Precious Home and TanTan Publishing

The premise of Precious Home by Ji Hyun Lee (illustrated by Jin Hwa Kim; TanTan Publishing, 2017) is that houses might look different around the world--they're built from locally-sourced, usually sustainable materials, and designed to suit the climate and customs of the people who live in them--but each is someone's "precious home." Readers learn a little about five different kinds of houses (six, including the narrator's fairly generic one):

• a house built on wooden poles in Thailand
• a mud house in Togo
• a tent house (ger) in Mongolia
• a log house in Russia
• and an ice house (igloo) in Greenland.

Each house gets two double-page spreads, one for the outside and another for a cutaway of the inside, accompanied by snippets of explanatory text. I love a good cutaway, so I spent a lot of time flipping back and forth between Jin Hwa Kim's lively cartoon and collage illustrations of each house (the Russian log house was my favorite), and comparing them to the photographs of the houses on the back endpapers as well. Precious Home is appropriate for ages 3-7.

Something about the title and the cover design of Precious Home suggested that it was originally published in another language (Dong-hwi Kim holds the copyright for the English edition). It was published in the US by TanTan Publishing in their Knowledge series. Our library holds two more of their 2017 picture books (Kikuchi's Sushi and Grandpa Max's Wurst, possibly part of the Icook series? Will check them out). TanTan also has a well-defined Math Story series, including Math in the Art Museum (2015). They're a relatively new publisher of international children's books that I'm happy to add to my list.

Sit: Stories by Deborah Ellis

Sit, but don't get too comfortable. All too often, the children in this collection of stories by Deborah Ellis (Groundwood, 2017)  find themselves in difficult situations. While Jafar works in a factory instead of going to school, Gretchen wonders what her family would have done during World War II, and Mike survives 72 days in solitary confinement.  Circumstances for seven other children range from life-threatening to heartbreaking, usually both. And while each child proves to be resilient and resourceful, reading about them isn't easy. Important, even essential, but not easy.

I connected most with the story of Miyuki, "The Glowing Chair," perhaps because it offers one of the most redemptive endings. It begins with Miyuki sitting on a tatami mat at the evacuation center where she, her father and brother are staying after the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster; her mother has been missing since the tsunami swallowed up the veterinary clinic where she worked. Ellis economically conveys the tensions that exist between the members of Miyuki's family (including their donkey Hisu, left behind in the danger zone) as well as the bonds that remain after the events of March 2011. Miyuki's decision to rescue Hisu takes her into the danger zone, where she makes peace with the loss of her mother and discovers who she is meant to be.

Read an excerpt from Sit (the first story in its entirety) here.

As I was writing this post, I heard the sad news that Sheila Barry, publisher of Groundwood books, died last night. My sincere condolences to her family, friends, and colleagues at Groundwood. I know she will be missed.

Happy birthday to Astrid Lindgren, Frederick Banting, and this blog

BooksTogether shares a birthday with Swedish author Astrid Lindgren; I started it in 2007, on what would have been her hundredth birthday, and it's ten years old today. It was a fortuitous date, as over the years I've come to specialize in the field of international and translated children's literature. While the blog hasn't always kept pace with my work (I hardly posted at all when I was on the Batchelder committee, for example), a tenth anniversary seems a good time to recommit!

[I wasn't aware of it at the time, but November 14 is also Frederick Banting's birthday. Banting is a personal hero, a Nobel prize winner for the discovery of insulin. Since I started this blog, my son Leo was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, so this date--World Diabetes Day--has added significance--not necessarily for BooksTogether, but definitely for me.]

A post shared by Beyond Type 1 Daily (@beyondtype1daily) on Nov 14, 2017 at 5:07am PST

NYT/NYPL Best Illustrated Children's Books of 2017

When the New York Times' list of the Best Illustrated Children's Books of the year comes out in November, I know it's time for me to start thinking about our house Mock Caldecott. But because the Best Illustrated books list doesn't have the same eligibility criteria as the Caldecott (namely, American-ness), there are always a few titles we can't consider. This year, two of my favorites on the NYT list are On a Magical Do-Nothing Day by Beatrice Alemagna (HarperCollins) and Town is by the Sea, written by Joanne Schwartz and illustrated by Sydney Smith (Groundwood); neither is eligible (Alemagna is Italian; Smith, Canadian).

