Jan Brett, synonymous with the holidays in my mind!

This December I enjoyed using Jan Brett titles for story time. 

Snowy nap is about the animals telling hedgehog about all the winter fun he will miss while hibernating. 

He is brought inside a house for a few days and gets to witness through the windows all of the things he was told about. 

The comical ending is when the other animals want a piece of that action!

Animals' Santa is about the animals debating which animal their Santa could be. When we discover who it is, it is spectacular. The spread, showing the animal replete with a basket full of goodies, is gorgeous!

Gingerbread Christmas has the Gingerbread baby forming a band with gingerbread instruments that Mattie makes (again not waiting the necessary time before peeking!). The band performs in a gazebo in the middle of the village and bystanders are getting hungry for a snack. Mattie disguises the instruments in snow while the Gingerbread baby distracts the villagers by singing. Then he taunts the people to chase him. He lands in a Christmas tree with so many decorations on it that he is very well disguised. The Christmas tree is a fold out in the book. The children have fun looking for the Gingerbread baby. It is just the right amount of challenging to do that. 

I was showing 

patrons some of the art projects available from Jan Brett on her website:

janbrett.com

I ran off for them the Night Before Christmas tree topper, the Christmas tree cone, and Christmas gift name tags. All of them exude Jan Brett's signature beauty. I like the name tags because they are creatively reversed to have FROM first and TO second. 

Two adorable books about cookies!

 Bookie & Cookie by Blanca Gomez

This book quietly invites the reader to interact with the book in such a way as to engage with the pictures and think about left and right in a book. This prepares early readers to read from left to right. Bookie spends most of the book on the left and Cookie spends most of the book on the right. What are the circumstances when they will move out of their pages? You will have to read the book to see, it is delightful. And all about two of the best things in life: books and cookies!

Delivery Bear by Laura Gehl and Paco Sordo

Bear is very excited to get a chance at a job delivering cookies. The problem is that the cookie deliverers were all rabbits up until this point. The customers are pretty frightened of Bear. Part of the delivery job is to sing a jingle. Bear decides to give the jingle new words that introduce him as "not scary" and also that he is available to give bear hugs. So cute! 

Another Dinovember came and went!

 Here are three (older) books that I enjoyed reading at story time this month.

*I love this one! It matches different dinosaurs to different vehicles. Very clever!

Example: T. Rex=Monster Truck

*Ooh, I really enjoyed the rhythm to this one. There is a great explanation of "rig". From the end notes: "Before they go on display, broken bones are fixed with glue and plaster. Missing bones are replaced with dummies of plastic or fiberglass."

*Pure Mo Willems' wit. And the inside jokes are woven into the drawings. Written for kids and their grown-ups...enjoyable for all!

Enjoy the world around you!

So this is a different take on the familiar plot of an animal losing their voice and then hunting for it and finding it again. Instead of loss of voice, this story is loss of smile. 

I enjoyed this version because it illustrated that happiness is everywhere around us. All we have to do is notice and our smile will readily appear. 

 

Stunning feel good book about gathering around a bonfire

 

This is a great book for explaining how you gather your materials for a safe bonfire. Then it shows people gathering around and enjoying it, especially when the guitar arrives! 

A rainbow in brown

 

A Rainbow in Brown

                                                       By Pavonis Giron

Cool book about a little girl who adores the color BROWN in all of its variety. Her environment is brown, she is brown. 

It is fun to go over with kids the many ways you can arrive at a brown:

RED PLUS BLUE PLUS YELLOW;

ORANGE PLUS BLUE;

YELLOW PLUS PURPLE;

RED PLUS GREEN.

#ColorOurWorld

A gem that celebrates slowing down and observing to see how wonderful life is!

 

The title matches the content well. First "be still". And then you can appreciate "life". This book covers the five senses. A good lesson for readers of all ages.

International Day of Peace, Sunday, September 21, 2025

 

I gathered these wonderful titles for story time on Monday, September 22, 2025, the day after the International Day of Peace, Sunday, September 21, 2025.

Five Minutes' Peace by Jill Murphy

Classic! Adults enjoy this one because it is cute how the mother elephant cannot get 5 minutes alone in this book. 

Wild Peace written by Irene Latham; illustrated by Il Sung Na

A gorgeous book about gaining peace from being out in the woods. Front end papers show a drawing of the woods in outline. Back end papers are of the same picture only all colored in. It is a lovely way to sandwich these beautiful pages. 

Can You Say Peace? by Karen Katz

On each page, we see a painting of a child in a country and how they would say "peace" in their languge. Very helpful that pronunciation is right next to each word.

Peaceful Me by Sandra V. Feder & Rahele Jomepour Bell

A wonderful book about recognizing calming opportunities such as looking at clouds or reading.

This one I did not get to use and I feel would be better for school agers. 

So delightful!

 

For a grandparents story time, I channeled my inner Mike Myers (from SNL days when he did the character Linda Richman) to read this hilarious book about a Jewish grandmother who is absolutely OVER THE MOON about her grandbaby! Charming! Plus you learn some very cool Yiddish words. 

