I can’t think of a time when we have needed a profound book like this more than we do now. Since we are evidently in a period of doomed-to-repeat-history, it’s important that young readers (whose parents are not that much…
Category: cultural
A Gefilte Fishy Tale
I thought a book titled A Gefilte Fishy Tale was going to be too lightweight for this blog, but this little book turned out to be a delight (and we are in the midst of a Jewish holiday season, after…
Nancy Bo Flood on Soldier Sister, Fly Home
Today, we want to celebrate our own Nancy Bo Flood’s newest book, Soldier Sister, Fly Home! The book follows in the footsteps of many of Nancy’s books, exploring themes related to war, as well as setting in the Navajo culture of…
Picture Book Roundup-August 2016
Maggie McGillicuddy’s Eye for Trouble by Susan Hughes and illustrations by Brooke Kerrigan is a delightful story of a friendship between an elderly woman and a young boy who lives next door. The subject of the book is not “race”…
THE WORLD IN A SECOND
Take one second, just one, and imagine all the events happening to all the many people living in all the different countries around the world. In this award-winning picture book, each double-page presents an illustration that shows a place and…
WATCH OUT FOR FLYING KIDS Social Justice Award Winner!
Watch Out For Flying Kids by Cynthia Levinson is not just a book about being a kid in a circus and flying through the air, trusting that someone on another trapeze will reach out and catch you, this book is…
Like a Bird:The Art of the American Slave Song by Cynthia Grady
There is a lot to learn and love in the text of this book, if you can tear yourself away from the fascinating illustrations by Michele Wood. Each page is like a separate painting in an exhibit, each a small…
In the Footsteps of Crazy Horse
Guest Post by Linda Boyden Too often, history is written by the victors. Nowhere is this truer than in regards to the histories of the indigenous people of America, but Joseph Marshall III’s new middle grade novel, In the Footsteps…
Nothing in the Word: Versions of Aztec Poetry
This book is quite a relic (1972), though it is still available from online sources. The late poet, Stephen Berg, founder of the American Poetry Review, translated these 50 poems from the indigenous Nahuatl Indians of Central Mexico. A friend…
Laughing Out Loud, I Fly: Poems for Teens and Young Adults from Juan Felipe Herrera
New U.S. Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera, son of migrant workers, writes often about his child self and writes poems for children and teens. Now that he’s poet laureate of the country, his books are being rediscovered. I found his…