new picture books – Page 3

Picture Books

Peaceful Girl and I have read 5 fantastic picture books recently.

Our rundown in no particular order:

1. Front Porch Tales & North Country Whoppers (2007) by Tomie DePaola: This is a homegrown book just waiting to be read aloud. The language is fun and sleepy little girl was begging for more as we made our way through the 10 little folk tales and tall tales. Her favorite was “Big Gertie and Love at First Sight” which begins: If ya are ever in Weston, Vermont, and ya drive north through the village on Route 100, you’ll come to the Greendale Road on yer left. The beginnin’ part is paved, but as soon as ya git to the unpaved part, you’ll be drivin’ into the Green Mountain National Forest.
Once you there you meet the lumberjacks and their cook, Big Gertie, who is “BIG and TALL and BIG-BONED and is a distant cousin of the Bunyon family. Big Gertie is a good cook but overworked and the lumberjacks find a great way to help her. Fabulous pictures add to the tales as well.

2. A Young Dancer; The Life of an Ailey Dancer(2009) by Valerie Gladstone, photographs by Jose Ivey: This book followers a beautiful young dancer, Iman Bright, an Ailey student. Iman balances dance with school work and violin lessons. Easy-to-read so young readers will love discovering all it takes to be a well-rounded dancer. The photos are often full page spreads, giving the feel of being right there with Iman. Alvin Ailey Dance site.

3. Budgie and Boo (2009)by David McPhail: I love David McPhail’s The Teddy Bear and always enjoy using it as a read aloud at the library. Kids really relate to this very compassionate tale. This new one has two fantastic characters, Budgie is a bear and Boo is a bunny. They both love to garden; Boo grows vegetables and Budgie grows flowers. This one’s message is simple; isn’t it wonderful to have a special friend!

4. Imogene’s Last Stand (2009) by Candace Fleming, illustrated by Nancy Carpenter: This is the cutest elementary historical fiction book with a very high-spirited heroine. Imogene has always loved history and works hard to clean up the Liddleville Historical Society so others can come and visit. Instead, the mayor decides to raze the historical house and Imogene fights back. Full of spunk, Imogene teaches the whole town a lesson is what’s really important.

5. Fancy Nancy; Poet Extraordinaire! (2010)by Jane O’Connor and Robin Preiss Glasser: Peaceful Girl has told me a few times that she is “beyond” Fancy Nancy and has moved on to other reading materials. Hmmm, that is until her grandmother brought her this one! See little girl loves poetry, thanks to her amazing 1st grade teacher. This one brought out all the stops as the other Nancy books do with all that wonderful word play focused on creating poetry. I think come April I might have to create my own Palace of Poetry in our library! Fancy Nancy has her own website-click here!

All 5 picture books rate

5/5 peaceful stars

Highly Recommended-Elementary

Picture Books

I’ ve had a very hectic day at school, back and forth between buildings. Here it is at the end of my work day, trying to steal a few blogging moments.
Peaceful Girl and I read two great picture books the other night and I just had to share them with you.
We read Tomie dePaola’s new Strega Nona’s Harvest (2009) and were delighted with the garden theme. It begins like this: “It was spring, and all the snow had melted.” Just that line gave us such a warm feeling as we are snowed in to our shins!! Strega Nona brings out packets of seeds and explains how the seeds need to be planted carefully, according to each plants requirements. She even has her always helper, Big Anthony spread the compost and manure so the plants will have plenty of vitamins. This is great information for students to hear-what it takes to grow a good garden. There is even mention of planting by the light of the full moon, a tradition in my family, which causes my husband to laugh and roll his eyes, until he eats the potatoes!!

I loved the addition of lots of Italian phrases and words like “Arriverderci, buonanotte-good-bye and good night,”-wonderful for children to hear a new language. I don’t remember as many Italian phrases in other Strega Nona stories-this one seemed to have more and I very well could be wrong. Please feel free to correct me if I am. I looked through the original Strega Nona and didn’t find as many. The first one does a great job of describing Strega Nona, the Grandma Witch:

“She could cure a headache, with oil and water and a hairpin. She made special potions for the girls who wanted husbands. And she was very good at getting rid of warts.”

