my island

Right away, when you see the cover of Stéphanie Demasse-Pottier and Seng Soun Ratanavanh’s picture book My Island, you sense that it will be whimsical, and maybe a little strange. After all, there’s a girl standing on top of an enormous seashell, and there’s a bird on top of her head! What’s happening? She’s also holding kites with stitched threads in her hands. The overall feeling is that this book will require some imagination – and it does, a bit – but it also encourages flights of fancy and dreaming as well. It’s a feast for the eyes and the daydreaming part of your soul.

A young girl imagines a lovely island populated by thousands of birds, where she picnics with her animals, plays games, reads, and collects flowers. You too are welcome on this island, if you know how to dream. Gorgeous, colorful illustrations accompany this gentle yet impactful story that celebrates the imagination of young readers.

Do you know how to sing, how to share, and how to dream? Then you are welcome on the unnamed island and in the house found in this book! While the story itself is minimal, it includes just enough detail to go along with gorgeous page spreads full of charming, vibrant detail. Animals, flowers, sea creatures, birds, and more sail, dance, perform, and go to parties on each page. The scale changes again and again, so readers are left to imagine why and/or how certain elements and characters are growling larger or smaller, depending on the circumstance. The constant is the little girl and her chickadee bird friend – you’ll see them adventuring together on every page spread.

Seng Soun Ratanavanh’s art is meticulous, gorgeous, and worth the read alone. Her patterned illustrations create a pencil, watercolor, and stenciled wonderland full of unlikely capers and situations, à la Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Flower garden snow globes, sea snail-back islands and paper boat sailors, picnic basket parties and more are rendered in shades of yellow, teal, and red are all at once charming, inventive, quaint, and marvelously-detailed – so much so that they require long perusal (or multiple re-reads!).

In all, My Island is an ode to the imagination, and is sure to be a hit with children and adults alike.

Recommended for: curious readers ages 4-7 who enjoy magical visuals that prompt day dreaming, and picture book aficionados of any age with a penchant for gorgeous illustration.

Fine print: I received a finished copy of this book from the publisher for review consideration. I did not receive any compensation for this post.

the snow lion

It’s been a gray, wintry day here in Washington, DC – the kind where I am constantly refreshing my coffee and tea in an effort to ward off the chill. Winter is one of my favorite seasons, in part because of the holidays, yes, but also because I love bundling up in oversized sweaters and plopping a knitted hat with a pom-pom on my head. Caro, the heroine of Jim Helmore and Richard Jones’ The Snow Lion, dresses like I do in winter, and that was just one of the things to love about this quiet, beautiful picture book.

After moving to a new home, Caro wishes she had a friend, but she’s too shy to meet the neighborhood kids. With a little imagination, however, Caro finds the Snow Lion. Together, they have all kinds of fun racing, climbing, and playing hide-and-seek. But when the boy next door asks Caro to come play, Caro isn’t so sure. Then, the Snow Lion has an idea! Making new friends isn’t always easy, but it is always worth it in the end.

This powerful but gentle story about making new friends is gorgeously illustrated to celebrate the magic and imagination that fills every page and will appeal to any shy or lonely young reader.

Caro and her mother have just moved, and everything in their new house is white, white, white! It would seem a little lonely and soulless, except that almost immediately Caro meets a Snow Lion. This Lion blends in with the white walls, helps her explore her new home, and encourages her to be brave and reach out to make new friends. Soon Caro’s life is full of color and friendship!

The Snow Lion is a sweet, simple, and sincere story about loneliness, taking leaps of faith, making new friends, and remembering the old ones. Though the Snow Lion is never named as such, it is an imaginary friend (but as anyone who has had an imaginary friend knows, that doesn’t make them any less real!). I liked that it was never called out in the text, because I think it will make sense to children who already daydream, and open the imaginations of those who don’t so much.

Another thing to love is the way that Helmore has framed Caro, a naturally shy character (in a new setting, to boot!), in a dynamic and positive light. The focus is not on being left out (which I’ve seen many times in picture books and is fine for what it is!), but on finding ways to play with what you have, and then later on being courageous, reaching out, and making friends.

