the costume. One child is a racecar driver, another is Cinderella in her carriage, and a third is an alien in a spaceship. The wheels turn, making it really fun for toddlers.

Sign language board books are fairly common, but this one, the first board book in a two-book series, is my favorite. Each page shows the child Nita using a new sign, and an interactive pull-out page gives instructions on how to make the sign. The second book in the series is Nita’s Day. Author Kathy MacMillan is an ASL interpreter.

Pitzer has written and photographed three board books with children with Downs Syndrome. Each board book covers basic toddler concepts. In this one, various children with Down Syndrome participate in daily activities and play, and invite the reader to do the same: “I can play patty-cake, can you?” I Like Berries, Do You? depicts children with Down Syndrome eating a variety of foods and asking the reader if they like those foods, too, and My Up & Down & All Around Book introduces prepositions. As a side note, the Amazon title for I Like Berries, Do You? includes the euphemism ‘special needs’ which is generally frowned upon in the disabled community. I still enjoy the book, but I wanted to note that. You can read more about why you should avoid that term and what words to use instead at the Center for Disability Rights, in this article by Emily Ladau, and at the National Center for Disability in Journalism.

I’m surprised I haven’t reviewed this one in the newsletter yet! As someone with severe allergies, I really identify with the protagonist in this graphic novel. Maggie loves animals. However, when her parents allow her to adopt one from the humane society for her 10th birthday, she discovers she’s severely allergic to them. The dog has to go back, and her parents take her to an allergist, where they learn she’s allergic to all animals. Meanwhile, she’s also navigating a new school, a new neighbor, her pesky brother, and a new sibling on the way.

I have reviewed this middle grade novel-in-verse once before in a newsletter, but as one of my favorite 2023 middle grade releases, I had to include it again. Twelve-year-old Dominican American Aniana’s joints hurt often, and sometimes swell and feel hot to the touch. She hasn’t told anyone though, because she has a big secret she’s hiding from her Mami — she’s joined the swim team. As a child, Mami lost her brother in a flood, and she doesn’t want Aniana anywhere near the water. Aniana loves water and swimming, however. When the pain gets to the point that she’s no longer able to hide it, her parents take her to the doctor, and she’s eventually diagnosed with juvenile idiopathic arthritis. Her secret swim meets are also revealed.

This is another middle grade novel-in-verse, and the first book written by someone with cystic fibrosis that has a main character who also has cystic fibrosis. Penny Rooney’s English teacher has assigned the class a poem about themselves, but Penny can’t think of anything to write about. Penny and her older sister Liana love to play in the creek in their backyard in Durham, North Caroline. One day Penny finds a distressed and lost dolphin in the creek, and she’s determined to help it. This is a lovely novel about friendship and identity.

Two friends face off at drama summer camp in this fantastic and inclusive middle grade novel with dual perspectives. Maggie is a fat Jewish kid with dyspraxia. Chloe is an actress with an overbearing mom who is beginning to discover she’s a lesbian. The two former best friends had a falling out after a school musical went horribly wrong. Now they’re bunkmates in a summer camp. Kapit has two other middle grade novels with neurodiverse characters that I love just as much: Get a Grip, Vivy Cohen! and The Many Mysteries of the Finkel Family.

Lupe Lopez is pumped for first grade and ready to rock reading. Unfortunately, reading is harder than she imagined. When her teacher places her in the beginning reading group, her rival mocks her. She may be frustrated, but she’s not about to give up, and it turns out her rock-and-roll skills might be able to help her, and her group, learn to read! This follow-up to Lupe Lopez: ¡Reglas de una estrella de rock! is just as fun as the first book. Candlewick has a section on its website of more books in other languages (mostly Spanish).

This new picture book by comedian Jesús Trejo is both hilarious and heartwarming and is based on Trejo’s childhood. A young Jesús is thrilled to be spending the day with his Papá at work as a landscaper. He’s told that when the magical water jug is empty, it will be time to return home, and is placed in charge of the water jug. Unfortunately, Jesús gets a little over-enthusiastic about the water, giving water out to cats and sweater-clad dogs, splashing it on his face, and more. Soon, they’re out of the water, but Papá still has many more houses to go! Check out more Spanish titles from Astra Publishing.

