Somehow I missed this in 2023

 

Published since Lois Ehlert passed, what a treat to receive another beautiful book from her. "Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse" becomes "Not a creature was stirring, except for a mouse." This beautiful story is accessible to very young children. That sassy mouse devours the cookies meant for a very special guest. Charming! And an instant classic!

Between two windows--a book from Dinovember!

 

This book hit so many marks for me. Makerspace! Friendship! Imagination! Dinosaurs! Play! Two kiddos send pictures back and forth to each other on a clothesline. When the clothesline is taken down for repair, they meet below their windows and find other ways to play. Love it!

I augmented this story in story time with a clothesline coloring page and a tangible clothesline we could move with pegged dinosaur pictures (for review). 

A gracious illustrator, Susan Baum, let us use her Christmas book as template for a craft

 I encourage librarians to reach out to authors and illustrators anytime! We are all in the same business of building literacy in our communities. My experience is that authors and illustrators are gracious and excited to help. Christmas cheer at this morning’s story time. Illustrator Susan Baum Moyer - Children's Books & Design graciously gave us permission to use her graphics for craft (with help from Colette Bezio). The results are beautiful!

 

This year I discovered some very fun Christmas books!

This is a great book about enjoying decorating your tree and sitting by it. Then when the dry needles are too much it is time to say goodbye to the tree. This little boy figures out a way to still enjoy the tree after it is gone. Clever!

I am so happy with this book that is true to the spirit of CHICKA CHICKA BOOM BOOM! Letter recognition is a concept in this book but so are shapes. Wonderful!

Oh my gosh, Santa puts Humphrey (the giant) and Leetree (the elf) to work finding a Christmas tree. When they stop for a nap before taking it back to Santa's workshop, it disappears! (It floats away on an ice floe.) This does not stop them from bringing a tree back...they use their creative talents for making beautiful gift wrap and they take all the gift wrap to make a spectacular tree. A perfect Makerspace story!

A great read aloud. The kids do the called for actions (Example: Can you blow the broken pieces away?) and then the result is on the following page. The illustrations are beautiful, very geometric.

I found this book at Walgreens! It is age appropriate for our littlest patrons who like to play peekaboo. Lovely!

This one is a hoot. Turtle and Snake take an excursion to a tree farm to pick out a tree. The trees Snake likes are too tall and too skinny. The trees Turtle likes are too short and too fat. Luckily for them, they find the perfect tree when they get back home! This is an easy reader format.

This is also a hoot...hilarious! Polar bear and mouse take turns decorating a tree but they don't like each other's style. There is a sweet ending when they trade presents and they are "just right". The tiny red sweater that mouse gives polar bear is used by polar bear as a hat. The oversized green sweater that polar bear gives mouse is used by mouse as a blanket. And they are both very happy. The illustrations in this book are charming and bright.
 

Just fun and funny!

 A delightful offering in the FIVE LITTLE MONKEYS series. There is a cute surprise at the end where the babysitter (Lulu) does not know where they hid but Mama does. Even I, as the reader, was getting nervous about where they went, haha. Cute!

At this time

 A beautiful, outstanding book for all ages. It describes how taking care of one's self strengthens the entire community! And how we all need each other. "All of us important, none of us alone." Great messages of unity, inclusion, and connection. I loved it!

 

In praise of Miranda Paul!

      Congratulations to author Miranda Paul who has been named the Wisconsin Library Association “Notable Wisconsin Author” for 2024! From the WLA website:

Miranda Paul is an award-winning children’s author of One Plastic Bag and Water is Water, both named Junior Library Guild selections.

365: How to Count Your Year, released in September 2023, was named a CCBC Choices pick.

In 2020, the CBAC recognized her and her husband’s book, I am Farmer: Growing an Environmental Movement in Cameroon as one of its Outstanding Books of the year. 

Her titles have received starred reviews from School Library Journal and Publisher’s Weekly in addition to being named to several recommended and “best of” reading lists. 