Thank goodness, then, for Frida Kahlo and her Animalitos by Monica Brown, illustrated by John Parra (NorthSouth). This book was a delightful surprise (to me, not to the NYT list)--I wasn't expecting Brown to use the characteristics of Kahlo's pets to illuminate the artist's own personality ("Frida was independent, like a cat!"), but it's an insightful and child-friendly approach. And Parra's acrylic on board illustrations are totally charming. I've read and reviewed a number of picture book biographies of Kahlo, and this one is my new favorite. It was also my Cybils nominee in the Elementary Nonfiction category. Congratulations to Monica and John, and to all of the authors and illustrators on this year's list!

Following up: 2017 #ALAyma winners

The 2017 ALA Youth Media Awards were announced a week ago--I watched them live, although I had some technical difficulties and missed Leave Me Alone!'s Caldecott Honor. I was happily surprised by it later; it was one of my favorites, and was honored at our mock Caldecott, too. Our group read all of the Caldecott Honors, but sadly, and for the first time, not the winner: Radiant Child: The Story of Young Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat by Javaka Steptoe (Little, Brown). The public library only had two copies, both of which were checked out to librarians for their mock Caldecotts! I hope no one was too disappointed; and I also hope they will seek out Radiant Child. I bet the library is buying a lot more copies. Congratulations, Javaka Steptoe!

We also had a lot of the eventual Newbery Honors on hand, as well as the winner, Kelly Barnhill's The Girl Who Drank the Moon (Algonquin). This was my daughter's favorite, so I'm especially glad it won. I was just about her age when Robin McKinley's The Hero and the Crown (also a fantasy novel) won the Newbery, and it's still a favorite of mine, too.

The award I'm most invested in, though, is the Batchelder, which (as readers of this blog may know) is for "an outstanding children’s book originally published in a language other than English in a country other than the United States, and subsequently translated into English for publication in the United States." This year's winner is Cry, Heart, But Never Break (Enchanted Lion), a book about death--which is also, of course, a book about life. I'll take a closer look at Cry, Heart and all of this year's Batchelder books in another post.

Lastly, I want to give a special shout-out to my brother-in-law David Milgrim, whose beginning reader Go, Otto, Go! (Simon Spotlight) is a Geisel Honor book! Go, David, go!

2017 Newbery hopefuls

I made a little display of my Newbery hopefuls to share at our Mock Caldecott meeting last week, although I had to make a mock-up of Jason Reynolds's Ghost--the hold list for that one was too long for me to get it in time! Here they are, for posterity:

• Cloud and Wallfish by Anne Nesbet (Candlewick)
• The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill (Algonquin Young Readers)
• Ghost by Jason Reynolds (Atheneum)
• The Inquisitor's Tale by Adam Gidwitz (Dutton)
• When Green Becomes Tomatoes: Poems for All Seasons by Julie Fogliano; illustrated by Julie Morstad (Neal Porter/Roaring Brook Press)
• Wolf Hollow by Lauren Wolk (Dutton)

2017 Mock Caldecott results

After we picked the winner at our house Mock Caldecott last year, I wondered whether or not to try again this year. I'm so glad we did--it's my favorite social event. This is our fourth Mock Caldecott, and by now we have a core group of kids and adults (15 this year, just like the real Caldecott committee) who are familiar with the Caldecott terms and criteria and the discussion process (we use the CCBC book discussion guidelines).

The hardest part of my job as organizer is to select the books we'll consider (and make sure that I have copies on hand the day we meet). I aim for a diverse dozen or so, a mix of critical and personal favorites, a variety of media. Most of all, I hope the winner of the real Caldecott is somewhere on my list--so far it has been.

This year, our winner is Du Iz Tak? by Carson Ellis (Candlewick). 

We named three honor books:

• The Airport Book by Lisa Brown (Neal Porter/Roaring Brook Press)
• Leave Me Alone! by Vera Brosgol (Roaring Brook Press)
• The Tree in the Courtyard: Looking Through Anne Frank's Window by Jeff Gottesfeld; illustrated by Peter McCarty (Knopf)

Special mention goes to The Sound of Silence by Katrina Goldsaito; illustrated by Julia Kuo (Little, Brown), because I really liked it, too,

Will one of our choices win the Caldecott this year? There's not long now to wait and see....

