Tuesday Storytime: Wild Animals

From the domestic to the dangerous!

Tiny Little Fly
Michael Rosen, illustrated by Kevin Waldron
ISBN: 9780763646813
Lush loose paintings of oversized wild animals, including a double-fold-out page.

Waldron really knocks it out of the park with these illustrations, which give us a fly-eye view of these massive wild animals: elephant, hippo, and tiger (a SHE tiger!) which all try to catch that pesky fly, but of course fail.  Rosen's story is short and pithy, and it would be quite short enough for a middle read in a pinch.  Lovely package, great fun story.  Now I only need one more short "fly" book, and I can do a trio of pesky bug stories with this one and Old Black Fly (Aylesworth, ISBN: 9780805039245).


Monkey and Me
Emily Gravett
ISBN: 9781416954576
Very rhythmic and repetitive, with great options for call-and-response.

Gravett is a lovely picture book artist, and I really enjoy her work, from the tongue-in-cheek (Dogs, The Odd Egg) to the unexpectedly poignant (Again!, The Blue Chameleon).  This one is firmly in the silly category, and is so slight as to almost not have a storyline.  Our spunky girl and her floppy-limbed stuffed monkey imitate various animals, and then on the following spread (after eliciting guesses from the audience), a gorgeous rendition of those animals appears. Perfect for the middle spot, but not for storytellers who shy away from sing-song or outright singing, because that's the only way I can think to get through the repetitive wording.


I Spy with My Little Eye
Edward Gibbs
ISBN: 9780763652845
Die-cut book showing various beautifully-painted animal eyes along with clues as to what they are.

This is quite probably the most beautifully-painted die-cut conceit book I've ever seen.  I adore reading it, and the idea is so simple and so clever and so pretty, I wish there were more of them.  Gibbs has taken a large central cut-out and painted an eye there, with a set of clues about the animal who might be lurking behind the page: so "I spy with my little eye..." on one page with the eye painted, and on the other, the cut-out showing rich blue, and the following clues: "... something that is blue" and "I am the biggest animal in the whole world."  Obviously we have a blue whale, followed by polar bears, orangutans, lions, and one cheeky frog who has the temerity to end the book by looking back out and spying "YOU" and offering the now-empty die-cut hole to peer through for effect.  In a lot of treatments, it could have been cute and slight, but the paintings are so rich and so beautiful that it really adds a lot of weight and fun to the progression.

Tuesday Storytime: Comparing Yourself to Animals

Because there are enough good quality fun picture books out there to do a storytime SOLELY about comparing yourself to animals, here we are!  A trio of excellent storybook authors/illustrators also represented, with very different art styles, so a win all around for this week.

Little Mouse
Alison Murray (Apple Pie A B C)
ISBN: 9781423143307
Retro-bold outlines and bright color-blocked cast of animals follow a little girl through her day.

Our narrator is mommy's "little mouse" when she's all cuddly and snuggly, but she wants us to know that she's lots of other animals too.  This one is very fun because she never states out-loud what the animals are, but they appear behind her, so when she is shown grumpily heading for her bath with an irate bear behind her and the commentary "And I'm pretty certain that little mice don't stomp..." (emphasis in the original) the kids are happy to add "like a bear!" to finish the thought.


Quick as a Cricket
Audrey Wood, illustrated by Don Wood
ISBN: 0859531511
Classic stream-of-opposites with an engaging boy emoting along with the animal representative.

I don't read this one very often, but I really enjoy what it does: presents a set of emotional or physical feelings and relates them to the animals that are most associated with that emotion or feeling or attribute in western (American) culture, specifically the ones that have actual phrases associated.  So we have "weak as a kitten" and "gentle as a lamb," but also "mean as a shark" and "strong as an ox" all of which are fairly common statements.  In addition, there's others that simply make sense "tough as a rhino," "wild as a chimp," "slow as a snail" may not be actual folk-statements, but they hold true and would make sense to most adults.


Monkey and Me
Emily Gravett (The Odd Egg)
ISBN: 9781416954576  
A cute little girl and her stuffed monkey (in scribbly pencil art reminiscent of Emma Kate, by Patricia Polacco, ISBN: 9780399244520) act out movements of various animals from the classic jump-rope rhyme.

Love the repetition, and the scrambles of the kids (and the patient hints of the parents) trying to figure out what the girl and monkey duo are acting out.  The elephant pantomime is especially clever, and I like the sing-song effects of the repeated chant leading up to whatever they were going to see.  The ending is perhaps a bit abrupt - because the story is entirely on sets of spreads, it's over very quickly compared to a lot of stories.