Happy Sunday, kidlit friends! This is Margaret covering for Karina. I hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend! Last weekend we attended a hummingbird festival at a local nature center, and it was so much fun! Parks are such a great resource for free things to do with kids.
This week I review four bilingual English/Spanish board books and two very different AAPI picture books that released this week. Before I get to those reviews, Book Riot’s editorial team is writing for casual and power readers alike over at The Deep Dive! During the month of September, all new free subscribers will be entered to win Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler plus 5 mystery books from The Deep Dive. To enter, simply start a free subscription to The Deep Dive. No payment method required!
Bookish Goods
Read Banned Books Tote by ChicanasRead
Banned Books Week approaches and this tote would be great to carry around that week and beyond. $16
New Releases
Dim Sum Palace by X. Fang (picture book)
This imaginative and delicious picture book is an homage to In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak. Liddy is so excited about eating at the Dim Sum Palace restaurant the next day that she can’t go to sleep. When she finally does, she dreams of visiting the Dim Sum Palace, except it’s a real palace, and she’s tiny compared to the giant chefs inside. When she falls into a dumpling, the chefs serve her to the Empress. This picture book has a really clever inside cover, if you’re a fan of those!
Everyone Is Welcome by Phuong Truong and Christine Wei (picture book)
I’m sad this picture book is necessary, but glad such a beautiful book about anti-Asian hate exists. A little girl hears that her grandmother’s friend, Mrs. Lee, was pushed down on the way to the Asian market, a market the child loves to visit. She then learns that some of her brother’s friends have been bullied on the way to school. With the help of her mother and friends, she presents a gift to Mrs. Lee.
In my list of September children’s book releases for the main website, I review The Walk, Something Like Home, and Chinese Menu, which also released this week. For a more comprehensive list, check out our New Books newsletter!
Riot Recommendations
I wanted to continue recommendations for Hispanic Heritage Month by reviewing four board books written in both English and Spanish. They’re all part of a series!
Little Languages: Colors / Colores by Mikala Carpenter and Gemma Román
The Little Languages board book series introduces first concepts to toddlers. There are four board books total in the series, and they come with an audio QR code for pronunciation. The illustrations are really adorable and colorful. Each page spread has a sentence in English on the left and the same sentence in Spanish on the right.
¡1, 2, 3 Cumbia!: English-Spanish Manners Book by Delia Ruiz and Graziela Andrade
There are three books total in this sweet board book series that teaches kids how to dance along with first concepts. In this one, kids can learn steps to the cumbia along with manners. The other two books in the series are ¡1, 2, 3 Merengue!, which teaches about instruments and sounds, and ¡1, 2, 3 Salsa!, which teaches counting. They’re really delightful and I love that they’re interactive.
Undies, Please! / ¡Chones, por favor! by Sumana Seeboruth and Ashleigh Corrin
This is part of the Feelings & Firsts board book series. In this one, a toddler learns about potty training. Other board books in the series cover topics like playing independently and trying new foods. They’re available in English only and in English and Spanish. There are currently four books in the series.
Alma and Her Family/Alma y su familia by Juana Martinez-Neal
I was so excited to learn that Alma from Alma and How She Got Her Name was going to get her own board books! In this one, Alma interacts with family members. Each page has a simple sentence in both English and Spanish accompanied by a sweet illustration depicting the sentence. This is also part of a series, though currently only two books have been published in the series. The other book is Alma, Head to Toe /Alma, de pies a cabeza.
This week, my daughter’s kindergarten teacher informed us that she is one of the top three students in her entire school with the most minutes logged on Beanstack! The school encourages us to log our reading on the app, though it’s not required. We had already been logging our reading for our library’s summer reading challenge, so it was easy enough to keep logging! In this picture, she’s reading School of Monsters: William is a Star, about a farting monster, lol.
If you’d like to read more of my kidlit reviews, I’m on Instagram @BabyLibrarians, Twitter @AReaderlyMom, and blog irregularly at Baby Librarians. You can also read my Book Riot posts. If you’d like to drop me a line, my email is kingsbury.margaret@gmail.com.
All the best,
Margaret Kingsbury