100. The Crayon Stub

100. The Crayon Stub. Marcus Cutler. 2025. 40 pages. [Source: Library] [3 stars, cats, art, creativity, picture book]

First sentence: Alright, I have my fresh new piece of paper and my box of big, beautiful crayons. Time to draw something TOTALLY SPECTACULAR and become WORLD FAMOUS! No big deal.

Premise/plot: Big Cat's big plans don't go as planned--not at all. It starts with Big Cat discovering that he only has one crayon in his crayon box, and that one crayon is a stub--a red stub. Can Big Cat draw a spectacular picture with just a tiny stub of a crayon?! Can Big Cat draw ANY picture with just a stub? Will he get the opportunity? Or will his sibling interfere?!

My thoughts: I liked this one. I did. It was cute enough, silly enough. I didn't love it as much as I'd hoped all things considered. Probably because I'm an overthinker. I didn't really like the humorous direction this one took of the sibling EATING both the paper and the crayon and magically--literally--spitting out a drawing. I thought that was a little too over the top for me. But I think others may enjoy this one.

 

 

© 2025 Becky Laney of Young Readers

9. Chooch Helped

 

 

9. Chooch Helped. Andrea L. Rogers. Illustrated by Rebecca Lee Kunz. 2024. 48 pages. [Source: Library] [3 stars, siblings, family, picture book]

First sentence: This is the baby. We call him Chooch. The word for boy or son in Cherokee is atsutsa.  

Premise/plot: A sister is terribly, horribly annoyed with her younger brother--or bother as the case may be. The book is set within a Cherokee family/community; while the book is not wholly bilingual, the book certainly has an emphasis on introducing new words to readers. 

My thoughts: This one won/earned the Caldecott Medal in 2025. (The awards were announced earlier this morning). It is totally normal for me to be unimpressed with the winner. My artistic taste--or artistic eye--for better or worse never has aligned at all--not even a little bit--with the majority of winners. What I absolutely love, love, love and am drawn to is never what the judges are looking for--apparently. Which is fine. To each their own. Picture books have always had the most potential for being polarizing because you've got TEXT and ART. 

The story is simple, relatable, enjoyable enough. The art just wasn't for me--personally. You may love it. I think anyone with a sibling can appreciate this one.

© 2025 Becky Laney of Young Readers

111. Ways to Build Dreams

Sadly No Cover Yet

Ways to Build Dreams. Renee Watson. Illustrated by Nina Mata. 2023. [October] 208 pages. [Source: Review copy]

First sentence: Everything feels new. The clothes I got for Christmas still fit in that stiff way that new clothes fit, and they haven't been worn enough to start fading. We've finally stopped eating holiday food and have gone back to more everyday meals--peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, burgers and fries, spaghetti. We're two weeks into the new year, and still people are saying Happy New Year! if it's the first time they've seen someone since December.

Premise/plot: This is the fourth Ryan Hart novel. Previous books include: Ways To Make Sunshine, Ways to Grow Love, and Ways to Share Joy. This LOVELY chapter book covers Ryan Hart's last five months in elementary school (aka, January - May of her fifth grade year). Readers spend time with Ryan Hart at school and home. 

My thoughts: I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, crazy love the Ryan Hart series. I adore every single member of her family. I love Ryan, Ray, Rose, the parents, and the grandma. I ADORE the relationships between all the family members. I love seeing the complexities of those relationships. I love seeing Ryan hang out with her best friends. I love seeing her strive at school. I love the occasional trip to church. Everything about Ryan Hart's world is one I'm invested in--I just adore this series so much. 

This one has so many perfectly-perfect scenes. I don't know if this is the last book, but if it happens to be the last book it is incredibly satisfying. (Do I want it to be the end? No. Never. I want to be friends with Ryan forever and ever and ever.) 

Quotes:

Always, they ask, What do you want to do when you grow up? but I have never been asked, Who do you want to be? I've never thought about there being a difference.
Like she [her Grandma] is thinking again about how I am changing, changing. She is smiling at me in a way that tells me her love is not based on what I do, but who I am.