This sweet and funny picture book retells the Caribbean folktale “La Cucaracha Martina.” Martina does not like parties. She enjoys the quiet, and too many people make her nervous. Her tías could not be more different in personality. After helping to clean the house before a party, Martina finds an imaginary world to escape to, but it turns out that she’s not truly home without her family, and her tías are an important part of that family. Simon Kids has more bilingual and Spanish children’s books here.

This is a stunningly illustrated picture book that blends fabulism with reality. Puerto Rican marine biologist Melissa Cristina Márquez tells the story of herself as a little girl. Young Meli only has five more minutes of beach play remaining, so she decides to explore a tide pool, where she meets the hermit crab Jaiba. Jaiba takes her on an underwater adventure where Meli learns her true destiny is to become the mother of sharks and to teach others about shark conservation. Check out more Penguin Spanish children’s books here.

This collection of 60 activities ranges in ease and complexity and can be easily adapted to multiple ages and with various materials. The first one my daughter and I tried was a rainbow village building activity inspired by Rainbow Grandpa Huang Yung-Fu, a soldier who painted every building in his Taiwanese village various colors and patterns when he learned it would be destroyed. The village survives and can now be visited. I love that Wong-Nizic includes that information with the activity. This craft required boxes of various sizes, brown craft paper, tape, and a variety of coloring utensils. We wrapped the boxes in the brown paper and drew and painted colorful patterns onto them, creating a little mini village. We looked at images from the real village as we drew! Other activities include making rock dominoes, a very important person statue, and more. Often the activities are inspired by real people and artists.

I just received this one in the mail and haven’t had a chance to try out any of the activities yet, but I’m excited! This activity book includes seven “fun” sections: In the Fresh Air, With Paper, With Science, You Can Eat, With Crafts, With Imagin-yay-tion, and With Family. Most of these are very simple, classic activities like making snowflakes, ice cream in a bag, spiral friendship bracelets, a shoe shop, and more.

I was so excited when I heard about this one! This book’s goal is to “engage in art activities that work toward removing biases, promoting change, and taking action.” It’s divided into six units: Identity, Culture, Community, Empathy, Justice, and Activism. Activities include transforming your name into a work of art, celebrating community heroes and helpers through making papers and portraits, creating miniature billboards that address a social issue, and more. These activities can be adapted for all ages.

We have a variety of science activity books but this is the one we use the most, primarily because it has many experiments with household items we actually have! We’ve squeezed an egg into a bottle, made electric oobleck, conducted some potato science, and more. I do recommend checking out the required materials list before tackling some of these, though! While many are pretty easy, several have less common materials.

In bold graphics great for little eyes, this accessible board book introduces pronouns, including neo pronouns. With simple, direct language, it encourages readers to ask for people’s pronouns. This is an excellent way to introduce pronouns to toddlers in those early stages of language development.

This is the first book I bought my daughter to discuss gender identity, and we still talk about and reread it regularly. Thorn addresses the reader in her straightforward explanation that some people are boys, some girls, and others are somewhere in between. She includes nonbinary and trans kids, as well as a range of racial and ability diversity.

While the first two books in this list discuss gender identity in a more basic, introductory sense, this one specifically unpacks gender stereotypes. Can girls play with trucks? Of course. Can boys play with dolls? Also of course. Additionally, it discusses pronouns and the difference between sex and gender. This is a great picture book for kids who have experienced gender stereotyping.

I love that there’s now a basic introductory discussion of gender identity for chapter book readers. Accompanied by kid-friendly illustrations, Passchier takes readers on a chapter-by-chapter rundown on gender identity, including discussions of gender expression, finding support, and biology. It includes questions at the end of each chapter for readers to think about, as well as an accessible summary of the chapter.