10 Little Ninjas also was named an Amazon Best Book of the Month (August 2016).

Miranda makes regular appearances at schools, libraries, and bookstores, and has been a guest presenter at the Library of Congress Young Readers Center along with environmental activist Isatou Ceesay. Miranda also serves as Mentorship chair for We Need Diverse Books™ (www.diversebooks.org), volunteers for Books for Africa, and is a regional advisor for the Society of Children’s Book Writers (Wisconsin Chapter). She believes in working hard, having fun, and being kind.

Learn more about her current and forthcoming titles at www.mirandapaul.com.

We are excited about this fabulous news! Miranda was at our library on May 9, 2024 for a Headstart family evening. We had a wonderful time! We are so proud of Miranda and her accomplishments. Keep going!

In praise of Cynthia Rylant!

 

Anything by author and librarian Cynthia Rylant is a surefire winner! I fell in love with her books when I was a teacher and I am still a fan as a librarian. Her books fall in that range of books for emerging readers. They are early chapter books with heart. They contain humor and strong vocabulary words. We have them housed in easy readers, paperback and hardbound. We are glad to show you where they are for check out!

    Books about friendship are perfectly suited for the “younger set” as they are learning about friendship themselves. All of these characters have adventures and conundrums (!) with their friends. Some of Rylant’s series are Annie and Snowball; Brownie and Pearl; Henry and Mudge; Motor Mouse; and Poppleton.

It is a joy to see patrons share the books they loved as children with their now children and grandchildren!

 This book holds the sweet lesson that the joy of cooking is in the sharing of the results with others. I just found out that Kobe is an Instagram sensation! I liked the modern images of the parents...mom and dad both had tats on their arms in the illustrations. 

Kobe Eats Pizza!

Ashley Wian

illustrated by Joy Ang

c) 2022

Fiction reading like non-fiction

 

This is an outstanding book that easily explains supply chains to kids in a colorful and happy format. The information is easily digestible (yes, bad pun!) and gives the fuller picture of where our food comes from: the steps prior to us purchasing items at our supermarket. There is a refrain pattern throughout the book to keep the reader and/or audience focused. Highly recommend to pair this 'fiction reads like non-fiction' picture book with the hit "Peanut Butter and Jelly" illustrated by Nadine Bernard Westcott.

Darling!

 This book has an old-fashioned feel and is very sweet. The pictures are charming. We fall in love with Pretzel who is a mega-length dachshund. He uses this physical attribute to make a daring rescue of another dachshund named Greta. They eventually marry--the picture of all of the dogs going to the wedding is delightful!

Think, feel, do! Taco learns a lesson or two and so do we!

 

A terrific book where Taco is stressed and overworked and feels like he is falling apart. Enter the other ingredients that make a taco: they are cheerful, encouraging, and uplifting. Nacho takes control and explains to Taco the THINK--FEEL--DO method of retraining negative thoughts. The Reader's Note is cool, too. It has a section headed "One-sided thinking" with 5 examples of how we do this so that we can re-think when these kinds of thoughts enter our heads. Excellent!

A warm, cozy, friendly, kind book!

 This delightful bear named Karhu has super organizational skills! He really wants to attend the Mukluk Ball.
Step one: get mukluks. How to do that? Earn money by selling blueberries. This enterprising bear makes extra income by giving bear hugs!
Step two: Learn how to dance. How to do that? Friends are willing to teach him different dances.
Step three: How to wake up for the dance? Enlist the help of his owl friend Zazaa to wake him up on January 15 for the Mukluk Ball--that will be in the midst of hibernation!
Everything works to plan and the Shagawa Square Dancers take Karhu back to his cave after the dance is over. They pull him on a dogsled with Zazaa leading the way! Then Karhu is back to pleasant dreams!
Loved loved loved this book. It was not seasonal for summer necessarily but a terrific "dance" story nonetheless!

***The artwork is very pretty in this book. I especially loved the end papers.

 

Olympics worthy--cool!