 

© 2023 Becky Laney of Young Readers

119. Fitz and Cleo Get Creative

Fitz and Cleo Get Creative (Fitz and Cleo #2) Jonathan Stutzman and Heather Fox. 2022. [March] 80 pages. [Source: Library]

First sentence:
Cleo: Grrr. Sigh.
Fitz: Don't like the book?
Cleo: No! I LOVE the book. That's the problem! The characters in them have so many awesome adventures! Daring escapes! Epic battles!
Fitz: What's the matter, then?
Cleo: Why can't I ever have adventures like these? I want to climb misty mountains! Find magical swords! Get cursed by witches and turned into a rat! Sail across great seas and battle mighty monsters! Where is MY fantastic adventure, Fitz?

Premise/plot: Fitz and Cleo are about to....wait for it, wait for it...get creative in their newest graphic novel early chapter book adventure. This one has dozens of little adventures leading to one big production....but the creative journey is anything but easy....

My thoughts: My absolute favorite story is WRITE NOW. I think it should be required reading for anyone who has ever thought--even for thirty minutes--that they want to be a writer. I also loved, loved, loved the story ONCE UPON A TIME. 

I enjoyed the friendship between these two ghost siblings. They are cute, adorable, sweet, and anything but scary. Mister Boo (the cat) is still around though not the star of the show in this second book.

 

© 2022 Becky Laney of Young Readers

95. Henry at Home

Henry at Home. Megan Maynor. Illustrated by Alea Marley. 2021. [June] 40 pages. [Source: Library]

 First sentence: As long as there had been Henry and Liza, they were together. Liza and Henry. Henry and Liza.

Premise/plot: Liza is starting school. Her younger brother, Henry, is not. He's still too young for school. How will he fill his days without his best friend and playmate? What about all the many special things they do together? Can he do those things by himself...and still have fun?

This picture book explores the feelings a younger sibling *may* have when an older sibling heads off to school for the first time.

My thoughts: I enjoyed this one. I thought the illustrations were super-sweet. I expected Henry to feel more sad and lonely than jealous and angry. But I think his feelings are legitimate. I think there are many possible reactions for this oh-so-common situation.

I did like seeing Henry and Eliza play together in the pages of this one. I liked seeing Henry play on his own too. It's a very important life skill--how to entertain yourself. It goes underappreciated or underrepresented in books, I think. 

© 2021 Becky Laney of Young Readers

47. Baby Island

Baby Island. Carol Ryrie Brink. Illustrated by Helen Sewell. 1937. 160 pages. [Source: Review copy]

First sentence: On the night of September twentieth, the S.S. Ormina, two weeks outward bound from San Francisco to Australia, was struck by a tropical storm and badly disabled.

Premise/plot: Mary Wallace (age 12) and her sister Jean (age 10) have a grand old time when they find themselves shipwrecked on an island in charge of four children under the age of two. Think about that for a minute--if you're an adult.

So as the ship is sinking, Mary decides to help rescue the babies she knows are on board. Apparently three of the four babies weren't with their parent(s) at the time. The two sisters end up with four babies (three of which are siblings): Elisha and Elijah (age 20 months) and Jonah (age 4 months) AND a little girl Ann Elizabeth (age 1). So these children end up in a lifeboat together--no other women (as you'd expect in a sinking ship). They are set adrift in the ocean. But don't worry, all will be well because we've got baby whisperers on board. Mary knows everything there is to know about babies. And she's willing to learn about lifeboats and islands, too, I suppose.

Eventually, the lifeboat comes to shore on a desert island. The kids persevere for a bit...having one grand adventure after another. Will rescue come?

My thoughts: My mom LOVED this book when she was in elementary school. She's always talking about how much she'd love to reread this book and how she hasn't seen a copy in years. So it was a Christmas gift to her this year. And after she reread it, I decided to read it for the first time. She has warm and fuzzy memories about it. I do not have such--for better or worse.

It's not that the book is bad--or "bad"--so much as the book is ridiculously naive and requires a long suspension of disbelief. So long as you don't think about what it would actually be like to be shipwrecked with babies on a desert island, you might enjoy yourself mightily. But this book doesn't really accurately cover the things babies are known for most. 

