Tuesday Storytime: Stars

This one was spurred by finding How to Catch a Star by Oliver Jeffers, while looking for "Space" themed books for our Summer Reading Program.

This program was riiiiight on the edge of too long for our wiggly ones, but it worked out ok overall.


Coyote Places the Stars
Harriet Peck Taylor
ISBN: 0689815352
Naive folk-art with a heroic Coyote.

This one was the really long one, and I'll admit to eliding some of the paragraph-long descriptions when I could get away with it.  Coyote is bored, so he climbs up to the moon and uses his arrows to re-arrange the stars into patterns and shapes more to his liking.  Afterwards, he is proud of his work, and shows off to all his friends in the animal kingdom.  I really liked that this story has Coyote as a clever cunning hero than a trickster, and that the images that were chosen to represent the other animals as his friends.



Stars
Mary Lyn Ray, illustrated by Marla Frazee
ISBN: 9781442422490
Pen-and-pencil episodic drawings, imaginative and fanciful concepts.

This one was a bit long for the middle spot, but would have been perfect length for one of my usual first or last stories.  Because it doesn't really have a plot - just a dreamlike improvisation off the theme of stars - I put it in the middle today.  The underlying theme is that between the stars in the sky and the stars that are all around us (paper stars, star stickers, flowers or snowflakes or fireworks) people should remember their worth and be "shiny."  Bonus stealth Firefly reference (probably unintentional) made it harder to resist.



How to Catch a Star
Oliver Jeffers
ISBN: 0399242864
Blocky NO David! -style artwork, very simple, but colorful and clear.  Super-simple storyline.

The boy loves stars, and he's imagined what a perfect friend a star would be - so he sets out to catch one.  He looks (and waits) all day, then tries and fails to reach an evening star in the sky, and the reflection of one in the water, and almost gives up before finding a star (starfish) on the beach to be his friend.  Other than the slightly odd note of having to "catch" a friend, this is sweet and simple and cute.