The recent large-scale alterations of Roald Dahl’s texts in the U.K .is a dangerous precedent that deserves our attention. The ill-advised purpose of this particular form of censorship is the same as that animating other ongoing efforts to restrict, ban, and challenge children’s books in schools and libraries, to protect children from perceived harm. Yet the peculiar dangers inherent in this particular methodology of elision and alteration are important and noteworthy.

In the case of Dahl’s books, hundreds of passages “relating to weight, mental health, gender and race were altered.” According to the Guardian, “The Roald Dahl Story Company, which controls the rights to the books, said it worked with Puffin to review the texts because it wanted to ensure that ‘Dahl’s wonderful stories and characters continue to be enjoyed by all children today.’ ” The language was reviewed in partnership with Inclusive Minds, a collective working to make children’s literature more inclusive and accessible.”

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I’ve known Hannah Moushabeck since she first appeared on the New England childrens bookselling scene in 2011 as Odyssey Bookshop’s new kids’ buyer. She has gone through a number of book facing career iterations from then to now, as a rep for Flying Eye, Quarto, Chronicle and finally to SImon and Schuster, where she is currently ensconced. A more thoroughgoing, amiable, talented and insightful book person is not on offer. It is the simple truth that Hannah is beloved in the New England bookselling community and thus, while it is always of interest to see a bookseller clamber over into an author’s chair, word of Hannah’s production of a picture book was particularly marked.

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Amidst a cavalcade of new picture books seeking to engage children in difficult issues I noted that, in her recent interview here, The Year 2023 singled out one book in particular, That Flag, by Tameka Fryer Brown, illustrated by Nikkolas Smith. Reading the book I found myself agreeing with The Year 2023. The book is exceptional in conveying to young readers the role character and humanity plays in a story imbued with a charged and volatile narrative. To find out more I caught up with the book’s author.

Kenny: One aspect shared by many great picture books is that they make something difficult to create look effortless. How did you begin to conceptualize this story as a picture book? What, if any, challenges did you encounter finding and maintaining the center of your narrative while holding space for your characters’ multiple points of view?

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Though I’ve interviewed each coming new Year for over a decade, my interview with The Year 2023 was a first. As you may know past years had required me to travel to the Glade of Years, but The Year 2023 was different. Today, for the first time ever, The New Year came here to the bookstore for our interview!

Kenny: Thank you so much for taking time from your overburdened schedule to visit the bookstore.

The Year 2023: It was decreed that I should do some book shopping to pick out a gift for the outgoing year.

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Meet the Council of Wishing Animals. They are the reason I am confident that the 2022 Stocking Stuffer of the Year Award will scrape off the patina of shame which has confounded this prestigious award for the last seven years, transforming it from a long standing bastion of spotless integrity to an exercise in iniquity. The awful truth is that each of our judges since 2015 defiled their sacred responsibility by selecting themselves as the award winners!

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It was curiously appropriate that Rick the Rock of Room 214 headlined the return of my favorite annual event,  Jammie Night, from its three-year pandemic hiatus. After all, Rick is the story of a triumphant return and nothing could have been more apropos to the glorious renaissance of Jammie Night.

Jammie Night, aka Prime Time Reading Night, which takes place at Mallett Elementary School, has ingredients that would be the envy of any event. For example, it is comprised of an actively shared love of reading, widespread community support, partnerships, great authors, a great crowd, amazing decorations, and pajamas.

Here’s how it works: the Mallett community comes back to school at 6:00 in the evening – parents, kids, teachers, librarian, principal, all dressed in pajamas for an evening of read-alouds. I produce a children’s book author. The evening starts with that author reading her book to the assembled throng in the gymnasium, which has been lavishly decorated around the book’s theme. Afterwards, families can either go listen to one of five different community readers in five different classrooms, read together in the gym, or purchase a book and have the guest author sign it. The evening ends with the author reading a second book to the whole audience and then concludes with goodnights and more book signing.

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There is an excitement peculiar to beginning the assessment of a picture book frontlist from a major house. Will there be a great book to discover? Will there be a fantastic new voice to encounter? Will a favorite author/illustrator deliver the goods again? Will there be a book so ill-considered and executed that it will stun and defy belief?

After 32 years of frontlist picture book buying, I don’t expect to encounter something  wholly new. I expect wonder and unexpected twists and turns, but not a previously unimagined structure executed with sublime force. The first F&G in Simon & Schuster’s Winter 2023 list was In Every Life by Marla Frazee. She is a personal favorite as both an illustrator and an author illustrator, so my expectations were high. Meg read it first, and clutched the F&G after she was finished, looking teary eyed. “I don’t know what to say,” she said handing it to me.

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When I arrived at the glade for my annual interview with Autumn, she marched right up to me and spoke before I could even greet her.

Autumn: I’m enjoying them!

Kenny: Them?

Autumn: The fruits!

Kenny: Fruits?

Autumn: The fruits of my command!

Kenny: Your command?

Autumn: Have you noticed anything odd about this year’s Fall books for young people, Kenny?

Kenny: Well I must say that it is a crazy strong season for picture books.

Autumn: Ah. I see that you are not entirely bereft of wits and sense.

Kenny: Are you saying that you commanded a great season of picture books?

Autumn: I am indeed. In my estimation the world stands in need of the particular comfort provided by a great picture book and I commanded a bountiful harvest of them.

