readalouds

Can You Make a Scary Face?

| Tasha

Can You Make a Scary Face? by Jan Thomas

Got a room full of wiggly toddlers?  Have I got a book for you!

A ladybug gets children standing then sitting, then pretending to have a bug on their nose.  Then it flies in their mouth!  They have to blow it out.  Then it flies out onto their shirt, and the only way to get it off your shirt is to do the chicken dance!   The children then are told to pretend that there is a giant hungry frog coming to eat but off their shirts.  But what happens where there really is a giant hungry frog coming to eat the ladybug?!

First, kudos to Thomas for creating yet another book perfect for the toddler years.  She has created a ladybug that is silly, bright-colored and in no way glittery or dainty, much to her credit.  She uses her trademark thick black lines and cartoon style to great effect, resulting in a book that could be used with very large crowds because the illustrations project so well. 

The book inspires such movement and action and laughter!  A must-have for libraries, day cares and pre-K classrooms.  Appropriate for ages 1-3.

Reviewed from copy received from publisher.

Also reviewed by The Booknosher.

Lousy Rotten Stinkin’ Grapes

| Tasha

Lousy Rotten Stinkin’ Grapes by Margie Palatini, illustrated by Barry Moser

The pair who collaborated on The Three Silly Billies is back with a twist on Aesop’s fable this time.  When fox can’t reach the grapes on his own, he asks bear to help.  Fox stands on bear’s head, but that doesn’t work either.  Beaver is added to the quest for the grapes, but his tail flip doesn’t help.  Porcupine arrives and joins the stack of animals to no avail.  All of the animals try to offer advice, but fox will have none of it.  Possum is finally added to the tip of fox’s nose, but that doesn’t work either.  In the end, the other animals are full of ideas of they alone could have gotten the grapes.  But fox is such a snit by that point that he marches off, leaving the others to enjoy the “lousy, rotten, stinkin’ grapes” without him.

Palatini’s tone is spot on.  The lumbering bear is written in a way that makes him a delight to read aloud, the voice bumbling along slowly.  Fox is frenzied, the other animals befuddled.  The juxtaposition of all of the voices is great fun to read aloud.  The writing is perfectly paced as well with each idea building on the next and the anticipation of success a great tension builder.  Moser’s illustrations are large and funny.  Fox being launched into the air again and again is a real hoot, as are the doubtful looks on the other animals’ faces. He uses white space with great effect to emphasize the distance between fox and grapes.

A read aloud with action, humor and animals!  What more could anyone want?  Appropriate for ages 4-8.

Reviewed from copy received from publisher.

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.

Mouse Was Mad

| Tasha

Mouse Was Mad by Linda Urban, illustrated by Henry Cole.

Mouse is hopping mad.  Until Hare tells him he looks “ridiculous.”  But when Mouse tries to hop like Hare, he tumbles into a mud puddle.  Mouse is now even angrier.  Stomping mad, in fact.  Bear arrives and shows him how he should be stomping.  But when Mouse tries, it doesn’t have the same earth shaking effects.  In fact, it’s much more Mouse-shaking and Mouse falls into another mud puddle.  Now Mouse is screaming mad.  Bobcat tries to show Mouse how to really scream, but Mouse, you guessed it, falls into another mud puddle.  The book resolves with Mouse being so angry he can’t even move.  Now the other animals are impressed and try to be just as still with limited success.  Is that a smile readers see on Mouse’s face?

The end papers of this book are great.  At the front, they show Mouse gripped by utter rage and in the end we can see him being oh-so happy.  Urban has created a wonderful mix of emotions, humor, and repetition that will be embraced by toddlers and preschoolers.  Her repeated dunking of Mouse in mud is great fun, offering the predictability that young children look for.  It is also very effective against the unpredictable emotion of anger.  The humor works well as a foil for that emotion.

Cole’s illustrations are very effective, showing Mouse really, really angry, tail twitching as he watches the others do demonstrations.  The facial expressions of the animals are very evocative of emotions.  Mouse seems to have an infinite number of angry looks that range from simmering peevishness to outright fury.  Cole cleverly builds the tension before each fall into the mud with a series of illustrations showing Mouse just before the fall, in mid-air, and finally and delightfully covered in mud.

Highly recommended for storytimes on emotions or mice, this book is a winner of a read aloud and will have all of the children in your group enthralled.  It can also be used as a book to get children moving, since you can have children stomp, hop, and yes, even scream.

(Reviewed from copy checked out from public library.)

This book has been well-covered by the kidslitosphere.  Too many places have mentioned it to list here!

Thunder-Boomer!

| Tasha

Thunder-Boomer by Shutta Crum, illustrated by Carol Thompson.

This picture book starts with a hot summer day, filled with tractors plowing, no breeze, and a panting dog.  Then a small breeze comes, bringing with it dark threatening clouds.  The family runs to get the laundry off the line and the chickens in the hen house.  Then with a rumble of thunder, the rain comes. Dad is forced back into the storm to rescue one wayward chicken.  As the storm worsens, the wind blows, the lightning crackles and the thunder – Booms!  Everyone in the house, including the chicken.  After a bout of hail, the sun returns and Maizie, the chicken, heads off alone again.  When the little girl checks on her, she gets a surprise.

This picture book perfectly captures the power of a big thunderstorm, the wonder of the wind, the dance of hail, and then that amazing clearing afterwards.  One can almost hear the tentative birdsong and the dripping afterwards.  Filled with sound words, young readers will enjoy making noises but soon will be caught up in the drama of the storm.  Thompson’s illustrations are lively and dramatic, offering both smaller detailed pictures and larger images that capture the action.  The engaging inclusion of a lost pair of Dad’s underwear in the storm helps to keep the storm from being too powerful for young children. 

Appropriate for ages 4-6, this book is a great summer book to share.  It reads aloud well, just make sure to leave time for plenty of putt-putting tractors, booms of thunder, and clucking chickens in the audience.