Palace of Books

Polacco offers gratitude for her childhood public library in this earnest autobiographical picture book tribute. When a white-presenting first grader leaves the family farm for Battle Creek, Mich., she finds it’s not easy being the new kid. But the artistic protagonist, a bird-lover who struggles to read, finds refuge within the local library’s art books, among them the paintings of John James Audubon (“I had never seen anything more beautiful than this!”). With the help of an affectionate librarian, the child finds a way to share her love of birds with her classmates, mostly portrayed as pale-skinned, leading to the class receiving memberships to the Audubon bird club. In exuberant pencil, marker, and acrylic artwork, Polacco packs a lot of detail into this lengthy, nostalgic tale of a library as a kind of home. Ages 4–8. (Mar.)