White Ravens list 2022

The White Ravens catalogue, the most important annual publication of

the International Youth Library (Munich). It aims to promote

quality in children’s book publishing ...

"The White Ravens" presents outstanding new publications of the international children's and young adult literature production of a year. The 2022 catalogue presents a selection of 200 notable children's and young adult books from 53 countries published in 37 languages.

Take a look at my previous post about the 2020 White Ravens titles.

Here are some of the titles from this newest catalogue:

Australia

I will be talking about Stellarphant here soon - it was a CBCA 2022 Honour Book and I am excited to say I was one of the Picture Book of the Year judges who selected this terrific book. 

My Brother Ben

Canada

United Kingdom

Medusa

Escape

The Little Wooden Robot and the Log Princess

I have a few titles on my "to read list" from the 2022 White Ravens: The last Cuentista by Donna Barba Higuera; Mel Fell by Corey R Tabor; and Mole in a black & white hole by Tereza Sediva. 

I'm not able to talk about Piano Fingers by Caroline Magerl just yet because it has been entered for the 2023 CBCA Awards. 

Take a look at the 2021 catalogue.

Anisa's Alphabet

The Lady with the Books

Anna Cunha

A Wish in the Dark

Every Little Kindness by Marta Bartolj

 

2022 Ezra Jack Keats Illustrator Award Honoree

Publisher blurb: Follow the trail of good deeds in this beautiful wordless picture book to learn how small acts of kindness can make all the difference!  When one act of kindness sparks another, anything is possible! As a girl searches for her lost dog, a simple act of generosity ripples into a wave of good deeds. In the course of a single day, each considerate action weaves lives together and transforms a neighbourhood for the better. This wordless story, told in beautiful illustrations reminiscent of a graphic novel, demonstrates how every little kindness, shared from person to person, can turn a collection of strangers into a community, and—even though we might not always see it—make the world a more vibrant and compassionate place to be.

Kindness in this book is like a set of Chinese whispers passed on from person to person until the kindness comes full circle and the young girl is reunited with her lost dog. Make sure you compare the front and back end papers too.

A lesson by example in compassion for all ages. Kirkus

This lovely book should be part of everyone’s library. Cracking the Cover

There is great pleasure in following the color through the book, seeing who notices the kindness and who benefits from it as it passes through their lives. Waking Brain Cells

Marta Bartolj is an illustrator from Slovenia. Here is a short interview where she talks about her inspiration. This book was published in 2019 with the title Kje si? and it was selected for the IBBY Silent book collection. You can read more about Every Little Kindness and see other books illustrated by Marta Bartolj here. I agree with the reviewer who said this book should be in every library but sadly it is quite expensive here in Australia at over $30 so you might just have to lobby your public library to purchase a copy. 

I would pair Every Little Kindness with another wonderful silent (wordless) book -  Stormy:

Click here to see a poster of previous Ezra Jack Keats Award winners. 

Margaret's Unicorn by Briony May Smith

Margaret and her parents move to a new home in the countryside. On the first afternoon Margaret sees some unicorns racing through the sky:

'They were leaping into the air, swept up by the wind. And then in the blink, they were gone."

All except one tiny baby unicorn. Margaret carries the precious baby home. Her grandmother explains unicorns only eat flowers. Since it is autumn there are not too many flowers around so they head to the town florist where they pick up beautiful bunches of flowers. 

Unicorns need to drink water that has been touched by moonlight so later that night Margaret and her dad head out with buckets to collect water where the moonlight has touched the stream. 

Have you noticed something truly wonderful here. All of the adults can see the baby unicorn and all of them believe they are real. This is such a point of difference from other books about unicorns.

Time passes and the unicorn grows bigger. In the Spring, the flying unicorns return and it is time for the baby to be reunited with her mother. So this is a book about new friends, care of others and about letting go.

Yes there’s magic in this lyrical tale but never of the sparkly sort; rather it has an earthiness fed by the landscapes and the seasonal changes all around, so beautifully captured in the illustrations, that and the love. Red Reading Hub

The illustrations in Margaret's Unicorn are very special - here is a example from Briony May Smith's Facebook page:

Take a look at other books by Briony May Smith. I love the way the illustration above shows shadows and light. 

Image from the title page -  source: Briony May Smith

When I was a very young child I read a book about a unicorn and I loved it. Fast forward to 2022 and the shops are filled with unicorn "stuff" and lots of fairly ghastly pink and sparkling picture books about unicorns. Thankfully Margaret's Unicorn is nothing like that. Unicorns are every where now. I do love the ones on the main post office building in our city of Sydney. My friend had a birthday party for her one year old grand daughter the other day and the theme and cake were all about unicorns. I did wonder how a one year old baby would even know about unicorns!  

