It’s a good tool for introducing young artists to some of the most famous artists of the last 100 years. Using the device of touring a mouse museum (each of whom appear to have been the companions/apprentices of the famous human artists of the last century), it exposes young readers to some big art concepts, vocabulary, and biographies, without being intimidating or high-brow. Each two-page spread is dedicated to a different artist or movement, with the left side offering a bit of an explanation of their work, and the right side offering ideas for young artists to attempt their own exploration of that artistic style. In the back there a couple pages dedicated to offering more formal information about the human artists the mice emulate, as well as a glossary of vocabulary.

It’s a beautiful book which speaks to a common childhood fear. When the dark gets tired of everyone pushing it away, being the cause of so much fear, it leaves altogether, leaving a world bathed in unending light. At first everyone is delighted, even if they can’t tell the difference between night and day. But eventually a small boy starts missing the sounds of crickets and the twinkling of stars. His parents explain that these are gifts of the dark, and that when it went away, so did they. The young boy decides to set off in search of the dark to convince it to return. Along the way he comes across a burglar who misses the shadows to hide in, a poet who misses the mystery of the dark, and a gardener who misses the smell of night jasmine, among others. As their band grows, the dark hears their cries and is persuaded to return and is welcomed. The illustrations are dreamy and fanciful.

As early readers go, this one’s got a nice story to it, sweet, with a bit of pattern, and a simplicity about find that which we can each appreciate in our own backyards. It puts a different than normal twist on the idea of pets, but one that may be comforting to a child who longs for one, but is denied the typical variety. When Sugar wakes up late and goes looking for a playmate, she finds all her siblings engrossed in playing with their own “pets,” in which Sugar is less interested, even arguing whether they qualify as pets: one has made a pet of the pretty flowers that blow in the breeze, another has adopted the busy worms she loves to watch, and the third is busy chasing her pet butterfly. By the time they come to see if she’s ready to play, she’s too busy playing with her own pet clouds, which are beautiful and busy blowing in the breeze, inviting them all to chase them. The illustrations are fun and cartoon-like, adding a bit of silliness to the simple story.

It’s a very early version of a graphic novel, for the youngest of readers. It includes three short stories about two best friends, Red Robot and Blue Robot: the first about something going bump in the night, and Blue Robot declaring he’s not afraid of anything, though it’s obvious to reader and friend alike that he is; the second about Red Robot sticking up for his friend when a third robot makes fun of his favorite hobby; and the third about Blue Robot’s worries about being sad and lonely when he discovers a train ticket that Red Robot has purchased, only to discover that there are two tickets and the friends get to go on an adventure together. Though the simple plot lines might seem a bit preachy, they’re leavened with just enough humor to keep them from being overly pedantic.

As the only human child in a class full of wild animals, our young narrator is dismayed to learn that the upcoming class field trip won’t be to a nice civilized location like the planetarium or natural history museum, but a trek into the wild to study plants and animals. His dairy entries capturing the adventure continue the theme of misery (poison ivy, bugs, lack of toilet facilities, etc.), but in the end, when the group gets lost, he’s the one who knows the way back to the bus, and he’s able to enjoy the butterflies and scenery and time with his friends. In the end he decides to have a campout of his own, but only in the backyard. The illustrations that accompany the story really add to the telling, full of fun and personality.

Another installment for Angelina Ballerina fans, this one is as cute and frilly and sparkly as is to be expected. This time Angelina is honored to be invited to join in with a performance of real grown-up dancers. Her young cousin, Henry, is invited to participate as well, but he struggles with remembering where he’s supposed to be and what he’s supposed to do, and Angelina has to help him a lot. She’s jealous when he’s given a speaking part, but she helps him anyway, and on opening night he flubs up again, changing is line from, “There goes my friend the magic fairy,” to “There goes my best friend, the magic fairy,” as he points to Angelina, showing that mistakes can be sweet.

