Tuesday Storytime: Cats and Dogs

(I know, I know - but I'm caught up now!)

So hard to pick, so I included a bonus title today.  I couldn't choose until the day of, so I'm reviewing my "first runner-up" as well, because it's so cute and fun.

Dog In Charge
K. L. Going, illustrated by Dan Santat
ISBN: 9780803734791
"Good dog" has been left in charge of the 5 cats for the afternoon - will they be good?  Nope.

Our dog is very happy to be a Good Dog.  He sits, stays, and does dances for treats.  When the people leave him in charge (of the 1,2,3,4- 5!) cats, he expects them to sit and stay also.  They don't.  Dog bosses them around, gets a little frantic, attempts bribery (and fails miserably at his own willpower) and finally sags into a nap of despair.  But no worries - the kitties aren't bad, only active.  They love that dog, and they'll make sure he's still considered a Good Dog when the people get back home.


Un Gato y un Perro / A Cat and a Dog
Claire Masurel, illustrated by Bob Kolar
ISBN: 0735818355
Bilingual, with Spanish as the primary text, about two mortal enemies who learn to help each other.

A very short story, and one that made me wish I was brave enough to try Spanish, but I don't speak it, and I'm afraid that some of my families DO, and I don't wish to cause offense or embarrass myself.  Our cat and dog don't like each other one single bit, and they growl and hiss at each other, and always play alone, in their own ways, with their own toys - until the day comes when each toy is lost in just the perfect way that they need the other's help.  I like that one of them thinks to help first without having to be asked, and the other one enthusiastically returns the favor.  A bit too simplistic and over very quickly, but it all works for that short middle read,

Widget
Lyn Rossiter McFarland, illustrated by Jim McFarland
ISBN: 0374384282
Widget is a stray, so he's willing to do just about anything for a nice warm home - even become a cat.

I love Widget.  It's the perfect story of fitting in and working with people.  Widget is sick of being a stray, so when he finds Mrs Diggs and her six cats, he's pretty sure he's got it made - one small problem; "the girls" don't like dogs.  No big deal - Widget can be just as catly as any of them!  In fact, as he settles into his posh new life, Widget even occasionally forgets he IS a dog - until Mrs Diggs falls down one day and doesn't get back up.  When meowing, hissing, and caterwauling for help does nothing, Widget risks it all by barking again, and inspires the girls.  A beautiful story, and one I will always be happy to read.


Bonus Book:
Won Ton and Chopstick
Lee Wardlaw, illustrated by Eugene Yelchin
ISBN: 9780805099874
Won Ton's haiku book gets a sequel here, with a new puppy added to the family.

The conceit here is lovely, but the reading is a little odd with my age-group - haiku are notorious for being indirect and glancing and not-quite-exactly-to-the-point, which is lovely for reading to yourself, or with older children who are a bit experienced with metaphor and simile and conceptual thinking.  It's less fitting for toddlers, unfortunately, despite the bright colors and really adorable pictures.  Won Ton is less than pleased to have a new puppy in the house, especially when spats leave Won Ton (not the newcomer) exiled to the yard.  Still, familiarity does the trick, and harmony regains peaceful sway by the end.

Tuesday Storytime: Sailing

Spring is a perfect season here for sailing.  We live near a large lake, and the warm days with fresh breezes (and pop-up storms) make for memorable times, and easy pickings for Storytime reads.

Three Bears in a Boat
David Soman
ISBN: 9780803739932
Three bear siblings head off on a sailing adventure to replace an accidentally broken treasure.

The storyline could be a little tighter, and the metaphorical storm vanishes a little too quickly for my tastes, but this story of siblings working together (and fighting) will strike a chord with lots of kids.  Our three bears break mom's beautiful blue shell, and immediately hatch a wild plan to find a replacement.  They sail away into adventure, before returning safe and sound to mom.  A lovely blended homage to the adventure of Where the Wild Things Are and the homey sweetness of Little Bear.


Sail Away 
Donald Crews
ISBN: 9780688110536
Short and onomatopoeic and evocative.

Crews is delightful when he's presenting a simple vibrant concept, and here is no exception.  Super-simple premise has a sailboat puttering out for a day's sail, encountering a storm (over almost as quickly as Soman's was) and puttering back in to moor safely in the harbor.  Graphically arresting, with words that become part of the illustrations, and just enough language to move the pictures along.

