Category: The Kids Are All Right

In this stunning mythic picture book, a young Hawaiian girl learns the traditions and stories behind Hula, the Hawaiian folkloric dance. The more she learns, the closer she comes to understanding the true meaning of aloha. The illustrations in this are gorgeous. You can see a few inside pages on my Instagram review of it. The author sells the book through Kickstarter, and she’s donating 100% of September sales to ‘Āina Momona to help provide direct support to those affected by the Maui wildfires.

This is also a picture book based on Indigenous Hawaiian myths. It’s about how the Mahu — people with both male and female spirits — brought the healing arts and science to Hawaii in the 15th century. The Hawaiians honored their legacy with a monument of four boulders. When white colonists move onto the island, the legend behind the boulders is forgotten, but not forever.

In this vibrant picture book, a shy girl, Punky, finds her courage with some advice from her grandmother as well as her grandmother’s supposedly magic sunglasses that help her share her aloha. With sunglasses on, she manages to make friends and help her community. It’s an adorable read!

This is such an entertaining contemporary middle grade fantasy centering Hawaiian folklore. Twelve-year-old Anna/Leilani spends her summers with her grandmother, Tutu, in a small village near a volcano. Tutu teaches Anna Hawaiian folklore and language in the hopes that Anna will remember and carry her Hawaiian heritage proudly, but after a falling out with her best friend in Colorado, Anna believes that by embracing her Hawaiian heritage, she’s separating herself from her friend. At first, she tries to reject Tutu’s teachings, but when she picks the wrong flower in a fury, she triggers the goddess Pela’s rage.

This picture book is the continuation of a nature-themed series by the author and illustrator. It opens with a grandmother and grandchild in a boat watching Canadian geese fly overhead. The story then follows the family of what appears to be a mother, son, and two grandmothers as they explore the changes fall brings outside, from watching beavers build to hiking among yellow larches. I think this is the first time I’ve seen two queer grandmothers in a picture book? Feel free to let me know if you know of others!

I mean, does a cover get more adorable? This simple, rhyming picture book explores lots of classic fall scenes: pumpkin patches, trick-or-treating, pumpkin pie, and more. The orange and yellow-hued illustrations perfectly encapsulate fall feelings. It’s a playful, joyful read-aloud.

This picture book is my daughter’s favorite fall read. It’s about three leaves with a lot of personality-changing colors and falling as the season progresses. Birch is happy to see what comes next, Oak is worried, and Maple is excited and wants to be first at everything. However, she’s the last to change color and the last to fall. This is a fun one for kids and also a great read before doing any fall leaf crafts.

I adore JaNay Brown-Wood’s Where in the Garden? picture book series, which are compare/contrast stories that depict diverse children in gardens searching for a fruit or vegetable. In this one, the first book in the series, though every book is a stand-alone, Amara is looking for pumpkins on the farm. She’s got to find pumpkins before a potluck she’s hosting! Will the reader help her find them?

The Little Languages board book series introduces first concepts to toddlers. There are four board books total in the series, and they come with an audio QR code for pronunciation. The illustrations are really adorable and colorful. Each page spread has a sentence in English on the left and the same sentence in Spanish on the right.

There are three books total in this sweet board book series that teaches kids how to dance along with first concepts. In this one, kids can learn steps to the cumbia along with manners. The other two books in the series are ¡1, 2, 3 Merengue!, which teaches about instruments and sounds, and ¡1, 2, 3 Salsa!, which teaches counting. They’re really delightful and I love that they’re interactive.

This is part of the Feelings & Firsts board book series. In this one, a toddler learns about potty training. Other board books in the series cover topics like playing independently and trying new foods. They’re available in English only and in English and Spanish. There are currently four books in the series.

I was so excited to learn that Alma from Alma and How She Got Her Name was going to get her own board books! In this one, Alma interacts with family members. Each page has a simple sentence in both English and Spanish accompanied by a sweet illustration depicting the sentence. This is also part of a series, though currently only two books have been published in the series. The other book is Alma, Head to Toe /Alma, de pies a cabeza.

This picture book biography explores the life of Argentinian folk singer Mercedes Sosa. Her singing journey began in school, when she was asked to sing the national anthem, and later to compete in a radio show contest. After she won the contest, she kept singing and singing and singing. When the Argentinian government banned her songs and arrested her during a show, she was forced to flee to Europe. This is a beautifully illustrated picture book biography and a great way to introduce children to Sosa’s music.

This is the first book in Eerdmans Books’ new Stories from Latin America Series. In a small town in Honduras, Luis, who loves stories, excitedly waits for a bookmobile’s arrival. Every Monday the bookmobile comes, spreading stories and joy. This vibrantly illustrated picture book is based on a true story. The Asociación Compartir, part of JustWorld International, sponsors a bookmobile that travels around Honduras sharing books. This releases next Tuesday.

