"I Gotta Be ME!" Unstinky by Andy Rash

Bud in a happy-go-lucky little stinkbug ... except for when his pals--P. U. Bottoms, Lord Stinkington, and The Fumigator--get together for ...

A STINKING CONTEST!

Burly P.U. Bottoms is as rank as an odoriforous smokestack. Dapper Lord Stinkington reeks of rotten fish, and The Fumigator funks up the air with eau de doggy doo!

All Bud can come up with is the sweet smell of a vase of flowers.

P.U. puts out the offensive odor of an outhouse. The Fumigator matches him with malodorous gym socks; and Lord Stinkington counters with the stench of sour milk.

All Bud's got is the perfume of a pine tree.

Even when he eats onions, stomps in manure, and gets sprayed by a skunk, the best Bud can come up with is the smell of...

Fresh-baked Bread.

Bud despairs of producing a stink. The top-ranking Major Funk advises special exercises for stimulating stinkiness.

"Stomp your feet! Wave your arms!
Waggle your bottom!"

Poor Bud stomps and waves and waggles all day, but all he produces is the essence of mixed floral bouquet. But his odeur output does attract one admirer, April, a scent-conscious bee, who is attracted by his essence and his dancing. (Bees are big on both, you know!)

And it's a marriage made in aroma heaven, as Bud joins the bees and is happy to jive with the hive, in Andy Rash's stink-o-rama killer-diller read-aloud of a story, Unstinky (Arthur A. Levine/Scholastic Books, 2018). Rash's little stinkbug that couldn't is a handy metaphor for finding where you truly belong in life, and kids will go for the giggles with the succession of comic stink vocabulary and his lovably laughable carton illustrations. Quips Kirkus, "Get a good whiff of this olfactorily original celebration of individuality."

Dreamin' BIG! Meet Miss Fancy by Irene Latham

Frank loved elephants... their hose-pipe trunks and their flap-flap ears, their tree-stump feet and their swish-swish tales. But not once, not ever, had Frank seen a real elephant.

But then his mother tells him about Miss Fancy, a real elephant who might be coming to Avondale Park, just two blocks from his house, if the school children of Birmingham could collect enough pennies!

Frank was on it in a flash. He collected pennies for his school in a big jar, and all the other schools did, too, and Frank was at the Birmingham's train station when Miss Fancy arrived.

When Miss Fancy stepped onto the platform, he gasped.

Frank couldn't wait to see her at Avondale Park. But when he went down for Miss Fancy's first day, he saw the sign.

NO COLORED ALLOWED.

"It's the law," his mama said.

But Frank had bought a bag of peanuts, and he just had to feed one to Miss Fancy on her opening day. Waiting until almost closing time, he climbed a tree near her fence. He whistled to her and tossed a peanut and laughed when she waggled her trunk and stuffed the peanut in her mouth with what looked like a smile.

Miss Fancy was becoming quite a town celebrity, especially when she opened her gate and took strolls down the city streets of Birmingham, Alabama. Her picture was in all the newspapers, and she was more popular than the Ferris wheel or the boats in Avondale Lake. Still, Frank wanted to feed Miss Fancy from inside the park. He got up a petition for his church to have a special picnic in the park. The city granted the petition, but when some folks threatened to make "trouble," the picnic was cancelled. Frank had to settle for tossing peanuts to Miss Fancy from his tree outside the park walls.

But one morning, Frank woke to a neighbor's scream. "Somebody call the police!" Frank ran to the door.

"Miss Fancy!"

Miss Fancy was trampling through his mother's patch of petunias in his own front yard. Frank watched in horror as she started down the sidewalk toward a busy crossroads with lots of traffic.

There was just one thing to do. Frank grabbed his sack of peanuts and, running ahead of Miss Fancy, laid out a trail of peanuts that led her back toward the park. Miss Fancy followed her friend all the way back to the gates of Avondale Park.

"Good job, son!" said a police officer. He studied Frank for a long moment. "How would you like a ride?"

Frank laid his head against Miss Fancy and breathed in her mud-puddle smell as they paraded right through the gates of Avondale Park.

