Catch It! Stop! Bot! by James Yang

"I have a bot!"

It's a lovely day for a walk in the city, but the boy is enjoying more than a stroll. HE has a cool, new bot.

But just as he gets in front of a high-rise apartment house, the bot's little propeller kicks in and it starts to rise, up, up, up.

The dutiful doorman offers to catch it and races up the stairs inside, stopping at a third-floor window, but the bot's already gone by.

One the next level a man tries to snag it with his broom, but it eludes him. As it continues straight up, it dodges a cook's long spoon, a trombone's slide, and a boy's baseball glove. It brushes by a lady with a hairbrush, and a long-necked giraffe, and avoids a woman's Venus flytrap!

Finally a boy claims he has the best bot catcher of all--a bunch of bananas?

But there's a surprise bot catcher on the roof. Could it be King Kong himself?

The happy but no-doubt winded doorkeeper returns the captured robot to the boy, just in time for a little girl to let go of something else.

My balloon!

James Yang's new Stop! Bot! (Viking Books, 2019) offers toddlers and preschoolers a nice slice of city life with its simple geometric building and windows and stylized people, plus a bit of fun for older preschoolers who will recognize the trope of the gorilla on the roof. Simple enough for a two-year-old to follow and yet, with its large typeface, rhyming sounds, and visual cues, this one is easy enough for emergent readers to soon read alone.

I Am NOT Negative! The Knight Who Said "NO!" by Lucy Rowland

Once inside a castle lived
a little knight named Ned,
who always picked his toys up
and always made his bed.

Ned is the only kid in the town, and as kids go, he's pretty much perfect. No matter how unpleasant the task, Ned is Never Negative.

When asked to pick the cabbages,
Ned wouldn't whine or stress.

He always answered right away
and always answered,"YES!"

Life in the castle is never negative--except for the DRAGON who nightly swoops down low over town and terrifies the townspeople and the royal parents, too. But Ned can't help thinking that maybe the dragon needs someone to play with, too. What to do?

And one day Ned wakes up in a contrary mood. When The Queen asks him to bring in the milk, he opens his mouth and says "NO!" His royal parents are nonplussed. The townspeople are not pleased.

And when the dragon makes her daily pass over the castle, Ned walks out into the square and says--

"NO!"

The dragon has to confess that she only wants to stay and play with Ned. Ned is impressed with the Dragon's daring, and there's only one thing to say.

"YES!"

Ned the Super-Nice Knight discovers he has a mind of his own and a new playmate who even gives him the occasional night ride over the castle, in Lucy Rowland's The Knight Who Said "No!" (Candlewick/Nosy Crow Press, 2019). Sometimes even little knights have to make a statement, and artist Kate Hindley's agreeable but lonely little hero's change in mood will make perfect sense to kids. Hindley's charming geometric medieval scene, done mostly in blues and reds, and her goofy red dragon make this story almost irresistible. Says Kirkus Reviews, "This emotionally astute tale will strike chords of recognition."

Dress Warmly! Otto Goes North by Ulrika Kestere

There's a blueberry blue house with a grass roof by the sea, way, way up north. Beside the blue house is a little red sauna hut, which can be very handy in the far north. And that's where a little lynx named Lisa and a little bear named Nils live together.

One day Lisa was on the roof, mowing the grass. Nils was setting out afternoon tea in in the garden. They wanted everything to be nice for their friend Otto, a lemur, who was coming to visit.

His bike was red with a large shiny bell. Otto would ring it like mad, enough to be annoying

"Pling, Pling, Pling! Here I am!" he called.

As the three enjoy their tea, Otto tells his old friends of his plan.

"This evening I'll see the Northern Lights at last," said Otto.
I'll paint them so I can hang the picture on my wall at home!"

But there's a problem with the plan. Northern Lights only appear at night, and after nightfall, it grows quite too cold for Otto to work. His teeth chatter and he shivers all over.

He shook so hard he could not hold his brush!

Lisa and Nils rush Otto into their sauna, where he warms right up, but seems to be catching a cold. What to do?

But Otto's hosts have an idea. They decide to make Otto a really warm sweater--if they can figure out how to do that! Lisa remembers a book she has about how to spin wool into yarn and knit a woolen sweater. But first they need some wool--and there are no sheep on their island.

But wait! Wool is just sheep fur, and being a lynx and a bear, Lisa and Nils have thick fur, too. Following the book's directions, they brush and card and spin their fur on their neighbor Lena's spinning wheel into a quantity of yarn, which they dye blueberry blue, onion-skin yellow, and red cabbage red. By the time they are done with the knitting, Otto has recovered from his cold and wearing his snug sweater, he is busy doing two paintings, one for himself, and one for Lisa and Nils' house.

