the queen's hat

I’m not all that interested in collecting picture books for myself, but I do want to be the sort of honorary aunt who has the most extensive library and gives the best books as gifts to the children she knows.  To that end, I’ve been paying more attention to picture book trends and award winners in recent years.  I don’t automatically think, “Not for me,” when I see a picture book anymore.  When I walked by the Scholastic booth at Book Expo America and saw the cover of Steve Antony’s The Queen’s Hat, I knew I had to check it out. 

A wild romp around London as the Queen loses her hat!

From Steve Antony, the author and illustrator of Please, Mr. Panda and Betty Goes Bananas!

A sudden gust of wind sets off a marvelous adventure for the Queen, lots of Queen's men, and one very special hat. Just where will that hat land? Following a hysterical, epic hat chase, the Queen is reunited with her hat -- and the royal baby!

Young children will love the cumulative nature of the story, the fun mayhem that breaks loose, and Steve Antony's winning art style. The Queen's Hat shows some of London's most famous sites, and back matter explains their significance.

The Queen’s Hat is an adorable picture book illustrated in a limited palette of red, black and blue (which makes some pages a puzzle for the eyes – in a good way – a la Where’s Waldo?).  Steve Antony plays with the idea of a hat stolen by the breeze, and takes his characters on a romp through London, to (and through! and over!) its most famous landmarks.  Certain figures grace every page: the Queen of course, and her hat, but also her argyle-sweatered dog and a palace butler (complete with tea service).  The adventures of the hat, its wearer, and her cohort make funny reading for young and old alike.

One of the strengths of the book is the accuracy of the blue line architecture drawings of London landmarks.  They’re illustrated in exquisite, 2-D detail.  The historical significance of each is explained on a page at the back of the book as well.  The fun in most of the page spreads is in the handful, then dozens, then hundreds of palace guards crawling and climbing over the monuments as they try to retrieve the Queen’s hat. Of course, some (most?) of their feats are out of the realm of human possibility, so there’s a lot of imagination and whimsy involved.  Which is just how it should be in a picture book!

In all, The Queen’s Hat is a charming, cheeky and entertaining picture book that’s likely to be requested and re-read over and over again.

Recommended for: young fans of Jon Klassen’s Hat books and the Where’s Waldo? series, as a gift for children who will visit London in the near future, and for anglophiles of all ages.

Image from Steve Antony's webpage

The Queen's Hat will be released in the U.S. by Scholastic on August 25, 2015.

Fine print: I picked up an ARC of this book for review at BEA 2015. I did not receive any compensation for this post.

book expo america 2015

Book Expo America.  Attendance is practically mandatory if you work in the publishing industry, and it’s definitely THE place to be if you’re a YA blogger.  I’m starting to see BEA recaps everywhere I turn (on the interwebs), so here, have mine too.  After all, I went this year, after declaring that I wouldn’t!

i don't think i'm going to BEA this year. 1) i committed to a comic con with a friend in early may (cont.)

— Cecelia Larsen (@ceceliabedelia) March 23, 2015

2) there aren't any books/authors i can't stand to miss this year, and 3) my book/hobby-related budget is not that large. NYC = expensive.

— Cecelia Larsen (@ceceliabedelia) March 23, 2015

Why (and how!) I went

Last year I shared how book blogging helped me get a new job.  My company created the position from scratch and hired a newbie (me).  Now that I’ve settled into the role, I recognize that I’ll need to learn new skills to really maximize this opportunity.  Also: I have a new boss!  As of last month.  From the beginning he really stressed owning your professional development goals.  So when I got the unexpected news that my BEA press badge was approved, I put together a quick proposal for professional development (looked up a template email on the internet, modified it, calculated a travel budget, cobbled together an education calendar and submitted the whole thing within an hour and a half. approved in 5 minutes. golden!).

What I learned

I’ve never done professional development before, folks.   To prepare I went through the BEA program guide and highlighted all of the sessions that looked even remotely helpful to my current role.  Sessions on data and innovation, copyright, Google Analytics, and women in leadership made the list.  Yeah, I didn’t realize BEA had a program that covered that many angles either! 

What did I learn?  To be truthful, session quality varied greatly.  I did some speaker scouting for the Education team back at the office, was bored out of my skull in a basic web analytics course, and gleaned one or two insights on copyright and DRM management.  The good news is that while work paid for transport & food, I arranged to share a college friend’s hotel room for my lodging, so the cost was minimal on my employer’s side of things (that kept the guilt monster at bay).

