We continue highlighting the independent books that were part of Simon Smith’s Best Picture Books 2020.
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The Blurb
Award-winning artist Satoshi Kitamura delivers the powerful message that kindness is more important than money. Nominated for the Greenaway Medal 2021.
Celebrate the power of a smile in this deceptively simple story set in a multi-ethnic market. A small boy is planning how to spend his first ever pocket money when disaster strikes and he’s left with only one coin. His day seems to be ruined until he sees a Smile Shop.
In a surprise ending, the world is put to rights and suddenly the whole world is smiling again!
The Blurb
Visually stunning, tactile, and mesmerizing, this graphic novel is a debut at the summit from a self-taught Argentinian visionary.
Lorenzo isn’t happy about moving. But in his new room, he finds an old desk with what seems likes hundreds of drawers. Each even has its own smell! Deep inside the desk, he finds a book and begins to read. When he looks up, he sees all kinds of curious things. Has the book come to life? Or is it something else? This is a graphic novel about observation, imagination, and the many incredible lenses through which everyday experience might be perceived if you read.
The Blurb
An Inspiring True Story about One Family’s Escape from Behind the Berlin Wall!
Peter was born on the east side of Germany, the side that wasn’t free. He watches news programs rather than cartoons, and wears scratchy uniforms instead of blue jeans. His family endures long lines and early curfews. But Peter knows it won’t always be this way. Peter and his family have a secret. Late at night in their attic, they are piecing together a hot air balloon-and a plan. Can Peter and his family fly their way to freedom? This is the true story of one child, Peter Wetzel, and his family, as they risk their lives for the hope of freedom in a daring escape from East Germany via a handmade hot air balloon in 1979.
* A perfect picture book for educators teaching about the Cold War, the Iron Curtain, and East Germany
* Flight for Freedom is a showcase for lessons of bravery, heroism, family, and perseverance, as well as stunning history.
* Includes detailed maps of the Wetzel family’s escape route and diagrams of their hot air balloon
The Blurb
What if words got stuck in the back of your mouth whenever you tried to speak?
After a day of being unable to speak when asked, and of being stared at, a boy and his father go to the river for some quiet time. “It’s just a bad speech day,” says Dad. But the boy can’t stop thinking about all the eyes watching his lips twisting and twirling. When his father points to the river bubbling, churning, whirling and crashing, the boy finds a way to think about how he speaks. Even the river stutters. Like him. “I talk like a river,” he says.
An incredibly moving picture book that offers understanding rather than a solution, and which will resonate with all readers, young and old. Masterfully illustrated by Sydney Smith, winner of the Kate Greenaway Medal.
The Blurb
This profoundly moving tale about a grieving boy and an imaginary gorilla makes real the power of talking about loss.
On the day of his mother’s funeral, a young boy conjures the very visitor he needs to see – a gorilla. Wise and gentle, the gorilla stays on to answer the heart-heavy questions the boy hesitates to ask his father: Where did his mother go? Will she come back home? Will we all die?
Yet with the gorilla’s friendship, the boy slowly begins to discover moments of comfort in tending flowers, playing catch and climbing trees. Most of all, the gorilla knows that it helps to simply talk about the loss – especially with those who share your grief and who may feel alone too.
Author Jackie Azua Kramer’s quietly thoughtful text and illustrator Cindy Derby’s beautiful impressionistic artwork depict how this tender relationship leads the boy to open up to his father and find a path forward. Told entirely in dialogue, this direct and deeply affecting picture book will inspire conversations about grief, empathy, and healing beyond the final hope-filled scene.
The Blurb
Some people have dresses for every occasion but Afiya needs only one. Her dress records the memories of her childhood, from roses in bloom to pigeons in flight, from tigers at the zoo to October leaves falling.
A joyful celebration of a young girl’s childhood, written by the late Coretta Scott King Book Award-winning Jamaican poet James Berry.
