On January 10, 2011 the American Library Association announced the best children’s books and dark horses abounded creating a superlative to-read list like these listed below.
A Sick day for Amos McGee (Roaring Brook, ages 3-6).
Nuanced illustrations show zookeeper Amos McGee’s careful attention to animals. He sits with the shy penguin, his posture mimicking the bird’s, then dabs a rhino’s runny nose. When Amos is sick the text actively describes how his friends miss him while illustrations show their inert, sad postures. Understated colors, detailing and text-picture blending make the real characters.
Clare Vanderpool for Moon Over Manifest (Delacorte Press, ages 9-12)
Twelve-year-old Abilene Tucker always traveled the rails with her father until he sends her to Manifest, Kansas in 1936. A feisty Abilene gets busy uncovering her father’s connection to the town and stumbles on a 1918 mystery. Mystery, action and intriguing characters will engage most readers. Others will thrill at the integration of historical elements like immigration, the Depression and WWI. Still others will be captivated by the subtle humor and twining of two stories.
Kakapo Rescue: Saving the World’s Strangest Parrot, Sy Montomery and Nic Bishop (Houghton Mifflin, ages 7 and up)
This picture and anecdote-laden non-fiction tells “the roller coaster story” of the author and photographer’s ten day view of “the most wondrous of all living birds”. The Kakapo, eight-pound, ground-nesting parrots with feathers that smell like honey, waddle and mate on Codfish Island in New Zealand. This dramatic read has adventure, mystery, sensory descriptions and a bit of kakapo romance!
Eric Velasquez, Grandma’s Gift (Walker, ages 5-9)
Velasquez’ realistic oils and detailed writing evoke a Christmas spent with his Puerto Rican grandmother. Gifts of culture, art, and intergenerational love explain the author-illustrator’s determination to picture a world he never saw in books when growing up.
Adam Rex’s The True Meaning of Smekday (Listening Library, unabridged, 9 CDs, 10 hours-38 minutes, narrated by Bahni Turpin)
Eleven-year-old Gratuity Tucci and the rebel alien J.Lo, rescue the earth from space invaders comes alive with Bahni Turpin amazing performance. Gratuity’s narrative is spiced with sassy attitude and smart moxie, but the show-stealer is Turpin’s J.Lo with his squeaky, stilted-syntaxes, alien-odd word confusions, silly mispronunciations, trills, and clicks.
Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword by Barry Deutsch (Abrams, ages 9-12)
Eleven-year-old Mirka shows the ironies of her Hasidic community. This graphic novel has it all—humor, magic, translated Yiddish and Hebrew, a difficult stepmother, a fast-moving plot and text bubbles that give an elegant picture of Mirka’s complex thoughts and feelings.