The story of Birmingham's Miss Fancy is true. My own mother and her brothers and sister told stories of many good times in Avondale Park, no doubt tossing peanuts to Miss Fancy on their way to a summer swim in the lake, and Irene Latham captures the flavor of those long ago summer days in Irene Latham's just published Meet Miss Fancy (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 2019).

While Frank is her imagined protagonist, the rest of Latham's story is true, capturing the longing of black children who could not enjoy feeding Miss Fancy and swim in the cool lake on a summer afternoon. But in this Cracker-Jack of a story, Frank is a hero who would have been the envy of every kid in town, and in this lovely story of wishes fulfilled, there is a message of hope for change. Artist John Holyfield's charming retro color paintings, reminiscent of the landmark 1940s Caldecott-winning illustrations of Robert McCloskey's Make Way for Ducklings and James Daugherty's Andy and the Lion (Picture Puffins) are both moving and humorous, making this book a must-have for all children's collections.

"I Dance to My Destiny!": The Penderwicks At Last by Jeanne Birdsall

Lydia believed in dancing wherever she could--on sidewalks, in supermarket aisles, libraries, swimming pools, parking lots. Today her stage was a bench at the bus stop. It was a challenge, dancing on something so narrow, but Lydia took measures to keep from falling--small steps, no leaps, and heavy reliance on upper-body motion.

Even though eleven-year-old Lydia dances for almost any occasion, this is an important moment. Her beloved youngest half-sister Batty is returning from college, worthy of a welcoming dance. But that's not all that inspires Lydia--all of her older Penderwick sisters are coming for the wedding of the eldest, Rosalind, beautiful, twenty-something and brilliant, and to add to Lydia's joy, the wedding is to be held at Arundel, the Berkshires vacation place, the source of many family legends, all of which took place before Lydia was born. Arundel is the family's Camelot, and Lydia can't wait to see the big manor house, the tunnel through the hedge, and the cottage where the original and future Penderwicks spent an epic vacation with the scion of the manor Jeffrey, dodging his epically cross mother, Mrs. Tifton, and making memorable adventures.

And Arundel doesn't disappoint.

Lydia finds an almost instant best friend in Alice, who lives in that very same cottage where the Penderwicks stayed, reads to a sheep named Blossom (in the pasture where a Bull once chased Jeffrey and her sisters) and has a hen called Hatshepsut whose life's goal is to climb to the top of the cottage's staircase. Even the legendary tunnel through the hedge is still there. Instantly Alice and her would-be filmmaker big brother Ben draft Lydia to work on a film in which Alice is to play an alien who dies a dramatic death, and the two girls have adventures dodging Mrs. Tifton. Meanwhile big sisters Jane and Batty take on the task of making gowns for the entire wedding party, Lydia, too.

The magic of Arundel casts its mantle over Lydia as she encounters the stuff of the family stories told of those times before she entered the world, and it is as if the Penderwicks sisters are now all one, as Lydia is finally included in one of their much-recalled MOPS (Meeting of the Penderwick Siblings). It is a moment, wonderful, but somehow bitter sweet as well:

Lydia stopped dancing--struck by a sensation of no longer being here, this night, now. A feeling that she was instead living inside a memory, of a precious place and time, one lost and greatly mourned. As strange as this was, Lydia knew what was happening. Already she was homesick for Arundel, and could hardly bear it.

It is a coming-of-age moment for Lydia as she feels the ribbon of her family's life spinning out, taking her along into the next moment, into their future, her future, too, in Jeanne Birdsall's last book in her National Book Award-winning The Penderwicks series, The Penderwicks at Last (Alfred A Knopf, 2018). An intimate and joyful picture of that family of free-range kids whose magical summer vacation cast a long shadow upon them all, Lydia experiences and understands it at last, as the story of the Penderwick family comes full cycle with a wedding and many promises for them all.

Says School Library Journal, this grand finale provides "a closing image reassuring readers that the Penderwicks, like imagination and adventure, will live forever." And, as Booklist sums it up--"Beautifully crafted, both in descriptions and characterizations, this makes for a fitting end to a much-praised series."

