(2) 4-6 Illustrated by Jerry Craft. Two fifth graders vie to win their middle school’s annual creative storytelling contest. Both are already experienced storytellers: J illustrates books without words, and K writes stories without illustrations. In real life, Craft and Alexander have a lively friendly rivalry on display in social media posts and joint school visits, and this highly illustrated novel (cartoonlike black-and-white drawings appear throughout; final art unseen) is the perfect playground for their fictional ­counterparts—and for themselves, as both authors interject regularly with notes. Ever competitive, J and K try undermining each other’s chances for winning the contest by giving bad advice: draw with your nondominant hand, write what you don’t know, write in “sixth person.” Readers will soon suspect that J and K will join forces to write a book together, combining their talents, and indeed they enter the contest with their frog story collaboration, “Croak and Swagger: The Most Ribbiting Story Ever Told.” The culminating award ceremony, related with suspense and humor, isn’t the final word. Not only are readers told “To Be Continued…” but Craft and Alexander also offer “more fun…with this QR code” and write each other’s author bios with more of their trash talk.

Reviewer: Dean Schneider | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2025

(1) K-3 Illustrated by Freya Blackwood. Saunders, a member of the Gunai people, writes about weaving, water, and wisdom in this picture book first published in Australia. The spare and straightforward text describes yarning, which can refer both to fiber arts and to storytelling. "We are here to collect the vines. Here to find the rushes, to fuse the fibers...to soak and split. To roll between finger and thumb. To yarn...to knot and loop. Here to form bonds, to make ties...to unite." Saunders's understated prose alludes to traditional ecological knowledge passed down by women elders, to rising sea levels and cultural displacement produced by the climate crisis, and to the need to join together to effect change. Blackwood's illustrations combine saturated details with soft-edged blending and warm, earthy tones with deep verdigris teals and sea-glass greens. Scenes of the familiar, realistic landscape (a creek flows through a concrete drain and past industrial sites, skateboarding teens, graffitied walls, and tent encampments) give way to images of the community weaving together and then to the luminous humpback whale-shaped rafts they've created, which "rise above" the storm -- the world we live in. Blackwood uses weaving patterns (inspired by references "from all over the globe") to especially magical effect in embellishing these whale-rafts that float into the night sky: "We are here to fly, here to shape this world together."

Reviewer: | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2025

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Hatem Aly. Our narrator was proud to have written a book in rhyme...and then little sister came along with her crayon and ruined it. Or did she? Frustrated, the narrator tries to tell the story aloud, with frequent sisterly interruptions that usually add positivity but disrupt where the rhyme seems to be going: "'She tagged along to join the action, / but mostly was a huge distrac -- ' // 'A HELPFUL NEW PERSPECTIVE!'" Between the sibling dynamics and the element of surprise that eventually becomes a recognizable pattern, the story is funny throughout (though its meter has some missteps). But the real payoff comes with a revelation at the end, which will likely prompt readers to go back and look more closely at the sister's contributions, aided by the differentiated font colors for each speaker. The illustrations, "developed digitally with some use of scanned traditional media textures, ink washes, and patterns," match the do-it-yourself imaginativeness of the text; the casual depiction of siblings with different skin tones is another plus.

Reviewer: Shoshana Flax | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2024

(2) PS Illustrated by Bruce Ingman. In this tale of humorously escalating adventure and silliness, Elsie discovers a series of animals under the family dining table, an extravagant catalog that includes an elephant, kangaroo, and penguin. What to do with such a zoo? In each case the visitor finds a useful role in the family (e.g., car-washing, unloading groceries). The form and tone of the narrative beautifully capture the experience of an adult co-creating a story with a young child on the spot. The pleasures of pattern; the back-and-forth of improvisation; delicious, suspenseful page-turns; and the loopy energy of a plot twist coming in from left field -- all add up to a warm and jokey conversation happening in the immediate present. "There was once a girl. Elsie, her name was -- yes, Elsie Cannon." Ingman's naive-style paintings in primary colors, reminiscent of Ludwig Bemelmans, are perfectly suited to the flavor of the tale as they pursue and develop their own subplots. An anthropomorphic boiled egg, piano stool, saltshaker, and cutlery add an obbligato of animation, comedy, and naughtiness. What happened to Mildred the family cat? Oh, there she is, sipping lemonade at the picnic. And what about Bertie, that boiled egg who appears on almost every spread? Is he possibly our unidentified narrator? Ahlberg, a veteran of almost fifty years of picture book writing, pulls yet another irresistible rabbit out of his storyteller's hat.

