Best Reads of August 2023

Here are my favorite books that I read during August. All images and summaries from Goodreads.

Picture Books

With an elegant and simple approach, this thought-provoking book shows young readers that even the most familiar things can be seen from infinite perspectives. ... The unusual approach to colors, shapes, and animals intelligently introduces young readers to patterns, classification, and problem solving. The imaginative language, rich with rhythmic phrasing and playfulness, begs to be read aloud.

Not all questions have answers. Some have more than one answer. And others have endless answers, unfolding out to the edges of the world. In this spare yet expansive narrative, acclaimed author Mac Barnett poses twenty questions both playful and profound. Some make us giggle. Others challenge our assumptions. The result is a quirky, wandering exploration of where the best questions lead—to stories.
 

 

The first picture book written and illustrated by award-winning creator Vashti Harrison traces a child’s journey to self-love and shows the power of words to both hurt and heal. With spare text and exquisite illustrations, this emotional exploration of being big in a world that prizes small is a tender portrayal of how you can stand out and feel invisible at the same time.

High on a mountain live 100 mighty dragons all named Broccoli. When a tremendous wind blows half the dragons away, ten others sail off to become professional surfers in Hawaii. The oldest and youngest dragons take a train to New York City to start their own heavy metal band. And a mysterious wizard turns four more into a unicorn, a werewolf, a zombie, and a tiny pink poodle. Now how many dragons are left? Young readers will delight in following each and every dragon as they leave their home for marvelous adventures.

How far can you go? How much do you know? How kind are you? How much do I love you? These are the impossible questions every child has asked, and every parent has struggled to answer. This is a wonderfully affirmative and aspirational book of possibilities and exploration, a fantastic linguistic calibration/celebration of bravery, kindness, love, and so much more. 

Middle Grade Novels

Herc Beal knows who he's named after—a mythical hero—but he's no superhero. He's the smallest kid in his class. So when his homeroom teacher at his new middle school gives him the assignment of duplicating the mythical Hercules's amazing feats in real life, he's skeptical. After all, there are no Nemean Lions on Cape Cod—and not a single Hydra in sight. Missing his parents terribly and wishing his older brother wasn't working all the time, Herc figures out how to take his first steps along the road that the great Hercules himself once walked. Soon, new friends, human and animal, are helping him. And though his mythical role model performed his twelve labors by himself, Herc begins to see that he may not have to go it alone.

Nonfiction

What if you were small as a bean, / Could walk on the walls and ceiling, / Sense vibrations through your elbows, / And jump five times your body length? / That is Jumper's world.

Open this book to discover the hidden life of a backyard jumping spider.

As a mail carrier, Victor Hugo Green traveled across New Jersey every day. But with Jim Crow laws enforcing segregation since the late 1800s, traveling as a Black person in the US could be stressful, even dangerous. So in the 1930s, Victor created a guide — The Negro Motorist Green-Book —compiling information on where to go and what places to avoid so that Black travelers could have a safe and pleasant time. While the Green Book started out small, over the years it became an expansive, invaluable resource for Black people throughout the country—all in the hopes that one day such a guide would no longer be needed.