Boats Float
George Ella Lyon, illustrated by Mick Wiggins
ISBN: 9781481403801
By the author of Trucks Roll, and of Planes Fly.  Less of a storyline than in Trucks Roll.

The illustrations are busier here than in Trucks Roll - they actually remind me a little bit of the old Richard Scarry books.  The narrative is familiar; a rhyming cadence lists different types of boats, aspects of boats, or boat terminology, and always ends on "Boats Float" at the conclusion of each spread or section.  There is a funky mostly-sideways page that doesn't actually need to be turned sideways (a very winding river with the text following the path of the river) and it goes on just a smidge long for my tastes, but it's fun and cute and has really good vocabulary.

Tuesday Storytime; Spring through the Seasons

A trio of very nice books that hit on all the seasons changing, but all with some level of focus on springtime.

Outside Your Window: A First Book of Nature

Nicola Davies, illustrated by Mark Hearld

ISBN: 9780763655495

Book of short meditations on natural occurances through the seasons.  

This is a LONG book - it's a large-format picture-book, mostly in spreads (lovely lovely spreads) with about 10 or so rhymes or short lyrical descriptions of events or sights to see in that particular season.  I read one each from Summer, Fall, and Winter, and then read most of Spring (skipping the first set, the sea-gulls, which are more of a summer thing for us, and the lamb's tails, mostly because it was my least favorite, and I had to cut so many for time).  The little short poems or stories are sweet and nature-based, and each is tangible and specific, and grounded in the beautiful large painterly spreads.  Excellent for this age-group in small doses, and would be perfect to use repeatedly through the year as the different seasons come and go.

Listen, Listen

Phillis Gershator, illustrated by Alison Jay

ISBN: 9781846860843

Rounded cameo paintings fill the centers of the pages, with the poem unfolding around the edges.

I like this one, but I had to tape off the last few pages, because it pretty seamlessly merges into a more interactive "seek and find" section at the very end, encouraging readers to search the pages "Where's Waldo"-style to find various animals or items.  The conceit here is using the sounds of each season to make a throughline - which works fairly well for some seasons; summer is all bugs, fall is leaves and nuts, and spring is birds chirping away, but winter was a bit of a reach, and some of the inclusions to make the rhyme scheme work seem a bit forced.  Overall, it's sweet and an interesting approach to sensing the seasons instead of looking at them.

Old Bear

Kevin Henkes

ISBN: 9780061552052

Bear falls asleep and dreams of technicolor fever-dream seasons, before waking into a delightful real spring.

The ONLY objection I have to this adorable book is that the bear comes out of hibernation in the full bloom of riotous spring (for the narrative to work well) and that's not in the least accurate.  Despite that one niggle, this is a beautiful book that showcases dreams and imagination, and reads quickly and clearly.  The colors and stylization of the dream spreads are simply gorgeous, and the bear is roly-poly and fuzzy and adorable.  Excellent length to be either an ending book or a middle book between two not-as-long offerings.  

   

Nonfiction: The Importance of Being Little, Erika Christakis

The Importance of Being Little: What Preschoolers Really Need from Grownups
Erika Christakis
ISBN: 9780525429074
Read March 5, 2016

Discusses the hodge-podge nature of preschool and kindergarten education, and what we are discovering about effective learning environments based on longitudinal studies, other countries, developmental psychology research, and hands-on experimentation.

New Arrival: Wordless Picture Book: The Only Child, by Guojing

The Only Child
Guojing
ISBN: 9780553497045
The author draws on the lonely memories of a childhood as a Chinese "only" to create a fantastical cloud-land fable of isolation and being lost.

Guojing includes a short preface that tells how as a six year old child, she got lost traveling between her parents and grandmother's houses.  In reality, the forlorn author trekked through the cold until she found familiar landmarks, making her way safely back to her family on her own.  In her imaginative wordless picture book (almost a graphic novel in the format of the panels and narrative pacing) a much-younger-seeming child has the same initial experience, but instead of a boring trudge down empty roads, this child wanders into the forest and is aided by a beautiful elk, then introduced to a magical land in the clouds where otters float on clouds, and the insides of blue whales are inky universes filled with stars and wonders.

Interstices show the worried parents setting off in search (cued by a delightfully pithy letter "Gone to visit Grandma" left behind) and worriedly fretting as the bus travels along, before jumping back to the fantasy world up in the clouds.  Adventure time over, while the tired roly-poly child sleeps, the magical elk journeys back to the real world to find her home, and when she awakes, leads her straight into the arms of her family.

