Sing it, write it, paint it, weave it, dance it out, “rap it up”! These nine picture books provide all sorts of examples of expressing oneself through the arts. See also our Five Questions interview with Cheryl Willis Hudson and London Ladd about When I Hear Spirituals and The Arts tag in the Guide/Reviews Database.

How to Sing a Song
by Kwame Alexander and Randy Preston; illus. by Melissa Sweet
Primary    Quill Tree/HarperCollins    32 pp.
10/24    9780063060937    $19.99

In their third How to… book, Alexander and Sweet (How to Read a Book; How to Write a Poem, rev. 5/23) collaborate with singer-songwriter Preston to guide readers in tuning in to the world of sound around them. The lyrical text in bold hand-drawn block letters filled with color is prominent on each double-page spread. Beginning with the word hush, the authors invite us to begin by being quiet to “turn up your ears /and listen / to the / concert / happening /all around / you.” We’re encouraged to listen to the sounds of nature such as a “blue jay’s / playful trill” and “trees swaying / and shushing.” From there the poetic text focuses inward, first through breathing deeply, then through tapping feet and snapping fingers, ending with “sing / a song / loud / and strong.” The pacing, vivid language, pleasing alliteration, inventive similes, periodic use of rhyme, and syncopated rhythm create a poem full of sound and music. Sweet’s collage art incorporates musical imagery in waves, circles, swirls, and optical art patterns — full of movement and energy to “make sound visible on the page,” as she states in her end note. Preston contributes an end note as well. The overall impact resonates as a call for young people to find their voice and their power through music and beyond. SYLVIA VARDELL

ARTificial Intelligence
by David Biedrzycki; illus. by the author
Primary    Charlesbridge    56 pp.
10/24    9781623543747    $18.99
e-book ed.  9781632893550    $9.99

This story, dedicated to “all the Amazing Illustrators” who are “the real AI,” follows a daydreaming robot in the bustling factory where he works. The robot feels out of place: an early illustration shows the chip used to create him covered in drops of paint. Though he has “big, colorful, and grand” dreams, he doesn’t know how to express them. When he accidentally wanders outside, he’s surprised to see humans, just as busy as robots: “Everyone was in a hurry.” The robot finds joy in a museum, where he observes a child in a red beret. Later, in a forest, he meets the same child painting and picks up a paintbrush for the first time. He falls in love with the visual arts, though he learns that both making and describing art are “not easy.” Eventually, he shares his newfound passion with his robot friends, and in the end, they’re all creating original art — flipping the usual perception of AI, which is often seen as merely mimicking human creativity. Biedrzycki, celebrating the universal power of art and self-expression, leans on monochromatic and even sepia tones for most of the story, with splashes of vivid colors to represent the robot’s artistic expression in the pencil and digitally rendered illustrations. Imagination knows no bounds. JULIE DANIELSON

Rose Weaves a Garden
by Rashin Kheiriyeh; illus. by the author
Primary    Schwartz/Random    40 pp.
4/25    9780593705100    $18.99
Library ed.  9780593705117    $21.99
e-book ed.  9780593705124    $10.99

Rose’s grandfather is a rug weaver, working mornings in a factory and weaving in the afternoon for friends and family on his at-home loom. Rose loves watching Baba joon’s deft hands tie thousands of knots that become a beautiful garden of wool. Taking inspiration from their own garden, Rose draws a design for a rug, which Baba joon cheerfully agrees to teach her to weave. The two make colorful dyes from the garden — using poppies for red, saffron for yellow, roses for pink, and indigo for blue. Then they dry the dyed yarn in their sunny courtyard. They work side by side, day after day, Baba joon knotting “quickly, quickly” and Rose “slowly, slowly,” until one day he falls ill. Rose decides to finish the half-done rug, envisioning the two of them having tea in the garden together, sitting on the rug after it is completed. When Baba joon gets better, roles reverse as Rose now ties quickly and Baba joon more slowly. Kheiriyeh’s affectionate narrative of intergenerational love, learning, and appreciation of beauty is based on her own experience with her beloved grandfather in Iran and the artistry of his craft. Textured illustrations in oil and acrylics lean into the natural color palette, while details such as furnishings and architectural elements add atmosphere. ARIANA HUSSAIN

