Tuesday Storytime: Summer Showers

We've finally had some rain here, so it's time for our Summer Showers storytime - I usually do one in spring and one in late summer after the Summer Reading Program finishes off.  In South Carolina, summer is absolutely not over at the end of July - we're just getting started.  Last year it didn't cool down til November, and I don't see that changing much this year either.

Thunder-Boomer!
Shutta Crum, illustrated by Carol Thompson
ISBN: 9780618918651
Loose free scribbly lines and washes of color and lots of small panels and vignettes.

The panels and vignettes make this a little less suitable for storytime, but we had a small-ish group today, so it worked out pretty well.  I love the loose flowing scribbly lines and the slightly sloppy washes of color everywhere, and the differences between the wide-open outside and the slightly cramped and crowded inside.  We start on a hot country afternoon: dad's plowing, mom and kids are cooling by the pond, and a "Thunder-Boomer" rolls in, prompting a scramble: tractor put away, chickens hustled back into the coop, laundry pulled off the line.  The bottom falls out, and poor Dad has to run out to rescue a last broody chicken, and then it's just huddling together while the storm rolls through.  After the rain and wind and hail die back down, they emerge to a wet and clean world, and a tiny kitten, courtesy of the broody chicken and drenched by the storm.


The Big Storm! A Very Soggy Counting Book
Nancy Tafuri
ISBN: 9781416967958
Oddly paced, but short and sweet: forest animals take refuge one by one in a small cave - surprise bears!

Tafuri's lovely drawings with their vibrant colors and clear lines are perfect for this short and sweet count-up-and-back-down.  The frontispieces show a pair of bears heading into a hillside cave, and then the story begins with the smaller woodland creatures swooping in to take refuge from the storm - as the numbers and the animals reveal, they don't know the bears are already there!  All ten crowd in for the night of storms and rumbly thunder, but in the morning the sky is clear, but why can they still hear thunder so loudly?  A mad scramble for the outdoors makes up the count-back-down, and the bears are left peacefully asleep.


Tap Tap Boom Boom
Elizabeth Bluemle, illustrated by G. Brian Karas
ISBN: 9780763656966
An urban thunderstorm brings umbrella vendors and a retreat into the subway station.

The short choppy rhythms of this book and the syncopated speaking patterns and slant-rhymes (at least for me) make this a challenge to read fluidly, but it's a really great book, especially for my area, which is a lot more familiar with farms and suburbs than with subways and city sidewalks.  A Tap Tap Boom Boom rolls in, and as the rain soaks through everything, people retreat to the subway station for refuge and a chance to dry off and socialize for a bit before re-emerging to find a scrubbed-clean city and a nice rainbow.  This one also is good for humanizing and normalizing city life, again a challenge for this particular area.  For a city-life trio, I'd pair it with Nana in the City and I don't know what else.

Tuesday Storytime, Summer Reading: Villains

Three more really good ones today for our younger kids.

Mustache!
Mac Barnett, illustrated by Kevin Cornell
ISBN: 9781423116714
"Medieval" style meets caricature art.

A vain king doesn't do anything for his subjects other than inflict them with representational art of himself.  The populace begs for basic support (roads and playgrounds) but only get a giant tapestry of the king's face.  Which gets vandalized with a mustache.  So the king posts reward posters (also with his face, because of course he does) all over the countryside, which ALSO get mustached.  He keeps thinking that it's a single vandal, but it's actually everyone in the entire country.  So he puts them all in a new jail he's built, with new roads and playgrounds, and big high safe walls, and is really shocked to hear them enjoying themselves in jail, while he's all alone in his castle.  Cute pictures and fun wordplay keep the littles entertained, while the big people can enjoy the political and social critiques.


The Boss Baby
Marla Frazee
ISBN: 9781442401679
Delightful pop-deco 50s-era illustrations with plenty of expression, especially by the tiny tyrant.

A fun sly interpretation of the realities of a new baby has the infant as the driven and incomprehensible boss of a modern company, driving his staff to distraction with endless demands, meetings full of gibberish, working all-nighters.  The flip side hits on the perks of infancy, comparing them to the insane bonuses and material benefits of being a CEO: lounges, spas, handmade artisan drinks, a private jet (the bouncy seat!).  At the end, the overworked staff (parents) are exhausted and unresponsive, so our devious boss baby tries a new tactic: "Mama?  Dada?"  pour encourager les autres.  


