Book of the Day

Four little chairs are just right for bears. We’re in luck because here come four cute little bears, from Calico Bear to Floppy Bear, and they sit happily on the chairs. But what will happen when Big Brown Bear comes by and wants to sit as well?

I suppose the point of the book is supposed to be one about sharing, since the solution to the problem is that when all the chairs are pushed together, all five bears can fit. But for me, the delight in this book is the art. The illustrations, done in acrylic, are wonderfully cute and appealing. There is a fine line between sweet and saccharine, but I feel that illustrator David Walker managed to find that line perfectly. The bears slump and push and climb with exquisite charm. Their minimal facial features mean that the smallest smile speaks volumes and body language is very important.

The text is impressive in that it took me more than halfway through the book before I noticed that every single line rhymed with bear. I generally dislike rhyming text on principle, so not noticing that the rhyme was identical until halfway through the book is quite an achievement. That being said, by the end of the book, the repetition had become a big much.

All in all, this is a fabulous book to share with a child or group of children.

A baby kangaroo named Joey decides that he wants to get out of his mother’s pouch and hop. But after only a single hop he finds a bee! Back to the pouch! Later he tries again and again, but he keeps encountering other “scary” animals and retreating back to the safety of his mother’s pouch. The Joey’s hops take him to another nervous kangaroo….

David Ezra Stein’s illustrations, done with china marker, watercolors, and water-soluable crayon have a fuzzy, relaxed tone that blends well with alternating emotions of Joey as he whiplashes from enthusiasm to fright to safety and back again. The colors are subdued earth tones that evoke a dry(ish) Australian landscape.

Young children often struggle with the tension between independence and safety, and many will identify with Joey. Share this with your favorite toddler or preschooler.

Frog finds a book of spells. He wishes it were a book about pirates or a book about castles. But then he gets a fabulous idea: he’ll use the book of spells to turn himself into a prince. But the book of spells has been torn into pieces, and mixing and matching spell parts creates quite a havoc!

Emily Gravett’s illustrations are, as always, gorgeously done. The novelty of split pages that allow for a mix-and-match illustration will appeal to children. The haze of magical fog that surrounds the middle of each figure serves both to hide the questionable bits when the frog finally succeeds in his wish to be human as well as to obscure the transition area between the top and bottom of the various frankenstein creatures.

The story is cute, a mix of predictability and surprise that will appeal to children and adults as well.

Poor Big Frog. She just can’t fit inside the book! But if she can get some help from her friends, maybe something could be arranged…

This is a very simple pop-out book by Mo Willems, perhaps the King of simple books that are marvelous. While this isn’t his strongest work, it is nonetheless highly enjoyable. Big Frog’s bending and shrinking attempts to fit inside the book will be appreciated by children who often have the opposite problem: being too little to do something. I particularly appreciated that Big Frog’s solution depended on her friends and teamwork between the entire community.

This isn’t a Pulitzer Prize winner, but it’s cute, and that certainly counts for a lot when it comes to children’s picture books.

How do you wokka-wokka? A boy walks down a city street asking all of the children, and they demonstrate their own unique dancing style. Some like to wokka-wokka like a flamingo in a flocka, others like a marichi with maracas.

Kids of every shade and hue are represented on this city block, in illustrations done oils. Individuality is celebrated in the poem, as everyone wokka-wokka’s in their own way. As they walk down the street, creating an ever-increasing parade, the children continue their own particular wokka-wokka, until it seems that everyone is getting in on the action – lots of individuals forming together to be a part of a group.

The language is playful and rhythmic, lending itself to being read aloud. This book will work well shared one-on-one or with a group.

Robot Zot is ready for battle on Earth. Despite being much smaller than he apparently thinks he is, Robot Zot is fearless in the fact of danger. He rescues what is obviously the queen of the Earth (a toy phone), outwits a fearsome Commander General (a puppy) and sails off into the horizon, completely oblivious as always.

The humor in this book comes from the difference between the text, depicting a brave Robot Zot and the illustrations, which feature a hapless little robot encountering everyday Earth artifacts, from a television to children’s toys.

