Christmas Wombat, by Jackie French, illustrated by Bruce Whatley, Clarion, $16.99, ages 3 and up, 32 pages, 2012. A wombat waddles into Christmas while on a mission to find carrots and makes a wondrous discovery that there are many carrots in the world, in this adorable companion to Diary of a Wombat. The wombat, a roly-poly fellow with stout legs, lives for napping, scratching and eating, and one day, sets off on a single-minded quest to do plenty of all three. Little does he know it's Christmas Eve -- and he's about to be part of festivities. As he shuffles along, his nose bumps into "dangly things" on a tree. Not knowing they're ornaments or even what an ornament is, he knocks them out of his way and walks on, crushing them underfoot. In no time at all, the wombat gets a whiff of earthy sweetness. Carrots! So he takes off on a gallop, scissoring his stubby legs, and in moments, skids to a stop in front of a plate where strange creatures are munching carrots. His carrots. After all, aren't all carrots his? So, he press his snout against one of the creature's muzzles and challenges him to a stare down -- and wins! (Perhaps in part because the poor reindeer are all hitched up two-by-two to Santa's sleigh.) Of course, all of that eating makes the wombat sleepy. Luckily, straight ahead is a spot to nap, the runners at the front of Santa's sleigh. As the wombat dozes inside the curled wood, he is whisked into the sky, then back down again. Soon, he's tagging along with Santa across lawns and into chimneys, having assumed they're on the trail of carrots. Just look at all those plates of carrots! But will the wombat share any of the tasty roots with Santa's reindeer? Or that rather large polar bear up north? Readers will giggle all the way through and may just wish for a wombat under their tree. Best part: When the pudgy marsupial sits on a snowbank with his back to the reader, ruminating on all the carrots that await him in the world.

Christmas at the Toy Museum, by David Lucas, Candlewick, $15.99, ages 3 and up, 32 pages, 2012. When the last visitor leaves the Museum of Childhood on Christmas Eve, the toy exhibits come to life and gather around the museum tree, only to find there's nothing under the tree for them. So, at the suggestion of Bunting, a thoughtful old toy cat, they wrap each other up in paper and bows, and give each other as gifts. The problem is, there's an uneven number of toys and come morning, Bunting is the odd present out  and has no gift to open. But kindness always comes back to those who give, and soon an angel glides down from the tree with a tiny golden box. The air sparkles and out pops a wishing star. Bunting has one wish to make -- so, what does he want more than anything? Lucas's sweet, simple followup to Lost in the Toy Museum shows that generosity repays itself and it gently teaches readers to be giving too. Flipping through the book is like stepping into a childhood dream. Like his other picture books, the premises are quirky and spirit-lifting, his perspectives grand and wondrous, and his artwork, lively and fantastical. Lucas works richly colored, whimsical shapes, such as harlequin diamonds and checkerboards, into playful drawings, in which characters appear so energetic they look as if Lucas drew them on the spot.  Once I read Lucas' books Whale and The Robot and the Bluebird, I craved to read everything he made. To see excerpts of his work, visit Lucas' website here. Best part: A comical two-page spread of stuffed toys, puppets and dolls taking turns wrapping each other.

The Christmas Tugboat: How the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree Came to New York City, by George Matteson and Adele Ursone, paintings by James E. Ransome, Clarion, $17.99, 2012. A young girl recalls the magical day her family hauled a tree the height of a mid-rise into New York Harbor, in this cozy picture book. The story begins at dawn as the girl's father, a boat captain, steers the tug up the Hudson River, past a sleeping New York City, while she and her mother ride along. The three are awed by the immensity of the city: Manhattans' skyscrapers glisten on their right and the Statue of Liberty towers to their left, her flaming torch making her look wide awake. The story unfolds slowly, beautifully echoing the pace of the tug. The family breakfasts on steaming bowls of oatmeal as Dad tells of tug adventures, and later the daughter paints what she sees from the tug, takes a turn steering the boat and learns how to navigate by chart. As day slips into night, the tug arrives at Stony Point, where the giant tree is waiting on a barge. The tree is on its side, bundled up on a tractor trailer, and red ornaments the height of the trailer's cab are piled around it. As the father connects the towline, the tug sluggishly pulls the barge away from shore. The tug chugs along for a few hours, then the father ties up for the night, before making the final leg to the Manhattan Bridge at dawn. Matteson and Ursone's writing is perfectly paced and makes the tug's arrival feel climactic. Readers imagine they're passengers, and share the magic of the journey, as well as the tingling sensation of being greeted by an enormous crowd. Best part: As the tug leaves at dawn on it's final leg, frost glistens on the tree like tiny diamonds, and readers feel their anticipation grow.

Fa La La, by Leslie Patricelli, Candlewick, $6.99, ages 1-3, 26 pages, 2012. He's been happy, sad, big, fast, loud, and now the adorable baby in diapers from Patricelli's board book series is jumping for joy over Christmas -- and making readers giddy too. In this cheerful companion book, Baby races around helping his parent prepare for the holiday and puts himself in the center of everything.  "I love Christmas!" he squeals with a half-moon grin and hands in the air. Baby's perfect tree is just his height and has a twirly crown that matches his curl of hair. When it's time to decorate the tree, Baby swirls up in Christmas lights and a popcorn-cranberry garland, and attaches a star to the tip of his curl. "Look at Me! I'm a Christmas tree!"  Everything Baby does explodes into happy chaos. While decorating a gingerbread house, he glues candy to his head and smears a frosting smile around his mouth. Soon, he's being swung between his parents on his way to see Santa. The line is long and snaky, and Baby has to be patient. But finally it's his turn. In Santa's lap, Baby is eye-to-eye with Santa's beard. Look at how fluffy it is! Wouldn't it be fun to pull? Yank. Uh oh, Santa said, "Ouch!" which makes Baby sad. But it's okay, and with a "Ho, Ho, Ho!" Santa makes baby forget all of his tears. Best part: Seeing baby run loop-de-loops toward the tree on Christmas morning -- he can't help but twirl as he runs, even though it takes him longer to get there. (Baby's tree is so tiny that nothing will fit under it, so Santa has piled his presents over it into a bridge.)

Judy of Minnesota is the winner of the Make Magic Giveaway!

Candlewick Press will be sending Judy a copy of Dallas Clayton's Make Magic! Do Good!, which hit book stores this week.

And thank you everyone for entering!

To read more about Clayton's book, read my review here!

Happy holidays!