Beautiful and haunting and sweet, and oh-so perfectly captures that universal poignant feeling of isolation and loneliness.  

Juv Nonfiction: Book, My Autobiography "transcribed" by John Agard, illustrated by Neil Packer

Book: My Autobiography
John Agard, illustrated (b&w) by Neil Packer
ISBN: 9780763672362
Read March 7, 2016
Cute conceit of a thin book covering the history of the recorded word in print from the perspective of a book, looking back at the transformations of the past and present.

Lots of short chapters break up the history of the development of the written word.  We begin with oral storytelling and cave paintings, then move through the earliest surviving examples of physically-recorded information from several cultures.  Then we're into the developments of types of materials: rock walls to clay tablets to papyrus to parchment to paper pulp (a Chinese invention, which I did not know) and finally to modern e-books.  Then we look at styles of writing: cuneiform, hieroglyphics, the Phoenician, then Greek, then Latin alphabets (this section was sadly lacking in Eastern information), along with the writing process: wedge-shaped stylus to quills (with discussion of the various bird species and what their quills were considered good for) to the first block printing and then movable type and then again e-books with hyperlinks.

The "voice" of Book is wry and self-deprecatory and winking, passing information along as if it is just the coolest history in the world (which I personally agree with) and making even ancient history like the switch from papyrus to parchment seem relevant (caused, fyi, by a squabble over intellectual property (papyrus) which was barred from export out to a rival country).

The language is rich and varied and the presentation is quite adult - I had to check the CIP to see that it really was a juvenile nonfiction.  There are pull-out and pop quotes from authors and poets and influential people highlighted in almost every chapter that are relevant to the section, or are generally thought-provoking.  This would be an excellent "trial" biography for a young voracious nonfiction or micro-history reader - I can easily see them successfully reading through this and feeling empowered to move on to the very similar adult nonfiction or biographies.

A fun, quick, information-packed read, with a great narrative flow and a lovely narrative voice, with just enough black and white illustration and pop quotes to break up the many many many small chapters.    

Tuesday Storytime: Builders and Construction

Back to non-thematic storytimes this week.  No holidays, no National Month of whatever, just me and whatever quirky theme my strange mind has dredged up in the last few weeks.  I do love picking out picture books to present to kids.  It's a fun mix of curating content and balancing ages and lengths and art styles and how complex or difficult the wording is... so much to think about.  When I choose badly, and the storytime goes poorly, it's quite frustrating, but when they flow nicely, that half hour is just a delightful flow of narrative and story from me to the families.

Fix-It Duck
Jez Alborough
ISBN: 0060006994
Spunky but accident-prone Duck tries to "fix-it" with problems that are usually his own fault.

It's raining outside, so when a DRIP falls PLOP into Duck's tea, he immediately thinks the roof is leaking.  This is a job for Fix-It Duck!  But he can't reach the roof.  So he goes to borrow Sheep's ladder, and in the process, notices the camper's skylight is broken.  Fix-It Duck is on the case - but he breaks the window.  Now Sheep's house is leaking too!  Fix-It Duck can fix it, by towing Sheep's camper under Goat's shed.  But Fix-It Duck has left tools and nails and broken glass lying around, and Sheep's Jeep gets a flat!  No worries for Fix-It Duck, who offers his own truck - which can't hitch to Sheep's camper.  A creative re-use of the ladder fixes that, until a wild swerve around a curve (because Duck is a bad driver, obvs) spirals the situation beyond even what the optimistic and ever-hopeful Duck can manage to fix.  Poor Sheep.


My Apron
Eric Carle
ISBN: 0399226850
True story from Carle's childhood, where he helped his uncle plaster a building for a day.

Uncle Adam is a plasterer, and he has a snazzy white apron with a pocket, and works on buildings all day, coating them with protective and beautiful white plaster.  The boy Carle gets an apron made by his aunt, and spends the day as a proud and effective helper in this very short and sweet story.


Building a House
Byron Barton
ISBN: 0688842917
Barton's trademark blocky colors and thick outlines are joined by rare humanistic people.

We start with a green hill (that color blocking!) and follow in quick succession the steps of house-building, from digging out the ground, foundation and flooring, walls, rafters, roof, plumbing and wiring, finishing, and painting.  The house is built (and garishly colored) in the end, ready for the final step of building a house: standing ready as a family moves in.  Simple words and clear illustrations, but everything is accurate and straightforward and realistic.

