Tuesday Storytime: Elephants on Parade

There are so many good picture books featuring elephants. It's really just astounding. Here are three of my perennial favorites:

Elmer
David McKee
Elmer is a patchwork-colored elephant - the only one in his herd. He always feels just a little bit out of place, so he plays the prankster and joker and always cracks the other elephants up, but when he thinks that they ONLY like him for his jokes, he sets off to try to become normal elephant color to fit in better. When he realizes that he's liked for himself, and that his patchworks mean that he is individual in a way the other elephant's can't be, he becomes a bit more accepting of his differences.

Tweak Tweak
Eve Bunting, illustrated by Sergio Ruzzier
A cute "growing up" story by Eve Bunting gets even more adorable with soft-edged and fluffy illustrations by Ruzzier. A mama elephant takes her baby out on a walk and they talk about what they see, and what's possible for baby elephants to do, or not to do as the case may be. Very cute, and a fun way to introduce the idea that not everything is right for everybody, and that families and people may be different and have different abilities.

Small Elephant's Bathtime
Tatyana Feeney
Sweet short story about Small Elephant, who really doesn't like bathtime, but when DAD starts having all the fun in the bath, now we can't have that, can we? It's a cute twist on the "wait til your FATHER comes home" trope (which is hopefully becoming more of a thing of the past) and an adorable family with good problem-solving skills.

Tuesday Storytime: Fun Clothes

It's getting to be VERY SLIGHTLY cooler weather, which means a lot of outfit changes and fraught clothing decisions to be made, so a storytime about all sorts of clothing conundrums is a fun take on the topic.

Ella Sarah Gets Dressed
Margaret Chodos-Irvine
Ella Sarah wants to wear a VERY SPECIFIC set of clothing, that, to be completely honest, is just totally over the top. Her family takes it in turn to suggest alternatives, but Ella Sarah remains insistent on her chosen outfit, which ends up working perfectly for her afternoon plans.

A Hat for Minerva Louise
Janet Morgan Stoeke
This series of books almost makes me like chickens. This time around, Minerva Louise is enjoying the winter weather, but it IS a little cold out. A hat would make it much more bearable to go exploring outside, but she keeps having troubles finding one that works out. Kids love identifying the various items, and parents enjoy that their kids can yell out stuff about the book without having to "shush" them.

Have You Seen My New Blue Socks?
Eve Bunting, Sergio Ruzzier
A cute little green duck(ling?) is wandering around pathetically looking for his new blue socks in this nearly-offensively rhyming story that thankfully is over before the rhyme scheme drives anyone utterly mad. There's a quite obvious twist ending, and other than the rhyming, it's sweet and cute and a familiar scenario to anyone with a toddler (or frankly anyone with too much on their mind or a forgetful nature).

Tuesday Storytime: Pets

A really stellar lineup from my coworker today: a trio of adorable animal books.

Zorro Gets an Outfit

Carter Goodrich

ISBN: 9781442435353

Zorro is an adorable pug dog, and he has been put into a superhero outfit, and the other dogs all laugh at him. He's inconsolable until another dog at the dog park shows up in a pirate outfit and just so happens to be a really cool dog - who likes Zorro's outfit! A good story about friendship and identity and feeling shame and pride.

Have You Seen My New Blue Socks

Eve Bunting, illustrated by Sergio Ruzzier

ISBN: 9780547752679

Eve Bunting is channeling her Dr Seuss here, with a cute rhyming (perhaps just a slight bit tooo cutely rhyming) quick story about a forgetful and perhaps somewhat disorganized duck who has lost their new blue socks somewhere. A progressively-further-unlaced shoe provides a tiny visual clue about the location of the socks as the story goes on.

Papillon Goes to the Vet (The Very Fluffy Kitty)

A. N. Kang

ISBN: 9781484728819

This is the cutest book about a very fluffy kitty with a very unrealistic story of what happens at a vet's office, but it's ok, because it's adorable. Papillon is soooo fluffy that he floats! Which is quite fun, until he accidentally ingests a cat toy and has to spend the night at the vet. Very low-key explanations of how Papillon feels less than well, which keeps the very lighthearted feeling flowing through even at the vet. 

Tuesday Storytime: Beary Good Friends

My co-storyteller's picks this time, with two that I've done myself before, or at least considered using.  Really sweet and cute books. We're back to picking very short and very straightforward reads since our audience has shrunk in both size and age with school snatching away all our older ones.