This beautiful picture book celebrates the love between a father and daughter. Every evening when Papa gets home from work, he braids his daughter Xiomara’s hair (trenzas in Spanish). When he gets home late one evening and is unable to braid her hair, Xiomara despairs. It’s too hard to do herself! The next evening, Papa tells her the story of learning how to braid from his sisters.

Sami loves Spanglish, but his abuela is skeptical. Blending Spanish and English words comes naturally for Sami, and he’s frustrated when friends and his school aren’t accepting of Spanglish. But with support from his family, he realizes it’s okay to speak in unique ways. This is a joyful picture book.

In this fantastic, genre-bending middle-grade book, a Little Free Library sprouts up in the sleepy town of Martinville. When 11-year-old Evan plucks two books from the library, everything changes. The story is told in three voices, each in a different genre. It is a ghost story, an animal story, and a mystery, all wrapped up into one.

This stunning picture book is a love letter to libraries. With Nikki Giovanni’s gorgeous poetic verse, she brings to life the importance that libraries hold for so many different people in a community. The illustrations are luminous!

Last year I saw this picture book on so many Mock Newbery Club lists, and when I read it I immediately knew why. It’s a beautiful story of perseverance and strength in the midst of unimaginable hardship and humiliation. When Tama is sent to an incarceration camp in the desert following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, she finds solace working at the tiny library. But she’s not the only one in the library day after day. George is there too, his arms filled with books, and their friendship grows and blossoms.

Most picture books depict boys with dyslexia, so I was very happy to see this one releasing today, about a little girl with dyslexia trying to write a story for her grandmother’s birthday. It’s a sweet story, and the back matter includes ideas to help kids with dyslexia. For another picture book about dyslexia featuring a girl main character, check out Brilliant Bea.

Abdul loves stories but struggles to write down his own. He thinks, because his writing is so messy and because he never sees kids like himself in stories, that he shouldn’t be a writer. Then a real writer visits his classroom, Mr. Muhammad, and shows the class that everyone makes mistakes, and that good stories come from good editing. Encouraged, Abdul realizes that anyone can be a storyteller, including himself. While this picture book doesn’t specify that Abdul has dyslexia, it is adjacent.

This beautifully illustrated picture book is one of my favorites. It’s based on the author’s childhood experiences. Hudson loves drawing and stories, but he reads very slowly, and he gets frustrated and embarrassed by how long it takes him to read. When he learns about other people who read slowly, he gives himself permission to read slowly and continue to relish the books he loves.

Like Hudson, Aaron loves stories and art, but words jumble up whenever he tries to read or write, and he struggles to make sense of them. When Ms. Greer assigns the class a storytelling project, Aaron despairs. But with a little ingenuity, he finds a unique way to tell a story. Like the rest of The Questioneers series, this is written in rhyming verse. It’s such a fun read aloud.

Violet loves her brand-new box of crayons. Each crayon tip is so perfect and each color so bright! She’s excited to use the crayons and imagines many colorful scenes she could create. However, if she uses the crayons, they will no longer be perfect! She can’t seem to make herself use them. Then one day her younger sister takes the crayons and draws her sister a picture. Instead of being happy, Violet is very upset about her sister using her crayons. I had almost this exact scenario play out with one of my sisters and a sewing kit she had. It did not work out so well; it was the first time I was grounded, lol.

Speaking of sibling conflict, sometimes Lulu and Zoey get along, and just as often they don’t. Fights break out about sharing and having alone time, and sometimes these fights even turn physical. But they also often have a lot of fun together, and their creativity can shine together, too. This rhyming picture book provides a slice-of-life glimpse into the life of these two sisters.

Sisters Siasi and Siloah love spending time with their ningiuq, the Inuktitut word for grandmother. They especially love picking berries with her. At the end of every summer, the trio heads out to pick berries, and berry picking continues as the season changes. When the berries are picked, they make delicious treats. This is a sweet intergenerational picture book that releases on Tuesday.

Ling and Ting are my favorite sisters from children’s lit. There are four Ling & Ting readers, and while they can be read in any order, Not Exactly the Same is the best place to start. Though they’re twins, Ling and Ting are not exactly the same, as the six interconnected stories in this will show. Despite their differences, they love being together, and they love being almost the same. These readers are modern classics. If you haven’t read them yet, definitely check them out!

