Esmé Raji Codell's Blog, page 13

BOO TO YOU! (PICTURE BOOK)

PICTURE BOOK
BOO TO YOU! by Lois Ehlert (Beach Lane)

A raccoon or a squirrel might bite a veggie,
But a cat loves meat, and that makes us edgy.

The mice are planning an autumnal celebration, but guess who they didn't invite? Their nemesis will have to crash that party, but at his peril, as these mice are prepared to scare! Busy collage illustrations camouflage the turquoise torn-paper mice, but nothing can hide the pumpkin seed teeth of the cat against a midnight black background. One part...

THE MONSTEROLOGIST: A MEMOIR IN RHYME (POETRY)

POETRY
THE MONSTEROLOGIST: A MEMOIR IN RHYME "ghostwritten" by Bobbi Katz, illustrated by Adam McCauley (Sterling)

Greasy green lizards
And raw chicken gizzards,
Spell-binding spells
cast by spell-casting wizards.
Dead mice and head lice
and flapping bat wings--
these are a few of my favorite things!

Yes, even Rogers and Hammerstein takes a Halloween hit in this erudite collection of rememberances by one who has spent his life chasing the most famous of creeps. This poem is a good representation of ...

THE YELLOW TUTU (PICTURE BOOK)

PICTURE BOOK
THE YELLOW TUTU by Kirsten Bramsen, illustrated by Carin Bramsen (Random House)
Too-too adorable. While that should probably be the summation line of a review, the degree of darlingness of this book dictates that adjectives go first. When Margo receives a lovely yellow tutu for her birthday, she decrees that the garment is better suited for wearing on her head, and is shocked and wounded when her circle shirks her fashion-forward thinking. Luckily, by putting her true self out t...

REDWOODS (NONFICTION)

NONFICTION
REDWOODS by Jason Chin (Roaring Brook)
In this effective melding of picture book format and nonfiction content, a redwood forest sprouts from a book that a boy finds in a subway station. A Thanks to a fertile imagination, the facts carry him off into the world of the tallest living things on the planet, rising over three hundred feet in the air. Through the perils of a forest fire, encounters with things that creep and leap and soar (follow the little flying squirrel from page to...

S IS FOR STORY and OTHER GREAT NEW BOOKS ABOUT BOOKS AND WRITING

PICTURE BOOK
S IS FOR STORY by Esther Hershenhorn, illustrated by Zachary Pullen (Sleeping Bear Press)

Y is for Your Story,
yours to live and grow,
of all you do,
and where you've been
and where you hope to go.

Well, I have stopped regular hours of the PlanetEsme Bookroom while I pursue my Master's in library science, but I HAD to open it up again today at 2:00 p.m. to celebrate the release of this book with a visit by the legendary author herself, famous not only for her own award-winning work but ...