Who I saw

Of course, no trip to BEA is complete until you’ve met up with an awesome internet friend for the first time.  I’ll just warn you now, I didn’t make notes about who I met each day, so I’m sure I’ll leave people out.  If I do and you’re reading this, please remind me in the comments! 

Emma and Nicole, my BEA buddies for the past 3 years, were there for me again.  We chilled in lines together, checked galley drops, and took fantastic photo booth pictures.  Nicole of YA Interrobang was so great in the leadup to the show – she sent me tweets almost every day to keep me apprised of the YA signings and giveaways.  I fangirled a tiny bit when I finally met her. DC local (and book club friend!) Sajda of Across the Words was at BEA for the very first time, so we met up in lines, at parties, and just to chat.  Charlotte of Charlotte’s Library and I always find a lot to talk about (and we seem to be going for the same titles!), which is lovely.  I also said quick hellos to Jamie of The Perpetual Page Turner, Andi of Andi’s ABCs, Cassi of My Thoughts Literally, Jess of Books & Sensibility… and that’s the point where my memory gets faulty.

Books… right?!

Yes, there were books.  On Wednesday and Thursday I stalked the Exhibit Hall floor in between panels, and picked up a few great titles.  My big book day was Friday, when I decided that I could count myself happy (and victorious) if I picked up Margaret Stohl’s Black Widow: Forever Red and Erin Bow’s The Scorpion Rules.  I accomplished those two things, so the day was a success.  If you’d like to see the other titles I snagged, feel free to check out the Instagram photo evidence.

In hindsight

I don’t imagine I’ll be attending BEA again in a professional capacity.  There are other, more uniformly useful opportunities to explore.  But hey, you never know unless you give it a try, right?  The best bits of my trip: Hanging out with my people (the ones with books in their souls), attending the fantastic Macmillan Kids blogger party, chatting late into the night with a college friend, bookkkksssss, and a final dinner in the city with my cousin and her two children at the Wythe on Friday night.  I went home a happy and exhausted blogger, and I hope I’ll be able to do it all again next year.

Tell me, how was your BEA or Armchair BEA experience?

top ten most anticipated books for the remainder of 2015

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, where we all get to exercise our OCD tendencies and come up with bookish lists.  If you’d like to play along, check out this post.

If you follow me on Instagram or Twitter, you know that I went to Book Expo America 2015 in New York over three days in the last week of May.  I planned to skip the show this year, but forces in the universe aligned (an unexpected press badge, a college friend with space in her hotel room, and an approval for professional development) to make it possible.  I went, I had a fantastic time living and breathing books with my favorite online book pals, and I brought home many interesting titles.  Now that they’re all safely here on my dining room table, I’ve had time to think about which ones I’m anticipating most.  Today’s TTT topic?  Weirdly perfect.  Welcome to the list of releases I’m most excited to read for the rest of 2015! I got lucky and picked some of them up at BEA (yay!).

Top Ten Most Anticipated Books for the Remainder of 2015

1. Court of Fives by Kate Elliott – I saw this pitched as Little Women meets Game of Thrones.  Even though I’ve never read GoT, that description piqued my interest like whoa.  Another thing: Elliott writes fantastic female friendships.  I was going to read her next book anyway, now I’m that much more excited!  Releases August 18.

2. Walk the Earth a Stranger by Rae Carson – Isn’t everyone in the YA book world excited for this book?!  I mean: gold, magic, Western, romance (plus the most gorgeous book cover ever!).  I’m sold.  Releases September 22.

3. Lady of Magick by Sylvia Izzo Hunter – ICYMI, I had a total meltdown last August over how much I loved Hunter’s first book, The Midnight Queen.  It was a Cecelia book through and through.  Good news!  It was the first in a series.  I can’t wait for more magic, political intrigue, alternate history, transformation and romance.  Releases September 1.

4. Brilliant by Roddy Doyle – I adored Roddy Doyle’s beautiful, bittersweet middle grade family ghost story A Greyhound of a Girl.  I often think of the gorgeous word-pictures it made in my head, and I don’t know that I’ve ever read a writer who has done dialogue quite so well.  I was determined to pick up this title at BEA, and I’m happy to say I succeeded!  Releases September 8.

5. The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin – I am not quite sure how this title made it onto my radar, but I’ve been looking forward to it for over a year now.  If anyone can do an extinction event, collapse of empire, and meld it with a personal struggle and journey narrative, I’ve heard that Jemisin can.  I haven’t read her yet, so I’ll have to see for myself!  Releases August 4.

