Let It Shine
By Ashley Bryan
Atheneum, $16.99
Ages 4-8 years
Taking three familiar spirituals–“This Little Light of Mine,” “Oh, When the Saints Go Marching In” and “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands”–Ashley Bryan makes visual equivalencies to the joy and love that resounds in the words. Collages of construction paper seem to shine in different ways on every page, setting the world afire with golds, yellows and pinks. The best one might be the last, when we see mountains and seas, animals and, yes, even that “little bitty baby,” swirling in front of us. The simultaneous experience on two levels–words and pictures–is strong.
A Friend at Midnight
By Caroline B. Cooney
Delacorte, $15.95
Ages 12-14 years
Sometimes, as families rearrange themselves in divorce and remarriage, adults act unpleasantly. Is forgiveness possible after words like “never” and “hate” have been shouted? This book begins with a striking example of adult bad behavior. (I won’t reveal the plot except to say it’s not sexual in nature.) Only Lily knows what has happened to her 8-year-old brother, and after she rescues him, he makes her pledge to tell no one else. We watch her struggle for months with her hatred for her father: “Hate was a burning wilderness. It occupied her like an army.” This is a churchgoing family, and what Lily hears there about God doesn’t provide easy comfort, though the book is not doctrinally oriented. Caroline Cooney’s Lily is a brilliant observer of family and school life. The resolution is not easy but earned.
Being Muslim
By Haroon Siddiqui
Groundwood, $15.95
Ages 12-15 years
Though this book, from a Canadian publisher, has its share of statistics and quotations, the focus is on being Muslim. What does that feel like, after 9/11? Haroon Siddiqui does a careful job showing how many different points of view there can be within a shared religion. He chips away at any monolithic single interpretation of what the Koran tells us about daily life and takes on such difficult subjects as the Danish cartoons and veil controversies, without anything being too simply wrapped up.
Cowlick
By Christin Ditchfield, illustrated by Rosalind Beardshaw
Golden Books, $14.99
Ages 2-5 years
Long before bed-head became a fashion look, mothers were telling children that those funny, sticking-up pieces of hair were cowlicks. Christin Ditchfield supplies a narrative to match, of a dreamy world where a nearby cow wanders into the house, just to give the boys a midnight kiss. If you can let yourself believe in a tiptoeing cow, you’ll have a lovely explanation for the morning’s peaks and valleys.
17 Things I’m Not Allowed to Do Anymore
By Jenny Offill and Nancy Carpenter
Schwartz & Wade, $15.99
Ages 4-8 years
Would this book teach misbehavior? Children don’t actually get their ideas of mischief from books, but from their imaginative explorations of the world a la Curious George. Imagine what the little girl has just done at the dinner table to merit this sentence: “I am not allowed to give the gift of cauliflower anymore.” This little Ramona clone is fun to follow.
Pierre in Love
By Sara Pennypacker, pictures by Petra Mathers
Orchard, $16.99
Ages 6-8 years
Pierre, a fisherman (and a mouse) is in love, desperately, with Catherine, a ballet teacher (and a rabbit). He smiles “a loopy smile” when he hears her name–or even a word that sounds like Catherine: “aspirin for example, or bathroom.” He’s far gone, though he has not actually spoken to her yet. He leaves secret gifts on her doorstep, gifts that make Catherine’s heart leap “a petit jete.” True love wins out, slowly, but readers won’t mind spending time in the presence of such graceful prose and Petra Mathers’ illustrations of the leaping lovers.
