From the perspective of a bibliophile, Quackenstein Hatches A Family is one of those illustrated books that you’ll discover in K or early elementary classrooms that’s been read in brutal fashion. The spine is cracked in several locations. Multiple pages are dog-eared. The front cover has a dozen (or more) crayon scribbles on it. It’s also one of those books that young readers will seek out and immerse themselves in during silent read time.
Kids love to explore spaces and imagine that the stick that they find outside is a dinosaur bone. The Collectors is an illustrated book that taps into that curious and playful spirit that kids of a certain age have. As with any discovery or adventure, the aspect of doing it, is only part of the story and sometimes the journey is the destination. In The Collectors, we meet Winslow and Rosie, two young girls who have amassed a huge collection of natural wonders but strive for something more. What follows is a trip into the countryside where the girls find some great examples of things that they haven’t seen or otherwise might not be attainable.
If you have a child who is a certain age then This Book Is Not A Bedtime Story! is one that you need to have in your forever library. The exception to this is, if you often read illustrated books aloud to kids aged three through six, then you need to have this near your reading table. This Book Is Not A Bedtime Story! is a new book as of 2021, but it’s wrapped in a timeless veneer that would make it at home in 1970 or 2060. For us, the book was reminiscent of one that we immediately loved, Are You Scared, Darth Vader? from 2018.
If the world were a fair and just place there would be 10 copies of Nerdycorn in the book rack at our local big box store. As mentioned earlier, we were there and saw copies of a book that has a similar theme, but wasn’t nearly as great at Nerdycorn. This is an illustrated book that revels in color, has text length that makes it a great good-night book, funny characters, lessons to learn, and intelligence. It also has unicorns, which for some will be the main reason for reading. If that’s the case then that’s cool, come for the unicorns and stay for the STEM.
We haven’t read a children’s illustrated book like The King’s Golden Beard in a long time. It’s a timeless illustrated book that feels as old as the hills, yet as current as whatever is trending on social media now. It’s a book that’s short on words, but long on story, instead of letting the illustrations and the white spaces within the pages fill in the blanks for young audiences. The King’s Golden Beard is also very smart and treats those young readers, or anyone else who jumps into the book, like the intelligent readers they are, even if they suspect they know where the story is going.
When I was a kid the only comic book that one of my friends was allowed to read was Richie Rich. Whenever we’d go on trips I’d bring my Spider-Man comic books and he’d bring the ones that he was allowed to read. It’s not that I didn’t like Richie Rich, it’s just that there was very little relatable in that comic book. Cut somewhat from the same cloth is the children’s illustrated book series Claris. Claris, The Chicest Mouse in Paris Holiday Heist leaves me with a conflicted feeling. It’s obviously cute, has beautiful drawings and nice characters, but is annoying and pretentious at the same time.
Without Jonas Hanway, The Umbrella Academy might not exist and Britons would’ve possibly continued letting the rain soak them since 1750. Jonas Hanway’s Scurrilous, Scandalous, Shockingly Sensational Umbrella is the sort of stranger than life, non-fiction illustrated book that young readers will love if they give it a chance. The last part of that phrase is key because the book ticks off all of the blocks needed for it to be ridiculously engaging and entertaining for ages six through ten.
A children’s illustrated book can be a simple thing. They can also attempt to convey complex matters. It’s really rare to have an illustrated book tackle life. It was done a couple of years ago with One Day A Dot, a book that distills the universe in a STEM-happy way for young children to understand. This Thing Called Life by Christian Borstlap addresses the same grand scale of life, but does it in a simpler way, via timeless graphics, simple-yet realistic text, a sense of humor, and a side vibe of Monty Python’s Flying Circus.
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