Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/reading-matters-celebrating-childrens-books-about-the-human-experience/5026286/
*Book cover images can be found in the pdf version of this article.
For this final column of a most interesting calendar year, I have been reading some recent children’s books that celebrate what it is to be human. Like the best art, literature (including children’s literature) sheds a brighter light on lived experience than reality ever could. Through poetry, fine illustration, and humor, the best children’s books honor what is good in all of us. Children deserve nothing less than excellence.
“Where do poems come from?” a boy asks his wise grandfather. Grandfather jots down short poems on Kiyoshi’s Walk through the city—haiku about oranges in the market, flying pigeons, a lonely teddy bear. Kiyoshi learns that poetry comes from observing and imagining—the union of the world outside and our deepest interior lives, and by the end of their walk he sees a poem in every face, in every sight and sound. This quiet and lovely book includes a short explanation of haiku and would be a fine introduction to making poems.
Kiyoshi’s Walk by Mark Karlins, illustrated by Nicole Wong (Lee and Low Books, 2021) Ages 4 – 8.
The ink and watercolor illustrations in Elisha Cooper’s Yes & No could not ...