Summer Reading Program 2014. Week 7: Food Science Summer Reading Program

And now for the Finale!  This is the last Summer Reading Program for my location, and I'm a little sad, and a little ready to have a break.

We did some great books and crafts and activities tho, and had a big time.

Even Aliens need Snacks got read again, as our Summer Reading featured title, and then I had a trio of other short books to round out the program with a bang.

Where Does Food Come From?
Shelley Rotner and Gary Goss, illustrated (photographs) by Shelley Rotner
ISBN: 07613269358

I really liked this nonfiction title, with very little text, and excellent pictures.  It made for a great interactive read as the kids told me all about their experiences and preferences with each food that we learned about.  I don't know what it is about nonfiction photographic picture books, but they really do make it nearly irresistible for a kid not to tell about what they know.  I love it.  I think I'm going to hunt a copy down for my home library, just to have something there to spark an interest in the real world.  We start with major foods (rice, milk, corn, apples, potatoes..) which each get a full spread - going from the plant to the food item, to the finished product (rice, milk, popcorn, apple juice, french fries) getting eaten by one of many engaging multicultural kidlets.  Peanuts and grapes share a spread for PB&Js, and then we're on to single pages devoted to honey, maple syrup, salt, and sugar.  The only thing I would improve is to have a "landing page" at the end more substantial than the montage of faces asking what foods the reader/listener enjoys.


The Little Green Witch
Barbara Barbieri McGrath, illustrated by Martha Alexander
ISBN: 9781580891530

This is a totally un-spooky "Halloween" version of the Little Red Hen, but I don't find that it's very Halloweeny - the peculiar family is no more weird than any other monster or ghoul group in picture books.  Fairly straightforward re-telling, where a Little Green Witch does all the work while a ghost, a bat, and a gremlin laze about and refuse to help.  At the end, to tie the homage up with a bow, the Little Green Witch does a POP of magic and turns the useless trio into little red hens (which was greatly appreciated by my audience).  Scritchy pastel drawings on white backgrounds reinforce the benign nature of the story and the characters.


The Lion's Share: A Tale of Halving Cake and Eating It, Too
Matthew McElligot
ISBN: 9780802797698

Sharp-eyed readers will note that this makes two books by McElligot that I read in one storytime.  Normally, I try to avoid that, but in cases where the author or illustrator has very few books (Dan Yaccarino) or they have different books with very different styles (David Shannon), or have written books with very different collaborators, then sometimes I'll slip a double-header into the mix.  In this case, McElligot's style for The Lion's Share is so different from Aliens Need Snacks that I don't even think the kids would have realized it if I didn't point it out to them.

I really like this book.  An ant gets invited to a royal dinner, her tablemates have atrocious manners, and the cake for dessert is halved by each recipient so that the poor ant only gets a crumb which she can't even split with the King.  She is humiliated (although it's not her fault) and offers to bring him a cake in recompense.  Each of her tablemates is outraged and refuses to be stood up, and doubles her offer, which gets ridiculous quite quickly.  I loved watching the kid's eyes widen as the amounts grew and grew.  I didn't do it this time, but in the past, I've done the trick of folding paper to illustrate the halving concept, first with a small piece of origami paper, then a huge sheet of butcher paper, and finally with a very large square of thin wrapping paper.  The kids were quite impressed that no matter the original size, it's nearly impossible to fold after so few folds.

And that's us for the summer!  I hope some of the recommendations and reads are helpful for you and your audiences!

Summer Reading Research, Round 1

Our summer reading program is really geared towards grade-school students, but my population of Family Storytime parents all have babies or toddlers.  I feel a bit sad that they get left out of programming to such an extent, so this year I am attempting to match up the SRP weekly themes with additional books suitable for the younger set, so they can get a feeling that they are attending 'summer reading programs' even though it's just our normal storytime.

Our overarching theme this year is STEM, and our individual weeks are broken down into the following categories:
Robots
Space
Animals
Dinosaurs
Engineering
Food Science

I have a pretty good idea of what to use for a lot of these categories - for example, I already have all of my Robot titles (Robot Zot, Clink, and Doug Unplugged) and my Engineering titles (Willy & the Cardboard Boxes, How a House is Built, Demolition) picked out, but there were a few places where I wanted to branch out into new books, and even more (Food Science) where I don't have much if any direct experience with age-appropriate materials.

So, I've been looking about, and here's my first round of research.


Space:
This Rocket
Paul Collicutt
ISBN: 0374374848
Read February 7, 2014

Space Boy
Leo Landry
ISBN: 9780618605682
Read February 7, 2014

I'm looking for a good match for Mini Grey's Toys In Space and Reidy's Light Up The Night, which I've already decided on.  I  need a third story that is bright, has lots of action and color in the pages, and really short text blocks, because both of those are on the wordy side for my age-group.

For this purpose, This Rocket is going to be what I use for SRP, but I was glad to find Space Boy also.  Space Boy follows a young boy (perhaps on the spectrum) disturbed by the noise and commotion of his family as he tries to fall asleep, so he dons a spacesuit and travels to the quiet, peaceful, beautiful moon.  However, once there, the places he visits makes him think about the various noisy family-members and how they would also enjoy the moon, and so he returns home to them, and to bed.  It's a sweet story, with odd little naive illustrations, and a slow gentle storyline.  Excellent for a bedtime storytime - not so much what I'm looking for here.  This Rocket on the other hand is PERFECT.  Bright colors, contrasting rockets, really minimal text 'This rocket is tall.  This rocket is short.'  Excellent.  I'm already looking forward to reading it!



Dinosaurs:

I Dreamt I Was A Dinosaur
Stella Blackstone, illustrated by Clare Beaton
ISBN: 1841482382
Read February 7, 2014

For this category, I only need one more title, to match up with Dinosaurumpus and Dinosaur Roar!  I saw that this book had interesting felted-work illustrations (I really like mixing up different styles and types of artwork, so kids and parents realize that all sorts of illustrated works are equally valid and interesting) and since Stella Blackstone was the author, I was really hopeful.  To be honest, I Dreamt I Was A Dinosaur wasn't as exciting as I thought it would be, but since it's paired with a truly stompy book, and a good short read, I'm ok with it being a slightly more sedate trip through dinosaur-land.  (And I really love the felt and beadwork!)  The only thing I have to worry about with this week now is mixing up my dino-name pronunciations!



Food Science:

Where Does Food Come From?
Shelley Rotner & Gary Goss, photography by Shelley Rotner
ISBN: 0761329358
Read February 7, 2014

This is an excellent nonfiction early-childhood book.  I'm planning to use it with Growing Vegetable Soup and one other (as yet unselected) book.  This one will be a great short middle read, with lots of colorful photos and obvious conclusions to draw that will make the kids feel smart for knowing the answers.  It covers a lot of foods for such a short book - even includes salt, sugar, and maple syrup!  The format is simple and clear - THIS is a food source, and THIS is the food that it eventually becomes - showing photos along the outer edges of the pages illustrating the plant or source, and someone (usually a child) happily eating the resulting food.  Very nice nonfiction title.  I'm planning to use it for regular storytime rotations as well as for Summer Reading.