Still Life
by Alex London; illus. by Paul O. Zelinsky
Preschool, Primary    Greenwillow    40 pp.
9/24    9780063229556    $19.99

This inventive picture book skillfully merges two art styles to tell a story within a story, visually pushing boundaries. “This is a still life. It is a painting of objects sitting still. In a still life, nothing moves,” declares the (unreliable) artist narrator. That artist is hard at work painting a still life — of a table, fruit and cheese, paper and ink, and a miniature castle — depicted in a rich style full of detail and texture in direct contrast to the cartoonish flair of the narrator’s world. Throughout, the narrator drones on solemnly about the lack of movement in a still-life painting, or of any need to imagine beyond the moment depicted: “There are no eager mice hiding behind the cloth.” Yes, there are, reveals the art, and they’ve left jammy footprints everywhere despite what the artist says. An exciting, separate visual narrative breaks out in the painting, involving a dragon, a princess, and a knight. The story in the still life culminates in a surprise ending, while the narrator departs, still making assertions about the static properties of still-life paintings. The art has moved the plot along, contradicting the text, and attentive readers are left with more to consider about storytelling in art. The dragon and princess turn up in the pattern of the closing endpapers, giving the idea of stillness one last jolt. JULIE ROACH

A Face Is a Poem
by Julie Morstad; illus. by the author
Preschool, Primary    Tundra    48 pp.
9/24    9780735267565    $18.99
e-book ed.  9780735267572    $10.99

“A face is a poem / with all the parts put together, / adding up to someone / you love.” An observant, imaginative speaker offers musings about faces, from the concrete (“the delicate / scratchy hairs”) to the hypothetical (“What if you could change faces every morning, / just to see through someone else’s eyes?”) to the silly (“Even a potato / has eyes!”). The whimsical text is elevated by its thoughtful placement on the page amid the varied, soft-hued mixed-media illustrations. Rows of human and animal eyes punctuate a list of real and imagined potential eye colors. Luminous eyes, and a nose and mouth made of stars take up a full spread, giving way to faces arranged in an inclusive patchwork and then to one bordered by Picasso-esque “rearranged” visages. In a few illustrations, lines of dialogue emanate from small faces or figures, but the emphasis is always on what’s being observed about faces. Fans of Julie Fogliano (recently All the Beating Hearts, rev. 1/23) might especially enjoy this meditation on noticing what’s in front of — and, in this case, part of — our faces. SHOSHANA FLAX

Soul Step
by Jewell Parker Rhodes and Kelly McWilliams; illus. by Briana Mukodiri Uchendu
Primary    Little, Brown    48 pp.
6/24    9780316562713    $18.99

“STOMP, CLAP, / FLIP, FLAP, / GO HARD, / SNAP BACK!” A rhythmic refrain immerses readers in step, an age-old African American tradition that includes stomping, clapping, singing, chanting, cheering, and careful choreography. A brown-skinned African American girl, who wears a big Afro puff, lives with her mom in a neighborhood where “not many people look like us.” When police officers profile Mama or a white woman tries to touch her hair, Mama goes home, dons her dancing boots, and “gets to what she calls ‘steppin’.’” When the daughter asks why stepping makes her feel better, Mama sends her to three different strong Black women: a sorority sister, an auntie, and a Black Lives Matter community organizer. The girl learns that step originated in slavery, when people used the only instruments they had (their bodies), and that it flourished when Black sororities and fraternities on college campuses made it integral to their traditions. Uchendu’s digitally created illustrations convey a sense of perpetual motion; the joyful color palette abounds in yellow, orange, red, purple, and, of course, pink, a prominent color worn by women of Alpha Kappa Alpha, the sorority highlighted in the book. Celebrating Black history and sisterhood, this story brings awareness to an art form rarely performed outside of African American communities. Like step, this tale should be enjoyed and shared. MICHELLE H. MARTIN