Bird, Balloon, Bear
Il Sung Na
ISBN: 9780399551567
Bird hopes to be friends with Bear, but Bear already has a good friend: a balloon. Bird watches as they play together happily, but eventually all Chekov's balloons must pop, and new friends made.


Good Luck Bear
Greg Foley
ISBN: 9780670062584
Bear is looking for a four-leaf clover, and has no luck at all. He's feeling quite unlucky, in fact, until his friend Mouse returns with a message of friendship and of finding the unexpected.

Bear and Bee: Too Busy
Sergio Ruzzier
ISBN: 9781423159612
Bear and Bee join forces again in this sequel book (Bear and Bee was a quirky story about prejudice and fears) to have a light-hearted discussion about the concept of doing things that you perhaps don't super enjoy yourself, simply because you want to be with the person doing them, and you enjoy helping the person enjoy the activity. Hard concept for kids and adults, and it's a hard slog for the Bear and Bee too, but they make it work out in the end.

Tuesday Storytime: Tickles and Tumbles

Three cute ones, and they all start with the letter T, in addition to being about tickling and teasing and tumbling around. I have way too much fun sometimes finding these sets of books.

Tweak Tweak
Eve Bunting, illustrated by Sergio Ruzzier
ISBN: 9780618998517
Baby elephant goes Tweak Tweak on mama's tail every time they come across anything new and interesting. Mama is tolerant and gentle and explains the differences between what can and can't be done, while suggesting alternative actions that CAN be taken. Very gentle and illuminating, and the illustrations are just plain cute.


Tickle, Tickle
Helen Oxenbury
ISBN: 9780689819856 (board book format, ISBN not on book itself)
Oxenbury crafts a cute but VERY short book with diverse babies and young toddlers all getting tickled and having fun. Sweet.


Tumble Bumble
Felicia Bond
ISBN: 9781886910157 (make sure to get the original hardcover, not the board book - it's sooo tiny)
Bears and alligators and cats and pigs and frogs and mice and bugs and one little boy Oh My! It's a tumble-bumble world for these animals as they bumble through the streets and through a house and into bed. Excellent "scaffolding" story, and lots of fun language.

Tuesday Storytime: Honeybees

A pair of really long books, and one super-short book in the middle to make up for it.  The room was packed today, and lots of wiggle-worms, so hard to say how much of it actually was seen/heard.

The Honeybee Man
Lela Nargi, illustrations by Kyrsten Brooker
ISBN: 9780375849800
Oddly-perspectived-picture-frames focus attention on the tiny bees and the urban environment.

Reviewed here.
Fred lives in Brooklyn with his family: Cat the cat, Copper the dog, and Mab, Nefertiti, and Boadica the queen bees with their hives full of children.  Fred's honeybees travel out through Brooklyn and gather pollen and nectar from neighbors small yards, rooftop gardens, windowboxes, and the linden trees lining the avenues, and even (sometimes, if he's lucky) from the blueberry bushes across town.  Once they've worked all summer, Fred pulls out the frames of honey, caps and spins them, and decants the lovely honey into jars that he gives out to his neighbors one late-August afternoon.  Good, but very wordy, and the illustrations are interesting, but not exactly vibrant - lots of muted colors and flesh-tones and browns and greys of buildings.


 
Bear and Bee
Sergio Ruzzier
ISBN: 9781423159575
Roly-poly bear is offered honey by a friendly little winged bug, but he's worried about the dread bee.

Super short, super cute.  Bear wakes up from his winter nap and is hungry.  A cute little yellow winged creature (sizes are NOT to scale here) offers some honey, and bear is tempted, but he's afraid of the BEE!  He's never seen one, but it's huge, and has fangs, and claws, and never shares honey.  A quick run-down of bear's personal attributes (huge, has fangs, has claws) has him momentarily worried that HE's the BEE!  but his new bug friend reassures him, then cautiously explains the truth, and re-offers the honey.  Now bear has a full tummy, a full mind, and a new friend.  Adorable.


Flight of the Honey Bee
Raymond Huber, illustrated by Brian Lovelock
ISBN: 9780763667603
Beautiful vibrant colors and expressionistic close-ups of bees.

Reviewed here.  A bit long for storytime, especially with a big and energetic group, but it was very well received, and the illustrations especially captured the interest of lots of the kids.  Really well done book, and very glad I'm aware of it.  Nonfiction is so hard to do for this age-group, and I'm always glad to have the chance to do more of it.