Not the most original of themes, but when you have cute books, what are you gonna do?
Finding Spring
Carin Berger
ISBN: 9780062250193
It's time to hibernate and wait for Spring, but little bear is waaay too keyed up for that. As soon as Mother falls asleep, he's off and searching for Spring. He finds something amazing, decides THAT is Spring, tucks some into his coat and heads back to his den for his long nap. When he wakes up, the "spring" in his coat is all melted, but when he heads back to where he found it, he finds spring for real. Lots of fun interactions with busy forest animals, and really cute illustrations.
Our middle "book" is actually a two-fer, with two small boardbooks tucked between the longer reads:
Funny Bunnies (boardbook)
Piggy Toes Press, 2011
ISBN: 9781615245949
Cute little rhymes on succeeding spreads with colorful backgrounds (one of my littlest ones was DETERMINED to announce the colors of all the backgrounds, including - with great pride - "MaGENta." Adorable all the way around.
A Little Book about SPRING (Leo Lionni's Friends series, boardbook)
Leo Lionni and Julie Hamilton
ISBN: 9780525582274
Frederick the mouse and his friends pledge allegiance and undying love to the season in vogue, with colorful backgrounds and springtime activities cutely (and very briefly) described.
Silver Seeds
Paul Paolilli and Dan Brewer, illustrated by Steve Johnson and Lou Fancher
ISBN: 0670889415
Because April IS Poetry Month, y'all. This is a sweet little hard to find book that takes the first letters of various spring topics and uses them to create free-form poetry about that subject. So, for short:
Sliding through the window
Underneath the door
Nudging us out to play
makes SUN. Get it? That's pretty much all there is, but the paintings are luminous, and the choices for verse are moving and sweet and powerful. I am not really a poetry person, but I love all of these, and I love that I CAN love them and introduce them to kids with a clear and bright conscience so hopefully they learn to love poetry themselves too.
Thursday, April 25, 2019
Monday, April 22, 2019
Tuesday Storytime: Farm Animals
These were selected by my coworker.
Peppa Pig and the Easter Rainbow
No Author Listed
ISBN: 9780763694388
When it rains on the Easter Egg Hunt, things could have been ruined, but Peppa and her friends look to the Easter Rainbow for inspiration and find out that everything's better when it's multicolorful!
The Cow Said Neigh!
Rory Feek, illustrated by Bruno Robert
ISBN: 9781400311712
This building-rhyming story details how wanting to be something you're not can sometimes cause the whole farm to self-destruct. In a fun and zippy way, of course, with everything coming (mostly) all right in the end.
No Sleep for the Sheep!
Karen Beaumont, illustrated by Jackie Urbanovic
ISBN: 9780152049690
Poor sheep in the barn just wants some shut-eye but EVERY OTHER ANIMAL is up, and heading NOISILY to bed in that self-same barn. How on earth is Sheep ever going to get to sleep with all this racket and all these neighbors?
Peppa Pig and the Easter Rainbow
No Author Listed
ISBN: 9780763694388
When it rains on the Easter Egg Hunt, things could have been ruined, but Peppa and her friends look to the Easter Rainbow for inspiration and find out that everything's better when it's multicolorful!
The Cow Said Neigh!
Rory Feek, illustrated by Bruno Robert
ISBN: 9781400311712
This building-rhyming story details how wanting to be something you're not can sometimes cause the whole farm to self-destruct. In a fun and zippy way, of course, with everything coming (mostly) all right in the end.
No Sleep for the Sheep!
Karen Beaumont, illustrated by Jackie Urbanovic
ISBN: 9780152049690
Poor sheep in the barn just wants some shut-eye but EVERY OTHER ANIMAL is up, and heading NOISILY to bed in that self-same barn. How on earth is Sheep ever going to get to sleep with all this racket and all these neighbors?
Tuesday, April 9, 2019
Tuesday Storytime: Candy!
I've wanted to do this storytime for a LOOONG time, ever since we got the book Ganesha's Sweet Tooth, but it's been hard to find a good time. Easter is approaching, and at least in the US, it's become secular enough that I can get away with having a somewhat tangentially related storytime - so candy it is!
Ganesha's Sweet Tooth
Sanjay Patel and Emily Haynes, illustrated by Emily Haynes
ISBN: 9781452103624
A ... creative re-creation of the myth of the writing of the Mahabharata has a child Ganesha breaking his tusk on an interesting ladoo (indian temple sweet) - a jawbreaker! Frustrated by his tooth loss, he tries to throw it into the moon (referencing a different myth) but misses and bonks Vyasa (the legendary/mythic poet) on the head. Vyasa is intrigued by this god-child's tusk, and they strike a deal for Ganesha to write out the poem as Vyasa recites it, as long as he can eat all the candy he wants in the mean-time. Many lots later, the poem is completed, Ganesha is happy with his magical writing tusk, and there's sooooo much candy to eat!
