While the Tokyo Olympics of 2021 can’t draw crowds in real life, there are plenty of ways to share the thrills of world class athletes showing off their best. Extend your family’s sports attention with just the right books for these competitions, too.
From Gecko Press, let’s start with Ole Könnecke’s picture book Sports, translated by Monika Smith. Illustrated with cheerful and colorful animals engaged in a variety of popular athletic possibilities, these dictionary-style explanations offer both fact and fun. Which track star do you think is most likely to bring home the gold medal?
The Olympic Games often are settings for new records of speed, distance, height, and other measures of physical agility and prowess. What would athletes have to achieve to compete with the speeds, sizes, and other capabilities of other animals? Records of the Animal World, by Oldřich Růžička and illustrated by Tomáš Pernický, published by Albatros Media, gives us some answers, clearly presented in comparison graphics as well as thumbnail written descriptions.
From Britannica Books, check out Andrew Pettie’s forthcoming Listified! to find all sorts of almanac-style record entries.
In the meantime, can you find your copy of What On Earth Books’ Sports Timeline Wallbook? This visual history goes back to the first Olympic Games in Ancient Greece and offers lots and lots of details across the 10 feet of chart.
If your child’s chosen sport involves a bicycle, Cicada Books has an essential title: The Young Cyclist’s Companion, by Peter Drinkell with illustrations by Thomas Slater, shows and tells all your child needs to know about bike care and safety.
Has all this talk about athletics made you a bit hungry? Thanks to Readers to Eaters, there’s the perfect sports-aware book for that, too! Feeding the Young Athlete, by Cynthia Lair with Scott Murdoch, Ph.D., RD, offers sound and engaging advice for tweens, teens, parents, and coaches.
Enjoy your screen time at the Tokyo Olympics—and share a good book with your young sports fan, too.
Earth Is Big, coming from 
New just last month from Inhabit Media (Nunavut, Canada) is I Am Loved, a picture book by Mary and Kevin Qamaniq-Mason, with illustrations by Hwei Lim. This one provides a story of foster care and a child’s need to recognize that love comes from both his beloved and absent grandmother and his caring foster parents. While culturally specific to Inuit values, the concepts of fostering and learning to recognize both present and absent care providers directly addresses the intent of Parents Day’s honoring of those with children. Inhabit Media provides a 
recalling for her how the judge made them real sisters. Beautifully evocative illustrations by Nicole Tadgell show the sisters in imaginative play as well as real world memories. This book is available in both hardcover and paperback and has won numerous awards and critical praise.
A parent’s many nurturing jobs include creating healthy ways to handle emotional development difficulties. From Blair Publishing (North Carolina, USA) and hot off the press 
Anne Booth’s 
There are new editions of a couple of classic favorites available this May, too. From Gerda Muller, 
published as a picture book in 2018. In a new edition, it’s also available as a board book, allowing the very youngest readers to explore all the colorful blossoms that appear in spring, from those that poke through the snow to those that bloom as spring edges toward warmer days of summer.
Let’s start with Ivan Brunetti’s beginning reader book 
The California Reading Association’s Eureka Award Honor title 
This time, however, we discover where and how the title idiom is phrased in other places. Each such phrase is provided in its English translation; the point here is how different languages, and cultures, rely on specific reference points even when speaking imaginatively. Idiomatic phrases can paint engaging and intriguing images in our minds’ eyes, as does the artwork here.
Finally (just for now) we’ll end with a picture book told from the perspective of…a dictionary! 
A new board book series for English (and also for Spanish) readers from NubeOcho Books includes a pair of lift-the-flaps fun from author and illustrator 
Did you know Inhabit Media has published a kids’ cookbook? 
This year’s Thanksgiving holiday will be marked differently from other years in many American households. It also coincides with the 400th anniversary of the colonial founding of Plymouth, in the 17th century Bay Colony of Massachusetts, credited traditionally as the site of “America’s first Thanksgiving.”
Last week we were lucky enough to catch up with the always delightful and engaging Joseph D. Carriker to talk about his latest publication. Joe has been working for years in the fields of game development and role-playing game books. He’s a leader in helping the gaming world become a more accepting realm for queer gamers. In October, his non-RPG novel Sacred Band was published in a new edition by Green Ronin Publishing. And yes, as you’ll hear in the interview here, there have been some changes since the original publication in 2017. So, come meet Joe and then get yourself his starred review-earning fantasy that offers a band of queer superheroes for both gaming and non-gaming readers! As 
While Mylo Freeman can share a trip with 
Before we start our tour of other options, let’s look for guidance at Mary Richards’s Take Me to Museums: The Young Explorer’s Guide to Every Museum in the World, newly available in North America from Agnes & Aubrey. This combination activity book and informational package opens with an explanation of what a museum is and how museum buildings are designed for the purpose of inviting exploration of their specialized collections. Young readers can also learn about museum jobs and, of course, the variety of museum types and purposes. Arranged to allow kids to take notes and make drawings of what they see, you can even use this guidebook as you explore virtual museums during this time of travel restrictions and building closures.
What On Earth Books has worked with New York’s American Museum of Natural History in the creation of some of their informational titles. You can create your own natural history gallery by mounting the 10 feet of gatefold pages from 
Do museums make you think about world-class artworks on display? Have fun with Greg and Amy Newbold’s series from Tilbury House. Available in paperback as well as hardcover editions, each of 
Cicada Books reaches from the United Kingdom to other countries and languages with richly 
illustrated offerings that introduce readers to new ways of seeing the world. 
Inhabit Media allows readers to discover their books in multiple languages: English, sometimes in French, and always in their own native Inuktitut. In keeping with the season, enjoy 
Barefoot Books’ brand new picture book 
the Caldecott Medal and the Kate Greenaway Medal? Of course, you do! Did you know he is now publishing with Spanish publisher NubeOcho Books and that you can acquire both