Three Delightful Picture Books

Some recent reviews I did for the Midwest Book Review's November 2026 issue. Enjoy and please try to ignore the wonky formatting which I am not sure how to fix! 

In a note at the end of her book, Stories by Sea, Jessica Iwanski explains that lending libraries once traveled by boat to service the individuals and families who ran lighthouses. Iwanski, along with illustrator Angela C. Hawkins, has created a charming picture book featuring this 19^th century phenomenon. The need for reading material was far more intense in the situations presented in “Stories by Sea”; not only were these people lacking radio, television, and internet, but the lives of lighthouse dwellers were particularly isolated.

The text is written in present tense, which is possibly why I didn’t quite understand what was happening until I read the explanatory note. But despite my initial confusion on the first read-through, I was thoroughly charmed by Hawkins’s appealing images of children and adults steeped in the pleasure of books, the represented topics which include everything from adventure stories and nature to Shakespeare and repair manuals. Connecting the library recipients is a logbook (excerpts of which appear on a few pages of Stories by Sea) where readers were apparently encouraged to notate what they most enjoyed, communicate with each other, and/or request additional titles.

The lyrical text contains bits of internal rhyme, consonance, and alliteration along with the occasional repeated phrase, which I found gently somnambulant.

This charming story, which beautifully illustrates the hunger for and enjoyment of books, will no doubt inspire modern readers to take advantage of the treasures that can be found at their own public library.

Who keeps knocking things down? Anyone familiar with the feline fascination for gravity tests will immediately blame the cat who, in this book, repeatedly protests her innocence as objects appear one by one on the floor. But is she as innocent as she insists? Is someone else truly to blame?

There are so many things to love about Emily Krill’s beautiful new counting book, Things I Did Not Knock Over, most outstanding of which are its illustrations. Krill is a talented and successful artist whose skill with collage work is quite stunning. She states that the images for this book are computer-generated, “collaged together with ink-washed antique papers, including old blueprints and mid-century wallpaper.” To utilize collage art in such a way as to facilitate specific facial expressions for the two characters requires a tremendous talent which Krill obviously has in spades.

And the book is clearly constructed with its audience in mind: each object remains in its original spot on the floor as new ones appear on each subsequent page, allowing young readers to easily keep track of them as they count from one to 10.  

The only aspect of this book I found slightly underwhelming was its text; it seems to lack the lyricism generally associated with picture books. Perhaps the words on each page merely suffer in comparison to Krill’s stunning visual artistry, the latter which will ultimately more than compensate for any perceived lack in the former.  

Krill’s beautiful images are so cleverly arranged that Things I Did Not Knock Over will certainly be one of those books that remains on the bookshelves as well as in the minds of young children who are learning to count.

 

A girl named Hildi and her dog, Finn, are gazing out the window of their cottage on coastal Maine when they see something that grabs their attention. A fir tree is lying on its side near the ocean. After Hildy and her family lovingly set it up in the sand and decorate it with beach items, the tree becomes a local sensation.

 When a storm blows through and carries the tree away, all the joy it created dissipates.  But after it washes up once more on the shore, and Hildi’s family decorates it again, the tree grows roots and glows, becoming a permanent miracle on the beach.

 Based on a true story, The Magical Beach Tree was written by author Donna K., someone whose striking prose reveals a deep love for the Maine coastline:

 “Morning sunlight danced across the beach, making the snow sparkle like diamonds while waves shimmered with their own special kind of light…In the distance, waves rolled onto shore with gently whooshing sounds, like the beach was softly singing.”

 Olha Tkachenko’s subtle, softly outlined illustrations perfectly capture the beautiful essence of the text, supporting its sense of wonder.

The Magical Beach Tree, a mystical ode to the wonders of nature, is a story so lovely one feels it must be read no louder than a whisper so as not to disturb its breathtaking magic.