• Yaya and the Sea

Yaya and the Sea

Illustrator
Tonya Engel
Publication Date
March 12, 2024
Genre / Grade Band
Fiction /  K − 1st
Yaya and the Sea

Description
A family goes on a trip from the city to the sea in search of renewal in this “lively and lovely…beautiful” (Jacqueline Woodson, National Book Award–winning author of Brown Girl Dreaming) picture book that’s an ode to sisterhood, nature, and being present.

On the first day of spring, when the city is quiet and still, little Yaya takes the A train down to New York City’s southern shores with her mama and aunties to greet Mama Ocean and celebrate the arrival of a new season through a ritual of letting go of the past and embracing the new.
Publication date
March 12, 2024
Classification
Fiction
Page Count
-
ISBN-13
9781534462014
Lexile Measure
-
Guided Reading Level
-
Publisher
Denene Millner Books/Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Series
-
BISAC categories
JUV023000 - Juvenile Fiction | Lifestyles | City & Town Life
JUV030060 - Juvenile Fiction | People & Places | United States
JUV015000 - Juvenile Fiction | Health & Daily Living | General
Library of Congress categories
African Americans
New York (N.Y.)
Picture books
African American women
Mothers and daughters
Spring
Ocean
Religious aspects
Women and the sea

Kirkus

Starred Review
A beautiful, uniquely told story of gratitude and togetherness.
Karen Good Marable
Karen Good Marable is a writer raised in Prairie View, Texas. Her essays, music journalism, and stories have appeared in several books and publications including The New Yorker, Oxford American, The Bitter Southerner, Seventeen, and Essence. After a lifetime of living in Brooklyn, she and her family now reside in Atlanta.

Tonya Engel is a self-taught painter and children's book illustrator whose work can be found in many picture books, among them Our Lady of Guadalupe, Because Claudette, Impossible Moon, and the jacket art for Hurricane Child. Her work is inspired by Southern folk artists. Early in her career, she explored abstract painting but soon began to concentrate on figurative form mixed with emotion and expressionistic narrative. Engel lives in Houston, Texas.
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