Happy Book Birthday
BEST FRINTS
AT SKROOL
by Award-winning Creator
Antoinette Portis
A frabulous sequel to the
“cosmically delightful”
BEST FRINTS IN THE
WHOLE UNIVERSE
Roaring Brook / Neal Porter
Those wild and crazy best frints, Omek and Yelfred from Best Frints in the Whole Universe (2016), are back with their unique language and rascally behavior…Once again Yelfred and Omek manage to work out their issues while getting through the day—just like us earthlings.
— Randall Enos / BOOKLIST
Portis' illustrations, done with pencil, charcoal, and Cintiq drawing tablet, once again use a brilliant palette and digital textures to great effect, bringing to vivid life this alien world. Endpapers add to the fun (and help decipher the Boborpian language) with a glossary of terms, the numbers 1 to 10, and directions for playing eye ball in the peedle pit. Gurm's company, but threep doesn't have to be a crowd when it comes to starting school and making new friends.
–KIRKUS
In bright, gestural cartoon characters, Portis depicts Yelfred as he has fun with a new “frint,” a red, cube-like alien named Q-B, leaving Omek watching dejectedly from the sidelines, antennae drooping. At “yunch,” Omek is once again alone, but when an epic food fight (“Everyone is sharing!”) leads Omek to team up with Yelfred and Q-B, they become a tight threesome: “On Boborp, what makes things the most fun… is a best frint and a best best frint.” With humor and tenderness, Portis explores the uncertainty and unexpected joys that come with navigating childhood friendships. PW
As in the previous book, the story’s copious humor comes from readers recognizing the similarities between Planet Boborp and our home planet (“just like here on Planet Earth”) and from the unexpected and hilarious ways Portis presents the differences…Bright, blobby, and pointy pencil, charcoal, and digital illustrations capture the characters’ recognizable emotions (pride, self-confidence, joy, mischievousness, boredom, anger, jealousy) in an out-of-this-world school setting. A glossary precedes the story, and a spread instructing “how to count to ten on Boborp” and “how to play eye ball in the peedle pit” is appended.
— elissa gershowitz / HORN BOOK
Most recently, BEST FRINTS IN THE WHOLE UNIVERSE was selected as a Black-Eyed Susan Award Winner
by the Maryland Association of School Librarians. The award seeks to promote literacy and lifelong reading habits by encouraging students to read quality, contemporary literature. The award is librarian nominated and student selected.
Yelfred and Omek go to skrool, in this sequel to the "sweetly demented and irresistible…"
BEST FRINTS IN THE
WHOLE UNIVERSE
Frintabulous!
Four starred reviews
An ALA Notable of the Year
A Kirkus Best Book
of the Year
A PW Best Summer Book
of the Year
A CCBC Choice Title of the Year
A Horn Book Fanfare title
Stay tuned for HEY, WATER
Holiday House/ Neal Porter
And look who won Antoinette's piece in CBC & ABA's The Silent Auction:
Kate Kubert Puls —Portis' school booking agent.
DW came home with a Daria Peoples-Riley piece inspired by Guest of Honor,
Ashley Bryan.
Happy Book Birthday
COUNTING ON KATHERINE:
How Katherine Johnson Saved
Apollo 13
by Helaine Becker
A Christy Ottaviano Book
Henry Holt
Illustrated by
Dow Phumiruk
The bold story of Katherine Johnson, an African-American mathematician who worked for NASA during the space race and was depicted in the film Hidden Figures.
A picture-book biography of a humble genius who excelled in a career once out of reach for most African-Americans…Phumiruk's stylistically varied, colorful illustrations feature mathematical computations and notes in the backgrounds, emphasizing Katherine's passion for numbers…
An excellent biography
that will inspire young readers, especially girls,
to do what they love.
–KIRKUS, starred review
Children who want to share in the Hidden Figures buzz can start right here. Phumiruk’s digital artwork convincingly portrays Johnson as brainy and imaginative, in keeping with the author note observation that “her role . . . always involved more than mere number crunching. It relied heavily on hunches.” That combination of math and intuition also emerges visually in several embedded graphics that assist readers in understanding the trajectories Johnson calculated.
–BCCB
Featuring engaging text and captivating illustrations, this picture book introduces the amazing life of mathematician Katherine Johnson to young readers. Phumiruk’s renderings help to elucidate scientific principles and bring the story to life. Sure to inspire a new generation of mathematicians. A solid addition to biography collections."
—SLJ
The straightforward, informative text is paired with delicate, precise digital artwork. . . Very worthwhile book.
—BOOKLIST
A JLG Selection
Featured in 50 Magical
Books for Summer.
This illustrated bio about Johnson’s journey from child who counted everything to NASA’s “human computer” is beautifully chronicled through succinct text and bold illustrations.
Check out this interview with Dow and Helaine about their process on InkyGirl.
Click on the image to view trailer:
Ishta Mercurio's Cover Collection on Dow's cover design with editor Christy Ottaviano and Book Designer Carol Ly:
I mean, just look at this cover. There is so much amazing to be seen here! I almost don't know where to start.
First: Color. Blue (lighter in the middle, darker towards the edges) for the night sky, yellow and orange for Katherine Johnson's clothes. I love that the editor and book designer (Christy Ottaviano and Carol Ly, respectively) chose colors for Katherine's outfit that would pop against that background.
Text: It's just a little bit retro, which is great for a book set in 1970. It's not obvious, but it subtly sets a tone, which I like. Another stellar choice by Carol Ly!
Composition: This is Carol Ly's genius at work. See the way the title arcs across the top, then Katherine herself is standing in the foreground, slightly to the left (which is where our eyes have been trained to go — the left side of the page first, then the right), then the subtitle next to her, almost as if she's looking at those words and thinking, "Yeah, I AM going to save that shuttle." I LOVE IT. Also, I want to say how great and important it is that there is a picture book featuring a black woman on the cover. She could have made this cover about the moon and the math, but she made it about Katherine. Katherine is front and center, and I love that.
Also, the stars at the top tell us that Katherine is home on Earth, thinking about that far away moon and how to get Apollo 13 back. To her, the moon doesn't seem that far away, does it? It's just a matter of doing the math.
And speaking of the moon and the math, they are on there, and it is my favorite thing about this whole cover. Phumiruk tells me that she had the idea to put the moon on there, and that the math came from the interior of the book. She is brilliant. The chalkboard is the moon, and it is covered in Katherine's math. The flight path of Apollo 13 is drawn around it, using it as a slingshot, and you can see how Katherine understands EVERYTHING about how this works. It also kind of sums up the whole book, which is rather amazing and awesome. I love it when this happens. It's pretty much perfect.
Christy Ottaviano (L) with Ginger Knowlton /Curtis Brown,
and DW pre-BEA18.
COUNTING ON KATHERINE is featured in
Here We Read's Ultimate List of Children's Diverse Books 2018.
…and The Picture Book Buzz.