Horn Book in the house

It's a happy mail day when the Horn Book Magazine shows up in my mailbox. The November/December 2016 issue came yesterday, the one with an illustration by Elisa Vavouri from Joel Edward Stein's A Hanukkah with Mazel (Kar-Ben, 2016) on the cover--it must be Mazel (and his cat) frying latkes. Lots of good things inside, too! Here's what caught my eye in this issue:

• A longer-than-usual list of starred reviews, including three middle-grade novels--The Inquisitor's Tale by Adam Gidwitz (Dutton), When the Sea Turned to Silver by Grace Lin (Little, Brown) and Cloud and Wallfish by Anne Nesbet (Candlewick)--that I like lots, too
• "An Interview with Deborah Ahenkorah: Torchbearer for African Children's Publishing" by Summer Edward, which also introduced me to the pan-African social enterprise Golden Baobab and Caribbean children's literature e-zine Anansesem
• Sarah Hannah Gómez's article "Decolonizing Nostalgia." SHG's childhood reading in the 90s (Betsy-Tacy, All-of-a-Kind Family, Little House) looked a lot like mine did in the 70s/80s
• Holiday High Notes. It's not too early!

What would you read first?

Five picture books for #fivewomenartists

Can you name five women artists? It's surprisingly difficult for most people, even more so if you leave out the big three: Mary Cassatt, Frida Kahlo, Georgia O'Keeffe. This March, for Women's History Month, the National Museum for Women in the Arts (NMWA) is leading a social media campaign to share stories of women artists using the hashtag #fivewomenartists. I'm doing my part by sharing this list of five great picture books about women artists. Not including Cassatt, Kahlo, or O'Keeffe, although there are some gorgeous picture books about them, too!

Louise Bourgeois, M is for Mother, 1998, pen and ink with colored pencil and graphite, National Gallery of Art, Washington

Cloth Lullaby: The Woven Life of Louise Bourgeois by Amy Novesky; illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault (Abrams, 2016). As a child,  20th-century artist and sculptor Louise Bourgeois learned to weave and repair tapestries alongside her mother in the family's tapestry restoration workshop. This experience inspired some of her most powerful works, including a series of steel spider sculptures--the largest of which is called Maman.

Four Pictures by Emily Carr by Nicolas Debon (Groundwood, 2003). Emily Carr (1871-1945) is one of Canada's most renowned artists; her work is now exhibited with and compared to Kahlo's and O'Keeffe's. In this graphic novel, Debon traces Carr's life story through four of her best paintings (also reproduced here).

Summer Birds: The Butterflies of Maria Merian by Margarita Engle; illustrated by Julie Paschkis (Henry Holt, 2010). I interviewed Margarita about this book when it first came out six years ago, and I still love it. Told in the voice of the young Maria Merian, 17th-century Dutch artist and naturalist.

Beatrix Potter and the Unfortunate Tale of a Borrowed Guinea Pig by Deborah Hopkinson; illustrated by Charlotte Voake (Shwartz and Wade, 2016). Spoiler alert: the guinea pig DIES. But if you can get past that, this is a charming book, and the picture-letter format is similar to how Beatrix Potter's own early stories were written. There's even a P.S. (the author's note). 

Stand There! She Shouted: The Invincible Photographer Julia Margaret Cameron by Susan Goldman Rubin; illustrated by Bagram Ibatoulline (Candlewick, 2014) AND Imogen: The Mother of Modernism and Three Boys by Amy Novesky; illustrated by Lisa Congdon (Cameron + Company, 2012). Not one but two picture book biographies of photographers, Julia Margaret Cameron (British, 1815-79) and Imogen Cunningham (American, 1883-1976). 

There. Now if anyone should ask you to name five women artists, you're all set (and then some--don't forget the illustrators of these books). Of course, you probably already were. Who's on your list?

Winnie and Honors

Casual Caldecott turned into quite a party! We had 22 people--kids and parents--gather to read, visit, and vote on a dozen of the year's best, most buzzed-about picture books. We weren't able to have a book-by-book discussion prior to voting, but the results sorted themselves out nicely nonetheless. We named five honor books (listed in alphabetical order by title): 

• Ask Me by Bernard Waber; illustrated by Suzy Lee
• Drum Dream Girl by Margarita Engle; illustrated by Rafael Lopez
• Float by Daniel Miyares
• The Bear Ate Your Sandwich by Julia Sarcone-Roach
• Water is Water by Miranda Paul; illustrated by Jason Chin

And we  had a clear winner:

Finding Winnie by Lindsay Mattick; illustrated by Sophie Blackall.

