Tuesday Storytime: Winter is Coming

It's finally starting to get a little chilly, so my coworker has picked out a very good set of "fall turns into winter" books to get us transitioned over, just in time for Christmas!

Every Autumn Comes the Bear

Jim Arnosky

ISBN: 0399225080

Lyrical text with powerful, almost frightening oversized illustrations of a territorial bear arriving before his winter's hibernation. 

Penguin and Pumpkin

Salina Yoon

ISBN: 9780802737335

A nice tone shift back to the light-hearted, Yoon gives us another cute story of Antarctic penguins traveling to see the world of fall colors and plants (we'll skip over the geographic improbability that entails with the whole southern hemisphere being in late spring), and Penguin brings back a crate of pumpkins and fall leaves for his fledgling sibling.

Shelter

Celine Claire, illustrated by Qin Leng

ISBN: 9781771389273

Sweet and (for adults at least) somewhat pointed story about offering shelter to the needy in the cold hard winter, set with forest animals, and not an overt hint of the Christmas story to be found, similarities notwithstanding (and probably intentional). Sweet for the kids, and hopefully hard-hitting for the adults. 

Tuesday Storytime: Fall Colors

These were selected by my co-worker.

How Big Could your Pumpkin Grow?
Wendell Minor
ISBN: 9780399246845
Strange illustrations highlight the oddities of even stranger pumpkins, growing wildly and grandiosely out of control and overwhelming their landscapes.


Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf
Lois Ehlert
ISBN: 9780152661977
One of Ehlert's classic collage and found-item celebrations, this time of the colors and impressions of fall.

Leaves in Fall 
Martha E. H. Rustad, consulting editor Gail Saunders
ISBN: 9781429600248
Beautiful photography and nature-facts approach make this a lovely nonfiction storytime addition. 

Tuesday Storytime: fall fun

Last week's storytime was given by my co-worker.


Autumn: Leaves Fall from the Trees
Lisa Bell, illustrated by Emily Brooks
ISBN: 1632902605 
Lovely poetic nonfiction uses lyrical text and gentle illustrations to showcase the notable features of the season, both natural and social.

Leaves
David Ezra Stein
ISBN: 9780399246364
Young Bear has a fun adventure out in a forest full of leaves until autumn comes, and he begins to worry about all of the falling leaves. He tries his best to fix them, and to keep an eye on them and the trees, but he is getting soooo sleeeepy! When he wakes in the spring, he's in for a reassuring surprise.

One Leaf, Two Leaves, Count With Me!
John Micklos Jr, illustrated by Clive McFarland
Peculiar art style livens up this counting book following a deciduous tree through the seasons as we count leaves coming in spring, and going away again in fall. Older readers might twig to the notion that there's way more than four leaves per tree (even in the illustrations) but the younger ones will dig the progression of the seasons.

Tuesday Storytime: Fall Leaves

A last generic fall storytime before it's finally December and I feel obligated to move on to winter, despite whatever it's doing outside.

Fall Leaves: Colorful and Crunchy
Martha E. H. Rustad, illustrated by Amanda Enright
ISBN: 9780761385059
A really good junior nonfiction title with information about photosynthesis and plant growth and leaf formation. Illustrations are cartoony and clear and stylized in a slightly exaggerated manner. Interesting choice and a fun difference from the majority which use photographs. It has "chapters" of a few spreads each, which was a big hit for my little ones to be big enough to listen to a "chapter book."

Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf
Lois Ehlert
ISBN: 0152661972
This book always surprises me that it is so narrative-heavy. The (unseen) narrator tells us all about her sugar maple tree and how it was grown and developed and nursery'ed, and talks about the colors of the leaves and the different types of trees and resulting leaf colors.

