Not all deserving books bring home ALA awards. Our annual Mind the Gap Awards pay tribute to our favorite books that didn’t win. Here’s how we reviewed our 2017 winners.

The Airport Book
by Lisa Brown; illus. by the author
Primary    Porter/Roaring Brook    40 pp.
5/16    978-1-62672-091-6    $17.99

As an (interracial) family of four scrambles to leave its city apartment for the airport, readers get used to the book’s approach: as narrated by the older brother, a straightforward but lively main text provides basic information (“When you go to the airport, you can take a car, a van, a bus, or even a train…When you reach your gate, you wait. And wait and wait and wait…You buckle your seatbelt tight across your lap”) while dialogue bubbles and the pictures tell a much more complex — and wildly entertaining — story. Brown’s simultaneously clean and detailed India ink and watercolor pictures follow dozens of characters who are all traveling on the same flight as our central family: a businesswoman on a cell phone (“blah blah blah blah”); a girls’ soccer team; an anxious elderly couple (“I hope you have the boarding passes”); a woman in a wheelchair; a man traveling alone with a (mostly unhappy) infant. There is even a subplot involving Monkey, the little sister’s lost stuffed animal, executed brilliantly in the illustrations. Following each story strand to the end is rewarding, and Brown often subverts expectations or injects humor. For instance, the annoying cell-phone woman turns out to have been flying home to her small son; the baby who cried the whole 
flight stops as soon as the plane lands. (Fortunately — and miraculously — Monkey arrives safely.) Cameos by Amelia Earhart and the Wright brothers add even more amusement. This is one of those books you could look at forever and never run out of new things to notice, smile at, and fold into the next reading. Sky-high in concept, execution, and kid appeal; the only airport book you’ll ever need. MARTHA V. PARRAVANO

Reviewed in the May/June 2016 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.

 

Before Morning
by Joyce Sidman; 
illus. by Beth Krommes
Preschool    Houghton    48 pp.
10/16    978-0-547-97917-5    $17.99    g

Sidman and Krommes (Butterfly Eyes and Other Secrets of the Meadow, rev. 9/06; Swirl by Swirl: Spirals in Nature, rev. 9/11) reunite for this picture-book evocation of a child’s hopes. Wordless front-matter illustrations rendered in Krommes’s signature scratchboard technique depict a mother and child walking their dog at the end of a bleak winter’s day. After arriving home, the child frowns upon seeing a brimmed blue hat with gold embellishments. On the facing page, the child tries to hide it from the mother. Toy planes and a book about Amelia Earhart help connect the dots: it is a pilot’s hat; the mother is a pilot; and the child doesn’t want her to leave. Backstory established, Sidman’s poetic text begins (“In the deep woolen dark, as we slumber unknowing”) as Mom, dressed in full uniform, departs while her family sleeps. The ensuing incantation is for snow to come (“Let the air turn to feathers, the earth turn to sugar”), and, sure enough, a blizzard grounds planes and sends Mom home (with help from a friendly snowplow driver). When the family heads outside to play the next morning, the art brightens significantly, with large, open patches of white that interrupt the steady crosshatching. This is no adult-dreaded snowpocalyspe; it’s a welcomed snow day, “slow and delightful…and white.” Throughout, Krommes’s illustrations do the narrative work, and a series of wordless spreads at book’s end provides a sweet balance to the front matter’s opening scenes, slowly easing the reader out of this mesmerizing book. MEGAN DOWD LAMBERT

Reviewed in the July/August 2016 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.

 

School’s First Day of School
by Adam Rex; 
illus. by Christian Robinson
Primary    Porter/Roaring Brook    40 pp.
6/16    978-1-59643-964-1    $17.99    g