Is this because it wasn't polite to talk about dirty diapers in general in 1937? Or it wasn't appropriate for children to read about dirty diapers? But it wasn't just that these babies never made messes in their clothes/diapers. It was that they didn't really behave and act like babies at all. I mean taking care of young babies is HARD--as in exhausting, physically, mentally, emotionally demanding. Not that it isn't rewarding and worth it. Not that it can't be full of sweet, tender, lovely moments. But for all the sweetness and joy--there's a lot of clean up and work.

But forgiving that--and I can forgive that--it also doesn't feel realistic in terms of island survival either. Like this island has no insects or wild life that pose any dangers or risks whatsoever. Not that I wanted there to be poisonous, venomous creatures about--just the idea that this island was 100% baby-proofed and that it was so safe and so easy. (Also no one ever gets sunburned.) It's like super-easy to keep all four babies (and themselves) adequately nourished. It just doesn't feel realistic or likely.  

© 2021 Becky Laney of Young Readers

30. Ways to Grow Love

Ways to Grow Love. (Ryan Hart #2) Renee Watson. Illustrated by Nina Mata. 2021. [April] 192 pages. [Source: Review copy]

First sentence: Nothing is the same. Now that Mom is pregnant, everything has changed. Before school let out for summer, Ms. Colby said to my class, “Have a great summer. I hope you have fun and that it’s full of special moments. I can’t wait to hear all about it next school year.” The way summer is going, I won’t have any great or fun or special moments to share because all the summer plans we made aren’t happening.

Premise/plot: Ryan Hart is going to be a big sister! Yes, Ryan and Ray are getting a little sister. Ryan, our lovely, adorable heroine, is coping. On the one hand, a baby sister has potential certainly. On the other hand, it might bring about some CHANGES to her plans and routines. Will Ryan have the summer of her dreams if everything is baby, baby, baby all the time?

My thoughts: Ways to Grow Love is the second book in a series. Though I haven't read the first book--YET--I warmed up to the heroine quickly. Going to the library is one of Ryan's favorite, favorite, favorite things to do.

"But who can be quick in a wonderland of words and pictures? It’s not that I don’t like spending time with Grandma, it’s just that Mom and I go to the library at the end of every school year and we pick out books and have a book club, just the two of us."

 EXACTLY. Soon my feelings spilled over for the rest of her family and friends. By the end of the novel it was love.

I enjoyed the family dynamics of this one--the relationships the family has with one another. I enjoyed the narration--Ryan is great! 

I enjoyed the fact that faith is built into this one subtly-not-so-subtly. It's not that the novel is preachy--it isn't. It's just that faith is just as present and natural as breathing air. (In this one, Ryan goes to a Christian summer camp with some of her friends. Each cabin has to do a skit and Ryan and her friends choose the parable of the Good Samaritan for their skit.)

I loved the special father-daughter bonding. I've read two books in a row with excellent fathers--I could really love a trend like this if it continues!

“I want to write about one of the memories with my dad, but I don’t know which one to choose.” Ms. Anderson says, “Choose the one that you wish could happen again and again.”

© 2021 Becky Laney of Young Readers

26. Bracelets for Bina's Brothers

Bracelets for Bina's Brothers. Rajani LaRocca. Illustrated by Chaaya Prabhat. 2021. [April] 32 pages. [Source: Review copy]

First sentence: Bina had three big brothers: Vijay, Siddharth, and Arjun. They sometimes annoyed her, but she loved them anyway. 

Premise/plot: Bina, our heroine, wants to make--instead of buy--bracelets for her three brothers. The occasion is Raksha Bandhan an Indian holiday celebrating the special bond between brothers and sisters. She sets out to craft each bracelet with a unique pattern keeping each brother in mind, but, patterns aren't always easy to design and carry out! 

My thoughts: This book is part of Charlesbridge's Storytelling Math series. The (math) concept being taught is patterns. Of course, there's more to the story than just pattern-making. It is also a celebration of family and culture.

I liked seeing the relationships of all four siblings! It was a cute read.

 

 

© 2021 Becky Laney of Young Readers