Category: The Kids Are All Right

When a beloved adult passes away, a young girl puts her heart in a bottle to protect it from getting hurt again. There it stays until she is reminded of all the wonderful things she learned from that adult, and how she can share those gifts with someone else.

A young girl’s grandfather passes away before she was born, and she finds herself missing him even though she has never met him. She asks her family what he was like and imagines what it would have been like to meet him. This is a beautiful and poignant book about feelings and grief.

Trille and Lena are best friends, and what they like to do most is create mischief! They coax a cow onto a boat and sled down the steepest and iciest hill with a chicken. They both love Trille’s granny’s waffles. But when Lena has to move away and Auntie Granny leaves the world, it sometimes seems like nothing will ever be right again. 

It’s autumn on 141st Street, and as the days get shorter, a dear neighbor of the Vanderbeekers is getting more and more sick. The family does their best to take care of him, realizing along the way that one of the hardest parts of life is saying goodbye.

In this beautifully illustrated picture book, L’il Sissy and her siblings visit her Uncle John in the city, where they help him transform an empty lot into a vibrant community garden. The story is based on author Bernette Ford’s childhood experiences, and award-winning illustrator Frank Morrison’s rich illustrations are stunning. I would not be surprised if this one wins some awards next year.

Just like my daughter and I, Miguel and his dads can walk to their local community garden. Today, the garden is having a garden party, and Miguel needs to find sunflowers for the party. By comparing and contrasting different produce in the garden, readers can help Miguel find the sunflowers. This is a standalone follow-up to Amara’s Farm, another delightful compare/contrast book about sustainable food. Amara makes an appearance at the end!

In this rhyming picture book, a community joins together to create a rooftop garden. With hard work, they’re able to gather together and find fresh food for a feast. The warm illustrations depict families of all types, and the back matter includes gardening steps and the stages of plant growth. There’s also a QR code for an accompanying song.

This poetry collection centers an elementary school’s community garden. The poems are playful and cleverly written, and I love the interactive elements. On every page, readers are invited to interact with the poems and illustrations, from searching and finding items from the poems to solving mysteries. It’s a fantastic, garden-themed poetry collection.

I love this picture book biography about famed cellist Yo-Yo Ma. After studying his whole life and playing at famous venues all around the world, Yo-Yo Ma performed at the U.S.-Mexico border at the Rio Grande on April 13, 2019 as part of his multi-continent “Bach Project” tour.

This is one of my absolute favorite picture books of all time. The illustrations are so funny and charming! It’s a Friday night, and the 105 members of the New York Philharmonic are getting dressed in black and white so they can head to the concert hall and play music together.

Florence Price was a brilliant pianist who played her first piano concert when she was four. She was an avid composer, and she wrote music hoping that it would one day be performed by an orchestra. In 1933, her dreams came true when she prevailed against race and gender prejudices to become the first Black woman to be recognized as a symphonic composer and be performed by a major American orchestra.

Twelve-year-old twins Rose and Thomas are growing further apart. While Rose is focused on preparing for the Bach Cello Suites Competition, Thomas is consumed by growing the biggest pumpkin in their neighbor’s yard. But when a serious accident changes their summer entirely, the two twins learn more about what it means to be family, and how to help each other achieve their dreams.

This Chinese picture book follows Zhao Di as she celebrates all 15 nights of the Lunar New Year. She loves celebrating Lunar New Year with her friends and especially loves playing with the lanterns. But she’s sad when the 15 days are over and it’s time to smash the lanterns. She’s not ready for the fun to end!

Also translated by Helen Wang, this sweet and funny picture book was originally published in Taiwan. Leilong the dinosaur loves books and especially loves the library and going to story time with his friends. But there’s a big problem: Leilong is far too big for the library. He keeps accidentally smashing books, and he just can’t fit! Is there any solution?

This gorgeously illustrated picture book was originally published in Korea and takes place along a Seoul subway. It’s an imaginative and contemplative read that relates the lives and thoughts of subway goers. It’s the kind of picture book adults will enjoy just as much as children.

This beautiful celebration of the seasons is written in both English and Anishinaabemowin, an Indigenous North American language of the Anishinaabe. It follows a grandmother and grandchild as they explore all four seasons, from summer sunsets listening to the bugs to watching blue jays on a snowy winter day. It’s an excellent book to add to intergenerational, seasonal, and Indigenous American collections.

I love this book, which reimagines city streets as being places where public transportation is easy and cheap to access and where living in a city is sustainable, healthy, accessible, and safe. This is a great book for budding architects and urban designers.

A mom and her child are looking forward to spending a Saturday together in the city they call home, but when their carefully laid plans go awry it feels like everything is ruined. Can they salvage their special day?

City streets come alive in the summer as kids spend the day outside jumping Double Dutch, opening the fire hydrants for a cool down, and chasing ice cream trucks.

A muralist arrives with a bucket of paint and brushes, and slowly a gray city transforms as color takes over. Based on the true story of the Urban Art Trail in San Diego, California, Maybe Something Beautiful reveals how art can inspire transformation

This fascinating and beautifully illustrated nonfiction identifies types of seashells as well as giving lots of neat facts about them. Written by a marine biologist, it’s super informative. This is a perfect companion for seashell collectors.

I am picky about the wordless picture books I enjoy, but this one is delightful and so evocative of the beach. Three siblings ride a bus to the beach with their parents, ready to make a sandcastle. But the sandcastle keeps getting toppled, either by a rampaging toddler or by the sea itself. But these siblings don’t give up, and keep on building despite interruptions.

