Nina Crews

IRL: Kindergarten
A Horn Book Fanfare Best Book (Picture Books – 2022)

This highly creative book is set in Brooklyn, NY with the play time of neighborhood children. Multicultural, the images are not illustrations as I think of them, rather this is composed of photographs of children playing with the background of Mother Goose rhymes. Not all the rhymes seemed to match the photos.

I obtained it from my local library because it seemed very unique.

Tana Hoban and Nina Crews make some of my favorite children's books using photography. Just something about them perfectly captures Brooklyn (NYC) life from a child's point of view. I always feel like I'm 6 years-old when I gaze at the pictures in their books. I love seeing myself reflected back in a familiar scenairo.

Two boys play with this "Guy" toy everyday and one day they make him skydive. They lose him in a tree and the older one is devastated. He has to figure out how to get the toy out of the tree by himself. Him and his brother put their brains together and get the toy out of the tree.
Age 5-6
Source: Lacey Timberland Regional Library