Win a copy of Make Magic! Do Good! from Candlewick Press. Enter here today!

Leave a comment at the end of this post (or the next!) to be included in a random drawing Friday, Nov. 16.

Make Magic! Do Good! hits bookstores this week and is the latest book by self-publishing sensation Dallas Clayton.

Clayton's first book, An Awesome Book!, was about dreaming big -- this one celebrates being happy and helping others be happy too.

One commenter on my blog is guaranteed to be a winner. Enter by midnight Nov. 15 and be sure to include an email address so that I can contact you.

To win, you must live within the United States or have a mailing address here. Thanks so much for entering. Good luck!

A review of Make Magic! Do Good! follows this post.

Poems & pictures by Dallas Clayton

Candlewick, 2012

$17.99, ages 7 and up, 112 pages

Make spirits fly with this joyful collection of poems by a guy who's as excited about life as anyone could hope to be.

Dallas Clayton, the creator of An Awesome Book!, delivers another heart-swelling book about giving life your all and helping others do so too.

"Make magic / do good. / Be who you are. / Be what you should," Clayton writes in a poem that share's the book's title. "See what you can / Live like you could."

Over more than 40 poems, this Los Angeles-based author-illustrator encourages readers to be happy and spread their happiness around.

In "Sunshine," a creature blows a kiss, but the kiss misses the cheek it was meant for and lands on something else instead.

"She blew a kiss / it missed my face / and drifted into outer space / and kissed the sun / and made it smile / now it's been bright / for quite a while."

Every poem is a lesson in living better, and is paired with a picture that's playful and child-like.

"Don't forget to sing today / in a funny voice in a funny way," Clayton writes in a poem, urging kids to practice joy so that it stays with them all of their life.

Later, in "The Whole Wide World," Clayton allows that life isn't perfect and sometimes it's hard to be sunny in a world where there's also hurt.

Don't forget all of the fun, don't "run away / and hide in a box / and cover it up with sticks / and rocks," he adds.

Think of all the people who are stuck in a rut too and need your help to make it through.

Maybe together, he adds, you can find where "the dirt and the hurt and the worse / are gone / and a big bright future / rolls on and on."

Or, he offers in another poem, when bad things get the best of you, hitch a ride with someone who wants to be happy too.

"I'm riding my bike / with my head in the air / through a town without hope / that's weighed down with despair / I'm riding my bike / and mile after mile / I'm passing sad faces / and I wave / and I smile / at all of the folks / in the city of doom. I say 'Hop on the back,' / of my bike / if you'd like.../ I've got room."

All of the poems remind readers they're in this life together, and seem to say, link up arms, it's good to be friends.

"Someday you'll get bigger / bigger than today / and you might be the president / or the star of the high-school play. / Someday you'll be bigger / bigger than you think . / But remember: no matter how big you get / you still used to bathe / in a sink."

Though each poem is unique, many of them feel familiar -- as if Clayton's spirit became entwined with Dr. Seuss's or Shel Silverstein's.

"Be nice to your friends / 'cause you never know / when you'll be stuck / in ten feet of snow," Clayton writes in a Dr. Seuss-like cadence.

Then later, the silliness of Silverstein wanders in.

"I made a mistake when I wrote this / then I covered it up with some ink / then my hands got mistaken and made a mistake / and they spilled it all over the sink."

There are poems about making friends of enemies, helping others keep up and looking out for the little guy.

"If you find a caterpillar / and you keep it in a jar, / just think of how your life would be / if you weren't where you are, / if someone put you in a bowl / or in a tiny box / or  in an old aquarium / filled with shiny rocks."

In "Wake up Your Brain," Clayton encourages kids to shake things up and try something new, while in "The Unicorn Glade," he celebrates letting loose with friends in a sing-song way:

"And they'd talk and they'd swim / and they'd laugh through the night / in the unicorn glade / where the future was bright."

Other poems encourage kids to step up and solve a problem. In the poem "Quiet Joe," a town hems and haws about a rock in the road until a bear quietly solves the problem by moving the rock aside.

"Sometimes," the poem concludes, "it only takes one man / to move one thing / with his own two hands / for everyone in town / to get on by." Why wallow in a problem that you can solve?

Another poem shows how silly it is to be angry when you don't need to be.

In "Throwing Stones," a  boy blames a stone for tripping him, then in anger, throws the stone in the air, only to yell at the sky when it doesn't catch it.

Clayton wants kids to focus on the bright side of life, but also to take chances, even if something is difficult to do.

"A bad idea is one that starts: / 'Oh, that looks so easy. / I could do that, so I will -- that will be so breezy.' A good idea is one that starts / by saying 'That looks fun / and it doesn't matter how hard it is -- / I'd love to get it done."

In the end, of course, the choice will always be the readers' whether to try or not, to take a chance or not:

"A magic rope / hung from the sky / with a sign that read / 'Give me a try." / Should I climb it? / What if I die…? / Or what if I / just walk on by?"

Clayton's love of life is infectious and readers may find themselves, like I was, craving to read more. 

from dallasclayton.com

I highly recommend his "Awesome" books and a visit to Clayton's blog, a splashy, joyful place where he shares poems and bits of insight about himself.

Like this poem, "Funeral Request."

"Carry me away/ in a cardboard motorcade / with pastel rainbow ribbons / like a carnival parade. Paint my face by numbers, shave cuss words in my hair / turn up all the speakers / throw confetti in the air. / Dance around in circles / kissing everyone you know / fall asleep at sunrise / as the sky begins to glow. Laugh away the sadness / and cry away the tears / and dream of all the things I'll do / exploring new frontiers."

Harper Collins re-released Clayton's self-published sensation An Awesome Book in March and will be re-releasing An Awesome Book of Love Dec. 26.

Discover what it's like to pull ideas out of the air and make them dance on the page, in this yearlong exploration of picture books.

In celebration of its 20th year, Candlewick Press is posting short videos every day that celebrate the art of the picture book.

These include interviews with authors and illustrators, and read-alouds and animated shorts about the magic of picture books.

Among the highlights so far: when author-illustrator Jon Klassen (I Want My Hat Back) discussed the "middle spot" in picture books, the place between pictures and words that belongs to readers.

Klassen said writers and artists create the framework of a story and readers transform it into something special. The actual story, he said, is what readers gets out of the book, what they "put together" in their heads.

Another gem was when author Kate DiCamillo (Because of Winn-Dixie) described writing picture books as trickier than writing novels. "It's like a poem of page turns," she said. "Every word matters and the place of every word matters."