I think this new Strega Nona will encourage readers to discover dePaolo’s many other books, Strega Nona or otherwise.

Highly Recommended for Elementary Everybody

5/5 peaceful stars

The second book we read, Hogwood Steps Out; A very good pig by Howard Mansfield and Barry Moser is funny!! Even from the cover it invites humor with the face of that sweet pig. This one begins: “Mud. That’s wat I smell this morning. It’s rich, it’s inviting.” You can see we are looking at life from a pig’s point-of-view and this makes it very funny but not silly. Whoever thought they wanted to get into the head of a pig-but once there we find an adventursome, strong-willed and happy pig!! The pictures are realistically-drawn and you can imagine exactly what it would feel like to be the pig as well as the neighbors Hogwood encounters on his walk around the neighborhood. Hogwood is one smart pig even as he is being led back to his pen!

Highly Recommended-Elementary Everybody

5/5 peaceful stars

Be Peaceful to yourself-

Picture Books

Peaceful girl and I read a fantastic picture book last night at bedtime.

Homegrown house by Janet S. Wong and illustrated by E.B. Lewis is a story about transition and finding your comfort right where you are. The young narrator tells us how she’s moved from house to house as her family experienced change through new jobs. Now she lives some place within walking distance from her Grandmom and she likes where she is, even though it’s not a dream home. Her Grandmom says:
” it takes time to settle into a house, to learn to love it right, to make it feel homegrown.”

Mom gets a raise so they house hunt for a better house but our young narrator works hard to convince her parents the house they live in now is their perfect house!! She wants to be close to Grandmom and all that her house has to offer-she wants consistency in her life!

I moved many times growing up as we followed the journalistic dreams of my Dad. Moving can be exciting but at some point you get tired of leaving your friends behind, finding new favorite spots. This book exemplifies that struggle very much for this young girl. E.B. Lewis’ illustrations are very natural and draw you more into the story. Recommended-5/5 peaceful stars

The Picnic Basket delivers

It is exciting when I click on the Picnic Basket site in time to be on what ever their latest offerings are! Recently I received Elizabeth Bluemle’s How do you wokka-wokka? with illustrations by Randy Cecil. I did one quick read-through right after I opened the package and I have to admit I was not that excited. It begins like this: “Some days you wake up and you just gotta wokka-“ and it continues through with adorable children asking how do you wokka-wokka. It was a bit too nonsensical for me but then I brought it home for story time and peaceful girl loved it!! She wokka-wokka’d all over her bed, her room and me with obvious delight!!! Maybe not great for bedtime but she loved it and kept wanting to go back to it when we moved on to her chapter book reading choice. With her as my guide I got it and it made me laugh. Looking through her joyful eyes at such fun, silly wordplay made the book come alive. I would highly recommend this choice for elementary students and I look forward to reading it to my 4 kindergarten classes just to see their own ideas of “how to wokka-wokka”!!! I’m sure my beautiful kinders will have lots of hip-shaking movements for wokka-wokka’ing!!!

***The author information at the back of the book says Elizabeth Bluemle owns The Flying Pig bookstore in Vermont, with lots of great information on their site. I dream of owning a little book shop myself!!!

Emberley/Emberley/Emberley

Can you imagine coming from such talented folk…three Emberley’s-father, daughter and granddaughter are the authors/illustrators/songwriters of There was an old monster (2009). The song is linked with the title-click and listen!!

My peaceful girl picked this out of our library stack for reading last night and she loved the rhythm of it and wanted to read it again and again. I think it is a perfect lead in for Halloween books and kids will totally love the accompanying song! There are so many different versions of There was an old lady who swallowed a fly, (Simms Taback is number one, for me, though! There was an old monster adds its own unique quirkiness!