For summer readers who, like Lydia, were not around for the beginning of this popular and notable series, the earlier books are The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy, The Penderwicks on Gardam Street (Penderwicks, Book 2), The Penderwicks at Point Mouette, and The Penderwicks in Spring.

The Wonder of the Wet Stuff! Hey, Water! by Antoinette Portis

Water! I know you!

You're all around.

What does water do?

Let me count the ways, says the award-winning author Antoinette Portis, in her literary exploration of the ways of water.

Water flows down from a shower and up from a sprinkler. It wanders as a trickle or as a stream or river... until it arrives at some sea or another, and we name it... THE oceans where...

... you cover most of the earth--

In its more compact form, water can be a lake or a pool, a puddle, or even a tiny drop of dew on a leaf or a wee tear in your eye. But all water comes from tiny droplets that condense into a gray fog and ...

... drift in the air and hide the world.

And when water comes together in condensation, it fall as rain, freeze hard as a rock, good for ice skating, or feathery soft as snow, good for a snowman with a scarf and carrot nose.

You're hiding in this funny guy... and you're hiding in me, too!

Water is important, necessary for all living things, says author-illustrator Portis in her look at all things liquid--(and, we must add, a solid or a gas, which this magical, changeable substance can be), in her latest non-fiction picture book, Hey, Water!(Holiday House, 2019). In simple but lyrical wording, Portis's skillful essay on the nature and use of water can be as enticing as its subject, useful as a beginning reader book, a lovely artistic expression of the wonders of water itself in all its forms, and a great introduction, with its useful appendix, to nonfiction and the water cycle for primary science units.

"Both school and public libraries will want this striking first science book on their shelves," says School Library Journal's starred review.

Take Two! Felipe and Claudette by Mark Teague

Claudette and Felipe were adoption day dropouts. All the other cats and dogs, kittens and puppies had come, been chosen, and gone. But not grumpy Felipe the cat and goofy Claudette the dog.

They had been at the shelter for ages.

"What will I do with you?"

Mrs. Barrett, the dismayed animal shelter director, has reason to lament. Felipe knows why Claudette hasn't been adopted. She barks all the time, except when she's shredding her toys, running in silly circles, drooling spit all over her ball, making snorking sounds even when she is not asleep, and rolling in mud whenever it is available.

Claudette sees persnickety Felipe's problem is that she doesn't do anything. She dozes and daydreams about posh homes and won't play with her--or anybody else.

"I will not throw your ball. It is covered in spittle. Anyway, cats do not throw.

"I will not play tug-of-war with you," said Felipe. "Cats do not tug."

Adoption days come and go, and Felipe and Claudette stay with Mrs. Barrett.

Finally a gentleman comes to the shelter who is not put off by constant barking, drooling, chewing, and digging. He takes Claudette home.

Felipe is stunned.

And then she is bored. And lonely. Is it possible that she actually misses noisy, messy Claudette?

And then the man returns with Claudette.

"She is not the dog I thought she was.

All she does is mope!"

It seems that Felipe and and Claudette are a made-in-heaven match after all, in Mark Teague's perfect portrait of a hyperactive pooch and a chronically cranky cat, Felipe and Claudette. (Orchard Books, 2019) as accommodations are made by all and the two pets live happily ever after with Mrs. Barrett, where at least for the nonce, the war between cats and dogs finds a happy truce. As always, Mark Teague's big, bold illustrations are delightful, portraying the two pets' personalities with telling comic detail, while affirming the premise that it takes all kinds to make a world. This one is definitely a read-aloud kid pleaser and easy enough for early readers to read solo--another winner for the award-winning Mark Teague.

Look Out Below! Lambslide by Ann Patchett

On the farm there was a flock of lambs who believed that the sun came up in the morning because they were ready to play.

One day these slightly spoiled lambs overhear a conversation between Nicolette Farmer and her mother.

"I'm going to run for class president today," Nicolette said.

Mrs. Farmer said, "You'll win by a landslide!"

Knowing nothing of avalanches and such, the little lambs think the Farmers are talking about a "lambslide," a sliding board meant just for lambs! It makes sense. After all, the horses get to go on fun rides; the piglets get all the mud to wallow in they want, so why shouldn't the lambs get their own lambslide?

