Tuesday Storytime: Big City Life

Only two more weeks before the Summer Reading Program kicks in, and we're all about the heroes and villains at that point.

For today, we're looking at life in the big city.


Blackout
John Rocco
ISBN: 9781423121909
Caldecott Honor book, large-format comic-book panels with minimal descriptive narration.

I am ambivalent about this book.  I love it as a personal read, and I've had a lot of luck with it in one-on-one sessions, where it becomes less a "story" and more an exploration of the event that is depicted (a city-wide blackout that lasts for a few hours, through the lens of a young child who is desperate for their busy family to play a board-game with them.)  On the other hand, the almost totally wordless  nature of the book makes much less suited for storytime, even though the story and the concepts are really perfectly suited for this age-group.  It's frustrating to try and balance being true to the book as written, and the desire to explain and narrate so that the younger kids, or the ones further back in the rows who can't see the action in the panels clearly, have a chance to understand what is going on.  I always feel like I'm doing the creator a disservice regardless of what I choose.  I hate that I feel this way, because I love the comic style, and I love the storyline itself, I just don't feel like this is the best setting for it.


Count on the Subway
Paul Dubois Jacobs and Jennifer Swender, illustrations by Dan Yaccarino
ISBN: 9780307979230
Yaccarino's distinctive pop-art livens a quick by-the-numbers run through the subway system.

I love this book!  So cute and lively and the rhymes are so nifty and cleverly hidden in the numbers.  A count up to ten, then back down to one, and ending in Grand Central Station, all through the perspective of a young girl and her mother, traversing the subway in the most matter-of-fact manner.  Too adorable for words, and a perfect representation of the very different realities of life in the city that my rural storytime kids have no experience with.


All Through My Town
Jean Reidy, illustrations by Leo Timmers
ISBN: 9781619630291
Overstuffed and busy, with few grounding reference points in the text or illustrations.

I liked this one when I pre-read it, but when I started it in storytime, I realized it was much too busy and unfocused to be a keeper.  The storyline is meandering - starting in the morning and the rhymes reference the buildings and events on the page as the day progresses, but there is no solid reference to time of day or to the buildings/events that are referenced, just the onomatopoeic language of the references; "shopping, sacking, sorting, stacking - rows so nice and neat" with an illustration of a market of some sort.  I wanted to like it, and it wasn't bad, especially with the fun language throughout, but it was confusing to the kids, sadly.  Would be really good with a classroom or one-on-one to ask "what sort of place do you think this is?" for each page and circumstance, and to refer that back to the kids' experiences with their own grocery stores, libraries, and streets.

So Many New Arrivals! 3/4: Nana in the City & Lucky Ducklings

A pair of "life in the big-city" books for all of our small-town, small-city Southern kids.

Nana in the City
Lauren Castillo
ISBN: 9780544104433
Caldecott Honor: scratchy heavily-outlined figures navigate various locations in a lively big city.

We are in the shoes of a young boy visiting his Nana in the city, and he's not used to all the noise and bustle and chaos - he's decided that this place is no place for a Nana; it's scary and overwhelming.  The understanding Nana spends the night making a superhero cape for the boy, and then takes him around to all the places she loves in the city, showing that noise and bustle and chaos can be good, fun, interesting, lively things.  I love that the boy's feelings of unease and discomfort aren't negated, and that the Nana is shown as a lively active character who is part of the city.  I love that the scenes picked to show the life and happiness of the city are so varied, but I wish that all the people shown could have been more inclusive and varied.  Still, spunky and fun to look at, and short enough that I might could use it for storytime!


Lucky Ducklings (A True Rescue Story)
Eva Moore, illustrated by Nancy Carpenter
ISBN: 9780439448611
Digital & charcoal artwork is simple; beautifully composed and framed.

A true account of a duckling rescue that happened in 2000 in Montauk, New York.  We're introduced to the Duck family, with matriarch (slightly on the overprotective side) and 5 baby ducklings.  On their outing, Mama makes it across the storm drain easily, but the ducklings aren't so lucky - being as tiny as they are, they slip through the cracks and fall down into the drain.  The repeated cadence "That could have been the end of the story.  But it wasn't, because..." encourages page-flips and reader/listener interest in the development of the story, and also helps hint that everything is trundling along to a nice ending,  Which of course it does, helped along by kind firefighters and clever truckers, and of course, one overprotective Mama Duck.  I know for a fact that this one will be in a storytime - possibly quite soon!