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)
ISBN 978-0-7636-9649-8
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.)
The Wooden Camel
Wanuri Kahiu, illus. by Manuela Adreani.
Lantana (Lerner, dist.), $17.99 (32p) ISBN 978-
1-9113-7312-4
A boy dreams of racing camels in
Kenyan filmmaker Kahiu’s bittersweet