Kenny: I agree. But how could you command publishers to produce particularly excellent picture books?

Autumn: That I will not reveal.

Kenny: Hmmn. How about revealing the fruits of your command themselves?

Autumn: Gladly. Let’s start out with Sophie Blackall’s Farmhouse. Nothing surprising in a great picture book from her but this one is particularly good. The quiet, enduring power of Farmhouse is accentuated in all its complementary elements. The resonant palette that heightens the beauty of its illustrations is mirrored in the unexpected ending which infuses the fine writing before it with fresh poignancy. Farmhouse is an all ages tour de force for the heart and mind.

Kenny: Totally agree!

Autumn: Next I’d like to mention A Bear Far from Home.

Kenny: Oh what an unusual book that is! I loved it.

Autumn: As you should. Picture books recounting bits of medieval history are often a little flat but this one is filled with immediacy and resonance. Such an immersive narrative perspective. I think we can all relate to the bear’s rope, the odd constricted freedom of getting back in the water.

Kenny: Absolutely and what other picks can you share?

Autumn: Is a more darling, more magical friendship book imaginable than Briony May Smith’s The Mermaid Moon?

Kenny: No!

Autumn: No indeed. What a delight it is to be immersed in simple warmth, wonder and a bit of adventure. Speaking of delightful, what a pleasure it is to find a familiar theme made unexpectedly exceptional as we find in That’s Not My Sweater.

Kenny: Well spotted! Usually sibling books are a highway to tired tropes but That’s Not My Sweater is so original and unexpected.

Autumn: It is a treat, to be sure. Speaking of unexpected, the high-concept high wire traversed by The Little Toymaker is remarkable for being a big success.

Kenny: I see what you mean. The theme of a child who makes magically renewed toys for adults could have so easily gone wrong.

Autumn: Yes; it is particularly rewarding to see a difficult narrative carried off as though it were simplicity itself. Talk about aiming at and then hitting the mark. So genuine and heartwarming.

Kenny: It is! Do you have any more picks for us?

Autumn: I’ll share one more with you, after all we should close with a bedtime book, and Mushroom Lullaby is an exceptional one. Pure wonder to wander through. The perfect precursor to the wanderings on pleasant dreams.

Kenny: Thanks so much, Autumn. I’m so glad your command bore such splendid fruit.

Autumn: Happy to help.

It is a strong year for Back to School picture books. If it were a normal year two charming and clever books, Puppy Bus and Little Yellow Bus, would vie for the crown of Best New Back to School book. Yet this is not a normal year because it contains the arrival of Rick the Rock of Room 214.

The aspirations of the rocks in our lives have been the subject of deep philosophical contemplation for us humans from time immemorial. Consider Sisyphus. We understand that he felt a sense of futility in repeatedly rolling a rock up a hill only to have it roll back down. Yet how did the rock feel about it? Julie Falatko pulls back the veil on the inner world of rocks in her sensationally entertaining new picture book, Rick the Rock of Room 214. Rick’s there and back again adventure off and back on The Nature Finds Shelf of Room 214 is the sort of riveting exploration of aspiration, heart, wisdom and experience which philosophers have sought to decant for eons.

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As reported last week, the bookstore recently became possessed of an evil toy baby who an opportunistic local merchant divested herself of in the guise of giving us a prize to give away at our Find Waldo Local party. Though we were initially leery of handing on this evil being to an innocent child, the baby persuaded us to carry forward with that plan.

Nonetheless, as the party approached we found ourselves still beset by doubts as to the wisdom of our actions. Someone suggested having a seance to speak with the baby directly and clarify matters. This seemed like an excellent idea, though Meg did put forward that a tarot reading might be safer. But time was pressing and so Meg, Nick and I gathered together for the seance, of which a transcript is below.

Meg: Oh, thou Baby, mighty perfidious one, we summon thee to speech.

Nick: Oh, formidable one, Changeling of Babylon, we call upon thee.

Kenny: Oh, Bringer of Calamity, oh Infamous Infant, we adjure you to open your mind to us.

Baby: I am here. What ails your flaccid minds?

Meg: We seek assure that no ill shall befall the receiver of you as a Waldo party prize.

Baby: As to that, limpid ones, I was in Alexandria before the library burned, in Pompeii before Vesuvius spoke, in Chicago before the fire caught, on the Titanic before it sank, and I am here still. I am fine. Nothing ill has befallen me. There is nothing to fear.

Meg: Oh, thou Baby, mighty perfidious one, we thank you for assuaging our pathetic fears.

Nick: Oh, formidable one, Changeling of Babylon, we thank thee for dispelling our unworthy concerns.

Kenny: Oh, Bringer of Calamity, oh Infamous Infant, we commend you for inducing us to renounce our facile moral anxiety.

And so we carried forward with our original plan, both for the party and for the baby. I must say it was really nice to see the party return after its two-year absence. Things started out with kids picking up their coloring contest supplies.

Here is a young lad handing in his entry.

Next, it was time for cake.

While the kids were noshing and drinking, Meg and I scrabbled to do the contest judging.

Then it was time to give away all the prizes… including the Baby. The Baby spoke with my voice and lo, it had a new home.

We got a nice note with the photo below from some of our prize winners the next day.

The Baby had been right. All was well. And all would remain well. Forever.