~ Collated by Anne Coppell, Tāmaki Makaurau Aotearoa.
Our beloved Lavender Librarian posted on our Facebook group:
What’s your favourite new book you almost missed?
And the group answered!
Welcome to a snapshot of recent(ish) picture books in August 2022, organised into vague categories. Many books could be in multiple categories.
A note from Ms. Kate (The Lavender Librarian)
Not too long ago I posted in Storytime Solidarity about about an outstanding new book, GIBBERISH, by Young Vo. Reading the book I had been gobsmacked, not just by the book’s obvious quality, but also that I had almost missed it. I never would have noticed it had it not passed my desk on its way to a patron hold (this patron has AMAZING taste so I often place holds after them).
It’s Too Easy to Miss These Books
This reminded me that we shouldn’t leave finding quality books to chance and so we had a great conversation about amazing new books in the group. Of course, the amazing Anne has now added all of them to our growing book list. But, still, we wanted to round them up, so that we could especially highlight new books.
The Importance of New Books
New books are important for StoryTime for a number of reasons: the first is simple, the quality of the books being released right now is outstanding. We’re seeing some of the most engaging pictures and diverse stories I’ve ever seen.
Quality Books That Reflect the Real World
The books being released right now are of a quality it would have been difficult to imagine even five or ten years ago. Children deserve to have access to them. And these new books reflect so much more of the world. Today’s world.
Children’s Needs are Immediate
Reading books we loved in our own childhoods is more about us than it is about children. It’s about our nostalgia, our familiarity, and sometimes our very real lack of time to access and research new books.
I don’t say this to place blame, but to remind all of us we need to keep ourselves updated. We need to continue to learn and grow so we can support those with much growing ahead of them. Growing a bit ourselves is a great way to set an example.
Authors Need Our Support
Writing for the very young is vitally important work. Like most important work, it’s not particularly lucrative for most. These book lists are meant to be a modest display of Solidarity with book creators: authors, illustrators, editors, we see you and appreciate the quality books you bring into the world.
We hope you’ll purchase as many of these and possible to share at your libraries or in your lives at home. And that you’ll upgrade your StoryTimes by including some of these new and beautiful books.
In Solidarity,
Kate