6. Hunter by Mercedes Lackey – I’ve been reading Mercedes Lackey’s fantasy for over a decade now (what.).  That is… a long time.  Sometimes her books work for me, sometimes they don’t.  I remain a fan, and this new YA series with monsters and a Hunger Games-esque vibe sounds like it’s right up my alley.  I can’t wait to see how it goes.  Releases September 1.

7. The Scorpion Rules by Erin Bow – Erin Bow is one of the best authors that blogging has introduced me to.  I don’t think I would have picked up Plain Kate without the urging of several trusted blogging friends, and my world would be poorer for it.  This, her next book, sounds completely different and absolutely awesome.  So. Flipping. Excited.  Releases September 22.

8. Black Widow: Forever Red by Margaret Stohl – If you ask where I’ve been recently, and why the blog has been quiet, I’ll sheepishly admit that I’ve been reading Marvel fanfiction at an astonishing clip since last September.  We’re talking millions of words read, none of them traditionally published.  I’m so far in it’s ridiculous and somewhat frightening.  Anyway, given that… situation… it’s fair to say that I’m all in for a YA novel featuring one of my now-favorite superheroes.  Releases October 13.

9. Dreamstrider by Lindsay Smith – Fantastical dream espionage plus Empire plus intrigue equals *(@$&%)&^.  Oh sorry, that was just my brain freaking out and having a small dance party.  Yes, I’m interested.  Releases October 6.

10. Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo – First of all, that cover art!  Second of all, fantasy plus a heist!  Criminals and magic!  That combo is totally one of my weaknesses (I’m thinking Holly Black’s White Cat and Emily Lloyd-Jones’ Illusive).  I haven’t read Bardugo before, but I hear this one can stand alone and I’m more than happy to give it a try.  Releases September 29.

What books are you most excited for in 2015?

special delivery

The days of sending physical letters in the mail are almost done (if not gone already), but I still wax nostalgic for “real mail.” It might have something to do with all of those international pen pals I kept in touch with as a preteen, and definitely has something to do with The Jolly Postman, still one of my favorite picture books ever. When I saw a picture book with a postage stamp cover, I had to take a look. I could keep Philip C. Stead’s Special Delivery on my coffee table forever, if only for Matthew Cordell’s fantastic illustrations.

Sadie is on her way to deliver an elephant to her Great-Aunt Josephine, who lives completely alone and can really use the company. She tries everything from mailing the elephant to boarding a plane, a train, and an alligator to get to her aunt's home. Along the way she meets an array of interesting characters, including an odd postal worker and a gang of bandit monkeys, who all help her get where she is going. This eccentric and hilarious story from Philip C. Stead, the author of the Caldecott-winning A Sick Day for Amos McGee and illustrator Matthew Cordell will surprise and entertain from beginning to end.

Sadie is determined to send her Great-Aunt Josephine an elephant, to alleviate her loneliness (of course! what a thoughtful grand-niece…). She first tries to send the elephant by post, but the amount of stamps needed more than fill a wheelbarrow – that won’t work! Sadie soon takes matters into her own (creative) hands, and she and the elephant travel far and wide by plane, train and ice cream truck, meeting many interesting creatures and characters along the way. 

In Special Delivery, Stead has created an outlandish adventure that will appeal to animal lovers and travelers alike. The narrative is a bit disjointed in parts, as Sadie and her elephant jump from one unlikely scenario to another. Some transitions and conversations are left to the imagination. That said, Stead’s story tickles the imagination, and will likely prompt the telling of other tall tales among its readers.  It’s inspirational like that.

The real star of this book? Matthew Cordell’s illustrations. They have a deliciously old-fashioned feel, in a style that reminded me of Bill Peet.  Sadie is the main (human) character, but I found myself looking at the animals on each page first – their expressions as they have these unusual adventures are hilarious and spot-on. Other fun details in the art: Words made out of train smoke, stamps upon stamps, and the unexpected reunion scene at the end, when the reader finally learns the “real” story.

Special Delivery does what the best picture books do so well: it inspires imagination and creativity, while telling a silly story that will spark questions and laughter. It may not have been my exact cup of tea, but it’s sure to become the favorite book of many children this year.

Recommended for: young readers, and parents/teachers/interested adults looking for books that will speak to an adventurous spirit.

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