CHILDREN'S BOOKSELLER // BOOK REVIEWER // ELEMENTARY SCHOOL LIBRARIAN = WORKING WITH CHILDREN & CHILDREN'S BOOKS SINCE 1995
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Goodnight Everyone by Chris Haughton
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Goodnight Everyone is the fourth picture book by Chris Haughton I have reviewed since 2010 when he became a fast favorite. Haughton's unique palette of colors, not often seen in picture books, combined with his lovable, if sometimes hapless characters and clever stories make him an author and illustrator worth following. With Goodnight Everyone, Haughton has created a picture book that is sure to make readers and listeners yawn alike and also make you look at the night sky a bit more closely.
The endpapers of Goodnight Everyone show the southern and northern night skies on one side of the page and the planets in our galaxy, along with which part of the earth is experiencing day and night, on the other. You will definitely find yourself returning to these pages.
The sun is going down and the eyes of the forest animals are drooping. The first few pages of Goodnight Everyone are cut and layered to reveal the animals falling asleep, from mice to bears, with each page turn, the size of the page increasing with the size of the animals. Baby bear, like most small children, resists the call to sleep, but eventually succumbs. While Goodnight Everyone may seem like a sweet and simple story at first, multiple readings (and you WILL be asked to read this book over and over) reveal the many subtle wonders of Haughton's visual story telling skills. As the story unfolds and night falls, the palette darkens gradually. In the layered page spread at start of the book, the grass at the bottom of the pages darkens gradually with every turn. And, the final spread where we see all the forest animals asleep reveals the northern night sky with a spread of constellations, accurately displayed, as the end papers confirm. Another superb picture book from a rising star.
Under Earth , Under Water by Aleksandra Mizielińska and Daniel Mizieliński is their fourth book I have reviewed here and their fourth book with the marvelous Big Picture Press , a publisher of oversized, highly illustrated, gorgeous books who believe that books should be "visually intelligent, surprising, and accessible to readers of all ages, abilities and nationalities." BPP definitely achieves this with every book they publish and, if you are a book lover, you will want to seek out all their titles. Under Earth , Under Water will appeal to anyone who likes to look inside things and understand how things work. With Under Earth, Under Water , the Mizielińskis, who have an illustration style that is filled with tiny details and a unique palette, take readers on a detailed journey, from the top of the page to the bottom, over and under land and then sea. The endpapers serve as the introduction and table of contents, with images scattered across the spread, page nu
Princess Princess Ever After by Katie O'Neill Published by Oni Press Purchased at The Strand Bookstore Princess Princess Ever After is hilarious, fast paced - both in plot and dialogue - and groundbreaking. I can't believe how much O'Neill packs into 56 pages and how absolutely commonplace this story about two princesses who fall in love is. Back in 2012 when I reviewed Drama by Raina Telgemeier, I buried the fact that there are gay characters, questioning characters and a kiss between two boy actors, one of whom is playing the part of a girl character. As a bookseller dealing with a public (in my small, right-leaning-heavily-Christian city) that I knew would not be comfortable with this, I worried that my readers might share the same feelings of discomfort surrounding LGBTQIA+ characters in kid's books. It's so exciting to me that today I can write about a book like Princess Princess Ever After and, while I am still giddy that diversity in k
How to Choose Age Appropriate Books for Advanced Readers remains the most read post on my blog since I wrote it in 2012. Because of this, I have cleaned up this post, tightened the writing and added in any pertinent information that has come about since it originally ran. When I first started books4yourkids.com in August of 2008, I was scrambling for content, finding my purpose and my voice and not always doing my best writing. How to Choose Age Appropriate Books for Advanced Readers was one of the first articles I wrote and, as a bookseller and a book reviewer, and now as an elementary school librarian where I have gone from working with kids reading well beyond their grade level to kids reading well below, this philosophy remains my organizing principle and central focus when reading and recommending books to parents and children. In the interest of my mission and the attention this article continues to receive, I have updated and expanded this article and included a gui
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