Finding Winnie is my favorite, too (sometimes my favorite doesn't even get an Honor at our house Caldecott: this was a first!). Congratulations to Sophie Blackall from all of us!

Your Batchelder Reading List

I'm back as promised with a sampling of children's books in translation published in 2015. Today I'm looking at American publishers, because those are the ones eligible for the Batchelder award, but I should note (again) that Canadian publishers Groundwood Books and Kids Can Press also publish a fair amount of translated books, as do Pushkin Children's Books in the UK and Gecko Press in New Zealand (and lots of others)--I'll get to those next time!

Let's start with a title or two from each of the smaller publishing houses. I've included original publication information where I have it.

I Am a Bear by Jean-Francois Dumont, translated by Leslie Mathews (Eerdman's Books for Young Readers, 2015). Originally published in France in 2010 under the title Je Suis Un Ours.

The Story of Snowflake and Inkdrop by Pierdomenico Baccalario, illustrated by Simona Mulazzari and translated by Alessandro Gatti (Enchanted Lion Books, 2015). Originally published in Italy in 2013 as Storia di Goccia e Fiocco.

The World in a Second by Isabel Minhós Martins, illustrated by Bernardo Carvalho and translated by Lyn Miller-Lachmann. Originally published in Portugal in 2008 as O mundo num segundo.

Farewell Floppy by Benjamin Chaud (Chronicle Books, 2015). No translator credited. Originally published in France in 2009 as Adieu Chaussette.

Now on to graphic novels!

Omaha Beach on D-Day: June 6, 1944 with One of the World's Iconic Photographers. Photographs by Robert Capa. Story by Jean-David Morvan and Séverine Tréfouël. Design by Dominique Bertail. English translation by Edward Gauvin. First Second, 2015. Originally published in France, 2014.

First Man: Reimagining Matthew Henson by Simon Schwartz; translated by Laura Watkinson (Graphic Universe, 2015). Originally published in 2012 as Packeis.

The Other Side of the Wall by Simon Schwartz; translated by Laura Watkinson (Graphic Universe, 2015). Originally published in 2009 as drüben!

Finally, one of the few middle-grade novels I found in my belated search for Batchelder-eligible books: You Can't See the Elephants by Susan Kreller, translated by Elizabeth Gaffney (G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2015). Originally published in German in 2012 under the title Elefanten sieht man nicht. Unusually, the translator is both credited on the cover and blurbed on the back ("Praise for Translator Elizabeth Gaffney"), although it turns out that the praise is for Gaffney's own novels; this is her first translation for children. You Can't See the Elephants is already an international award winner (this is also noted on the cover). I find it problematic that the American edition seems to have moved the setting of the story from Germany to the United States, and wonder why--the novel still feels very European, and the story doesn't work quite as well in an American setting. Still, a powerful book.

There's your reading list! Please do let me know if I've missed something you loved. Thanks!

Where to Look for Batchelder Books: Start here

I haven't been as diligent in keeping a record of the children's books in translation published in 2015, let alone those eligible for the Batchelder Award, as I would have liked to be (it's a reading and blogging resolution for 2016, though! Watch this space). Last year's winner was Mikis and the Donkey by Bibi Dumon Tak, illustrated by Philip Hopman and translated by Laura Watkinson; published by Eerdmans Books for Young Readers in 2014. It was also my favorite, and now I want a miniature Mediterranean donkey. 

Looking ahead, good places to find potential Batchelder books are smaller publishing houses like Eerdmans and Enchanted Lion Books, both of whom make consistently beautiful and important books. (The same is true of Canadian publishers Groundwood Books and Kids Can Press; they are, however, ineligible for the Batchelder, which is awarded to an American publisher).

Graphic novels seem to be translated relatively frequently, so First Second (an imprint of Roaring Brook Press), Graphic Universe (a division of Lerner Publishing Group), and TOON Graphics are also possibilities.

