Tuesday Storytime: Creativity Day

Chase's Calendar of Events is a dangerous tool, y'all.  Some day in January is "creativity day" so off we go!

The Dot

Peter H. Reynolds

ISBN: 0763619612

School-girl doesn't think she is artistic until she's encouraged, then passes the gift along.

Vashti can't draw, but at her teacher's gentle urging, she smacks an angry dot down on a page during art class. Her teacher has her sign it, and then the next day the page is framed and hanging behind the teacher's desk. Now Vashti's on her mettle; she can make a better dot than that! So she does, and learns about different artistic principles (my colleague and I discussed how every book about colors or painting feels incontrovertibly bound to have a section on blending primary colors to make secondary colors) and even art styles.  At the end, during a school art exhibit featuring her extensive works, she encounters another young boy who "can't draw." Vashti gets him to produce a signed squiggle, and the cycle begins again. A great storytime choice, but I do wish the book (or the pictures inside the book) were larger.

Duck! Rabbit! (boardbook)

Amy Krouse Rosenthal, illustrated by Tom Lichtenheld

ISBN (boardbook format): 9781452137339

Hinged on the "duck/rabbit" optical illusion, and a set of offscreen narrators.

CUTEST BOOK EVAR!  I love the arguments for the duck and rabbit, and the various pages where essentially the same picture is repeated over and over and over again with different backgrounds or verbal contexts forcing it to change what it is.  Totally went over the little kids' heads, but the adults were hooked.  A funny "twist" ending made them all crack up, and prompted a question about brachiosaurus.  Superb choice.  Nice and short and funny.  

The Adventures of Beekle, the Unimaginary Friend

Dan Santat

ISBN: 9780316199988

An imaginary friend gets sick of waiting to be imagined, so he sets off to find a friend.

This is the first book that has been one I would not choose myself.  See my initial impressions here if you like (I was unimpressed for various reasons) but I'll talk about it from a storytime perspective here.  Firstly, I initially thought it was too long, and I still think that.  If I had been using it, I would have placed this one first, and used The Dot as my last story. There was a lot of squirming and a lot of kids wandering off. That's something you pick up with experience tho - no way to really teach that juggle between stretching attention spans and keeping interest in the majority. That aside, the kids seemed to like the illustrations and the language was smooth and flowing. I don't know how much they understood the story, but there was a section in the middle that really dragged - the voyage and the initial foray into the city was just SLOW and ponderous. Lots of lost attention during that bit. Overall, not a bad storytime use, discounting the reservations I have about content that are mentioned in my own review.

Tuesday Storytime: Valentines Friends

So many good books about friendships and valentines!  Too hard to narrow down to just three, so I like doing multiple storytimes - there will be more love going around next week!

Friendshape

Amy Krouse Rosenthal, illustrated by Tom Lichtenheld (Exclamation Mark)

ISBN: 9780545436823

The duo behind the visually punny Exclamation Mark returns with a set of four shapes who are excellent friends.  Previously reviewed here.

The four friends (a red rectangle, green equilateral triangle, yellow square, and light blue circle) extol the virtues of friendship in a series of visual puns and clever wordplay.  For example, "Friends welcome others to join in" has the blue circle exclaiming "so glad you could stop by!" to a red octagon (get it?) while "Friends play fair and ..." has the yellow square friend at the end of those ellipses, so kids can learn the phrase "fair and square" on their own.  So cute.  I don't know how much the littles got out of it, but the parents had a blast.

The Day it Rained Hearts

Felicia Bond (If You Give a Mouse a Cookie) 

ISBN: 0066238765 

It rained hearts, so our heroine collects them to decorate and send as valentines to her friends.

This is a great story, because other than the fanciful premise of it raining hearts, the whole premise is about using resources and creating things especially for friends - to make something that would appeal to a friend specifically, not to make generic or mass-market offerings.  The prosaic matter-of-fact storytelling puts the emphasis on creation and consideration of individual quirks and interests, and the illustrations hit them again, even when the text moves on.  Very sweet, very straightforward, and good for a bit before Valentines Day, because of the focus on creating and sending the hearts. 

