How to use this Page

Take a look at our selection of hot new releases and popular kids' books and let us know which titles and covers catch your eyes. There are so many amazing new kids books coming in 2016!

Roar! Written and illustrated by Julie Bayless Running Press Kids     10/13/2015 978-0-7624-5750-2 32 pages      Age 4—8 “It is nighttime in the savanna, which means that it is time to play for one rambunctious lion cub! The cub tries to make new friends with the hippos and the giraffes, but roaring at …

The Perfect Percival Priggs
Written and Illustrated by Julie-Anne Graham
Running Press Kids       5/26/2015
978-0-7624 -5506-5
32 pages      Age 4—8

“Percival Priggs wants to be the perfect child in order to please his seemingly perfect parents. But even when Percy gets his family into a mess of a situation, his parents’ love for him remains absolute perfection.” [front jacket]

Review

“Percival Priggs was perfect.
His parents were perfect.
His grandparents were perfect.
Even his pets were perfect.”

Wow! The Priggs are a tremendously perfect family. This puts a lot of pressure on young Percy to be perfect in everything he does. Both parents are professors with shelves of awards between them. Percy has his own shelf that is nearly as filled with shiny trophies and perfect straight-A report cards. But Percy is finding it is tiring to be so perfect all of the time. If he told his parents this, would they love him any less? Percy is afraid they might, and so he keeps his feelings to himself.

One weekend, Percy has so many competitions to complete he has no idea how he will ever finish on time. He isn’t thrilled about many of the competitions he is entered in, but he must to find a way to finish perfectly before the weekend is over. Percy comes up with a plan to finish faster, only making one small miscalculation . . . that sends everything into a disastrous cavalcade of humorous tumbles. He just knows his parents will be furious. What will happen to Percival Priggs now that he is no longer a Perfect Percival?

I love this story. How many of us think we must be perfect and perform all our duties perfectly, never giving ourselves a break? Count me in. Yet, what does that teach our children? I love that Percival’s parents finally open up to their son, showing him that they were never always perfect (and maybe still not). This takes a load off young Percy’s shoulders. The illustrations (pen and ink on drafting film, with textures and backgrounds in Photoshop), are goofy with an old-fashioned sense of style and are extremely appealing. Oddly, there are words embedded in the character’s head, face, and eyeglasses (which all three wear). I’m not sure, but are these people so intent on perfection that they actually were their thoughts? It is an interesting idea and illustration technique.

I love the message from these two imperfect parents: They love Percy for who he is, not what he wins, and they keep on trying for perfection because they love what they do, not because they want to be perfect. They let Percy off the hook, telling him to find out what it is he loves to do, and then do that, no matter the imperfections or failures he will encounter along the way. Percy does just that in a humorous attempt to find out what he loves to do.

Roller-skating . . . nope, he falls too much. A rock star . . . well, no, not a rock star. In the end, Percy’s trophy shelf is as full as ever, but looks a whole lot different. It starts representing the real Percy. And his best trophy, the one he adores the most? Nah, not telling. Read The Perfect Percival Priggs to find out.

THE PERFECT PERCIVAL PRIGGS. Text and illustrations copyright © 2015 by Julie-Anne Graham. Reproduced by permission of the publisher, Running Press Kids, Philadelphia, PA.

Purchase The Perfect Percival Priggs at Amazon—Book Depository—IndieBound Books—iTunes Books—Running Press Kids.

Learn more about The Perfect Percival Priggs HERE.

.

Find The Perfect Percival Priggs Activity Pack HERE.

.

Meet the author/illustrator, Julie-Anne Graham, at her website: http://www.julieannegraham.com/
.           .  Twitter: @Ja_Illustrator
Find more picture books at the Running Press Kids’ website: http://www.runningpress.com/rpkids
.             . Running Press Kids is an imprint of Running Press Book Publishers, and a member of the Perseus Group.

.

Copyright © 2015 by Sue Morris/Kid Lit Reviews. All Rights Reserved

.

