Tuesday Storytime: Thanksgiving Week

A set of classic Thanksgiving reads this year:

In November
Cynthia Rylant, illustrated by Jill Kastner
ISBN: 0152010769
A lovely segue between the natural world settling down into winter, and the social world congregating for thanksgiving celebrations. Very soothing and pretty.

We Share One World
Jane E Hoffelt, illustrated by Marty Husted
ISBN: 0970190786
A short rhyming-couplet poem follows children from countries around the world as they interact with nature in their differing environments. Super sweet message without being cloying.

Bear Says Thanks
Karma Wilson, illustrated by Jane Chapman
9781416958567
I love the Bear books, and this one is no exception. Bear is worried because he has nothing to share with his good friends on Thanksgiving, but all his friends remind him that he's special and loved just for himself, not for his food.

Tuesday Storytime: Valentine's Day

Valentines books are so much fun. I got a late start on them and so I went with several tried-and-true classics, but there are some other good ones on hold that should filter in soon, and I will review them when I get a chance to see them. Always good to have ideas and books for next time around!

The Day It Rained Hearts
Felicia Bond
ISBN: 0066238765
Scribbly backgrounds and stylized simple outline cartoon characters still manage to carry sentiment and interest in this short story of personalized and thoughtful valentines. I also like our double-barreled named heroine: Cornelia Augusta. She plucks the falling "rain" hearts, and uses them carefully to make valentines for her friends, all of them carefully individualized. Short and sweet.

A Short History of Valentine's Day
Sally Lee & Gail Saunders-Smith
ISBN:9781491460986
Lots of historical photographs liven up a VERY short and preschool-aimed history of the concepts and impetus behind the current holiday. Like some of the others in this series, the end is a bit abrupt.

Just Because You're Mine
Sally Lloyd-Jones, illustrated by Frank Endersby
ISBN: 9780062014764
Daddy red squirrel and his baby squirrel are out and about for the day, with baby squirrel demonstrating all the amazing squirrely things he can do, and wondering if those things are why his Daddy loves him. The answer of course doesn't come til the end, repeating the title. Really adorable sweet art, like Sam McBratney, Ivan Bates, or Anita Jeram. Sweet without being maudlin.

Tuesday Storytime: Only One More (Storytime) til Christmas!

With apologies to the Muppet Christmas Carol, there was only one more storytime til Christmas, so it's the final opportunity to showcase some really sweet Christmas stories. Every year at this time we have a lot of returning storytimers who have "graduated" into school attendance - they're all off on their winter breaks, and it's lovely to have a chance to see them all again in storytime. It also makes for a difficult balancing act between their older and more mature tastes and concentration levels, and the needs of the still very young infants and tiny toddlers who are just barely holding on for a full storytime as it is.

The Night Before Christmas
Clement C. Moore, illustrated by Kathy Wilburn (Little Golden Book)
ISBN: 03070475501
I used to read this book at Christmastime at my Grandmother's house, and I have very fond memories of the illustrations. The book itself is on the small side, but we all scrunched up close and managed anyway. The kids loved it, and I'm glad I put it first while attention and interest was strong enough to make it through.

Dream Snow
Eric Carle
ISBN: 0399235795
A humble farmer dreams of snow blanketing himself and his handful of farm animals (named One through Five) and his single farm tree (named Tree) and the kids have a blast guessing the identities of the farm animals based on their white-draped shapes before I pull away the transparency to reveal them one by one. The end of the book has the farmer in his suspiciously-red winter warm clothes tramping outside with a sack of toys and shiny things to decorate Tree for the Christmas season. A big hit because of the interaction.

Bear Stays Up For Christmas
Karma Wilson, illustrated by Jane Chapman
ISBN: 0689852789
I love these books so much. Bear is normally asleep at this time of year (hibernation, you know) but his friends are determined that he'll be awake for Christmas at least once. So they plan a full day and night of activities, and the sleepy Bear manages, until all the friends fall asleep themselves from exhaustion. A delighted tricksy Bear spends the night creating presents and decorating for them while they sleep, and they all enjoy a lovely Christmas morning together. So cute. 

