(2) K-3 Illustrated by Maribel Lechuga. We don't know why Lily is going to live with her grandmother in rural Iowa, but we join her as she begins the long car ride there, roof and backseat piled high with suitcases and boxes. Lily has emotional scars that manifest in a forlorn expression, bellyaches, and "hollow places" inside her. Gram drives through the night and into the next day (seemingly unfazed), and charges Lily to "find ten beautiful things along the way." Initially, Lily replies, "There's nothing beautiful here," but then she and Gram begin to identify things: a sunrise, a windmill farm, a red-winged blackbird, as well as the smell of mud and a "falling-apart barn." Richly colored mixed-media illustrations offer views from multiple vantage points: we see the view from inside the car; the car from high above; Lily in Gram's rear-view mirror. This simultaneously heartbreaking and reassuring book acknowledges the realities of grief ("None of this was easy"), the slow process of healing ("Maybe it would never be easy"), and hope ("She belonged with Gram now. She belonged here now").

Reviewer: Julie Hakim Azzam | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2021

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Jennifer A. Bell. While hiking, Rhoda amasses a collection of glinting, palm-snuggling, glowing rocks of various shapes and sizes. When the collection becomes too heavy, Rhoda must pare down to a handful of the most special souvenirs. Griffin's gently poetic text and Bell's feathery art in warm forest greens and blues lend softness to this quiet nature book.

Reviewer: Rebecca Reed Whidden

(4) YA Summering with her snooty relatives in 1926 Excelsior, Minnesota, sixteen-year-old aspiring ornithologist Garnet falls in love with dazzling flapper Isabella. The narrative voice is oddly prescriptive and analytical (her cousin's confession of debt leaves Garnet reflecting "now there was an interesting complexity to her character"), but the uniqueness of the story's setting and plot offset the clunkiness of its telling.

Reviewer: Claire E. Gross

(3) PS Illustrated by Anne Hunter. Tension mounts in this lyrical narrative as Loon Baby waits and waits for Mama to return with dinner. Deciding to look for her at last, he makes his very first dive underwater: "Suddenly there he was in the green lake-light..." Attractive watercolor and ink illustrations show the fauna and flora of the north woods, with fine black crosshatching to sculpt the shapes.

Reviewer: Martha Sibert