May 2023 Prime Picks
Reviewer's Choice
The Arts
Abstract
Expressionists: The Women
Ellen G. Landau and
Joan M. Marter
Merrell
9781858947037 $65.00
www.merrellpublishers.com
Abstract Expressionists: The Women covers a key art movement of New
York and San Francisco in the mid-twentieth century (now described as being the
first major art movement in America to gain international status).
Because key artists
chosen for profile in this movement have typically been men, Ellen G. Landau
and Joan M. Marter's survey is particularly notable in focusing its coverage on
the many women who were also part of the exhibits and movement that fostered
this art form.
The heart of this exposure
is the holdings in the Levett Collection, a private gathering of art by female
Abstract Expressionists.
Art history essays by
Landau and Marter accompany the color illustrations packed into this
celebration, which include paintings, collages, and sculptures and accompany
over thirty artist biographies.
Any definitive
library of American art and women's contributions should make Abstract Expressionists: The Women a
mainstay.
Create at Home With
Old & New
Ali Heath
Mitchell Beazley
9781784728557 $39.99
www.octopusbooksusa.com
Create at Home With Old & New will reach interior design
artists and collections catering to them with a focus on juxtaposing antiques
with modern pieces to create displays that seamlessly integrate and old new
design pieces and concepts.
Specially
commissioned photography provides a visual key to understanding and absorbing
these concepts, which appear in three sections: Establishing Your Style,
Developing Your Eye, and Inspiring Your Journey. These neatly separate the
basic concepts of employing Ali Heath's unique style, allowing readers to
easily identify and tap into their creative impulses to get started on their
own projects, define unique approaches to mixing antique and modern pieces, and
learn from others who have successfully integrated these ideas.
The colorful approach
and displays make Create at Home With Old
& New a delightful display and a lesson that should be in any arts
library.
The Handbook of Home
Design
Laura Jane Clark
Kyle Books
9781914239267 $26.99
www.octopusbooksusa.com
The Handbook of Home Design: An Architect's Blueprint for Shaping Your
Home offers budget-minded home designers solutions to common remodeling and
building issues. It represents architect Laura Jane Clark's years of working
within budgets of all kinds.
Clark takes a
step-by-step approach to the process, teaching new homeowners and budding
designers the basics of reading a plan, sketching a workable design,
understanding technical requirements, and using the appropriate language and
instructions to get the most from the home renovation effort.
Full-page color photo
examples accompany considerations of flow, zoning spaces, and tackling
ancillary spaces in homes, and are powerful keys to understanding the basics of
home remodeling options and the revitalization processes that work.
Libraries and
homeowners alike will find The Handbook
of Home Design an empowering guide.
Linocut
Sam Marshall
Herbert
Press/Bloomsbury
9781789940701 $26.00
www.bloomsbury.com
Linocut: A Creative Guide to Making Beautiful Prints features
eighteen projects that can be adapted to a variety of subjects, and shows how
to create unique prints suitable for cards and other applications.
Everyday life
subjects encourage budding artists to draw their inspiration from familiar
ideas and experiences, fostering the fine art of observational drawing, while
step-by-step instructions use low-cost materials and experimental techniques for
superior results.
Examples from
Marshall's own efforts as well as those of five other printmakers contribute to
a crafts guide embedded with easy approaches that encourage both linocut art
and creative effort, making for a top recommendation for libraries and artists
alike.
Michael Freeman on
Color & Tone
Michael Freeman
Ilex Press/Octopus
9781781578711 $29.99
www.ilex.press
Michael Freeman on Color & Tone: The Ultimate Photography
Masterclass is the third book in a series of his photography guides,
employing an original perspective and instructions to approaching color and
tone in a 'masterclass' guide that reviews and promotes the new artistic
license granted by technological developments in sensors and processing
software.
Chapters explore this
topic with an eye to developing creative connections between color manipulation
and management and the possibilities for photographic enhancements that stem
from them.
From discussions of
vision changes as light moves through the day to processing issues and
photographic technique, Freeman's guide is an outstanding survey that places
creative power in the hands of those who aspire to construct more than ordinary
photos.
Michael Freeman on Color & Tone should be in any serious
photographer's collection, and in libraries catering to them.
