Tuesday Storytime: Busy Machines

This theme was mainly an excuse to use Digger Dog, so I could have fun with the big fold-out pages.

Digger Dog

William Bee, illustrated by Cecilia Johansson

ISBN: 9780763661625

Bright cartoony colors and lots of action in a repeating-framework storyline.

Digger Dog sniffs out a bone, and wants it.  So he starts digging, but he's going to need a little help.  Repeated story framings intro bigger and bigger diggers (love the language here) until finally he's able to dig out what must be the biggest bone in the world, right?  The last (4-page double-open spread) reveals something to the readers that Digger doesn't know, and makes for a great reveal.

Easy Street

Rita Gray, illustrated by Mary Bono

ISBN: 0525476571

Clay figures and cut-layered landscapes anchor a repetitive rhyming song of roadbuilding.

This has been a favorite for a while, but I purposefully try not to use my favorites more than once every couple of years or so, because there are so many other great books that I feel like I have a responsibility to introduce and showcase.  Easy Street has a road-construction crew of diverse (ethnically and gender) working on a road from start to finish, with an easy-flowing rhyming couplet on each spread, neatly and succinctly narrating the action.  This book also rewards a close look at the illustrations, which are stylized and brightly colored, but the street and background are made of actual sand and rocks (or their visual simulacrums - I think the background cuts are made from sandpapers) and are extremely detailed and visually impart the same concepts as the narration.  A really clever book, with a really easy vocabulary and very easy on the eyes, and extremely short and direct.

Go! Go! Go! Stop!

Charise Mericle Harper

ISBN: 9780375869242

Anthropomorphized trucks and work vehicles are directed by "Little Green" who is soon joined by "Little Red."

This one was a delivery discovery - part of the reason I like working the front lines is that I get to see the materials flow through the library and make serendipitous discoveries of things - either stuff that I like personally, or things that are helpful for programming or for adding to the collection.  I feel like there's a "caught by chance" element that isn't really able to be duplicated by any actual process of selecting or searching.  But back to the story.  Little Green only knows one word, and he uses it to great impact helping the vehicles build the great bridge.  Until there is just too much GO and things get a little crazy.  Just in time, in rolls a newcomer, Little Red.  Guess what HIS word is?  Once order is restored, the two colors begin to work together, and the bridge is completed, just in time for a third color to roll on in.  Little Yellow appears right at the end to keep the speed on the new bridge down to a safe level.  Cute and sweet, and lots of yelling Go! and Stop! from both me and the audience.