Day: June 4, 2009

You Are the First Kid on Mars

| Tasha

You Are the First Kid on Mars by Patrick O’Brien

What would it be like to be the first kid on Mars?  This picture book takes readers on a journey to the red planet, offering intriguing details along the way.  First, readers learn a bit about the planet itself, then there is docking with the space station and the four month trip to get to Mars.  Landing on the dusty planet surface, plus a look at the station on Mars are highlights of the book.  Also intriguing is the question of life on Mars, answered without sensationalism. 

The entire book exudes a feeling of reality, which makes the reading all that more immediate and satisfying.  Children will find new questions as they read, intrigued by false gravity aboard the ship, inflated green houses, and robots used to explore the planets.  O’Brien’s text is like that of a nonfiction book for children, offering captions and a mix of close-ups and smaller images.  His illustrations are clearly paintings, but such lifelike ones that readers may just forget they aren’t looking at a photograph.

Sure to rocket right off the shelves, this book will satisfy space-loving kids.  Appropriate for ages 5-8. 

Check out O’Brien’s website for some gorgeous images from the book.

Children interested in Mars exploration will enjoy the Mars Rover Documentary that can be found on YouTube:

Being a Pig Is Nice

| Tasha

Being a Pig Is Nice: a child’s-eye view of manners by Sally Lloyd-Jones, illustrations by Dan Krall

It’s tough to be a kid!  You have to be polite and clean.  But what if you were another kind of animal?  If you were a pig, you could be just as dirty as you want.  If you were a monkey there would be no such thing as table manners.  If you were an owl, you could make noise at night.   A little girl explores the freedom of being different kinds of animals instead of herself.  Of course with each animal comes some additional rules that make it not quite such a great thing to be.  This is a humorous and clever look at manners through the eyes of a child.

Lloyd-Jones has a great ear for what will make children giggle and groan with delight.  Her text is humorous and has a great romping rhythm without being really structured.  Krall’s art adds a lot to the book, offering plenty of parental glares of all shapes and sizes as well as lots of delightfully googly eyes too.

A funny look at manners yes, but make sure you don’t save this book for a discussion of manners!  It is worth sharing at any time.  Appropriate for ages 4-6.

For a feel of the text and illustrations you can take a peek at the book trailer below.