New Arrivals: Picture Book: Frog on a Log? Kes Gray & Jim Field

Frog on a Log?
Kes Gray & Jim Field
ISBN: 9780545687911
Originally English, with some "rhymes" that don't play out as a result.

This is a cute little book, but it illustrates (ha ha) the difficulties with using specific regional accents and language in a book that is then published somewhere else in the world.  Frog is sick of sitting on his log, because it's frankly uncomfortable.  He wants to sit on the mat, but the Cat is quite firm - Cats sit on mats.  Frogs sit on logs.  Why?  It's just the proper way of things.  Cat goes on to explain what all sorts of animals sit on, from the primer-reader basics: hares on chairs, mules on stools - to frankly ridiculous assignments: moles on poles, weasels on easels, puffins on muffins (all creatively illustrated with confused animals).

There's really only one difficulty, and it comes in with the difference between British and American English.  Early on, we're informed that "gophers sit on sofas" which will blow any American kid's mind trying to make that rhyme.  In American English, gopher is pretty much equivalent to "GO for" - as in, go out and get a thing.  The "r" is quite distinct.  That's I think how it's pronounced in England too.  So far so good.  Sofa creates the difficulty here - In American English, it doesn't have an "r" at all - the "a" at the end is a nice wide open "ahhhh" sound like you make when the doctor sticks that thing down your throat.  Whooopsie!  We're good for quite a while until we get to the exact reverse situation a bit further in: Cat declaims that "Gorillas sit on pillars."  Here, we're both agreed that "pillar" has a nice ending "r" sound, but in American, gorilla most absolutely does not.  Again, it's that wide open "ahhh" that ends on the vowel, with no consonant at all to close it out.    

Are these two instances enough to totally sink the book?  Of course not.  But they are enough to give a read-aloud parent pause, and to make thoughtful children confused, and to make me decide against it for storytime.  Those animals could easily have been substituted for others that share the same rhymes in all (or at least the most-spoken) variants of English with no harm done, but the book was simply made available in other markets as-is, possibly without thinking about the differences at all, and that's a real shame.

Tuesday Storytime: Black History Month: Families

One day off, but I'm squeezing it in there anyway, because I had good beautiful books to showcase.

My Family Plays Music
Judy Cox, illustrated by Elbrite Brown
ISBN: 0823415910
A lovely variety of brown and black faces and bodies playing beautiful music in varied venues.

The ONLY downside to this book is that there are a LOT of family members to get through.  The music styles and venues and instruments are interesting and varied, from great-grandmother on the church pipe organ to niece Sadie playing the pots and pans in the kitchen, and our narrator is a gifted percussionist, playing scads of different instruments to accompany each different relative.  It's rhythmic, cadenced, lovely descriptive language (all the instruments and music styles are named), and each family member has their own distinct style and appearance.  It's perfect - other than getting a smidge tired of a large family: father, mother, sister, brother, aunt, uncle, grandmother, grandfather, great grandma, cousin, and niece.


Uptown
Bryan Collier
ISBN: 0805057218
Rich, multi-layered collages of highly-textured photographs show off Harlem through a boy's eyes.

Our narrator tells us about various slices of life and environment Uptown - the brownstones, the barbershops, the Apollo Theatre, playing at Rutgers in summer, and listening to the Boy's Choir sing in the evenings, sharing his joy and pride in his homeplace of Uptown Harlem.  I love it specifically for my rural/suburban southern kids because it shows off a joyful and positive impression of city life.


Max and the Tag-Along Moon
Floyd Cooper
ISBN: 9780399233425
Truly lovely grainy-textured sepia-washed spreads of color and shadow.

It's early evening, and the moon rises as Max says goodbye to his beloved Granpa, who reassures the sad boy that the moon will "always shine for you" through the night.  During the long drive, beautifully illustrated and lyrically narrated, Max keeps a delighted eye on the tag-along moon that follows him around curves, through forests, and waits for him at the end of tunnels.  By the end of the trip, clouds have rolled in, and the stars - and moon - vanish from sight.  Max feels the loss of the moon keenly, and rolls it up with how he feels missing his Granpa, and is sad and lonely as he arrives home and prepares for bed.  But just before he falls asleep, the clouds roll back, and that loyal moon shines bright in his window, just like Granpa said it would.  Beautiful, sweet, and expressionistic.