I have a Pinterest collection of Picture Books that feature unicorns (of course there are many more that I could add). Here are some other unicorn books I have talked about on this blog:

The Unicorn in the Barn

The Unicorn Prince

The Christmas Unicorn

A Plague of Unicorns

Eloise and the Bucket of Stars

Oh, and if you are wondering about the unicorn book I read back in the 1960s it was this one: The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge. 

Five Bears: A friendship tale by Catherine Rayner

"All the bears looked at each other.

All the bears thought for a while.

All the bears felt happier than they had in a long time.

Then they all spoke at once. 

Because actually, it was simple ...

'We all just like each other!'"

Here is another book that has just popped up and it utterly surprised and delighted me. This is one of those books you could share with very very young children and equally with much older readers where I am sure their discussion would touch on very deep themes such as:

• how are friendships formed?
• is there a 'right' way to react to offers of friendship?
• how can you diffuse anger if a greeting receives a hostile response?
• what does acceptance of others and acceptance of difference mean?
• can you link this book with human relationships, tolerance, race relations?
• what should you do if an offer of help is refused?
• are there tiny things you might do to alleviate the loneliness of others?
• has this book shown you anything about the way teamwork works?
• why is is significant that the "stuck" bear is a polar bear?

Here is the blurb: Bear is walking through the forest, minding his own business when he comes across another bear. The Other bear is different. The two bears wander along, thinking different thoughts, and looking in different directions. Soon the two bears come across another bear and then another bear and eventually find a bear stuck in a tree. The bears realise that perhaps they aren't that different after all and perhaps they could be friends?

This is a large format, hardcover book with an affordable price so I highly recommend you add it to your library shopping list. 

It is my dream that this book helps to make a difference to our future generations' attitude toward helping 'stuck bears' all over the world. Catherine Rayner

Picture books have a great deal to offer to young readers from exciting stories of derring do to direct instruction and, as here, reflective texts that through the perfect marriage of image and word allows the audience to make a connection from the imaginative to reality. Excellent. Books for Keeps

I do adore art by Catherine Rayner - take time to explore her wonderful web pages.

Hey, Water! by Antoinette Portis

Hey, water! I know you! You're all around. 

This is a simply perfect book to share with your youngest child or a preschool group. Every form of water is covered in this book but with an incredibly spare text and very appealing illustrations.

Image source: Antoinette Portis

Here are a few more examples - each line here is on one page:

Sprinkler You spray up

and down. Shower

...

You cover most of the earth - salty, surging, and mysterious. Ocean

...

In the morning, you wink at me from blades of grass. dewdrop

Look at how she made the dewdrop ever so slightly translucent, all with her brushwork. A book that has had care and time poured into its pages exudes that love when you read it. There is not a drop of paint or a flick of a brush out of place here. ...And maybe, just maybe, some little kid out there will read this book and, for whatever reason, love it dearly. Hey, Portis! You made a really good book. Betsy Bird SLJ

The illustrations are "are very simple but effective and convey the movement and the texture of the water in its various guises." Reading Time

Take a look at this Horn Book Review too. There are videos of this book but I suggest the book itself is a way better way to share this book. Note in US editions the first page says faucet not tap!

This is a book that should be added to every preschool and infants school library. 

Awards for this book:

• 2020 ALSC Robert F. Sibert Honor book

• A 2020 American Library Assn. Notable Book

• New York Public Library, Best Books for Kids 2019

• Chicago Public Library, Best Informational Books for Younger Readers of 2019

• A 2020 Bank Street Coll. of Education Best Children's Book of the Year

• Nerdy Book Club, 2019 Nerdy Award for non-fiction picture book

• A Mighty Girl’s 2019 Books of the Year

Take a look at another post on this blog about books by Antoinette Portis. 

The Capybaras by Alfredo Soderguit translated by Elisa Amado

"A beautiful, simple, deep book about how accepting others 

can enrich us all."

The chickens are happy on the farm. Daily life is predicable and safe until ...  It is hunting season and a group of large capybaras need to find somewhere safe to live until the hunters leave. The chickens do not want these strangers to move in to their home. 

"There were lots of them, they were hairy, they were wet, they were too big. NO! There was no room for them."

