Almond's powerful text and McKean's other-wordly caricatures create a magic that is all-absorbing in this original creation myth set "long ago and far away, in a world rather like this one." The gods have grown lazy, yet there "places that are filled with emptiness." When three bored children take matters into their own hands, well, let's just say Pandora could relate. Moved to Ten to Fourteen. Wendy Lukehart. 

Travel to “amazing Africa” by listening to this series of stories about Anna Hibiscus, a young girl who lives with her lively extended family including her cousins Double and Trouble. The descriptions of the setting, the characters’ African English accents and Anna’s mundane and extraordinary experiences give the listener a flavor of life in a West African city. Ade-salu’s voice is clear and melodic, switching smoothly between the narration and the accented characters’ voices. She convincingly conveys the emotional ups and downs of a naive school girl becoming more aware of her social context and trying to distinguish herself as an individual. For Up to Seven listeners. Lena Berrios

Anthony Browne takes the reader through a bevy of primates. A one-time Children’s Laureate of the United Kingdom, he has drawn on his lifelong fascination with gorillas and apes of all sizes. Using his signature strokes and employing the technique of varying dry and wet brushes, each page becomes a lifelike, head-on portrait of the featured creatures. Generous white space keeps the focus on the intense images of monkeys, chimps, and orangutans, among others. Browne reminds us of our own relationship to this group of animals with an arresting self-portrait, followed by a double-paged spread of diverse humans. Up to Seven. -Todd Krueger