5th Starred Review is in for Animal Countdown!

KIRKUS - August 1, 2024 (starred review)

Bold graphics with “I spy” die cuts deliver a compelling call to save endangered and threatened species.

Seeger is well established as a master of the concept book, and her latest offering lives up to this reputation for excellence. It reads like a mashup of her earlier titles The Hidden Alphabet (2003) and Green (2012); she adopts a layout similar to the former and an ecological ethos like the latter while presenting the numbers 10 through one.

The first spread shows the word ten on the verso in sans serif knockout type against a murky backdrop, while the facing page depicts the numeral 10 organically formed by the hazy background, revealed through a die-cut window in a brown gatefold page. When the gatefold is lifted vertically, the 10 appears as part of a reflective, watery setting where 10 sea otters huddle, adorably gazing out at readers. Ensuing spreads continue this pattern, showing nine elephants (the 9 formed by a pachyderm’s trunk), eight giraffes (the 8 appearing in markings on the animal’s fur), and so on.

Seeger’s choice of a countdown provides a subtle message about the dwindling numbers of the portrayed animals, all of which, according to the backmatter, are “threatened or endangered, some critically.” Thumbnails with additional facts about the animals round out this artful, necessary picture book.

Count on Seeger for powerful, accessible art for young readers. (Picture book. 2-6)

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY (starred review)

Counting down from 10 to one, Vaccaro Seeger (The Hidden Alphabet) offers readers concept-based puzzles both visual and tactile.

Each spread features a number’s word form on the verso, set in chunky, translucent type against an unidentified habitat. On the recto, readers can guess the animal inhabitant based on textures peeking through a small, square die-cut window, which reveals a pattern that resembles the appropriate attending numeral. “Nine,” for example, appears against a grassy plain rendered in luscious smears of yellows, golds, and browns. The window in the deep red flap opposite reveals the numeral 9 in the shape of—could that be a tail? No, opening the flap reveals; it’s a curled trunk belonging to one of nine pictured elephants.

These consistently inventive visuals, together with touching animal characterizations—the creatures, all threatened or endangered, often gaze directly into readers’ eyes—and pages made of heavy, smooth paper, make this book intriguing to both hold and behold. Back matter provides additional detail on each species. Ages 4–8. (Oct.)

SHELF AWARENESS (starred review)
Does Laura Vaccaro Seeger's inventiveness never cease? In Green, Blue, and Red, the two-time Caldecott Honoree employed a die-cut technique to frame and pay tribute to, among other things, aspects of the natural world. In Animal Countdown, she uses flaps to create a peekaboo-style game that can introduce the youngest readers to counting basics while raising awareness about vulnerable animals to boot.

In the book's first spread, its left side presents the word "ten" against what looks kind of like blue-and-white marbling. This faces a full-page flat-brown panel out of which a small rectangle has been cut, exposing more marbling in which can be discerned a blue numeral 10. What could the big brown flap be hiding? Small fingers will be able to effortlessly flip the flap to uncover 10 furry-headed, bewhiskered pals: "sea otters." The blue-and-white stuff? It's the otters' frothy, watery home. On it goes, from "ten" down to "one." For that final spread, a black numeral "1" on what looks like white fur turns out to be the markings on a lone snow leopard's nose.

Seeger's mixed-media art manages to be painterly but approachable, the animal depictions realistic but something a toddler would welcome in stuffed-animal form. A companion to Seeger's conceptually similar The Hidden Alphabet, Animal Countdown concludes with news that all the featured animals are either endangered or threatened. Generous back matter illuminates the creatures' distinctive qualities; perhaps this will inspire readers of all ages to try to head off a countdown to animal extinction. --Nell Beram, freelance writer and YA author

Discover: This inventive picture book uses flaps to create a peekaboo-style game that can introduce the youngest readers to counting basics while raising awareness about vulnerable animals.

HORN BOOK (starred review)

These lift-the-flap books by Seeger (Red, rev. 11/21, and many others) creatively showcase threatened or endangered creatures (Countdown) and the ABCs (Alphabet; a 2003 reissue, rev. 1/04).

In Countdown, left-hand pages present a spelled-out number, beginning with ten and counting down to one, on a textured mixed-media background that hints at a habitat. Right-hand pages (which lift up) are matte colors with square or rectangular die-cuts revealing additional glimpses of the scene below—and in the general shape of the numeral being highlighted. The number nine, for example, shows a glimpse of an elephant’s curled trunk, and eight is the negative space of a giraffe’s markings. They’re not all obvious; careful looking and use of imagination are bonuses, and additional creature facts are appended.

