Be Your Own Backing Band by Liz Prince
The author, Liz Prince, has become a reading staple of late. I have read most (if not all) that is out there (minus a few things she just illustrated). But when I got Be Your Own Backing Band, I felt that Prince might have had one of her best collections yet. But then again, she could probably write a phone book and I would read it. After I finished, I said, “Keep on coming with the cool and goodness!” This is a look at how […]
Once a Wasteland: From Toxic Dump to National Park by Diane Muldrow and Amy Jindra Hodgson
Starting off almost poetically, Once a Wasteland: From Toxic Dump to National Park moves into the facts quickly. Everything is laid out in simple, but not simplistic terms. The overall tone is good, it allows you to access a piece of history and the extras allow the book to grow with the reader. However, “points” are lost due to the fact environmental stories are not new, it was not necessarily told in a new manner and I had questions that were not answered, such as […]
Unbreakable: A Japanese American Family in an American Incarceration Camp (A Picture Book) by Minoru Tonai, Jolene Gutiérrez, and Chris Sasaki
When you read as many picture books as I do, once in a while one of two things (or both) can happen. The first is you think you’ve read it before (or at least a sample) or things start to feel similar due to similar subjects. A subject I am interested in are the Japanese-American internment camps from World War II. This is partly because I have family who is Japanese-American and when I realized this could be them it made it personal (I know […]
Alberto Salas Plays Paka Paka con la Papa: Join the Quest with Peru's Famed Scientist and Potato Expert by Sara Andrea Fajardo and Juana Martinez-Neal
As with several books I was not going to read, Alberto Salas Plays Paka Paka con la Papa: Join the Quest with Peru’s Famed Scientist and Potato Expert by Sara Andrea Fajardo and Juana Martinez-Neal (illustrator) was one of them, but it eventually found its way to my TBR pile as it was on a Best of 2025 Picture Book list. This was the final sign that told me I probably should read it. I was still nervous as when a book gets that hyped […]
While We the People Is All the People: A Picture Book by Howard W. Reeves and Duncan Tonatiuh
While We the People Is All the People: A Picture Book talks about an important subject, I did not feel there was anything new or fresh added. Howard W. Reeves knows what they wanted to say and that comes across. They wanted to show how we are a community, that freedoms belong to all, and in a poetic fashion shows how we can accomplish this. But we have heard similar things before. However, the presentation of the illustrations by Duncan Tonatiuh was interesting and did […]
What Kind of Queen?: A Royal Biography of Drag Queen and Activist José Sarria by Kyle Casey Chu, Andrew W. Shaffer and Cindy Lozito
The subject of being a queer kid in a children’s book, even a picture book, is not new. However, the format of What Kind of Queen?: A Royal Biography of Drag Queen and Activist José Sarria gives things a fresher feeling and makes a relatively unknown person accessible. The extras add to the bigger picture of who and what Jose Sarria was, but before you get there, to the end of Sarria’s life and accomplishments he was a child who knew how to be himself. […]
