Marcus provides an enlightening introduction to a lavish collection of illustrations from the long and distinguished career of Alice and Martin Provensen. Pictures from twenty-four of their books (including those Alice Provensen created independently after her husband’s death) are arranged chronologically, with several illustrations representing each title.
Wells says in an opening note that she chose her favorite twelve poems from Milne’s beloved classic to present in “picture-book format.” She gives each its own introductory page on which she shows that poem’s characters (usually a cat, mouse, rabbit, or other critter) as well as other important elements.
This wide-ranging nonfiction picture book explores the many facets of a single color, dipping a brush into culture, history, linguistics, art, science, and more. Brew-Hammond begins with a historical look into the different ways people around the world made the title hue and how the difficulty of those methods influenced the color’s early cultural meaning, causing it to be associated with luxury and royalty.
This emotionally complex novel set within a contemporary Orthodox Jewish community is full of immersive Jewish detail literally, as much of the story centers around the mikvah, or ritual bath, that eleven-year-old Aviva’s mother has run since Aviva’s father’s death; mother and daughter now live in a “shabby little apartment” above it.
Mina is a mouse, her nose always in a book, who lives “in her own little world where nothing ever bothered her.” Her busy father brings home things he collects from the outside world, and one day he tells Mina that he has a big surprise.