Wombat Divine

Mem Fox. Harcourt Children's Books, $17 (32pp) ISBN 978-0-15-201416-2

The show must go on--and the annual Nativity play is no exception. Ready to break a leg, Wombat eagerly auditions for every part in the production, only to find that he's not quite suited for any of them. When fussy director Emu brilliantly suggests that Wombat accept the important role of baby Jesus, the play is finally ready for opening night. In her humorous and understated watercolors, Argent's (One Woolly Wombat) beguiling bunch of Australian animals embodies a refreshing all-for-one Christmas spirit. Fox's (Time for Bed) title is one of the few this season to take a playful approach to Christmas and its pleasures are infectious. Ages 4-8. (Oct.)

Featured Children's Reviews

Cheryl Willis Hudson

Willis Hudson movingly exalts the power of African American spirituals in a lyrics showcase that pairs existing verses with feelings they can evoke. On the first page, a Black Continue reading »

Traci N Todd

Todd and Davis’s melodic paean to performer Ella Jenkins (b. 1924) follows a figure who “wants/ to make/ a pretty sound.” Growing up on Chicago’s South Side, musically inclined Continue reading »

Kwame Alexander

“Listen to...” repeats Alexander and Palmer’s entrancing history of Black music. The account begins with an image of brown-skinned people dancing and drumming in “the Continue reading »

Quartez Harris

“The first time James Baldwin read a book, the words clung to him like glitter.” Harris and James home in on the emotional core of the author’s upbringing in this moving work Continue reading »