Here is one of my favorite clips so far, an interview with debut author-illustrator Brigitta Sif about her charming new book, Oliver, about a little boy trying to fit in.

To watch more videos, stop by Reading Starts Here. Also, an index of past videos can be accessed here. As of today, 65 are in the archive!

For more on the art of picture books, check out this sensational book of interviews: Show Me A Story! Why Picture Books Matter: Conversations with 21 of the World's Most Celebrated Illustrators. ($22.99, ages 12 and up, 304 pages).

The volume, compiled and edited by Leonard S. Marcus with a foreward by David Wiesner, asks artists from Mo Willems (Knuffle Bunny) to Peter Sis (The Wall) why they chose the picture book as their life's work and passion.

Among the highlights, an interview with the late, great author-illustrator Maurice Sendak (Where the Wild Things Are! and Bumble-Ardy).

Sending well wishes to Enchanted Lion Books as it recovers from Hurricane Sandy!

The Brooklyn-based publisher experienced flood damage in the storm and lost electricity. But it will be back in full operation next week.

Stop by the Enchanted Lion website to see all the fantastic books it offers and read the publisher's bio here!

Enchanted Lion, a small jewel in children's publishing, was started by two sisters in 2003.

By James Howe

Pictures by Chris Raschka

Candlewick, 2012

$14, ages 6 and up, 40 pages.

Just as Otter snatches a fish from the river, he realizes the fish is quite a catch -- and he'd rather love her than eat her.

But can an otter date his food source? And if he does, can he still eat her family?

In this perfect little picture book, an otter known simply as Otter and fish called Myrtle try to figure out how to love each other in a world where straying from the food chain just isn't done.

Otters eat fish and fish just want to get away, that's the way of the world.

Suppose, though, that Otter found something else to satisfy his hunger. Could such a love then exist?

Author James Howe speaks so sweetly and earnestly on the pair's behalf that readers may feel they'll burst if these two don't work things out.

The moment Otter looks into Myrtle's "round, sweet, glistening eyes" he knows, in an adorably roundabout way, that he's found true love: "he knew that he had found what he had not known he was looking for."

For Myrtle, love is slower to come. First, survival instincts kick in and she tells herself to slip away as fast as she can. But then Myrtle sees how Otter looks at her and her own "tremulous" heart awakens too.

His eyes reflect back "the sparkling river" and reveal a "tender and lonely heart," and soon they're inseparable. They swirl about each other, playing hide-and-seek and silently considering the stars in the sky.

But as they swim they hear whispers that are hard to ignore. Other creatures in the water think a mixed-species relationship is a bad idea: It's unnatural for Otter to love the very creature he eats, they say. "He was always odd. Now he's odder."

Soon doubts cloud the couple's hearts and they start to believe what they're hearing.

Otter wonders aloud to Myrtle if their romance could be wrong and Myrtle's eyes appear to fill with tears ("though it was hard to tell since her eyes were always wet"). Then in a little voice, she tells him she can no longer swim with him if the otter's way is to eat fish.

Otter's insides seize up and Howe make us feel him wobble. A reed leans into Otto and braces him for what he doesn't want to hear. In a whisper, Otter asks Myrtle, "Do you no longer love me?" and she sadly replies that she no longer thinks she can.

But could a wise Beaver show Otter that there other things out there -- vegetarian sorts of things -- that could fill his belly as well as a fish could?

Illustrator Chris Raschka's art floats about the page, arcing here, twirling there, like the exhilarating feeling of love.

Water sweeps up and down in translucent brushstrokes, and Otter and Myrtle swim around each other like dance partners mirroring the other's moves.

Their bodies are each a single continuous line of pastel that shifts as they swim. At times Otter's body loops around like a circle of string that's been twirled into figure eights -- as if he were winding up with longing.

Howe's writing draws out the innocence of their love and makes the pair irresistible. When Otter asks Myrtle her name, she says Gurgle, but because he has water in his ears from the river, he thinks she says "Myrtle" and so that becomes her name.

This is a book with a big heart and a wonderful message -- love who you love and don't let anything get in your way (even if that someone is the very thing you love to eat).

Pictures by David Catrow

Orchard Books, 2012

$16.99, ages 4 and up, 40 pages

A laboratory monster rises off its slab and does a herky-jerky dance, in this hysterical rendition of the 1962 novelty song, Monster Mash.

Illustrator David Catrow brings his splashy, frenetic art to the classic song by Bobby "Boris" Pickett and Lenny Capizzi, and gets readers dancing in their seats.

Late one night, as the song goes, a begoggled scientist flips the switch to his monster's electrodes and his monster begins a wild, stomping dance.

As the monster lifts a giant brick foot, he nearly squishes the scientist, then lurches ahead, swishing his bottom this way and that, as he gets down with a spiky-furred hepcat.

On bended knees with arms swaying like they're doing the Watusi, the two dip and swivel across a two-page spread, sending ghouls racing down from their castle abodes to get into the rhythm too.

Getting their own jolts of electricity, the wild parade of stitch-up creatures descend on the laboratory, and sip cups of furry caterpillars and twist their limbs.

In one corner, a green octopus with a scrambled skull shimmies with Wolf Man. As Wolf Man sings, his eyes scrunch up and it looks as if his voice would be as gravelly as Wolfman Jack's.

Then a seven-eyed monster with puckered lips and suction cups on his arms joins a fuzzy balled monster with a rainbow beak and a zombie with a worm wiggling out his skull to share sips of the wriggly punch.

Outside, above by the castle clock, other monsters join in. Igor sits atop a gargoyle shaking his chains. Beside him on the ledge, a hound dog (Catrow's Max Spaniel) bays out with another two-headed hound.

Down below, a hearse rumbles up to the castle, its headlight casting an eerie glow. The car's roof looks like a forest of barbed spikes and in the middle of the roof is a wildly flaming torch. Could more guests be coming?

Why, the coffin-bangers are here with The Crypt-Kicker Five. (This is also name of the original band that recorded Pricket's song.) A skeleton with stringy clothes and big bass guitar drags himself out of the hearse.

In a rock star entrance, he dives down on one knee, as his hair flies like a mop, then he launches into the chorus, "They played the mash. / They played the monster mash. / The monster mash. / It was a graveyard smash."

But not everyone is thrilled it's a smash and soon a disgruntled Drac rises from his coffin.. "Whatever happened to my Transylvania twist?" he cries out, then rings his fist, as roaches fly out of them and a fanged teddy bear sinks its teeth into his other hand.

