Review_CHILDREN’SReview_CHILDREN’S
60 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ■ MARCH 9, 2020
A shape-shifting child keeps an exhausted
parent guessing in Yoshitake’s amusing picture
book.Picture Books
★ I Can Be Anything
Shinsuke Yoshitake. Chronicle, $15.99 (56p)
ISBN 978-1-4521-8038-0
Yoshitake (The Boring Book) strikes
again with Natsumi, a high-energy girl
in yellow pajamas whose bedtime powers
of invention nearly defeat her exhausted
mother. “Mommy! I have a really good
idea!” Extra lines around her mother’s
eyes signal bleary fatigue. “I’ll pretend to
be something and you’ll guess what it is!”
Natsumi announces. She puts a tangerine
on her head, loops one arm by her side and
sticks the other out like a swan’s neck.
“What is it?” “Something dancing?” says
her mother, baffled. A page turn shows a
green teapot. “It’s a pot!” And the girl is
off, pretending in dizzying succession to
be an omelet, a baby, a bulldozer, a fan.
She promises not to get upset if her mother
guesses wrong, but her temper flares just
the same. “Why don’t you get it?” she cries,
fists clenched. Yoshitake creates lovable
characters with just a few antic lines.
Natsumi’s firehose of creative ideas and
her mother’s despair (“Aren’t you getting
sleepy?”) strike close to home in this
sharp-eyed portrait of the way kids rev up
just before they collapse. Ages 3–5. (Apr.)Coaster
Paula Kluth, illus. by Vinsensiana Aprilia.
Paula Kluth, $12.99 paper (32p) ISBN 978-1-
69017-909-2
In a rhythmic celebration of variously
abled beings, Coaster, an eager-looking
puppy with floppy ears and slick wheels
that support his hindquarters, awaits
adoption at an animal shelter. Despite
being “admired by all of the other pup-
pies... and even some of the kittens” for
his wheels and other attributes, “nobody...
opened his cage to take him home.”
Confused and dejected, Coaster dreams
of a perfect person of his own, and when
he awakens, she is right there waiting.
Featuring a warm color palette, Aprilia’s
digital artwork shows the head and
shoulders of a brown-skinned child who
uses wheels of her own to get around.
Kluth, an educator and advocate fordisability rights, centers Coaster’s experi-
ence (“He was remarkable because he had
wheels.... They were amazing. He was
amazing”) in this inclusive tale. Ages
4–8. (Self-published)The Moon Is Following Me!
JQ Sirls. Fantoria, $17.99 (40p) ISBN 978-0-
578-57888-0
A child becomes certain that the moon
is following him in Sirls’s gently comedic
picture book—in the car, at bedtime, it’s
always there. Asked by his family, “Why
would the moon follow you?” the bespec-
tacled, brown-skinned boy imagines a
series of increasingly unlikely situations in
which the moon would have a particular
interest in his actions: perhaps the moon,
made of cheese, is mad at him for eating
“her cheesy children”? Demanding that the
orb stop trailing him, the boy eventually
decides that “the moon is a superhero”
working to save him from “woogly monsters
in the dark.” Sirls’s richly hued, comics-
style illustrations, including dialogue-style
text and emanata, bleed to the edge of each
page, successfully grounding readers in
the boy’s nocturnal imaginings. Sirls (The
Book of Imaginary Friends) subtly depicts
the ratcheting anxiety that can plague
nighttime routines and experiences,
injecting humor as the child’s inventive-
ness creates a safe, calming coping mecha-
nism—one that can very frequently be
seen in the night sky. Ages 4–8. (Apr.)Rosie: Stronger than Steel
Lindsay Ward. Two Lions, $17.99 (40p)
ISBN 978-1-5420-1794-7
Ward (This Book Is Gray) emphasizesthe role that many women played during
WWII in this cadenced story narrated by
a big-eyed emerald tractor christened
Rosie. The scene is established with
newspaper headlines: “World at War,”
“Ford to Produce 10,000 Tractors,”
“Women Head to Work.” From there,
Rosie begins her narrative, taking readers
from the scrap metal out of which she was
fashioned to the factory floor on which
she was welded by a cheerful, multi-
ethnic crew of women singing: “This is
our Rosie./ Stronger than steel.” Rosie
next travels to an overgrown farm in
England, where she works beside “brave
Land Girls” beneath the shadow of enemy
planes. Surrounded by music notes cut
from sheet music, long-lashed Rosie
smilingly repeats throughout: “I plow and
I dig. /I dig and I plow./ No matter the
job,/ this is my vow.” Even after headlines
declare “Victory,” Rosie continues to
work in the fields. If the war feels distant
in Ward’s brightly abundant scenes of
women at work, bright mixed-media art
lends the book an appropriate air of
nostalgia. An author’s note and timeline
offer historic details. Ages 4–8. (Apr.)★ Madame Badobedah
Sophie Dahl, illus. by Lauren O’Hara. Walker
Books US, $18.99 (56p) ISBN 978-1-5362-
1022-4
Mabel’s parents run the Mermaid
Hotel, and she knows all the building’s
secrets: “I don’t have brothers and sisters;
I have rooms,” she explains. When a
mysterious guest arrives, Mabel wants to
know all her secrets, too. The newcomer, a
sharp-tongued elderly lady with a feather
boa, has many pets and a mountain of
luggage, and she calls everyone “darlink.”
She is, Mabel concludes, a villainess whom
she nicknames Madame Badobedah. The
girl sets up a spy operation to find out the
truth about the enigmatic figure—until
her ruse is exposed. Villainess or no,
Madame Badobedah makes excellent
company. “That bed of mine is a pirate
ship,” she tells Mabel. “I call it the Not-
So-Jolly Roger. Shall we set sail, Captain
Mabel?” Sparky dialogue in Dahl’s chil-
dren’s debut charms; watercolor vignettes
and spreads by O’Hara (Hortense and the
Shadow) fuse spun-sugar whimsy with
theatrical drama (the Not-So-Jolly Roger
surges across the waves toward the reader,Children’s/YA
continued on p. 62