But who will pay for it? The chickens report that the Farmers are the ones who pay for everything!

So the lambs prepare their campaign for their very own big slide. They make banners and signs.

LAMBSLIDE!
For Kids and EWE!

The Farmers, especially Nicolette, are on it right away, assembling tarps and hay bales and building supplies and enlisting all the farm animals to pitch in. And pitch in they do, and soon the lambs are modeling the technique for lambsliding for all the critters and kids for miles around.

In Ann Patchett's latest, Lambslide (Harper, 2019), it's a simple premise based on a silly lambkin malapropism, but who cares, when Robin Preiss Glaser, famous for her artwork for the Fancy Nancy series, provides the patently cute illustrations of charming little lambs and jolly piglets, ponies, hens, and even cows, all enjoying the lambslide for themselves in a spree of down-on-the-farm glee. There are some happy high jinks and a picnic down by the Farmer's barn, in a fine picture book farm fest, and this one makes for a great read-along, especially for primary students preparing for their first farm field trip.

For more sheepish fun, share this one with Nancy Shaw's classic Sheep in a Jeep (board book) and many rhyming sequels (see reviews here).

Star of the Show! It's Show and Tell, Dexter by Lindsay Ward

"It's me, Dexter T. Rexter!
Guess what tomorrow is?

IT'S SHOW-AND-TELL DAY!"

Dexter is a toy dinosaur who thinks he's all prepared for the big day. After all, a toy that is chosen to be taken for show-and-tell at school is super special.

"If things go well, I'll get super-special-keep-forever status.

Dexter is a singing toy dino, and and when little Jack pushes his button, Dexter's "Stomp through the swamp, Chomp, Chomp, Chomp!" has always been a hit.

But the stakes are so high! And suddenly Dexter starts to fret that he'll fail at being the star of show-and-tell. Maybe he needs to perk up his act! He tries out cutesy costumes. Pet Bunny? (Wrong tail!). Elvis Imitator? (Too fakey!) His imitations fall flat. His routines are ruinous!

What if Jack doesn't think I'm cool enough?

The pressure is building!

Dexter is a T. WRECK!

Will Dexter T. Rexter give it the old school try? Will he be the star of the show? You betcha, in Lindsay Ward's latest installment in her series, It's Show and Tell, Dexter! (Dexter T. Rexter) (Two Lions, 2018).

For kids whose courage quails on show-and-tell day, author Ward has cleverly made Dexter the stand-in alter ego for the usual worry-wart of show-and-tell time, the actual kid, and Dexter's kid Jack's advice, "Just be yourself," goes down well as the premise for this school story. Ward's illustrations are bold and big and jolly, making this one a worthy partner to her earlier Dexter T. Rexter book, Don't Forget Dexter! (Dexter T. Rexter Book 1).

Pungent Pug! Pig the Stinker by Aaron Blabey

Pardon my double negatives, but Pig the Pug is not named "Pig" for nothing! Pig the Pug is a PIG and he likes to smell like one!

PIG LIKED TO GET DIRTY. HE FRANKLY WAS RANK.
HIS PAWS COULD BE FRIGHTFUL. HIS FUR OFTEN STANK.

HE WASN'T OFFENDED BY ODOR OR SMELL.
AND IF YOU WEREN'T CAREFUL, HE'D SMELL YOU (Ahem!)
AS WELL.

His co-pet, the meticulous and timid Trevor the wiener pooch, is incensed (pardon the pun)! He watches in disbelief as Pig rolls in garbage and unmentionable muck, and his favorite and most frequent beverage comes from (Yuck!)--the toilet.

Trevor's owner decrees that Pig must be bathed. With trepidation Trevor pulls on his little shower cap and prays that this is not going to be a communal cleansing.

But fat chance of that, as Pig the Stinker turns tail and makes a run for it, sneaking back to sabotage the water supply, stuffing a doggie toy into an important pipe. Who knew Pig the Pug was Pig the plumber?

