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: Valentines Day

I'm always unreasonably pleased when we have a storytime that actually falls on the day of the celebratory event of the season.  This time around we get an actual Valentine's Day storytime, and I had such fun.

Catching Kisses
Amy Gibson, illustrated by Marie Van Lieshout
ISBN: 9780312376475
A sweet tour of United States landmarks following kisses as they blow through the air.

This is a sweet book, and I'm happy to use it on Valentine's Day. We follow various kisses as they travel on the wind between people, and to the hearts of the ones who catch them. Beautiful and charming, and the illustrations of the landmarks kept the adult attention while the little ones pondered all the different types of kisses there were.


Together
George Ella Lyon, illustrate by Vera Rosenberry
ISBN: 0531070476
A pair of young girlfriends play happily together in various imaginative and fantastical scenarios.

A gleeful set of girls plays merrily through the pages of this sweet and fanciful book, where the two of them divide tasks into parts. "I'll find the ball if you'll call the team" and then once together they play at their games, always with the refrain "Let's put our heads together and dream the same dream" across a spread of even more imaginary landscapes. Sweet, visually interesting, and open-hearted.


Love Monster and the Last Chocolate
Rachel Bright
ISBN: 9780374346904
Love Monster has a box of chocolates and an eternal dilemma: should he share them?

The Love Monster is back from vacation to find a box of chocolates on his doorstep. He's delighted, because Love Monsters LOVE chocolates, especially certain kinds. But his glee is soon mired in guilt - he SHOULD probably share with his friends. But if he does, what if there aren't enough to go around? What if someone takes the one he likes best? What if the only one left is COFFEE flavored? What if there isn't one left AT ALL?? Oh dear. Sharing is hard. but Monster comes out on the caring side of things and discovers his friends are sweet and thoughtful too. No word on what happens when two monsters share the same favorite chocolate type.

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.