I Am Wriggly
by Michael Rosen; illus. by Robert Starling
Preschool    Candlewick    32 pp.
8/24    9781536231298    $14.99

Some stories encourage quiet listening, but books can also call for moving around and being silly. This latest I Am installment (I Am Happy; I Am Hungry) centers on a wide-eyed pink bunny with a lot of pent-up energy to release. “I am wriggly. REALLY wriggly. Wriggly, wriggly, wriggly.” Spot art shows this energy building as the narrator begins to shimmy, tap its feet, and then start hopping. The activity ramps up from there. The creature wriggles its body and then starts adding toys, utensils, and furniture into the game. By the end, the combination of narrative action and increasingly colorful and lively mixed-media illustrations shows this bunny working itself into a frenzy of wriggles: “I can’t stop wriggling, I can’t stop giggling.” The situation finally peaks, and the rabbit suddenly recognizes that it can stop when it wants and take a little rest. An opening “Note to Grown-Ups” encourages using this story to initiate play and explore language with children as a means for self-expression. From start to finish, the snappy text and large, bold art effortlessly facilitate audience participation through prompts for physical activity and verbal engagement. A smart choice for a wriggly toddler storytime or for anytime when releasing some extra wriggles might lead to better self-awareness and an expanded way to appreciate books. JULIE ROACH

Afloat
by Kirli Saunders; illus. by Freya Blackwood
Primary    Levine/Levine Querido    32 pp.
3/25    9781646145072    $18.99

Saunders, a member of the Gunai people, writes about weaving, water, and wisdom in this picture book first published in Australia. The spare and straightforward text describes yarning, which can refer both to fiber arts and to storytelling. “We are here to collect the vines. Here to find the rushes, to fuse the fibers…to soak and split. To roll between finger and thumb. To yarn…to knot and loop. Here to form bonds, to make ties…to unite.” Saunders’s understated prose alludes to traditional ecological knowledge passed down by women elders, to rising sea levels and cultural displacement produced by the climate crisis, and to the need to join together to effect change. Blackwood’s illustrations combine saturated details with soft-edged blending and warm, earthy tones with deep verdigris teals and sea-glass greens. Scenes of the familiar, realistic landscape (a creek flows through a concrete drain and past industrial sites, skateboarding teens, graffitied walls, and tent encampments) give way to images of the community weaving together and then to the luminous humpback whale–shaped rafts they’ve created, which “rise above” the storm — the world we live in. Blackwood uses weaving patterns (inspired by references “from all over the globe”) to especially magical effect in embellishing these whale-rafts that float into the night sky: “We are here to fly, here to shape this world together.” LARA K. AASE

Rap It Up!
by Carole Boston Weatherford and Jeffery Boston Weatherford; illus. by Ernel Martinez
Primary    Holt    32 pp.
3/25    9781250833570    $18.99

“My mom claims I was rapping before I could speak. / Matter of fact, I freestyled eight days a week.” A young MC serves as the narrator of this ode to hip-hop, which introduces readers to rap as an art form that is primarily about wordplay. An early illustration shows three kids drawing on a wall with the word hyperbole incorporated into the art. The word is then defined on the following page, providing an important lesson about language: “Remember that rap is poetry.” The text includes several terms that reinforce the use of literary devices — alliteration, onomatopoeia, and personification — all of which are defined in an appended glossary. The young protagonist provides a ­step-by-step guide to writing and performing rap lyrics, with many instructions written on what appears to be notebook paper. Martinez’s illustrations in a dreamlike watercolor style include some classic hallmarks of rap: a crate full of records, a cassette tape, a large boom box, shell-top sneakers, and plenty of microphones. The young characters’ faces are expressive and lifelike. One particularly effective double-page spread depicts a tree whose branches sprout words and verses. An author’s note by Jeffery Boston Weatherford is appended. MARVA ANNE HINTON

From the March 2025 issue of Notes from the Horn Book.