As promised, Wednesday’s list are for picture books. Whether I see them recommended in library journals, bookish websites, or from my favorite human recommender, Stacey Rattner (the Leaping Librarian), I have favorites and it’s usually because they hit me in the feels.
I was a fan of Guojing when she published Oasis (hint: you might see that on an upcoming list), so when I read The House That Floated, I realized I’m just a big fan of her concepts and art- in this case a wordless picture book.
Khorram is known for his YA and now adult romances but his love, as a Persian of tea, led him to write the picture book that I’ve been waiting so long to pub and it finally arrived in 2025. Tea IS love. I love whimsy as evidenced by other titles on this list and heartfelt. What do you look for in picture books?
A friend forwarded an email a few weeks back to make sure I knew that Sy Montgomery would be somewhat close by. There is a bookstore outside of my general area that has a second location the next state over that’s a scenic drive, but not too far. She knew I would travel for turtles.
For readers for youth, most will know the name Sy Montgomery. She’s written over 80 books about animals and those adventures have taken her all over the world. She’s written picture books, middle grade, and adult books about animals from octopuses to hummingbirds, turtles to tarantulas. I’m a big fan. The collaboration for her latest included illustrator Matt Patterson who would also be at the event as they promoted The True and Lucky Life of a Turtle featuring the real life adventure and misadventure of Fire Chief. But I also wanted the change to hear from Montgomery herself, plus get a bunch of books signed for my outdoorsy niece and nephews and one for myself.
If you haven’t read one of Montgomery’s books, you must. She provides depth, insight, and humor in and around the amazingness of animals. My favorites include: How to Be A Good Creature: A Memoir in Thirteen Animals and What the Chicken Knows.
And the animal adjacent biography of Temple Grandin.
The drive to Vermont from my city on the eastern edge of New York was magical as the leaves have already begun to change, and I even had a little extra time to stop at a few cemeteries (I am a taphophile after all). What a lovely afternoon to spend among author and illustrators and books learning about animals and from each other.
I reference often my love of books about animals. I have favorite authors like Sy Montgomery that bring the magic of animals with the science. But there are also plenty of other titles that highlight a connection or relationship with an animal that changed a person’s perspective or others that provide an overarching appreciation for animals’ contributions to the world. I wanted to share a few recent reads that highlight these exact sentiments from a nonfiction picture book about sea turtles to a hare that shifted Dalton’s worldview.
A surprising read was Hall’s Slither: How Nature’s Most Maligned Creatures Illuminate Our World. If you remember my post about our public library’s summer reading kickoff, I held a big snake around my shoulders. This was a first because I have a reasonable/unreasonable fear of them and wanted to find a way to start recognizing the beauty of the animal in a safe environment. Hall provided science and story in equal measure.
It’s National Book Lovers Day. What are you doing today?
So far I’ve visited my indie bookstore to buy a favorite picture book (Big Enough by Regina Linke), stopped at my local public library to pick up books for my son and me (he had a hold list of about twenty-five manga titles that he’s taking camping next week), and read (Slither: How Nature’s Most Maligned Creatures Illuminate Our World by Stephen S. Hall).
I’ll also squeeze in time to stare at my bookshelves.
How else can you learn about amazing human beings than with the perfect blend of fact and storytelling and illustration? Picture book biographies are where it’s at. I love learning about people I didn’t know about and others that I did know. Maybe it’s a musician, a children’s book publisher, or a computer. Either way. I’m glad they exist.
I had mentioned in my Love: YMAs post a few of my favorite award winners and honorees including John the Skeleton. It’s a quirky book– in part because it’s a translation? Maybe. But also because it’s odd to write about a “retired” science classroom skeleton going to live with a set of grandparents. It got me thinking about how much I enjoy a quirky book– on my Goodreads shelf, they’re called “offbeat”. To me, it constitutes a book that is unlike anything written in topic, style, mood, tone, plot, or characterization. What might be quirky to me, might not be quirky to you, so I’ll let you decide after I highlight five.
Jeffrey Eugenides’ The Virgin Suicides remains in my top five books of all time. I recently reread it and realized just how much I adore the narration of the Lisbon girls’ demise in their house from the vantage point of neighborhood boys. This is in addition to the fact that all of the girls commit suicide by the end of the story and thus lending itself to the melancholy mood that is so direct in so few pages.
Henry Hoke’s Open Throat is another vantage point that’s wholly puzzling– a mountain lion in the hills of Hollywood. Yup. Making scathing work of judging humankind.
David Sedaris wrote and Ian Falconer illustrated Pretty Ugly, a picture book with the goofiest and sweetest twist at the end. The style, the character, the entire premise is quirky but oh so lovely by the time you close the book.
