Monday, August 22, 2011

Mad At Mommy by Komako Sakai

"Mommy, I - I - I AM SO MAD AT YOU!" begins this honest book full of high emotions and sweet pictures. Boy rabbit is really mad at his mommy. The story is short and simple and full of real love. A slice of an ordinary day in 32 pages. Sure to comfort little ones that it's okay to be mad at mommy, she will love you no matter what. 4Stars.

Komako Sakai's books have won numerous awards, including an ALA Notable Children's Book. In May of 2011 she illustrated In the Meadow by author Yukiko Kato. Her other books include The Snow Day and Emily's Balloon.


She lives in Japan.

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Ice by Arthur Geisert

Ice is a wordless book. That's right, not ONE word, but amazing, fun, unique illustrations. On the back flap is a bit of infromation about the author. "Geisert has published just about a book a year for the last 30 years, and every one of his books has been illustrated with etchings. His work has appeared in The New York Times and the Horn Book Magazine, and he has been a recipient of The New York Times' Best Illustrated Award."

I'm ashamed and stunned and feel cheated that this if my first Geisert book that I've read. Each page has so much going on. You could spend a lot of time describing what's going on with these delightful pigs and that's exactly what my students and I are going to do. I think I will keep my opinion out of it and just urge my students to tell me what they see. I may even stop at a critical point and let them "tell" me what they think happened in the rest of the book. They can tell me verbally, write about it, draw about it, whatever strikes their mood.

We're going to have some kind of fun with this 4Star book, Ice.




Monday, August 15, 2011

Latest Books!

I've been grabbing new books from the library and again, almost made the bag so heavy that I couldn't carry it out.

Some of my favorites:

Socksquatch by Frank W. Dormer - This book made me laugh out loud just looking at the cover. It just hit me as hilarious and I loved the quirky drawings and story. Socksquatch can't find his other sock. He asks quite a few other goofy looking creatures in the process. I thought it was a lot of fun and the drawings are simple enough that my students could easily try to have fun drawing them. 4Stars.






ABC Kids by Simon Basher - The illustrations for this book are quite the opposite feel from the last book. They are beautiful, precise drawings, almost anime-looking. Children's names are used for the fun alliteration. "Arthur's angry ant ate apples." I found this book in a top 100 best books for kids list and am not surprised. It would be another great book for an activity with students. Using their own names, they could come up with their own drawings and sentences. They could try to copy this type of illustration, too. This could be used from pre-school on up for reading and creating their own ABC book! 4Stars

Saturday, August 13, 2011

Dog and Bear: Two Friends - Three Stories by Laura Vaccaro Seeger

A "5 Stars Henry and Grandma book"! Great illustrations! So fun and colorful outlined in black! Henry is 2 1/2 and could understand this book easily. Dog and Bear lose something and Henry "walked" his fingers right to it. Grandma loved the book within a book idea. And even though it has three stories, they are just the right length.  Newborns to five year olds will LOVE this book! This grandma and grandson sure did. AND she has sequels! I will be getting this for the school library as well. Just look at the cover and see how easily we can talk about shapes and then draw Dog and Bear. Oh, how the kids are going to love it!