Author Spotlight: Dan Yaccarino

 

I've enjoyed the work of prolific author/illustrator Dan Yaccarino for many years now.  His colorful, painted art often captures the look of mid-20th-century advertising art, and is always fun & eye-catching.  The art is enough to draw me into not only his own books, but those he has illustrated for other authors (all of whom owe him a debt of gratitude).  From the simplest of picture books for the youngest children, to beginner chapter books for independent readers, Yaccarino has a lot of creativity to share.  Here are just a handful of my favorites to get you started:


 

An Octopus Followed Me Home
When a little girl comes home with a new eight-legged friend, her father has to remind her of the troubles visited upon him by the rest of her menagerie. The rhyming couplets & big paintings of a funny range of beasts make this a very fun read.





 
The Birthday Fish
Another book about a little girl & her potential new pet.  Cynthia really, really, really wants a pony. "Every year she put a pony on her Christmas list.  But no matter how good she was, she never got a pony."  When her birthday comes, Cynthia thinks surely the box from her parents must contain "a very small pony!"  Can she learn to accept her birthday fish?



Deep in the Jungle
"The lion was the king of this jungle and he made sure everyone knew it... The animals couldn't stand him one bit."  When a man found wandering through the jungle offers the lion a job in show business, the offer is snapped right up.  Unfortunately, the lion finds itself, caged, whipped & humiliated in a circus--and worse yet, the other jungle animals are being rounded up, as well!  Will the lion be able to win the animals their freedom--and itself their friendship?  Comeuppance can be hard to swallow--or not!

 

Boy + Bot
Written by Ame Dyckman, & illustrated by Yaccarino, this simple, fun story of a new friendship always has children & adults in storytime groups smiling.  Did you know that robots read to each other, too?  Of course, they read instruction manuals...






Doug Unplugged
Freshly-published (February 2013), this book shows a happy little robot boy who is plugged in for downloading each day so his parents can go about their business.  When something outside the window catches his eye, Doug unplugs and ends up discovering an amazing world!  I've enjoyed reading this to storytime audiences in which the adults are too plugged in to enjoy the events along with their children.  For a few moments, at least, this grabs the attention of some of them.



If you'd like to get a look at more of Dan Yaccarino's books, visit his website.  There are even movie-trailer style book preview films! Do YOU have any favorite books by Dan Yaccarino--or anyone else, for that matter?  Please tell me about them!  Also, please spread the word about these great books, check them out, and read up!

Click on this link & READ UP!  I have many more great books to share with you!

Storyteller John Weaver

 

For regular updates, connect with me on Facebook!

Check out the new book: How to be a Storyteller: Essays and Advice on the Art of Storytelling (link HERE)!

Read Up: Author! Author!

Did you love elementary school "book club" sales flyers as much as I did?  I'd always bring those catalog circulars home, full of checkmarks of the books I wanted.  The books were cheap, the choices were abundant, and the calls to action were frequent!  The joy came back anew when I had a child of my own in elementary school--a child who also, of course, was the beneficiary of waves of those books.

But do you know what I never appreciated about those book club editions?  I mean, BESIDE the low-quality binding.  Those versions of the popular books almost never, ever had any author biographies at the end!

Shown here, are the author bios from (clockwise from the top) Soup Day, by
Melissa Iwai; Thank You Bear, by Greg Foley; and Truck, by Donald Crews.

Anyone who's been to many of the storytimes I host knows that I talk about the creators of the books I am sharing.  I will pick up a book, show the cover and read the title, followed by the name of the person or people who wrote & illustrated the work.  

For instance, using a book from my previous blog entry here, I might say:

"This book is called 'Thank You Bear,' and it was written and illustrated by Greg Foley.  He wrote the words AND drew the pictures!  Shall we open up the back & see if he's there?"


Flipping back, we find that Greg IS back there (shown in the collage at the top of this post)!  When we are lucky enough to find the author back there (doesn't happen nearly often enough, in my opinion), I'll enthusiastically say, "he IS back here!"  Then I'll share some details from the bio.  Sitting at home with one or two children, or in some classroom or library settings, reading the whole bio is good, but at other times just sharing a couple of pertinent details will be enough.  Being the silly person I am, I read Greg Foley's bio & say to the group, "he grew up in Austin, Texas--JUST LIKE US!"  This gives the children the opportunity to very forcefully tell me where they actually are from.  The detail that Thank You Bear is his first book gives us all the chance to appreciate together what a wonderful first book it really is.  

So, why do I bring so much attention to the people who make the books I share?  It is for the same reason that, when I am making storytelling appearances, I emphasize to my audiences that "we are ALL storytellers."  We all potentially have stories to tell, including our own unique takes on common cultural material.  Anyone who's visited a good preschool has seen the stories that come from children's minds, when enabled by an adult's secretarial skills in getting the words down on paper!  Discussing the author & illustrator makes the book more tangible, something with which the reader & listener can make a stronger connection.  The bios that connect the writer with her story (as in the piece for Melissa Iwai's "Soup Day," pictured above, which shows the author & her child in the kitchen making soup together) also help us connect ourselves better with the story, as well as connect ourselves with the author.  This empathy teaches us about different people, and how we can always find similarities despite our differences.  

