While this book feels different than Jacqueline Woodson’s other picture books, I love the prose with which she writes. This story is about friendship, community and summer. Every kid can relate to the excitement of getting out of school for summer and all the plans they have. Set in Brooklyn, the vibrant illustrations, by Leo Espinosa, add to the energy of the words with smiles, movement and color.

Students run down the steps of their school building into the Brooklyn streets to begin their summer vacation. They play in fire hydrants, let their curls go natural, play street games like hopscotch and jump rope, told stories that had each person enthralled to the last moment, and joined together to lift each other up and bring everyone along for the ride…that is, until. the grownups call everyone home.

This is a relatable story for kids about the joy of summer – it would be a great addition to any library, but especially in urban schools where their experiences may be similar to those in the book.

This is a fantastic book about kids bringing lunch to school that are traditional to their home culture. Each kid who is highlighted is subjected to another student saying their lunch doesn’t look good or doesn’t smell good – and ultimately they decide to switch to a boring sandwich instead. After a few days of only sandwiches, the traditional home lunches start to come back, and smiles start to return on the faces of kids.

I love the illustrations, by Jing Li, of the food, the home kitchens, and the shopping markets. What a great window into some lives!

Words are powerful and this book is a great example of that. It uses real life experiences of four professional chefs who used to bring traditional home lunches to school and who were each in turn told it looked “ewww.”

A must have for any school library! My fourth graders give it a double thumbs up!

In this book written by Margriet Ruurs and illustrated by Wenjia Tang, you travel around the world to see how and where kids live. The book begins with a quick introduction to maps, going over a Compass Rose, Legend, and Scale Bar. After this, each page introduces a friend, their real neighborhood, describes their community, and gives you a word or two in their language.

This is a great book to introduce maps to your class. It has beautiful illustrations incorporating the maps with animals and the friends who live there.

I can see this book being used for social studies, introducing mapmaking, and when talking about community – it is a beautiful addition to your library.

This counting book teaches you about the Indian holiday of Diwali through simple text and vibrant illustrations. Archaea Sreenivasan’s illustrations really pull you in and show you the joy of this holiday, which is about light triumphing over dark.

Each page counts up two and then adds an event, food, or tradition that has to do with celebrating Diwali. This is a perfect book to read to preschoolers and kindergarteners who will enjoy counting to ten forwards and back, but it also includes sidebars defining each tradition, food, or event which could appeal to older kids as well.

This book is a beautiful addition to any library – full of light, representing the holiday so well.

I received this book in English and in Spanish – I am not fluent in Spanish, but with the background I do have and the English book next to me, I read through the text.

This is an adorable bedtime story to read around Halloween. I loved how the English version of the story includes Spanish words, and lets the reader translate through context.

If you like the type of books that follow a patterns, have repetition of syntax – then you’ll love this book. This book begins each new funny, witchy activity in the same style of the title, “If your babysitter is a bruja….” At first the little girl is seemingly running away from her babysitter, the bruja, trying to escape before she can cast a witchy spell. But, slowly, along with the little girl, you realize they’re both having a good time, going down slides, flying through the night, and being tossed in a vat of crocodiles, I mean a bath.

The illustrations by Irene Freitas are fantastic, colorful, fun and full of adventure. Each time I read the story, I found something new to look at and notice.

¡Ay, Caramba! You’ll enjoy this book!

Calling all cat lovers! Do you ever wonder what your cat is saying to you when you leave the house? Do you wonder what they fill their days with? Leonard, the cat, loves his human. He joins him for dinner, hangs around his shoulders and sleeps with him. But, when his human leaves for work Leonard feels lonely. Leonard is quickly bored, until he spots a fellow feline home for the day. The other cat lives across the street in a parallel apartment and Leonard has an idea. He sneaks himself into his human’s instrument case and crosses the street to meet his new friend, cat to cat. Mariposa only speaks Spanish, but the language barrier doesn’t stop the two from having a great time playing with each other. In the evening, Leonard sneaks home through an open window. Leonard takes Mariposa on many adventures through the seasons until one day Mariposa’s human discovers Leonard in his apartment and, because of the cold, closes their apartment window leaving Leonard no way to get home.

This is a cute story of friendship between cats and between felines and their humans. You get to feel the sadness and joy right alongside the characters as the illustrations provide a colorful, emotional journey.

Cat lovers will adore this friendship story!

Naaz Khan created a wonderful, rhyming, funny tale of a brother, Musa, and his sister, Dada, on their trip to the beach in the daladala, a bus, in Zanzibar. This book is a fun counting book as they continue to add 1, 2, 3 and up to 10 things and people to the daladala. Musa doesn’t think any more can fit, at each stop he says there is no more room, but his sister believes they can fit everyone who needs the lift. By the end of the story when they are adding 10 divers to the bus, Musa is laughing along with his sister and ready to welcome anyone aboard. Finally, they make it to the beach and as everyone spills out, you count backwards remembering all the people and animals and things Musa and Dada made room for along the way.

One of the things I enjoyed most about this book is the representation of Africa in the illustrations. The pictures show so much joy and movement and all the reader can do is giggle along with Musa and Dada as they stuff as many things as possible onto the daladala bus. I also enjoyed how the text was represented, also with alot of movement, using large type-face for some words and arranging the phrases in different places across the page.

The book does have a glossary at the back for a few Arabic and Swahili words that show up in the text. Although it does explain the words, it does not help pronounce them.

I think many kids would find this book funny and it will spark great conversations about different cultures, countries, and language.

Aaron Slater Illustrator by Andrea Beaty and illustrated by David Roberts is another great addition to the Questioneers collection. In this rhyming story, Aaron Slater is born LOVING stories, he loves listening to stories and what his heart wants most is to create his own stories. But to write, first he must read, and words are not easy for Aaron to understand – they’re all just squiggles. Aaron struggles to write and read in school and keep up with his classmates, one day when Miss Greer asks the class to write a story Aaron just tells his story. He doesn’t have a single word on his page, but his class sits in rapture as they listen to the words spill out of his mouth. His teacher recognizes this special gift of Aaron’s and thanks him for the beautiful story. Aaron discovers that he can succeed, his path might just be a little different.

I love this story because it highlights a student struggling with dyslexia, and a teacher embracing him for who he is and appreciating his gifts. I know many students will identify with Aaron Slater.

The illustrations are fantastic and its so much fun to find the other Questioneers among the pages. Don’t forget to check out the hardcover under the jacket for more of Aaron’s (Roberts) illustrations!