Ladybug Nominee Profile

Buffalo Fluffalo by Bess Kalb and Erin Kraan (Random House Studio, 2024)

Buffalo Fluffalo arrives on the scene puffed up with self-importance. Stomping around and raising billows of dust, Buffalo Fluffalo proclaims his superiority to the other creatures—the ram, the prairie dog, and the crow—who just want to be his friend. So Buffalo Fluffalo, who has had enuffalo, heads off to grumble to himself. Suddenly, a rain shower pours down from the clouds and—what’s this? All of his fluffalo is a soggy mess! There Fluffalo stands, a drenched pip-squeak without his disguise. The other animals, who could see through Fluffalo’s bravado from the start, circle around to comfort him. As prairie dog says with a smile in his eyes, You’re great how you are, no matter your size.

Readers will find Buffalo Fluffalo’s insecurity endearing and will be moved to reassure him. This humorous and delightful book encourages self-acceptance with a lighthearted touch.

About Bess Kalb

Bess Kalb is an Emmy-nominated comedy writer and the bestselling author of “Nobody Will Tell You This But Me,” a New York Times Editor’s Choice. She has written for the Emmy Awards, the Oscars, and the 2020 DNC. She lives in Brooklyn. Her website is at: https://www.besskalb.com/

About Erin Kraan

Erin Kraan is a children’s book illustrator, woodcutter, and print-maker. Something's Wrong! (written by #1 New York Times bestselling author Jory John) was Erin's picture book debut. She lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. Her website is at: https://erinkraan.com/

Activities & Links

• Check out this read along at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScBttKOgt1w
• National Park Trust has 10 Incredible Bison Facts at: https://parktrust.org/blog/10-facts-about-bison/
• Watch SciShow Kids' video about the American Bison at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iVO5mkIn1c
• Learn Create Love has a fun Printable Bison Craft at: https://learncreatelove.com/printable-bison-craft/
• Individual Reflection exercise: Have students write about what they like about themselves, or what they would tell Buffalo Fluffalo about himself.
• Buffalo Fluffalo Activity Guide:  https://www.emporia.edu/documents/3788/Buffalo_Fluffalo_Activity_Guide.pdf

Suggestions for Further Reading

• Check out the other 2025 Ladybug Longlist titles featuring Identity & Self-Acceptance at: https://nhbookcenter.blogspot.com/2025/02/ladybug-longlist-identity-self.html  
• For some other past Ladybug nominees about Identity & Self-Acceptance, try: Julian is a Mermaid by Jessica Love, Big by Vashti Harrison and 2018 Ladybug Winner Not Quite Narwhal by Jessie Sima.
  

This is one of nine titles nominated for the 2025 Ladybug Picture Book Award.

We will be posting information about a different nominee each Friday throughout the summer and will issue a pdf voters guide featuring all the titles by Labor Day.

3 on a Theme: Wild

  

Crown of Wild by Erica Bodwell

Breaking Wild by Diane Les Becquets

What's Wild: A Half Century of Wisdom from the Woods and Rivers of New England by Eric Orff 

Book of the Week (6/30/2025)

Mystralhaven: The Mossbringer by Ronald Kaiser (Fantastic Books, 2025)

Can she figure out what she is in time to save humanity?

The coming of Baz, the Mossbringer, has been foretold: she has powers far beyond those of even the most gifted around her. And had her mother lived, she certainly would have been able to guide Baz through her dawning awareness of her abilities.

But even if Baz learns how to control and use those powers, it may not be enough to save the monks who want to use her, the Borderforges who want to enslave her, or the people who fear her. Can she trust Rendwyll-who is more sand than person-to guide her into her new awareness? With the fate of the world hanging in the balance, can she afford not to? --Publisher's blurb

About the author:

When not writing feverishly, Ronald Kaiser is a high school English teacher in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire.  He has published stories in New Hampshire Magazine, as well as Chicken Soup for the Soul. He has also written for small publications such as The Blotter, Centripetal, The Harrow, Limina, Farmhouse, Carved in Granite and others.

Join Ronald at Gibson's Bookstore on Tuesday, July 29, 2025 at 6:30 pm along with NH author DJ Bajraktari where they will both be featuring their YA fantasy books!

Ladybug Nominee Profile

The Bakery Dragon by Devin Elle Kurtz (Knopf Books for Young Readers, 2024)

Ember has always been different from the other dragons. His fearsome roar sounds more like a polite sneeze, and when he breathes fire, the villagers just pat his head and say awwww.

Ember fears he’ll never collect a respectable hoard of gold until a chance encounter with a baker causes his fortunes to turn (and his stomach to grumble). As the little dragon soon discovers, the gold you make is way better than the gold you steal—and gold that is shared? That’s best of all.

Magic shimmers on every page of Devin Elle Kurtz's feel-good picture book that celebrates baked goods, dragons, and generosity in equal measure. Filled with adorable illustrations, this is a perfect read aloud for bedtime or brunchtime!

About Devin Elle Kurtz

Devin Elle Kurtz is a visual development artist, illustrator, and picture book author. She was born in Santa Cruz, California. Her debut picture book as an author-illustrator, The Bakery Dragon, was an Indie Next List pick and an Indie bestseller. Her website is at https://www.devinellekurtz.com/

Activities & Links

• Check out this read along at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPpBdoS7F-o
• Artsy Craftsy Mom has 15 Dramatic Dragon Crafts you can try at: https://artsycraftsymom.com/dragon-crafts-for-kids/
• Learn about real life dragons at: https://www.coolkidfacts.com/komodo-dragon-facts/ and https://easyscienceforkids.com/all-about-flying-dragons/ 
• Here are some great printable bakery items for a fun craft idea: https://www.notimeforflashcards.com/2023/01/bakery-pretend-play-printables.html
• Paper Crafts-Art has a tutorial on making paper bread slices you can try at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSHKqPTG4tM

Suggestions for Further Reading

• Check out the other 2025 Ladybug Longlist titles featuring flying creatures at: https://nhbookcenter.blogspot.com/2025/01/ladybug-longlist-flying-creatures.html
• For more books about dragon-like creatures consider Rory the Remarkable Dragon by Kathryn Rammell, or Dragon Was Terrible by Kelly DiPucchio and Greg Pizzoli. 
• For another book set in a bakery, check out 2020 Ladybug Winner, There are No Bears in this Bakery by Julia Sarcone-Roach.