This hilarious and relatable picture book is based on a true story. A family is looking forward to swimming in a pool on vacation, but when father, daughter, and son make it to the bottom of 168 stairs and into the pool, Marc, the son, declares he needs to poop. So back up the stairs they go, then back down when Marc says he no longer needs to poop, then back up when he claims he once again needs to poop. This back-and-forth culminates in one messy accident at the pool. But instead of this being a moment of shame, other pool-goers relate their own poopy accidents, helping Marc feel better and realize that everyone has poopy accidents sometimes.

Wilder and Steele first teamed up on the butt-themed picture book Does a Bulldozer Have a Butt?. In this equally absurd and silly picture book, a child decides to make custom undies for all kinds of creatures and objects after receiving a set of underwear from his mom. He crafts undies for the piggy bank, for a clownfish, for a boomerang, a zombie, and more. Really, doesn’t everyone, and everything, need some unique underwear?

Before leaving for a school field trip to the zoo, Clayton Parker’s teacher tells everyone to go to the restroom. Does Clayton go? No. Before the bus has gone very far, Clayton feels that need to pee. Dr. Bladder gives some information about what’s going on in Clayton’s body. By the time Clayton gets to the zoo, he meets one obstacle after another in his search for relief. This rhythmic and funny read aloud is perfect for preschoolers and kindergarteners.

Bob Shea’s books always get big laughs, and this one is no exception. When Scout leader Reuben the bear brings donuts to share with his troop, his friends point out the big wet pee stain on his pants. Instead of admitting he had peed his pants and changing, he decides to blame everyone else. Clearly, someone else has peed his pants. Withholding the donuts, he interrogates all his friends, who calmly reassure him that accidents happen. This is another picture book that combines potty humor with reassuring themes of body acceptance and empathy.

This picture book biography explores the life of Jewish composer Debbie Friedman, who wrote fun, inclusive songs that immediately became popular with the younger folk in the Jewish community. She was a self-taught musician who longed to make accessible music. Make sure to pair this colorfully illustrated biography with some of Debbie’s music!

In this cute, rhythmic picture book, two sisters, Hester and Ester, compete to make the best babka for their new neighbor, Sylvestor. The two sisters live in houses side by side and are similar in so many ways, but each has their own take on babka. Sylvester is more than happy to serve as a judge. This one is a lot of fun to read aloud.

In this sweet, intergenerational picture book, a young girl tries to help her grandmother feel better after her grandfather’s death by learning Yiddish words. It takes time before Bubbe smiles again, but by spending time together, discussing their memories of Zayde, and honoring the things he taught them, the two are able to fill their days with smiles again. This is a great book about grief and losing a grandparent.

Every person no matter their age is going to identify with the narrator of Ode to a Bad Day. From the time she wakes up in the morning to the time she goes to bed at night, everything is just off and doesn’t feel right. Her cereal gets soggy with too much milk, she’s late for school, a cricket in her room won’t stop chirping. But she also has an understanding father, good classmates, and a warm bed to snuggle into that night. She knows that tomorrow, everything could be different. I always love Hyewon Yum’s illustrations, but these might be my favorite. Yum perfectly captures the narrator’s expressions.

This beautiful picture book tackles childhood depression and sadness. One day a dark cloud appears and follows Abigail everywhere she goes. It follows her to school, to birthday parties, to bed. She has people around her who understand and offer support, like her dad, who brushes her hair when she just can’t muster the energy to lift her comb, and another child who has his own cloud and silently sits beside her on a bench. Abigail’s family and friends are there for her on the days she steps outside the cloud, too, and feels the sunshine on her face. This is a great conversation starter about depression and what it feels like.

Jessie Sima’s newest Nimbus and Kelp picture book also uses the metaphor of a cloud to describe depression. No matter how fun the day is, a cloud follows Nimbus the Pegasus. She tries to ignore it on her adventures with Kelp the unicorn, but the more she ignores it, the bigger it gets. When she realizes everyone can see her giant, thundering cloud, she flees into the forest alone. She realizes there that the only way to weather her cloud is to embrace it as part of herself. But she worries Kelp won’t want to be her friend anymore. Will he love her even with the cloud? (Answer: of course.) I like how this picture book shows both what depression looks and feels like and how to be a good ally. As a bonus, Not Quite Narwhal is now going to be a Netflix series! It’s set to air June 19th.