Ulrika Kestere's Otto Goes North (Gecko Press, 2019) is a lovely and quaint story set in a chilly Scandinavian scene in a charming faux naif style of illustrations very appealing to young readers, one which also offers an introduction to spinning and knitting. Says School Library Journal, "A perfect story to pair with a lesson on fiber art or dyeing."  For more, share this one with Caldecott artist Tomie de Paola's delightful and detailed account of the process of making a woolen cloak, Charlie Needs a Cloak.

Far From The Madding Crowd! Leyla by Galia Bernstein

Leyla had nine aunts and twenty-three cousins.

They are always busy, always fussy, always noisy.

They always want to groom her. She's not even dirty!

Leyla's family is a HOOT!

It's hard being a young member of a close-knit baboon troop. Someone is always wanting to kiss her and hold her, and they never stop yakking and squabbling, especially when she needs a nap. She wants to be where she can't see, or hear, or even smell her family.

So Leyla ran away.

Suddenly she is all alone. The quiet is amazing. She stumps her toe and the only sound is her own voice, yelling... OUCH! Wow!

Then Leyla spots a little lizard and tries to be friendly.

"Shhh! I'm very busy doing nothing."

Nobody in Leyla's family knows how to do nothing. The lizard shows her how to sit and listen to the breezes and think of -- nothing.

Leyla sits, eyes closed, and does nothing--all day long.

It's nice, but strangely, doing nothing makes Leyla miss her family. She runs back the way she came until... she can see and smell her family. They all sit quietly and listened to her adventures, even how she hurt her toe! And...

They ALL wanted to kiss it better!

There's no place like home and family, in Galia Bernstein's Leyla (Abrams Books, 2019). Leyla is a charming little character who returns after her a pilgrimage of self-discovery both appreciating her big, noisy family and knowing how to find her inner quiet when she needs it, in this sweet little exploration of the oft-used "little runaway" theme. Bernstein's illustrations of Leyla and her rowdy troop are humorous, charming, and endearingly winsome, set in an engaging variations of page design and deftly extending the text to keep young readers involved to the last scene.

Galia Bernstein is also the author of I Am a Cat.

Creative License: If I Built A School by Chris Van Dusen

Jack has some ideas for jazzing up his school.

For example, the foyer is dreadfully dull.

If I built a school, the first thing you'd meet
Are lots of cute puppies! They'd flock to your feet.

Heck! Jack would also add a few zoo animals to enliven the entryway! And getting to classrooms would be by pods shooting through pneumatic tubes!

Teachers in Jack's school would be spared the chores of cleaning chalky erasers or messy marker wipes:

Using a stylus, you write in the air.
No blackboard. No whiteboard. No, nothing is there.

And forget the chore of pushing your desks together for group sessions. Jack's got the best gismos to speed up those lessons.

These are my hover desks. See how they glide?
They even have bumpers in case they collide.

And Jack is thinkin' about a hologram of Lincoln--making a history lesson a 3-D session!. And to spice up gym sports, how's about trampoline-floored basketball courts? Or a cooling perimeter pool? And how about perks for the playground? Ziplines way up to the sky? And a twisty slide from three floors high?

And for sure, field trips should out-sizzle Ms. Frizzle in Jack's versatile vehicle which can morph-- from undersea to outer space--or any old place!

A guy can dream, can't he? In Chris Van Dusen's funny, fantasy picture book, If I Built a School (Dial Books, 2019), Jack's dream school has something for everyone, from critter-crazy kids to gismo geeks. Van Dusen's bouncy rhyming quatrains make this one a breeze to read, aloud or solo, and Van Dusen's brand of Seussian illustrations give Mulberry Street a run for the money in this new top-selling hit. Younger kids will laugh at the preposterous silliness, and older students will find the story line a great springboard for imaginative writers and young inventors, one that will fire up some creativity among the primary grade set.

Author-illustrator Chris Van Dusen also has two other popular book in this series, If I Built a House and If I Built a Car.

THAT for Dinner? Octopus Stew by Eric Velasquez

When grandma saw my painting of Super Octo, she got the idea to make pulpo guisado, octopus stew, not exactly my favorite dish.

"But Dad makes that," I said.

Grandma snapped at me. "I've been making pulpo guisado since your dad era un nino, since he was a boy!"

Ramsey knows better than to argue with Grandma when she's on a roll, so he follows orders to remove his superhero cape and keep his phone in his pocket and goes shopping with her to find just the right octopus.

And when Grandma cooks, she goes BIG.

Grandma picked the biggest octopus in the store.

It looked like it was still alive...

and kind of creepy.

Ramsey googles directions for prepping octopuses for stew, but Grandma orders him to put that phone away, so he watches from a safe distance as Grandma washes the octopus and drops it in her biggest stew pot on the stove. But when he hears some scary noises from the kitchen, Ramsey has to investigate.