 

This is one of nine titles nominated for the 2025 Ladybug Picture Book Award.

We will be posting information about a different nominee each Friday throughout the summer and will issue a pdf voters guide featuring all the titles by Labor Day.

Book of the Week (6/23/2025)

Thorn House by Thom Schramm (Yas Press, 2025)

In Thorn House, the domestic is treacherous and the dangerous is home. An unspoken understanding between reader and speaker exists-we are in the church of the wound or the scratch or the scrape-as clipped, careful moments tug against the chaos at the edge of each poem. Schramm's opening poem shows a speaker seeking to "hatch" and to "heal" from the past. By the book's final piece, the cumulative damage is a literal crack down the center of a poem that finally heals by its end. This is a book thick with New England graveyards, bloodied birch trees, forest pathways lined with the hung bodies of trapped rabbits. At the heart of each line and stanza sits the New Hampshire wilderness, a place of cold and remoteness and wonder, a place that offers refuge from family but also its own dangers. In "Wake: 1978," the arrival of an ice cream truck is juxtaposed with a dead child lying in a living room coffin. In "In Silence," snakes emerge from a concrete set of steps poured badly and in "Yesterday I Wrote a Poem Called 'Yesterday'," "Mother preaches 'her strictures-scriptures that were best obeyed." In several poems, including "Hide and Seek," children disappear into the woods and are unable to be found. The parents in the collection are shadowy figures who are sometimes avoided or escaped.

Poems of family and damage in Thorn House are balanced by a quieter series of eight 19-line poems centered around a correspondence with former New Hampshire Poet Laureate Jane Kenyon both before and during her illness. These poems capture moments of intimacy and fear and add to the foreboding sense of the collection, the feeling that we are in a darkness of the woods edged by the comfort of connection. As we read snippets of letters, caring inquiries and sentiments, and the news of her illness and decline, we see how the pain of two people can bond them together. Kenyon's cursive is "small, like nerve endings." Her pain is a "bone pain" suffered for too long. A reaching out across miles and silences becomes clear, as does the urgency of connection. Then finally the news of Kenyon's leukemia breaks, and a postscript to the exchange depicts a reflection at Kenyon's grave in Andover, New Hampshire, in a silence of snow. --Publisher's blurb

About the author:

Thom Schramm is the author of Thorn House (Yas Press, 2025), winner of the Granite State Poetry Prize, and The Leaf Blower (Blue Cubicle Press, 2016), as well as the editor of Living in Storms: Contemporary Poetry and the Moods of Manic-Depression (Eastern Washington University Press, 2008). His poems have appeared in AGNI, The American Scholar, Harvard Review, Ploughshares, and Smartish Pace, and have won an Academy of American Poets Prize.

Nationwide Read 25 Day!

As part of the Read 25 in 2025 challenge, Gretchen Rubin, author, host of the Happier with Gretchen Rubin podcast, and founder of The Happiness Project is partnering with Bookshop.org to host a nationwide gathering on Wednesday, June 25th, for a special 25-minute silent reading experience, followed by lively discussions about the books that captivate us.

Imagine thousands of book lovers across the US, all sharing a moment of quiet immersion in their chosen stories. Gretchen is partnering with hundreds of independent bookstores to make this happen, bringing communities together through the joy of reading.

Here in the Granite State, The Country Bookseller in Wolfeboro, NH is hosting a silent reading & discussion event to coincide with this national celebration on Wednesday, June 25th at 1 pm!

Be a part of the biggest reading event of the year! Pledge to Read 25 on June 25th here!

Book of the Week (6/16/2025)

Outcasts of Essex by Jane Hulse (Open Books Publishing, 2025)

Essex, New Hampshire, April 1775

Fifteen-year-old Sarah Barrett hates the mess of childbirth, yet she's the unwilling apprentice to the town's only midwife-her mother. She longs to be a writer like her father, who publishes the weekly Essex Journal. 

As the American Revolution heats up, his pro-British views turn the town against the family. Troubles deepen when a smallpox epidemic hits the town, and her mother pushes a crude, controversial inoculation. 

Sarah finds herself questioning everything: the fight for independence, her father's judgment, her own failings, and more to the point, why it's considered unthinkable for a young woman to write for a newspaper. 

When she learns the redcoats and the patriots will soon clash over a stockpile of munitions in Essex, she comes up with a risky plan to thwart the bloodbath. --Publisher's blurb

About the author:

Growing up in Keene, New Hampshire, Jane Hulse was surrounded by history. From her family's 1795 home, she could see the former tavern where 29 Minutemen rallied before fighting the British at Lexington. With her father, she explored caves that served as hiding places for loyalists who had been hounded out of town during the American Revolution. After graduating from Syracuse University, Hulse worked for small newspapers in Colorado and then for the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, where she covered major criminal trials. She did freelance writing for the Los Angeles Times and was city editor at the Santa Barbara News-Press. For her leadership there, she was one of six staffers who received the University of Oregon's Arcil Payne Award for Ethics in Journalism, an annual honor for journalists who "report with integrity despite personal, political, or economic pressure." Most recently, she was editor of a Southern California agricultural magazine.