"Ruby Rose loves to boogie. It's the first day of school, and she bebops into class to meet Mrs. Dempsey, her new teacher. Mrs. Dempsey has never danced a day in her life, and she (and the rest of the staff, including a shushing librarian and a scolding lunch lady) encourages sitting quietly, lining up in orderly fashion, and walking sedately in straight lines. Just when it seems that there will never be time for Ruby Rose's impromptu conga lines or cancan routines, the classroom ant farm gets knocked over, and the entire class, including Mrs. Dempsey, star...

In this whimsical story, a new mother reflects on the time before her baby was born. Each page hosts a
brief sentence describing her anticipation in the form of dreams: “Before we met, / I dreamt we danced / to songs a songbird wrote”; “Before we met, / I dreamt I felt / the beating of your heart.” Complementing the words are Tsong’s richly textured illustrations. The digital collage artwork exhibits a layered, stenciled effect that is thick with color and light, as it depicts scenes from nature. Gossamer dragonflies, broody birds in their nests, mares with...

It’s one thing to feel like an alien on your first day of school. It’s another thing to be one.Click-Clack Waddle-Waddle Dot-Dot Dewey Dew is a shy blue creature whose one enormous eye sheds a few quiet dorfs as his mother flies their spaceship toward Earth. Dewey feels out of place at Ms. Brightsun’s School for Little Learners. Earth words feel strange and “hard in his mouth.” The
clothes don’t exactly fit well (“Earth socks drooped around his hunklets!”). And though the kids
are different colors, Dewey is the only blue student there. In the end, a singl...

 
Working his usual magic, dePaola illustrates this gentle good-night story with the characters Pierrot and his redheaded child. Waiting for the moon to rise, the two walk through the meadow towards home. They observe robins returning to the nest for bedtime and a mama sheep hurrying her lambs home as the sun goes away. Simple rhyming text tells the story: “The moon’s almost here. / Mama duck drifts to shore. / Ducklings swim after: / One, two, three, four.” As father and child return home, fireflies appear, and the pair, along with their dog and kitten, we...