book reviews (all genres)

[one review] One Perfect Plan by Nancy Tupper Ling and Alina Chau

~ jama ~ 13 Comments

When I was eleven my parents gave me a Bible for Christmas. It had a white faux leather cover with “Holy Bible: Concordance” printed in gold on the front.

Although I was too young to fully comprehend its significance to the civilized world, I knew I held in my hands a precious, sacred book, one that contained marvelous stories of mankind and miracles, fish and forbidden fruit, Jesus’s birth and resurrection. I also noted that the Bible seemed to be a book people often quoted from but didn’t necessarily read cover to cover.

If only there had been a picture book like One Perfect Plan: The Bible’s Big Story in Tiny Poems by Nancy Tupper Ling and Alina Chau (WaterBrook, 2023) to help me figure out how to approach such an intimidating tome! I would have had a beautifully illustrated lyrical roadmap of sorts — an appealing introduction to some of the best stories told within the context of the Bible’s larger message.

In One Perfect Plan, Nancy Tupper Ling accomplishes the daunting task of distilling the essence of beloved Bible stories from the Old and New Testaments in luminous rhyming couplets, all beginning with the word “One.” “One garden” for the garden of Eden, “One drop” for the great flood, “One stone” for the story of David and Goliath, and so on. A scriptural reference follows each poem.

The book opens with the Creation story from Genesis I, setting a dramatic tone:

One word --
then light breaks into darkness;
the sky, the seas, and life -- how wondrous!
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[yummy review] Thank a Farmer by Maria Gianferrari and Monica Mikai

~ jama ~ 7 Comments

Come Thursday, many of us will don our cozy sweaters and sit down with family and friends to feast on roast turkey with wild rice stuffing, mushroom gravy, creamy mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, candied sweet potatoes or yams, green bean casserole, and soft, fluffy dinner rolls (lots of butter, please!).

As we express gratitude for our bountiful meals, we should particularly remember the people who helped bring the food to the table. Thank a Farmer by Maria Gianferrari and Monica Mikai (Norton Young Readers, 2023) introduces us to about a dozen different types of farming, essential farm workers, and methods of planting and harvesting on commercial as well as family farms.

The book opens with a dedication page depicting a variety of colorful dishes with the words, “If you like the food on your table, THANK A FARMER.” Continuing with variations on this tagline, double page spreads feature familiar foods such as bread, milk, fruits, veggies, peanuts, rice, mushrooms, and maple syrup, in addition to one non-edible item, wool.

Gianferrari’s lyrical text is rhythmic and succinct, as dynamic and efficient as the processes described. Paired with Mikai’s warm and inviting illustrations, it’s easy for kids to connect what they eat every day with where it actually comes from — not a can, box, or supermarket shelf, but a farm, where real people work the land with their hands or specialized machinery.

First there’s breakfast, a girl eating bread while wheat is being harvested from combine to hopper, then into grain cart and storage elevator for milling and grinding into flour.

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[bouncy review] Pass the Baby by Susanna Reich and Raúl Colón

~ jama ~ 15 Comments

Since I grew up with a large extended family, loud talky meals were par for the course. Along with lots of tasty food, my aunties served up a fair share of juicy gossip and heaps of hilarity whenever we got together.

My cousins and I knew the drill. If you were a baby or toddler, you could expect to be doted upon — hugged, held, kissed or tickled. An uncle might toss you up in the air, and if you weren’t careful, you could even get your cheeks pinched.

All part of happy family gatherings, where the youngest is usually the center of attention. And why not? Who doesn’t love a wriggly, giggly, drooly, pint-sized bundle of fun?

In Pass the Baby by Susanna Reich and Raúl Colón (Neal Porter Books, 2023), we’re invited to join a lively multiethnic blended family as they set the table, prepare the food, enjoy their meal, clean up the mess, and then collapse from exhaustion — all while playing with, feeding and entertaining the baby, as she’s passed from lap to lap.

Reich’s rollicking rhyming text pulls us right into the action from the get-go, filling us with excitement and anticipation as we sense Baby will be the star of the show.

Family dinner, set the table,
forks and spoons and napkins too.
Knives and plates and water glasses,
flowers, candles, bright and new.
Wait a minute, where's the baby?
Someone's playing peekaboo!

As the guests gather round and help with finishing touches, hungry Baby fusses a little. So begins her journey around the table, as she’s cuddled by different family members. An ebullient refrain underscores everyone’s uproarious delight:

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[srsly hppy review] ZigZag by Julie Paschkis

~ jama ~ 14 Comments

#64 in an ongoing series of posts celebrating the alphabet

Hungry? Roll these words around in your mouth: sip, slurp, sliver, snap!

Pretty tasty, no?

What’s that? You want more? Okay, crunch on these: crack, creak, clack!

Ahhhhh. I can tell by that big smile on your face that you’re probably a fellow word connoisseur. Hearing them, saying them, reading them, writing them, and now, eating them — words, whether short, long or in-between, are the ultimate feast.

In Julie Paschkis’s Zigzag (Enchanted Lion Press, 2023) — a zippy, juicy, jazzy hullabaloo of a picture book — we meet a voracious crocodile who “liked to taste words.” He had quite the discerning palate, too.

Harmonica tasted like honey.

Grackle crackled and was crunchy.

Flinch was sharp and bitter.

Bulb had a thick, purple taste.

All was peachy until the day Zigzag vigorously danced with his friends Kit and Kat. They swung their tails and shook their tambourines. Because tambourine just happened to be especially delicious (“like an orange, but more mysterious”), Zigzag forgot himself. Gulp! He accidentally swallowed the word with all of its vowels!

All that was left in Zigzag’s mouth was tmbrn. Talk about tasteless. But that was the least of his problems. Other foods didn’t taste good either: where was the roll-in-your-mouth flavor of a pr or a pch or grps?

Blch.

Zigzag had always loved to read, but now, all bks were brng. Even worse, he couldn’t slp at night. His bd felt too short.

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[review + giveaway] Betty and the Mysterious Visitor by Anne Twist and Emily Sutton

~ jama ~ 45 Comments

If there is one thing I learned from living in England, it’s that the British love their gardens. Residents take great pride in cultivating their own personal Edens whatever their domicile: terraced or detached house, cottage, bungalow, mansion. Even the smallest patch of ground flourishes under their loving care.

The infinitely charming new picture book, Betty and the Mysterious Visitor by Anne Twist and Emily Sutton (Candlewick, 2023), celebrates the specialness of a particular garden and the loving relationship between those tending it.

Every summer, Betty loves visiting Grandma at her cottage in the village of Wobbly Bottom. They spend hours in a large community garden adjoining Grandma’s back yard called Acorn Hollows, Betty’s favorite place in the whole world.

There, Grandma grows flowers as well as lots of berries — raspberries, blueberries, strawberries and gooseberries. Betty helps Grandma pick the fruit and cook it to make jam to sell at the farmers market.

But one morning, Betty discovers somebody has ruined the garden. “The grass was a mess, a higgle and puff. What had been smooth was now muddy and rough.”

Betty is quite sad and determined to find the culprit. That night, when she peers out her window, she sees a large creature “pushing its nose under the fence,” but she loses sight of it when the moon drifts behind a cloud.

She tells Grandma what she saw the next morning, noting “it had a striped head.” Grandma thinks it’s a badger, an animal bound to come back once it’s found access to food. Sure enough, over the next few nights, the badger destroys more and more of the garden.

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