Owen's Marshmallow Chick
Kevin Henkes
ISBN: (board book, no isbn listed, HarperFestival 2002)
I love how sweet and innocent this Easter story is. Baby mouse Owen has a full Easter basket of all sorts of traditional candies, and each one is pronounced his "favorite" as he gobbles them all up one after the other - except for the bright yellow marshmallow chick (it's a peep, but branding issues I'm guessing?) that matches his blanket and looks like a toy. That one gets played with all day (trying not to think about the sugar and sticky fallout of that choice) and put in pride of place with his other treasured toys that night, and dreamed about - and that one is of course, his "favorite."
I pulled Fairy Floss (Ann Ingalls, Migy Blanco, ISBN: 9781499802382in case we had an older crowd (still somewhat unlikely this time of year, but always a possibility) which is a pretty fast-moving but somehow slightly staid stroll through the Chicago World Fair where the delights of electric motors make treats like cotton candy (then known as Fairy Floss (among other amusing names) possible for a mass audience. Cute, but it was just a bit long and just a bit... boring? Which seems really impressive for a book about the World Fair AND cotton candy.
So instead we went with:
Bad Kitty Does NOT Like Candy (Yes I Do)
Nick Bruel
ISBN: 9781626722309
I try to not use a lot of "branded" characters (Elena/Doc McStuffins, Bad Kitty, Caillou (mostly because Caillou makes me feel homicidal) because I want to encourage kids to realize there's lots of books out there that don't have anything to do with the TV (or whatever streaming device they're watching their shows on now) - but every once in a while there's a cute enough book (or a hard enough theme) that makes me step into the branded world for a bit. This one did it for me - Bad Kitty is hungry, but not realllly hungry - she just wants candy because it looks so tasty and sweet and fun. Of course candy is bad for cats, but she eventually snags some (because bad kitty) and has to get her teeth brushed to clear out all the candy that has stuck her mouth closed. Now kitty IS hungry, and is perfectly happy with fish, because now she knows that she does NOT like candy after all.
Ganesha's Sweet Tooth
Sanjay Patel and Emily Haynes, illustrated by Emily Haynes
ISBN: 9781452103624
A ... creative re-creation of the myth of the writing of the Mahabharata has a child Ganesha breaking his tusk on an interesting ladoo (indian temple sweet) - a jawbreaker! Frustrated by his tooth loss, he tries to throw it into the moon (referencing a different myth) but misses and bonks Vyasa (the legendary/mythic poet) on the head. Vyasa is intrigued by this god-child's tusk, and they strike a deal for Ganesha to write out the poem as Vyasa recites it, as long as he can eat all the candy he wants in the mean-time. Many lots later, the poem is completed, Ganesha is happy with his magical writing tusk, and there's sooooo much candy to eat!
Owen's Marshmallow Chick
Kevin Henkes
ISBN: (board book, no isbn listed, HarperFestival 2002)
I love how sweet and innocent this Easter story is. Baby mouse Owen has a full Easter basket of all sorts of traditional candies, and each one is pronounced his "favorite" as he gobbles them all up one after the other - except for the bright yellow marshmallow chick (it's a peep, but branding issues I'm guessing?) that matches his blanket and looks like a toy. That one gets played with all day (trying not to think about the sugar and sticky fallout of that choice) and put in pride of place with his other treasured toys that night, and dreamed about - and that one is of course, his "favorite."
I pulled Fairy Floss (Ann Ingalls, Migy Blanco, ISBN: 9781499802382in case we had an older crowd (still somewhat unlikely this time of year, but always a possibility) which is a pretty fast-moving but somehow slightly staid stroll through the Chicago World Fair where the delights of electric motors make treats like cotton candy (then known as Fairy Floss (among other amusing names) possible for a mass audience. Cute, but it was just a bit long and just a bit... boring? Which seems really impressive for a book about the World Fair AND cotton candy.
So instead we went with:
Bad Kitty Does NOT Like Candy (Yes I Do)
Nick Bruel
ISBN: 9781626722309
I try to not use a lot of "branded" characters (Elena/Doc McStuffins, Bad Kitty, Caillou (mostly because Caillou makes me feel homicidal) because I want to encourage kids to realize there's lots of books out there that don't have anything to do with the TV (or whatever streaming device they're watching their shows on now) - but every once in a while there's a cute enough book (or a hard enough theme) that makes me step into the branded world for a bit. This one did it for me - Bad Kitty is hungry, but not realllly hungry - she just wants candy because it looks so tasty and sweet and fun. Of course candy is bad for cats, but she eventually snags some (because bad kitty) and has to get her teeth brushed to clear out all the candy that has stuck her mouth closed. Now kitty IS hungry, and is perfectly happy with fish, because now she knows that she does NOT like candy after all.