Reviewer's Choice
Avocado Anxiety
Louise Gray
Bloomsbury
9781472969637 $24.00
www.bloomsbury.com
Avocado Anxiety and Other Stories About Where Your Food Comes From
comes from the author of the best-selling The
Ethical Carnivore, and continues the dialogue surrounding food choices and
making mindful decisions about eating.
This survey presents
stories of how fruits and vegetables are grown, marketed, and how they affect
both humans and the land, considering wide-ranging questions from how food is
foraged and whether it's more nutritious than farmed food to whether plant protein
is as good as meat.
Expanding many of the
concepts presented in The Ethical
Carnivore, Avocado Anxiety imbibes
its approach and subjects with dialogues supported by facts, encouraging
readers to both learn more about food options and consider their planetary
impact in making these choices.
Finding Clarity
Marc Lesser
New World Library
9781608688333 $18.95
www.newworldlibrary.com
Finding Clarity: How Compassionate Accountability Builds Vibrant Relationships,
Thriving Workplaces, and Meaningful Lives considers professional
communication and basic concepts key to fostering compassion and
accountability, using mindful concepts as a building block for facing and
directing emotional conflicts for long-term benefit.
From understanding
and honing new values and approaches and supporting them to engaging readers on
the subject of personal and professional communication breakthroughs, Marc
Lesser creates a method for getting unstuck. This opportunity promotes a new
vision of interpersonal and business communications, drawing important links
between achieving clarity and being more effective in the world.
Business and
self-improvement libraries alike will find these processes invite discussion
and change.
The Inward Outlook
Laura Basha, PhD
She Writes Press
9781647424732 $16.95
www.whitebirdrising.com
The Inward Outlook: Conscious Choice as a Daily Practice promotes a
new outlook on life based on intersecting personal messages and perspectives
with influences from within. It advocates tapping into internal thinking, data,
and information which belays repetitive automatic thinking routines in favor of
a more mindful approach to life.
The exploration and
definition of an "inward outlook" and how it can appear on many
different levels (through interactions that become more compassionate and kind
to self as well as others) creates an invaluable dialogue that leads to new
insights and focusing methods.
Self-help libraries
interested in transformational encouragement and processes that support it will
find The Inward Outlook a fine
catalyst for supporting and identifying revised and more effective approaches
to life and self.
A Northern Gardner's
Guide to Native Plants and Pollinators
Lorraine Johnson and
Sheila Colla
Island Press
9781642832990 $32.00
www.islandpress.org
A Northern Gardner's Guide to Native Plants and Pollinators is a valuable
resource that no Northern California gardener should be without. Its synthesis
of gardening basics with its specific approach to identifying and using
beneficial native plants of the northern states creates a series of specific
regional insights on planting, using pollinators, understanding how native
plants nourish them, and supporting the ecosystem through native plant choices.
Lovely color
illustrations by Ann Sanderson enhance the growing strategy instructions and
opportunities presented in this book, which covers everything from planning a
garden to choosing native plants with its pollinators in mind.
Plants of Northern
California
Eva Begley
Falcon Guides
9781483067183 $34.95
www.falcon.com
Libraries and readers
in California seeking a field guide packed with clear color photos suitable for
identifying plants located west of the Sierra Nevada will find Plants of Northern California the
perfect item of choice.
With accompanying
text identifying blooming periods, elevation, and habitats, the guide,
organized by color and family, makes it easy for anyone to identify species and
look-alike plants, enabling both amateurs and professionals to accurately
identify over 560 plants.
No California
reference library strong in local nature history and botany should be without
this guide.
Young Adult/Children
Candlewick Press
www.candlewickpress.com
Nina LaCour's My Friend, Loonie (9781536213935,
$18.99) will please picture book readers with its story of Loonie the balloon,
who makes all children's activities brighter until Loonie has to float away
home.
Without the balloon,
magic vanishes. Or, does it?
Ashling Lindsay's
appealing drawings illustrate the story of a girl who is sad when her friend leaves,
but begins to notice new facets of life emerging in Loonie's absence.
Christo and Jean-Claude Wrap the World by G. Neri (9781536216615,
$18.99) captures the story of two environmental artists whose works received
acclaim and sparked debates and insights. Elizabeth Haidle illustrates the
intriguing story of their vision and how their art wrapped, embraced, and
changed various monumental possibilities.
The picture book
story will intrigue adults looking to illustrate contemporary artists' efforts
for picture book readers.