Reviewer: Sarah Ellis | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2024

(2) YA Door of No Return series. Continuing the story of a Black family's trials, from Ghana to the United States, Alexander (The Door of No Return, rev. 9/22) sets this installment in Jim Crow era Virginia. Charlene "Charley" Cuffey is an avid follower of baseball's Negro Leagues and aims to be the first female player in the sport. Her grandfather, the supportive Nana Kofi, listens to Charley's triumphs on the diamond and tells her about the skill he showed as a swimmer in Ghana. He also teaches her Twi, his native language, and shares his favorite sayings and stories -- some stories, anyway. Charley's parents have decided she's too young to hear about how Nana Kofi was captured and brought to America, or why "the wonderfuls" (as Nana Kofi ironically calls white people) seem so uneasy around them. When Charley and her best friend, "Cool" Willie Green, challenge the neighborhood bully to a baseball game, it only makes sense that they use the new field in town -- but this decision could cost Charley and Willie more than they ever thought possible. Alexander has created a world that fully immerses readers in the time period and keeps them riveted by this family's continuing story. Charley's first-person verse narrative (with Nana Kofi's recollections interspersed in prose poems) incorporates institutions and notable figures from the era, including Marcus Garvey and Mary McLeod Bethune. A memorable and moving second book in the trilogy.

Reviewer: Eboni Njoku | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2024

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Sona Avedikian. In a story inspired by her husband's grandfather, Boukarim provides a powerful examination of the loss inflicted by the Armenian Genocide. After soldiers suddenly arrive at their home, the young protagonist and his two sisters are forced to flee, embarking on an exhausting journey to escape the coming violence. Quiet and mournful, the boy, though himself safe, slowly lets go of the hope of ever seeing his mother again. Finally, after many decades, he finds the words necessary to share his story and the history with his grandchildren -- a remembrance of an ordeal long untold. "'Where are we from, Dada?' I didn't see it coming. I found my words, dusty from years of sitting in the dark, unspoken." Avedikian's digital illustrations, rendered with a warm palette and suffused with familial love and comfort, make a harrowing story approachable for young readers. Back matter includes notes from both the author and illustrator detailing their personal connections to the Armenian Genocide; family photographs; and a map showing the two possible escape routes that may have been used by the author's extended family members. A necessary and well-crafted picture book about a part of world history too often ignored and sadly still relevant.

Reviewer: Eric Carpenter | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2024

(3) 4-6 This evocative collection of ten-word stories, paired with unique illustrations from twenty-one artists, sparks imagination in readers of all ages. The stories, though extremely brief, are varied and thought provoking, offering a mix of humor, emotion, and fantasy. Each illustration complements its story beautifully, showcasing a range of styles and interpretations. While primarily designed to inspire children to write their own tales, the book also serves as a visual feast for creative minds. Back matter provides a primer on story craft.

Reviewer: Summer Edward

(2) 4-6 Illustrated by Chris Riddell. Quick, lyrical prose, an ear for the music of words, and an affection for Britain's medieval past characterize much of Crossley-Holland's work. He brings it all into play in this "wonder-journey" first recorded in Old English by King Alfred in the ninth century. At home in his busy hall in Winchester, Alfred is an eager pupil, learning Latin so he can translate books into the language of his people and record their stories too. Then Wulfstan shows up and tells Alfred's court a strange tale. Shipwrecked with his "salt-friends," he was rescued by a people whose ways were very different: they drank only mares' milk and mead -- never ale. Imagine Wulfstan's even greater astonishment when their headman died and was packed with ice -- remaining in an ice coffin for a month while friends and family "kept him company" before setting him on his funeral pyre. Such unfamiliar rites are wonders in themselves, and Crossley-Holland vividly evokes the suspense of strangeness in Wulfstan's tale. With deft, pliable sentences, neatly embedded Old English poetic language (wonder-journey, bone-house), and a subtle orality of tone, Crossley-Holland makes Alfred's pursuits and the performance of Wulfstan's tale entrancing. The text's font, with its pen-on-parchment effect, quietly implies the temporal distance, as do Riddell's monochromatic images: pale browns for Alfred's court; fantastical, haunting blues for Wulfstan's tale. Yet the otherworldliness of the past is immersive in Riddell's double-page spreads, which draw us right into Alfred's hall or the pending weight of a colossal wave. An author's note contextualizes King Alfred's rule and literary legacy.