Enjoy-it will make you smile and snap your fingers!

I attempted several times to access Ed Emberley’s website and couldn’t. I was asked to download flashplayer, did it and still couldn’t get to his site-?
I’m sure it is cool and I feel a little left out!
Peaceful Girl likes to match things up (are you surprised?) and she paired this book up with my copy of The Flim-Flam Fairies by the very funny song man Alan Katz!! This book tries to get kids to put other substances under their pillows instead of teeth!! Kids will love this book but I probably won’t be reading it for storytime!! Click here for Alan Katz’s website.
The illustrations are very, very funny-especially the last one-Click here for Michael Slack’s site.
Click here to see the cookbook I have to order for my library!!

Who is Walter Anderson?

In my mailbox at school I had a large manila envelope from Random House,waiting for me the other day!! I was pretty excited to get something other than junk mail and when I opened it a beautiful book fell out. I deliver here the story line from Random House’s website.

The secret world of Walter Anderson (Sept. 8, 2009)

Synopsis:

Enter the fascinating world of reclusive nature-lover Walter Anderson — perhaps the most famous American artist you’ve never heard of.Residents along the Mississippi Gulf Coast thought Walter Anderson was odd, rowing across twelve miles of open water in a leaky skiff to reach Horn, an uninhabited island without running water or electricity. But this solitary artist didn’t much care what they thought as he spent weeks at a time on his personal paradise, sleeping under his boat, sometimes eating whatever washed ashore, sketching and painting the natural surroundings and the animals that became his friends. Here Walter created some of his most brilliant watercolors, work he kept hidden during his lifetime. In a beautifully crafted picture book biography, writer Hester Bass and Caldecott Honor-winning illustrator E. B. Lewis pay homage to an uncompromising American artist.

Of course, I took it home and read it to my quirky 6-year-old daughter. We’ve been reading chapter books this summer with an occasional picture book thrown in so she was excited to see this something-new book. We read our chapter of Felicity of American Girl fame and I thought my little sweet pea would be to, to sleepy to read a biographical picture book, because she was looking pretty droopy.

She perked right up at the very first page, her head bobbed up and asked “is this poetry?” wow, what a compliment…I hope when I write a book someday, she might say the same thing to me!! Mind you, it is not written in rhymming words but it is lyrical. She listened all the way through Walter’s story and even explored the end pages with examples of his art work. Perfect book, Lovely, really lovely illustrations from E.B. Lewis!!! Thank you, thank you, thank you to whomever-you-are- marketing genius who made the decision to send advanced copies to librarians!!! I love mine and will share it frequently!

Bella And Bean by Rebecca Kai Dotlich

This little book by Dolitch, is the kind that give me tingles after I read it! You know, like when someone brushes your hair-those tingles!

It is a lovely story! Bella writes poetry and Bean wants to play, she wants the attention of her friend, Bella.

It begins like this: “Bella lived in an old brick house with white shutters, just up the hill from Spoon Pond. Every day she wrote poetry at a small desk, beneath a small window, shaded by a canopy the color of plums. ” Bean likes to come to that exact window to talk to Bella and is bored with Bella’s writing time.

Eventually Bella gets to a stopping point, misses Bean and goes off to seek her friend. What happens next is wonderful because the two friends begin to create some word imagery together and Bella puts it all together!! I’ve already taken this to my favorite 5th grade teacher so she can use it to introduce her poetry unit this year! The illustrations are beautifully drawn by Aileen Leijten. Thank you Rebecca and Aileen for giving me book tingles!! (2009, simonsayskids publishing)

Click here to see Rebecca’s website.

Click her to see Aileen’s website. (including a link to another great blog (seven impossible things to do before breakfast for an interview with Aileen.)