We’ve had many books about kids getting ready for the first day of school, but now we have another perspective: the school’s itself. The title page shows the finishing touches being added to a brand-new building. By the time the story starts, Frederick Douglass Elementary is ready, its door a smile, waiting for the first day. It quickly makes friends with Janitor but is worried about meeting the students (Janitor says: “‘Don’t worry — you’ll like the children.’ But the school thought that Janitor was probably wrong about that”). Turns out, Janitor is right about many things. As the day goes on, the school learns to appreciate the kids and hopes Janitor will invite them back. Rex’s droll telling is fun to read aloud, especially when the school is talking. Adults, who will no doubt be reading this over and over, will appreciate little jokes. “At three o’clock, the parents came to pick up the children. At three-thirty Janitor came to pick up the school.” Robinson’s naively styled paintings are the perfect complement to a warm, welcoming story. This diverse group of children is all circles: round heads, black-dot eyes, curly or bowl-shaped hairstyles. Even when they are acting silly (milk shooting out of a boy’s nose, for instance), they are likable and engaging, with each child depicted as a friendly-looking individual. Sure to become a staple for first days of school everywhere. ROBIN SMITH

Reviewed in the March/April 2016 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.

 

Frank and Lucky Get Schooled
by Lynne Rae Perkins; 
illus. by the author
Primary    Greenwillow    32 pp.
6/16    978-0-06-237345-8    $17.99

Frank is having a terrible, horrible, no good etc. day, but then he gets Lucky — a pooch from the pound who becomes Frank’s faithful companion in the business of learning about the world. The two learn about science (“Science is when you wonder about something, so you observe it and ask questions about it”) and such subcategories as botany, entomology, and chemistry (after the time Lucky “wondered about skunks”). They solve math problems: “Let’s say a dog comes in from outside and gets one biscuit, but there are three people in the living room. How many more biscuits should the dog receive?” And a mysteriously devoured birthday cake provides a lesson in historiography: “Sometimes in History there are different versions of what really happened, depending on who is telling the story.” How Perkins manages to include so many actual, useful facts in the story is an education in itself, especially in the way text and pictures so thoroughly trust the obligation of one to complete the other. A portrait of a dog (Lucky, of course) and a cat? Composition. And the next picture of said dog heading for the hills while the cat sits smugly in the foreground is an excellent demonstration of Perspective. Ideas, motifs, and characters pop in and out in surprising but logical ways, and Perkins varies the page design — full-page paintings, vignettes, text (dryly laconic) distributed between narrative and dialogue/thought balloons — to keep everybody’s thinking caps firmly affixed. The strands of school and life, boy and dog, and curiosity and investigation are firmly, joyfully, braided throughout. Who needs Core Standards? ROGER SUTTON

Reviewed in the May/June 2016 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.

 

Lion Lessons
by Jon Agee; illus. by the author
Preschool, Primary    Dial    32 pp.
7/16    978-0-8037-3908-6    $17.99    g

Disregarding a city block full of advertised classes (baking, karate, knitting, yoga), a small but determined little boy heads straight into the building offering “Lion Lessons.” The instructor, a real lion whose diploma reads “Harvard School of Claw,” teaches using a seven-step method. Lion and boy start with some easy stretches, shown in comical spot art, but from there the lessons go downhill. Full of personality and wry details, the cartoon illustrations, with their bold, confident lines, show the awkwardness and frustration growing between teacher and student (now in lion costume) with each step, from “Looking Fierce” to “Roaring” to “Prowling Around.” The young lion-in-training is not very fierce, loud, or stealthy (as he struggles to keep his tail under control). “The lion checked my scores. ‘This is not very promising.’” Only during the seventh step, “Looking Out for Your Friends,” does the boy manage to turn everything around with his instinctive kitten-rescuing skills. The text’s well-timed humor and pacing work seamlessly with the expressive art to create an outstanding read-aloud and a rewarding story. JULIE ROACH

Reviewed in the July/August 2016 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.

 

Full of Beans
by Jennifer L. Holm
Intermediate    Random    196 pp.
8/16    978-0-553-51036-2    $16.99
Library ed.  978-553-51037-9    $19.99    g
e-book ed.  978-0-553-51039-3    $10.99