Alphabet goes from a to z, with clean black backgrounds and a word on every page (arrowhead, balloons, yolk, zipper). From Lolly Robinson’s January/February 2004 Magazine review: “Lift the flaps and foreground turns background as pictured images become the negative space defining the letter form…This is great bookmaking, and a snazzy—though sophisticated—addition to the alphabet bookshelf.”

Sturdy flaps; thoughtfully placed and sized die cuts; abundant surprises; and visual delights make both volumes welcome and artistically elevated concept books. 

WALL STREET JOURNAL (featured best book for Fall ‘24)

Young readers can master counting down from 10 while learning about some of the world's most endangered animals in author-artist Seeger's marvelously illustrated lift-the-flap book. For the youngest readers, the mixed-media illustrations and the fun of lifting the flaps will be the draw. But the book also works for older children, as Seeger, a two-time Caldecott honoree, provides brief write-ups about each of the 10 animals she highlights and why they are threatened. (Ages 3-6, Neal Porter, Oct. 1) - KM

Fabulous visit to Albany Schools!

It’s so good to be back among the children, librarians, and teachers after a long slow-down during these Covid times. All last week, I had the absolute pleasure of speaking with thousands of children at the Eagle, Slingerlands, Elsmere, and Hamagrael schools in Bethlehem, Albany, New York.

Much thanks to Monica Parmenter, Krissy Welliver, Jaimee Meyer, and Cailie Hafener - librarians extraordinaire, one and all - for making the visits totally successful, memorable, and so much fun!

(with Monica Parmenter)

Red wins University of Chicage Zena Sutherland Award!

Lab students become literary critics for annual Sutherland awards

Gordon Parks Assembly Hall shook with the shouts and applause of excited students, stamping, and clapping as the nominees for this year’s Sutherland Awards were read out. With an enthusiasm usually reserved for BTS concerts, readers from grades 3–6 gathered on April 20 to crown a new class of winners for the 2022 Zena Sutherland Award for Excellence in Children's Literature.

The award, named after acclaimed children’s literature critic Zena Sutherland, is unique in that it is a truly student-organized honor. The Sutherland Committee, a group of thirteen sixth-graders, started by reading through sixteen books compiled by Lab librarians Tad Andracki, Irene Fahrenwald, Jamelle St.Clair, Lee McLain, Elisa Gall, and Amy Atkinson. Through much discussion and deliberation, the committee narrowed the list to five final nominees. Then, they presented the books to Lower School students, who voted on their favorites in three categories. 

The ceremony also featured presentations by Suzanne Buckingham Slade and Cozbi A. Cabrera, the author and illustrator of Exquisite: The Life and Poetry of Gwendolyn Brooks, last year’s winner for the Best Text award. Slade and Cabrera detailed their processes for researching the life of the famous poet in order to construct their award-winning book. From reading archival documents to finding photographs of historic furniture, both creators detailed the hard work and joy involved in their creative pursuits.

At the end of the ceremony, Slade and Cabrera announced the 2022 winners of the Sutherland Awards:
Best Text: Change Sings: A Children's Anthem, written by Amanda Gormon, illustrated by Loren Long
Best Illustrations: Red, written and illustrated by Laura Vaccaro Seeger
Best Overall: Mel Fell, written and illustrated by Corey R. Tabor

Congratulations to the award winners and to the Sutherland Award committee for another successful year of this cherished Lab tradition!

SHELF AWARENESS - Starred Review for RED!

SHELF AWARENESS - NOVEMBER 12, 2021
STARRED REVIEW

RED by Laura Vaccaro Seeger
Readers of Laura Vaccaro Seeger's previous picture-book homages to color--the Caldecott Honoree Green and its follow-up, Blue--may have anticipated the publication of the ravishing Red. What they probably couldn't have foreseen was Seeger's turn toward a dramatic story; as she puts it in her author's note, she's focusing on "red as in anger and discord, but also as in love and compassion."

As with Red's predecessors, Seeger pairs the sparest rhyming text with lovingly labored-over die-cut art. A spread featuring the words "light red" finds a little red fox sleeping on a rock at sunrise; three mushrooms in the scene become, with the turn of a die-cut page, three rocks in an expanse of grass on which the fox finds itself alone: "lost red." One page later, the fox is caught after dark in a car's headlights: "bright red." As the story proceeds, types of red continue to correspond with the fox's circumstances, as when the "rust red" of some nails leads to "blood red"--an injured paw.