No Two Alike

Keith Baker (LMNO Peas, Big Fat Hen)

ISBN: 9781442417427

More lyrical and mellow than his previous books, but lush and beautiful; both visually and to read.

Keith Baker is a fantastic artist, and I've enjoyed his concepts.  His illustrations for Big Fat Hen are utterly scrumptious (I've used both it and LMNO Peas in storytimes before) so it's nice to have another by him, and I'm enjoying this meditation on friendship and individual differences very much.  It's a bit of a conceptual leap for littles, but it's still beautiful, and the story flows nicely at the end of the storytime (it is VERY mellow, and very downbeat).  We follow two red birds through a winterscape as they explore the idea that nothing: no two nests, no two snowflakes, no two roads or bridges or fawns or even the little red birds themselves, are exactly alike, and that's precisely how it should be.  Sweet with just a tinge of melancholy.   

2015 Review Round-Up: Picture Book: Friendshape, Amy Krouse Rosenthal & Tom Lichtenheld

Friendshape (Exclamation Mark)
Amy Krouse Rosenthal, illustrated by Tom Lichtenheld
ISBN: 9780545436823
Read December 2015

The entire picture book is a beautifully crafted series of visual puns, and I love every single bit of it.  It's going to show up in storytime, even though the kids won't get it - the grownups will, and it's short enough that I don't feel bad reading something that largely goes over the kids' heads.

So sweet.  So cute.

Tuesday Storytime: You Can Do It!

The exclamation mark from the title is actually a part of the theme today.  I ended up with a generic "reading" coloring sheet, because it's very difficult to get a visual representation of excited achievement.  The struggles I face at work, I tell you.  :)


Katy Did It!
Lorianne Siomades
ISBN: 9781590786024
Patterned-paper collages of bugs and plants and surfaces against a stark white background.

Katy and her little brother Lou, are out of the house for some hopping, but no trouble, as Mama firmly instructs.  Katy does her best, but she keeps causing problems, even though she doesn't mean to!  What's worse, is that little Lou keeps TATTLING on her, calling out "Katy Did It!" every time she puts a foot wrong.  She's glum and dispirited, with no bounce left in her, until she find a group of people who really need her, and she is rewarded by having people celebrate that she "Did" a good thing too.


Hi
Ann Herbert Scott, illustrated by Glo Coalson
ISBN: 0399219641
Sweet watercolors and a simple story of encouragement and connection between people.  Beautifully diverse.

Margarita's mom has taken her to the Post Office, and she tries repeatedly to strike up a conversation with the people in line, but they're all too wrapped up in their own lives and worlds to even notice her.  Sweet perky Margarita's initial "Hi!" gets less and less chirpy (and attentive viewers will notice the sweet Post Office lady is taking note of this as well) until Margarita gets to the front of the line, but her overture is reduced to a whisper by the prior constant rejections.  A sweet happy ending (very quickly) wraps things up, and our toddler is back to her ebullient self again.


Exclamation Mark
Amy Krause Rosenthal, Tom Lichtenheld
ISBN: 9780545436793
Anthropomorphized punctuation marks live in a world of wide-ruled classroom paper.

Our hero starts off sad.  He isn't like the other periods, he stands out - literally!  He tries to fit in, but can't force himself into that shape.  He's sad and confused until he meets an inquisitive mark that also stands out, but she's perfectly happy with her questioning nature, which eventually causes him to explode!  Oh!  Well!  Look at that!  Finally figuring out what he's for is a miracle!  So our hero returns to the other marks in a beautiful state of excitement, showing off the sort of phrases and comments he's good for, and is (of course) accepted for his stand-out abilities!  (just hush and go read it - it's adorable.)

Tuesday Storytime: Mother's Day

Shocked and amazed that there were still Mothers' Day books to choose from on the shelves, so I took it as a mandate to actually correspond with a day of celebration for once.

Bedtime for Mommy
Amy Krouse Rosenthal, illustrated by LeUyen Pham
ISBN: 9781599903415
Vibrant expressive watercolor-and-sketch faces and postures.

