“A name. An age. A price. People like you. Like me. For sale!”

This is how Ashley Bryan opens the author’s note of his latest picture book. Years ago, Bryan acquired a collection of documents pertaining to slaves, dating from the 1820s to the 1860s. His inspiration for Freedom Over Me comes from an 1828 document in which 11 slaves were listed for sale by a woman named Mrs. Mary Fairchilds.

No ages are listed in Bryan’s source material, but for the profiles of the 11 slaves that constitute this book, he assigns ages to them, fleshing out their lives via free-verse poems. After opening the book from Mary’s point of view, Bryan brings readers a profile of each slave, followed by another poem about what he or she aspires to and dreams of. Peggy, for instance, is 48 years old, was sold on the block with her mother, was named “Peggy” by the men who took her from Africa and now cooks for the Fairchilds. In “Peggy Dreams,” we read that her parents named her Mariama and that the other slaves call her “Herb Doctor” for the healing root and herb poultices of which she is so knowledgeable. 

Bryan brings the slaves’ innermost pain to detailed life in these poems, and the effect is quite moving. The poems are accompanied by brightly colored pen, ink and watercolor portraits of the slaves, many of which look like stained glass. 

This is a compelling, powerful view of slavery from a virtuoso of the picture book form.

Julie Danielson features authors and illustrators at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast, a children’s literature blog.

This article was originally published in the September 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

The child of books sits on a raft, legs dangling in the water—an ocean composed of lines from classical literature and lullabies. Buoyed on this torrent of tales, the dauntless child leads a boy, her traveling companion, around the globe, through forests and mountains. A metaphor for reading, an entertaining adventure, an intriguing work of art—whatever your interpretation, A Child of Books was written for the child of books in all of us.

Boldly drawn, cleverly detailed and colorful, this is an engaging collaboration between two talented artists. Bestselling author-illustrator Oliver Jeffers is well known for his quirky and delightful picture books, and museum-featured artist Sam Winston makes a memorable literary debut with his typographical landscapes. 

A Child of Books is an “I spy” journey for book lovers, and readers could get lost in the captivating interchange of carefully chosen literary excerpts and original art. Winston and Jeffers insert humor in the details, choosing passages to echo each illustration. Forest-themed tales shape tree branches. Overlapping lines of adventures create a dark, forbidding cave. Lines about legendary monsters come to life as a threatening beast.

This delightful treasure hunt through children’s literature will have you digging through your bookshelves, hunting for forgotten phrases and making room among the tomes for this book.

This article was originally published in the September 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Ross Collins hits the sweet spot of picture books with a story of clever rhymes starring a disgruntled little rodent and a huge squatter of a polar bear who has, sadly enough, taken over Mouse’s chair.

In a brilliant blend of text and endearing drawings, There’s a Bear on My Chair introduces Mouse, a sweater-sporting little guy who longs to sit in his customary spot. Although he admires some of Bear’s qualities—such as his stylish hair and his “fine taste in leisure wear”—Mouse simply cannot support Bear’s taking over his chair. Something must be done. Despite Mouse’s best efforts to lure Bear from his chair, nothing works. He tempts him with a golden pear, jumps out of a box in his underwear and finally loses his temper—all to no avail. Bear stays put.

Only when Mouse gives up and leaves the premises does Bear take notice. He lumbers off the chair and travels far along a snowy peak to his igloo home. There he finds someone (guess who?) snoozing on his bed.

The winning personalities of the two creatures and Mouse’s determination to regain his favorite chair will have little ones begging to hear this laugh-out-loud romp over and over again.

Billie B. Little is the Founding Director of Discovery Center at Murfree Spring, a hands-on museum in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

It’s ambitious and refreshing for an author to write a book for young readers about the silence that lies between the sounds of our loud, media-driven world (known in Japan as ma). Journalist and producer Katrina Goldsaito has done so in The Sound of Silence, illustrated by Julia Kuo.

Young Yoshio lives in Tokyo, a bustling, noisy city. To him, “Tokyo was like a symphony hall!” He loves to roam the streets and take it all in. He likes to hear his boots squish in puddles; he likes to hear his own giggling; and he loves to hear the koto player on the street. When he asks if she has a favorite sound, the musician tells Yoshio that the most beautiful sound is that of silence. That does it for the boy: Once the musician has sung its praises, he is determined to find the silence in his day.