Big Bad Bunny
Franny Billingsley, illustrated by G. Brian Karas
ISBN: 9781416906018
Split-narrative of a sweet mama mouse and a terrifying sharp-toothed bad bunny.

We start our tale with the Big Bad Bunny, crashing through the woods with sharp claws and yellow teeth and a scary growl (compared to ever-increasing numbers of "hungry hyenas" each time), but quickly switch back to a much more pastoral tale of Mama Mouse kissing her babies goodnight.  When she gets to the end of the row of beds, she discovers that Baby Boo-Boo is missing!  Now Mama Mouse is off in the same woods as the Big Bad Bunny!  Whatever will happen to her?  On the other side of the narrative, our Big Bad Bunny is not happy to hear someone calling out the name "Baby" at her, but she's also a bit scared of the giant hill she's found.  She is now a lost Big Bad Bunny, and Mama Mouse is kind and tactful about her offspring's acquired fierce identity, even when scared and sniffling.


 

Summer Reading Program 2014. Week 7: Food Science Rejects; Round Three

This round was eliminated because the titles were either too tightly focused on one food (apples) or had a split focus (birthdays and storms/fears) making them a little less suited for a Food Science program.

Benny Bakes a Cake
Eve Rice
ISBN: 0688843123

This is an OLD book - as old as I am!  I do really like it for my younger group.  It's Benny's birthday today, and he's helping Mama bake the cake, and Ralph watches.  Benny is also making sure that Ralph is being good.  Once the cake is finished, Benny and Mama get ready to go for a walk, but no one is watching Ralph, and down goes the cake.  Benny is inconsolable, but Mama and Papa save the day, and Benny gets a cake for his birthday after all.  Short, sweet, cute old-fashioned illustrations, and a happy-ever-after ending.  I've used it for birthday, sweets, pets, and cooking storytimes so far.


The Apple Orchard Riddle
Margaret McNamara, illustrated by G. Brian Karas
ISBN: 9780375847448

In contrast with the previous title, this one is quite new, and I would have used it, but it has such a singular focus on apples that I thought it would be better to stay with titles that had a more broad focus.  However, I'm going to be using it regularly for my fall apple storytime.  It's a teensy bit on the long side, but lots of my other apple picks are very short, so it should balance out nicely.  A diverse field trip heads to the apple orchard, where they learn all about different varieties of apples, about apple orchards and growing, and about cider and applesauce.  Through the whole story, the daydreamer main character tries to puzzle out a riddle "a little red house with no windows and no door, but with a star inside" which is eventually answered by a cut apple.


Thunder Cake
Patricia Polacco
ISBN: 0399222316

Another long book, and this time I decided against it because the focus is more on the storms and the girl's fear than on the actual baking.  It remains one of my favorite books about conquering fear of something - by staying busy, staying distracted, and doing what needs doing even if you feel scared inside.  An excellent lesson, all wrapped up in a thundery afternoon of baking.

Storytime Potentials: Tap Tap Boom Boom, Elizabeth Bluemle

Tap Tap Boom Boom
Elizabeth Bluemle, illustrated by G. Brian Karas
sketchy pastel and pencil figures over sepia-toned photograph collages of the city scenery

I'm always in the market for a good book about a rainstorm.  I love storms, love thunder and lightning, and I love presenting books that represent them in a way that minimizes their potential as frightening.

This one is delightful.  Rhythmic text emphasizes the sounds of the storm - the growing rumbles of thunder and the tap of the rain morphing into the harder louder dance of the growing storm, and then the waning energy revealing the blue sky and fresh air.

However, in addition to that, we're also treated to a very humanistic, very city-based representation of the storm, and for my rural patrons, that's something else that I'm very happy to represent as many times and an as many ways as possible.

Carts pop up to sell umbrellas on the sidewalk.  Pedestrians huddle near the buildings to hide from the splashes of passing cars.  When the storm picks up, they retreat into a subway terminal, waiting out the storm above in a temporary commune of like-minded and varyingly dry inhabitants.  Pizza is shared, umbrellas are offered, smiles exchanged, and then up to the surface again to resume daily life, refreshed after a break from the ordinary.

I'd pair this with city-based rain books for a thunderstorm storytime, or with city-based musical books for a rhythm storytime.

Stormy Books:

Come On Rain, Karen Hesse
Monsoon Afternoon, Kashmira Sheth
Thunder Boomer, Shutta Crum

Rhythm Books:

Ruby Sings the Blues, Niki Daley
Max Found Two Sticks, Brian Pinkney