children's book illustration

[toe-tapping review] Animal Albums from A to Z by Cece Bell

~ jama ~ 21 Comments

#64 in an ongoing series of posts celebrating the alphabet.

As a teen I used to love browsing the wooden bins at our local record store. Which LP should I take home for $3.25? Decisions, decisions. It was always a conundrum when parting with precious allowance money.

Of course I had been trained early on by my music-loving dad to treasure the vinyl discs that lived in all kinds of interesting cardboard sleeves (hello, Mantovani, Les Paul, Mario Lanza). As I began building my own record collection, I also grew quite enamored of album cover art — its own genre of inventive graphic design showcasing photos, illustrations, and typography — all on a neat 12″ x 12″ square.

Now that I think about it, some of my fave recording artists have animal names: Beatles, Monkees, Byrds, Steppenwolf, Buffalo Springfield, Iron Butterfly (and later, Eagles). So you can imagine how ecstatic I was to see Cece Bell’s, Animal Albums from A to Z (Walker Books, 2024) — a unique, wildly imaginative, uber creative tour-de-force that easily ranks in my top three favorite alphabet books of all time.

Letters. music. art. song lyrics. quirky. handmade. heartmade. humor. nostalgia. food (soup and pie!). Cece knows me. She’s checked all the boxes. Mind totally blown.

She opens her 64-page, all-ages ABC extravaganza with a tongue-in-cheek Introduction extolling the varied talents of imaginary animal musicians, enthusiastic to share 26 albums from her personal collection. She notes that they date from the 40’s to the 80’s, “the heyday of recorded animal music,” such records being difficult to find today.

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[yummy chat + giveaway] Beth Charles on Apple Pie Tired

~ jama ~ 22 Comments

While I enjoy turkey and all the fixings, for me the best part of Thanksgiving is pie. Hello, pumpkin, pecan, and apple — all are favorites and I’m happy to make quick work of them. 🙂 You can see why I’m especially excited to welcome Vermont author Beth Charles to discuss her new picture book, Apple Pie Tired, charmingly illustrated by Hannah Brinson (Sleeping Bear Press, 2024). 

In this scrumptious seasonal story, young Lola and her parents work together to bake hundreds of apple pies to sell at their family farm for Thanksgiving. Though it’s Lola’s plan to make Thanksgiving dinner while her parents make the pies, Mom and Dad need her help with every stage of this big job, leaving her without time or energy to cook. 

Still, Lola is happy to learn about and participate in the pie-making process, from weighing and combining ingredients in a giant mixer, to making top and bottom crusts with the dough presser; to peeling, coring and slicing the apples with another big machine, before finally assembling the pies after adding sugar and spices to the apples. Can you imagine the sweet heavenly aroma of all those pies baking in the oven? Yummmmmm!

Come Thanksgiving morning, Mom and Dad are still baking as customers “bustled in and out” before purchasing five hundred and four pies! Unsurprisingly, Lola and her parents are “apple pie tired” after all that work. What to do when hungry aunts, uncles and cousins arrive for dinner?

Beth knows well the feeling of being ‘apple pie tired,’ since she and her family bake and sell hundreds of pies at their family orchard bakery every Thanksgiving. I was curious to learn about the logistics of such an undertaking and how she went about writing this appeelingly delicious story.

Thanks for dropping by today, Beth, and for making us extra hungry for more more more apple pie!

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[beary fun review] Grand Old Oak and the Birthday Ball by Rachel Piercey and Freya Hartas

~ jama ~ 21 Comments

Basil, Cornelius and the other resident bears were positively ecstatic when they heard about Rachel Piercey and Freya Hartas’s new poetry picture book, Grand Old Oak and the Birthday Ball (Magic Cat, 2023).

In this charming interactive follow-up to If You Go Down to the Woods Today (Magic Cat, 2021), readers are invited to join the inimitable Bear and his woodland friends as they plan a spectacular surprise party to celebrate Old Oak’s 500th birthday. Preparations will take most of the year with each season marked by fun activities.

