Tuesday Storytime: Give Me That!

Cute picks, done by my coworker.

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie
Laura Joffe Numeroff, illustrated by Felicia Bond
ISBN: 9780060245863
Classic and still funny "house that Jack built" story with unexpected and escalating situations.

Max the Brave
Ed Vere
ISBN: 9781492616511
Max the kitten desperately wants to chase mice - except he's never seen one. So he goes around to all the neighbor animals and asks them about it, and everyone is nice and helpful and truthful... except the mouse, for obvious reasons, who says that he's a monster himself, but points out a particularly gross-looking actual monster and cheerfully identifies THAT as a mouse. Max IS very brave, but that "mouse" was a bit much for him, so now he amuses himself chasing "monsters."

I Want That Nut!
Madeline Valentine
ISBN: 9781101940389
Mouse and Chipmunk have the poor fortune to BOTH find a particularly lovely nut at the SAME TIME. They muster all of their maturity and decide that Chipmunk should have it, but after a few hours of smothering this lovely nut with affection, Mouse STEALS it! Now Mouse is the one treating the nut like a visiting dignitary - until Chipmunk STEALS it back! Escalations occur, but eventually the nut is gone, and perhaps Mouse and Chipmunk have learned a bit about playing together and sharing things.

Tuesday Storytime: Valentine's Day

Valentines books are so much fun. I got a late start on them and so I went with several tried-and-true classics, but there are some other good ones on hold that should filter in soon, and I will review them when I get a chance to see them. Always good to have ideas and books for next time around!

The Day It Rained Hearts
Felicia Bond
ISBN: 0066238765
Scribbly backgrounds and stylized simple outline cartoon characters still manage to carry sentiment and interest in this short story of personalized and thoughtful valentines. I also like our double-barreled named heroine: Cornelia Augusta. She plucks the falling "rain" hearts, and uses them carefully to make valentines for her friends, all of them carefully individualized. Short and sweet.

A Short History of Valentine's Day
Sally Lee & Gail Saunders-Smith
ISBN:9781491460986
Lots of historical photographs liven up a VERY short and preschool-aimed history of the concepts and impetus behind the current holiday. Like some of the others in this series, the end is a bit abrupt.

Just Because You're Mine
Sally Lloyd-Jones, illustrated by Frank Endersby
ISBN: 9780062014764
Daddy red squirrel and his baby squirrel are out and about for the day, with baby squirrel demonstrating all the amazing squirrely things he can do, and wondering if those things are why his Daddy loves him. The answer of course doesn't come til the end, repeating the title. Really adorable sweet art, like Sam McBratney, Ivan Bates, or Anita Jeram. Sweet without being maudlin.

Tuesday Storytime: Tickles and Tumbles

Three cute ones, and they all start with the letter T, in addition to being about tickling and teasing and tumbling around. I have way too much fun sometimes finding these sets of books.

Tweak Tweak
Eve Bunting, illustrated by Sergio Ruzzier
ISBN: 9780618998517
Baby elephant goes Tweak Tweak on mama's tail every time they come across anything new and interesting. Mama is tolerant and gentle and explains the differences between what can and can't be done, while suggesting alternative actions that CAN be taken. Very gentle and illuminating, and the illustrations are just plain cute.


Tickle, Tickle
Helen Oxenbury
ISBN: 9780689819856 (board book format, ISBN not on book itself)
Oxenbury crafts a cute but VERY short book with diverse babies and young toddlers all getting tickled and having fun. Sweet.


Tumble Bumble
Felicia Bond
ISBN: 9781886910157 (make sure to get the original hardcover, not the board book - it's sooo tiny)
Bears and alligators and cats and pigs and frogs and mice and bugs and one little boy Oh My! It's a tumble-bumble world for these animals as they bumble through the streets and through a house and into bed. Excellent "scaffolding" story, and lots of fun language.

Tuesday Storytime: Chickens

A bit off the beaten track, but hey, Chickens and baby chicks!

A Chicken Followed Me Home
Robin Page
ISBN: 9781481410281
Nonfiction Q&A style fact-book targeted at the very youngest readers/listeners. Very good info, well presented.

Big Fat Hen
Keith Baker
ISBN: 0152928693
The classic counting rhyme gets a facelift with a slightly-oversized bright collection of spreads.

Big Red Barn
Margaret Wise Brown, illustrated by Felicia Bond
ISBN: 9780060207489
A sweet and gentle look at a person-free day on the farm with animals and their babies.

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.