(4) K-3 Illustrated by Suling Wang. Raymond plans to surprise his ailing mother with home-cultivated flowers, but she is in the hospital when they bloom. She returns to find some equally dazzling birds nibbling at the plants' seeds. The book's digitally enhanced illustrations have an incongruously synthetic quality but manage to convey the story's myriad emotions, with which Louie, to her credit, doesn't clobber the reader.

Reviewer: Nell Beram