BRRRR! BLOOP! THUMP!

BUT IT WAS TOO LATE!

The giant octopus is out of the pot and grabbing Grandma!

It's up to Ramsey to use his superhero powers to rescue his grandmother...or is this just another octopus tall tale?

In his latest, Octopus Stew (Holiday House, 2019), for extra fun, author-illustrator Velasquez offers two alternate endings for this wild tale: in one, donning his superman cape, Ramsey fights his way through black octopus ink spray to free Grandma--and in a four-page gatefold there's an alternate ending, as Ramsey's dad questions his story as too far-fetched.

"DAD! It's my turn to tell the story tonight! May I please finish now?"

And in a surprising conclusion, the whole family sits down with an octopus for dinner--in more ways than one. Not only does the author offer a glossary of Spanish words, but also the family recipe for octopus stew. The award-winning Velasquez is a master story teller in words and in vivid acrylic art work, this newest picture book goes big in exaggerated tale-telling. As Publishers Weekly describes it, "Oil paintings by Velasquez have a lush, generously sculptural feel—a heightened comic realism that's perfect for this domestic tall tale, its multi-armed nemesis, and the wonderful gatefold twist that occurs at the action's height."

Walking the Wall: Frankly in Love by David Yoon

Senior Year Is Begun.

For Frank Li, only son of Korean immigrant parents, this is the year he must prove himself worthy of his parents' sacrifices--their thrift, his dad's twelve-hour shifts at The Store, as they call it--by getting the magic SAT score that will get him into The Harvard or its equivalent. His parents are in America, but not really of it, living in a bubble, speaking Korean-English, socializing with other immigrants, whom Frank calls "The Gathering," most of whom are more successful than his father.

Each month, they ritually attend a round-robin dinner where most of the adults compete in their success stories and the teenagers hang out together. They are not really friends, but fellow second-generation Korean-Americans who call themselves "The Limbos,"  who complain while their parents drink too much, speak Korean and play Korean board games, and hope their children will marry each other.

But Frank has a problem.  He's almost in a relationship with Brit, the perfect girl--except she's white, and he knows Mom-n-Dad will not accept that. His older sister, who married a non-Korean, has been cast out of the family and lives on the other coast in Boston. And Mom-n-Dad have already settled on Joy Song as his ideal match.

"You're stupid." says Joy. "Your parents are stupid."

"Your parents are stupid," I said. We laugh because it's funny, but then stop because the funny doesn't last.

But then Frank and Joy Song discover that they are in the same second-generation teen boat. Frank wants to date Brit, and Joy wants to date her boyfriend, Wu, a Chinese-American, equally unacceptable to her parents. They work out a plan; they will pretend-date each other. Frank will pick up Joy, she'll meet up with Wu; and Frank and Brit can actually go out alone. They'll be happy, and their parents will be happy. What could go wrong?

In a plot line that Shakespeare would (and did) love, their fake-dating plan works for a while. But life happens to interrupt their best-laid plans. Frank's dad is diagnosed with cancer, and in the hard times immediately after, Joy takes on more the role of girlfriend, and Frank realizes that he is really attracted to her, too, and in the days following the diagnosis, Frank begins to try to know his dad.

How much of my dad do I know? I realize it's not much. Dad settled into his role as breadwinner, expected me to settle into my role as disciplined academic, and we put put our noses to the grindstone and never looked up. I began to calculate our time together. A few minutes each evening. Sundays at The Store for the last couple summers. It adds up to about three hundred hours.

Who is this man who was my dad?

Is, Frank. He's not dead yet. But he will be.

In a funny, heart-rending, life-affirming, coming-of-age young adult novel, David Yoon's just published Frankly in Love (G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2019) deals frankly with issues of immigration, racism (refreshingly not all white racism) and class prejudice, the stuff of our culture these days, as in the past. As in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and in J.D. Salinger's landmark The Catcher in the Rye, young people have a way of running into the social complexities in the world that they must enter and find their own way through, just as their parents and the adults around them have done by learning to be the persons they want to be. As author Yoon's punning title suggests, it is not easy, but, frankly, it's what we all have to do.

Writes the New York Times reviewer writes, "Yoon explores themes of racism, forgiveness and acceptance without getting earnest or preachy or letting anyone off the hook. And there's a universality to the story that cuts across cultures."

I Yam Who I Yam! You Loves Ewe! by Cece Bell

"Hey, donkeys!" says Donkey.

It's a lovely bucolic scene. Sheep is grazing, and Yam the grammarian-in-chief is pontificating, as usual.

Yam points out that neither of them is a donkey. He himself is a yam and his herbivorous companion is a fluffy ewe, doing what ewes do best--look cute and eat grass.