 How this came up in summer Olympics week I don't know! Serendipity! A very different, clever picture book. A boy and his dog go fishing but their "catches" are capitalized red letters. They are trying really hard to spell F-I-S-H and they succeed! Turns out they need those letters to complete the "Finish Line" sign for a run. Wonderful! Kids were able to connect this to the Olympics! 

 

Beautiful art work featuring colorful, whimisical birds!

 

This gorgeous, stunning book is a visual feast. Each bird is portrayed as an adjective. The cover/title shows a baby bird saying "Surprise." This book is a beautiful surprise!

Slow down!

This is a perfect tribute to the "slow down" movement!!! Adults and kids get the message, and they like it. There are benefits to slowing down and not being in a rush or on the go all the time. And the little girl in the book (in a heartbreaking way) thanks sloth for "the best day ever". Thankfully, her parents learn that slowing down is not just good for their daughter but it is good for them!
 

Loved this pirate tale, too!

 When mom can drop the vacuuming and play with her son as they imagine they are sailing, it is a beautiful thing. It is also great when dad can join in at the end. A celebration of spontaneity and make believe! Loved it!

Loved this pirate tale!

 A cumulative tale about the clues that the little boy should be looking for before telling the village that "The pirates are coming!" There are two surprise endings at the end and they are both sweet. This is very fun for a read aloud. I had kids ringing the bell to accompany the refrain, "The pirates are coming!"

 

A celebration of spring!

 

I have enjoyed using this book with multiple groups this spring! There is a lot to love:

a) The chipmunk appears in every spread.

b) The book is cumulative. However, because that is too many words for my youngest patrons, I just read the first line on every page.

c) I say the color and the creature on each page that we are looking for.

d) We talk about what the "surprise" will become at the end of the book.

e) There are four green creatures: hummingbird, inchworm, praying mantis and grasshopper.

f) for the inchworm I make a sound that replicates it moving along slowly

g) for the ants we sing a verse of "the ants go marching"

h) We talk about perspective on the final page. Up until that point we have had a close perspective but on the last page we are seeing what the scene is like from far away and above: the viewpoint of the surprise yellow butterfly!

The ones you trip over in the catalog!

 I am old enough to remember when the catalog did not have book covers in it. It was short of revolutionary when we added those!! Being a visual learner, I love browsing the catalog and that is how I stumbled upon this book. I put it on hold and it turned out to be a winner!

Beautiful, bright, collaged pictures accompanied by very large type are inviting to the reader. There is a final page about the four animals featured in the book: tree squirrel, bat, beaver and bear. This would be great for fall but might be interesting, too, to read in the summer and talk about the opposite time of the year.

Happy Earth Day! (April 22)

I had the pleasure of sharing this beautiful book at story time this morning. This was my choice for celebration of Earth Day. I love the picture books of Todd Parr!!

The refrain, in large letters, is "Love Yourself. Love the World."

A fantastic book about the sun for an eclipse day or anytime!

In this book, the sun has a healthy ego, and why not? The sun is pretty great!

Very fun book with great facts. Here are the spreads I enjoyed while sharing this book at story time on April 8, 2024, prior to the eclipse!! The eclipse was SO COOL despite us not being on the path of totality!

 

Classic song about the value of friendship

 

I had a fun time this week using this beautiful book for story time. I played the youtube video of Bill Withers singing his fantastic song.  This book is in a series called LyricPop. They have a wonderful catalog of cool pop songs that are illustrated.

 

Lovely lessons and a spin on Goldilocks!

 

This is a lovely version of Goldilocks and the three bears. I love that we learn a little bit about China in the book. For example, instead of porridge they are talking about congee. I like that Goldy makes amends by sharing her porridge, repairing the broken chair and making the bed. I also like how the pandas invite her to help with making the turnip cakes which were ruined. It shows that people are glad when others are willing to make up for their mistakes, so true. Very good leassons in this book. The illustrations are fantastic. 

GOLDY LUCK AND THE THREE PANDAS Natasha Yim; ill by Grace Zong