“Ella is a South Side girl, a Bronzeville bird, skipping in streets that smell of sweets and black-eyed peas.” A narrative that pulses with rhythm and sings with lyrical language describes the life of Ella Jenkins, who was attuned to the sounds of the world around her, including music, from the time she was a child growing up in Chicago.
Picture Book
You’re So Amazing!
Joe “knew he was amazing because everyone kept telling him he was amazing.” It may be meant as a compliment, but to Joe (white), who has one leg and uses crutches, it’s more annoying than anything.
This Table
What began as a seed that grows into a tree ends up as a table, but that’s barely the beginning of this warm-hearted picture book about the table–and members of a single family–across years. It’s a table around which (and under!) the bustling, growing multigenerational family gathers for celebrations and quiet moments; art projects, puzzles and imaginative play; homework and grown-up work; and much more.
The Fabulous Fannie Farmer: Kitchen Scientist and America’s Cook
Fannie Farmer loved cooking as a child. When she lost the use of a leg as a teenager due to polio, her love of cooking helped reshape her vision for the future; while she recovered, she cooked. Fannie noticed that the imprecise instructions and measurements in most recipes in the late 19th and early 20th centuries (e.g., “a suspicion of nutmeg”) made for inconsistent results.
Just Us
Every year during the winter holidays, the young narrator’s Grandma flies in to visit, and her aunts and uncles arrive at her house by car with all the cousins. “Every year we play charades, loud and rowdy. Then we light a fire in the fireplace and eat Grandma’s three kinds of pie. That’s what happens every year. It’s tradition.”
Narwhal: Unicorn of the Arctic
“You are a narwhal—shy, swift, small (for a whale).” Full of sensory detail, this narrative focusing on the life and activities of the “unicorn of the Arctic” begins on a “biting-cold December day,” in the dark of the Arctic, as “you,” a male narwhal, clash your tusk with that of another male.
A Star Shines Through
The school-age child narrator and their parents used to live in a city, in an apartment with a star-shaped cardboard lamp in the kitchen window. “When I returned home from music lessons … I could recognize our window from afar: a star shone through the cold November darkness.” When war begins, the child and their mother flee to another country.
As Edward Imagined: A Story of Edward Gorey in Three Acts
A playful biography of artist and writer Edward Gorey is staged in three acts. “Act One: An Artist Is Born” introduces a precocious child who taught himself to read at age three and soon began crafting his own “deliciously sinister” tales.
Emergency Quarters
Ernesto (Dominican American) is finally big enough to go to school on his own. On Monday, his mother puts a quarter in his hand. “For emergencies, Ernesto … If you need me, look for a pay phone.”
No More Señora Mimí
Ana (Latina) spends her day before and after school with her apartment building neighbor, Señora Mimí, while her mother is at work. “Señora Mimí has a two-tooth baby named Nelson and a no-tooth dog named Pancho, who likes buttered crackers as much as I do.” Ana and Señora Mimí’s relationship is one of warmth, familiarity, and loving routines; they even have matching hand-knitted sweaters Señora Mimí made.