But Donkey doesn't do homonyms.

"I yam confused. Yam I yam, or yam I ain't, cute and fluffy?"

Yam gives it another try, explaining that the grammatical way to pose that question would be "Am I cute and fluffy?"

Donkey looks at Yam and doesn't bother being polite.

You is short and lumpy.

Sheep tries to help out by holding up her hand-written placard that says EWE. Donkey corrects Yam's pronunciation, pointing out that EWE spells EE-WEE! Yam goes into his standard lecture on homonyms, words that sound alike but have different meanings: Doe and Dough, Hair and Hare, etc., etc., etc.!

And if you think this grammar lesson is going nowhere, just wait until Ram makes his entrance and is struck instantly with Ewe's woolly charms. Now everyone is in love with Ewe. What to do?

But while Donkey is a bit dense with homonyms, he gets affairs of the heart. He points out that Ewe gets to choose. Does Ewe love Ram? She spells it out for them all.

"EYE DEW."

It's the wonderful world of wordplay, in Cece Bell's forthcoming easy reader, You Loves Ewe! (A Yam and Donkey Book) in this semi-educational sequel to her first comical Yam and Donkey story, I Yam a Donkey! (A Yam and Donkey Book), specializing in some of the goofier aspects of our native language (just be glad he didn't work in the homonym YEW into the text), while her delightfully daffy black line cartoon illustrations make the best of this woolly-headed tale of the fine points of our mother tongue. After all, we English speakers do specialize in puns.

Ewer kids are gonna love it!

Critter Counter: Five Little Bugs by Shannon Hays

Babies love bugs, but busy moms don't always want their little ones to touch them. But in Vicky Harvey's and Shannon Hays' 5 Little Bugs (Make Believe Ideas, 2019), little fingers get the touch-and-feel fun of touching the five buggy critters in the Busy Bees series of board books for the youngest book fanciers.

In Five Little Bugs, little ones get to touch the textured creatures visible through the cut-outs in the cover.

Five little busy bugs
Doing all their chores,
Bee buzzes off
And that leaves... four

And with each page turn, each critter takes off exploring, leaving one less to see and touch, until they are all gone, tired and ready for their own buggy bed for the night, in this small board book by Shannon Hays and Vicky Harvey, made just for small hands to hold with fun for the eye as well as a tactile treat for tiny fingers.

Consider the Cat.... My Wild Cat by Isabelle Simler

For I will consider my cat Geoffrey.
For there is nothing sweeter than his peace at rest.
For there is nothing brisker than his life when in motion.
For he is an instrument for the children to learn benevolence upon.
For every house is incomplete without him and a blessing is lacking in the spirit.
--Christopher Smart (1722-1771)

MY CAT IS A WILD ANIMAL.

He flops flat, but balanced perfectly, on a tiny table,
and plops down to flatten a potted plant.

Antennae ears up, he surveils, yet spares, a fancy plate of sweets.

He saves a place in an open book with his whole body, a bookmark with a tail.

He snoozes on the sofa... and rests and warms himself, fitting himself to every curve of the radiator.

He sees in pastels and excels in night vision, vanishing, merging with darkness when there is danger.

His hearing and vision are keen... His stalking is patient... And his attack is sudden and sharp.

HE TAKES ME DOWN WITH A SINGLE LEAP.

Cats have been described scientifically, not as simply domesticated, but as self-domesticated. They chose to live with us and still cannot be compelled without their will, and the fascination with the uniqueness of cats is told in blank verse, made humorous juxtaposed with the illustrations of a cat doing what cats do, and with informative footnotes in Isabelle Simler's My Wild Cat.

In apt poetic blank verse and simple but striking illustrations, Simler portrays the child's cat as it seemingly ignores him, napping and stretching, balking at the snaky garden hose and invading a boot, concealing himself inside a bag and behind a curtain, waiting for his moment to surprise the child with his POUNCE. Meanwhile, author Simler also provides encyclopedic footnotes for most pages with fascinating facts about the cat, Felis silvestre catus: "Cats can run at speeds up to 30 miles per hour, faster than any human on record." "Cats have a total field of vision up to 287 degrees wide." "A cat's flexible spine and sense of balance allow it to land on its feet."

Says Booklist, "Truly stunning artwork. For cat lovers, the art alone will delight. Every page is worthy of framing."

"Sorrows Springs Are the Same": The Yellow Suitcase by Meera Sriram

Asha rested her head on the taxi window. The city streets bustled in India.

When the taxi pulled over, Asha looked past the palm trees and marigolds.

Grandma wasn't waiting on the front porch.

Asha remembers earlier visits when her yellow suitcase has always been full of presents for Grandma, and how it was always filled with presents from Grandma when she left to fly back home. But this year is different.

