The River
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Alessandro Sanna, trans. from the Italian by Michael Reynolds. Enchanted Lion (Consortium, dist.), $22.95 (112p) ISBN 978-1-59270-149-0
Italian illustrator Sanna paints hundreds of watercolors of the country's Po River, arranging the thin, wide panoramas on the pages like photos in an album. Wordless stories, one for each season, are prefaced by passages of lyrical prose. The first, Autumn, remembers a catastrophic flood. "The old-timers speak to me of the skin of the river," Sanna writes, "as if it were a sleeping animal that might awake at any moment." Using watercolor stain on wet paper for the dark clouds and a fine brush for those who stand vigil on the banks, Sanna follows a man on a bicycle who offers help up and down the river. After a night at home with his wife, the man returns to the rescue effort. When he reappears, this time in a boat, he discovers his house empty and half-submerged. The other three stories—the birth of a calf in the winter, a spring wedding, a summer encounter between an artist and an escaped tiger—offer compensatory joy. The myriad images of the Po in rain, sun, at dusk and dawn give readers a deeper sense of its allure. Ages 6–up. (Feb.)
Ziggy's Big Idea
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Ilana Long, illus. by Rasa Joni. Kar-Ben, $17.95 (32p) ISBN 978-0-7613-9053-4
Long and Joni posit a new origin story for the ubiquitous bagel (the existing legends are noted on the book's final page). It all started in the shetl, they say, where a wildly inventive boy named Ziggy wants to solve the plight of Moishe the baker, whose "top secret boiled buns" (which are "boiled then baked, making them soft and fluffy inside, and gold and crunchy on the outside") have a serious design flaw: "Mrs. Schwartz complains the buns are undercooked at the center." Ziggy's innovation: don't think bun, think bracelet. With an empty hole at the center, there's nothing to undercook, and even the finicky Mrs. Schwartz is impressed with the result. It's solid storytelling, and Joni's earth-toned drawings are a pleasing mix of flattened perspectives, dimensionality, and texture. There's a good joke about another one of Ziggy's inventions ("shulstilts," to help a short rabbi "see eye to eye with the bar mitzvah boys!"), but the overall approach is earnest and affirming. Ages 5–9. (Mar.)
Goodnight Songs
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Margaret Wise Brown, illus. by Jonathan Bean, Carin Berger, Sophie Blackall, et al. Sterling, $17.95 (28p) ISBN 978-1-4549-0446-5
Twelve talented illustrators interpret gentle poems by the late Brown, all but three of which have never before been published. In an introduction, Amy Gary, editor of Brown's estate, describes finding hundreds of the writer's unpublished manuscripts 20 years ago, a "treasure of a lifetime" that contained (among many other works) the verse in this volume. In keeping with the "goodnight" theme, the poems tend to have the muted and contemplative tone of a lullaby, even when the subject isn't sleep. For "Song to Estyn," Eric Puybaret provides a gauzy image of a child in a sailor's outfit held snugly by his father on the deck of an ocean liner ("Baby, sail the seven seas/ Safely in my arms"); Linda Bleck strikes a more comedic note in her midcentury retro illustrations of wide-eyed forest creatures for "Goat on the Mountain." Animals figure into many of the poems, and Renata Liwska, Melissa Sweet, Zachariah OHora, and other contributors create strong connections to the text in their artwork. Musicians Tom Proutt and Emily Gary turn each poem into a song on an accompanying CD. A rewarding and visually wide-ranging collection. Ages 3–6. (Mar.)
The Odd One Out
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Britta Teckentrup. Candlewick/Big Picture, $14.99 (32p) ISBN 978-0-7636-7127-3
Teckentrup, creator of hide-and-seek books like Animal 123 and Animal Spots and Stripes, asks readers to scan pleasingly patterned images for an "odd one out." More than 50 pandas tumble across a page, for instance, all but one clutching a stick: "In among all of/ this hullaballoo,/ which panda has lost/ its shoot of bamboo?" Identically posed two-hump camels stand in five measured rows: "Can you see a camel/ with just one bump?" Teckentrup's mod block-print graphics, reminiscent of Laura Ljungkvist's stylized work, present dizzying crowds of creatures—seals, lemurs, penguins, and butterflies among them. If the pictures are altogether charming, inconsistent verb agreement mars the poems; although "A large group of tortoises/ passes on by" and "a cloud of bats/ comes out looking for fun," a "dazzling shoal of fish/ under the sea/ are keeping a secret" and "A cartload of monkeys/ spin around and around." Readers will solve some puzzles handily, while other games pose a comparative challenge, making these visuals compelling through several rounds of play. Ages 2–5. (Mar.)
