A brown-skinned father and his child (who could be any gender) wake up before dawn, eat breakfast, pack their car, and head out of the city and into the wilderness, where they spend the day hiking.
Starred Review of the Week
A Game of Fox & Squirrels
Samantha, 11, and her sister Caitlyn, 14, have just arrived at their aunt Vicky’s in Oregon, but Sam is already thinking about going home. Caitlyn, who has a broken arm, seems content.
Prairie Lotus
Hanna’s mama died when Hanna was 12. Now 15, she and Papa have left Los Angeles far behind to start over in the growing frontier town of LaForge, Dakota Territories, in 1880.
Not So Pure and Simple
Del has had a crush on Kiera since grade school, and she’s finally boyfriend-free. He volunteers to join a youth group at church in which Kiera is involved as a way to impress her, only to discover that he’s unwittingly committed to a Purity Pledge: No sex until marriage.
A Portrait in Poems: The Storied Life of Gertrude Stein & Alice B. Toklas
A pitch-perfect picture book about Gertrude Stein’s life in Paris focuses on her art collection, her writing, her famous Salon, and her relationship with Alice B. Toklas.
Women Artists A to Z
In this accessible and arresting alphabet book for older readers, the alphabetical elements highlight artistic themes, media, and techniques as a way to engagingly introduce racially and culturally diverse women artists.
Black Is a Rainbow Color
A distinctive narrative begins with a young girl observing that there is no color black in the rainbow.
Cast Away: Poems for Our Time
Lifelong litter picker upper Naomi Shihab Nye documents and reflects on the leavings of our existence in keenly observant, probing, unabashed poems.
Honeybee: The Busy Life of Apis Mellifera
Drawing on the innate drama of the natural world, Fleming and Rohmann recreate the life cycle of a single honeybee from the moment she emerges from the egg to her death 35 days later.
A Map into the World
A quiet, contemplative story in which a Hmong American girl’s year of simple, joyful discoveries culminates with a gift for her grieving neighbor.