Is there some way to appease old Drac? Perhaps he could jam on the pipe organ?

If readers thought the song was silly, they haven't seen anything yet. Catrow's interpretation makes the pages rock, as crazy weird creatures lunge and stretch across folds in electricified moves.

Readers will love poking around every page. Specimen bottles hold horrifically fun creations: furry, lizardy things with one big eye or big brained worms with fuzzy tails.

On other pages, frazzled skeletons spit out teeth as they belt out lyrics, as hopelessly silly creatures lumber in. One monster wearing a teacup for a diaper greets a furry dog monster with seven wet noses on its tummy.

Catrow lets loose like never before and unleashes his outrageously funny imagination for a song that seems he was always meant to illustrate.

This is a book to put in a child's lap as he listens to the original Monster Mash on CD -- over and over, because one time through won't be enough.

Story & pictures by Levi Pinfold

Templar, 2012

$15.99, ages 4-7, 32 pages.

When a stray dog shows up outside, a family panics and assumes the worst: The dog is big and black, so he must be after them.

Soon the family's fear of the dog has become so overblown that the dog has ballooned to size of their house.

So why then is the smallest member of the family running outside to play with him?

In this quirky picture book, family members feed off each other's fear of a stray -- until the youngest member shows them all how ridiculous they're being.

Author-illustrator Levi Pinfold shows how fear is learned (by watching others act afraid), and how it can also be unlearned (if someone has the gumption to face it).

When Mr. Hope wakes up one winter day, he sees a black dog sitting outside the first floor of his house and gasps. At the very same instant, he drops his toast and scrambles to the phone to call the police.

In a frenzy he tells a policeman that there's a dog the size of a tiger outside and asks what he should do. The policeman seems to snicker to himself, then dismissively replies, "Don't go outside."

Oblivious to how docile the dog really looks, Mr. Hope scoops up his youngest daughter Small and hurries upstairs to get farther away from it. (As if this would truly make him safer.)

By the next spread, Mr. Hope's fear has begun to spread through the family and skew what each of the next three members see when they look at the dog.

As his wife and two oldest children look out a window from a higher story of their house, their fear grows and so does the dog. Like a bugaboo, an object of exaggerated fear, he becomes magnified by their imagination.

Elongated color paintings on one side of a spread show the dog blowing up like a Macy's day balloon  -- at one point he's so big readers see a big curious eye looking through an upper floor bathroom window.

For emphasis, Pinfold zooms in on each family member's reaction with small sepia toned images that are set among the text. One small square shows a silhouette of a family member looking out the window, while another shows the scale of the dog relative to the house.

Soon this big goofball of a dog is three stories tall and all four family members are huddled under a blanket to save themselves. But where is Small?

Small, the tiniest of them all, has managed to wiggle out from her father's arm and go back to playing. Coloring away, she hadn't noticed that anything was wrong. But now that her family is all bunched together, she realizes something is up and asks what's going on.

Ironically, the four of them are so caught up in their neuroses that they don't think to pull her close and protect her too. Instead they whisper all at once, "We're hiding!"

Small thinks this is the funniest thing she's ever seen and standing astride in her striped long johns, replies, "Oh, you are such sillies." Then she slips on her yellow hooded jacket and opens the front door to see what all the fuss is about.

As she steps outside, her family screams in horror. "The hound will eat you up!," "It'll munch your head," "It'll crunch your bones." Indeed the dog has become quite gigantic from all their fear -- even now as he greets Small, down on all fours with his head tucked low.

Though Small is brave, she must wonder if anything they say is true. Indeed, she looks much less confident than she feels. Next to the dog, Small is as tiny as a candy corn.

Still, Small doesn't hold back. In fact she walks so close to the dog that her feet end up where his fur drapes the ground.

"All right, then," she says, determined to judge the dog for herself. "If you're going to eat me, you'll have to catch me first." Then Small takes off across the snowy hillside as the dog galumphs after her.

Along the way, Small sings a song that convinces her more and more that the dog's really no threat at all.

She tempts the dog across a pond and as he squishes his body under a bridge, she sings aloud that his paws are thick, the ice is thin and as a result, he just might fall in. But he doesn't because he's now just a little bit smaller. 

Everywhere they go, Small challenges the dog to be smaller and his body shrinks a bit more. By the time they've run through a playground and back home, the stray's small enough to fit through a cat flap in the front door of her house.

But how does Small know that the dog won't balloon back into a ferocious beast once he's inside? Especially if that's the way her family perceives him?

In this extraordinary, imaginative book, Pinfold shows how fear can feed on itself and distort what's real -- sometimes to ridiculous proportions.

The more the oldest family members worry about the dog, the more irrational their fear becomes and the bigger the dog seems.

The mother thinks he's the size of an elephant, the older daughter Adeline thinks he's as big as tyrannosaurus and by the time the son Maurice sees the dog, the analogies are so overblown, they're silly. Maurice screams that the dog is the size of a Big Jeffy. No one but Maurice know what that means, but readers might remember Big Jeffy from Sesame Street as the shaggy bearded bass player from a monster band.

Pinfold's illustrations are packed with hysterical details. As family members become unhinged, they lose their grip on something in their hands. The father drops toast, the mother, a mug of tea, and so on. Later, they don strainers and pans for helmets and barricade themselves in the living room so the dog can't get to them.

The same hysteria is played out in miniature with the children's toys.

On the floor and chairs, little plastic soldiers, kings and cowboys raise their arms in a show panic. Many seem to be reacting to a green octopus toy, which like the stray dog is bigger than them yet also quite docile-looking (though none of them seem to notice that).

However, some of the plastic toys aren't even looking in the direction of the octopus and seem to be reacting more to the hysteria of the other toys.

Then as if to mirror the growth of the dog, Pinfold moves the octopus from standing on a chair cushion to hanging from a string from the ceiling.

By the time the Hope family has calmed down and reconsidered their fears, so have the plastic toys. At the end of the book in a lamp-lit corner of the house, the octopus joins several other toys on the floor around a pot of tea.

Another clever moment in the book occurs when Small leads the dog into playground of metal elephants and down a trunk that forms a tube slide. Readers will remember that the older sister compared the dog to an elephant. But now the dog is not only much smaller than an elephant, he's also small enough to fit in its trunk. Ha! Take that, you silly.

I loved that Pinfold plays off the black dog bias, conjecture that dark-furred dogs (and cats) are less apt to be adopted at animal shelters, in part because they look more aggressive or dangerous.

