I've been away at a conference the last few weeks, but life (and storytime, and the summer reading program) goes on, so we had surrogate storytellers the last two Tuesdays. Nonetheless, I set up the books and programs as I always do, and I'll give the titles and a quick overview of what we did the last two Tuesdays (There's no storytime this Tuesday: we're on a short break. The whole system takes a week to breathe in the middle of the summer over 4th of July holidays.)
As a note, our state theme this year is "get up and go" with focuses on sports, exercise, health, and nutrition. We here decided to mix it up and go with our own county-wide theme of "Fantastic Reads and Where to Find Them" to link up with our upcoming comicon on August 6th. I personally got bitten by the programming/RA bug too hard as a child, so I decided that I was going to link the Fantastic Reads weekly themes back into nutrition, and go with a personal branch theme of "Fantastic Foods and Where to Find Them" - thus at least one title, sometimes more, once or twice ALL of the titles each week not only are about fantastical or fantasy creatures/situations, but also have to do with food or eating. Because it was fun to find them all. Because I'm weird.
So, for Tuesday the 21st, our theme was Extra-Ordinary Animals
For storytime I set up these three:
1) The Gruffalo
2) Gobble it Up
3) Bear Wants More
and for the Summer Reading Program with the older kids, I set aside these three:
1) The Gruffalo
2) Gobble it Up
3) I YAM a Donkey
For Tuesday the 28th, our theme was Magical Moves
For storytime I set up these three:
1) Runaway Wok
2) Potato Joe
3) Unicorn Thinks He's Pretty Great
and for the Summer Reading Program, these three:
1) Runaway Wok
2) Strega Nona's Harvest
3) Unicorn Thinks He's Pretty Great
As you can see, there's a bit of overlap each week. That's on purpose. I don't like that the little storytime kids miss out on a lot of the fun of the summer reading program because they're not quite old enough for the big kid programs. That's why the "special programs" at Pendleton are always "all ages" and why I also try to overlap the reading themes for them during the summer, to the point of even choosing the same books to read as often as I can. I don't know if they'll be talking or thinking about the program when they're not here, but I feel like it's important not to leave them out or have them be doing something totally different and unrelated.
Now for the pubdata and some short reviews:
The Gruffalo
Julia Donaldson, illustrated by Axel Scheffler
ISBN: 0803723865
A mouse talks a big game, making up an imaginary predator, and has to bluff it out when it actually appears.
I really love the smack-talking mouse, and how well and cleverly it thinks on it's feet, and the fact that the author made up the monster because she couldn't get "tiger" to scan in the original rhymes.
Gobble It Up! A fun song about eating!
Jim Arnosky
ISBN: 9780439903622
No we did not sing it. Yes there's a CD with this book. Various wild animals (heavy on the sea-life) celebrate eating.
It's a great silly story with a great silly refrain that aims to be catchy and also revolting at the same time - perfect for kids in a group setting to yell "ewwwww nooooo grooooosssss" when each new preferred food (from baby ducklings to giant squid) come down the pike. Delicious fun.
Bear Wants More
Karma Wilson, illustrated by Jane Chapman
ISBN: 9780689845093
Bear and Friends are back as Bear wakes up in spring with a post-hibernation hunger.
Chapman's illustrations remain perfect, and the pastel Disneyfied multi-species friendship between all these animals makes it a perfect fit for the fantastical realm - there is no hard-hitting journalistic realism about animal behavior here. But that's ok, because what we do have is a lovely sweet tale of friends helping friends find good things to eat.
I YAM a Donkey!
Cece Bell
ISBN: 9780544087200
No real connection to fantasy or food other than the ongoing pun/wordplay/confusion, but fun regardless.
Cece Bell has a really fun naughty streak that she shows off to perfection in this story, where a talking yam and a donkey have a decidedly silly battle over verbiage. This gets into slang, into accents, into changing social registers and what's appropriate to say (or imply) and is overall funny and preposterous.
The Runaway Wok
Ying Chang Compestine, illustrated by Sebastia Serra
ISBN: 9780525420682
"A Chinese New Year Tale" celebrates generosity and plenty with a magical wok that steals from the rich and gives to the poor.
Delightful twist on the general "magic cooking pot" theme, where the magical wok finds its way to a poor but generous family and brings about the ruin of a snobby and greedy rich family into the bargain.
Unicorn Thinks He's Pretty Great
Bob Shea
ISBN: 9781423159520
An Eeyore-like goat (blue and everything) mopes about the Unicorn who just moved in.
This isn't really my style of book, but it's fun and clever, easy to read, and the illustrations are cute enough. It's not as painful as Skippyjon Jones, I'll say that. I think we were supposed to read it last year, but I didn't pick it out - unfortunately the craft for this program relied on there being a unicorn book, and I wasn't able to find a good substitute (seriously you picture book people? this is a glaring flaw!). The set-up comes as the unicorn goes on about how awesome the goat is at various things, leading (of course) to the goat grudgingly complimenting the unicorn to make it feel better.
Potato Joe
Keith Baker
ISBN: 9780152062309
I flipping love Keith Baker. A counting book with potatoes. Talking ones. Exactly.
You know the old "one potato" rhyme? Well, now it's actually got real potatoes, and it goes on and on and on, with various named potatoes, (and a tomato AND a really big special guest) and counts all the way up to 10 and back down again, putting the potatoes to rest in the soil once more. It's the cutest ever.
Strega Nona's Harvest
Tomie dePaola
ISBN: 9780399252914
Compare and contrast Big Anthony's and Strega Nona's gardens and harvests as the season goes on.
Strega Nona has a nice lovely organized garden, where she lines the patches up and makes the rows straight, and asks for juuuuuust enough garden magic to get a good crop. Big Anthony isn't quite that careful, and to be safe, asks for twice as much garden magic. As the season goes on, Big Anthony has a bit of a jungle on his hands, and Strega Nona's garden is as perfect as ever - but where are all these bunches of mysterious vegetables coming from every night?
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