This is the Spanish translation of Dress-Up Day. It’s a sweet story of a young girl who is all excited, anticipating a school costume party, but after helping her mom make a fabulous bunny costume, she is disappointed to wake up ill on the day of the party and has to miss the party. When she’s feeling better the next day, mom suggests she where her rabbit costume that day instead, and her joy is restored. Until she gets to school and the other kids stare and laugh, and she begins to doubt. Joy is restored once again when another classmate who was ill the day before also turns up in his costume, and by the end of the day he has become her best friend. The next day all the kids show up in costumes, convincing our protagonist that she’d had a great idea all along. The illustrations are charming, and the dilemma, as well as its solution are very relatable for young children: the difficulty of being all alone, and the power of a single friend to turn things around.

This is the Spanish language translation of Growing an Artist. I like this book for a lot of reasons. It’s a very personal book for the author/illustrator, sharing how his own experiences working alongside his dad in the family landscaping business as a child nurtured his own interest in art, while showing him how he could use is art to contribute to his community. It shows readers that their own stories are worthwhile, even if they seem ordinary. It shares experiences that may be familiar to a lot of readers, validating those experiences. It’s a feel-good book, celebrating and honoring ordinary life and work and relationships.

I like this book for a lot of reasons. It’s a very personal book for the author/illustrator, sharing how his own experiences working alongside his dad in the family landscaping business as a child nurtured his own interest in art, while showing him how he could use is art to contribute to his community. It shows readers that their own stories are worthwhile, even if they seem ordinary. It shares experiences that may be familiar to a lot of readers, validating those experiences. It’s a feel-good book, celebrating and honoring ordinary life and work and relationships.

I’ve heard of Rube Goldberg Machines, and I know the super-over-complicated type of thing to which the term refers. I’ve seen some in action at science museums and such. I only realized from reading the flap of this book that Rube Goldberg never actually built any of his creative, inventive machines — he was a cartoonist; he drew things that his training as an engineer told him should work in theory, but he never put those theories to the test. Yet his work inspired many others to design and build contraptions in the spirit of his drawings. This book is a series of cartoons starring a young Rube designing incredibly complicated ways to fake being sick and then do all sorts of things a kid might want to do one a day off from school, always in the most complicated, absurd, silly way possible. The steps of each contraption are labeled with alphabet letters, and the text describes in sequence how each is theoretically designed to work. It’s fun. It’s silly. It may trigger readers’ inner inventors and engineers. A website in the back directs those kids who are intrigued to where they can learn more about such designs.

We talk about books serving sometimes as windows and sometimes as mirrors. Depending on where a reader this lives, this book could do either. I’ve never lived in a place where there are tornadoes, or other wind storms so strong they destroy homes while families hide in storm cellars. For me, this book is a window, showing me in simple straightforward terms, from a child’s perspective, what that might be like. For students who may have experienced such things, it may serve as a mirror, validating their own experiences, letting them know they’re not alone. The book offers a sense of hope in the face of devestation: when the family rise from the cellar to find their home destroyed, they are still able to find enough in the rubble to fix themselves a meal and wash dishes and blow bubbles. Despite the somber story, it ends with laughter: “Those laughs didn’t change anything. They made no difference. Those laughs changed everything. They made all the difference in the world.” It’s a powerful book.

It manages to tick the boxes for early readers with rhythm and rhyme and short sentences and pictures to support the text, while still having a story to it, and one that young children can relate to. The main character is told to get ready for bed by a mom who pleads with him to avoid “dino-drama,” but the illustrations show the reader that after bath time, when he puts on his dinosaur bathrobe, his imagination takes over and he sees himself as a dinosaur who has a terrible time finding suitable pajamas. He joyfully decides he should be wild and free and naked until mom yells, “No more play time! That is it!” and he decides (now back to being a boy in a dino-robe instead of an actual dinosaur) that he better find some clothes that fit. Highly relatable for both parents and children.

It begins with a girl’s description of her Grana as one who once told the best stories, but who is now too weak to tell stories, and Grana’s question that if we can touch the moon, what is impossible. At bedtime the girl ponders Grana’s question as she gazes at the moon and feels compelled to pursue the impossible. What follows is a fanciful adventure in which she launches herself from her bed into the night sky and pursues several adventures with the characters of the constellations on her way to try to touch the moon. She misses her mark, and finds herself falling sleepily back to earth, now with stories of her own to tell, along with the confidence to continue to pursue the impossible. The illustrations are beautiful and suit the imaginative nature of the tale.