You might look the for the work of individual translators such as Laura Watkinson, who translates into English from Dutch, Italian, and German.

And of course, translated books can be published by larger (and smaller) publishing houses, or published as e-books, which are eligible for the Batchelder this year as part of a pilot program.

I'll be back tomorrow with a (sadly short!) list of children's books in translation published in 2015.

Casual Caldecott

Eek! We're just a week away from the announcement of the 2016 ALA youth media awards, in Boston on Monday, January 11 at 8am. I've organized a couple of Mini-Mock Caldecotts at my house in the past, and they've been lots of fun--and work! This year, I'm thinking about doing something a little simpler, more of a Casual Caldecott. Instead of a committee meeting, it would be an open house--folks would be invited to drop by, read a handful of books, and cast their ballots (to be tabulated later). Also there would be cookies. Here are some of the books I'm considering:

• Ask Me by Bernard Waber, illustrated by Suzy Lee
• Drowned City by Don Brown
• Drum Dream Girl by Margarita Engle, illustrated by Rafael López
• Finding Winnie by Lindsay Mattick, illustrated by Sophie Blackall
• Float by Daniel Miyares
• Hiawatha and the Peacemaker by Robbie Robertson, illustrated by David Shannon
• Last Stop on Market Street by Matt De La Peña , illustrated by Christian Robinson
• Two Mice by Sergio Ruzzier
• Wait by Antoinette Portis
• Waiting by Kevin Henkes
• Wolfie the Bunny by Ame Dyckman, illustrated by Zachariah OHora
• Yard Sale by Lauren Castillo

The final list would depend in part on what I already have and what's available at the library--with any luck, there will be at least some overlap with the real committee's choices. It makes Monday morning much more fun! Any interest?

Eleanor's Magic Doorway

I spent most of New Year's Day ensconced on the couch, reading The Lake House by Kate Morton (Atria, 2015). Sometimes a member of the family joined me, most often the dog. It was a lovely way to start my reading year.

Now for the book: The Lake House is internationally-bestselling Australian author Kate Morton's most recent novel (it was published in the US in October; there was a long hold list). If you've read any of Morton's other books, The Lake House might feel familiar to you (in a good way): there are missing children, abandoned houses with lush, overgrown gardens; family secrets. The story is usually told in chapters that alternate past and present, gradually intertwining them. Children's books (invented ones) are often connected in some way to the events of the narrative. In The Lake House, the children's book is Eleanor's Magic Doorway.

Sadie Sparrow, the Detective Constable investigating the 70-year-old cold case of the real Eleanor's missing child, is not impressed--"From what she could gather, these kids' books were all alike" (113). Probably because she didn't read Eleanor's Magic Doorway as a child, although it had been a gift from her grandparents (a cautionary tale for those of us who like to give today's children fondly remembered books from our own childhoods). The book does merit a chapter in someone's doctoral dissertation, titled "Fictional Escap(e)ades: Mothers, Monsters and Metaphysics in Children's Fictions," which makes me wonder what the dissertation on Children's Books in the Novels of Kate Morton is going to be called.

If The Lake House sounds appealing, do seek out Morton's other books as well! The Forgotten Garden is my favorite.

Drawing with Charcoal and P.J. Lynch

Once of my goals for this year (not reading or blogging-related) is to draw more, maybe even every day. I thought the Guardian's brilliant How to draw... series might be a good source of assignments, for days when the vague "draw more" isn't enough. Today's entry in the series is How to draw...with charcoal from Irish illustrator P.J. Lynch, who walks us through the steps of making this evocative drawing of a lighthouse using vine and compressed charcoal, white chalk, and a plastic eraser. I'm familiar with charcoal--it's one of the materials we use when drawing in the galleries--and Lynch has some useful tips, but drawing with charcoal is not my favorite. I think a B pencil is too smudgy! So I'm giving this week's assignment a pass, although I'd love to read Once Upon a Place, an anthology of stories and poems by Irish childrens' writers, edited by Eoin Colfer and illustrated, in charcoal, by P.J. Lynch. Each story or poem is set in or inspired by a particular place in Ireland: I wonder if any of our favorite places (we visited Ireland last summer) are there?

[The cover art for Once Upon a Place, also by P.J. Lynch, seems to have been done in watercolor. It's beautiful, and a very  different effect from charcoal, don't you think?]

