picture book recs (round 6)

Happy 3 years of intentionally reading picture books, to me!

Wanna guess how many kids' books I've read during that time?

(Answer is at the bottom of this post.)

***

I noted last blogpost that people keep sharing with me links to lists of multicultural picture books and similar, which I appreciate the thought behind (it is Known that I am reading lots of picture books to select ones to buy for the nibling), but at this point I have heard of (if not read) most all the books that show up on those lists, so I was so pleased to come across Minh Lê‏'s "Best Picture Books of 2017" where I had heard of almost none of the books AND at-a-glance it appeared to be a diverse author pool. I had gotten through 7 of the 19 categories in the last roundup. I have now gotten through an additional 3. [My intention is to power through the remainder by the end of 2018. Yes, I know that's a lot of books for this Winter Break; the floor of my bedroom is very aware.] A couple I really liked:

• The Book of Mistakes written & illustrated by Corinna Luyken [one of the Best on Creativity]
• Claymates written by Dev Petty & illustrated by Lauren Eldridge [one of the Best on Creativity]

I also came across Taylor Pittman's "17 LGBTQ-Friendly Books To Read To Your Kid In Honor Of Pride" -- which actually had a lot of books I hadn't read, including books I hadn't even heard of. New-to-me books I particularly appreciated:

• From the Stars in the Sky to the Fish in the Sea written by Kai Cheng Thom & illustrated by Kai Yun Ching and Wai-Yant Li
• Prince & Knight written by Daniel Hack & illustrated by Stevie Lewis
• Princess Princess Ever After written & illustrated by Katie O'Neill

I also finally read Juneteenth picturebooks -- none of which I loved, but I would recommend reading some to your kids since especially amongst us non-Black Americans, this piece of our history is often unknown.

• Juneteenth written by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson and Drew Nelson & illustrated by Mark Schroder is a solid, child-appropriate, overview of Juneteenth.

In the lesser-known-African-American-history vein, I also liked

• Ruth and the Green Book written by Calvin Alexander Ramsey & illustrated by Floyd Cooper

The nibling is growing up in Florida, so I also read a lot of picturebooks about life in the water (drawing heavily on a "sea the oceans" GoodReads shelf I'd come across, though most of the ones I liked best came from Horn Book recs), including mermaids. Apparently I only liked 1 enough to actively rec it?

• Shark Lady: The True Story of How Eugenie Clark Became the Ocean's Most Fearless Scientist written by Jess Keating & illustrated by Marta Álvarez Miguéns [second tier]

I had been feeling like I'd read basically all the cool progressive board books and was gonna have to transition out of board books into gifting M other stuff -- and then Betsy Bird did a Top 100 Board Books Poll. My favorites (of the ones I didn't nominate myself):

• Baby 123 written & illustrated by Deborah Donenfield [N.B. this one is unfortunately out of print -- though I got some good copies from thriftbooks on eBay]
• Edible Colors written & illustrated by Jennifer Vogel Bass
• I'm a Librarian (A Tinyville Town Book) written & illustrated by Brian Biggs -- it's a gay male librarian, okay; I am fond
• My Friends written & illustrated by Taro Gomi

I was also already interested in checking out more of the Lil' Libros series (a Spanish-English board book series drawing on Mexican culture for its contents in both subject matter and illustration style). I didn't actually love them as much as I was hoping to, but I did like:

• Guadalupe: First Words/Primeras Palabras: A Bilingual Picture Book
• Los Tres Reyes Magos: Colors - Colores: A Bilingual Book of Colors

After someone I follow RTed a thread about a culturally clueless Kirkus review of Where's the Potty on This Ark?, I checked out Kar-Ben's catalog. My favorites of the ones I read:

• Talia and the Rude Vegetables written by Linda Elovitz Marshall & illustrated by Francesca Assirelli
• One Good Deed written by Terri Fields & illustrated by Deborah Melmon
• Rosie Saves the World written by Debbie Herman & illustrated by Tammie Lyons
• And There Was Evening, and There Was Morning written by Harriet Cohen Helfand and Ellen Kahan Zager & illustrated by Ellen Kahan Zager -- okay, I'm really meh on the text of this book, but I've shown off the illustrations so much that I have to include it

Not really on purpose, I ended up reading a bunch of books on emotions/difficult issues:

• I'm Sad written by Michael Ian Black & illustrated by Debbie Ridpath Ohi [second tier?] [With the caveat that I'm uncomfortable with the author's "redemption is hard to find" stance on the occasion of Louis CK's "comeback," and I'm not convinced how much he's learned from the pushback he got.]
• Something Happened in Our Town: A Child's Story about Racial Injustice written by Marianne Celano, Marietta Collins, and Ann Hazzard & illustrated by Jennifer Zivoin [second tier?]
• Allie All Along written & illustrated by Sarah Lynne Reul -- on anger

Other recs:

• The Christmas Miracle Of Jonathan Toomey written by Susan Wojciechowski & illustrated by P.J. Lynch
• Little Skeletons / Esqueletitos (Countdown to Midnight / Un Libro Para Contar en el Día de los Muertos) written & illustrated by Susie Jaramillo [accordion style board book]
• You Are Stardust written by Elin Kelsey & illustrated by Soyeon Kim [second tier]
• Octopus Opposites written & illustrated by Stella Blackstone and Stephanie Bauer [board book] [second tier?]
• A Big Mooncake for Little Star written & illustrated by Grace Lin [loosely the Mid Autumn Moon Festival]

***

The answer to how many kids' books I've read in 3 years?

730 -- I think.

I discovered the GoodReads export library function, but it left a LOT of the Date Read cells blank (I have no idea what that glitch is), which made cutting the data to just the date range I wanted more challenging. It puts all your shelves for a given book in a single cell, but that was easily solved by running a COUNTIF.

=COUNTIF(Q2:Q985,"*picturebooks*")