While there isn’t much gender diversity in children’s books about school pictures, this one is different, and very LGBTQ+ friendly. Molly’s mom frames and hangs all school pictures in a place of honor, and Molly wants this year’s picture to be perfect. But Molly’s mom wants her to wear a frilly dress, and Molly definitely doesn’t want to wear a dress. She can’t convince her mom to let her pick out her own outfit, so she sneaks to school with her brother’s old tuxedo in her backpack, the perfect outfit for Molly’s dream picture.

Amira is so excited to celebrate Eid with her entire family, and she’ll be missing school for the holiday. However, she then remembers that she’ll also be missing picture day. Her mother tries to reassure her that she’ll get plenty of pictures at the Eid celebration, but it’s not the same. Amira wants pictures with her class! Thankfully, she’s able to attend just for pictures. This is a good reminder for teachers and school departments to remember all student holidays and not plan big events when minority students might be absent.

The Geraldine Pu books are slim, early reader graphic novels that are great for beginning readers. This is the second book in the series, and currently three have been published. Each can be read as a stand alone. In this one, Geraldine really wants to wear her favorite cat hat for school pictures because she dislikes her own hair. It would be so much better to cover it up with her hat, but there’s a no hat rule. Can Geraldine learn to like her hair?

It’s middle school, and Viv wants to be more like the most popular girl in school, who has a ton of social media followers and is constantly making viral videos. For school pictures, Viv decides to cut her hair and style it like her favorite media personality, and has one of her friends film it for social media. The video goes viral and everyone wants Viv to give them their big happy moments. Meanwhile, she’s alienating her friends in her quest to be popular. This is an entertaining middle grade graphic novel.

When a wildfire is spotted near her home, Malia and her family must evacuate. Her parents tell her to quickly pack what she can, but how can she pack everything important to her? It’s impossible. When they leave she realizes that her family and pet are what’s most important. This is a great book for kids facing an evacuation.

In this simple, poetic picture book, animals react as a wildfire starts in their forest and warn other animals to flee. Meanwhile, humans also spot the flames and begin to douse them via firefighters and aircraft. The beautiful, vibrant illustrations capture the animals’ panic as they journey to safety.

When a boy moves from the city to the country, he initially misses his city life, but soon he comes to love nature and befriends a fox. One day, he spots a forest fire and the family evacuates. He worries about what will happen to the fox. After the fires have been put out, the family returns home to find their house in ruins. They rebuild, and when they do, the fox returns. By the way, Danny Popovici is a volunteer firefighter.

This lyrical picture book is a bit different than the other three. Cooke looks at the history of fire and how it’s often essential to both human life and flora and fauna. Fires are indubitably dangerous, and Cooke addresses that, too, but they’re also essential to ecosystems. The illustrations are stunning.

While Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton are the most well-known leaders of the movement, it was Carrie Chapman Catt who led the Women’s Suffrage Movement when the 19th Amendment passed as a result of her campaigning and hard work. This picture book biography begins with a young Carrie asking questions, and refusing to stop asking questions even when her father mocked her. Because her father didn’t believe women should go to college, Carrie washed dishes to pay for it, and when she graduated, she joined the Women’s Suffrage Movement, led at the time by Susan B. Anthony (there were different women’s groups campaigning, but I’ll keep it simple here!). This follows Carrie all the way to Nashville, where she successfully campaigned and the 19th Amendment was passed. I love that this picture book includes Carrie’s long relationship with another woman, and doesn’t hide that Carrie was queer.

This picture book centers on that final day of voting in Nashville, and how it all came down to one legislator, Harry Burn, and more importantly to his mother, Febb Burn. Harry had intended to vote “No” on the amendment, but then he received a letter from his mother with a big, old-fashioned guilt trip about how of course Harry would vote yes, how her beloved son knows how industrious his mother is, and how much she loves him and how (subtext) she will never forgive him and guilt him for the rest of his life if he were to vote no, but of course, he must already be planning to vote yes, because he loves his mother so. Harry was a good boy and voted yes. I’m really glad this picture book exists because no one I ever talk to knows about Febb Burn! Her voice is the one that won the vote.

This is a beautifully illustrated, large nonfiction biography collection and history that I encourage anyone that enjoys learning about the movement to read. It covers the Women’s Suffrage Movement in both the United States and the United Kingdom. You probably recognize David Roberts’s illustrations from the Questioneers series, like Ada Twist, Scientist and Rosie Revere, Engineer. It includes lots of fun facts about the movement, from badges to parades and more.

Black women were absolutely vital to the Women’s Suffrage Movement. The vote would not have happened without women like Mary Church Terrell and Ida B. Wells. Yet many white women suffragists were racist, and their racist beliefs and in-fighting hindered the movement. This middle grade nonfiction is a vital examination of the role of African American women in the movement. Dionne also connects how the struggles of Black women during the Women’s Suffrage Movement apply to current efforts to restrict voting access for Black citizens.