Not a Stick

Antoinette Portis has a follow-up to Not a Box. This time it's Not a Stick.

It's deceptively simple, even more so than Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus. The illustrations are mostly line drawings (except Van Gogh's Starry Night, but Portis didn't draw that).

The theme is the same as the previous book: With a little imagination an ordinary, everyday object can be many things including a horse or a sword used to fend off a fire-breathing dragon.

Preschool children will definitely be inspired by this lesson. Babies like Maya, however, seem to already have it down. Isn't that why they bypass all of their colorful toys to play for an hour with an empty bottle?

A great group book. Kids who've read the book before can call out what the stick will be before you turn the page.

Bedtime for Little Bears!

I know I say this about a lot of books, but this is a sweet book. I like quiet, gentle stories and I'm not ashamed. Bedtime for Little Bears!, by David Bedford and illustrated by Caroline Pedler, may help you stay mellow when the little one just doesn't want to go to sleep.

Little (polar) Bear insists he isn't tired, so Mother Bear takes him around to see other sub-arctic animals such as Baby Hare and Little Fox preparing for bed. In time Little Bear can't help but succumb to the comfort of his mother's fur.

There's a lot of white and soft blues in this book, and Pedler uses enough texture to give the animals and the snow a fluffy appearance. A good bedtime book.

Mama Outside Mama Inside

Years ago Patty and I read a great article in Orion magazine by a new mother who had watched a nest of birds outside her window throughout her pregnancy and felt a sort of bond with the mother bird. I don't know if this author read that article, but it's a great theme, and I'm glad it's now in a children's book.

Mama Outside, Mama Inside, by Diana Hutts Aston and illustrated by Susan Gaber, is a gentle story, which juxtaposes two mothers, one bird and one human, bringing new lives into the word.

Aston shows how the mothers both prepare, one building a nest while the other sets up a nursery, both with the father’s help. One baby cries “Cheep-cheep-cheep!”, the other, “Waaa-waaa-waaa!” After the babies arrive, the mothers feed them. Eventually the two families take notice of each other.

The language is gentle and the parallel structure of the text stays true throughout.

Gaber’s gentle acrylics match the soft tone so well that at first the pictures could be mistaken for watercolor. The layout complements the text perfectly. Scenes showing the two mothers together in one frame fill the page; only pages with separate images have white space. The introductory pages pan into the setting, and the end pages pan out, with the birds flying off into the distance.

Blue Goose

Blue Goose, by Nancy Tafuri, is a new book along the lines of the classic, Mouse Paint. When Farmer Gray goes on a trip, four colorful animals decide the drab barnyard needs sprucing up. Each contributes his/her color, and they sometimes team up (mixing colors) for purples, greens, etc. For example, White Duck paints the fence white, and Blue Goose and Red Hen work together to paint the barn doors purple. When the night comes, Blue Goose adds a blue haze to everything.

This is a good one for teaching colors. Also, whereas Mouse Paint just deals with the colors themselves, Blue Goose has objects to identify. It allows you to ask questions like, "What color is the sun? Who will have to paint that?" (Yellow Chick)

Double Pink

The theme for today's Double Special Issue (see below) is authors whose last names are Feiffer.

Double Pink, by Kate Feiffer and illustrated by Bruce Ingman, is a cautionary tale about having too much of a good thing. Madison loves pink. She wants everything pink. She even gives away her non-pink stuff to her friends. After she paints herself pink, she gets lost in her bedroom and her mother cannot find her. Oh dear.

Of course there is a ton of pink in this book. It's a good one to read with your obsessed toddler.

The question now is, are the two Feiffers related? I consulted the author sketches and dedications in these two books for clues. Kate has a daughter named Madeliene who loves pink and inspired her book. And both books are dedicated to Madeliene. Could Madeliene be Jules Feiffer's granddaughter?

Nicole found the answer to my question about If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. The line is used by Harrison Ford (I was right about that part) in Air Force One. I'm going to send along a prize to her. I'll give a prize for this one as well.

Hmmmm, I wonder. Should reference librarians be elligable? Do any reference librarians actually read this blog?

Bark, George

Rob Reid recommended Jules Feiffer. So I picked out an old favorite, Bark George. And since I didn't post last night, today's Special Double Issue will be authors whose last names are Feiffer (see above).

When George's mother asks him to bark, George makes other animal sounds. So George's mother takes him to the doctor. One by one the doctor digs down deep inside of George and pulls out increasingly large animals. Finally George barks. The mother is happy as they walk home by crowds of people until....

Of course the attractions here are the ridiculousness of all of those large animals being inside of a little puppy (and a puppy mooing) and making animal noises.

Now, animal noises may seem like just silly fun to make a story interesting, but I found out otherwise this week. Making animal noises for your baby helps them learn to distinguish different sounds. This later leads to distinguishing parts of words, which helps children learn to read.

So if people look at me funny in the aisles of the grocery store, I'm just going to keep on mooing. I'm getting Maya ready to read.

What's Wrong, Little Pookie?

This morning I helped with a school program for Kindergartners and 1st-graders based on Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus. The teacher for one class had obviously read the book to her kids many times because they knew every line. And they knew how to yell, "Nooooooo!" in all the right places. Repetition really works. Today's book is another one that can be interactive and fun after a few reads.

I figured I better follow Nate's advice and read What's Wrong Little Pookie?, by Sandra Boynton, to Maya. He warned that if I didn't, Maya would never learn to read. I don't know about that, but I don't need too much convincing to pick up a new Boynton book.

Pookie is upset, and won't say what is the matter. Mom asks yes or no questions, and the little piglet answers. Kids can say those parts easily. "No." "That's silly." Mom's questions become more silly, such as, "Are there five lazy frogs in your bed for a snooze?" After giving up and asking once more what the problem is, Pookie says, "I forget." Smart mom.

It reminds me of a story of a mom who, when her son was crabby, asked, "Do you want to eat breakfast?"
"No."
"Do you want to take a nap?"
"No."
"Do you want me to draw a face on your belly with this marker?"
"Ok."
So much for being crabby.