Nonfiction
Because Barbara: Barbara Cooney Paints Her World.
By Sarah Mackenzie. Illus. by Eileen Ryan Ewen.
Mar. 2024. 48p. Waxwing, $18.99 (9781956393040). PreS–Gr. 3. 818.5.
As a child, Barbara Cooney and her family spent each summer in Maine, surrounded by the beautiful landscape and the sea. Back home in New York, she watched her mother paint pictures and practiced making her own. As an adult, she decided to become an illustrator. “And because Barbara did whatever she set her mind to” (a phrase often repeated within the text), she started illustrating children’s books. Color printing was expensive in the mid-twentieth century, so her publisher initially limited her to creating black-and-white illustrations, though she longed to use colors. But after Chanticleer and the Fox, her first book featuring full-color art, won the Caldecott Medal, her picture books featured lively, colorful paintings. Like the main character in her Miss Rumphius, Cooney spent her later years living by the sea, traveling, and making the world a more beautiful place. Mackenzie succeeds in conveying a strong sense of Cooney’s childhood as well as her approach to her work, her children, and her guiding principles. Created with graphite, watercolor, and gouache, Ewen’s lovely illustrations capture the spirit of Cooney’s art. The narrative flows well and will intrigue many adult readers as well as children, particularly those familiar with Cooney’s timeless picture books. —Carolyn Phelan
Bless Our Pets: Poems of Gratitude for Our Animal Friends.
Ed. by Lee Bennett Hopkins. Illus. by Lita Judge.
Apr. 2024. 40p. Eerdmans, $18.99 (9780802855466). K–Gr. 2. 811.008.
One of the last collections edited by the late Hopkins, Bless Our Pets includes 14 poignant poems about children’s love for their pets, be they beloved old family dogs (Prince Redcloud’s “Old Calico”), animals at home (Darren Sardelli’s “A Letter to My Guinea Pig”), or petite critter companions (Eric Ode’s “A Prayer for My Gerbil”). Homages to pets big and small, young and old, the poems are often written in free verse, with the exceptions of a few rhymes, and are gorgeous pieces of writing, though the youngest readers may indulge more in the soothing palette and warmth of Judge’s illustrations. Ralph Fletcher’s poem for a parakeet speaks to the beautifully wild nature of domestic animals, while Lois Lowry tells the tale of a dreaming, adorable mouse. Perfect for animal lovers, from odes to cute creatures that require our cuddles to blessings over animal companions who have been loyal for years, these poems are filled with raw emotion and love for a diverse collection of animals who unconditionally love us back. —Stephanie Cohen
A Crown of Stories: The Life and Language of Beloved Writer Toni Morrison.
By Carole Boston Weatherford. Illus. by Khalif Tahir Thompson.
Apr. 2024. 48p. HarperCollins/Quill Tree, $19.99 (9780062911032). Gr. 1–3. 818.5.
For those interested in learning more about the pioneering, award-winning adult author Morrison, Weatherford’s picturebook biography fits the bill, especially given its extensive bibliography, which will lead fascinated readers to a library’s worth of critical material. This is also an excellent book to read to younger children whose adults savor Morrison’s works and appreciate her for being the first Black woman to win a Nobel Prize for Literature. Paintings by Thompson, which blend oils, acrylics, and torn-paper collage, emphasize Morrison’s dignity and intent whether reading voraciously as a child, playing Queen Elizabeth I in a college play, writing as a young mother, or accepting the Nobel Prize in Sweden. Both Weatherford’s narrative and Thompson’s art also importantly put Morrison’s life and work in context of her times, starting with the Great Migration that brought her parents north to Ohio and going on to Morrison’s reception by President Obama at the White House. Public and school libraries will want to have this title in their collections. —Karen Cruze
Growing Up under a Red Flag: A Memoir of Surviving the Chinese Cultural Revolution.
By Ying Chang Compestine. Illus. by Xinmei Liu.
May 2024. 40p.
