Picture Book Reviews

Picture books that have a major character with a disability are hard to find. So are picture books that include people celebrating Easter. These are the books I’m most likely to review. For a quick look at titles, topics, and lists, check the index.

Miss Rumphius: Making the world more beautiful

October 13, 2020

I didn’t read Miss Rumphius when I was young, of course. It came out in 1982, when I was already an adult, but didn’t yet have children. And so the book escaped my notice for many years. And when I first read it, standing in a bookstore, I thought it was sweet and...

Jump-O-Ween: A Halloween party with a sensory kid

October 2, 2020

Li-Li, the sensory kid who stars in Miracle at Bates Memorial, is back! In Jump-O-Ween, the third book in Gin Noon Spaulding’s “Adventure of Li-Li” series, it’s Halloween. Li-Li’s church has borrowed the neighborhood school for their annual Hallelujah Party. It’s full...

All the Way to the Top: A story of the Capitol Crawl

September 19, 2020

I have two things to say about All the Way to the Top. First, this book is important, and every child should have a chance to read it. If you have a picture book shelf, this book should have a place on it. There really isn’t another book like it. Second, All the Way...

The complete list of multicultural Easter picture books

April 4, 2020

For over two thousand years now, people have celebrated Easter with great joy and a dazzling variety of traditions. And it seems natural that the joy and the traditions would find their way into picture books. It would be natural, but it’s not common. When I created...

ADHD in The Ink Garden of Brother Theophane

March 12, 2020

The Ink Garden of Brother Theophane is the story of Theophane, a young monk in a monastery in the mountains of Mourne, in Ireland, in the Middle Ages. Author C.M. Millen doesn’t say that Theophane has ADHD. It would be an absurd thing for her to say, an outrageous...

Joy: A story of disability and depression

January 14, 2020

Joy is a new picture book by Corrinne Averiss, with illustrations by Isabelle Follath. I found it on a list of books that feature characters with disabilities. I was so excited to get a copy. I thought I’d review it right away. But it’s taken me a while to write the...