Halloween is this weekend! Yay!
I very much wanted to read the newest Ladybug Girl book from David Soman and Jacky Davis (Ladybug Girl and the Dress-up Dilemma) because Ladybug Girl! Halloween! Costumes! But it was rainy and nasty out, so we had a room full of babies, and it was just too long to suit. Maybe next year!
At the Old Haunted House
Helen Ketteman, illustrated by Nate Wragg
ISBN: 9781477847695
Takes the venerable "Over in the Meadow" rhyme and re-sets it in a spooky haunted mansion.
Sweet and slightly spooky, we have a house-full of beasties and haunts; everything from black cats to spiders to ghosts to werewolves, all doing various spooky things to the Over in the Meadow pattern of call and response. The illustrations are cute, and the payoff at the end is quick and a little abrupt - a set of trick-or-treating kids gets invited into a monster party at the house (which is what all the scary actions from before were in preparation for). Fun and the close relation to the nursery rhyme makes it less likely to give offense.
10 Trick-or-Treaters
Janet Schulman, illustrated by Linda Davick
ISBN: 9780385736145
Another variation of a nursery rhyme has a party of costumed trick-or-treaters slowly dwindling as the night wears on.
This one is adorable. We have our line of trick-or-treaters, which gets whittled down rapidly as the participants are scared in turns by various animals or other costumed people (or dragged off to bed by their parents) and as the countdown winds to a close, we end with our last brave soul in bed, dreaming sugar-fueled dreams of Halloween. Again, the very determinedly pastel and lighthearted artwork and the resemblance to the counting rhyme make this a most inoffensive option.
Happy Halloween, Emily!
Claire Masurel, illustrated by Susan Calitri
ISBN: 0448426919
Emily the bunny is a bit concerned about the Halloween Parade coming up. Will it be too scary?
I like this one because it's very straightforward about the potential for scary things on Halloween, but emphasizes that they're not real, only pretend, and only people that you know already dressing up strangely. Emily is a little hesitant about the potential for scares at the Halloween Parade, especially since her three friends are super excited about the "horrible monsters" "spooky ghosts" and "scary dinosaurs" that will be there. Back at home Emily reassures herself and her baby brother (a good audience stand-in) that her witch costume isn't "too scary" before her mother in a very silly bunny-eared ghost costume tries to scare her, and her father does likewise in a scarecrow outfit. Again, nothing even remotely scary about any of the appearances. Family all together, they head for the Parade, where her friends are dressed as the scary things they were predicting, but they aren't scary at all. Even the parade is shown in broad daylight, and all of the costumes are light-hearted and gentle. I love that it puts attention on the worries of young children, while staying focused on the goal - to keep them from being actually scared of a mostly lighthearted child-centered holiday.
Tuesday, October 27, 2015
Tuesday, October 20, 2015
Tuesday Storytime: Prepping for Halloween
I Am a Witch's Cat
Harriet Muncaster
ISBN: 9780062229144
Meticulous miniature dioramas are adorable mundane counterparts to the wild claims in the text.
Previously reviewed here. Still adorable. No worries from any parents or kids, and a few chuckles at the conflation of the "mommy book club" with a coven.
Duck and Goose Find a Pumpkin
Tad Hills
ISBN: 9780375858130
(Board Book) Short and sweet in the Duck and Goose tradition, good for audience interaction.
Duck and Goose books are usually just a smidge too basic for me to use in storytimes. I'm sure the kids would love it, but I try not to subject myself or the parents to very simplistic "baby books" any more than I have to. This one is an exception because I try very hard for my Halloween books to be lighthearted, family-centric, and generally utterly inoffensive. Very simple set up has Thistle (Duck and Goose's occasional friend) wandering by with a pumpkin, spurring the young friends to acquire one of their own. A series of spreads has them looking in all sorts of unlikely places, until Thistle reappears at the end to drop a much-needed hint about the pumpkin patch.
Hedgehug's Halloween
Text by Benn Sutton, concept and art by Dan Pinto
ISBN: 9780061961045
Colorful and blocky collage in textural swathes of bright or moody colors.
I'm not super thrilled about the artwork here, as I feel it's a bit too small for as busy and stylized as it is. I wish it were a larger book. That said, the story is adorable, and the pictures are very clear and understandable despite the blocky collage and rough-edged textures. Hedgehug has forgotten about the yearly Halloween party in the forest, and he and his friends are desperately trying to find him a costume, but his prickles keep ruining things. As the party begins, and he's still sans costume, he trudges through the forest sadly, but there's a three-headed big thing chasing after him! It's his friends, with one last super-duper attempt at a costume, but this time they're prepared for the spikes.
Harriet Muncaster
ISBN: 9780062229144
Meticulous miniature dioramas are adorable mundane counterparts to the wild claims in the text.
Previously reviewed here. Still adorable. No worries from any parents or kids, and a few chuckles at the conflation of the "mommy book club" with a coven.
