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35 picture books in 24 hours - life as a Cybils picture book judge!

 

Dot, Clem, Ozzie, Ollie, Maya, Nalah, Loula, and Ripple. Henry, Dorothy, Francis, Betsy, Willow, Jemmy Button and Anna Hibiscus. Plus French film icon Jacques Tati and former Vikings defensive end Alan Page.

These are my new best friends. And they are just a very few of the main characters of picture books nominated for Best Picture Book in the Cybils Awards. Go on, take a peek at the nominations list. Wow, right?

It's a diverse bunch of folks - there's a dolphin, a dog, foxes, monsters, princesses, squirrels and more than one bunny. Loula is French, Noah and Na'amah are South Asian in The Enduring Ark, the Lucky Ducklings live in Montauk, the Tiny King is Japanese, and Anna Hibiscus lives in "Africa, amazing Africa." Jemmy Button was real. Mr. Hulot was the fictional alter ego of the real actor Jacques Tati.

Bee & Bird by Craig Frazier - review

If I weren't already fully developed, brain-wise (and probably on the downward slope, a likelihood that is difficult to deny, given how frequently I leave my phone at home and my inability to Tweet with any regularity), I would expect to be about fifteen points smarter by the time I closed this book.

There's a striped bee. On the head of a red bird. In a green-leaved tree. In the bed of a yellow truck. And then our perspective shifts so that the truck appears to be driving across a black and white landscape as the bird flies away. What was that?! Oh. We were looking at the truck across the back of a cow. Hi, cow. The cow is standing in a flat green field next to wavy blue water.

What's next for the bird? What will that big white thing turn out to be? And why would a bee ride on a bird's head?

 

Craig Frazier (Lots of Dots, the Stanley books) gives us a wordless picture book full of large shapes, bold patterns, clear colors, and a surprising amount of personality. Rather than leave his giant color fields plain and flat, often a subtle gradient will indicate contour or volume.

Wordless books are the most wonderful investments. The best ones allow the reader to conjure endless stories, like the protagonist of Still Life With Woodpecker, who meditates on a Camel pack for several years. Or like Jane Eyre, filling the blank endpapers of books with her own thoughts.

Maybe I am not all that far gone after all. I've been through Bee & Bird three or four times now and I'm still finding new things that tickle me. And my husband and I finished the diagramless New York Times crossword puzzle last Sunday. We should just keep exposing ourselves to patterns and shifting perspectives, and maybe watch Powers of Ten every couple months.

Put Bee & Bird on your short list of things that are mind-blowing and fun at the same time. Bubble wands, kaleidoscopes, wordless books.

Let's Play Games! by Hervé Tullet - review

 

I am going to sing a song about Hervé Tullet. Heck, his name is practically a song already.

Hervé, Hervé
The kids all say:
Let me have that!
This one's blue!
I made a match!

Hervé, Hervé,
The teachers all say:
What do you see?
Use your finger!
Can I keep this?

Hervé, Hervé,
We could play all day,
While our tiny brains develop
In a million different ways.
Hervé!

(Hmmph. This is why my husband is the extemporaneous lyricist in my house, not me. I do a good melody, but he's the guy who, pouring the bubble bath in the tub for our younger son, rhymed "car key" with "Gethsemane" in his extemporaneous Jesus bubble bath song. I can't top that.)

Ice by Arthur Geisert - review

Maybe I should save this one for the hot weather that is to come. Because right now I have heard that it's going to snow one last time in our neck of the woods before Spring (and, immediately on its heels, Summer) shows up for good. Sigh. Quit, already!

Meanwhile, I have the sunny skies and sepia tones of a new Arthur Geisert book to keep me warm. Arthur Geisert is an etcher of pigs, a devotee of hot-air sailing ships, a contraptionist if there ever was one, and yes I just made up that word in his honor. Hogwash and Oops and Lights Out delight kids and adults who enjoy cause-and-effect, who dream of a better mousetrap, who can't see a stream of water in a gutter without building a tiny dam.

Mirror by Jeannie Baker - review

Two families - one in Sydney, Australia, and one in Morocco. Jeannie Baker takes us through each family's day, showing us warm domestic scenes and sweeping landscapes, making subtle, everyday connections across the seemingly vast gulf of difference separating the two settings.

