Picture Books

How to Potty Train Your Monster

| Tasha

How to Potty Train Your Monster by Kelly DiPucchio, illustrated by Mike Moon.

In a handy step-by-step format, readers find out the dangers and difficulties of potty training a monster.  You have to make sure your monster is ready (most should be 7 feet tall).  You have to get him a giant potty chair because he is too big for the normal toilet.  And the book ends with the joys of monster underwear as an incentive.  Parents will immediately see that this book is about children being potty trained, but children may be too caught up in the monster humor to feel any pressure themselves.

The tone here is just right, allowing children to laugh about learning to use the potty.  The humor is physical, potty humor that all children will hoot about.  The unexpected twists and turns in potty training are showed to monstrous proportions and great effect.  Moon’s illustrations bring to life a bright-colored menagerie of monsters with silly befitting names.  Their google-eyed furriness is much more funny than frightening.

A great example of a potty book that is not saccharine or dull.  I’ve potty trained two monsters myself, so I know that every word here is true!  Appropriate for 2-4 year olds.  Older children will enjoy the humor and hopefully will not need the potty tips.

Reviewed from library copy.

One Fine Trade

| Tasha

One Fine Trade retold by Bobbi Miller, illustrated by Will Hillenbrand

A retelling of the classic folktale style of trading for something worse and then reversing the trading to finally get what you set out for.  In this version, Georgy Piney Woods is a peddler.  His daughter asks him to trade her horse so that she can get a silver dollar to buy her wedding dress.  So he trades the horse for a cow, the cow for a dog, the dog for a stick.  Sounds worse and worse, doesn’t it?  But never fear, a solution, unexpected and wonderfully complex, is on its way.  I wouldn’t want to spoil the tale and tell you the ending though!

Miller excels at writing in a traditional way.  Her words evoke a history of folktales without effort.  It is filled with great folksy sayings like “How-do!” And the text is made for reading aloud with its partial sentences that really read like someone is speaking.  Miller has also added lovely descriptive passages about the land Georgy is passing through on his travels.  Daisies are a-dancing, gators are a-splashing, and catbirds are a-mewing.  Hillenbrand takes these passages and brings the entire story to life.  His art is friendly and folksy, with an angular horse, deep darkness of swampland, and one amazingly large stick.  Each character he draws has its own feel and style, which is quite a challenger in a book with such a series of people appearing.

A great read-aloud version of the folktale and well worth trading a horse for!  Appropriate for ages 4-8.

Reviewed from library copy.

Also reviewed by Fuse #8 and Shari Lyle-Soffe.

Papa Is a Pirate

| Tasha

Papa Is a Pirate by Katharina Grossman Hensel

When a little boy wonders what his father did today, he gets a big surprise.  Because his father is claiming that he is a pirate captain.  Could it be?  Yes, he bikes to work, but that’s just until he reaches the harbor and his pirate ship.  He claims wooden legs are “a nuisance” and that Petey the parakeet has the heart of a parrot.  Papa has great tales about his adventures, including sea monsters!  Could it be that he is really telling the truth?  You will just have to read the book and decide for yourself.

Hensel nicely creates a story where you believe one thing and the illustrations show another.  Her prose reads aloud fluidly and is filled with humorous touches.  My favorite is that the pirates make money by putting on pirate shows for cruise ships.  The tone here is light and fun but still filled with adventure and story telling.  Hensel’s illustrations are just as humorous as the text.  From a cross-section of the pirate ship complete with stored birdseed for the parrot to the appeal of a cozy shared hammock chock full of sleeping pirates the illustrations offer a homey and welcoming view of life aboard a pirate ship.

Fresh and friendly, this is a great pirate book for young readers who will end up asking themselves if perhaps their parents are pirates during the day!  Appropriate for ages 4-6.

Reviewed from library copy.

My Forever Dress

| Tasha

My Forever Dress by Harriet Ziefert, illustrated by Liz Murphy.

A little girl has a grandmother who is very good at sewing.  Each year, the grandmother makes her a special dress.  The little girl gets to pick the fabric and help in other ways like pressing the pedal on the sewing machine.  The next year, the grandmother and the little girl discuss being more eco-friendly.  So they reuse the dress and add pink leggings to make it more of a smock.  The year after that, the dress is too small to wear any more, so they take it apart and reuse the material.  Adding a knitted cardigan, the dress is once again reinvented.  In the end, there is just no way for her to keep on using the dress, so she gives it to her younger cousin and start again with a new outfit.

This is a great tangible way for children to see greener living at work.  There is no drumming of the reduce, reuse, recycle mantra though it is obviously the theme of the book.  Ziefert never lapses into didacticism, rather letting the story itself make the point. The excitement of the story is seeing each reinvention of the dress as the years pass.  Illustrator Murphy has used collage to great effect here, creating great patterns for the dress, but also throughout the story as wallpaper, tablecloths, and backgrounds.  She has an eye for colors and patterns that really shows here.

A very nice green choice for story times.  For any child who enjoys clothes and fabrics, this is a treat of a book as well.  Appropriate for ages 4-7.

Reviewed from library copy.

Sopa de Frijoles / Bean Soup

| Tasha

Sopa de frijoles / Bean Soup by Jorge Argueta and Rafael Yockteng

A winner of a bilingual book, this picture book is a poem about making bean soup.  Lovingly filled with great ingredients and metaphors, the poem works well.  It follows a young boy through the steps of making sopa de frijoles, from sorting the beans to chopping onions to peeling garlic, and adding salt.  An adult in near in the illustrations, but the boy does the work himself, adding to the joy of the book.

