This book is just plain fun. In the style of their previous
collaborations, Why did the chicken cross the road? and Knock, Knock! Fourteen
illustrators give their take on etiquette.
- Bob Shea instructs readers on the proper way to ride a school bus – no drooling and don’t clean the driver’s teeth, even if he’s a crocodile!
- Lynn Munsinger illustrates proper cafeteria manners, although her furry pigs don’t seem to be following her good advice.
- Henry Cole warns against staring – even when you see some pretty funny/icky stuff, especially in the school office.
- Leuyen Pham has a sweet spread on playground manners.
- Peter Reynolds illustrates classroom manners with several groups of excellently behaved children and dialogue that sounds like it was written for a teaching special on listening to teacher.
- Tedd Arnold blasts off into outer space and illustrates good sportsmanship with slug-like aliens playing slime ball.
- Adam Rex shows a hapless evil scientist trying to instill a few good table manners into his evil monster creations.
- Judy Schachner has a warm and colorful spread of good manners at a happy birthday party with a huge variety of children and activities pictured.
- Frank Morrison gives good advice for being a good visitor – which the wild group of kids in the living room don’t seem to have listened to!
- Sophie Blackall has a darkly humorous illustration of what not to do in a doctor’s office, including the instruction “prosthetic legs aren’t toys.”
- Dan Santat instructs on proper behavior at the theater – even when it’s grand opera!
- Joe Berger shows some of the things you should NEVER do in a grocery store.
- Kevin Sherry gives pool rules, which should be followed even by giant squids.
- Tao Nyeu has a beautifully embroidered spread…about not picking in public, noses, toenails, etc.
Verdict: This is an amusing book that kids will enjoy looking over,
but it’s not particularly substantial and there’s no actual plot to make it a
good read-aloud. An additional purchase.
This book explores the many different kinds of families in
simple text and cartoonish illustrations. The story begins, “Once upon a time,
most families in books looked like this: One daddy, one mommy, one little boy,
one little girl, one dog, and one cat.” The author encourages children to look
for a family that matches their own in the following pages, as well as to find
the cat who appears on every page.
The first spread in the main body of the
book is titled “Families” and the border is childlike drawings of various
families. It talks about the kind of families children might live with – two
daddies, two mommies, foster or adoptive parents, grandparents, or single
parents. The next spread continues the border of childlike family drawings and
talks about “Who’s in your family?”; siblings, relatives, or just two people.
Then the book talks about where families live, go to school, different kinds of
work, holidays, food, clothes, pets, family celebrations, hobbies,
transportation and how families express their feelings. The book ends with an
example of a family tree and a recap of how families are the same, no matter
how different they appear on the outside. The cheerful cartoons that decorate
the pages include some silly examples (kids using rocket packs in the
transportation section for example) and lots of little details to pore over.
There’s plenty of humor and honesty in the book, showing a wide variety of
cultures, ethnicities, and individual family traditions and behaviors.
Verdict: Know your audience – the book does reference two
mommies and daddies at the beginning, so don’t choose it for storytime if it’s
going to inspire a walk-out of your entire storytime group, but it’s certainly
a great choice for your library collection and a good title to hand to parents
who are trying to explain family changes to children or kids who live in an
“untraditional” family.
I’m always looking for new farm books. Living in a quasi-rural community, I’ve become aware there just aren’t too many realistic books about life on a farm (my own rural experience was shown to be painfully lacking when I visited a fifth grade class and my question of “what do you do that’s creative?” was met with the enthusiastic response, “Pig racing!” uh…wha…?)
Anyways, this is a really fun alphabet book with, once
again, my favorite design – simple text for reading aloud to younger children
and more detailed facts and information for older readers or one-on-one sharing.
This book has multiple threads you can follow, a very simple one suitable for
toddlers, longer sentences just right for preschoolers, and simple paragraphs
for elementary readers and listeners. The book is packed with a plethora of
food, creatures, machines and more. In order…
- Ants on asparagus
- Blueberries, beets, and beans
- Clip, Clop, Crunch (carrots)
- Dig in for dinner (root vegetables)
- Eager ewes
- Flip flop fry (fish)
- Gaggle of giggling geese
- Happy Herefords hiccupping home
- Ice cold ice cream
- Juggling jiggly jams and jellies
- King-sized kohlrabi
- Ladybug’s lunch
- Making merry in the mud and muck (pigs)
- Nibbling nectar (pollinators)
- Oh! Overalls in the orchard (apples)
- Pea pods pop!