Grandma's house is full of strange relatives. But it seems empty.

"Where is Grandma? " Asha asked, although she knew.

"She's not anywhere," said Dad, and Asha saw him cry for the first time.

Asha can't bear the house without Grandma. She can't bear the yellow suitcase, empty. She hides it away.

But when it's time to fly back home, Dad brings her the suitcase and opens it.

There is a quilt inside, made from pieces of Grandma's old saris, smelling of her talcum, stitched together in her last days for Asha.

The yellow suitcase is not empty at all, and Asha knows that it is filled with the gift of love that will always go with her, in Meera Sriram's beautiful true story about loss and lasting love that lives on, in The Yellow Suitcase (Penny Candy Books, 2019. With the meaningful theme that family love lives on in those who receive and pass it on, this universal story of grief is beautifully illustrated in the evocative art of Meera Sethi.

Steppin' Up! Mama's Work Shoes by Caron Levis

Perry knew all of Mama's shoes.

Mama has fuzzy swushy shoes for around the house, and zippy shoes for playing at the park. She has flip-flops for sunny beach days and yellow stump-stump boots for rainy days.

But one day Mama comes home with new shoes--tall shoes that click and clack across the floor.

"Today, we are starting a new routine." said Mama.

Perry is not happy. "New routine" means click-clack shoes for Mama, two lunch bags, one for each of them, and being dropped off at their friend Nan's house while Mama goes to a place called Work.

Perry likes Nan, but she likes it more when Mama is there, too. Mama reminds her that she'll be back, and they can say what they always say at Nan's door.

"KNOCK KNOCK!

Cookoo Clock!

But the day at Nan's without Mama is not much fun. Mama finally comes and they walk back to their house, Mama's shoes click-clacking all the way. Despite Mama's reminder that her work shoes are also her coming-back shoes, that night Perry decides the shoes are the problem. She hides the click-clack shoes, and just to make sure, she hides ALL of Mama's shoes, too.

But Mama finds her work shoes and wears them again, as Perry sadly drags her feet on the way to Nan's again. But this time, she manages to have some fun with Nan. They dance the shimmy, and they are giggling over a tea party when Perry hears a KNOCK KNOCK! at the door. And that night Mama puts on her shushy shoes and they do everything they like together, including wearing no-shoes feet that go...

Tickle-tickle--together.

Caron Levis' brand-new Mama's Work Shoes (Abrams Books, 2019) is a bit of bibliotherapy for older toddlers and preschoolers experiencing their first day-long separation from their mothers, a time that creates some angst in child--and mother--and author Levis' story softens the anxiety without ignoring the very real sadness that such separation engenders. Levis' narration doesn't skip too lightly over the distress, while keeping the reassuring message and the secondary theme that each child has her or his part to play in their family's well-being. Artist Vanessa Brantley-Newton's sensitive but humorous illustrations support the leitmotif gently and sweetly. "Charming... dynamic, and colorful," says Kirkus.

TIME OUT! Fix That Clock by Kurt Cyrus

Tock, Tick, Clunk!
The clock’s a pile of junk.
Rusty, dusty, moldy, musty.
Tock, Tick, Clunk!

The once splendid town tower clock is telling no time.

The tower is rickety, tippy, and tottery, good mostly for housing bats and mice.

It’s time to take time to fix that clock.

Marching up the ramp
Up we march the fix the clock.
Tramp! Tramp! Tramp!

Armed with sledge crowbars and hammers, the three workers repair the broken-down stair.

Swing that hammer, Super Slamer.

Bam! BAM! BAM!

At last the workers take on the most demanding task–-repairing the rust-encrusted clockwork!

Give the gears a yank.

Tock, Tick, CLANK!

And then the newly oiled and polished gears are meshing and the clock is ticking and bonging out the hour, in Kurt Cyrus’ delightfully chiming and rhyming Fix That Clock (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019). Author Cyrus’s latest is filled with delicious poesy, the rhymes are just right, onamatopoeia abounds in with construction sounds, the ousted animals are re-housed in little homes fashioned from wood scraps, and appropriately, the job is done right at quitting time. Artist Cyrus fills his double-page spreads with charmingly realistic paintings, enlivened by dizzying perspectives, and there are touches of visual humor, as a mouse runs up the overall leg of one worker and with quirky independence, the carpenters cut windows–-square, semi-circular, circular, and triangular--giving the reader plenty of action to peruse on each page.

And all in good time, there she stands, restored, the Queen of Clocks! Altogether an outstanding example of picture book art, this one is must-have for children’s collections, just the thing for young time-telling students' story time.

Come Home, Kitty! Small in the City by Sydney Smith

I know what it's like to be small in the city.

