Tuesday Storytime: It's Cold Outside!

I'm finally back on my feet after a two-week long cold, and I've jumped into the winter wilderness with three books focusing on the chills and thrills of wintertime.

Pablo in the Snow
Teri Sloat, illustrated by Rosalinde Bonnet
ISBN: 9781627794121

Winter is Here
Kevin Henkes, illustrated by Laura Dronzek
ISBN: 9780062747198

Winter is the Warmest Season
Lauren Stringer
ISBN: 0152049673

Tuesday Storytime: What to do in the Snow?

This set by my coworker moves from nature to fun winter activities.

Blizzard
John Rocco
ISBN: 9781423178651

Snowballs
Lois Ehlert
ISBN: 0152000747

Snow Sisters!: Two sisters, one snowy day
Kerri Kokias, illustrated by Teagan White
ISBN: 9781101938836

Tuesday Storytime: Winter Mamas

I cheated slightly with these, as they are all set in winter, but the focus is on the relationship between the mother and child. 

Mama, Do You Love Me?

Barbara M. Joosse, illustrated by Barbara Lavallee

ISBN: 0590459848

A lovely stylized book focusing on a traditional Inuit mother and child, with the child wondering whether Mother would still love her under different circumstances, ranging from accidents to michief to ever-more-outlandish propositions of transformations into scary animals. Very sweet, illustratively fantastic.

On Mother's Lap

Ann Herbert Scott, illustrated by Glo Coalson

ISBN: 0395589207

Another Northern Native American (unfortunately unidentified in the text, but widely considered to also be Inuit) mother and child story. Michael is ready for a nice afternoon on the rocking chair with Mother, but he wants to include all of his toys and blanket and pet.... and really there's just no room for the little sibling at all. Mother gently intervenes and reminds the boy that there's always room for everyone.

Big Snow

Jonathan Bean

ISBN: 9780374306960

David and his mom are getting ready for a big snow, and for overnight guests. Well, MOM is getting ready, and David is helping sporadically before getting perpetually distracted by the onset of snowy weather. An interesting naptime dream makes for some late-story drama, and the conclusion is a bit abrupt.

Tuesday Storytime: Fun in the Snow

Christmas is over, the cold is finally kicking in, we are starting to see actual frost (and even the occasional snowflake or overnight icing!) and so it's time for the traditional Post-Christmas Snowy Storybook Extravaganza.

These books were selected by my coworker.

Slither, Slide, What's Outside?
Nora Hilb, illustrated by Simon and Sheryl Shapiro
ISBN: 9781554513871
An odd book, but a charmer. This is a four-seasons book, nonfiction, with both nature photographs (everything from worms to stars) and fun playful illustrations. The narrative is in rhyming quatrains, creating little mini-verses on each page with instructions that could be used for a movement section if the leader/reader wanted to go that route. Cute and different.

Mimi and Bear in the Snow
Janee Trasler
ISBN: 9780374349714
I've used this cutie before myself. Mimi is a sweet little bunny and she and her bear play (and get lost) in the snow. Short and sweet and charming.

100 Snowmen
Jen Arena, illustrated by Stephen Gilpin
ISBN: 9781477847039
A most peculiar counting book. Snowmen cavort and play and make really bizarre facial expressions (some of them nearly terrifying) as the narrative counts up to 100 snowmen total throughout the whole book. Weird and wild.

Tuesday Storytime: Snow Day

An impromptu storytime on demand with a leftover non-specifically-Christmas book from last year, and a couple of books liberated from upcoming planned storytimes.

Walking in a Winter Wonderland
based on the song by Felix Bernard and Richard B. Smith
as sung by Peggy Lee
illustrated by Tim Hopgood
ISBN: 9781627793049
I actually sang this one, and I didn't notice too many winces from the grownups, so I think I did ok. A lovely slightly-overlarge picture book with full spreads of beautiful stylized colorful winter landscapes full of cheerful people and animals. The kids were mesmerized, at least partially by the oddity of singing the text of a picture book, and the families knew the song well enough to come in and sing with me on the repeated title line "walking in a winter wonderland." Very cute experiment, glad it worked!

In the Snow
Sharon Phillips Denslow, illustrated by Nancy Tafuri
ISBN: 9780060596835
A lovely nonfiction, naturalistic book, focused on the types of birds and small wild animals that come for seeds and nuts left in the snow for them by a caring child. It seems VERY short, but it feels much longer when it's being read - I'm not sure why.

