Adiba Jaigirdar’s The Henna Wars may be my favorite young adult love story of all time. Jaigirdar has created a smart, awkward, completely believable tale of two teen girls falling in love. Her protagonist, Nashat, is a Bangladeshi Irish teenager with a crush on Flávia, a Brazilian Irish teen new […]
Written by Karamo Brown and illustrated by Anoosha Said, I am Perfectly Designed (2020) is a beautiful exploration of a father-son relationship. Said’s use of color sets the tone and the diverse characters she scatters across the page emphasizes the story’s moral of acceptance. The phrase “perfectly designed” repeats throughout […]
Sugar Free Books‘ inaugural publication, Gabe Faces Ignorance, is the first children’s picture book I’ve read that tackles Islamophobia. Written by L.I. Forsete and illustrated by Gemma Gould, the story focuses on the friendship of Gabe, a white Christian boy, and Sophie, a tan-skinned rosy-cheeked Muslim girl. The two classmates […]
In February I received a gorgeous book from Roaring Brook Press, an imprint of Macmillan Publishers. The book, Black is a Rainbow Color, written by Angela Joy and illustrated by Ekua Holmes, is an event. Holmes impressive illustrations are thick with meaning but inviting enough to capture and keep the […]
Shaunta Grimes’ Center of Gravity (2020) is steeped with references to 1980s culture and aesthetics. Tessa, the novels twelve-year-old protagonist, is losing everything: her mother, her best friend, even her home in Colorado. She’s also gaining things she doesn’t want: a twenty-three-year-old stepmom who is pregnant and a beach house […]
Isla’s Family Tree (2020), written by Katrina McKelvey and illustrated by Prue Pittock, is a warm and inviting story that manages to be both minimalist and richly specific. The red-haired title character is not excited that her mother is about to give birth to twins. She tells her parents that […]
The Adventures of Princess Pudding Pie (2020), written by Saureen Naik Desai and illustrated by Marco Mazzarello, follows a round-faced little girl with black pigtails and tan-colored skin on a journey around the world. The little girl, Princess Pudding Pie, introduces readers to brief greetings and yummy delicacies from a […]
I’ve been blogging for a couple of years now and I get “book mail” often. In fact, my four-year-old always asks if the package I’m opening contains something we can read together, and it usually does. When I received Sumo Joe, Mia Wenjen’s debut picture book, the two of us […]
A Puggle in Paris (2018), written by Dena Fitzpatrick and illustrated by Amelia Gossman, takes readers on a charming romp through Paris, France. Pretty pastel colors, dominated by pink, set the scene with feminine flair as Lucy, a beret wearing puggle, journeys alone to France. Lucy enjoys lunch at the […]
In one of Penny Candy Books’ newest publications Bianca Stone shapes Gertrude Stein’s modernist poem “A Little Called Pauline” into a beautiful story about a woman’s motherhood journey. It is a challenging and pleasurable book that little readers and their grown-ups can get lost and found in as they laugh […]