I highly recommend. 

In 1990, a similar classic book about boundless love for babies won a Caldecott honor. More More More Said the Baby by Vera B. Williams would make a perfect pairing with SWEET BABE!

A fun book that does word play with the prefix li-

This was a delightful book to read for "COLOR OUR WORLD". As the story progresses the "li" for green light becomes other things. My top three are "livestock", "library books" and "lightning bugs". I also shared with patrons how to play this running game in the sideyard of the library. 

 

Two books which celebrate our wonderful world, COLOR OUR WORLD!

 

The next time I enjoy a cup of tea I will think of where it may have come from--what village? What family? It is a beautiful story about working together and being proud of the work. It is about the working conditions and what nature is like where tea is grown. Beautiful illustrations accompany the words.

I am so impressed by this gorgeous book. Rose loves drawing flowers and her drawing becomes a blueprint for making a rug. Her Baba joon is delighted to show her how he weaves rugs and how he ties strings and how he dyes yarn. Baba joon falls ill and Rose takes the time to continue working on the rug. She is able to take the rug to his sick bed and they resume working on it together. Lovely multigenerational story and relationship!

This perfect charmer hits all the notes!

Today was PACE and we were celebrating rainbows. We are still enjoying the summer reading theme, COLOR OUR WORLD! This book was perfect with the bear eating 7 different colors of berries after a long winter hibernating. The illustrations popped in this book!

 

A fun fractured fairy tale with a Peruvian flavor!

 

This fractured fairy tale is just wonderful. Instead of pigs we have three guinea pigs and the Andean fox takes the place of the "big, bad wolf". It turns out that the fox is so forceful with the pigs for a very good cause. Leftover materials are used at the end of the book for a playground and stage for all. I just adored all the new (positive) twists in this version. And this sentence: "All three guinea pigs popcorned in pure delight." This gave me the opportunity to teach about the word popcorned! So cool. A special word for movements of guinea pigs!

A new book about Harry!

A new story about Harry (the dirty dog). A perfect book to share this character and pique interest in the original books! Harry is jealous of the guinea pig that is being looked after at his house (for a short time). Harry gets himself into a jam when the guinea pig escapes the cage at show and tell at school. Harry comes to the rescue and everything ends well including the guinea pig going back home!  Adorable!

 

Amazing find!

 

The two guinea pigs in the book (Bob and Ginger) decide to paint their bedroom with an underwater mural. Kids loved naming the colors and the things. This was perfect for summer reading AND the party we held for our two guinea pigs (Oreo and Miss Maple) on national guinea pig appreciation day. (7/16/25) #colorourworld

Perfect for COLOR OUR WORLD!

 

This book is a delight! A little girl was wearing a dress with flamingoes on it to story time today so I just had to grab this one! Sylvie is a flamingo who discovers that she is pink because she eats pink shrimp. Applying the principle that she will turn the color of anything she eats, she begins on an adventure to try on all sorts of different colors. This results in feeling unwell! To get back to pink she cleanses with some shrimp. But will she be able to give up experimenting? 

Some great finds in Infosoup!

 

This trilogy was a hit at story time. First we talked about the word “kahuna” which can mean both wise one and a big wave.

In PIG KAHUNA we meet Fergus and his little brother Dink who like to go beachcombing. A treasure they find is a surfboard that they name “Dave”. Fergus overcomes his fear of the water when he does a daring rescue of Dave. Dink had tossed Dave back in the water when he thought he was sad.

In PIG KAHUNA PIRATES! Dink is having a bad day. Fergus helps him out by showing Dink that he can channel his unhappiness into playing a very scary pirate!

In PIG KAHUNA: WHO’S THAT PIG? Dink and Fergus meet a fabulous personality named Tallulah. She is larger than life and a bit intimidating to Fergus. (Tallulah reminds me a lot of the character Fancy Nancy.) In the end they all become friends.

I am hoping that there are more planned for this fabulous series!

Shark week, 2025. Learning!

 

Walter feels self-conscious about his small teeth. He tries to replace them with seashells (during lunch) and then seaweed (during playground time) and then shrimp (during story time). With all three items, they all fall out. He goes home from his first day at school and tells his mom how sad he is about his teeth in comparison with the other sharks who all have big teeth. She explains to him that they are not that “kind” of shark. *I did a further investigation and found out that Walter and his family are filter feeders! Some filter feeders are basking shark or whale shark or megamouth shark. Filter feeders strain the water with their small teeth to grab and eat small organisms such as plankton from the water. Fascinating!

Love this trilogy, use it time and again for story time to school aged children!

I love this trilogy because Mr. Magee and his dog Dee are happy and enjoy adventures in nature.

There are similarities between the books that can be conversed about with children. These are just a few of them:

Each book starts with what time they get up.

Each book starts with Mr. Magee and Dee making a plan for an adventure.

Each book ends back at home. 

Each book features a creature from nature that creates tension! (Bear, whale, moose.) In each book, that same creature saves the puzzling situation.