This is the kind of book that's so clever and funny and whimsical that you can't imagine anyone not loving it -- or big black dogs.

By Laura Amy Schlitz

Candlewick, 2012

$17.99, ages 9-13, 400 pages

A girl trapped by an evil spell helps two orphans fend off a ruthless master, as a witch tries to use them all to rid herself of a curse, in this spooky novel.

Newbery Medal winner Schlitz tells the story of Clara, a lonely girl who's haunted by reminders of her siblings' deaths and is desperate to feel happy again.

One day she sees a street magician Gaspare Grisini manipulate puppets as if they were alive and she's so entranced that she convinces her father to invite Grisini to entertain for her 12th birthday.

But after her party, Clara disappears, and Grisini's apprentices, two orphans, discover that their master has a criminal past and suspect that he's kidnapped Clara.

Before police can catch Grisini, the magician disappears and the orphans, Lizzie and Parsefall, fearing they're under suspicion too, flee London and fall into an evil trap.

A dying, old woman has invited Lizzie and Parsefall to her estate, Strachan's Gyll, under the pretense that she wants to pass on her wealth to deserving orphans before her death.

Though Parsefall is suspicious of the offer, Lizzie is desperate to feel safe and cared for, and convinces him that going there is their only choice.

Little do they know, the woman is a witch and has summoned Grisini, her ancient rival, as well to help break a curse.

The witch needs to trick a child into stealing a magical opal from around her neck or the stone will burn the witch to death. Once a child steals it, that child then assumes the curse.

While the orphans stay at the estate, a mysterious marionette speaks to them in their dreams and warns them of the witch's evil plans.

But how will Lizzie and Parsefall resist the witch's spells and why is Grisini lurking nearby? Will the orphans be able to find Clara and save themselves?

Schlitz spins a spooky story of "splendors and glooms," (a phrase taken out of Shelley's famous elegy to John Keats Adonais), in which stringed puppets move by magic, and specters loom in nightmares and beyond.

The story has a wonderful Dickensian feel and echoes themes from Robert Louis Stevenson's short story, The Bottle Imp:  selling one's soul to the devil and sacrificing one's soul to save someone else.

This is a beautifully written and cleverly plotted story that leaves readers feeling as if they too overcame a spell, fought against a fiery curse and through kindness and love, resisted the advances of evil.

Pictures and poems by Doug Cushman

Charlesbridge, 2012

$12.95, ages 7-12, 44 pages

Pigs with fangs and stitched-up snouts groan poetic in Cushman's hilarious homage to monster movies.

This clever collection of poems begins with a pig in bed gasping at the TV screen as he realizes he should never have watched horror films before going to sleep.

Creepy images from the movies seep into his head (from "a thousand-foot pig breathing nuclear fire" to "gurgling gasps from a swamp's murky mire").

Then as sleep overtakes him, he has a series of pigmares described over the next 16 poems, in which famous monsters are re-imagined as pigs.

Pigzilla is a green-snouted Godzilla who wakes up with a radioactive roar and Werehog is a furry pig who shakes windowsills with his mournful tune.

By why so mournful, Cushman asks? Is Werehog out stalking piglets like a big bad wolf or could something else be wrong? "Is his pig swill at an end? / Did he stub his toe upon a rock / or lose his best pig friend?"

Like monsters on the big screen, Cushman's monsters are pitiable in an endearing way -- and often silly. Take the Mummy Pig, a dead pharaoh who awakes from his tomb in a coiled up cloth as dung beetles crawl from his snout. "I rise from inside my sarcophagus tomb / to breathe in the life-giving plants, / then wander the world to put curse on those / who put sand in my underpants."

Many pig monsters feel misunderstood or under appreciated. Pig Kong is treated like a barbarian when in truth he's a vegetarian, while pig horseman from Sleepy Wallow isn't trying to scare anyone, he's just out looking for his head.

Other monsters only want a friend. Frankenswine, a green monster stitched from other pigs, is banished away to an ice floe by a mob with torches and dogs, and the Invisible Swine can't seem to be memorable enough.

Though once "I loved to play all kinds of tricks, / like scaring friends with floating bricks, / or wearing pants or underwear / to make it seem they walked on air," but "now no one wants to come and play. / They've packed their bags and gone away. / So I sit here in this empty place. / I have no friends… / and miss my face." Aw, just too cute.

Then in the final poem of the book, the pig wakes up from his nightmares. Afraid to go back to sleep, he goes downstairs with his stuffed toy Frankenswine to have a bowl of cereal -- only to imagine zombie pigs creeping up behind him.

"They stumble on decaying limbs; / flesh hangs like half-pulled toffee. / They look just like my Ma and Pa -- / before their morning coffee!"

Young readers many not recognize many of these films, but they're sure to giggle at Cushman's turns of phrase and funny twists at the end.

They may also find themselves unexpectedly wishing they could help a few of these monster pigs out. ...Locate a limb, perhaps? Find a face?

By Maggie Stiefvater

Scholastic Press, 2012

$18.99, ages 13 and up, 416 pages

A 16-year-old girl is drawn into a boy's quest to awaken a dead medieval king after she learns the boy is doomed to die and she may be the cause of it.

In this spellbinding first book in the Raven Cycle series, author Maggie Stiefvater tells the story of Blue Sargent, a non-seer in a family of psychics, who one night sees more than she should.

Outside the ruins of church on St. Mark's Eve, she sees the spirit of a prep school boy named Gansey walking down the corpse road, the spiritual path of the future dead. She's told by her clairvoyant half-aunt that the only reason a non-seer would see a spirit is if the boy is her true love or she's the one who kills him.

Blue has always been told by psychics that if she kisses her true love, he will die, and now that seems all too possible. But why Gansey?

Until now Blue has always avoided boys like Gansey, the "Raven Boys," the privileged rich boys of Aglionby prep. Yet she can't shake the memory of seeing his spirit and the feeling that he's too young to die.

She's also strangely drawn to him and his passion for magic. She may even be able to help him. Though Blue has never been able the see or hear the dead before, she's always been like a walking battery for spirits. Just being near them increases their energy and makes it easier for psychics to hear them.

So why not use her power to help Gansey awaken the ley lines and his king? Could this change his fate?