The Moroccan family gets around by donkey, while the Australians drive a yellow minivan. The Australian kid wears a red t-shirt and jeans, and the Moroccan kid wears his jeans under a red djellaba. Both boys have a baby sibling in a fuzzy yellow sweater. Tea is poured, pets are fed. The Moroccan boy likes to draw: the Australian one writes a story. Maybe they'll write a book together one day.

The Tree House by Marije Tolman & Ronald Tolman - review

 

Here is a little song for Lemniscaat Books:

I don't know if people here buy your books
With their luscious touch and high-class looks
But please keep making them
Because...
Your European illustrators communicate like Turkish waiters
Wordlessly supplying me
With nuts and sweets and strong coffee
Ink, pastel, collage, and then
I turn it over
And start again.

 

The Chicken Thief by Beatrice Rodriguez - review

I had to check the copyright date on this suave wordless sliver of an epic tale over and over again. You see, like many French things (and it somehow seems important to point out that when I use the word "French" I always pronounce it "Fronsh" because of an ancient mocking nickname my friend Jaime and I once habitually applied to a perfectly nice person - the nickname now seems absurd and petty, but my inability to say the word "French" without sounding like a spastic drunk lives on, which only proves my point about French things), uhhh, like many French things - Fronsh things - The Chicken Thief, with its timeless one-joke story, well-crafted loosey-goosey pen and ink and watercolor art, and enigmatic title... could have come from any age.

A lot of French pen and ink illustration (and Belgian) has a gestural quality, a breezy confidence that works particularly well with energetic stories. Think Asterix. Spirou & Fantasio. Bob de Groot. And this story, being wordless, is told entirely through action and expression. The arc of a smile is just a tiny line, 5 millimeters, but in that 5-millimeter line, Beatrice Rodriguez tells us whether her character is smiling in triumph or embarrassment, with joy or with anticipation.

I love it when something so brief and easy is treated with respect, and this edition is printed on good paper, in a binding size that is fairly common in Europe but less so here. The Chicken Thief goes on my list of superior wordless books for a child to savor.

Mirror by Suzy Lee - review

Okay. Suzy Lee, creator of the hypnotically joyful Wave and the quiet-but-noisy The Zoo, has a new book. It's called Mirror, and it is wordless, and it involves a little girl who meets her reflection in a mirror. Shy at first, she warms up to it, until she is dancing with herself. The mirror is the right-hand page of every spread. Interesting. Clever. Such a good idea, I'm surprised I haven't seen it before.

But wait. About twelve pages in, it starts to go - oh, what's the word? - ukulelepants nutsteak coco-for-cuckoo-poops CRAYZAY. First, the girl's dancing prompts a Rorschach of exploding orange paint and spattering black ink. A little conceptual for many children and some adults, who may be concerned that something behind that kid is spurting flammable liquids, but I get the idea. Dreams made flesh.

And then the girl's dancing takes her behind the mirror, thus, in this book, into the fold. We get a couple pages of freaky symmetrical partial girls, which everyone (that I've shown the book to so far) finds disturbing, and for one frightening white two-page spread, she disappears entirely, before re-emerging from the fold. Whew. Except - now the reflection is no longer a reflection. Like Stevie Nicks in the Fleetwood Mac song, she can go her own way. Which irritates the original girl to no end - so much so that she spitefully gives the mirror a shove. The mirror falls, and breaks, and she is alone again, and huddles on the floor in sorrow.

Suzy Lee isn't your usual cranker-outer of picture books. From my short descriptions of her previous books above, you can see that there is always something contradictory and meditative about her work. It's like white noise that is also music. That's it: Suzy Lee is the Thom Yorke of picture books. And not everybody gets Radiohead, but you can't deny that it's art.

This artist's command of her media - which are, looks like... graphite, sticky black oil pastel, watercolor and inks - is nothing short of masterful. Her line is confident and expressive, shading is smudgy and minimal. Her every figure, every gesture, is a pleasure to look upon.

If you wanted to use this book as a discussion starter on resentment, competitiveness, impulse control, or remorse, you could. But I wouldn't, in kind of the same way that I wouldn't take a group to see Martha Graham's Appalachian Spring to start a discussion about the seasons. Or mountains, for that matter. Rather, I'd present this as the performance of a little story, told in drawings. It starts and finishes with the girl in the same huddled position on the floor, it ramps up slowly, there's a happy passage, a crisis... oh my god it's a book about dance! Hm. I should pretend that I knew that all along, shouldn't I.