Duck and Goose Find a Pumpkin
Tad Hills
ISBN: 9780375858130
(Board Book) Short and sweet in the Duck and Goose tradition, good for audience interaction.
Duck and Goose books are usually just a smidge too basic for me to use in storytimes. I'm sure the kids would love it, but I try not to subject myself or the parents to very simplistic "baby books" any more than I have to. This one is an exception because I try very hard for my Halloween books to be lighthearted, family-centric, and generally utterly inoffensive. Very simple set up has Thistle (Duck and Goose's occasional friend) wandering by with a pumpkin, spurring the young friends to acquire one of their own. A series of spreads has them looking in all sorts of unlikely places, until Thistle reappears at the end to drop a much-needed hint about the pumpkin patch.
Hedgehug's Halloween
Text by Benn Sutton, concept and art by Dan Pinto
ISBN: 9780061961045
Colorful and blocky collage in textural swathes of bright or moody colors.
I'm not super thrilled about the artwork here, as I feel it's a bit too small for as busy and stylized as it is. I wish it were a larger book. That said, the story is adorable, and the pictures are very clear and understandable despite the blocky collage and rough-edged textures. Hedgehug has forgotten about the yearly Halloween party in the forest, and he and his friends are desperately trying to find him a costume, but his prickles keep ruining things. As the party begins, and he's still sans costume, he trudges through the forest sadly, but there's a three-headed big thing chasing after him! It's his friends, with one last super-duper attempt at a costume, but this time they're prepared for the spikes.
Tuesday, October 13, 2015
Tuesday Storytime: Monster Families
I love October. Halloween for weeks on end. We have spooky books up on display, and I get to read about monsters and mummies and zombies to impressionable kids from now til November.
Zombelina
Kristyn Crow, illustrated by Molly Idle (Flora and the Flamingo)
ISBN: 9780802728036
Way too sweet to be scary. A zombie girl learns to be a ballerina, and tackles stage fright.
Previously reviewed here. Still love it, still the sweetest story, but this time around the theme hit more solidly on the family support of her passion.
Where's My Mummy?
Carolyn Crimi (Rock n' Roll Mole), illustrated by John Manders
ISBN: 9780763643379
Woefully undersized hardcover edition has a cute little mummy meeting traditional "monsters."
Despite using and loving this book, I've somehow managed to not review it yet! This is a cute little "reversal of expectations" book. Little mummy is playing hide-and-shriek (which really, with small kids, is roughly the truth) with his mommy mummy, but she's either too busy or really incompetent at the game, so he's off searching in various scary environments for her. First the graveyard, where he meets Bones, then the swamp where he meets the Blob, then a dark cave where he finds Drac. The pint-sized roly-poly mummy child is totally unimpressed with seeing these friends or neighbors, who are all prepping for bed themselves (brushing teeth, washing faces and ears) but warn the little tyke of "things" that lurk in the darkness. Pooped, with still no mommy mummy, he rests at the base of a tree until a mouse appears. THAT's the scare-jump all the parents were waiting for, and mommy mummy is immediately there to rescue, comfort, and take to bed. ADORABLE.
Goodnight, Little Monster
Helen Ketteman, illustrated by Bonnie Leick
ISBN: 9780761456834
Sweet lush soft-edged watercolor-looking illustrations of an adorable baby monster at bedtime.
This is such a sweet book, but I have a hard time reading it because the endpapers are COVERED in giant nasty spiders. I "screwed my courage to the sticking place" as best I could, because it really is a sweet story, and because I more often read the slightly sillier and more upbeat My Monster Mama Loves Me So, but I did that one too recently to repeat. So, I braved the spiders, and had two mamas ask me if they could have the book afterwards. Courage is rewarded! In the story, mama is putting baby to bed, and it's just as traditional and standard as you could ask: from bathtime to bedtime snack to toothbrushing to the under-bed-monsters (er, children) check, and the temporary forgetting of the nightlight. The pictures really are sweet, once you get past all the spiders.
Zombelina
Kristyn Crow, illustrated by Molly Idle (Flora and the Flamingo)
ISBN: 9780802728036
Way too sweet to be scary. A zombie girl learns to be a ballerina, and tackles stage fright.
Previously reviewed here. Still love it, still the sweetest story, but this time around the theme hit more solidly on the family support of her passion.
Where's My Mummy?
Carolyn Crimi (Rock n' Roll Mole), illustrated by John Manders
ISBN: 9780763643379
Woefully undersized hardcover edition has a cute little mummy meeting traditional "monsters."
Despite using and loving this book, I've somehow managed to not review it yet! This is a cute little "reversal of expectations" book. Little mummy is playing hide-and-shriek (which really, with small kids, is roughly the truth) with his mommy mummy, but she's either too busy or really incompetent at the game, so he's off searching in various scary environments for her. First the graveyard, where he meets Bones, then the swamp where he meets the Blob, then a dark cave where he finds Drac. The pint-sized roly-poly mummy child is totally unimpressed with seeing these friends or neighbors, who are all prepping for bed themselves (brushing teeth, washing faces and ears) but warn the little tyke of "things" that lurk in the darkness. Pooped, with still no mommy mummy, he rests at the base of a tree until a mouse appears. THAT's the scare-jump all the parents were waiting for, and mommy mummy is immediately there to rescue, comfort, and take to bed. ADORABLE.