- The queen’s quivering hive
- Reliable red rooster
- Stink, stank, stunk (manure)
- Tip top tasty tomato
- Udders under umbrellas
- Vegetable voyage
- Woolly bears worry watermelons
- Xtra-large eggs with yummy yellow yolks
- Zoom zoom zuchinni
The illustrations are bright and colorful, created in collage
with acrylic and hand painted paper. Some of the faces are oddly structured, but
the overall effect breathes enthusiasm and colorful life.
Verdict: This book is packed with so many different things,
it’s a great choice for programs, storytime, reading aloud, and display. Highly
recommended.
Ok, first just a question…do any kids talk about lunchboxes anymore? Seems like that word is a little outdated. Yes? No? Well, moving on…
Neatly divided clumps of text explain the process of food;
growing, harvesting, cooking, preserving, packaging, and shipping for a simple lunch; bread, cheese, tomatoes, apple juice, carrots, chocolate
chip cookies, and clementines.
The illustrations are bright and cartoony with a tinge of
50s style graphics. Smiling workers are shown farming, harvesting, cooking and
packaging food, extra whimsical touches, like the bunnies after the farmer’s
carrots hopefully following the boxes of packaged carrots off to the trucks.
Extras: A final page explains the importance of a balanced diet and additional food facts are also included, as well as an index.
An infectious, enthusiastic rhyme and glowing photographs
introduce children to a variety of vegetables in this crowd-pleasing nonfiction
read-aloud. “Eggplant’s extraordinary/Pumpkin’s art/Don’t eat zucchini?/Time to
start!”
The format of the book is simple; solid colored backgrounds of purple,
orange, red and green show up couplets in bold font and a large photograph on
each page. The photographs show a huge variety of vegetables in all their glory
at a farmer’s market, in bins, tubs and piles. The acknowledgements give the
source of the photos as the South Bend Farmer’s Market and “A few more bites”
explains what a vegetable is and why they should be an important part of our
diet (not to self – eat more vegetables!)
Verdict: I’ve read this in multiple story times and it never
fails to raise a giggle from parents and delighted enthusiasm from kids. Be
prepared for them to want to investigate the photos more closely, pointing to
different vegetables and colors. Have them try out unfamiliar names and point
to their favorite vegetables. This would also be a great read-aloud in a
healthy eaters class! Highly recommended.
I loved the previous book by Hodges and Harris, Up we grow,
but this one is even better. Based in Vancouver, this book shows how gardens
can grow anywhere – even in a city. The book is divided into four sections;
Growing, Sharing, Eating, and Caring.
The growing section shows the many places
in the city where gardens are growing and the people who are caring for them. There
are suggestions for small spaces to fit in a little garden, like herbs on a
sunny windowsill. Animals in the city are also included, like chickens and
bees. Sharing talks about the ways people share land and crops; in community
gardens, with city farmers, and with wildlife. Eating celebrates the
deliciousness of fresh-grown fruit and vegetables and talks about ways to
harvest, preserve, and share crops. The final section, Caring, talks about how
growing gardens together not only cares for the land and nature, but also
builds community relationships.
A final note about the book explains a little more about
urban agriculture and lists the gardens and groups pictured throughout the
book.
Verdict: This book is a great starting place for simple gardens,
whether you live in the city or the country. It has great ideas for tucking
growing things into small spaces and building community through gardening. And
lots of great photographs of kids and adults working in and enjoying their
gardens. (Incidentally, this is also the book that sparked off my dormant desire to move out to
the northwest coast when I read it last year and I moved that goal back to the
top of my list)…Highly recommended!
ISBN: 978-1554536184; Published February 2011 by Kids Can Press; Borrowed from the library; Purchased for the libraryHow hybrid cars work by Jennifer Swanson, illustrated by Glen Mullaly
An index, glossary, and link to the publisher's website for more information are also included.
Verdict: There was a lot of information in this book, but the organization was a little confused (this may be because I read it as an electronic pdf). I really didn't care for the mix of fuzzy photos (again, could have been epub) and cartoon-style illustrations. Also, this is one of the publishers who charge an arm and a leg for library-bound nonfiction, which will be outdated in a few years. An additional purchase if you have interest in alternative energies.
ISBN: 978-1609732172; Published August 2011 by Child's World; Electronic review copy provided by publisher for Cybils
Relativity by Michael Smith, illustrated by Octavio Oliva
ISBN: 978-0979933981; Published September 2011 by East West Discover Press; Electronic review copy provided by publisher
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