Well there's a review that didn't go where I expected it to go. How often does that happen? 

The Lion and the Mouse by Jerry Pinkney - review

The Lion and the Mouse by Jerry Pinkney

Jerry Pinkney is a god. I think that's my whole review. No, wait, I have to mention that this book is wordless (except for beautifully lettered onomatopoeia incorporated into the paintings).

In a year when Jerry Pinkney also illustrated The Moon Over Star, I think he is his own stiffest competition for a Caldecott.

Labels: age: PreK - Grade3, animals, folk/fairy, picture books, superstar books, wordless

Early Valentine to Carolyn - Best books for Kindergarten, early 2009 edition

I love my son's kindergarten teachers. Ms. Burlin asked for a list of recent books for kindergartners that I thought were standouts. Here goes:

The Pencil written by Allan Ahlberg, illustrated by Bruce Ingman. Sort of a prequel to the Tom Waits-y The Runaway Dinner, The Pencil is meta, is magic realist, is funny, but does not read like Tom Waits lyrics. Can't have everything.

BEWARE OF THE FROG by william bee. Reviewed earlier. It's going to take a skilled storyteller to get the surprise ending past a whole batch of little kids, but I have faith.

The Big Bad Bunny written by Franny Billingsley, illustrated by G. Brian Karas. A loud little book with an unexpected twist.

Wolfsnail by Sarah C. Campbell. Reviewed earlier.

Tadpole Rex by Kurt Cyrus. Reviewed earlier.

Tyrannosaurus Drip by Julia Donaldson, illustrated by David Roberts. Reviewed earlier.

Forever Young written by Bob Dylan, illustrated by Paul Rogers. I can't swing this - I can't sing along - but I bet Ms. Burlin can. An awful lot of adult Easter eggs in the illustrations, but that doesn't make it less good for kids.

Fanny by Holly Hobbie. Reviewed earlier.

Garmann's Summer by Stian Hole. Reviewed earlier. About fear.

Mattland, story by Hazel Hutchins and Gail Herbert, art by Dušan Petričić. Reviewed earlier.

The Way Back Home written and illustrated by Oliver Jeffers. I love everything Oliver Jeffers has ever breathed near, including this lovely, sweet book.

Fartiste by Kathleen Krull and Paul Brewer, illustrated by Boris Kulikov. Reviewed earlier. Danger, Will Robinson!

Marveltown by Bruce McCall. Reviewed earlier.

We're Off to Look for Aliens by Colin McNaughton. Reviewed earlier.

Who Made This Cake? text and English translation by Chihiro Nakagawa, illustrations by Junji Koyose. Reviewed earlier. Super birthday book!

Mrs. Muddle's Holidays by Laura F. Nielsen, pictures by Thomas F. Yezerski. Reviewed earlier. Could be "Ms. Burlin's Holidays." So nice.

I Feel a Foot! written by Maranke Rinck, illustrated by Martin Van Der Linden. The tale of the blind men and the elephant, except the blind men are nice little animals with personalities, and they're not blind (it's just night time). It's the art here, the art - beautiful patterns and glowing colors done in what looks like oil pastels, dry brush, heavy inks. Mmmm. Plus, the little striped bat is wearing pink socks - I love that.

Amadi's Snowman written by Katia Novet Saint-lot, illustrated by Dimitria Tokunbo. About literacy, about gender roles, set in Nigeria.

What the Rat Told Me: A legend of the Chinese zodiac by Marie Sellier, Catherine Louis, and Wang Fei. A little repetitive, but the big, sticky, bold ink illustrations make up for it, and figuring out what zodiac year each kid is.

Too Many Toys by David Shannon. Reviewed earlier.

Dinosaur vs. bedtime by Bob Shea. Reviewed earlier.

I'm the best artist in the ocean by Kevin Sherry. Reviewed earlier.

Korgi by Christian Slade. Watching little kids pore through this longer wordless book is so satisfying to those of us who know them well. Sophisticated narrative is not beyond their grasp - reading is.