Beans Curry, first introduced in Turtle in Paradise (rev. 5/10), gets his own starring role in this standalone prequel set in 1934 Key West. With his dad out of work and his mom taking in laundry to help make ends meet, Beans looks for odd jobs where he can find them. One such job is collecting empty condensed milk cans, cleaning them, smoothing the sharp edges, and selling them to Winky, a local con man who promises ten cents for twenty cans but winds up paying only a nickel. Right then and there, Beans decides he won’t get “Winkied” again, and begins working for a local rumrunner instead. Beans’s earnest voice shows a young boy trying so hard to help out and to do the right thing, but getting caught up in dubious circumstances over which he has no control. Multifaceted supporting characters — an intrepid group of friends (all with nicknames such as Pork Chop and Too Bad), a fussy baby brother, a pushy girl nemesis, a mean grandmother, a Key West resident afflicted with leprosy — are all seen through Beans’s refreshingly honest eyes and create a novel as entertaining as the motion pictures he loves to see. Short episodic chapters, perfect for reading aloud, adroitly incorporate the historical background and flavor of Key West during the Great Depression, but never at the expense of character or story. An author’s note including generalized historical background, a list of Hollywood child actors of the period, and local sayings completes the book.

Reviewed in the July/August 2016 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.

 

The Best Man
by Richard Peck
Intermediate, Middle School     Dial     232 pp.
9/16     978-0-8037-3839-3     $16.99     g
e-book ed. 978-0-698-18973-7     $10.99

Rise and toast The Best Man, Peck’s story about Archer Magill, a boy growing from a raw dollop of kindergarten id into a functional middle-school kid, a budding citizen of the world. As a participant in the two weddings that launch and conclude the novel (the first when he is six and the latter as a sixth grader), Archer is a familiar American type: a kid’s kid, of the sort readers may recognize from Beverly Cleary or Eleanor Estes. Decent, a little clueless — neither a hero nor a bystander, Archer is aware of wanting grownups to emulate. Among the men Archer applauds is his uncle Paul. That Paul turns out to be gay is not a crisis. “‘You knew I was gay, right?’ Uncle Paul sat up, pushed his ball cap back. ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘I guess. Not really. No.’” Show me six other words that capture a fifth grader so adroitly. The Best Man, refreshingly, is neither polemic nor camp-on-steroids. (That Uncle Paul’s love interest is a hunk — and Archer’s student teacher — who captivates the national Twitter-verse is perhaps the only slip toward stereotype — or are all gay men gorgeous? Just asking.) Archer’s continuing  admiration of his uncle after the revelation is underplayed; this isn’t a problem novel. Uncle Paul’s life doesn’t overwhelm the parade of Archer’s school dramas involving teachers, friends, enemies, and a dying grandfather, which roll along with brio and feeling. Your reviewer here breaks convention to reveal that a child of his recently admitted to having been bullied, several years ago, for having two dads. So we’re not done needing books like this. Comic, easy to read, swiftly paced, and matter-of-fact, Peck’s latest steps out to lead the way. GREGORY MAGUIRE

Reviewed in the July/August 2016 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.

 

Some Writer!: The Story of E. B. White
by Melissa Sweet; illus. by the author
Intermediate, Middle School    Houghton    164 pp.
10/16    978-0-544-31959-2    $18.99    g

Salutations! Sweet raises her collage skills to new heights while bringing her love and admiration for fellow Mainer E. B. White to the page for everyone to appreciate. Just as her astounding collages blend materials that might have been found in a barn in Maine, the text carefully blends her words with those of the beloved writer of children’s books, New Yorker essays, and The Elements of Style (the essential treatise on grammar, co-written with William Strunk). One can imagine Sweet’s studio filled with snippets of quotations from White’s works ready to find the perfect place on her pages, to meld seamlessly with her words and bring the story of his life to a new generation of readers and admirers. Sweet has written and drawn a fast-moving, thorough, deeply researched, and accessible biography. White’s own words are signaled by a typewriter font, and each quote is accompanied by a simple tan label that sets it off from the main text without being distracting. Charming photographs of young  White, whether he is playing the mandolin, gliding in a canoe, or dangling from a log over a river, additionally inform the reader about his childhood and young adulthood, making the origins of his writing come alive. Sweet inserts just the right amount of detail about his personal life (for instance, his wife Katherine Angell divorced in order to marry White) but is never gossipy. In the end, whether readers are weeping at White’s death or smiling at stepson Roger Angell’s wry memorial comments, they will rejoice that Sweet has caught up with an old favorite in White. With this book, we all have. ROBIN SMITH

Reviewed in the September/October 2016 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.

