Read Up! Here: Kitty, Kitty, Kitty (etc.)

If you've got a cat lover in your home--but no cat, due to problems with allergies, odors, responsibility or what have you--have I got just the pair of books for you!

Despite the conflicting titles, Viviane Schwarz's There Are Cats in This Book and There Are No Cats in This Book are both loaded with friendly, playful kitties with which the reader can actually interact.  You can throw them their ball of yarn, play hide-and-seek, and even have a pillow fight or help them pack for vacation.  These are no ordinary cats.

Although the books might seem to be meant for interacting directly with a single reader or listener who is sitting right there, able to touch the pages & play one-on-one with the cats, both titles still do work very well in a storytime setting, with the adult reader getting "coached" by the children present to act as their surrogate.  

Once you've met the cats & played with them, you may want to extend the feline fun beyond the pages of the books.  For the crafty type, there are patterns for knit versions of the cats.  For the rest of us, though, you could just print out these scissors-ready kitties that are ready to stick anywhere & everywhere!

Don't hesitate to pick up the cats from There Are Cats in This Book and There Are No Cats in This Book.  You'll have a lot of fun, and I promise you: you will not have to use a lint brush after you put them back down.  Check them out!

 

 READ UP!  I have many more great books to share with you. 

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Read Up! Three to get you talking.

One of the joys of reading books with children is that many of the stories can fuel great discussion. You know, kind of like a Book Club--but one where everyone has actually read the book.  These three recent finds can really get the conversation flowing!

Happy by Mies Van Hout

Happy is a VERY simple book: each two-page spread has a single word relating to emotion on one page, and a drawing of a fish on the other. The colorful free-style sketches really pop against the black backgrounds.  The feelings we encounter include "Curious," "Nervous," "Astonished," and 17 more.  It’s a great vocabulary boost, a lot of fun to copy the faces, and a nice exercise to talk about one’s own feelings.  Happy is a book that works on several levels for different age groups, and I think is good for re-reading over time. 

Percy Listens Up and Percy Gets Upset by Stuart J. Murphy

Have you met Percy?  I just met him recently (he is new on the scene), and I am loving him—as are  preschoolers and caregivers alike in my storytime audiences.  As written & illustrated by Stuart J. Murphy, Percy is a child (well, a child who happens to look like a giraffe) who gets into real-life situations anyone can recognize; for instance, sometimes he gets mad, and sometimes he doesn’t listen.  In Percy Listens Up, the little guy discovers that he misses out on things when he does not pay attention.  In Percy Gets Upset (or as I discovered the book & shared it with my bilingual groups, Percy Se Enoja), our friend has several cranky outbursts throughout a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day (sorry, I couldn't resist).  It’s fun to read each outburst aloud in a cantankerous, childlike tone, and see the recognition in peoples’ eyes.  Both of these Percy books (and there are more I've yet to explore) allow for a lot of conversation, whether in a group setting or one-on-one: have you ever been mad like that?  Do you still get mad like that?  Do grown-ups act that way sometimes?  What I really like about both books is that while they do offer those lessons, they are still very fun to read & share—a rare feat.

 

 READ UP!  I have many more great books to share with you.  Check them out!

Read Up! Fanciful Eating

 Gathering together the books I'd set aside for this new edition of "Read Up," I discovered they all had a common thread: eating.  No, they are not really so much about food--and I don't care too much about theming--but there it is.  What I love about the coincidence is that the introductory paragraph this time practically writes itself!  So here are some great books for you to check out:

The Boy from the Dragon Palace

Margaret Read MacDonald & Sachiko Yoshikawa

A poor flower seller scatters his unsold flowers on the sea one day, as a gift for the Dragon King.  To thank the man, the Dragon King gives him a gift: a boy.  A snot-nosed little boy.  The boy has terrible table manners—and did I mention a snotty nose?  The amazing thing is, every blow of his nose seems to grant a wish—but will the flower seller be able to excuse the grossness of it all?  The story carries a lesson, and a lot of laughs—but I find it hard to read aloud without keeping a tissue handy!

 

The Giant Carrot

Jan Peck & Barry Root

(Previously mentioned here) It takes family teamwork to have a successful vegetable garden—but what can a tiny little girl do?  HUGE things, it turns out!  Everyone does their part, and everyone reaps huge rewards.  And like all good books with food as the subject, this one has a recipe in the back!

 

Beware of the Frog

William Bee

What’s a sweet little old lady to do when monsters come out of the woods to threaten her?  Her hungry frog can help!  This funny story is short, silly, and very surprising.

The Gingerbread Girl Goes Animal Crackers

Lisa Campbell Ernst

A sequel to a twist, this book shows the late Gingerbread Boy’s little sister acquiring a zoo—of animal crackers.  They run away as fast as they can, of course.  Will the fox eat them up?  Make sure your child knows the original gingerbread tale before you read this one—and then snuggle up with a box of animal cookies while you read up!

Go to your local library's website right now, reserve these books, and let me know what you think.  And as always, if you have any favorite books, I'd like to hear about them!

Read Up: Jojo Eats Dim Sum

 

 

Jojo is so lucky! She gets to have her favorite breakfast every Saturday.  It’s not pancakes she wants; she doesn’t care for cinnamon rolls or sugary cereals, either.  What Jojo loves to eat is dim sum!  I love dim sum, too, and I love the new book Jojo Eats Dim Sum, by James Kye.

The book is oversized: not wide, but extra-tall so it can accommodate large orders of dim sum and tall appetites. The super-sized pages let the reader’s eyes move hungrily around the page, taking in the food and the action--not to mention the delicious art.  Whimsically-drawn cartoon people interact with perfectly-photographed food, sharing space on pages where words grow and shrink as characters in their own right.  Together, author/illustrar Kye and designers Janet & Edwin McKelpin have created a work that’s exciting to look at, whether or not one can read the words on the page.

Jojo Eats Dim Sum packs a lot not just visually (and in the dim sum carts); there’s a lot going on in the story, too.  There’s the trip to the dim sum restaurant, with its particular atmosphere and foods; within that, we get subtle lessons on the Cantonese language, being willing to try new foods, and learning new cultures.  Something not put into words--but made clear to me in the illustrations--is that Jojo’s mother seems to think Father’s habit of reading the newspaper at the restaurant table is very rude.  I agree!

A newspaper, in case you are too young to remember, is what people utilized to ignore one another at meals before the smart phone was invented.

But I digress.

The way the book ends, and the way the its title is presented, lead me to believe that there may be more culinary adventures with Jojo to come.  That’s fine, but this single serving is satisfying all by itself, and I recommend it highly.

 

I want every single thing this lady has in her cart, and I want it right now, mm goi!