The Sea Serpent and Me written by Dashka Slater, illustrated by Catia Chien. This was so nice, I wonder why I didn't review it. Little girl's sea serpent quickly outgrows the bathtub, and she is torn when it is time to release it into the sea. Nice little independent girl, not too gooey.

Ladybug Girl by David Soman and Jacky Davis. Reviewed earlier. Sequel, Ladybug Girl and Bumblebee Boy, coming in March.

Jack and the Box by Art Spiegelman. An easily-memorized dialogue book, the surreal plot delights kids. Great for sharing.

Lester Fizz, Bubble Gum Artist written by Ruth Spiro, illustrated by Thor Wickstrom. Really neat. Explains the urge of art ("What do you see?" "What don't you see?" "What do you want to see?") and provides dozens and dozens of famous (and diverse) examples, all within a cute story.

Cesar Takes a Break written by Susan Collins Thoms, illustrated by Roge. Classroom pet's horizons expand when the kids go on spring break.

Elephant and Piggie series by Mo Willems. More dialogue, very funny. First readers - may be more of a first-grade book in schools that don't teach reading in K.

Last Night by Hyewon Yum. Wordless. Easily interpreted. Full of expression. Lino printing at its very very best. Wow.

Labels: age: PreK - Grade3, superstar books

Wonder Bear by Tao Nyeu - review

Wonder Bear by Tao Nyeu
I'm not usually sucked in by the wordless beautiful magical dream journey type of picture book. I'm one of the few people I know who wasn't entranced by The House in the Night. Imagine a Night leaves me worse than cold. And I seem to remember some kind of flying magic bed book that made me actually groan.

But man, I love Wonder Bear. I love the wordless narrative - so simple that even a five-year-old can follow and predict, yet so subtle that his older brother will find repetitions and clues to the dream logic at work.

I love the technique - Tao Nyeu does some neat things with layering colors in her silk screen prints; I love the colors, and I love the style. The bulbous shapes, repeating patterns, and swirly clouds make me think of Central Asian and Siberian embroidery: simple shapes that gain strength through repetition. I'm totally going to steal some of her tree shapes for my niece's baby blanket.

This book has been given the high-class treatment by Dial. Lush, toothy paper, large size, and a dust jacket that is not merely a repeat of the book's cover. You can tell that someone on Hudson Street thinks this book is something special. For once, I really have to agree.

Plus: MONKEYS!

Labels: gift books, picture books, superstar books, wordless

South by Patrick McDonnell - review

South by Patrick McDonnell
The first two-page spread of this gorgeous little picture book made me catch my breath. On the left we see the top half of a tree, bare of leaves and full of little yellow birds, all looking in the same direction and each with a pair of eighth-notes hanging in the air overhead. On the right, it's the same view of the same tree, and all the birds are on the wing and flying out of sight. So minimal, but you can feel the chill in the air, hear their wings, see them fly.

The rest of the book is just as expressive, just as minimal, and displays, in a way that is probably difficult to discern in a tiny newspaper strip, just how good Patrick McDonnell, the creator of Mutts, is with a brush. Big hearts come in small packages sometimes.

Would make a lovely thank-you gift for a friend who has helped when you were in a jam, a talented teacher, or someone who has just pointed you on your way. I'll have to remember this one at the end of the school year.

Labels: age: adult children, gift books, picture books, superstar books, wordless

Wave by Suzy Lee - review

Wave by Suzy Lee
Holy wackadoodle. Masterful, internationally-acclaimed author-illustrator Suzy Lee uses a stick of charcoal and one color of acrylic paint and NOTHING ELSE - no words - and chronicles a little girl's encounter with the ocean. In just a few sketched lines, she gives us eager, curious, hesitant, exuberant, intimidated... a new expression every page. It's like the best frames from a whole day of home video, silent except for the call of gulls and the sound of waves, condensed into a slideshow to watch over and over again.

In fact, replace the seagulls with pelicans, and the little girl with my 6-year-old, and you've got our vacation. I took that video myself.

Labels: age: adult children, age: PreK - Grade3, diverse cultures, picture books, superstar books, wordless

Gon by Masashi Tanaka - review

Gon by Masashi Tanaka

I recommend this wordless manga title, about the life and times of a tiny T-Rex, quite a lot. It's pretty old, but we have a few bent copies still around. We discussed it in my Graphic Novel Appreciation Club at the elementary school, and it was universally liked. Some kids liked the action, some kids liked the cute little dino.

