Among librarians, speculation about potential Newbery and Caldecott winners begins almost as soon as last year's winners are announced. This year, Brian Wildsmith's Jungle Party is already getting long looks as a potential Caldecott winner. Wildsmith, a well-beloved and much-honored author and illustrator has outdone himself in Jungle Party, the story of a crafty python who invites all the animals to a party so he can swallow them in due course. Wildsmith has an extraordinary gift of being able to combine brilliant and subtle colors to ravishing effect. As the animals do tricks to amaze their fellows, the quirky combinations of a dun-colored lion and a purplish-owl with red wings; or of a dusty gnu and two acrobatic guinea fowl are both novel and satisfying. Though python's evil trick works, along comes elephant to save the day. A fine introduction to art and animals for young children.
Sole Survivor Written By Norman Ollestad and Brendan Kiely New York: Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers, 2025. 255 pages. This is a juvenile biography/memoire about the plane crash that Norman Ollestad survived when he was a sixth grader. The book starts off with Norman wining a skiing competition and heading home to play in a hockey game only to head onto an airplane with his dad, his dad’s girlfriend (Sandra), and the pilot so he could go and claim his trophy for the skiing competition. Only, the plane crashed and the pilot and Norman’s dad were killed. Then when Sandra falls and dies as well, Norman is left as the sole survivor from the plane crash in the San Gabriel Mountains during a snowstorm. Fans of Hatchet or other adventure novels will love reading how Norman survived this ordeal. And they will be even more impressed with the fact that this is a true story and the person who survived and is still alive today. This book goes over all of...
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