As a skater zooms across the page, the only other elements depicted are the Lines (Chronicle, $17.99) that trace her path across the ice. This minimal approach beautifully represents the skater’s flowing movements, but then the graceful figure falls in the midst of a complicated move. The next page shows a crumpled piece of paper. From this point forward, Suzy Lee transforms this wordless picture book into a meditation on the process of creating art, making this charming book into a great one. Ages 5-8.
In the waters off the coast of an unnamed Latin American country, Abelardo and his father find a whale tangled in their fishing nets. Author/illustrator Mordecai Gerstein depicts both the boy’s worry about the whale and his father’s frustration that their net, an essential tool in their trade, will have to be sacrificed, but ultimately the boy’s compassion for another living being wins out. As his father goes to search for a new net, Abelardo dives under the water to cut the nets and free the whale. When The Boy and the Whale (Roaring Brook, $17.99) come face to face, Gerstein achieves one of the most powerful moments of this immensely emotional tale. Ages 5-8.
Former British Children’s Laureate Michael Morpurgo collects 17 animal fables from around the world in his Greatest Animal Stories (Barron’s, $16.99). Morpurgo prefaces each tale by comparing and contrasting it to others in the collection, making connections between cultures and thus providing a global context. In the spirit of Aesop’s Fables, Morpurgo also ends each chapter by identifying the moral of the story. His choice to use several writers and illustrators conveys a sense of many voices speaking to the reader with every turn of the page. Ages 8-11.