I like wordless titles because I think they stretch a kid's deduction and comprehension skills. Also, they are a welcome break for a kid who struggles with reading. You want that kid to keep holding books and turning pages until the reading skills firm up.

And now this title is due to become even more appealing to kids:

from Cynopsis Kids:

Japanese publisher Kodansha enters into a deal with Korean production house Daewon Media to produce a animated new TV series based on Gon, a non-verbal early 1990s manga series by Masashi Tanaka for air in 2010, per Anime News Network. Gon revolves around a small and cute orange dinosaur. Several years back Sprite Animation Studios, which announced it was at work on a movie version of Gon, but not word on what happened to that endeavor.

Labels: age: Grade1 and up, animals, boy books, graphic novels

Over 'Goodnight, Moon' - Best board books for babies

Our favorite board books:

Hug by Jez Alborough

Moo Baa La La La by Sandra Boynton (gets a special endorsement from Big Friend's ma)

Big Red Barn Board Book by by Margaret Wise Brown

The Very Hungry Caterpillar board book by Eric Carle

Inside Freight Train by Donald Crews

Jamberry by Bruce Degen (the rhythm of this book is really jazzy and the illustrations keep even older children interested)

Touch and Feel: Pets (or any Touch and Feel book) by Nicola Deschamps

Is Your Mama a Llama? by Deborah Guarino. "You are right about that: I think your mama must be a bat!"

Counting Kisses: A Kiss & Read Book by Karen Katz

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin Jr. You know, I have never liked this book, but I am a member of a miniscule minority in this regard.

Baby Faces by Margaret Miller

Yummy Yucky (Leslie Patricelli board books) by Leslie Patricelli

We're Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury

Good Night, Gorilla by Peggy Rathman

10 Minutes till Bedtime by Peggy Rathman. These two books by Peggy Rathman are almost wordless but high on interwoven detail. They both work for a large age range.

Peekaboo Kisses by Barney Saltzberg

Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

Mr. Brown can moo! Can you? by Dr. Seuss

Sheep in a Jeep by Nancy Shaw. Very simple but funny and with a great rhythm plus terrific colored pencil illustrations.

Caps for Sale: A Tale of a Peddler, Some Monkeys and Their Monkey Business by Esphyr Slobodkina. The monkeys say "chee chee chee!".

Dinosaur Roar! by Henrietta Stickland and Paul Stickland. The winner and all-time champion favorite little-kid book in our house.

Tails by Matthew Van Fleet. A new entry in the canon. Lots of touchy, wiggly, shiny features.

Don’t let the pigeon drive the bus! by Mo Willems

And for your next trick... see also my list of Great Books for PreK and Great Books for Kindergarten.

Trainstop by Barbara Lehman - review

Trainstop by Barbara Lehman
I am not always completely gung-ho about Barbara Lehman's books. Oh, I like them myself, and I always spend a little while reading and admiring, and... then I put them back on the shelf. They're just not all that accessible to little kids, and bigger kids usually pooh-pooh them because they're wordless.

But Trainstop is a bit less abstract than The Red Book or Museum Trip. A little girl takes the subway with her parents, and after her parents doze off, the train stops at a beautiful land populated with adorable little people, who are possibly toys.

She gets back on the train, which continues on its regular route, but then is visited by a couple of the tiny people after she returns home.

In her author's note, my fellow Pratt alum Barbara Lehman mentions that she used to work for the Transit Authority, "making books about using the subways to get to school." There's a page in Trainstop that shows the little girl looking excitedly out the subway window as the subway goes through the city, into the tunnel, then out of the tunnel and into the sunny magic world. That's a page drawn by a person who loves the subway - I would recognize that kind of person anywhere.

Labels: age: Grade1 and up, fantasy, picture books, superstar books

Some favorites for Kindergartners

Big Man and I came up with this list just before xmas and I thought I'd share. If you have a kid, select books for kids, or like to read picture books (they're totally underrated!) these are some good ones. I have a board book list too, I'll probably post that next week.