New year, Cybils shortlists

One of the best things to wake up to on January 1 is the announcement of the Cybils shortlists. This year (last year?) I was a first-round panelist for Elementary and Middle Grade Speculative Fiction, so I knew what was going to be on that list, inside and out. But there are lots of other categories! Here are some highlights:

• The Elementary and Middle Grade Speculative Fiction list, of course. I wrote the blurb for Cuckoo Song by Frances Hardinge, and it is brilliant (the book, not the blurb. The blurb doesn't do the book justice).
• Fiction Picture Books. This is a big category, so I was pleased to see Hoot Owl, Master of Disguise by Sean Taylor, illustrated by Jean Jullien (my nominee) on the shortlist.
• Elementary and Middle Grade Nonfiction. I was a second-round panelist/judge for this category last year, when the finalists were almost all science books. This time the balance tips to biography.

There's something for everyone (even in Book Apps, the category I know the least about). In the past, I've tried to read at least one new book from each category, or all of the books in a category not my own, before the winners are announced on February 14. I have other reading (and blogging) goals for this year, though! I'll be back tomorrow to share some of those. Happy new year!

Hamster Princess: Harriet the Invincible by Ursula Vernon

My 11-year-old daughter pounced on Hamster Princess: Harriet the Invincible (first in a new series by Ursula Vernon, creator of Dragonbreath; Dial, 2015) as soon as I brought it home from the library, then insisted I read it, too (as if I hadn't been planning on reading it first). Obviously, it has lots of kid appeal--it's got a hamster princess, for goodness' sake (her name is Harriet). But that's not all: Like the Dragonbreath series, Hamster Princess is heavily illustrated (here in black and white with shades of purple; there is no pink inside, I promise), and the text alternates occasionally with speech bubbles to move the story forward.  Also like Dragonbreath, it's really funny, in an occasionally ridiculous way. And while there are lots of fairy tale retellings (this one is Sleeping Beauty), Harriet the Invincible still manages to surprise.

Harriet is your typical not-princessy princess: she wants to slay a dragon, her parents refuse. I love Harriet's argument: "But I'm a princess! If I do it, it's got to be something princesses do! Who makes these rules!?" (It reminds me of Roseanne, the sitcom mom, telling daughter Darlene that a ball and glove are a girl's things, as long as a girl is using them.) When Harriet finds out that she has been cursed by the evil Ratshade to prick herself on a hamster wheel on her twelfth birthday, she realizes that she's invincible til then, and rides off on Mumfrey, her battle quail (Qwerk?) to do some cliff-diving, dragon-slaying, and jousting on the professional circuit. She'll worry about the curse later.

Harriet does eventually defeat Ratshade and lift the curse that falls on the inhabitants of the castle, although she has to recruit a prince (and a hydra) to help her with the kissing part. Prince Wilbur is a good foil for Harriet, and their next adventure, Of Mice and Magic (very loosely based on the story of the Twelve Dancing Princesses), is forthcoming in March 2016. Recommended for elementary-aged kids, and anyone who likes the idea of a hamster princess.

Backyard Witch: Sadie's Story

If you discovered a witch living in your playhouse, you might expect her to do more magic, and less-bird-watching, than she does in Backyard Witch: Sadie's Story, the first book in a series about three nine-year-old friends (and the witch in Sadie's playhouse) by Christine Heppermann and Ron Koertge (illustrated by Deborah Marcero; (Greenwillow, 2015). As it happens, I like birdwatching, so this didn't bother me at all--it was a bonus! But if you're here for the magic, it's strictly minor hexes--just enough to help Sadie cope when her two best friends, Maya and Jess, go on vacation together, leaving Sadie behind. The witch's friends are missing, too--Ethel turned into a bird and flew away; Onyx (the cat) chased after. Sadie helps Ms. M look for them, and together--by means more or less magical--they save the playhouse from being sold at a yard sale.

Back to the birds. The real magic, Sadie's Story suggests, is in the natural world, or rather in really noticing it for the first time: "At that moment, Sadie did have a magical power, though she didn't know what to call it. All she knew was that the park had transformed. Or she had" (55). Being alone can do that to a person, even if you don't happen to have a witch in your playhouse.

