PB – Page 10 – Susan Uhlig

Counting to Bananas

Posted on October 7, 2022October 7, 2022 by Susan Uhlig

Perfect Picture Book Friday

Counting to Bananas (Flamingo Books, a Penguin Random House imprint, 2022) by Carrie Tillotson and illustrated by Estrela Lourenço is a delight. This is not your typical counting book, that honestly can be boring. There’s humor and surprise. And even the main character talking to the book itself. I just love the twists and turns in this book.

Banana is so excited because he just knows that “A Mostly Rhyming Fruit Book” will get to bananas. After all, he’s the star of the book. But things go wrong quickly. After, “1 plum, 2 figs, 3 oranges” comes “4 pigs.” “Wait a minute. Pigs aren’t fruit!” Banana says. And the book answers back…

This is Carrie’s debut picture book and already a sequel is in the works, B Is for Bananas, a story about bedtime, comes out next spring. Read about Carrie here. Counting to Bananas was nominated for the 2023 Red Bud Read-Aloud Award! Check out more news here. And finally resources for the book are here.

Estrela has darling illustrations. Who knew a banana could have so many expressions? You can read about her other books here and see sample illustrations here. Read more about the author/illustrator here.

Watercress

Posted on September 30, 2022May 29, 2026 by Susan Uhlig

Perfect Picture Book Friday

Watercress (Holiday House/Neal Porter Books, 2021) by Andrea Wang and illustrated by Jason Chin is such an emotional story.

In Ohio, a little girl’s family stops on their drive and the parents make the girl and her brother help harvest watercress growing in the ditch. She’s embarrassed and doesn’t want anyone to see her. At dinner that night her parents press her to eat it. It’s fresh and free. But she thinks free is bad. “Free is hand-me-down clothes and roadside trash-heap furniture…” When her mom talks about the great famine in China, the girls is ashamed of being ashamed of her family. She tries the watercress and together they make a new memory.

This book is for everyone who hasn’t had enough, and for everyone else who needs to understand what that’s like. The award-winning book received a Caldecott Medal (for illustrations), a Newbery Honor, the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature, a New England Book Award, and a Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor.

Read about the author here and see Andrea’s other books here.

The spread about the great famine in China made me tear up. So much shown in the illustrations.

Jason is not only the illustrator, but he’s an author too. On this page you can read about him and see his titles scroll by on the bottom.

PB, So Many Good Books

American Desi

Posted on September 16, 2022December 30, 2022 by Susan Uhlig

Perfect Picture Book Friday

I loved American Desi (Little, Brown and Company, 2022) by Jyoti Rajan Gopal and illustrated by Supriya Kelkar. And whether one is dealing with multiple cultures or not, we all wonder where we fit in and could find this story reassuring.

In the picture book, the main character wonders “which is the color of me?” Does she fit on the Indian side or the American side? As we go through the story we realize with her she doesn’t have to pick one or the other–she can just be who she is.

Told in subtle rhyme, the left page shows Desi events and the right page American ones. My favorite spread says,

“One foot here, one foot there
Straddling, bridging worlds apart.
Searching deep within my heart
The different colors of me.”

The art is fabric, paper, mixed media, and digital collage which I think is perfect to represent this story.

The book has garnered attention:

Read about the author Jyoti here. Her next book My Paati’s Sari is out . And she’s sold four more, which you can read more about here. She’s been busy! Jyoti also has a lovely page of inspiration.

Supriya illustrated this book, but is also an author–see more here. You can find all her books here and see all the notice about them here. And finally check out Supriya’s wonderful portfolio.

PB, So Many Good Books

Escape Goat

Posted on May 22, 2022May 22, 2022 by Susan Uhlig

Often celebrity books irritate me. Many are published because of WHO the author is–not the quality of the writing. Some break basic rules that would normally get a picture book rejected. But celebrity names sell, so editors often don’t get much editorial control. That said, I recently enjoyed a book published by a celebrity. Probably helps she’s a writer. *smiles*

Escape Goat (Harper, 2020) by Ann Patchett and illustrated by Robin Preiss Glasser is definitely more than a book with a punny title.

A little goat decide to escape to the see the great world. He samples a cabbage from the garden, and then starts getting blamed for all kinds of mishaps on the farm. Mr. Farmer raises the fence on the goat pen. Goat still escapes and is blamed again. Mr. Farmer raises the fence more so goat can’t jump over. But he can scoot under. Again, he’s blamed. Until the farmer’s daughter speaks up.

At first, I was taken aback by all the lying in this book, but then I realized how it could create such great discussions between adults and children reading the book. Probably most of us have at one point tried to blame our actions on someone else–this story takes it to the ridiculous. That makes it easy to talk about the subject.

Ann Patchett is a well-published author of many adult books. This is her second children’s book. Read more about her here.

Robin Glasser may be a familiar name as she illustrated the Fancy Nancy books. Before she was an illustrator she was a ballet dancer and you can see influence from dance in some of the illustrations in this story. Read more about her here.

PB, So Many Good Books

People Are Wild

Posted on April 15, 2022April 15, 2022 by Susan Uhlig

Perfect Picture Book Friday

I love a story that turns a concept upside down. And that’s what People Are Wild (Alfred A. Knopf, 2022) by Margaux Meganck does. Instead of the story being told from a child looking at animals, the animals are looking at people.

Words and art are a great match. It’s hard to choose a favorite spread because I loved them so much. I also like the variety of animals and how there is more information about them after the story ends. It’s nice to see diversity in the human characters too.

This is Margaux’s first picture book she has illustrated and written. Previously, she illustrated Kathy Wolff’s All We Need.

Read more about the author/illustrator here.