Reviewer: Deirdre F. Baker | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2025

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Alleanna Harris. August Wilson (1945–2005), the renowned African American playwright, was born with "a song inside him." He liked words and the way they had their own kind of music. Although learning was easy, attending school, where "nobody looked like him," was difficult. He was targeted by bullies, and when a teacher questioned whether an assigned paper was really his own work (because it was "so good"), he walked out, never to return. At the public library, he voraciously read history, science, poetry, novels, and Greek philosophy. "And he found shelves of books written by Black authors. He read them all." At the same time, he was learning from music and became captivated by blues singer Bessie Smith. "August had never heard the blues before, but it sounded like...well, it sounded like food he didn't know he was hungry for." When he began writing, he collected stories from enslavement and everyday situations in the lives of Black people and shaped them into plays. He "wrote those people alive," affirming the theme that "everybody carries a song inside them." Harris's emotionally resonant illustrations (sketches composed with digital ink pens and finished using digital gouache brushes) support Denmead's lyrical narrative and inspirational tone. An annotated bibliography of Wilson's Century Cycle of plays and an extensive author's note are appended.

Reviewer: Pauletta Brown Bracy | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2024

(2) 4-6 Norendy Tales series. Illustrated by Júlia Sardà. In this second volume in DiCamillo's projected trio of novellas (beginning with The Puppets of Spelhorst, rev. 9/23), Marta lives in the attic of a grand hotel where her mother works as a cleaner. Mother and daughter lead anxious, constricted existences as they wait, powerless, for news of Marta's father, away fighting in the Great War. But Marta's life becomes more interesting when an elegant, elderly countess (complete with parrot) checks into the hotel and seeks out her company as an audience for her stories. The six tales the countess recounts are mysterious, peopled with nuns, soldiers, kings, foxes, and circus performers. In each there are echoes of Marta's life and predicament, and in each is a portent of hope. The countess disappears before she relates the seventh and final story. But all is well as that last tale, encompassing all the others, plays out in action as Marta's father returns. The flavors of this novella -- the sorrows of war and the consolations of story -- are given sharp specificity in the black-and-white drawings. In the main narrative, Sardà creates the grandest of art nouveau hotels, all decorative pattern and dramatic swoop. In the embedded stories she uses a simpler style, reminiscent of medieval woodblocks. The total effect is generous, rich, and inviting.

Reviewer: Sarah Ellis | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2024

(2) 1-3 Illustrated by Doug Salati. The burrow- and tree-dwellers are enjoying a new sense of peace and unity since the events chronicled in The Remarkable Rescue at Milkweed Meadow (rev. 9/23), and our protagonist, rabbit Butternut, feels secure in her status as the community storyteller. Then a troupe of thespian turkeys rolls into the forest to stage a production, and everyone except Butternut is cast, which sends her into a crisis of confidence and a case of writer's block. Alongside this, Butternut's brother reveals her secret fledgling friendship with one of the humans in the nearby house to the rest of the creatures, and Butternut's status falls even further, leading her to make a false accusation and deceive her loved ones. This early chapter book continues the first installment's focus on the natural world and precise ("quartz peastone"), vivid ("pugnacious fighters") vocabulary that is challenging but digestible, thanks to strong foreshadowing, a tight plot, lovable characters, and Salati's enchanting illustrations. After Butternut's lies are exposed, she struggles to get her friends and family to listen to her when she discovers a mortal threat to them all. Learning how to both command and cede attention is a challenge to which many children can relate, and Dimopoulos's blend of anthropomorphism and respect for the natural world makes this a winning example to follow.

Reviewer: Adrienne L. Pettinelli | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2024

(2) YA Readers learn two things at the beginning of this novel: twelve-year-old Alex did something terrible, and he hates the word opportunity. The word has only come up in the worst moments of Alex's life, most recently when his court-mandated social worker arranges for him to volunteer over the summer at the local retirement home full of old people whom Alex thinks are "gross." At Shady Glen, Alex meets bossy kid volunteer Maya-Jade as well as 107-year-old Holocaust survivor Jozef Kravitz, who serves as the story's narrator, though he has an omniscient perspective. Jozef, who has been silent for five years, begins to share with Alex the story of Olka, the love of his life, and the hardships they endured in Nazi-occupied Poland. As Jozef opens up, so does Alex's world; he befriends other residents and Maya-Jade and learns to look beyond the pain, anger, and self-loathing that have been churning inside him ever since his mother's disappearance and his kinship foster care placement. Forman crafts a unique story, told in the voice of a wiser, older character; everything feels close and personal, from Alex's present to Jozef's past. She captures the quietly powerful moments of feeling seen and known, how friendships can make a bleak life feel fresh with possibilities, and how a person's worst moments need not shape their future.