I can't believe I haven't done this book for storytime for so long.  I discovered it when it came out, fell in love, and bought it for myself immediately (that happens with me and picture books sometimes).  I've used it for storytimes before, but it must have been a while back.  It's short, adorable, nearly wordless, and made of little vignettes.  Roles are reversed for a whole night while the young girl puts Mommy to bed - with the whole process chronicled, from the inevitable "5 more minutes" to the selecting and reading of the bedtime story (Anna Karenina) to the precise adjustment of the width of the door opening.  And of course the coda is that now it's time for the same process with Daddy.  Just simply adorable.


Bee Frog
Martin Waddell, illustrated by Barbara Firth
ISBN: 9780763633103
Cute perky watercolor frogs in a cute and very short story.

If it weren't for the illustrations, I don't think I'd bother with this slight tale of a baby frog who pretends she's a dragon, gets ignored by her family when she tries to play pretend with them (they're working or reading or sleeping) so she runs away to play by herself, gets bored, and her family comes looking for her.  But, the illustrations are so adorable, the story gets away with being a little twee.  Besides, it's a nice very young-focused entry on the "nobody loves me, everybody hates me, guess I'll go eat worms" impulse that young ones get when they're feeling unjustly treated by the universe at large.


My Monster Mama Loves Me So
Laura Leuk, illustrated by Mark Buehner
ISBN: 9780688168667
Bright dayglow highlight colors and rich saturated dark pages.  Very "Monsters, INC."

A cute little green monster narrates what his Mama does for him, from baking cookies with bugs in, to taking him to the swamp to swim, to teaching him to brush his fangs, all of which shows how she loves him.  Very cute introduction to "scary" monster tropes like bats and spiders and dark nights, all talked about as comforting or lovable.

Tuesday Storytime: Friends can be Different

We had a HUGE crowd this week, lots of boys, lots of energy.  The only one that was a bit of a mismatch was Chopsticks, but a parent wanted to check it out afterwards, so that's a win regardless.

Alex and Lulu: Two of a Kind
Lorena Siminovich
ISBN: 9780763644239
Block-prints and naive blocky-shaped characters.

Alex is a stereotypical boy dog, and Lulu is a stereotypical girl cat.  They are good friends, but Alex begins to think about all the ways they are different, and worries that they can't be friends because they are opposites.  Lulu reassures him that friends are often better when they have some differences, because that makes play and time spent together the richer.  Other than wishing that either Alex or Lulu wasn't majority white, and that they weren't so super-duper stereotypically boy/girl in their interests, this is a very nice calm sweet reminder that friends can and do have interests that are different.


The Story of Fish & Snail
Deborah Freedman
ISBN: 9780670784899
Book-within-a-book, where Fish and Snail live inside a picture book, and Fish explores inside other picture books.  Watercolors against a greyscale background.

Fish is happy being with Snail in their calm book, but Fish does like going out into other stories and bringing the tales back to Snail (who is quite happy to stay and play calm friendly games in their own peaceful book, thank you very much.)  Fish and Snail get into it when Fish wants Snail to come see an interesting (scary) book in person, and Snail gets frightened and lashes out.  But when Fish swims off into another story, Snail realizes being alone is no fun, and bravely goes out into the unfamiliar book to find Fish.  So pretty, so interesting, and a little mind-bending with the background of book-hopping.



Chopsticks
Amy Krause Rosenthal, illustrated by Scott Magoon
ISBN: 9781423107965
(SC Picture Book Award: 2013-2014 school year)
Visual puns all over the place, and asides from background characters/utensils.

Chopsticks do everything together, until an advance training exercise (skewering asparagus) leaves one man down with a broken tip.  Dr. Glue says he'll be right as rain in no time, but meanwhile, his buddy is driving him nuts trying to keep him company.  So the wounded stick sends his hale and hearty friend out into the world alone, to discover that he can have fun alone (playing soccer, baking, playing dress-up) and come back with interesting stories to tell his injured friend.  The story ends with both back upright and healthy, able to work as friends either together or apart.