Charles Smith

Despite its title, Perfect Harmony: A Musical Journey with the Boys Choir of Harlem  is much more about music in general than it is about the world-renowned choir. Illustrated with photographs of boys in the choir in mid-song, Perfect Harmony  features many short poems that explain basic musical terms, including rhythm ("a track / for voices / to glide / slide and / ride / upon") and harmony. Although the book includes a glossary that explains the terms in prose, "it's the poems themselves that show the ideas best," Gillian Engberg wrote in Booklist. Another attractive feature of the book, Nina Lindsay commented in School Library Journal, is that its "tone … speaks naturally, lyrically, and directly to young readers."

I Am America celebrates boisterous kids who illustrate the diversity of the United States. The book is constructed in Smith's signature style, pairing photographs and a rhythmic, rhyming text. Each spread shows a child from two or three different perspectives. In most photographs the children are hamming it up for the camera; as a Publishers Weekly reviewer noted, "The pictures' mischievous spontaneity brings to mind the giddiness of repeated sessions in a photo booth." The text describes the children with sentences such as "I am almond eyes" and "I am backward baseball caps." The point of the book, Smith explained on his Web site, is to "celebrate our diversity and show kids of all nationalities just having fun."