Tuesday Storytime: Growing Green

I have been waiting almost a full year to use Escargot in a storytime, so I'm very happy that he's had his 15 minutes of fame.

Escargot
Dashka Slater, illustrated by Sydney Hanson
ISBN: 9780374302818
Escargot is a magnifique French snail who journeys with the reader across a picnic table to reach a delightful salad, discussing favorite animals along the way (sad fact, no one chooses snails as their favorite animals) and eventually teaming up with the readers to attempt to frighten off a rogue carrot, then to very bravely try just a bit of it. Adorable, and with just enough french to be fun, but not intimidating to read.

Summer Supper
Rubin Pfeffer, illustrated by Mike Austin
ISBN: 9781524714642
A multi-shades-of-brown family works in a garden, a farmer's market, and a kitchen, before enjoying an outdoor meal and then a musical shindig. The fun here is that all of the words start with the letter S. I felt like I was narrating a segment of Sesame Street, but it was surprisingly seamless. :)

It Starts with a Seed
Laura Knowles, illustrated by Jennie Weber
ISBN: 9781910277263
Very beautiful and ornate book with gilded covers and THICK quality paper (makes the pages a bit hard to turn) with beautiful watercolor and ink linework showing off the growth cycle of a seed through a seedling, sapling, young tree, then mature tree, ending with a spray of seeds landing and sprouting along a tri-fold-out ending spread that is simply beautiful. Very pretty and a nice reminder that animals and bugs eat and live around plants too.

Tuesday Storytime: Growing Green

A fun trio of books today - all about green growing things.

Weeds Find a Way
Cindy Jenson-Elliott, illustrated by Carolyn Fisher
ISBN: 9781442412606
Mixed-media digital collage, very busy, very organic.  Lilting poetic wording.

This is a lovely poem to weeds; how their seeds and roots and flowers are tenacious and enduring and persistent and deep-rooted, and also beautiful and practical and natural and free.  This is another serendipitous delivery-discovery, and I'm glad to add it to my repertoire.  It will probably come up in garden or green-thumb storytimes with On Meadowview Street or The Curious Garden or Sarah Stewart's The Gardener.

Green
Laura Vaccaro Seeger
ISBN: 9781596433977
Beautiful messy splotchy painterly spread-page scenes with cute little cut-outs revealing snatches of upcoming and previous pages.

This is a lovely book.  It technically only very loosely fits the theme, but most of the scenes are natural ones, and several others are of fruits or vegetables, so it totally fits.  Very little wording, but the word "green" is on every page, surrounded by all the different shades of greens that can be found.  Lovely concept book, and very beautifully done.

A Tree is Nice
Janice May Udry, illustrated by Marc Simont
ISBN: 0060261560
Early propaganda, illustrated in classic "Dick and Jane" style, half b&w and half in color.  Caldecott.

Trees are nice, and this sweet simple Arbor-day-ish book illustrates a variety of reasons in sweet and simple language, and in ways that appeal to kids.  Trees are nice because of leaves rustling in the wind, and shade that the baby sleeps under, and tall trunks and limbs to play pirate ship on, and apples to eat and shelter for the house.  All of this and more, in simple persuasive speech, surrounded by simple, old-fashioned, nostalgic illustrations.  A solid read, and a bit longer in the telling than I expected, but still well within the age-range for me.  I think this might be the first time I've actually used it in storytime, and I'm glad I took the chance.