• Chickerella by Mary Jane Auch and Herm Auch. Cool art, and at the end the heroine goes into business with the prince!
• Maxwell's Mountain by Shari Becker and Nicole E. Wong. Excellent for discussing projects and planning and reaching past your boundaries.
• The Great Kapok Tree: A Tale of the Amazon Rain Forest by Lynne Cherry
• Mixed Beasts by Kenyon Cox and Wallace Edwards. Beautiful, witty illustrations, full of little jokes.
• Ruby Sings the Blues by Niki Daly. Gotta be ready to holler along with Ruby if you're gonna read this one aloud.
• The Yellow Balloon by Charlotte Desmatons. Fun for all ages. A bottomless source of story and detail, with no words at all!
• Charlie Cook's Favorite Book by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler. Clever and fun celebration of reading.
• Gakky Two-Feet by Micky Dolenz. The guy from the Monkees writes a book about pre-humans!
• Extinct Files, The: My Science Project by Wallace Edwards
• Josias, Hold the Book by Jennifer Riesmeyer Elvgren and Nicole Tadgell. A little boy in Haiti learns the value of education. Sweet.
• Ellsworth's Extraordinary Electric Ears by Valorie Fisher. Cool-looking and full of vocabulary-building detail.
• Eddie's Garden and How to Make Things Grow by Sarah Garland. A really nice gardening story, with good science mixed in.
• In the Woods: Who's Been Here? (Mulberry Books) by Lindsay Barrett George. All of the Lindsay Barrett George picture books are so amazing. This one shows you how to draw conclusions from details of your surroundings.
• The Monster Show: Everything You Never Knew About Monsters by Charise Mericle Harper. Monsters in underpants, heh heh.
• Prehistoric Actual Size by Steve Jenkins. The best use of Steve Jenkins' collage illustration style I've seen yet.
• The Worm Family (Bccb Blue Ribbon Picture Book Awards (Awards)) by Tony Johnston and Stacy Innerst. Say it loud! We're worms and we're proud!
• SuperHero ABC by Bob McLeod. Faithful to old-style comic book illustration and concept.
• If You Decide To Go To The Moon (Booklist Editor's Choice. Books for Youth (Awards)) by Faith Mcnulty and Steven Kellogg. Facts about space travel and the moon, with an environmental message.
• Harvey Potter's Balloon Farm by Jerdine Nolen. I like everything by Jerdine Nolen, but this trippy little offering is especially sweet.
• Fancy Nancy: Bonjour, Butterfly (Fancy Nancy) by Jane O'Connor and Robin Preiss Glasser. Celebrating individuality and the concept of more is more.
• Captain Raptor and the Moon Mystery by Kevin O’Malley & Patrick O’Brien. Gorgeous paintings and a real page-turner to boot.
• Seen Art? by Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith. Kid goes to MoMA.
• Mommy? by Maurice Sendak. Totally indulgent pop-up book. Spin the mummy!
• The Ravenous Beast by Niamh Sharkey. One of the first books a pre-reader can narrate himself, taking cues from the rhythm of the text and the pictures on the page.
• Wild About Books (Irma S and James H Black Honor for Excellence in Children's Literature (Awards)) by Judy Sierra. What's not to love about a ponytailed librarian in hot pink pants parking her bookmobile at the zoo? The insect haiku is a crackup.
• Henny-Penny by Jane Wattenberg. Shake, rattle, and roll! Use a whole lot of crazy hepcat voices to read this crack-a-lackin' version out loud.
• Dear Mr. Rosenwald by Carole Boston Weatherford. Did you know that the Sears, Roebuck founder funded hundreds of black schools across the South? I didn't.
• Flotsam (Caldecott Medal Book) by David Wiesner. Another wordless, mind-expanding book from David Wiesner, maybe his best so far.
• Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! by Mo Willems. Great role-reversal for kids - they're the ones saying "No!" and you the reader get to have a tantrum in the middle of the book.
• Leonardo, the Terrible Monster (Ala Notable Children's Books. Younger Readers (Awards)) by Mo Willems. Leonardo is a terrible monster because he's bad at it. Sweet without being gross.
• Nothing to Do by Douglas Wood and Wendy Halperin. Celebrating the kind of things kids get up to when their minds are allowed to wander.
• Ruby's Wish by Shirin Yim and Sophie Blackall. Inspiring true story about a Chinese girl who wants more than her traditional role dictates.

Labels: age: PreK - Grade3, picture books, superstar books