Back to non-thematic storytimes this week. No holidays, no National Month of whatever, just me and whatever quirky theme my strange mind has dredged up in the last few weeks. I do love picking out picture books to present to kids. It's a fun mix of curating content and balancing ages and lengths and art styles and how complex or difficult the wording is... so much to think about. When I choose badly, and the storytime goes poorly, it's quite frustrating, but when they flow nicely, that half hour is just a delightful flow of narrative and story from me to the families.
Fix-It Duck
Jez Alborough
ISBN: 0060006994
Spunky but accident-prone Duck tries to "fix-it" with problems that are usually his own fault.
It's raining outside, so when a DRIP falls PLOP into Duck's tea, he immediately thinks the roof is leaking. This is a job for Fix-It Duck! But he can't reach the roof. So he goes to borrow Sheep's ladder, and in the process, notices the camper's skylight is broken. Fix-It Duck is on the case - but he breaks the window. Now Sheep's house is leaking too! Fix-It Duck can fix it, by towing Sheep's camper under Goat's shed. But Fix-It Duck has left tools and nails and broken glass lying around, and Sheep's Jeep gets a flat! No worries for Fix-It Duck, who offers his own truck - which can't hitch to Sheep's camper. A creative re-use of the ladder fixes that, until a wild swerve around a curve (because Duck is a bad driver, obvs) spirals the situation beyond even what the optimistic and ever-hopeful Duck can manage to fix. Poor Sheep.
My Apron
Eric Carle
ISBN: 0399226850
True story from Carle's childhood, where he helped his uncle plaster a building for a day.
Uncle Adam is a plasterer, and he has a snazzy white apron with a pocket, and works on buildings all day, coating them with protective and beautiful white plaster. The boy Carle gets an apron made by his aunt, and spends the day as a proud and effective helper in this very short and sweet story.
Building a House
Byron Barton
ISBN: 0688842917
Barton's trademark blocky colors and thick outlines are joined by rare humanistic people.
We start with a green hill (that color blocking!) and follow in quick succession the steps of house-building, from digging out the ground, foundation and flooring, walls, rafters, roof, plumbing and wiring, finishing, and painting. The house is built (and garishly colored) in the end, ready for the final step of building a house: standing ready as a family moves in. Simple words and clear illustrations, but everything is accurate and straightforward and realistic.
Showing posts with label Building a House. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Building a House. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 8, 2016
Tuesday, July 15, 2014
Summer Reading Program 2014. Week 5: Engineering (My Original Plan)
Still no AC this week. Very warm, despite fans. Families still great, kids still lovely.
Because of the heat, I switched things up a bit. My original plan was to read Willy and the Cardboard Boxes by Lizi Boyd, How a House is Built by Gail Gibbons, and Demolition by Sally Sutton (all of which I'll review below, because they are awesome books, and I'm sad I didn't get to do them this time.) Instead, I had a whole different line-up of shorter, easier books, which I'll also review in the next post, because they are also quite nice, and the kids enjoyed them.
My Original Plan:
Willy and the Cardboard Boxes
Lizi Boyd
ISBN: 9780670836369
A boy goes to work with his dad and spends the day with a set of empty cardboard boxes, which turn into many imaginary things.
I like this story for a lot of reasons. First, we have a dad taking his son to work, which is nice. Next, we have the dad being supportive and helpful towards his son's self-play activities (offering advice, giving scissors and tape, checking in on him but not interrupting). After that we have Willy himself, creating an awesome stream-of-consciousness adventure fueled pretty much entirely by some boxes and markers. The story is longer, but it flows well, and the ending where Willy and his dad head back home is surprisingly touching.
Demolition
Sally Sutton, illustrated by Brian Lovelock
ISBN: 9780763664930
Pencil and watercolor? illustrations of oversized but realistic construction equipment, lots of sound effects.
