Tuesday Storytime: Animals Behaving Oddly

A fun theme, and our trainee is starting to relax into storytime a bit: doing sound effects and animal noises, trying out different voices for characters. Very nice progress, and good to see him enjoying the process a bit now that it's not so new and intimidating.

Mr. Tiger Goes Wild

Peter Brown

ISBN: 9780316200639

Mr. Tiger lives in an anthropomorphic Victorian city, but he decides to get back to nature instead.

This one is a read from a Summer Reading Program a few years back, and I've liked it since I first saw it.

The Crocodile Who Didn't Like Water

Gemma Merino

ISBN: 9780735841635

Baby croc doesn't like water, and doesn't fit in, until he realizes something very important.

This one also was a past summer reading hit, and it's very cute and has a fun twist at the end.

It's Only Stanley

Jon Agee

ISBN: 9780803739079

Stanley is the family dog, and he has some very interesting (and noisy) late night hobbies.

Agee does very interesting work: feels very much like "classics" from the 70s, I love that all the effort was for love of a moon-dog. That makes me quite delighted.

Tuesday Storytime: Problem Friends

Making friends isn't easy, and there are often some setbacks and roadblocks along the way.

Too Many Frogs!
Sandy Asher, illustrated by Keith Graves
ISBN: 0399239782
Quirky characters here, in a story about imposing on other people, and getting permission.

Rabbit has a lovely neat orderly life all alone.  He has his routines, and no mess and no fuss.  Until Frog stops by one evening and sort of invites himself in to listen to Rabbit's goodnight story.  Night after night, Frog keeps making himself more comfortable, to Rabbit's growing (but unspoken) chagrin.  The final straw comes when Frog shows up with his whole extended family, and Rabbit finally speaks up.  The ending of the story is not as solid as it could have been, with some unfortunate choices and implications, but the message of clearly asking permission and not taking advantage is still present.


You Will Be My Friend!
Peter Brown
ISBN: 9780316070300
Lucy the bear sets out into the forest to MAKE some critter into her friend.

Lucy is enthusiastic about her new mission: to make a friend.  Enthusiasm isn't everything, and Lucy runs into some pretty extreme setbacks.  She even gets a little bossy and snappy at one point, before collapsing in exhausted defeat.  Still, friendships can come looking for you, even when you can't make one happen on demand.


Don't Copy Me!
Jonathan Allen
ISBN: 9781907967207
Little Puffin does NOT like this game.

Little Puffin is taking advantage of the lovely weather to go for a walk, but he's being followed and copied by the little Gull siblings, and he is not a fan of this game.  Nothing he can think of to do makes them stop copying him; "How annoying!"  Still, he keeps trying, and eventually hits on a strategy that works out.  This one is also very useful for kids having troubles with much younger siblings or siblings of playmates.  

Summer Reading Program 2014. Week 3: Animals

Had an ENORMOUS group this morning for our Family Storytime - lots of toddlers, lots of babies, lots of relatives visiting from out of town.  Excellent group tho, and the stories flowed so well!

Mr. Tiger Goes Wild
Peter Brown
ISBN: 9780316200639
Stylized stiff animals and buildings inhabit a faux-victorian world until Mr Tiger loosens up.

Mister Tiger is prim and proper, just like all of his neighbors, in a starched jacket, tophat, and excellent manners.  Until he just gets sick of it, and starts going WILD - walking on all fours, roaring, even going for a skinny-dip in the town square fountain.  His neighbors and friends are scandalized, and suggest that if Mister Tiger wishes to behave wildly, he should do so in the wilderness - which he does, until he gets lonely and heads back home.  Once there he discovers that his wild behaviors have loosened up his neighbors too, and everyone is now just a little bit wild.

Polar Opposites
Erik Brook
ISBN: 9780761456858
Soft-edged pictures carry the background story of two friends packing for a trip to the tropics, while the text busies itself with defining opposites.

I love this story.  Lots of science and lots of solid information packed into a showboat of a story of two good friends who live on opposite poles.  Alex the polar bear and Zina the penguin are opposites in so many ways, and the story lists a great number of them, while the artwork begins with their homes and shows them cleaning, packing, and traveling to the tropics for a vacation together.


The Wide-Mouthed Frog (pop-up version)
Keith Faulkner, illustrated by Jonathan Lambert
ISBN: 9780803718753
A variety of pop-up animals highlight the story of a boastful wide-mouth frog who goes around comparing dinners with everyone.

I love this book so hard, and with a group this big, it was perfect for a SUPER QUICK, super fun ending story.  It's VERY VERY short, but the pop-ups are fun and the kids get a kick out of the ending, especially when the storyteller gets into it and makes funny faces and voices (which I was happy to do today).



For the afternoon, with the older kids, I switched it up with a few longer books that I rarely get the chance to read, even though they are excellent storybooks.

We started again with Mister Tiger (he's one of the featured Summer Reading titles, which is why he gets to go twice) and then moved on to One Cool Friend and then a new one for the blog:

Two Bad Ants
Chris Van Allsburg
ISBN: 9780395486689
Stylized line drawings chronicle the story of two ants who shirk their duties and face a perilous world.

Van Allsburg is a freaking genius, and one of the true sorrows of my professional life is that I work with kids too young to really get his stories, so I can't read them at work as often as I would like.  Something about his approach and his slightly-slanted viewpoint makes me think of Neil Gaiman or Lemony Snicket, or even Saki.  Just delightful, and just a smidge perverse in a lovely subversive way.

Next week we're celebrating our nation's birthday by NOT having any programs, and then after that we're on to dinosaurs!