Fortunately for Trevor and the rest of the family, Pig stinks as a plumber, too, and the ensuing explosion converts his hiding place into a powerful drive-through dogwash and Pig gets a shower he won't soon forget, in Aaron Blabey's latest in his hilarious rhyming Pig the Pug series, Pig the Stinker (Pig the Pug) (Scholastic Press, 2018). There's even a big laugh on the final page, as Pig finds a way to pollute even the bathtub. It seems American kids can't get enough of the Aussie author-illustrator Blabey's perpetually problematic portly pet pug, and no doubt the malodorous Pig the Pug will soon be back in more unseemly adventures in this best-selling series.

Earlier titles about this pugnacious pug are Pig the Pug, Pig the Elf (Pig the Pug), Pig the Winner (Pig the Pug), Pig the Star (Pig the Pug) and Pig the Fibber (Pig the Pug) (read reviews here).

Daughter on Duty! Daddy-Sitting by Eve Coy

Today I'm Daddy-sitting.

He likes to get up early...

This fond little preschooler is a bit sanguine in her description. Actually, Daddy is still sacked out, while his energetic daughter is already wide-awake, and it takes a dive onto his bed and her helpful cat slapping at his hand to rouse him. But at last he's up, and she "helps" by pouring milk on his cereal (and the table).

But once he's well fed, his dutiful daughter helps him get his daily workout by towing her behind his bicycle to the park, pushing her swing, and going for a swim in the pool. Excess energy worked off, Dad makes a quick run to the grocery store for dinner supplies. Back home, the girl has her work cut out for her--tea-partying with her cat and doll, coloring her drawings, and building block towers, while Dad takes it easy doing some laundry.

Ooops!

Sometimes he doesn't watch where he's going.

But his daughter-on-duty soothes his boo-boo and tries to builds his self-esteem, telling him he's smart enough to be anything when he grows up--astronaut, nurse, detective, even chocolate maker!

But her dad says there's only one job he wants right now...

...being my DADDY!

Eve Coy's gentle vignette of a loving family, Daddy-Sitting (Clarion Books, 2019) is a heart-warming diary of a daddy-daughter duo. Coy's charming illustrations are slices of daily life, just an ordinary day with daddy in a very loving parent-child relationship. Family love is built that way, one day at a time, and Coy's cute little preschool girl is one lucky kid, learning the skills of care-taking as Daddy takes good care of her. This one is great to have on hand for Fathers Day or any day.

Follow the Butterflies! Ten Magic Butterflies by Danica McKellar

Once upon a time, there were ten flower friends.

They loved being flowers, but they couldn't deny
that they had a secret desire to fly!

They couldn't help noticing the fairies who flew about their garden, not moored to the ground, but flitting about in the air freely. At last one brave flower, weary with being a stick-in-the-mud, asks a friendly fairy what to do.

"Time to get ready for a big surprise!" said the fairy.

And as fast as she could say BOO, the flower was one butterfly--and she was blue!

And we're off on another of Danica McKellar's board books for toddler mathematicians, a concept book which combines mini-lessons in counting and colors for tots. Little girls in particular love butterflies: they're easy to draw and they come in almost any color available in their crayon boxes, and author McKellar, famous for her advocacy of mathematics for girls, makes good use of this popular image to teach numeration.

With the artwork of Jennifer Bricking, one by one, the flowers magically become butterflies of different colors and fill the air in the garden, in McKellar's third counting book in her board book trilogy, Ten Magic Butterflies (Crown Books, 2018). It's a sunny, funny way to begin math lessons, with a tempting message that mathematics has its own special magic, and kids can count on McKellar to give it wings.

Says Booklist, "A similarly simple, quiet feel as Margaret Wise Brown's iconic Goodnight Moon... there is a lot to count on."

Danica McKellar's earlier best-selling counting books include Bathtime Mathtime and Goodnight, Numbers (see McKellar's math book reviews here)

The Secret Garden! The Vanderbeekers and the Hidden Garden by Karen Yan Glaser

Laney's mind was bursting with ideas for the garden. "It's our secret project," Jessie and Oliver coached Laney as they walked back to gather their money so they could head to the garden store.

"Do you think it's okay if we go in there even though Mr. Huxley said not to?" Hyacinth asked.