Without any overly-sweet taste, this book offers a poem for children that is respectful and delightful.  It is distinctly a poem rather than prose chopped into stanzas.  The language alone puts it into that category:

The water boils and sings.

The beans dance

together.

The water has turned brown

the color of Mother Earth.

Your house

smells wonderful

like the earth

after the first

winter rains.

That is just one of many passages that capture a sensory experience with tangible images that children can understand but that also ask children to imagine.

Highly recommended, this book would be ideal for a bilingual story time.  But it is also wonderful in a single language program as well.  Appropriate for ages 4-8.

Reviewed from library copy.

Also reviewed by La Bloga and Poetry for Children.

To the Beach

| Tasha

To the Beach by Thomas Docherty

The great spirit of this book captures the fresh feeling of a boy making his own world out of a rainy day.  Some might think that a rainy day would not let you go to the beach, but that doesn’t slow him down at all.  In fact, the day is even more fun-filled than it may have been without the rain.  He has his swimsuit, goggles, snorkel, bucket, shovel, flippers, and inner tube.  So he takes an airplane, sailboat, truck and camel to reach the sand and the sea.  He plays at the beach and then heads back home.  Taking a tanker, helicopter, bike and tractor.  His next trip?  Perhaps something out of this world?

Each illustrations captures the exuberance of this child’s imagination.  Every new discovery is a joy, each mode of transportation an adventure.  It is impossible to read this book without a grin and chuckle.  The book will work well with small children, because of the ratio of illustration to words.  Sometimes a page has just a few words on it.  And children who enjoy trucks, tractors and other big kinds of transport will find a lot to love here.

A great start to a day of imagination or the end of one, this book is just right for playful 2-4 year olds.

Reviewed from library copy.

Let’s Do Nothing!

| Tasha

Let’s Do Nothing! by Tony Fucile

Frankie and Sal have done it all: played every sport, painted pictures, baked cookies, played board games, and read every comic book.  So they decide to do something they have never done before!  Nothing!  They try again and again to do nothing at all, but it doesn’t work.  When they pretend to be statues, Sal has to swat away the pigeons.  When they think of themselves as trees, Sal imagines that Frankie’s dog pees on him.  When they are tall buildings, Sal is scaled by King Kong.  In the end, they decide that they have to start doing something after all because it is impossible to do nothing.

The common problem of boredom is paired here with a sense of humor.  The two boys imagine themselves as different things, but Sal always has his glasses even as a tree or building.  The King Kong sequence is especially funny as sharp-eyed readers will spot the hand of Kong even as Sal reassures Frankie that he is doing great.  The relationship between the two boys is also very well done.  The boys are different as can be but their friendship is never in jeopardy in the book.   It is a great and subtly delivered message behind the action.

A rousing read aloud for any bored child, this book will refresh long summer days filled with free time.  Appropriate for ages 4-7.

Reviewed from library copy.

Also reviewed by Lori Calabrese Writes.

Max and the Dumb Flower Picture

| Tasha

Max and the Dumb Flower Picture by Martha Alexander with James Rumford.

This is Martha Alexander’s last book.  You have probably read some of her books, but to jar your memory she did the Blackboard Bear series.  This final book was completed from her unfinished manuscript and sketches by James Rumford. 

Max’s teacher Miss Tilley wants the class to color a picture of a rose for Mother’s Day.  Each child is given a sheet with the same rose copied on it, but Max knows that his mom would not want that for a present.  So Max refuses to color the sheet and runs from the room, hiding behind the bushes to create his own flower for his mother.  Everyone looks for Max, even the police, and when he is found he shows everyone his flower.  All of the children are inspired to create one of their very own, unique from everyone else’s.  Make sure to take time to look at the end pages filled with flowers drawn by Martha Alexander’s friends and family.

A simple story, well told and inspiring, this book will remind everyone that you don’t have to stay in the lines, don’t have to color a red rose like everyone else, and can create your own art and beauty.  Along the way, children who are happy to create their own art, stop.  They start following our rules, losing their creativity.  Suddenly skies are no longer orange and pink, cows are not purple, and clouds a fluffy in front of a corner sun.  This book is a small step towards fixing that and giving children back their own voice, odd, unusual and colorful.

I can see using this with adults working on creativity.  It reinforces that there is no right or wrong answer when being creative and expressive.  It is also a wonderful book for children who are just beginning to feel the pressure to stay in the lines.  Let’s all wander outside those lines and celebrate it!  Appropriate for ages 4-7.

Reviewed from library copy.

Magic Box

| Tasha

Magic Box by Katie Cleminson

On her birthday, Eva got a box!  A special box that she jumped into and became a magician.  Her first trick was to create a pet called Monty, who turns out to be an enormous polar bear.  Then she pulled rabbits out of hats.  Lots of rabbits.  She went on to make food, bring in musicians, and have a big party.  And in the end, she clicked her fingers and made everything disappear.  Almost everything.

First, let me say that I love seeing a girl magician who is not a witch.  That alone makes this book worth reading and having on library shelves.  Readers will also appreciate the beauty of imagination here on the page.  The illustrations use thick black lines which are then mixed with splashes and blots of color – imagination at work and visible.  The story is brief and powerful.  It is short enough to read aloud to young audiences but deep enough to spark discussion.

A lovely look at creativity with a large splash of magic, this book is certain to float right into readers hands.  Appropriate for ages 3-5.

Reviewed from library copy.