Tuesday Storytime (& LAST SRP): Monster Foods

Our last summer reading program - I feel like I've missed so much of the program this year because I've been assigned to other tasks away from the circulation desk, and also had to miss several program days.  It seems to have gone smoothly and everyone in my programs enjoyed themselves (and reported good things about the others).  Now for the long awaited recovery period until next spring!

Book Lists for Storytime and Summer Reading were identical this time around, so titles are in the order I gave them, and simply listed the once.

Monster Chefs

Brian and Liam Anderson

ISBN: 9781596438088

Monster Chefs have to find something new for the king to eat, but keep coming up empty-clawed.

Very cute, and the twist at the end is very nice (I very much appreciate the character design of the twist.)  The king of monsters is tired of eating eyeballs in ketchup, and demands his four chefs venture into the world to find something new to eat, or become dinner themselves.  Each finds an animal, who is clever enough to talk themselves out of being dinner, to the sadness of the chefs, except the last chef, who goes in a completely different direction (no pun intended) to get themselves out of the stew. 

Betty Goes Bananas

Steve Antony

ISBN: 9780553507614

Betty the baby gorilla has a bit of a temper problem, exacerbated when she encounters a recalcitrant banana.

I love the way that temper tantrums are presented here, with a quick escalation, and a just-as-quick calming - just the way kids themselves at that age operate.  Betty really wants to eat that banana, but things just keep going wrong!  It won't open, then it is open, but SHE wanted to open it, then it BREAKS!  Whatever will Betty do?  Throw a tantrum, of course.

LMNO Peas

Keith Baker

ISBN: 9781416991410

Lively peas in costume frolic thematically around giant pastel capital letters.

I normally don't read straight alphabet books in storytimes, and even number/counting concept books are difficult, because they're soooo limited as far as actual story arch.  It's just a straight recitation of things, with a common theme or a silly catch, or perhaps both (looking at you, chicka chicka boom boom) but not much substance.  LMNO Peas is not the best storytime read, but it's at least cute and has enough interesting vocabulary to get through a recitation.  These peas are alphabet peas, and they have professions and interests that span from A-Z.  The drawings are quite detailed, but the pages are large and well-filled, so they're visually interesting even to the kids in the back rows.  It helps that Baker has a great ear, so the reading (despite the vocabulary lessons) is smooth and the rhymes and cadence just flows right out.  Makes it so much easier when it rolls nicely out like that.

Tuesday Storytime (and SRP): Knights and Princesses

Knights and Princesses today, and a lovely line-up of books, with a list of alternates and second-stringers.

Reading Lists:

Storytime:
The Princess Knight (a bit long, but we managed)
King Jack and the Dragon
The Bravest Knight

Summer Reading:
The Princess Knight
Princess Grace
Walter the Baker


Pubdata and Reviews:

The Princess Knight
Cornelia Funke, illustrated by Kerstin Meyer, translated by Anthea Bell
ISBN: 0439536308
Line drawings of spunky characters.  Violetta is trained in knighthood, and the King is shocked when she acts on it.

Violetta is the youngest royal child and after raising three Princes to be virtuous and powerful knights, the King sees no reason to change tacks, and raises Violetta the same way.  By training at night in secret, she masters the challenges despite being small and frail, and fights under a pseudonym to win her own hand in marriage, handily beating all comers (including her big brothers).


King Jack and the Dragon
Peter Bently, illustrated by Helen Oxenbury
ISBN: 9780803736986
Oxenbury's signature drawings, and a trio of adorable and imaginative young knights and kings.

King Jack and his two loyal knights built the castle and the throne room, and had adventures all day, but Jack is left behind alone in the castle (a large packing box) when giants (parents) carry the knights off into the gathering darkness.  Jack holds up as best he can, but he's menaced by a giant four-footed creature - a dragon!  ... well, actually mom and dad with flashlights, fetching him off to bed himself.  So cute.


The Bravest Knight
Mercer Meyer
ISBN: 9780803732063
A pugnacious page serves in a vividly imagined fantasy world until things get a little too grim.


Princess Grace
Mary Hoffman, illustrated by Cornelius Van Wright & Ying-Hwa Hu
ISBN: 9780803732605
Grace of "Amazing Grace" fame appears once again, learning about real princesses.

Grace is back, and this time she's inspired to be a fairy-tale princess on her class float in the yearly parade - until she looks a little closer and realizes that wearing floaty non-specific dresses and waiting around to be rescued by a prince isn't very fun.  Teacher comes to the rescue with stories of actual princesses, and of princesses from specific cultures and countries, inspiring the whole class to take the princess (and prince) idea and make it their own.


Walter the Baker
Eric Carle
ISBN: 0689800789
Walter screws up the Duchess's scone, so he's got until morning to create an impossible bread that ends up becoming the first pretzel.

This one is only somewhat shoehorned into the Princes and Princesses and Knights theme, but it does have a Duke and Duchess, and I falsely remembered Walter becoming Knighted at the end (he doesn't, sadly).  But it's still a cute story, and a great "just so" origin for pretzels.