Snow
Cynthia Rylant, illustrated by Lauren Stringer
ISBN: 9780152053031
I've done this one before a few times, and I love the lyricism and gentleness of this tender heart-of-winter story that uses snow as the lynch-pin. Our narrator tells us all about the different types of snow (all good, in this story) and the different lovely things that are done in and with and during the snow. It's sweet and peaceful and a little bit sad in a way that goes straight over little kids' heads, but hit the adults right in the feels. This is always a good one to end on.

Now I just have to find replacements for next week!   

Tuesday Storytime: Winter Holiday

For the first time in 9 years here, and (mumble mumble) years elsewhere, I'm stepping back from the storytime programming for a while, and training a fresh new person to the ropes.  They've been reading picture books and shadowing storytimes for a few months now, but a new year is a perfect time for new beginnings, so today is their first set of selections. From here forward, storytime selections will be theirs (guided by me, but ultimately selected by them) for as long as they're here at this location.

So, this development will actually be interesting for the purposes of reviewing, because I'll be looking at these books from a more neutral vantage - I won't be biased by having selected them myself. I'll get to see the books from a distance as they're read, so better see how the audience perceives them. I'll get to more clearly watch the reactions of the audience from a less distracted perspective. I think it's going to be a fun change in viewpoint.

So the first selection was "winter" themed, and ended up with the short middle read being a bit more of a 'holiday' book than a winter/outdoors/snowy theme, but I actually think that worked well.  Holidays are always rough on kids - they are anticipated for so long, then they're overwhelming and routine-scrambling, then they're over and packed away so quickly and it's like whiplashing back into sudden normalcy.  (Heck, that's stressful for me and I'm grown!) So I do actually like that this first winter story set has a reference to holiday festivities.

Mouse's First Snow
Lauren Thompson, illustrated by Buket Erdogan
ISBN: 9780689858369
Mouse and Poppa venture out into the snow for variations on snowy activities.

A very repetitive story has Mouse and Poppa out in the snow performing snowy-day activities in sequence: first Poppa does a thing, then Mouse repeats it.  There are lots of repeated action words in the story like "Plop Plop!" or "Swoosh! Swoosh! Swish!" that need a bit more dedication to the delivery to really make them pop, but that's something that comes with experience (it IS hard to do those sorts of things in front of other adults without practice and experience and a decent bit of either no cares given or vibrant self-esteem.)  Poppa's examples are uniformly beautiful and well-executed, and Mouse's are small and amateur, but still done functionally well.  At the end, they combine giant "snowballs" into a snow mouse that they decorate together. Cute, sweet, fun, wintry without being specific to a time or place. I like that it's a young person and a caregiving male figure; seeing Poppa either as Dad or Grandfather works in the story. A BIT on the short side for a first story, but again; choosing stories that are an appropriate length comes with experience.


Llama Llama Jingle Bells
Anna Dewdney  
ISBN: (boardbook format) 9780451469809
A cute and VERY SHORT addition to the llama llama books, focused on the more secular side of Christmas.

Very very short boardbook in about 5 spreads. This was a short read, especially after an already-short first book, but it is cute and thematic, and like I said, I like the impact of having a bit of acknowledgement of the holidays that are over now, just to give kids some processing space to handle the transition back to normal schedules. Rhyming couplets like all the other llama llama books go with really detailed pictures of secular(ish) Christmas activities like tree-decorating and shopping for presents. Cute, but don't expect content on the level of the actual llama llama books.  


Jingle-Jingle 
Nicola Smee
ISBN: 9781906250089
A winter themed sequel to Clip-Clop, and much more fun, in my opinion.

Cat, Dog, Pig, and Duck are off again with Mr Horse, this time on a winter sleigh ride that goes "Jingle Jingle" through the fields. (Again with the action words needing a bit more forceful delivery) Fun is had by all until they decide to all pile into the sleigh and toboggan down a hillside, where everyone tumbles out. This one is also a bit short, even though it's repetitive and a bit cumulative, where the animals are always called by individual moniker and the refrain "jingle jingle" shows up to mark the movement from spread to spread. Not the most inspiring story, but fun and simple, and the kids were very invested in the outcome of the snowy crash landing.  

Tuesday Storytime: Winter Snows

And finally caught up to this week!  We have had persistent rumors of snow this weekend, so I felt that was the best time to start my snowy series of reads.  I'll do a bit of Christmas intermission, and then pick the snow-and-cold theme back up in January.