Ian X. Cho’s Aisle Nine made it into the top five finalists for the Morris Award this year. I’ve never read anything with as much zest and disdain for life than Jasper and the alien creature that lives in his apartment with him while he works a dead end job as a supermarket that’s a portal from hell. I couldn’t help but make a puzzled face through most of it with a little Mona Lisa smile.
Jackie Morse Kessler’s final book in her Riders of the Apocalypse series called Breath brought a unique approach to the series in which a contemporary teen embodied a horseman as a way to understand an issue they were faced with.
Lauren Destefano’s Wither was the first in a Chemical Garden trilogy that I got in to. The premise was a medical dystopia with intense characters in an unflattering situation that was creepy and got creepier as the trilogy moved forward.
Blogging each day during a month has been a fun adventure to challenge me and I’ve decided February is a LOVE-ly month for another round using the theme of love. Have an idea for a post? Drop it in the comments.
This past Monday was the premier event in children and teen publishing: the Youth Media Awards. While it will undoubtedly look different next year without having a midwinter conference beforehand, it will continue to be an event to be viewed. It’s where winners of big awards that add seals to books get announced to the gasps, claps, and exuberance of all who are watching. There are years I’ve been “in the room” and years like this year that I was watching the livestream making audible noises and shaking my hands in celebration. Here were the titles that I was most excited to see come across the screen either because I devoured them (not having known about them previously in the days following the YMAs or precisely because I loved them leading up to the YMAs).
It’s that time of year! Where readers, social media influencers, publishers, libraries, and anyone related to books share their best books. I’m no different. Though my years-end lists always feature books published in that year, not what was read in that year. This year I’ve settled on four categories: picture books, middle grade, young adult, and adult. I decided not to organize by format or genre but instead on audience. Here are my favorite picture books from 2024. Favorites because of their message, their art, and the way the art and words meld.
On November 24, 2023, I posted Over this next year that explained a challenge I was embarking on to read forty books that had affected me since I was turning forty. Challenge complete.
Pacing myself throughout the year, I listened to some of the books and read others but I did purchase a few of the titles that I hadn’t previously owned. As I read each one, I flipped it to show my progress over the year.
Ultimately, a few of them will not remain on my shelf because that’s the thing about rereading books, it’s not always the same the second time around. But I’m glad for it because it shows I’m not the same person. Tastes and interest shift in books the same that it does with food or decorating or clothing. That’s to be celebrated and one of the reasons I wanted to undertake the reflective practice of rereading because I rarely reread and prefer to remember the feelings about the books rather than the content. What I learned:
Mood as a literary device is important to me a reader. The books that remain impactful are a direct result of the book’s atmosphere such as The Virgin Suicides, The Girl From the Other Side, and Mudbound.
Nonfiction, especially food memoir, literally takes the cake. Read: Crying in H Mart and Dessert Can Save the World. But books about food are right next to them like Chicken Every Sunday, First Bite, and Lessons in Chemistry.
The classics on my list didn’t hold their own unfortunately. Sorry Brave New World, The Catcher in the Rye, and Jane Eyre. But neither did the epic first book in the Mayfair Chronicles The Witching Hour, though I heart Anne Rice forever and always.
Strong, whip smart, sassy, or otherwise memorable characters are hard to forget. Benny from Circle of Friends, Naomi from Out of Darkness, Maddie from A Northern Light, Lena from Between Shades of Gray, Anne from Anne of Green Gables, Melinda from Speak, Carey from If You Find Me, Charlotte from The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, and Hazel from Anatomy: A Love Story.
Significantrelationships tug at my heartstrings which is why I carry a torch for all of the creatures in The House In the Cerulean Sea and Saga; the dystopian community in The Giver, Werther opining in The Sorrows of Young Werther, the ultimate friendship trio in The Serpent King, and the whole crux of what Turkle stands for in Reclaiming Conversation. And as long as there will be star-crossed lovers, there will be Edward and Bella from Twilight.
Innovative formatting or a unique approach to storytelling keep me thinking about a book long after I’ve finished it. Think The Lovely Bones‘ from beyond the grave, mental illness in Challenger Deep, Long Way Down‘s mystery elevator, Crank‘s verse, The Vagina Monologues‘ well, monologues, Milk and Honey‘s Instagrammable poetry and illustrations, the library in The Midnight Library, and Calvin and Hobbes‘ daily and Sunday strips.
Picture books say so much without having to say much at all. This is where pictures speak a thousand words and the author creates the write words to allow the pictures to shine which is why Farmhouse and My First Day by Quang and Lien were on my list. Both I’ve gifted several times over.
And let’s just say I ripped a page right out of The Power of Moments to create this personal challenge, which is why I’ve relished this project over this last year; celebrating book love by reading Book Love, which was a gift from a friend. I couldn’t have asked for a more fulfilling opportunity and urge others to find a moment to reflect on your own reading journey– whether it’s been a few months or years or a lifetime.
Readers Be Advised 