Seeger's acrylics are up to the heavy lifting required by a minimal text. Each spread wears its brushstrokes with pride, the paint at times thin enough to let the canvas peek through. The technique reminds attentive readers of the human presence behind Red, which aligns with the book's message: while the specter of danger looms over the fox, human kindness prevails in the form of a girl who plays a key role in the story. In her author's note, Seeger nudges readers to consider that the girl may have played a part in a previous book in the author's mind-expanding triad.

--Nell Beram, freelance writer and YA author

Discover: This gorgeous picture book features a fox for whom the titular color corresponds with both danger and salvation.

Red in the Wall Street Journal!

Children’s Books: Training the Eye and the Mind

For little ones, bold visual abstractions and simple juxtapositions engage the imagination.

By Meghan Cox Gurdon
Oct. 22, 2021 9:22 am ET

Three times, the picture book creator Laura Vaccaro Seeger has created meaning and serendipity from the permutations of a single nuance. First came “Green” in 2012, which considered the many shades and hues of that color. Then came “Blue” in 2018, which tracks the friendship and aging of a boy and his dog. Now comes “Red”, which tells of a lone fox set.

As in her previous color stories, our eye moves in “red” through thickly painted landscapes with small carvings framing color balls from other images. We meet the little fox, “dark red”, as it crosses a shady forest. We learn that the animal is lost, and see that it is also vulnerable in its contacts with the human world. At one point, the set borders an autumn field, disregarding the dangerous “rust-red” nails sprouting from a pile of old wood in the foreground. Our alarm leaves room for pity as the next born fox on the next side lifts the paw “blood red” from meeting the spikes.

There is a stronger sense of melancholy in “Red” than in the other two books in the informal trilogy; a result, Ms Seeger explains in a short afterword about her distress over the country’s political polarization. However, there is nothing political in the story, and thanks to a tender final reunion scene, children ages 3 to 7 will not be abandoned.

BOOKLIST Starred Review for RED!

BOOKLIST - October, 2021 
STARRED REVIEW

A worthy companion to its two acclaimed thematic predecessors, Green (2012) and Blue (2018), Red is the story of a young red fox that lags behind its parent and three siblings, eventually becoming separated from them in the deep, dark forest. After spending a night alone, the little animal crosses a railroad track and finds itself near humans as evidenced by fences, a shed, a wheelbarrow, and a bright blue truck. Different hues of red drive the illustrations; the color appears in both the natural and the man-made world and brings with it associations as varied as anger, courage, danger, joy, and love. Seeger’s thickly painted illustrations deftly convey these myriad emotions, while spare yet effective text—only two words per page—conveys the dangers that the susceptible kit encounters: “rose red, mud red, rust red, blood red.”  After a couple of lonely, hungry nights, the fox falls prey to a trap but finds rescue through an empathetic young girl. The color red appears in autumn sunsets and sunrises, late-blooming flowers, ripe apples, and the foliage of the trees while strategically placed die-cuts add interest to the already involving tale of a youngster trying to find its way home.
— Maryann Owen

SLJ - School Library Journal Starred Review for RED!

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SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL
STARRED REVIEW
SEEGER, Laura Vaccaro. Red. 40p. ­Holiday House/Neal Porter. Oct. 2021. Tr $18.99. ISBN 9780823447121. 

PreS-Gr 2–Seeger masterfully draws readers into the unique, powerful link between emotion and color through her story of a lost red fox meeting human-made barriers on his journey home. She infuses different values of red into immersive, wooded landscapes to tell of the trying, increasingly distressing moments the fox faces on his journey. Textured with visible brushstrokes, Red expresses a myriad of strong emotions, from longing, pain, and rage to a final contrast conveying the warmth of kindness in an example of a young girl’s care for the fox’s freedom. Two-word phrases unobtrusively accompany most of the fully painted spreads to offer a direct means to name the type of red, or the emotional draw, within each scene, but the reader’s eye will remain unhurried, carefully finding and “feeling” each hue. VERDICT Wrapped in the heavy, honest tensions ­between color and ­emotion, Seeger emboldens children to connect with the young fox’s story and feel the raw consequence of ­humans’ indifferent influence on the environment.
–Rachel ­Mulligan, Westampton, NJ

KIRKUS Starred Review for RED!

KIRKUS
STARRED REVIEW
Author: Laura Vaccaro Seeger / Illustrator: Laura Vaccaro Seeger
Review Issue Date: July 15, 2021 / Online Publish Date: June 29, 2021
Publisher: Neal Porter/Holiday House
Kirkus publication Date: October 5, 2021

This companion to Caldecott Honor book Green (2012) and its sequel, Blue (2018), explores the color red as symbol of our conflicted responses to nature.