The art! When am I going to get to the art?? Well, as you must be able to tell from the cover, Richard Jones’ mix of paint and Photoshop illustrations are simply lovely. Jones has an eye for patterned, geometric details, and while the palette is at first very muted (all that white!), color and texture gradually seep in as the world opens up for Caro. I really adored the illustrations and would happily open this book again and again just for those. I also desperately hope that there are stuffed, all-white lion toys somewhere out there in the world to pair with this book. That would be sticky-sweet. And! On a final note, the endpapers, which are a cool silver-and-white pattern! They should be made into wrapping paper. I’d buy at least 2 rolls.

Overall, The Snow Lion is quietly delightful – a good book for wintry days.

Recommended for: readers ages 3 and up, for storytimes and one-on-one reading, and especially for shy little ones (or those who’ve just faced a big change).

Fine print: I received copy of this book for review consideration from the publisher. I did not receive any compensation for this post.

my bed is an air balloon

When I was a little one, prime read-aloud hours were from 6-8am, when my mother read to us before the day truly started. Those are some of my favorite memories – the world not quite awake, snuggled in and listening to a story’s twists and turns. Now that I’m an adult I can see that my mom was bribing us to wake up with a story! And it worked. That said, I know that storytime for most families is at bedtime, and there’s a whole subset of picture books produced just for the end of the day. Julia Copus’ and Alison Jay’s My Bed is an Air Balloon is just such a bedtime tale, and its poetic flights of fancy will delight both parents and children.

When night falls my bed is an air balloon.

I sail through the slipsiverse, close by the moon.

I float above treetops where fluttertufts are sleeping

And flowering hills where the whifflepigs go creeping;

Ponds strung with starlight that glitter like glass,

A floog with her velvet nose bent to the grass.

Such treasures I spy on! My bed in the trees

Swings me up high, like a circus trapeze.

Now the cool, night-rustling air

Slips through my finger-gaps, ripples my hair;

Now we glide over water, the moon’s silver light

Blown by a cloudpuff into the bight,

Adrift on the sea where the dream-shapes float;

When night falls my bed is a sailing boat.

A beautifully presented picture book with two front covers, the text can be read from front to back and vice versa. The mirror form poem meets in the middle in a stunning centerpiece image as the two children in the story (twins, one in an air balloon, the other a sailing boat) meet in the clouds!

My Bed is an Air Balloon imagines a world of nighttime travels and adventure, where children’s beds turn into air balloons and sailing boats, floating over a land full of whimsical imaginary creatures. Told in poem form that may be read front to back, or back to front, the format of the book will engage readers as much as the text, and prompt many requests for rereads.

Julia Copus’ poem employs wide-ranging vocabulary, invents new words for make-believe creatures, and charms with its lyricism and rhythm. It’s curious and at the same time lulling – reading through it twice (in different directions!) in the space of the book’s pages should encourage little listeners into dreams. The fantastical nature of the poem may also inspire further storytelling, as kids and adults alike discuss what a whifflepig or floog is, or how cloudpuff might live.

And the art! The art is truly a highlight. Alison Jay has taken the format and the poem and created gorgeous dream landscapes that fit this fanciful story. The book is a beautiful, dreamlike/real mash-up of the familiar and the imaginative with soft edges. The details are delicious, and each page has something to savor, be it boat slippers, floating teapots, or flying laundry. Jay’s art perfectly melds the bizarre and charming for dreamscapes we can identify with and wonder at, and on top of that it’s adorable.

In all, My Bed is an Air Balloon is a slightly strange and all the way wonderful picture book that’s destined to be a bedtime classic. I can’t wait to gift it to the little ones in my life.

Recommended for: bedtime reading for children ages 3-6, and anyone who likes fantastical picture books filled with exquisite art.

Fine print: I received a copy of this book from the publisher for review consideration. I did not receive any compensation for this post.