No Horses in the House!

April 1, 2022

PreS-Gr 1-This title tells the true story of a pre-built mosque that was shipped to a growing Muslim community near the Arctic Circle. It was too expensive to build a mosque in Inuvik, a rural region of northwest Canada, so the community asked for one to be sent to them from Winnipeg. The mosque was driven from nearly the very south to the very north of the country, and required many accommodations along the way. All ends well, with the people being able to worship every day in their new mosque. The story is almost set like a graphic novel with sparse text and the action occurring mostly through illustrations, sometimes set as panels on the page. The buildings, animals, and scenery are particularly striking, and the spreads convey just how massive an undertaking this was. Young readers will like seeing the efforts of people helping the mosque and the amazed seals watching the boat tugging it along in the water. Both the author and illustrator are Muslim, and the author's note explains why this story is special. It's epic, and an example of strong faith and community. VERDICT This may need some booktalking, but readers will quickly sink into an adventure that combines architecture, logistics, cartography, and very likely a lot of prayers.-Elissa Cooper

Copyright 2022 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2023
Grades 1-3 Readers will revel in the lifelike animal paintings featured in this biography of Rosa Bonheur, the tenacious Parisienne who didn't take "non" for an answer when told that art wasn't for girls. At first we find young Rosa battling her family's restrictions that confine her to pursuits ""proper"" for a young lady, but eventually Rosa is allowed to study art alongside her brothers. After a visit to the horse market, she covers her home with pictures of horses but is told the market isn't a place for her. She prevails there, too, and after being refused the right to wear pants, she gets police permission to do so. The artwork here sprawls beautifully across spreads, showing, in sepia-toned greens, oranges, blues, and browns, a tiny but confident Rosa surrounded by naysayers as well as her beloved animals, potential creations swirling around the scenes as they pour from her mind. Pair this with a differently styled book that portrays another unstoppable artist: Matthew Burgess' Drawing on Walls: A Story of Keith Haring (2020).

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April 1, 2023
A tribute to a 19th-century artist driven by talent, stubbornness, and impatience with nonsense. "Balivernes!" (French for nonsense) says Rosa Bonheur when told that it's "unladylike" to visit the horse market in Paris. And again, "Balivernes," when she sees men allowed to cross-dress as members of the opposite sex but is (wrongly) told that she could never receive such permission. Drawn by Bron as a determined but very small, White-presenting child surrounded by towering horses and grown-ups in period clothing and, in group scenes, some variation in skin color, Bonheur comes across in Messier's terse account of her early life as an artistically gifted force of nature who drove her reluctant father to give her art lessons, brought live farm animals to her family's apartment to draw and paint, and quickly shouldered her way to public attention at the Paris Salon with the huge and stunning Horse Fair. This version of her story ends there, with just a brief note and a closing timeline covering the rest of her rise to fame, her death 10 years after that of her "lifelong companion," Nathalie Micas, and the (now, at long last, waning) eclipse of her reputation. Ruth Sanderson's A Storm of Horses (2022) presents younger readers with more analytical views of Bonheur's art and career, but for all its brevity, this offers an equally vivid glimpse of her character. (This book was reviewed digitally.) More sketch than finished portrait but gives the artist's personality its due. (Picture-book biography. 6-8)

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