ZooZical by Judy Sierra, illus. by Marc Brown

My colleague Noreen pulled this from the shelf and told me it was a great picture book. She’s right;  I was charmed right from the start. What is a ZooZical? A song and dance extravaganza performed by the denizens of a zoo. The animals in the zoo were suffering from the winter blues.  No one [...]

Read Full Post »

Zen Shorts by Jon J. Muth

Watercolors and black and white drawings gently take turns introducing readers to short Zen meditations in this Caldecott Honor book. In the watercolor portion Addy, Michael, and Karl meet the panda Stillwater in their backyard.  The children each visit Stillwater on subsequent days and he tells them a story related to their visit. The black [...]

Read Full Post »

The Mitten by Jan Brett

One of my favorite winter stories is The Mitten by Jan Brett. Nicki wants his grandmother to knit him snow white mittens. His grandmother, being practical, tells him that snow white mittens will be hard to find if he drops them in the snow… but she relents when Nicki insists. As predicted, he drops a [...]

Read Full Post »

The Lion and the Mouse, by Jerry Pinkney

One of my favorite fables is that of the lion and the mouse.  You know the story, lion catches mouse. Just before the lion pops it in his mouth, the mouse swears if the lion lets her go, the mouse will help him one day.  The lion laughs and lets the mouse go.  And depending [...]

Read Full Post »

Friends, by Catherine Thimmesh

This book has the cutest cover; it just begs to be opened.  Gorgeous photographs of animals, simple rhyming text, and a short paragraph explaining the friendship are the ingredients that make this a winning combination. Some of these animal couples have a short relationship, like the frog that gave a mouse a lift through flooded [...]

Read Full Post »

LMNO Peas, by Keith Baker

Learn the alphabet with these funny, active peas!  Each bright 2-page spread features 7-inch high letters of the alphabet with peas demonstrating jobs that start with that letter.  These “pea-ple” are everything from acrobats to zoologists!  I particularly liked that eaters, gigglers, listeners, readers, and volunteers were mentioned along with the “traditional” astronaut, farmer, teacher [...]

Read Full Post »

An Egret’s Day by Jane Yolen, photographs by Jason Stemple

An Egret’s Day combines various types of poetry with brief factual information on egrets, one of the birds you can spy in the waters here in Virginia. As Yolen uses Haiku, rhyming couplets, free verse and even a limerick to describe egrets, her son, Jason Stemple, shows beautiful photography of the majestic bird.  Dramatic light [...]

Read Full Post »

In the Small, Small Pond, by Denise Fleming

My son really enjoyed this book when he was a youngster.  It was one of our favorites to read aloud because of the great sounds you could make.   Wiggle, jiggle tadpoles wriggle and dabble, dip, tails flip – it just puts a smile on your face to shape the words. The story shows different creatures [...]

Read Full Post »

Monday is One Day by Arthur A. Levine, Illus. by Julian Hector

This picture book starts off by showing parents and children waking up and getting ready to start the week.  Levine makes a point of including many different types of family units – single parents, grandparents, an African-American family, and a single sex partnership.  It doesn’t represent all the different types of family combinations there may [...]

Read Full Post »

Time to Eat, by Steve Jenkins and Robin Page

Everyone has to eat – cute mammals like pandas and blue whales, scary creatures like sharks and snakes, and just gross insects like dung beetles and ticks.  Time to Eat provides a good introduction to both common and unusual animals. Colorful cut and torn paper collage illustrations will engage readers of all ages.  Most of [...]

Read Full Post »