Ok fine, I'm a giant drag, I know. I use storytime to force my agenda of purposefully acquiring manners and learning cooperation and developing emotional regulation on 4 year olds. Sorry not sorry.
Do Unto Otters: A Book About Manners
Laurie Keller
ISBN: 9780805079968
What it says on the tin, basically. Rabbit discovers his new neighbors the Otters, and is concerned about them being good neighbors and good friends. He learns the maxim "Do Unto Otters" (you get the idea) and spends the book laying out what exactly, behavior-wise, that sort of thing entails. Really really good for being clear and obvious about social expectations while also being cute and tongue-in-cheek.
When Sophie Gets Angry
Molly Bang
ISBN: 9780590189798
Love how this book just straightforwardly deals with emotions, and shows a valid way of processing them out in nature, and shows the progression of a general upset from rage to anger to frustration to sadness to acceptance and re-integration into the original scene. It's a lot of really big concepts that are conveyed perfectly clearly through illustrations and colors and perspective, and carefully chosen child-level vocabulary. Classic and nonjudgmental.
llama llama and the bully goat
Anna Dewdney
ISBN: 9780670013951
Llama llama and his preschool class (and Zebra! preschool teacher) deal with a kid who is leaning into acting in bullying ways. The resolution is a leeeeetle bit too pat, but with kids this young, there's a fine line between being a bully and just being un-social and needing a bit of help. I'm choosing to view it as the second, and they're just using the bully terminology because the beginning of "here's how to handle this" is the same in both cases: advocate for yourself, use your words to clearly set boundaries, then involve a trusted adult or authority figure. After that if it really is a settled bully and not just a fellow kid having a singular bad day, things get a bit too complex for a book I'm willing to read in storytime.
Showing posts with label emotions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label emotions. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 27, 2018
Friday, January 26, 2018
Tuesday Storytime: Expressing Feelings
Ok, time for a break in the winterpalooza. I can only handle so much snow and winter before the grey green grass outside gets really depressing (although I do appreciate that it's MUCH warmer here than in truly wintry stomping grounds).
This storytime focuses on feelings, and how they're all natural, and fine, and how to articulate them, and how everyone feels them.
Tough Guys (have feelings too)
Keith Negley
ISBN: 9781909263666
A parade of "tough guys" from Knights to Ninja to Astronauts to Luchadores to Race Car Drivers to even Superheroes, Cowboys, and Biker Dudes all show sadness and grief and lonliness in circumstances familiar to every child: loss, lonliness, frustration. The only picture I skipped was right at the end - because there were so many younger children present, I chickened out of showing the spread where the Biker Dude mourns a small furry roadkill squirrel. Books like these are really important for showing kids that all their emotions are healthy and permissible, and teaches them words and concepts to help feel more in control of what are sometimes very scary internal states of being.
I Am So Brave!
Stephen Krensky, illustrated by Sara Gillingham
ISBN: 9781419709371
A cute AA child (mostly coded as male but not specified) shows off paired illustrations on each spread with short couplets of what they feared and then overcome. Our first illustration goes right for it: the child is hiding behind an adult's legs, while a black dog and other dogs take up most of the foreground. Opposite tho, there's a happy embrace between the child and a rambunctious and happy black puppy. The drawings aren't done to heighten a sense of drama or fear in the "scared" panels, and the child looks roughly the same age and ability in each pair. It's very powerful and punchy.
My Friend is Sad (Elephant and Piggie)
Mo Willems
ISBN: 9781423102977
Gerald (the elephant) is sad. So Piggie tries to cheer him up by sneaking up on him in various elaborate costumes: cowboy, then a clown, then a robot. Gerald cheers momentarily, but then resumes being morose. Piggie gives up and heads over to apologise for not being able to provide any lasting cheer, and discovers something important about their friendship (and about the state of Gerald's eyesight). It veers juuuuust a touch into codependency at the end, but overall it is sweet and a direct reminder that fun times are more fun with people to share them with, and that friends really do need their friends in a real way.
This storytime focuses on feelings, and how they're all natural, and fine, and how to articulate them, and how everyone feels them.
Tough Guys (have feelings too)
Keith Negley
ISBN: 9781909263666
A parade of "tough guys" from Knights to Ninja to Astronauts to Luchadores to Race Car Drivers to even Superheroes, Cowboys, and Biker Dudes all show sadness and grief and lonliness in circumstances familiar to every child: loss, lonliness, frustration. The only picture I skipped was right at the end - because there were so many younger children present, I chickened out of showing the spread where the Biker Dude mourns a small furry roadkill squirrel. Books like these are really important for showing kids that all their emotions are healthy and permissible, and teaches them words and concepts to help feel more in control of what are sometimes very scary internal states of being.
I Am So Brave!
Stephen Krensky, illustrated by Sara Gillingham
ISBN: 9781419709371
A cute AA child (mostly coded as male but not specified) shows off paired illustrations on each spread with short couplets of what they feared and then overcome. Our first illustration goes right for it: the child is hiding behind an adult's legs, while a black dog and other dogs take up most of the foreground. Opposite tho, there's a happy embrace between the child and a rambunctious and happy black puppy. The drawings aren't done to heighten a sense of drama or fear in the "scared" panels, and the child looks roughly the same age and ability in each pair. It's very powerful and punchy.