Blizzard

John Rocco

ISBN: 9781423178651

Rocco engagingly recounts and illustrates his adventures in the New England blizzard of 1978,

This book is a lovely slice of Americana.  Rocco's character is thrilled at first as the giant storm shuts everything down under a thick blanket of snow, but after five days, facing the dire straits of cocoa made with WATER, he undertakes a perilous voyage that only he is qualified to complete (because he's the only one small enough to use tennis rackets for snowshoes and not sink into the chest-high powdery snow).  He sets off with good intentions, a grocery list, and a set of neighbors to check in on, and eventually (a four-page-fold-out-spread later) he makes it to the store to collect the necessary provisions.  A cute story of unexpected snow and sweet innocent playful fun.

Mimi and Bear in the Snow

Janee Trasler

ISBN: 9780374300937

Relatively new, and absolutely adorable.  Mimi Bunny loses Bear while playing in the snow, and the next morning finds everything melted away.

Bear does everything with Mimi.  Ice-skating, building snow hats, building snow monsters... but then Bear disappears, and he doesn't even re-appear by bedtime!  Something has gone wrong, but when Mimi retraces her steps the next morning, all the snow is gone too!  Will she be able to find Bear?  I like this story because the concept of snowfall that vanishes totally by the next morning isn't one that you see in a lot of children's books, but it's the reality for most of us down here.

Polar Bear Night

Lauren Thompson, illustrated by Stephen Savage

ISBN: 9780439495240

Absolutely stunning illustrations elevate this slight story about a polar bear venturing out into the starry, snowy, night alone.

Sweet, lyrical, short, simple.  If it weren't for those amazing lush thick spreads, I don't think I'd be excited to read this as often as I am.  The polar bear cub is sweet and the story is cute, but it really is the illustrations that keep this one moving along.  It is different enough from most other picture book illustration styles that the adults and the kids just can't stop staring at it.  Really a knockout visual treat.

 

Tuesday Storytime: Outside in the Snow

This is our last week of snowy storytimes - it would have been the whole month of January, but we had a short side-track into Italian celebrations last week.

These ended up being a leeeeeetle bit on the long side; there was much squirming and chattering of very young ones through the last story, and I was tempted to rush or elide, but I held strong and did the whole thing.  I think it's good for the littlest kids to be challenged a little bit past their comfort zones sometimes, and what better time for an easy non-stressful challenge than a storytime?


The Longest Night
Marion Dane Bauer, illustrated by Ted Lewin
ISBN: 9780823420544
Forest animals pledge to bring back the sun during a long winter night, but only the chickadee's song works.

This was very beautiful, but I think a little bit too lyrical and mystical for the little kids to grasp.  Almost like a fairy tale or a creation myth, with the animals taking on archetypes and the wind acting as a guide and mentor.  The winter night has been going on for far too long, and so first the crow, then the moose, then the fox all try to use their various abilities to bring back the sun.  Nothing works until the small chickadee offers the only thing she can do: to sing her song "dee dee dee."  The animals mock her efforts until the sun rouses, curious about the singing, and brings the morning and the spring.  Strangely solemn and almost religious, this tale feels old and hoary and mythological.


Outside
Deirdre Gill
ISBN: 9780547910659
A boy has fantastical adventures in the snowy landscape outside his house.

The only thing I don't like about this book is that there are occasional wordless pages or spreads, and while that is fine in an entirely wordless book, or even in some books where the page-turning impulse carries the storyteller and the audience past the wordless sections on the strength of what came before, this tale is so slight and wispy that the wordless pages just sort of hang listless in the narrative.  I was tempted to narrate them, and I did at least comment on the illustrations, which I usually don't do mid-story, but I needed something to keep the tempo at least moving forward.  Other than that, this is a sweet middling-short story about a boy using his imagination and hard work to create fantastical playgrounds in the snow.


Over and Under the Snow
Kate Messner, illustrated by Christopher Silas Neal
ISBN: 9780811867849
A boy skiis and has a cookout in a wintry landscape, while learning about all the creatures living or sleeping below the blanket of snow.

This is the one the littles got restless through, and it was a bit of a slog.  It's longer than it seems, and it is hard to pick up the tempo - it WANTS to be slow and gentle and cool like snow in the woods, and trying to hurry it along didn't really work very well.  Our boy skiis and wanders in the woods and talks about various woodland creatures living in or under the snow, as he goes through a VERY LONG day before settling into bed himself.  Factual enough to qualify as nonfiction, there's an author's note at the end about the various animals and how they manage to live and thrive under the snow.

Tuesday Storytime: Snowy Landscapes

We've doubled down on the wintry weather - after a delightful and decently warm Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend, we woke up this morning to 19 degrees!  Brrrr!


Snow
Cynthia Rylant, illustrated by Lauren Stringer
ISBN: 9780152053031
Stringer's beautiful gentle paintings make this sweet lyrical ode to snow nearly transcendent.

