Tuesday Storytime: Loving Feelings

We're getting close to Valentine's Day, and so my coworker is excited about all the sweet loving books there are out there to choose from. She was a bit disappointed that I used Mama, Do You Love Me last week, but these three are just as sweet.

Sam and Jump
Jennifer K. Mann
ISBN: 9780763679477
Jump is Sam's stuffed rabbit, and they're best friends, until a fateful trip to the beach where Sam happily plays with Thomas (yay for an AA character!) ... and LEAVES Jump behind! Happy endings abound, but the book spends a good deal of time with the physical signs of feeling loneliness and guilt and sorrow.

Always
Emma Dodd
ISBN: 9780763675448
Sweet book, but I don't know that I like the silver print conceit enough for it to carry the whole book. I would have maybe liked to see the capstone line repeated through the book to make it more positive and repetitive for younger listeners. Still adorable, just like all of Dodd's work.

I Will Love You
Alyssa Satin Capucilli, illustrated by Lisa Anchin
ISBN: 9780545803106
A white mom and an ambiguously brown curly-haired girl feature in this breezy testament to parental love. Beautiful spreads, but this one is a litttttle too unironically sappy for my taste. It's still very sweet, and sure to tug at the heartstrings of any less cynical parent. Very pretty pastels and water-color feels to the spreads and panels.

Tuesday Storytime: Halloween is Coming

One week til Halloween, and because of the shared schedule, it's the first time in about 10 years that I will NOT be doing a storytime on Halloween. So I did some really cute Halloween prep books this week instead.

And Then Comes Halloween
Tom Brenner, illustrated by Holly Meade
ISBN: 9780763636593
This is an excellent Halloween book. It has a lot of atmospheric fall details, and lots of focus on the seasons changing and on very generic fall decorating with corn stalks and scarecrows, and only really gets into the Halloween-specific stuff right at the end. The focus is also on the creative process of thinking up and creating your own costume, and on the community fun of trick-or-treating in a group and sorting and swapping candy together. Very lighthearted and informative, with really lovely language.

Duck and Goose Find a Pumpkin
Tad Hills
ISBN: 9780375858130 (board book)
I was lucky that this was a very small group, because this is a pretty small board book format. Duck and Goose and Thistle appear in this really short story, and I ask for a lot of audience interaction to drag it out a bit longer. Thistle has a very nice pumpkin, and Duck and Goose decide they want one too, so they go in search of it, with not much luck until Thistle reappears with a hint.

Happy Halloween, Biscuit!
Alyssa Satin Capucilli, illustrated by Pat Schories
ISBN: 9780694012206 (page-end-flaps)
Biscuit and his little girl are prepping for Halloween, which means the little girl is prepping, and Biscuit is getting into messes and generally being an adorable pest, revealed by the flaps on each of the far left side pages.  Sweet and gentle and with cute little "mysteries" to solve or questions to ponder on each spread.

Tuesday Storytime: Cats

A sweet trio of cat stories today.

Little Spotted Cat

Alyssa Satin Capucilli, illustrated by Dan Andreasen

ISBN: 0803726929

Soft-edged watercolors and a big-headed kitten - think a sedate Skippyjon.

"It's time for your nap, you Little Spotted Cat" says Mama Cat, but kitten has other plans, and creates chaos (as kittens are wont to do) through the yard before Mama finally physically intervenes and forces a general cleaning up of messes before naptime is enforced.  Sweet, repetitive, and adorable illustrations.

Have You Seen my Cat?

Eric Carle

ISBN: 22960000748425

Eric Carle's illustration style isn't amazingly served by this slight travelogue, but the cats are fun.

A boy goes through the world and asks various people (of various cultures, somewhat stereotypically presented) if they have seen his cat, and all respond with a cat of their geographical area.  We start with a bang with a lion in a zoo, then wander through bobcats and mountain lions and florida jaguars before crossing the ocean and getting into the serious wild-cats of the world, then end up with a persian on a blue rug before finally getting home to a collage of multi-colored house-cats.  I think the ending would have been better served by having a single individual cat as the finale, but even so, it's a fun short romp through cat varieties.

Cat Secrets

Jef Czekaj

ISBN: 22960000417930

A trio of computer-graphic-style cats questions whether the readers are cats, worthy of reading their Secret book.

I don't do interactive books very often, because this age-group is a little young for the concept to really work well.  The parents enjoy them immensely, so I do throw one in if I think the other qualities of the book can carry it for the little ones.  This one fits the bill perfectly.  The illustrations are punchy and the expressions are clear.  In addition to breaking the fourth wall, the book also asks for audience participation, so the kids can meow, purr, and stretch like cats, even if they don't quite understand why.  The sub-story (unmentioned by the dialogue) with the mouse is adorable, easy to point out and follow, and has a lovely payoff at the end.  I would love to do this with a group of kindies or 1st graders, but parents will have to do.  

Tuesday Storytime: Halloween!

 I love Halloween storytimes!

We started off with the delightful Zombelina, moved through the equally new and strikingly illustrated Ten Orange Pumpkins, and ended on a lighthearted note with Happy Halloween, Biscuit.

Zombelina
Kristyn Crow, illustrated by Molly Idle (Flora and the Flamingo)
ISBN: 9780802728036
Sweet green zombie gets stage fright at her dance recital, until her spooky family arrives to cheer.

This book is ADORABLE.  I will probably read it on non-Halloween nights just as a dancing or performance book.  (Maybe with Rock n Roll Mole?)  Zombelina loves dancing at home, and her loving parents finally take her out to buy supplies and start in dance classes.  Her classmates are a little weirded out by this limb-losing ballerina, but her teacher is accepting and encouraging, and she blooms.  Until the night of her recital, where she gets stage fright, and starts acting like an actual zombie and scares her classmates and audience away.  Her family arrives and cheers her on in a more familiar way, and she performs beautifully, then is whisked home for a celebratory dinner.  Boatloads of wordplay and clever jokes with the illustrations had the parents laughing, while the kids seemed to enjoy our perky adorable heroine.


Ten Orange Pumpkins: A Counting Book
Stephen Savage
ISBN: 9780803739383
Already reviewed.

This one worked very well in the middle spot.  I got through the spider with aplomb (I thought) and the kids especially liked the alligators in the river and the skeleton pirate crew.


Happy Halloween, Biscuit
Alyssa Satin Capucilli, illustrated by Pat Schories
ISBN: 9780694012206
Lift-the-flap book showing Biscuit the puppy hiding or getting into minor trouble on Halloween.

Super cute and as inoffensive as it is possible to be and still cover dressing up in costume and trick-or-treating.  Biscuit and his little girl go out to the pumpkin patch to make a jack-o-lantern, pick out costumes to wear, meet costumed friends, and get treats from a family-member's house before going back home to bed.  Very cute, and one of the parents checked it out after storytime!