As the story opens, Bear tells us that it all began in early spring:

HOW OLD IS OAK?

It started when I wondered,
as I never had before:
How long has Oak been growing here?
A hundred years, or more?

It must, I thought, take many years
of water, air, and light
to spread to such a wondrous width
and such a mighty height.

As Oak wakes up with his leaves unfurling, Bear asks him his age and learns (much to his astonishment) that his friend had sprung up on that very spot 500 years ago. As Bear starts thinking about all that Oak had seen in his long life, he begins daydreaming . . .

That summer, Bear comes up with an idea. What about a secret birthday ball for Oak? His friends roar and cheer in agreement. In no time at all, they create “piles and piles” of homemade invitations that are dutifully sent to everyone in Brown Bear Wood by lots of volunteers.

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[tasty talk + giveaway] Yangsook Choi on Slippery, Spicy, Tingly: A Kimchi Mystery

~ jama ~ 12 Comments

Did you know that November 22 is Kimchi Day? A national holiday in Korea, this chosen date is significant because there are 11 main ingredients in this traditional side dish and 22 health benefits, including vitamins, calcium, probiotics, and a boost to bodily immunity.

What better way to celebrate than by welcoming author-illustrator Yangsook Choi to talk about her latest picture book, Slippery, Spicy, Tingly: A Kimchi Mystery (Carolrhoda Books, 2024)! 🙂

In this tantalizing tale, Keo’s grandmother pays his family a surprise visit. Although she’s supposedly there to make some SPECIAL kimchi and to spend more time with Keo, he suspects Halmoni is up to something else.

It’s easy to see why. It’s not every day one’s grandmother (even a well preserved one) singlehandedly buries a humongous clay jar in the back yard. Keo is sure she must be hiding a secret treasure. After Halmoni recruits Keo and his parents to help turn a hundred heads of cabbage into spicy kimchi, she disappears as suddenly as she had arrived.

Keo waits and waits. When will Halmoni return for her treasure? Finally, she calls to tell them “it’s time” to lift the lid off the jar. Who or what is Halmoni’s true treasure?

This heartwarming, tastebud-tempting intergenerational story is flavored with good measures of humor, suspense, love, and the joy of families working together. Mouths will water at every slippery, spicy, tingly detail, as kids learn about the virtues of patience, living in harmony with nature, and honoring one’s cultural heritage.

Big thanks to Yangsook for dropping by to tell us more about making this book, the “super senior” who inspired it, and the fine art of savoring well seasoned, fiery-hot, naturally fermented kimchi. Hungry yet? 🙂

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[rising review] Still There Was Bread by Lisl H. Detlefsen and David Soman

~ jama ~ 7 Comments

Imagine the heavenly aroma of homemade bread baking in the oven as you anticipate biting into a soft, warm slice slathered with butter and honey. Nothing else says love and comfort in quite the same way.

In Still There Was Bread (HarperCollins, 2024), Lisl H. Detlefsen and David Soman celebrate intergenerational connections and the joy of sharing a treasured recipe that can sustain a family through good times and bad.

As this heartwarming story opens, Little Pickle excitedly greets his nana, who’s come to teach him how to make their special family bread. It’s the same recipe for “Nana rolls” his mother learned from her grandmother when she was his age.

As they move through each step, Nana compares their process to how her nana made the rolls a long time ago. First, Nana and Little Pickle gather all the ingredients (eggs, milk, flour, oil, sugar, salt, yeast, water). While theirs came from the grocery store, Nana’s nana “had to collect eggs from the chicken coop and milk a cow to get what she wanted.”

Next, Nana shows Little Pickle how to preheat the electric oven, explaining that her nana baked in a woodburning stove, using the “By guess and by gosh” method. While they can easily combine all their ingredients in a stand mixer, Nana’s nana mixed the dough with a wooden spoon. But there are a couple of things they do the same way: knead the dough by hand, then place it in a big bowl before covering it with a damp towel.

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