Fletcher and the Falling Leaves
Julia Rawlinson, illustrated by Tiphanie Beeke
ISBN: 9780061134012
Fletcher the fox kit is experiencing his first fall, and so he's worried when his favorite tree starts turning brown and then (oh horrors) losing it's leaves! He tries very hard to save them, but it's a lost cause. There's a beautiful surprise on the last pages of the now-winterized tree (love when books have just a smidge of glitter or fun printing tricks to them!) Amazingly evocative and sweet, and more than a bit sad, despite the happy ending.

Tuesday Storytime: Autumn Thanks

Since we covered Thanksgiving pretty thoroughly last time around, I focused on a few of my newly-acquired fall books this time around.

Hocus Pocus, It's Fall!
Anne Sibley O'Brien, illustrated by Susan Gall
ISBN: 9781419721250
An entire book of fold-out flaps gives very short rhymes on different fall themes and situations, and then a "magic word" (a different one each time - there are SO MANY OF THEM!) to fold out the flap and show the "magic" change of seasons on the fold-out continuation of the spread.

Thanks for Thanksgiving
Julie Markes, illustrated by Doris Barrette
ISBN:  9780060510985
Short and as inoffensive as possible, this set of "thanks" are offered generally to no specified person or entity, and focus on the experiences of children - school and dress-up, play-dates and parents.

My Autumn Book
Wong Herbert Yee
ISBN: 9780805099225
Sweet but just a liiiiitle bit too long for my very young group this time around. A possibly-Asian girl notices lots of natural changes in the world as proof that autumn is approaching, and collects items to remember the season, building a book of memories to read in the winter.

Tuesday Storytime: Thanksgiving is Coming

My compatriot had lots of fun picking out Thanksgiving-themed books before she realized the rotation had her on the week before - but that's ok! We're not super tied to a schedule here, so there's no reason we can't have an anticipatory storytime a week ahead of time to remind kids what all the fuss is about.

She chose:

The Thanksgiving Play (a Herbster Reader)
by Cecilia Minden
Herbie and his school friends try hard to put on a fun and interesting Thanksgiving School Play, but everything keeps going wrong!

The Leaves on the Trees
by Thom Wiley
A beautiful nonfiction picture book focused on nature's glorious and varietal fall colors, to the tune of "The Wheels on the Bus."

Bear Says Thanks
by Karma Wilson
Another of the really delightful Bear books - this time focusing on the importance of family and friends as a cause for celebration and happiness.

Tuesday Storytime: Fall is Here!

With Monster Month safely behind us for another year, it's time for the rotation to begin having a solid selection of "fall" themed books, and oh there are just so many good ones to choose from. This time around I went with two solid favorites, and a new discovery just recently published.


Wonderfall
Michael Hall
ISBN: 9780062382986
A tree narrates a set of short non-rhyming poems as the season progresses from the end of summer to the beginning of winter, hitting on the start of school, Halloween, and Thanksgiving, along with blustery winds, animal migrations and foraging, and even composting! Really well done, and a delightful addition to our collection.


Mystery Vine
Cathryn Falwell
ISBN: 9780061771989
This one really needs to be done very early in the fall, so I wanted to go ahead and use it while summer is still fairly fresh in people's minds. A pair of kids follow a garden through the year in cute little rhyming couplets while a "mystery vine" grows along the fence until fall, when everything else in the garden is dead or dying - it's of course a pumpkin vine. There's a spread about trick-or-treating, but the focus is on the outdoors and the garden.


Moon Glowing
Elizabeth Partridge, illustrated by Joan Paley
ISBN: 0525468730
We follow a squirrel, bat, beaver, and bear through the developing fall into winter, as they prepare for the coming cold weather. Very sparse text, very short, not much content. Chosen to be a short final story for our typical fall crowd of very very young babies and toddlers, who are nearing (or well past) their attention spans by the last book of the day. Sweet and a bit solemn,

Tuesday Storytime: Halloween is Coming

One week til Halloween, and because of the shared schedule, it's the first time in about 10 years that I will NOT be doing a storytime on Halloween. So I did some really cute Halloween prep books this week instead.