It's beginning to snow and grow dark between the tall buildings. A small child with backpack and wool cap climbs down from the trolley and begins the rest of his trudge homeward. At first he seems to be talking to himself.

People don't see you

and loud sounds can scare you.

There are traffic and construction noises all around.

But the child knows how to navigate those streets. His advice is good.

He advises the unseen listener to avoid a dark alley and to keep some distance from big, fenced-in dogs.

But then we begin to see that there is another listener that the child seems to be advising. He points out safe trees to climb and a steamy dryer vent for warmth, and a church window ledge for listening to music-- and then, a kind fishmonger's shop.

They would probably give you a fish.

Through the increasingly heavy new snowfall, the child stops to put up a poster with a picture of a lost cat, a loved cat who has a full food dish and blanket waiting at home. And then, there's the child's mother, waiting for him and for the cat to come home.

I know you.

You will be all right.

Sydney Smith's new Small in the City (Neal Porter Books/Holiday House, 2019) has the message that knowledge can be protective, that the child and his missing cat can be safe in their familiar surroundings, a reassuring theme for young readers.

Skillfully, on his final page author-illustrator Sydney Smith shows the child's own door, with cat tracks close by in the snow, in shadow, but backed by early blooming bushes for a promising conclusion to this well-told story. Author-illustrator Smith captures the mood of the shadowy, stark cityscape, along with the welcoming places in the neighborhood that foreshadow the hinted-at happy ending. A subtle tale of confidence in self and hope that sustains.

Challenges and Consequences: A Talent for Trouble by Natasha Tarrant

Three young people, all very different.
All searching for something, though none knew quite what.
All unaware, as yet, that they might find it in one another.

A school bus was supposed to meet them at Castlehaig, but when they got off the train, it wasn't there.
"Late," said Jesse bitterly. "It's not fair!"

Alice looked at him curiously, and he realized with a start that she didn't know about the First Day Challenge."

Since her mother's death, Alice Mistlethwaite had retreated into her own world of reading and writing fantasy tales. Now that she is eleven, her aunt and her father Barney have decided Alice needs to be forced out of her shell. They summarily decide to sell her much-loved house, Cherry Grange, where she can pick summer cherries from a tree at her window, and Alice is put on a train to a boarding school in Scotland. Aunt Patience has found a teaching job in London, and her father, a famously unsuccessful actor, is off, "on-tour," and Alice finds herself on a train headed for Stormy Loch Academy with a pleasant but peculiar passenger named Jesse. Jesse's chief skill, she learns, is  the ability to run really fast--an unfair advantage, as Alice discovers when Jesse jumps out of the school van and at top speed dashes toward the medieval-looking Stormy Loch School. It seem the last one to touch the school door suffers a Consequence.

It was only fair that she should have known. But sometimes it just feels impossible to do what is right. Jessie ran like a champion on his long, strong legs. Alice, in contrast... did not run like an athlete. She looked more like a small and furious terrier.

And then Jesse stumbled and fell. Alice sailed past him. She could see the door, the lion's head knocker gleaming....

And then Fergus Mackenzie, the red-haired genius and breaker of rules, stuck his foot right in her path.

Justice of a sort is meted out by the headmaster, Major Fortescue. Alice, the last to arrive, receives the Consequence of having to sound the early morning Reveille Gong for the semester, and for his perfidy Fergis is appointed Pig Keeper. Alice gains revenge for the unfairness of it all by banging the gong, not three times but continually until all sleeping students are awake and stumbling outside into the chilly dark for what they think is a fire drill, and Fergus finds a perverse satisfaction in enjoying the pigs. As the semester goes by, Alice also discovers that Stormy Loch "continues better than expected." and the three of them forge a connection born out of misdeed and mischief which leads to a truce and an unexpected friendship.

But visitation day arrives and Alice's father fails to show up as promised. What she does receive is a mysterious package with a heavy, tightly wrapped small object labeled DO NOT OPEN, and a letter from her father exhorting her to meet him with that object on the small island of Nish, off the coast of Scotland, a place where he purportedly remembers a castle and moat from his childhood.

And then, an opportunity presents itself. It is time for the Year Seven Great Orienteering Challenge, and Major Fortesque groups Alice, Jesse, and Fergus together, thinking they "might learn from each other," and indeed they do.

Alice persuades the boys to accept her plan to meet her father at Nish, sneaking away from the island of Lumb and faking their way onto the ferry, using their classroom French to pretend to be foreign students on holiday. But what seemed like a lark turns into a survival test, as a mighty storm strikes the tiny island. Their tent is blown away, and the three friends realize that they are being pursued by a gang of continental art thieves who rightly believe Alice's package contains a stolen museum piece. The promised castle turns out to be a towering rock formation surrounded at high tide by a moat of roiling sea water, and the three find themselves finally escaping the gang down the cliff by rope. It is indeed much more of a challenge than Major Fortescue had planned, and Alice, Jesse, and Fergus forge an unshakable bond of friendship in the process.

