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!

Monsoon Afternoon & My Dadima Wears a Sari, Kashmira Sheth, illustrated by Yokisho Jaeggi

These two are simply beautiful picture books, and the stories in each are sweet interactions between children and their grandparents.

Monsoon Afternoon is set in India, and My Dadima Wears a Sari is set in America. 

In the first, a boy and his grandfather (his dadaji) go out and play in the first rains of the monsoon season, and the boy hears all about how his dadaji also played with his own dadaji, and the monsoon came every year, and so back through time.  The love and gentleness is sweet and uplifting, and there's nothing religious or political to take away from the simple message of a child enjoying time with a loving older relative.

My Dadima Wears a Sari has a grandmother who always wears a sari talking about all of her beautiful saris and the memories she has of them with her two granddaughters, and ends with them all dressing up in her favorites.  Again, the message is simple and the story is sweet - the dadima and granddaughter talk about all the useful things that can be done with saris, but the point is also made that they are beautiful and remind her of her past, and that she enjoys wearing them for those reasons also. 

Both simply gorgeous works, and I'm very glad to have run across them.