And Then Comes Halloween
Tom Brenner, illustrated by Holly Meade
ISBN: 9780763636593
This is an excellent Halloween book. It has a lot of atmospheric fall details, and lots of focus on the seasons changing and on very generic fall decorating with corn stalks and scarecrows, and only really gets into the Halloween-specific stuff right at the end. The focus is also on the creative process of thinking up and creating your own costume, and on the community fun of trick-or-treating in a group and sorting and swapping candy together. Very lighthearted and informative, with really lovely language.

Duck and Goose Find a Pumpkin
Tad Hills
ISBN: 9780375858130 (board book)
I was lucky that this was a very small group, because this is a pretty small board book format. Duck and Goose and Thistle appear in this really short story, and I ask for a lot of audience interaction to drag it out a bit longer. Thistle has a very nice pumpkin, and Duck and Goose decide they want one too, so they go in search of it, with not much luck until Thistle reappears with a hint.

Happy Halloween, Biscuit!
Alyssa Satin Capucilli, illustrated by Pat Schories
ISBN: 9780694012206 (page-end-flaps)
Biscuit and his little girl are prepping for Halloween, which means the little girl is prepping, and Biscuit is getting into messes and generally being an adorable pest, revealed by the flaps on each of the far left side pages.  Sweet and gentle and with cute little "mysteries" to solve or questions to ponder on each spread.

Tuesday Storytime: October Already!

The month of October is a happy time for my storytime selecting; as it becomes essentially a month-long celebration of Halloween and all things spooky. This is my partner's first October, and she's off to a great start:

Me and My Dragon: Afraid of Halloween
David Biedrzycki
ISBN: 9781580896580
The boy and his adorable bright red dragon confront the frights and startlements of Halloween, and decide it's not that bad after all.

Penguin and Pumpkin
Salina Yoon
ISBN: 9780802737335
A little longer than it seems like it should be: Penguin heads out away from the ice with a pack of friends to see what "fall" is like, but baby brother Pumpkin has to stay home, as he's not quite big enough. (Serious questions about given names in this world remain unanswered) When Penguin and crew come back with fall leaves and pumpkins for all, they do what they can to give baby Pumpkin a chance to experience fall himself.

Crankenstein
Samantha Berger, illustrated by Dan Santat
ISBN: 9780316126564
Crankenstein is a very scary monster. Have you seen it? Check around when there are annoying or disappointing situations, or when life just doesn't go quite right. Crank will vanish sometimes, but it will always be back. A funny sideways view of childhood fits and grumps works perfectly for this time of year.

Tuesday Storytime: Winter is Coming

Some lovely nature books for the onset of winter, at the start of December.  Wanted to counteract all of the rampant Christmassing going on everywhere.

Winter is Coming

Tony Johnston, illustrated by Jim LaMarche

ISBN: 9781442472518

Reviewed here, read only exerpts for storytime due to extremely young attendees.

Such a beautiful book.  I trimmed it waaaay down so I could use it with this group - cut 6 spreads completely out.  Because it's sequential, it didn't detract from the narrative flow, just tightened the focus a good bit and moved it along a lot faster so our under-4 year olds didn't get terminal wiggles.  It's still one of the most beautiful books I've seen, but the language isn't as poetic or flowing as the illustrations (and the type is very small), which makes it a bit challenging to read aloud.

Moon Glowing

Elizabeth Partridge, illustrated by Joan Paley

ISBN: 0525468730

Blocky painterly collage elements and a lovely wintry color palette.

I've used this fall/hibernation book a few times in past storytimes, but not recently, and it goes very well with my natural progression of the winter concept here.  We follow three animals; squirrel, bat, and bear, as they prepare over the fall for the onset of winter.  The text is large and highly contrasted to the pages, the images are clear and stylized with crisp colors and sharp minimalist patterns and textures.  The tight focus on the three animals means that the book is super short, but still hits clearly on the natural world's focus in late fall; storing food, preparing shelter, sleeping.  Pretty and much more accessible to a younger crowd, not least because of the much more appropriate length and minimal text.