Tuesday Storytime: Summer Daze

It's that lovely time between Summer Reading and fall, so it's almost like a second summer, where we aren't restricted to the summer reading theme. So that means lots of fun summery books.

Maisy Goes on Vacation
Lucy Cousins
ISBN: 9780763647520
Maisy the mouse goes on vacation to the beach, with the anticipation, packing, travel (a train ride in this case), and hotel stay all preceding a trip to the beach with friends.

Summer Days and Nights
Wong Herbert Yee
ISBN: 9780805090789
A tiny book that packs a great big nostalgic punch. Fuzzy grainy paintings appear summer-hazy as we follow a girl through a green and gold summer day into a warm cozy summer night of fireflies and late bedtimes. Very sweet and really attractive.

And Then Comes Summer
Tom Brenner, illustrated by Jaime Kim
ISBN: 9780763660710
This book is a straight-up When This Happens / Then This Happens, all on a summery theme. Very anticipatory, and lots of fun, as we follow through a set of summer activities (stereotypical or iconic, depending on how much you like summer rituals). We get fishing, parades, ice-cream trucks and camping, and more. Cute and vivacious.

Tuesday Storytime: Christmas

Holidays are always so interesting.  On the one hand, it makes things easier for selection, because there's your topic hanging RIGHT THERE.  On the other hand, it limits choices because now the selection criteria include topical limitations; at least Christmas books aren't as universally unfortunate as the Thanksgiving ones are.  On the third hand (running out of hands here) celebrating (or just acknowledging major religious/cultural holidays can be a bit fraught, because there are often not enough quality resources available to do a storytime about other cultural holidays - I feel like I should be more pro-active about finding those, but this is only one of several hats I wear.  On the fourth hand, getting back to celebrating holidays, especially with Christmas, I feel like there's a distinct possibility that caregivers are just the tiniest bit sick of it all, and would be thrilled to have something else to talk about with their toddlers for an hour or so.  On the fifth hand, I do have a whole lot of parents who are either temporarily in the states or are freshly immigrated, and so there is a whole cultural phenomenon they're actively trying to figure out.

I overthink things sometimes.  

Three lovely Christmas books.

Christmas in the Country

Cynthia Rylant, illustrated by Diane Goode 

ISBN: 0439073340

Narrator remembers a long-ago Christmas with her grandparents.  Less country and more old-fashioned.

Likes: narrator lives with grandparents, Christmas is shown as secular (trees and Santa and presents) and religious (two different church services), and it deals with the END of Christmas and the associated rituals that make the post-event process go smoothly (taking out the tree, putting away ornaments, a special snack).

Dislikes: no PoC, slightly too long for my wiggle-worms today, and the illustrations aren't my favorites - very cartoony and loose.  

Christmas Wombat

Jackie French, illustrated by Bruce Whatley

ISBN: 9780547868721

Australians celebrate Christmas too, and so does this very greedy wombat.

Very few words here, and sequential illustrations.  I narrated a bit more than the actual text, and asked leading questions as the book progressed, and the caregivers got a kick out of the humor, and the kids were impressed at the sheer number of carrots eaten by this roly-poly furball.  Short and funny - a perfect fit.

A Short History of Christmas

Sally Lee, with Gail Saunders-Smith (consulting editor)

ISBN: 9781491460955

A bit scattershot, but very basic and clearly laid out description of Christmas themes and traditions.

This is my second Christmas reading this book (I discovered it a bit over a year ago and was delighted with it) and while I'm still very pleased with it, I will say that the ending is a BIT sharp.  I would have liked to see more time spent on modern traditions and approaches to Christmas (we only get a single spread before it turns abruptly to the glossary).  The only other quibble I have is that the language presents the existence of Mary and Joseph and the timing of Jesus' birth as historical facts, when it could very easily have been phrased to indicate that this is considered truth for Christians, and not necessarily by others with different belief systems. The scattershot approach isn't actually a negative for me, considering the attention spans of my little ones, and the one-topic-per-spread approach means that they constantly have something new and interesting to re-engage with.  (And engage they did - lots of audience participating on this book as they showed off all that they knew about Christmas and Saint Nicholas and traditions.     

