Lost in the woods — with a wolf
Wolf in the Snow By Matthew Cordell (Feiwel and Friends; 48 pages; $17.99; ages)
The title tells only half the story. This warmhearted, almost wordless picture book also features a girl in the snow. Wearing a red-hooded parka, she comes upon a lone wolf cub on her way home from school during a blizzard. They are both lost and afraid. Forget Red Riding Hood. This encounter is grounded in kindness, reciprocity and gratitude. A preamble introduces the girl’s loving family and the cub’s tight-knit pack, reassuring us of subsequent and sequential rescue. In scratchy pen-and-ink and watercolors, spacious landscapes capture both grandeur and peril. Likewise, intimate panels and saucer-eyed portraits convey the girl’s fortitude and fatigue, caring and courage, resolve and relief. This winner of the 2018 Caldecott Medal underscores the power of illustration to develop a sweetly suspenseful plot, full range of emotion and core belief in getting beyond “me first.”
Hello, Universe By Erin Entrada Kelly (Greenwillow; 314 pages; $16.99; ages 8-12)
Virgil’s down the well. No one knows where he is. That’s the worrisome mystery, driving the back half of this quirky Newbery Medal winner, honored for the most distinguished writing of 2017. With a long build-up, alternating chapters present a quartet of middle-school misfits and explain why they are the way they are. Shy and insecure, Virgil wonders if he will ever master multiplication. Also assigned to the school’s resource room is Valencia — deaf, smart, prone to nightmares and lonely. Kaori is an entrepreneurial psychic, and Chet a bully out of central casting whose cruel act leads to Virgil’s predicament and his guinea pig’s too. Central is the search for Virgil, inner strength and friendship. Add to the mix Filipino folklore and philosophical debate. Coincidence versus fate? Happily, this original and optimistic award winner offers much to ponder and enjoy.
Baby Monkey, Private Eye By Brian Selznick and David Serlin (Scholastic; 192 pages; $16.99; ages 4-8)
Ever see such a long beginning reader? I hadn’t either, at least until now. Enter this inventive hybrid — part picture book, graphic novel, and primer and full-blown homage to film noir. It stars mischievous Baby Monkey, reminiscent of San Francisco’s fictional Sam Spade. Cases involve missing jewels, pizza, nose, spaceship and baby! Throughout is a running sight gag — Baby Monkey trying to get on his pants. Humor runs from tongue-in-cheek to slapstick in fabulously expressive and detailed black-and-white art. Baby Monkey is cheeky, and each of his detective agency’s cases has clever cultural references. Illustrator Brian Selznick revolutionized the traditionally slim picture book with his hefty Caldecott Medal winner, “The Invention of Hugo Cabret.” (More than 500 pages!) Here, with his husband, he stretches the beginning reader in size, subject matter and format. Verdict: Totally successful!
The Night Diary By Veera Hiranandani (Dial; 272 pages; $16.99; ages 8-12)
Sadness permeates this heartbreaking but ultimately hopeful novel that spans from July through November 1947. Twelve-yearold Nisha chronicles those harrowing months in poignant letters to her deceased mother, recounting bad things happening all around. As British rule ends, India is divided into two countries with newly established Pakistan for Muslims. There, Nisha’s partHindu family faces danger and sets off on foot and then by train for the border in a mass migration, today remembered for its enormous scale and sheer savagery. Nisha’s longing for maternal love is palpable. (Mama died in childbirth.) The supporting cast is nothing short of dear — her awkward twin brother, taciturn physician father, elderly grandmother, devoted houseman and brave uncle. This searing novel is not so much about what’s right or wrong with partition but rather what’s right and wrong with people caught in historical crosshairs.
Twelve Days in May: Freedom Ride 1961 By Larry Dane Brimner (Calkins Creek; 110 pages; $17.95; ages 10-18)
Terrorism is not new in America. That’s the big takeaway from this sobering day-by-day account about how 13 civil rights activists travel south to challenge illegal segregation on the buses that cross interstate lines and at bus stations too. The riders are “black and white, young and old, men and women.” Holding to nonviolence, they face down angry mobs, the KKK, hostile police and fire bombs. Emboldened and brave, they suffer beatings and burns. Haunting blackand-white photos both parallel and expand the dramatic narrative. (Check out the kid in a white hood and the smoldering Greyhound.) Pointed captions offer commentary and context. Concluding thumbnails tell more about the Freedom Riders, including John Lewis, the longtime member of Congress from Georgia. As the most distinguished information book of 2017, this Sibert Award winner is a potent vehicle, connecting struggle, progress and work yet undone.
The Girl Who Drew Butterflies: How Maria Merian’s Art Changed Science By Joyce Sidman (Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt; 160 pages; $17.99; ages 10-12)
In 17th century Germany, people thought insects to be evil, and women incapable of serious scholarship. Along comes a curious 13-year-old girl to undermine these assumptions, her extraordinary life explored in this glorious biography that meshes graceful writing, beautiful art, color photographs and focused asides on germane subjects from witch hunts to religion in the 1600s. We learn how early on Merian debunks the Aristotelian idea of spontaneous generation and documents a mysterious life cycle — from egg to caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly. Drawing on her father’s work as an engraver and her stepfather’s as a still-life painter, Merian develops skills that propel her beyond the confines of home and orthodoxy. As a meticulous scientist, passionate artist, restless wife, world traveler, pioneering ecologist and daring feminist, Merian here lays claim to overdue acclaim as we march into Women’s History Month.