A really good pick for the middle, because it's so short and lively, unfortunately it was out of place in my replacement (oh my lord it's so hot) line-up of reads today. Despite the fun of the book, and the great rhymes and word-play, I would have preferred that it either stick with the theme of demolition, leaving an empty bare place for the next construction, or that the creation of the park at the end was more integrated into the story. Have to say that I like Roadwork (same author/illustrator) a little better for that exact reason, even though my go-to book for road-building is Easy Street by Rita Gray, illustrated by Mary Bono (which I also need to use again and review). Niggles aside, I doubt that toddlers obsessed with construction equipment are even going to notice, and it's great fun to read.
How a House is Built
Gail Gibbons
ISBN: 9780823412327
Simple primary-colors and clean lines show off the process of constructing and moving into a house.
Extremely similar to Byron Barton's Building a House, but with more text and the illustrations are slightly more sophisticated, and often show chronology through inset panels (like a comic strip or "classic" graphic novel). The small pictures can present difficulties for larger groups, but despite that, I prefer this one unless I specifically need a short read because it has much more information and more specific construction details. I find that kids are really interested in the details, so they're willing to sit longer when they're hearing bits they haven't learned about before (plumbing and wiring especially seem fascinating).
So, I'm a bit sad that I didn't get to use these good books today, but they're a great program all together, and I'm going to hit them up again probably in the fall when school starts back up.
Because of the heat, I switched things up a bit. My original plan was to read Willy and the Cardboard Boxes by Lizi Boyd, How a House is Built by Gail Gibbons, and Demolition by Sally Sutton (all of which I'll review below, because they are awesome books, and I'm sad I didn't get to do them this time.) Instead, I had a whole different line-up of shorter, easier books, which I'll also review in the next post, because they are also quite nice, and the kids enjoyed them.
My Original Plan:
Willy and the Cardboard Boxes
Lizi Boyd
ISBN: 9780670836369
A boy goes to work with his dad and spends the day with a set of empty cardboard boxes, which turn into many imaginary things.
I like this story for a lot of reasons. First, we have a dad taking his son to work, which is nice. Next, we have the dad being supportive and helpful towards his son's self-play activities (offering advice, giving scissors and tape, checking in on him but not interrupting). After that we have Willy himself, creating an awesome stream-of-consciousness adventure fueled pretty much entirely by some boxes and markers. The story is longer, but it flows well, and the ending where Willy and his dad head back home is surprisingly touching.
Demolition
Sally Sutton, illustrated by Brian Lovelock
ISBN: 9780763664930
Pencil and watercolor? illustrations of oversized but realistic construction equipment, lots of sound effects.
A really good pick for the middle, because it's so short and lively, unfortunately it was out of place in my replacement (oh my lord it's so hot) line-up of reads today. Despite the fun of the book, and the great rhymes and word-play, I would have preferred that it either stick with the theme of demolition, leaving an empty bare place for the next construction, or that the creation of the park at the end was more integrated into the story. Have to say that I like Roadwork (same author/illustrator) a little better for that exact reason, even though my go-to book for road-building is Easy Street by Rita Gray, illustrated by Mary Bono (which I also need to use again and review). Niggles aside, I doubt that toddlers obsessed with construction equipment are even going to notice, and it's great fun to read.
How a House is Built
Gail Gibbons
ISBN: 9780823412327
Simple primary-colors and clean lines show off the process of constructing and moving into a house.
Extremely similar to Byron Barton's Building a House, but with more text and the illustrations are slightly more sophisticated, and often show chronology through inset panels (like a comic strip or "classic" graphic novel). The small pictures can present difficulties for larger groups, but despite that, I prefer this one unless I specifically need a short read because it has much more information and more specific construction details. I find that kids are really interested in the details, so they're willing to sit longer when they're hearing bits they haven't learned about before (plumbing and wiring especially seem fascinating).
So, I'm a bit sad that I didn't get to use these good books today, but they're a great program all together, and I'm going to hit them up again probably in the fall when school starts back up.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)