Full Disclosure: The Perfect Percival Priggs by Julie-Anne Graham, and received from Running Press Kids, (an imprint of Running Press Book Publishers), is in exchange NOT for a positive review, but for an HONEST review. The opinions expressed are my own and no one else’s. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Coming May 26th, from Running Press Kids:
Butterfly Park
by Award-Winning Author/Illustrator Elly MacKay

Running Press Kids is teaming up with select blogs to promote a very special picture book artist, Elly MacKay. Elly MacKay creates paper worlds inside a miniature lightbox theater, and turns those worlds into picture books. The images in her upcoming picture book, BUTTERFLY PARK, are nothing short of breathtaking. Let others know about Elly MacKay and her tour @Twitter: #ButterflyTrail

“Once there was a girl who loved butterflies. And when she moved to a new town, she felt lucky to find a place nearby called Butterfly Park! But when she opened the gate, there were no butterflies to be found.

“The girl tried to catch some butterflies and asked neighborhood children to help bring them to Butterfly Park. But to their disappointment, the butterflies didn’t stay. As the entire town got involved, they finally realized what they needed to do. Together, the girl and her community planted flowers in Butterfly Park, and in time, the butterflies came.” [publisher]

Running Press Kids has put together a special illustration tour, each Tuesday, leading up to the late May release date of Butterfly Park. Why an illustration tour, and not a “normal” book tour? MacKay used her acclaimed paper-cut artwork, giving each spread a 3-dimensional look. While knocking on neighbors’ doors, looking for help, the kids look like they could dance right off the page. Paper-cut art must be a tedious labor of love. The result is a magnificent picture book, with a final 4-page spread worthy of framing. The book jacket is also a poster of flowers that entice butterflies. To WIN YOUR OWN COPY of Butterfly Park, all it takes is a comment. Winner announced on Monday, May 11th.

Well, this is an image reveal, so here it is, the left half of spread number ten:

It took them up and down through the town.
Curiosity grew. Windows and doors began to open.

“Centered on the park’s elaborate art nouveau gateway, MacKay’s lyrical paper collage and diorama constructs feature layered details and out-of-focus backgrounds for a sense of depth. Brightly patterned butterflies, delicate flowers, and human figures pose like gracefully off-balance dancers…. Worthy of theme and equally pleasing to the eye and the spirit.”
~~Kirkus Reviews

“MacKay’s artwork recreates the feel and pleasure of Edwardian-era illustration, and lovers of picture book fantasy will embrace it.”
~~Publishers Weekly

Butterfly Park
Written and Illustrated by Elly MacKay
Published by Running Press Kids
978-0-7624-5339-9
May 26, 2015
38 pages             Age 3 +

Also by Elly MacKay

If You Hold a Seed

Shadow Chasers

..

..

..

..

..

..AWARDS

If You Hold a Seed

2014 Blue Spruce™ Award Nominee – Ontario Library Association
2013 Best Bets Top 10 Picture Books – Ontario Library Association
2013 Best Books List (preschool—early elementary) – Atlanta Parent Magazine

Shadow Chasers

2014 Best Books of the Year (children—teens) – Amazon Canada

About Elly MacKay
Elly MacKay is the author and illustrator of If You Hold a Seed and Shadow Chasers. She attends Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, and now her artwork is sold around the world, including her Etsy.com shop, Theater Clouds.

Website: http://ellymackay.com
Facebook: http://facebook.com/theaterclouds
Twitter: @TheaterClouds

Here is the schedule for Ms. MacKay’s tour:

Butterfly Trail Blog Tour Page

4/07  The Unconventional Librarian  http://bit.ly/TheUnconventionalLibrarian

4/14  The Geo Librarian   http://bit.ly/TheGeoLibrarian

4/21  Mom Read It   http://bit.ly/MomReadIt

4/28  Mother Daughter Book Reviews  http://bit.ly/MotherDaughterBookReviews

5/05  Kid Lit Reviews   ♥ YOU ARE HERE

5/12  Unleashing Readers     http://bit.ly/UnleashingReaders

5/19  The Childrens Book Review  http://bit.ly/TheChildrensBookReview

5/26  RELEASE DAY!  Click to purchase Butterfly Park early 

Pass this post on. Help Award-Winning-Author Elly MacKay get the word out about Butterfly Park:  TWEET:  #ButterflyTrail

Running Press is a member of the Perseus Books Group.