Picture Books

It’s the first day of school!!! There is only one first day and it is turning out to be a very smooth day! Now that I’m back in the library I am surrounded by all the beautiful book purchases I made at the end of the school year but didn’t have time to read! One of those gems is Apples and Oranges; going bananas with pairs by Sara Pinto. I read it with J (my six-year-old and constant reading companion) and she thought this book was hysterical. She actually read it to me so it is perfect for k-2nd grade but truthfully all ages would love the humor and be able to think of their own silly pairs (great writing assignment). Here are some of my favorite pairings: “How are a book and a letter alike?” (turn the page) “they both don’t go out for sushi.” The accompanying illustrations are giggle-worthy as well with this one showing the book and the letter sitting at a sushi bar trying to get the chopsticks to work! And another: “How are a starfish and an octopus alike”? “They both don’t knit.” I can picture many ways for a classroom teacher to use this gem of a book. I plan to create a slideshow in my introduction to the library lesson using my own silly pairs. Sara has a beautiful website-click here to explore.

Don't leave picture books behind, pleeease!

We are not reading as many picture books (small sob) now that J. is a member of that vast group of children who love chapter books, even though they are not really able to read them. She gets tired of reading after about 2 pages and hands the book back to me w/ a “you read the rest.” But the other night we took a small break from our chapter book to read a few picture books from the library.
We love Valeri Gorbachev’s new book, Turtle’s Penguin Day (2008) about a young turtle who falls in love with penguins after his father reads him a bedtime book about…yes, penguins! The little turtle dreams about penguins and wakes the next morning wanting to be nothing other than a penguin. He waddles to school w/ an old black tuxedo jacket on…looking very much penguin-like. I myself have parented several children who have spent their days morphing into cats, dogs, and wolves. They have insisted on drinking water from bowls on the floor and even food from plates on the floor-yum. Watching Little Turtle “become” a turtle struck a very funny chord for us. The teacher uses Little Turtle’s penguin fascination as a “teaching moment” and the whole class spends the day doing penguin-like things, like “during music time, they all danced a waddling penguin dance.” Lots of fun. J. said she liked all the details in his artwork and she helped me read it. I love all of Gorbachev’s books as much as Kevin Henkes’ books for teaching certain ideas to children. Not too didactic because of the cool animal characters. The end includes a page of interesting penguin facts. five cool stars.
Click here to find a list of Gorbachev’s other titles.

Little Oink by Amy Krouse Rosenthal

We’ve read our ARC (yes, we’ve had it for awhile now) of Little Oink by A.K.R and illustrated by Jen Corace , quite a few times. I read it to J. first, then again, again and now she has read it to me a few times
Let’s hear what she thinks of this fabulous book: Me: So, honey what do you think of this book?

J.: “I think the illustrations are cool because she puts lots of little detail in it, I like the story because it is switched around; usually parents are clean and in this book, the parents are messy and the ‘kid’ is clean and not messy!” “The illustrations pop-out at you-a lot of detail and speech bubbles!” “I like the trees and the greens and browns in the picture and then the pig’s stripey shirt” “and I like the writing on the chalk board in the school room and the ‘students’ eating from the trough.” and I like the nighttime scene where they are doing ‘this little piggy went to market, this little piggy stayed home…‘, I like how the dad has a big dirt stain on his shirt”-“all I really have to say is it is awesome and unique!” followed by a giggle!!

J. used the word “detail” quite a few times in reference to the illustrations as well. I love the continuous run-on thought-process. I had trouble keeping up typing and I am pretty fast. I don’t really know what I can add to that amazing asses ment except I love the book as much as Little Pea and Little Hoot!

I love the switch-around message for a reminder of our own individuality!! My Mom used to call it “marching to the beat of a different drummer”, in reference to me.
I think these books demonstrate those qualities extraordinarily!! As I browsed her website I noticed several other new books.
I already have Duck! Rabbit! in my library collection(can’t wait to share it with little ones in the Fall) and will be looking to add Spoon as well. Whomever Amy Krouse Rosenthal is teamed up with she seems to shine with unique ideas!
Enjoy!

Little Oink
April, 2009
Chronicle Books

Watch the book trailer here!
Another great review here!