Publishers Weekly - August 28, 2017

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ■ AUGUST 28, 2017 128

Review_CHILDREN’S

clear, direct message that readers can carry into their lives. Ages 4–up. (Oct.)

The Lumberjack’s Beard

Duncan Beedie. Templar, $16.99 (40p)

Deforestation meets depilation in the
story of an overzealous lumberjack
named Big Jim Hickory, whose thorough-
ness leaves some local animals without
homes. “After a long day of swinging,
whacking, cleaving, and hacking,” Beedie
(The Bear Who Stared) shows Jim returning
to his cabin, a wide expanse of stumps
behind him, lit by the setting sun. An
irate bird shows up at his doorstep (“I had
just built a new nest in my tree,” the bird
complains, “and you chopped it down!”),
so Jim invites the bird to take up resi-
dence in his sizable beard. A displaced
porcupine
and beaver
soon follow,
playing havoc
with Jim’s
daily routines
of limbering-
up exercises
and towering
pancake breakfasts. Beedie’s digital car-
toons have a burliness to match his hero,
and although the story is mostly played
for laughs (Jim shaves his beard, and the
animals move into the resulting hairball),
there’s no ignoring the starkness of the
decimated forest. (Jim doesn’t ignore it
either, and he embarks on a replanting
mission.) An easygoing storytelling style,
ample visual humor, and the amusingly
improbable premise make Beedle’s envi-
ronmental message go down easy. Ages
5–8. (Oct.)

Fiction

Shai & Emmie Star in Break an Egg! Quvenzhané Wallis with Nancy Ohlin, illus. by Sharee Miller. Simon & Schuster, $15.99

(128p) ISBN 978-1-4814-5882-5

Teenage actor Wallis knows of what she
writes. She sets her perky first novel (pub-
lishing simultaneously with a picture
book, A Night Out with Mama) at a per-
forming arts elementary school in
Atlanta, where best friends Shai Williams
and Emmie Harper are preparing to audi-
story, which features the Turkana people of
northwest Kenya. Etabo’s older siblings
tease him for his goal (“He’s too small to
race camels”), and he suffers another set-
back when his father sells their camels in
order to afford water. The companionship
of a favorite goat, Keti, helps Etabo keep
up his spirits, and he prays to Akuj, the
Sky God, for help twice. The deity’s
response is always the same: “Your dreams
are enough.” Delicate pencil outlines com-
bine with gauzy washes of color in Italian
illustrator Adreani’s sweeping grasslands;
despite the family’s struggles, Etabo’s
resilience comes through in playful scenes
where he rests in an acacia tree with Keti,
“daydreaming about racing camels,” and
attempts (unsuccessfully) to ride various
uncooperative animals: “Chickens...

Cats... And even Keti.” Etabo’s daydreams gain a new outlet after his sister carves him wooden camels to race in his imagination.

It’s a simple act that allows Etabo’s dreams to thrive—readers can imagine where that nurtured hope might take him in the future. Ages 4–8. (Oct.)

Lovely

Jess Hong. Creston (PGW, dist.), $16.99 (32p)

ISBN 978-1-939547-37-8

“What is lovely?” asks newcomer Hong at the outset of a book that celebrates seeing the beauty in everyone. She answers her own question by introducing a cavalcade of individuals young and old, with an emphasis on individual. “Lovely is different,” she writes as a girl with hetero-chromia looks at herself in the mirror. A young white woman in a goth ensemble represents “black,” while a brown-skinned woman with flowing white hair and a garland of flowers signifies “white.” Other opposite pairs include “soft” (a baby clutching a stuffed bear) and “sharp” (an elderly woman with lavender hair, a nose ring, and a spike-covered leather jacket), and spreads featuring arms and legs showcase bodies with tattoos, freckles, vitiligo, and prosthetic limbs.

Hong’s digital cartooning is clean and
bright, and her portraits casually reflect a
diversity of ages, skin colors, abilities,
occupations, and family types; a mixed-
race gay couple stands opposite a brown-
skinned woman carrying her son on her
shoulders. It’s easy to see beauty in people
simply being themselves in these pages, a
night out is described as “an awards show”
but it’s clear that it’s a very big deal. A hip
young woman comes to the girl’s house to
do her hair, she dons a sparkly blue dress
and matching shoes, and a limo takes her
to the venue. She stumbles on the red
carpet and doesn’t win, but she recovers
like a pro and declares it “the time of my
life.” Brantley-Newton’s colorful digital
cartooning is always fun and festive, and
although a fair amount of time is devoted
to getting glam for the party, most readers
should relate to an ebullient heroine
whose family makes her feel loved and
grounded—no matter where life takes
her. Ages 4–8. Author’s agent: Esther
Newberg, ICM. Illustrator’s agent: Lori
Nowicki, Painted Words. (Oct.)

No Water No Bread

Luis Amavisca, trans. from the Spanish by Ben Dawlatly, illus. by Raúl Nieto Guridi. Nubeocho (Consortium, dist.), $15.95 (40p) ISBN 978-84-945971-3-8

The Spanish team of Amavisca and Guridi reduces migrant crises to their simplest terms. On one side of a chain-link fence, a small group of people colored in blue gather water from a well; Guridi draws the fence and the people with urgent black lines. On the other side, an orange-colored baker takes baguettes out of an oven for his compatriots. An orange man speaks through the fence to the blue people: “We don’t have enough water here. Could you please give us some?” “I’m sorry, it’s not on your land,” responds a blue adult. “This is our water.” When the blue adults ask the orange adults for bread, they’re met with the same refusal. But when two children meet face-to-face at the fence, they trade readily. “Why are our parents like this?” they wonder. Then green people appear, and a new section of fencing goes up—fortunately, there are green children, too. Amavisca and Guridi make a direct, useful, and powerful point about strangers, sharing resources, and how children often see more clearly than adults. Ages 4–8. (Oct.)