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.

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.

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

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!

Big Week for Me!

What a treat to meet John and Donna on their Adventure Out West '11 They were kind enough to meet up with me while they were here in Fort Collins. Every summer they take a "book trip" taking favorite characters from children's lit to as many libraries, book stores, and American Roadside Attractions as they can pack in. This year it was Frankie Pickle, Argyle, Owly and Wormy. And of course, MANY books.






John gave me Little Chicken's Big Day by Katie Davis with stickers and postcards. My students are going to love this fun book!

Little Chicken's Big Day book trailer. My students went NUTS over this video!

Below, look close and you'll see I'm holding Darth Paper origami that John made (instructions here) of Darth Paper Strikes Back, cover above. It's the sequel to The Strange Case of Origami Yoda by Tom Angleberger. Great read for 4th grade and up, about a group of nerdy middle schoolers who come to depend on the advice of Origami Yoda. Can't wait to read the sequel!

John lives and breathes children's books. The man is unbelievable, a hard act to follow. Of course that's why he made the cover of School Library Journal. He was chosen as one of the top movers and shakers of school librarians. Here he's signing my copy. I had him sign it to my students at Bacon. Why did I do THAT? I should have had him sign Little Chicken's Big Day to the students and the magazine to ME! What can I say, I was nervous. Who knows what I said to him during lunch. I hope I wasn't too much of a babbling idiot. Sigh.
 
John and I met on Twitter. He's @MrSchuReads and I am @BookJeannie. He is one of the first librarians I started following. I learned so much from him in a short amount of time, and I started following eveyone he followed and quickly became addicted to Twitter.

Every morning I check out Anita Silvey's Children's Book-A-Day Almanac and John's Watch. Connect. Read. They are both gobs of wonderful, wonderful information about children's books. I get so many great recommendations and titles from them!

I wish we lived closer so I could visit him and his school, and especially the book store Anderson's Book Shop in Chicago! I WILL get to Chicago some day. My daughter is actually on her way there for business. Small world.
It's a fine line for me to follow him and other amazing people on Twitter. I feel like I'm spending WAY too much time there. I must set priorities and go from there. Wish me luck!

Pottermore...SQUEEEEEEEEEE!

And click below for the

Pottermore Website

Reckless by Cornelia Funke