In the style of British boarding school stories, the three friends from Stormy Loch form a close relationship in the best tradition of Harry Potter, Hermione, and Ron, relying on each other's strengths in an adventure not quite like any other, in Natasha Tarrant's forthcoming A Talent for Trouble (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Clarion, 2019). A real page-turner of a novel of three friends who pool their strengths and against all odds, come together in an amazing journey, this is a brilliant coming-of-age story that commingles unusual settings and developing emotional maturity in a great choice for those middle readers eager for unusual adventures without a single fantastical beast, mythic warrior, or evil sorcerer.

Vive La Difference! Boonoonoonous Hair! by Olive Senior

I hate my hair. It hurts. It's a pain.

Jamilla tries hiding the comb when it's time to braid her hair for school. She pouts. She cries.

She's in a tizzy 'cause her hair is frizzy!

She longs for hair like Brittany and Claire:

Their hair is long and flowing and can swish around their shoulders.

But mom has a point that Jamilla can't deny.

"... your friends' hair always looks the same.
You can have...
A DIFFERENT HEAD OF HAIR EVERY DAY OF THE YEAR!

And it's true. Jamilla can have two puffs on Monday, followed by plaits, then braids, and then cornrows, and twists. On Saturday she can go as wild and natural as she pleases, but...

On Sunday, you must be Grandmother's child!

It's big and beautiful Boonoonoonous Hair (Tradewind Books, 2019), in Olive Senior's tale of hair today... and hair tomorrow. To all the little girls who struggle with the hair they've got--with tangles and frizz... or snarls and curls... or limp and flat, hair care can be a pain. Styles come and go, but with hair we all get what we get, and author Senior's theme, to love the hair you're in, is good advice. Laura James' big and bright illustrations fill the pages with colorful portraits of the ordinary and the famous with all sorts of hair in a book that boosts appreciation of the many varieties of hair out there.

Salute! High Five by Adam Rubin and Daniel Salieri

Step right up, folks! Got something to celebrate?

THERE'S A CONTEST HERE
WHERE HIGH FIVE FANS FROM FAR AND NEAR
ALL PRESS PALMS AGAINST THE REST
TO SEE WHOSE HIGH FIVE IS BEST!

If you think your High Five has all the right stuff, step up and slap with the best of them, Sensei, the champion high fiver!

Warning! He's got one big HAND!

Maybe you'd better warm up a bit before you compete. Remember to keep your hands rather limber, elbows bent, and wrists fixed. You might want to practice slapping some thick elephant skin to toughen up your touch.

YOU'LL WANT TO SHOW A LITTLE STYLE.
SOMETHING TO MAKE THOSE HIGH FIVE JUDGES SMILE!

THEY WANT TO SEE SOMETHING BRAND-NEW.
A HIGH FIVE ONLY YOU COULD DO!

It's hand jive for High Fives, in Adam Rubin's latest, High Five (Dial Books, 2019), illustrated in the characteristic scratchboard-like style of ace artist, Daniel Salieri. Kids from all over test their mettle against all kind of critters--Kangaroo and Lizard, too, in a jolly contest in this lively workout of a picture book by a couple of the modern masters of the art. Author Adam Rubin and artist Daniel Palmieri, creators of the best-selling Dragons Love Tacos and sequels, Those Darn Squirrels! and Secret Pizza Party (reviews here), are back together and up to some high jinks with these high fives. Keep this book handy for kids who like a little competition!

King of Wheels! Trucker and Train by Hannah Stark

TRUCKER LOVED TO RULE THE ROAD.

He loves to roar down the road. He loves to see the little vehicles--mopeds, compact cars, and the petite pick-ups scurry to get out of his lane.

HONNNK! goes his big klaxen, clearing the way for his big wheels to roll past them all.

But then, cresting the hill, Trucker sees something that makes even him take notice. WOOOOOOO! WHOOOOOO!

What's that? Trucker hits the gas and speeds up. It's Train!

TRUCKER GAWKED AT THE 2... 4.... 7... 8... 10 CARS PULLED BY TRAIN'S BIG BLACK ENGINE.

Train is fast, and his whistle is louder than Trucker's horn! There's a crossing ahead. Trucker has to brake, and so do the mo-peds, cars, and little pick-ups. Trucker is rumbling and grumbling.

WHY ARE WE THE ONES STOPPING?

Trucker roars off, heading up the mountain at full throttle, but as Train zooms by, Trucker's engine is forced to slow down on the steep slope. He grows angry as even the mo-peds pass him on the grade, and he can't wait to outrun them and beat Train all on the way down the mountain. But when he reaches the peak, he spots something far ahead that makes even his loud klaxen quail!