Twitter:  @rp_kids

Recently I had the pleasure of attending the AAP Tri-State Book Buzz for Children’s and Teen Librarians here in NYC.  This is an event where a whole heaping helpful of publishers gather together to do a kind of massive librarian preview for folks like myself.  It’s a mix of big folks (Macmillan, Random House, etc.) and smaller houses you might not hear from otherwise.  With that in mind, I’ve either already attended or am about to attend some of the big guys, so I’ll leave them off of this particular preview.  Additionally, I had a meeting in the morning of the Book Buzz day so those publishers who just happened to present anything prior to 1 p.m. pretty much fell off of my radar.  Sorry, guys!

Even though I only spent a small portion of my time at the Book Buzz I’m just going to highlight the books that caught my particular attention.  Because honestly there were some truly interesting titles on display.  Here’s just a small sampling of what I happened to see. First up:

Sourcebooks 

 Changes: A Child’s First Poetry Collection by Charlotte Zolotow, ill. Tiphanie Beeke (9781492601685)

This year (2014) I had a great deal of difficulty finding good poetry books.  Honestly, at times it felt like I was pulling teeth to find anything halfway decent.  This shouldn’t be so hard!  So I was keeping a very sharp eye out for anything verse-like.  I was quickly rewarded by this, the first collection of ALL of Zolotow’s seasonal poetry.  You remember Ms. Zolotow, yes?  Worked under Ursula Nordstrom?  Mother of Crescent Dragonwagon?  Yep, well I’ve always been a fan of her book Seasons as illustrated by Erik Blegvad so this is just a natural follow-up.  It’s coming out in the same year when she would have celebrated her 100^th birthday. If the illustrator (Tiphanie Beeke) looks somewhat familiar that may be because she was behind that rather lovely little book Fletcher and the Falling Leaves which came out a couple years ago.

Fairy Tale Reform School: Flunked by Jen Calonita (9781492601562)

On the middle grade side of things we have Fairy Tale Reform School: Flunked by Jen Calonita.  Written by the author of  the YA novel Secrets of my Hollywood Life the premise behind this one is that when a villain is vanquished in a tale it’s time for them to go to reform school.  Our heroine is a normal girl who lives in a shoe with her siblings and is so poor that she’s forced to steal.  One thing leads to another and the next thing she knows she’s in a reform school where all the teachers are former villains.  Kinda writes itself, right?

This Book is Gay by James Dawson (9781492617822)

I don’t cover YA usually but for this book I shall make an exception. It was a little bit difficult to parse but insofar as I could tell this appears to be a handbook for dealing with sexual identity.  It’s a YA nonfiction title with a forward is by David Levithan and it’s full of sketches, illustrations, and jokes.  As they say, it’s for anyone exploring their own identity.

National Geographic Kids

Why’d They Wear That? by Sarah Albee (forward by Tim Gunn) (9781426319204)

Now see, the reason I like National Geographic Kids is that they’re reliable.  Take Why’d They Wear That?, for example.  You know what you’re getting here, even if you don’t know the details.  Mind you, the details are where all the good stuff is.  Chronicling the history of the world through the lens of fashion, the book covers everything from the Syrian warriors who rode into battle in fishnets to an Archbishop of Canterbury who wore a hair shirt so full of bugs that they left his body and flew into the cold when he was assassinated.  From togas to mini skirts, this book talks about clothing and explains why folks wore one thing or another with plenty of historical context.

Untamed: The Wild Life of Jane Goodall by Anita Silvey (9781426315190)

I think I heard about this book a little while ago and got very excited . . . until I realized that it wasn’t coming out until 2015.  Fortunately that year is breathing down our neck and so tis nigh! Nigh, I say, nigh!  From her childhood in WWII England to the jungles of Gombe this book covers everything Jane related.  Riveting and full of images (including the photography of Michael Neugebauer) this has lots of great content from the field.  It’s the most up-to-date title out there for kids.  At least for an older readership.