Thursday, April 4, 2019
Tuesday Storytime: Spring Birds
We did a bit of an experiment today with a VERY LONG but excellent book about how robins grow and develop, so we used that book as our first TWO book sessions, with a song at a good stopping place, and then read one final short book at the end. It worked ok, the kids are a bit young for this, and we had some talkers, but such is life.
Robins! How They Grow Up
Eileen Christelow
ISBN: 9780544442894
Really Really Really Really long and wordy. There was a lot of paraphrasing and eliding. However, there are ALSO two sections where an egg is stolen and eaten by a squirrel, and a fledgling is stooped on and carried off by a hawk, and I did NOT skip those sections. They were written matter-of-factly, and so I just carried on. I think one mommy was a bit scandalized, but kids don't care and they just want to know how things work. Very informational, good illustrations, SOOOOO wordy.
I'm a Duck
Eve Bunting
Will Hillenbrand
ISBN: 9780763680329
Really cute rhyming couplets show off this water-phobic duck, and how he used his friends and his smarts to develop skills and confidence to eventually go swimming with his family. Cute, sweet, and OH SO SHORT.
Robins! How They Grow Up
Eileen Christelow
ISBN: 9780544442894
Really Really Really Really long and wordy. There was a lot of paraphrasing and eliding. However, there are ALSO two sections where an egg is stolen and eaten by a squirrel, and a fledgling is stooped on and carried off by a hawk, and I did NOT skip those sections. They were written matter-of-factly, and so I just carried on. I think one mommy was a bit scandalized, but kids don't care and they just want to know how things work. Very informational, good illustrations, SOOOOO wordy.
I'm a Duck
Eve Bunting
Will Hillenbrand
ISBN: 9780763680329
Really cute rhyming couplets show off this water-phobic duck, and how he used his friends and his smarts to develop skills and confidence to eventually go swimming with his family. Cute, sweet, and OH SO SHORT.
Wednesday, April 3, 2019
Tuesday Storytime: Give Me That!
Cute picks, done by my coworker.
If You Give a Mouse a Cookie
Laura Joffe Numeroff, illustrated by Felicia Bond
ISBN: 9780060245863
Classic and still funny "house that Jack built" story with unexpected and escalating situations.
Max the Brave
Ed Vere
ISBN: 9781492616511
Max the kitten desperately wants to chase mice - except he's never seen one. So he goes around to all the neighbor animals and asks them about it, and everyone is nice and helpful and truthful... except the mouse, for obvious reasons, who says that he's a monster himself, but points out a particularly gross-looking actual monster and cheerfully identifies THAT as a mouse. Max IS very brave, but that "mouse" was a bit much for him, so now he amuses himself chasing "monsters."
I Want That Nut!
Madeline Valentine
ISBN: 9781101940389
Mouse and Chipmunk have the poor fortune to BOTH find a particularly lovely nut at the SAME TIME. They muster all of their maturity and decide that Chipmunk should have it, but after a few hours of smothering this lovely nut with affection, Mouse STEALS it! Now Mouse is the one treating the nut like a visiting dignitary - until Chipmunk STEALS it back! Escalations occur, but eventually the nut is gone, and perhaps Mouse and Chipmunk have learned a bit about playing together and sharing things.
If You Give a Mouse a Cookie
Laura Joffe Numeroff, illustrated by Felicia Bond
ISBN: 9780060245863
Classic and still funny "house that Jack built" story with unexpected and escalating situations.
Max the Brave
Ed Vere
ISBN: 9781492616511
Max the kitten desperately wants to chase mice - except he's never seen one. So he goes around to all the neighbor animals and asks them about it, and everyone is nice and helpful and truthful... except the mouse, for obvious reasons, who says that he's a monster himself, but points out a particularly gross-looking actual monster and cheerfully identifies THAT as a mouse. Max IS very brave, but that "mouse" was a bit much for him, so now he amuses himself chasing "monsters."
I Want That Nut!
Madeline Valentine
ISBN: 9781101940389
Mouse and Chipmunk have the poor fortune to BOTH find a particularly lovely nut at the SAME TIME. They muster all of their maturity and decide that Chipmunk should have it, but after a few hours of smothering this lovely nut with affection, Mouse STEALS it! Now Mouse is the one treating the nut like a visiting dignitary - until Chipmunk STEALS it back! Escalations occur, but eventually the nut is gone, and perhaps Mouse and Chipmunk have learned a bit about playing together and sharing things.
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