A gem for Grandparents' Day

I found this beautiful board book in Infosoup. You can feel the love between the featured grandparents and their grandchildren. It is so heartwarming!

Bonus: The book is in support of the global fund for children.

There is a whole series of these wonderful books. 

I like the themes.

I just preordered this one with a publication date of April, 2027!

Be a palm tree!

 

Last week for story time I found a wonderful book called A LITTLE SPOT OF FLEXIBLE THINKING: A story about adapting to change by Diane Alber. I was thinking about it considering computer changes at the library as well as the seasonal changes that going back to school brings. The book encapsulates a clever comparison. “We can think like a PALM TREE and be FLEXIBLE and CALM, or we can think like an OAK TREE and be RIGID and FRUSTRATED. We can all decide how we want to react to CHANGE.” Thank you to all the palm trees in the world!!!

Wordless books are fantastic for building pre-literacy skills!

 Here is a set of books that are new to me and I am so impressed! I featured them in the tenth toy sleepover at our location. They are by John Hare and they are wordless. However, they tell very strong, delightful stories through the illustrations. I highly recommend these! 

Catching up from Earth Day, 2026, Wednesday, April 22

Your library can become a partner with the Neighborhood Forest initiative. The mission of the group is to give free trees to children across North America every Earth Day. I participated for the first time this year. A partnership with an enthusiastic Girl Scout leader (Rehanah) made for a wonderful celebration of a tree that was planted in the backyard of the library, dubbed “Bluey”. (A Canaan Fir) This is a program that can grow once rooted!

The book I read to the children was Nell Plants A Tree by Anne Wynter and Daniel Miyares.

The tree that Nell plants is a pecan tree. Years down the line her and her family can enjoy pecan pie as a result of her tree. She likes to read under its shade. (Fact: Pecan trees can grow up to three feet a year.) Gorgeous inviting book that the kiddos enjoyed and were able to match with our task of the day.                

Seeing the author was a treat! The message about grief is universal!

 I was fortunate to see Michael Hall speak at our WLA Conference in the fall of 2025. The theme of the conference was BE THE CHANGE. Michael spoke about his creative process and how his art has evolved through the years. He started his career by creating brands as a graphic designer. He shared those with us and they were recognizable. Also, Michael has a distinctive style which has switched over to his children's book illustrations. 

This is his most recent book. It is so lovely and surprising. The description in Infosoup says it best:

Badger, Frog, Moose, Elephant, and Bear are best friends. But when Badger experiences a personal loss and his emotions are too big to contain, he goes looking for trouble and takes his sadness out on his friends. He trips Frog, shoves Moose, kicks Elephant, and pokes Bear with a shovel. So Bear gathers the others, and they come up with a plan to teach Badger a lesson. Only that lesson is not what Badger--or readers--expect. In fact, Badger's friends treat Badger with kindness, offering him what he needs the most to sooth his raw emotions--a surprising turn of events that Badger takes to heart when Bear needs a little comfort in return.

A quirky book with a lot of heart

    I have been doing some story times about the mail and the post office. I found this beautiful watercolor book in Infosoup that I was immediately drawn to because of the Scottish flavor. The book is said to be set on the island of Struay---that is fictional but it IS based on the real life ISLE OF COLL which is in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland.

     We began by talking about how it would be to live on an island and have the mail brought there by boat. Our protagonist, Katie, is told to deliver the mail by her parents. Katie's younger baby sibling is cutting a tooth and they have their hands full! Katie has 5 packages to deliver. One is for her grandmother. That is easy because it has a red tag on it. It contains a part that is needed to repair the grandmother's tractor. The other four packages are labeled. Katie has an accident where she falls in the water and the packages lose their delivery information and are all mixed up!

     Katie delivers each package to the stoop of own of the known recipients but she gets all of them wrong. Last call, she goes to her grandmother. Katie explains the accident to her grandmother. Grandmother repairs the tractor and takes Katie to each location once more to check on the deliveries and recitfy the mistakes. 

     The sweet ending is when Katie is delivered home by her grandmother and her grandmother tells them how wonderful Katie is without telling on her. I love this intergenerational story about problem solving and fixing one's errors. 

Copyright: 1984 and apparently part of a beloved series!

I want to note here, too, that a grandma at story time is the mother of a postal worker. (We are rural.)

She told me that for some people on her daughter's route, the mail delivery is their ONLY human contact during the day. Wow! What a (tragic) concept!

I mean, look at that plaid skirt! Look at those sheep!

 Story map I developed for the story.

2026 book by Mychal Threets and Lorraine Nam, a celebration of the joy created by libraries!

 

This is a very fine celebration of libraries—the people who use them and the people who work in them to create the best possible learning experiences. ALL ARE WELCOME! The lovely Mychal Threets uses positive words that jump off the page, and the illustrator Lorraine Nam brings the words to life with charming illustrations. This is such a happy, colorful book. It is perfect for American Library Week or any day!