Dirtmeister’s Nitty Gritty: Planet Earth by Steve Tomecek (9781426319037)

Steve Tomecek, the Executive Director and founder of Science Plus, Inc., and Digger his prairie dog sidekick talk all about dirt.  Or, put another cuter way, dish the dirt on dirt.  Tomecek had a New York Kids show on WNYC radio in New York City for eight years so he’s old school.  In his book, Fred Harper from Marvel illustrates multiple peppy comic book sections that start off each chapter.  Inside you’ll find DIY experiments, facts, and science bios along with lots of STEM connections.  Happy science stuff.

How to Speak Cat by Aline Alexander Newman and NPR’s Dr. Gary Weitzman (President of the San Diego Animal Humane Society) (9781426318634)

This would be a companion to the previously published How to Speak Dog.  The dog vs. cat voice in my head wonders which of the two books will sell better.  In any case in this tome you get, amongst other things, an explanation of what the 30 different cat poses mean.  Lots of expert cat training advice is in this one as well.

1000 Facts About the Bible (9781426318665)

You don’t have to be a library in a religious community to appreciate what National Geographic is going for here.  Big and small pieces of information give some great background.  Little facts include the tidbit that David was crowned with a 75-pound crown and, elsewhere, that the blue of the robes mentioned in the text came from sea snails.  Easy to understand words are helped in no small part by the Biblical scholars who were consulted.  Naturally this makes me wonder how long it took them to write the darn thing.  My suspicion: quite a while.

Maddeningly they also teased us with Fall 2015 titles as well.  With that in mind look for . . .

Book of Nature Poetry edited by J. Patrick Lewis

Treasury of Norse Mythology by Donna Jo Napoli

Welcome to Mars by Buzz Aldrin

At this point in the proceedings, mention was made of a magazine I’d not heard of before.  It’s not like I’ve been following the periodical trends for teens and pre-teens since I was one myself.  So to hear that there’s a publication out there called Justine that contains “more teen book reviews than any other magazine” . . . well that’s just downright cool it is. Voila:

Quirk Books

Based out of Philly. A quarter of this little publisher’s output consists of books for kids.  I often say that small publishers just need one book to sustain them for life.  Well Quirk produced Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children so I’d say they’re pretty much good to go.  For, like, ever.  Most of their children’s books coming out in 2015 are just sequels, but there was one adult title that actually caught my eye.

Horrorstor by Grady Hendrix (9781322126760)

A classic horror novel set in a Swedish furniture store, written like an IKEA catalog.

Sterling

Next up, Chris Vaccari, a man clever enough to name drop his local library branch (Kips Bay).  Chris thrives in a BookBuzz atmosphere.  He is calm.  He is at ease.  And yet, all at the same time, he is capable of packing in loads of information about the books Sterling is producing soon.  Case in point:

Good Question: History Series: Did Christopher Columbus Really Discover America? by Emma Carlson Berne (9781454912590)

This is a series that dare to question history.  Particularly useful when we’re talking about that ever so controversial Italian Columbus.

Little Traveler series – How Tiger Says Thank You (9781454914976), How Penguin Says Please (9781454914969) by Abigail Samoun, illustrated by Sarah Watts

These are the latest two books in this series to come out.  I should note though that my librarians are BIG fans of these books.  They’re finding them easy to hand sell and really filling a need for those parents that wish to get their small children interested in other languages.

ABC Universe – done in conjunction with the American Museum of Natural History (9781454914099)

Just consider it an oversized board book for the budding little astronomers in your life.

I’m Not Reading by Jonathan Allen(978-1910126240)

Man. Way back at the beginning of my blogging career, around 2006 I reviewed the Jonathan Allen baby owl book I’m Not Cute.  It’s nice to see the series not only still kicking around but upgrading to a whole new board book form.

