Myrick Publisher Preview: Spring 2024 – Red Comet Press, Scallywag Press, Soaring Kite Books, and Tapioca Stories (Part Six)

No time to linger! The spring is upon us and we’ve so many more books coming out to cover! This season you’ve already seen Part One here, Part Two here, Part Three here, Part Four here, and Part Five here. Onward to Part Six!

My Book and Me by Linda Sue Park, ill. Chris Raschka

Publication Date: June 4, 2024

ISBN: 9781636550947

It seems to me that if a Newbery Award winner pairs with multi-Caldecott Award winner, the end result warrants a gander. Gander away then! This is a book love, plain and simple. Not much more to be said about that! It is what it is what it is.

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Aloha Everything by Kaylin Melia George, ill. Mae Waite

Publication Date: April 23, 2024

ISBN: 9781636551128

You can’t really tell here, but not only is this cover gorgeous, it’s also sparkly. Author Kaylin Melia George is Indigenous Hawaiian while illustrator Mae Waite was adopted from China and grew up in Hawai’i. I actually have a friend who’s a schoolteacher there, and you can bet that I’ll be recommending this book to her. Essentially, the title is all about the story of the hula and Hawai’i. In the course of the writing, it covers culture and history, all in the context of the hula. I’ve already alluded to the stunning art, but there is also some great backmatter to be had too. What more could you want?

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Umbrella Elena Arevalo Melville

Publication Date: April 2, 2024

ISBN: 9781915252371

I’ll give you a moment to get that Rihanna song out of your head before we proceed. All good? Excellent. So artist Elena Arevalo Melville is from Guatamala and she won my current favorite award with this book. You wanna hear the name? Why it was the 2020 Queen’s Knickers Award of course! That’s almost too delightful. In this book a girl encounters a talking umbrella and magical things happen when you tell it what you desire. People are made happy left and right, until a greedy fox (it’s a fox, right?) wants the umbrella to make him rich. That goes . . . poorly.

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When Creature Met Creature by John Agard, ill. Satoshi Kitamura

Publication Date: May 7, 2024

ISBN: 9781915252470

Is that Satoshi Kitamura I spy? It’s been a minute since I’ve seen a new book from him, so isn’t this a treat? Guyanese playwright, poet and children’s author John Agard brings us the story of two creatures. One does not use words and must communicate nonverbally. The other is full of words. When you get right down to it, this is a story that showcases the different ways of communication, including being non-verbal. And just LOOK at the colors in this thing!

A Ramadan to Remember by Marzieh A. Ali, ill. Najwa Awatiff

Publication Date: January 2, 2024

ISBN: 9781958372142

We see a fair number of books about Ramadan on the one hand, and a bunch of picture books about kids having to move somewhere new on the other. Seems to make a lot of sense to me to combine the two narratives together, yes? In this story, a kid moves to new place and discovers that the Ramadan traditions he finds there are different. Naturally, he’s quite frustrated about that. After all, now he’ll have to make new traditions, and that can be hard. Fortunately, he comes around (had you any doubt?). Part of what I like so much about this book is that at the end you have info on Ramadan around the world with some colorful backmatter. A clever idea for a tale.

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Marcelo Martello Marshmallow by Ruth Rocha, ill. Ana Matsusaki, translated by Tal Goldfajn

Publication Date: June 11, 2024

ISBN: 9781734783995

Talk about timing! In this next book we have an illustrator who very recently received an Ezra Jack Keats Award nomination for her work on that kooky and delightful book The Collector of Heads. Now if you were a kid that grew up in Brazil, this book would need no introduction. Considered a classic of Brazilian literature from the 1970s, this particular edition will contain a blurb from Roger Mello since it was a favorite of his growing up. Now Ana Matsusaki adds her original collage illustrations to this tale about a kid who makes up their own new language. A delightful and weird book (the two things are not exclusive to one another).

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Future by María José Ferrada, ill. Mariana Alcántara, translated by Kit Maude

Publication Date: May 14, 2024

ISBN: 9798988749905

Imagine a cover made out of silvery, shiny metallic ink and you’ll have a better sense of what this book resembles. The images I might be showing here may look gray, but they’re actually quite sparkly. Now this whole book is about the future and how you, the child, can influence it. With its Chilean author and Mexican illustrator, little wonder that they’re releasing it in both English and Spanish (woohoo!). Look for it. I don’t think you’ll be able to miss it.

Filed under: Publisher Previews