Monique
James-Duncan's Mommy Time
(9781536212266, $17.99) receives simple drawings by Ebony Glenn as it tells of
the typical busy day of a stay-at-home mom and her two children.
From music and
dancing to grocery shopping, laundry, naps, and more, the busy day of a parent
is covered with love affection, promoting a young reader's understanding of
their parents' worlds.
All are fine
recommendations for picture book readers and libraries catering to them.
Dark on Light
Dianne White
Simon & Schuster
9781534487895 $18.99
www.simonandschuster.com
Picture book readers
interested in embarking on an inviting night adventure that contrasts light and
darkness will find Dark on Light a
fine journey that contrasts the two with fine illustrations by Felicita Sala.
The simple tale
welcomes twilight and evening's arrival as children explore this transformed
world through an inviting series of simple rhymes that capture its atmosphere: "Inviting the trail. Timid the
fawn./Dark the hedge that borders the lawn."
Read-aloud parents
will find it an inviting exploration of night wonders.
Every Little Seed
Cynthia Schumerth
Sleeping Bear Press
9781534112698 $18.99
www.sleepingbearpress.com
Three generations of
a gardening family work together to revitalize a backyard garden, with
youngsters participating in the seasonal effort in the picture book Every Little Seed.
Rhymes, lovely art by
Elisa Paganelli, and an attention to revealing how seeds and plants contribute
to a garden's overall ecology and allure makes for a basic gardening guide that
encourages kids to both understand the nature and attraction of a garden and
learn how to best work with it.
Elementary-level
libraries looking for a very simple gardner's celebration will find this
introduction attractive.
Mina Belongs Here
Sandra
Niebuhr-Siebert and Lars Baus
Floris Books
9781782508113 $17.95
www.florisbooks.co.uk
Mina Belongs Here tells of a newcomer to kindergarten who views the
entire experience as alien and challenging, from unfamiliar language to stories
and songs that feel impossible to learn.
Mina doesn't know how
to respond and is lonely and lost in this sea of noise and confusion. But her
nighttime dreams combine with these new experiences to spark her slow
understanding of her environment and its new possibilities in this gentle
picture book of adaptation and change.
Libraries and readers
seeking stories about integration and acceptance will find Mina Belongs Here thought-provoking.
My First Pop-Up:
Endangered Animals
Owen Davey
Candlewick Press
9781536228441 $18.99
www.candlewickpress.com
Pop-up books are
usually filled with entertainment value, but require adult participation to
assure the pop-ups aren't torn by young fingers.
Fifteen selected
endangered animals in My First Pop-Up:
Endangered Animals are profiled in a lovely survey of animals around the
world, from the South African Geometric Tortoise, which sports striking yellow
shapes on its shell, to the okapi of the democratic Republic of Congo, which is
elusive and equally colorfully patterned.
These lovely pop-ups
provide three-dimensional educational value perfect for parent and child
read-aloud.
My Mommy Marches
Samantha Hawkins
Lantana
9781915244123 $18.99
www.lantanapublishing.com
My Mommy Marches tells of a young girl who observes her mother
proudly demonstrating in the streets for what she believes in, providing young
picture book readers with a joyful exploration of activism in action.
The different
emotional peaks and valleys of marching and activism are covered as the child
observes the purpose of marching and protesting and absorbs the reminders of
love, tolerance, and freedom such actions can promote.
My Mommy Marches is the perfect first primer for parents who would
teach kids the basic premise and experience of activism at an early age.
The Name Game
Elizabeth Laird and
Olivia Holden
Tiny Owl
9781910328880 $16.99
www.tinyowl.co.uk
The Name Game tells of a boring day stuck indoors made new by a
different outlook on nature and imagination. It is a picture book that delights
in its perspective on how to better interact with the world, both indoors and
outside.
When a bird tap at
the window introduces sparks a child's imagination, the story expands into a
lesson on surprise, creative names, and observations of nature that prove rich
and fun as a bored child begins to rename what she sees in her world.
Picture book readers
and read-aloud parents will find The Name
Game a treat with an important lesson on developing new perspectives.
Nubeocho
www.nubeocho.com
Nubeocho's picture
books represent fine stories for libraries seeking artistic quality in
illustration paired with stories suitable for read-aloud or young reader
pursuit.