Back matter includes Ms. M's birding tips and a bibliography of bird books that lists two of my favorites: Annette LeBlanc Cate's Look Up! Birdwatching in Your Own Backyard (Candlewick, 2013) and Stokes Beginner's Guide to Birds: Eastern (or Western) Region, which is the one we used when we were first getting started. Recommended for younger middle grade readers, 7-10 years old.

Drawing, Paul Kidby, and The Diary of a Mad Brownie

The Summer 2015 issue of Drawing magazine, featuring an interview with British artist and illustrator Paul Kidby, arrived at my house on the same day as the Kidby-illustrated middle grade fantasy novel The Enchanted Files: Diary of a Mad Brownie by Bruce Coville (Random House). Kidby is best known for his illustrations and book covers for the late Terry Pratchett, and their working relationship (along with Kidby's working methods) is the subject of the interview. There's a great origin story: apparently Kidby waited in a signing line for three hours to share his drawings with Pratchett, who called him two weeks later to say that they came the closest to how Pratchett himself pictured the characters in his head. And a bittersweet ending: The Shepherd's Crown (HarperCollins in the US, Doubleday Childrens in the UK), whose cover art (in the UK, at least) shows teenage witch Tiffany Aching surrounded by the Nac Mac Feegle--and a cloud of bees, publishes today.

As for the Mad Brownie, his name is Angus, and he's the first in a series of books about creatures of myth and legend (next up: the Runaway Griffin, May 2016) by Bruce Coville. As far as such creatures go, brownies--who secretly neaten and spruce up human homes--would seem to be the sort you'd want to have around (I would, anyway). But Angus brings the McGonagall family curse with him from Scotland when he travels through the Enchanted Realm to America, where the youngest McGonagall female of age, 11-year-old Alex Carhart, and her family now live. And she's a slob (that's not the curse). Together they must break the curse etc. It's fast-paced and funny (Angus is introduced to what he refers to as the intermagoogle), and I like that the whole family, including the cat, gets involved in the story.

The Enchanted Files books are told in diary format, "with supporting documents" ranging from encyclopedia entries to letters, text messages, and notes--so there's lots of variety in the reading, supported by the interior art and page design. Angus even draws a floor plan of the Carhart's house, with helpful labels ("Dining Room: Large table. Seems to be used more for homework and art projects than for eating on"). That said, the audio of Diary of a Mad Brownie, presented with a full cast, is also well-reviewed--so you can't go wrong either way. Recommended for readers (and listeners) who like both middle grade family and school stories, as well as light fantasy.

Caldecott, Newbery, and Batchelder Hopefuls

First, my Caldecott hopefuls:

• Christian Robinson for Gaston by Kelly DiPucchio (Atheneum) or Josephine: The Dazzling Life of Josephine Baker by Patricia Hruby Powell (Chronicle).
• Jonathan Bean for Bad Bye, Good Bye by Deborah Underwood (HMH Books for Young Readers).
• Hadley Hooper for The Iridescence of Birds: A Book About Henri Matisse by Patricia MacLachlan (Roaring Brook Press).

This year, two of my favorite books might win either the Caldecott or the Newbery--or both! They are El Deafo by Cece Bell (Harry N. Abrams) and Once Upon an Alphabet by Oliver Jeffers (Philomel). We discussed El Deafo briefly at yesterday's Mock Caldecott, but not everyone had a chance to read the whole thing, and they were mostly unconvinced that it met the Caldecott criteria. We all agreed that there needs to be an award for graphic novels, but until then, I hope the award committees find a way to recognize this one.

I'm not sure why no one is talking about Once Upon an Alphabet, though. Oliver Jeffers lives and works in Brooklyn (of course), so he should be eligible, and it's a terrific book. I don't have a lot of favorites for the Newbery this year--I might have read more Printz books, actually!--but I did like The Misadventures of the Family Fletcher by Dana Alison Levy (Delacorte) lots and haven't heard many people mention it. Maybe it will be this year's The Year of Billy Miller.

Finally, the Batchelder award for children's books in translation. Following my Batchelder year, I've continued to seek out translated books, although I'm sure there are many I've missed! My favorite? Mikis and the Donkey by Bibi Dumon Tak, illustrated by Philip Hopman and translated by Laura Watkinson (Eerdmans).

Good luck to all the books!