 

The Lie Tree
by Frances Hardinge
Middle School, High School    Amulet/Abrams    378 pp.
4/16    978-1-4197-1895-3    $17.95

Everything in this audacious novel is on the cusp or in limbo, setting up delicious tensions and thematic riches. The time is nineteenth-century England just after Darwin’s theory of evolution has thrown the scientific world into turmoil; the setting is the fictional island of Vane, between land and sea; the main character is a fourteen-year-old girl caught between society’s expectations and her fierce desire to be a scientist. Faith Sunderly regards her intellectual curiosity as an “addiction”; “There was a hunger in her, and girls were not supposed to be hungry. They were supposed to nibble sparingly when at table, and their minds were supposed to be satisfied with a slim diet too.” But when she discovers that her naturalist father has brought the family to Vane to escape rumors that he faked his most famous fossil discovery — and, subsequently, when he is found dead and only she knows that it was not suicide, but murder — she gives in to her curiosity. Faith, now keeper of her father’s secret “Lie Tree” (a mysterious plant that “feeds on human lies…and in return it bears fruit that give visions of secret truths”), begins using the increasingly powerful Lie Tree to self-induce dangerous trances she hopes will reveal the identity of her father’s killer. It’s heady stuff; but Hardinge maintains masterful control of the whole complex construct: everything from the sentence level (“The boat moved with a nauseous, relentless rhythm, like someone chewing on a rotten tooth”) on up to the larger philosophical and political (i.e., feminist — the revelation of the book’s villain is…a revelation) questions. A stunner. MARTHA V. PARRAVANO

Reviewed in the May/June 2016 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.

 

Presenting Buffalo Bill: The Man Who Invented the Wild West
by Candace Fleming
Middle School, High School    Porter/Roaring Brook    259 pp.
9/16    978-1-59643-763-0    $19.99    g

Fleming (Amelia Lost, rev. 3/11; The Family Romanov, rev. 7/14) sets her sights on two connected myths of American history: William Frederick “Buffalo Bill” Cody’s life story and the American frontier in the nineteenth century. Cody, a bodacious storyteller, embellished his autobiography with colorful additions to such events as his involvement in the 1857 Mormon War and claims that he rode for the Pony Express and killed Chief Tall Bull. In multi-paged sidebars Fleming addresses each incident, pointing out how his stories often differ from the historical record. Frequently, in “Panning for the Truth” (as she titles these sidebars), she does not find definitive conclusions but, like a conscientious mathematician showing her work rather than simply stating an answer, offers a tutorial for evaluating historical sources. Exploring these exaggerations is important because Cody’s version of his life became the basis for his international show “The Wild West,” seen by thousands in the United States and Europe. More than entertainment, this show created a romanticized Western frontier full of excitement, hostile Indians, sharpshooters, and brave scouts that defined a piece of American culture for decades. Underscoring that link, Fleming begins each chapter with a scene from the “Wild West” show, using the theatrical production to introduce a time period in Cody’s life, which, unadorned, is still fascinating, as this man with a hardscrabble childhood makes and loses several fortunes over his lifetime. Frequent period photographs, a bibliography, source notes, internet resources, and an index (unseen) complete this clear and informative biography. BETTY CARTER

Reviewed in the September/October 2016 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.

 

Thunder Boy Jr.
by Sherman Alexie; 
illus. by Yuyi Morales
Preschool, Primary    Little, Brown    40 pp.
5/16    978-0-316-01372-7    $17.99    g

“I HATE MY NAME!” Why, Thunder Boy Smith complains, couldn’t he have been named “Sam” like his mother (Agnes) wanted? And why does he have to share his name with his father, Thunder Boy Smith Sr., especially since their shared name causes people to call Dad Big Thunder, a nickname “like a storm filling up the sky,” and himself Little Thunder, which “makes me sound like a burp or a fart.” As the boy considers a number of new names, the pictures let us into his world and dreams. He once climbed a mountain (really his dad’s strong back), so he could be named “Touch the Clouds,” his little sister Lillian suggests. Lillian is no pushover, though; she also offers, considering Thunder Boy’s bike-riding prowess, “Gravity’s Best Friend.” It is Dad who comes up with just the right name, rather a diversion from the book’s theme of self-definition but unmistakable in its acknowledgment of the bond between father and son. Despite the dad-pleasing message, the book is too funny and real to veer into parental self-congratulation, and Morales’s illustrations (made from “the remains of an antique house” — you’ll have to read the note) give great life and specificity to Thunder Boy’s Lightning’s family. Dad truly is a mountain of a man, Mom rides a sporty scooter, Lillian is both brattish and adoring when it comes to her big brother; a pet dog dances happily amongst them all. ROGER SUTTON