Rylant takes us through sweet vignettes of modern children and their (diverse) families as they encounter different types of snow.  The end of the book plunges swiftly into poetic stillness, which was aaaaalmost too much for the crop of littles today, but we managed it.  Despite the down-tempo ending, the entire book is heartwarming and beautiful and evocative.


Red Sled
Patricia Thomas, illustrated by Chris L. Demarest
ISBN: 9781590785591
Demarest's chunky lively scenes and bright happy expressions really carry the minimalist poetry.

Thomas uses the form of a chiasmus (a sort of mirrored, repetitive, poem - most likely used to aid memorization of epics) to present the tale of a father and son going on a night-time sledding run.  The text is therefore very short (even the words used are crisp and simple), so Demarest creates illustrations with punch and movement to carry the momentum of the story through the page turns.  The pairing is suprisingly powerful, making this an excellent middle book - short and punchy and fun.

 

Big Snow
Jonathan Bean
ISBN: 9780374306960
David is very excited about the incoming snow-storm, and "helps" his mother around the house.

I enjoy the realism of the energetic kid "helping" mother by starting various chores and getting distracted and running off halfway through (leaving mom to pick up the mess, of course) but I think that the inclusion of the dream sequence involving a snowstorm mess in the house makes for an intense and not quite congruent interlude especially since it comes so close before the comparatively anticlimactic and unmemorable actual ending.  Despite that, it's a cute read, and a great snow day story.

Tuesday Storytime: Snowy Days

January is my time for snowy storytimes: it's (usually) finally gotten actually cold outside, and even if it doesn't ever actually snow here, there's frost on the ground in the mornings ("South Carolina Morning Snow") and the skies are often heavy and grey.


The Snowy Day
Ezra Jack Keats
ISBN: 9780670012701 (50th Ann. oversized hc edition, with background info, and author bio)
Classic tale of Peter and the snow in a city-scape, with Keats' vibrant colorful collage minimalism.

This is actually my own personal copy, signed by LeVar Burton. (Please imagine my eyes with big sparkles and hearts right now) and it's one of my favorite classic children's books.  There are a lot of my childhood favorites that are quite special in my heart, but a lot of times, re-reading them reveals that they aren't anything I would feel comfortable recommending.  Not this gem.

Peter is a young black boy in a bright red hooded coat, and he's outisde in the city, in the deep snow, just being a child and exploring.  It's simple, clear, childlike in the best way, and just delightful in every way.


I Love Snow
Hans Wilhelm
ISBN: 9780439795944 (Scholastic Reader)
Excitable white floofy dog explores in the snow, and helps out a wild friend.

I've used this book (and others by this artist) before because I feel like lots of people think that leveled readers are automatically terrible books with no artistry or joy or fun in them.  They VERY OFTEN ARE.  But prejudice is terrible, and there are beautiful and enjoyable leveled readers out there that have fun stories and enjoyable to read through in their own right.

Our little white puppy is out in the snow and enjoying every minute of it.  He does all sorts of traditional snowy activities, and then near the end finds a wild creature in need of some help, and gains a new friend to play with.  The plight of the hungry raccoon is adorably sad, and the conceit of eating the snowman's carrot nose blew some of my kids' minds!  Cute and very short.


Polar Bear Night
Lauren Thompson, illustrated by Stephen Savage
ISBN: 9780439495240
Textural blocky outlines and sleepy gentle blue tones make this a very good bedtime candidate.

Savage has outdone himself this time around, inspired by Thompson's lyrical language and sleepy sweet tale of a polar bear cub out in the soft still nighttime.  There isn't much focus on snow here, but the theme of a young creature out by themselves enjoying the outside in their home environment (as opposed to "going out to nature" or something like that) fit really nicely with the other two stories, and the gentle wording and evocative and minimalist artwork spreads are just too beautiful to pass up.

   

Tuesday Storytime: First Snow (Happy 2016!)

Can you believe it's freaking 2016 already?  It's just unreal.  I'm still not certain when I'm actually going to feel like a grown-up, let alone this weird middle-age development.

Anyway, over the weekend it finally realized that in winter it is supposed to be cold, so we're into proper winter weather, for a proper winter storytime.

First Snow
Kim Lewis
ISBN: 1564021947
Atmospheric colored pencils of windswept wintry landscapes and expressive faces.

Sara, Sara's teddy, and Mommy are up early and out into the fields to feed the sheep before the first winter snow.  This is a slow-moving atmospheric story, focusing on the feel of the land and the air as a snowfall approaches, and on the earthy rhythms of farm life, close to animals and nature.  The astute or experienced storytimer will recognize that Sara's teddy is brought along to provide a bit of narrative drama, but it is gentle and quickly solved, even by picture book standards.  Sweet and gentle, just like a first snow.