Blue is also intrigued by Gansey's peculiar friends, who follow Gansey like a posse and have troubles they won't talk about. Adam, whom Blue is initially attracted to, comes from a poor, abusive home, and is struggling to find his own way.  Ronan, an earnest, but antagonistic boy, seems to be guarding something about his father's death and has an odd new pet, a foundling raven. He calls the bird, "Chainsaw," and laughs that he found the bird in his head. And Noah, a grubby boy with cold hands, looks more like a suggestion of himself than himself.

Gansey too chases his own demons. His obsession with the hunt for the king, Glendower, seems to be tied to his own precarious health and is reflected in a meticulous journal that he carries with him. Glendower, a Welsh nobleman who disappeared while fighting for his people's freedom, is everything Gansey wishes he could be: "wise and brave, sure of his path, touched by the supernatural, respected by all, survived by his legacy."

Though her psychic mother forbids her from seeing the Raven Boys, Blue sneaks out to help them search for ley lines and Glendower, sleeping beneath them. According to lore, whoever wakes Glendower, will be granted any favor they wish, though Gansey seems to have other reasons for wanting to find him.

Adam, Ronan and Noah also seem to have their own stake in discovering the king, as does their sleep-deprived Latin teacher, Barrington Whelk, who was once an Alionby student and now resents the kids he teaches.

As the chase for the king's whereabout heats up, all of their lives become entwined in mysterious and sometimes dangerous ways, each of them guards a secret that shapes how far they're willing to go -- and what they're willing to sacrifice -- to get to the king.

Along the way, they'll be drawn into an ancient wood where time stands still and trees speak to them, and step into a hallucinatory tree to see eerie visions. They'll also uncover the skeleton of a familiar body, confront a killer and begin to solve chilling mysteries about the ley lines, ravens and people they know. 

Stiefvater's first installment in a haunting new series is irresistible. As readers get pulled into the web of the Raven Boys with Blue, they assume the quest too and get the sensation that strands of mystical energy are pulling at them as they read-- as Stiefvater's masterful prose encloses around them and tempts them toward the unknown.

Words & pictures by Patrick McDonnell

Little, Brown Books, 2012

$16.99, ages 3-6, 40 pages

When three bitty monsters try to create the biggest, meanest monster ever, their plan goes awry and they're left with a monster who giggles instead.

In this adorable picture book by Mutts creator Patrick McDonnell, Grouch, Grump and Gloom 'n' Doom live for being bad, but is that all there is to life?

They think so and work at it with a passion. The trio lives in a dark monster castle on a dark monster mountain that sits above a monster-fearing village, and they have big monster thoughts.

They smash things, huff and puff about nothing, and say, "No!" as much as they can.

They also argue about who complains the loudest and who is the most miserable. And they always seal their arguments with a brawl.

The only problem is that it's never clear in the end who is worse.

So one day they decide to create a giant, hideous monster that they can all agree is the scariest of them all.

Grouch (who has striped horns and a hot dog nose) grabs tape and tacks, Grump (who is covered in fur and has a big dog nose) gets gunk and gauze, and Gloom 'n' Doom (who has two heads that resemble that of McDonnell's Mooch the cat) collects bolts and wire.

Using a ladder, they assemble their monster standing up in their dungeon. First they wind him up like a mummy, then using a scissor lift, hoist him outside into the sky on a slab of concrete and "Bam!" -- a lightning bolt jolts the monster alive.

At last, they've created something more awful than any one of them can be!

Or have they?

As their monster twitches and peels away his bandages, he looks as bad as they imagined and they rejoice with their fists in the air. But then something strange happens.

The monster, like Frankenstein's creation but with a bulbous nose and pillar-like limbs, reaches toward them and in a deep growling voice says, "Dank you!" 

"Dank you, dank you, dank you," and he scoops them up and squeezes them tight. For a moment the monsters look speechless.

Then, their ferocious monster stomps over to the window, throws it open, gazes out at the beauty of the dawn and -- giggles!

The little monsters are shaken by his outrageous behavior and shield their eyes from the warm, early light. Then they fume, as monsters should, at how wrong this is.

But the monster doesn't seem to notice and bounces through the room, patting bats and other scary little creatures gently on the head. Could he be trying to be nice to them?

No, this can't be. He's a monster and monsters have to be horrid. But to the little monsters' dismay, their monster doesn't think he's anything in particular. He's just glad to be alive.

Then suddenly, their monster crashes through the dungeon wall and heads toward to the monster-fearing village. Will he make mayhem after all? Or is there something else that will make the trio just as happy?

McDonnell's beast like Frankenstein's is a misunderstood goof who just want to be accepted. He also seeks to be part of the world rather than a threat to it, and sets off in search of a little quiet time.

The little monsters, on the other hand, think they're rough-and-tough, but they're really more cute than scary -- underscoring a recurring theme in McDonnell's books that deep down everyone has something good to give.

In the end, Grouch, Grump and Gloom 'n' Doom learn from their biggest, baddest creation that even monsters can have heart.

McDonnell once again creates a gem about appreciating life and being thankful, and along the way, makes readers feel glad for what they have too.

By Ari Berk

Pictures by Loren Long

Simon & Schuster, 2012

$17.99, ages 4 and up, 48 pages

A baby bat braves the deep, dark night by singing out to the world and listening to the world echo back, in this poetic picture book.

As Chiro sends out streams of sounds from his mouth, the branches of trees that he cannot see call back to him.

Then electrical lines echo back and soon all the tiny, flying tasty things he wants to eat call too.

But when Chiro wanders beyond the places he knows, will he still be able to hear the song of his home and find his way back to Mother?

Author Ari Berk turns a lesson in echolocation into a lyrical adventure, as a bat ventures off for the first time and learns to us his "good sense," his ability to see with sound and navigate with his ears.

"Sense," his mother explains, "is the song you sing out into the world and the song the world sings back to you."

Berk's writing is soothing and sweet. It not only takes the complexity out of technical term, but vividly conveys what it would be like to fly through the dark with very poor eyesight.

Night to Chiro is "darker than a moth's eyes" and "darker even than the water before dawn." The images transfix the eyes and their darkness is almost unfathomable.

Then illustrator Loren Long makes Chiro's fear of the dark feel like readers' fear as well.

As Chiro ventures out of the security of his cave, he's keenly aware that he's alone in darkness. His trembling body appears against a two-page spread that black with faint twig-like striations down the page. Then, phantom-like silhouettes appear as he goes into the forest.

Among them, blackened trees curling up like witches' hands.

As Chiro calls out and sound waves bounce off things in front of him, a spotlight of visibility radiates out from him. It's as if the sound he emits is clearing out a space in the night for day to come in.