A BROKEN-OFF GATE!

WHAT IF NO ONE STOPS?

It's a real race now, not to win, but to get to the crossing and block the tracks to save the other little vehicles, in Hannah Stark's latest, Trucker and Train (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Clarion, 2019). Size and speed are useful in more than one way, and Trucker is everyone's hero. Stark's little parable of power is portrayed perfectly by Bob Kolar's simple geometrically-shaped rivals, set against bright white pages, each with its own job to do and his own way to do it. As Kirkus Reviews puts it, "Grab your CBs and hold onto your whistle. In this battle of truck vs. train, the true winners are the readers."

For more pun-filled power struggles, pair this one with Chris Barton's comic tale of those toy-box titans, Shark vs. Train (see review here).

I Won't Dance! Don't Ask Me! How Do You Dance by Thyra Heder

Everybody is out on the floor, ready to dance--disco-ing, movin' and groovin', free-stylin', bopping, hip hoppin', boogiein', break-dancin'... and balleting,

Even Rick the School Janitor takes his mop for a twirl around his suds bucket:

GO, RICK!

Everyone has his or her own style!

Koyo bops. Gilda flits. Aurora scrunches.

Except for one bespectacled boy. He takes Fred Astaire's lines, if not his moves, for his own!

"I won't dance! Don't ask me!

I'm like an ocean wave that's bumped on the shore;
I feel so absolutely stumped on the floor."

All the other kids eagerly show him how to do it!

You could shimmy like your sister Kate! You could swing like a gate! You could be singin' in the rain! You could get silly and do the Swivel, do the Scribble, do the Scoot! Dads do it! Dinos do it. Even beeping Cyberbots do it!

Just let it get weird.
See where it goes....

FACE
FINGERS
KNEES
TOES

But some people just dance to a different drummer!

"ENOUGH!" cries the kid.

"I don't dance like that!"

He goes into his room, shuts the door, and...

He boogies down and dances all over the floor...

ALONE!

Author-illustrator Thyra Heder's latest, How Do You Dance? (Abrams Books, 2019) encourages all to get up and move in their own way. Her watercolor illustrations of all kinds of people are joyful, buoyant, and full of the joy of life. Says Publishers Weekly, "Heder explores dance with pages of graceful, rhythmic watercolors that show people of myriad ages, ethnicities, shapes, and abilities stretching, bopping, spinning, and swaying... in exuberance, impulsiveness, and self-care," and in their starred review, Kirkus adds, "A gleeful, tender celebration of self-expression through movement, destined to become a favorite read-aloud."

Tidying Up With Mama! Llama, Llama Mess Mess Mess by Anna Dewdney and Reed Duncan

Llama Llama is in his room.
Cars and trucks go HONK! and ZOOM!

Little Llama in his playtime zone, imagining a race between his toys on a track under the bed and the chairs.

Mama Llama calls upstairs.

"Time to pick up all your toys!"
Why is Mama making noise?

Llama Llama is in his race car zone, and Mama Llama is apparently entering her tidying-up-time zone,

Their zones are colliding!

It's a problem of priorities. Toddlers want to play and have fun, and moms want 1) to walk across their floors without danger and 2) to finish their chores with a pleasantly tidy house so that they can have fun. The final goal is the same--but how to get to that goal for both is the problem.

Mom tries the old "what if everybody did" line of debate. Little Llama won't pick up? She won't pick up. She actually lets things like dirty clothes and clean clothes drop to the floor together. She goes on strike for the morning, and by afternoon all the horizontal surfaces are quite crowded. Llama Llama's bed is still unmade and too rumply and bumpy with toys to sit on. Dirty plates, pots, and pans crowd the table and the kitchen counters. The sofa cushions remain a fort, with brooms and mops for cannons. The fort is fun, but when they're done, there's no comfy place to sit. In fact, there's no good place to play! Llama Llama looks around. What has happened to his house?

Clutter, chaos, and distress.
No more Llama mess! Mess! MESS!

Grown-up llamas clean, that's true.
But little ones can pick up, too!

It's time for a little llama to pitch in and tidy-up or suffer the consequences, in Reed Duncan's latest entry in the series, Llama Llama Mess Mess Mess (Viking, 2019), and luckily Little Llama gets the message. Author Duncan makes comic but telling use of the "too much of a good thing" theme that Lillian and Russell Hoban used with exquisite success in their classic tot tale, Bread and Jam for Frances (I Can Read Level 2), and the Hobans' book, with Frances' final admission, "What I am is full of JAM," would make a great go-along with this latest in the beloved Llama Llama series, well illustrated in the style of creator Anna Dewdney by artist JT Morrow.