Second String:

Princess Me
Karma Wilson
ISBN: 9781416940982
A smidge too "pretty pretty princess" for a mixed-gender group, and also some of the qualities of princesshood are a little limiting and traditional.  It's sweet and cute and mostly harmless, but just not enough to make the cut against something like Princess Grace.

A Frog Prince
Alix Berenzy
ISBN: 0805004262
Waaaaaaaaaaay too long.  Illustrations are to die for, and the fairy tale is delightful, but there's no way I could get through that AND two other books, even for the older crowd.

The Princess and the Pig
Jonathan Emmett, illustrated by Poly Bernatene
ISBN: 9780802723345
A very close call, but I had read it recently in storytime, and wanted to read Walter the Baker for SRP.

The Princess and the Pea
Rachel Isadora
ISBN: 9780399246111
LOVED this African-inspired rendition of the Princess and the Pea, but decided to go with non-traditional fairy tales instead.

Tuesday Storytime and Summer Reading: Dragons!

The very best Fantastic creatures are dragons.  No question about it.  And there are getting to be some really good dragon books in the picture book world.

Storytime Lineup:
Me and My Dragon
The Crocodile Who Didn't Like Water
Dragons Love Tacos

Summer Reading Lineup:
Not Your Typical Dragon
When A Dragon Moves In
Dragons Love Tacos

Info and (short) Reviews:

Me and My Dragon
David Biedrzycki
ISBN: 9781580892780
A boy walks through the process of adopting a dragon like any other pet.

The Crocodile Who Didn't Like Water
Gemma Merino
ISBN: 9780735841635
Our croc isn't like his siblings, but he really wants to be around them - just not in the water.

Dragons Love Tacos
Adam Rubin, illustrated by Daniel Salmieri
ISBN: 9780803736801
Dragons love tacos, but watch out for that spicy salsa - it'll get you every time!

Not Your Typical Dragon
Dan Bar-el, illustrated by Tim Bowers
ISBN: 9780670014026
Crispin (best dragon name ever) doesn't breathe fire - he's just a bit different, but it'll all turn out ok.

When A Dragon Moves In
Jodi Moore, illustrated by Howard McWilliam
ISBN: 9780979974670
A boy at the beach gets into a little bit of trouble with his "dragon's" crazy antics.




 

Tuesday Storytimes (and Summer Reading)

I've been away at a conference the last few weeks, but life (and storytime, and the summer reading program) goes on, so we had surrogate storytellers the last two Tuesdays. Nonetheless, I set up the books and programs as I always do, and I'll give the titles and a quick overview of what we did the last two Tuesdays (There's no storytime this Tuesday: we're on a short break. The whole system takes a week to breathe in the middle of the summer over 4th of July holidays.)

As a note, our state theme this year is "get up and go" with focuses on sports, exercise, health, and nutrition. We here decided to mix it up and go with our own county-wide theme of "Fantastic Reads and Where to Find Them" to link up with our upcoming comicon on August 6th. I personally got bitten by the programming/RA bug too hard as a child, so I decided that I was going to link the Fantastic Reads weekly themes back into nutrition, and go with a personal branch theme of "Fantastic Foods and Where to Find Them" - thus at least one title, sometimes more, once or twice ALL of the titles each week not only are about fantastical or fantasy creatures/situations, but also have to do with food or eating. Because it was fun to find them all. Because I'm weird.

So, for Tuesday the 21st, our theme was Extra-Ordinary Animals
For storytime I set up these three:

1) The Gruffalo
2) Gobble it Up
3) Bear Wants More

and for the Summer Reading Program with the older kids, I set aside these three:

1) The Gruffalo
2) Gobble it Up
3) I YAM a Donkey


For Tuesday the 28th, our theme was Magical Moves
For storytime I set up these three:

1) Runaway Wok
2) Potato Joe
3) Unicorn Thinks He's Pretty Great 

and for the Summer Reading Program, these three:

1) Runaway Wok
2) Strega Nona's Harvest
3) Unicorn Thinks He's Pretty Great

As you can see, there's a bit of overlap each week. That's on purpose. I don't like that the little storytime kids miss out on a lot of the fun of the summer reading program because they're not quite old enough for the big kid programs. That's why the "special programs" at Pendleton are always "all ages" and why I also try to overlap the reading themes for them during the summer, to the point of even choosing the same books to read as often as I can. I don't know if they'll be talking or thinking about the program when they're not here, but I feel like it's important not to leave them out or have them be doing something totally different and unrelated.

Now for the pubdata and some short reviews:

The Gruffalo
Julia Donaldson, illustrated by Axel Scheffler
ISBN: 0803723865
A mouse talks a big game, making up an imaginary predator, and has to bluff it out when it actually appears.

I really love the smack-talking mouse, and how well and cleverly it thinks on it's feet, and the fact that the author made up the monster because she couldn't get "tiger" to scan in the original rhymes.



Gobble It Up! A fun song about eating!
Jim Arnosky
ISBN: 9780439903622
No we did not sing it.  Yes there's a CD with this book.  Various wild animals (heavy on the sea-life) celebrate eating.

