Book Frontiers

This picture book by Andrea Davis Pinkney uses the language of food and recipes as a novel technique to describe the Civil Rights movement and sit-ins.  Pinkney quotes from Martin Luther King, Jr., using large, colorful type to emphasize the importance of his words in the development of non-violent protests against segregation.

Pinkney gives a clear sense of the role that sit-ins played in the larger movement.  The book's illustrations work well to show how the movement spread.  Pinkne...

Because I work as a librarian at a Jewish Day School, the students I encounter are well aware of the Holocaust by the time they reach 4th and 5th grades.  Benno and the Night of the Broken Glass by Meg Wiviott will make an excellent addition to our collection on the topic.

Wiviott successfully captures the interest of children in this age group by using Benno the cat as the central...

Linda Glaser provides a gentle introduction to activist Emma Lazarus in her picture book, “Emma’s Poem.”  She introduces to young reader how Lazarus was born into wealth and privilege in the United States.  Coupled with Nivola’s lovely paintings, Glaser clearly conveys how people in Lazarus’s social class were able to read, have parties, collect art, and generally aspire...

The picture book, “Meet Einstein” by Mariela Kleiner, is not quite what the title led me to expect.  I anticipated a kid-friendly biography that introduced some basic facts about Albert Einstein.  Instead, what the book presents is a very, very brief explanation of what a scientist is.

Clearly the author intends for this book to be read to preschool children.  Unfortunately, mo...

In the book, “Sliding Into the New Year,” we gain a wonderful new author of children’s Jewish literature in Dori Weinstein.  She brings a modern, human tone to a story that is both timely and engaging.

The story’s narrator, Ellie Silver, (aka YaYa) speaks in the authe...

Erik Brooks has created a charming demonstration of the concept of opposites in his picture book “Polar Opposites.”  In the process he also manages to define the expression in his title.

Alex is a large, jovial looking polar bear who lives—not surprisingly—at the North Pole.  He is pen pals and friends with Zina, a tiny penguin who lives in Antarctica.  The book provides ...

In an evocative and powerful picture book, Ann Malaspina explains the world of Bangladesh in language that even young elementary students can understand.  And in the process, those students will learn about the transformative power of education.

The narrator, Yasmin, is a young girl who lives with her family in Dhaka.  She and her sister work all day breaking up bricks to be mixe...