Unexpected Jolts of Children’s Literature

All right, all right! If you know this series then you know the drill. By night, I’m a crime-fighting children’s literature expert, blogging for all she’s worth (true story, with the possible exception of the “crime-fighting” part). But by day I’m mild-mannered Betsy Bird, Collection Development Manager at Evanston Public Library and the buyer of all the adult content for my system. That means, anytime I see an adult book with a connection to kidlit, I gather it close and keep it in mind for this post. With that established, let’s see what the adult world has conjured up for we, the children’s literature lovers:

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Benny the Blue Whale: A Descent into Story, Language and the Madness of Chatgpt by Andy Stanton (9780861547401)

Oh, this is funny. I’d forgotten that I’d included this. For a second, after looking at the title, I had half convinced myself that this had gotten onto the list by accident. Then I realized that the “Andy Stanton” on the cover there is the same Andy Stanton that’s been making kooky kids titles for decades (my personal favorite being the Mr. Gum books). Here we learn that after learning about ChatGPT, Stanton decided to ask it a question that would test its creativity. So, naturally, he asked it to, “tell me a story about a blue whale with a tiny penis.” And that’s when things get weird. PW summed up their review by saying, “The irreverent tone buoys a surprisingly thoughtful exploration of how AI might aid artists, and the ways in which it comes up short against its human competitors.”

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Behind You Is the Sea by Susan Muaddi Darraj (9780063324237)

Those of us in my profession probably know Susan Muaddi Darraj best for her Farah Rocks series of early chapter books. Now her novel about Baltimore’s Palestinian immigrant community is garnering starred review after starred review. In the stories in the book, the young people are often the heroes. She’s written such books before (A Curious Land) but this is the one getting all the raves. There’s humor, but also “complex characters reckoning with the costs of holding tightly to their principles.” One to find.

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This Is the Honey: An Anthology of Contemporary Black Poets by Kwame Alexander (9780316417525)

Because apparently the man doesn’t have enough to do. When Kwame isn’t winning Emmys or presenting at the upcoming ALA Conference or giving commencement speeches or popping up on The Daily Show, he must think to himself, “What adult books can I also get published while I’m at it?” Because after the publication of his other adult book (Why Fathers Cry at Night), he’s decided to create what Library Journal called, “the most important poetry collection of this decade.” The book includes work by more than 100 living Black poets, from Elizabeth Acevedo to Rita Dove and mixes both old and new voices. Slow down, Kwame! Why do you write like you’re running out of time?

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Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne, ill. Travis Dandro (9781770466968)

Yeah, I’m not sure where this one came from either. Or, for that matter, why they’re selling it as “adult”. Sure, the publisher is Drawn & Quarterly, and they don’t do much children’s literature, but I couldn’t find anything inappropriate in this pretty darn faithful graphic adaptation of the original stories. And, to be frank, this might actually be a smart way to initially introduce kids to Pooh and friends. If Drawn & Quarterly wants to be clever about it, they could follow this up with some other somewhat difficult sells, like Wind in the Willows. Fun Fact: SLJ called this “cottagecore”. Well played, reviewer Mariela Siegert. Well played.

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Skin & Bones by Renée Watson (9780316570886)

Okay. Let’s just break down precisely what Renée Watson is publishing in 2024. She has coming out:

• A picture biography of Cicely Tyson coming out in November.
• This adult novel called Skin & Bones out in May
• The poetry collection Black Girl You Are Atlas (which to my mind is Newbery-worthy), which came out in February.

Those are three very big, and very different, books. The woman has range, that’s for sure. And since this is her first novel for adults, you might think she might like to do something light and fluffy. NOPE! Not unless your definition of “light and fluffy” is “confronts white supremacy and anti-fat bias”. Because that’s what Skin & Bones is doing. It’s confronting the history of her beloved Portland, Oregon and why it’s so white (something I noticed when I used to live there) as well as how to navigate a world that marginalizes women who are Black and fat. It’s already getting starred reviews. Had you any doubt?

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Dear Readers and Riders: The Beloved Books, Faithful Fans, and Hidden Private Life of Marguerite Henry by Lettie Teague (9781646011940)

If you have a friend dedicated wholly and entirely to all things Misty of Chincoteague, then have I got the book for you! Of course, I have a hard time thinking about Misty without recalling how she once attended ALA (I got yer proof right here, and that’s not Paul Revere..). And, of course, now she’s stuffed so anyone can go see her if you like. This book probably doesn’t go into those details (though the librarian one is so charming that maybe it is). From the reviews, it sounds like this is a pretty darned good book on what it used to be like to be a famous children’s book author. Just watch out for that fan mail!

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Morning Pages by Kate Feiffer (9798888451311)

That’s a heckuva Geraldine Brookes blurb on the cover there, Kate. Y’all remember Kate Feiffer, right? Daughter of Jules Feiffer. Author of such picture books as My Mom Is Trying to Ruin My Life (my own personal favorite). Considering her dad’s legacy in adult literature (or, at the very least, adult cartooning), it came as a bit of a surprise to learn that this is her debut novel for that age range. In it, a newly divorced playwright is given a commission to write a play for a prestigious theater company. She just has to deal with her moody teenaged son and interfering mom to do it. Folks are loving this one. Worth watching.

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The Genius of Judy: How Judy Blume Rewrote Childhood for All of Us (9781668010907)

If one is to write a book about Judy Blume then going the route that Bergstein has selected here is a necessity. Book by book, the author goes through Blume’s best known titles and ties them into her life. Reviews of this title have been generally positive, with a few notes along the way. Both PW and Kirkus would have liked it if Bergstein had kept her focus a little more on Judy and a little less on digressions about Norma Klein or a 1982 Supreme Court case over the legality of banning books from school libraries. Even so, they’re fans, and this sounds like just the kind of book for just that kind of reader.

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Loving Before Loving: A Marriage in Black and White by Joan Steinau Lester (9780299331009)

I was familiar with the story of the Lovings (as referenced by the title you read here). What I didn’t realize, though, was that the author “Joan Steinau Lester” was none other than Julius Lester’s wife. Julius Lester, of course, had a magnificent career in the adult book world, completely apart from the children’s books he would come to pen. Even so, having recently visited The Rabbit Hole in Kansas City and seen the tigers from his book Sam and the Tigers brought to life, you cannot help but understand the debt the children’s literary world owes to him. In this book Joan recounts the eight years she and Julius were married. It was an interracial marriage starting in 1962, hence the title of the book. Kirkus called this a, “frank love story set amid the ideals of the 1960s.”

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Blue Hills Remembered by Rosemary Sutcliff (9781912766802)

We end with one of the more obscure (to American readers anyway) children’s book authors out there. Originally, this title was published in 1983, and since that time it’s been hailed for its depiction of Sutcliff’s struggles with Still’s disease, a rare and debilitating form of juvenile arthritis. Indeed, Tom Shakespeare, a social scientist, bioethicist, and academic who writes and talks and researches mainly about disability, provides the introduction for this book’s most recent iteration. Library Journal called it, “The antithesis of so-called ‘misery lit,’ this charming recollection captures the origins of a novelist who engaged her disability on her own terms and translated her experiences into captivating narratives that continue to inspire countless young readers to this day.”

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