Raquel Diaz Reguera's
I Am Mine Alone (9788419253590,
$17.99) tells of Mousy, who moves in with Buck, only to find him possessive and
controlling. Mousy isn't happy about Buck's ongoing questions about her
activities and life, but she wants to make him happy. How can she regain her
independence as he begins to isolate her from everything she loves?
A very adult theme of
controlling people evolves which probes love, relationships, and maintaining
independence. This will serve as important discussion material between young
girls and adults who oversee their growth.
Ruby the Rambunctious by José Carlos Andrés
and Lucia Serrano (9788418599989, $16.99) tells of a girl newly diagnosed with
a disability, which causes her parents to treat her very differently.
Ruby just wants to be
the same as everybody else, especially her brothers. How can she defy her
diagnosis to return to normalcy? By being rambunctious and bad!
A fun story evolves
where Ruby does everything in her power to assure her parents return to
treating her equally.
Daniel Fehr and Jorge
Martín's There's a Cow in My
Bed (9788418599699, $16.99) outlines the dilemma that confronts a young
girl who insists she can't go to bed because it's too crowded ... with a cow.
Her father can't see
the problem, but the little girl isn't making it up. As the cow returns to
cause further challenges to sleeping, the girl's approach to problem-solving
involves her father in a vivid test of imagination and possibilities.
All are exceptional
stories that stand out.
Penguin/Dial/Random
House
www.penguin.com/kids
These picture books
offer young readers engaging stories and attractive insights that create both
entertainment and educational value, making them highly recommended for
elementary-level libraries and readers looking for high-impact books.
Kimberley Annece
Henderson's Dear Yesteryear
(9780593529249, $18.99) comes from a historian and curator whose open letter to
ancestors utilizes archival photos of Black Americans from the turn of the 19th
century. It draws readers with a vivid blend of letters and vintage images that
ask questions and encourage young reader interest in history.
The reminiscences on
'dear yesteryear' offer personal and emotional connections to the past, and
will attract a wide audience with its special blend of historical and emotional
revelations.
Brad Montague's The Fantastic Bureau of Imagination (9780593323472,
$18.99) is accompanied by lovely pictures by Brad and Kristi Montague as it
surveys a fantasy world where special agents (called 'figments') keep
creativity at large.
Sparky's journey over
the exploding Cave of Untold Stories and into the world of figments that
produce imaginative, whimsical scenarios is lively, fun reading that read-aloud
parents can use to encourage imaginative thinking in their kids.
Chad Otis's The Bright Side (9780593530627, $18.99) reflects
optimism against all odds and tells of a child who lives in an old school bus
rather than a normal house.
Poverty and being new
in school seem insurmountable obstacles to building new friendships and
connections, but the boy in this book well knows how to look on the bright side
of life, and employs this talent in a way that gains him not only attention,
but attractive new friends and opportunities.
Fun drawings
accompany his journey into adversity and revised perceptions of life's ups and
downs.
Mojdeh Hassani and
Samira Iravani's Mama Shamsi at the
Bazaar (9780593110514, $18.99) receives illustrations by Maya Fidawi that
capture the culture of a bazaar environment and a grandmother and
grandaughter's shared experience. It is especially recommended for picture book
libraries looking for warm stories embracing Middle East environments.
The focus on the
chador as not a symbol of hate and repression, but as a veil that brings
comfort and protection, offers a more enlightened, revealing view of Middle
Eastern women and their experiences that gently educates child and read-aloud
adult alike as the story of a day at the market unfolds.
All are bright,
appealing picture books that young readers will enjoy.
Yellow Butterfly
Oleksandr Shatokhin
Red Comet Press
9781636550640 $21.99
www.redcometpress.com
Yellow Butterfly is filled with hope, symbolism, and possibility as
it covers the war in the Ukraine and a yellow butterfly's representation of
freedom. It's the perfect picture book of choice to cover the war and it's
impact and possibilities for the very young, and a portion of the sales proceeds
will be donated to The Universal Reading Foundation, which sends children's
books to Ukraine.
Black and white and
yellow wordless pictures capture the vivid threat of war and the symbolism and
possibilities of yellow butterflies that portend a time of peace and freedom in
the future.
Adults choosing this wordless picture book will find it replete with images which will encourage discussion about war, Ukraine, and hope.