Spotlight: In the Country of Queens by Cari Best

Eleven-year-old Shirley Alice Burns lives with her domineering mother, Hurricane Anna, and loving Grandmother. One day she unexpectedly discovers that her beloved father isn’t in Absentia as her family would have her believe, but dead. And she understands all too well why they haven’t told her; she’s always been shy and quiet, and Anna has always been protective of her. But if Shirley doesn’t start speaking up, she isn’t going to be able to do the things she wants to do: go on vacation to Lake Winnipesaukee with her cousins, stop taking ballet lessons, and talk about her father. Through the help of a mouse, her hero Pippi Longstocking, and her cousin Phillie, Shirley finds the strength to give her dreams a voice and convince everyone, even Hurricane Anna, that she doesn’t need to be sheltered, especially from the truth. IN THE COUNTRY OF QUEENS is the debut novel from acclaimed picture-book author Cari Best.

Buy on Amazon | Barnes and Noble

About the Author

Cari Best has written many award-winning picture books, including Sally Jean, the Bicycle Queen, a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year; and My Three Best Friends and Me, described by the New York Times as “refreshing” and “exciting.” Her picture book If I Could Drive, Mama was described by Publishers Weekly as “a wonderful tribute to an imagination in perpetual motion.” In the Country of Queens is her first novel. Ms. Best lives in Connecticut.

Spotlight: The Real McCoys by Matthew Swanson and illustrated by Robbi Behr

Her name’s Moxie. Moxie McCoy.

Bold, opinionated, and haplessly self-confident, the world’s greatest fourth-grade detective faces her biggest challenge! When someone kidnaps beloved school mascot Eddie the Owl, Moxie is on the case—but she’s forced to fly solo now that her best friend (and crime-solving partner) has moved away.

Moxie must interview her classmates—both as potential new best friends and as possible suspects. She finds clues and points fingers but can’t save the owl on her own. Enter Moxie’s little brother, Milton. Quiet, cautious, and boring as a butter knife, he’s a good listener.

Can the Real McCoys form an unlikely alliance and solve the crime of the century?

Bursting with interactive illustrations on every page, Matthew Swanson and Robbi Behr’s The Real McCoys delivers clever storytelling, laugh-out-loud humor, and heartwarming insight. This is the first book in a series.

Buy on Amazon | Barnes and Noble

About the Author & Illustatror

Author/illustrator, husband/wife duo Matthew Swanson and Robbi Behr spend all day, every day, making stuff together, including their debut trade picture book Babies Ruin Everything, picture book Everywhere, Wonder (February 2017), and the middle grade series The Real McCoys (fall 2017). In addition to speaking and teaching on collaboration and creative entrepreneurship, raising three small children, and fishing commercially for sockeye salmon on the Alaskan tundra each summer, Matthew and Robbi run Bobbledy Books (an indie press offering picture books and music for kids) from the hayloft of their home/barn/studio on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.

Spotlight: The Boy and the Whale by Mordicai Gerstein

A boy and his father discover a whale tangled in their only fishing net. Is the whale dead? While the man worries about losing their net, the boy worries about the whale. He remembers the fear he felt when, caught in a net himself in childhood, he almost drowned before being rescued by his father. When the whale blinks an enormous eye, the boy knows that he has to try to save the creature, no matter how dangerous doing so may be.

Expressive and perfectly paced, this powerful story by Caldecott Medal–winner Mordicai Gerstein was inspired in part by a real-life video of a whale’s rescue, and the creature’s joyful dance through the waves after being freed.

Buy on Amazon | Barnes and Noble

About the Author

Mordicai Gerstein is the author and illustrator of The Man Who Walked Between the Towers, winner of the Caldecott Medal, and has had four books named New York Times Best Illustrated Books of the Year. Gerstein was born in Los Angeles in 1935. He remembers being inspired as a child by images of fine art, which his mother cut out of Life magazine, and by children’s books from the library: “I looked at Rembrandt and Superman, Matisse and Bugs Bunny, and began to make my own pictures.” He attended Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles, and then got a job in an animated cartoon studio that sent him to New York, where he designed characters and thought up ideas for TV commercials. When a writer named Elizabeth Levy asked him to illustrate a humorous mystery story about two girls and a dog, his book career began, and soon he moved on to writing as well as illustrating. “I’m still surprised to be an author,” he says. “I wonder what I’ll write next?” Gerstein lives in Westhampton, Massachusetts.

Spotlight: Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History by Vashti Harrison

This beautifully illustrated book introduces reader of all ages to 40 women who changed the world.

