The Weekly 411 (11/21/25)
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| © Lena Krapiva |
Nov. 21, 2025 vol. 47
The Weekly 411 gathers all the links added to Kidlit411 each week. To receive this post by email, sign up for our email updates. Are you on Facebook? Join our Kidlit411 group for conversations and camaraderie. We can also be found on Bluesky. This week's spooky illustration is by Lena Krapiva.
About the Book: For seven-year-old Bea, a box can be a bear cave, a playhouse, or even a rocket ship. In Bea’s Balikbayan Box of Treasures, Bea’s box has an important destiny. She and her family will fill it up with goodies for their relatives in the Philippines. A balikbayan box is the ultimate international care package and an expression of love for many Filipino families living abroad. Bea and her family spend months gathering and packing surprises. Special food for Tito Rico. Fancy lotion for Tita Alma. For Maribel and the other pinsans, the best treasures of all―bubble wands, chocolates, stuffed animals. When the package has been shipped, Bea waits patiently for it to arrive overseas―it could take two whole months! Meanwhile, she learns about the balikbayan tradition and how it helps sustain her connection to her far-away family. Finally, Bea’s family gets a video call from Tito Rico, Tita Alma, and Bea’s pinsan, Maribel, and they connect over the excitement of unpacking the box.
About the Author: Christine Alemshah (she/her) is a biracial Filipina-American children’s author and classically trained vocalist. Christine writes children’s picture books championing innovation and celebrating multiculturalism, often with musical or percussive vibes. She hopes readers will see themselves in the stories she writes. Christine studied psychology and music, earning a bachelor of arts degree from Whittier College. When not writing, Christine enjoys singing karaoke and reading with her husband and two daughters under cozy blankets at their Lake Forest, California, home. Find out more about Christine at christinealemshah.com.
About the Illustrator: Dream (Mengqian) Chen is an artist with a background in both illustration and animation. She received her BFA in animation at Communication University of China and her MFA in visual art at Minneapolis College of Art and Design. She prides herself on creating colorful and imaginative dream worlds using a variety of media and tools. She has experimented with photography, stop-motion animation, printmaking, illustration, papermaking, bookbinding, and much more. She lives in Shanghai, China. To see more of her work, visit dreamchen.org or Instagram @dreamchenillustration.
About the Book: This book really pops, full as it is of fascinating bubbles—useful and entertaining, noisy and silencing, lifesaving and dangerous, microscopic and bigger than a sports stadium. A bubble might look flimsy and insubstantial. But there’s more to it than that. A bubble can be inside a liquid or a solid. It can be lifesaving or dangerous. It can last a long time, or pop right away. Filled with fascinating and unusual examples from diverse STEM fields—including physics, biology, geology, food science, and medicine—this nonfiction picture book bubbles over with fun facts about our world. A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard selection, for ages 5-9.
About the Author: Nora Nickum leads the conservation programs department at the Seattle Aquarium and writes articles and books for children about STEM and nature topics, including Superpod: Saving the Endangered Orcas of the Pacific Northwest (middle grade) and This Book is Full of Holes (picture book), both Junior Library Guild Gold Standard selections. Read more about Nora at www.noranickum.com.
About the Illustrator: Robert Meganck is professor emeritus of Communication Arts at Virginia Commonwealth University. He earned a BFA from the Center for Creative Studies in Detroit, Michigan, and a MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. He has received more than 300 regional, national, and international awards for his illustration and graphic design work.
Such fun books. Colorful & adventurous.
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