Reviewed in the March/April 2016 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.

 

Jazz Day: The Making of a Famous Photograph
by Roxane Orgill; 
illus. by Francis Vallejo
Intermediate    Candlewick    54 pp.
3/16    978-0-7636-6954-6    $18.99    g

On August 12, 1958, fifty-plus jazz musicians, famous and emerging, gathered together in front of a brownstone in Harlem for a group photo shoot. The resulting photograph has become iconic, a single image that captures a generation of stories. Orgill uses this photo as the springboard for a series of twenty-one poems, and Vallejo for a set of personality-rich illustrations. Some focus on individuals (Thelonious Monk, late as usual); some on the event itself (photographer Art Kane trying to herd them all into formation). Two feature musicians who didn’t make it into the picture: pianist Willie Smith, who got tired of standing, and Duke Ellington, who was out of town. The poems vary in form and mood from an alphabetical acrostic of clothing to a pantoum in the voice of the young and awestruck drummer Eddie Locke. The rhythms are contagious. Saxophonist Lester Young’s porkpie hat: “Roll the crown halfway down all around— / that’s called ‘busting it down.’ / Turn it over and poke out the pit just a bit, / ‘bringing the lid back home.’” The words take you back to the photo — reproduced here as a gatefold spread, and placed in the perfect dramatic spot — and the excellent list of sources leads you back to the music. An inspiring example of art that arises from the simple question, “What did you notice in the picture?” Appended with an extensive author’s note, biographies of the participants, source notes, and a bibliography. SARAH ELLIS

Reviewed in the March/April 2016 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.

 

Burn Baby Burn
by Meg Medina
High School   Candlewick   308 pp.
3/16   978-0-7636-7467-0   $17.99   g

This vividly evoked coming-of-age story is set against actual events in 1977 New York City, when tensions rose throughout a city enduring an oppressive heat wave, culminating in the historic blackout of July 13th. Seventeen-year-old Nora López faces an insecure future after graduation. The very real fear of an at-large serial killer is magnified by the violence at home, where her brother Hector’s increasingly volatile behavior is dismissed by her mother as merely hormones. College seems impossible: Nora’s mother barely scrapes by with her unstable (and decreasing) factory hours. Nora helps out financially with her job at Sal’s Deli but also manages to stash away some cash in hopes of someday getting away. For now, she escapes by hanging out with best friend Kathleen, going to the movies, and planning a big night out to celebrate their eighteenth birthdays. Nora even starts to fall for Pablo, the sweet new stock boy at Sal’s (and “a stone-cold Latin fox,” according to Kathleen), but the looming fear of a killer targeting young couples and the weight of her family’s secrets make her pull away. Nora is an empathetic character, and Medina depicts her troubled family and their diverse Queens neighborhood with realistic, everyday detail. Numerous references to New York’s budget crisis, arson wave, and “Son of Sam” newspaper articles deliberately ground the story in a real time and place, while an ample sprinkling of seventies disco and funk song references creates a brighter soundtrack for the dreams and romance of teenage girls, hinting at a hopeful future for Nora. LAUREN ADAMS

Reviewed in the March/April 2016 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.