A fox family travels; one young member falls behind. This fox— “lost red”—sleeps alone, then wanders. A blue pickup, an ominously large box in its bed, stops at a railroad crossing, headlights spotlighting the fox. A red-haired White girl plays in a fenced yard as the fox peers in. As in previous volumes, two-word, occasionally rhyming phrases and small die cuts characterize this work. The die cuts operate less interactively here than in the earlier titles, often simply picking out a shape or bits of color in previous or succeeding spreads. A notable exception is “rust red”: die cuts delineate three ominous nails poking from a board. A page turn reimagines those die cuts as seed heads, but text—“blood red”—and the fox’s cut paw will evoke readers’ empathetic pangs. Gorgeous, autumnal red-golds visually narrate the fox’s unwitting incursions into a rural landscape studded with human-made barriers: a chain-link fence bordering a laden apple tree; a looming “brick red” wall; most menacingly, “trick red,” a cage trap with red meat as bait inside. The girl, witnessing its entrapment, frees the fox, which relocates its clan. Seeger’s note acknowledges the development of Red as a narrative for the girl depicted at the end of Green.

Lush illustrations, sensitive interconnections, and subtle visual clues unite all three outstanding volumes. (Picture book. 3-7)

Virtual ALA

It was so much fun to see everyone, albeit virtually, at the Holiday House ALA festivities this evening. SO wonderful to see so many friends - authors, illustrators, librarians, teachers, and publishing peeps alike. I’m looking forward to when we can all be together in person again soon. Until then, hoping everyone is safe and well!

WHY? - The book tour!

The last couple of weeks have been a total blast as I’ve traveled around for WHY’s book tour. It began in Atlanta, Georgia, and from there I headed off to Asheville and Charlotte, North Carolina.

I made so many new friends and saw some old ones, too, at the Penguin family dinner (thank you, Doni Kay!), the Decatur Book Festival, College Heights Early Childhood Learning Center, Little Shop of Stories Books, Malaprops Books, Isaac Dickson Elementary School, Carolina Day School, Park Road Books, and E.E. Waddell Language Academy.

And, as a special treat, I got to hang out with my friends, authors Matt and Maya Myers, Chris Van Dusen, Derrick Barnes, Vanessa Brantley Newton. and so many others.

Unfortunately, my tour was cut short because of the threat of Hurricane Dorian, but I hope to go back one day soon to visit the fabulous bookstores and school that I’d missed, including McIntyre’s Books, The Raleigh School, Read With Me Books, Flyleaf Books, and Quail Ridge Books.

So much thanks to Terry, Michelle, Lex, and Cheryl - the incredible Holiday House team!

Here are some photos from the trip!

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Starred review for WHY is Shelf Awareness

Yay! Another starred review for WHY! This one from Shelf Awareness!!

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⭑Why?
by Laura Vaccaro Seeger

Caldecott Medal-winner and Geisel Award-honoree Laura Vaccaro Seeger (the Dog and Bear series) tells a sweet and simple tale of friendship between a bear and an enthusiastically curious rabbit in Why?

As young readers turn the pages of this picture book, the seasons slowly change from summer to winter. The rabbit's question, however, remains the same: "Why?" When bear (shown guzzling honey) eats too much or rabbit falls out of the tree (tumbling head over fuzzy tail), rabbit wants to know "Why?" Bear always calmly responds to his friend: "Because it tastes so good" (while holding his belly); "Gravity" (delivered gently, to the windswept rabbit). But when rabbit wants to know why a bird has died, bear doesn't have an answer. " 'I don't know why," bear says sadly, "Sometimes I just don't know why!' " Why? climaxes with the roles of the forest animal friends reversed, leading to a satisfying, touching conclusion.

Seeger's prose is sparse, but the story's impact is vast. Her beautifully detailed watercolor illustrations feature expertly blended soft colors, creating an inviting trek through woodlands--the lush textures of grass, wonderfully puffy clouds and snow make the feel of nature almost palpable. And bear and rabbit each exhibit extensive emotions through subtle, soulful facial expressions. While Seeger's animals may not always know the answer to the age-old question, readers are sure to find plenty of reasons to adore this charming picture book. An excellent option for story time, Seeger's Why? invites audiences of any age to interact with bear and rabbit as well as their rich habitat. Why? It's delightful. "That's why."
--Jen Forbus, freelancer

Discover: In this delightful picture book, an unlikely friendship between a bear and a rabbit grows through a year of seasons and a slew of questions.