Tuesday Storytime: Summer Reading, Rockets

I personally think that rockets are a little bit tenuous of a connection for Heroes, but I like rockets and space and astronauts, so I'm game for it regardless.

This first month, the actual Summer Reading Programs are all "event" programs instead of reading programs, which is nice from a work standpoint, and less nice from a literacy standpoint, so these very early childhood picture books are the only ones I've collected for this particular theme.  Once July hits, these posts will either be a bit longer, or split up between morning and afternoon programs.

Roaring Rockets
Tony Mitton, illustrated by Ant Parker
ISBN: 0753451069
Sketchy "crayon"-like art hides skillfully framed compositions, enhanced by an excellent vocabulary.

This book is really very nice, and a great one to start off with.  The illustrations are misleadingly childlike and simplistic, almost Boynton-esque with the big-eyed animals as our astronauts.  However, the illustrations are correct and labeled, and the narrative is chock-a-block with excellent astronaut terms and concepts, all rendered in deceptively simplistic phrasing and word-choice.  Some highlights "Rockets carry astronauts with cool white suits, oxygen helmets, and gravity boots."  and "Down comes the lander with legs out ready and fiery boosters to hold it steady."


On the Launch Pad: a counting book about rockets
Michael Dahl, illustrated by Derrick Alderman & Denise Shea
ISBN: 1404805818
Bright colored collages count down to a liftoff with a beautifully diverse crew of workers.

I think my first favorite thing about this book is the vibrant clarity of the colors popping out in every page spread.  My second favorite thing about this book is that the "cast" is made of men and women in equal measure, and of beautifully varied skin-tones and hair colors.  From the workers cleaning the rocket, to the engineers in the control tower, to the truck-drivers, to the astronauts themselves... all the way through to the one lovely lady pulling the launch towers away in her little cart - it's just nice to see.  An excellent primer on the various and numerous people and tasks necessary to get a rocket up into space, with a great visual twist at the very end.


This Rocket
Paul Collicutt
ISBN: 0374374848
Stunning paintings stand in contrast to showcase the diversity of rocketry science.

This is an absolutely beautiful book.  Technically, it's only about as long as On the Launch Pad, so I could have used this in the middle, but I wanted to slowly work through the concept sequentially, and felt like this one would be better after the basics of rockets and flight science were established by the other two books.  Beautifully-drafted illustrations contrast on each spread, with rockets that are either fast or slow, tall or short, rockets like cars, rockets like trains... The endpapers are equally stunning.  The front has detailed vignettes of each rocket in the book accompanied by dense technical explanations, and the back has a complex and beautiful illustrated timeline of the Apollo 11 mission to the moon.  This book also shares On the Launch Pad's ending twist, but with a much more vibrant and lifelike interpretation.  Absolutely stunning book to showcase to the kids.

Summer Reading Program 2014. Week 6: Space

This is our "make-up week" for the program that was superseded by our special magic show earlier in the summer.  We still have no AC, but the weather has been cooler, and so I didn't have to make any changes to the line-up this time around.

Storytime:

Toys in Space
Mini Grey
ISBN: 9780307978127
Bemused toys exist in a slightly skewed world with a faint English flavor.

I adore Mini Grey for her Traction Man series, and Toys in Space could very easily exist in the same universe, although Traction Man himself does not make an appearance - not even a cameo!  The toys are left outside on the lawn overnight for the first time, so WonderDoll decides to avert panic by telling an interactive story about how the toys are abducted by an alien who is looking for his own lost toy.

The meta-storytelling (me reading a book about a doll telling a story (with interruptions) to an audience of toys) is challenging as a reader.  I'm not sure whether the littlest ones realized that the story was supposed to be made-up all the way through.  Some of the language was a little spicy for my toddler audience (I decided that discretion was the better part of valour and excised the cowboy's "darns" and "dangits" in favor of a broader "cowboy" accent overall).  The story is cute, with just enough silly to counteract the potentially frightening elements - getting beamed into a spaceship, a giant closet filled with cataloged "lost toys," a potentially scary alien creature.  Everything is lampshaded, and some things are lampshaded, mocked, and then incorporated non-ironically into the storyline.  I also appreciate an alien that is named something interesting but still basically pronouncable.  (It's is, or is a (was never clear on whether that was it's name or it's species) "Hoctopize" which is a totally cromulent alien name (or species).

This one was also one of our featured Summer Reading books.


This Rocket
Paul Collicutt
ISBN: 0374374848
Bright blue and orange colors this exciting (but reality-based) simple opposites book featuring rockets.

I am really shocked that this book isn't better known and more used than it is.  The simple phrasing and related (mostly opposites) half spreads of this book really make it perfect for this age group.  Besides that - rockets!  Obviously a perennial favorite, just like dinosaurs and excavators and fire trucks.  I had to look outside the county for it (first when researching the theme, and again this time to use) so I think I'm just going to give in and buy myself a copy.  It really is perfect.  Very sparse text, very expressive and contrasting illustrations of actual rockets, with even more rockets and rocketry factoids on the endpapers.


Light up the Night
Jean Reidy, illustrated by Margaret Chodos-Irvine
ISBN: 9781423120247
Blocky, brushed/sponged-textural paintings pinpoint a boy's location, from space to his own bedroom.  

This is an excellent use of the "this is the house that Jack built" form of expanding poetry text, starting with a young boy at bedtime turning his quilt into a rocketship, and then zooming in from space "where stars glow bright / and light up the night" through the solar system, onto earth, a continent (left vague), and a country (likewise), town, street, house, bedroom, and bed, and then back out again to show the stars, and a small bed sitting on the earth in a very Saint-Exupery "The Little Prince" sort of image.




Summer Reading

For the older kids, I subbed out Aliens in Underpants Save the World for This Rocket, but kept Toys in Space and Light up the Night.  I probably could have gone with a longer book, but we had a time-consuming activity and a fun craft this time around, so I wanted to save some good time for those - programs need to be focused on the books, but I'm not one of those who thinks they should be ONLY about the books.

Aliens in Underpants Save the World
Claire Freedman, illustrated by Ben Cort
ISBN: 9781442427686
Aliens routinely steal underpants from Earth, until a meteorite threatens the planet, and the resourceful aliens make one final giant panty heist to make the biggest stretchiest underpants ever.

I have to say, still not a huge fan, but I do like this one better than the Dinosaurs one.  For some reason, the zany colors and silly sketchy art style works much better for me with aliens as the focus.  Maybe it reminded me of the monsters from Monsters, Inc/Monsters U?  So - similar idea.  Rhyming couplets on each spread document how aliens descended from the heavens, stole all the underpants, sewed them into a giant springy underpant net, and bounced a meteorite back into space, saving the earth.  Tada!


Next week is Food Science, and then we're all done with Summer Reading until next year: Superheroes!