Reviewer: | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2024

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Susie Ghahremani. Memory and connections with the "old country" can be important parts of the experience for immigrant families. In this story, a young girl helps her Iranian (as identified in the back matter) grandmother, Nana, tend her garden, while relishing "the stories she tells me about a garden she knows far away." As the two plant and water geraniums, Nana shares tales of "back home," even though the girl doesn't "know where 'back home' is." There were tall cypress trees, fragrant jasmine, lilac, and hyacinth; there was a fishpond, and fruit trees including cherry, mulberry, and pomegranate. Gouache illustrations on vellum represent a modest Western garden in contrast with the lusher, bursting garden of Nana's memories on the facing page. Paisley, floral, and other distinctly traditional Persian designs adorn the pages in saffron yellows, minty greens, and radish-y reds. These embellishments make a visual connection between Nana's new home and her "back home" memories; the book's playful endpapers also capture this design aesthetic. In this gentle tale, stories are like plants that grow in the girl's imagination, taking root to bloom into cultural pride and intergenerational connection. Author and illustrator notes discuss the importance of gardens for many Iranians as well as the importance of cultural transmission.

Reviewer: Julie Hakim Azzam | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2024

(2) K-3 In luminous paintings and a spare, telegraphic text, Groenink tells the story of a brief encounter between a Neanderthal boy and a child of a different human species, perhaps Homo sapiens. Snub-nosed "boy" wanders away from his cave and family, down the mountain to a river valley, where he glimpses another boy on the far bank, a stranger. Their eyes meet. Back home that night, "boy," remembering how the other human raised his hand in greeting, presses a sooty handprint onto the cave wall. The pared-down text, built from pairs of contrasts -- here/there, behind/ahead, alone/together, far/close, standing/moving -- packs the emotional punch of poetry. The illustrations, as lush as the text is restrained, glow with golden light and their own set of opposites: dim cave and sun-infused valley, an aerial view down the cliffs to the river, the view from the ground up into the high tree canopy. The message here, entirely unstated but unmistakable, involves a benign portrait of our human encounters with the "other" and our need to tell stories. In this lovely offering, "boy" joins such other classic Stone Age heroes as Tankard's Edwin from Me Hungry! and Briggs's Ug from Ug: Boy Genius of the Stone Age (rev. 11/02). An author's note and a list of scholarly sources remind readers of the dynamism and excitement of the field of archaeology.

Reviewer: Sarah Ellis | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2025

(2) 4-6 Though others may call it "an accident...I know the word for someone who goes to science class to dissect earthworms and gets sliced in the forehead by an earthworm-juice-encrusted blade and has to get two stitches: CURSED." Middle-school protagonist Hannah Lee relates in her journal all the things that have gone supernaturally wrong or been left unexplained over the course of eight days when she is "hexed by ancient evil." Her nose keeps bleeding, her front tooth falls out (the dentist finds silverfish in her gums, shudder), her brother falls into a coma. She records each occurrence in her diary...and the malevolent spirit begins to write back. Lai's (Ghost Book, rev. 9/23) visual style -- incorporating copious, plot-furthering illustrations within the main text -- is here displayed on spiral notebook looking lined pages with spiky, sketchlike art ("by" Hannah), mostly black and white with some splotches of blood red, capturing the increasingly weird, and sometimes genuinely frightening, goings-on. Allusions to the power of storytelling and an impending author's visit are threaded throughout, both used as foreshadowing to an attention-grabbingly eerie ending.

Reviewer: Elissa Gershowitz | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2024

(2) YA Illustrated by Maine Diaz. Mallory Marsh wants to keep her friends and family happy, even if it means becoming a chameleon who constantly wears different faces to mirror those around her. The one place where she feels free to express herself is her web comic, a sci-fi story full of characters inspired by her life. The juggling act becomes increasingly precarious when Mal secretly attends comic club, where she meets Noa, a nonbinary kid who quickly becomes a friend and a crush she desperately wants to impress. Soon, the multiple lives and web of lies catch up to Mal. Her comic goes viral, with everyone at school on the verge of discovering who is behind it, and she must find the courage to show her true self. Leahy weaves a realistic and at times painfully resonant narrative about the cost of not asserting your own opinions and needs; the various threads of the story reinforce the theme of how the desire for validation and fear of rejection can lead people astray. The book also touches on the experience of questioning one's sexuality without making it the primary conflict, and still creates a largely queer-affirming space for the characters and readers.