Both eerie and comforting, this lush book not only demystifies a complicated process in science, but helps boost a child's confidence in facing the dark at bedtime.

Pictures by Nicoletta Ceccoli

Atheneum, 2012

$17.99, ages 4 and up, 46 pages

In this delightful story, a boy's curiosity takes flight as he imagines what a book ghost would do if he ran into a reader like you.

While reading in a comfy chair with his legs dangling over an arm, the boy gets the notion that his book is haunted, then comes up with all the ways in which book ghosts spook about.

Illustrator Nicoletta Ceccoli gives ghosts a wondrous, mischevious look: their bodies are like swirls of Marshmallow Topping and have fangs as tiny as the tips of toothpicks.

Cecolli pans in on the page so that readers feel as if they're looking into the boy's book with him. Then as the boy's hand appears to turn the page, he imagines the ghosts getting into mischief and toying with readers.

First, the boys asks readers to imaging a ghost turning a sunny day in a picture book topsy turvy: a girl is leaping along as her dog tugs at his leash -- when all of sudden the page turns and everything is reversed. The dog is now walking the girl and the sky has turned dark and snowy.

"Book ghosts," he explains, "like nothing better than to meddle in stories and turn them upside down." But not in a scary way, just a sneaky one. Among the telltale signs that a book is a haunted: words get scrambled and books feel cool to the touch.

Sometimes ghosts even appear in pictures of a book reading the same book readers are looking at! (Here Ceccoli makes the boy's book look like a fun house mirror.)

Once book ghosts know that readers see them, be ready, because book ghosts love company and might just pull readers inside. Now if that happens, the only way out of the book is to read to the ghosts and promise to come again.

Book ghosts, he adds, are a lot of fun, but they need to know that readers want them around. So don't stop reading haunted books or all the ghosts might just fly away! 

Author Nathaniel Lachenmeyer captures the carefree abandon of child who gives in to his imagination. As the boy's enthusiasm for the idea of book ghosts grows, he chatters on as if he's known about them forever.

Ceccoli then visualizes every fanciful thought he has in soft magical paintings: The boy's eyes glisten with wonder and his hair looks fearless: chocolate tufts of hair curl out of his head like piped frosting.

The ghosts are devilishly cute and float about in play. On one spread, a pink button-headed dog sails by a Chicklet-toothed alien with three dangly eyes, a shimmering fish with butterfly wings and a jellyfish girl who holds her head like a balloon.

By book's end, readers will want to lug out all their books and peer under the pages to see if their stories are haunted too.

If you haven't had enough Mull lately, hang in there! Here are three exciting dates:

Tuesday, Oct. 23: Shadow Mountain Publishing releases the long-awaited sequel to The Candy Shop War: Arcade Catastrophe. Here's a synopsis from the publisher:

"In The Candy Shop War, friends Nate, Summer, Trevor, and Pigeon met the evil magician Belinda White, whose magical confections enabled the kids to do incredible feats of strength and magic. In the sequel, Nate and his friends meet Mrs. White's brother -- Mr. White -- who owns Arcadeland, a local amusement center.

At Arcadeland, kids can play games and earn thousands of tickets, which are redeemable for one of four kinds of stamps -- jets, tanks, subs, and race cars. Could it be true that these stamps allow kids to fly through the air? Or breathe underwater? Or run faster than a car? But Mr. White is hiding a secret: when all four clubs are filled, he will be able to retrieve perhaps the most powerful talisman ever. For Nate and his friends, it will take more than candy to fight and win this war."

Friday Oct. 26: Arcade Catastrophe Launch Party. Join Mull in a marshmallow war from 5 p.m. to 5:15 p.m. at Thanksgiving Point Gardens in Lehi, Utah. Also on the schedule, booth activities from 4p.m. to 6 p.m., and a book signing from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

Tuesday, March 12: Simon & Schuster releases the final book in Mull's Beyonders trilogy, Chasing the Prophesy. Here's a synopsis from the publisher:

"Jason and Rachel were not born in Lyrian. They did not grow up in Lyrian. But after all of the battles and losses, the triumphs and adventures, and most of all, the friendships forged in this fantastical world, Lyrian has become home to them in a way they never could have imagined.

And so, armed now with the prophecy of a dying oracle, they have gone on their separate quests—each surrounded by brave and powerful allies—knowing that the chance for success is slim. But Jason and Rachel are ready at last to become the heroes Lyrian needs, no matter the cost."

Beyonders, Book 2
By Brandon Mull
Aladdin, 2012
$19.99, ages 8-12, 512 pages

Teens Jason and Rachel brave a deadly swamp and swarm of zombies as they continue an epic quest to save a parallel world, in Brandon Mull's exciting second book in the Beyonders trilogy.

At the end of the first book A World Without Heroes, Jason discovered that a magical word he'd spoken to destroy an evil wizard was a sham. But before he could tell Rachel or their allies, he was forced into a portal that took him home.

Now as Jason finds a way to get back to the imperiled world of Lyrian, he, Rachel and their band of heroes realize that the only way to defeat Lyrian's maniacal ruler, the wizard Maldor, is to take him on in battle.

But to have a chance at winning, they must convince the last remaining free people of Lyrian to join their army. And to do that, they'll have to prove to them that a rebellion could succeed -- in spite of mounting odds against it.

How can a ragtag group of rebels topple a wizard who already has the resources of twenty kingdoms at his disposal -- not to mention an army of displacers, manglers and torivors? And what other treachery might await these fearless heroes?

In this captivating second novel, Jason once more dives down the throat of a hippopotamus on a quest to save Lyrian -- this time more prepared for danger, yet unaware of just how treacherous his quest will become.

Along the way, he, Rachel and their crew will taken on a swamp creature with daggerlike teeth, soldier crawl through a deadly gap between mountains and race across a forbidden kingdom where a plague has turned people into walking dead. 

In the first book A World Without Heroes, Jason, a volunteer at a Colorado zoo, accidentally fell into a hippo's mouth while cleaning its tank and was jettisoned through a portal into Lyrian. There, he learned that he and another Beyonder, Rachel, had been summoned by an oracle to help Lyrian's rightful king, a blind man, defeat Maldor.

After Jason and Rachel were brought together in a secret meeting with the blind king Galloran, they were sent on a quest to recover six syllables of the magic word, which when spoken to Maldor was supposed to destroy him. But upon using the Word, Jason discovered that it was a hoax created by Maldor to distract his enemies.  

