Fifty years after surviving the atomic bombing of Nagasaki as a six-year-old, Sachiko Yasui began to share her story. This moving work of creative nonfiction offers Yasui’s account of life in wartime Japan, the “unspeakable seconds” of the bombing, her family’s struggle to survive, the deaths of her siblings from radiation sickness, her thyroid cancer, and her decades-long struggle to find words as ahibakusha, a survivor of the bombing.

Photographs and short essays on topics that include “Racism and War,” “Little Boy and Fat Man” (code names for the bombs dr...

TIME FOR (EARTH) SCHOOL, DEWEY DEW  Little one-eyed alien Dewey (short for Click-Clack Waddle-Waddle Dot-Dot Dewey Dew) is anxious about starting school on Earth, far from his home on “Planet Eight Hundred SeventyTwo Point Nine”—so much so that he “dorfles” (cries) a bit on the way there. His school outfit is uncomfortable (“Brand-new Earth shoes pinched his oofs”), and everything about the school feels foreign, from the language to the furnishings to the appearance of his Earth classmates. When it’s time to line up in pairs for recess, Dewey hides in the b...

The winning animal crew from Hooray for Hat! (2014) is back, this time celebrating the joy each day (or night) brings when in the company of friends.It's nighttime, and Owl is ready to play. One by one, she wakes her diurnal friends with an exuberant, "HOORAY FOR TODAY!"—to which each responds, "NOT NOW. I'M SLEEPY!" Gently, she lulls them with the toy and love she brings. In one last attempt for a playmate, Owl hoots her lines to the stars. A wordless spread humorously conveys how long she goes unanswered, as the sun appears before an amethyst sky. Dejecte...

Imagination and progressive relaxation are the key to powering down little Buddy, the boy “robot.” With spiky blond hair and chubby pink cheeks, Buddy looks in the mirror at his new robot pajamas and proclaims, “BEEP! My battery is on! I can walk and talk!” As bedtime approaches, Robo-Mom turns on her techno-voice and orders Ro-Buddy to turn on his “jumping button” until his “turbo charger” is worn out. The science-fiction dialogue continues through a trip to the family bathroom for a visit to the “space station potty.” When Robo-Dad commands, “Time to acti...

Following Fire Engine No. 9 (2015), Austin looks at maritime emergency vehicles.In Austin' s second No. 9 book, the youngest readers find a gripping, exciting ocean rescue conducted by a mixed-race, mixed-gender team using intriguing vehicles and tools: helicopter and boat, with assists from the lighthouse and trucks on the dock. The crew seems to be going through its ordinary duties when the weather changes and a distress call comes in.

The text is minimal: words repeat and appear in typeface that increases in size to convey urgency: "MAYDAY! MAYDAY! MAYDAY...

Laura Krauss Melmed delivers a beautiful salute to the bond that exists between mother and child in Before We Met. Jing Jing Tsong’s breathtaking digital collage illustrations feature an evocative palette of violets, purples and blues—the deep hues of a night sky—to create a magical backdrop for a mother’s musings. The phrase “before we met” serves as a refrain in the book’s rhymed lines, turning the text into a lullaby: “Before we met, I dreamt I felt the beating of your heart. Before we met, I promised you I’d love you from the start,” the mother tells he...

Dewey Dew's first day of school might look an awful lot like most kids', though it's a pretty safe bet they aren't extraterrestrials. Dewey Dew is blue, has one eye and an antennalike appendage on his head, and is from Planet Eight Hundred Seventy-Two Point Nine. But for his first day of school, he is heading, reluctantly, for Earth and Mrs. Brightsun's School for Little Learners. But nothing there looks, feels, or sounds quite right to Dewey Dew: his new "Earth shoes pinched his oofs," and he dorfles just a little, though "he was pretty sure he was much to...

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...

It’s nearly time for the moon to rise, and all of nature knows what that means. “The moon’s almost here./ Mama duck drifts to shore,” writes Newbery Medalist MacLachlan in lullaby-like verse. “Ducklings swim after:/ One, two, three, and four.” On the porch of a house, a dog “curls in a ball/ And closes his eyes.” The sky gradually turns from light turquoise to lavender to deep navy, and the moon makes its much-heralded entrance in the final pages, a glowing white ball. Witnessing it all are two figures: a redheaded boy in an old-fashioned nightgown and an a...