It's a great silly story with a great silly refrain that aims to be catchy and also revolting at the same time - perfect for kids in a group setting to yell "ewwwww nooooo grooooosssss" when each new preferred food (from baby ducklings to giant squid) come down the pike. Delicious fun.



Bear Wants More
Karma Wilson, illustrated by Jane Chapman
ISBN: 9780689845093
Bear and Friends are back as Bear wakes up in spring with a post-hibernation hunger.

Chapman's illustrations remain perfect, and the pastel Disneyfied multi-species friendship between all these animals makes it a perfect fit for the fantastical realm - there is no hard-hitting journalistic realism about animal behavior here. But that's ok, because what we do have is a lovely sweet tale of friends helping friends find good things to eat.



I YAM a Donkey!
Cece Bell
ISBN: 9780544087200
No real connection to fantasy or food other than the ongoing pun/wordplay/confusion, but fun regardless.

Cece Bell has a really fun naughty streak that she shows off to perfection in this story, where a talking yam and a donkey have a decidedly silly battle over verbiage. This gets into slang, into accents, into changing social registers and what's appropriate to say (or imply) and is overall funny and preposterous.



The Runaway Wok
Ying Chang Compestine, illustrated by Sebastia Serra
ISBN: 9780525420682
"A Chinese New Year Tale" celebrates generosity and plenty with a magical wok that steals from the rich and gives to the poor.

Delightful twist on the general "magic cooking pot" theme, where the magical wok finds its way to a poor but generous family and brings about the ruin of a snobby and greedy rich family into the bargain.


Unicorn Thinks He's Pretty Great
Bob Shea
ISBN: 9781423159520
An Eeyore-like goat (blue and everything) mopes about the Unicorn who just moved in.

This isn't really my style of book, but it's fun and clever, easy to read, and the illustrations are cute enough.  It's not as painful as Skippyjon Jones, I'll say that.  I think we were supposed to read it last year, but I didn't pick it out - unfortunately the craft for this program relied on there being a unicorn book, and I wasn't able to find a good substitute (seriously you picture book people? this is a glaring flaw!).  The set-up comes as the unicorn goes on about how awesome the goat is at various things, leading (of course) to the goat grudgingly complimenting the unicorn to make it feel better.


Potato Joe
Keith Baker
ISBN: 9780152062309
I flipping love Keith Baker.  A counting book with potatoes.  Talking ones.  Exactly.

You know the old "one potato" rhyme? Well, now it's actually got real potatoes, and it goes on and on and on, with various named potatoes, (and a tomato AND a really big special guest) and counts all the way up to 10 and back down again, putting the potatoes to rest in the soil once more.  It's the cutest ever.


Strega Nona's Harvest
Tomie dePaola
ISBN: 9780399252914
Compare and contrast Big Anthony's and Strega Nona's gardens and harvests as the season goes on.

Strega Nona has a nice lovely organized garden, where she lines the patches up and makes the rows straight, and asks for juuuuuust enough garden magic to get a good crop.  Big Anthony isn't quite that careful, and to be safe, asks for twice as much garden magic.  As the season goes on, Big Anthony has a bit of a jungle on his hands, and Strega Nona's garden is as perfect as ever - but where are all these bunches of mysterious vegetables coming from every night?

Tuesday Storytime: Summer Reading: Fantastic Friends

Our theme this year is Fantastic Reads and Where to Find Them, and so all of our selections this year are a little fantastical. Our statewide theme is health-focused, so as the summer progresses, lots of the stories will focus on fantastical foods, but for the first storytime, we're going with Fantastic Friends.

Larf
Ashley Spires
ISBN: 9781554537013
Larf is a hipster sasquatch who is conflicted about being the only sasquatch - especially when he maybe isn't?

This is a sweet story about the pros and cons of putting yourself out there to find a friend, and will be especially resonant with shy or introverted or self-sufficient kids (and adults, tbh).  Larf lives alone with his rabbit Eric, and is happily solo, until he sees an advertisement for a sasquatch at a nearby city, and begins to ponder (and sweat) the idea of having someone else around.  What if's and catastrophizing abound, and a somewhat obvious twist at the end will have the adults laughing.


Dinosaur Kisses
David Ezra Stein
ISBN: 9780763661045
Dinah hatches out and sees a cute pair of fluffy animals kissing. She wants to try, but dinosaur kisses are dangerous to everyone else.

Dinah tries very hard to kiss the other inhabitants of her prehistoric world, but fails miserably; head-butting them, stomping them into the ground, even eating one by accident! When a sibling hatches out next to her, she's overjoyed to finally have someone to share her own style of dinosaur "kisses."


Hey, Al
Arthur Yorinks, Richard Egielski
No ISBN in book: Farrar, Straus & Giroux 1986.
Caldecott winner.  Al and his dog Eddie are fed up with the hard life.  A paradise of birds seems great, but there's a really big catch.

This story is a really excellent showcase of how much storytelling you can pack into a very short narrative, with tight word choices and excellent illustrations.  It even has a delightful Icarus and Daedalus shout-out in there. Beautiful language, great characterization, and a sharp message about creating your own happiness and not being duped by things when they're too good to be true.