The illustrations are well done, with details in the background – such as an unmentioned but recurring human character puzzled by Zot’s rampage of destruction – that lend themselves to rereading the story.

I am a drooling, rabid Marla Frazee fan. I love sharing the illustrations in Everywhere Babies and I still maintain that the reason so many children pick up Sara Pennypacker’s Clementine is less becuase they intuitively know that the writing is fabulous and more because they are unerringly drawn towards Marla Frazee’s brilliant cover illustration.

So it’s no surprise that I am thrilled to see a new picture book illustrated by the Caldecott Honor artist. All the World, which was written by Liz Garton Scanlon is a fairly typical poem about how we are all both a part of the world and the world entire. It scans, it doesn’t strain to rhyme, and it creates a nice flow rather than seeming tacked on because “kids like rhymes”, all the main attributes I want in a rhyming picture book. The second to last page seems to have an extra stanza that interferes with the scan, but when I read this book in story time, I’ll simply skip that line and all will be fine. What makes the book stand out for me are the gorgeous illustrations.

Marla Frazee’s recognizable style is out in force. A large castspends the day in typical activities, from an early morning beach stroll to a rainy afternoon and a gorgeous sunset. Looking just at the illustrations, there are several stories going on here: a grandfather spends the day with his three grandchildren, an older couple bikes around the town, two young families are out and about for the day. The illustrations are almost perfect, you can see the fondness and affection these family members feel for one another.

Jan Thomas is fast becoming one of my favorite author/illustrators. First she had the slightly weird, but very funny series of books about Fat Cat, Cow, and Mouse, then she did the brilliant Rhyming Dust Bunnies. Now she comes out with this newest book that seems tailor made to read aloud.

The main character, a ladybug, addresses her (his?) audience directly. She insists that the reader stand up. Then she changes her mind. Then she changes her mind again. I can’t wait to read this to a story time audience and watch as they all sit down, stand up, sit down, stand up and do the chicken dance. This is the stuff of story time legend. There might not be much of a coherent story here, but it’s so much fun that it doesn’t matter.

The illustrations are typical Jan Thomas: simple, bright, digital images with thick lines and a fondness for expressions of cartoonish horror. I guarantee any toddler or preschooler who gets their hands on this book will be compelled to look at all of the pictures. That the text invites the reader in to play pretend is only an added bonus.

Kiki is a monkey who loooooves her blankie. She does everything with her blankie. Then, when she is using her blankie as a sail, the wind blows her blankie right next to a crocodile. Without her blankie Kiki doesn’t feel as brave or strong. Can she rescue her beloved item?

The story here is simple but sweet. The text is cute, but not outstanding. What really brings this book to the forefront of excellent picture books are the illustrations. Done in traditional watercolor, with some digital editing, the pictures jump right off the page. Kiki is adorable. There’s just something about the illustrations that makes me want to reach into the image and give her a hug. She is, somehow, irresistible. the ultimate cute toddler given form as a monkey.

Sue MacDonald had a book. The words made sense. But then the vowels decide to take off for a vacation, and suddenly she’s left with nothing. Frantically running after the vowels, Sue manages to capture them and return to her reading.

Sung to the tune of “Old MacDonald Had a Farm” and featuring the chorus “AEIOU”, this could easily have fallen into the trap of being too clever for its own good. Fortunately for all involved, the author and illustrator manage to pull it off, coming across as smart and funny. It even took me a moment or two to notice that each vowel’s adventure features words containing that vowel. This is an area where the author made a smart choice: instead of having the A hanging out with aardvarks eating apples in Australia – which would have been beating you over the head with the letter A, and which would have become ever more contrived as we traveled on towards U – he chose instead words like “day” or “train”. These get the point across, but much more subtly, and in a style that a child is far more likely to run across in real life.

The illustrations are bright and cute, done in ink and water color. There is a medium amount of detail in the pictures, not enough to distract from the story, but not so little that it is a cartoon.

With a measure of wit (the inevitable arrival of a disgruntled Y at the end of the story still managed to be funny, even though I was expecting it) and excellent pictures, this book is a winner.