The only difficulty I have with this type of theme is that it makes it more difficult to have a coloring sheet that goes along with the theme - in those cases I have a collection of general "storytime" or "book" themed coloring sheets that I use instead.
Baby Bear Counts One
Ashley Wolff
ISBN: 9781442441583
Very detailed woodcut-style art, very dark and vibrant and detailed.
Baby bear and Mama bear are walking through the autumn woods and Baby counts various animals as they prepare for winter by stocking up or migrating away. A good mesh of naturalistic (the artwork and the matter-of-fact descriptions of the animals' various activities) and fanciful (the conceit of Baby and Mama talking). Very nice, but a smidge on the long side. I actually read Bunnies!!! first, and I regret it, because this one was longer in reading than it ran when I previewed it, and we had VERY squirmy audience today. It would have flowed much better in the top billing, which is why I'm listing it here as such.
Bunnies!!!
Kevan Atteberry
ISBN: 9780062307835
A sweet-faced monster is quite excited by a family of pastel bunnies, but they keep running away!
The art here is notable specifically for the quality of the emotional content conveyed with very little text and minimalistic art style. It's really delightful to watch the kids respond as the little sweet monster gets more and more discouraged by the bunnies who keep running from his over-excited advances. The twist ending manages to be sweet and to draw a chuckle from both parents and the older (or genre savvy) kids who realize what's about to happen again.
Hush, Little Horsie
Jane Yolen, illustrated by Ruth Sanderson
ISBN: 9780375858536
Beautiful restful spreads and vignettes of pairs of dams and foals in various environments.
I love this book. It's sweet and calming and restful, and the catch at the ending is very well done - a parent reading to her horse-mad small child, putting them to bed. The rhymes are VERY repetitive, but I don't even care - they're pretty and calming, and just different enough to flow beautifully from one horse family to another. I do wish there was at least one horse father or grandparent present, but that could be easily altered by a quick-thinking reader. Beautiful and quite short on the read, which made it a delightful positive finish for our overactive audience today.
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