Goodnight, Little Monster
Helen Ketteman, illustrated by Bonnie Leick
ISBN: 9780761456834
Sweet lush soft-edged watercolor-looking illustrations of an adorable baby monster at bedtime.
This is such a sweet book, but I have a hard time reading it because the endpapers are COVERED in giant nasty spiders. I "screwed my courage to the sticking place" as best I could, because it really is a sweet story, and because I more often read the slightly sillier and more upbeat My Monster Mama Loves Me So, but I did that one too recently to repeat. So, I braved the spiders, and had two mamas ask me if they could have the book afterwards. Courage is rewarded! In the story, mama is putting baby to bed, and it's just as traditional and standard as you could ask: from bathtime to bedtime snack to toothbrushing to the under-bed-monsters (er, children) check, and the temporary forgetting of the nightlight. The pictures really are sweet, once you get past all the spiders.
Tuesday, October 6, 2015
Tuesday Storytime: Mud Puddles
In case you missed it, South Carolina has been suffering from some pretty intense rainy weather. We're in good shape in the Upstate, but thousands of people are without power or water, and it's literally been raining for over a week now. The sun was out today, but I've got some lovely rainy-day books, and wanted to give kids a lighter and more optimistic counter narrative to the news they're seeing every night of flooding and evacuations.
Muddigush
Kimberly Knutson
ISBN: 0027508439
Marbled-paper collages look almost like Japanese papercuts. Language is intensely poetic.
This one is a bit of a challenge to read, because the language here is just straight up poetry. I love all the onomatopoeia going on, and the rhythms of the wording are just lovely. Here's a bit:
The riverbed slime
is shivery and quivery,
bubbly and wiggly,
cold and jiggly.
Spread it, pat it,
till it's shiny and flat.
Smack and whack that
smucky mush
smacky mush
squooshy slooshy muddigush!
So fun to read.
One Duck Stuck
Phyllis Root (Oliver Finds His Way), illustrated by Jane Chapman (Bear books with Karma Wilson)
ISBN: 0763603341
Counting up to ten in the swamp with animals trying to help a duck with his foot buried in mud.
This is a fun and quick counting book. There's lots of text, but it reads very quickly, and even with lots of expressive pauses, it still just hums along. ONE duck is stuck, and then TWO fish come over and try to help, then THREE moose, and so on. My favorite part is the different creative ways the animals try to help - all failing until ten types of animal have assembled, and all work together to rescue the poor duck. Cute, fun wordplay, simple but bright and vibrant paintings, and a good message. Also mud.
Red Rubber Boot Day
Mary Lyn Ray, illustrated by Lauren Stringer
ISBN: 0152053980
Previously reviewed here.
Still one of my absolute favorite rainy-day books. It's just such a perfect marriage of luminous paintings and child-focused interest. There's only so much a creative child can do inside when it's raining before they just have to go outside and run around in the wet. Super short, super attractive, and an absolute joy from start to finish.
Muddigush
Kimberly Knutson
ISBN: 0027508439
Marbled-paper collages look almost like Japanese papercuts. Language is intensely poetic.
This one is a bit of a challenge to read, because the language here is just straight up poetry. I love all the onomatopoeia going on, and the rhythms of the wording are just lovely. Here's a bit:
The riverbed slime
is shivery and quivery,
bubbly and wiggly,
cold and jiggly.
Spread it, pat it,
till it's shiny and flat.
Smack and whack that
smucky mush
smacky mush
squooshy slooshy muddigush!
So fun to read.
One Duck Stuck
Phyllis Root (Oliver Finds His Way), illustrated by Jane Chapman (Bear books with Karma Wilson)
ISBN: 0763603341
Counting up to ten in the swamp with animals trying to help a duck with his foot buried in mud.
This is a fun and quick counting book. There's lots of text, but it reads very quickly, and even with lots of expressive pauses, it still just hums along. ONE duck is stuck, and then TWO fish come over and try to help, then THREE moose, and so on. My favorite part is the different creative ways the animals try to help - all failing until ten types of animal have assembled, and all work together to rescue the poor duck. Cute, fun wordplay, simple but bright and vibrant paintings, and a good message. Also mud.
Red Rubber Boot Day
Mary Lyn Ray, illustrated by Lauren Stringer
ISBN: 0152053980
Previously reviewed here.
Still one of my absolute favorite rainy-day books. It's just such a perfect marriage of luminous paintings and child-focused interest. There's only so much a creative child can do inside when it's raining before they just have to go outside and run around in the wet. Super short, super attractive, and an absolute joy from start to finish.
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