It’s About Time: Untangling Everything You Need to Know About Time
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Pascale Estellon, trans. from the French by Sarah Quinn. Owlkids (PGW, dist.), $18.95 (48p) ISBN 978-1-77147-006-3
Two friends, Jacob and Lily, serve as guides to timekeeping and measurements of time, from one second (“just a tiny little instant”) to a full century. Estellon explains each concept clearly, while also invoking alternate ways to think about them; thus, an hour is both “60 minutes” and the amount of time needed to bake a pound cake (“It took one whole hour to make it. And it will only take five minutes to eat it!”). Explanations of how to tell time on a clock, how hours create days (and weeks, months, and years) also appear, with Estellon’s cheerful cartooning offering both entertainment and visual support for each topic. Ages 5–8. (Apr.)
The Wing Wing Brothers Geometry Palooza!
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Ethan Long. Holiday House, $15.95 (32p) ISBN 978-0-8234-2951-6
The ever-daring Wing Wing Brothers return for a third outing, ready to reveal three “amazing feats” of geometry. The birds first demonstrate relative positions by launching themselves “in front of,” “above,” “behind,” “beside,” and finally “through” a Ring of Fire. Next, Walter’s magic wand shows how shapes can create more complex shapes (“One square plus two triangles of equal size can make... a parallelogram!”), and Wendell saws a wooden box (and Walter) into four quarters in the final trick. Long’s comics-style panels bring clarity and comedy to each episode, and his irreverent closing gag will leave readers cackling—it turns out that taking a bow right after being sawn into four pieces isn’t a great idea. Ages 4–6. Agent: Paul Rodeen, Rodeen Literary Management. (Jan.)
100 Hungry Monkeys!
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Masayuki Sebe. Kids Can, $16.95 (24p) ISBN 978-1-77138-045-4
Sebe continues to have fun with the number 100 (following Let’s Count to 100! and 100 Animals on Parade!), this time bringing in more monkeys than could ever fit in a barrel. A quest for food leads the hungry monkeys to a forest teeming with fruit, followed by a harried escape from a giant green monster, who isn’t as monstrous as he initially appears to be. As in 100 Animals on Parade, the pages are packed with exclamatory chatter among the animals, and multiple seek-and-find prompts (“Do you see the monkey with a leaf on his head?”) invite close study of the whirlwind of activity taking place on every page. Ages 3–7. (Mar.)
100 Bears
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Magali Bardos. Nobrow/Flying Eye (Consortium, dist.), $19.95 (104p) ISBN 978-1-909263-15-4
An escalating conflict between six bears and eight hunters (“9 gunshots” are fired) propels the loose narrative of this counting book as it proceeds to 100. Along the way, French author-artist Bardos follows the bears’ attempt to get back at the hunters (they climb 21 ladder rungs to crash a feast that includes “18 roasts” and “19 hot potatoes”), the groups’ subsequent run-ins, and their eventual reconciliation over “91 slices of gingerbread.” While there are a few shortcuts where counting is concerned (some numbers, like 83 and 98, simply appear as labels on T-shirts and flags), Bardos’s bold, matte illustrations steal the show, making each increasingly chaotic scene worth poring over. Ages 3–7. (Mar.)
1 to 20, Animals Aplenty
Katie Viggers. PowerHouse/POW! (Random, dist.), $17.95 (48p) ISBN 978-1-57687-680-0
Viggers follows 2013’s Almost an Animal Alphabet with this counting-themed companion book, which has the same understated wit and careful portraiture of its predecessor. The rhythm and rhyme of the title is echoed in each entry, from “1 fox in a pair of socks” to “20 birds who have the last words.” Specific breeds and types of animal are labeled (seven wig-wearing pigs include a Tamworth with a pompadour and a Gloucester Old Spot with a green mohawk), and subtly humorous details are everywhere, including the studious expressions worn by “16 chickens reading Dickens” and the near-unforgettable sight of 19 snakes weaving their way through delicate cakes and pastries. Ages 3–7. (Apr.)
Mice Mischief: Math Facts in Action
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Caroline Stills, illus. by Judith Rossell. Holiday House, $16.95 (24p) ISBN 978-0-8234-2947-9
Ten mice demonstrate the combinations of numbers that can add up to 10 in this cozy picture book from the team behind The House of 12 Bunnies. After they awaken, “9 mice tidy,” while “1 mouse somersaults. 9+1=10” (Rossell shows a black-and-white spotted mouse gleefully diving off the group’s bunk-bed tower onto pillows scattered on the floor). This mix of helpful behavior and silly fun continues in the following pages, which have eight mice cooking while two juggle berries, seven washing dishes while three twirl plates on needles, and so on. It’s a clear and focused exploration of the concept, one that doesn’t lack for fun thanks to the mice’s antics. Ages 3–6. (Jan.)
