We did a bit of an experiment today with a VERY LONG but excellent book about how robins grow and develop, so we used that book as our first TWO book sessions, with a song at a good stopping place, and then read one final short book at the end. It worked ok, the kids are a bit young for this, and we had some talkers, but such is life.
Robins! How They Grow Up
Eileen Christelow
ISBN: 9780544442894
Really Really Really Really long and wordy. There was a lot of paraphrasing and eliding. However, there are ALSO two sections where an egg is stolen and eaten by a squirrel, and a fledgling is stooped on and carried off by a hawk, and I did NOT skip those sections. They were written matter-of-factly, and so I just carried on. I think one mommy was a bit scandalized, but kids don't care and they just want to know how things work. Very informational, good illustrations, SOOOOO wordy.
I'm a Duck
Eve Bunting
Will Hillenbrand
ISBN: 9780763680329
Really cute rhyming couplets show off this water-phobic duck, and how he used his friends and his smarts to develop skills and confidence to eventually go swimming with his family. Cute, sweet, and OH SO SHORT.
Showing posts with label ducks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ducks. Show all posts
Thursday, April 4, 2019
Tuesday, May 24, 2016
Tuesday Storytime: Ducks!
I went with a nice simple theme and picture today since we had a daycare attending. My normal group of about 20-odd warm bodies ballooned up to over seventy people today - I needed all the easy I could get!
Little Quack
Lauren Thompson, illustrated by Derek Anderson
ISBN: 0689847238
Math-concept book focuses on the first time ducklings leave their nest to go swimming.
Fuzzy bright simplistic paintings use the spreads to great advantage as the looming mother duck convinces her timid ducklings to leave the nest and join her in the water. The math is relegated to the bottom of the panels, and could easily be left out - all I did was ask the kids each time how many of the ducklings were in the water.
Have You Seen My Duckling
Nancy Tafuri
ISBN: 0688027989
Caldecott Honor book. Vivid naturalistic colored-pencil drawings have the missing duckling hidden.
An old classic. Hard to do in storytime usually because there's not anything to DO really - just turn the pages and ask on occasion: "have you seen my duckling?" but with a group this large, there's going to be a few kids who can be counted on to answer questions and anticipate events, so I can ask: "what sort of animal is mama duck talking to?" and "do you see the missing duckling?" (and of course point it out each time so that everyone can share the joke. I don't do a lot of wordless or near wordless books, so it's nice to be able to use this one at last.
Five Little Ducks
Ivan Bates
ISBN: 0439746930
Bates' illustrations are always sweet and just this side of precious, paired perfectly with the nursery rhyme.
Ivan Bates is a gifted illustrator, and his beautiful pictures always warm my heart. Something about how he lays down colors and the slightly scribbly edges on his shapes and the almost-minimalistic backgrounds just resonate really strongly with me, and I simply adore looking at them. Calming and fun at the same time. Matching that feeling up with an old nursery rhyme is a perfect choice, and makes for an instant classic. The only downside is that I never heard this particular one as a song, only as a chant, so I don't actually know how to sing it! I have to settle for halfway between reading and chanting, and my natural cadence is not quite up to the task. Oh well. Small price to pay for such a sweet and beautiful book.
Tuesday, September 1, 2015
Tuesday Storytime: Counting with Ducks
And yes, there are enough duck books in the picture book world for there to be a three-book storytime specifically about ducks and counting.
Nine Ducks Nine (previously reviewed here)
Sarah Hayes
ISBN: 9780763638160
9 watercolor ducks hatch a plan to outwit a pursuing fox through an idyllic countryside.
This is essentially the same story as Do Like a Duck Does (Hindley and Bates, 2002 Candlewick hardcover ISBN: 0763616680), where a family of ducks outwit a fox and the fox ends up taking a swim. To be perfectly honest, I like the cadence and the illustrations of that story better than this one. But, this one has numbers and counting, and this one is also a longer read.
Quack and Count
Keith Baker (Big Fat Hen, 1994 HMH hardcover ISBN: 9780152928698)
ISBN: 0152928588
Colorful and textural collages (even the words!) follow permutations of 7 ducklings.