The capybaras explain their perilous situation so the chickens do decide they can stay IF they follow the rules:

1. Don't make any noise
2. Don't come out of the water
3. Don't come near the food
4. Don't question the rules

The chickens do not predict, however, that their youngest chick and the youngest capybara will not follow the rules and that they become friends but this is a lucky thing because one night the vicious hunting dog arrives and the life of the little chick is threatened. When the dog is confronted by the group of huge capybaras the crisis is averted.

"Then everything changed." 

Originally published in Venezuela, this picture book is simple and fun enough for preschoolers, but could definitely be used to start some interesting conversations with older ones. The disconnect between the text and the illustrations questions the meaning of such words as “comfortable” and “dangerous”. Delightfully subversive. Kids Book a Day

This book was originally published in 2020 with the Spanish title Los Corpinchos. If you are teaching visual literacy with a group of older students or talking about book design this book would make an excellent text. The illustrations are black, white and brown with touches of red. On the page where the chickens explain "nothing out of the ordinary every happened" you need to take a close look at the farmer as he walks away from the chicken hutch. And the final page in this book has no words but is is clearly the beginning of another huge conversation between the farm animals and the capybaras. 

On its surface, Soderguit’s beguiling picture book offers a direct-enough message: find community in embracing others—even those that seem unfamiliar at first. Yet moments pop up where text and pictures seem at intentional odds, inviting readers to consider a deeper plunge. Aided by an ingenious use of the book’s gutter, the sparse text and wordless segments make this tale an unusually meditative piece of work. Similarly, the artwork shuns colour for the most part, evoking a muted spirit of optimism.  Purely exquisite. Kirkus Star review

Profound and remarkable. Waking Brain Cells

The Capbaras is published by Greystone Kids in Vancouver, Canada and it is an Aldana Libros book: Aldana Libros is an imprint of Greystone Kids that was developed by renowned children’s publisher Patricia Aldana to bring outstanding books to the English-speaking market, by international authors and illustrators who want to communicate their own cultural realities.    

I suggest this book would be an excellent one to purchase for your school library and I am so pleased it has a reasonable price at around $25 for the hardcover. If you speak Spanish take a look at this video and if you don't speak Spanish take a look to see inside this book. And here is another reading on vimeo. Read more about this production here. 

The Hans Christian Andersen nominee Ivar Da Coll from Colombia and Venezuela also has a series of picture books featuring a capybara character called Chigüiro and you can read more about Capybaras in this non fiction book:

We have a new picture book here in Australia - Egg by Claire Atkins published by University of Queensland Press - and this book would be the perfect book to read alongside The Capybaras. 

Read a review of Egg in Reading Time. And this piece from Paperbark Words and Joy Lawn. 

Alfredo Soderguit has illustrated over forty book. The Capybaras is the second book he has written and illustrated. I love seeing books from around the world. Here is the German edition of The Capybaras:

Meet the author illustrator Kenneth Kraegel

My local book store - Beachside Bookshop shared this book with me a couple of days ago. 

A mycological charmer. Kirkus Star review

Here is the blurb: In gentle rhyme, this spare and whimsical picture book from the one-of-a-kind imagination of Kenneth Kraegel introduces little readers to all sorts of wonderful mushrooms: ones that grow up high and ones that never stay dry, ones that grow in a park and ones that glow in the dark, and even one made just for them! Who can resist climbing up the soft mushroom stair, curling up in a plush mushroom chair, and preparing to dream sweet mushroom dreams? 

Then Nerdy Book Club posted this from Kenneth Kraegel. 

I was curious to discover more about Kenneth Kraegel and his books. The wonderful school library I visit each week had one book by Kenneth - King Arthur's very great Grandson.

Blurb: Henry Alfred Grummorson is the great-great-great-great-great-great great grandson of Arthur, King of Britain. On his sixth birthday, adorned with a helmet and sword, Henry goes in search of adventure. He challenges a fire-breathing dragon to a fight, but the dragon prefers a game of blowing smoke rings. A cyclops wants only to have a staring contest. Even the griffin will not engage in "a battle to the uttermost" of the type Henry desires. Desperate for a real battle, strength against strength, might against might, Henry seeks out the fearsome leviathan. Has he met his match at last -- or might he find something he didn't know he was looking for? Children bold and imaginative will relate to Henry's quest -- and smile at its unintended consequences.

Kirkus review: This is a good choice for reading aloud and for discussing such topics as friendship, aggression and the bravery it takes to change your mind.

This is a book of Shapes is a board book. Kirkus said: Bound to put a smile on readers’ faces.