Tuesday Storytime: Road Work

Ok, the dinosaurs aren't building a road, exactly, but all the same equipment is in play, and I can't help it: DINOSAURS using giant earthmovers! It's close enough.

Dinosaur Dig!
Penny Dale
ISBN: 9780763658717
A varied crew of dinosaurs (pre-feathered, sadly) work with a varied set of earthmoving equipment on a mystery structure.

Our endpapers give us a nice listing and illustrative catalog of our dinos and our machines, and the story inside is quick and rhythmic, with lots of onomatopoiea and big construction noises as the dinos work tirelessly on their strange wavy, undulating concrete pit in the ground.

Easy Street
Rita Gray, illustrated by (model-maker and diorama-creator) Mary Bono
ISBN: 9780525476573
Adorable chubby diverse road-worker dolls inhabit a layered diorama "slice of street."

I think this book would never have impressed me as much as it does if it weren't for the illustrations.  Those dioramas are simply amazing, and the textures involved in the creation of the in-progress street and background layers are simply unbelievable.  I love looking at it.  I really wish I could have access to the original: lots of those layers look like they're made from sandpaper and I would LOVE to have that textural grounding available to the kids as well.  Anyway, the rhyming is short and direct, very repetitive, and covers the basics in workmanlike language.

Work, Dogs, Work: A Highway Tail
James Horvath
ISBN: 9780062189707
Horvath's crew of worker dogs tackles a highway construction job in this cute rhyming tail-er, tale.

This book is probably way too close in content to Easy Street to really do together, but I'm calling it purposeful repetition to build conceptual awareness, and running with it.  These lanky energetic dogs are building the world's most complicated highway, with bridges, overpasses, tunnels, and quagmires to overcome before they connect the city to the ultimate destination: the beach.

Tuesday Storytime: Spring, Part 2

Second set of fun spring books: these are more loosely "springtime" than the first set, but this set were all rhyming in a subtle nod to April as Poetry Month.

Spring's Sprung
Lynn Plourde, illustrated by Greg Couch
ISBN: 0689842295
Anthropomorphized sister seasons and a Mother Earth are strangely haunting, despite light verse.

The illustrations here are peculiar.  I suppose it's difficult to make anthropomorphized seasons into a set of sisters while still keeping them individual and differentiated, but they and their Mother Earth occasionally look haunting or straight-up creepy.  Despite this intermittent odd tonal shift, the illustrations are mostly beautiful and remind me of the Pastoral section of the original Disney Fantasia.  Mother Earth is waking her three daughters: March, April, and May, and setting them to begin the new day (the new year).  But like siblings often do, these three are competing among themselves to be Mother's favorite at everything.  By the end, they're in tears, and Mother has to reassure them that she doesn't have a favorite; they're all equally loved and equally a favorite.  Less focus on spring, and more on sibling rivalry, but it's sweet and fun.

A Leaf Can Be...
Laura Purdie Salas, illustrated by Violeta Dabija
ISBN: 9780761362036
Previously reviewed here

This one covers all the seasons, but enough of it is spent on green-leaf illustrations that I felt it fit well enough.  All the beautiful and interesting things leaves do or can become or provide for various creatures.  Delightful and so pretty.

Flowers are Calling
Rita Gray, illustrated by Kenaro Pak
ISBN: 9780544340121
Digital/watercolor art is FANTASTIC, and the book is naturalistic and accurate.

This was a bit long for our age-group, but the pictures are just amazing, and the information is accurate and presented in a cute way.  I just can't get over how beautiful and delicate and intricate and busy (in a good way) the illustrations are in this book.  The spreads are beautiful and detailed, the flowers are vibrant and natural, and the whole is rendered in a way that almost makes me think of pop-ups or wood-cuts because of the heavily-layered feel of the scenes.  Just incredibly beautiful,  We read through spreads of flowers and a local animal and the flower's pollinator, and the hook for the narration is that the flower is calling to the small unobtrusive pollinator, not to the big or notable local animal.  After three of these, we see a spread with all the flowers together with a nonfiction blurb (which I truncated enormously) about how each flower needs or relates to a specific pollinator.  I really loved seeing the spreads on the night-time flowers.  Not only were they beautiful, but it's nice to see moths and bats getting a bit of attention as pollinators.  Absolutely stunning.  

Tuesday Storytime: Busy Machines

This theme was mainly an excuse to use Digger Dog, so I could have fun with the big fold-out pages.

Digger Dog

William Bee, illustrated by Cecilia Johansson

ISBN: 9780763661625

Bright cartoony colors and lots of action in a repeating-framework storyline.

Digger Dog sniffs out a bone, and wants it.  So he starts digging, but he's going to need a little help.  Repeated story framings intro bigger and bigger diggers (love the language here) until finally he's able to dig out what must be the biggest bone in the world, right?  The last (4-page double-open spread) reveals something to the readers that Digger doesn't know, and makes for a great reveal.

Easy Street

Rita Gray, illustrated by Mary Bono

ISBN: 0525476571

Clay figures and cut-layered landscapes anchor a repetitive rhyming song of roadbuilding.

This has been a favorite for a while, but I purposefully try not to use my favorites more than once every couple of years or so, because there are so many other great books that I feel like I have a responsibility to introduce and showcase.  Easy Street has a road-construction crew of diverse (ethnically and gender) working on a road from start to finish, with an easy-flowing rhyming couplet on each spread, neatly and succinctly narrating the action.  This book also rewards a close look at the illustrations, which are stylized and brightly colored, but the street and background are made of actual sand and rocks (or their visual simulacrums - I think the background cuts are made from sandpapers) and are extremely detailed and visually impart the same concepts as the narration.  A really clever book, with a really easy vocabulary and very easy on the eyes, and extremely short and direct.

Go! Go! Go! Stop!

Charise Mericle Harper

ISBN: 9780375869242

Anthropomorphized trucks and work vehicles are directed by "Little Green" who is soon joined by "Little Red."

This one was a delivery discovery - part of the reason I like working the front lines is that I get to see the materials flow through the library and make serendipitous discoveries of things - either stuff that I like personally, or things that are helpful for programming or for adding to the collection.  I feel like there's a "caught by chance" element that isn't really able to be duplicated by any actual process of selecting or searching.  But back to the story.  Little Green only knows one word, and he uses it to great impact helping the vehicles build the great bridge.  Until there is just too much GO and things get a little crazy.  Just in time, in rolls a newcomer, Little Red.  Guess what HIS word is?  Once order is restored, the two colors begin to work together, and the bridge is completed, just in time for a third color to roll on in.  Little Yellow appears right at the end to keep the speed on the new bridge down to a safe level.  Cute and sweet, and lots of yelling Go! and Stop! from both me and the audience.