Ally-Saurus by Richard Torrey (9781454911791)

Who says only boys get to love dinosaurs?  Yet when Ally starts school she finds she’s the only girl there who’s into dinosaurs.  She is subsequently snubbed by princess lovers (and on this, the 10^th anniversary of Mean Girls).  I know I’ll be looking forward to this.

A Dozen Cousins by Lori Houran, ill. Sam Usher (9781454910626)

The plot is simple: one girl has a dozen boy cousins.  She loves them but they sure do bug the heck out of her.  Nice and multicultural, this is utterly pleasant (and more interesting than a lot of the other “big family” tales out there).

North/South

The Birthday Cake: The Adventures of Pettson and Findus by Sven Nordquist (978-0735842038)

I believe this is a reprint of an older title.  In it, Pettson is a forgetful farmer and his neighbor gives him a kitten named Findus.  So he reads the kitten so much that the cat starts to talk.  In this book it’s Findus’s birthday (which somehow happens more than once in a year).  The dilemma?  Our intrepid heroes need flour for a cake.  To get the flour they need a bike, to fix a tower they need to get into the shed, to get into the shed they need a ladder to get to the sunroof, and so on and such.  Phil Pullman did the blurb for the books and said that it has a folktale feel.  Noted.

Mr. Squirrel and the Moon by Sebastian Meschenmoser (978-0735841567)

If you buy nothing else I mention to you today, buy this.  Show some of the art.  On the endpages you see a boy with his father and one of the man’s wheels of cheese is rolling down the hill and flies into the sky.  Later, a squirrel wonders how the moon got into his tree.  Worried that someone will think he’s the thief he tries to roll it off the tree.  The cheese next gets stuck on a hedgehog and a goat gets stuck in it.  The art is the real lure here.  A-maze-ing.

The Bernadette Watts Collection: Stories and Fairy Tales by Bernadette Watts (978-0735842120)

Turns out, Ms. Watts is beloved in Europe.  They just call her Bernadette there.  In this book you will find thirty-eight timeless tales with an Eric Carle forward.  The result is a book containing pitch perfect, sumptuous backgrounds.

Perseus Books Groups (Running Press Kids)

Go, Pea, Go! by Joe Moshier and Chris Sonnenburg (978-0762456789)

I’ll give ‘em this.  I have never seen a potty book that used peas in some manner.  This book features one such rhyming pea.  He is told by his family to go.  See the world.  A potty chart and stickers are part of the ensemble.

Butterfly Park by Elly Mackay (978-0762453399)

A paper cut artist takes it to the next level.  In this story a girl moves next to a butterfly park and then goes and sees that there aren’t any there.  She then gets the community together to plant the plants that attract butterflies.

My Life in Dioramas by Tara Altebrando (978-0762456819)

In this tale a 12-year-old girl’s family is selling their red barn home.  She’s against this move so she creates dioramas of each room to best preserve her memories.  She also tries to throw a wrench in the works to prevent the sales.  One color illustrated dioramas for each chapter.  Essentially, it’s all about moving forward.

And that was that.  Phew!  I can’t imagine how tricky it would be to organize such a thing.  Many thanks to the folks who presented.  I’ve high hopes for these books.

Title: Frank! Written and illustrated By: Connah Brecon Published By: Running Press Kids, September 30th,  2014 Themes/Topics: running late, excuses, making time Suitable for ages: 3-7   Opening: Frank was late.                         … Continue reading →

The Seeing Stick
written by Jane Yolen
illustrated by Daniela Jaglenka Terrazzini

The Seeing Stick was originally written by Jane Yolen in 1977, and was a recipient of the Christopher Medal in 1978. The book tells the tale of young princess Hwei Ming, whose name, when translated to English, means “the lightless moon on the last day of the month...becoming luminous.” This is a fitting name, for the princess is blind, and enjoys none of what she is given due to the darkness of her world.

"Monks came, of course, with their prayers and prayer wheels, for they
thought in this way to help Hwei Ming to see. Magician-priests came, of course,
with their incantations and spells, for they thought in this way to help Hwei
Ming to see" and Physicians came, of course, with their potions and pins, for
they thought in this way to help Hwei Ming to see..."