 

Best Frints in 
the Whole Universe
by Antoinette Portis; 
illus. by the author
Preschool, Primary    Porter/Roaring Brook    40 pp.
7/16    978-1-62672-136-4    $16.99    g

Space aliens Yelfred (the purple one) and Omek (the pink one) “have been best frints since they were little blobbies.” Like any friendship, theirs has its ups and downs, but they always muddle through. Things come to a head, though, when Yelfred receives a new spaceship as a blurfday gift. Omek takes it for a test drive without permission and crashes it (“It was that way when I got it!” tries Omek). An angry battle of words (“YOU SHMACKLED MY SPOSSIP, you double-dirt bleebo!”) and teeth (Yelfred bites off Omek’s tail) ensues. But, as the offstage narrator assures us, best frints can’t stay angry for long — either on planet Boborp or here on Earth. The text makes frequent comparisons throughout between Earth and Boborp, with the differences being in the details (biting off tails) but not in the important stuff (friends play, they fight, they make up). Portis’s text plays it straight — no small feat with all those near-nonsense words — with a clear-eyed, anthropological-sounding reserve that is effective in warding off didacticism. Her digitally colored mixed-media illustrations feature simple shapes — lots of circles and triangles — vivid hues, thick black lines, and pop art–like textures. The front and back endpapers are a photo-glossary of Boborpian words, sure to tickle listeners (and readers-aloud; just try to say “blobbysit” with a straight face). ELISSA GERSHOWITZ

Reviewed in the May/June 2016 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.

 

Emma and Julia Love Ballet
by Barbara McClintock; 
illus. by the author
Preschool, Primary   Scholastic   32 pp.
3/16   978-00-439-89401-2   $16.99   g

“Emma wakes up early. Julia wakes up early, too…They both have ballet lessons this morning.” McClintock follows young Emma as she goes to her ballet lesson and professional dancer Julia as she attends company class and rehearsals, pointing out similarities in their days (“Both teachers make them work very, very hard”). A lively mix of page layouts keeps the pattern fresh — as do several differences (“Some of Emma’s friends dream of dancing on Broadway. Some of Julia’s friends do dance on Broadway”). Soon, these characters’ stories intersect: Emma will be attending Julia’s performance that night. The back-and-forth vignettes continue as both characters prepare for this exciting event, and the story culminates in a double-page spread of Julia’s glorious grand jeté at center stage, followed by a heartwarming encounter between the two dancers. McClintock’s fine-lined pen-and-ink, watercolor, and gouache illustrations ably capture Emma and her classmates’ youthful movements and Julia’s technical proficiency and grace. Along with the similarities and differences in the two dancers’ routines and surroundings, readers will spot many ballet-centric details. This engaging and matter-of-factly diverse (Julia is African American) behind-the-curtain look at a ballet dancer’s life will be appreciated by young dancers, who will see both a reflection of their own experience and a glimpse of what’s to come. KATIE BIRCHER

Reviewed in the January/February 2016 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.

 

We Found a Hat
by Jon Klassen; illus. by the author
Preschool, Primary    Candlewick    56 pp.
10/16    978-0-7636-5600-3    $17.99    g

This third picture book by Klassen about a hat (I Want My Hat Back, rev. 11/11; This Is Not My Hat, rev. 9/12), itself written in three parts, is a bit longer than its predecessors, but the storyline remains as simple — and in its focus and themes, familiar — as ever. Amidst a desert landscape, two turtles find a hat together. It looks good on both of them, but “there is only one hat.” Rather than squabble over ownership, they decide to leave it where they find it and move on. Yet one turtle cannot forget the hat and continues to wrestle with and eventually overcome the baser instincts of greed and deceit. Visually, the book is unmistakably the work of Klassen: a monochromatic palette that ranges, as the day progresses from early morning to darkest, starriest night, from gray to black with the dusky glow of the setting sun as the lone contrasting accent color; a text consisting entirely of dialogue/monologue that either runs along the top of a double-page spread or stands alone on an 
unillustrated page; and finally, of course, the telltale eyes that telegraph so much about what is really happening in the story. The tenderness in this book (with its uplifting ending) is just as surprising as the black humor in the earlier ones. While the book is richer in the context of the two previous volumes, Klassen leaves enough space for uninitiated readers to make their own meaning out of this story about a hat — but, here, also about an enduring and precious friendship. JONATHAN HUNT

Reviewed in September/October 2016 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.

Mind the Gap 2017 is from the July/August 2017 issue of The Horn Book Magazine: Special Issue: ALA Awards. For more speeches, profiles, and articles click the tag ALA 2017.

Save