Featuring forty trailblazing black women in American history, Little Leaders educates and inspires as it relates true stories of breaking boundaries and achieving beyond expectations. Illuminating text paired with irresistible illustrations bring to life both iconic and lesser-known female figures of Black history such as abolitionist Sojourner Truth, pilot Bessie Coleman, chemist Alice Ball, politician Shirley Chisholm, mathematician Katherine Johnson, poet Maya Angelou, and filmmaker Julie Dash. 

Among these biographies, readers will find heroes, role models, and everyday women who did extraordinary things - bold women whose actions and beliefs contributed to making the world better for generations of girls and women to come. Whether they were putting pen to paper, soaring through the air or speaking up for the rights of others, the women profiled in these pages were all taking a stand against a world that didn't always accept them. 

The leaders in this book may be little, but they all did something big and amazing, inspiring generations to come. 

Buy on Amazon | Barnes and Noble

About the Author

Vashti Harrison is an artist and filmmaker with a passion for storytelling. She earned her MFA in film/video from California Institute of the Arts, where she snuck into animation and illustration classes to learn from Disney and DreamWorks legends. There she rekindled a love for drawing and painting. Now she uses her love of both film and illustration to craft beautiful stories for children.

Spotlight: Martha and the Slave Catchers by Harriet Hyman Alonso and Illustrated by Elizabeth Zunon

Thirteen-year-old Martha and seven-year-old Jake must do what adults cannot to ensure their own and others’ freedom. 

Martha Bartlett has a secret. Her life has already been changed by the Underground Railroad. Now the safety of her younger brother Jake depends on her willingness to risk her own life to bring Jake home to their abolitionist community in Connecticut. It’s 1854 and though all people in the North are supposed to be free, seven-year-old Jake, the orphan of a fugitive slave, learns otherwise. Using aliases, disguises, and other subterfuges, his older sister Martha struggles to elude slave catchers while adhering to her parents’ admonition to always tell the truth. Being perceived sometimes as white, sometimes as black during a perilous journey also throws her sense of her own identity into turmoil. Alonso combines fiction and historical fact to weave a suspenseful story of courage, hope, and self-discovery in the aftermath of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, while illuminating the bravery of abolitionists who fought against slavery.

Buy on Amazon | Barnes and Noble

Spotlight: Goodnight, Mr. Clutterbuck by Mauri Kunnas and translated by Jill Timbers

From the award-winning Mauri Kunnas, Finland’s most celebrated children’s author, a hilarious picture book which follows the adventures of a sleepwalking goat. Mr. Clutterbuck, a mild-mannered goat, sleepwalks his way into unimaginable adventures: one night the lead singer of a rock band, the next an entrepreneur, Mr. Clutterbuck soon finds himself the hero of his town. A book that will send readers of all ages into fits of laughter.

Mr. Clutterbuck is blissfully unaware of his reputation as the busiest and loudest sleepwalker in town. Meek and mild-mannered when awake, at night Mr. Clutterbuck seeks thrills and adventures. Often the accidental instigator of chaos, Mr. Clutterbuck soon becomes the lead singer of a rock band, an entrepreneur, a disco king, and, eventually, the hero of his town. Goodnight, Mr. Clutterbuck is sure to captivate readers of all ages as we wonder what kind of situation Mr. Clutterbuck will find himself in next. With a lively tapestry of characters, including a motorcycle gang of cats and crocodiles, a hippo in charge of a sausage factory, and an ill-tempered bull at a theme park, Mauri Kunnas playfully shows what can happen when you step outside your comfort zone.

Excerpt

Mr. Clutterbuck comes home from work and carries his groceries into the
kitchen. Just then the phone rings. It’s Mr. Clutterbuck’s friend.
“The boys are going roller skating. Want to join us?”
“Me? I don’t know how to roller skate!” says Mr. Clutterbuck. “Sounds too
wild for me! Thanks for asking, but I think I’ll just go to bed early tonight.”
And Mr. Clutterbuck does just that.
“Good night, Gus, buddy! Sleep tight!” says
Mr. Clutterbuck. He turns off the light and
falls asleep instantly.
“Good night, Clutterbuck,” answers Gus.
“First the nightshirt.
Then the cap,” he mumbles.
“Glass of warm milk.
Good for relaxing.”
“Brush my teeth,
up and down!”
“Tuck in Guinea Pig Gus.”
“Set the alarm, and hit the hay!”
But what’s this? Mr. Clutterbuck bolts upright in bed. Sound asleep,
he trots out into the street. Mr. Clutterbuck is the town’s busiest
sleepwalker, although he doesn’t know it.
“BzzzPSHAW. . .ha ha. . .BzzzPSHAW!” snores Mr. Clutterbuck.
He must be having a good dream.
“Here we go again,”
sighs Gus. “Running after a
sleepwalker is a job in itself !”

Excerpted from Goodnight, Mr. Clutterbuck by Mauri Kunnas. Copyright © 2017 by Mauri Kunnas. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Buy on Amazon