Classics, Nonfiction, and Children's Literature
Do You Know Which Ones Will Grow? by Susan Shea (2011, Blue Apple Books) is simple, delightfully fun picture book for the discerning child. Using windowed lift-the-flap pages, Shea asks which things around us grow, using familiar growing progression as a comparison. For example, my favorite one was this, “if a kit grows and becomes
I often enjoy the experience of reading a comic novel, and the two I read in the past month were refreshing, original, and fun. Anya’s Ghost by Vera Brosgol Anya tries hard to avoid sticking out at her private high school, but that’s hard to do when she’s awful in gym class and stuck with
I don’t often have the urge to seek out a young adult novel, but this month has been one of them. I’m pleased to say that I really enjoyed the two I chose. After deals with a teenage mother, and An Abundance of Katherines deals with a genius teenager dealing with yet another break up.
Neftalí is a dreamer, always looking for objects to treasure. When special things happen to him, his imagination takes him away on a wave or a cloud. But his father constantly berates him, calling him an absent-minded idiot. As Neftalí grows, he finds that the poetry he sees in the world around him must escape
In honor of yesterday’s American Independence Day holiday, I bring you a light-hearted collection of anecdotes and facts about the United States Presidents. At just over 100 pages and geared toward young readers, Lives of the Presidents by Kathleen Krull and Kathryn Hewitt (published by Harcourt Children’s Books, updated 2011) is just the right length
Footprints on the Moon by Mark Haddon (illustrated by Christian Birmingham; Candlewick Press, 1996). I have not read many memoir picture books, but this one worked wonderfully. Best-selling author Mark Haddon writes of his own childhood studying the solar system and dreaming about the moon, then shows him tuned in the television, watching the first humans
The best part of The Moon by Seymour Simon (Simon and Schuster, 2003) is the gorgeous NASA photographs on every page. It brings his basic facts to life. I personally loved pouring over the photos. Although the paragraphs are definitely a bit lengthy for a three-year-old, my son and I went through the book a few
Moon by Steve Tomecek (illustrated by Lisa Chauncy Guida; National Geographic Kids, 2005; Jump into Science! series) introduces young readers to basic facts about the moon with cartoon illustrations featuring a fun and friendly cat. It’s an easy to read picture book to read aloud, and not too dense. My three-year-old son and I read the
I’ve mentioned before that I love Gail Gibbons’ nonfiction picture books: she does a great job at capturing a subject with lots of detail, but presenting it in a way that kids can understand. The Moon Book (Holiday House, 1997) is no exception. While it is illustrated, it is not cartoony. Gibbons provides a readable picture book,
In a fantastic dream, a young boy travels to the moon in a plane in the picture book Moon Plane by Peter McCarty (Henry Holt, 2006). Once there, he walks and jumps on the moon, which feels like flying. There is little science in this book, since of course airplanes don’t fly out of the
Three books I ended up reading during the 48-hour Book Challenge were about slavery, plus I’m still in the middle of Gone with the Wind, which provides a quite different perspective on the institution. I really enjoyed the topical reading, because it’s giving me a more holistic view of slavery in different eras through different
Leslie McGuirk’s “discovered alphabet” in If Rocks Could Sing (Tricycle Press, 2011) gives life to rocks by discovering everything from birds and dogs to kicking and noses in the rocks themselves. Although my son loves alphabet books, I must admit that I usually find them rather tiresome and redundant. Leslie McGuirk’s alphabet is anything but
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