This is a heartwrenching middle grade novel about 9th grader Clementine’s struggle with grief after her younger sister Hailey’s death. A year has passed but Clementine continues to feel numb to the world, though there are days that, somehow, she manages to smile, or complete a task. School is very difficult, and she misses many days, unable to leave bed, and punches a bully. The book moves through all the cycles of grief and how they often overlap and fold into one another, and while things aren’t perfect by the end, there is hope that the future might hold laughter and smiles again. This is a really tough read. Clementine has suicidal thoughts and sometimes self-harms. She has bad experiences with therapists. It’s also beautifully written. I listened to the audiobook narrated by Sara Matsui-Colby.

It’s Twig’s first birthday in this adorable picture book centering Korean birthday traditions, and big sister Hazel is excited to see what object Twig will choose for her doljabi. Hazel hopes it will be the yarn, like she chose on her first birthday, so that the two can have a long life together. The sisters and their parents eagerly prepare for the big day by sending out invitations to their animal friends, hanging lanterns with fireflies, and more. Dressed in their beautiful hanboks, the sisters celebrate Twig’s birthday, and Twig chooses something no one could’ve expected.

Frankie’s birthday party has almost arrived, and her entire family has pitched in to help for the day. There’s only one big problem: Frankie doesn’t like any of the dresses her mother has picked out for her. The night before her birthday, Frankie draws her perfect outfit: a dazzling suit with lightening bolts and lots of pizazz. She crumbles up the picture, knowing there’s no way she’ll ever be able to wear the outfit of her dreams. But when her family finds the drawing, their combined help makes Frankie’s dream suit a reality.

In this silly and perhaps too-relatable picture book, Mr. Tortoise and his friends are excited to celebrate his birthday. They have the birthday cake ready, but how many candles should be on it? How old exactly is Mr. Tortoise? Trips down memory lane provide some clues, though no one can quite nail it down. One thing is for certain, Mr. Tortoise has celebrated quite a few birthdays, which doesn’t make this one any less special, especially when surrounded by friends. This is why I’m opting for ice cream. 😉

I adore Samantha Cotterill’s Little Senses series, which is aimed to help neurodiverse kids. This is the fourth book in the series. Laila had her perfect unicorn-themed birthday party carefully and meticulously planned. She and her mom both know that Laila needs a schedule to feel comfortable. But things almost immediately begin going awry. It rains, so they have to move the party indoors. When the cake goes plummeting, so does Laila’s mood. With help from her mom and service dog, she rejoins the party and ends up having a lovely time with her friends.

This is such a tender and poetic ode to motherhood. A mother tells her daughter about the shapes of things. Some shapes are obvious: the spherical shape of the Earth, the square shape of their dining room table. But other shapes are more abstract: the quiet shape of thinking, the dog shape of a friend. At the end, the mother tells the daughter about the shape of her love for her.

In this fun, rhythmic picture book, a young boy begs his two mothers for a treehouse. Mommy draws the plans and cuts the wood; Mom picks the tree and helps paint. When the treehouse is complete, it becomes a place for the community to gather. But when it’s time for everyone to leave, the treehouse is there for the child and his mom and mommy to enjoy together.

In this beautiful picture book, an Inuit mother tells her daughter all the things she loves about her, from her fierce eyes, “like a purple saxifrage cutting through autumn’s first snow” to her voice, like a “comforting throat song.” The illustrations of the Arctic landscape are soft and lovely. The glossary in the back discusses the Inuktut languages and gives a translation of the Inuktut words used in the text.

I included this picture book in my most anticipated list back in January, but now that I’ve had the chance to read it, I wanted to include it here, too! Much like Ho’s previous three picture books, One Day is a beautifully poetic ode, this time from a mother to her son. She encourages her son to be gentle, soft, to take his time and feel his feelings. This and To My Panik would make great gifts for new moms.