Every year Fang’s family goes to Transylvania for vacation, but Fang is tired of the same trip, and thinks Transylvania is boring. He has a mission to convince his family to go to the beach instead. But vampires don’t go to the beach! This is a super funny picture book.

Written in African American Vernacular English (AAVE), this lyrical picture book encourages kids to clean up litter at the beach. While Kenzie and her mom are snorkeling, Kenzie spots all kinds of litter. Wanting to help the marine life, like her seal friend, she slips on her mermaid tail, grabs a net, and starts scooping litter. However, she knows one person isn’t enough to clean up everything. She enlists the help of other children, and together, they clear the beach of litter.

I think this book is clever in how it thinks about animals as architects who are constantly designing and modifying their environments to suit their needs. Chris Sasaki is one of my favorite illustrators, and I love how he depicts various animals and their habitats.

Wildlife expert Tyus D. Williams shares his knowledge about the biggest cats on earth in this book that is illustrated beautifully by Chaaya Prabhat.

This poetic book celebrates animals who live and travel in packs and explores how togetherness helps many creatures thrive. The illustrations are stunning!

This beautiful book by award winning author illustrator Yuyi Morales follows the journey of a fawn who is exploring the world in all its beauty and dangers.

I adore all of the Amy Wu picture books by Zhang and Chua, and both this most recent book in the series and Amy Wu and the Patchwork Dragon have school-related themes. In Warm Welcome, a new student at school has Amy confused. No matter how much she talks to him, he doesn’t respond. When she hears him greet his little sister in Chinese, she realizes he wasn’t rejecting her, he just didn’t understand her! Amy decides to throw a community dumpling party and welcome him properly this time — by making a welcome sign using Chinese characters. But now it’s her turn to feel a little shy about an unfamiliar language.

This picture book has a similar theme to Amy Wu and the Warm Welcome but a different approach, and it takes place in a preschool instead. All of the students in Luli’s preschool speak different languages. On the first day of school, they play separately instead of together, the lack of a common language creating a barrier between students. But Luli has an idea to bring everyone together — tea! The next day Luli brings tea and cookies to the classroom, and they all have a tea party. The tea party helps break the ice, and, afterward, everyone plays together in groups. I am writing this as I drink green tea, so I am fully behind the idea of tea parties = friendship.

This autobiographical picture book tells the story of Vanessa’s first day of school. Vanessa wants to show how special she is by dressing uniquely for school. Unfortunately, her unique outfit is not a hit with the other kids at school, and they won’t play with her. She begins copying them, hoping that doing so will help them like her, but that doesn’t work either. After some parental love and insight into her name, she realizes she can still be Vanessa. When she returns to school this time with confidence in herself, she feels more comfortable and is able to make friends.

This follow-up to The King of Kindergarten follows a young Black girl on her first day of school. She could not be more excited, and when she decides to wear a tiara on the first day, her mother reminds her of what queens of kindergarten do: they brighten up the room, they’re kind and caring, and they’re helpful. By practicing these skills on her first day of kindergarten, the little girl helps make her classroom community better for everyone.

Mirha is so excited about her first day of school, but when she arrives it seems like no one can pronounce her name! She is too shy to correct her classmates and her teachers, and she goes home wondering if she should change her name to something people can pronounce.

Stacey Abrams shares a childhood memory of the school spelling bee in this sweet picture book. Growing up, Stacey loved everything about words, so a spelling bee should be no problem, right? But Stacey is worried that the words won’t come when she’s up on stage, just like how words escape her when she’s faced by bullies. Can Stacey step into the spotlight and speak out?

Holly Mei is thrilled to move with her family to Hong Kong. Her school is right by the beach and she loves her new home. But school isn’t as fun as she thought it was going to be, especially when the most popular girl in the school becomes a frenemy. Can Holly Mei figure out how to fit in?

This is one of my absolute favorite middle grade books. Set during the Vietnam War, Holling Hoodhood is starting seventh grade and is certain that his new teacher hates his guts. The book goes through the whole school year, charting Holling’s progress through the year as he gains an appreciation for Mrs. Baker, diagramming sentences, and running while also facing the ramifications of the Vietnam War.

This picture book addresses childhood depression. Coen is depressed, and doesn’t feel like leaving his bed. One by one, his father, mother, and little sister try to coax him from the bed, but none of their approaches works. All Coen wants to do is huddle under the covers and feel his emotions. When his family gives him the space, quiet, and support to do just that, his blue feelings slowly dissapate, and he’s able to climb out of bed and start his day.

Based on the author’s experiences with anxiety, this picture book chronicles how a girl and her dog deal with day-to-day anxieties. Even though it’s the weekend, the child narrator and her dog have a lot of worries. But with some deep breaths and imagination, plus the bravery and kindness found in one another’s company, the two are able to go outside and play, despite their initial fears.

Sometimes the dad in this picture book is happy and full of energy, like the sun. But sometimes he’s deeply sad, lost in the blue, or even an angry red. This makes the child narrator feel sad and angry too. Both father and daughter go to therapy, and the dad is able to find his sunshine again, though the blue does still come back sometimes. This is a picture book I needed as a child. It’s a lovely color-based metaphor, and a must for children having a similar experience with a loved one. The author bases it on her own experiences.

I adore this middle grade graphic novel about Chinese-American middle-schooler Livy. Livy’s anxiety is so pervasive it forms into an alter-ego—Viola. Viola follows Livy to a new school, and makes it difficult for her to make new friends and participate in school. In the end, she does tell her parents and she begins to go to therapy, which helps her manage Viola and her anxiety. I love the growing trend of showing kids in therapy.