My Friend is Sad (Elephant and Piggie)
Mo Willems
ISBN: 9781423102977
Gerald (the elephant) is sad. So Piggie tries to cheer him up by sneaking up on him in various elaborate costumes: cowboy, then a clown, then a robot. Gerald cheers momentarily, but then resumes being morose. Piggie gives up and heads over to apologise for not being able to provide any lasting cheer, and discovers something important about their friendship (and about the state of Gerald's eyesight). It veers juuuuust a touch into codependency at the end, but overall it is sweet and a direct reminder that fun times are more fun with people to share them with, and that friends really do need their friends in a real way.
Tuesday, October 21, 2014
Tuesday Storytime: Comparing Yourself to Animals
Because there are enough good quality fun picture books out there to do a storytime SOLELY about comparing yourself to animals, here we are! A trio of excellent storybook authors/illustrators also represented, with very different art styles, so a win all around for this week.
Little Mouse
Alison Murray (Apple Pie A B C)
ISBN: 9781423143307
Retro-bold outlines and bright color-blocked cast of animals follow a little girl through her day.
Our narrator is mommy's "little mouse" when she's all cuddly and snuggly, but she wants us to know that she's lots of other animals too. This one is very fun because she never states out-loud what the animals are, but they appear behind her, so when she is shown grumpily heading for her bath with an irate bear behind her and the commentary "And I'm pretty certain that little mice don't stomp..." (emphasis in the original) the kids are happy to add "like a bear!" to finish the thought.
Quick as a Cricket
Audrey Wood, illustrated by Don Wood
ISBN: 0859531511
Classic stream-of-opposites with an engaging boy emoting along with the animal representative.
I don't read this one very often, but I really enjoy what it does: presents a set of emotional or physical feelings and relates them to the animals that are most associated with that emotion or feeling or attribute in western (American) culture, specifically the ones that have actual phrases associated. So we have "weak as a kitten" and "gentle as a lamb," but also "mean as a shark" and "strong as an ox" all of which are fairly common statements. In addition, there's others that simply make sense "tough as a rhino," "wild as a chimp," "slow as a snail" may not be actual folk-statements, but they hold true and would make sense to most adults.
Monkey and Me
Emily Gravett (The Odd Egg)
ISBN: 9781416954576
A cute little girl and her stuffed monkey (in scribbly pencil art reminiscent of Emma Kate, by Patricia Polacco, ISBN: 9780399244520) act out movements of various animals from the classic jump-rope rhyme.
Love the repetition, and the scrambles of the kids (and the patient hints of the parents) trying to figure out what the girl and monkey duo are acting out. The elephant pantomime is especially clever, and I like the sing-song effects of the repeated chant leading up to whatever they were going to see. The ending is perhaps a bit abrupt - because the story is entirely on sets of spreads, it's over very quickly compared to a lot of stories.
Little Mouse
Alison Murray (Apple Pie A B C)
ISBN: 9781423143307
Retro-bold outlines and bright color-blocked cast of animals follow a little girl through her day.
Our narrator is mommy's "little mouse" when she's all cuddly and snuggly, but she wants us to know that she's lots of other animals too. This one is very fun because she never states out-loud what the animals are, but they appear behind her, so when she is shown grumpily heading for her bath with an irate bear behind her and the commentary "And I'm pretty certain that little mice don't stomp..." (emphasis in the original) the kids are happy to add "like a bear!" to finish the thought.
Quick as a Cricket
Audrey Wood, illustrated by Don Wood
ISBN: 0859531511
Classic stream-of-opposites with an engaging boy emoting along with the animal representative.
I don't read this one very often, but I really enjoy what it does: presents a set of emotional or physical feelings and relates them to the animals that are most associated with that emotion or feeling or attribute in western (American) culture, specifically the ones that have actual phrases associated. So we have "weak as a kitten" and "gentle as a lamb," but also "mean as a shark" and "strong as an ox" all of which are fairly common statements. In addition, there's others that simply make sense "tough as a rhino," "wild as a chimp," "slow as a snail" may not be actual folk-statements, but they hold true and would make sense to most adults.
Monkey and Me
Emily Gravett (The Odd Egg)
ISBN: 9781416954576
A cute little girl and her stuffed monkey (in scribbly pencil art reminiscent of Emma Kate, by Patricia Polacco, ISBN: 9780399244520) act out movements of various animals from the classic jump-rope rhyme.
Love the repetition, and the scrambles of the kids (and the patient hints of the parents) trying to figure out what the girl and monkey duo are acting out. The elephant pantomime is especially clever, and I like the sing-song effects of the repeated chant leading up to whatever they were going to see. The ending is perhaps a bit abrupt - because the story is entirely on sets of spreads, it's over very quickly compared to a lot of stories.
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