Dream Snow
Eric Carle
ISBN: 9780399235795 (with battery-operated sounds and lights on the final page/endpaper)
Carle's signature collage pastiche and bright colors in a dreamlike not-quite Santa Claus story.

I had pulled this book a while ago, and was tempted to use it for my Christmas storytime, but the farmer in the story is never actually identified as Santa, even though just about every child will make that connection based on the illustrations.  Our farmer has a simple life; animals named One through Five, a single tree (named Tree) and simple tastes.  He dreams of snow covering the animals (achieved in the book by a series of clear overleafs with white "blankets" turned to reveal what animals One through Five actually are) and when he wakes, the snow has truly fallen.  He realizes that he's forgotten something, and dons coat and hat and gloves and boots (and here is where the Santa reference materializes) grabs boxes and a sack and rushes outside to put presents under Tree.  At this point, if you like, you can press the battery-button and the stars "twinkle" and a short chiming mysterious melody plays.


Winter is the Warmest Season
Lauren Stringer (Red Rubber Boot Day)
ISBN: 0152049673
Exuberant acrylic paints vibrantly reveal the warm heart of winter.

You may think that Summer is the warmest season, but Ms Stringer will have you convinced by the end of this lovely book that you were quite wrong.  Her lyrical and evocative text (in large letters, and not much of it per page) draws attention to all the warm delights that winter brings: grilled-cheese sandwiches, roaring radiators and fires, warm cats and glowing candles, cozy blankets and cozier snuggles.  This is one of my favorite reads, and the language just flows beautifully along with the bright and cheerful page-spreads, just busy enough to reward close attention without losing focus or attractive composition.  I think I read this at least once a year, and I'm happy to do so.

New Picture Book: Blizzard, John Rocco

Blizzard
John Rocco
ISBN: 9781423178651
Norman-Rockwell Americana in a pint-sized snowy adventure.

This was adorable.  We're taken back to the past, when a freak blizzard blew through our narrator's town, burying it in over 4 feet of snow in one afternoon.  At first, this was a great treat (school let out early, snowmen and snowforts galore) but after a couple of days of being snowed-in, spirits start to settle, and the food starts getting tight.

In a heroic (and adorable) bid to save the family from gustatory boredom, our narrator sets out across the blizzarded neighborhood to fetch groceries for his family and for the neighbors.  A full-spread page of his perambulations through the neighborhood make it clear that this was not some dire mission, but an adventurous trek - there might be a few detours and digressions along the way.  Still, every journey must end, and the alert reader will be happy to note the grocers kindly phoning back home to report on the adventurer's progress.  Back home again, tired and thrilled with victory, and a reward of cocoa WITH MILK as the capper for the event.

The illustrations are really what makes this book.  It's like Rockwell illustrated a picture book.  Slightly tongue-in-cheek, laser focus on the simple joys of life and of a mythological "simpler time" in the past, a keen childs'-eye-viewpoint, and bright colors and traditional lines that manage to not be garish or overdone.

Really beautiful, and perfect for a storytime for our blizzard-less southern kids.  

Tuesday Storytime: Baby it's COLD Outside!!

I'm starting this year with listing the titles of picture books that I use for Storytime each Tuesday.
For the record, I do a "Family-Style Storytime" aimed at babies-in-arms to age 4, and usually have between 10 and 20 attendees (including parents/guardians).

Oh! by Kevin Henkes, illustrated by Laura Dronzek
Greenwillow, 1999
ISBN: 9780688170530
Various animals and children exclaim in delight at a fresh snowfall, cavort all morning and afternoon, and then head back home at night to rest for the next day of fun.  Sweet pastel short page-vignettes for each different animal all smush together at the end in a satisfying manner.

Snowballs by Lois Ehlert
HMH for Young Readers, 1995
ISBN: 9780152000745
Bright "found object" collages combine to create layered snow-creatures, from family members to cats and dogs.  High interest-value for identifying the snow-creature components (acorns, carrots, buttons...).  The endpapers feature actual snowmen created by the Ehlert family.

Utterly Otterly Night, by Mary Casanova, illustrated by Ard Hoyt
Simon & Schuster for Young Readers, 2011
ISBN: 9781416975625
Little otter is growing up fast (from his first appearance in Utterly Otterly Day) and during a winter night frolic, he proves his maturity by taunting and evading a pack of wolves while his family slips into their den to safety.  Snappy non-consecutive rhymes and onomatopoeic words make this a good one to practice a few times before reading to the kids.