Children's Book Week

Next week is Children's Book Week! 

Celebrate by re-reading one of your favorite children's books, either to your own children or when you have a bit of quiet time.  I'm going to be re-reading Thimble Summer by Elizabeth Enright, one of my favorites that I haven't read in at least 15-20 years.  One of the earliest Newbery winners, published in 1939, this story is about a young girl named Garnet and her adventures on her family's farm over one summer.  The story is episodic, with each chapter telling a complete story about a specific day. My favorite is the chapter she gets locked in the library, after falling asleep over a book.  It was an early fantasy of mine, but the librarian always caught me!  What's your pick?


 You may want to check out this recent article from the New York Times, "Memories of a Bedtime Book Club" by Dwight Garner.

New children's books in the library this week include:  How to Steal a Dragon's Jewel by Cressida Cowells, Bluebird by Bob Staake, Penny and her Marble by Kevin Henkes and Katie and the Puppy Next Door by John Himmelman.

Mother's Day fiction for children

The lack of a strong mother figure in the vast majority of children's literature is nothing new to note, but I'm really struggling to come up with enough books to merit a salute to strong mothers in juvenile fiction.  I only have Marmee from Little Women, Molly Weasley from the Harry Potter series, Meg's mom from A Wrinkle in Time, Ramona's mother and perhaps even Greg Heffley's mother if I strain myself. There must be more!

However, picture books are all about the Mama!  Try these faves for reading aloud on Mother's Day:

• Owl Babies by Martin Waddell
• My Mom by Anthony Browne
• Llama Llama Mad at Mama by Anna Dewdney
• Because Your Mommy Loves You by Andrew Clements
• T Rex and the Mother's Day Hug by Lois Grambling
• Are You My Mother by P. D. Eastman
• A Pocket Full of Kisses by Audrey Penn

Only one of these titles is specifically about Mother's Day, but all are about the special bond between a mother and child.

Happy Mother's Day!

XYZ Storytime

There is no common storytime theme harder than XYZ.  How limited can you get?  I decided to nix the whole idea and just go with "Zoo" and animal alphabet books.

 

The books I used were Z is for Moose by Kelly Bingham, A is for Musk Ox by Erin Cabatingan, Psst! by Adam Rex, My Heart is a Zoo by Michael Hall, Hippo, No, Rhino! by Jeff Newman, ABC Zooborns by Andrew Bleiman and Astonishing Animal ABC by Charles Fuge.  

For "One little, two little, three little...", I had cutouts of various zoo animal and we replaced Indians with zoo animals.  We also had two additional rhymes:

We're Going to the Zoo (a repeating rhyme)

We're going to the zoo today (we're going to the zoo today)

We're going to the zoo (we're going to the zoo)

To see lots of animals (to see lots of animals)

That's what we're gonna do (that's what we're gonna do). 

If You Want to Be a Monkey (to the tune of If You're Happy and You Know It)

If you want to be a monkey, jump up high!

If you want to be a monkey, jump up high!

If you want to be a monkey, if you want to be a monkey, 

If you want to be a monkey, jump up high!

Parrot- flap your wings

Elephant- swing your trunk

Lion- roar out loud

 

Our craft was creating animal masks.  I had templates for Lion, Bear and Monkey masks from www.craftjr.com.  They turned out rather well, as you can see below.

Roar!

Happy Reading!

New Books this week

Big week for new picture books and nonfiction!  I'll highlight a few of my favorite new editions to the children's collection at the library.

Ball by Mary Sullivan creates a whole story around just one word.  A lonely dog misses his young owner when she heads off to school and attempts to find anyone else in the house that play fetch with his little red ball.  The expressions of the pup are super-endearing, and vaguely reminded me of the 90s cartoon Rocko's Modern Life. 

Everyone can learn to ride a bicycle by Chris Raschka is a welcome read for anyone learning to ride a bicycle for the first time.  It's easy to read, with simple sentences so beginning readers can it on their own, or with the grown-up teaching them to ride.  The story is simple, a father or grandfather is encouraging his young daughter or granddaughter to ride a bike.  He tells her not to give up, to have the courage to keep trying "again, and again, and again..."  I'm not among Chris Raschka's legions of fans.  I find his illustrations difficult to look at and understand, like not being able to tell the difference between a father and grandfather through visual clues.  In fact, I find the grown-up in the book a bit scary looking, with a droopy, deflated head he appears to be holding up.  However, I realize I'm in the minority and the strength of the story overrides my feelings on the illustrations. 

How to be a Cat by Nikki McClure is a cute picture book about a kitten shadowing her mother.  The illustrations are black and white, with a splash of blue provided by the text.  There is only one word on every page, which describes what the kitten is learning from her mother.  A wonderful, short, simple story makes a perfect gift to give to cat-loving new mothers.  It will make an excellent board book.