This follow-up to You Are My Little Cupcake gives parents another foodie analogy to express their love for their kids. “Your scent is just delightful—/ Like cinnamon and spice./ Each time I kiss your yummy cheek,/ I have to kiss it twice,” writes Sklansky as Shipman provides smudgy scenes of baby/parent duos baking a pumpkin pie and sharing a tender moment on a city street. A cozy and comforting read with bedtime book potential. Up to age 3. Author’s agent: April Prince, Studio Goodwin Sturges. Illustrator’s agent: Lilla Rogers Studio. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 06/14/2013 | Details & Permalink

“It’s teatime for Bunny, but where can she be?” asks the narrator in this addition to the Go, Baby! line. As children make their way through a forest, they can lift flaps in hopes of finding the rabbit; a cluster of pink flowers reveals Lamb, who has a bit of fluffy wool, while a rock disguises someone else (“Is she busy digging a home? No, it’s Badger!”). The urging prose, tactile elements, and crisp graphics create a fun hide-and-seek diversion. Simultaneously available: Have You Seen Kitty?, Have You Seen Duck?, Have You Seen Puppy? Up to age 3. (June)

Reviewed on 06/14/2013 | Details & Permalink

Biggs expands on his vehicular Everything Goes series with a focused and fun story that traces the journey of a red balloon after a girl loses it while entering a yellow taxi. The text simply names the vehicles the balloon floats past, including a green van, black sports car (the balloon snags the passenger’s hat as it passes), and white airplane, all rendered in Biggs’s familiar chunky cartooning. The girl peeks out of several vehicles, and Biggs ends with a happy (and colorful) reunion. Simultaneously available: Goodnight Trucks: A Bedtime Book. Up to age 4. Agent: Steven Malk, Writers House. (June)

Reviewed on 06/14/2013 | Details & Permalink

In this well-executed opposites-themed companion to I Can Do It Myself! and Now I Am Big! a girl with a yellow jumper and hair in neat cornrows shares her knowledge in confident, first-person rhymes. “I know rocks are heavy,/ and flowers are light./ I know bright means day,/ and dark means night,” she boasts as Gillingham shows her playing with friends or riding in the family car. The limited primary color scheme and preponderance of simple shapes bolster the idea of kids mastering the basics. Ages 1–3. Illustrator’s agent: Amy Rennert, Amy Rennert Agency. (July)

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Van Fleet returns with another winning combination of interactive elements and buoyant rhyme as he explores an array of animal mouths: “Bunny mouth nibbles,/ Tiger mouth crunch,/ Hungry alligator mouth—/ munch, munch, munch!” he writes as friendly animals appear in a row, with readers helping the gator gobble some apples via a tab. Other nifty moments include a pelican’s mouth that opens 90 degrees to show just how many fish it can fit inside and a beaver that makes a ratcheting noise as it chomps on a log. Ages 2–6. (Aug.)

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“A” is still for apple in Iwata’s first children’s book (which began life on Kickstarter), but his is “an apple-shaped music box made to revere/ the Capital’s founding of two hundred years.” A wood-and-brass apple appears opposite, complete with a keyhole and gears, and 25 alphabetical eccentricities follow, from a steam-powered candle with an light bulb to an mechanical fish outfitted with “surveillance devices.” Sidebars in a handwritten font share additional details about the history and workings of Iwata’s imagined mechanisms, which will pique imaginations young and old, along with his lovingly detailed images. Ages 2–6. (June)

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While this striking ode to independent cinema uses an abecedarian board book format, the films it covers are for an older crowd. More than 30 years of Sundance Film Festival movies are featured within as 27 artists contributing wildly diverse interpretations of several of them. A few names will be familiar to children’s book aficionados: Patrick Hruby offers geometric portraits of Lily Tomlin and Stanley Tucci on the T spread, and Christopher Silas Neal closes things out with Zebrahead and Zidane. As iconoclastic a collection as the movies, directors, and actors it celebrates. (June)

Reviewed on 06/14/2013 | Details & Permalink

The pages of this expansive anthology from War Horse author Michael Morpurgo and his wife, Clare, are crowded with memoir, sketches, and countryside poetry. An introduction explains that Clare was allowed to wander wherever she liked as a child in a Devon village. Lyrical journal entries based on Clare’s memories are written in the voice of an eight-year-old girl named Pippa: “A hare sits taller than a rabbit, stiller, and he’s browner. And when he runs, he goes, well... like a hare, jinking and weaving, till he weaves himself into the long grass and he’s gone.” Debut artist Gill’s closely observed drawings of wildlife, farmers, and landscapes tinted in gentle, rained-out colors join hand-lettered sections of prose. Gatefolds, transparent overlays, and photos of pressed flowers add to the sense of a collection of fragments; it’s like a box of treasures kept by a child underneath the bed. The poetry includes a wealth of high-order selections from British poets like John Clare, Norman MacCaig, and Ted Hughes. Anglophiles will be eager to share this bit of British countryside with children they know. Ages 6–9. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 06/14/2013 | Details & Permalink

The authors of Tales Our Abuelitas Told shape fictional portraits of 13 young people living in the U.S., who have diverse experiences and backgrounds but share a Latino heritage. The first-person narrative poems range from reflective to free-spirited, methodical to free-association. A boy in Detroit dreams of opening a hospital in his family’s native Dominican Republic; a Puerto Rican girl wants her parents to support her dreams of attending college, rather than splurge on “an elaborate party—/ a quinceañera production”; and two friends—one Guatemalan, one Peruvian—are learning the native language of their Chinese and Japanese grandparents. In the most resounding monologue, a Hispanic Native American shares advice from his brother that crystallizes the book’s message: “Never forget who you are.” Informative nonfictional interludes succinctly address relevant subjects, including immigration, the challenges migrant workers face, and Cuba-U.S. history. Diaz’s (Smoky Night) angular, hand-cut b&w illustrations are reminiscent of woodblock prints, balancing images from the past and present. An eye-opening and thoughtful celebration of cultural identity. Ages 10–13. Authors’ agent: Adriana Dominguez, Full Circle Literary. Illustrator’s agent: East West Literary Agency. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 06/14/2013 | Details & Permalink

An exuberant first-person voice begins this story, first in a planned series, with a burst of energy that maintains momentum: “It’s Saturday! Tank! Wake Up!” Conversing with her dog in a stream-of-thought narrative, Stellarella, a redhead in purple dress with feathered headband, pronounces her plans for market day, which include visits to an ethnically diverse group of women: Ms. Sadie sells jelly; Ms. Leanna, tomatoes; Ms. Maria, zucchini. Ebert-Klaven’s illustrations of home and market offer geometric stripes, checks, and polka-dots, while black squiggles outline characters’ hair, background hills, bushes, and clouds. The paintings, which depict scenes from a variety of angles, brim with energy and motion; one shows Stellarella holding a cornucopia of vegetables, a rainbow behind her, and saying: “Tank, did you know God makes strawberries? She grows them from seeds she plants in the dirt... she’s as busy as Mama!” With subtlety, Dykes demonstrates how Stellarella’s exposure to strong, resilient women helps shape her character, making this story both entertaining and substantive. All ages. (July)

Reviewed on 06/14/2013 | Details & Permalink