January 2020 - Page 5 of 16

Auntie Luce’s Talking Paintings
by Francie Latour (Author) and Ken Daley (Illustrator)

Booktalk: Every winter, a young girl flies to Haiti to visit her Auntie Luce, a painter.

The moment she steps off the plane, she feels a wall of heat, and familiar sights soon follow — the boys selling water ice by the pink cathedral, the tap tap buses in the busy streets, the fog and steep winding road to her aunt’s home in the mountains.

The girl has always loved Auntie Luce’s paintings — the houses tucked into the hillside, colorful fishing boats by the water, heroes who fought for and won the country’s independence. Through Haiti’s colors, the girl comes to understand this place her family calls home. And when the moment finally comes to have her own portrait painted for the first time, she begins to see herself in a new way, tracing her own history and identity through her aunt’s brush.

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Fabio The World’s Greatest Flamingo Detective: The Case of the Missing Hippo
by Laura James (Author) and Emily Fox (Illustrator)

Booktalk: In a small town on the banks of Lake Laloozee lives the world’s greatest flamingo detective. His name is Fabio. He’s not tall or strong, but slight and pink. And he’s very, very clever.

When Fabio and his giraffe associate Gilbert drop in to the Hotel Royale for a relaxing glass of lemonade (pink, naturally), Fabio is persuaded to judge the hotel’s talent contest. But when the most promising contestant–Julia the jazz-singing hippopotamus–goes missing, Fabio must put his thinking cap back on and solve the mystery!

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