"Mr. Huxley never specifically said we couldn't," Jessie clarified. "He just said things about liability and not wanting the church to get sued. Look," said Jessie, "if it makes you feel better, I'll write up a liability release form when we get home."

They filed into their brownstone. Mama was on the phone, saying things about "ambulance costs" and "preexisting conditions." Mama gave Jessie money for lunch at Castleman's since she hadn't had time for grocery shopping. Laney couldn't believe the luck! A garden discovery, a trip to the garden store, and now Castleman's!

The Vanderbeeker's summer has not been what they had expected. Jessie's twin Isa is off at music camp, so they are short one Vanderbeeker; Mr. Beiderman, their landlord and reigning grouchy top-floor neighbor, had reverted to being a total recluse and living on cans of Spam, much to their nutrition-obsessed mother's distress; and then Mr. Jeet, their adopted grandfather figure upstairs, had had a stroke. He was very sick, and Miss Josie was staying around the clock at the hospital with him.

So when the Vanderbeekers discover a ivy-covered entry door to a walled plot next to the local church and big brother Oliver cracks the combination on the lock, they decide to turn the weed-and-trash-filled area (complete with abandoned toilet) into a beautiful garden to lift Mr. Jeet's and Miss Josie's spirits when he is discharged from the hospital. Pooling their savings to buy tools and plants, they spend days cleaning up the hidden plot. Oliver recruits his friend Angie, and Hyacinth even enlists the help of Oliver's nemesis, Herman Huckley, with whom she shares a mania for knitting. They discover what seem to be "abandoned" bags of garden soil in a corner their brownstone's backyard, and haul them for blocks to begin planting everything they can afford in their secret garden.

All goes well at first. Mr. Jeet is scheduled for discharge and the plantings are all in and thriving, when Herman's father discovers their secret garden. The Vanderbeekers are dismayed when they learn from Mr. Huxley that the plot has just been sold to make room for an upscale condominium development. Desperate to save their garden, they turn for help to, who else, Mr. Beiderman.

The lively and adventurous Vanderbeekers of South Queens/Harlem are back, in Karen Yan Glaser's second book in series, The Vanderbeekers and the Hidden Garden (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018). Glaser again portrays a close-knit family and their close urban neighborhood in a summer adventure for the whole clan, as they again show that "It takes a village." In the style of Ramona Quimby's "good sticking-together family" and a neighborhood of friends and sometimes rivals, the Vanderbeekers are a welcome return to the middle-grade family fiction genre of Eleanor Estes' The Moffats, the Quimbys and the Hugginses of Henry and Beezus (Henry Huggins), and Jeanne Birdsall's more contemporary The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy (see review here)--albeit one set in the times of gentrification and smartphones as well as warm cookies, beloved neighbors, and kids who undertake big ideas with a true sense of "agency." As Kirkus Reviews adds, "With refreshing and realistic attention to socio-economics at work, [it is] perfect for individual reading while tucked away in a treehouse or as a family read-aloud."

Tomato Sauce The Hard Way! Swarm of Bees by Lemony Snicket

The frown and the tiny smirk on the boy's face on the inside cover suggest that he's got a mad on, and the red wagon piled high with ripe tomatoes suggest mischievous means at hand.

And there--on a low-hanging branch--hangs a buzzy bee hive. What could happen?

Of course, the kid nails the quiet hive with a well-aimed tomato.

SWARM OF BEES! SWARM OF BEES!

You are so angry! What will you do?

The angry swarm of bees are on a mission. A miasma of MAD, they threaten everyone in their path--a happy sailor hustling off his ship to hug his mother, a bricklayer building a wall along with a big appetite, a food truck where cooks are prepping lunch, a cat stalking a bird who has just snatched a worm, kids playing cards on their balcony....

 Swarm of bees, are you going to sting the boy?

He keeps throwing tomatoes.

Splat! The boy hits the cat and the bird and the food truck and the bricklayer and the mother and the sailor, all of whom start to chase HIM! Along with some really angry bees!

