January 2026 Stars & Big Picture
Starred titles are books of special distinction. See the archives for selections from previous months.
Awan, Jashar Loops; written and illus. by Jashar Awan. Simon, 2026 [48p]
Trade ed. ISBN 9781665974943 $19.99
E-book ed. ISBN 9781665974950 $10.99
Reviewed from digital galleys R* 4-6 yrs
Barnett, Mac Rumpelstiltskin; illus. by Carson Ellis. Orchard/Scholastic, 2026 [48]
Trade ed. ISBN 9781338673852 $19.99
Reviewed from digital galleys R* Gr. 1-4
Cowley, Joy My Tiger; illus. by David Barrow. Gecko, 2026 [32p]
Trade ed. ISBN 9798765683200 $18.99
Reviewed from digital galleys R* 3-7 yrs
Kohuth, Jane The Dark Is For; illus. by Cindy Derby. Simon, 2026 [40p]
Trade ed. ISBN 9781665906777 $19.99
E-book ed. ISBN 9781665906784 $10.99
Reviewed from digital galleys R* 5-8 yrs
Marcero, Deborah The Great Escape; written and illus. by Deborah Marcero. Putnam, 2026 [48p]
Trade ed. ISBN 9780593857953 $19.99
E-book ed. ISBN 9780593857960 $10.99
Reviewed from digital galleys R* 4-7 yrs
Underwood, Deborah Tiny Garden; illus. by Jax Chow. Abrams, 2026 [32p]
Trade ed. ISBN 9781419774911 $18.99
E-book ed. ISBN 9798887074290 $17.09
Reviewed from digital galleys R* 3-6 yrs
Doughty, Katy How to Survive the End of the World: A Graphic Exploration of
How to (Maybe) Avoid Extinction; written and illus. by Katy Doughty. MITeen,
2026 [256p]
Trade ed. ISBN 9781536232790 $24.99
Paper ed. ISBN 9781536242829 $14.99
Reviewed from digital galleys R* Gr. 6-12
Knight-Justice, Shamar, ed. Melodies of The Weary Blues: Classic Poems Illustrated
for Young People; illus. by various. Harper, 2026 [48p]
Trade ed. ISBN 9780063327054 $19.99
E-book ed. ISBN 9780063515376 $12.99
Reviewed from digital galleys R* Gr. 4-8
Wallace, Sandra Neil Marie’s Magic Eggs: How Marie Procai Kept the Ukrainian
Art of Pysanky Alive; illus. by Evan Turk. Astra, 2026 [48p]
Trade ed. ISBN 9781662680694 $19.99
E-book ed. ISBN 9781662680700 $11.99
Reviewed from digital galleys R* 5-8 yrs
See this month’s Big Picture, below, for review.
Marie’s Magic Eggs: How Marie Procai Kept the Ukrainian Art of Pysanky Alive
Written by Sandra Neil Wallace and illus. by Evan Turk
When passed down through generations, art becomes a form of cultural tradition, creative expression, and perhaps most importantly, a symbol of hope, especially in dark times. Such was the case for Marie Sokol Procai, a Ukrainian immigrant who fled famine and violence in the early twentieth century and perpetuated her homeland’s art of making pysanky, elaborately decorated eggs, in America. In this month’s Big Picture, author Sandra Neil Wallace and illustrator Evan Turk offer a strikingly designed picture book biography that pays homage to both the distinct style and subversive spirit that Marie brought to her work as she held fast to a heritage under threat.
In a folkloric introduction, readers meet Marie, “a feisty young girl with long, braided hair,” who loves making pysanky, intricately designed Easter eggs, with her beloved Baba in their Ukrainian village. Using pots of homemade dye and a special stylus called a kistka from which beeswax flowed, the two would make each egg a stunning work of art, with deeply symbolic, hand-painted designs in layers of color. For Marie, this process was nothing short of magical: “For the legend goes that as long as pysanky are decorated, there will be good in the world.” Unfortunately, the threat of war and starvation forced Marie and her family to flee their home, and a teenage Marie eventually settled into a tightly knit Ukrainian immigrant community in Minneapolis. There, she continued to make pysanky, an art she eventually taught to her children, and in the 1940s, Marie and her daughter opened a small Ukrainian-themed gift shop in Marie’s living room to remind fellow immigrants of their homeland. The demand for springtime pysanky grew their small setup into a year-round storefront and then into the largest supplier of pysanky kits in the world by the early 1990s.
Wallace makes clear that for Marie—and many others—the act of making pysanky was one of resistance as well as artistry. Faced with the Russian Red Army invading her homeland and systematically stamping out Ukrainian culture, Marie found comfort and strength in her people’s traditions, taking her grandmother’s teachings to her new community and passing on that artistic and cultural knowledge to fellow immigrants. Many years later, when a Ukraine finally freed from the Soviet Union sought to reclaim cultural heritage destroyed by decades of war and occupation, Marie’s family became a global cornerstone of preserving and teaching pysanky-making. An author’s note elaborates on Wallace’s personal connection to that tradition: her Ukrainian grandmother, to whom the book is dedicated, made pysanky each year using a kistka purchased from Marie’s shop.
Emulating the care and precision with which Marie approached her own work, Turk (The People’s Painter, BCCB 4/21) uses resist techniques and gouache layering to build scenes, etching forms out of loose, visible brushstrokes on a golden-yellow base and adding details in colored pencil. Compositions with austerely sharp perspective lines and intentional, almost Cubist flattening of human figures are softened by the gentle curves of the ever-present eggs, which are artistic gems in their own right. Turk creates dozens of pysanky designs, each imbued with its own symbolism and motifs that run throughout the books, from deer leaping through glimmering wheat fields to stylized, streaming sunshine to proud, red-combed roosters. In one of the book’s most striking spreads, these designs lay shattered against a black background, a reminder of the works lost to violence and destruction. But equally evocative is the final spread, where Marie sits at the center of an ornately patterned circle, diligently painting and surrounded by flowing rays of each design, as if she is a sun giving light.
In a book so filled with reverence, tenderness, and cultural pride, the wealth of culturally rich backmatter is no surprise, and readers will be delighted to see pictures of the family’s actual pysanky (which received national acclaim) alongside descriptions of both the process by which they are made and the legend by which they are inspired. Ukrainian culture writ-large also receives a spotlight in a list of museums, sites, and festivals that feature pysanky, along with links to Ukrainian music. It is all a fitting tribute to a woman who made it her life’s work to preserve a cultural art form, as well as a splendid cap on a timely, accessible piece of nonfiction.
—Adam McConville, Reviewer
Cover illustration from Marie’s Magic Eggs: How Marie Procai Kept the Ukrainian Art of Pysanky Alive.
Text copyright © Sandra Neil Wallace. Illustrations copyright © 2026 Evan Turk. Reproduced by
permission of the publisher, Astra Publishing House.
