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

Moving to a whole new country!

 I loved how this book showed that change is hard but super hard if you are moving to a foreign country. The country is not foreign to the mom because she is from Taiwan. But for Lily, this is a big change. There is a page where the calendar flies by and we see the months of January through September have passed. Now Lily is adjusting and falling in love with her new home. So sweet!

This is Not my Home

Eugenia Yoh and Vivienne Chang