Tuesday Storytime: Valentines Friends

So many good books about friendships and valentines!  Too hard to narrow down to just three, so I like doing multiple storytimes - there will be more love going around next week!

Friendshape

Amy Krouse Rosenthal, illustrated by Tom Lichtenheld (Exclamation Mark)

ISBN: 9780545436823

The duo behind the visually punny Exclamation Mark returns with a set of four shapes who are excellent friends.  Previously reviewed here.

The four friends (a red rectangle, green equilateral triangle, yellow square, and light blue circle) extol the virtues of friendship in a series of visual puns and clever wordplay.  For example, "Friends welcome others to join in" has the blue circle exclaiming "so glad you could stop by!" to a red octagon (get it?) while "Friends play fair and ..." has the yellow square friend at the end of those ellipses, so kids can learn the phrase "fair and square" on their own.  So cute.  I don't know how much the littles got out of it, but the parents had a blast.

The Day it Rained Hearts

Felicia Bond (If You Give a Mouse a Cookie) 

ISBN: 0066238765 

It rained hearts, so our heroine collects them to decorate and send as valentines to her friends.

This is a great story, because other than the fanciful premise of it raining hearts, the whole premise is about using resources and creating things especially for friends - to make something that would appeal to a friend specifically, not to make generic or mass-market offerings.  The prosaic matter-of-fact storytelling puts the emphasis on creation and consideration of individual quirks and interests, and the illustrations hit them again, even when the text moves on.  Very sweet, very straightforward, and good for a bit before Valentines Day, because of the focus on creating and sending the hearts. 

No Two Alike

Keith Baker (LMNO Peas, Big Fat Hen)

ISBN: 9781442417427

More lyrical and mellow than his previous books, but lush and beautiful; both visually and to read.

Keith Baker is a fantastic artist, and I've enjoyed his concepts.  His illustrations for Big Fat Hen are utterly scrumptious (I've used both it and LMNO Peas in storytimes before) so it's nice to have another by him, and I'm enjoying this meditation on friendship and individual differences very much.  It's a bit of a conceptual leap for littles, but it's still beautiful, and the story flows nicely at the end of the storytime (it is VERY mellow, and very downbeat).  We follow two red birds through a winterscape as they explore the idea that nothing: no two nests, no two snowflakes, no two roads or bridges or fawns or even the little red birds themselves, are exactly alike, and that's precisely how it should be.  Sweet with just a tinge of melancholy.   

Tuesday Storytime: Thanksgiving

A couple of old standards, and a new nonfiction Thanksgiving book.


A Short History of Thanksgiving
Sally Lee, consulting editor Gail Saunders-Smith
ISBN: 9781491460979
Nonfiction, primary-source images and photography.

This is a delightful short (very short) intro to the concept of Thanksgiving.  Just right for this pre-school age group of mine, and I'm very glad to have it in the system.  I'll have to check out the other holiday books in this series as well if they're all done as well as this one was.



Thanksgiving Cats
Jean Marzollo, illustrated by Hans Wilhelm
ISBN: 0590037145
Previously reviewed here


Thanks for Thanksgiving
Julie Markes, illustrated by Doris Barrette
ISBN: 9780060510961
Previously reviewed here

Tuesday Storytime: Fourth of July

This was supposed to be a "vacation week" for Summer Programming, because of the coincidence of the holiday weekend and the American Library Association conference in San Fran last weekend through Wednesday.

However, I had a pile of families turn up (which I have to be honest, I sort of expected) so I did a short Fourth of July program with only one book.

Apple Pie 4th of July
Janet S. Wong, illustrated by Margaret Chodos-Irvine
ISBN: 015202543X
Comic-book stylings for the characters, and minimalist backgrounds focus attention to the story.

Our narrator is a young daughter of a family-owned chinese take-out and quick-stop corner store.  She laments that they are open every day of the year except Christmas (even on the Fourth of July!) when obviously everyone knows that no one eats Chinese food on the Fourth of July!  Her certainty is assured and a bit overplayed, as the ending of course has happy revelers enjoying their Chinese food, and everyone retreating to the rooftops to enjoy the fireworks shows.  A great short course in tone and language and expectations.

Next week, back to heroes!