Reviewer: | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2025

(2) K-3 Two siblings should be going to sleep, but one of them asks the other, "Can you tell me a story? A SCARY one." That opens the door to three folktales featuring Liniers's distinctive comic-panel treatment. In "The Mermaid and the Pink Dolphin," a captain and his pet monkey navigating the Amazon River are drawn to the singing of the Iara (river mermaid). Following the Iara's tunes takes the captain on a mysterious expedition. "The Owl of Doom" tells of a witch-owl with a woman's face and its call of death. The people live in fear until a child summons the power of music. In "The Evil Light," gauchos riding their horses through the pampas are approaching the sunset hour -- a time the evil light appears and they will have to confront their fears. The siblings' interjections throughout add humor, and the India ink and watercolor illustrations bring the right touch of the macabre to these tales. A useful and informative introduction by David Bowles provides historical and political context, and notes about the mythological creatures and a bibliography are appended. This volume creatively showcases the importance and power of telling and passing stories through generations via oral, textual, and visual narratives. Concurrently published in Spanish as Cuentos de noche: Relatos de Latinoameric.

Reviewer: Sujei Lugo | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2024

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Kristy Cameron. Renowned Indigenous storyteller Locke (Lakota and Anishinabe) provides an engaging retelling of a Lakota legend. Wakhán Thánka (the Great Spirit) creates the world in seven days. After sending power to the East, South, West, and North, Wakhán Thánka creates mountains, trees, plants, animals, and water. On day five, the ancestors are put into motion in Grandfather Sky; on day six, ­Grandmother Earth receives the gift of creation. Finally, on the seventh day, Wakhán Thanka makes the greatest gift: the human spirit. But where to put it? Buffalo, Bear, and other animals have ideas, but in the end Wakhán Thánka places it at the center of all. "The intersection of everything in this universe, this creation, is within each one of us. We have the responsibility to guard this ­precious gift as it does not belong to us but to Wakhán Thánka." Locke's lively text and Cameron's (Métis) brightly colored and textured stylized illustrations bring a dynamism to the tale. A list of Lakota words in the text is appended.

Reviewer: Nicholl Denice Montgomery | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2024

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Paul O. Zelinsky. his inventive picture book skillfully merges two art styles to tell a story within a story, visually pushing boundaries. "This is a still life. It is a painting of objects sitting still. In a still life, nothing moves," declares the (unreliable) artist narrator. That artist is hard at work painting a still life -- of a table, fruit and cheese, paper and ink, and a miniature castle -- depicted in a rich style full of detail and texture in direct contrast to the cartoonish flair of the narrator's world. Throughout, the narrator drones on solemnly about the lack of movement in a still-life painting, or of any need to imagine beyond the moment depicted: "There are no eager mice hiding behind the cloth." Yes, there are, reveals the art, and they've left jammy footprints everywhere despite what the artist says. An exciting, separate visual narrative breaks out in the painting, involving a dragon, a princess, and a knight. The story in the still life culminates in a surprise ending, while the narrator departs, still making assertions about the static properties of still-life paintings. The art has moved the plot along, contradicting the text, and attentive readers are left with more to consider about storytelling in art. The dragon and princess turn up in the pattern of the closing endpapers, giving the idea of stillness one last jolt.

Reviewer: Julie Roach | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2024

(2) K-3 Lu sets up an intergenerational conflict familiar to many immigrant families: Bao, a young Taiwanese American child, yearns for her immigrant mother to understand her, but neither of them is fully able to empathize with the other. This tension reaches a peak when Bao's unfulfilled wish for an "All-American Artist Amanda" doll -- a white, blond, blue-eyed doll that closely resembles one of Bao's own friends -- leads her to commit a rash act of shoplifting. In the aftermath, Mama and Bao finally communicate with each other. Mama relates painful stories about her own childhood and mother, and together they hand-sew a doll for Bao that shares her features, with hair "straight like dry noodles," eyes "as dark as sesame," and a smile "curved like a crescent moon." Lu skillfully juxtaposes simple but poetic language with expressive digital illustrations that mimic the soft texture of smudged oil pastels. Her judicious use of hue and composition, especially within and around the gutter, creates a clear visual of the characters' internal emotional landscapes and the evolution of their relative distance and intimacy. Bao's red and Mama's blue, initially segregated, eventually converge and blend into a gradient containing purple. The illustrations also include various cultural and linguistic details that will likely resonate with many Taiwanese diaspora readers and add another layer to the reading experience.

Reviewer: | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2024