Before Jason could warn Rachel and Galloran that the Word was a powerless, a displacer named Ferrin pushed Jason into a portal that took him -- and part of Ferrin -- back to Colorado. As the two wrestled, Jason pulled loose one of Ferrin's hands. Displacers are a wizard-born race with removable body parts that live independent of their bodies.

Back home, Jason discovers that he can communicate with Ferrin through his severed hand. He also realizes he has to get back and be the hero he's been called on to become. First he'll need to warn Galloran of Maldor's deceit and find Rachel, who got separated from him during a chase by Maldor's soldiers.

But as Jason dives back into hippopotamus and returns to Lyrian, the task to defeat Maldor grows more dangerous. Maldor's been on rampage to slay the good people who guarded the syllables of the Word and now, it appears, the only way to defeat this ruthless wizard is to start a war that will result in widespread bloodshed.

With no time to waste, he reunites with Galloran, Rachel and his band of allies, and they enter a tenuous truce with Ferrin to be a scout. Ferrin now claims that he has turned against Maldor and is devoted to the rebel cause, though Galloran is weary and has taken a piece of his throat as leverage.

Also in the band of heroes are Galloran's bodyguard, the last living member of a suicidal band known as the Giddy Nine, an exiled seedman from the Amar Kabal, a smuggler who transforms into a giant and Galloran's daughter, one of the people who'd guarded the syllables.

Their first task is to convince the reclusive people of the Amar Kabal to join the rebellion before Maldor's armies realize what they're up to. To do this, they must embark on a dangerous trek to the living oracle in the Temple of Mianamon, in the hope that she will foresee that they have a chance of winning.

If they can convince the Amar Kabal that an offensive could succeed, the Amar Kabal could persuade other kingdoms of free people to join them. But would it be enough and what success could a small band of heroes really have in leading them?

Brandon Mull quickens the pace and packs in so many imaginative roadblocks on the quest that readers may feel as if they're catching their breath at every turn. 

I loved this book even more than the first, especially now that the allies have pulled together and formed their fearless group, though I wouldn't recommend reading it before the first. There's just too much to piece together.

Mull, who also wrote the wildly popular Fablehaven series and is about to release his sequel to The Candy Shop War, is like a wizard pulling ideas from air -- with each new book and series, he seems to summon a host of new and fantastic creatures and strategies from his imagination.

Among my many favorites, Maldor's ability to secretly graft eyes and other body parts onto prisoners so that he can spy on his enemies and cannibalistic dwarves who swell in size when the sun goes down.

This is an outstanding fantasy series that even book-shy teens won't want to put down. Right now I'm reading the first book to my eight-year-old and he can hardly stand it when I have to stop for the night.

Please, please, please? Ok, maybe one more chapter…

By  Jacqueline Woodson

Illustrated by E.B. Lewis

Nancy Paulsen Books, 2012

$16.99, ages 5-8, 32 pages

A school girl is overcome by regret when she loses her chance to apologize to a classmate she was mean to, in this extraordinary picture book.

Told from the perspective of a child who bullies, the story reveals how painful it can be to hurt someone and how paralyzing it is when you can no longer say you're sorry.

Acclaimed author Jacqueline Woodson draws from a time when she was unkind and also shows that at some point everyone behaves badly and must face the ugliness inside of them.

When a new girl named Maya starts school, Chloe refuses to even return her smile. The girl's clothes are ragged and the class ignores her, so Chloe does too. She scoots her desk away from Maya to try to separate herself.

As the days go by, Chloe's cool reserve grows into disdain, as she and her two close friends whisper secrets behind Maya's back, and make fun of her clothes and lunch. Maya must hear what they say, yet she is kind and tries to win them over.

Day after day Maya comes up to the girls, holds out what she brought to school to share (a set of jacks, pick-up sticks or a tattered doll) and asks if they will play with her. And each time, the girls refuse and stay locked in their ugly moods.

They put on airs and seem to take delight in hurting her. At one point, a cool satisfied look comes over their faces as they follow Maya walking away from them. Maya's brow is now creased with sadness and readers' hearts sink too.

Then one day, Maya doesn't come to school and Chloe's teacher gives a lesson about kindness. Ms. Albert has her class gather around a big bowl of water, and she drops in a stone and talks about how the waves ripple out.

"This is what kindness does," she tells them. "Each little thing we do goes out, like a ripple, into the world." Afterward, Ms. Albert asks each student to drop in a stone and share what nice things they've done -- only Chloe can't think of any.

It is a pivotal moment and illustrator E. B. Lewis angles down on Chloe from above. He's whited out the background to put readers' focus on Chloe, who now stares down ashamedly at the stone.

Suddenly it's as if all of Chloe's mean behavior rushes back to her and she can think of little else but how to make things better with Maya. But where is Maya? She's still not come back to school.

"Each morning, I walked to school slowly, hoping this would be the day Maya returned and she'd look at me and smile," Chloe says. "I promised myself this would be the day I smile back."

But the opportunity never comes and one day, Ms. Albert announces that Maya's family has moved away and Chloe's throat fills with all the things she wished she would have said to her.

That afternoon, Chloe walks home alone, her eyes cast down to the ground. On the way, she stops at a pond, squats down on the bank and begins tossing in small stones over and over, and watches how the ripples go out and way.

"Like each kindness -- done and not done," Woodson writes. "Like every girl somewhere -- holding a small gift out to someone and that someone turning away from it." And Chloe realizes her chance to be kind to Maya "is becoming more and more forever gone."

Chloe's painful, yet empowering story shows readers not only how awful it feels to be unkind, but how important is to be nice as much as they can. Chloe's pain of being mean is compounded by her inability to say she's sorry.

The book also enlightens like few others have, by showing that bullying can come from anyone, even from kids who try to be good. As Woodson put it in an interview, the capacity to hurt others "exists in all of us."

"I think it's easier for the world to say, 'That person is a bully and THAT person is being bullied,'" she continued. "But the truth is, it's much more complicated than that and until we can each take an internal look, we're not going to understand the enormity of…of anything."

Celebrated illustrator Lewis, who collaborated with Woodson on two other award-winning books, does a masterful job at echoing Woodson's words. He seems to have an intuitive sense of how to express deeply felt emotion and bares everything the characters are feeling in his watercolors.

As a result, characters' emotions seem to sizzle on the page and readers may feel as if they're also welling up inside of them.

This is a brilliantly handled book that explores bullying without being judgmental -- and then inspires readers to be brave, own up to their mistakes, and always try, every day, to do something nice for someone else.