Awards

Readers will become attached to Mouse and Chipmunk the minute this book is opened. The combination of simple text, watercolor illustrations, and expressive faces and body language of both characters result in a wonderfully engaging tale of two friends and one nut. Both Mouse and Chipmunk cherish their time alone with the nut, which is often cut short by interference from the other.

Young Jabari has prepared for a summer of swimming by successfully completing his swimming lessons and passing his swimming test. His goal for the summer is to finally take the big leap off the diving board at the local swimming pool. When Jabari arrives at the pool, however, he begins to feel nervous and afraid. After a few moments of procrastination, he listens to the gentle and supportive words of his father and gathers the courage to climb up to the top of the diving board.

When Yoomi’s Grandma visits from South Korea, she prepares delicious meals for her family. However, when Grandma serves kimchi, a traditional Korean dish of seasoned, fermented vegetables, Yoomi does not enjoy it. Yoomi’s older brothers respond by calling her a baby, which causes Yoomi to feel sad and left out. When Yoomi’s attempts to try kimchi on a cookie, pizza, and even ice cream don’t work, Grandma comes to the rescue with a recipe for kimchi pancakes. Yoomi likes the pancake, but the real treasure for her is the time spent cooking up a solution with her Grandma.

When Plankton says hello to Mister Mussel, he expects a similar greeting in return. But when Mister Mussel doesn’t reply, Plankton is astonished! The book depicts Plankton’s struggle as he tries to encourage Mister Mussel to speak to him. It begins with some simple social instruction, but quickly progresses into Plankton becoming a bit, well, pushy. At the end of the story, Mister Mussel finally chooses to open his mouth…but the result is not exactly what Plankton was expecting!

It would be difficult to find a child (or an adult!) who cannot relate to this book. Still Stuck tells the tale of an independent young boy preparing for his bath and bedtime routine. After insisting that he can “do it himself,” he becomes stuck when his shirt is just halfway off. The story brings a chuckle as he imagines what life would be like if he remained that way forever. By the end of the story, Mom comes in to speed up the bath time routine.

As a young boy’s father uses his hands and tools to carefully work nearby, the boy uses his creativity and a simple folding ruler to bring creatures to life, drive a car, and build a house. The father and son appear to be working separately, but are closely connected, especially by the end of the story when imagination and reality merge into a fine adventure

Trio may have one less leg than his siblings, but he is full of heart and has a desire for adventure. Within the first few pages of the story, readers can see that Trio loves to pounce, sneak, and mingle with the chickens on the farm where he lives. When his playful curiosity leads him to take a cozy nap in a nesting box, he discovers a chicken’s egg that is about to hatch! His watching and waiting is worth the effort when the shell breaks away and a new friend is found.

This eye-catching nonfiction book uses interesting facts and paper collage illustrations to present clues that engage readers in an animal guessing game. The text is simple and clear, while introducing descriptive vocabulary that bring the clues to life, such as “silky feathers,” “grasping claws,” and “clever fingers.” The back of the book includes additional facts for each animal, including their size, diet, habitat, and more. Who Am I? An Animal Guessing Game is full of facts that will capture the interest of both younger and older children, and adults as well!

This book introduces a facts-based guessing game that combines the fun of investigation and clue collection with the ever-popular topic of poop! Due to the intriguing illustrations and clear and simple descriptions, this informative nonfiction book is more fascinating than silly. Even the most informed reader will find surprising details along the way, including one example that is not a poop at all! For those who want to dig a little deeper, two additional reference sections are included in the back of the book: “The Scoop on Poop” and “Animal Poop Facts.”

Do you ever wake from a dream and pause to think about its meaning? This book’s images elicit the same response. 123 Dream is a book about counting from one to twenty, with a twist. Each object being counted begins with the same first letter as its corresponding number. From one owl to twenty toes, each page features a numeral paired with an otherwise wordless image, and readers must determine which element in the image is to be counted (e.g.

Who has ever heard of a well-mannered young wolf? In this funny tale a young wolf is hungry and in search of food to eat. Because of his good manners, he lets two possible food sources get away—a rabbit and a chicken. The third delicious food possibility is a little boy who manages to hold the wolf off from devouring him by inviting him to his hut. He tells the wolf that he wants to show his friends the drawing the wolf made for him. In a surprising twist of fate, it turns out that the boy’s friends are the chicken and rabbit. What happens next is up to the reader’s imagination!

Start your engines! This alphabet book is sure to be a hit with children who love moving vehicles and their parts. Each alphabet letter is written with its capital and lowercase label Aa, Bb, Cc, and so on.  A bonus of the book is that it also contains opposites such as "Nn is for new car. Oo is for old car." The new car page is in black, white, and gray showing a young man getting the keys to his new car. The opposite page shows a colorful illustration of the same gentleman, now older, with the same car, handing the keys to a new buyer.

This charming book features a multicultural cast of children working and playing in various outfits and types of clothing while highlighting alphabet letters and the vocabulary used to describe what we wear. The meaning of most of the words are easily recognizable by young children, such as glasses, hats, and mittens. The pictures will help adults explain and describe words to the children that might be unfamiliar such as ensemble, vintage, and x-stitch. This book shares the fun and creativity of clothing—from dressing up to just getting dressed.

Ella has a surprise for her friend Penguin— glow-in-the-dark stickers! After deciding that the closet is too dark and a little scary for looking at the stickers, they try everything from the bathtub with the shower curtain closed to getting under umbrellas, but none of their ideas work.  Finally, the closet appears to be the only dark place, so Ella and Penguin work up their courage and enter it with their eyes closed, holding hands. Penguin keeps his eyes closed saying, “Too bad.

Both adults and children will be drawn into this story of a young fox who has been separated from his family and feels trapped among the neighborhoods, highways, and humans that surround him.  As he reminisces about his forest home and his family, fox is unaware that a construction crew is working to create a wildlife preserve and highway underpass.  This human-made “burrow” allows fox to pass safely under the busy highway and make his way toward a long-awaited reunion.  The final page of the book provides an author’s note describing real-world examples of wildlife bridges an