When I was a kid I wouldn’t talk for a couple of hours because I liked to imagine that I had a finite amount of words that I could speak on a given day. And if I was to use up my words with something silly, then that would just be wasteful, and my parents wouldn’t have liked that, would they? I Can Explain is an illustrated book from that same vein of illogical thinking that makes perfect sense if you’re a kid.
Illustrated books have the capacity to move us emotionally, in addition to making us think. Non-fiction illustrated books are capable of doing that but have the added burden of being a true story. Personally, I think that’s because some students heard that illustrated books were meant exclusively for silly stories about growing up or softly teaching morals. Moving Forward is an illustrated book that does all of those things, except for the silly stories part. Instead of that, it uses action, speed, and adventure that’ll help bring in elementary-aged readers.
How this end-cap book at Target escaped us in 2022 is a mystery. The One and Only Sparkella Makes A Plan is the sequel to 2021’s New York Times-bestselling book, The One and Only Sparkella. It’s from Channing Tatum with illustrations by Kim Barnes and follows most of the same path as its successful sibling. The curveball in Makes A Plan is that she’s having a sleepover that evening and she wants to build a castle.
Octopuses Have Zero Bones is one of the best books of the year. Granted, it is very early in 2023, but that’s OK because it was technically released in September of 2022. We’re not going to let a little technicality like that get in the way of calling this book an instant classic and a ‘best of’, whichever year you want to put it in. One thing that we ascribe to is treating kids as smart as you want them to be. When our own children were younger we did it that way and it’s the way that I teach my classes, regardless of the grade. Octopuses Have Zero Bones is a counting book, but it’s so much more than just a book that’ll teach counting to toddlers.
As we’ve said before, it’s an Ada Twist world, we’re just living in it. For kids of a certain age, see those kids who are between five and seven years old, Ada Twist has been tickling their STEM fancy since 2016. She started out in illustrated books, has branched out into chapter books, a Netflix show, and now 5-Minute Ada Twist, Scientist Stories takes the series to bed. The book doesn’t overtly say bedtime stories with Ada Twist. However, the five-minute timeline in the book’s title lets parents know that this is a safe place to read when it’s already ten minutes past where they should’ve been.
I understand why some parents don’t want to read a book to children in a second language. It’s the accent that we perceive they’ll be laughed at. I get that, but spoiler alert, your elementary school student is not going to know if you’re slightly mispronouncing a word in a second language that’s in a book. This is a good thing. To be able to have a book in Spanish and English, with exactly the same content in a way elementary-aged kids will understand and enjoy, is a good thing. Mi Comunidad!/My Community! is by 123 Andres and it’s a high-quality bilingual illustrated book that kids will enjoy, but might fly under your radar.
Softness is not a pejorative. There are certain children’s illustrated books that wear that descriptor as a badge or cloak, enabling it to give it strength and personality. Author Julie Fogliano’s work embraces that mantra. Her books have the timeless and approachable morals that early elementary kids crave. They do so in a way that’s not preachy, this is important because that fact allows older readers, teachers and parents to relate to the book as it brings back memories. I Don’t Care is an illustrated book that starts out on somewhat of a contrary tone, but teaches an aspect that everyone can learn from.
If SpookyTale is the sister to MerryTale, then their father is Christopher Franceschelli. Both of them are board books in the Abrams Trail Tale series. They are also much more than just a seasonal book with pages thick enough for little hands to easily turn. Board books have a special place with pre-k kids because they’re something that they can engage in without any oversight from an adult. It’s something that they won’t break, or get hassled about doing and will even help them in the long run.
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