Whether or not there is any creator information to be found, we often talk about the the illustrations--not what they portray, but the illustrations themselves. "Do you think you could draw this," I might ask.  To the children who say "no," I'll say, "you can if you practice enough!"  Remember, there are lessons to be found in any book, whether the authors put them in there intentionally or not!  

So talk about the authors of the books you read.  Celebrate them, emulate their work.  Have an "author's day" occasionally for your favorites, where you check out every book you can by that person & talk about the ones you like best--and why.  Help your child right a "new" book based on a favorite character--and send a copy to the author, if that's (you know) a possibility!  Take your child to author events when they happen at libraries & bookstores in your area.  

The more you interact with the book, the more you get out of it on multiple levels, so have fun!



Click here & READ UP!  I have many more great books to share with you!

Storyteller John Weaver

(Join me on Facebook!)

Author Spotlight: Leslie Patricelli

Leslie Patricelli’s books are simple in style & concept, but huge on fun.  The art & action are bright & sassy; the simplicity and the brevity of text keep things moving along quickly, but I always slow down to appreciate the artistry on each page:  look at the texture of the acrylic on canvas—you can almost feel it!  The Patricelli books I’ve read seem to be about different members of the same family; another thing they have in common is a celebration of imagination.  Here are just a few titles to get you started:

The Birthday Box

The baby got a birthday present—what is it?  It’s a BOX! There’s something IN the box, but the baby loves the container so much, he may well be part cat.  It’s a tribute to the joy of imagination that goes will with Antoinette Portis’s Not a Box.

 

Higher!  Higher! 

(previously mentioned here)

How high can you go?  Most children don’t seem to want to be pushed TOO high in a swing—I remember it getting kind of scary once I was above the bar—but for the little girl in this book, the moon is not enough!  As you read this with your child, it’s fun to ask what the girl sees now, what you think she may see next, and whether or not it’s all real.

No No Yes Yes

The baby is back, demonstrating good & not-so-good behaviors: drawing on the walls is a no-no; drawing on paper is a yes-yes.  The behavior gets increasingly outrageous—I express extreme outrage during storytime when the baby tears pages out of a book—and with any luck, way outside the range of what any child of yours would ever do!  The book offers a great opportunity for you & your little one to discuss what is a “no-no” and what is a “yes-yes” in your own home, & perhaps collaborate on a book of your own.

 

Faster!  Faster!

The girl who wanted to go higher now wants to go faster!  She rides her daddy’s back, urging him to go faster than a bunny, faster than a horse, faster than a cheetah!  How fast can Daddy go, and for how long?

 After you’ve checked these out, let me know what you think!  And if there are any books you’re really excited about—by Leslie Patricelli, or not—please tell me all about them!

Storyteller John Weaver

.

Author Spotlight: MO WILLEMS

I’ve been a big Mo Willems fan since well before I ever heard his name.

Watching “Sesame Street” in the late 90s with my son, we’d laugh at the “Suzy Kabloozy” cartoons, so hilariously voiced by Ruth Buzzi. Willems (Suzy’s creator) was a writer on the program at the time—an Emmy-award-winning writer. He went on to create still more TV cartoons before leaving the field to pursue his career as an author.

This year, Mo Willems won another honor: the American Library Association’s Theodor Seuss Geisel Award for “most distinguished American book for beginning readers.” The medal honors “There is a Bird on Your Head,” a new entry in Willems’ “Elephant and Piggie” series, a hilarious line about two very good friends.

The Elephant & Piggie stories are indeed great beginning reader books, as they contain simple, large text, repeated ideas, and very appealing cartoony illustrations. The books are also fun read-alouds, giving parents and teachers the opportunity have a great time giving voice to these two silly characters! What’s more, free teachers’ guides are available online, with discussion questions, extension ideas & activity sheets, at http://www.pigeonpresents.com.

I hope you already know that pigeon from that URL—he’s the star of the Caldecott Honor-winning book “Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus,” the first of a growing number of comic Pigeon adventures, and certainly another home & classroom must-read! Read the books together, create voices, and let the children talk back to the books—they’ll love it.

While you’re looking up Mo Willems’ books at your library, don’t forget to pick up the “Knuffle Bunny” books, “Leonardo the Terrible Monster,” “Time to Say ‘Please,’” and whatever else you can find. You’ll have as much fun reading them as the kids will have listening—and that’s why I present them here. Happy Reading!

Author Spotlight: Margie Palatini

Here’s an author for you to look up on your next library visit—in fact, click on the library website right now & have them put a few of her books aside for you!

Margie Palatini has been making readers laugh for years now, with picture books loaded cover-to-cover with humor designed to appeal to adults as much as their kids—just like I like it! Zoom Broom, for instance, has a long riff on the classic Abbot & Costello “Who’s on First” routine (parents, if you don’t get the reference, hand the book to Grandma & head immediately to YouTube). The Web Files deserves a deadpan, “Dragnet”-style delivery. Classic characters get new twists, everyday situations spin out of control, and silly wordplay is the norm!

By the time you’ve taken home several library copies of Palatini’s books, I’m sure your family will have found some real keepers. To add something extra to your experience of the stories, download the activities and study guides at www.margiepalatini.com.