Sometimes I find a book that just screams for me to find a weird, off-the-wall storytime theme to build around it. Today was one of those storytimes. I have to wonder sometimes what the adults think of my selection processes. :)
The Owl and the Woodpecker
Brian Wildsmith
ISBN: 9781595780436
Psychedelic colors and vivid page compositions.
Woodpecker lives in his tree, and is happy working all day (peck peck peck) and sleeping all night. Which works great until Owl moves in next door and likes to hunt all night and sleep all day - but he can't because of the noise. This is a great child-level illustration of neighborly feuds, and how they eventually embroil the entire community, and sometimes take a great danger or a terrible event to overcome. In this instance, a family of beavers decides Owl's tree is super tasty, and a storm rolls in to finish it off - Woodpecker saves the sleeping Owl, and helps him move to a new location, whereupon they become much better friends than they ever were neighbors.
The Knight and the Dragon
Tomie DePaola (Strega Nona)
ISBN: 0399207074
Naive line art with bright primary colors, becomes a "wordless" book about halfway through,
A knight and a dragon live near each other, but they've never fought. After finding books about epic knight vs dragon showdowns, they're both game to try it out. A series of comic-book-style panels show them practicing alone, their polite invitations to join in combat, then illustrates the resulting battle, which goes less than well. A passing princess notices their difficulties, and provides them with a new set of books; "Outdoor Cooking" and "How to Build a B.B.Q." which brings about a much more successful collaboration. Super cute, and almost funny enough to ease the sting of not being able to use The Reluctant Dragon like I wanted to.
Too Tall Houses
Gianna Marino
ISBN: 9780670013142
Gouache and pencil in a "southwestern" palette, with expressive main characters and peculiar houses,
Rabbit and Owl are good neighbors, until Rabbit's corn gets too high for Owl to see his beloved forest. So Owl builds his house a bit higher, but now Rabbit's garden is in the shade. So Rabbit builds his house a bit taller, and plants his garden on top (spilling water and dropping tomatoes onto Owl) and of course Owl has to retaliate - until the both of them are at the top of rickety miles-tall structures waving ominously in the wind. What goes up must come down, and a suitably chastened Owl and Rabbit pool their remaining meager resources to build one small house with a lovely garden, overlooking the forest. Funny, pretty, smooth-flowing narrative, and short, which is a rare set of attributes to find together.
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