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.
SC Librarian reviews mostly Fantasy, SciFi, and YA, random pop-sci and psychology, juvenile fiction, and children's picture books.
Showing posts with label pumpkin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pumpkin. Show all posts
Friday, October 6, 2017
Tuesday, October 11, 2016
Tuesday Storytime: Pumpkins
Continuing our month-long Halloween party;
Pumpkin Soup
Helen Cooper
ISBN: 0374361649
Lush oversized oils and wild imaginative scenes.
I really love this book a lot. It's perfect for halloween storytimes for my area and age-group because it isn't about halloween or pumpkins, it's about friendship and quarrels and wild imagination and regrets and sacrificing and compromise, but it's GOT pumpkins and wild imaginations and scary possibilities, and walking out in the dark, so it gets at many of the same fears from an oblique approach. Similar, but a bit more obvious, is Bear Feels Scared, by Karma Wilson (another potential for later this month). Anyway, it's beautiful and sweet and if I didn't always use it for pumpkins and halloween every year, it would go very well with Three By the Sea, by Mini Grey, which deals with essentially the same plot, and possibly The Lapsnatcher, by Bruce Coville or On Mother's Lap, by Ann Herbert Scott.
Duck & Goose Find a Pumpkin (boardbook)
Tad Hills
ISBN: 9780375858130
Duck & Goose series in miniature. Cute, innocent, and faux-naive drawings.
Short and sweet. Duckling and Gosling see Thistle (a swan cygnet, I believe?) wander by with a pumpkin, and they head off in an industrious search for one of their own, looking in allll the wrong places. Kids find it impossible to resist answering the series of questions with forceful "NO"s that get even louder and more excited and exasperated the longer the hapless babies look in silly places. Thistle re-appears at the end to offer a pointed tip, and the quest ends in success.
Pumpkin Cat
Anne Mortimer
ISBN: 9780061874857
Sweet naturalistic drawings show the life-cycle of a pumpkin, from seed to jack-o-lantern.
Cat and Mouse are growing a pumpkin, and they walk through all the steps necessary to create a home for a plant and then make it grow. It gets a bit repetitive, as the call-and-response of "What now?" doesn't change AT ALL through the whole book. Regardless, a very simple and factual explanation of where pumpkins come from, for the very littlest listeners, and the Cat and Mouse make for sweet and adorable narrators and proxies to watch. The final page does say "Happy Halloween" as the Mouse makes the pumkin into a "surprise" for Cat (a jack-o-lantern), so be aware.
Pumpkin Soup
Helen Cooper
ISBN: 0374361649
Lush oversized oils and wild imaginative scenes.
I really love this book a lot. It's perfect for halloween storytimes for my area and age-group because it isn't about halloween or pumpkins, it's about friendship and quarrels and wild imagination and regrets and sacrificing and compromise, but it's GOT pumpkins and wild imaginations and scary possibilities, and walking out in the dark, so it gets at many of the same fears from an oblique approach. Similar, but a bit more obvious, is Bear Feels Scared, by Karma Wilson (another potential for later this month). Anyway, it's beautiful and sweet and if I didn't always use it for pumpkins and halloween every year, it would go very well with Three By the Sea, by Mini Grey, which deals with essentially the same plot, and possibly The Lapsnatcher, by Bruce Coville or On Mother's Lap, by Ann Herbert Scott.
Duck & Goose Find a Pumpkin (boardbook)
Tad Hills
ISBN: 9780375858130
Duck & Goose series in miniature. Cute, innocent, and faux-naive drawings.
Short and sweet. Duckling and Gosling see Thistle (a swan cygnet, I believe?) wander by with a pumpkin, and they head off in an industrious search for one of their own, looking in allll the wrong places. Kids find it impossible to resist answering the series of questions with forceful "NO"s that get even louder and more excited and exasperated the longer the hapless babies look in silly places. Thistle re-appears at the end to offer a pointed tip, and the quest ends in success.
Pumpkin Cat
Anne Mortimer
ISBN: 9780061874857
Sweet naturalistic drawings show the life-cycle of a pumpkin, from seed to jack-o-lantern.
Cat and Mouse are growing a pumpkin, and they walk through all the steps necessary to create a home for a plant and then make it grow. It gets a bit repetitive, as the call-and-response of "What now?" doesn't change AT ALL through the whole book. Regardless, a very simple and factual explanation of where pumpkins come from, for the very littlest listeners, and the Cat and Mouse make for sweet and adorable narrators and proxies to watch. The final page does say "Happy Halloween" as the Mouse makes the pumkin into a "surprise" for Cat (a jack-o-lantern), so be aware.
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