I've used Baker's Big Fat Hen in a counting storytime before, and he's a stunningly talented artist. This is less a counting book, and more of a math concepts book, but whatever. It totally counts. We start with 7 ducklings all together, and then Baker creates a clever series of rhymes for each sum of seven: starting with "Slipping, sliding, having fun / 7 ducklings, 6 plus 1." Then 5 + 2, 4 + 3, and so on. What's fun is to compare the different scenes with reversed sums: so we also have "7 ducklings, 1 plus 6 / In the water playing tricks" to compare with the first rhyme. The pages are all in full spreads, with the seven ducks divided up between the two pages to match the sum in question. Really pretty book, and really clever concept.
Five Little Ducks
from the nursery song, illustrated by Ivan Bates
ISBN: 0439746930
Colored pencils and watercolors. Bright expressive characters foregrounded against soft scenery.
Ivan Bates is a beautiful illustrator, and I love his work so much. I try not have repeats of an author or an illustrator within a storytime, which is the other reason I didn't choose Do Like a Duck Does for this trio. This is a simple illustration of the first verse of the rhyme, but there's a cute little story hidden within the illustrations about just why the ducklings aren't coming back each time. So adorable.
This ended up being on the very short end on things, but I actually try to choose shorter sets of books for the early fall. Families are coming in with their younger kids only (the older ones have headed off to preschool or kindie) and without the older kids to model good storytime behavior, it's harder for the little ones (and to be totally honest, the parents) to keep from squiggling around like mad. This is the sort of thing you figure out over time, watching the pattern repeat every fall, and you just learn to work around it - shorter stories, more obvious transitions, really expressive stories with very narrative illustrations.
Nine Ducks Nine (previously reviewed here)
Sarah Hayes
ISBN: 9780763638160
9 watercolor ducks hatch a plan to outwit a pursuing fox through an idyllic countryside.
This is essentially the same story as Do Like a Duck Does (Hindley and Bates, 2002 Candlewick hardcover ISBN: 0763616680), where a family of ducks outwit a fox and the fox ends up taking a swim. To be perfectly honest, I like the cadence and the illustrations of that story better than this one. But, this one has numbers and counting, and this one is also a longer read.
Quack and Count
Keith Baker (Big Fat Hen, 1994 HMH hardcover ISBN: 9780152928698)
ISBN: 0152928588
Colorful and textural collages (even the words!) follow permutations of 7 ducklings.
I've used Baker's Big Fat Hen in a counting storytime before, and he's a stunningly talented artist. This is less a counting book, and more of a math concepts book, but whatever. It totally counts. We start with 7 ducklings all together, and then Baker creates a clever series of rhymes for each sum of seven: starting with "Slipping, sliding, having fun / 7 ducklings, 6 plus 1." Then 5 + 2, 4 + 3, and so on. What's fun is to compare the different scenes with reversed sums: so we also have "7 ducklings, 1 plus 6 / In the water playing tricks" to compare with the first rhyme. The pages are all in full spreads, with the seven ducks divided up between the two pages to match the sum in question. Really pretty book, and really clever concept.
Five Little Ducks
from the nursery song, illustrated by Ivan Bates
ISBN: 0439746930
Colored pencils and watercolors. Bright expressive characters foregrounded against soft scenery.
Ivan Bates is a beautiful illustrator, and I love his work so much. I try not have repeats of an author or an illustrator within a storytime, which is the other reason I didn't choose Do Like a Duck Does for this trio. This is a simple illustration of the first verse of the rhyme, but there's a cute little story hidden within the illustrations about just why the ducklings aren't coming back each time. So adorable.
This ended up being on the very short end on things, but I actually try to choose shorter sets of books for the early fall. Families are coming in with their younger kids only (the older ones have headed off to preschool or kindie) and without the older kids to model good storytime behavior, it's harder for the little ones (and to be totally honest, the parents) to keep from squiggling around like mad. This is the sort of thing you figure out over time, watching the pattern repeat every fall, and you just learn to work around it - shorter stories, more obvious transitions, really expressive stories with very narrative illustrations.
Thursday, April 30, 2015
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!
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!
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