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: Bedtime Storytime

It's been a while since I've done one of these.

One Ted Falls Out of Bed
Julia Donaldson, illustrated by Anna Currey
ISBN: 0805077871
Counts from one to ten, and back down again through nighttime adventures of a teddy bear.

Our poor Ted gets dumped from the bed, and the sleeping child is all unaware, so the toys in the bedroom conspire to console him, then to try and get him back into bed.  Adorable, and the counting is a very cute way to organize the story.


Small Elephant's Bathtime
Tatyana Feeney
ISBN: 9780553497212
Pen and ink and a few bright splotches of color illustrate Small Elephant's shenanigans.

Our Small Elephant doesn't want to take a bath, and nothing Mommy does (toys, bubbles, pleading) is making any difference.  Perhaps getting Daddy involved will help matters?  Very cute and short, and love the response from the storytime mamas when the book invoked the Daddy card.



Ten, Nine, Eight
Molly Bang
ISBN: 0688009069
Short and sweet countdown of bedtime with an adorable black father and daughter.

I love this book because it's so sweet and perfect and timeless and universal, and it doesn't have white people as the default.  We count down sweet simple calming bedroom things, with a few quiet jokes: "7 empty shoes in a short straight row" (which of course means one is missing, as it always is) and "4 sleepy eyes which open and close" (meaning Daddy is tired also).  Very sweet, very calming.  A great ending point.


Lots of babies and lots of new storytime toddlers these past few weeks, so I've been purposefully working with shorter and more narratively-simple books to help them feel successful at sitting and listening.  There's nothing worse than having a really fun long book, but trying to present it to a young audience that's just so done with concentrating and books already.

Don't make things hard on yourself - there's always time later to move on to the complicated or longer books.  Focus on each storytime as its own singular interaction, and do your best to make it the best it can be for the majority of the attendee children, and you'll come out on top most of the time.