And he tries valiantly: He looks for silence in a bamboo grove, beautifully illustrated by Kuo; as he walks home from school; during dinner at home; during his bath; and more. Giving it one last shot at bedtime, he fails when his eyes get heavy and he falls fast asleep. The boy is disappointed. All he heard all day was noise and more noise, especially since he was hyper-attuned to it. But when he gets to school early the next day and sits there alone, he discovers the silence and, furthermore, discovers that it was always with him: “It was between and underneath every sound.”

Kuo’s pen drawings, scanned into Photoshop, feature fluid lines and the detailed, graceful landscapes of Tokyo. Her busier, more crowded scenes parallel moments in the text where the boy hears noise and struggles to find the silence he seeks. The striking cover, with its pop of color in the middle, seems to show the boy post-discovery, walking along as if he has finally figured out how to find the rejuvenating silence even in the middle of a crowd. An afterword encourages readers to be collectors of sounds.

Meditative and thought-provoking, this one is a keeper.

Julie Danielson features authors and illustrators at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast, a children’s literature blog.

Young and old readers alike will rejoice in the publication of Return, the final volume of Aaron Becker’s trilogy of award-winning wordless picture books. As with Journey and Quest, the series’ ongoing premise continues, as a lonely, bored young heroine draws a door on her bedroom wall with her magic red crayon, escaping into a realm of immense castles populated by a familiar friendly king, a boy with a magic purple crayon and, alas, ominous soldiers giving chase.

What’s new is that this time the girl’s father follows his daughter through her magic door. An artist or architect, he’s been holed up in his upstairs home studio, seemingly frustrated at his drafting table and ignoring his child. A small rounded door rests near a bookcase―likely an entry into imaginary realms that he’s unable to access.

By the time this bearded, booted dad chases after his daughter, she’s not exactly thrilled to see him. All that changes, however, when soldiers attack the king, leading the girl and father to narrowly escape aboard a magical flying creature and then a magic submarine, eventually landing in a cave filled with prehistoric paintings. These paintings provide clues for dad and daughter to collaborate to defeat their attackers in an epic, colorful battle.

Becker’s watercolor, pen and ink illustrations highlight the importance of color, contrasting beige scenes in the family home with bold, brilliant bursts of gold, blue, purple and red in the otherworldly realm. As always, Becker’s imaginary worlds are visual feasts, intricate enough to invite repeated visits from fans of all ages. In contrast, his characters’ faces are purposely plain, inviting readers to assign their own interpretations.

The final illustration is lovely, showing a return to reality, but a reality suggesting that dad and daughter continue to enjoy their newfound magic. Similarly, Return is a crowning capstone to a special trilogy that parents and children will want to share time and time again. It is a marvelous yet beautifully quiet commentary on so many important things: relationships, imagination, ingenuity and creativity.

What perfect timing! Mara Rockliff and Hadley Hooper’s lively nonfiction picture book celebrates a cross-country road trip taken in 1916 by suffragists Nell Richardson and Alice Burke to spread the word about votes for women.

The two women set out from New York City in a little yellow car on April 6, 1916. On their journey to California and back, their luggage included a sewing machine, a typewriter and, yes, a “wee black kitten” (named Saxon in honor of their little runabout made by the Saxon Motor Car Company).

Hooper’s vibrant illustrations convey a delightful retro feel, while effectively capturing a sense of adventure and place. Readers are treated to a suffragist rally, a sun-drenched field with butterflies and birds and a spectacular double-page spread of a blizzard. Rockliff’s prose is just as lively. We follow the two intrepid travelers as their car nearly falls in a hole, chugs through wet sand and, at one point, goes “bump and squelch” before finally getting stuck in the mud.

In addition to a large map highlighting the suffragists’ route, there is a wealth of back matter. In an informative author’s note, Rockliff notes that while Alice and Nell’s “ten thousand bumpy, muddy, unmapped miles” might have been a challenge, the road to achieve women’s suffrage in America was far longer, stretching back to the first organized efforts at the Seneca Falls conference in 1848.

Around America to Win the Vote will be a wonderful complement to classroom discussions during this election year and an important addition to the literature surrounding the upcoming centennial of the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920. The final message for all readers: Vote!

Deborah Hopkinson lives near Portland, Oregon. Her most recent book for young readers is Steamboat School.