Archives de catégorie : Children’s Books

SHOW US WHERE YOU LIVE, HUMPBACK de Beryl Young, illustré par Sakika Kikuchi

This evocative picture book celebrates a child’s connection and kinship with whales.

SHOW US WHERE YOU LIVE, HUMPBACK
by Beryl Young
illustrated by Sakika Kikuchi
Greystone Books, May 2021

Swimming, singing, and blowing bubbles—children and baby whales love many of the same things! This lyrical picture book compares the parent-child relationship with the bond between a mother humpback whale and her calf, showing how their underwater lives are touchingly like our own. Patterned in a call-and-response format, where the mother observes and the child responds, this book is peppered with facts and begs to be read aloud. At the story’s end, acclaimed author Beryl Young and debut illustrator Sakika Kikuchi leave readers dreaming of the wonderful world we share with whales.

Beryl Young is the author of several critically acclaimed and award-winning books for children, including picture books, middle-grade novels, and biographies.Young fell in love with humpback whales watching them swim off the coast of British Columbia and in the warm bays of Hawaii.She lives in Vancouver and has three children and four grandchildren.

Sakika Kikuchi is an illustrator who has loved picture books and stories since her childhood. After studying graphic design at Tama Art University in Tokyo, she worked as an in-house designer for a few years before moving to the UK to complete her MA in children’s book illustration at the Cambridge School of Art. She lives in Japan. This is her first picture book.

THE THOUSAND STEPS de Helen Brain

A smart and pacy dystopian thriller trilogy, in the vein of Divergent, with an original mythology that draws on the power of African ancestor legends.

THE THOUSAND STEPS
(Book 1 in the Elevation Trilogy)
by Helen Brain
Human & Rousseau/NB Publishers South Africa, May 2022 | Catalyst Press USA, January 2020

On the brink of execution, 16 year old Ebba den Eeden is unexpectedly “elevated” from the bunker deep in South Africa’s Table Mountain where she has lived all her life, believing—as do all the other teenagers who toil daily to make their food and power the bunker—that the world « Above » is uninhabitable due to a nuclear holocaust. Instead, she is heiress to a massive fortune―one that everyone wants to control. While dealing with the machinations of the High Priest, his handsome son Hal, and the rules and regulations of a society and religion she doesn’t understand, she must also try to save her three friends, still stuck in the bunker and facing execution any day.

Helen Brain was born in Australia in 1960 and raised in Durban, South Africa. After school, she studied music at the University of Cape Town. Before settling to a life writing and teaching writing online, she was a freelance journalist and editor, a screenprinter and crafter, and taught English, music, and Ancient Greek. A mother to three sons and grandmother to one grandson, Brain lives in Muizenberg, South Africa with her husband.

LION NEEDS A SHOT de Hyewon Yum

A lion family navigates their fears of going to the doctor in this adorable, hilariously relatable companion to Lion Needs a Haircut.

LION NEEDS A SHOT
by Hyewon Yum
Abrams Books for Young Readers, May 2022

Little lion Luka is NOT worried about a visit to the doctor. He’s NOT scared of getting a shot. And he’s definitely NOT a little lion anymore. R-O-A-R! His younger sister, Lulu, might be nervous for her first checkup—but no need to worry, big brother is here to set a brave example. Step by step, he walks her through what will happen, offering encouragement and holding her hand. But when it’s his turn, on second thought, maybe he doesn’t need to see Dr. Brown today; he’s feeling perfectly fine, after all…
This witty, tender story follows two siblings sharing a universal experience together, giving each other courage and realizing that a trip to the doctor’s office isn’t so bad.

Hyewon Yum is the author and illustrator of Lion Needs a Haircut; Grandpa Across the Ocean; Last Night, a Fiction Honorable Mention for the Bologna Ragazzi Award and winner of the Golden Kite Award; There Are No Scary Wolves, winner of the Society of illustrators’ Founder’s Award; The Twins’ Blanket, a Junior Library Guild selection; Mom, It’s My First Day of Kindergarten!, which won the Ezra Jack Keats New Illustrator Award and was selected as a Kirkus Best Book of the Year; and Saturday is Swimming Day, which earned her a Charlotte Zolotow Honor. Yum lives in Brooklyn, New York.

IF NOT US de Mark Smith

Mark Smith’s first standalone young adult novel following his hugely successful Winter trilogy. An impassioned plea for climate change action that will inspire and empower.

IF NOT US
by Mark Smith
Text Publishing Australia, October 2021

Hesse lives in a small coastal town, where a coalmine and power station are a part of the scenery, and a part of the ever-growing problem of climate change. His mother is a member of a local environmental group campaigning to close the mine and shut down the power station. It’s a no-brainer, of course, but Hesse is more interested in surfing—and in Fenna, the new exchange student from the Netherlands. But when someone seems to be trying to derail the campaign, and his friends’ families face losing their jobs, Hesse begins to realise that things are complex. Even though he’s reluctant to step into the spotlight, with Fenna’s encouragement he decides it’s time to make a stand. Because some things are too important to leave to everyone else. And even one small, nervous voice can make a difference. When Hesse agrees to speak at a protest meeting he has no idea of the storm he is about to unleash.

Mark Smith is an award-winning author. He lives, works and surfs on Victoria’s Surf Coast. The first book in his acclaimed Winter trilogy, The Road to Winter, is widely taught in secondary schools and loved by readers of all ages, and Wilder Country, the second book of the trilogy, won the 2018 Indie Book of the Year for Young Adults.

THE FIRST CAT IN SPACE ATE PIZZA de Mac Barnet, illustré par Shawn Harris

A brand-new middle-grade graphic novel series from New York Times bestselling author Mac Barnett and illustrator Shawn Harris, based on the live cartoons for the shelter-in-place Instagram show, Mac’s Book Club Show. It follows an unlikely trio—a bionic cat, toenail-clipping robot, and moon queen—as they race to save the moon from the rats who want to eat it… and maybe find some pizza along the way.

THE FIRST CAT IN SPACE ATE PIZZA
by Mac Barnett
illustrated by Shawn Harris
Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins, Summer 2022

At the beginning of the pandemic, lifelong best friends Mac and Shawn experimented with a new animation format: they made a « live » cartoon, done entirely over Zoom. It was a hit and they serialized it weekly, following the (mis)adventures of a cat who is sent to space to stop rats from eating the moon. He teams up with a stowaway robot and the moon queen and the result is something truly hilarious and special. People (from all 7 continents!) connected deeply with it and Mac & Shawn made their own merchandise, with proceeds going to the Book Industry Charitable Foundation. Publication of the first book is set for summer 2022, with volume 2 to follow in Summer 2023.

Mac Barnett is the New York Times bestselling author of many picture books, including Extra Yarn and Sam and Dave Dig a Hole, both illustrated by Jon Klassen and both Caldecott Honor Award winners. He is also the co-author of the bestselling Terrible Two series with Jory John. Mac lives in Berkeley, California.

Shawn Harris is an artist and musician who lives and works in Half Moon Bay, California. His first picture book, Her Right Foot, by Dave Eggers, was the recipient of seven starred reviews and was an Orbis Pictus Award Honor Book. He is also the illustrator of Dave Eggers’s What Can a Citizen Do? and Colin Meloy’s Everyone’s Awake.