What this story needs about now is a BEEKEEPER, and that's just who comes along just in time to bag the bees, in a Deus ex machina ending to Lemony Snicket's just published Swarm of Bees (Little, Brown and Company, 2019). Peace is restored and all is forgiven, as the food truck cooks turn bruised tomatoes into a tasty, spicy pasta sauce for everyone on the block.

When life gives you ripe tomato bombs,  make spaghetti sauce, in zany kid's author Snicket's latest tale, illustrated with pizzazz and psychological perception by illustrator Rilla Alexander's digital stamp technique, a sort of graphic expressionism in which the boy's yellow bee-stripe shirt conveys and transfers his anger to the avenging swarm represented as yellow and black circles led by one stripey bee. Luckily, the bees are soon re-hived and all's well that ends well in this tale of what to do with a really bad mood. Pass the Parmesan, everyone, and buon appetito!

For more anger management, share this one with Molly Bang's classic Caldecott Honor book, When Sophie Gets Angry--Really, Really Angry… (Scholastic Bookshelf).

The Summons: The Bell Rang by James E. Ransome

Monday:The bell rings,
and no sun in the sky.
Daddy gathers wood.
Mama cooks.
We eat.

In the dawn a girl watches her family, Mama, Daddy, and brother Ben, go off to work with Master Tucker's other slaves, while she stays with the kids too young for field work with Miss Sarah Mae.

But on Wednesday morning something is different.

Ben surprises me
first with a kiss on the cheek,
then whispering
"Goodbye"
in my ear.

Ben has gone to the fields with his friends Joe and Little Sam. But at night they don't come home.

Master Tucker knows that they have "run," and the girl wakes on Thursday to the sound of the Overseer hitting Mama and Daddy. The girl hides.

Mama cries
all the way to the fields.

On Saturday they hear dogs barking and horses coming, and Joe and Little Sam, caught, are whipped, but there's no Ben.

Sunday We pray
Ben made it.
Free like Moses.
No more bells.

In stark but elegant free verse, James E. Ransome's The Bell Rang (Atheneum Books, 2019) tells the story, not of the runaway, but  from the witness of a little girl, a member of the slave family left behind, their sadness at the loss of a son, the fear for his safety, and the hope for his freedom. It's a powerful narrative, heightened by Ransome's stunning paintings which reveal much that cannot be said in mere words, however powerful. What is communicated are many truths about slavery's history and the wrenching human loss for families of those who dared to escape it, much as Ransome did in his 2017 award-winning story of young Harriet Tubman, Before She was Harriet (Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Books). and Words Set Me Free: The Story of Young Frederick Douglass (Paula Wiseman Books).

Downfall! Lucy Fell Down the Mountain by Kevin Cornell

So you think you've had a BAD DAY?

Lucy fell down the mountain.

She bumped her head on the rocks.

And snow stuck to her BUTT.

How did that happen? Don't ask.

Once on her way down, she passes an old mountaineer who's already dropped his ice axe, but he's still got his rope with the grappling hook, and Lucy asks for help.

"Quick!" Lucy called. "Toss your rope!"

"Noooo!" cried Lucy. "I meant toss it to ME!"

"Oh, said the mountain man. "That would have made more sense!"

Some days everything seems to go wrong!

Lucy falls past a duck with a bungee cord. Lucy hopes to grab it and bounce back with him. But the duck reports that somebody had thrown the rope at HIM. (We know who.) They fall together for a while, and then Lucy lands in a cave, which being stable and warm, is an improvement--UNTIL she realizes she's fallen in to a den of beary displeased BEARS.

"Can't I stay?" asked Lucy. My butt is freezing..."

But the bears bounce her out, and Lucy continues her fall, gathering snow until she's a veritable giant snowball....

... a kid comet...

... and comes to rest safely, but with just a bit of a barf!

It's a plot straight out of Coyote and Roadrunner cartoons, in Kevin Cornell's Lucy Fell Down the Mountain (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018. In this slapstick story, Cornell's illustrations are the thing as Lucy's googly eyes tell the tale of an unintended downfall that will be a hoot of a read for primary students. Say School Library Journal, This action-packed seasonal cliff-hanger is the perfect choice for fans of Jon Klassen's I Want My Hat Back (review here) and other stories that lean toward the bizarre.