All books have beautiful and vibrant illustrations.

Thank you to the author & illustrator Chris Van Dusen. 

In praise of ice fishing...three terrific picture books (very belated posting)! I am not allowed more renewals! ;)

 

I love regional customs and ice fishing is one of ours due to the climate and location. I like how this custom is passed on through the generations. These books celebrate ice fishing!

A beautiful story about a grandfather teaching his grandson how to ice fish. The paintings are vibrant in this book from Minnesota.

Seven little mice help their mom to ice fish and realize why she holds the title of Ice-Fishing Princess.

Milton sees the glass half empty and Odie sees the glass half full. They are both attempting to get a bigmouth bass. When their fishing poles get tangled they meet each other and agree to work together. Odie's optimism rubs off on Milton. Fun!

The moral of the story...

 This is an offbeat picture book. Sy Kravitz is great at selling fruit until he disappears one day. He has to rework his life for invisibility. And then in an unexpected way he becomes visible again. The moral of the story on the last page is, "Time, and fruit, heals all wounds." Written by Arthur Yorinks (currently aged 71). I love his signature lesson in each of his tales. 

(I could not believe that I discovered this book while  I was simultaneously reading a novel about becoming invisible called TILDA IS VISIBLE by Jane Tara.)

Our assumptions can be false--even our youngest readers can get this concept from this book!

 Stork makes an assumption about black cat;

black cat makes an assumption about raccoon;

raccoon makes an assumption about frog;

frog makes an assumption about stork.

All are set straight at the end through conversation, laughter and sharing a (fish) meal.

Wonderful!

This picture book works on two levels--love it!

 I love how this picture book teaches the haiku poetry style  (the 5, 7, 5 syllable pattern) but also is posing riddles. It makes both haikus and riddles accessbile.

GUESS WHO, HAIKU By Deanna Caswell and Bob Shea

Jump for Joy

 I think "wow, just wow!" with this book. It was the perfect book to share for COLOR OUR WORLD because it starts with black and white pictures and emerges into color. It has a very relatable/familiar story line. The girl Joy, who wishes for a dog. The dog, Jump, who wishes for a girl. They wish and wish and wish and wish and wish. This book has a very happy ending which is conveyed through vibrant colors. They are a relief and everyone made a sigh of happiness when I read this aloud to students and reached this page. There is also a spread three quarters of the way through that lent itself to discussion. Joy and Jump on each side of a river are separated and looking away from each other. This gives us a breath and the anticipation of resolution. Wonderful!

Respect!

A beautiful book about gravitating toward someone who respects you and appreciates the same things that you do. I read this to small children today who totally got the point that Trampoline Boy had a special perspective and was willing to share it with Peaches. The two pages where they assess each other are great! "He crawled off the trampoline and stood beside Peaches, then peered closely at her face."; "They helped each other up, and Peaches searched his eyes. 'Show me,' she said." Excellent.

 

A book about paying attention!

Duck apparently is a good friend to Cow because he knows what she likes. For cow's birthday, Pig and Mouse are busy making a cake. They keep telling Duck he is wrong about his desired addition of a TURNIP. The funny twist is that Cow loves turnips! 

Universal love of the sun

 Fantastic book about universality...the sun is there for all of us and the sun gives all of us life! The pictures are beautiful and take us on a tour around the world. When reading this aloud, this is perfect accompanied with a globe showing where all the countries mentioned are. The book begins and ends with MADAGASCAR/the rainforest. Very beautiful, very relatable.

Celebrate National Poetry month (April)

 Absolutely beautiful book for children of all ages. An example of a line from this poetic book: "If I was an apple and you were a worm you'd call me lunch and I'd call you squirm." Wonderful!

c/2019 IF I WAS THE SUNSHINE

Julia Fogliano & Loren Long

Moneybunny books are terrific! By Cinders McLeod

 

Through a collaboration with UW-Extension Outagamie County Money Smart week activities happened across public libraries last week. Our volunteer from the committee was Mia Peterson who works at Fox Cities Credit Union. She disseminated resources to families during a regularly scheduled story time on April 7, 2025. It was cool for children to walk away with banks to save their money in! For years, with my strong background in children’s literature, I have studied books that make sense for teaching money skills to young children. Many of the books are just so-so. They teach the names and values of coins and currency, but they do not teach healthy habits of dealing with and taking actions with money.

       This year I hit the jackpot (ha-ha!) with a series of books that have positive messages about how to work with money AND have good stories. I highly recommend these! They are available to you through Infosoup. (The series is Moneybunny; the author & illustrator is Cinders McLeod) In each story carrots are the currency, and a bunny rabbit is the main character.

 In Earn it! Bun wants to be a rich and famous singer. How will she earn it with practical goals?

 In Give it! Chummy is an ordinary hero helping the bees.

 In Save it! Honey scales back her wish to what she can afford.

In Spend it! Sonny makes a careful choice about what to buy with what money he has.

 

A new addition published in 2024! How do you spend? This is on my reading list!