In November

Cynthia Rylant, illustrated by Jill Kastner

ISBN: 0152010769

One day late with this one.  Much like the other two, but with a short coda about Thanksgiving.

This book somehow manages to be super-factual, but impressively lyrical.  While I have no problems at all with Kastner's beautiful illustrations (the contrast between the clear-as-a-bell framing and composition with the muddled and mottled colors and blurry edges of the actual paintings is stunning to look at) I have to contrast this lovely language with that in Winter is Coming, and see how much more apt and flowing it is, and it makes me wish that Rylant would write something natural and poignant for LaMarche to illustrate.  It would probably make me cry. 

Tuesday Storytime: Fall Weather

We've had yet another weekend of miserable wet weather here, and although I know we need the rain, the combination of dreary drizzly dark days with the sudden arrival of Daylight Savings Time has made me acutely aware that we're solidly into fall.

Fall Leaves
Loretta Holland, illustrated by Elly MacKay
ISBN: 9780544106642
Beautiful (if wordy) nonfiction about the progression of the season via natural environment changes.

This was a bit of a gamble - it's nonfiction and the content text is very small (so hard for a storyteller to read) and very dense (I admit freely that I did a lot of skipping and eliding of content) - but the illustrations are so beautiful, and the clear and grounded progression of the season was so lovely and so delightful in it's dedication to being totally grounded in science and observable natural phenomenon, that I just felt like I had to.  I really like presenting nonfiction whenever I can, because I feel like it gets unfairly ignored by parents who are intimidated by the nonfiction stacks.  That's a real shame, because even very little kids can enjoy a lot of nonfiction content, and there is a lot of that content being created for even the youngest audiences.  Anyway, it's absolutely stunningly beautiful to look at, and the book itself is a delight.  I think it would be a lot better as a one-on-one lapsit book.

 
When Autumn Falls
Kelli Nidey, illustrated by Susan Swan
ISBN: 0807504912
Dimensional collage illustrations with minimal text emphasizing the "fall" in the season.

This is a cute little read, and it's a staple this time of year because it is so short and cute.  We set off through an idealized small town in fall with short direct text: "Leaves on the trees fall..."  "The temperature falls..."  "Ripe apples" and "football players" also.  We learn that "sunlight falls through the almost-bare trees" and "days fall shorter" as we end the day and the book with "We call it fall."


Leaf Man
Lois Ehlert
ISBN: 0152053042
Ehlert's signature bold colors and outlines are interpreted here through collages of fall leaves.

A lyrical story of fall told through the creation of a Leaf Man who blows away in the wind and the reader is asked to imagine where he goes and what he sees on his autumn journey.  The journey imagines gardens and crops, farm animals and flying geese, migrating butterflies and swarming fish in rivers, but all of the illustrations are created entirely through images of various leaves.  It is beautiful and somewhat haunting.  The Leaf Man himself is re-created at the end with a prompt to find your own real Leaf Man out in nature.

Picture Book: Wild Child, Lynn Plourde & Greg Couch

Wild Child
Lynn Plourde, illustrated by Greg Couch
ISBN: 0689815522
Read February 6, 2014

Picture Book: Mother Earth, all in rusty greens and rich coppery browns, begins the drawn-out ritual of putting little Wild Child to bed.  First a song of fall noises, then a snack of fall harvest fruits, then a nightgown of fall leaves, and finally a lullabye of wintery whispery winds - just in time for a wintery sibling to pop up and declare that she 'can't sleep' as she swirls and dances on the page.

 Couch does a lovely job with the artwork, and the poetic rhythmic language is beautiful, but it seems a bit too active to be a fitting bedtime story.  Perfect for storytime, and I'm adding it to my collection of fall stories.