Bookbag: 3 storybooks to teach young readers about the world

Late summer is a great time to find some shade, perhaps some lemonade, and a stack of books, and someone who wants to share a story. Here are some new books about our world and many things in it that would be great for just such an occasion.

“The World and Everything In It” (Greenwillow, 2023; $19.99) written and illustrated by Kevin Henkes, is a deceptively simple, wonderfully satisfying look at the big and little things of the world. “There are big things/and little things/in the world.” The book lists some of the little things — “Little animals. /Tiny flowers. /Pebbles./ Things so small/ you can’t even see them.” And then some big things — “The sea. /The sun. /The moon.”

The narrator tells readers they can partake of the little things, even parts of the big things, and then reminds us that there is also “everything in between.” And that is where we all fit. This would be such a satisfying story for young lap sitters, who are already busy noticing everything in the world. Kevin Henkes knows just how to address this group, how to tell the stories that meet them where they are and take them just a bit further, to notice “everything is in the world.”

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“Linh’s Rooftop Garden” (Peachtree, 2023; $16.99) written by Janay Brown-Wood and illustrated by Samara Hardy, is an appealing “find the berries” story in which our hero, Linh, searches among the lush growing plants in her rooftop garden for blueberries for her breakfast pancakes. This beautifully illustrated story is a perfect introduction to fruits and vegetables. Linh knows that a blueberry is “small, blue, and round in shape/with a thin skin that can be eaten./ It has pointy edges on the top that/form a crown, and a pale green inside,/ with many seeds in the center.”

First she sees a small berry that is light green — a gooseberry. Then she sees a round berry — a blackberry. Then a thick-skinned onion. She goes through her garden finding fruits and veggies that share one characteristic with blueberries, until — finally, “Hooray!” she finds the blueberries. A final double-page spread shows Linh’s family and friends eating fruits, veggies and blueberry banana pancakes. (The banana blueberry pancake recipe is included.)

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“Grandma’s Tipi: A Present Day Lakota Story” (Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2023; $18.99) is written and illustrated by S.D. Nelson, a member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in the Dakotas. Clara, the narrator, is going into third grade and is now old enough to spend part of her summer with unci (oon-CHEE), her grandma, and her cousin Juniper who lives year-round with unci.

The day after Clara arrives, Uncle Louis brings by poles and a canvas, the family tipi. It’s been in the family for generations and unci is the “keeper.”

“’The tipi has been with our family a very long time,’ our unci said. ‘My mother was the tipi’s first keeper. She passed it to me. And one day, you girls will receive it.’ She lit a braid of sweetgrass that offered a ribbon of sweet-smelling smoke to carry her prayer upward. ‘Thank you for this, our family’s tipi. We ask for a blessing. May it stand strong. May good stories from long ago be told and new memories made.’”

Uncle Louis, unci, and the girls stand up the poles and spread the canvas, with the door facing east. Uncle Louis says, “It always opens to the rising of the morning sun and the beginning of a new day.”

At night more relatives join them for storytelling and singing, especially the “Thanksgiving Song.”

The girls sleep in the tipi, swim in the river behind the house. Grandma paints a spirit picture for each of the girls on the tipi and makes a beaded buckskin dress for Clara.

This is a beautiful story about a loving family that introduces readers to Lakota ways. Neither Clara nor S.D. Nelson tells us why Uncle Louis has a prosthetic leg. He just does. But it doesn’t slow him down. He comes by one day riding a horse backward. He is one of the heyokas, clowns who do things backward in life. He makes the girls laugh “so hard that we cried.” Uncle Louis is full of life and laughter. And this books, with its two page author note is full of life, laughter, love, and pride.

Jacqueline Briggs Martin of Mount Vernon writes books for children.